Texas Baby

by Kathleen O’Brien

  He shifted his hand on the steering wheel. Well, it was all going to come out now, wasn’t it? “God, no. I already had one of those, remember? And that was one too many.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Nikki swiveled to face Josie. “Did you know Chase was married before? Her name was Lila.”

  Chase groaned inwardly. Josie was certainly getting an earful tonight. He wondered whether Nikki was doing this deliberately. Did she think Josie was somehow a threat to Susannah? Given how lukewarm Nikki seemed to be about the engagement, that didn’t seem likely.

  This was why he spent most of his time with horses. Women ran too deep for him. Even sixteen-year-old women.

  “I’ve seen Lila’s picture,” Nikki added. “She was pretty. But I don’t really remember her.”

  “Of course not. You were much too young. Hell, I was much too young.”

  Finally, Josie spoke up. “How old were you?”

  “Nineteen. Lila was twenty-five. My mom had just died, and I think I was probably looking for a mother substitute.”

  Nikki made a hacking sound. “Gross!”

  “I’m just kidding. Actually, she was gorgeous, and sweet as one of your Everly peaches. At least until we tied the knot. Then she started complaining about everything, from the way I combed my hair to the color of the sky on Tuesday. She didn’t stop until we signed the divorce papers.”

  “And she took all your money, right? That’s what Susannah says. She says it cost your dad a fortune to get rid of Lila, but it was worth it.”

  Josie chuckled. It was a surprisingly attractive sound. He hadn’t heard her laugh much since she’d arrived.

  “It was worth it,” he agreed, smiling. It had been extremely painful at the time, but a whole decade had passed, and he could see how ridiculous he’d been. “I pretty much just went up to her and said, ‘Listen here, woman, how much money will it take to make you quit your bitching and go away?’”

  Nikki giggled, still young enough to think it was funny to hear him say “bitching.” But she sobered quickly. She acted tough, but Chase knew she had a sensitive side, just like her sister. The only difference was that, while Susannah hid hers under all that icy control, Nikki used a smoke screen of badass attitude.

  “That must have really sucked,” she said. “So why are you going to do it all over again?”

  “Do what again?”

  “Marry someone who just wants your money.”

  He pulled into the driveway of the Everly Ranch. Sue’s car was here, and he could picture her pacing the front hall, waiting for his call. He wished he could get her alone, and warn her not to be too rough on Nikki. The kid hadn’t done everything wrong tonight. She’d been smart to get away from that party, and she’d been smart to refuse rides from strangers.

  And she needed to know that Susannah loved her, even when she screwed up.

  He swerved the car to the side of the drive, a few yards out from the house, then turned to face Nikki. He needed to set her straight about something. He didn’t want her judging her sister so harshly—especially not in front of Josie.

  “Susannah isn’t marrying me for my money,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve offered to help her out, to just give her whatever she needs to get the ranch back on an even keel. But she won’t take it. What she needs is freedom, the power to run this ranch the way it should be run. Because of the will, she’ll never have that unless she gets married.”

  He wasn’t really getting through to her, he could tell. Her features looked very young, and lost under all that makeup. Her eyes looked tired, damaged by the layers of color—poignantly reminiscent of Josie’s real bruises.

  Susannah had spotted them. She opened the front door and came out onto the porch. She looked beautiful. She wore something feminine that had lace at the neck and arms.

  “Chase? Is Nikki with you?” Susannah descended the steps and hurried toward the truck.

  “Well, speak of the devil.” Nikki opened her door. Then she turned and looked at him, her colorful face bizarre in the sudden flare of the dome light. “I still think you’re both nuts. Nobody should marry for anything but love.”

  Chase got out, too, and somehow reached Susannah before Nikki did.

  “Don’t bring out the big guns,” he said. “She’s had a tough night.”

  Susannah looked at him. Then she glanced toward the car, where Josie sat quietly waiting. He started to explain why Josie was there, but he stopped himself. Trying to justify one woman to another was like taking the first step into quicksand.

  Especially when you had this many women in your life.

  “Okay,” Susannah said under her breath. “It won’t be easy, but I’ll try not to kill her.”

  “Good girl,” he said. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll check in tomorrow if I get a chance.”

  She nodded. Then he got back to the car and started the engine.

  Josie spoke quietly into the darkness. “Everything okay?”

  “I hope so. I have a feeling it’s going to be ugly, though.” He made a three-point turn and headed out the front gates, which gleamed white in the moonlight. “Poor dumb kid.”

  They drove in silence a minute or two. When they hit the main road again, Josie put her hand out and touched his forearm.

  “Just for the record,” she said, “I don’t think what you’re doing for Susannah is nuts. I think it’s very generous, and…very gallant.”

  He tightened his hand on the wheel, intensely aware of her, of how she smelled, like soap and shampoo and something…something warm and female.

  He sensed the silkiness of the skin on the pads of her fingers. He felt each one individually, and he imagined how they’d feel if they roamed to other places of his body.

  He thought about how close she’d be to him, all night, right there in his guest room. It would be so easy to open that door, and…

  A crazy heat began to stir at the tops of his thighs.

  Oh, hell, no. Not again.

  He couldn’t help responding to her. It was pure physical instinct. Mindless reflex. His body was primed, because they’d been talking about love, and marriage and sex.

  No, they hadn’t been talking about sex. But he realized that he’d been thinking about sex. About how Nikki just might have zeroed in on a truth. A year of a “business deal” marriage to his best friend meant a year without a woman in his bed.

  A week ago, that hadn’t seemed like a problem. He wasn’t a beast. He could control himself for that long.

  But now…now he wasn’t so sure.

  Josie squeezed his arm gently. It wasn’t a come-on. It was just a friendly sign of support. So why did it send this sizzle straight to the hot spot between his legs?

  Damn it. This didn’t mean anything.

  It couldn’t mean anything.

  He was engaged to someone else.

  She was pregnant with another man’s child.

  He eased his arm away, pretending he needed to fiddle with the mirror.

  Gallant? She actually thought he was gallant?

  “Remember, we’ve got an appointment with the obstetrician in the morning,” he said. “So when we get home, you’d better go right to sleep.”

  And, if you know what’s good for you, lock the goddamn door.

  That’s how gallant he was.

  “WE DATE THE PREGNANCY from the onset of the last menstrual cycle,” Dr. Dunne said, spreading out her paperwork on his big mahogany desk. There were snapshots of newborns everywhere. He must have delivered every baby in East Texas.

  “But given that you aren’t always regular, Josie, I’d rather use information from the scan we did today. Which means your due date should be mid-September. Let’s say the fifteenth.”

  Josie nodded numbly. September fifteenth… For a minute she felt herself wanting to say no, that’s too soon, we’ll have to make it later.

  But the man wasn’t asking her permission. The baby was coming, sometime in September, whether she w
as ready or not.

  She wasn’t.

  The fifteenth of September.

  It would be here before she knew it. One long, hot summer, that was all the time she had to get ready. The months would pass in a blur, and then, in a blinding, terrifying miracle, she would hold her own baby in her arms.

  A baby she suddenly realized she wanted very much.

  And yet she had nothing to give it. Nothing. Not a home, not a dollar, not even a daddy.

  Nothing but love.

  But oh, she had a lot of that. She’d waited her whole life for someone who would want all this love she had to give. Her father had died when Josie was only six months old. Her mother had remarried when Josie was four, to a man who demanded all his new wife’s attention. Her stepfather hadn’t wanted children in the first place, so obviously there had been no sisters and brothers.

  “Hey,” Chase said softly. He touched her elbow. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. For a split second, she’d forgotten he was here.

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Fine.”

  When the doctor had finished examining her, Chase had joined them for the conference. At first, Josie hadn’t been sure she’d be comfortable with that. But given that he had found this obstetrician, made the appointment and paid for it, she hadn’t felt she should say no when he asked if she wanted company.

  As it turned out, she was very glad to have him at her side. This obstetrician wasn’t like the general practitioner she’d seen at the clinic. The difference was more than surface, although the office suite, with its glossy walls, gorgeous flowers and soothing Mozart floating out through invisible speakers, was worlds apart from the noisy, bare-bones clinic back in Riverfork.

  The real difference, though, was the attention Dr. Dunne lavished on her. He had checked every single inch of her body, asked about every detail of her past. Now he was inundating her with so much information she knew she’d never remember it all.

  “You said everything looked good, right?” Chase leaned forward to pick up one of the brochures the doctor had set out for her. “Both Josie and the baby?”

  “Everything looked great,” Dr. Dunne assured him. “Strong heartbeat, fetal size right on track, and a remarkably healthy mother, all things considered.”

  He turned to Josie. “Dr. Marchant is already addressing the anemia, which is fairly mild. But the great news is that you’ve handled your blood sugars remarkably well, Josie, and that’s going to pay benefits in this pregnancy.”

  She nodded. “Good,” she said politely, still numb. “That’s great.”

  “You probably don’t know exactly how good. Your A1c levels are fantastic, which means that for the past three months the baby has had the best possible environment to grow healthy organs. Most of the risks associated with diabetic pregnancies come from letting the blood sugar levels get out of control during this early period.”

  “I’ve always been very careful,” she said. “I didn’t plan to get pregnant, but my job is very demanding. I can’t afford to be sick, or even foggy-minded.”

  She didn’t mention that her habit of strict monitoring, careful eating and rigorous exercise had been set in her very earliest years. Her stepfather had found his adopted daughter’s diabetes a great inconvenience. He resented every minute her mother spent caring for her, and every dollar spent on doctors. He wouldn’t have tolerated any self-indulgent candy binges, or skipping a day at the jogging track.

  How ironic that, in the end, she should be grateful to him for what she’d always seen as his heartlessness. She should send him a thank-you card. Or maybe a box of sugar-free chocolates.

  “As to the baby’s sex—”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to know.”

  Chase looked at her, a question in his eyes. “It might help with the planning, and—”

  She shook her head again. “Please. If you know, don’t tell me.”

  The doctor smiled. “Don’t worry. I couldn’t make that call yet anyhow. It’s a bit early. Maybe at twenty weeks, sometimes as early as sixteen, we can try again. Think it over, and we can talk about it later.”

  Later? She glanced at Chase, wondering what he had told the doctor about how long she’d be here. But he was looking at the brochure, and she couldn’t catch his gaze.

  “I’m only staying in town for a few days,” she said, deciding on honesty. “I live in Riverfork, and I’ll be—”

  Chase looked up. “We don’t really know exactly how long you’ll stay, do we? It might be longer.” He turned to Dr. Dunne. “Josie has some business to do here, and she’s staying at the ranch. It’s a bit open-ended at the moment.”

  The doctor didn’t seem disturbed by the news. He didn’t seem to feel that the intricacies of Josie’s relationship to Chase were his business. Unless Chase was the father, of course. Dr. Dunne had asked that first, when they were alone. When she said no, he accepted her word for it. He’d simply told her that he would need as much information as possible about the father. Blood type, age, family medical history…

  Josie had been mortified. She’d almost blurted out the whole sad story. In the end she simply said that she didn’t have those answers right now, but would provide them as soon as she could.

  What else could she say? Luckily, Dr. Dunne took it all in stride. Perhaps hers wasn’t the first complicated, painful story to walk into his office.

  “I can always recommend a good man in Riverfork. Just give me a little notice, and I’ll ask around.” He spread his hands, palms down, on the desk. “I know I’ve thrown a lot of information at you. Take some time to absorb it all, and come see me again in two or three days. I want you to get that insulin pump, and let’s see how it does.”

  Josie looked over at Chase again. They’d argued about this all the way over here. She couldn’t afford the insulin pump, and that was that. There were lots of benefits to working at the Not Guilty Café—flexible hours, good tips, proximity to her apartment—but health insurance wasn’t one of them. She’d always bought private insurance, but she had to keep deductibles sky-high in return for decent premiums.

  Chase refused to meet her eyes. He held out his hand to the doctor, said their thanks and their goodbyes, then whisked her out to the car. Apparently he’d taken care of the bill while she was being examined. Or perhaps people like Chase Clayton didn’t have to pay cash on the spot like the rest of the world.

  She waited until they got to the street to launch her protests.

  “Chase, I can’t let you do this,” she said for the tenth time. “Weren’t you listening to Dr. Dunne? I keep my blood sugar under excellent control the old-fashioned way, one shot at a time. The insulin pump is a luxury, not a necessity.”

  Chase opened the passenger door of his truck and stepped back to let her in. “Weren’t you listening? He said that in the second and third trimesters the placenta can release hormones that make you more insulin resistant. Keeping the levels right is going to be much trickier now. The pump will help with that.”

  Boy, he really had paid attention. She’d forgotten that part, if she’d even heard it in the first place. The truth was, the whole visit had a surreal quality to her. She still couldn’t quite believe she was pregnant.

  She climbed into the truck, settled herself against the cool leather seats, and waited for him to join her. Then, as he put the key into the ignition, she reached out and stopped him from starting the engine.

  “Chase, listen to me.”

  He let go of the keys. “I’ll listen if you’ll make sense. You need the pump, and that’s a fact. You’re not scared of it, are you? I know it sounds strange, having the needle in you all the time, but—”

  She smiled. “I’ve had thousands of insulin injections over the past twenty years. I’m not afraid. It’s just not something I can let you do. I can’t take money from you. It’s a very generous offer, but…this just isn’t your problem.”

  He tilted his head, his blue eyes catching the afternoon sunlight. He had k
ind eyes, she thought. Even when he was annoyed, which he clearly was right now.

  “Not my problem?” He frowned. “I thought we were working together here. I thought we’d agreed that this was a problem we shared.”

  “Finding Flim is the problem we share. Not the pregnancy. And certainly not my diabetes.” She shook her head. “I know you probably think, because of the crazy way I showed up at your ranch, that I’m some kind of kook who can’t be trusted to take care of anything. But you heard the doctor. I do take care of my blood sugar. And I will take care of my baby.”

  For a long minute, he was silent. The only sound was the drumming of his fingers against the steering wheel. She wondered if she’d made him mad. She hoped not. She wasn’t a complete ingrate—she did appreciate how much he’d done for her.

  But he already had too many people counting on him, trying to slip their hands in his pockets. After what she’d heard about Susannah Everly last night…

  And, besides, there had to be a limit. She had to hold on to some self-respect.

  Finally he turned to her. He looked frustrated, but not angry. She let go of a breath she had unconsciously been holding. She realized she’d been waiting to see whether he was at all like her stepfather—a hot-tempered control-freak, set off by the least show of defiance.

  “I know I’m under no obligation to help,” he said simply. “But you haven’t considered the possibility that I want to. Look, it’s not that much money, and I have it to spare. That part means nothing to me. There are no strings attached, Josie. I’d just like to make things a little easier. Is that so bad?”

  The humility in his voice, the down-to-earth honesty, caught her off guard. She felt herself choking up again, and tried to will her hormones into submission.

  “It’s not bad. It’s very generous. But if I do that…” She squeezed her hands in her lap. “I can’t just give up every shred of pride I have left.”

  He touched her shoulder softly. “I think you can,” he said. “I saw your face in there. For this baby, I think you can do whatever you have to do.”