Snow Baby

by Brenda Novak

  “It wasn’t probable,” Dr. Campbell corrected her. “But anything is possible. Now, I’m not sure if this comes as good news or bad. Perhaps it’s something we should talk about. After all you’ve been through with the anorexia, your body is ill equipped to support another life. If you choose to keep the baby, you’ll be facing a high-risk pregnancy.”

  If you choose to keep the baby… The words reverberated through her head. A baby was all she’d ever wanted. She’d never do anything to endanger it; she’d go through hell to have it. But she still felt as though this must be someone’s idea of a cruel joke. “Are you sure that I’m…you know?”

  “I’m fairly certain you’re pregnant. I’m not very optimistic that you’ll be able to carry the baby to term. I want to be honest with you about that right up front.”

  Tears streamed down Chantel’s face, and she was powerless to stop them. Wade hurried into the room and took her hand, curiosity and concern showing in his expression. “What is it?” he murmured.

  Chantel shook her head and tried to absorb all the ramifications of the pregnancy at once. If her body could only manage for another seven or so months, she’d have a baby. Better yet, it would be Dillon’s baby. He’d been the one to give her this gift, and the knowledge that she carried part of him inside her nearly made her burst with joy. Until she remembered Stacy.

  “Oh, no,” she said, closing her eyes. What was she going to tell her sister? She and Dillon had already told Stacy that he’d asked her out, nothing more.

  “Are you okay, Ms. Miller?”

  “Fine,” she managed. One step at a time. There was no reason to go rushing into any confessions. She might not even be able to carry the baby. She could lose it tomorrow.

  Her mind rebelled against that thought, and she wrapped an arm around her abdomen in a protective gesture.

  “I need you to see a gynecologist/obstetrician right away, and I have an excellent one I’d like to recommend. Her name is Dr. Bradley.”

  “Is it serious?” Wade asked.

  Chantel ignored the question. “Find me something to write with,” she whispered, instead.

  He shuffled through the nightstand and came up with a pen and a magazine. Chantel flipped to the inside cover and jotted down Dr. Bradley’s name and number.

  “I’m sure she’ll want you to come in right away so she can do an ultrasound. I’ll call her myself, and tell her to expect to hear from you.”

  “Thanks Dr. Campbell. I’m so…grateful.”

  He chuckled. “I’m glad you’re pleased with the news, and I wish you the best of luck.”

  Chantel hung up, then stared at the number for Dr. Bradley’s office.

  “So?” Wade prompted, and Chantel felt a flicker of unease. If she was pregnant, it would be a difficult secret to keep with Wade around. But she couldn’t let him know, at least not until she decided what to do.

  “The doctor thinks I’m okay.” She searched for a lie he might believe and drew a blank. “He, uh, just wants to run one more test.”

  Wade looked skeptical. “You’re obviously not okay. You can’t even get off the bed.”

  “The doctor thinks this…will pass.”

  “So it is the flu?”

  Chantel grasped the lie he unwittingly offered her. “Yeah, just like we thought.”

  “Then you’re going to get better.”

  She nodded.

  “And meanwhile?”

  “Meanwhile I’ll eat whatever you put in front of me,” she said, unable to hold back the dazzling smile that was dying to come out. Amid the hope, the fear, the confusion and the guilt, she felt a ray of pure joy at the thought of having a baby, and she couldn’t deny it. Especially Dillon’s baby. His gift to her. Something to love of her very own.

  Wade raised his brows in surprise. “Wow, you really seem better all of a sudden.” He surprised her by bending down and kissing her forehead, as he might have done when they were together in New York, and Chantel realized he still didn’t believe things were over between them. Oh, well, she had more important concerns right now. “I’m glad it’s nothing serious,” he said.

  Chantel rubbed her stomach, consciously willing her baby to survive. If Wade only knew how serious it was…

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  STACY STOOD in the glass-walled nursery and cooed to the newborn she held in her arms, trying to get him to take some glucose water. His mother wouldn’t have milk for a day or two, so an occasional bottle of water was supposed to tide him over.

  “How’s he doing?” Leslie, the other nurse working maternity, rolled a silver gurney holding an empty plastic cradle to the side and came over to get a better look at him.

  “He’s a little fussy, but he likes it when I hold him tight.”

  “Is his mother sleeping?”

  “Probably not yet. I just took him in for a feeding. Unfortunately colostrum isn’t very filling.” Stacy bent closer to the infant and breathed in his fresh sweet smell. Would she ever hold a child of her own?

  First comes love, then comes marriage. Then comes Stacy with a baby carriage.

  Love. She couldn’t even complete the first step of that silly rhyme. She couldn’t make a man she wanted fall in love with her. Dillon had called a couple of times to be sure she was okay after that awkward scene in his office, but she knew he was only being kind. It had been almost a month since she’d last heard from him. The more days that passed, the less likely it was he’d call again. She supposed she could contact him and try to salvage their friendship, at least, but her feelings were still too raw for that.

  “What are you doing after work?” Leslie asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  She’d been planning to go back to Chantel’s, but she hated the idea of seeing Wade. The man made her skin crawl. She couldn’t imagine what she’d seen in him all those years ago, what had possessed her that night several weeks ago. He was selfish and shallow and lazy. Nothing like Dillon. She shrugged. “Not much. What do you have in mind?”

  “Want to come over to my place and order a pizza tonight? We could rent a couple of movies and kick back,” Leslie suggested. Her husband was out of town on a business trip, and she’d already admitted she hated to be alone.

  “Sure,” Stacy replied with more enthusiasm than she felt. Now that she knew Chantel was going to be okay, there was really no point in putting her life on hold any longer. And she certainly wasn’t eager to spend more time with Wade. “I just need to call and check on my sister.”

  Returning to the nurse’s station, Stacy dialed Chantel, then grimaced when Wade answered. Sponge, she muttered to herself. “Let me talk to Chantel.”

  “She’s asleep.”

  Stacy tapped the telephone with one long nail. “Did she hear anything about her tests today?”

  Wade’s voice wasn’t any warmer than hers. But he answered. “They say it’s the flu. She has another doctor’s appointment in the morning.”

  “If they know it’s the flu, what does she have to go back for?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Oh, forgive me. I thought you were there with her. You’re not likely to stray very far from a free ride, right?”

  “What’s the matter, Stacy? You jealous?”

  “Hardly. I thought you were going back to New York, anyway.”

  “We will. When Chantel’s well.”

  Stacy almost told him Chantel wasn’t going back, but she wasn’t completely sure. Would her sister leave with Wade in the end? “So what’s this doctor’s appointment tomorrow?”

  “Campbell referred her to a Dr. Bradley for one more test.”

  “Bradley! Are you sure? Bradley’s an obstetrician who delivers here at the hospital.”

  “That’s the name Chantel wrote down.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. The flu is a virus.”

  “Who knows? She’s always had trouble with that female stuff. Maybe it’s all tied in. Or maybe they’re checking something to do with the an
orexia.”

  “Did she say what kind of test they plan to run?”

  “I didn’t ask. It’s just some precautionary measure. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  Bradley. Stacy twisted the phone cord around her finger, then let go. “Yeah. Well, I’m going out with a friend. Tell Chantel I’ll see her tomorrow.”

  “Breaking out the black nightwear, Stace?” he taunted.

  “Screw you.”

  “You’ve already done that.”

  “Oh, yeah? I guess you weren’t good enough to remember,” she said, and hung up.

  CHANTEL GLANCED around her dark room, made darker by the lined chintz curtains she’d asked Wade to close before the sun went down. What had woken her? Slivers of moonlight peaked through a few cracks near the sill, and everything looked normal.

  She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. Normal for one in the morning, anyway. She didn’t know what had disturbed her sleep. Possibly a bad dream or simply that she’d spent too many days in bed.

  Sitting up, Chantel paused long enough to overcome her dizziness before she scooted to the edge of the mattress and headed to the bathroom. Fortunately she felt a little stronger than she had. The nausea wasn’t so bad. She suffered only from a slight headache.

  When she finished in the bathroom, she washed her hands and shuffled out to the kitchen for a drink, expecting the door to the guest room, where Stacy slept, to be closed and to find Wade on the couch. But Stacy’s door stood open, revealing a perfectly made bed. And Wade wasn’t in the living room.

  Where were they? Wade hadn’t mentioned going anywhere when he’d brought her some chicken from a fast-food outlet for dinner, and the last she’d heard from Stacy was that she’d be back when she got off work at eight.

  Maybe, now that they believed she only had the flu, they’d tired of their vigil and gone out for some fun. It certainly wasn’t typical of Wade to play nursemaid to anyone. He liked things fast and loose and was probably dying for a little excitement. And for her, Chantel reveled in the thought of some time alone.

  “I’m going to have a baby,” she whispered, suddenly remembering and trying to absorb, again, what the doctor had told her that afternoon. She’d been saying the same thing to herself over and over every time she woke up, but Wade had been around, and she couldn’t say it aloud. Now she wanted to shout her good news to the world. “I’m going to have a baby!” she exclaimed. “Dillon’s baby!”

  A yearning to tell him, to feel his arms around her, swept over her, and she considered calling him. How would he take the news? She’d asked him not to contact her, and he’d called only once since the big blowup with Stacy. Did that mean he’d moved on? That he didn’t care? Stacy hadn’t mentioned his name or said what had happened between them, and Chantel had been too afraid to ask. For all she knew, they were still dating.

  The thought of Dillon and Stacy seeing each other made Chantel feel weak. Her problems with her sister were bad enough already. How was she going to tell either one of them, or even Wade, about the baby?

  The moon glinted off the telephone near the couch, and Chantel sat down next to it. She knew Dillon’s number by heart, had memorized it from that scrap of paper he’d left on her counter once, simply because she’d looked at it so often.

  He’ll be sleeping, and he has his girls now. I shouldn’t wake him, she thought, but she had to talk to him, if only for a few minutes. The sound of his voice would make the fact that they were having a baby together seem more real.

  She picked up the receiver and dialed, her breath growing shallow with nervousness. It occurred to her to use the pretense of asking if his truck was out of the shop, but she knew that would sound pretty silly at one o’clock in the morning. The accident had happened almost two months ago. Of course his truck was fixed.

  “Hello?” His voice was filled with sleep, as she knew it would be.

  “Dillon? It’s Chantel.”

  Hearing her name seemed to instantly clear away the cobwebs. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  There was a long pause, and Chantel realized she didn’t have anything to say. She just longed for him so much it had become a physical ache.

  “Did you, uh, have something you wanted to tell me?” he asked.

  I’m going to have your baby. “No, I…I don’t know why I called.”

  She heard some rustling in the background and pictured him sitting up in his bed.

  “Listen, I’m sorry I woke you,” she said, feeling like an idiot. She hadn’t even had the ultrasound yet. She could lose the baby at any time. And until she decided what to do about Stacy, she couldn’t tell Dillon, anyway. “I’d better go—”

  “Chantel?”

  “What?”

  “Come and see me.”

  “I can’t. It’s one in the morning.”

  “I don’t care what time it is.”

  “I haven’t been feeling very well.”

  “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me it’s the anorexia—”

  “No.” She swallowed hard and curled her fingernails into her palms. “I think it’s just the flu. You wouldn’t want to get it.”

  “Let me worry about that. Come over so I can take care of you. I’d go to your place, but I’ve got the girls here.”

  “I know.”

  “Can you make it to my house?”

  Chantel knew she could. And without Wade and Stacy here to stop her, she felt herself giving in. Was it so wrong to want to be with the father of her baby?

  Dillon must have sensed her weakness, because he allowed her no chance to argue. He gave her directions, then said, “I’ll be waiting for you,” and hung up so she couldn’t refuse.

  DILLON’S ADDRESS was in a woodsy, hilly neighborhood. The lots were large, with a great deal of natural landscaping between homes that were all different. Some had a Mediterranean appearance. Others were California ranch-style. Dillon’s looked as if it belonged on the side of a lake. It was relatively new, with a green steep-pitched roof and a front porch that wrapped almost all the way around. A hammock hung between two large trees off to the side, and the large stretch of front lawn had just been cut. Chantel could smell the grass clippings as she got out of her car, could hear the delicate tinkle of wind chimes.

  The porch light was already on, a welcoming beacon, but still she felt a moment’s hesitation. She’d promised Stacy she wouldn’t see Dillon. She’d left her sister and Wade a note, in case they came home, but it said merely that she couldn’t sleep and had gone for a drive—hardly enough to keep them from worrying about her should they return while she was gone. There were a thousand reasons she shouldn’t have come. But somehow, as the door opened and Dillon walked out of the house to wait for her on the porch, she couldn’t remember any of them. He wore only a baseball cap and a pair of faded jeans.

  The muscles in his powerful arms flexed as he leaned on the railing, watching her, his face inscrutable. She remembered running her fingers over his ribs and pressing her palms to his chest as she’d sat on top of him, feeling him deep inside her….

  He didn’t say anything as she approached, and Chantel wondered what he was thinking. She’d showered and blow-dried her hair, but she hadn’t bothered with any makeup. The bulky sweater she’d chosen hung loosely on her and did little to enhance her figure. She’d actually been hoping that it would camouflage the evidence of her recent weight loss.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked, feeling breathless and weak from the effort it had taken to get ready and drive across town.

  “Only whatever’s necessary to get you back in my arms,” he murmured, but the next moment she was there without his having to say another word. He drew her to him as soon as she was within reach, and she did nothing to stop him. He nuzzled her neck, groaned, then ran his hands all the way down her back as though he longed to consume every inch of her. “I’ve missed you.”

  Chantel closed her eyes and clung to him. “I shouldn’t be her
e,” she whispered.

  “I thought it was over. What made you call me?”

  “How did I stop myself until now?”

  He chuckled into her hair. “Come in before you get cold. You’re shaking.”

  He scooped her into his arms and carried her in. As he was about to set her down on the couch, she tightened her arms around his neck and shook her head. “No. Take me to your room.”

  He hesitated, then kissed her forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. “What’s going on, Chantel? You’ve lost weight, you don’t look well, and after telling me to forget it more than six weeks ago, you show up at my house and want me to take you straight to bed.”

  The kitchen light was on. It spilled into the area where they stood, throwing Dillon’s face into shadow and making it difficult for Chantel to read his expression. “You don’t want to?”

  His laugh was hoarse. “That’s not the problem.”

  “Then what?”

  “What about Stacy? You’d feel guilty and you’d hate me in the morning.”

  She sighed and turned her face into the hollow of his shoulder. He was right, and she knew it. Besides, the short burst of energy she’d experienced earlier was gone, and in its place was the old fatigue and nausea.

  “Tell me why you’ve lost weight,” he said.

  Chantel hated to lie to him again. To avoid that, she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I think we should.”

  He placed her on his leather couch, then switched on a lamp that revealed a whole wall of built-in cabinetry, hardwood floors and a round area rug. Sitting across from her on a chest that served as a coffee table, Dillon turned her hands palms up and began lightly tracing her lifelines with the pads of his thumbs. “You haven’t been at work.”

  “How do you know?”

  A sheepish smile curved his lips. “I called a couple of times just to hear your voice. Maureen finally told me you’ve been out for a week.”

  “You called?” That felt good, knowing he couldn’t walk away from her as easily as he’d made it appear. “Maureen didn’t pass on the message.”