Well, it didn’t take a college graduate to understand that little Danny hadn’t lived the kind of life anyone would want for a child. Somehow he’d ended up with Dustin, which certainly was the right place for the boy. Just like the ranch was the right place for Kate. She shouldn’t waste her life on those slick city men, with their expensive suits and cologne. Gert even heard that men in the city got manicures, just like women. She’d never heard anything quite so silly in all her life.
She and Kate fed the little boys—to her disappointment Dustin hadn’t joined them—and now Kate was off to town again, the Bennett children and Danny tucked into her car. Dustin would come for supper—Gert would see to it he couldn’t refuse—and all Gert would have to do was prevent Martha and her opinions from ruining a budding romance. Jake and Elizabeth could be the perfect example of happiness. Gert knew her granddaughter; she wanted children and she loved the ranch. All Kate needed was a little push in the right direction.
“DON’T PUSH,” JAKE hollered. “Pant.”
Elizabeth glared at him. “I’m having minor—I repeat,minor—contractions, Jake. I am not pushing or panting or getting ready to deliver this baby on your grandmother’s kitchen table, so please sit down and eat your meat loaf. It could be a while before you get another home-cooked meal this good.”
“Thank goodness you’re not in pain,” Martha said. “Should we be timing them?”
“Not yet,” Elizabeth said, picking up her fork and looking for all the world as if she intended to finish her supper. “I’m sure my husband will tell me when I’m ready.” She laughed. She was about to have a baby and she was laughing. Kate was impressed.
“Can I get you anything?” Kate lifted the iced tea pitcher. “Something cold to drink?”
“We have beer,” Gert added. “If you feel the need.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I think I’ll stick with the tea. Please don’t look so worried. This could be false labor, you know. I’ve heard it happens.”
“Whatever it is,” Jake said, looking very pale, “we’re going to the hospital to check it out.”
“After dessert,” his wife said. “And only if we need to.”
Dustin and Jake exchanged worried looks, and Kate didn’t feel so confident either. The remark about delivering the baby on Gran’s kitchen table suddenly wasn’t so funny. Elizabeth had a mind of her own, but there was no sense taking any risks.
“Dessert coming right up,” Kate announced, standing to clear the table. Dustin rose to help, even though there was still food on his plate. Martha’s eyebrows rose as the cowboy lifted her empty plate from in front of her.
“Excuse me,” he said, then looked across the table at Kate and gave her one of his quick, rare smiles.
“Why, thank you,” Martha said, flustered. “I can help, too.”
“Stay there, Mom,” Kate told her. “The coffee’s ready and I’ll serve the last of the birthday cake.”
“There’s still cake?” Gert frowned. “You’d think we’d have eaten it all by now.”
“This is the last night,” Kate promised. “Tomorrow we’ll have apple pie at the Steak Barn.”
“I love cake,” Danny said. “’Specially this kind.”
“You can have my piece, too,” Gert told him. “I think I’m just about caked out.”
“Ooh,” Elizabeth inhaled, as her worried husband leaned closer.
“Another one?” She nodded, and Jake grew even more pale. He looked over to Dustin, who returned to the table with coffee mugs.
“We’d better go,” was all he said, and Dustin nodded, banging the mugs on the table as he set them down.
“I’ll drive you,” he told Jake.
“Danny can stay here with me,” Gert piped up, which made the little boy smile again.
“Take my car,” Kate said. “She might be more comfortable in the Lincoln than in a truck.”
Elizabeth allowed herself to be helped to her feet as soon as the contraction was over. “I’m sorry to miss dessert,” she said, “but I wouldn’t mind having this baby finally arrive. Kate? Come with us?”
“What?” Her first panicked thought was how on earth was she going to deliver a baby in the back seat of the Lincoln? She set the dessert plates on the table before she dropped them on the floor. “Are you sure?”
“I think I could use some female companionship right now.” In other words, she didn’t want to be alone with two frowning ranchers.
“Sure,” Kate said, wiping her shaking hands on the sides of her shorts. “Should I bring anything?” Towels, she thought quickly. Boiling water. Rubber gloves. Bandages?
“Fill a thermos,” Dustin said.
“With what?”
“Coffee. For the waiting room.”
“I’ll do that,” Martha offered. Since no ranch kitchen held less than five thermoses, Martha easily prepared coffee while Kate ran to the bathroom and grabbed an armload of clean towels, just in case. Jake carried a protesting Elizabeth to the car and tucked her into the back set, then sat beside her and took her hand. Kate and Dustin hurried into the front seat and, once Martha had tossed the thermos into her daughter’s lap, Dustin started the Lincoln and sped toward town.
“Should we call the doctor?” Kate moved the stack of towels aside and lifted her cell phone from her purse.
“Good idea,” Jake said, but it was Elizabeth who told her the number she’d memorized. Kate dialed and left a message with the answering service.
“Three minutes apart,” Elizabeth said anxiously. “Maybe this is going to happen faster than I thought.”
Jake swore, and Dustin’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel as the car went even faster along the straight empty road. Kate clutched the thermos and wished she’d taken CPR classes.
“I’ve seen it on your show,” Elizabeth said in a breathless voice to Kate. “Babies are born in strange places all the time, right, Kate?”
“All the time,” she agreed, thinking her cousin’s wife had lost her mind. That was television. Carefully scripted, rehearsed scenes with plastic dolls for babies or, occasionally, a nice healthy infant for the close-ups. She glanced over at Dustin, who looked at her as if she really had lost all sense. “But contractions three minutes apart still gives us time to get you to the hospital.” She hoped she sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. “I’ll check with Emily,” she said, punching the number into the cell phone. “Hi, George? It’s Kate and—what?” She listened for a moment, then said, “Okay, good luck,” before turning the phone off.
“What?” asked Elizabeth.
“Emily’s in labor, too,” she said. “George said she was taking a shower.”
“A shower?” Jake repeated, incredulous.
“This is her fourth time,” Elizabeth exclaimed, still sounding calm. “She’s a pro.”
“I guess we’ll see everyone at the hospital,” Kate said, turning around to see how Elizabeth was doing. She lay in Jake’s arms, her legs stretched out on the seat, and looked for all the world as if she was enjoying herself. Jake, on the other hand, was a picture of a man about to fall apart. Grim and nervous, he clenched his jaw.
“Is this as fast as this thing can go?” he asked, frowning at the back of Dustin’s head.
“Yeah,” Dustin answered. “Without flying into a ditch.”
“I don’t want to give birth to my first child in a ditch,” Elizabeth said. “Calm down, Jake. We’re going to get through this.”
“First and last child,” he muttered.
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“I think my water broke.”
Kate tossed a couple of towels to Jake, who helped his wife spread them underneath her.
Dustin slowed down as they drove through Beauville and then sped up again as they flew past the former drive-in north to Marysville. “It won’t be long now,” he promised.
“Thank goodness,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s getting worse?”
“No,
I don’t think the contractions are coming any faster,” Elizabeth said. “But Jake’s about to pass out.”
“I am not,” he said, but Kate wondered. She wasn’t feeling so good herself. She looked at her watch at least twenty times on the drive to Marysville, though she was certain Dustin drove it in record time. He pulled up in front of the hospital’s emergency room doors and before Dustin could open his door, two paramedics appeared to help Elizabeth from the car.
“Go park,” one of them told Dustin. “We’ll take it from here.”
“Thank God,” she heard him mutter under his breath as he put the car in “drive” and headed toward the visitors’ parking lot.
“You did a great job getting us here,” she told him, once he’d found a spot and parked. Once the engine was turned off it became very quiet and Kate was aware that the last time they had been in a car together they had taken off most of their clothes and made love.
“I haven’t driven that fast since I was seventeen,” he said, leaning back against the seat. He closed his eyes. “I was sure hoping she wouldn’t have that baby in the car.”
“That only happens on television,” she assured him.
“Well, you would know.” He didn’t open his eyes as she leaned over and turned the key in the ignition, then pushed the button to lower her window. Almost sundown, the air had cooled slightly, just enough to be comfortable for a few moments.
“Is that supposed to be a slur on my job?” She turned the key to the off position, but before she could lean back Dustin took hold of her wrist to stop her.
“No,” he said, looking down at her while he held her arm with gentle, calloused fingers. “I’m sure you got what you wanted.”
“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
He shook his head. “Nah.” He released her, but Kate didn’t move far. Instead she waited for him to explain. He just looked at the hospital and said, “I’ve never seen Jake so nervous.”
“Weren’t you nervous when your son was born?”
He turned to her and frowned, and she knew she’d somehow trespassed on forbidden territory. “What?”
She tried to sound casual, but she hoped that he would explain about Lisa and Danny and that summer. “When Danny was born. You and, uh, Lisa must have been pretty nervous yourselves.”
He stared down at her.
“Danny,” he repeated, as if he couldn’t understand her. “You’re talking about Danny?”
“It was a shock,” she admitted, willing to get this out in the open. “I admit it. And I was glad to get out of town, especially after my father died.” Dustin didn’t say anything. “I saw you at the funeral,” Kate said, remembering a time in her life that she’d rather not think about for too long.
He still didn’t say anything.
“I guess I shouldn’t have brought this up,” she said, deciding she’d rather be delivering a baby than having this conversation. She shouldn’t still care if he’d had sex with another woman and made her feel like the biggest fool in the world.
But Dustin surprised her. “We used to spend a lot of time sitting in my old Buick.”
“Maybe we should go in,” she said, thinking that sitting in a car—any car—with him again was certainly having a sensual effect that was extremely disconcerting. She thought she’d be over that by now, a mature woman of twenty-seven with a career, pension plan, matching furniture and a fistful of mutual funds.
“Not yet,” he said.
He’d always had the most beautiful mouth. Kate gulped as he reached over and lifted her chin with his index finger. A familiar gesture, and her reaction was to lean closer as his mouth descended. It was the briefest brushing of lips, a mere whisper of what their kisses used to be. Then he kissed her again for a longer time, a kiss that promised hours of kissing and touching and lots, lots more. Kate wanted to sink into his arms, but she kept herself from reaching up to him, kept from moving any closer toward this man who could have her stripped naked in ninety seconds, tops.
Some things didn’t change.
DUSTIN DIDN’T STOP her from leaving the car. He followed slowly, moving across the parking lot at his own pace.
So all along she thought Lisa Gallagher had had his baby. She’d left town because she thought he’d slept with Lisa and gotten her pregnant. And all along he had been sure—deep in his heart where it hurt the most—that Kate had left him because she’d finally realized the kid from the wrong side of town wasn’t good enough for her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“THIS ISN’T GOING to work, Mother.” Martha rinsed the last of the dinner plates and stacked it in the drainer with the rest of the drying dishes. She’d dry them a little later, while the pans that held the meat loaves soaked.
“What isn’t?” Gert looked up from the papers she’d spread all over the kitchen table. Once again, her mother was involved in this silly book business. You’d think a ninety-year-old lady would be content to crochet afghans, not spend her time airing the town’s dirty laundry.
“Your matchmaking.” She looked into the living room to make sure the boy couldn’t hear. He was engrossed in a television show, having explained to “Grandma Gert” earlier that he and his Dad didn’t have a television set in the bunkhouse and he sure missed “watchin’ all the shows.” He seemed like a nice enough child, though a little too quiet. But a quiet child was a refreshing change from some of the little hooligans Martha saw with their mothers in town.
“What are you talking about, Martha? I’m just a nice old lady happy to have the young folks around.”
“Don’t give me that,” her daughter said, tossing the dish towel onto the counter. She sat down at the table and looked at her watch. “You’re pushing Kate and that cowboy together, and don’t you think I don’t know it.”
“She could use a man in her life.”
Who couldn’t? Martha wanted to reply, but she didn’t discuss such things with her mother, never had. “Not that man,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper. She didn’t want that little boy to hear. “I had to chase him off when they were teenagers. Those Jones boys were never any good.”
“Dustin is a good man. And, Martha, you sound like an old witch.”
Now that hurt. She didn’t want to be called old, witch or not. “I just want the best for Kate.”
“In New York?” Gert snorted. “She belongs here, and don’t you tell me you don’t miss her.”
“Oh, I miss her, all right,” she admitted. “And I’d do just about anything to see her married and happy and living close to me here in Texas, but everyone has to live their own lives, Mother. We just have to accept that Kate’s life is in New York, working on that TV show.”
“Speak for yourself, Martha,” her mother said, looking decidedly grumpy. “I don’t have to accept any such thing.”
Now would be a good time to change the subject, Martha decided. “I wonder how Elizabeth is doing. Poor Jake. He looked terrified that she would have that baby on the way to the hospital.”
“I’m sure they made it,” Gert declared. “First babies take their time.”
“I remember.” She’d been in labor with Kate for nineteen hours. Ian, her sweet, quiet, well-mannered Ian, had come close to assaulting the physician to make him do something. The pregnancy itself had seemed like a miracle after wanting a baby so many years. And then “labor” had been exactly that, before the days of so-called “natural” childbirth and all that breathing and panting the young women were so fond of. How proud her husband had been of that wrinkled red infant. “Maybe I should plan on sleeping here tonight.”
“The boy, too,” Gert agreed. “But Kate will call us, or Dustin will. We’ll have news soon enough.”
“I suppose,” she said, turning around an old newspaper so she could read the headlines. “You’re really enthused about this book, aren’t you?”
“As the oldest living resident of Beauville, I think it’s important that I write my memoirs,” she said.
�
�Nonsense,” Martha replied. “You just like having Kate at your beck and call. And you like the idea of using her computer.”
Gert chuckled and smacked the back of Martha’s hand with a yellowed envelope. “You’re a funny girl, Mattie,” she said, using a pet name she hadn’t used in years. Martha blinked back tears, silly tears she couldn’t explain to herself. “You and Hank were as different as night and day that way.”
“Hank had a mean streak.” She avoided her mother’s eyes and instead pretended to be interested in a yellowed copy of the Dallas paper.
“He must be dead,” Gert declared, her voice devoid of emotion. “The last time I talked to him was March 5, 1965. He was falling down drunk and I told him to sober up before he killed someone.”
“And what did he say to that?” Martha asked, though she’d heard the story before.
“He said some very unpleasant things,” her mother replied. “He was worse than his father that way.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“In my book, I wrote that I think he died in a car accident somewhere. I pray to the good Lord that he didn’t take anyone with him.” She sighed. “Poor Jake.”
“Poor Jake? He was spared, in my opinion. Nancy loved her job at the Dead Horse and R.J. was a better father than Hank could ever have been.” Martha took a deep breath and waited for her mother to argue with that opinion, but Gert didn’t seem to want to talk about her firstborn any longer.
“Here,” she said, pushing the pile of newspaper clippings toward Martha. “Why don’t you look through there and see if you can find anything about Beauville and World War I? My mother must have saved those for a reason.”
“I suppose,” she said, turning them around so she could read the headlines. Nineteen seventeen was safe enough; there was nothing in that year that could stir up trouble.
“IT’S GOING TO BE a while,” Jake announced as he entered the hospital’s second-floor waiting room. “Elizabeth wants me to send you two home.”
“Yeah?” Dustin eyed his friend and former boss. Jake was looking a little gray around the edges. “We’ve only been here for half an hour.” And ten minutes of that had been spent in Kate’s car.
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