by Diana Palmer
She thought about that. “I guess that’s so. And on my today, you’re leaving.”
He kissed her nose. “Only for a few weeks. When I come back, we’ll have a long, slow, sweet celebration. How about that?”
She grinned. “Okay.”
“I’m going to miss Christmas,” he said suddenly, scowling.
“You can bring me back a cactus or something,” she said.
He chuckled. “I’ll manage something better than that, I promise.”
“Just bring yourself back,” she said solemnly. “Because there’s nothing I want for Christmas more than you. Okay?”
He hugged her close, feeling as if he was empty inside as he contemplated weeks without her. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll miss you, sweet girl.”
“Not nearly as much as I’ll miss you,” she whispered back.
He kissed her with what felt like desperation. She kissed him back the same way. She had a horrible, cold feeling that everything was about to change. And not for the better.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GOSSIP HAD DIED down in Catelow since Colie made it known that she and J.C. were engaged. Even if it was a lie, it gave her a little relief from the censure.
Her father knew better. He accepted what she told him, but his eyes said that he didn’t believe a word of it.
He was so happy to have her back home that he didn’t question anything.
“It’s been lonely without you, Colie,” he said when she’d unpacked her few things and was puttering around the kitchen. “Rod’s gone so much lately that it’s like I live alone.”
“And I haven’t visited, either,” she replied. “I’m sorry. We get so wrapped up in our own lives that we just don’t think.” She turned to him. “I’m sorry that I’ve made things hard for you in Catelow, Daddy,” she added. “I didn’t even realize how bad it was until Mrs. Meyer spoke to me.”
“I didn’t put her up to it,” he said.
“I know that. But she was right. I didn’t consider how it would be for you.”
“Life is hard,” he pointed out. “We make choices and then we have to live with them. Some have more consequences than others.”
She nodded slowly and went back to her chores.
“How long will he be gone?” her father asked.
“A few weeks, he said.” She gnawed her lip. “It’s dangerous work. He makes a lot of money, but he earns it.”
“I know two men in our congregation who have done the same thing, in the past. It’s a fairly secure area,” he said to comfort her. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
She managed a weak smile. “Sure he will.”
“Is he going to marry you, Colie?” he asked quietly.
She drew in a long, slow breath and studied the sponge in her hand. She was wiping the stove top with it. “I’d like to think so,” she said after a minute. “But I don’t really know. J.C.’s deep. He doesn’t share much.”
“Maybe you’ll influence him.”
She laughed. “That’s a pipe dream, Daddy. He is what he is.” She turned. “But I love him. So I...deal with it. It’s not the way I want things. It’s the way they are.”
He nodded. He still hoped that one day she might see the light and leave J.C. He knew it was a long shot. Years ago he’d loved like that. He’d loved Colie’s mother. But he’d married her, had children with her. He’d never lived a less than moral life. He sorrowed for his child, because he knew better than she did what was likely going to be the result of her liaison with J.C. He wasn’t a man who wanted ties, and he wasn’t going to settle down. Colie would likely learn that the hard way. But her father would be there for her, when it happened. And he’d do all he could to help her. That was what life was all about. Not being judgmental, even in his position, and trying to ease the pain of loss and love for those to whom he ministered. It was his job. He took it very seriously.
* * *
MISSING J.C. SUDDENLY became the least of Colie’s problems. She got up as usual and made breakfast before she dressed and went to work. But soon after she cleared the table and went to her room to dress, she had to make a mad dash for the bathroom.
She lost her breakfast and what felt like supper last night, as well. It was a virus. It had to be a virus. J.C. would go crazy if she got pregnant. She’d never see him again. He’d walk right out of her life. He’d insinuated as much many times.
It couldn’t be a baby. Not when they’d only messed up one time. Just one time. She took deep breaths before she cleaned up and brushed her teeth. Surely it was just a virus. There was one going around. She’d heard her father mention it. Everything would be all right. She just had to keep her head and not panic.
She went back down the hall, dressed, her hair brushed, her purse over her shoulder. She reached for her coat and popped her head into her father’s study. “I’m on my way out. Need anything else?”
“No, thanks. Breakfast was great,” he added on a chuckle. “I am really very tired of black toast.”
“I’ll make biscuits tomorrow morning. See you tonight.”
“Drive carefully. Lots of snow out this morning.”
“I’ll go slow,” she promised. She might have added that J.C. had given her lessons on how to drive in snow. She didn’t. Things were going nicely without that.
* * *
SHE’D HOPED SHE might hear from J.C. She knew he had a phone with overseas capability. But he hated to talk on the phone. Still, he might miss her enough to call.
He didn’t call. Days went by without a word from him. Colie missed him so much that it was like having a limb removed. She ate without tasting anything. The nausea, thankfully, had passed. There were some odd symptoms. She was tired a lot. She went to bed earlier than ever. Her breasts were tender. But her period was due, and some of those symptoms went with the monthly curse. She had to think positively.
She put up a Christmas tree and decorated it. She didn’t have much money to buy presents, but she did the best she could. There was a sweater for her father, a new wallet for Rod and part of a keychain for J.C. It was in the shape of a heart, but two halves. The inscription was in French. It said Plus que hier, moins que demain. More than yesterday, less than tomorrow. A promise of love. The keychain was in two parts, one for each lover. Colie’s parents had carried such a keychain when Colie and Rod were small. Perhaps she thought it might work some magic on J.C.
* * *
SHE RAN INTO Merrie Colter in town. Merrie had left the baby with Ren long enough to go Christmas shopping. Catelow was dressed in colored lights and tinsel for the holiday. Merrie was just getting into her car when she saw Colie on the sidewalk.
“Hi,” she called.
“Hi!” Colie grinned from ear to ear. “You’re without the baby? My gosh! It’s the end of the world!”
Merrie laughed good-naturedly. “Ren’s babysitting while I get some shopping done and buy something special to cook for supper. It’s Delsey’s night off. How are you?” she added.
Colie grimaced. “Missing J.C.,” she said honestly. “It’s lonely.”
“I know how that feels,” Merrie said. “Ren and I had a rocky courtship. He was a horror when I first met him.”
“That’s what people said,” she replied.
Merrie cocked her head. “You’re wondering if we’ve heard from J.C.”
Colie caught her breath.
“Sorry,” Merrie said. “I get these strange insights from time to time. But it’s common sense. I’d miss Ren, if he’d gone overseas.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if he’d write or call,” Colie confessed. “I guess it’s hard for him to find time to do those things.”
Merrie didn’t dare admit that J.C. had called the house twice already to talk to Ren about things he’d had the men sta
rt setting up at the ranch.
“I imagine it is,” was all Merrie would say. “Anyway, he won’t be gone that long. Honest, the ranch would fall apart without him.”
Colie laughed. “So would my life,” she confessed.
“Men. You can’t live with them sometimes and you can’t live without them. I guess we just take the good with the bad and go on.”
“Sometimes that’s all you can do,” Colie agreed. “I have to run. I’ll be late back from lunch.”
“See you.”
“See you.”
* * *
COLIE WAS DEPRESSED after she’d seen Merrie. She knew, somehow, that J.C. had talked to Ren since he left. It made her feel sick to her stomach. If J.C. had really cared about her, he’d have called. He’d have written. He’d be as desperate to talk to Colie as she was to talk to him.
But he was self-contained. Aloof. He didn’t get involved with people. He didn’t trust them. She knew that if she ever gave him a reason, she’d never see him again. He held grudges and never made a secret of it. He wouldn’t talk about his father, who was presumably still alive somewhere. He didn’t forgive, even after twenty-two years. It was disturbing.
He did want her. She knew that for certain. But wanting wasn’t enough to hold a couple together for years and years. Desire was a fleeting thing, easily satisfied and then lost. She was afraid that J.C. would tire of her. She could tell he wasn’t happy with the way she was in bed. He knew she didn’t get much out of sleeping with him. Maybe he was right about the latex thing. But it was uncomfortable beyond that.
Perhaps if she’d leveled with him at the beginning, told him her age and that she was innocent, things might have gone in a different direction. He might not have taken her out at all. She’d had a major crush on him, but once they started dating, she fell in love, fell hard and deep.
Life had been uncomplicated. She’d gone to work, to business classes at the local community college at night, she’d cooked and cleaned for her father and Rod. Her life had been vaguely satisfying, if stale and boring.
J.C. had changed all that. He’d made every day an adventure. She looked forward to getting up in the morning because she knew she’d see him most days.
Not that he’d been around a lot. He’d gone on that trip to Denver that had almost caused them to break up. Now he was gone to Iraq to train policemen. It seemed sometimes that they’d been apart more than they’d been together.
She sensed that J.C. had been trying to draw back from her before things got too serious. He worried about her. He couldn’t hide it. He was surprised and pleased at the way she’d taken care of him when he was sick. He didn’t like being dependent on anyone, especially a woman. Was that what made him get cold feet? Or was it just that he was determined to stay single, and he resented Colie for wanting things he couldn’t give her?
* * *
SHE WAS NO closer to an answer on Christmas Eve, when the nausea returned. Her period was almost a month overdue. She was regular. She never missed it by even a day. The fatigue was growing, as well.
She’d hoped that J.C. would call her on Christmas Eve. He knew how special Christmas was to her. But, as her father often said, J.C. was a man who avoided religion. Merrie Colter phoned her to say that Ren pulled strings to get a call through to J.C. There had been a communications blackout, so J.C. hadn’t been able to call out. Ren, with his military connections, managed to get through. J.C. had asked him to have Merrie call and wish Colie a Merry Christmas from him, and to tell Colie that he missed her and would be home soon.
It made her day. She beamed all through making the special meal for her and her father. Rod had phoned and made a jerky apology about not being able to make it home because of car trouble. Even that didn’t spoil her mood. She was glowing. J.C. missed her. It would be all right. All her worries had been for nothing.
She drove to a nearby town and bought a pregnancy test. She went to a local shopping mall and used the test in a stall in the ladies’ restroom.
When the little paper changed color, she felt her heart freeze in her chest. It could be a false positive, of course. But with her other symptoms, she was certain that it wasn’t. She was pregnant.
Her first reaction was overwhelming joy. She’d never felt so happy in her entire life. Her second reaction was stark terror. She couldn’t have a child out of wedlock in Catelow, Wyoming. It would destroy her father’s ministry. Well, maybe not destroy, but it would shame and humiliate him. He was such a good man. It would hurt him even more than she’d already hurt him.
There was a slight chance that J.C. might actually change his mind, despite what he’d said about not wanting to settle down. Surely, if he knew there was going to be a child, his sense of responsibility would kick in. Surely, he’d do the right thing!
She convinced herself that it was just a matter of putting it to J.C. the right way. She’d make him a wonderful supper when he got back from overseas. She’d make him comfortable, curl up in his arms. And then she’d tell him, gently. He was a good man. He wouldn’t throw her away because of an unplanned pregnancy.
She put the pregnancy test in the trash can and went home.
* * *
KEEPING IT SECRET was going to be the hard thing. Her father knew how pregnant women behaved. He’d been through two pregnancies with Colie’s mother. She was careful to eat just enough of Christmas dinner not to arouse suspicion, and she made sure she had the water running in the sink when she threw up, so he wouldn’t hear.
He took her word that cramps were making her so sick that she went to bed early. He didn’t question her. He was proud of his new sweater. He’d given Colie a bathrobe, a nice white chenille one that was very soft. Rod hadn’t come home for Christmas. He’d called to wish them a happy day, but hung up almost immediately.
She was grateful that Rod was hardly ever home. But he wouldn’t have noticed that she was pregnant, anyway. He was acting more and more erratically. She was beginning to think he was mixed up in something very dangerous. He hardly spoke a word to his father and sister at the supper table on the rare times when he ate with them, and he was always going to Jackson Hole on the weekends.
Colie and her father celebrated the new year together with glasses of eggnog. Her father was sad that his son hadn’t even called this time. He went to bed with his steps dragging. Colie was sorry, but there was nothing she could do about her brother. She only wondered why he was acting so strangely.
* * *
COLIE HAD STARTED going back to church with her father. It helped her fit back into the community that had started to shun her. People of faith were big on forgiveness, and Colie was loved.
But one Sunday morning in January, she was too sick to go. She pleaded an overnight stomach virus and apologized, but her father just patted her on the back and smiled. He’d had three members of his congregation out with it already. She’d be over it in no time.
She saw him off and then went back to bed.
* * *
SHE WAS DOZING when she heard cars drive up outside. The front door opened and closed. She heard voices.
Curious, she got up and pulled on a thick robe before she went into the living room. What she saw shocked her so badly that she couldn’t even speak.
Rodney was taking possession of a suitcase absolutely packed with drugs. There were bottles and bottles of prescription drugs and several packets of what looked like white powder.
“You know how to distribute it,” his friend in the smart suit told him. “Make sure your contacts hand it out free at the local schools, that gets them hooked... What the hell?!”
He’d glanced toward the doorway and saw Colie standing there, white-faced and shocked. Rod’s mouth fell open.
“You take care of that,” he told Rod. “Do it right now! One word of this gets out, you’re a dead man,
you hear me?!”
He went out the door and slammed it behind him.
Rod glared at Colie. “What the hell are you doing home?” he demanded. “You’re never here on Sunday!”
“I got a virus,” she said. “Oh, Rod, what are you doing?” she wailed. “Dealing drugs?”
He looked guilty and sick for a minute, then he glared harder. “You’re one to talk,” he shot back. “Living with a man, and Daddy a minister!”
“I love J.C.,” she said defensively.
“He’ll never marry you,” he returned icily. He laughed coldly. “Daddy doesn’t suspect, but I’d bet money that’s no virus that’s keeping you home. You’re pregnant.”
She gasped and went pale.
He’d been guessing. Apparently he was right. He lifted his chin. “You keep what you saw to yourself, or I’ll make you sorry. I’m making a lot of money. I’m sick of working for chicken feed when I can have nice things like my buddy does. I’m going to have whatever I want...”
“You’re poisoning children!”
“If they get hooked, it’s their own business, not yours,” he said. “They’re not kids, they’re teenagers.”
“People die from drug use,” she persisted.
“It’s not your business,” he repeated.
He closed up the suitcase. “You keep your mouth shut, or I’ll make you pay for it. Don’t even think of going to the sheriff!”
“I don’t have to go to the sheriff,” she said coldly. “All I have to do is tell J.C.”
As threats went, it was masterful. He knew J.C. better than Colie did. He had no desire to end up in federal prison for dealing hard narcotics.
“You’d better not, Colie. I mean it.”