by Diana Palmer
* * *
SHE GOT BACK to her father while a retired nurse who did volunteer work at the hospital sat in the waiting room with the baby.
“Scared me, you know,” she chided as Reverend Thompson opened his eyes and looked up groggily.
He managed a laugh. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t know as much about appendicitis as I thought I did.”
“Good thing the EMTs did,” she pointed out.
“Got Ludie with you?”
“I have. She’s in the waiting room with a nurse’s aide. I had to leave Darby. He’s bad. Really bad. We’ve got hospice now.”
“Your life has been an ongoing tragedy, my darling. I’d hoped for something happier for you.”
She bent and kissed his forehead. “We do things and then we pay for doing them,” she said simply. “That’s life.”
“I suppose so. But God loves us, no matter what we do.”
She grinned. “That, I did know.” She laughed.
“You can’t stay long,” he supposed.
She nodded. “Until you come home from the hospital and I find you a nurse,” she said. “Then I have to go back. We have a nurse staying with Darby.”
“I know you hated leaving him. You could go now...”
“After you’re home,” she repeated.
“I don’t need a nurse, you know. It’s just an appendectomy. I asked the doctor.”
She wanted to argue, but his expression told her it would do no good. “Okay, then,” she said, smiling at him.
He sighed. “Rod didn’t come home this week. He called and said he and his friend had business in Denver. Big business. He didn’t say what it was. I’m not sure he’s working at the hardware store anymore.”
“He probably has other things in mind to do,” was all she’d say. “Maybe he’s found a new career,” she added, and tried to keep the contempt out of her tone.
“I guess so.”
“I’m going back to the house now, but I’ll see you later in the day. I need to feed Ludie.”
“That’s okay.”
He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
* * *
THE HOUSE WAS just as Colie remembered it, but dustier. She unfolded the carrier that doubled as a baby bed and put the few bottles of baby food and milk that she’d brought with her in the fridge. If she was staying until her father was released—probably two days, the surgeon thought—she’d have to go shopping.
* * *
SHE PHONED LUCY, who was off on this Saturday afternoon, and asked her to take care of Ludie while she visited her father. Lucy came over, excited to see the baby.
“Gosh, she really is a little doll,” she exclaimed. “Look at that hair!”
Colie grimaced.
“I guess there’s a redhead in your family tree, huh?” Lucy continued, unaware of her friend’s discomfort.
“Somewhere,” Colie said. “I won’t be long.”
“That’s okay. Ludie and I will get along just fine!”
“Thanks, Lucy.”
“That’s what friends do for one another. If I ever get pregnant, and I hope to, one day, you can do the same for me, when you’re visiting your father,” she said with a grin.
“Count on it,” Colie promised, smiling.
* * *
“MERRIE SAYS HER SISTER, Sari Fiore, sent Colie up here on the family jet,” Ren remarked while he and his security chief were having coffee midmorning.
J.C.’s hand jerked a little on the cup. Otherwise, he gave no sign that the news affected him. “Did she? Why?”
“Her father had to have an emergency appendectomy,” Ren replied. He looked up. “Colie’s husband is in the final stages of cancer. They have hospice for him.”
J.C. grimaced. “That must be rough.”
“My mother went through cancer treatment,” Ren recalled. “It hasn’t been long enough that I’ve forgotten how rough it was on her. And on us. But her prognosis was better. She recovered and the cancer hasn’t come back.”
J.C. nodded. He looked down at his coffee cup. “Did she bring the baby with her?”
“Yes.”
He wouldn’t admit, couldn’t admit, how desperately he wanted to see the child. He forced his mind on to another subject. Ren obliged him by not volunteering any more information.
Later that same day, J.C. had to stop by the grocery store to pick up a loaf of bread for Delsey, the cook at Ren’s ranch.
Halfway down the aisle, there was Colie, with the baby in her arms, looking at crackers.
He stopped, waited until she saw him. When she did, her whole body seemed to jump. He was so eaten up with guilt that he was blind to the involuntary joy she felt at the sight of him.
He moved a step closer, wary of people nearby. But it was midafternoon and most shoppers were at work. There were hardly any customers in the small grocery store right now.
“How’s your father?” he asked.
She swallowed, hard. “He’s much better. They’ll let him come home day after tomorrow.”
“What happened?”
“Appendicitis,” she said. “His appendix perforated. He didn’t realize until it was almost too late.”
He nodded. His eyes were on the baby in her arms. He could hardly pry his gaze away from the child. Red-gold hair like his mother. Then she opened her little eyes and looked up at him. Even at that age, he could tell that her eyes were going to be gray, like his. Like his mother’s. His face contorted.
“I can only stay until tomorrow,” she said, hating the huskiness in her voice. “Darby’s very bad. We have hospice helping with his care, but I still need to be there.” She paused. “He’s been very kind to me.”
He was breathing roughly, trying to control his own emotions. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Kind, when I wasn’t,” he said gruffly.
She averted her eyes to the shelves and picked up a box of soda crackers, her father’s favorite. She’d add cheese when she went to the refrigerated section. Her dad loved his midnight snacks. He’d sent her shopping.
“Have you seen Rod?” she asked, for something to say.
“If I had, it would probably be in the police report in the local papers,” he gritted.
She looked up at him, surprised. Her eyes searched his. She had to drop them. The contact was shattering.
“Have you heard from him?” he replied.
“No. Daddy said he hasn’t been home for over a week. He said that he and his friend had big business in Denver,” she added bitterly.
“He’s mixed up in something,” J.C. said. “I don’t know what, but there’s gossip.”
She put the crackers into the shopping cart. She’d had the baby resting in the top section of it, in her carrier, but Ludie had become fussy so she’d picked her up temporarily.
“You know something about Rod,” J.C. guessed, and so accurately that her head came up. Guilt was written all over her. “What do you know?”
“I can’t tell you,” she said. She lowered her eyes. “I had planned to...”
“And you told Rod that you were going to tell me,” he guessed icily. “So he found a foolproof way to get you out of my life.”
Her eyes registered her shock.
He nodded slowly. His face was set in hard lines. “I finally worked it out. Not in time to do either of us any good.” He drew in a long breath. “I should have told you about my childhood, Colie—about the experiences that taught me never to trust anyone.”
She didn’t reply. He kept secrets. She’d lived with him for several weeks, and never really got to know him at all.
His eyes narrowed. “And you should have told me that you were innocent,” he added shortly, registering her scarlet blush. The blood that first time,
that he’d taken for her period starting, her distaste for sex, it had all finally added up in his mind. “For God’s sake,” he bit off, “I could have read a book, or something. I could have learned what to do...” He stopped, self-conscious.
She’d wondered if he would ever puzzle that out. Now he had. So many revelations coming out, in a grocery store in Catelow, in the middle of a normal day. And none of it mattered. None of it made the slightest difference in her life.
He sighed. “Damn, Colie,” he said half under his breath. “The only women I was ever with were experienced, and they liked it rough.” He averted his eyes. “We act as we’re taught.”
She remembered the call girl he’d been in love with all those years ago and reasoned that such a woman probably didn’t really like sex at all, but pretended to, for the money. Now things began to make sense to her.
“It’s all water under the bridge, now,” she said quietly. “I’m married, J.C.”
His face gave away little, but his jaw tautened. He wouldn’t look at her. “I’m glad that he was good to you.”
“He and his first wife couldn’t have children,” she confessed. “He was so excited about Ludie. He was with me every step of the way, right up to the C-section...”
“C-section?” he exclaimed.
“Something went wrong. They’re not sure what,” she replied. “It was rough for a few weeks, but I’m recovering. Darby had a nurse stay with us, to help with Ludie while I got back on my feet. Now she’s staying because he can’t be left alone.” Tears threatened. “It’s rare, people like him, in the world. He doesn’t ask for anything. He just gives.”
“My total opposite,” he replied shortly. “I never gave anything. Just like my father, wherever he is.”
She studied his hard face. “You don’t forgive people, J.C. It was one of the first things I learned about you.” She smiled sadly. “You wouldn’t forgive me.”
“I didn’t know,” he said huskily.
She just looked at him. “Rod never told the truth in his life, and I never told a lie. But when it came down to it, he was the one you believed.”
“Because I was...” He paused. He wanted to say “afraid,” but it was a weakness. He’d learned in his life never to show weakness to anyone else. “I didn’t want a family,” he corrected.
“Lucky you,” she replied. “You got your wish.”
He looked at the child, who was watching him. It was eerie, that there was something like recognition in those wide gray eyes. It was as if the child knew him. He shook himself mentally. Now he was having delusions.
“She’s a pretty child,” he remarked quietly.
“She’s a good baby. She almost never cries, and when she does, it’s because she’s hungry or needs changing.”
“You always wanted kids.”
She nodded, smiling sadly. “And you never did. It would never have worked. Besides all that, my poor father had been embarrassed enough by my behavior. I expect gossip has slowed down since I left town. Especially since I married.”
“Everyone thinks the child is your husband’s,” he said with more bitterness than he realized.
“Of course she is,” she returned without looking at him.
He felt the words like a body blow, until he realized that she didn’t mean them. She was behaving like a fugitive, refusing to look at him while she told the lie.
He couldn’t admit what he’d worked out. He didn’t want to make her more uncomfortable than she was. “I saw the wedding announcement in the paper,” he said. “Lucy had photos of the baby when she was born. I was in the cafeteria. She showed them to me...”
Colie looked up with so much pain in her eyes that he stopped what he was saying and just stared down at her.
“I messed it all up,” he said, half under his breath as he looked from Colie to the baby in her arms.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Colie said quietly. “Darby always says that yesterday is a memory and tomorrow is a hope, that all we really have is right now, today.” She smiled. “He’s right.”
He became aware of an older man pushing a grocery cart down the aisle. “I have to go,” he said, picking up the loaf of bread he’d been sent for. “Delsey ran out of bread, so she sent me in to pick up a loaf for sandwiches.”
“Sari had the Grayling jet pick me up and fly me here,” she remarked. “It would have been rough coming by myself with the baby and all her stuff. Diaper bag, bottles, formula,” she added on a breathless laugh.
“You don’t nurse her?” he asked softly. Then his face hardened. “Of course you don’t. Not with a C-section.”
She was curious. “How do you know about them?”
“Merrie had to have one, with their son,” he replied. “Ren went wild. I had to hide all the whiskey bottles.”
She managed a smile. “Darby said he was never more tempted to have a drink. He can’t tolerate alcohol.”
He hated the mention of her husband. He hated the whole world. There she stood, the color and light of his life, with his child in her arms, and he was an outsider, a spectator. That was all he could be now.
“Life doesn’t come with a reset button,” he remarked heavily. “God help me, I’d give anything if it did,” he added, his eyes on Ludie as he winced.
Colie, aware of the older gentleman approaching with his cart, just smiled. “Tell Sari I said thank you for everything,” she said. “And that I’m going home in the morning, early, if that’s okay. She’s letting her pilot fly me back in the jet.”
He nodded. “I’ll tell her.” He moved back a step. “Be happy, Colie,” he said softly. He had to pry his eyes away from her. “Tell your father I hope he does well.”
“I will. Goodbye, J.C.,” she said with more feeling than she realized.
He couldn’t look at them. He was too cut up inside, too sick at his own behavior that had robbed him of the family Darby Howland now enjoyed.
“Goodbye, Colie,” he said in what he hoped was just a pleasant tone. He nodded politely at the older gentleman, who nodded back and smiled. He walked out of the grocery store, feeling as if he was dragging his heart behind him on the ground.
Colie watched him go, all the way out the door. He never looked back once. She smiled sadly. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
COLIE STAYED JUST long enough to see her father settled back at home before she took Ludie to the airport and boarded the private jet that would take them back to Jacobsville. During the long flight, she recalled the odd conversation with J.C.
Did he know that Ludie was his? She thought he must have. He hadn’t come right out and said anything, but he’d insinuated it.
She allowed herself, for just a minute, to wonder what would have happened if he’d come to his senses sooner, if he’d been able to speak to Colie before she married Darby. But J.C. had been adamant about not wanting children. Perhaps if he’d known the child was his, he’d have asked her not to have it.
She looked at the sleeping child in her arms and didn’t regret a thing. Ludie was so precious. Every day brought new joy, new wonder, into Colie’s life. She wished she’d lived a conventional life, that she hadn’t stepped out of line so badly. She wished that J.C. had been more honest, more open with her. Something had happened to him, something very bad, that had taught him not to trust people.
She wondered what it was. She knew his mother had died when he was ten, that he was placed in foster homes until he got through school. Was it in one of them that he’d had something traumatic happen? It might explain his hatred of his father, his refusal to even try to contact the man who was his only surviving relative. J.C. didn’t consider that people had motivations, reasons for the way they behaved. It explained a lot. He saw things in black-and-white, never in shades of gray.
&nb
sp; Colie was sorry for him. He’d be alone his whole life. His daughter would grow up in Texas, with another man’s name. All that, because J.C. never trusted Colie. It made her sad.
Thinking about Darby made her sadder. He was losing ground. It wouldn’t be much longer. But she’d make his remaining time as happy as she could, she decided.
She looked down at her daughter and smiled. Ludie’s gray eyes were open, staring up at her. She made a face that looked suspiciously like a tiny smile. She wondered if babies could smile at this age. She’d have to ask the doctor when she got home.
* * *
REN NOTICED HOW preoccupied J.C. was. “Your mind’s not on the job,” he said drily.
J.C. shook his head. “She had the baby with her. It’s a beautiful child,” he added, the words almost torn out of him.
“Merrie wanted to see him, but our son’s had an ear infection. She’s had her hands full.” He chuckled. “So have I. We both get up with him in the night, still, if he cries. They say the first two years are spent mostly in doctor’s waiting rooms. Babies get sick for all sorts of reasons, despite the immunizations they give.”
“Merrie had them stretch those out, didn’t she?” he asked absently.
“We both did,” Ren replied. “They have to have the vaccines, but I’m not letting anyone give them all at once. Even when we take the puppy to the vet, we have them stretched out. Safety precaution,” he added. “They can’t predict the interactions of so many vaccines at once. At least, I’m not convinced that they can. We’re erring on the side of caution.”
“Parents.” J.C. laughed. But his eyes were sad. “That’s something I’ll never know about,” he added a little stiffly.
“How’s Colie’s dad, did she say?” Ren said, changing the subject.
“He’s doing very well,” he replied. He hesitated. “I’m off Saturday. Thought I might go and check on him. If he’ll let me in the door.”
“Reverend Thompson’s not like that,” Ren commented, because he and Merrie and their son all went to the local Methodist church. “He never holds grudges, and his door’s always open.”