Murphy's Child

by Judith Duncan

  She read the card and laughed. Right out loud. He couldn’t believe it. Sitting upright, he snatched the card from her hand. It was a cartoon drawing, with a jockey standing looking down at his dead horse, and thundering up the track behind him were six wild, snorting horses. And it read, “Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do.”

  He grinned and handed the card back to her. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  Still smiling, she carefully eased up into a sitting position, clutching the half on, half off nightie against her. Wincing slightly, she stuck the card back in the arrangement, then touched a soft pink blossom. “This is really beautiful.”

  The nurse glanced at them. “It certainly is.”

  Murphy didn’t say anything. The off side of her nightie had gotten twisted around, and he could see the very ugly bruise that was developing on her hip, where she had been rammed against the seat-belt housing. His stomach did a queasy roll, and he glanced down at the toes of his runners, realizing again just how close she’d come.

  The nurse finished taking Jordan’s vitals, then set about straightening the bed. “If you’re feeling up to it, we can probably arrange for you to have a quick shower later. You’ll have to be careful not to get those stitches wet, but we can rig up some kind of waterproof bandage.” She smiled at Jordan as she straightened her pillow. “I know what it’s like. I was in a car accident a couple of years ago, and all I could think about was getting out of that bed and washing my hair.”

  Jordan gave her a grateful smile. “That would be wonderful.”

  The nurse patted her pillow. “Then I’ll see what I can do. And I’ll be right back to take you for a little walk.”

  His hands loosely clasped across his chest, his legs stretched out in front of him, Murphy studied Jordan, considering what he was going to say and how he was going to say it. He’d done a lot of thinking during the night, and he’d come to some conclusions. One was that he truly believed he was on the money about her—that she assumed it was her fault whenever something went wrong. He’d also come to another conclusion; after this last piece of the puzzle, he wasn’t quite ready to give up on her yet. Even as wiped out as he was, he was beginning to feel tense and antsy, as if he were about to walk across a long, tight wire and couldn’t see his feet.

  What he wanted to do was get up and pace, but he kept his butt planted in the chair. Holding his pose, he fixed his gaze on her. “I’m beat, and it looks like they’ve got some stuff planned for you, so I think I’ll head out. I’ll stop by and check on Baba and the tadpole.”

  She’d put her left arm in the other sleeve of her gown, and she continued to straighten the garment, her expression unreadable. “Are you coming back?”

  Still slouched in the chair, he watched her like a hawk as he put his battle plan in action. “No.”

  She didn’t look at him, but he could see from her face that his response upset her. He got up and stretched his arms above his head and cracked his shoulders, then rested his hands on his hips. “They think you’re going to be discharged today, so I left Mitch’s numbers at the desk. He’s going to come pick you up and take you home.”

  Bending over her, he braced his arms on either side of her head. And he remained like that until she finally looked at him. His expression was unsmiling when he spoke. “But before I go, there’s a couple of things I want to say to you, darlin’.” He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ve tried to quit caring about you, but I can’t. I’m not made that way.”

  Her eyes were so wide, so still, it was like looking into a gray lake, and she was so taut, she was barely breathing. He gave her a lopsided smile, his gaze not wavering a fraction. “And if you ever need me, I’m going to be there for both you and J.J. But I’m not going to be a doormat, either. You’re going to have to decide what it is you want.”

  Shifting his weight to one arm, he touched her nose, then ran his knuckles down her cheek, holding her gaze as if he’d hypnotized her. “Your getting pregnant was not your fault, Jordan. What happened in your childhood was not your fault. You’re not some kind of bad-luck charm that wreaks havoc on other people’s lives.” Very gently, he touched the cut on her lip, his voice quiet when he continued. “You’ve had bad things happen to you. But you’re a decent human being and you’re one hell of a mom. And I think we could put together the same kind of life my parents have. It’s all up to you, though.”

  Murphy leaned down and very gently brushed his mouth against hers, then lifted his head and met her gaze again. “You need to get Baba to tell you the story about the ruby-red ring. And then you’re going to have to decide what you want, and what you’re going to have to do to get it.” He held her gaze, her expression dead serious. “Because the next move is yours, Jordan. I think you want what I want, but you’re too damned scared to take a chance. But if you ever get your head together, if you ever decide to trust your feelings, you know where to find me. But just so you know—I’m not going to hang around forever, either. And I think you owe me an answer one way or the other. I want a life—I don’t want to be living in limbo.” He bent down and gave her another soft kiss, then straightened and stepped away, his gaze still serious. “It’s all up to you.”

  Then he turned and walked out of the room, his heart pounding and an uproar breaking loose in his belly. He had just run the biggest bluff in his life. Now the question was, would she get back in the game—or toss in her hand?

  It was a long walk out of the hospital, and for some reason, it was damned hard to go to Jordan’s place afterward to check on Baba and J.J. He’d experienced a peculiar hollow feeling when he’d taken the two of them there the previous night. But it was worse today. Going through that door immediately turned the hollow feeling into deep-down reluctance, and once inside, every room seemed to close in on him. He tried not to think about it and just took care of business. He made arrangements for the truck to be towed to the auto-body shop, checked to make sure Baba was okay for groceries and fed his kid, then hung around until J.J. went down for his morning nap.

  He was there two hours. It felt like a week. He had one cup of coffee with Baba. It felt like twenty. Fortunately for him, he found an old roll of antacid tablets under the seat of his truck when he left. He took two, then put the roll under an elastic band on his visor. He was damned sure he was going to be back living off those things again.

  And he was right. Murphy discovered over the next two weeks that he was a lousy poker player. One minute he was sure she’d come around, then the next moment he’d be sure she wouldn’t. And he went out of his way to avoid her, partly because of the game strategy, but more for his own sanity. Although he wasn’t sure he had much of that left.

  After the news of the accident made the rounds, his family formed a united front against him, some of them implying that his staying away after she’d been injured was unforgivable, and that he was acting like a jerk. Some didn’t even bother to imply—they came right out and said so. Even Baba had switched sides and started doing a lot of tsk-tsking around him, passing on her opinions—opinions that Jordan wasn’t taking very good care of herself, that she was looking worse since the accident, that it would make her feel better if he came to see her.

  Murphy knew he couldn’t afford to go see her. As far as he was concerned, this was like the ruby-red ring—if she wanted him in her life, she’d have to put her face in the water to get what she wanted. And if he wasn’t that important to her, he was better off out of the picture altogether.

  The only one who didn’t express any opinions was Mitch. Mitch didn’t say anything at all. Even though they hadn’t talked about his situation, Murphy suspected that his big brother had pretty much put it all together. And he also suspected that his brother saw through Jordan. It was as if his brother understood what Murphy was all about—and maybe understood why Murphy had dug in the way he had. Yeah, Mitch was a man for all seasons.

  But when the first of December had come and gone, and she hadn�
��t made a move, Murphy forced himself to face the facts; his big bluff had netted him zero. He realized he should have put a limit on how much time he was prepared to give her. But it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. As far as he was concerned, her not making any decision was the ultimate verdict. She wasn’t going to be responsible for the final cut—she was just going to let him go down carrying the ball.

  If he was honest with himself, he had to admit he’d half expected that from her. But what really ticked him off and had him seeing red was that two weeks before Christmas, he found out through the family grapevine that his mother had invited her and J.J. to spend Christmas with the family. It was his young nephew who spilled the beans, when he’d spent a Saturday at the job site with his dad.

  Murphy never said anything to the kid—he never said anything to anybody. It really didn’t matter one way or another to him. In fact, it was just bloody well fine by him. He wasn’t stupid. He’d realized in about two seconds flat that his sisters and mother had poked their noses in, trying to engineer a reconciliation. But it just wasn’t going to happen. Because he wasn’t going to be there. It was bad enough that Jordan didn’t even have the guts to phone to tell him that it was definitely finished between them, but the fact that his family went behind his back really blistered his behind. For the first time, he understood Mitch’s aversion to big family bashes. Especially when the women started circling the damned wagons.

  But then came the final blow, when he was told by someone from the accounting firm that Jordan had been offered a position at the head office in Vancouver. That finished everything off—because if Jordan ran true to form, she’d take it. And she would take his son with her. That night he went out and got dead drunk, and he probably would have instigated a fight if Mitch hadn’t shown up and hauled his ass out of there. After he sobered up, Murphy did exactly what he had done the last time around. He buried himself in work.

  A chinook blew in the fifteenth of December, and the thermometer rose twenty-five degrees in less than an hour, the fabled chinook arch bisecting the sky in two.

  The early-morning air was crisp and crystal clear, the shrill screams of Skil saws splintering the stillness, the kerthunk, kerthunk of compression guns adding percussion to the discordant sounds of construction. Meltwater gathered in the icy ruts in the unpaved road and wore narrow channels in the packed snow. It felt and smelled like spring, and it wasn’t even the New Year yet. That was the beauty of Calgary winters. The warm chinook winds would blow in, breathing false spring into the air and breaking the tedious hold of winter.

  It should have lifted Murphy’s spirits but it didn’t. They were back-ordered windows for two houses, and he had wanted to get them in before the weather turned cold again. But besides that annoyance, he was cranky and short-tempered, and had been for days. Deciding to give everyone a break, he climbed up on the rafters of a roughed-in bungalow and began sheathing the roof with sheets of plywood, working out his bad mood with a hammer. His jaw locked with determination, he made a decision. As soon as he finished off this roof, he was going to call his travel agent and see if she could book him a ticket to someplace—any place—for the holidays. Preferably someplace far away. Preferably someplace with no phones. Preferably someplace where it was hot and the beaches were private.

  He turned to drag another sheet of plywood into place, his gaze snagging on a midnight blue Explorer that was coming down the street. His immediate reaction—that crazy flutter in his chest—irritated him, and he clamped his mouth shut, giving himself a lecture. There were probably a thousand midnight-blue Explorers in the city. Except this one had tinted windows. And this one was stopping in front of the house he was working on.

  Releasing an exasperated sigh, Murphy rested his hand on his hip and stared across the development, recalling her visit the previous spring—when he’d wanted to pitch a hammer into next year. He felt pretty much the same way now.

  It was probably his own damned fault she was here. To avoid talking to her, he had reverted to his old arrangements with J.J. But he couldn’t keep that up much longer, especially if she took the job in Vancouver, which meant he was going to have to talk to her and hammer out some kind of agreement. And he’d also have to start making his own pickups and deliveries, instead of using Baba as a go-between. Especially when the weather turned cold. And especially since it was pretty obvious the game was over.

  He had broken one of his own rules and e-mailed her earlier in the week, saying he wanted to have his son for the entire weekend. To avoid seeing her, he’d asked her to drop J.J. off at his parents’. But she was here and J.J. wasn’t, which meant he was going to have go down there and see what in hell was going on. Who knew? Maybe she’d finally screwed up enough nerve to pull the plug; maybe she had decided to take the job in Vancouver, and maybe she’d come to tell him. That thought certainly didn’t do a whole lot to improve his mood.

  Thinking unpleasant thoughts, he lowered himself through the open rafters and strode into the kitchen, wishing he had something to kick. His face rigid, he began picking up scrap lumber and tossing the pieces out through the hole for the window, his temper rising. He was in no mood for this. No mood at all.

  He heard her enter the shell of the garage, then climb the makeshift ladder onto the main level. Her footsteps echoed on the subflooring, and he heard her pause, as if checking the living room.

  Turning to face the door, he leaned his shoulder against a stud, keeping his arms folded. He was going to erect some defenses of his own, and he was going to be as hard as nails.

  She entered the kitchen, hesitating when she saw him, her eyes wide, her expression going very still. His determination to remain as hard as nails faltered when she stepped out of the shadows and he got a good look at her face.

  He had seen her once from a distance right after the accident—when her face was still bruised and she hadn’t gotten the stitches out yet. She didn’t look so good then. She looked even worse now. She was wafer thin, the scar marring her perfect skin, and there was so much distress in her eyes, so much tension in her body, he was reminded of fine crystal vibrating at such a high frequency, it was about to shatter.

  Murphy watched her, a hollow feeling settling in his gut, knowing this was definitely not going to be pleasant. Steeling himself, he stared at her, his tone sarcastic. “Are you just out sight-seeing, or did you get lost?”

  She abruptly shoved her hands in her pockets, her movements stiff, her eyes going even darker. “Hello, Murphy.”

  “So,” he said, his body language deliberately unfriendly, “did you come to tell me you’re taking the job in Vancouver?”

  He saw a reaction in her eyes, but before he could read it she looked down at the floor, her expression shuttered as she began scraping the sawdust into a pile with the side of her boot. “I’m not taking the job in Vancouver.”

  “No?” he said, his tone uncivil. “I was under the impression it was a hell of a promotion for you—with big bucks attached.”

  Stilling, raking up sawdust, she answered. “It was.”

  So angry with her for bailing out on them, he had to force himself to put a lid on it. His tone was considerably less hostile and more controlled when he spoke again. “Well, if you’re not here to tell me you’re taking my kid to Vancouver, why are you here?”

  She looked up at him, not a trace of animation in her pale face. She just stared at him for several seconds, then looked down again, flattening the pile of sawdust. “Actually, I brought you something.”

  A strange sensation began in Murphy’s middle, and it spread like ripples through his whole body. He found it suddenly difficult to get his breath. His voice seemed thick in his ears when he spoke. “What?”

  She didn’t answer and she didn’t lift her head, and Murphy got an adrenaline rush. Straightening, he never took his eyes off her, his movements unhurried as he crossed the room. He stopped in front of her. “What did you bring me, Jordan?”

  For a second, he
thought she was going to turn around and leave, but she didn’t. But she didn’t look at him, either. He waited, knowing the next move had to be hers. Finally she withdrew one hand from her pocket and uncupped it. She was holding a plastic capsule, like one from a bubblegum machine. He took it from her, his insides sinking away to nothing when he saw what was inside. A ruby-red ring.

  Feeling as if he’d just had the wind knocked out of him, his thoughts totally derailed, and he stared at the ring and then at her, a tiny flicker of hope flaring to life.

  She drew a deep, unsteady breath, as if fortifying herself, then she raised her head and looked at him, her eyes dark and desolate, her expression waxen. And she was scared to death. “It’s been really awful since you left.” She swallowed hard and looked down, fussing with the pile of sawdust again. Her voice was shaking when she whispered, “And I was so scared. It was as if I was standing on this high, tiny platform and it was dark. And there was only one way off, but I was so paralyzed I couldn’t even try to find it.” Locking her arms tightly in front of her, she looked up at him, a terrible anguish in her eyes. “I love you, Murphy,” she whispered, her eyes filling up with tears. “And J.J. and I both need you in our lives—every day.”

  His face feeling like stone, Murphy stared at her, hope warring with anger. It wasn’t good enough. She had shot him down again. It took every ounce of discipline he had not to touch her. His tone was clipped when he spoke. “That’s not good enough, Jordan.”

  Dashing away the tears slipping down her face, she looked away and swallowed hard, the desolation in her eyes making his chest hurt. “When I had the accident...” She quickly wiped her eyes again, then met his gaze, her heart in her eyes. “You were right when you said I blamed myself. And it took a long time for me to get past the fear. I’ve never had anybody. And it was hard for me to believe that someone like you could love me. I was so scared to believe that. But I do. And I know that you would never...” Her voice broke, and more tears slipped free. “That you would never leave me.”