Putting Out

by S Doyle

  “What if I said I just don’t feel like doing this anymore?”

  He stared into weary blue eyes that had haunted him for more years than he would admit.

  “I would say… tough.”

  “That’s what I thought you would say,” she replied, resigned to her fate.

  “Kenny won’t let you quit.”

  “Kenny had a knife in his back and yelled at me to sign my card. The man’s not normal.”

  “True.”

  “It’s really over?” she asked him. “As in over-over. Not all of the sudden he leaps up and comes after me again because he’s not really dead – over?”

  “He’s dead, babe. All the way. It doesn’t get any more over than that.”

  They waited for time to pass and for someone to announce it was okay to see Kenny. Reilly dozed against Luke’s shoulder while he stared at the clock and watched time pass. But he must have dozed, too, because he didn’t hear the explosion of activity until it was upon him.

  “Where is he?”

  Luke opened his eyes to see a familiar woman standing in front of him. Her hair was in disarray and her cheeks were flushed. She appeared to be on a mission.

  “Tessa?”

  “Where is he?”

  Reilly jolted awake, too, and rubbed her eyes before focusing on the crazed woman towering over her.

  “Tessa, what are you doing…?”

  “I’ll ask one more time, then I’m not going to be so nice. Where is he?”

  Reilly seemed to catch on quicker than Luke did. “He’s in room 215, but you can’t see him. They’re still…”

  Tessa turned and whirled out of the waiting room, not bothering to listen to any explanations.

  “Wow. I can’t tell if she’s pissed he got hurt or worried he’s not going to be okay.”

  “I’m going with pissed,” Luke decided. Then he grinned. “Did you see her eyes? Kenny is in trouuuuble.”

  “And he only has one arm to defend himself with. Maybe we should help him?” Reilly asked?

  Their eyes met.

  “Nahhh.”

  Reilly stood up to stretch her legs, tight from sitting for so long. The tension caused by the worry for her brother seemed to settle in her back and shoulders. Right now if she had a club in her hand she doubted she would be able to swing it. The ding of the elevators on the other side of the waiting room sounded and a shock of white hair could be seen through the glass windows.

  “Pop,” she muttered as she watched him walk the short distance to the nurses’ station.

  His shoulders were hunched forward and he seemed older than he had just months ago. Moving quickly, she made it to the doorway of the waiting room just as the nurse was pointing out her location. Pop’s shoulders slumped a little more as soon as he saw her. Reilly knew it was relief and not grief that weighed him down.

  In moments, she was embraced in a big bear hug and she found herself fighting back tears because it felt so damn good.

  “He’s going to be okay, Pop.”

  “Thank God,” he sighed.

  “The guy was the same crazy who used to call the house and send the letters. He said an angel told him to do it,” she explained into his broad chest. There was no point going into any more detail. No doubt that man was upset enough.

  “Put it out of your mind. Kenny’s fine and the man… well, they showed what happened to him on television.”

  “You must have freaked,” she guessed, gazing up into his concerned face.

  “That’s putting it mildly. Your Grams was in a state. But I didn’t want her making this trip. It would have been too much for her. The Haskells are staying with her. I’m under orders to report back on the hour.”

  “You know Tessa is here.”

  “I do. She sprinted out of the cab before I could catch up. She came to the farm and insisted she be allowed to come with me. We got the first flight out we could. Near out of her mind she was with worry. For future reference it’s not very comfortable traveling with a woman on the edge.”

  Reilly laughed and pulled herself out his embrace.

  “Come on. You can wait with Luke and me.”

  Tessa is in with Kenny now, and I’m guessing they need some alone time.”

  “She seems upset with Kenny for some reason,” Pop suggested, following her into the hospital’s sterile waiting room. “Why do you think that is?”

  “I would say you’re looking at about twenty years of pent-up emotion that’s about to bust free.”

  “Oh, my. We should wait then. Poor boy. He only has one good arm to defend himself with.”

  Kenny grimaced as the nurse tightened the bandage around his shoulder.

  “Try to keep still and I’ll be in to check on you in a few hours,” she advised.

  “Thanks.” He thought about giving the nurse one of his special smiles. A hey-how-you-doing smile because she was cute and blonde and had a nice face. Then he remembered his arm hurt like a mother son-of-a-bitch and decided he wasn’t up for flirting.

  It was a dark, dark day, indeed.

  Maria, as she’d introduced herself, left his side and walked over to the door but before she could pull it open someone was pushing it back with a good bit of force.

  “Excuse me,” Maria squeaked. “He’s not allowed to have visitors yet.” “

  Tess,” Kenny said.

  She stood in the doorway with a look on her face warning anyone who got in her way not to mess with her. Considering she was twice the size of cute little Maria, Kenny feared it could get ugly.

  “It’s all right, Maria. You better let her in.”

  Tessa moved past the nurse with an evil glare as the girl scooted around her and headed out the door.

  “Hi.”

  “You… you… you…” Tessa sputtered then dropped her face in her hands. “The TV. And then I shouted. There was a knife and I could see…”

  He listened to her broken sobs and it broke his heart. Kenny tried to reach out to her with his good arm, but she was beyond his reach.

  “It’s okay,” he muttered. “I’m okay.”

  She dropped her hands and the warrior expression was back.

  “You jerk. You … jerk!”

  Kenny could see she was struggling for something way worse than jerk, but Tessa didn’t have it in her to bring out the heavy artillery. She was a good girl, after all.

  “I take it you’re upset,” he prompted.

  “Upset! You come home. You turn everything upside down. You tell me that you’re ready to commit to me. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Believe that,” he told her. “I love you, Tess.”

  “Then you go and get hurt and I have to watch it on television.”

  “I do, you know. I always have. I was just so damn afraid of it. You know I never wanted to blame anything on my parents being gone because Pop and Grams always seemed to fill the void. But Reilly and I were talking. It occurs to me she kept getting married to avoid settling down with Luke and I just kept playing around to avoid settling down with you. Maybe we’re both afraid.”

  Tessa moved toward the bed, her eyes pinned on his face. He assumed she was looking for his angle, but for the first time in his life he didn’t have one. He was telling the bald truth and it left him feeling more naked than the sheer hospital gown they made him wear.

  “They interviewed that golfer you were dating.”

  “Erica?”

  “I guess,” Tessa shrugged. “She was crying.”

  “Hmm. That’s weird. She doesn’t strike me as a crier.” Erica in his mind was too cut and dry for something like tears.

  “Maybe she misses you. Maybe she’ll realize how close she came to losing you and she’ll want you back.”

  “Maybe,” Kenny allowed. “It won’t make a difference. I’m hooked. I love you, Tess. I’m not sure you heard me the first time.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I heard you. I just don’t know what to think ab
out it. All of the sudden you love me?”

  He shook his head. “It hasn’t been sudden. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  Her head tilted in a gesture that he knew signaled disbelief but the only thing he had to counter with was truth.

  “I do. I love the way you look and laugh. I love the way you are with people and with me. I like me better when I’m with you. I kept going away knowing you would always be there and then you weren’t and I flipped.”

  “You flip and I’m supposed to jump. After twenty years?”

  “No, you’re supposed to decide whether or not you love me, too.”

  Her face scrunched up into an angry frown.

  “Oh, of course I love you, Kenny. What the hell do you think I’m doing here? I’m a wreck. I haven’t slept or eaten in weeks. I told myself I wasn’t going to watch the coverage. I wasn’t going to look for you in your dorky white jumper and then I do and this happens! How the hell am I supposed to react to this?” she said, pointing to his shoulder.

  He smiled. She said hell. She was all fired up and it was because of him. Plus no doubt she was feeling sympathetic toward him since he was in the hospital with a knife wound. Now might be the time to act.

  “You’re supposed to take a deep breath. Because it turns out I’m okay. Then you’re supposed to say you’ll marry me.”

  Tessa hadn’t been listening when he said this as she was still wrapped up in her frenzy.

  “You’ve been stabbed. I’m pregnant. You say you love me and I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  “Did you just say you’re pregnant?” Kenny asked.

  “Did you just ask me to marry you?” Tessa asked at the same time.

  They stared at each other with wide eyes.

  Kenny gulped. A baby. “Mine?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought you were on the pill.”

  “I had just stopped taking it. It all happened so fast. I didn’t think it would be an issue. I’m thirty-six…”

  “But it is. I mean you are,” Kenny said.

  “Yep.”

  Kenny nodded. He did the math and realized she was almost two and a half months along, which means she had to have known for weeks.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Say what? Hey, it was nice seeing you. Good times. Oh, by the way, I’m pregnant. Good luck with your girlfriend.”

  “We talked. I told you how I felt.”

  Tessa winced.

  “You didn’t believe me,” Kenny realized. “I thought you were just lonely.”

  “I was,” he admitted. “For you. Can you come closer?”

  She looked at him suspiciously.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want do this as best I can in a hospital bed.”

  “Kenny,” she admonished. “I don’t think we should get crazy with your arm all bandaged up.”

  He smiled mischievously.

  “Look whose mind went in the gutter. I wasn’t talking about heating up the sheets. Just give me your hand.”

  She reached out her hand. He took it in his. The contact felt good to him. Solid and right and warm and permanent.

  “Tessa Elizabeth McDonald….”

  “I still can’t believe you remember my middle name,” she puffed.

  “Soon to be mother of my child,” Kenny continued undaunted despite the fact his heart rate kicked into another gear as the word child left his mouth. “Will you marry me?”

  “You mean it?” she asked tightening her grip on his hand. “You really mean it?”

  Kenny paused for a second to consider how important all this was. Forever. With Tessa and a baby. Forever. Tessa. Baby. Yeah, it was pretty much a no-brainer.

  “I really mean it,” he told her and despite his best efforts, he couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

  31

  “Can you believe she’s pregnant?”

  Reilly pulled back the covers and sighed at the sight of the soft pillow waiting for her weary head.

  “Can you believe he’s going to marry her?” Luke returned.

  The two were crawling into bed after a ridiculously long night. They’d left the hospital when the nurse forced them out of Kenny’s room at midnight. They’d taken Pop and headed back to the Savannah house leaving Tessa to sleep in a chair next to Kenny all night.

  Reilly had no such dedication to her mending brother. If she was going to play tomorrow, she needed her rest.

  It was now close to two in the morning and her ten a.m. wake-up call was fast approaching. The last thing she wanted to do was have a discussion on marriage, but something in Luke’s tone, his incredulousness she supposed, had her frowning.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He slipped in the covers and stretched his arms over his head.

  “It means, Kenny married. Married Kenny. Two words I wouldn’t have put together.”

  “He’s going to be a father, he needs to marry her.”’

  “Kenny. Father. Father Kenny,” Luke smirked even as he closed his eyes. “Two more words I wouldn’t have put together.”

  “Are you saying my brother is so emotionally crippled he’s incapable of being a husband and a father?” Reilly asked affronted.

  “No,” he said carefully. “I just thought I would never see the day, that’s all. I’m happy for him.”

  “Happy for him you want to be him? Or happy for him but glad you’re not him?”

  Silence lingered.

  “Luke?”

  “Hold on. I’m trying to figure out if there is a right answer for that.”

  “Never mind,” she huffed, turning on her side away from him and giving the pillow a few satisfying whacks. “As if I would even want to marry you.”

  “You know I have a lousy track record.”

  “There’s an understatement.”

  She felt him roll toward her. His breath warmed the shoulder left bare by her tank top.

  “I can’t get you to agree to live with me and you want to get married.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why are you getting pissed at me?”

  She had no idea. She had been the one to drag her heels regarding moving their relationship ahead. It was just the way he’d so easily ruled out marriage that made her balk. Which was ridiculous. He was right. Thinking about marriage before she’d agreed to live with him full- time was like thinking about landing on the moon before figuring out if space flight was possible.

  “Can we chalk it up to I’m a little emotional right now?”

  It was a lame excuse, but if anyone was entitled, she was.

  “What? Because your brother was stabbed? Because you’re competing for a Royal Blue jacket, something no one thought a woman would ever be able to do? Or because you’re so gone over me it’s left your head a little muddled?”

  “Yeah, that one,” she mumbled into the pillow. “Number three.”

  “I thought so. You’re going to have to make up your mind about us.”

  “I suppose. But not tonight,” she sighed. She felt his arm wrap around her waist, his mouth nuzzle against the back of her neck.

  “No funny stuff. I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  “I know. You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

  Reilly sat up, forcing Luke to roll onto his back. “Oh, my God. Tomorrow is Sunday. I’m playing in the American on Sunday and I don’t have a caddy!”

  “You have a caddy,” Luke assured her.

  Reilly looked back at him, her heart pumping with a sudden surge of anxiety.

  “I do?”

  “It’s all been arranged.” He tugged her down onto the bed next to him.

  “It has?”

  “You’re going to love him,” he said, once again spooning her body from behind and wrapping her in a cocoon of warmth and safety. “Trust me.”

  Trust him. It seemed like an easy thing to do. As tired as she was she was all about doing the easy thing. Thoughts f
loated through her head like so much driftwood as her mind settled into sleep.

  The first birdie of the day. The crowd. The finish. The attack. The shooting. The screams. The chaos. Kenny on the ground. Kenny bleeding.

  The angel told me I had to do it.

  That’s what Neville had insisted. But an angel wouldn’t tell him to kill, Reilly’s drowsy mind told her. Angels were after all…angels.

  Sunday…Day four

  “Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to our continuing coverage of this historic and now infamous American tournament.”

  “You can say that again, Steve. The players’ heads and their game must still be reeling from the surreal events of yesterday afternoon. As many already know, the caddy in question is Reilly Carr’s brother. It stands to reason her game is suffering the most.”

  Steve shook his head and strived for a look of sorrowful disappointment for the camera. “Three bogies on the front nine. The rest pars. Nothing like we saw out of her yesterday.”

  “No, she’s definitely struggling. And she’s just about taken herself out of contention. Nobody can blame her. It seems between the pressure of playing this event, the attack yesterday, and now working with a new caddy there’s really no way anyone could have expected her to come out here and perform well today. If anything, at three over, I think she’s handling herself remarkably well. She could have opted to withdraw. According to the few people I spoke with in her camp it wasn’t an option for her or her brother, who is watching her from his hospital bed.”

  “On a lighter note, did you ever think you would see the day Luke Nolan carried a bag for another player?”

  Dave laughed appropriately.

  “Luke on the bag instead of playing the course is quite a sight. Just one more reason why this will be an American for the ages. So far no amateur caddy mistakes. He seems to be holding his own.”

  “When he isn’t arguing with Reilly over her club selection.”

  Dave chuckled again.

  “There have been a few squabbles, but so far I think she’s had the upper hand. Let’s get back to the action.”