“Hey,” he said, “I already told you Annie and I will be back for New Year’s. She wants to fix her grandmother up with King.”
Laughing through her tears, Marthe said, “Annie told me. I think it’s a super idea.”
“So why are you still crying?”
“Oh, God, Jed. I’m pregnant. I’ve suspected it for a while, but I just took one of those home tests this morning. Ditch doesn’t know yet.”
“Why the tears?” Jed asked. “He’s going to be thrilled.”
“No,” she said. “We can barely afford the two we have.” With Sponge Bob blaring on TV, she cried all the harder, leaving Jed not sure what to do. Of course, he held on to her for dear life, but what could he say? The financial aspect of having kids was a sobering fact.
While he couldn’t be more pleased about how things were going with Annie, he’d made love to her twice without protection. She could be pregnant. Sure, he had savings—more than enough to feel comfortable asking Annie to marry him, if and when it came to that point. But he didn’t have nearly enough to raise and support a baby—or babies—of their own.
But if Annie told him on the drive back to Pecan that she was expecting his son or daughter, he’d be thrilled despite any financial hardships they’d encounter. And so would his good friend Ditch when he heard the news about the latest addition to his own family.
After telling Marthe just that, Jed said, “Do you want me to break it to him for you?”
She sniffled and shook her head. “I think I’ll farm Kayla and Billy out to Ditch’s mom this weekend, then let him know over a steak and baked potato—plenty of butter. He’s always in a good mood after eating butter.”
“Aren’t we all?” Jed said with a laugh.
“I think we’re ready.” Annie stepped up behind Jed, slipping her arms around his waist. “Mmm…I missed you.”
Marthe cast Jed her first real smile since they’d arrived. “I can’t wait to make Ditch pay up on that thirty-minute massage he owes me for losing our bet.”
Easing beside Jed, Annie said, “I still can’t believe you two bet on whether or not Jed and I would—Marthe? What’s wrong? You look like you’ve been crying.”
“Wh-where’s Ditch?” she managed to ask.
“Outside with the kids,” Annie said. “Billy got gum on one of the front stroller wheels, so Ditch is making him scrape it off.”
“He’s such a g-good father,” Marthe said, starting to cry all over again.
Annie was instantly by her side, putting her arm around her friend’s slumped shoulders. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
Marthe did.
And when she’d finished, Annie snatched a paper towel from the counter and wiped her cheeks. “I think this is fabulous. You two are great with kids. Why shouldn’t you have more?”
“B-because they cost a fortune. There are medical bills and clothes and lessons and college and—”
Annie said, “Wait here. I’ve got just the thing to ease your mind.”
Annie left the room and returned with a black velvet pouch in hand. “Once we’re gone, I want you to open this. It’s yours.”
Marthe’s eyes widened as she accepted the gift. “It’s heavy. What is it?”
“Your first baby gift from me to you. Now, stop worrying and start celebrating. Babies are supposed to bring joy.” Annie kissed her friend’s forehead, then told her how much she’d miss her with a heartfelt hug.
THEY’D SAID their goodbyes, loaded up the babies and were on their way home, but even fifty miles down the road, Jed couldn’t believe what Annie had done for Marthe and Ditch.
He finally asked, “Do you have any idea how much that egg must be worth?”
“I’m hoping it’s enough to buy a truckload of diapers and several years college tuition.”
“I’d say it’s worth a damn sight more than that. What made you give it away?”
Annie lifted those adorable feet of hers onto the dash and wriggled her toes. “A pretty selfish reason actually.”
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
With a smile, she asked, “Why should I tell you?”
“Because after all we’ve been through, we’re a team. And that’s pretty much a rule in all team sports—no secrets kept from other team members.”
“Oh, well, in that case…” The cocky look she gave him made him want to pinch one of her pink-tipped toes.
“I’m waiting,” he said, slowing to take the next curve on the winding road lined with ponderosa pines and stands of aspen.
“With us so happy, I couldn’t stand seeing Marthe so sad. I figured, what the heck? It wasn’t as if I’d even had time to become attached to the egg. And anyway, I figure King would approve of my decision.”
“I figure you’re right. So? What did you think about Marthe being so upset about her pregnancy?”
“I can’t say I blame her. Finances are something to consider.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too.”
“Plus, there’s the whole age issue. Kayla and Billy are already half-raised. It’s got to be scary thinking you have your child-rearing days almost behind you, and then starting over again.”
“You do want kids, though, right?” The second the question was out, Jed wished he hadn’t asked. He’d broached the subject the other day when they’d been fooling around, but this time he was serious. What if Annie said no?
“Absolutely.”
His shoulders slumped with relief. Good. He wanted kids, too. Maybe not today, but soon.
“You?”
When he nodded, her expression brightened.
And together, babies for once contentedly napping, Annie and Jed rode out the miles that brought them closer to their futures.
“YOU’RE NOT PREGNANT, are you?” Jed asked just past the exit for the Denver International Airport.
“What?” Annie looked at him sharply, brushing away tears.
“You’re crying. And it hasn’t been that long since we heard Marthe’s news.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “No. I’m not pregnant—at least, I don’t think so.”
“So what’s the matter?”
“Look in your mirror. The mountains are so beautiful. How can you stand to leave them?”
Jed laughed—not because he thought she was being silly, but because he understood how she felt. “Patti and my mom always cried when we left. Dad never knew if they were crying because our vacation was over, or because of their feelings about the mountains.”
“Maybe a little of both,” Annie said, blowing her nose on a fast-food napkin she’d found between the seats. “I didn’t expect to have so much fun. This might sound a little odd, but since we’re members of the same team…”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, eyes smiling.
“I know this trip was good for you in that it jolted you into realizing that Patti’s capable of looking after herself. It was also good for me. The past few years haven’t been all that great, and I was beginning to think I’d never trust again.”
Jed reached across the space between them, and locked his fingers with hers. “Thanks. After what Patti put me through, you can’t know how much that means to me. For a while there, I felt like I was going out of my mind.”
“Patti might not know it, but she’s very lucky to have you.”
“Right about now, I feel like the lucky one.”
From the back, one baby started to cry, then another and another.
Jed groaned. “I had to go and jinx us, didn’t I?”
“Hey,” Annie said, pointing to a run-down billboard in the shape of a giant sunflower. “Look on the bright side. We’re only fifteen miles from the world’s only working car made entirely from sunflower seeds—excluding the engine, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” Jed smiled.
“ANNIE, HONEY, wake up.” Jed lightly shook her awake.
Hands prayered beneath her cheek, her legs drawn up in what appeared to be an uncomfortable position beneath her, she s
aid, “Where are we? What time is it?”
“We’re home. And it’s about three in the afternoon.” After getting a late start the previous morning, they’d taken their time, and even spent the night in a motel outside Salina.
Annie inched into an upright position so slowly, it made Jed cringe.
“What hurts?”
“Everything,” she said. “Remind me not to fall asleep sideways again.”
“Gotcha. But you were so out of it after that last diaper stop, I think you would’ve fallen asleep standing on your head.” He grinned, smoothing his hand across her rumpled curls.
“So we’re really home? As in Pecan?”
“Yep. I already put the babies inside. I just left the van running with the air on so you wouldn’t bake. Compared to that perfect mountain weather, being in this heat again pretty much sucks.”
“We could always go back.”
“Believe me, if it weren’t for the twenty or so messages from my captain, the second we get hold of Patti, that’s exactly what I’d suggest we do.”
“You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“Nah. The boss just gets cranky in all this heat.”
“But isn’t he used to it? He’s a fireman.”
“Good point,” he said. “The next time I feel like going on a suicide mission, I’ll be sure to bring that up.”
“HOW ARE YOU DOING?” Annie asked at about eight, rocking Pia in her arms.
Patti and Howie’s plane had landed in Tulsa at six-forty, and they were due at Jed’s apartment any minute.
Jed shrugged. “I’m all right. I’ll be better once I’ve got you all to myself, though.”
She laughed, relieved to see him able to joke about their situation. Truthfully, she’d been worried about how his meeting with Patti would go. The way he’d first talked about letting his sister have it had spooked her.
Before hitting her, Troy had yelled—loudly enough that the last time, the time he’d sent her to the hospital—the neighbors had called the police. If they hadn’t, who knows where she’d be now? Or if she’d even be alive.
Truck lights shone through the slats of the mashed-potato-beige vertical blinds on Jed’s windows. She made a face. “We’ve got to get you some color in here.”
“What’s wrong with my place?”
“Everything,” she said. “Where should I start?”
A car door slammed shut
A few seconds later, another.
Annie watched helplessly as a muscle popped in Jed’s jaw. What was he thinking? “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.
Hand possessively on her bare thigh, he said, “Don’t leave me.”
She nodded just as a knock sounded on the door. “Jed?” a woman’s voice called out. “It’s us.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jed looked at Howie’s crutches, bruised cheeks, black left eye and right foot in a cast. He knew that as awful as Howie looked nearly a week after the accident, he must’ve really been bad off when his sister left town to be with him. But an hour of watching Patti coo over her babies, acting as if nothing had ever happened, filled him with slow-burning frustration.
While Jed was in the kitchen getting everyone Cokes, playing along with Patti’s everything’s normal routine, he couldn’t stop from replaying the desperation he’d felt. The sheer knife-edged panic that’d seized him the moment he’d realized something serious had happened to his sister.
He’d had the same feeling when his little brother was in the house dying. The same feeling when his parents had died and when Patti became a wild teen, running with the wrong crowd, determined to destroy her life before it’d even begun.
He looked up and Patti was in the kitchen. Grinning up at him with her glass held under the ice dispenser on the fridge, she said, “Some excitement, huh? Aside from the fact that Howie was hurt and my ankle’s sprained, I haven’t had such an adventure since—”
“An adventure? You think this week was an adventure?”
She waved off his concern. “Good grief, Jed, stop being such an old grouch. You know what I mean. The adventure of it. All this flying and driving and trying to get in touch with each other. In retrospect, it’s been quite exciting. Maybe we ought to do it all again, only—”
“Dammit, Patti!” Jed smacked his palm against a cabinet door. “This is so typical of you. Every grandma and her poodle has a cell phone these days, but—”
“Speaking of which, where was your cell while all of this was going on?”
Count on Patti to bring up his mistake when he was in the middle of bawling her out. Glaring at his feet, he said, “My phone was back here, but we’re talking about you. About how you didn’t reach me before I left for the cabin. You just left me here with three infants. Me. A bachelor who doesn’t know the first thing about babies. And you just took off, without even trying to get word to me, what—”
“I did try! At least fifty times. Do you want me to list them all? One, at the airport, only you weren’t home. Two, at—”
“Knock it off!” Jed raged, unable to keep his anger with her at bay.
In the living room, Annie jumped. The last time she’d heard yelling like that was with Troy.
Howie moaned. “Oh, no, here they go. Jed means well, but where Patti’s concerned, he’s never learned to let go.”
“She’s all he has.”
“I know,” Howie said. “It’s the same for her with him. I mean, I know she has me now, too, but it’s different with Jed. They have a strange bond that I’m still trying to figure out.”
Jed railed on. “This has to be your last stunt, Patti. The last time you’re going to act like a child. Running off without telling anyone where you were going was just that—childish. No matter what the circumstance. What if the babies had been older? Old enough to know that Mommy was gone, and worry that she might not be coming back? What could I have told them?”
“I’m sorry,” Patti said, her voice broken. “I didn’t not call you on purpose, Jed, any more than you purposely forgot your cell. You act like I deliberately set out to push your buttons. God, you always think the worst of me.”
“I think I’ll go referee,” Howie said, reaching for his crutches.
Annie clasped her fingers tightly on her lap, glad the babies were upstairs sleeping.
“That’s just it!” Jed roared. “You’ve done a crap-load of button-pushing in the past, Patti. Remember the time you called me wasted from Jasper Henning’s party? You asked me to come and get you, then you took off with Greg Davis. You didn’t come home for three days. And how about the time you—”
“Shut up!” Patti fired back. “I’m not a messed-up kid any more.”
“No,” he said. “You’re mother who thought nothing of hopping on a plane without—”
Annie squeezed her eyes shut.
What was she doing?
Jed’s raised voice sounded remarkably like Troy’s.
Her ex-husband yelled first, and hit later.
Was that how it would be with Jed? After all, if he yelled at his sister, what was to stop him from yelling at his girlfriend—or his wife?
Annie knew better than to have fallen for him. How many warning signs had she chosen to ignore? His controlling nature. His seeming perfection. And now the yelling.
It was all the same.
How blind was she? How dumb?
Had she learned nothing in the past five years? All along she’d been worried that Jed only liked her for her skills with the babies. Ha. That was nothing compared to the dark truth she was now finding out.
Troy had begun their relationship making Annie believe he was the answer to her every prayer. He’d bought her flowers and candy and sung her sappy love songs on karaoke night down at their favorite local bar.
Annie grabbed her purse, then crept out the front door.
“You dumb, bitch. I told you to get light beer. You know I’m in training for that bodybuilding show at the gym.”
; “I’m sorry, Troy. They were out of light. I figured this would do.”
“Yeah, well you figured wrong.” He slammed his fist against the wall, creating one more dent among many.
Cringing inside, always inside herself, Annie fussed with the dish towel that hung from the rack beside the sink.
So pretty.
She’d just focus on the pretty pink cabbage roses.
The towels had been a gift from her grandmother, who’d warned her about Troy. Grams told Annie she was marrying him too fast. That she was trying to escape the pain she felt over losing her grandfather, then her parents to another overseas assignment. Looking for shortcuts to achieve her dream of starting her own family.
Bam.
Instead of the wall, Troy turned to Annie, smacking her hard across the face. “The next time I tell you to get light, if State Line’s out, go to another store. You know I had a bad day down at the plant. Why do you want to go and ruin my night, too?”
“I—I don’t,” she said, slipping further inside herself.
He hit her again. “Get the hell out of here. Don’t come back until you’ve got the right beer.”
Annie hadn’t bothered coming back at all.
In the Emergency Room, she’d filed a police report. The next day, divorce papers. With no children, and practically no shared property, the matter was settled soon enough—especially since Troy already had his next female punching bag in line.
Annie tried to warn the girl, but it hadn’t done any good. Charmed senseless by Troy’s good looks and honed body, Heather could have cared less about anything other than snagging the man she thought he was, rather than the nightmare Annie knew him to be.
Minutes later in her condo, door closed and locked behind her, Annie quickly repacked her duffel bag, snatched her car keys and left Jed much the same way she’d left her husband five years earlier.
Quietly.
Without a fuss.
Forever.
JED STOOD in the kitchen, legs shaky from delayed relief. His anger with Patti came from loving her so damned much, and she knew that. He pulled her into a hug.
“Aw,” Howie said, hobbling into the room. “I figured it’d only be a few minutes before you two made up. And for the record,” he said to his wife, “I agree with your brother. If you’d pulled that stunt on me, I’d have called every cop from here to the Grand Canyon.”
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