Baby by Midnight?

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “Hey, I offered to stay and get you cleaned up.” He waved hello to Nell, who hot-footed it over with a mug and a pitcher of ice water in one hand, dual coffeepots in the other—one containing freshbrewed coffee and the other just plain hot water.

  “‘Lo, Alex,” she said with a smile as broad as sunrise. Expertly switching all the beverage paraphernalia, she put the mug in front of him and filled it to the brim with heavenly scented, steaming-hot coffee. “I’ve been saving back a piece of cherry pie every day this week, thinking you’d be in, askin’ for it. Where you been keepin’ yourself?”

  “I’m a workin’ man, Nell. You know nothin’ short of trainin’ a good horse could keep me out of the Chuck Wagon for very long. Got any pie today?”

  She nudged him with her elbow. “Pie’s not a fit breakfast for a workin’ man. You know that. I’ll just get Holden to fry up a plate of food that’ll do some serious stickin’ to your ribs.”

  “That’s what I came in here for,” he said with a grin.

  “Be back in two wags of a hound dog’s tail, with a breakfast you won’t soon forget.”

  He gave her a wink. “My mouth’s already watering.”

  “Josie and I’d like to order,” Annie began only to be stopped by Nell’s frown.

  “I’ll bring you expectant mamas a bowl of oatmeal,” Nell said, as if their order should have been obvious. “You need some good, old-fashioned grain in your diet. After all, we want these young’uns to come out healthy as little ponies, now don’t we?” She gauged the amount of tea left in Josie’s mug in a glance and hoisted the hot water pot. “You need a refill on that tea?”

  “No thanks.” Josie slid her hand over the top of her cup. “I’m fine.”

  “Me, too.” Annie picked up her mug to fend off another refill, which would take her drink to the level of hot water with a tint of tea. “And oatmeal sounds—” Nell’s eyebrows went up, transforming the words on Annie’s tongue into a resigned “—right tasty.”

  Nell nodded approval and was off for the kitchen like a round of buckshot, calling hellos to regular customers, directing the other two waitresses with a jerk of her head, refilling coffee cups and water glasses, chatting here and there on her way to the kitchen, and yelling from time to time at Holden, who seldom paid any attention to what she said. Alex clasped his hands on the table and looked from Annie to Josie and back again. “How much will you two give me to slip you some bacon and eggs under the table?”

  “Not as much as if you give me a taste of that coffee.” Annie inhaled the aroma and promised herself an entire pot of the brew after the baby came. Two pots. Every day. If, that is, she decided not to breast-feed. “Just scoot your cup over this way, so I can reach it.”

  “Forget it,” he said, cradling his palm around the mug. “I’m not contributing to your delinquency.”

  “You’re afraid Nell will kick you out of here without breakfast if you do.” Josie fished the tea bag from her cup. “I don’t know where Nell gets her information, but even Dr. Elizabeth isn’t such a fanatic about what I eat.”

  “I think you should listen to Nell,” Alex observed. “She knows a thing or two about food. And a little self-restraint, just to be on the safe side, isn’t a whole lot to ask, you know.”

  Josie scowled at him. “You give up coffee and then talk to us about how a little self-restraint is good for the soul.”

  “Baby,” he corrected. “Good for the baby.”

  “Ever notice how it’s the fathers who suddenly know so much about sacrifice when it comes to being pregnant?” Josie asked.

  Perhaps the remark would have passed unnoticed if Annie could have kept her gaze from jerking to Alex. Or if his gaze hadn’t already been on hers, waiting for her reaction. Or if the knowledge of fatherhood hadn’t been so intensely deep and sure in his blue eyes. As it was, all she could do was go for yet another denial. “Men always like to believe they understand things they know absolutely nothing about.”

  Alex held her gaze while she grew tense with wanting to blurt out the truth, and Josie looked from one to the other with frank curiosity. “Did I say something funny?” she asked. “Because you both have the oddest expressions on your faces.”

  “You said ‘fathers,’” Alex explained, not looking away from Annie for a second. “As if you were including me in the lineup.”

  Josie’s startled glance switched from Alex to Annie. “Slip of the tongue,” she said, obviously embarrassed and just as obviously interested in the outcome. “It’s only because all the men in my life are suddenly sure they know what’s best for me and the baby.”

  “Must be very annoying.” Annie managed to disengage from Alex’s pointed and pressing gaze, even if she couldn’t outrun the thudding awareness of her heartbeat.

  “I don’t know why you’re complaining.” Alex raised his coffee to his lips, speaking to Josie, but giving Annie a small, knowing salute with the cup as he did so. “The men in your life have always been sure they know what’s best for you, Jo. Now they’re just sure they know what’s best for the baby, too.”

  “Like I don’t?” She sniffed in disgust. “It’d be nice, just once, to be given credit for having some sense of responsibility myself.”

  Alex shrugged. “It’s not like you listen to us, anyway. Pregnancy is downright mystifying to a man. Maybe by offering suggestions, we’re just—in our own clumsy way—trying to have some little part in it.”

  “Suggestions?” Josie was winding up to argue the topic at length, it appeared.

  Where was Nell and her pot of hot water when you needed it, Annie wondered, searching her brain for an unobtrusive segue into another subject. Any subject at all.

  “I’m sure,” Josie continued, the gleam of principle in her eyes, “that Annie will agree with me when I say we can spot condescension in a man at twelve paces.”

  “So, shoot me for being concerned.” Alex shrugged off the impending argument and, without so much as a nod to finesse, changed the subject. “What were you two talking about so secretively when I came in? Looked like gossip to me.”

  “You think I’m going to let you in on any secrets?” Josie challenged.

  “Ah, come on, Jo. You know you’re dying to tell me the news. Whatever it is.”

  Annie watched Alex expend a little effort, and charm his sister right back into good humor. Pregnancy was a funny thing, she thought. Hormones all out of whack. Mood swings cycling from high to low and back again without warning. Crying one minute over nothing at all. Or feeling elated because a man walked into the room and sat down across the table. Well, not just a man. Alex. Who shouldn’t always take forgiveness for granted. Who shouldn’t have forgotten to go to last night’s dinner, even with the very real, very troubling disaster of Koby’s injury. Yet all Annie could think of now was that he must have been even more worried last night than she’d realized. He must have been sick with concern about the training time lost and all that he had riding on the outcome of the December futurity to have forgotten Willie’s dinner. Alex was rebellious and he was often too stubborn for his own good. But he wasn’t thoughtless, and he’d never willingly hurt Willie’s feelings. He just wouldn’t.

  If only he could get it right—just once—with his family. If only they could see—just once—that he needed them to believe in him, too. If only—just once—she didn’t understand him so completely.

  Nell had just delivered two bowls of gruel—or oatmeal, as she called it—and a platter of food big enough to feed Amarillo, when the noise started. Filtering in past the cheer and chatter inside the café, came the plaintive, pathetic and prolonged howling of a dog. Alex salted his eggs and began cutting into them with his fork, oblivious—or pretending to be—to the long, ongoing complaint.

  Annie wasn’t fooled for an instant. “Did you leave Loosey in the truck?”

  “I couldn’t very well bring her in here, now, could I?”

  “You could have left her at the ranch.”

  He frowned. �
�Um...no. Turns out she’s not exactly Willie’s idea of a houseguest.”

  “You took a dog into the house with you last night?” Josie asked, clearly stunned by his daring. “After skipping dinner?”

  Alex looked at her. “I didn’t skip dinner. I honestly, regrettably, forgot. But that’s not the reason Footloose is homeless this morning. I nearly had Willie talked into letting her stay on a trial basis when she started this.” He paused, tipping his head toward the continuing lament. “Silly dog won’t let me out of her sight for longer than ten minutes at a stretch before she sets in to baying like a lovesick coyote.”

  Good, Annie thought. “She’s obviously formed a bond with you,” she said. “After the trauma she’s experienced, I think that’s only normal.”

  “Howling like a wolf under a full moon is not normal. She needs a good home. Somewhere she’ll be treated like one of the family. Somewhere she can be with people. Somewhere she can sniff out news...” He turned his calculated plea toward Josie, who was ready for him.

  “No. No. And no. Justin and I don’t want a dog. Not with the baby arriving so soon. Maybe later, but not now. Definitely not now.”

  Alex pursed his lips, and Annie knew his ultimate goal—probably the only reason he’d tracked her to the Chuck Wagon this morning—even before he turned his guileless gaze on her. “Any suggestions, Annie?”

  He was sly. So sly.

  And she was a sitting duck when it came to him.

  “Just one,” she said, knowing full well the dog had been coming her way from the minute Alex set eyes on it. “Hand over that bacon, half of those eggs and a biscuit with gravy. Then we’ll talk.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Look, I’ve got to go and I can’t take you with me, so quit asking.” Alex swept the hat off his head and rested it on his bent knee. “I know you’re disappointed, but I expect you to buck up and act like a lady about it.” Squatting on his heels in front of the collie-shepherd, he scratched Loosey’s chin until she quivered all over with ecstasy. “That means no howling, understand?”

  She wagged her tail, signifying she understood the sweet touch of his hands, if nothing else. Watching from the porch steps, Annie wished she hadn’t been so quick to jump in and take responsibility for Loosey, hoped the dog would accept her as substitute and not spend the night howling after Alex and, for no good reason, dreaded the moment he would leave.

  It wasn’t even as if he were going away some where. Just back to the ranch to do some busywork chores that Matt had assigned as if Alex were still a rebellious teenager needing to do penance for his crime of forgetting dinner. Annie saw it as punishment, pure and simple, but Alex seemed to believe that atonement would, at least, keep the peace if not restore him to the family’s good graces. She didn’t figure he’d ever stop caring what Matt thought. Or Jeff. Or Josie. Or Ken, Debra and Willie... All of them made up the family he wanted so much to please. All of them made up the family he fought so hard to be separate from.

  Not having had anyone in the way of family other than Uncle Dex—at least no one she remembered with much clarity—Annie didn’t exactly comprehend the dynamics of parental approval and sibling rivalry, but she knew they’d shaped Alex as surely as ancient wind and water had shaped the Bighorn Mountains.

  “Go, Alex.” Annie walked down the steps to where canine and cowboy were saying their lingering goodbyes. Reaching down, she took hold of the dog’s spiffy new collar. “Just go. It’s not like she’s never going to see you again. She’ll be fine once you’re out of sight.”

  Alex looked up at her for a long moment, then got to his feet and dusted his hat against his thigh. “This is temporary, Annie. More like doggie day care than a transfer of ownership. I know you prefer to believe I’m just dumping Loosey on your doorstep, but right now isn’t the best time for her to be at the ranch. Willie would have let her stay, I think, but Matt was adamant.”

  “So you’ve told me.”

  “Okay. Be that way. I’m not going to pretend I’m crazy about having a pet, but I won’t shatter under the responsibility, either. I’ll be back tonight to feed Koby and take Loosey out for a walk. Well, more of a three-legged hobble, I guess.” He smiled and Annie’s will of iron bent like cheap cutlery. “You can go, too, if you think you can keep up.”

  “Don’t tell me Nell gave you instructions to make sure I got some exercise, too?”

  “Nope. I thought of it all on my own. Which isn’t to say I think you look unhealthy.”

  “I look like Uncle Dex’s Jersey cow a week before she’s due to calf.” Annie rubbed her hand across the spot where the baby kept up steady and uncomfortable kicking.

  Alex’s gaze followed her movement. “Is he moving around?”

  His tone sounded hesitant, hopeful. She got no pleasure out of lying to him, but she was all out of resistance. One touch of his hand and, like Loosey, she’d be wiggling all over with pleasure. “No,” she said, letting her hand fall back to her side. “Just a muscle spasm. Happens once in a while.”

  He looked disappointed and she all but admitted her lie and invited him over to put his hand on her stomach and experience the baby’s kick for himself, which was not a good idea, she knew. But one that was on the tip of her tongue, nonetheless, right up until he opened his mouth and started in again making suggestions.

  “Maybe you ought to go in and lie down for a while,” he said. “It’s Saturday. The clinic’s closed. What else do you have to do?”

  Shop for a crib. A layette. Buy groceries...and dog food. Sand the secondhand chest she’d bought for the baby’s room. Make curtains. Attend to life’s details and about two dozen other odd jobs that were lying in wait for the moment she’d have nothing else to do. “Maybe I will,” she said, because otherwise he’d keep pressing his agenda on her and might never leave. Josie was right. Men were always thinking they knew more than you did about the right way to conduct your life or your pregnancy or any other job they deemed you incapable of handling without their help. “Maybe Loosey and I will snooze away the whole afternoon.”

  “Good idea.” He smiled, leaned down to rub the dog’s ear one more time, then surprised Annie by straightening, slipping an arm around her and drawing her into a swift, but attention-getting, goodbye kiss. “See you tonight,” he said before she could recover her voice. With a quickness the devil himself would envy, Alex settled the hat on his head, got in his old pickup and turned the ignition. As the motor sputtered, coughed and shook itself awake, he laid his left arm across the open window and leaned out. “Take care of my girl,” he said, but which one of them he was talking to was anybody’s guess.

  As the old pickup bumped and rattled its way to the main road, Loosey began to whine deep in her throat. Annie stooped down beside her and looped her arm around the collie’s neck, in hopes of stopping the howling before it got started. “I know how you feel,” she said aloud. “That’s why I can say this to you. Get used to it. He’s going to leave, and you’re going to stay behind. The sooner you accept that, the less time you’ll spend crying for the moon. Understand?”

  Loosey’s tail flopped in a halfhearted wag, but she didn’t howl.

  HE WAS BACK BEFORE SUNSET, which came earlier every evening, wearing a fresh-pressed shirt and jeans, sporting a jaunty grin and bearing sacks full of groceries. Loosey all but turned cartwheels on the kitchen linoleum, she was so excited. Annie, who’d had the afternoon to sober up her dizzy little heart, was able to greet him with casual interest, all of which she directed toward the possibility that somewhere in those sacks was chocolate.

  No such luck.

  “Are you kidding?” He replied when she asked. “I told you this morning I wasn’t going to contribute to the delinquency of an expectant mother.” He stored more canned goods than she could count, all the while she waited for an appropriate moment to tell him he could stop acting like the man of the house anytime now. It was one thing for her to agree to board his horse and dog-sit his collie. Another to decide to have
his baby and not consult him on the decision. But she wasn’t going to sit back and let him stock her cupboards with green beans and her freezer shelves with Good Choice Chicken and Vegetable Casseroles, while she pretended not to notice that he was playing house and enjoying the honey-I’m-home role immensely. “When we go in for your next appointment,” he said, slipping it into the conversation like an overconfident pitcher’s throwaway toss to second base, “I thought I’d ask the doctor about your diet.”

  “We?” she repeated, knowing that, appropriate or not, the moment had arrived. “You must be wearing your hat way too tight these days, Alex. It’s squeezed your brain into a layer of flapjacks.”

  He tossed a can of peas and carrots in the air and caught it with a showy swipe of his hand. “My hat fits just fine, thanks, and I’m thinking clearer than I have in months.”

  “Not if you believe I’ll let you go with me to see Dr. Elizabeth, you’re not.” She shook her head for added emphasis. “That’s about as likely as me eating a green bean because you think it’s healthy.”

  “It is healthy. You’re a doctor. Tell me you don’t advise your patients to eat balanced meals and stay away from chocolate.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Because...?”

  “Because my patients don’t know any better than to eat what their owners put in front of them,” she snapped, causing Loosey to look at her with a concerned doggy frown.

  Alex bent to reassure the collie with a pat on the head. With an ecstatic sigh, Loosey collapsed at his feet like a rag rug. “Annie,” he said, “the baby doesn’t get any choice in what you eat, either.”

  . Okay, so he had her in an official gotcha. She was out of practice, letting him bulldog the argument this way. “You are not going with me to see the doctor and that’s final.”