Baby by Midnight?

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “Okay.”

  “—it’s really not so...” He stopped talking. Stopped his runaway explanation. Stopped breathing. “‘Okay?’ As in forget the jelly doughnuts and bring out the carton of oatmeal?”

  She laughed, sounding as breathless as he felt. “As long as I don’t have to eat the oatmeal and as long as you’re not expecting a night of unmitigated passion, I’d sort of appreciate the company.”

  He couldn’t believe it. She said yes. “Yes?” he repeated, his heart in his throat. “You mean it?”

  She bobbled her head in a funny little nod, stroked his jaw with the back of her hand. “Sometimes, Alex—not all the time, but once in a while—it is that simple.”

  He kissed her then. Gently. Passionately. And very, very thankfully.

  Chapter Nine

  Annie couldn’t sleep. She lay in the dark, delighting in the feel of the warm man curled along her backside like a familiar dream. She knew he was awake, too. Could tell by the shallow, sometimes uneven, depths of his breathing that he was as aware of her as she was of him...and just as determined not to disturb her. She wondered what he was thinking, but didn’t want to ask. What if he told her he was going through the motions of training Koby in his head? What if he was remembering some faraway place where she’d never been and to which he wanted to return? What if his thoughts were a million miles from hers, and getting farther away by the second? What if tomorrow morning was the day he would leave?

  She had come very close to telling him he was right. That she’d made up a father for her baby because she didn’t trust Alex to take the responsibility that was rightfully his. Of course he knew she was lying. She hadn’t tried all that hard to convince him otherwise, which was a lie in itself. What had she hoped for? That he’d step up to the plate and force the issue instead of occasionally nudging her to admit the truth? That he’d declare this child to be his, a McIntyre by genetics and the law, and vow he would never leave her or their son as long as he lived? Alex didn’t make promises like that; she knew from experience. And to balieve he’d changed now, simply because he was here beside her...?

  Well, good intentions aside, bottom line, she didn’t trust Alex to stay with her. Baby or no baby.

  So that left the only thing she’d ever really had in the first place. Now. Today. This moment...with no guarantee of more to follow. It wasn’t all she wanted, but she’d take it and be glad for it. And she wouldn’t ask him for more by telling him the baby was his. In his heart he knew the truth. The choice, when he finally made it, would be his own, uninfluenced by what she hoped for or wanted.

  He moved and slipped his arm around her, hesitating when his hand touched the bulky, unyielding roundness of her tummy. She closed her fingers over his and drew his palm down across the cotton nightshirt that covered her, holding it flat against her stomach. It took a moment, maybe more, before she felt him relax. “Know what I was thinking?” he said, his breath stirring the hair at the back of her head.

  “How great cold pizza would taste right now?” she whispered back, wishing the night would never, ever end.

  “No.” She could hear the disgust in the single syllable. “I was thinking about the night you got so mad at your uncle you decided to run away. Remember?”

  Remember being mad at Uncle Dex? Vaguely. Remember the first time Alex made love to her? Like it was yesterday. “Mmm-hmm,” she murmured. “It was the summer after high school graduation and the only summer I qualified to work as a counselor at the Summer Arts Camp near Cheyenne, but Uncle Dex said he needed me to stay home and help him at the clinic. I was so mad I was ready to give up my college scholarship just to get away from him.”

  “He wasn’t open to compromise and neither were you. So you barebacked that walleyed cayuse he called a saddle horse out to Silver Horn Lake and he called me to go fetch you.”

  “He called you?” she asked, surprised.

  “He figured I’d know where to find you and that you’d be more apt to listen to me than him, anyway.”

  She frowned. “I never knew that.”

  “I know. At the time, I was in the mood to be your hero. I wanted you to believe I just sensed you were in trouble and knew you needed me. I wanted to be there for you.” He paused. “In truth, I was just scared because I was getting ready to leave for Florida and I was afraid you’d fall in love with somebody else and well, the long and short of it was, I took advantage of the situation that night and I’ve always felt guilty about that.”

  She remembered pretty clearly exactly which one of them had been the aggressor—and it hadn’t been Alex. “As I recall, Alex, it took a whole lot of persuasion to get you to ‘take advantage’ of me and I certainly have no regrets about it. I was going to get in trouble that night, Alex, one way or another. I was primed for it.”

  “And I was right there to make sure you did.”

  “And I’ve always believed you saved me from making a really big mistake that night. Alex?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you feel that?” She moved his hand lower, to the place where the baby moved in a ripple of sensation just below the quickening beat of her heart. “He’s changing position.”

  Behind her, she heard Alex swallow hard and knew she couldn’t have peeled his hand away from her stomach just then if she’d tried. “I feel him,” he said in a voice that might have been struck by lightning for all its awed, whispery excitement. “He’s moving around.”

  She laughed softly. “Yes, he is.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No. Sometimes it’s a little bit uncomfortable, but I just think about how cramped his space is getting in there and remind myself that there are a lot of things in life that are worth some discomfort.” She turned over so she could look into his eyes. “Like you, for instance.”

  Alex levered up onto his elbow, but kept his hand on her stomach as the baby rolled again.

  “Me?”

  “You. There are times—like tonight and the clinic visit—when I could happily strangle you with both hands. Then there are times—like the night at Silver Horn Lake and now—when I’m just happy to have you in my life.”

  “But, Annie, I—”

  “Shhhh,” she cautioned, not wanting him to spoil the moment with words. Meaningless words. She didn’t want to know his plans for tomorrow. She didn’t want to think too far ahead. She just wanted now. This moment, when the three of them were—whether Alex realized it or not—a family.

  KOBY NICKERED SOFTLY as Alex approached the stall. Probably happier about the smell of bran mash than because he wanted company. “Hi, ya, fella.” Alex opened the stall door and slipped inside, patting the velvety, dark nose that was already zeroing in on breakfast.

  The leg looked better every day, the swelling receding faster than either Alex or Annie had expected. Which was a good sign. Maybe he’d add a few extra minutes to their exercise time today, see if the horse showed any sign of discomfort.

  Discomfort, Annie had said last night. Some things are worth a little discomfort. She was quick to warn him not to rush Koby back into training. He knew she was right, of course. But the temptation was still there. He’d staked so much on winning the futurity, invested so heavily in the belief that this horse would make his reputation and his future, put all his eggs in this one equine basket. Never for a second considering what would happen if Koby was injured or just flat didn’t perform well.

  “Some trainer I am.” He ran a practiced eye over the animal, taking satisfaction in the sturdy musculature, in the sleek symmetry of a superb athlete, in the competitive spirit in his huge, dark eyes. Alex wasn’t wrong about Kodiak Blue. No matter what his brothers thought. There were times when a man had to trust his gut, and this was one of them. He’d wait out the month, rein in his impatience to work Koby, hide his very real worry that all his plans, everything he’d worked so hard for, could wind up amounting to nothing. If Koby didn’t recover fully from his injury, if he didn’t train well afterward, if he wasn�
�t ready for the futurity at the end of December... Well, Matt and Jeff wouldn’t want to proceed with the training and breeding programs at the S-J.

  Even if they encouraged him to revamp his original plan and approach the whole idea from a different slant, Alex knew this was his one and only shot. He had to go in a winner or not do the job at all. Implementing a training program without the full confidence of his brothers and with his own confidence shaken... Well, the whole idea would have three strikes against it before he even got it started. He hadn’t thought it through before, all that might happen if Koby didn’t compete and win the futurity. He’d never even considered what could go wrong and what would happen if it did. He had that much faith in this horse. But suddenly, last night, when he’d felt the baby—his son— move under his hand, the future took on a scary cast. If his plans fell through, then what did he have to offer Annie and the baby? No backup strategy. No if-this-doesn’t-work, we’ll-do-this-instead options. No second choices. Nothing except more disappointment. And that he simply would not do. Not to Annie who tried so hard to make him out as her hero.

  The feed bucket clanked as Koby nosed it against the boards and Alex shrugged off the mantle of worry. It was too late to rethink his decisions, too late to go back and take a less risky, more conservative approach to launching a business. He had things to prove between now and then. He wanted Annie to have plumbing that worked, an automatic dishwasher, a pantry stocked full of groceries, a nursery furnished with everything a little fellow might need to get his life started. Annie would be delivering his son around the beginning of the new year, the start of the new century, but hopefully not at the same time he was risking their future on a cutting horse. He had to be here for the baby’s birth. He had to ride Koby in the futurity events. But for now, all he could do was hope the two events wouldn’t coincide and prepare as best he could for both. The S-J provided a good income for all of them on a yearly basis, so there was no excuse for a McIntyre to be born needing anything that money could buy. That much, at least, he could do for Annie. And his son.

  “I’ll be back later,” he said to Koby, who paid next to no attention. “Can’t skip your exercise, now can we? Too many dreams riding on you, big guy. Too many pie-in-the-sky dreams.”

  “A DISHWASHER?” Annie had come home from the clinic to find Alex under her sink and a brandspanking-new dishwasher installed where once she’d had a nice-size cabinet. “You put in a dishwasher?”

  He slid out from under the sink, so pleased with himself, it was impossible not to smile in return. “Yep,” he said. “Had a little help from Ray with getting the pipes all hooked up properly, but I did the carpentry part all by my lonesome. What d’ya think?”

  “It’s very—” what did one say about a dishwasher that would be considered a compliment “—shiny.”

  “I can change the panel, if you want. Make it black instead of white. Look inside. It’s stainless steel. Plus, there’s a rack you can raise or lower which will accommodate any size baby bottle. Handy, huh?”

  Annie admired the stainless steel interior, examined the adjustable rack, raised and lowered it. “Very handy,” she agreed.

  He nodded with—amazingly—even greater enthusiasm. “There’s also a built-in heat sensor for the water so you won’t have to worry about sterilizing anything. It’ll get plenty hot enough, and you can put the bottle caps and nipples in that little compartment—” he pointed out the compartment with a snap-down lid “—and rest easy that nothing is going to fall down on the heating elements and melt.”

  “I would have worried about that,” she said with wry good humor.

  “Well, now you won’t have to.”

  She’d never seen him quite so taken with one of his own accomplishments and only wished he’d asked her before he’d bought the thing and installed it. Not that she’d have said no. Just that she would have liked to know he was tearing up her kitchen before he’d already gone and done it. “It’ll be a big help, Alex. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Once the baby comes, you’re not going to want to be spending any time washing dishes by hand.”

  No, indeed. “I was thinking I’d just order a month of pizzas in advance, use paper plates, plastic forks, disposable bottles. You know, simplify suppertime around here.” She laughed at the furrows of frown gathering across his brow. “I’m teasing, Alex. I love the dishwasher. Really. But where are we going to put all the stuff that was in that cabinet?”

  “Don’t worry.” Wrench in hand, he scooted back under the sink. “I’ve got an idea.”

  A WEEK LATER, her back porch had undergone a transformation, given up its identity as a cluttered, screened-in, added-on-as-an-afterthought porch and become a closed-in laundry room, complete with washer, dryer, oversize pantry, and enough spare footage left over to hold a plant stand. With plants. A Boston fern, a Norfolk pine, two African violets, and a good-size cactus plant. All looking healthy and happy under the ultraviolet glow of a grow-lamp. Complements of Mr. Handy, himself. It was wonderfully warm in the new room, too, courtesy of the new central heat and air-conditioning system installed in a remarkably rushed, rush job by Ray Shields’s son-in-law, Tom Stragge, who was, if possible, a bigger procrastinator than Ray himself.

  “Mmm,” Annie said after Alex finished giving her the grand tour and explaining the gyrations he’d gone through to make sure the project was completed in record time. “Looks like I’m in your debt again, Alex.”

  His expression went from elated to worried in a split second. “You don’t like it. What’s wrong with it? The color? ’Cause I can repaint it, Annie. It doesn’t have to stay like this. But that yellow paint was left over from the baby’s room and I thought it would brighten this whole back porch room so—”

  “The color’s fine.” She felt bad for not being able to work up the enthusiasm he obviously had expected. But it was her house. And he hadn’t asked her opinion. He’d just torn into remodeling as if the place was Humpty-Dumpty and it was up to Alex to put it back together again. “It’s wonderful,” she said, pushing forth a smile. “Really. I couldn’t have planned it any better myself.” Which was an accurate statement, if not exactly what she was feeling.

  But it seemed to make him happy and, truly, that was enough to make her happy, too.

  BABY FURNITURE. A whole roomful of it. A honey-colored oak crib with comforter and bumper pads in a rodeo print. A changing table of the same honeyed wood. Also a chest of drawers and a little nightstand. A lamp, with rodeo print shade, and a grouping of bright pictures featuring cowboys on bucking horses for the walls. It was everything she’d lusted after in the Ranchman’s catalog...and then some.

  “Well?” Alex asked, standing behind her in the doorway of the nursery. “Is this everything you wanted?”

  Emotion choked her and she didn’t know whether she wanted to burst into tears or yell at him. Whether to explain that his generosity was suffocating her or that everything she wanted was simply him. Just him. Not once in the week since he’d started staying with her had he said so much as “boo” about the future. He hadn’t said he’d stay until the baby was born. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t. And she didn’t see any way she could ask.

  The way he was taking charge of fixing everything in her life made her nervous. She’d wanted to share this special time with him, not have him scout the path ahead like it was his job to keep the Indians from attacking the wagon train. She sensed that he was keeping busy as much for his own sake as for hers and the baby’s. She knew him well enough to understand this encounter with domesticity was a novelty and that she shouldn’t expect it to last forever.

  But right there was her trouble. Because forever was exactly what her foolish heart was beginning to believe she could have.

  “It’s perfect, Alex,” she said, even though experience warned her it wasn’t.

  SUNDAY DINNER with the McIntyres was a mixed blessing. Annie, hesitant to accept Alex’s persistent invitation, wound up going and having a wond
erful time being with Josie. Willie, too, had advice and anecdotes galore for the two mothers-in-waiting. The three women cleaned the kitchen after the meal, tossed around ideas for the baby contest and generally stirred up a batch of shared laughter and female bonding. But joining the men in the living room afterward quickly put a stop to that. The tension in the room was as ripe as a week-old banana, and it didn’t take much to discern that the brothers had been exchanging a few disagreeable words. Or that Alex was at the pivotal center of the exchange, either. His expression, shadowed and somber, told Annie all she needed to know.

  Justin brightened considerably when the women walked in and Josie frowned at her three brothers in turn. “Anybody up for a friendly game of Scrabble?”

  Jeff groaned. “Not now, Jo. Even though I could easily beat your boots off.”

  “Since when?” Josie wrinkled her nose at her middle brother and turned to Alex. “What about you, ’Lex? You know how to spell yippie-ki-yi-ay?”

  The mood shifted as the McIntyre men gave in to three almost-identical smiles. Annie wondered if in the coming year she’d see that same smile on the face of her son.

  “When I was seven or so,” Josie explained to Annie and Justin, “these yahoos taught me how to play Scrabble and I loved it. I mean really, really loved it.”

  “Only because Mom made us let you win all the time.”

  Josie stuck out her tongue at her oldest brother. “I won because I could outspell all three of you without stopping to blink.”

  “You won,” Alex added his two cents worth, “because you were the baby and a girl.”

  “And,” Jeff picked up the explanation, “because we pretended we were paying attention to what we were spelling. The sorry truth is, Jo, we hated Scrabble.”