Читать книгу Unexpected Babies - Anna Adams - Страница 8

“ALAN, GO HOME. Get some sleep and have a shower.” Dr. Barton’s voice woke Cate.

She opened her eyes. She’d hardly been out of the coma for a full day, but the doctor’s visits interested her. Unlike her family, he wanted nothing from her. She looked from him to the husband she didn’t know.

Alan straightened in a metal-and-vinyl chair. “I don’t need sleep or a shower.”

She lifted her hand to him, but he shook his head, obviously aware she was going to second Dr. Barton’s suggestion. She continued anyway. “You need to rest.” She shouldn’t have buried her face in his manly chest. Her momentary weakness had apparently convinced him she needed a bodyguard. “Nothing bad will happen to me if you leave my room.”

He shot a wary glance at Dr. Barton, who nodded. Alan stood, but tension built as he hesitated. Cate didn’t know how to respond to him. His deep concern touched her. She found his stubbled chin attractive, his brooding green eyes appealing. She liked the way he smelled, but Alan expected more than the gratitude and simple attraction she felt.

“Do you want me to come back?” he asked.

She’d like to remember why he seemed as uncomfortable with her as she was with him. Had their marriage been happy? “After you rest, if you feel like coming back, I’ll be here.”

He turned toward Dr. Barton, but his gaze lingered on her as he spoke. “You know where to reach me?”

The doctor moved to Cate’s bed, an impresario, showing off his brightest talent. “Cate is awake and healthy and on the mend. We won’t need to dive into that pool of phone numbers you gave us.”

With a wry expression, Alan trudged to the door, and most of the pressure left with him. Cate sank against her pillows. The gruff doctor shut her door and dragged a chair to her bed.

“Let’s talk,” he said.

His urgency alarmed her. “Did you find something in the tests?”

“No—well, nothing new, but I’ve been trying to get you alone since you woke up yesterday. I have to tell you something I don’t believe you’ve told Alan.”

She attempted a smile. “Another man came forward to claim me as his wife.”

He gave a slight, anxious grin that put her on edge. “We only allow one family per amnesiac.” His gaze grew as intense as any of her family’s. “I wish I could prepare you for this news, but I must say it quickly before someone else comes in. You’re pregnant, and I’ve been unethical.” He patted her good leg. “What a relief to say it out loud at last.”

Cate grabbed her bed rails as the world seemed to open up beneath her. “I’m pregnant?”

“Just over sixteen weeks.” He went on, as if they should both be ready to talk facts. “You were spotting when you came in. By the time we could leave you to speak to Alan, he should already have asked us about the baby. When he didn’t, I began to worry you hadn’t told him and that you had a reason for not telling him. I asked Imogen for your gynecologist’s name.”

Words escaped her at first. “How old am I again?”

“Thirty-eight.”

Pregnant, thirty-eight, with a son of eighteen, and she hadn’t told anyone about the new baby. Why?

She slid her hands over her stomach. It was round all right. She hadn’t thought to ask why. An unexpected protectiveness caught her by surprise, and she accepted a new first priority. “Is the baby all right?”

“Yes. Your bleeding was light, and you stopped within a few hours. I still would have told Alan if I hadn’t tracked down Dr. Davis.”

“My obstetrician?”

“Right. She said you’d decided not to tell Alan yet, so I followed your wishes. However, Dr. Davis needs to see you, so you have to decide how to tell Alan. She’ll never make it in here and out again without being ambushed, considering the way your family guards that door.”

Cate’s large family overwhelmed her, too. She couldn’t see their constant, well-meant surveillance as a joke. “No one else asked about the baby? Not my sister or my aunt?”

“I wish they had.”

“Did Dr. Davis explain why I’ve kept the pregnancy a secret?”

“She doesn’t know, and I can’t promise Imogen hasn’t talked to Alan since I asked her for your OB’s name.” Dr. Barton patted her forearm. “Try not to worry. I expect Alan would have exploded by now if Imogen had told him.”

“I need to talk to Alan. What was wrong between us?”

“I’m not sure anything was wrong.”

Cate pushed her fingers through her hair. “Dr. Barton, tell me the truth.” She pressed her palms together, trying to look self-possessed. She didn’t want or need a gentle bedside manner. “Will I ever know these people again?”

He hunched his shoulders beneath his wrinkled lab coat. “All I ever say to you or Alan is ‘I don’t know.’ And I don’t. Because shock, rather than a head injury, caused your amnesia, I’d say your memory will trickle back.” Grinning, he popped his glasses from the top of his head onto his face, where they magnified his weary eyes. “Trickle. That’s a technical term.”

Cate tried to smile, but his nonanswer made her head ache. She lifted her hand between them, turning it from side to side. “I must have seen my fingers millions of times, but I don’t recognize them. I scared myself to death when I looked in a mirror and saw my sister’s face. My son makes me feel anxious, because he’s at an age where he won’t even say if he feels let down. I’m responsible for him, but I don’t feel that he’s my child, and I’m more comfortable talking to you than to my husband.”

“These are the facts. You can’t balance them with what you feel, because all your emotions are tied up in your memory loss.” Dr. Barton folded her fingers between his weathered hands. “I don’t know why you’d hide a child from Alan, but he cares about you. He stood a vigil at your bedside no matter how many times I begged him to go home. I thought we might end up having to treat him. That man didn’t stay all this time because he felt it was his duty.”

Good. She didn’t want a dutiful marriage. She wanted passion and commitment, a love that made a thirty-eight-year-old woman want to tell her husband they were having a second child.

Might she have hidden her pregnancy from Alan for a more obvious and insidious reason than a marriage that had wound down to duty? “What if Alan isn’t the baby’s father? Would you have heard rumors if I was having an affair?”

Dr. Barton sat back as if someone had tried to yank his chair out from under him. “The Talbots have a bad habit of making destructive decisions, but not you, Cate.”

“Talbots?” She found no comfort in his vehement support.

“Your father’s family. Your Aunt Imogen and Uncle Ford. Before you, the Talbots have tended to live by their own reckless rules, but you’ve broken that mold, Cate. I’ve known your family a long time, and I’ve seen you make healthier choices than the others.”

“Explain, please.”

“No. You speak to Imogen or Caroline.” At his nervous glance, she imagined redheaded women who ran with wolves and men who sought the company of sinners. “You need to rebuild your relationships with your aunt and uncle and sister, not with me.”

“You’re not hurt because I can’t remember you.”

He held up both hands. “You have to jump off this cliff. Think of me as a parachute if you jump and you need help getting to the ground, but talk to your family.”

Outside her room, a woman’s voice paged another doctor over the PA system, and some sort of heavy equipment rolled down the hall on squeaky wheels. Still, Dr. Barton waited for her to behave the way she always had.

Cate covered her face with her hands, but then flattened her palms at her sides. “I can’t lie here and wait for my life to happen to me, can I?”

He slipped his hands in his pockets. “I’ll arrange for Dr. Davis to see you. Figure out what to tell Alan about the baby.”

Memory must shape a person’s sense of self. When she tried to think how she should approach Alan, she faced a mental blank. “I think I’ll try the truth.” She winced a little. “The truth as we know it, anyway.”

ALAN DIDN’T go home and sleep. Instead, he asked Dan to join him in an early round of golf at the country club they’d belonged to since Dan had begun to show unexpected talent for the game.

Alan kept waiting for the right moment to ask his son why he was avoiding Cate. Since his golf skills didn’t measure up to Dan’s, searching for lost balls usually made them talk. Today Dan helped him scour the primordial, South Georgia forest in uneasy silence. He grunted one-syllable responses to Alan’s opening gambits. Finally, after they turned in their cart, Alan suggested lunch in the club’s excessively Victorian grill room.

After they ordered, Dan sprawled in his wide wooden chair with a look that anticipated a firing squad. “What do you want, Dad?”

His sullen question surprised Alan. Normally, Cate handled these types of conversations. He didn’t know where to go when Dan was clearly saying he didn’t want to talk.

“Are you angry with your mom? Why won’t you go see her?”

Dan rubbed his chin, unconsciously pointing out a little late adolescent acne. “She only woke up yesterday. I had to do some stuff for Uncle Ford and Aunt Imogen.”

Was he serious? Did he really think the horses Uncle Ford boarded or Aunt Imogen’s errands might be more important than Cate? “But why didn’t you stay long enough to tell your mom you were glad she’s okay? I know you are.”

“You’re talking like you think I wish she was still in the coma. I’m not a kid, Dad. I’ll go see her.” He sat back as their server delivered sodas and small salads.

“Hey, Dan,” the girl said.

“Hey. You know my Dad?” Dan generally knew more of the people who worked at the club than Alan or Cate. He’d played enough golf here to earn a scholarship for college.

This time, the girl looked faintly familiar.

“Sure, I know Mr. Palmer. How are you?” she asked.

He was on the verge of losing his mind. “Fine. Nice to see you.”

Nodding, she turned away. Dan’s smirk mocked his father. “Why didn’t you just admit you didn’t know her? I would have introduced you again.”

“To be honest, I don’t have time. I need to go back to the hospital, and I wish you’d come with me.”

Dan lifted his soda for a slow sip. When he put the glass down, he wiped his mouth and looked like the kid Alan remembered. “I’ll go,” he finally said, “but I’m not sure why. She doesn’t even know us.”

Alan studied him, taken aback. He finally understood how Cate had felt when she’d been the one Dan turned to. She’d handled their family’s emotional upheavals and freed Alan to provide material support. He wanted to retire to a safe corner and wallow in his own fear, but this time he was the one who had to put his son first.

“Are you afraid your mom’s not going to get well?” He was starting from scratch with a boy he loved more than his own life.

Dan’s friend came back and slid their meals onto the table. Even after she left, Dan focused all his attention on getting ketchup to come out of its bottle.

“Son, I need you to talk to me.”

“What am I supposed to say? How does she want us to feel about her? She’s always been overprotective. She offered my little league coach tips when he yelled at me for rubbernecking. She’s chaperoned every school trip I’ve ever taken. Now, she looks at me and her bottled water with the same interest.”

Dan had avoided overt affection for about four years, but Alan dared to clip his son’s shoulder with a loose fist. “Don’t underestimate how much she needs you. I don’t think she’s forgotten us forever, and she’s still your mom. You be a son to her, and she’ll follow your lead.”

Alan felt like a fraud advising Dan when he still hadn’t decided what he was going to tell Cate about the business. As he’d chased her out of the office, he’d longed for a chance to start over. He had it now, but it was a bitter beginning.

“Dad, you look worried. I don’t want you to keep anything from me.”

Alan shook off his indecision for Dan’s sake. “Dr. Barton promised your mom will be back on her feet in time to see you graduate.”

Dan folded a fry into his mouth. “Will she want to come?”

Alan dropped the corner of his turkey club. “Yes.” Cate would have found an answer more convincing than his shocked, one-word response. He tried again. “She’ll want to see you graduate from high school.”

Dan sounded a youthful, impatient snort. “Sorry, Dad, but I can’t really take your word for it.” He tossed another fry into his mouth and talked around it. “I’ll go by the hospital after practice this afternoon.”

Alan didn’t pause to enjoy his success. “Thanks, son. I’d better get back myself. How are your aunt and uncle?”

“I stayed at Aunt Imogen’s last night after I fed the horses. Uncle Ford came over for a movie and popcorn, and then I walked Polly for Aunt Imogen.”

Imogen had recently retired Polly, her old roan mare, from farm work. She’d presented Polly with an extravagant straw hat that matched one of her own. Shocking the neighborhood, but never Cate and Caroline, who loved their aunt for her fabled eccentricity, both Imogen and Polly wore their finery for their nightly walks.

“Did you wear the hat?”

“Sure, Dad, and I took a picture so you could use it for that dorky Christmas card you send out every year.”

Cate actually sent the card, but Alan had taken pride in her annual record of their family. He pushed his chair back. “Why don’t you stay with Uncle Ford tonight? I’m sure your being there helps them.”

“Maybe I’ll pick them up after practice and take them to see Mom.”

Alan got to his feet. “Sounds good. You want to sign for lunch? I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.” Dan looked up. Strands of his longish black hair made him blink blue eyes exactly the shade of Cate’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t want to talk. I’m a little scared.”

Alan held back a relieved sigh. He felt as if he were luring a wild animal into a clearing. He didn’t want to scare Dan into running for cover. “Are you all right?”

Dan immediately thinned his smile. “I just hope Mom is. Soon.”

Alan hoped male stoicism didn’t run in his family, but he’d protected his own feelings long enough to recognize the steps his son was taking.

Close off. Look tough.

“Take it easy, son,” he said, wanting to hug his almost grown boy. “I’ll see you later.” He risked a quick pat on Dan’s shoulder and then crossed the black-and-burgundy dining room.

Hurrying back to his car, he checked his watch. He needed to talk to Caroline about her budgets for the medical building, but first he wanted to see his wife. Fifteen minutes took him to the hospital.

He parked in the lot and stared up at the skeletal, half-finished building that overshadowed the hospital. His work site, the new medical building.

Wind blew sand in his eyes, blurring his vision. He wiped a film of sweat off his neck as the early May sun soaked through his clothing. Work continued on the medical center despite the troubled turn his finances had taken. Thoughts of the money he’d owe his suppliers made him sweat some more.

He wanted to tell the suppliers, just as he’d wanted to tell Cate and their employees, about the damage their CPA had done. He hadn’t known how to tell Cate he’d failed her by letting Jim steal from them. The other businessmen Jim had duped had decided not to tell their employees until they knew the extent of the problem. He’d argued, but he’d finally agreed to hold off. Deciding to lie to Cate had been shamefully easy.

Maybe her injuries gave him a real reason to hide the truth. Getting acquainted with her family again would be hard enough. Maybe by the time she remembered everything, the police would have found Jim and the funds he’d stolen. Cate might not have to know.

Her accusations came back to him loud and clear and all too accurate. He’d always followed the same pattern, trying to fix business problems before he had to tell her about them.

He climbed the slight rise to the hospital entrance. Inside, he drank in the cooler air.

The guard who patrolled the lobby stepped forward. Alan knew him and the lavender-haired woman behind the information desk. Formerly kindergarten teacher to half the adults in Leith, in retirement, she volunteered at the hospital. After a curt nod to the guard and his ex-teacher, he evaded their sympathetic glances.

Their pity turned him back into the ten-year-old boy whose mother had deserted him. As his father had disintegrated in front of his eyes, Alan had cleaned and cooked and put on a “normal” face.

After he’d set the kitchen on fire for the third time, their neighbors had stepped in. A Southern staple, the casserole, had begun to show up in its endless varieties, in the hands of their well-meaning friends.

The food, he’d thanked them for. Their looks of commiseration he’d hated so much he’d begun to pretend no one was home at dinnertime. His makebelieve often became the truth once his father decided to drink away his sorrows at a bar instead of in front of Alan.

The elevator doors wheezed open, pulling him out of the past. He glanced at the number painted on the pale-blue wall. Cate’s floor.

At her door, he knocked lightly before he went inside. To his surprise, she was sitting up, reading a magazine. She looked up, stroking the dressing that bulged against the sheet on her thigh.

“Hey,” she said, her tone lush and deep, like the dark river that ran behind her aunt’s home.

“How do you feel?” Idiot, he thought. Idiotic question.

Cate set her magazine aside. “I want to talk to you about how I feel.”

She looked younger than thirty-eight. Far younger. He still saw her as she’d been the day she’d sat in a bed on the floor above this one and held their newborn out to him.

Her wary gaze intimated this wasn’t going to that kind of talk. He steeled himself. “Tell me now if something’s wrong.”

“You’re making me nervous. Can you sit down so we can talk eye to eye?”

Wondering how hard his heart could pound before it exploded, he dropped into the chair beside her bed. “How bad is it? Just tell me.”

Confronted with the threat of another injury she found hard to discuss, he realized once and for all how they’d changed. Not just because she couldn’t remember their past. They’d drifted apart before her accident.

He’d tried to fool himself. He hadn’t preserved their love for each other despite all his protection. He’d feared losing her for the same reasons he’d lost his mother. He’d shut Cate out, because he didn’t trust her to love the part of him that felt so afraid.

“Alan, I need to know you’re listening to me.”

Her demand surprised him. She sounded exactly as she had the day of the accident. “You’re still yourself, after all.”

“Am I?” Interest filled her blue eyes as she held out her hand. “Tell me how.”

“What you just said, that you needed me to listen. Just before you got hurt, you were trying to make me understand exactly what you—”

“We argued?”

“I’m afraid so.” If she’d given him time, he might have tried to paint a better picture of those last seconds. “It wasn’t important.”

“But you didn’t understand me?”

“We’ve been married a long time. We’ve learned a shorthand, but shorthand may not have covered the conversations we needed to have.” Jeez, he sounded like a talk show therapist. “What’s wrong with you, Cate?”

“It’s not serious—I’m not—Oh, I give up.” She pushed her hair behind both ears. “I’m trying to tell you gently because I’m not sure you’ll be pleased, but I’m pregnant.”

He heard but he didn’t hear. Alan leaned forward, seeing her as a stranger. Her watchful blue eyes couldn’t belong to his Cate. “How pregnant?”

“Sixteen weeks.” She spread the gown over her belly, and he saw why she’d begun to avoid his touch.

He’d trusted her with his life, but she’d kept his child a secret. Her betrayal cut deep. “I thought you didn’t even want me to make love to you any more.” The only time they’d still communicated.

“Why didn’t I tell you?” Cate asked.

Rage made him harsh. “Since you didn’t, I can’t explain.” She’d planned to leave, but her decision hadn’t been spur of the moment. She’d planned to take his child. His heart stuttered over a few beats. “I can’t talk any more.”

“But I need to know—”

With his own lie foremost in his mind, he met her tear-sharpened gaze. He didn’t trust her tears, but he’d been no paragon of honesty.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“Because I don’t understand. Were we unhappy?”

“I can’t guess how you felt. I remember the past twenty years. I remember when you told me about Dan.” They’d celebrated for nine months, until the real party started with his birth. “I would have been happy this time, too.”

“JUST PARK THE CAR. Don’t stop at the door, boy. I’m no invalid.” Uncle Ford’s orders bounced around the roof and doors of Dan’s car.

Ignoring his uncle, he braked beneath the canopy at the hospital’s front door. “I’m stopping here for Aunt Imogen. Will you wait with her while I park?”

“Imogen could best you in a footrace around the parking lot,” Uncle Ford said.

“Glad you recognize my talents, Ford. Now get out and let the boy park. Did you bring your cane?”

Dan shot her a grateful glance in the rearview mirror, and she smiled back while Uncle Ford wrestled himself out of the car. He insisted he just used the cane to lure the ladies to his supposedly helpless side.

“We both know I don’t need it,” he grumbled in what he always assumed was a whisper no one else could hear. People came out of the hospital’s vestry to see about the commotion. “Imogen, get out of this car. I’d like to visit my niece before tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t mind him.” Imogen waved a bottle of vanilla-scented perfume, which she dabbed behind her ears. “He’s worried about your mother, but he’d rather snap at us than admit he cares.”

Thanks to Aunt Imogen, he was the only guy his age who recognized vanilla at a hundred paces. “I don’t mind, but don’t go up to her room without me. Okay?”

“I’ll hold Ford back, but you hurry.” She shoved her perfume back in her purse and followed his uncle to the curb.

Dan parked in the first spot he found and dashed through the lot. Thank God for Aunt Imogen and Uncle Ford. He wouldn’t have to talk to his mom with them around. They were still arguing when he joined them.

“Don’t tell me not to shout, Imogen. I never shout. Are you suggesting I’m not considerate of sick people?”

“I’m suggesting you put a sock in it before that guard throws us all out.”

Trying not to laugh, Dan herded them toward the elevator. That guard wouldn’t tell Ford Talbot to put a sock in anything. Uncle Ford’s wild life made him a legend to every man and boy in town.

They crowded into the elevator and Aunt Imogen opened her beaded purse. With pale, pink-tipped fingers, she drew out a small brown paper package.

“Your mother’s favorite cookies,” she said. “Oatmeal raisin macadamia nut.”

Dan made a face. Worst combination he’d ever tasted. “She’ll be glad to see you, Aunt Imogen.”

“Watch out your face doesn’t freeze like that. I made some chocolate chip for you. Remind me to pack them up before you go over to Ford’s tonight.” She made a tsking sound. “Chocolate chip. That’s a plain cookie.”

“Not the way you make them.” He meant it. He could earn a fortune off her cookies if he sold them.

Aunt Imogen looked pleased. “You may look like a Palmer, but Cate passed you the Talbot charm.”

Yeah? Most of the time he saw himself as a stiff shadow of his inhibited father.

At his mom’s room, Uncle Ford used his cane to open her door. His mom was standing at her window. Dan followed his uncle and aunt inside. Just in time to catch the way his mother’s bewildered smile lingered on his aunt. When she saw him, her smile faded.

“Dan.”

She sounded different. She seemed less worried, but she still looked at him as if she barely recognized him. He’d always wanted her to put a little distance between them, but now, he needed her to know him. Even though he was eighteen—a man—deep in his heart, he wanted his mom.

“I’m glad to see you,” she said. “Come in. Let me ask for more chairs. Uncle Ford, take this one.” She offered him the only seat in the room, but he pushed it toward Aunt Imogen.

“I’ll go to the nurse’s station and ask for more. They should have brought more chairs in here anyway. They know you have a big family. Sit down, Imogen.”

“No, I’ll go with you.” She nodded encouragingly toward his mom as she hurried after Uncle Ford. “Dan and Cate might enjoy some privacy.”

Good thing he was a man, or he’d have grabbed Aunt Imogen’s skirt as she passed him. Rocking on his heels, he looked at his mom. Tried to think of something worth saying. She limped toward him, and for a second, he thought she was going to try to hug him. Instead, she kept going. He lurched out of her way as she closed the door.

“I have to ask you.” She held the door shut. “Why does Aunt Imogen wear a strip of cellophane tape down the middle of her forehead? I swear I saw gold graduation caps and diplomas on this piece.”

Was that all? He shrugged. “I graduate in three weeks.”

She waited. When he didn’t go on, she tossed up her hands in an I-still-don’t-get-it gesture.

“Oh, the tape,” he said. “She always wears it.” He put his finger in the middle of his eyebrows and frowned to show her the kind of wrinkles Aunt Imogen was trying to avoid. “Reminds her not to frown.”

“How old is she?”

“Seventy-something. No one’s ever told me. Why?”

She dropped her hands to her sides. “Well—” she cleared her throat “—I shouldn’t say this, but she has some wrinkles. And the tape—”

Dan forgot they didn’t know each other any more. “Mom, that’s rude.”

She raised both eyebrows. “I guess it was. Sorry.”

Just like that, she looked like his mom, except laughter tugged at her mouth, and for no reason he could think of, he laughed with her.

She eased the door open. “She was thoughtful to choose tape to fit your occasion.”

“You should see the Santas at Christmas.” She laughed again, and he did, too, but he felt guilty about it. Aunt Imogen didn’t like to be laughed at.

“I’m glad they left us alone,” his mom said. “I was dying to ask, but I didn’t want to hurt Aunt Imogen’s feelings.”

“I think she uses the tape and the hats and stuff to hide how she feels about the gossips in this town. People still spread rumors about that Navy guy.”

“Navy guy?” She obviously didn’t know. “My whole life is on the tip of my tongue. Not remembering baffles me. I even wondered if I was imagining Aunt Imogen’s tape.” She tightened the belt at her robe and then offered her hand. “What a relief. Good to see you, Dan.”

Dan shook hands with her. “I’m glad to see you, too.” For the first time since she’d come out of that coma he meant it. “Mom?”

“Huh?”

He chewed on his lip. He wasn’t a guy who clung to his mother, but he’d been so scared she was going to die. “Can I hug you?”

She tilted her head back, startled. “Well,” she said, “yes.” She opened her arms, but he could see she felt funny about it, too. Then as soon as he put his arms around her, she hugged back. Tight.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

“Thanks.”

They both moved to neutral corners and avoided looking at each other. But he felt better.