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Her step picked up again. “I’m guessing you’ve got water in that pack thing you’re carrying?”
“Yep.” The leather pack had been a Christmas gift from Becca and Will two years before. “A bottle for each of us. And a first-aid kit, too. I go with the theory that if I have one, I won’t need it.”
“Good theory.”
John enjoyed the silence that fell as they continued their walk. Maybe on the way back he’d point out some of the different varieties of Arizona desert plants they were passing. For now, he was feeling more peaceful than he had in days.
As long as he didn’t think about that body ahead of him—and the life it was hiding. Then he felt the need to unbutton his long-sleeved corduroy shirt and let in some air.
They reached the rock Will had shown him that first day and sat, not quite touching, facing the ravine.
“Did you know that saguaro are only found here in Arizona, Mexico and a few places in New Mexico?” she asked, staring out. He had known that, but wasn’t familiar with many of the other facts she regaled him with during the next ten minutes. And he’d spent the past couple of years making a point of picking up information on one new plant a month.
“How do you know all this stuff?” John finally asked.
She shrugged, her ponytail sliding up and down her back with the movement. “The Internet.”
He should’ve guessed. She’d found a college that way, too. And Caroline seemed like the kind of person who’d make it her business to find out everything there was to know about whatever she was doing.
Including having a baby?
“We have to talk about it, you know,” he said, glancing at his watch. They couldn’t keep meeting like this—casually chatting, getting to know each other. They had to get on with business. It was the only reason he’d called her.
There was no marked difference in her, just a changed energy in the air around them. She said nothing.
So, fine. Probably easier like this. Just state his facts, come up with a plan that was agreeable to both of them and go their separate ways.
“Have you chosen a doctor yet?”
Head turned away from him, she appeared to be taking in the desert beyond the rocky hill that descended down to green bush and wild grass below them.
“Really,” she said, her voice small, “you don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” he asked, although he knew.
“Be involved.”
“I’m as responsible for this predicament as you are.” The words weren’t news to him; he just hadn’t confronted them head-on until that point. “There is no way I can go on with my life as usual while yours is being turned upside down.”
“It’s not a predicament.”
He didn’t know what he’d expected her to say. But it hadn’t been that. They had real issues to discuss here.
“Sorry.”
She turned, her green eyes narrowed and filled with a fire he hadn’t seen there before. “We’re talking about a person here, a child’s life. My child’s life. He or she is not and will never be a predicament to me.”
“Okay…”
“Just because I didn’t choose to have a baby—or choose the father, for that matter—does not mean this pregnancy is any less valid than one I’d planned and hoped for. Because the life that results will be just as valid.”
He had the most incredible urge to pull her toward him, kiss her forehead, rub her back. He sat on his hands. “True.” The temperature was only sixty-three degrees, but in the sun, John was starting to sweat. The breeze coming over the ravine was a relief. With the sudden tightness in his chest, he was finding it a little hard to breathe.
He waited to see if she had anything more to say. And then, when it appeared she didn’t, he told her, “All the more reason for me to be involved.”
He heard her sigh. And felt it, too. “Look.” She turned on the rock until she was facing him. “You’re right. Part of the reason I came here was so you could be involved in this baby’s life if you chose. He deserves a father just like everyone else. Deserves to know his biological father if you’re interested in having him know you.” She wasn’t even stopping for air. “So, after he’s born, if you want to be involved, we’ll set up whatever visitations you need. But until then, this is just about me and the job my body has to do.”
“I disagree.” Shut up! his mind screamed. She’d just given him exactly the out he needed. And wanted. “There’ll be costs. And hardships as you find it more difficult to do certain things. For instance, what if you have to take your computer in for repair? Once you get further along, you won’t be allowed to lift heavy things.”
He was winging it. And afraid that was exactly how it sounded. Why the hell had this suddenly become so important? Just because she’d told him no?
He’d never been a man who had a problem with women in authority.
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Strickland,” she said, her tone reminding him of the friendly woman he’d known so briefly that weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Very different from the self-conscious though still capable Caroline she’d been since arriving in Shelter Valley. “Kentucky women come from strong stock. Goodness, if they had to slow down the whole time they were pregnant, their families and farms would be in trouble. A small farm doesn’t run itself, you know.”
An iguana—a desert lizard—scooted by an inch from John’s shoe. Caroline watched it go.
“They’re kind of cute,” she said as it scurried away. “I read that they’re good to have around your yard at home because they eat crickets.”
“And other bugs,” John agreed. He didn’t want to talk about desert plants or wildlife anymore.
“Listen, Caroline,” he said, not even sure what she’d be listening to. Compelled by an uneasy feeling inside, he continued anyway. “As you say, that baby you’re carrying is as real as any other child conceived. He’s also my flesh and blood, and I’m not the type of man who can turn away from that responsibility. I don’t even want to.” He was surprised to find that much was true. “I’d like to be around to hear that first heartbeat. Or at least some of the heartbeats. I want to hear what the doctor has to say about his size and growth and overall health. I want to see the ultrasound that might tell us if he’s a boy or a girl.”
God, he couldn’t breathe. And he didn’t know how in hell he was going to make any of this happen. Or follow through on it. They were discussing a new life. And his world revolved around the memory of a dead woman.
“Okay.”
He blinked. Stared at her. And then down into the ravine. He loved the browns and golds of the desert. But sometimes that green just looked so good. Cool and peaceful and…breathing.
“Really?”
She nodded. “You’re his father. I have no right to deny you access to his life. As long as you understand that except where it’s absolutely necessary, you have no role in my life.”
That was that. Much easier than he’d expected.
Then why did he feel so…out of his league? Why did he feel he wanted to start running and not stop until he collapsed on the ground?
Meredith should be here. Spending the next months with him. Learning it all with him.
But she wasn’t. The pain of that was almost unbearable. As he’d known it would be. When he’d lost Meredith, he’d vowed never to have children. She’d been too much a part of that dream.
And now here he was, having a child with a woman he barely knew.
He should resent Caroline.
But he didn’t.
“CAN I ASK YOU something?”
Caroline glanced over at him, her auburn hair glinting in the light from the setting sun. “I guess.”
John didn’t know how it had happened, but they’d been there for over an hour. Sometimes talking. A lot of the time lost in their own thoughts. There was so much to discuss, so many decisions to make. But he didn’t really feel like doing these things. And, perhaps, neither did she.
He pulled out the bottles of water, opened one and handed it to her before taking a long swig from his own.
“Why did you react so strongly when I referred to the pregnancy as a predicament?”
She took a small sip of water. Recapped the bottle. Held it with both hands on the rock between her knees. He wasn’t used to spending time with women who didn’t wear makeup and was surprised by how much he liked the freshness of her natural beauty when she turned toward him.
“Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered where you belonged?”
“No, I don’t think so,” John said slowly, watching her.
“Or considered the idea that your life was worth less than the lives of those around you?”
“No.” He’d had the usual teenage insecurities, of course. But his parents had always encouraged him to believe that the world was his to do with what he could. He’d been dreaming big his whole life.
Until the dream came crashing down.
“I have,” she said.
And although he didn’t want to know, he had to ask. “Why?”
She wasn’t going to tell him. He’d overstepped the boundaries she’d set less than an hour before. Her chin was set, her eyes showing very little of the emotion that he suspected must be roiling around inside her.
And then her mouth softened, her eyes focusing on the distance, perhaps a farther distance than the vista spread before them.
“For starters, I was an only child,” she began. “On a farm out in the country in Kentucky. That in itself is very isolating. And no matter what I did, I never fit in. Not at home with my folks. And not at school, either. I was different from everyone else. Saw the world differently. When it came time to make decisions, my opinions were almost always opposite to my parents’. Things that mattered to me didn’t seem to concern them, and a lot of the time, the reverse was true.”
Caroline pulled her feet up on the rock, the worn, rounded toes of her brown leather boots hanging over the edge. Arms wrapped around her knees, she shifted back slightly. John wondered what she was thinking.
“I had this insatiable need to know. Not what other people in town were doing, or who was marrying whom, but why the sun rose and how. And where air came from. I wanted to know who was in national office and I cared about every major decision out of Washington.” Her grin was a little sad. “My poor parents. They were worried about having enough fertilizer for the field and finding ways to make the equipment last another year while I went on about global warming. I’m sure I drove them crazy.”
Mesmerized, John didn’t move. He didn’t want to do anything that might remind her he was still there, make her aware that she was opening up to him after just telling him he could play no part in her personal life. He didn’t want to lose this glimpse of her.
When he’d first met Caroline Prater he’d found her an interesting enigma. And—not that he allowed himself to dwell on that night—she’d been a pretty decent lover, as well. Now he was just plain intrigued. He’d never known anyone with so many facets. All of them different. And all of them sparkling in their own way.
“Anyhow, one day when I was about seven, I yelled at my mother in a fit of frustration, telling her I couldn’t possibly be her kid because she didn’t care that a popular hamburger chain—I’d only eaten out twice in my life and both times it had been there—was being accused of stealing characters from my favorite television show, H.R. Pufnstuf.”
A quick grin accompanied her words before her focus turned once again to the desert. “You can imagine how surprised I was—and how little I suddenly cared about the company’s ad campaign—when my mother yelled back that I wasn’t her child. I was adopted.”
Shit. What a way to tell a seven-year-old kid something as earth-shattering as that. John didn’t know what he could possibly say that would make any difference. So he said nothing.
“I’d already been considering that I’d been planted in Grainville by aliens.” She laid her cheek on top of her knee. “From that point on, I quit fighting. I’d already been rejected by one set of parents. What would happen if the second set decided I was too much trouble?”
John, not detecting even a note of self-pity in her tone, wondered for a split second what it would’ve been like if he’d met her at a different time. Say fifteen years before, when they were both starting out.
He had a feeling he’d have liked her. A lot.
“I spent the next ten years of my life feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. In a town as small as Grainville, where everyone belongs to everyone else, feeling that way wasn’t easy.”
He wondered what had happened to her at seventeen to change that but didn’t ask.
She stood up, brushed herself off, gave a shaky laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on like that,” she said, heading back the way they’d come. “Put it down to overprotectiveness. I just don’t want any child of mine feeling that way. Not if I can help it.”
Propelled by something he didn’t dare analyze, John caught up to her, grabbing her hand only long enough to pull her to a stop. She turned, facing him. “I may not have chosen these circumstances,” he said, his eyes locked with hers. “But that baby will always know I love him and want him in my life.”
Tears pooled in her eyes before she blinked them away, nodded and began walking again.
“NOT TO KEEP HARPING on it, but I’d really like to know what you’re planning to do about medical care,” John said as they sped down the highway toward Shelter Valley. Caroline had said that Bea Howard served dinner at five-thirty sharp and they’d stayed longer in the desert than he’d intended.
“I’ve called the clinic in Shelter Valley. The obstetrician there can take me.”
“Do you have insurance?” She didn’t answer immediately and he continued. “Because under my insurance, the baby will be covered completely, but the pregnancy won’t. I’m prepared to handle that with cash.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Caroline,” John said, taking his eyes from the road for just a second and glimpsing the bland look on her face, “we’ve already established that I’m going to carry at least half the burden over the next seven or so months. Obviously we can’t divvy up the physical challenges, so I’ll have to do my share on a more, shall we say, detached level. Expenses would fall nicely into that category.”
“Okay.”
Another glance showed him that her expression hadn’t changed. More than ever, he wanted to know what went on behind that unrevealing look. He suspected it was the result of a lifetime spent hiding her curiosities and opinions.
In any event, there was nothing for him to do about it.
“So, when’s the first appointment?”
“I haven’t made it yet.”
“I’d like to be there.”
And at the instant shake of her head, he quickly added, “Not for the examination part.” He didn’t want to embarrass her. “Just to sit in on the talk with the doctor afterward.”
She hesitated too long. “Okay.”
“You’ll let me know as soon as you have an appointment?” he pushed, not sure whether she’d acquiesced or was merely placating him.
“I’m hoping to get in sometime during the next week, before school starts.”
Okay, then, she’d meant it. Good. They were getting somewhere. “I can go any day but tomorrow.”
“Fine.”
“A large group of us are going to Phoenix tomorrow,” he explained when it occurred to him that she might think he was putting her off for a golf date or an appointment at work. “One of our young women is a witness in a court case and Shelter Valley plans to be there in full support.”
“Ellen Moore’s rape case,” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “I’m glad you’re all going.”
Having just come off the ramp from the freeway, John kept his foot on the brake and stared. “How did you know about that?”
