My Husband, My Babies, page 3
The endearment wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard him say a hundred times, but it made her throat close. “You’ve seen my breeding operation at the ranch,” he went on. “Not to be crude, but I’m Mother Nature in my part of the world, and nothing terrible has happened. The Rocking M has the healthiest, strongest stock around.”
Jenny made herself take a deep breath. His scent was different from Josh’s but comforting, fortifying. She pulled back enough to look up at him.
“You haven’t done anything wrong, Jenny. If it weren’t for Josh’s cancer, he’d have enough sperm to get you both in a lot of trouble. It’s not his fault, and he shouldn’t have to pay. Neither of you should.”
“Your mother blames herself for Josh’s cancer,” Jenny said. “She said she didn’t get his vaccinations on schedule and somehow that made him prone to testicular cancer.”
Sam’s expression turned sour. His less-than-congenial feelings for his mother were well known, but even after all these years she’d never discovered the reason behind them.
“That’s just Diane being Diane, but none of that matters. What’s important is that you and my brother have a chance to start a family. I’m just hoping this doesn’t ruin our friendship.”
Jenny knew she had to try to get past her qualms. Josh loved his brother almost as much as he loved Jenny. It would tear him apart if the two people he loved most couldn’t be comfortable around each other.
“You’re right, Sam. It’ll all work out.”
He touched his knuckle to her chin—a gesture he’d employed since Josh introduced them when she was sixteen. “Can I finish my dinner now?”
Smiling, Jenny tossed the towel on the counter and looped her arm through his. “Just save room for pie. I bought them from the new bakery in town.”
Sam’s low chuckle reassured her even more. “That is not going to be a problem, believe me.”
SAM WATCHED JOSH WALK the last of the dinner guests—Lillian Carswell—to the door of her neat-as-a-pin mobile home. The old gal was a veritable font of knowledge about Gold Creek’s history.
The subject on the drive to her mobile home in Restful Trails Senior Park had been the triplets. She had stories galore. “Ida Jane was forever trying to dress them alike,” she’d said with a chortle. “I’ll never forget the Easter when the girls turned six. Marge Grover—she passed away a few years ago—sewed these darling little pinafore-type dresses, and Betsey Simms, at McAffey’s department store, donated white anklets trimmed with tiny daisies and the cutest little bonnets you’ve ever seen. But the triplets had other plans.”
She’d leaned forward to pat Josh’s shoulder. “Not Jenny, of course. She was a perfect angel, like usual. But Andrea claimed the shoes hurt her feet. She preferred to wear sneakers without socks. She wouldn’t even consider wearing the hat. Kristin wore the hat but insisted on sticking a bunch of flowers from Ida’s garden in it. By the time she got to church, the lilacs were drooping like clusters of grapes.”
Sam found the tale reassuring. The triplets were unique individuals, even at age six.
Once Josh was seated, Sam put the car in gear. He drove slowly to negotiate the park’s many speed bumps. “Your wife has some concerns about this arrangement, Josh,” he said. “We probably should have waited, maybe talked it through a little more.”
“There wasn’t time, Sam,” Josh said. “You had the China trip scheduled.”
“So? We could have put it off a few months.”
Josh, who’d been diagnosed as borderline hyperactive as a child, went atypically still. “We’ve waited long enough, Sam. It was now or never.”
An icy chill down his spine made Sam lean forward to click up the heat.
Josh turned in the seat to face him. “Jenny’s happy about it. I know she is. She’s just had a lot on her mind.”
Sam could believe that. Getting her sisters to the same table after all these years was quite a feat. And talking Andi into returning to Gold Creek next spring seemed very unlikely. “Well, I hope you’re right. Jenny’s a good lady, and I don’t want this to come back to haunt us.”
“Haunt,” Josh repeated. “Ida Jane really liked Andi’s idea of a resident ghost, didn’t she?” Josh was a master at changing subjects, but his laugh—chipper, familiar and reassuring—eased Sam’s odd feeling of trepidation.
“Don’t worry, bro,” he said, lightly punching Sam’s shoulder. “Everything is working out just the way it’s supposed to.”
Sam hoped so. For all their sakes.
CHAPTER TWO
March 2001
St. Patrick’s Day
SINCE THE DECK off the master bedroom afforded the best view of the courtyard, Sam headed there to take stock. He threw open the balcony doors off his bedroom and stepped to the railing to scan the crowd below.
Thanks to Josh’s insistent nagging and organizational skills, the Rocking M sponsored a benefit barbecue each year on St. Patrick’s Day weekend when the surrounding hills were their greenest and the California buckeyes were swathed in shiny new leaves. Members of the Gold Creek Garden Club—Ida Jane’s pet group—handled the kitchen; the volunteer fire department cooked the chicken. Sam made sure he stayed in the background, while Josh played host.
Sam spotted Andi Sullivan sitting on the top rung of the corral chatting with Lars Gunderson, a cantankerous old miner who made Sam’s solitary habits look downright social. Andi had only been back in town a week, but according to Josh, the changes she had in mind for the Old Bordello Antique Shop weren’t sitting well with the store’s owner.
His gaze circled the crowd of familiar faces until he spotted what he was looking for—a kelly-green Stetson. He had no idea where his brother had managed to find such a thing, but there it was atop Josh’s head, pushed back at a jaunty angle to accommodate the video camera that never seemed to leave his eye.
Sam let out a long sigh. At least Josh was sitting still for the moment. Sam was almost out of patience where his brother was concerned. The past three months had been stressful. Jenny’s full trimester of morning sickness and fatigue had coincided with Josh’s seemingly unconnected series of colds and flulike symptoms, which had finally been diagnosed as something far more serious.
Josh’s cancer had returned, popping up as a difficult-to-spot mass behind his liver. The oncologist Josh saw last week in Stanford had recommended an aggressive protocol of radiation and chemotherapy.
It couldn’t be aggressive enough as far as Sam was concerned. His main problem was Josh’s attitude.
“I beat it before, I can do it again,” Josh said repeatedly. “Will you two lighten up?”
He was referring to Jenny and Sam. Sam hadn’t spent a lot of time in his sister-in-law’s company the past few months—he knew she still felt awkward around him. In hindsight, especially given Josh’s condition, the timing of the pregnancy was all wrong, but there was little anyone could do about it at this point.
“He’s going to wear himself out, isn’t he?” a voice said from the doorway behind him.
Sam glanced over his shoulder, but he recognized the voice without looking. Jenny. Beautiful, glowing, very pregnant Jenny. “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Sam replied, his voice gruff.
She sighed as she joined him at the railing. “You’re not your brother’s keeper, you know. But I do appreciate everything you’ve done to help.”
Sam inched over to put more space between them.
Lately she seemed to possess an ethereal glow that made him yearn to touch her. Which, he reminded himself, was not a good thing. He knew this confounding attraction had to be based on the fact she was carrying his babies—her first sonogram had alerted them that she was carrying twins. His connection to her was purely biological, he told himself.
“Josh is lucky they finally diagnosed this,” Sam said, staring at a group of people standing beside a patrol car. His buddy, Donnie Grimaldo, a local deputy, leaned against the front fender while his boss, Sheriff Magnus Brown, held court. The older man was a blowhard who’d never been one of Sam’s favorite people.
“What do you mean?” Jenny asked.
Sam didn’t turn his head but sensed she was studying his face. He regretted his candor but said, “I hate to admit it, but I was beginning to think Josh was turning into a hypochondriac, like our mother.”
Jenny chuckled under her breath. “That summer in college when your mother stayed with us she practically lived at the clinic. She was on a first-name basis with all the pharmacists at Long’s.”
Sam turned slightly and said, “Good thing her new husband is a retired doctor. He’s got just what she needs—money and a prescription pad. Maybe she’ll keep this one.”
Jenny frowned. “You really don’t like her, do you?”
“I just don’t like talking about her.” His feelings were a mixture of anger and disgust, far too convoluted for casual conversation and best kept locked in the darkest recesses of his mind. He shrugged and looked away from Jenny’s all-too-sympathetic eyes.
“Josh doesn’t seem to hold as much bitterness toward her as you do, but I guess you two have more history together, right?”
History. I guess you could call a stab in the back that cost me my wife and unborn child “history.” “Is that a polite way of saying I’m old?” he teased.
She smiled wryly. “Eleven years seemed like a big deal when I was seventeen and you were pushing thirty, but now that I’m almost thirty…”
Sam let his skepticism show. “Twenty-eight is still wet behind the ears.”
“Oh, no. Not the old-age talk,” a cheerful voice said, taking them by surprise.
Both Sam and Jenny spun around. For some reason Sam felt guilty, but fortunately, his brother didn’t seem to notice. Josh strolled forward and looped his arm across his wife’s shoulders. “I was filming the festivities and happened to scan upward and what do I see but Romeo and Juliet on the balcony.”
His teasing brought a shot of heat to Sam’s face, making him grateful for the setting sun. “Yep, that’s why I built this place. So I could spout poetry to my sister-in-law,” Sam said, hoping his joke didn’t sound as lame to Jenny and Josh as it did to him.
Jenny’s lovely cheeks seemed to hold some extra color, too, but Sam attributed that to the afternoon’s activities. She’d been in charge of the egg race.
“I guess it’s about time to sound the gong for dinner,” Sam said, starting to leave.
“It can wait. I, um, wanted to talk to you a minute,” Josh said, his tone uncharacteristically serious.
Sam pulled over the folding chair he kept on the deck. “Have a seat. I’ll get you a chair, Jenny.”
She shook her head. In the mellow sunset, her wind-tossed locks looked bloodred. “I’m fine.”
Josh squeezed her shoulders then whisked his silly green hat from his head and placed it on Jenny’s. “She’s a trooper, isn’t she, Sam? Do you know anyone better than Jenny Perfect?” he asked, sitting down.
Jenny’s lip curled up in a snarl, and Sam looked away to hide his smile. He knew she hated the nickname—even if it did fit.
“What do you want to talk about, Josh?”
“The big C. The ugly little growth in here.” He pulled up his T-shirt, exposing his belly. The bluish-white scar that dissected his pale skin from sternum to navel was a product of the last go-around. When he was twelve, doctors removed a large mass near his liver along with the diseased testicle where the cancer had begun.
Sam shrugged, faking nonchalance. “What’s to talk about? You fight it and beat it—just like last time.”
Jenny nodded. Sam thought she looked close to tears.
Josh lowered his shirt. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “I know that. But, I want to be up front about what’s happening. I’m not going to give up living while I get these treatments.
“Jenny wants me to quit work. Being a park ranger has been my dream ever since I watched my first Yogi and Boo-Boo cartoon,” he said, with a chuckle.
“Sam, you want to do your big-brother thing, which I appreciate all to hell, but the bottom line is—it’s my life, my cancer, and I have to deal with it my way.”
Something about Josh’s tone, something too fatalistic for Sam’s taste, made him blow up. “You mean laid-back? Take it as it comes? I don’t think so, little brother. This isn’t a game. It’s war. We’re fighting for your life, and I’m damn well going to be in the trenches with you.”
Jenny put her hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Listen to Sam, Josh. He remembers what it was like the first time. He—”
“You think I don’t?” Josh exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “I was the one puking my guts out, not Sam. I’m the one who got razzed about my bald head. Been there, done that, Jen. And I’m not wild about doing it again.”
Sam felt as breathless as he had when a horse had fallen on him, breaking three ribs.
Jenny threw herself against Josh and cried, “You don’t have a choice, Josh. We have to think about the babies.”
Josh’s arms came up slowly, but finally he wrapped them around his wife and soothed her sobs. But over her shoulder, his gaze found Sam. There was something sad and very tired in his brother’s eyes. Something that made Sam want to sit down and weep.
Three months later
“I’LL BE BACK in a minute. I’m going to put away some of this stuff,” Jenny called, closing the door to the spare bedroom behind her.
Once the latch clicked, she leaned against it and slowly sank to the floor. Her belly made her feel graceless and top-heavy; her swollen ankles looked like gross stumps connected to her Birkenstock-clad feet. Her sleeveless denim maternity jumper was wrinkled and stained with Kool-Aid handprints from the end-of-school party. Happy tears, sweaty hugs and another year was over.
Then, before she had time to catch her breath, her colleagues had converged on her room to give her a baby shower. She’d survived both ordeals without breaking down, but her emotions were very close to the surface. When Sam’s big white pickup pulled up to her classroom door and her husband gingerly lowered himself to the ground, she’d had to fight not racing to help him. But Josh, despite the weight loss and bald head, was still proud and independent. He tried to carry on as if the horrible disease wasn’t getting the better of him. But everyone knew otherwise. Everyone except Sam, who refused to see the obvious.
She took a deep breath, readjusting her position to give a child’s foot or elbow more room beneath her rib cage. As she eyed the booty piled on the daybed—a complete layette, bath provisions, stuffed animals and a vast assortment of tiny clothes—her gaze was drawn to the brilliantly painted rocking horse sitting on the floor in front of her easel. A gift from Sam.
“Your husband picked it out,” he’d said, amid the oohs and aahs of her fellow teachers. “The last time we were in Stanford.”
A month earlier. When there’d still been hope. When a miracle seemed possible, and Josh seemed to be responding to the high doses of chemotherapy pumped into his body.
Sam had taken charge of Josh’s treatment schedule. It had made sense since Jenny couldn’t take the time from work, nor was her body up to the long drives, but there was a tiny part of her that resented him. Sam had those hours on the drive to and from the clinic. He had the opportunity to talk to the oncologist and the nurses. He was the one Josh turned to with questions or concerns.
But her logical mind knew that way of thinking was petty. Sam was doing everything in his power to help Josh beat this disease. More, she feared, than Josh himself, who each day seemed less involved in his body’s war.
A light knock on the hollow door echoed through her chest. “Jen?”
Andi. Lifesaver. Frustrated entrepreneur.
After several months of arm-twisting—combined with the kind of guilt trips sisters can lay on each other— Andi had agreed to come home. She’d moved in with Ida Jane in March and had immediately begun to implement her haunted bordello campaign. Unfortunately, Ida Jane had lost interest in the idea, and the two seemed to lock horns daily.
Jenny still worried about her great-aunt’s health, but Ida’s doctor blamed the memory slips and emotional swings on age. Jenny wasn’t convinced, but she simply didn’t have the energy to investigate further.
Struggling to her knees, she slowly rose and opened the door. “Sorry, I got sidetracked.”
Andi, who was dressed in shorts and a tank top, shrugged. “No problem. I just wanted to tell you I’m taking Ida home. That punch went right to her head. You wouldn’t believe the things I overheard her say. We really need to keep her off the booze.”
“There was no alcohol in the punch.”
“Really?” She looked puzzled. “I just assumed…well, I’m taking her home anyway. Sam just left, and I think Josh is ready to crash. He looked good today, though.”
True. Josh had been his laughing, charming self, but Jenny knew he’d pay for the effort with a long, restless night of pain.
Andi seemed to understand. Her smile was tinged with sadness as she glanced at the gifts. “Nice haul. Do you need any help?”
Jenny shook her head. “It can wait until tomorrow.”
“First day of vacation. Maybe you can find some time to work on your book, huh?”
Jenny looked at her easel and frowned. She finally had her wish—a summer off. But how could she paint the carefree, whimsical illustrations of a children’s book, when terrifying questions assaulted her—questions like “How am I going to live without Josh?”
Two and a half months later
“JOSH, SNAP OUT OF IT,” Sam barked.
He hated using that tone on his brother. Lately, though, it was the only thing that penetrated the foggy blur of morphine-induced haze. Josh’s eyes opened. Glazed with pain and painkillers, the blue eyes that usually danced with humor were dull and out of focus.
Sam put his face two inches from his brother’s. “Josh, concentrate. Your wife is on the phone. Do you hear me, Josh? Jenny wants to tell you about the birth.”
The babies. Andi had already given Sam the news. A boy and a girl. But he wasn’t about to deprive Jenny of the right to share the news with her husband, even if there was only a slim chance that he’d understand what she said. In the past three days, even Sam had lost contact with Josh, who was slowly distancing himself from his body in preparation for death.
