Liz Talley – The Sweetest September (страница 7)

“Doing the right thing?” he finished. “I believe that’s the way you put it. So why even tell me if you don’t want anything from me?”

“Because you have a right to know.”

“But not a say-so?”

“Why would you? You ran,” she said, looking up at him. “Remember? You left me in that bathroom, drunk, ashamed and...knocked up. Why on earth would I think you’re the kind of man who would stand with me? And why would I want you to?”

John felt as if she’d just hit him in the face with a wet dish towel. The kind of man who would run? Yeah. She wasn’t wrong. He’d been running for the past year...from his family, his friends and the grief that consumed him. The only thing he hadn’t run from was the incessant work he did in the fields as some kind of penance to his wife’s family. As if he could make up to Carla Stanton the loss of her daughter by keeping the Stanton legacy alive in some way. Rows of cane and this empty house were all he had left in his life. Even knowing how pathetic it was to close out the people who loved him hadn’t stopped him from soaking himself in work and regret. “Okay. I’ll give you that. I ran. I was a total dick. For that I apologize.”

Shelby’s sculpted eyebrows lifted. “Oh. Thank you for apologizing.”

“I know this is a hard situation. I’m not asking you to do anything other than stay a day or two so we can figure some things out together. Obviously, you’ve been carrying this burden by yourself. Maybe you could use my help. Maybe fate threw us together and gave us, uh, a baby for a reason. So whether you wanted me involved or not, I am.”

Shelby looked annoyed. “You’re making this complicated. It’s not. I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby. I’m making the decisions. You provided the sperm. Job over.”

“No. It’s not that simple and you know it. I’m not going away just because you want me to. You’re not being fair.”

“What? I’m being more than fair. I flew down to tell you. I didn’t have to do that.”

“But you did. It was the right thing to do, and you can’t legally keep me out of the child’s life. I’m the father. You said so yourself.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you doing this? I live thousands of miles away. I can’t give you what you’re asking for.”

“Well, I’m not satisfied being a phantom figure who mails a check once a month. Is that what you thought I would do? Never want to see my child?”

Anger burgeoned in her eyes. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“But you did.”

“So you keep reminding me,” she said. “I only wanted to tell you about the baby. I didn’t want anything else from you...not even a check.”

“Too bad.” John stood and scooped up her cup. He walked to the counter and set the half-filled cup in the depths of the scarred farm sink. His feelings were twisted into a giant ball of so many emotions he couldn’t begin to identify them, but in the midst of the disappointment, regret and anger was something that surprised him.

Joy.

Seemed impossible, since he hadn’t felt an inkling of happiness in well over a year. But despite feeling out-and-out terror, inside John thrilled at the warm thought of a child in his life. “We made a mistake a few months back. Not you. Not me. We. Which means going forward is something we’ll do together.”

Shelby eyed the empty spot where her tea had been. “Why did you pick up my tea? And why do you think you have the right to decide anything about my future?”

John eyed the cup in the sink before turning back to her. “Sorry.”

She glared at him.

“You’re carrying something inside of you who is as much a part of me as you. You would deny me the right to know my own son or daughter?”

Shelby paled but said nothing.

For a few minutes, they stared at each other, once strangers with a compulsion...an urge to feel something that dark September night, now tied together by the tiny life growing within Shelby.

“I need to use your restroom before I head back to Baton Rouge,” Shelby said, her voice firm and teacherlike. She seemed set on ignoring his last question. As if she could make him go away.

John studied her, seeing too much or maybe not enough of the woman beneath the highlights and sophisticated clothes. The woman beneath the expensive leather boots and jewelry that probably cost more than his broken-down truck. This was a woman nothing like his wife. But this was a woman he wasn’t going to run from this time. He conceded the battle, but the fight wasn’t over. “Down the hall to your left.”

She stood up too quickly and hit the table with her thigh. His beer fell, emptying its contents on the table he’d inherited from his grandmother May Claire. He scooped the bottle from the table, droplets of yeasty beer mixing with the scent he remembered from that night long ago—a sultry warmth that belonged to a woman he’d never thought to see again.

A scent that belonged to a woman who carried a part of his future.

John grabbed a dish towel and wiped up the spilled beer, wishing he could fix his world as easily.

* * *

SHELBY WALKED QUICKLY down the dim hallway, looking for the bathroom...looking for an escape.

God, why had she come?

Of course, she knew why. She’d put herself in the shoes of a man who’d had a one-night stand and convinced herself she would at the very least want to know she had a child out there somewhere. Seemed ethical. The right thing to do.

But now she wished she hadn’t said anything.

I’m not satisfied being a phantom figure who mails a check once a month. So what did that mean?

All the doors on her left were closed. Shelby tried the first one, but it was an office, desk cluttered with paper and somehow lonely in the afternoon shadows dancing against the pale wall. Shelby closed that door and found the small bathroom next to it.

Twisting the antique crystal handle, Shelby closed herself in the narrow gray half bath and bolted the door. Silly, but she felt better having a locked door between her and the man she’d paid her ex-boyfriend’s sister-in-law three hundred dollars to find.

Irony was such a bitch.

The bathroom showed a woman’s touch. Embroidered antique towels hung on a ring and a pewter picture frame sat on the vanity. Shelby picked up the picture of the happy couple on the sugar-white beach. John was nearly unrecognizable with tan skin and a huge grin. The wife he held in his arms was small, brown and pretty in a wholesome way. Happy times for a couple that no longer existed.

Shelby set the picture down next to a small carving of a pelican perched in the corner. From the top of the pelican sprouted cattail and tumbling Spanish moss. The braided rug looked handmade in tones of blue and moss-green. Tasteful and simple. Most likely decorated by the woman in the picture.

Shelby sighed and ran water into the sink, blinking at herself in the mirror. She’d eaten her lipstick off long ago, but still looked much the same as she had earlier. She didn’t look like a half-panicked pregnant woman. She looked, well, prettier than normal if not a little pale after having to impart the news to the man clacking around in the kitchen, cleaning up her spill.

Cleaning up her spill.

Yeah. Story of Shelby’s life.

Stay a couple of days. Let me help you figure things out.

John’s offer was tempting to a degree. She had hated being back in Seattle. The summer had been long and rainy, spent waiting on Darby. Then fall had come, along with the news Darby was in love with his...well, wife. Things had unraveled and hadn’t gotten better. Her relationship with her parents was as strained as ever, so in one way not being in Seattle was fine, but she hadn’t wanted the complication of John in her life.

So why did you fly down here to Louisiana?

She had no delusions of some sort of relationship with John Beauchamp. God help her, but she’d had enough of emotionally unavailable men, and one look at the dossier prepared on him paired with the memory of his eyes that night, and Shelby knew he still loved his dead wife. And even if he were available, there would be no time for romance between pregnancy and her teaching career. Besides she hadn’t come down here wanting to be rescued. She’d meant it when she said she didn’t expect anything of him. She didn’t have a permanent job, but she had a solid bank account, and if all else failed, there was her inheritance. Money had never been an issue for her family.

No, coming down to Louisiana had allowed her to escape the reality of Seattle if only for a few days...and delay the ensuing disappointment and scandal she would heap on her accomplished family.

Again.

Once the black sheep, always the black sheep. She seemed destined to stay in the role she’d assumed long ago.

Sighing, Shelby hiked up her dress and tugged down her tights. Might as well—how had John put it? Oh, yeah. Tee-tee. Long drive back to Baton Rouge. She wasn’t staying here in Magnolia Bend any longer than she had to. If John wanted to talk about the future of their child, he’d have to—

Shelby’s last thought disappeared as she caught sight of the blood in the crotch of her brown ribbed tights.

She jerked her panties down and sank onto the porcelain toilet seat. Heavier smears of blood in her panties. Frantically, she grabbed some toilet paper and wiped.