Rocky Retreat (14 page)

When a third time counting once again added up to two weeks late, her nausea took on a whole new meaning.

Melody had been right. She should never have held the baby.

With her head spinning and her emotions jumbled, Rachel made her way to her bedroom and collapsed on the mattress. Lying flat out on her back, she stared at the ceiling and tried to figure out where she went from here.

A baby.

Oh God, she didn’t even dare think about how much she would like to have a child. Thinking about it would mean that it might be real. And if it was real, then she had a hell of a conversation she needed to set up with Lee. They’d used condoms every single time, but…

Damn it. All the joy she’d felt not even ten minutes earlier seemed locked in ice. She wasn’t certain
exactly
how Lee felt about her. Oh, she knew he liked her, but he was twenty-four years old. Had he even thought of having his own kids? And now she was about to throw a huge, life-altering change his way because she wouldn’t dream of not telling him.

She wanted him. She wanted him in her life because he made her happy, and she liked herself when she was with him.

But if she
was
pregnant—

Like one of those old-fashioned spiral graphs, her thoughts shot off in one direction before looping back again and again. Nothing so elegant as a starburst was drawn, the messy tangle more like a heavy Gordian knot.

She had no idea what the solution was.

When the next day dawned bright and clear, the Alberta sky sparkling blue in spite of the frigid temperatures, Rachel dragged herself from her crumpled bed. She had fretted nearly all night. She needed to get out of the house, and her “nausea” seemed to be behaving itself.

It wasn’t a solution, but it was something to do to distract herself. She picked up the phone and called Lee’s brother.

“I don’t mind giving you a ride,” Trevor told her, even though his tone said he was confused. “But Lee’s only gone for the morning. If you wait until he gets back, he can take you.”

She needed another day to sort things out before she saw him. “No, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go get the necklace now.”

“No problem. I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

Rachel pulled on warm clothes, thankful Trevor had the truck well heated by the time he was outside her door. She avoided looking him straight in the eye, and he did her the courtesy of not diving into all the questions she knew he wanted to ask.

A weird sense of comfortable awkwardness settled over them. Trevor knew damn well something was wrong, but he wasn’t rude enough to ask her straight out what it was. So they sat in silence until he turned onto the forestry road that led to the cabin.

Rachel stared out the window and tried hard not to think about anything. Instead she watched the tops of the tall pine trees dance against the blue sky as Trevor guided the truck along the narrow road. She admired the thick clumps of snow resting on the outstretched branches and wondered how the trees possibly held up that much weight without their limbs tearing free.

“Did my brother do something to piss you off?”

Rachel snapped upright, twisting to face him. “Of course not.”

Trevor grunted. “There’s no ‘of course’ about it. He’s just as capable of pissing a person off as any of us.”

“He hasn’t done anything. Everything’s fine.”

“But you didn’t want to wait until this afternoon to do this trip with him. Gotcha.”

Maybe Trevor wasn’t as slow as Lee and Anna thought. Rachel wasn’t about to spill her guts, but talking about her concerns in a generic way might help. “I’m trying to figure out how to start an awkward conversation.”

“With my brother.”

“Yes. Because you’re right, otherwise I would have asked him to drive me, but I’m not sure what I want to say to him right now.”

“He’s not that tough to talk to. I mean, he can be a bit of a jackass, but as far as younger brothers go, I kind of like him.”

His plainly said pronouncement made Rachel smile. “I kind of like him too.”

A snort escaped him. “I should hope so. You two have been living in each other’s pockets for the last couple of months. That would’ve really sucked if you hated him.”

They hadn’t been keeping their time together a secret. “I don’t think anybody hates Lee, well, except maybe for my ex-husband.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“Oh, Lee doesn’t hate Gary. They’ve never had any reason to interact—” Trevor wore such a strange expression Rachel stopped in mid-sentence. “What?”

He paused. “No one ever told you? Lee never mentioned it?”

“Mentioned what?”

The longer Trevor remained silent the more her curiosity rose. Finally he spilled the beans. “Last August when Gary was in town, Lee punched his lights out.”

Rachel laid her hand on the dashboard so she could lean forward and examine Trevor’s face closer. “Why on earth did he do that?”

“Gary was at the bar with…” Trevor paused again. “I don’t want to bring this up. I don’t want to say something that’s going to hurt you.”

Oh
. Understanding dawned. “Gary was at the bar with another woman. It’s okay, I knew he was cheating on me.”

“Doesn’t make it right to drag it out again into the light of day.” Trevor glanced at her. “I’m sorry. He was an asshole. You didn’t deserve that.”

“You’re right.” Only it was interesting how little it hurt to think back to even a few months earlier when she’d been packing up her things and leaving him. She’d changed. Moved on.

Now she had a whole
new
set of troubles to deal with.

She offered Trevor a smile in the brief moment he took his eyes off the road. “I didn’t know Lee had done that. He shouldn’t have.”

Trevor made a rude noise. “
Right
. He should have just let the guy have a free pass, even though Gary was fooling around in public. No, Rachel, there’s no way Lee would have ever let that go. Not when it involved the woman he loves.”

“What?” Rachel shook her head. “Lee’s not in love with me. And he certainly wasn’t in love with me last summer.”

“Really?” His disbelief was clear. “You need to look a little harder, sweetheart. Lee has been crazy about you for a long time.”

“It’s not that serious,” Rachel insisted even as her cheeks heated, torn between hope and fear. “We only started seeing each other a couple of months ago.”

Trevor tapped his hands against the steering wheel, counting on his fingers before humming decisively. “Hmm. Which means it’s been two months plus eight months since Lee decided you were the one for him.”

“But…” Rachel let out a slow breath. “I wasn’t even dating him back then. I never encouraged him at all.”

“You didn’t have to.” Trevor made a face. “My little brother is one of the most stubborn people on the face of the earth. He saw something in you that intrigued him, and that was it. Boom.”

“Boom.” Rachel imitated Trevor’s comment, gesture and all, dragging a reluctant smile from the man. He seemed far more serious than she’d seen him before.

“Face it,” Trevor shared somberly. “The fact you officially got together with him back in early December doesn’t change how he feels about you. I’m pretty sure he had his seduction planned to the hilt. That’s just how he rolls. Not very impulsive, but rocklike and immoveable when he decides what he wants.”

In spite of the flutter of hope in her chest, Rachel didn’t know what to do with this information.

Fortunately, Trevor had had enough sharing and fell into a sort of silence, humming along with the radio as she watched the trees go by.

Even if Lee loved her, finding out his world might have changed overnight? It was going to be a shock.

She needed to…

Lordy, what she needed was to grab a pregnancy test ASAP. Then at least she’d know for sure if she had to dredge up the courage to face him, life-altering conversation and all.

Trevor pulled to a halt outside the cabin, the truck shimmying in the thick snow that lay piled to the top of the wheel wells. “Go get what you need, but stay clear while I turn the truck around.”

Rachel went willingly, dropping out of the truck cab into thigh-deep snow. She struggled to the front stairs, feeling her way to the front door and letting herself into the icy-cold cabin.

She went to light a candle, her fingers numb just from removing her gloves to deal with the match. She inched toward the wall, moving at a slow pace as the flame flickered. Outside, the truck engine roared in protest as Trevor made a five-point turn to get the nose of the truck pointed down the mountain again.

Every time she exhaled, clouds of white surrounded her. She held the candle ahead of her and waited for a gleam of gold in the darkness.

She’d just wrapped her fingers around the necklace and had turned to the door when the rumbling sound of the truck grew quieter, as if the engine were moving farther away. Rachel hurried forward, jerking the door open in time for the red taillights of Trevor’s truck to vanish down the snowy road.

It took a moment for her brain to catch up with what her eyes were seeing. He wasn’t turning around; he had left her.

Trapped at the cabin with no way to get home.

Lee was barely in the door before something flew at him from the living room. He raised a hand to knock aside the pillow his brother had hurled.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lee demanded.

“That’s what I was going to ask you,” Trevor growled. “You know, you’re a damn idiot, screwing things up with Rachel.”

Lee jerked to a stop, totally confused. “What? What are you talking about?”

“She phoned me this morning, and when I picked her up she looked like she’d been on an all-night bender, and not the good kind.”

The entire conversation so far was like stepping into the twilight zone. “What…? Rachel phoned you? Why would she call
you
?”

Trevor rose out of the easy chair he’d been sprawled in and stalked toward him. “Why don’t you answer that? She insisted you hadn’t done anything wrong, but she sure didn’t look like you’ve been doing things right, either.”

“Stop,” Lee snapped. “Stop talking gibberish and tell me what’s going on.”

As his brother moved in on him, Lee stood his ground. Trevor was taller than him, but Lee was broader, and the last time they had a full-out fistfight it ended in a draw. Trevor wouldn’t start something unless he had a damn good reason.

The extra couple of inches meant Trevor got the advantage, glaring down as he spoke. “I didn’t say anything about you acting the fool over Rachel, partly because I didn’t think it was any of my business, and partly because I like her. She deserved a whole lot better than what that bastard Gary did to her.”

“I agree, which doesn’t explain why you’re lecturing me.” Lee shook his head. “Back up about twenty yards, bro. Why did Rachel phone you this morning?”

“Because she didn’t want to phone you, jackass. She’s obviously got something on her mind that she’s scared shitless to talk to you about. So instead of calling you, she called me on the pretense of wanting to pick up some trinket she forgot at the cabin you two got snowed in at.”

“A necklace. She already told me she forgot it there.”

Trevor narrowed his eyes. “But she didn’t tell you why she’s got dark circles under her eyes and has no idea you’re in love with her?”

This conversation simply wasn’t happening. Lee had to be dreaming the entire thing.

Then part of his brother’s comment struck him hard. “Did you tell her that I love her?”

“Well, duh.”

For fucks’ sake
. Lee dropped his head into his hands and scrubbed his face in frustration. “You know,
genius
, you could have let me deal with my own love life.”

“Why? Because you’re doing such a great job of it?” Trevor grumbled like only an annoying older brother could. “What happened to the Rachel who was all full of energy and excitement? The woman looks like hell.”

“Of course she looks like hell, she’s been sick as a dog with that flu that’s going around town.”

Trevor’s mouth hung open as horror filled his expression. “She’s been sick?”

Lee was past his bursting point. He caught hold of his brother by the front of the shirt and shook him, hard. “Why did Rachel call you? What did you do?”

Trevor caught him by the wrists, struggling until he broke Lee’s grip. “Fuck. She asked me to drive her to the cabin, so I did. And then I thought you were being an idiot and not talking to her, so I…”

He increased the space between them warily.

“You
what
, you shit?” Lee demanded.

His brother cleared his throat. “I figured what you two needed was a good space of time to talk, and it didn’t seem like she was interested in that, so I did you a solid.”

“I’m one second away from skinning you and using you as a bathmat,” Lee warned.

Trevor sighed. “I’m sorry. I left her there.”

Lee paused, dread growing in his gut. “
Where
did you leave her?”

A moment later his worst fears were confirmed as Trevor lifted his head and confessed. “The cabin. I left her at the cabin.”

Of all the stupid, idiotic…

“I’ll help you go get her,” Trevor offered.

Lee snapped up a hand, pointing to the front door. “You’ve helped enough already, asshole. Go load my sled in the back of my truck then get the hell out of my sight before I do something I regret.”

Fortunately his brother didn’t argue. He vanished out the front door as Lee rushed to his room to gather warm clothing and emergency supplies into a duffel bag.

He was on the road in under ten minutes, heading west with a sense of foreboding as he gazed up at the dark clouds gathering over the Rocky Mountains.

Trevor was an idiot; that much was clear. But more than him abandoning Rachel at the cabin, Lee was worried about whatever had upset her in the first place. She knew how to survive—she could take care of herself until he got there, but he
needed
to be there for her.

Halfway to the cabin his first fear came true. The road was blocked by a fresh avalanche. The heavy snow accumulation from over the winter had slid down the hillside and piled six feet deep across the entire surface. No way could he get his 4 x 4 to the other side of the mess.