Seeing Stars (29 page)

Jenn stood when Claire did and took the sleeping baby from her. "You'll be back Friday?"

"Late afternoon. And thanks. I had to tell someone."

"You haven't told me much. Good thing I'm a writer and can read between the lines... Claire, babies bring responsibilities."

"Yes, and fathers, but I can't decide anything until I know."

"If you love him, it shouldn't make any difference."

"This isn't fiction, Jenn. It's more complicated."

Her friend gave her a hug that pressed the baby between them. "Honey, it's always more complicated, but in the end it's simple. Love is a verb. It's not just something you
feel,
it's something you
do
—a decision you make, to love the person you feel love for, even when it's not easy."

Claire slept in the old cabin the first night, as she'd said. She reached the high clearing at the end of East Ridge Wednesday, the second day. Her legs ached from the unaccustomed walking by then. It had been months since she'd taken such a long hike, and she'd never driven herself this hard before.

Wednesday night, sitting against a rock with a universe of stars overhead, she realized it wasn't going to make any difference how far she hiked, how many stars she looked at, how far she ran.

The stars had been enough for her once, but stars couldn't take the place of a man's arms, couldn't replace the feel of his fingers twisted through hers as they stood together at the helm of his boat. Stars couldn't fill up a lifetime of loneliness, and she'd been lonely all her life. Her father had seen it, had done what he could to draw her into the world after her mother's death, even to the extent of leaving his job, his research, his life, to make a life for her.

He'd made a wonderful life for her, filled with stars and dreams, but somewhere along the road she'd missed the part where a girl grew into a woman and created her own family, her own babies, her own life. A life separate from the stars, because the stars might be everywhere, but they only came out at night.

Blake was right. She hadn't turned him down because of her job. She'd run away because she was afraid... afraid of being vulnerable, of getting hurt, of failing to be the sort of woman, the sort of wife and mother Lydia would have been.

Lydia, who was divorced. Great yardstick for comparison.

Blake hadn't asked her to give up her mountaintop, although he had asked her to give up Chile. The ironic thing was, if she carried his child, she wouldn't be going to Chile. It didn't matter if there were hospitals, doctors. She wasn't willing to bring up a child in a small community of English-speaking scientists in a foreign country, any more than her father had been willing to subject her to the research station environment after her mother died.

If she did have Blake's child, she knew now that she wouldn't be staying on this mountain either. A single-parent family wasn't enough on an isolated mountaintop, any more than it had been enough on the research station in Nevada.

She didn't know what she'd do, where she'd work if she had to leave, but there had to be options for a woman with three degrees and a comet to her name.

The point was, she hadn't run away from Port Townsend to defend her quest for the stars. Blake was right—she'd left because she was too much of a coward to stay. And now...

Well, she was still afraid, but once she knew for sure about the baby, maybe she could think of some way to make amends. Not that he'd want a life with her now, after the lies she'd told him—although if she wasn't pregnant, he'd never have to know about that part of it.

More lies.

It shouldn't make any difference, Jenn had said. Whether there was a child or not, if she loved him....

But it did make a difference, because without a child, they could find a way to bridge their worlds. With airports and long weekends, they could...

No, it wouldn't be enough. He wanted more, a family, and so did she. Hadn't she told a terrible lie, trying to create her own family without sacrificing anything?

Choose, Claire. The man or the mountain. You can't have both. Choose now, before you know about the baby, because it shouldn't make any difference.

What if she went to him, only to find he'd stopped loving her? What if she confessed her lie and destroyed his love?

She could write, confess everything, and leave the choice to him.

The coward's way. Even if she'd lost him with her lies and her stupidity, she owed him the words, face to face. But even if she started walking back to the station at dawn, she wouldn't get back before midday Friday, and she was due for her first shift Saturday at six. It would be weeks before she could manage a flight to Port Townsend.

What if she phoned him? She could tell him she loved him, that there were things she needed to tell him. Would he meet her somewhere, halfway, somewhere they could both reach in a few hours?

It wasn't ideal, because she wouldn't blame him if he hung up on her, but she very much wanted to do
something
before she knew if they'd made a baby. If she waited, how could she ever persuade him that it wasn't because of the child?

She would hurry back, phone him and somehow make him listen.

Thursday, she woke in time to see the morning star, but she was too sick to care about Venus. Doubled up at the side of the clearing, heaving with nausea, she searched her body for sensitive spots, signs of a bite that might have poisonous effects. She thought of Blake taking chances in the storms, and wondered if she would die here, in the desert, from a bite she'd gotten while sleeping.

She drank some water, relieved when it stayed down.

An hour later, she started out slowly, expecting the nausea to return, but it didn't. There was no bite, no rash, no fever. No reason for the nausea.

Except one. Pregnancy.

Blake's child. Hers. Growing inside her. She wasn't sure why she was crying—happiness or misery. If only she hadn't tricked him. 

At noon, she washed her face in the cool water of Thomas Creek and told herself to stop this ridiculous crying. She wasn't the sort of person who cried. She was decisive, rational... a woman in love.

A pregnant woman in love, and she'd made a stupid mess of it.

She walked faster then, because tonight there would be a moon, and if she could make it to the final slope before sunset, she'd be out of the shadow of the mountain and could pick her way up to the observatory by moonlight. Then she'd have all day Friday and maybe, if she could talk Blake into it, there'd be time to fly somewhere she could meet him, face to face, and tell him...

She'd tell him the truth, just the truth, and forget trying to get out of it unscathed. She filled her water jug in the creek and set out up the hill. With luck, she'd reach the cabin by three.

Just before two-thirty, she stepped over a rock and froze at the sound.

Rattlesnake. To her right.

Very slowly, she eased back... one foot, then the other. She hadn't penetrated the center of his territory, just the perimeter, and he'd warned her. About to circle around him, she heard another sound. Rocks, little rocks falling, uphill from her. She swallowed, realizing this was no small animal, but a hiker coming around the corner.

"Don't come any farther!" she shouted. "There's a rattler in your path, just around the corner!"

The rocks stopped rolling, then a voice called out, "Claire?"

Blake's voice, here. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting sudden dizziness. Blake? He'd come to the mountain to find her?

"Blake?" She heard the rattler again and said urgently, "Don't come any farther! Is it really you?"

"It's me, sweetheart, but I'm not up on rattlesnakes, except for the basic instructions I got from your friends."

"Don't move. Just don't move, OK? What instructions?"

"Keep my boots on and walk in the clear, away from rocks and scrub."

His voice was impossibly real. He must have met Jennifer. Had Jenn told him... no, she wouldn't. Blake had come to her. If he'd forgiven her for her stupidity, the part he knew about, then maybe—

"Claire, is there a way around this particular hazard, or do I have to shout what I've come to say without seeing you? I have to tell you, sweetheart, I'd much rather do this face to face."

"I'm coming. Just stay there."

She brushed her hair back and realized it must look terrible, braided and hanging out of the braid in strands. She walked slowly around the rattler's zone, careful to step on the clearest spots, climbing up the steep hill away from the path. Just before she got to the top, she pulled the tie out of her braid and finger-combed her hair. She'd been away from a mirror for three days, but it would have to do.

She stopped at the top of the hill, in full view of him. She wished he would come to her, wished she could see something on his harsh face. She started down the hill, slowly.

"Have you ever been bitten?" he asked.

"I'm careful. And I wear high boots. The ones you're wearing aren't great for the desert, so don't step on any rocks." How could they be talking about bites and boots? "I'm glad you came."

"Are you?"

Maybe he'd come to say something, but she couldn't blame him for being wary. "I was going to call you when I got back, to see if you would meet me somewhere... somewhere in between."

He considered her, not smiling, though there'd been a smile in his voice when he'd joked about telling what he'd come to say with the rattlesnake between.

"Are you going to come down here, or are we going to do this at a distance of twenty paces?"

She smiled nervously and came the rest of the way down the hill.

"There's a clearing back there," he said. "A creek. Shall we talk there?"

She nodded and preceded him because the path didn't allow two to walk abreast at this point. At first she was nervous, then slowly she relaxed to the rhythm of walking up the steep slope, the sounds of her footsteps echoing with his.

When they came to the creek, she walked to the bank and sat on a familiar rock and discovered she hadn't the courage to look at him while she spoke.

"I'm sorry about last week," she said, staring at the water streaming over an outcropping of rock. "Last Wednesday, at your house."

"So am I. I said a lot of things I wish I could take back."

She looked up then. "You were tired, and the things you said were true."

"I doubt being tired made much difference. I wanted something, and when I didn't get it I struck out, trying to hurt you. I'm sorry, Claire."

She'd thought the tears were gone. She looked away and brushed her eyes roughly with the back of her hand.

"Claire, I need to know what you feel about me."

She turned her head, found his eyes bleak. "I love you," she said simply. "I know I made a mess of it, but I love you."

His eyes seemed to probe her very depths, then he took one long stride toward her and she flung out a hand to stop him. "Not yet. There's something you need to know first."

"Honey, I know we've got problems. You on the mountain and me at the sea. It doesn't matter. If you love me and I love you, we'll make it work somehow."

She gripped his shirt, holding him away. "You don't really know. Part of what you love about me is the way you say I'm so direct. Honest. It's not true. I lied to you."

"Did you lie when you told me you loved me?"

"It's worse than that."

"Baby, nothing would be worse than that." He adjusted her hands so they rested on his shoulders. "OK," he said gently. "Spill it."

"You're not taking it seriously."

"Sweetheart, I'm head over heels in love with an impossible woman who's so busy looking at the stars she won't look down and take time to fall in love with me...only now it seems she did. Unless you're going to tell me you're married to someone else, I figure I can handle whatever comes next."

"I'm probably pregnant."

"You're... but you..."

She tried to twist free and failed.

"Are you sure?" he asked. He looked stunned.

"Mostly sure."

"You knew before you left Port Townsend?"

"I knew it was possible." She swallowed. "Probable. I lied about being on the pill."

"You planned this?"

"Sort of."

"A one-week affair, a baby without the inconvenience of a husband?"

"Not in the beginning. Afterward, when I realized we'd made love in the shower without protection." She bit her lip, looked away from his eyes. 

"I never thought I'd have a child, never let myself seriously want a baby. I live on isolated mountains, and there's only me. I didn't think I'd ever marry. But that morning... I didn't mean it to happen, but afterward I knew the time was right, that I might have conceived, and I guess I went kind of crazy. I decided that if it happened, then it was meant to be."

"And you wanted a baby."

"Yes. Only then... on the boat..."

"You decided to tip the odds a little more in your favor, and told me you were on the pill so I wouldn't use a condom."

"That sounds terrible, as if I'd planned.... It was an impulse. I knew it was wrong even when I did it, but I told myself that because I loved you, it would be all right."