The Way Home (45 page)

“I think you should go,” she whispered, keeping her eyes on the table.

There was a moment’s silence when she thought Jack might ignore her request. His chair scraped across the floor as he pushed back from the table, and the sound seemed to leave a scratch across her heart. He was leaving. Again.

Hearing his footsteps as he walked away, she couldn’t stop herself from looking up, her eyes hungry for the sight of him. He stopped in the doorway, one hand on the door jamb, and spoke without turning.

“I’d like to see you again.”

“I’m married, Jack.” Patsy twisted the wedding ring on her finger as if needing to remind herself of that fact.

“I just want to see you again.”

“We shouldn’t.” With the use of the word “we” she’d linked herself to him, admitted that she wanted to see him again.

“Do you want me to stay away, Patsy?” Jack turned to look at her, his eyes gray-green and demanding total honesty.

She stared at him, feeling her heart pounding against her breastbone. If she told him to stay away, he would. He’d walk out of her life and she’d never see him again. Five years ago she’d thought him gone forever and learned to live with his absence.

But now her sister’s marriage had brought him back into her life. She’d seen him, touched him, been close enough to smell the familiar scent of his aftershave, felt herself come alive in ways she’d all but forgotten. And now he stood there, asking her to decide whether or not she could give all that up again.

“Do you want me to stay away?” he asked again.

God help her, she couldn’t say yes. She shook her head, knowing she was a fool, knowing she was only asking to be hurt. Something hard and fierce flared in Jack’s eyes and for a moment she thought he might come back and catch her up in his arms. Caught between alarm and hope, she pressed her hand to the base of her throat, her half-frightened eyes staring into his.

But he didn’t move toward her. Instead he nodded, as if satisfied with her response. He gave her a quick grin that increased her heart rate to double what it should have been and then spun on one heel and left. Patsy sat just where she was long after the sound of his car’s engine had faded into the distance.

What had she done?

The second week in March brought icy rain and cold winds that made it clear winter wasn’t quite ready to call it quits. The false spring vanished without a whimper, and with it went Meg’s brief spurt of energy.

She woke tired and stayed that way. Her stomach rebelled at the thought of food, refusing to retain more than a few bites of whatever she managed to force down. Meg did her best to hide her illness, not wanting to worry Ty. But it was impossible to hide it completely from her mother-in-law, not when the two of them were alone in the house a good part of each day.

Ty’s mother made it known that she thought Meg was coddling herself, lying in bed most of the day.
She’d
managed to give birth to three children with hardly a day’s sickness during any of her pregnancies. And
she
had a delicate constitution.

Meg let the veiled criticism wash over her, her concern more for the baby she carried than for Helen McKendrick’s opinion of her. But she did wonder if something might be wrong. To hear her mother-in-law tell it, she should be filled with energy, not barely managing to drag herself out of bed. When Meg noticed that she was spotting a little, she felt a tiny spurt of panic. But she’d overheard talk and she knew that it wasn’t necessarily something to worry about. She worried anyway.

There was no one she could ask. It didn’t even occur to her to go to the doctor. The only time she could remember anyone in her family seeing a doctor was when Patsy had broken her arm falling off a fence. Doctors cost money and they’d never had any money to spare for something that wasn’t an absolute necessity. Remembering what the doctor in Califomia had said, Meg stayed in bed as much as possible and tried to rest.

And prayed that nothing was wrong.

Ty shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the coat rack near the door. The rich smell of pot roast followed his mother from the kitchen as she came to greet him.

“You’re late.”

“There’s a lot to be done.” He dropped an obedient kiss on her forehead, wishing, not for the first time, that the farmhouse had been habitable. Living under his mother’s thumb was even more difficult now than it had been when he was a boy. If he’d had only himself to consider, he’d have camped out in the farmhouse. But then, if he’d had been only himself to consider, he wouldn’t have been back in Iowa at all.

He walked into the living room and exchanged greetings with his father, who was reading the newspaper.

“How’d it go today, son?” Elliot asked, putting the paper down.

“Not bad. Jack’s got the tractor running.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.” Ty sank down on the sofa, aware of a bone-deep tiredness. He’d never have believed he could work so hard for so long and still have so much left to do. “Where’s Meg?”

“Upstairs,” his mother said with a snap. “She hasn’t been downstairs all day. I know she’s your wife, Tyler.” Clearly, it galled her to have to admit as much. “But this isn’t a hotel and the least she could do is have the courtesy to get out of bed.”

“Did you make sure she’s all right?” Ty asked, on his feet again, his tiredness forgotten. “This pregnancy hasn’t been easy on her.”

Helen sniffed. “She’s making a fuss over nothing. Her kind pops out babies like shelling peas.”

“Her kind?” Ty had been in the doorway but he turned, his face tight with anger. “Just what kind is that?”

“People of that class,” Helen said, oblivious to the warning in her son’s eyes.

“Meg’s a McKendrick now, Mother. So when you refer to her class, you might remember that it’s the same as yours.”

“I — ” Helen’s mouth opened, her eyes flashing her indignity at the thought of Meg and herself sharing the same class or anything else, for that matter.

“Helen.” Elliot’s quiet voice held a warning. “I think you’ve said enough.”

Ty didn’t wait to find out if his mother was going to heed his father’s advice. He was already on his way up the stairs. Meg was lying in bed and she was so still that Ty thought she was sleeping. But at the quiet click of the door closing, she rolled her head toward him.

“Ty.” She started to sit up but Ty was beside her in an instant, his hands on her shoulders, urging her back against the pillows as he sank onto the edge of the bed beside her.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she said self-consciously, as if she’d just lain down a short while ago. But since she was still wearing her nightgown, Ty doubted she’d been out of bed for more than a few minutes all day.

“How are you feeling?” He reached out to brush her hair back from her forehead, frowning at the dampness of her skin. The room was comfortably warm but not warm enough to cause a sweat.

“I’m fine,” she said, making an effort to smile up at him.

The lie might have been more believable if her skin hadn’t been the color of buttermilk, the pallor broken by the dark circles under her eyes.

“How long have you been sick?” Concern made his voice sharper than he’d intended, and quick tears sprang to Meg’s eyes.

“I’m not sick,” she protested, but he saw the fear behind the denial.

“It’s not a crime to be sick, Meg.” He tamped down the worry clawing at his throat and made his voice gentle. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know.” Her hand came up to catch his, her fingers clinging as if to a lifeline. “I don’t know if anything’s wrong. I — I’ve been spotting a little,” she admitted. “I thought that might be normal. But today I’ve had pains.”

“What kind of pains?” Ty asked, with a calm he was far from feeling.

“Sort of cramps in my stomach,” she whispered, pressing one hand against low on her belly. “I’m scared, Ty.”

“I’m sure there’s nothing wrong,” he lied automatically, wanting only to ease the fear that darkened her eyes. “I’ll call Doc Corey and ask him to come over and take a look at you.”

But when he called the doctor on the phone in the living room, Mrs. Corey informed him that the doctor was out delivering a baby. If Ty wanted to call in the morning? Ty didn’t want to call in the morning. He wanted the doctor to look at Meg immediately, but since that wasn’t possible, he reluctantly agreed to call first thing in the morning. He set down the phone, telling himself that he was probably overreacting but unable to shake the feeling of urgency.

Ty had forgotten that he wasn’t alone until he turned and met the sympathy in his father’s eyes. Obviously Elliot McKendrick had heard his conversation with the doctor’s wife.

“I imagine she’ll be just fine,” Elliot said, offering the same thin comfort Ty had given Meg.

“Sure.” Ty rubbed his hands down the sides of his pant legs. “She’s pale.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s going to lose the baby,” his father said, putting words to the fear Ty hadn’t yet dared to name.

“Of course not.” The knowledge that it was out of his hands made the denial all the more emphatic.

“Your mother was sick for nine months when she carried Dickey,” Elliot said, smiling a little at the memory. “And everything worked out just fine. I’m sure it will with Meg, too.”

“Sure it will.” Ty thrust his fingers through his hair. “I think I’ll stay with Meg. Would you tell Mother I’m not hungry?”

“Of course,” Elliot said placidly, as if he didn’t know as well as Ty that his wife was likely to throw a conniption fit at the news that Ty wasn’t going to eat her dinner.

When Ty told Meg that the doctor was unavailable, he saw fear flicker through her eyes, though she quickly tried to hide it. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” she said, forcing a smile.

“Probably not, but it won’t hurt to have Doc Corey look at you.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her slender hand in his, he hoped that he was doing a better job of concealing his concern than she was.

It was going to be all right, he told himself firmly but he’d be relieved when the doctor came tomorrow.

But “tomorrow” was too late.

At three o’clock in the morning, Meg woke from a restless sleep, crying out in pain. Ty sat bolt upright in bed, one hand reaching for the light switch while the other sought out Meg. The lamp came on just as her fingers clamped around his with bruising strength, a groan of pain wrenching its way from between her clenched teeth.

He saw the terror in her eyes, the denial, the sure knowledge of what was happening in the instant before his gaze swept down the bed. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him what the bloodstained covers meant.

She was losing the baby.

“There’ll be other babies, Ty. I know that’s not much consolation now, but there’s no reason to think Meg won’t carry the next one to term.” Doc Corey’s deep voice was both sympathetic and bracing.

Ty said nothing but only continued to sit in the straight-back chair his father had brought upstairs for him, his gaze focused on the runner that covered the hall floor. The runner had been there for as long as he could remember, one of many things he grown up with in this house. He’d never paid any attention to it before, but in the past few hours, he’d become intimately acquainted with every bloated blossom woven into it. He knew just how many faded red roses it took to march across its width and the exact position of the vines twining in and out among them. And he hated every miserable inch of it, he thought with sudden savagery. He’d never realized it was possible to hate an inanimate object the way he hated that runner. He wanted to rip it up off the floor and bum it, to see it reduced to ash.

“This is nature’s way of telling us that there was something wrong,” Doc Corey was saying. “You’re both young and healthy. You’ll have plenty of babies. I know it’s hard but you have to believe that the Lord has a good reason for everything He does.”

“Is Meg all right?” Ty wasn’t particularly interested in the Lord’s reasons right now. What possible reason could there be for Meg to suffer as she had?

“She’ll be fine,” Doc Corey said, no hint of impatience in his voice, though it was the fourth time he’d answered the question.

“There was a lot of blood,” Ty said, half to himself.

“That’s natural,” Doc Corey said. “She’s sleeping now and that’s the best thing for her. When she wakes up, you let her cry all she needs to. There’s no quota on the number of tears it takes to ease a hurt like this. So you let her cry all she wants.”

Ty nodded, his own eyes burning. Meg could cry an ocean if it would make her feel better. He only wished he could do the same.

But when Meg woke in the late afternoon, she showed no inclination to weep. After the doctor left, Ty had dragged the wing chair over next to the bed so that he’d be close. He spent some time just watching her, worrying over her pallor. She looked so small and fragile lying there. There were new hollows beneath her cheekbones and a bruised look around her eyes.

She was so young, he thought, the ever-present guilt tugging at his conscience. Too young to have known so much pain. And this time her suffering was his fault. If he’d been thinking, if he hadn’t let his hunger for Meg drown out his common sense, he wouldn’t have gotten her pregnant in the first place. But he had and now she was paying the price for his lack of forethought.