Maybe if she just thought of him as a friend, she decided, pulling on her jeans. He had been good to her after he’d found out about the baby, trying to make her feel comfortable here. It might be nice to have a friend. Even if it was one she’d been in love with for years now. But that was something he’d never know. Not if she could help it. It had been her secret for all this time. It was going to stay that way.
When she went back downstairs, Tate was still in the kitchen, but she noticed he’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt, too. He was standing at the sink looking out the window, but he glanced around when she came in. He motioned her closer and Abby moved next to him.
“See that plot of ground there that’s a little higher than the surrounding area? That’s where Mom always had her garden. I’ve been thinking. If you’d like to take a shot at it, I can till it up for you.”
She smiled up at him. “I’d like that, but I’m afraid I don’t know any more about gardens than I do about chickens.”
“I’ll help you.”
Abby went to the refrigerator and started removing items. “What do we need to plant?” She handed Tate a plastic-wrapped package of chicken. “Here. You can cut this up for me.”
He took it and pulled a knife out of the drawer. “Mom always planted tomatoes, purple hull peas, snap beans, okra, potatoes.” He gave a slight shrug. “Things like that.”
“Maybe some peppers?”
Tate’s hands slowed, his head tilted as he stared out the window. “Yeah, now that I think about it, seems like there were two or three different kinds. And radishes and onions. I think we’ve got some seed catalogs around here somewhere. We’ll make a list later tonight and pick everything up after you see the doctor Wednesday.”
“Where do you get them?” Abby dumped the batter she’d been stirring out onto a floured board and began to knead the dough.
“At the feed and seed in town.” Tate finished the chicken and put it in a bowl to one side. “Now what?”
“You can peel some potatoes.”
He got the bag out of the pantry and went to work. Abby watched his precise movements from the corner of her eye as she cut out the biscuits from the dough and put them in a pan. When she was done, she got another knife and began cutting up the potatoes as he finished peeling them. “What was your mother like? Was she pretty?”
“I doubt most folks would have thought so, at least until they got to know her. But she had this way of making people comfortable. She never met a stranger, never had a bad word to say about anyone. And she laughed a lot. I guess she was one of the happiest people I’ve ever known.”
“Do you look like your father?”
“Buddy and I both took after Dad. Mom’s hair was mostly brown when she was young.”
Abby glanced at the thick ebony strands of hair spilling onto his forehead. His father must have been gorgeous. “What was his name?”
“Jonathan Sean, but he went by Sean.” He handed her the last potato. “What about your father? You’ve never mentioned him.”
Abby stared at the potato in her hand. “I don’t know who my father is. Neither did my mother. He could have been anyone.”
Tate leaned against the cabinet next to her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s okay. I learned to live with what my mother was and I learned to live with the way people treated her because of it.” She looked up at him seriously. “But that didn’t make her a bad person. She did her best for me.”
“Did she love you?”
“I guess in her own her way, maybe she did. At least she tried to protect me from the men who visited her. The older I got, the harder that was to do. I started spending a lot of time at the library on her busy nights.”
“You didn’t turn out like her.” His voice was soft, quiet.
“No. I don’t think I could have. I saw too clearly what it did to her. She was only in her forties when she died, Tate, but she looked sixty. She was worn out even before the cancer. Her pride was gone. There was nothing left for her to care about.”
He reached out and pushed a lock of hair away from her face. “And yet, you let me in that night. Why, Abby? I’ve tried to figure it out. Why then? Why me?”
Tears misted her eyes but she blinked to clear them before they could spill over. “Because you needed me,” she whispered. “No one had ever needed me before. You were the only one who’d ever treated me halfway decent. And maybe a little because I was lonely, too.”
Suddenly he gathered her in his arms and buried his face in her hair. “I’m sorry, Abby. God, I am so sorry. For everything. But especially the way I treated you that night. It must have been awful for you.”
“It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t have to let you in.” She leaned back a little and looked up at him, forcing herself to smile. “And it wasn’t that bad, really.”
He returned her smile. “You don’t lie worth a damn. I know it couldn’t have been what you were expecting.”
“From everything I’d read, it pretty much was. Well, except for—” Abby stopped abruptly and heat rushed to her face.
“For what?” He was looking at her curiously.
“Nothing.” She shook her head.
“Come on. You started it, now you have to tell me.”
Was it possible for a face to actually burst into flames? She lowered her gaze to his chest and kept it there, wishing fervently she’d kept her mouth shut. “It’s just that there was a little…more…of you than I thought there would be.”
Tate made a choked sound, his whole body shaking, and her gaze flew back to his face. He was laughing!
Before either of them could say another word, the front door slammed and Buddy’s voice rang though the house. “Anybody home?”
Abby felt a tiny stab of disappointment when Tate released her and stepped back.
“We’re in the kitchen,” he yelled back.
Buddy came through the door and dumped his books on the table. “I hate to break this to you, but the news is out. Everyone in town knows the two of you are married.”
Tate sighed. “Looks like Hank didn’t waste any time. She stopped by earlier today. Seems we’re going to have a party Saturday.” So much for breaking the news to Diane himself. He couldn’t even call her, since he had no idea where she was staying. His only option was to make damn sure he got to her before anyone else did when she got back.
“All right!” Buddy’s grin went from ear to ear. “Can I invite Amy Fletcher?”
“Might as well. Her folks will be here anyway.” He gazed at Abby for a long moment. “Well, if you’ve got things under control here, I’ll go check on the stock.”
She nodded. “Thanks for the help.”
“No problem.”
Chapter Eight
“Mrs. McCullom?”
Tate poked Abby gently on the arm when she didn’t respond. “That’s you.”
“Oh.” Her face heated as she put the magazine down and stood.
The doctor’s waiting room was filled with women in various stages of pregnancy and Tate was feeling more than a little out of place. When he stood with her, Abby shot him a look of surprise, but he suspected that if the doctor gave her any prescriptions, she’d never tell him about it. He was going to make sure she got them filled even if it meant suffering through this ordeal every time she had an appointment.
The nurse led them to an examination room, pausing at a set of scales to get a weight, then directed Abby to a table that sat in the middle of the room. “Just have a seat there, Mrs. McCullom and we’ll get started.”
Tate took the only chair in the room, listening as the nurse fired questions at Abby, marking her answers on a sheet of paper. When she was done, she stuck a thermometer in Abby’s mouth, then wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm. She added the results to the chart before opening a drawer in the bottom of the table, pulling out what looked to Tate like a paper tablecloth, which she placed on the exam table.
“I’ll need a ur
ine sample. The bathroom is right down the hall on the left. Just leave it there.” She took a plastic cup from a cabinet and set it on the countertop. “When you’re done, go ahead and get undressed and slip the gown on. It opens in the back. I’ll be back in a few minutes to draw some blood.” The door closed quietly behind her.
Abby slid from the table and picked up the cup. “I’ll be right back.”
He stood until she’d left the room, then sat down, thinking about yesterday.
He’d spent the whole day in the fields, getting the last of the crops in the ground. He’d been sweaty, covered head to toe in dust raised by the tractor and, by lunch time, starved half to death. He didn’t want to take the time to go back to the house and eat, though, deciding instead to just keep going until he was finished.
He hadn’t expected to see Abby standing at the end of the row with a basket on one arm. A tiny surge of pleasure ran through him at the memory. Since his mother had died, no one had ever taken the time to care if he ate or not, but she had. Then again, something seemed to have changed between them since they’d gotten married. Abby seemed more relaxed, looser, around him. Like she’d decided to finally trust him.
His mind ran back over Monday. No, it wasn’t since the wedding, he thought. It had happened later that day. After she’d gone upstairs to change. Maybe it was the talk they’d had in the kitchen while he helped her with supper.
He only knew that they had spent a comfortable evening going over the seed catalogs together while Buddy did his homework upstairs. A grin split his face as he remembered Abby’s comment about needing a ladder to pick strawberries, and the laughter it had prompted from him. Apparently she’d never picked strawberries before, or even seen one of the low growing plants. She’d actually slugged him in the arm for laughing at her.
And that wasn’t all. The house was so clean he was almost afraid to walk though it. She’d even washed clothes. For the first time since his mom died, you could actually find Buddy’s bed.
Yesterday, they had sat under a tree while he ate the left-over chicken and cobbler she’d brought, washing the food down with about a gallon of iced tea. And even when they hadn’t been talking, the silence hadn’t seemed so uneasy.
The door to the exam room opened and Abby came back in, hesitated and then clutched the gown to her chest, staring at Tate helplessly. Tate knew how she felt. There was nowhere in the room to offer her any privacy. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I’ll just wait outside the door while you change.”
He stepped though the door, closing it behind him. The nurse was at a desk near the end of the hall and she looked up, one eyebrow arched in question.
“Problem?”
Tate thought fast. “No, just wondering if you have a drinking fountain.”
She pointed to her right. “Down there.”
“Thanks.” He took his time, dawdling to give Abby a chance to change, then went back to the room and knocked softly before opening the door a crack.
She was standing in the middle of the room, one hand behind her clutching the gown closed, looking like she was about to cry.
He slid all the way into the room. “Abby, what’s wrong?”
“I broke the strings on the gown trying to get them tied.”
“Turn around. Maybe I can fix it.”
She presented her back to him and Tate tried his best not to look at the long expanse of bare skin that led down to a nicely curved bottom. It wasn’t easy. Carefully, he examined the gown. “They’re only broken on one side.”
He took out his pocket knife and poked holes in the paper, threading the remaining strings through them and tying them off. “There. You’re all fixed up.”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was still a two inch gap in the back of the gown. She was nervous enough as it was.
“What do you think they’re going to do to me?”
He shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve never been through this before either.”
They both looked up as the nurse came back in carrying a packet. Tate watched as she put a rubber strap around the top of Abby’s arm, but turned away with a wince when she pulled out a syringe. God, he hated needles.
“There we go. Just hold your arm closed for a second and I’ll get a Band-Aid on that for you.”
He looked back as the nurse collected the vials. Abby didn’t look like she was in mortal pain and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Doctor Spanos will be in shortly.”
They were both quiet while they waited, Abby fiddling nervously with the sheet the nurse had draped over her lap. She literally jumped when the door opened again.
A short, stout man with hair as white as the jacket he wore came in, looking at the chart in his hands through black rimmed glasses. The nurse followed him.
He nodded at Tate, then turned to the table. “Abby, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Abby, you are definitely pregnant. When was your last period?”
“March first.”
The doctor did some rapid figuring on the chart then peered at her over his glasses. “That would put your due date about December sixteenth.” He handed the chart to the nurse. “Now, I’ll need you to just lie back on the table.”
Moving up beside her, he slid the shoulder of her gown down. Tate suddenly found a scuff mark on the floor of major interest, but not before he caught a glimpse of one bare breast.
“Hmm. A little tender?”
Abby must have nodded in answer, because the doctor continued. “That’s to be expected at this stage. Nothing to worry about and it’ll go away soon.”
There were more rustling noises. “Okay, you can slip that back on now.”
Tate inhaled and looked up. Surely that would be the worst of it. It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Just about the time he was starting to relax, the doctor pulled up what looked like metal stirrups from the end of the table and put Abby’s feet in them.
“Scoot your bottom down to the very edge. We need to take a look and make sure everything is where it should be.” When Abby complied, looking almost as panicked as Tate felt, the doctor parked himself on a stool between her legs. The nurse helped him put on rubber gloves and then handed him a tool that looked suspiciously like a post hole digger to Tate.
Surely he wasn’t going to… Tate blanched. Apparently he was, indeed. His stomach rolled. That must hurt like hell. His gaze shot to Abby’s face, but she was staring fixedly at a spot on the ceiling.
It was only a minute or two before the doctor handed the post-hole digger back to the nurse, but to Tate it felt like hours.
Doctor Spanos patted Abby’s sheet covered leg. “Everything looks normal and you’re right about the dates. I’d put you at about seven weeks along. Just relax there a second and we’ll take a look at the baby and see how it’s doing.”
Take a look at the baby? Tate was still trying to decide whether or not to protest when the nurse moved to a machine behind the table and pulled out a long wand-looking thing. When she rolled a condom down on it and coated it with lubricating lotion, Tate broke out in a sweat.
As the nurse flipped switches on the machine, the doctor bent over Abby again, doing something mysterious under the sheet.
There was a burst of static and the doctor, nurse and Abby all turned their heads toward a flickering light.
“Dad, you might want to move a little closer so you can see this, too.”
Slowly, Tate got to his feet and moved to stand near Abby’s head, his eyes on the screen beside her. He stared at it for a second before he realized what he was seeing. Most of the screen was white, but there was a darker half-arc in the center. And inside that arc, something was moving. Awe ran through Tate, filled him to near bursting. His breath caught in his chest. “My God,” he whispered. “Look! Is that the baby?”
Doctor Spanos chuckled from the end of the table. “It’s always easy to tell who the first-time parents are. Yes, that’s the baby.”
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Tate tore his gaze away from the screen and looked down at Abby. She looked like she was about to cry again, but she was smiling. At the same moment their hands moved, fingers joining tightly together.
“There’s its head.” The doctor pointed out a larger, rounder shape on one end. “Let’s see if we can get it to hold still long enough to get a fix on its size. Sure is an energetic little thing.”
Tate looked back at the screen intently. After some shifting around and some loud static, the shadowed image of a curve appeared, indistinct, but obviously alive and active. Unconsciously, his grip on Abby’s hand tightened.
The image on the screen froze and several dots popped up with a white line stretching between them.
“What’s wrong?” Tate glanced at the doctor.
“Not a thing. Just getting some measurements. We’ll print this out for you so you can show it off to all your relatives. Baby’s first picture.”
The machine clicked and then spit out a strip of paper. The frozen image vanished and Tate could see the baby moving, almost bouncing from one side of the dark area to the other.
“Can you tell if it’s a boy or girl?”
Doctor Spanos shook his head. “It’s still too early for that. We’ll do this again in about four months. We should be able to tell then.” He flipped the machine off and handed the wand to the nurse. “Okay Abby, you can sit up now.” He rolled his stool to the counter and picked up her chart, looking through the pages.
“Everything seems to be right on schedule and the baby looks healthy and normal. However, you’re a little anemic and you’re also underweight. I’m going to give you a prescription for some vitamins with an extra supplement of iron. How are you feeling, generally?”
“Fine.” Abby was sitting up, holding the sheet tightly around her, but she hadn’t released Tate’s hand.
“She’s been getting sick and throwing up,” Tate added helpfully.
Abby glared at him, but he ignored her.
“That’s normal and should ease up soon. In the meantime, I’ll give you something for nausea that should help. Other than that, just eat well-balanced meals and rest when you feel tired.”