A Time to Dance/A Time to Embrace (48 page)

“I know . . . but now I want to be here. Does that make sense?”

The discussion went in circles that way until the only thing Nicole could tell him was what he wanted to hear. “Transfer, then.” She muttered a tired laugh. “We’d love to have you closer, bud. Then we could have these talks every weekend.”

Kade grinned. “Just like the old days.”

“Right. Just like the old days.”

Memories of the discussion faded and Nicole checked the mirror once more. The morning after their late talk, she’d had class at eight o’clock. Every hour of the day and night had been booked since then. No wonder she was tired. Her body was merely trying to catch up.

Unless . . .

Nicole swallowed hard and turned from the mirror. She put a quick spritz of perfume on her neck.
Don’t think about it . . . it’s
impossible.
But her mind refused to change the topic. Especially in light of the one memory that wouldn’t go away.

It had happened three weeks after their honeymoon. They’d agreed to wait three or four years before having children, so birth control was a must. By waiting, Nicole could finish school and find a teaching job. She would teach two years and then take a decade off to have babies. When the kids were in school, she’d resume teaching. That way she could be with them after school and miss almost none of their at-home family time.

That was the ten-year plan, anyway. And they’d intended to follow it to the letter. All of which meant being very careful. Not only because of the ten-year plan, but because of something else. Something she hadn’t wanted to share with anyone. Something she couldn’t voice even to herself.

They’d talked about birth control pills, but Nicole was concerned about the side effects. In the end they decided to use condoms instead.

“You probably learned about condoms in school,” the doctor told Nicole when she was in for a checkup just before her wedding day.

“We did. They’re one of the safest ways to prevent pregnancy, right?”

The doctor chuckled. “Not hardly.” He gave her a crooked grin. “Every month someone whose husband used a condom comes into my office pregnant.”

Nicole had been surprised, but also fairly certain the doctor was exaggerating. Obviously condoms worked or they wouldn’t sell them.

Still, there was that one time . . .

Late that night, just weeks after their honeymoon, in the moments after being physically intimate, Matt had come out of the bathroom with a strange look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Nicole had sat up in bed, holding the sheet to herself.

“I think it broke.” Matt ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “I thought that only happened in the movies.”

A wave of alarm came over Nicole and then passed. There was no way it broke. “Maybe it just looked that way.”

Matt climbed back into bed. “Let’s hope so.”

Now, ten weeks later, the conversation came back to Nicole every few hours. Not just because she was more tired than usual, but because she hadn’t had a period since before her wedding.

She’d heard her mother talk about being pregnant before, how she’d known from the moment of conception—known without a doubt—that a new life had begun to grow within her.

Nicole had searched for such signs, but there’d been nothing. Her period had always been irregular. Sometimes she’d missed three months in a row before it showed up again. So there wasn’t any real reason to think she might be pregnant.

Was there . . . ?

The bedroom door opened and Nicole jumped. Matt stuck his head inside. “Ready?”

“Sure.” She forced a smile. “I’ll be right down.”

She was quiet through dinner, and finally when Matt was finished eating, he pushed his plate away and looked at her. “Okay, Nic. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Her answer was too quick. She stared at her food. More than half her cheeseburger was still untouched. Her eyes lifted and found his again. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’ve been sleeping late and going to bed early. You yawn all the time and hardly have any appetite.” Matt’s voice was gentle, but concerned. “I’m worried about you.”

Her gaze fell again. She pushed a fork through the small dish of beans beside the burger. The food looked old and uninteresting. A sigh slipped from her lips. It was time. If they were going to build a marriage of closeness and trust, she couldn’t keep her fears from him another minute.

“Okay.” Drawing a quick breath, she looked at him once more. “I think I might be pregnant.”

She had expected him to look shocked, even upset by her statement. After all, a baby now would mean their plan was out the window.

Instead, Matt’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Nicole? Are you serious?”

“Matt—” she lowered her head so people at the other tables wouldn’t hear her—“it’s too soon. You
can’t
be excited about this.”

His face went blank for a moment, then he let loose a single, quiet laugh. “Yes, I can. Babies are a miracle, honey. Whenever they come.”

Her heart dropped to her socks. His enthusiasm made the entire possibility seem more real. What if she really was pregnant? How could she be a mother when she hadn’t finished college? And what about her worst fears, the ones she couldn’t admit even to herself? Question after question assaulted her until she felt Matt’s hands on hers.

“Sweetheart, I don’t get it. You’re upset because you think you might be pregnant?”

“Yes!” Nicole felt the sting of tears in her eyes. “We wanted to wait four years, remember?”

“Sure.” He sat back a bit and blinked. “But if you’re pregnant now, there’s no point being upset. God will work out the details.” He took her fingers in his. “Besides, maybe you’re not. We’ve been careful.”

“Yeah, but what about that one night? When you thought it broke?”

A knowing look filled Matt’s eyes. “You think that’s when it . . .”

“Maybe. The doctor told me it happens all the time.” She dropped her head back for a moment and then found his eyes again. As she did, two tears slid down her cheeks. “I didn’t believe him.”

“Okay.” Matt took her hand. “But, honey, you’ve always said you can’t wait to be a mother. So why . . . are you crying? I mean, our plan can be adjusted, can’t it?”

“I guess.”

“Then . . . why the tears, honey? I don’t get it.”

Nicole wanted to climb across the table and hug him. He was such a good guy, so full of love for her and the future family they would one day raise. She steadied herself and decided to tell him her fears. The ones that had kept her up at night even when she desperately needed to sleep. “I guess I’m afraid.”

Empathy filled in the lines on Matt’s worried face. “Of what?”

Nicole sat back and took a sip of water. “Remember last year? When we were planning the wedding?”

“Of course.” Matt studied her, his body halfway across the table as he leaned toward her.

“Something was wrong with my parents’ marriage.” Nicole gave Matt’s fingers a gentle squeeze. “I think I told you I was worried about them.”

“Right. You prayed for them, and as we checked into the hotel the night of our wedding, you felt the Lord had answered your prayers. That everything was going to be okay.”

Nicole nodded. “I’ve thought about it a lot since then and I’ve decided maybe . . . just maybe their marriage isn’t all it seems to be. You know?”

“Okay.” Matt looked as lost as a child alone at the zoo. “So . . .”

“So I think I’ve figured it out.”

“Figured it out?”

“Yes.” Nicole stared at him. “The reason why my parents aren’t really happy like I thought they were.”

Matt blinked again. “Just a month or so ago you told them they looked like newlyweds.”

“That was before I put the pieces together. It was something your mother said at dinner one night.” Nicole released his fingers and sat back. If only he could understand. “Now I think I know the problem.”

“Which is . . .”

“I was a honeymoon baby, remember?” Couldn’t Matt see it? She worked to make her tone patient. “They had kids too early.”

“Sorry, Nic.” This time Matt sat back and crossed his arms. “I don’t get it.”

“How can you not get it?” Nicole held her hands out palms up. “My parents never got those crucial years, the years when the two of them could have bonded and built their love.”

Matt looked at her for a moment. Then he stood and eased himself around the table and slid onto the bench seat beside her. He placed his arm over her shoulders and pulled her up against him. “I have the surest sense that you’re wrong, Nicole. Your parents love each other very much. Having children early in their marriage hasn’t hurt that. Not then or now.”

Her husband’s nearness, the warm shelter of his arm around her, made everything somehow better. Her defenses fell like autumn leaves. Maybe Matt was right, but this was something Nicole had thought about ever since they’d been back from the honeymoon. “You don’t think it hurt them?”

“No.” He kissed the side of her face and smoothed her hair back behind her ears. “But if it worries you, why don’t you ask your mother? She’ll tell you the truth.”

Ask her mother? Why hadn’t Nicole thought of that? Rather than imagining the reasons her parents had struggled last year, it couldn’t hurt to come out and ask. She shifted her position so she could see Matt more clearly. “Okay. I’ll do that.”

“Now, how ’bout we pay this bill and do some shopping before we go home. I think there’s a little something we have to get before another day goes by.”

Nicole’s heart was lighter than it had been in weeks. With God on her side and a husband like Matt, everything was going to be okay. “What’s that?”

He grinned. “A pregnancy test.”

Seven

T
HE INFORMATION WAS ALL THERE, ON THE
I
NTERNET
.

Whatever research Abby had done for her article could easily be supplemented with information from the Web. She signed on and waited for the connection. She’d been so busy catching up from the weekend with Kade that she hadn’t had time to work on her coaching article until late that evening. Last night she might have had a few hours, but John needed the computer. He had to look up some new Internet site that gave coach’s tips and defensive tricks. John had heard about it from one of the other coaches.

Abby hadn’t minded. She had plenty of time to pull the article together.

The screen danced to life and a digital voice announced, “You’ve got mail.”

For the briefest instant she remembered how badly she’d looked forward to those words a year ago. Back when she and John were speeding in opposite directions, headed straight for divorce. She’d been E-mailing an editor almost daily, a man who wanted to spend time with her.

If she hadn’t found John’s journal after Nicole’s wedding, hadn’t read it and learned the real way he felt about their marriage and the mistakes he’d made, she might never have forgiven him. In fact right now she might be in the midst of a full-blown relationship with the editor.

The thought turned Abby’s stomach. She let it pass as quickly as it had come. These days her E-mail was almost all business related. She was working with several new magazines and keeping her relationships with editors at a strictly functional level. Occasionally there’d be an E-mail from a friend or a forward from one of the women at church.

But that was about it.

And even though John was spending more time on the computer, he never got E-mail. He merely surfed the Web for football strategies and plays he hadn’t thought of before. Once in a while he’d check out a site with ranch property for sale and report to Abby that they should buy a hundred-acre piece in northern Montana. But he was only kidding, only looking for a way to ease the tension brought on by the football season.

Abby clicked the mailbox and immediately a list of mail appeared. There was more than usual, and it took a moment for her to scan the list. Something from a new magazine, three from her current editors, then . . .

Her heart stopped.

The next E-mail on the list had a subject line that read,
“More
excitement than you can imagine!”
It was from someone named
Candy
at a Web site called
Sexyfun
.

Abby’s heart thudded hard and resumed beating, twice as fast as before. Her eyes did a quick check down the rest of the list and there were five more E-mails like it. All from girls at Web sites with similar names as the first.

Her mind screamed it wasn’t so. It couldn’t be. Everywhere she turned someone was talking about Internet pornography. She and John had talked about the phenomenon, but neither of them had really understood the fascination. There was no way John had been accessing pornographic sites, was there? He’d been on the Internet, yes. But only to look at coaching sites, right?

There was one way to find out.

Abby maneuvered her mouse through a series of clicks until a list of Web sites appeared on her screen. The last fifty sites that had been accessed by their computer. The most recent were three that were clearly football related. But beyond that the list was horrendous.

Names of Web sites Abby could barely read let alone utter out loud. She closed her eyes.
God, no . . . don’t let this be happening. Please
. After all she and John had been through, as much as he seemed to be in love with her . . . he couldn’t be turning to pornography. It was impossible.

Yet, what other explanation was there? They were the only two people who used the Internet on this computer, other than Sean. And he only used it for homework. Abby thought back. It had been at least a month since Sean had been anywhere near the computer.

So that meant . . .

“No, God! I can’t take it.” She covered her face with her hands. Dealing with her husband’s fascination with another woman had been one thing. But this?

You pulled us through that time, God . . . so why this? Why now?

She waited, but there were no reassuring utterances in her soul, no verses that came to mind. Only an awful empty pit in her stomach, a pit that grew larger with each passing moment.

She opened her eyes and looked at the list. Maybe they weren’t porn sites. Maybe they were coaching sites with stupid names. Yes, that had to be it. A thin veil of perspiration broke out across Abby’s nose and forehead. She felt faint, desperate, terrified. Her heart couldn’t take the shock, couldn’t believe the list of Web site names staring back at her.