Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family) (19 page)

“And then you hurried to move out,” she repeated.

“You wouldn’t talk to me about it!” he nearly shouted, his frustration sounding. “And if you’ll recall, I also suggested marriage counseling before we actually filed for divorce, but you refused that, too. You said talking wouldn’t do anything and you weren’t letting some perfect stranger poke around in your psyche. What choice did that leave? You wanted out and that was that. But it doesn’t mean I was happy about it. And I’ve been even less happy about the reality of it.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that I’ve missed you, damn it! I’ve missed coming home late at night and finding you all soft and warm in bed. I’ve missed Sunday mornings—making love, having breakfast together, reading the newspaper. I’ve missed being able to call you when I start craving the sound of your voice. And knowing you’ll be there waiting for me when I get back from someplace. And knowing you’re my wife and picturing us growing old together. I’ve missed...hell, I’ve missed just about everything.”

Just about everything.
But not everything.

Well, she’d missed a lot of things, too. But missing Ash wasn’t anything new to her. All those same evenings he was so happy to come home and find her soft and warm in bed were the evenings she’d spent alone and lonely before she’d fallen asleep.

And how many Sunday mornings wasn’t he there to make love to her and have breakfast with her and read the newspapers, when he was either out of town or already up and gone to the office or taking care of something else that needed him? She’d missed him then, too. Just the way she had through all of that time he’d been so happy to know she was waiting for him.

And even being married to him hadn’t allowed her to simply call to hear the sound of his voice when she craved it, because at the other end of the line would be either no answer or an intimidating Miss Lightfeather telling her he was unavailable.

Unavailable.

He’d missed her not being available to him since the divorce, but he hadn’t been available to her in a long, long time.

“And I’ve missed playing Boat,” he interrupted her thoughts, smiling at the memory and apparently overlooking the fact that she was not feeling lighthearted at the moment. “Not to mention making love to you the way I did last night and just now.”

She smiled, too, but just for a moment. Finally she blurted out what was on her mind. “Would it be any different?” And her woman’s heart listened very carefully, hoping that having let him know two days before why she’d divorced him had given him the clue to what to say, to what she wanted—needed—from him, and that he’d tell her everything would be better, that he’d make her and the baby his first priority...

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“A second marriage. What would change to make it work now when it didn’t before?” she prompted.

“That’s what we’d have to hash out, beginning with your being up-front with me about what’s going on inside that head of yours.”

Beth’s heart took cover even as she prompted again. “Okay, let’s say I start blathering about every little thought or feeling I have. What then?”

He frowned. “Then we work on what’s wrong.”

“I already told you what was wrong. You were gone all the time. I was just a pit stop in your life. How will you fix that?”

“I can’t give you a blanket answer for what I’ll do. It’ll have to be something I deal with as each thing comes up.”

“And how would that be any different from before? Except maybe that as you’re leaving, you’ll know I’d rather you weren’t?”

“What are you saying? That you’d want me to turn my back on the foundation? On my other responsibilities? On my work?”

Beth just stared at him, wondering why it was so important for her to lay bare all her feelings when doing it didn’t accomplish anything.

“No, I’m not saying I want you to turn your back on the foundation. I know what you do is important,” she finally answered him. “But don’t you see, Ash? The demands on you will be the same. And I think your response to them will be, too—you’ll meet them all. And that will leave the baby and me at the bottom of the list.”

He looked as if she were asking the impossible of him. “Maybe I could set aside some specific time for us—like a standing appointment, if that’s what you mean,” he finally said. “Or I could bring some work home so I can be available to you if you need me. Or try keeping the traveling to a minimum...”

But there was so much hedging in what he said, he didn’t sound confident enough to convince himself, let alone her.

He’d have good intentions, Beth thought. He’d make a stab at putting their marriage before the foundation work, but demands would press in on him. Crises would happen. And he’d be off again.

“Remember,” he put in, “you’ll have the baby, too. You’ll be busier than you were before. Part of the time you won’t even notice I’m gone.”

There was something about that that rubbed her the wrong way. Something that she thought made her sound so needy and weak and dependent that he had to be pointing out what could occupy and entertain her.

She let out a mirthless little laugh. “So let me see if I have this straight. You believe that the real problem in our marriage was that I didn’t announce what I was thinking and feeling every minute—”

“It isn’t as if I’m blaming that for everything,” he amended with no small amount of heat in his voice. “But I’ll repeat what I said the other day—I can’t fix what I don’t know is broken. When you don’t tell me what bothers you, how the hell am I supposed to know you’re bothered?”

“But I
let
you know what bothered me. And the best you can do with it is say you’ll try to be around a little more, but you’re warning me even as you say it that nothing is likely to change, except that the baby will fill my time like a hobby.”

“I don’t know what else I can say except that I’ll try to spend more time with you,” he said impatiently, angrily.

Beth cringed. He sounded as if he were answering an old harridan’s nagging. And she didn’t like being cast as the nagging old harridan.

With her dignity stiffening her spine, Beth let go of the blanket and found her clothes to put on as if they were armor to bolster and protect her. “I just don’t think so,” she said then.

“You don’t think what?”

“That our getting married again would work. It wouldn’t be any different than it was before, except that there’d be the baby. What was wrong would still be wrong.”

“And we’d have to work to make it right,” he said in measured tones that announced he didn’t like her answer.

“All the work in the world won’t change the fact that you’re constantly needed elsewhere. That there will always be something bigger and more important to take care of, something that can be dealt with only by you. And you’ll be gone. And I’ll be there. Waiting. Putting things off—putting off my whole life—until you have time for me.”

“Damn it, Beth—”

“You know it’s true. You’ve just said it yourself, in so many words.”

“I said I’d try—”

“But trying won’t change the fact that you need to do the work of three people. That you just plain don’t have room in your life for marriage.” Her voice cracked and it took her a moment to fix it before she could finish. And even then the sadness tinged it. “I won’t marry you again, Ash.”

“You’re ignoring the good things. What about last night and this morning?” he demanded angrily. “What about the baby? The fact that we care about each other?”

“It isn’t enough,” she answered in a near whisper, because she wished it was.

Then she went to the car, put on her shoes, and began walking in the direction of the house.

“Where the hell are you going?” he shouted to her.

“Home,” she called, salvaging what was left of her pride by not looking at him. She couldn’t bear even the thought that he might see all the emotions that were tearing her apart.

“Damn it, Beth!” he said again. “Come back here and talk to me about this!”

But she just kept going, telling herself that no matter how much she didn’t want it to be true, there was no future for them together.

And she could only assume that in spite of Ash’s protestations, he knew it, too.

Because he didn’t follow.

W
hat the hell did she want from him? Ash railed silently as he drove to the lodge in the glare of morning’s first sunshine after watching Beth walk away from the lakeside where they’d spent the night. And made love. And argued...

She said that she didn’t want to interfere with his work, that she knew it was important. But then she crucified him for it.

She didn’t expect him to turn his back on the foundation. But anything short of that and she wouldn’t marry him again.

What more could he do than promise to try to cut back some?

And what had she offered to change?

Had she said she’d try being more open about her feelings so he could know what was going on with her? So he could be warned when she felt as if he hadn’t been around enough? So he could be alerted that he’d done something wrong?

No, she hadn’t, not in anything more than a hypothetical scenario.

And what about the positive things she might be feeling? Had she said she’d work at letting him in on those, either?

No, she hadn’t.

This was just like her—walking away from a problem rather than hammering at it until it was solved. Was that what she thought he should do with everything the foundation had to deal with—give nothing more than a lame attempt to fix it and then forget it? If it was too tough, too complicated, too messy, just bury it and leave?

Because he couldn’t do that.

And he wished to God she couldn’t, either, so that maybe they’d still be at that lake, figuring out a way to deal with their problems, to get back together, to be a family.

But no. She’d left. Basically, the same way she’d bailed out of their marriage.

He barreled into the lodge parking lot so fast the turn was nearly on two wheels and his tires squealed when he came to a stop in front of his cabin.

For a moment he considered backing out again and heading for the ranch. But it wouldn’t do any more good to go after her now than it would have when she’d first taken off, and he knew it. Not when she was on her high horse like that, all closed off and impervious. She was never easy to reach, but when she put up that wall to hide her feelings behind, it was useless to even think about breaching it.

Besides, he was too frustrated and irritated to be rational or reasonable himself. He’d only make things worse.

So rather than retracing his tracks, he jammed the car into park and turned off the engine.

But he still didn’t rush to get out. Instead, he sat there, staring at the small rustic cabin and wondering what the hell he was going to do.

He loved her.

He wanted her.

He wanted the baby.

He wanted them both in his life full-time.

But the foundation and all it entailed was a part of that life.

“Damn it!” he shouted, hitting the steering wheel with both hands.

He was disgusted. With himself. With Beth. With everything.

He finally shoved the car door open, got out and slammed it shut again. Hard.

Not that it made him feel any better, but if he didn’t vent some of his anger and frustration somehow, he was liable to drive out to that ranch the way he was itching to and vent it at Beth.

He stabbed his key into the lock on the cabin door and threw it wide. In the gust of air that went with it, several small sheets of paper rose up from the floor like leaves in the wind, scattering back down to the nubby gray carpet.

He bent over to gather them, realizing as he did that they were phone messages that had been slipped under the door.

They were all from his grandfather, and with a wave of alarm he read through them in a hurry.

The time each call had been received was noted. All but one of them had come in late the day before and into the evening. The last was marked just half an hour ago.

Each one relayed a little more information, a little more urgency.

Serious charges were being levered against the drug and alcohol rehabilitation center the foundation had built and overseen.

An impromptu investigation was under way by hostile officials.

There were threats to close the place. To have the director arrested.

His grandfather thought he’d better get back there on the double....

“Perfect,” Ash muttered to himself. “Absolutely perfect.”

And he could have sworn the gods were laughing at him.

* * *

Beth had fallen on the walk from the lake to the house that morning.

Lost in thoughts of Ash and how stubborn he was, she missed spotting a gopher hole, stepped into it and gone down. Not hard. At least she hadn’t thought so. Just enough to scrape a knee. Certainly not like some of the spills she’d taken as a kid, working the ranch.

She’d gotten to her feet, brushed herself off and walked the rest of the way, counting herself lucky that she hadn’t broken or sprained anything.

It wasn’t until that afternoon that the cramping started.

At first she hadn’t even connected it with the fall. Then, when she remembered it, she thought maybe it had just caused some muscle spasms, because that’s all it felt like. Nothing serious. And it would disappear. It was so mild she didn’t pay it any mind.

Then, at four-thirty, she started to spot. Lightly, but unmistakably. And that was when she began to consider that the fall had been more jarring than she’d realized and she wasn’t just having muscle spasms. She also finally admitted to herself that she wasn’t just a kid coming in from chores with a scraped knee.

She was a pregnant woman who might be having labor pains.

Ash had been on her mind all day, but when it occurred to her that the baby could be in jeopardy she forgot about their fight. She just plain wanted him by her side.

After notifying the doctor’s office of what was happening and telling them she was on her way in, she dialed Ash’s cabin at the lodge. But there was no answer and when even her call to the front desk wasn’t picked up, she was afraid of spending any more time trying to track him down.

Instead, she left a note letting Jackson know there was a problem with the baby, that she’d gone into town to the doctor, and asking him to please try reaching Ash to tell him.

Then she got in her car and headed for Elk Creek’s medical facility without even considering that maybe she shouldn’t drive.

That only dawned on her when it began to seem as if the pains were coming stronger and closer together.

Or did it just seem that way because now that she knew what they were she was alert to every twinge?

What if she lost the baby? she started to wonder.

Oh, Lord, she couldn’t think about that. It made her heart beat even faster than it was, her hands shake more. Her whole body turn into an even tighter cord of stress.

What have I done? What have I done?
she kept asking herself, wishing she’d never stormed off with no thought to anything but her pride and getting away from Ash before he could see how much she’d wanted him, how hurt and sad and disappointed she’d been.

Please don’t let anything happen to the baby. Please.

And please send Ash. Send him right away....

Because she was more afraid than she’d been in her whole life, and if ever she’d needed anyone at any time, it was Ash right then.

* * *

Ash didn’t reach the reservation until late that afternoon. He went straight to his office, finding Miss Lightfeather closing up for the day.

She paused long enough to fill him in—a teenage patient at the rehab center had convinced his parents that atrocities were being committed by the director. The parents had pressured authorities to look into it and at that moment state investigators were at the rehab center in the second phase of their inquiry.

“My grandfather?” Ash asked in a kind of shorthand.

“He’s at the center, too, though I don’t know what he can do. It’s
you
who needs to be there,” the dour-faced woman pointed out.

“I’m on my way,” he answered, turning toward the door he’d just come through.

“It’s good that you’re back,” she called after him. “There’s an awful stack of other things that have to have your attention, too. ASAP.”

Ash waved a hand in the air to let her know he’d heard, but he didn’t pause to respond.

The rehab center wasn’t far from his office. He made it there in five minutes and was told where he needed to be by the volunteer at the admissions desk without even having to ask.

He found the team of four investigators in the basement with his grandfather and the center’s very worried looking director. Both men’s faces showed relief when they caught sight of Ash, and within moments he had taken over, doing what he did best—dealing with the problem.

And immersing himself in work without another thought to anything else.

* * *

“You’re looking tired, old man,” Ash said as he poured himself and his grandfather coffee in the doctor’s lounge while the investigators went through the director’s files and journals later that night.

“Humph. Tired of waiting,” Robert answered, accepting the paper cup as Ash joined him at a round table.

His grandfather’s long hair—like his—was tied in a leather strap at his nape, but unlike Ash’s, it was a shock of pure white. And while they resembled each other, Robert Yazzie’s face was lined and creased like a river bottom in a drought.

“It’s past ten. Just because I persuaded these people to work late doesn’t mean you have to stay. Why don’t you go on home?” Ash suggested.

His grandfather ignored him. “Did you settle things with our little Beth?” he asked instead, clearly seizing the first chance he’d had since Ash had arrived to satisfy his curiosity.

Ash let out a mirthless half chuckle, half sigh. “I don’t think you could call anything between us settled, no. I had a big fight with her this morning—I asked her to marry me again and she turned me down flat.”

“Why?”

Ash explained, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. And failing.

“I’m surprised at Beth wanting you to give up the foundation,” his grandfather said when he’d finished.

“She didn’t say that in so many words. But I sure as hell can’t see where she meant anything else. I said I’d cut back where I could, and she still wouldn’t even consider our getting together again.”

“Could be she doesn’t believe you can do it.”

Ash wasn’t so quick to respond to that, because the tone in his grandfather’s voice said the old man didn’t believe it, either. “I know it’ll be a hard promise to keep, but—”

“Or an impossible one. Over the years I’ve seen how much you’ve taken on for yourself through the foundation. Saw it even clearer being in your shoes since you went after her. You’re a very busy man.”

“There’s always a lot of work. A lot of problems,” Ash confirmed with a glance around them, silently citing their present situation as an example.

“And somebody has to see to it all,” Robert put in.

“And that somebody is me,” Ash finished. He’d been wondering all day and through the evening if this particular crisis was fate’s way of telling him he was a fool to think he actually could reduce his work load or avoid being drawn away by emergencies in order to devote more time to his personal life.

“Guess you
could
close down the foundation,” his grandfather said, as if he were ruminating on the idea.

“You know I can’t do that.” And Ash knew his grandfather wouldn’t want him to.

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Robert broke the silence with a change of subject. “I’ve been wondering about you, you know.”

“What have you been wondering about me?”

The old man shrugged. “Too many nights I played gin rummy with Beth while she watched the clock and looked out the window at every sound, hoping it was you. Too many times I watched her send you away with a smile, only to see that smile fade when you were gone. Too many times she trumped up excuses for me to visit just to keep away the loneliness. Too many times, Ash, and they all added up to the same thing—she didn’t see enough of you. She missed you. But I never had the impression that you were missing her. Not until she ended the marriage. And I’m wondering why that is. If the little you saw her was all you really wanted of her.”

Ash couldn’t believe what his grandfather was implying. “You’re wondering if I
liked
being away so much?”

Again the shrug, as if Robert thought it was possible. “
Did
you miss her when you were gone?”

Ash started to answer that, but then stopped, because an honest response wasn’t as easy to come by as it should have been. “I was busy when I was gone and—” But again he stopped short at the sound of his own words. And the words he hadn’t been able to say—that yes, he had missed her when he was away from her during their marriage.

Because for the most part, he hadn’t.

Not then.

Staring into his coffee cup, he thought about what his grandfather was getting at.

He’d been missing Beth something fierce since they’d separated. But before that?

Before that he’d always known she’d be there whenever he managed to get home to her, and that had made him feel good. Great. After all, he’d had other things on his mind while he was away, and knowing where she was, what she was doing, that she was capable of caring for herself and he didn’t need to worry about her...

Had made him take her for granted.

Wasn’t that what it all amounted to?

He didn’t want it to be true, but as if a light had been turned on in a dark room, he knew it was.

Now he suddenly wondered if the way he’d felt since he’d lost her was how she’d felt throughout their marriage.

Because if it was, it was no wonder she’d divorced him.

And it was also no wonder she’d been protective of herself and her feelings before that.

He’d put all the blame on her for being closed off emotionally. But if they’d just seen more of each other, if she hadn’t been left feeling bad and hiding it behind assurances that she didn’t mind his being gone so much, would she have eventually opened up to him in other ways?

He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed possible.