Green Lake (26 page)

Sara paused and her mouth softened. “Eris was the name of Daniel Birdcatcher's great-grandfather. Daniel said it meant ‘quiet like the dawn.’ You were so quiet when you were born, didn't cry or anything and you came out just minutes before dawn, so I called you Eris. I asked the people at the adoption agency if you could keep it, and they said it would be up to the adoptive parents. I'm glad they kept it.”

Eris nodded and made a move as if to leave, but his mother held out her hand again.

“Don't go. I'm sorry. I truly am. I know she's important to you and I won't say any more. I'm glad she makes you so happy. I want you to be happy, Eris. That's all I've ever wanted for you.”

He stood looking at her but made no motion to take her hand. After a moment she dropped it.

“The doctors said I can leave tomorrow. I'd like to make flight reservations for tomorrow afternoon. Is that all right with you?”

It wasn't. Eris wanted more time alone with Madeleine. He enjoyed having her near him in the small house and already felt comfortable with her in a way he had never felt when his mother was there. He and Madeleine could sit alone in companionable silence and read without feeling the need to make conversation. They made love when they wanted to, touched when they needed to, and slept peacefully in each other's arms at night. He wasn't ready to leave her yet.

“Eris? Is tomorrow night all right with you? I can make it Sunday if you like and come and stay with you and Madeleine tomorrow night.”

“No.” He didn't want her in the same house with Madeleine. “Go ahead and make reservations for tomorrow. I'll be in around noon to pick you up.”

“Fine.” She smiled. “I'll see you then.”

Eris left the hospital and sat in his truck in the parking lot for nearly twenty minutes while he was thinking. Finally he came to a decision, and he started the truck. He wasn't sure what to do, or how to go about it, but he knew he would need a ring.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Madeleine couldn't believe she had already missed a period. She peed on her hand twice before finally placing the tiny plastic wand exactly where it needed to be. She got up and flushed and then washed her hands before rereading the steps listed on the instructions of the home pregnancy test.

There was no way she could stand and wait for five minutes, so she walked around the house tidying up things and looking out the windows. She stopped when she saw Manuel's Jeep parked outside the log cabin.

He had come to check up on her, she guessed. See if she had gotten her things out. Madeleine was tempted to walk up and apologize for ruining his party, but then the door opened and out came the woman Madeleine had caught him with on his sofa. Madeleine stared as Manuel followed the woman out, his white teeth gleaming in a smile. The jerk.

She was glad Jacqueline wasn't here to see this. But Jacqueline was safely ensconced in the arms of their parents, who had come right away, as Madeleine had known they would.

Madeleine said she would see them when Jacqueline took possession of the house. That would happen any time now, she deduced, since Manuel was at the cabin with his new girlfriend.

She wasn't exactly looking forward to seeing her parents, but it had been several years since her last visit.

And boy will I have news
, she thought to herself after she walked into the bathroom and checked the test.

Madeleine picked up the thing and stared, overcome by sudden emotion. Her eyes began to sting and she shook her head in disbelief as she took out the other test in the package and went through the process again. She wanted confirmation of the first results.

The second results were the same and Madeleine sat down on the edge of the tub and hugged her abdomen while she cried. She hadn't expected this or had any idea she would feel this way. She experienced a moment of genuine happiness that rocked her and made her quake at the intensity of the feeling. She had a sense of being on the threshold of an entirely new purpose with a vastly different perspective.

She couldn't wait to see Eris. They hadn't planned it, but they hadn't avoided it either, and she
somehow knew he would be as delighted as she. Maybe even more so, she thought, remembering all he had told her that morning. He had lived such a stark life. Madeleine had wanted to stop the car and put her arms around him, but she sensed he would regard it as pity, and pity was something he wanted no part of for himself.

Madeleine understood. She
had felt him look at her in surprise when she said nothing further, but by then she was already thinking of finding a pregnancy test and seeing if the abrupt absence of her all-too-regular period meant what she thought it meant.

Six months ago she would have quailed at the idea of being pregnant. Pregnancy was what happened to other women, women who weren't careful.

Six months ago she didn't know Eris Renard.

She passed the afternoon doing laundry and folding clothes. Madeleine wondered how she could feel so good about doing something she had once found so menial. She had hated doing Sam's laundry. She loathed folding his socks and T-shirts and underwear. It was a task she would have gladly paid someone else to do could she afford the fee. Everything with Eris was different. She enjoyed folding his garments and stacking them neatly in his drawers. She would have to get some more towels for the bathroom, she decided, because he didn't have enough for the two of them. As soon as she got a job she would see to that, she told herself.

Madeleine decided to go over to the community college Gloria Birdy had mentioned to her. It was the first week of July and there was still time to plan a course should they decide they wanted her. Or she could fill in where needed until the next semester. She wanted to be busy again, and she wanted to be where she could better research her project on lakeside communities.

Returning to the field was out of the question now. She was ready to become a part of everything she had studied and flow into the culture around her instead of merely observing it.

She was going to add to the population of her species by one, and the importance of protecting and providing for the baby growing in her womb would teach the anthropologist what a thousand studies in the field of human nature could not. Madeleine was looking forward to the lessons.

Around
six o'clock she walked to the window to look for any sign of Eris returning. Instead she saw a man walking onto the porch and bending to pick up a paper bag. She called in a loud voice for him to stop. The man jerked, started, and dropped the bag back onto the porch as he looked up to see Madeleine. She looked at the man, the man looked at Madeleine, and then he was scrabbling for the bag again and running hard away from the porch to jump into a green car parked up the road.

Eris pulled up in time to see Madeleine running toward him, shouting and pointing. He hopped back inside his truck and started the engine, and she rushed to throw open the door and jump inside.

“Get out,” he ordered immediately.

“You're off duty,” she replied. “Who was that?”

“It was Ronnie Lyman. What the hell was in the sack he took?”

“I thought you knew.”

Eris backed out and took off across the lawn.

They didn't have to go far to find Ronnie Lyman. The front of his green Grand Prix had disappeared into the side of the man in the baseball cap's SUV, and the man in the ball cap was dragging Ronnie out of the car to hit him in the head with a tire iron when Eris and Madeleine came upon the scene.

“Beckworth,” Eris said under his breath, and Madeleine grabbed for his arm when he would have gotten out of the truck.

“You're unarmed.”

Eris freed his arm and got out. Madeleine looked again and cringed at the amount of blood covering Beckworth's hand and arm as he repeatedly struck the other man.

“Asshole!” Beckworth screamed. “You ruined my fucking wheels!”

Eris walked over and caught the tire iron on the back swing. He wrenched it from Beckworth's hand and threw it to the side of the road. When Beckworth twisted to see who had dared to touch him, Eris hit him once, hard. Beckworth flopped backward over Lyman's inert form and lay still. Madeleine's eyes were round as she got out of the truck. She thought to call a warning about the other two men in the SUV, but they weren't doing anything, just staring as Eris bent over Ronnie Lyman.

Eris looked up as Madeleine approached. “Get back in the truck and radio for help. Tell them we need an ambulance.”

As she hurried back to the truck she saw people moving in from all sides. Tanner and his wife walked eagerly up to see, and a man in a sleek Jaguar came cruising slowly by, inching along through the people in his path.

Madeleine blinked at sight of the Jaguar
then climbed into the truck. She turned the radio on and started asking anyone who was listening for help. Dale Russell answered immediately and said he would take care of everything.

She got out of the truck again and approached Eris, who still squatted over Ronnie Lyman and was surrounded by a ring of people he told repeatedly to stay back. He looked expectantly at Madeleine and she told him she had made contact with Russell. Eris nodded grimly and looked at Ronnie Lyman again.

Beckworth lifted his head and got slowly to his feet. He snarled when he saw Eris, and Madeleine shouted when she saw his intent. Eris twisted around in time to receive a vicious kick to the chest. His lips disappeared in a grimace and the left side of his shirt began to blot with blood as his wounds opened up and began to seep. Beckworth danced around and moved in to swing, but Eris caught one leg and gave a yank, sending him sprawling to the ground. The breath left Beckworth in a whoosh and Earl Lee Birdy stepped through the crowd and put one large foot on his ribcage. “You ever want to breathe again, you stay put.”

The cap fell off Beckworth's head, and even as he fought for breath he scrambled to replace the hat. A minute later Dale Russell was on the scene and looki
ng important as he smacked Beckworth on the head a few times and cuffed him before calling the police. He checked the vital signs on Ronnie Lyman, and he and Eris exchanged a look that confirmed what Madeleine had already suspected. Ronnie Lyman was dead.

When the ambulance arrived, the sheet went over Lyman's face and a murmur went through the crowd. As Beckworth was taken away in the back of a police car, Madeleine saw the Jaguar leave the side of the road and fall in behind the sheriff's officer. The driver of the Jaguar was smiling, Madeleine noticed.

An attendant from the ambulance wanted Eris to ride along to the hospital, but he shook his head. Madeleine told the attendant she would bring him in the truck. The entire side of his shirt was covered with blood and his face had gone pale.

There was no talking on the way to the county hospital. She sent a hand over to squeeze his thigh, but his eyes were closed and did not open until she stopped the truck in the hospital parking lot. Madeleine walked inside with him and watched worriedly as interns came to take him away from her. She tried to follow, but they asked her to please stay behind and give the front desk what information she could.

Just before ten o'clock, they allowed her to go in and see him. The bleeding was stopped and the wounds had been stitched a second time. When she went in she was surprised to find him sitting on the edge of the bed. His left arm was in a sling again, and he held out his right arm to her.

Madeleine went to him and held on tightly. “Are they going to let you come home?”

“Not tonight. They want me immobile. I never got a chance to tell you my mother is being released tomorrow and wants to leave immediately afterward.”

“Tomorrow?” Madeleine said. “You're leaving tomorrow?”

His arm tightened in response.

“Eris…” She wanted to ask him to wait. She had so much to tell him. They had so much to talk about, so many plans to make.

“The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back,” he said into her hair. “I'm going to meet my brother.”

Madeleine swallowed and nodded. “You want me to come for you in the morning and take you to
Wichita?”

“If you don't mind.”

“Shall I pack for you tonight?”

He nodded. “Jeans and shirts, socks and underwear. And throw in my Nikes, if you think about it.”

Madeleine said she would take care of it. Then she decided to leave—it was that or fall apart in front of him—and let him get some sleep so he could be rested for his trip. She kissed him and started away, but he pulled her back and held on. He pressed her against him and rubbed her neck with his fingers as he kissed her temple. “I'm going to miss you,” he said.

She closed her eyes. “I'll miss you, too.”

“I'll call.”

Madeleine nodded.

They looked at each other a moment, then he put his hand to her face and said, “Tell me you won't go anywhere.”

She placed her hand on top of his. “Tell me you won't listen to her about us.”

They gazed at each other again then tenderly kissed.

As she left the hospital Madeleine didn't feel at all strong. Her hands shook and her lip quivered all the way home.