She Woke Up Married (19 page)

“I think it’s Kevin’s baby. Remember last month when the twins caught him and Kaylee making out in the barn and the horse spooked and kicked Chrystal in the rear end?” Millie insisted.

“There is just no way Kevin had time to boink her. It’s Stone’s baby, obviously.”

“He’s too old to be the father. I think he had a vasectomy when Shanna got pregnant last year.”

“He had it reversed when he married Zoreena,” Paris countered. “Pass me those carrots,” she added.

“Three months of lying in this bed, me teaching you, and you still haven’t learned to say please. Tsk-tsk.” Millie held the bowl out beyond Paris’s reach.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Millie, I forgot. I’m not easy to retrain. Pu-l-eeese, you old witch!”

“Cackle cackle, just call me Sabrina the old-age witch. Here, eat hearty.”

“I hardly call this hearty, I’m dying for a double cheeseburger.”

“I believe we decided you were gaining a whole lotta weight and didn’t want to end up being a giant pig besides the giant load of babies in there.”

“We. I love that when you say
we.
” Paris munched on her baby carrots and glowered at Millie. Of course she was right. For the first three months of her pregnancy she’d eaten the most bizarre things, like ten oranges or six cream cheese Danishes, in between yakking all the time. For the next two she’d eaten everything that moved, with a Twinkie on top.

Then they confined her to this bed and weeks upon weeks of soap operas and the Food Channel. Finally she’d come to understand that if she didn’t do the healthy thing, she’d blimp up so bad she’d never be able to work it off. As it was, she was an elephant. But a small elephant. Dumbo, not Jumbo.

“Ouch!”

“Kicking again?” Millie reached over to feel the movement.

“Why does that foot always go into my bladder?”

“Lively bunch in there, aren’t they?”

“It’s the three-o-clock jump. Every day when
General Hospital
comes on, they play trampoline.”

“Isn’t it time for your stretches? Maybe if Mommy moved, they’d quiet down.”

“Have I told you what a nag you are lately?” Paris rested her hand on Millie’s.

“Not for at least an hour.”

“Have I told you how much I appreciate you?”

“Not for at least an hour. Now get those gams out and let’s do our Richard Simmons thing horizontal.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Paris obediently started her stretching routines. She’d found a true friend in Millie, who had a real knack for keeping her in line. Cranky women understand each other.

That was without a doubt the best rendition of “How Great Thou Art” Turner had ever heard. Danny Vernon was a natural. Turner was so glad Danny was there to be Elvis, because the last thing he felt like doing was climbing into a sequined jumpsuit tonight.

The pews were packed. The ceiling fans whirred above him, creating a nice breeze. On a night like this, Turner always thanked God for air-conditioning.

He’d finished his short sermon about trust, and Assistant Pastor Danny had belted out quite
the inspiring number. He saw that it had affected everyone. The gift of a good singing voice was a wondrous thing.

Two of the older men picked up the collection plates and walked the aisles, gathering a few dollars here and there. Turner would make sure a good portion of it went to the Las Vegas women’s shelter. That was his favorite place to drop off an unexpected bit of cash. He liked to talk with the women there and encourage them to stick with their new life-plans. He always brought things for the children, who, despite being uprooted and traumatized, seemed to find their peace being out of harm’s way. They loved to play in the children’s center there. It seemed to him they were building up some trust in life again.

Trust. He was having a hard time with that one. And when he was wrestling with something, he usually wrote a sermon about it.

He was sitting on a very big secret, and he had to trust that the right time to tell it would reveal itself. He sure knew it hadn’t been right for the last few months. Without revealing the nature of the information he was holding, he’d asked Dr. Shapiro whether Paris could take a shock.

The doctor had advised him not to upset her until he felt her condition was stabilized. That was good advice, and as the months rolled on, Turner could see that very clearly.

Millie had been Paris’s conspiratorial buddy, and ever since the laptop computer had arrived from Marla in Indiana, Turner had heard less television coming from his old room. Millie confessed they’d been house hunting on the Internet.

She’d confessed because she’d seen a place with a fenced-in garden, a little fountain, and a patio. She’d always wanted a garden spot.

But the ladies had refused to show him the picture. They’d given him a choice. How far would he be willing to commute, and something about golf. He’d said thirty minutes max, and that meant a car, and he didn’t play golf, but he could learn if pressed to the green.

He was also trying hard to trust that letting Paris buy a house was…acceptable. That was just
so
hard for him. The protector in him screamed out that it was his job to provide for all these women. He still hadn’t surrendered to that one. He was looking for a way to contribute to that purchase himself.

It truly hadn’t occurred to him that Paris might be a rich woman. He had no idea what she’d done with all her modeling money and thought maybe she’d blown it all on expensive shoes and bears. Her condo back in New York hadn’t reeked wealth, for sure. But what did he know about Manhattan rent other than the fact that it was extremely expensive?

Anyhow, that was the least of his problems right now, and as his father had said to him on the phone back in August, the way through rough times was to set your priorities—and pray. Whether or not his wife was amusing herself shopping for a house she apparently had no intention of living in was not first on the priority list.

Turner’s biggest concern was the fact that the possible due date for his children was coming close and he still hadn’t located Paris’s long-lost mother.

It was as if she’d vanished into thin air. He’d hired a locator and had them run a check on the entire country, and he’d still come up empty.

Paris’s mother could have changed her name, or remarried, though he’d gone over the Nevada marriage records for the relevant years and still found nothing. Maybe she’d changed her name
and
remarried.

One thing was becoming obvious—Lucy Jamison didn’t
want
to be found. He worried about that a great deal. Maybe he’d hung his hopes on this idea of a reuniting and healing too much. The last thing he wanted to do was find the woman and have things get even worse. She might not be receptive to the idea of meeting the angry thirty-year-old daughter she’d abandoned.

Turner jumped up to the sound of the doxol
ogy Darlene Goddard was pounding out on the electronic keyboard that pinch-hit for an organ. Darlene was the daughter of one of his regular Sunday night ladies, another former showgirl. Darlene played in a rock band on Fridays and Saturdays. Having her play here was her mom’s way of keeping an eye on the girl. Darlene seemed to enjoy herself anyway, and once in a while she added quite a rockin’ riff to the hymns. She was very talented on that keyboard.

Turner took the collection plates from his two ushers and placed them at the front table. There was something very soothing to him about the repetitiveness of chapel services. And he knew that his regular attendees felt the same way.

When he got home he was going to talk to Paris about what kind of life she’d like her children to live. That would get her thinking. Maybe if she could visualize them in a happy life she might be able to overcome some of her fears and trust that together they could overcome anything. Maybe he was crazy.

What could he do to get her to see that? What could he do to get her to trust him? If he couldn’t find her mother, would he be able to help her heal the past enough to overcome her great fears?

Turner walked to the back of the church and thanked everyone for coming. He said a prayer over them and himself—a prayer of healing and trusting.

Sarah pushed the file drawer back in and sat down at the hospital records archive desk with what she hoped was the key to Turner’s quest. She knew it wasn’t her business, but she hadn’t been able to help herself one day when he’d been away and Paris had been power shopping on the Internet. She’d found the file he kept in his old desk, which was now crowding the tiny living room back at the apartment.

Actually she’d had to find the key first. That had been easy; it had been hanging on the Siamese cat wall rack with all the other keys. Turner had a lot to learn about security.

She’d seen him put the huge expandable file away several times. She’d known it had something to do with Paris’s past, and she’d been compelled to know the whole story, not just the amended version Turner liked to give her. He’d only asked her to research postpartum psychosis in the college library, but that left a whole lot of the story out.

What she’d found there was pretty powerful stuff. Paris’s mother in a mental hospital, an infant child given up for adoption, the father dying, and Paris put in a boarding school. Such a young age for a child to have that much tragedy in her life. That file had furnished the pieces of the puzzle Sarah had been looking for.

Now she had names, dates, and even some
photographs that Father Gibbs must have given Turner.

She flicked on the desk lamp and opened the manila folder. This was the list of nurses active in the visiting nurse program. Hopefully she’d find the information she needed.

She scanned the list with her finger for the name of Emma Foley. Emma had worked at Harmond hospital during the years Lucy Jamison had been there. Four-year patients are hard to forget. Sarah had gotten Emma’s name from another nurse who’d worked at Harmond, later. It had taken a bus ride over to the facility to get this far. That, and a sob story to the records nurse on duty about how Sarah was trying to find her lost aunt. A lie, but for a worthy cause. The woman would never have given Sarah the names without thinking it was her own relative Sarah was seeking.

The records nurse at Harmond, Peggy Hubbard, had looked up former nurse employees still actively practicing. Emma Foley was one of the few on that list. She was a visiting nurse now. But the home listing for Emma was old and marked inactive and incorrect.

The others on the list of five were either deceased or retired.

She’d spoken to one lady but had gotten nowhere with her. When Sarah had asked her if she remembered a woman named Lucy Jamison,
the woman had decided it wasn’t proper to talk about. Sarah hadn’t wanted to push her and have her report the odd interview, so she’d backed down politely and asked her what it had been like working in a mental facility. Sarah had covered and said she’d been contemplating that path herself.

She flipped through the hospital records, scanning the names. There it was. Emma Foley, visiting nurse, specializing in post-delivery infant care. Now that was an interesting twist.

Sarah took a pad from the desk organizer and carefully copied Emma Foley’s address and phone number from the visiting nurse list. She lived in Henderson, very close by.

Sarah pushed the rolling office chair back and refiled the folder. She probably could have found this information on a database, but the hospital was less interested in a nursing student that volunteered to refile records in the archives than one who wanted to poke around the active computer data directory.

She sighed and turned to look at the stack of records she’d have to file now to make her visit here legitimate. Might as well get to it.

Turner would be angry that she’d read his file at home, but she’d thought up a way to help that he hadn’t considered yet. An inside path—the path between women. She wanted to help Turner. If he found what he was looking for,
things might work out with Paris. He had a good theory in that. Heal her, she’ll stay.

It made Sarah’s heart twist in pain to know he would most likely end up with Paris instead of her. But somewhere in the last months, watching Paris make an effort to guard the health of her unborn infants, and watching Turner be an honorable husband to her day after day, bringing her videos of all her favorite movies, cooking her healthy food, and sitting in that room with Paris, Sarah had grown to understand that Turner, for some reason, loved Paris, not her.

A cruel twist of fate, to be sure.

She suspected that Turner’s obsession with Paris was partially due to his drive to fix all things in the universe and set them right. Perhaps when he’d succeeded in fixing Paris—if he did succeed—then the spell would be broken.

But Paris did have her charms. Sarah had heard laughter—deep, heart-filled laughter—coming out of that room. Turner and Paris, laughing together. She knew they weren’t having sex, or even being physically affectionate. She’d heard Millie talking to Turner about how hard that must be for him.

He had answered that his time would come. He had complete faith that Paris had been sent to him for a special purpose. And that his love for her was strong enough to weather the storm.
Turner had said he’d believed the vows they’d said—those words
in sickness and in health, for better or worse.

And that had been the hardest thing of all for Sarah to hear.

However, as things stood, Paris still had no intention of staying in Las Vegas with her two infant children or Turner. So who knew, really, how things would turn out. Whatever happened, she, the quiet, steady one, would be here. And it served many purposes for her to help Turner on his quest.

It was late—past ten—and Turner would probably be finishing up his Sunday night chapel service soon. She’d gone to several and watched him deliver sermons that had made her cry. She couldn’t imagine anyone in the chapel not having their heart softened by his words. He’d spoken of simple things; kindness, helping each other, forgiveness, joy. But his voice and his words had been touched with something special. She’d seen the looks on the faces of people who came to hear him.