Sleeping in Eden (12 page)

Jess didn't have to say it twice. Sarah was already jostling her way into the backseat by the time Meg turned around, and
though Meg had to stifle a twitch at the thought of climbing onto the lap of the boy who held the door open for her, she gave him a tight-lipped smile and did it all the same. He had red hair and a knowing smirk, but Meg pretended that she didn't remember him.

“No seat belts,” he said apologetically. And then he slipped both his arms around her waist and held on tight.

Meg suffered the ride in silence, mostly because Sarah was chattering so happily, she couldn't have gotten a word in edgewise if she wanted to. But she was also acutely aware of the stranger's hands around her, and the heavy burden of doubt that made it hard for her to breathe. Meg knew what happened at these sorts of parties. She was prepared for the drinking, and maybe even for things to get a bit out of control. But she couldn't shake the Hollywood-inspired image that seemed imprinted on the back of her eyelids whenever she squeezed her eyes shut. It featured a couple in a darkened corner, maybe even a quiet room, wrapped so tightly together it was impossible to unravel one from the other.

Would she find Dylan like that? Curled around some other girl? Or would it be her? Meg wasn't sure that she liked any of her imagined scenarios.

When Jess pulled up to Ethan's farm nearly ten minutes later, the party was in full swing. The yard was overflowing with cars, and someone had started a pallet fire on a concrete slab in front of one of the barns. At first glance, it was more laid-back than Meg had thought it would be. There were groups of teenagers standing in loose knots around the fire and beyond, and the sound of their laughter seeped through the cracks in Jess's car the instant he killed the engine. Nobody seemed drunk or out of control. And as far as Meg could tell, no couples were sneaking off to secluded corners to explore each other in secret. Very un-Hollywood. And very comforting.

“Thanks.” The redhead grinned, squeezing Meg one last time as everyone piled out of the car.

“For what?” Meg said, bristling.

He shrugged, but his gaze was taut and full of meaning. He tapped a finger beneath her chin and then turned to join Jess and the other guys as they strode down the hill. Meg watched him pause, whip around, and call back smugly, “He's not here, you know. Dylan.”

She couldn't help herself. “He's not?”

“I think Orlando decided he liked Celia better than Rosalind. And apparently better than his little protégée, too. They wanted some time alone.” He winked at Meg suggestively, and took off toward the fire without a backward glance. He accepted the beer that someone passed him and threw back his head to laugh at some joke Meg couldn't hear. Or maybe he was laughing at her.

“He's an ass,” Sarah said, putting her arm around Meg's shoulders. Meg couldn't decide if her best friend was talking about the redhead or about Dylan.

Both, she thought, but it didn't make her feel any better.

L
ucas wanted to run after Jenna, but he knew from past experience that chasing her would only make things worse. She needed time alone, time to process. It killed him to sit still, so he tapped his foot and fingered the ring on the sticky tabletop of the restaurant booth. The waitress came seconds after Jenna disappeared from view, and though the food she set before him was steaming and fragrant, Lucas felt like his appetite had left with his wife. He ignored the omelette.

Instead of eating, he twisted the ring, studying the etched leaves that adorned the band and wondering what had cracked the tiny stone. He had hoped to offer the ring as proof, as consolation. As a sort of final period, a tangible resolution to a story without end. Their history with Angela was a meandering tale that faded like a watercolor left out in the rain—it seemed as thin and endless as fog over water.

Lucas had hoped to clear the air. To offer Jenna a priceless gift—something that both acknowledged their loss and allowed them to move on. But he knew now that his evidence would only make Jenna angry. He wished he had left the pathetic piece of jewelry on the ground of Jim's barn. Especially when he found an engraving on the inside of the band.

There was a manufacturer's imprint, a signature of sorts that stamped the gold with the initials
MKD
. He didn't know what MKD stood for, but that didn't bother him. It was a postmarket
inscription that caught his eye—MINE—in a sweeping arch of letters too bold to be mistaken.

Lucas ran the tip of his forefinger over the spot, feeling the brush where the laser had cut the gold. It was a bit of a creepy inscription no matter what the intention had been. Who had given Angela such a backhanded gift? Who dared to assert possession of a girl who barely possessed herself? Jim? The thought infuriated him. Jim had forfeited any claim to his daughter years ago. Some boyfriend? If there was anyone special among Angela's numerous beaus, Jenna hadn't known about it.

Maybe the ring, and the person who gave it to her, held the key to why Angela found herself crumpled in a shallow grave.

Lucas felt a jolt of white-hot rage.

Thankfully, Jenna was only gone for half an hour or so, and when she returned, Lucas saw her coming in time to pocket the ring and drop a twenty on the table. He met her at the car, ready to try to work things out, to smooth over the altercation with an apology, but Jenna was as chilly as the autumn air. They drove home without exchanging a word.

By Wednesday, Lucas and Jenna were still avoiding each other, breezing past each other in a house that seemed cavernous because of the distance between them. Lucas threw himself into work and spent his free time hassling Alex for information on the ongoing case. He called Alex, texted him, shot him the occasional e-mail. And when Alex became taciturn and claimed confidentiality, Lucas obsessed about the ring. He even scoured old photographs in search of Angela's hands, hoping he could match the piece of jewelry he held with the ring that he was almost certain she had worn.

But Lucas didn't find many pictures of Angela, and her hands were hidden in all of them. As for pestering Alex, Lucas did learn that Jim's death was ruled a suicide, and that the bones beneath him had belonged to a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. Another piece of the puzzle fit. But he didn't tell Jenna that.

Because Lucas didn't seem to have the tools to fix what was wrong at home, he worked overtime to make things right at the clinic. But as the week wore on, he found himself fatigued, distracted. The ring was heavy in his pocket, and Jenna's distance weighed heavy on his heart. He felt anchored and useless.

On Wednesday afternoon he struggled to pay attention to a boil, a common cold, and a routine physical, in that order. But his mind was elsewhere. When he finished up the physical, Lucas made his way to the reception desk at the clinic and stared over his nurse's shoulder, trying to gauge what the damage would be if he sneaked out for the rest of the afternoon.

“Impossible,” Mandy muttered, ascertaining Lucas's business at the front of the clinic before he even said a word.

“You could get me out of this,” he coaxed, glancing up quickly to survey the waiting room full of ailing patients. He smiled benignly and moved his mouth closer to Mandy's ear. “They can't hear me, can they?”

“They're sick, not deaf.” Mandy rolled her eyes. “But at least you're whispering. There is a reason we put twenty feet between the reception desk and the first of the chairs.” She elbowed him out of the way and, pushing off the floor, slid across the enclave on the castor wheels of her chair. Pulling two charts from the wall of files, she handed them to Lucas. “You've got a broken arm follow-up in room one and a potential bladder infection in two. I've already run a urine sample. I'll pop in with the results in a minute.”

“And these?” Lucas sighed, waving the charts.

“They're your next two patients. I thought since you walked all the way up here, you could save me a trip back. Helen is on her break, so I'm pulling double duty.”

“Sure, glad I could help out.” Lucas turned to leave, but Mandy caught the end of his white coat and gave it a tug.

“Hang in there.” She winked and plastered a smile on her face to greet the next patient, who was already standing at the counter.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of symptoms and sympathy, except for one appointment when both of Lucas's hands were busy with the Doppler, trying to find a fetal heartbeat in a woman sixteen weeks along. Pressing the handheld device to the young woman's stomach, Lucas circled slowly beneath her belly button, finding first her own heartbeat resonating through the placenta and then, incredibly, the race of the tiny heart inside her. His hand flinched imperceptibly upon finding the body that was only inches away from his touch.

“Is that it?” the woman asked breathlessly. “I've never heard it before—they couldn't find the heartbeat at my last visit.”

Lucas nodded but didn't make eye contact with her. The baby was moving and he had to concentrate on the rotation of the Doppler as he tried to follow the sound of her little heart. “One hundred and fifty-two beats per minute,” he finally managed. “Well, more or less.”

The woman was still trying to hold her breath, her eyes riveted to the ceiling and a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “That's high, isn't it? Am I having a baby girl?”

The sound of sharp static interrupted the steady pulse that filled the room. “The baby's kicking,” Lucas commented, a smile beginning at the corners of his own lips. “And no, heart-rate doesn't really mean anything at this stage. Closer to your due date there's some truth to that old wives' tale, but I wouldn't put any money on it.”

For a moment, the sound was lost and Lucas had to struggle to find it again. When he did, the room was hushed except for the even whisper of blood being pumped. It was more beautiful than any music he had ever heard. It was the throb of something so real, so profound that Lucas's heart ached for the life that held so much promise at such a young age. All the years and love and life; every smile and tear and breath contained in someone so amazingly small no one would ever know she existed unless her mother chose to share her secret. It was nothing short of miraculous.

Finally, hesitantly, Lucas pulled the Doppler away and handed the woman a towel to wipe the gel off her belly. “Everything looks good,” he said with his back to her. “You seem to be healthy, the baby seems fine.”

But even as he offered those encouraging words, he fought the almost overwhelming desire to run a set of labs. HCG levels, progesterone, maybe a thyroid scan. Had anyone ever talked to her about Factor V Leiden? Sixteen weeks was early for an ultrasound in a low-risk pregnancy, but you could never be too careful . . .

“I guess your next appointment will be a scheduled, routine ultrasound—if your insurance will cover it. You'll get to see the baby.” Lucas forced himself to stop projecting and offered her a thin smile. She was just finishing the top button on her jeans, looping it through with a hair tie because her protruding belly was just large enough that she could no longer do up the button.

“Good.” She grinned at him.

“You can make the appointment at the front desk.” Lucas passed her a piece of paper and rested his hand for a moment on her arm. “Good luck,” he said sincerely, wishing her the best since he wouldn't see her again; she was Elliot Townsend's patient. He opened the door for her like a gentleman and she was gone.

Lucas stood for a moment in the silence of examination room number three, listening to his own heartbeat pound in his ears. With one hand he reached into his pocket and handled the ring concealed there. When his finger made contact with the cold metal, the absurdity of everything that had happened in the past few days suddenly became alarmingly clear. Dead bodies, stolen rings . . . and worst of all, another fight with Jenna. It didn't matter. None of it mattered except Jenna, and upon realizing it, Lucas felt almost triumphant in his resolve.

He hadn't even had a chance to show her the ring. And maybe it was better that way. She had had a little time to warm up to the idea, to absorb the shock of what had really
happened. When he showed her the ring, she'd accept it, and they could say good-bye together. Start over.

Tonight he'd go home, apologize to Jenna, and try to put all of this insanity behind him. He'd fire up the grill one last time and make his famous grilled chicken and baby red potatoes and uncork a bottle of their favorite ten-dollar wine. They'd drink the entire bottle before they realized it was gone and then finish with ice cream eaten directly from the carton. Lucas made a mental note to stop by the grocery store on his way home and try to find the same chocolate cherry bordeaux ice cream they used to love in Chicago.

And over ice cream, he'd give her the ring. A gift. A peace offering. And maybe, just maybe, he would bring up the issue of adoption. His heart caught at the thought; he didn't even know himself if it was from fear or anticipation. But he did know that it was time to at least let Jenna know that he was thinking about it. That maybe they could find their way back to each other if they cradled a baby between them.