Wrecked (Stories of Serendipity #8): #8 (27 page)

And Les… That had been unexpected. She’d known he wanted to get romantic with her, but they’d never really gone out before, not on a date. She’d always turned him down. But that kiss had been nice. He probably wouldn’t disappoint in that department, but he was like a brother to her, or at the least, a cousin. She couldn’t even begin to think of him that way.

Overwhelmed, she turned to find Jason, fresh out of a shower, staring at her. Her breath hitched at the sight of him, barely dry under a t-shirt that clung to his chest and a pair of khaki shorts. When he had her attention, he asked her, “You aren’t seriously considering it, are you?”

Renae chewed on her lip, “Les? I told him I would.” She tried to shrug her way out of it, but Jason wasn’t going to let her.

“You don’t like him like that. That’s what you told me. He’s like a brother.” His mouth was a sneer as he said the word brother, and she could see anger radiating off his body in waves.

“He is, but he’s right. I know him, and he’s in a position to take care of me. Look… I didn’t say yes, only that I would think about it.”

Jason stalked over to where she was standing and grabbed her upper arms. “You’ll think about what I said, too, won’t you?”

“Of course I will.” She’d thought of little else since. Who else got proposed to twice before breakfast? Although Jason’s flippant ‘I’m prepared to marry you’ didn’t really compare to Les’ roses and one-kneed proposal.

The phone rang, interrupting them. Renae extricated herself from Jason’s grasp and answered. It was her OB/GYN’s office.

“Ms. Stanford? The results of your triple screen came back. Because of the results and your age, we need to do additional testing.”

“What do you mean, additional testing?” Jason’s eyebrows rose at her question, and he mouthed the word, “What?”

“You’ll need to come in for an amniocentesis. Can you make it this afternoon?”

“Um, yeah. I can.”

When she hung up the phone, Renae relayed the information to Jason, so he wouldn’t miss anything.

“What part of the triple screen did you fail?”

“I didn’t fail any of it, it’s not a final. Just something showed up that required additional testing.” Her heart thudded in her throat. Additional testing didn’t sound good.

“What does the triple screen test for?”

“Genetic anomalies, I think.”

The prior conversation was forgotten, and Jason started pacing the kitchen, muttering to himself under his breath. “… Great grandma Irene… Mom’s sister… Uncle Jimmy, and second cousins…”

Renae rolled her eyes and left him to his freaking, while she went to go take a shower. Under the hot spray, she did her own freaking out. She had heard of the amniocentesis, hadn’t everybody? Weren’t they dangerous, and didn’t they involve a humongous needle?

What could be wrong with the baby? She’d done everything right, and with Jason here watching her every move, he certainly hadn’t left anything to chance. She was too old. She shouldn’t be having babies at her age. Sure medicine had come a long way, but she should have been more responsible in the first place. Of all the lectures she’d given Kelly, and she hadn’t heeded her own advice.

A knock on the bathroom door interrupted her. “I’m going to go see Dad, and I’ll be back in time to take you to the doctor’s. See you later.”

His voice through the door did more to her than the water sluicing over her body. As much anger as she still heard lacing his voice, the smooth tones still washed her with sexual awareness. Renae leaned her head on the shower wall, wondering what she was going to do. If he could be believed, he would marry her in a heartbeat, but marrying a man just to give her baby a father was a stupid move. There was nothing saying he couldn’t be a father without the marriage. She didn’t want him to resent her like Cody.

Why was she so obsessed with comparing him to Cody? He wasn’t her dead husband. They were light years apart. So why couldn’t she just let go of the past and move on with her future?

And she couldn’t even think about Les right now.

She got out and toweled off before selecting clothes to wear to the doctor’s office. Back in the kitchen, she mentally prepared herself for the doctor’s visit but couldn’t let go of breakfast, and Les.

Les hadn’t even been on her radar before this morning. He was a friend, a brother. She should have just told him no and been done with it. But he’d been so earnest, pleading with her even. She didn’t want to totally crush him.

And after all that, Jason had actually invited him to eat breakfast even though he was obviously pissed.

She didn’t want to be grateful for his kind gestures. She didn’t want to be indebted to Jason. She didn’t want to love him. Another relationship was scary. Renae had been happy with her life before him. Why would she go and complicate it by having a new relationship?

Renae dropped her head on her arms, the amnio looming darkly in her head. What if there was something wrong with the baby? So wrong she had to terminate the pregnancy? She tried to think of things that would be that wrong Down Syndrome, some other chromosomal disease… nope. None of those would make her want to get rid of her baby. She would just have to make more adjustments to her lifestyle to accommodate it and let him or her thrive.

Which man would be most likely to stick around a baby with issues like that? Jason? Les? Neither?

Her mind wandered further down the dark path to what was supposed to happen with her life, and she succumbed to the morbid thoughts.

T
he motorcycle ride had done little to appease Jason’s anger. He couldn’t believe she was actually considering Les’ proposal. He’d been listening in, hoping it wasn’t what he’d thought. But it was, and then Les had kissed his girl. Les had to know he was there. Christ, she’d answered the door wearing his shirt! The asshole had to know what they’d done. But when he heard them kiss, he’d come close to losing it. Yeah, he’d heard it. And the sounds of lips locking kept replaying over and over in his head.

His gut clenched as he rode faster. It had been a sucker punch. He knew Les had feelings for Renae. But he also thought they were friends. He thought he’d stepped back. Apparently, he’d thought wrong.

At the hospital, he fielded the now familiar questions about how he was enjoying his Christmas vacation in Mexico outside of the resort. Jason had given in, regaling his dad with fictional stories of renting a moped to see the Isla de Mujeres and snorkeling in the clear blue water, forcing thoughts of his own personal problems below the surface.

“Dad, I think I’ve got us a place to live when we get home. Do you know Mary Colt? She’s offered to let us live in her old house after they do the hip-replacement.” Joe’s surgery was finally scheduled for the next morning since his infection had cleared up. Jason had to admit, his coloring looked better than it had since he’d gotten to Serendipity. Jason had thought he was doing okay with his dad, but apparently just keeping him alive wasn’t enough. Now he was staying in the hospital, hooked up to continuous fluids, and eating three square meals a day, he was thriving.

“Yeah, that’s one hot mama,” Joe drawled.

Ewww.
“Well, maybe you’ll get to see more of her.”

“Will she be living there too?”

“Nope. She lives somewhere else, so her house is vacant. We’ll pay rent and live there, but I think I can get some visits out of her. How does that sound?”

His dad didn’t answer, just closed his eyes and assumed a dreamy expression. After a couple of minutes, it abruptly shifted to a concerned one.

“How are you and Renae doing? I’m assuming since you’ve finagled this living arrangement, you’ve been calling her since you’ve been here?” Here being Mexico…

“Well, there’s some complications I’m working through. She’s sort of just tolerating me now.” He exhaled heavily. He might as well tell his dad. He may have some sort of twisted insight that might help. “And her friend Les proposed to her right under my nose.”

“Les is a good guy.” Joe smirked at his son. “So, you got some competition?”

“Yeah, probably. But it looks like you’re going to get another grandkid out of the deal.”

“You knocked her up?” Joe’s eyes widened with surprise. “And Les proposed before you got a chance?”

“No, I told her I’d marry her first, but she doesn’t trust me for some reason.”

“Well, she hasn’t had an easy go of it. And Les has been around longer.”

Whose side is he on?
“I know. I’m doing my best to reassure her I’m not like her ex.”

“That kid was such a screw-up. I remember all that mess.”

“What do you remember?” Maybe some insight was in order here.

“I don’t remember when they got married, she was just a kid in church then, but I do remember after. I thought she was a blind fool. Anybody could see he was screwing around on her. As soon as she got pregnant, he stopped coming to church with her and her parents. But Mary and Richard worried about her. Said he didn’t let her do anything but church outside the home, was real picky about how she cleaned and what she cooked. Made her stop seeing her friends. He was out partying all night long and too hung over to show up for church. When he died in that car wreck, rumor had it he crashed because the woman he was with had her hands all over him. Ralph Powers was working the fire truck at the scene and said his pants were undone, his willy laying out for the world to see. And the girl just walked away. That was just Ralph talking, though, probably. No one really knows for sure, but that was the rumor floating around those days. And drunk? As a skunk. Ralph could smell the liquor outside the car.”

“Wow. So what happened?”

“Oh, people talked. They said she should have divorced him before it got to that point. They said she shouldn’t have cut him off from the sex or he wouldn’t have strayed so far. Some people felt sorry for her. Others were mad at her. Serendipity talked about it for months. I think it was a bad deal from the get-go, though, and the town should have minded their got-damned business.” Joe was turning red in the face, but his heart was fine, so Jason let him get mad on Renae’s behalf.

“What did she do?”

“The only thing she could do. She held her head up and kept living her life for that baby. She didn’t hide, she worked, she went to church. She raised that little girl into a fine young woman and people quit talking when Mrs. Mosely overturned her husband’s brand new tractor in their tank, proving that hay cutting was man’s work.” Joe chuckled to himself at some memory that Jason wasn’t privy to.

He said his goodbyes and kissed his dad, promising to be there the next day for his “Mexican surgery.”

He wasn’t sure if he should really be encouraging his Dad’s dementia by playing along with it, but it seemed the path of least resistance.

When he picked up Renae for the doctor’s visit, he didn’t have any answers that would help him. So he just followed her to the minivan and got into the passenger side.

She didn’t say anything, which was fine. He was still pissed she was even considering Les’ proposal and that she’d kissed him. His traitorous memory dredged up the sounds of that kiss, and his anger rose to the surface again. She slammed her door shut, breaking his train of thought.

“Are you mad at me?” As if she could be. She was in the wrong for all this.

She sighed as she started the decrepit machine. “No. I’m just thinking, that’s all.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’ve got to get it all sorted in my head first.”

The problem with Renae wasn’t his feelings for her. He knew he could fall for her in a heartbeat. Hell, he probably already had. The problem was he had no idea how she felt about him besides the side effect of one drunken night. Although it was apparently a process that could be repeated if last night was any indication.

“Look, Dad told me about what a hard time you went through before, and I just want to let you know that I’m not him.” For some reason, the name of her former husband stuck in his throat, especially in comparison to himself. “I wouldn’t ever do that to you.”

She took a turn too fast, and he clutched the dash board, biting his tongue against correcting her driving. “I just needed you to know that.” He was still pissed she was considering Les’ offer and even more pissed he was having to compete with him for her acceptance.

“I know no such thing.” She said between gritted teeth. “And you and your dad know nothing about me.”

“I know, Renae. That’s what this is about. I want to know you. I want to be here for you.”

“What about what I want?” She ran a yellow light, and Jason hissed a breath out.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” He gritted the words out, trying to quell rising fear.

“I want to get this over with.”

“Am I that repugnant to you?”

The doctor’s office was up ahead, and Jason was thankful for small towns. At least he didn’t have to drive with her in Houston traffic. They’d be dead.

She threw the car into park and turned the key off in one angry move. “This isn’t about you. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m about to undergo a dangerous, rather painful procedure to find out what’s wrong with our baby.”