Escape (31 page)

“You’re so good at that,” I commented while we waited for our lobster rolls. “He’s your best bud now.”

James was looking around the restaurant. “It’s easy to be nice to nice people. You’re the same way.” His eyes found mine again. He seemed wary. “Could you live in a town like this?”

“In a heartbeat.” We were an easy drive from a city; there was no traffic to speak of; our server seemed to know everyone in the place.

“I couldn’t. I’d feel choked.”

“Like I feel in New York?” I didn’t want to rock the boat of our earlier goodwill, but that had been my big mistake. I had to learn to express myself. Urgently, I leaned forward. “Don’t you see, James? This is the best—of us, of
life
. My mom used to argue that tombstones don’t list jobs. They list relationships—daughter, wife, mother. Forget everything else right now; I need to recoup the
wife
part.” Straightening, I wagged a finger between us. “You, me, woods, beach, lunch together—I want
this
. Can I get it in New York?”

“Yes,” he said without a blink. “I’ll show you. Come back with me, Emily. We’ll have this weekend. We’ll relax, we’ll play, we’ll talk.”

“What about work?” I asked, because, for us, Manhattan was synonymous with that. “It’ll still be in your face.”

“I’ll do it between what we want to do.”

Sitting back, I studied him. He was open, vulnerable.

Funny, I had been worried that he would sway me with words. But it was the look that did it now. I could have returned to Bell Valley to consider. I could have walked through the woods and communed with my coyote. I could have fully analyzed the pros and cons.

But three weeks had passed without Manhattan stress, and if I was to decide which road to take next, I had to test my strength.

“Okay,” I said.

He did blink then and straightened. “Yes?” He seemed to be holding his breath. “Just like that?”

“For a visit,” I cautioned, but James seemed relieved enough to not fault the word.

“What about your stuff in Bell Valley?”

“I can do without it. There’s something to be said for spontaneity.”

“Hah,” he barked, but teasingly. “Try insurance.”

I smiled. “Like I’ll have to go back for them? Maybe I’ll just want to go back. I still have another week before Walter expects me at work.”

I wasn’t thinking of Walter during the drive south. As the sun sank, headlights went on, and traffic picked up, I was thinking about what I’d told James.
Tombstones don’t list jobs; they list relationships—daughter
,
wife
,
mother
. Even as I addressed the wife part, the daughter surfaced. I had to call my dad and let him know I was trying, but I wanted more privacy than the car allowed.

Besides, another call was more urgent, or Vicki would worry. Not only was she my best girlfriend, but she was my direct link to Bell Valley news. Her report this night was that Jude was camping out at Lee’s, not so much to protect her as to escape Amelia after a harrowing drive home.

Had the timing been different, I might have been more nervous about my return. But since it was the start of the Fourth of July weekend, more people were leaving New York than coming. It was after midnight when we entered the city. Traffic was light in our part of town, pedestrians were few, and the dark hid a wealth of things I didn’t want to see.

And then there was James, plastering me to his side when we left the car at the garage, backing me against a streetlight for a kiss and then some, foreplay that had us running the last block. Dropping clothes wherever, we made love in the front hall and again on the bed. It was two in the morning by then, but he was up at four-thirty working—or so he confessed when I woke up at nine. When I started to say,
See
,
nothing’s changed
, he showed me it had.

We went out for brunch. We walked around Gramercy Park and up Park Avenue. We shopped. When I complained about the heat, James reminded me of the furnace in Bell Valley that first day in the woods.
Not as hot as this
, I argued, to which he laughed and dragged me into the nearest ice-cream shop, and when I argued that between Bell Valley and this, I was eating too much, he said I looked better than ever.

He tried. Really he did. He reminded me how much fun we could have in New York. But there were still those times when the sounds of the city penetrated closed windows or the ding of his BlackBerry tripped a reflex and my stomach tightened up. There was no one I wanted to call. I didn’t know anyone on the street. I felt lonely.

Moreover, by Sunday morning, I was starting to worry about James. He worked whenever we were home, furtive when I was around, open about it when I was reading, sleeping, or showering. It was utterly sweet and positively insane. He couldn’t sustain this kind of schedule. He put up a good front, but with Friday’s excitement fading, his speech was suffering from exhaustion once more.

Using this as proof that we had to make changes in our lives, I put off calling my father. He would only argue that we had jobs most lawyers would die for, and he was likely right. With the Sunday
Times
spread on the kitchen table, I studied the help-wanteds. Seeing nothing remotely interesting, I surfed the Web for legal positions in Stamford, Newark, even Philadelphia. Granted, a headhunter would know of better openings, but what I saw here was discouraging.

Humbled, I e-mailed Walter. How could I not, with guilt nagging as I watched James work?

Just wanted to check in
, I typed.
I’m doing better
,
but I’ll need the last week you’ve given me. I’ll e-mail before next weekend to let you know about Monday
.

LET ME KNOW?
Walter typed back quickly and briefly.
It’s next Monday or nothing
.

Just thinking about it, I felt a roiling inside. I called Vicki, who let me vent in ways James might not have, and though I felt better, nothing was solved. I stood at my closet for a long while, looking at those black slacks and blue blouses, not wanting to wear any of them, but knowing that I would if I returned to Lane Lavash.

I dreamed of my coyote that night, and she wasn’t alone. She was with her pups and several other adults, no less than eight pairs of coyote eyes watching me with an odd expectancy. Too soon, they dissolved into the forest. I went after them this time, only to slip on a granite ledge and awaken abruptly.

James didn’t know about the dream. My arm felt cold sheets on his side of the bed, and when I found him working in the kitchen, talk of a dream seemed silly. Humoring me, he came to bed and was quickly asleep, but I lay awake worrying for a time. By sunup Monday, I was feeling queasy—knowing how hard James was trying and wanting to please him, but feeling the old life lurking, waiting to pounce.

So I baked corn bread. Had I ever done that before? No. Did I know what I was doing? No. But on one of those Bell Valley mornings, I had loved eating Lee’s corn bread, and I couldn’t think of a better diversion. I found a recipe online, ran to a convenience store for the ingredients, and while James typed nearby in a pool of papers, I played cook. Two loaves were in the oven, and I was opening the door every few minutes, waiting for their tops to brown, when my cell rang.

Seeing the New Hampshire area code, I felt a twinge. Last time it had been my kitten. Now I feared it was Lee or, if not Lee, Jude. But the problem was Vicki. “She’s in the hospital,” Amelia reported. “She started having contractions last night. They’ve let up, but she’s being held for observation. The problem is, the doctors may recommend bed rest for the next four months, and Vicki is panicking, which makes the problem worse. She won’t listen to her husband, and she won’t listen to me, but she may listen to you.”

I immediately called Vicki, and Amelia hadn’t exaggerated. Panic was the only possible cause for her frantic rush of words. I promised her I would be back by nightfall.

“Nnnno,” James wailed, slumping when I told him.

“I have to. She was there for me, and now the tables are turned. This is what it’s about, James. It’s what I’ve been saying.”

“But you just got here. Today’s the holiday.”

“And you need to work.” I kissed him, but his mouth didn’t yield. “I’m not moving there permanently. I just want to help her figure out what to do. I know you’re not happy, but this is important. It’s who I want to be.”

“The runaway wife.”

“The trusted friend. What if this was us? What if
I
was pregnant and there was a problem and we needed someone to help us sort it out?”

“We’d do it ourselves.”

I sighed. “Then I guess women are the ones who need the village, and for me right now, Vicki is it. I want to be there for her. Can you love me for that?”

He snorted. “Do I have a choice?”

I smiled and kissed him again. “No.”

Moments later, I was in the bedroom. Technically, I didn’t need to pack anything, since my bag was still in Bell Valley. But, for the sake of variety, I took a few things. And my laptop this time. And my diamond studs.

Always needing hair clasps, I was rummaging through a cabinet in the bathroom when I spotted a box of tampons. I picked it up, thinking to take it, because I’d had my period before leaving New York last time and had to be due again.

Actually, if I hadn’t had it since then, I was late.

I was never late.

Granted, a drastic change in lifestyle could affect a woman’s body.

But I was
never
late.

My heart began to pound. Cautious, I set the tampons down and took a different box. Like any woman who was trying to get pregnant, I had a supply of these, but I was conditioned to expect disappointment. When the first strip showed positive, I threw it out and tried again. When the second read the same, my hand began to shake.

“James,” I called in a tremulous voice. Fixing my clothes, I left the bathroom. I was shaking all over by then. “James!”

Eyes distant, he looked up from his screen. I held out the second strip. He stared at it, disoriented, before realizing what it was.

“Positive,” I whispered, afraid to say it aloud in case it wasn’t true.

But it was. James saw the results, too. I was
pregnant
.

Chapter 19
 

James was as stunned as I was. We had absolutely
not
been trying. I’d been gone!

His expression went from startled to amused to positively giddy. Sweeping me off the floor with an arm under my knees, he held me with such ferocity that I would have cried out in protest if he hadn’t quickly gentled. He let my legs slide to the floor, leaving possessive arms around me.

“When?” he asked excitedly.

“That night in the woods, maybe?”
That
had been something. “Or afterward, in my room?”

“You didn’t suspect?”

“I’ve refused to
think
about it. That was part of my escape.”

“I knew you looked different,” he crowed, and who was I to say that a woman didn’t look different after only two weeks. I wouldn’t have thought I would feel nausea this early either, but other explanations? I had never been the queasy type.

“Omigod.” I put a hand on my belly. “I didn’t expect this.”

His eyes were electric. “It changes everything.”

“Does it
ever
.”

“I don’t want you going back to Lane Lavash. There’s too much pressure.”

“I wouldn’t go back even if I
weren’t
pregnant,” I declared, victorious.

“Pregnant.” He tested the word. “Are you sure?”

I was suddenly
very
sure. Everything about this felt right, starting with the idea that my baby hadn’t been conceived on the clock. “I did two tests. Both read the same. And the symptoms are spot on.”

“If you conceived two weeks ago, when would you be due?”

I tried to do the math, but with so many other thoughts in my head, he beat me to it.

“March.
Perfect
timing. I’m named partner in October—my pay goes up in January—you won’t have to work
at all.
”

“I do want to work, just not at Lane Lavash,” I cautioned, because, in that split second of imagining my legal career over, I had felt a tiny loss. I did love law.