Nightingale Way: An Eternity Springs Novel (24 page)

From Cat’s expression, Jack guessed she was thinking about the fight they’d had not long before she lost the baby. She’d wanted to talk wallpaper when his mind had been full of hostages. He’d snapped at her, she’d taken it like a knife to the heart, and they hadn’t spoken to each other the rest of the night.

Her gaze flickered toward him and he saw that he’d guessed right. Her next question steered away from babies and back toward Sage’s art career. “Why did you decide to open an art gallery in Eternity Springs?”

Jack was momentarily distracted by the small white dog that trotted into the gallery from the back of the building. Before Sage responded to Cat’s question, he asked, “Excuse me, but what is that poor dog wearing?”

Absently rubbing her back, Sage glanced around, then grinned. “I thought I’d better get Snowdrop’s Halloween
costume ready before the baby arrived. I was afraid I wouldn’t have time afterward.”

“Are those fairy wings?” Cat asked.

“Angel wings. Sarah said she plans to put Mortimer in a devil’s costume, so I thought we needed balance. The Callahan girls will like it.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” Jack observed.

“I think Snowdrop looks darling,” Cat countered.

“Thank you. I do, too. Now, back to your question about the gallery. Well, Vistas came about almost by … Oh, Snowdrop. Stop that.” Sage bent to scoop up her dog, who had gone up on her hind legs to peer into the trash can placed inconspicuously behind a graceful antique writing desk, and abruptly she froze. Her eyes flew open wide and her hands flew to her belly. “Excuse me.”

She dashed for her office, with its private restroom at the back of the gallery. Jack looked at Cat, who shrugged, picked up the dog, and began walking around the room studying the art on display as she scratched the white bichon frisé behind her ears. Jack watched with self-conscious pride as she stopped before a photograph of an eagle soaring above Waterford Valley. He’d taken the shot the previous spring, and upon seeing it, Sage had wanted it for her gallery. He’d learned firsthand how difficult it was to say no to Sage Anderson Rafferty.

The woman herself emerged from the back room wearing a different dress. Cat took one look at her and asked, “Your water broke, didn’t it?”

Sage nodded, her cheeks rosy with embarrassment, her eyes bright with excitement. “I guess I’ll be having a baby today or tomorrow.”

Once his brain freeze thawed, Jack leaped to assist her. “What can I do to help? Here, let me get a chair.” He looked around. “Where’s a chair?”

“She doesn’t need a chair,” Cat said. “She needs her husband.”

“I’ll call him in a few minutes. There’s no rush.”

“Are you sure?” Jack asked.

“Yes. I … um … excuse me.”

When Sage disappeared into the restroom once again, Cat turned to Jack. “Do you have Colt’s number in your phone?”

“Yes.”

“Then call him and ask him to come here.”

“Here? Not the medical center? Should I go get my helicopter and fly her to … wherever?”

Cat rolled her eyes. “Sage is a physician. Her sister is a physician. I’m sure if they thought she’d need to fly somewhere to deliver her baby they would already have made arrangements.”

Jack pulled out his phone and thumbed through the names until he got to Rafferty. As the line began to ring, he lifted the phone to his ear, but Cat smoothly swiped it from his grip. A moment later, she said, “Hi, Colt. Cat Blackburn here. I’m calling for Sage. Would you be able to meet us at the gallery in the next few minutes?”

After a pause while she listened, she said, “No, no emergency, and nothing is wrong. She needs your help with something whenever you can manage.”

“Whenever you can manage?” Jack repeated after she hung up. “Shouldn’t you have said ‘Get your butt here ASAP’?”

“It’s not an emergency, so it’s not our place to spill the beans. Sage will want to see his reaction.” At that point, Sage returned looking calm and cool and serene. Cat ignored Jack’s question and said, “We called Colt and asked him to come, but we didn’t tell him why.”

“Thank you,” Sage said.

“She didn’t tell him to hurry,” Jack added. He crossed the room and took hold of Sage’s arm. “There’s a chair
over here. You can sit down. Should I call him back and tell him to hurry?”

“Oh, heavens, no. We have plenty of time. As much as I’d love my labor to be fast and furious, I sincerely doubt I’ll be that lucky. And thank you for the chair, Jack, but I’m better off standing. Now, Cat, I think you asked me about why I chose to open Vistas?”

“Yes.” Cat appeared to be as cool and calm as Sage, so Jack settled down. These were two intelligent women. Cat had experience in this arena. If they weren’t concerned, he need not be concerned.

For the next fifteen nerve-racking minutes, he watched Sage Rafferty with an eagle eye. Mentally, he planned the fastest way to get to the clinic and gave himself a pat on the back for having provided the town with an emergency helicopter. He could fly it himself. Knowing that helped settle his nerves.

Still, he held his breath until Colt strode into the gallery, his body tense, his expression grave, until he spied his wife speaking calmly with Cat as she gestured to a tapestry on display. Visibly relaxing, Colt said, “Hello, you guys. Sage? What’s up?”

Sage murmured something to Cat, then turned an easy smile toward her husband. “Well, you need not get all excited, but we’re going to have a baby.”

His gaze dropped to her belly and he gave an exaggerated drawl, “Really? I hadn’t guessed.”

Now a glitter of amusement entered Sage’s eyes. “Tomorrow. Maybe even today.”

His lazy grin disappeared in a flash. “Today?”

“My water broke. If I don’t go into labor naturally within the next little while, we’ll induce.”

The color drained from Colt’s face, and when he swayed on his feet, Jack grabbed the chair he’d been ready to get for Sage and shoved it under her husband.
Colt sank into it gratefully. “Today! I’m not ready. We’re supposed to have two more weeks!”

“You better get ready, bud,” Jack told him.

“Wait a minute. Why am I sitting down?” Colt shoved to his feet, stalked over to his wife, and took her arm. “You should be sitting down, Sage. Shouldn’t you?”

Sage shook free of his grip and sighed. “No. Didn’t you listen in any of our childbirth classes? Walking is the best thing for me at this time.”

“You know I listened. I have three notebooks filled with notes. I just … oh, no. You have to stop it, Sage. They’re back at the house. The house is ten minutes away. Ten plus ten equals twenty. I can’t leave you for twenty minutes and I’m not taking you twenty minutes away from the clinic and I can’t do this without my notes. Why didn’t you tell me to bring my notes to town with me this morning?”

Sage reached up and held her husband’s face with both hands. She gave him a little shake and said, “Colt. Stop. It’s okay. We’re probably looking at the middle of the night here. Maybe tomorrow morning. There’s plenty of time for us to ride home, take care of the dogs, grab our go bags, and go to the clinic before anything too interesting starts happening.”

The father-to-be scowled. “Answer me this. Are you having any contractions at all?”

“Well, yes. A few. But they’re not hard and they’re not regular.”

“And we’re not driving out to Hummingbird Lake,” Colt declared.

“We’ll go for you,” Jack offered. “Just tell us what you need and we’ll make it happen.”

“You don’t mind?” Sage asked.

“Not at all. We’re glad to help any way we can.”

Sage gave Cat a key to her house and Colt informed Jack of what the dogs needed carewise, then Cat gathered
up Snowdrop and they departed the gallery. Neither of them spoke about the impending birth as they walked to Jack’s SUV and drove out to Hummingbird Lake. They talked about Jack’s trip and his visit to her parents’ house. They spoke about the newspaper and what Cat had planned for her next article and for her blog. They even avoided speaking of the subject when they delivered Colt’s backpack and Sage’s packed tote bag to the clinic and discovered that Dr. Rose Anderson, Sage’s sister and physician, had sent home the Rafferty family friends who’d begun to gather, predicting that Baby Rafferty wouldn’t arrive anytime soon.

As they’d planned, Jack and Cat stopped at the grocery store before making the short trip up to Eagle’s Way. They kept the conversation light while she fixed her coq au vin, and when they sipped after-dinner brandy while watching the moon rise from the balcony outside his bedroom.

Eventually, when the kisses they shared on the balcony grew heated, they moved to his bed, where they didn’t speak at all, or at least, not with words.

It wasn’t until afterward, when they lay sated and spent, and a big step forward along the “see where it goes” road, that he cradled her against his chest, gently stroked his fingers down her naked spine, and asked, “So, tell me, Catherine. When you went into labor with Lauren, did your water break?”

Cat blinked, wondering if she’d heard him correctly. Had he just asked her about Lauren? Now?

She attempted to sit up, but he held her tight and trapped against him. “No, honey,” he said softly. “Don’t. Talk to me. Let’s talk. Tell me about what happened when we lost Lauren.”

When we lost Lauren. We
. Cat closed her eyes. “You’ve never asked me about that night before.”

“No, I never have.”

“Why ask now?”

“Because I’m finally brave enough to ask. Because I think you might be healed enough to answer.”

Cat wanted to resist him. It would be so easy to throw up her defenses and storm out of his bed. So easy to attack him for making sure he got his rocks off before bringing up the topic they’d avoided since leaving Vistas.

But it wouldn’t be right.

Jack had asked about Lauren’s birth and now, finally, she would tell him.

Cat stood staring with dismay at the trash sack that reeked with the stench of discarded chicken bones from the soup she’d made late last week. It badly needed to go to the curb for today’s trash pickup. She had forgotten to take it out on Monday and now it was Thursday
and the garbage truck would be coming down the street at any time. Seven inches of new snow had fallen yesterday, and according to the TV weatherman the temperature had climbed all the way to seven degrees above zero. Oh, joy
.

Nevertheless, the trash had to go, and she’d waited as long as she dared for Jack to come home and do the job. When he left four days ago, he’d said he’d be home by yesterday. Yesterday had come and gone
.

At least he’d had the foresight to hire a neighbor boy to do the shoveling if he wasn’t here to do it, and the young man had cleared a path from the front door to the mailbox first thing this morning. She pulled on her coat, earmuffs, and gloves, grabbed the trash sack, and opened the door. Bitter cold air enveloped her, stinging her nose and lungs. Cat liked winter as a rule, but not this year. This year she couldn’t wait for summer and the long-desired, long-awaited birth of her and Jack’s first child
.

This summer, she’d have a baby to cuddle and a husband to hold at night. Jack had promised to cut back on his hours at work and to stop his out-of-country trips entirely once the baby was born. That concession had been a huge victory for her, so she tried not to feel annoyed that he’d been gone so much lately, all but disappearing off the earth while he was away. As a brutally cold gust of wind blew snow from the bare branches of the cherry tree in her front yard, sending a flurry of snowflakes to surround her, Cat kept her mind focused on summertime. Excitement thrummed inside her. She simply couldn’t wait
.

She dumped the black plastic bag at the curb just as the garbage truck turned the corner at the end of the street. Gratefully, she turned toward the shelter of her home and started back up the stone walk
.

She never saw the icy spot. Her feet flew out from
under her and she went down, landing hard on her tail-bone. Pain radiated up her spine. Fear clawed through her and she screamed from the depths of her soul
.

She heard the echo of it in her mind as she lay with Jack in his bed in his Colorado mountain home. His bed, his home. “Theirs” had ended long ago.

“Wait a minute.” Jack sat up, his expression anguished. “You lost the baby because of a fall on the ice? That’s not what—”

“No, the fall wasn’t the reason we lost her,” she assured him. “Though it took me a very long time to accept that. The trash haulers called for an ambulance and they kept me overnight as a precaution. Both of us were fine when we left the hospital, and she moved just like normal for the next day and a half. Then, I noticed …” Cat’s voice cracked on the words “… she didn’t.”

Jack lay back down and gathered her close. “That’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it. I’m sorry I asked.”

“No.” She gripped his arm hard. “I’m glad you asked. I need to tell you. I’ve always needed to tell you, even when I couldn’t. It’s bothered me all these years that we never talked about it.

“I didn’t believe the doctor. I thought surely I damaged her in the fall and I felt so guilty and careless. I blamed myself and I blamed you. I shouldn’t have blamed you, Jack. I shouldn’t have blamed myself. I was so full of pain and loss and you weren’t there and that made you an easy target. I had no one to talk to. You weren’t there and Dad wasn’t there. Even Mom wasn’t around. Maybe if she’d been there then, we could have found some common ground that would have helped us ever since. Dad told me that she’d had a miscarriage before they had me.”