Right by Her Side (14 page)

He caught her hand and then drew it into the pocket of his jacket. A velvet box. A velvet jewelry box.

Her emotions did another dip and roll. “For me?” No one had ever given her a gift in a velvet jewelry box.

Men like Trent gave out jewelry.

“Aren't you going to take it out?” There was a smile in his eyes.

“Sure. Yes.” So then she stood there like an idiot, holding the pale blue box in her palm.

“It won't bite, Rebecca.” He leaned close, resting his forehead against hers. “Though I just might.”

There was no way to control the next shiver. It skittered across her skin, raising goose bumps from her neck to her ankles. He had to be used to sophisticated women. Sophisticated women who had piles of jewelry from their lovers. Women who didn't shiver at the word
bite.
Women who didn't imagine the man in their bed whispered “I love you” every time they had sex.

Loving Trent made her feel inadequate and elated by turns. She'd tried to cover for her slip about love by latching on to the whole hormones thing, but while she hoped she'd fooled Trent, she'd never once fooled herself.

She loved him. She was in love with him.

Since that night, though, he'd never mentioned the word again.

“Open it now, honey. I'll help you get it on, then I have to leave.” He tipped up her chin with his finger. “Don't be too far behind.”

They were taking separate cars because he had an errand and some extra duties as the club's membership chair. She'd opted for getting ready at a more leisurely pace and driving herself. Taking a deep breath, Rebecca flipped open the box. She looked at the necklace inside and then looked up at Trent, puzzled.

“This doesn't look like something you'd choose.” She'd didn't know quite what she'd expected, but this wasn't big or flashy.

He shrugged. “It looks like something you'd wear.”

Rebecca bent her head for a closer inspection. It was a delicate chain, platinum she assumed, and hanging from it was a little—

“Angel,” she said, lifting it with her finger. A tiny angel, its round head, triangle body, and wings created with frames of more platinum, like stained glass. But between the platinum lines, instead of glass, were jewels. Clear jewels.

“Diamonds,” Trent said. “But check out the halo. That's my favorite part.”

A platinum squiggle circled the angel's diamond head. She glanced at Trent again.

“Can you see the letter the halo makes?”

Rebecca lifted the necklace out of the box and held
it against her palm. “It's an
E
,” she said. The halo was in the shape of a cursive
E.
”

He smiled and ran the back of his finger down her cheek. “For Eisenhower.”

“Oh.” Her eyes filled with tears again.

Trent laughed. “You're going to make me think you don't like my gift.”

“I
love
your gift.”

Love. The word seemed to glow like neon letters between them.

“Rebecca…”

She turned her back on the unreadable expression in his eyes. “Put the necklace on for me, please,” she said.

He fastened the necklace. “There.”

She spun to look at her reflection instead of him. “It's beautiful, Trent,” she said. Her gaze met his in the mirror. “Thank you. Really.”

He grinned. “You're welcome. Really.” Then he checked his watch. “I'd better go. I can't wait to see you and the new dress at the club.”

“And Angel Eisenhower,” Rebecca added, touching the necklace, then going on tiptoe to lightly kiss his mouth.

Trent covered her belly with his palm. He'd never done that before, touched her quite like that, as though he was touching their baby. She swallowed hard.

“And Angel Eisenhower,” he confirmed. And then he was gone.

As she pulled her dress from the closet, she noticed a small ache in her lower back. “Stupid high heels,” she muttered, staring down at the strappy sandals on her
feet. They were hard to get used to for a woman accustomed to flat-soled, comfortable nurse shoes. But she supposed flat-soled, comfortable nurse shoes would look pretty ridiculous with the turquoise-colored, tissue-fine silk dress she'd bought.

Trent was used to women who could wear sophisticated shoes with their sophisticated dresses at their fancy country-club dances.

As she wiggled into the dress and it settled into place, her lower back twinged again. She ignored it as she inspected herself in the mirror. The fabric clung to her pregnancy-enhanced breasts, but skimmed the rest of her figure. The hemline fell to the ground at the back, but lifted over one leg, almost to mini-height. When she walked, in the front it showed a lot of the legs that Trent claimed to adore. In the back, the dress frothed in a shape she found pretty. She hoped he found it sophisticated and the right choice for the Solstice dance.

On the other side of the room the phone rang. Rebecca glanced at it, glanced back for a final inspection. “Because I don't want to let Trent down,” she told her reflection.

B
ut letting Trent down weighed heavily on Rebecca's mind as she hurried into the Tanglewood Country Club and toward the sound of a live band playing something soft and dreamy in the reception hall/ballroom that was opposite the entrance to the restaurant. The phone call she'd received right after putting on her new dress had been from the hospital. Merry had been admitted again and was asking for Nurse Rebecca.

Even though Trent—reached by cell phone—had encouraged her to visit the child on her way to the dance, she'd had to wait for Merry to be settled in her room, further delaying Rebecca. As the minutes ticked away she'd felt tension turning those twinging aches in her lower back to tight knots. Tonight's dance was to
be hers and Trent's first appearance as a couple at a country-club social occasion and she knew the evening was important to him.

Reaching the open double doors, she paused to catch her breath. The room looked beautiful, the chandeliers dimmed in favor of strings of hundreds of fairy lights. White flowers decorated the tables and topiary trees of white roses lined the walls. Magical, she couldn't help thinking.

She smiled to herself. Who would have thought that what they'd gone into for practical reasons could have turned her so idealistic about romance and love?

Who would have thought a navy-brat-turned-nurse would be poised at the entrance to Portland's most exclusive country club, seeking out her sexy, handsome and—at least in her imagination, anyway—loving husband?

Remembering once again she was late, she took a few hurried steps inside the dimly lit room. A wave of hot, humid air struck her in the face. Another pang, stronger than any before, centered in her lower back, and more heat washed down her skin. Feeling almost sick from the combination, she stopped again, scanning the room for Trent and hoping their table was close by.

In the crowd of dark jackets she couldn't seem to make him out. The fairy lights twinkled, then blurred. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. Glassware clattered so loudly in her ears that it drowned out the music of the band. The couples on the dance floor didn't ap
pear affected, though. They moved smoothly about, beautiful women and handsome men.

Trent.

The muscles in her lower back pinched harshly again as she recognized him. A tall woman was in his arms, a stunning blonde in a sequined dress whose diamond collar was as different from Rebecca's simple angel necklace as the woman was different from Rebecca herself.

But still, Trent was
her
husband. The father of her child. Pressing a hand over her belly button she took a deep breath and then threaded her way through the tables toward him. She'd catch his eye while he danced and have him direct her to her seat.

The room was a thousand miles long. In her ridiculous shoes she could only take small steps. But she kept her eyes on the prize, on Trent, thinking she'd feel better when she made contact with him. She wouldn't be so hot, her back wouldn't ache so and she would hear the music instead of the cacophony of background noises that were clanging in her head.

A cold hand grazed her arm.

Rebecca looked down, blinking at the woman who was touching her. The fairy lights seemed to be doing more than twinkling now; they seemed to be moving around the room like fireflies. She blinked again, trying to make them still.

“You must be Trent's wife,” the stranger said.

Rebecca could barely hear the words over the loud sounds in her head. “Yes,” she said. If only those lights would stay still! “How did you know?”

“I've been watching for you, and you were watching him.”

Rebecca glanced over at the dance floor again. There was Trent, his dark blond head bent low to his partner's champagne-colored hair. Rebecca had danced with him once, too, she thought, but not as well as he danced with the woman he was with now. Her stomach went queasy.

“I'm Trent's mother, Sheila Crosby.”

His mother? Trying to pull herself together, Rebecca pasted on a smile. “How do you do? I'm Rebecca Holley.”

Sheila Crosby cocked an eyebrow. She was another beautiful woman, another in the mold of the one Trent now held in his arms. Blond, toned, face and hair model-perfect.

“You kept your own last name?” Sheila asked.

The room was starting to spin. What had Trent's mother said? Something about using her own last name? “No,” Rebecca replied, wondering how anyone could think in the cloying heat of the room. “I— No. I guess I made a mistake.”

Sheila laughed and cast a pointed glance toward something or someone Rebecca couldn't see. “Marrying a Crosby is always a mistake.”

And she should respond to that how? Her back muscles were tightening into a ruthless, relentless ache. She had to get these shoes off. She had to cool herself down with a glass of water. Trying another smile, Rebecca began edging away. “It was nice meeting you. I'm sure we'll see each other again.”

“Not if my son has any say about it.”

Rebecca kept moving, trying to think through the too-sharp sounds still clamoring in her skull. Did Trent's mother think he was ashamed of Rebecca? That he wanted to distance himself and his family from her? But no, that wasn't right. She'd spent time with his sister. Had met his father earlier in the week.

Trent had wanted her at his side tonight, even though now he was dancing with someone else. At the thought, her back muscles cramped again, tighter than before. She gasped, trying to ride out the pain.

“Miss? Are you all right?”

A man's voice now. A man in a tuxedo, but black-haired, black-eyed. Not Trent.

“Fine,” Rebecca managed to get out. She needed to find Trent, but darkness was closing in on her vision. The fairy lights were dancing about the room. Trent was somewhere, dancing, too, with a woman who was so much more than Rebecca…except the mother of his child.

Her lower back spasmed again, and this time the pain wrapped around her pelvis and squeezed. Rebecca reached out and grabbed the strange man at her side as the pain cinched tight and a liquid sensation trickled between her legs.

It was as if she'd started her period, Rebecca thought, still clutching the stranger. But that couldn't be right. She was pregnant with Eisenhower. Another cramp closed down on her womb.

She was pregnant with Eisenhower!

Another trickle.

As a cold sweat broke out over her skin, Rebecca called out, “Trent! Trent!” Her gaze searched him out. “Trent!”

Then she located him. He was still on the dance floor, but now he broke away from the beauty who was so much more than Rebecca…except the mother of his child.

But when another cramp seized her body, a horrible dread seized her too.

Perhaps she wasn't going to be the mother of Trent's child, after all.

 

Trent was good in a crisis. Everyone had always said so. Everyone said it at the club tonight. They praised his calm as he moved toward the pale and trembling Rebecca, as he moved her out of the room, as he handed his keys to the valet and waited for his car to be brought around.

“You're going to be all right, sweetheart.” He settled her quickly into the passenger seat, angling its back to a recline and then wrapping his jacket snugly around her body. “Are you certain we don't need an ambulance?”

“We don't need an ambulance.”

Above his black coat, her face was a pale smudge. The sight clawed at his gut. She'd had stars shining in her eyes when he'd left her tonight and now he felt as if all the stars had fallen from the sky. “The hospital—”

“No. We don't need that either. The bleeding has already stopped. The doctor said to go home and put my
feet up. This might be nothing. The only thing to do at the moment is wait.”

Trent slid into his own seat and then gripped the steering wheel. Problem was, though he was good in a crisis, he wasn't so good at waiting. He started the car and pulled smoothly away from the curb, focusing on not jostling Rebecca any more than necessary.

He glanced over, noting that she'd closed her eyes. If waiting was what it took, then he was going to be the best, most cheerful, patient, helpful, supportive waiter in the whole damn world. He could do this. His poker face had served him well in dozens of negotiations and it would serve him well now.

Keeping it together would only help them both.

“It won't be long,” Rebecca said.

“What, sweetheart?” He sounded normal. Almost relaxed. Amazing. “What won't be long?”

She shook her head and he saw a single tear leak from beneath her lashes. “Everything,” she said in a tired voice. “All of it ends too soon.”

What the hell does she mean by that?
But a car cut in front of him and he had to give his attention to making a tricky maneuver into the next lane. When he had a second to glance at Rebecca again, she appeared asleep.

Good. Rest, my love.
His jacket had slipped, revealing her neck and one shoulder. He saw that her hand lay across one breast, her fingers holding fast to the angel he'd given her.

Over the next hours, Trent learned a lot about his wife.

She was as calm in a crisis as he was.

Her unfailing politeness unnerved him.

Her self-reliance unnerved him.

Her silence unnerved him, especially when she said she was going to sleep and he knew it was all a sham, that she was lying beside him on the mattress, awake and quiet.

So damn quiet.

At 3:00 a.m., conceding a momentary defeat, he cursed and flipped on the bedside light. It surprised her into blinking at him.

“I'd say I was sorry I woke you,” he said, “but I know you weren't asleep.”

She pushed her hair away from her face to look at him. That was all that she did. She just looked at him. Calmly.

He found that damn unnerving, too. He wanted her to talk, wail, yell, show some kind of emotion,
share
her emotion with him. “It's going to be okay,” he said when he couldn't stand the silence any longer.

She shook her head.

“What do you mean?” There was the tiniest hint of strain in his voice, so he cleared his throat to wipe it away. He was great in a crisis, damn it, and it was up to him to keep things together.

“Turn off the light, Trent.” She turned her head away from him. “Please. Turn off the light and let me sleep.”

What could he do but obey? It was a rational man's move, and he was always rational. And right. Everything
was
going to be okay.

Sometime before dawn he fell asleep. When he woke up, it was after seven and he was alone in the bed. The adjoining bathroom door clicked open and his gaze jumped to Rebecca.

She slowly emerged, her hair brushed, her face looking freshly washed. He noted she was still in the flannel nightgown she'd dressed in the night before.

But now, in the notch of the neckline, he could see that the little angel she'd worn to bed the night before was gone.

 

In the waiting room at the OB/GYN's office, they gave Trent a pamphlet to read. Though he kept his face impassive, the unknowns pissed him off. The medical profession, all those experts and researchers and M.D.s and Ph.D.s didn't know exactly how many pregnant women had miscarriages in the first twenty weeks of pregnancy, though they thought somewhere around twenty-five percent. Usually it occurred before the thirteenth week—Rebecca had been in her eleventh—but they didn't fully understand the causes, except to know that it wasn't brought on by work, exercise or sex.

What they
did
know was that in most cases a woman would go on to have a normal pregnancy—and that couples could start trying again in a couple of months. What they
did
know was that a couple, especially a woman, might feel some level of loss.

What nobody knew but Trent was Rebecca's reasons for wanting the child they'd lost. She'd told him that she'd wanted a child to fill her well, a child to repair her
heart that was broken a little bit by her job every day. How empty would this make her feel? How heart-broken?

His fingers tightened on the pamphlet, creasing the businesslike buff paper. He wanted to crush it, slam it to the floor, grind it into the gruesome green carpeting with his heel. But he was the type of man who controlled his emotions, right? And then Rebecca chose that moment to emerge from the door that led to the examining rooms.

Jumping to his feet, he searched her pallid face while making sure his was completely impassive. “All set?”

“I need to check in at the hospital. There's a…procedure.”

“A procedure?” He leaped toward her.

She held up her hand. “Nothing major. No big deal. Just a simple procedure to make sure that…that…”

Okay, okay. He'd read about that, too. A common procedure to make sure there was nothing the miscarried pregnancy might have left behind. It wasn't something to get worked up about. He made himself calmly nod. “All right. Well, let's take care of it, shall we?”

And just like that, his wife was admitted to the hospital for a surgical procedure that required him to sign papers and releases and read warnings that set his heart thumping and his stomach churning. But revealing that wouldn't help Rebecca at all, so he examined them with care and signed them without showing any hint of what he was feeling.

As a matter of fact, he wasn't sure if he felt anything at all. He kept going numb, and he welcomed it.

It helped him as he watched her being wheeled off on a gurney and then again as he went about accomplishing the practical tasks that had to be done next. They were going to keep Rebecca overnight, so in the hospital gift shop he bought her three nightgowns, two robes and two pairs of slippers. That way she'd have choices. He also bought ten glossy magazines, a bag of candy bars, a bear holding a bouquet of balloons, a bear holding a bouquet of flowers, a bear holding a bouquet of suckers. Then he thought the bears might remind her too much of the baby, so he dropped them off on the pediatric floor and started all over again.