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Nathan looked at her, then at Gemma, who hid a smile. He probably didn’t know Frances very well and wasn’t aware that she rarely acknowledged negative situations, choosing instead to see the world through rose-colored glasses.
“Um, yes,” he agreed, but his dark eyes said something completely different.
“Tom and I are having our annual Memorial Day picnic at our place and we’ve invited all the hospital and birthing-center donors and potential donors. Of course, we want you to come. We intend to wring every last cent out of them and having you there will make us look legitimate.” She told them the time, wiggled her fingers at the two of them and went to rejoin her husband.
Maybe Frances was more shrewd than she appeared.
“The Sandersons are contributing to the birthing center?” Nathan asked, his gaze following Frances as she charmed her way, one by one, through the people on the stage. Tom followed in her wake, shaking hands and exchanging a few words with everyone. Gemma knew that was one of the reasons the two of them were so successful—they worked as a team.
“So far they’re the major contributors.”
“Because you saved their grandson?”
Gemma crossed her arms at her waist and tilted her head to the side as she considered him. “Careful, Nathan, your skepticism is showing. I am a trained and experienced midwife.” She couldn’t control the testiness in her voice.
“So you keep telling me.” He glanced away, then back again. “Thanks for shutting down Cole.” The words came out as if they were dragged from him. He turned away, grabbed his briefcase and hurried from the stage.
Gemma pressed her lips together and looked down as she slowly followed him off the stage. It was as if he couldn’t stand to be around her, but it wasn’t strictly because of their professional differences. This was deeper, more personal.
* * *
YVETTE BURLEIGH WATCHED the crowd exiting the auditorium. She’d made the mistake of leaving Cole alone while she went to the ladies room. He had wandered off with some of his like-minded cronies. Now she couldn’t find him and she’d left her truck keys at home so she couldn’t even crawl inside, prop up her feet and wait for him. Her ankles were swollen, her back hurt, the baby was doing gymnastics on her bladder and if he didn’t stop it, she was going to need the bathroom again before they got anywhere close to home. She patted her belly. Sometimes that calmed her unborn son. She moved into the shade and took a deep breath. Settling her back against the wall, she tried to relax.
On a daily basis, she found herself swinging between elation about the baby and profound depression fueled by fear that she would be a terrible mother. Her own hadn’t been much of a role model, bouncing in and out of Yvette’s life as she’d grown up and been passed from one relative to another and then to foster homes. Yvette was terrified she would do that to her son, except that her baby would know who his father was—a man with a stable family. Cole’s mom and dad were bossy and overbearing and most of the time she was scared of them, but they were thrilled about the baby. They were planning to purchase nearly every top-of-the-line item their grandson would ever need and Yvette had been completely left out of all the discussions, shopping and decisions. Apparently, her only part in this was to produce the actual baby.
Having grown up in unstable and sometimes dangerous households, she hated conflict and didn’t want to get into any arguments with her in-laws. She wished she had a friend or two, girlfriends she could go shopping with to choose things for herself or for her son, but there was no one.
And then there was Cole.
He had a good job helping run the family sale barn, where livestock was auctioned off to the local ranchers. Her son would never want for anything except maybe tenderness and gentle understanding from his father. She didn’t know exactly how a father was supposed to act, but thought it wasn’t like her loud, arrogant father-in-law, or her convinced-he-was-right husband.
Knowing all of that, she was happy and scared and worried all at once.
Hormones, Yvette thought. All this confusion was nothing but hormones, but that didn’t make it easier to handle.
“Hello, Yvette. How are you?”
Her eyes sprang open and she stood up straight. Carly Joslin strolled up with Lisa Thomas and the woman Yvette now knew was Gemma Whitmire—the one, along with Nathan Smith, who Cole hated and wouldn’t say why.
Embarrassment flushed Yvette’s face. She knew her husband had made a fool of himself. He didn’t seem to be bothered by it, but she was. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last. It was mystifying to her. Even though he seemed to think his opinion was the most important one, he usually wasn’t like this at home, but whenever they were out in public he turned into a different man, one who had to be the authority on everything, the loudest voice, the know-it-all. They’d met online, had been married less than a year and she feared she’d made a dreadful mistake. She was ten years younger than he was. There was no one she could talk to about her marriage. She wasn’t from Reston, had few friends here, and her family—what was left of it—was hundreds of miles away.
She knew Carly and Lisa wouldn’t say anything about Cole’s antics, but she didn’t know Gemma so she braced herself for whatever she might say. The other woman seemed pretty outspoken and sure of herself if the way she’d grabbed the microphone from Dr. Smith was any indication.
Yvette liked that. She admired strong women, mostly because she knew she wasn’t one.
Carly introduced the two of them and Gemma gave her a warm smile. “Congratulations on your upcoming birth,” she said as she ran a practiced eye over Yvette’s belly. “You’re about seven months along?”
“Yes.” She rested her palms on her stomach and her son gave such a strong kick, her hands bounced. Everyone laughed. “He’s pretty lively today.”
Gemma pulled a card from her handbag. “Since you’re so far along, you’ve probably got a doctor and a birthing plan all ready to go, but if I can do anything to help, please call.”
“Oh, thank you.” Yvette took the card and tucked it into her pocket, then glanced up in time to see Cole bearing down on them, his face hard. “I’ve got to go. It was nice meeting you, Gemma,” she said hurriedly, turning away and moving rapidly toward the truck.
Cole detoured away from the women and was at the vehicle before her, unlocking the door. He braced a hand under her elbow, helping her in even as he growled, “Why were you talking to them?”
“I was being polite. Carly and Lisa are always nice to me...”
“Stay away from Gemma,” he ordered, slamming the door, then stalking around to the driver’s side and jerking the door open.
“That might be hard to do, Cole. This isn’t exactly a big city.”
He started the engine and put the truck in gear. “You can if you make a point of it, Yvette.”
Her lips tight, she looked out the window as tears filled her eyes. She’d made a terrible mistake and she had no idea how to fix it. She knew she could leave, but where would she go? How could she support herself and the baby? If Cole and his parents even let her take the baby. She had only a high school diploma and no job skills outside of the do-you-want-fries-with-that? variety.
She wished she could talk to Gemma. She had so many questions about the baby and about childbirth that her doctor tried to answer, but he was too busy to spend much time with her. Dr. Smith seemed nice enough in spite of what Cole said, and he seemed honest. Cole wouldn’t allow her to talk to either of them. She didn’t know what she was going to do.
* * *
GEMMA PUT A hand to her throat as she stared after Cole’s truck in dismay. “Oh, my goodness. Is that girl even a day over nineteen?”
“Not by much,” Carly answered, and told Gemma what she knew of Cole and Yvette’s courtship and marriage.
“She looks exhausted, overwhelmed and...”
“Terrified,” Lisa supplied. She also studied the retreating truck with a worried look. “You don’t think Cole is...”
“Abusive toward her?” Carly mused, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“I hope she calls me,” Gemma said. “I know I can help her.”
Her friends exchanged a look. “Still rescuing kittens,” Carly teased gently.
“Yup. I’ll never change.” For some reason, Nathan’s solemn face came to mind. She wished things were different, were better between them, but maybe that was something that also wouldn’t change.
“Come on,” Carly said. “I did promise to assemble your lawn mower since I’m the gardening expert in the group, but do you two mind if we take a quick drive down Sky Mountain Road? There are a bunch of houses along there that might have put out—”
“No!” Gemma and Lisa answered in unison.
Laughing, the three of them climbed into the truck and headed toward Gemma’s.
* * *
NATHAN WATCHED GEMMA drive away with her friends and envied how easily she had slipped back into daily life in Reston. He wondered how long it would be before that happened for him. Or if it ever would.
Even though he was trying to do the right thing by the people of his hometown, they resented him because of what his father had done. He knew it was going to be a long, hard road to win back their trust. He wanted to do it on his own, though.
Fortunately, he’d had a minute to catch his breath and collect his thoughts when Gemma had jumped to his defense. He was grateful to her for telling Cole to shut up, but it rankled that she’d had to. He didn’t want her to rescue him.
A hand clapped onto his shoulder and he glanced up with a start to see Tom Sanderson grinning at him.
“Dr. Smith, I want you to meet my son, Trent.” The man beside him was a carbon copy of his father, but thirty years younger. Nate and Trent shook hands as Tom continued. “He couldn’t make it to the meeting. My wife is heading home so I’m going to fill Trent in on what happened. You want to join us? You look like a man who could use a beer.”
Nate looked from father to son. The family had moved to the area about five years ago, so they didn’t have any firsthand knowledge of George Smith’s crimes. Old friends might have abandoned him, but it was probably time he made some new ones.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I sure could.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHAT DO YOU THINK, GEMMA?” Lisa asked, setting the small carved figure on an end table and positioning it just so. Gemma’s mom had sent it from Botswana, where she and Wolfchild were helping build a school.
The figure was a precise circle in ebony, with the mother’s head bent down toward her child, arms cradling the baby, whose face was nestled into her neck.
“It looks good there, but I think it would make the perfect logo for the Sunshine. I could have it on the reception desk, and also painted on the sign. I’ll have to find someone to do the artwork, though.”
She glanced hopefully at Carly, who was relaxing on the sofa with a glass of iced tea. She shook her head. “Sorry, Gemma. I can put colors together and paint a basic design, but something that detailed is outside my skill set.” She tilted her head as she considered it. “Although I guess I could learn.”
“Marlene Fedder,” Lisa suggested. “Junior’s mom. She took up painting about five years go, and she’s really good.”
Lisa set down the piece. Carly picked it up and ran her fingers over it, letting them rest on the back of the baby’s tiny head. Sorrow touched her face before she handed the carving back to Lisa and resumed sipping her tea.
Lisa and Gemma exchanged a look, but didn’t comment. Lisa rewrapped the piece and fitted it back into its box, then she ran her hand over the tabletop.
Gemma saw the gesture and smiled. “It’s clean, Lisa. You polished it five minutes ago, remember?”
Lisa answered by wrinkling her nose. “Can I help it if I like clean surfaces, uncluttered spaces?”
“You’ve earned that quirk,” Gemma assured her. Lisa had been raised in the home of her loving hoarder grandparents and was determined to never go down the path of too many possessions taking over her life.
“We should celebrate the last of your unpacking,” Lisa said, curling up on the sofa opposite Carly and pulling her feet beneath her.
Gemma sat sideways in the armchair, her legs dangling over one arm and her head resting on the other.
“Let’s order a pizza from Crossroads,” Carly suggested. “That’s one of the good things about living in a small town. You can get gas, groceries, new socks and a pizza all at the same four-hundred-square-foot store.” Before Lisa could object to the number of calories in a typical Crossroads pizza, she held up her hand. “Try to think of it as a crust-based salad. They do buy my onions and peppers, you know.”
Lisa rolled her eyes, and Gemma laughed. While her two friends haggled over the pizza toppings, she relaxed and thought over the events of the past few days. When their dinner had finally been ordered, she said, “At the meeting yesterday, did either of you know there would be that much hostility toward Nathan?”
Carly shook her head. “No. I thought people would be too excited about the reopening to care about anything else.” She shrugged. “But I’m probably not the one to ask. Most of my conversations center around vegetables or reclaimed furniture.”
“I thought people might be hostile,” Lisa admitted. “A few have made comments. Everyone was curious. I think most of them expected him to come in driving a Rolls-Royce, move into the family mansion and lord it over the rest of us.”
“Probably what Cole Burleigh thought,” Gemma said.
“Looks like the good people of Reston suspected he’d profited a lot more than he did, maybe even colluded with his old man,” Carly said.
“Well, then, they just didn’t know him.” Gemma spoke more sharply than she intended to and her friends gave her assessing looks.
“That’s the second time you’ve come to his defense,” Lisa pointed out. “Wasn’t he the one who had nothing good to say about your chosen profession?”
Gemma squirmed uncomfortably and focused on the ceiling. “I’m used to that. Almost every midwife is.” She paused. “He didn’t have to come back here. No one expected him to...make up for his dad’s crimes.”
“And?” Lisa prompted.
“I don’t know why he’s doing it.”
“Because it’s the right thing?”
“Maybe to prove he’s not like George,” Carly added.
“I guess so,” Gemma admitted. “But he had a good job in Oklahoma City. No one there knew or cared about his father, or Reston. Whatever his reason, I think it’s tearing him up.”
“How can you know that after seeing him exactly three times?” Carly asked.
“It’s a...feeling I have.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her friends exchange a look, one she knew well, that said, “Gemma is on another rescue mission.”
She pretended not to notice.
* * *
“YVETTE, THIS IS the changing table I picked out for you,” Margery Burleigh announced in tones that seemed to invite applause. “Bob assembled it.”
Yvette thought that much was obvious since he had bandages on three fingers. He had brought the table in on a hand truck and now waited, red faced and panting, for his wife to give him further instructions.
Forcing a smile, Yvette looked at the oversize, curlicue carved piece of furniture and wondered how they would fit it into the nursery. It was too big, and...overwhelming.
In fact, it reminded her of Margery—outsize and overdressed.
Her mother-in-law seemed to think her place in the community was much more important than it really was. She considered herself to be an expert on everything, including childbirth and child raising, though she’d only ever had one son, and that when she’d been past forty. Now in her seventies, she was set in her ways and unlikely to change. She drove a Cadillac and dressed up every day in spite of living on a place with livestock, and raising her own chickens. Yvette had never seen her in a pair of jeans, and suddenly had a momentary vision of the big, ugly changing table dressed in denim.
“Um, thank you,” Yvette finally said. “It certainly looks...useful.”
If Margery was annoyed by the faint praise, she simply breezed right past it. “The crib you said you liked in that online store won’t do. You’re going to get the one that matches this changing table and can convert into a toddler bed, then into a full-size bed later on. When the other children come along, we’ll get them ones to match.”
“Other children?” Yvette asked faintly. How many was she expected to have? Besides, she had already ordered the crib she wanted.
“It’s not easy being an only child. Ask Cole. I couldn’t have any more babies or we would have filled the house up.” Margery seemed to recall something and fixed her piercing, critical gaze on Yvette. “You do already know that. You’re an only child, right?”
“Yes, I am.”
“That settles it, then,” Margery exclaimed as if they’d been having a heated argument. “You’ll want a big family.”
Yvette wondered how Margery could possibly know that. She never asked what Yvette wanted or thought, or hoped for. She simply made ironclad statements and stared down anyone who tried to argue with her. Bob went along with whatever she said and backed her up. Cole was intimidated by them, although he could be exactly like Margery.
Margery turned her attention to her husband. “Go ahead, Bob. What are you waiting for?”
“For you to quit flapping your gums,” he answered.
Dismayed, Yvette watched him wheel the latest monstrosity down the hall and into the nursery with his wife sailing along behind, handing out orders.
Cole had disappeared somewhere, probably because he knew his parents were coming over. No doubt, he was steeling himself for their upcoming trip to a rodeo in Tulsa—just him and his parents. Yvette was expected to stay home and represent the family—and Burleigh Livestock Sales—at the Sandersons’ barbecue.
She wasn’t quite sure why Bob and Margery weren’t on the hospital committee, or part of the fund-raising campaign, except that if Margery couldn’t be in charge, she wouldn’t want to be involved. From what Yvette had seen, Frances Sanderson was far more likely to charm people into giving than Margery, who’d try to bully people’s wallets out of their pockets.
Yvette had liked what she’d seen of Frances and Tom, and was eager for the weekend. She was also looking forward to peace and quiet in the house and not having another baby item foisted on her.
She wished she was brave enough to tell them no, she didn’t want all the items Margery was buying, but she wasn’t.
* * *
THE MUSTANG SUPERMARKET had recently reopened under new management. The outside looked great, if orange and brown were a person’s favorite colors, Nate thought. At least it was clean with shining windows and a freshly resurfaced parking lot—which had a puddle in the middle big enough to swallow a compact car.
The puddle had always been there, filling up with every rainfall for as long as he could remember. He didn’t know why they hadn’t graded the lot before refinishing it. Maybe someone had objected. The puddle was as much a part of Reston as the First Baptist Church, the Elks Club and the high school gym.
Nate stepped out of his car, slammed the door and stared at the puddle, recalling a time when he’d spied the water, made a break for it and jumped in, feet first. He’d been about five. His mother had been horrified. Since she didn’t want to get drenched in dirty, sloppy water, she’d sent Mandy in to get him. Mandy had been giggling uncontrollably, which he now saw had been equally humiliating for his mother. She didn’t like the attention a muddy little boy and a laughing teenager would bring. She had hustled them back into the car and hurried home without getting the groceries they’d come to buy.
Glancing up, he saw that all movement in the parking lot seemed to have slowed. People who had been walking in to the store, or out to their cars, had paused, their faces turned toward him, watching as he pocketed his keys and started toward the entrance. He nodded to people as he went along and that seemed to break the spell as everyone went back to their own business.
He wondered what his mom would think of this kind of attention.
At the sound of hurrying footsteps, he looked back to see Gemma bearing down on him.
“Good morning, Nate,” she sang out, giving him a big smile.
With her red hair flying around her face, and her lemon-yellow summer dress, she looked like a burst of sunshine—a good match for the name of her birthing center. All eyes were on her as she walked quickly toward him—as were his. It wasn’t simply that she was attractive. She was absolutely full of life.
“How are things going?” she asked when she caught up to him.
“Um, fine.” He realized he needed to quit staring at her, so he pulled a shopping cart out of the lineup and went inside, taking a moment to appreciate the scents of new paint and the pine cleaner used to wash the floors.
Gemma grabbed a carry basket and looped it over her arm as she fell into step with him. “I only came in for a couple of things,” she informed him as if he’d asked. “You should try the deli. They make excellent sandwiches. Carlin Houck runs it. You remember her, right?”
He gave her a dry look. “Well, I’ve known her since kindergarten, so I think so. I may have been gone a long time, but I don’t suffer from amnesia.”
When her cheeks reddened, he softened his tone. “I’ll try the deli.”
People were giving them sidelong looks or outright stares, obviously eavesdropping as she continued to chatter on about the wonders of the Mustang Supermarket. A number of people smiled at her enthusiasm.
When Mrs. Arnstein, their high school math teacher, saw them, she hurried up and gave them each a hug, then stood back to look at Nate.
“It’s wonderful to see you. I’m glad you’re back.” She beamed approval at him.
“I’m glad to see you, too, Mrs. Arnstein,” he said, and meant it, touched by how happy she was to see him, unlike nearly everyone else in town. If it hadn’t been for her patient tutoring, he never would have passed his junior year. They chatted for a few minutes and when she left, he felt a warmth he’d barely known since he’d returned to Reston. He looked at Gemma, who was watching him as if he’d done something brilliant.
They continued on, with Gemma waving to people or stopping to speak with them as she accompanied him up and down the aisles. It was almost as if she was acting as his... What? Bodyguard?
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