Debbie Macomber's Cedar Cove Series

  Maryellen nodded.

  “I’ll bring them over this weekend.”

  “That would be great.” Maryellen’s heart warmed toward her sister.

  “What about day care? You need to start thinking about that, especially with being single and all.”

  That was, of course, another pressing concern. She had to think seriously about interviewing prospects and checking out centers.

  “Listen,” Kelly said, leaning her elbow on the picnic table. “I could do it for the first couple of years.”

  Maryellen was speechless. When she could talk again, she whispered, “You’d do that?”

  “I need to check with Paul first, of course, but I don’t see why not. Another baby couldn’t possibly be that much extra work and I’m home, anyway. I’d like to help you, Maryellen. What are sisters for?”

  Maryellen’s eyes filled with tears. This offer was completely unexpected. She looked away, not wanting her sister to know that she was fighting back emotion.

  “You know what I realized the other day?” Maryellen asked when she was certain she could keep the tears out of her voice. “I was sitting in my kitchen, reading a magazine Mom recommended, and it dawned on me that…I was happy.”

  Kelly reached for her hand. “I see it in you, too. I feel it.”

  “I want this baby so much.” She pressed her palm against her midriff and closed her eyes. Lowering her head, she whispered, “I wanted my first baby, too.”

  Her words were met with stunned silence.

  “Your first baby?” Kelly asked, also in a whisper.

  “I…I was pregnant when Clint and I got married. Oh, Kelly, I was young and incredibly stupid. It was an accident, but we should have known it would happen because we were so careless. Still—it was a shock.”

  “What happened with the pregnancy?”

  Maryellen looked out over the choppy blue waters of the Cove. “Clint wanted me to have an abortion. He swore he loved me, but he wasn’t ready to be a father.”

  “How could he even suggest such a thing?”

  Maryellen’s throat grew thick, making speech almost impossible. “I couldn’t believe he’d want to get rid of our baby, but at that time in our lives, he felt a baby was…a nuisance.”

  “You still married him.”

  Maryellen nodded, feeling sick with guilt and with regret for what she’d done. “I…I loved Clint, or I thought I did. I told him I couldn’t have an abortion and that it didn’t matter if we got married or not. I was going to have my baby. In retrospect, I think he was terrified of having to pay child support and so he…he suggested we get married.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’d marry me if I agreed to terminate the pregnancy. That was his way of proving his love, of showing me he was serious about our relationship. He insisted there’d be other pregnancies, other children.” She didn’t add that Clint had forced her to decide between him and the pregnancy. Either she married him right then and had the abortion, or he’d break off the relationship completely. Even now, all these years later, Maryellen couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone how she’d allowed herself to be manipulated.

  “So you agreed?”

  Maryellen nodded, her long hair falling forward over her shoulder. “I didn’t want to do it, but I loved Clint and I believed he loved me. So we ran off and immediately after a justice of the peace performed the ceremony, we drove to an abortion clinic. The whole time, Clint kept telling me this was for the best and that we were making the right decision.”

  “Oh, Maryellen, you must’ve been so torn.”

  “It wasn’t the right decision for me, and even while I was at the clinic, I knew that, but I went through with it, anyway. I kept telling myself I wouldn’t have the baby, but I’d have Clint.” Not much later she’d realized what a poor choice she’d made. Clint was controlling and manipulative, and before her marriage was a year old, Maryellen knew she had to get out.

  “I never liked Clint and now I know why,” Kelly said, still holding tight to Maryellen’s hand.

  “That’s the reason I’ve avoided being around children. That’s why I was the first one in any group to make disparaging remarks about kids. I pretended I was too sophisticated and mature to want anything to do with them when my heart ached the whole time for what I’d done. What I’d missed…”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ve carried this guilt and shame all these years.” No one else knew, not her mother, not anyone. Maryellen had successfully hidden her ugly secret.

  The child she carried now was as unplanned as her first, but this time she wasn’t going to repeat her mistakes. She wasn’t going to involve the baby’s father. Jon didn’t want the child. He’d made that plain before Christmas, when he’d asked her about the possibility of a pregnancy. She’d seen the relief in his eyes when she assured him everything was all right. This time she was protecting her unborn child.

  Jack sat at his desk late Thursday afternoon, reviewing an article submitted by Charlotte Jefferson for the Seniors’ Page. It seemed to him that her opinions were becoming more and more political. Ever since her surgery, Charlotte had been on a mission to get a free health clinic in Cedar Cove. He had to hand it to her; she found a way to mention the need for such a clinic in every issue.

  With his pencil in hand he started making the changes, cutting words, rearranging phrases for clarity and adding polish to the piece. Charlotte wasn’t a natural writer but her skills had improved dramatically in the last year.

  His phone buzzed and Jack absently reached for it. “Griffin,” he said.

  “Dad, I want you to sing into the phone.”

  “You want me to what?” His son had made some unusual requests over the past few months, but this was one of the strangest.

  “Sing. Remember how you used to sing to me when I was a kid?”

  As though Jack could forget. He’d sung to Eric when the boy was strapped to a hospital bed, incredibly weak from the devastation of his disease. The drugs had been experimental at the time, but they were Eric’s only chance to beat leukemia.

  “Just sing! We’re desperate.”

  Jack could hear the two baby boys wailing in the background and grinned. Glancing around to make sure no one was listening, he started humming a little ditty he’d learned as a boy. “Two Irishmen, two Irishmen…”

  The cries increased and Eric got back on the line. “You’re no help.”

  “What are you doing in town?” Jack demanded.

  “Shelly needed me.” Tedd and Todd, too, from the sound of it. “You have no idea how much work two babies can be.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in Reno?” His son had agonized over the decision about following through with the transfer to Nevada. As soon as his twin sons were born, Eric wanted to be with them and Shelly. He used some of his vacation time, and for two weeks he’d stayed at the apartment with Shelly and the babies, but he couldn’t delay starting work any longer. Now he flew back each weekend for two days. At Shelly’s insistence, the twins had gone through DNA testing, and what had been obvious to Jack the minute they were born was now official. Eric was the father.

  “Dad!” He shouted to be heard above the crying twins. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” Jack assured him.

  “Do you think you could get Olivia to marry me?”

  “Just a minute, son. If anyone’s marrying Olivia, it’ll be me.”

  He smiled at Eric’s laughter. “So, you and Shelly have decided to get married?” he said.

  “Yeah,” Eric replied. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”

  “About ten months later than it should’ve been, but you didn’t ask my opinion.”

  “Shelly’s getting ready to move to Reno with me.”

  Jack hated the thought of being separated from his son yet again, hated the thought of missing out on his grandchildren, but he very much approved of Shelly. “So you’re going to take my grandsons away from me.
”

  “You can visit anytime you want.”

  “Count on it,” Jack told him.

  They ended the conversation a few minutes later, after Jack agreed to ask Olivia about performing the ceremony for Eric and Shelly. Actually, he was grateful for such a good reason to see his favorite judge. They’d been spending a lot of time together lately, and that was a trend he wanted to continue.

  As soon as he could leave the office, he headed for Olivia’s house. He found her working in her rose garden in the backyard. She’d recently planted a row of bushes, which she pampered to a ludicrous degree—in his opinion, anyway. But then, he believed in plants that looked after themselves. “Like weeds?” she’d asked scornfully when he’d shared his gardening philosophy. Today she wore a large straw hat that shaded her eyes, a pair of faded jeans and a worn man’s shirt. Jack stopped to admire the view of her bent over the rose bushes.

  “I wish you’d spoil me as much as you do those roses of yours.”

  “Hush,” she chastised. “I’ve just planted these and they need my attention.”

  “So do I,” Jack complained.

  “Stick around and I’ll feed you dinner.”

  He grinned, glad of the invitation. His relationship with Olivia was complicated. If the twins hadn’t decided to make their entrance into the world when they did, he might have coaxed her into bed with him. But when he’d returned from the hospital, she’d had time to think, time to assess whether this was the right step for them. Her decision was that, yes, eventually it should and would happen—but unlike Jack, she wasn’t in a hurry.

  In the weeks since, he’d done his best to shower her with love, much as she did those fancy roses she’d planted.

  “I heard from Eric this afternoon,” he told her. “He asked if you’d be willing to marry him and Shelly.”

  “Of course.” Olivia reached for a large watering can and sprinkled the freshly fertilized earth. “Did he tell you when they’d like to do it?”

  “No, but that’s a minor detail, don’t you think?”

  “Seeing how long it’s taken him to get to this point, I can’t help agreeing.” She raised her hand to her face to brush away a stray hair and in the process smeared dirt across her cheek. Jack looked down to hide a smile.

  “There must be something in the air, because I heard from my son today, as well,” she said casually. “James and Selina are coming for a visit next month.”

  “That’s great. I look forward to meeting them.”

  “I can hardly wait to hold Isadora. Do you realize she’s going to be a year old this month? I swear I don’t know where the past year went. She barely knows me and Stan.”

  At the mention of her ex, Jack tensed. “I suppose Stan will want to see James.”

  “Of course!” She straightened, hands on her hips, and glared at him in a way that made him want to squirm. “Don’t tell me you’re having another jealous fit?”

  “Who, me?” he asked, but the fact was that he didn’t like the idea of Stan being anywhere near Olivia. He could read her ex-husband more easily than a first-grade primer, and he didn’t like what he saw. Stan Lockhart might be married to another woman, but he definitely had interests outside the house. Stan didn’t like Jack hanging around Olivia, either. Naturally she didn’t see it. Although he’d never asked, Jack had the feeling Stan had done everything he could to discourage the relationship.

  “What’s for dinner?” he asked, deciding to avoid the one subject that remained a sore spot.

  “I was thinking of making an Oriental chicken salad.”

  “That’s the one with the grapes and Chinese noodles I liked the last time?”

  “You’re easy to please,” she told him, smiling.

  How true that was. After years of scrounging on his own and eating far too many fast-food meals, Olivia’s cooking was a treat. Still, much as he enjoyed the food, it was Olivia he came to see, Olivia he longed to be with and Olivia he loved. He hadn’t actually told her how he felt. For a man who worked with words, Jack knew he was strangely inadequate at expressing his emotions. When it was a matter of political argument or moral persuasion, he could express his thoughts clearly and directly. But feelings…

  “You look preoccupied,” Olivia murmured pulling off her gardening gloves.

  He shrugged as he followed her up the steps to the back porch, where she kept her gardening supplies, and then into the kitchen.

  “Anything special on your mind?”

  “Not really,” he said and realized he’d spoken too quickly.

  Olivia studied him a moment as she washed her hands. When she’d dried them, she opened the refrigerator and took out a large head of lettuce.

  “Anything I can do?” Jack asked, feeling like an unneeded accessory. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but he was afraid that making an announcement would be embarrassing or inappropriate; so he let it drop.

  “Nothing just now, thanks,” she answered.

  He walked into the living room, but for the life of him couldn’t stand still. He started pacing, his mind churning and his hands itching to do something, hold something. The need for a drink clawed at him. It happened like that occasionally, although such times were rare after almost eleven years’ sobriety. He needed a meeting and he needed to talk to his sponsor.

  “Olivia,” he said, sounding more anxious than he meant to. “I can’t stay after all.”

  “You can’t?” She stood in the doorway that led from the kitchen to the formal living room, looking perplexed.

  “I’ve got to be somewhere else—I’m sorry, I forgot. Well actually, it isn’t that I forgot, it’s just that I need a meeting. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “A meeting? Oh, you mean AA.” She stepped into the living room. “Is everything all right?”

  “I don’t know. I think so. I apologize, but the meetings help me clear my head and get rid of ‘stinkin’ thinkin’.”’

  “You’re having negative thoughts now?”

  “No, I’m thinking how good a cold beer would taste. That’s ‘stinkin’ thinkin” and a meeting is the best place for me to be. There’s one downtown I sometimes attend. It starts in fifteen minutes.”

  “Then go,” she urged.

  He was already halfway to the door. “Thanks for understanding.”

  “Jack?”

  He heard her call him and stopped, his hand on the knob.

  “You’ll phone later?”

  “Of course.”

  Sixteen

  Despite Maryellen’s determination to keep Jon out of her life, she was curious about him. It was an unhealthy curiosity, but one that persisted. She supposed this was due mainly to his talent. Thankfully, she hadn’t run into him since that unfortunate incident right before Christmas. Nor had she heard anything from him since, and she was grateful, but she also felt disappointed, which confused her completely.

  The Bernard Gallery, located in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle, sold his work now. She was sure he’d do well, and he deserved a wider audience, but the truth was, she missed his infrequent visits. She missed talking shop with him, but most of all she missed seeing his photographs. His talent was no small thing. When a notice came about a showing of his work in Seattle, Maryellen decided to attend the launch. She had no fear that Jon would be there. Experience had taught her that he avoided these events; he claimed the pretentiousness was not only unbearable but brought out the worst in him. He’d told Maryellen that comments about his “deconstruction of natural phenomena” or his “grasp of non-being” made him want to leap up and down making ape-like sounds.

  The Sunday afternoon of the show was Mother’s Day and it seemed fitting that Maryellen should allow herself this one indulgence. She spent the morning with her own mother and treated Grace to brunch at D.D.’s on the Cove. In a rare moment of sentimentality, Maryellen told her that she hoped to be as good a mother to her baby as Grace had been to her. Then, before heading to the ferry terminal, Maryellen dropped off a g
ift for Kelly.

  When she arrived at the Bernard Gallery, the show was in full swing. Wearing a loose-fitting black dress with black hose and a string of white pearls she looked, in her own estimation, rather elegant. Before long, she held a wineglass filled with apple juice and made her way over to the display of Jon’s work.

  She found Mr. Bernard himself standing in front of Jon’s photographs. He spoke to a middle-aged couple apparently enthralled with one of Jon’s pictures.

  “Mr. Bowman is something of a recluse,” the gallery owner was saying. “I did try to persuade him to attend today’s function, but unfortunately he refused.”

  Maryellen smiled to herself; she’d guessed right. If there’d been any chance of Jon’s attending, she wouldn’t have risked it. She could not allow him to learn about her pregnancy.

  The Bernard Gallery had displayed his photographs by suspending them from the ceiling. The pictures were beautifully framed and matted, each one signed and numbered.

  Moving from one piece to the next, she paused to admire his photographs of nature. A field of blue wildflowers blooming against the backdrop of Mt. Rainier was so intensely vivid that her breath caught in her throat. Several scenes of the snowcapped Olympics behind the pristine waters of Puget Sound revealed the thrusting strength of the mountains.

  The next series of photographs showed a new side of Jon. These pictures, in black and white, were all taken in and around the marina. In one of them, an early-morning fog obliterated the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on the other side of the Cove. Sailboats, with thinly veiled masts, rose toward an unseen sky. It was lovely and serene and mysterious.

  The second photo she looked at was completely unlike anything she’d seen from Jon before. A notice taped to the corner stated this photograph was not for sale. Maryellen stopped and stared at the picture of a woman at the end of the pier, overlooking the Cove. The snowy peaks of the Olympics could be discerned in the far distance. The day was sunny and her back was to the camera. She stood on tiptoe, leaning over the railing, tossing popcorn into the air for seagulls to catch. They swarmed toward her, their wings flapping.