One More Knight

should tell that he’s the father, but I don’t want him to. If he does, our parents will probably try to make us get married, and I for sure don’t want to, not to Colin or anybody else, either. I don’t know about you, but I think sixteen is way too young to get married, pregnant or not!

The judge wants me to go to stay with his sister, Aunt Irene, in Birmingham until after the baby is born. What a horrible thought! I can’t stand Aunt Irene, and Uncle Wesley is worse. Besides, this is my home. My friends-if I have any left-are here. The judge is really mad at me because I told him if he tried to make me go I would run away and never come back. Also because I won’t tell him who the father is. He says I’m the stubbornest and most selfish and immature person he ever saw. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know. I get to feeling so scared, sometimes. Like, I get this sick, hurty feeling inside when I think about…things. About Colin, and getting married, and going away, and having a baby. So I just try not to think about it at all, which is getting harder all the time, now that the baby is moving around inside me. It’s kind of neat, but…weird, too. Spooky.

One thing I didn’t tell you. I don’t know why, I guess I was in a State of Shock at the time. Anyway, back when I first told Aunt Dobie about the baby, she asked me if I wanted to get an abortion. I didn’t know what to say-I didn’t even know you could do that-legally, I mean-but I guess they passed a law or something so now you can get one anytime you need one. So I didn’t say anything, and Aunt Dobie never said any more about it, either. I’m glad she didn’t. I don’t know what I would have done. I was pretty mixed up, and besides, it kind of wasn’t real to me then. It’s getting real now, though-boy, is it ever! I saw the pictures in these books the doctor gave me, so I even know what he looks like. Oh by the way-did I tell you? I think it’s a boy.

(Almost forgot) Thought for the Day: I guess that was it. Isn’t that enough to think about?

Troy was pacing the floor in the ICU waiting area, taking breaks now and then to glare at his watch or to minutely examine the carpet mosaics with a Blue Ridge Mountain theme that adorned the walls. Those mosaics served two purposes, it looked like to him, being both decorative and a convenient cushion for fidgety family members driven to beating their heads against stationary objects.

It was a compulsion he could well understand and sympathize with, at the moment. He might have been considering those extreme measures as a way of releasing his own tensions, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the young man sharing the waiting room with him looked as if he might be needing to blow off some steam himself, and Troy thought he ought to do his best to set the boy a good example of manly patience and fortitude.

But damn if he didn’t feel just like an expectant father. Or anyway, like he thought an expectant father might feel, which was, first of all, worried about the well-being of someone he cared about, knowing she was in a lot of pain right about now. And most of all, helpless and frustrated because there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to help her.

He thought about calling his brother again to see if he had any more good advice to offer, since Jimmy Joe had actually been in this situation a time or two, the last time pretty recently, as a matter of fact. Then he remembered how, on that occasion, while Mirabella was giving birth to little Amy Jo in his truck, his little brother hadn’t had a whole lot of time to spend on pacing and hand-wringing, since his role in the delivery had been a good bit more active than that.

Which, Troy thought, was his whole problem in a nutshell. He was used to being in an active role himself. He’d been in tense situations a good many times before, sometimes when lives-a lot of lives-had hung in the balance. But he’d been prepared for those situations, well armed and well trained to handle anything that might arise. He’d known what he was supposed to do, and how to do it, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Right now he didn’t have a clue.

The boy, for example. Cutter. Lord, it was hard for Troy to believe that tall, good- lookin’ young man could be Charly’s son-he couldn’t even imagine how it must be for her, seeing him like this, and for the first time since the day she’d given birth to him. He thought it must be hard for a parent to see their kids all grown-up, even when they’d gone through all the stages with ’em-from cute, drooling babies like Amy Jo, to bony ten-year-olds with chipped front teeth and bandages on their knees like Jimmy Joe’s boy, JJ., and all the ones between. But this scowling, hostile twenty-year-old who already thought he knew all the answers? How would you even know where to begin?

It’s not too late, he’d told Charly, with all the confidence of somebody who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Now, looking at the kid, he wasn’t so sure of himself. He kept thinking he ought to do something to help things along, say something to the boy, maybe strike up a conversation, find out what made him tick. But he didn’t, partly because Troy remembered what he’d been like at that age, bullheaded and sure he knew everything there was to know about the world and everybody in it, including himself. And partly because he was…well, galling as it was for a former U.S. Navy SEAL to have to admit, the fact was, the kid had him just about scared to death.

Lord help Charly, he thought grimly.

Then inspiration struck. “Hey,” he said, digging in his pockets for change, “I’m goin’ down to the Coke machine. Can I bring you somethin’ back?”

The kid flicked him a glance, then went back to studying the piece of carpeting between his feet. “No… thanks.”

At least, Troy thought, somebody’d taught him manners. “You sure? How ‘bout a soda, or somethin’? I’m buyin’.” Ah, hell-that’s tryin’ too hard.

“Naw,” the boy muttered, “I’m fine.”

“Well, okay,” said Troy.

So then, of course, since he’d said he was going to, he had to take a walk on down to the damn vending machines and get himself a can of iced tea he didn’t really want. While he was there, he got a Coke for Cutter, just in case the kid could be persuaded to change his mind about accepting it. He was on his way back to the sitting area with a cold can sweating in each hand when he saw Charly coming from the direction of the ICU, wiping her eyes with a wad of tissues. His heart started to pound.

They came together just outside the waiting-room doorway. “Hey,” he managed to say in an undertone, fear thickening in his throat, “how’d it go? Everything okay?” Damn, but he wished he could put his arms around her, touch her, at least, but he couldn’t because his hands were full of cans.

“Yeah,” she said, dabbing at her nose with the tissue, “it went fine.” But she wasn’t meeting his eyes.

She took the Coke he’d brought for Cutter, absently mumbling “Thanks” as she popped it open, then drank from it deeply, like someone parched. As she lowered the can with a long exhalation and a soft, unabashed burp, her gaze slid past him, aimed like a searchlight’s beam through the doorway and into the waiting room. She had kind of a shiny wet newborn look about her that for some reason brought a lump to Troy’s throat.

“You sure you’re okay?” he whispered, touching her arm now that he had a hand free.

She finally jerked her eyes to him, and to Troy it was like having the sunlight hit him full in the face after a long time in darkness. “I’m fine,” she said softly. “Really. It went…very well. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now I have to talk…” She gave a slight nod, looking once more toward the sitting area, where Cutter had risen to his feet and was waiting for her, primed and tense as a fighter waiting for the bell to ring.

So then what could he do, when every instinct in him wanted to be ridin’ to her rescue, swords drawn and guns blazin’, and the damn dragons were nowhere in sight? Nothing. That was the only answer he could come up with, and the only one he’d been coming up with, and it was about to drive him crazy. Charly was on her own. And all the help he could give her was to nod his head, swallow nails, step aside and let her go and get her heart broken.

Because he knew damn well that was what was going to happen; he could see it in the kid’s face. Twenty years of hurt and anger were written there, plain as day. No way that boy was going to let it go, not yet and not without a fight. Maybe not ever.

Lord…help Charly…please.

As she walked toward her son with the Coke can clutched against her stomach like a bride’s bouquet, Troy wondered if it was to keep her hands from shaking.

Cutter watched her come, standing his ground with his arms folded across his chest, stiff necked and bristling, until she got to within hand-shaking distance. Then he shifted abruptly, turned a shoulder to her and said stiffly, “Okay, you did what you came to do. You saw him, you talked to him-now you can leave.”

“Cutter,” Charly said in a voice so low Troy had to strain to hear, “I’d really like to talk to you. Do you think we could-”