electricity went out. The other rooms would be icy. I made a mental note to use the stove to prepare as many bottles of formula as I could, while I had the wherewithal.
Since I wanted to stay close enough for the monitor to work, I’d been tramping around the house in a circle. I’d noted with relief that there was a woodpile in the western side yard, the one furthest from the road, and I’d even brushed some of the snow off the wood to check that the pile was as large as it seemed.
But as I prepared to slog off and finish my circuit, I spied something I hadn’t noticed earlier. There were other footprints in the snow, prints that had been made some time in the night, since they were half filled in. Though it was a little hard to tell the heel end from the toe end, there was no mistaking these prints for deer tracks, or the trail of any other kind of wildlife.
Feeling like Hawkeye, I visually followed the marks. The prints approached the front-facing kitchen window from the south, across the fields, and then circled the house; just like my path, but closer to the windows, so the owner of the prints could look into the rooms.
Or maybe the steps left and returned? But that was crazy. Why would Martin climb out the window to leave the house? He’d entered at the back porch door this morning. I could see his tracks, still crisp and clear, and I recognized the tread of his boots. He’d come out that back door, tromped over to an oak tree, walked even further west away from the road, rotated in a tight circle to take in the view, and made his way back to the same door.
I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat.
Someone else had been lurking around the farmhouse. I tried like hell to think of another reasonable-or even unreasonable-explanation, but I could think of none, not a single damn one.
The snow had done such a great job of cheering up Martin that I hated to deflate his balloon. But I decided I had to tell him about the tracks. I cut short my expedition and stomped my boots on the back steps as Martin had done, leaving mine on the little rug where his had rested earlier, right inside the door. On the kitchen counter close to the dining table, Martin had left the little Corinth phone book open to the yellow pages (Car Dealerships) and I spared a moment to be deeply thankful that Regina and Craig had had phone service.
The man who answered agreed to go see if Karl and Martin had made it into town yet.
“Yes?” Martin asked crisply, after a lengthy pause. He was using his business voice.
“Martin, someone was outside during the night,” I told him.
This was what I loved about Martin. He didn’t say, “Are you sure?” or “That’s ridiculous!” He asked, “How did you find out?”
After I described the footprints and my line of reasoning, there was another appreciable pause.
“I guess the light wasn’t good enough this morning for me to notice the tracks. You’re locked up now?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Baby asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Then go upstairs, look in my suitcase, and get out the gun.”
“Okay.” Jeez, I hated guns. But I was scared enough to listen.
“It’s loaded. You remember how I showed you how to take off the safety, how to fire?”
“Yes.”
“If the footprints are blurry, there’s nothing to worry about. Whoever made them is long gone. But just in case, it would be good if you had the gun handy. Wouldn’t it make you feel better?”
“I guess so.”
“Okay, now. You call the woman who was over last night, Margaret what’s-her-name, see if she can come stay with you. I’m going to do a couple things here in town and then I’ll be right back out.”
“Okay.” What could he have to do in town? Maybe Martin had thought of something to improve the farm’s security. What we needed out here was a large ferocious barking dog, I decided.
After a few more exchanges, we hung up. I hightailed it up the stairs and rummaged through Martin’s suitcase for his automatic. I hated to even touch the thing, but stronger than that loathing was the desire to protect myself and the baby in this Ohio farmhouse.
Chapter Eight
Thirty minutes later, I was feeling much more secure. Martin’s Ruger was near at hand but not obvious, stashed in an otherwise empty drawer in the kitchen, and Margaret Granberry, who’d been glad to come over, was having a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. She was also holding Hayden, who of course had woken up just as I was saying hello to Margaret.
I was ready to take him from her to give him his bottle.
“I’ll do it,” she volunteered.
Oddly enough, I almost told her no. No, to the first offer of help I’d had with this baby. I had actually opened my mouth to demur, to say that I was used to it, to protest that this was my job.
I forced myself to smile and say, “Here.”
Margaret pushed the coffee cup all the way across the table so she wouldn’t spill hot liquid on the baby by some accident, and took Hayden gently in her arms. I’d shaken the bottle and tested the formula, so I handed it to her and she began to feed him.
“Have you had children yourself?” I asked, relaxing when it was evident the baby was fine.
She shook her head. “Nope. I don’t want to give you more of our history than you want, but Luke and I have been married for ten years. The first few years, we could afford hospitalization insurance, so getting fertility testing was just out of the question. About three years ago, Luke’s mom passed away, and she left her money in a trust fund for us. But by that time… I’m quite a bit older than Luke, and though we went on with the fertility testing, we didn’t have much hope. Rightly, as it turned out.”
Almost happy to have company in my predicament, since it made me feel not so inadequate, I told Margaret. “I’m not fertile, either.” When she seemed interested, I told her about my unpleasant experiences with a top gynecologist in Atlanta, and Martin’s indifference to our having our own baby. Suddenly I realized how much I was saying, and I apologized. “I don’t like to talk about my reproduction problems at home,” I said wryly. “It’s like people know I failed, and they look at you like you’re lacking something. Getting pregnant is so easy for so many women.”
Margaret shifted Hayden slightly, held up the bottle to see how much was left. Hayden protested, and she smiled and slid the nipple back in his mouth. “Luke can’t understand how women can talk about something as personal as fertility problems,” Margaret said. The cold sun lit her red hair until it almost seemed to give off warmth. “It does seem strange to think that in this day and age there are some medical problems beyond fixing.”
“I know,” I agreed fervently. “You keep thinking that this can’t be an end of it, there must be something else they can do. If they can accomplish so much in other fields, why can’t they fix you so you can have a baby?”
“Martin was married before, right? To the Cindy who runs the flower shop?”
“Martin has a grown son. You might not know if you haven’t been living in Corinth that long, but Barrett’s an actor. He’s got a recurring guest spot on one of those nighttime soap operas. That’s why I think Martin had a kind of ‘been there, done that,’ attitude about having another baby.”
Margaret nodded. “It’s snowing again,” she observed, glancing out the curtainless window before turning her attention back to Hayden.
“I’m ready for Martin to get back. I live in the country at home, but somehow the snow makes this place feel even more isolated,” I confessed, thinking I sounded pretty whiney and should probably shut my mouth. Growing up in the same general area, maybe Margaret was accustomed to the deafening silence of the snowfall. Had it been very lonely for her out here? “Did you see Craig and Regina much?” I asked.
“Not at first,” she answered, after a moment. “We’re so much older, and they were newlyweds. And Luke and I are both busy. But they got bored playing house after a while, and then we saw them more and more.”
“What did you think of the marriage?”
