Nobody's Baby But Mine

“From you and Dr. Bonner. Cal didn’t want either of you to find out what I’d done to him.”

“Tell me!” Her expression grew as fierce as a mother lion whose cub had been threatened, never mind that her cub was now king of the jungle. “Tell me everything!”

Annie picked up the pottery bowl. “I’m goin’ inside and fix my beans the way I like. Janie Bonner, you stay right here till you get this settled with Amber Lynn, you hear me?” She shuffled toward the back porch.

Jane’s legs wouldn’t hold her any longer, and she sank down into the lawn chair. Lynn took the other chair and sat facing Jane. Her jaw was set, her manner confrontational. Jane found herself remembering the scrappy young girl who’d baked cookies at two in the morning so she could support her husband and her baby. The expensive yellow linen dress and chunky amber jewelry didn’t hide the fact that this woman knew how to fight for her own.

Jane clasped her hands in her lap. “Cal wanted to spare you and his father pain. You’ve been through so much this past year. He thought-” She dropped her gaze.“The bald truth is that I desperately wanted a child, and I tricked him into getting me pregnant.”

“You did what?”

Jane forced her head back up. “It was wrong. Unconscionable. I didn’t intend for him ever to find out.”

“But he did.”

She nodded.

Lynn’s lips had grown thin and taut. “Whose decision was it to get married?”

“His. He threatened to take me to court and sue for custody if I didn’t do what he wanted. Now that I know him better, I doubt that he’d have carried out his threat, but I believed him at the time.”

Taking a deep breath, she described the morning she’d opened the door to Jodie Pulanski, then told Lynn about the men’s plan for his birthday. She explained her own yearning for a child as well as her concern about finding someone to father it. She spoke without embellishment, refusing to justify her behavior in any way.

When she described her reaction to seeing Cal on television and her subsequent decision to use him, Lynn pressed her fingers to her lips, and a gasp of horror mingled with a strangled laugh that held an edge of hysteria. “Are you saying you chose Cal because you thought he was stupid?”

She thought about trying to explain to Lynn how he’d used ain’t and looked so dumb and gorgeous but gave it up. There were some things a doting mother would never understand. “Obviously I misjudged him, although I didn’t figure that out until several weeks after we were married.”

“Everybody knows Cal is smart as a whip. How could you have believed anything else?”

“I guess some of us aren’t as smart as we think we are.” She continued with her story, ending with the exposure of their marriage in the media and her decision to come with him to Salvation.

Lynn’s face showed a flash of anger, but to Jane’s surprise, it wasn’t directed at her. “Cal should have told me the truth from the beginning.”

“He didn’t want anyone in the family to know. He said none of you were good liars, and the story would come out if he told you.”

“He didn’t even take Ethan into his confidence?”

Jane shook her head. “Last Friday Ethan saw me… Well, he figured out that I was pregnant, but Cal swore him to secrecy until he could tell you himself.”

Lynn’s eyes narrowed. “There’s more. This doesn’t explain your hostility to us.”

Jane’s clasped hands cramped in her lap, and once again she had to force herself to meet Lynn’s gaze. “I told you that I’d already agreed to a divorce as soon as the baby was born. You’d recently lost one daughter-in-law you cared about, and it seemed cruel to let you get attached to another. Not that you necessarily would have,” she said hastily. “I know I’m not what you had in mind for Cal. But, still, it wouldn’t have been right for me to barge into your family when I wasn’t planning on staying.”

“So you decided to behave as badly as possible.”

“It-it seemed like the kindest thing to do.”

“I see.” Her expression gave away little, and Jane realized she was once again confronting the self-possessed woman she’d first met. She regarded Jane through steady blue eyes. “What were your feelings toward Cal?”

Jane hesitated, then skittered around the truth. “Guilt. I’ve done him a terrible wrong.”

“People said I tricked Jim into getting me pregnant, but it wasn’t true.”

“You were fifteen, Lynn. I’m thirty-four. I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“And now you’re compounding that wrong by running out on him.”

After everything she’d revealed, she would have expected her mother-in-law to be glad to be rid of her. “He’s not… He’s not ready for a permanent marriage, so it doesn’t make much difference when I leave. Something came up, and I have to get back to my job. It’s better this way.”

“If it’s better, why were you crying your eyes out?”

She felt her nostrils quiver and knew she was once again on the verge of losing control. “Don’t push this, Lynn. Please.”

“You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you?”

She lurched to her feet. “I have to go. I promise you can have as much contact with this child as you want. I’d never try to keep your grandchild away from you.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course.”

“You won’t try to keep the baby from us?”

“No.”

“All right, I’m going to hold you to it.” She stood. “Starting now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’d like my contact with my grandchild to start now.” Her softly pitched voice belied the stubborn set of her mouth. “I don’t want you to leave Salvation.”

“I have to.”

“So you’re already breaking your word?”

Her agitation grew. “The baby’s not born yet? What do you want from me?”

“I want to know who you are. Since the day we met, you’ve thrown up so many smoke screens I have no idea.”

“You already know I tricked your son in the most underhanded, dishonest way possible. Isn’t that enough?”

“It should be, but somehow it’s not. I have no idea what Cal’s feelings are toward you except that he’s been happier than I can remember in a long time. And I also have to ask myself why Annie’s so taken with you. My mother’s difficult, but she’s no fool. So what has she seen that I haven’t?”

Jane rubbed her arms. “What you want is impossible. I won’t go back to Cal.”

“Then you can stay here with Annie and me.”

“Here?”

“Isn’t this house good enough for you?”

“It’s not that.” She started to say something about her job, but she couldn’t muster the energy. There had been too much drama that day, and she was exhausted. The thought of driving to Asheville and getting on a plane was overwhelming.

Another bluebird lighted on the magnolia tree, and she realized that what she really wanted was to stay on Heartache Mountain. Just for a little while. Lynn was going to be her baby’s grandmother, and she already knew the truth. Would it be so terrible to stay here just long enough to show her that she wasn’t a bad person, simply a weak one?

Her legs felt shaky. She yearned for a cup of tea and a cookie. She wanted to watch the bluebirds in the magnolia tree and let Annie boss her around. She needed to sit in the sun and snap beans.

Lynn’s eyes held both dignity and silent supplication, and Jane found herself responding to it. “All right, I’ll stay. But only for a few days, and you have to promise me you won’t let Cal come up here. I don’t want to see him again. I can’t.”

“Fair enough.”

“Promise me, Lynn.”

“I promise.”