What Price Paradise (13 page)

He pulled out a chair across the table from Tate and sat down. “Hey, you still got that scar on your butt where I snagged you with the fish hook that time?”

Abby was staring at Joe with a slightly dazed expression and Tate grinned wryly. “You know I do. It took Daddy an hour to pull it out with the pliers. I couldn’t sit down for a week.”

“And it was a whole year before he’d let me go fishing with him again. Can’t imagine why.” Joe was doing his best to look hurt and Abby started laughing.

“Neither can I. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Don’t mind if do.” He was the one staring now. At Abby.

Tate shifted uncomfortably in his seat as Joe arched an eyebrow at him.

“I think I just saw the light,” his friend murmured under the cover of rattling cups.

Tate glared at him and Joe chuckled.

Abby came back to the table carrying two cups and the coffee pot. “Do you take sugar or cream?”

“Nope, black is fine.”

She got her own glass of juice and joined them at the table.

“So when’s the baby due?”

Abby promptly choked on her first swallow and Joe thumped her politely between the shoulder blades.

“You know?” she gasped.

“’Course I do. Tate told me. Does this mean I get to be an honorary uncle? Just think, Tate. I can help you teach him to ride and break horses.”

“As long as you don’t try to teach it to fish,” Tate commented. “Besides, what if he’s a she?”

“A she?” Joe looked stunned at the idea that it might be a girl. “Damn, Tate. What if she wants to date boys? We’ll have to figure out some way to stop her.”

“I figure if we put our heads together we can come up with something in the next sixteen years,” Tate couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice and Abby grinned at him.

“Buddy took one look at the pictures and decided it was a girl,” Abby told Joe, “but the doctor said it was too soon to tell yet.”

“You got pictures? How the hell do they take pictures before it’s born?”

Tate pulled his wallet out and carefully extracted the image, handing it to Joe. “It’s called an ultrasound.”

Joe held it at arms’ length, then pulled it in closer. “What am I looking at here?”

Abby leaned closer to him and pointed. “That’s its head. See, there’s its eyes and cheeks and that right there is a nose.”

“Well, I’ll be damned if it ain’t. And cute as a button. Ain’t science wonderful?” He studied the picture. “Nope, Buddy’s wrong. It’s a boy. Any fool could tell that. Don’t look a bit like a girl.” He handed the picture back to Tate. “Speaking of Buddy, where is the squirt tonight?”

“Over at Tommy Johnson’s. They’re supposed to be studying, but I figure they’re probably watching TV. I told him to be home by ten.” Tate glanced at his watch.

Joe drained the last of his coffee. “Well, tell him I said hello. I’d best be on my way. Have to get up early tomorrow.” He pushed his seat back and stood. “Ma’am, thanks for the coffee. It’s been a pleasure meeting you proper. I’ll see you at the party Saturday.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Tate stood and followed him.

Joe was silent until he pulled the truck door closed behind him, then he leaned on the opened window frame and looked at Tate closely. “I like her. And damned if that smile of hers don’t knock a man’s socks plum off.” He hesitated. “I know you might not think so right now, but you are one lucky son-of-a-bitch, Hoss. Maybe one of these days you’ll figure that out for yourself.” He turned the key over. “See you Saturday.”

Tate watched the truck vanish down the driveway in a billow of dust, then turned back to the house. Through the kitchen window he could see Abby clearing off the table and washing cups. For a while he just stood there watching her.

Lucky? He sure didn’t feel lucky. He felt like he was being torn in half. And he suspected it was going to get a lot worse before it got better. Assuming it
would
ever get better.

Diane’s image flashed through his mind and he turned from the window. A little over a week and she’d be home. Could he stay away from her? He’d have to for both their sakes, no matter how much it hurt.

He had to remember the baby. That was really the only thing that mattered now. It didn’t seem possible, he reflected, to love something that much when you’d never held it, never even seen it, really. But he did. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for his child. Even give up the woman he loved to live the rest of his life with one he didn’t.

He glanced back through the window, but Abby was gone, and he could hear the sound of movement from the living room. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. He did like her and lots of marriages had been based on less than that.

Another set of headlights caught him in a beam of light and he watched as Buddy pulled the truck up next to the house and stopped.

“You’re late.” Tate looked pointedly at his watch.

“Only by ten minutes. I passed Joe down the road. Is he coming to the party Saturday?”

“Do you think I could stop him?” He followed Buddy inside.

“Mr. and Mrs. Johnson said they’d be here, too. Mrs. Johnson is going to bring some of her homemade peach pies.”

Abby was squatted in front of the couch, picking pamphlets up off the floor and stacking them neatly on the coffee table.

“What are you doing?” Buddy eyed her curiously.

“Just straightening up. I dropped these earlier.” She stood and glanced at Tate before looking quickly away. “Did you get your homework finished?”

“Geesh. You’re starting to sound like Tate. What is this, a conspiracy? Yes, I finished my homework. Did you?”

She smiled at him. “All done and mailed this morning.”

“You’re gonna make me look bad, you know.”

“I doubt it. And I never would have figured that math out without your help.”

Buddy gave Tate a smug smile. “See? I do know what I’m doing.”

“I suppose there’s a first time for everything. But don’t let it go to your head.”

“Like there’s any chance of that with you around.”

Abby had finally finished stacking the papers. “Well, I think I’m off to bed. Goodnight.” She sent them both a smile then went up the stairs.

“I think I’ll do the same thing.” Buddy shifted his books from one arm to the other.

“Hey.”

Tate waited until his brother looked at him. “Be sure and put your clothes in the hamper. Abby does enough around here without having to pick up after you.”

“Sure. You going to bed?”

He nodded. “Just as soon as I turn the lights off.”

“Okay. See you in the morning.”

“Night.”

Tate waited until Buddy got up the stairs, then moved though the quiet house, flipping off lights as he went. His gaze fell on the couch as he went back through the living room and he paused.

Why couldn’t he seem to keep his hands off Abby? It wasn’t like he was desperate. And why couldn’t he stop remembering the way she felt in his arms, the way she tasted? God, and the way she’d seemed to melt into him when he kissed her. He’d never felt anything like it before in his life. Another few minutes and he’d never have been able to stop. Hadn’t wanted to stop when he had.

He forced his feet back into action and slipped upstairs to his bedroom. Stripping his clothes off, he climbed into bed and lay staring into the darkness.

Just a few steps down the hall Abby was curled up in bed, no doubt wearing that damn see-through nightshirt. He could picture every inch of her with no trouble at all. Her hair was probably tangled over her face, hiding those dark eyes behind that silken veil. One fist would be tucked in by her cheek, and one knee pulled up tightly against her, exposing the sweet curve of her hip.

Tate groaned and pulled the pillow over his head. He was torturing himself and he couldn’t seem to stop. If he couldn’t find a way to control this, and damn soon, he was going to die. The thought of a cold shower entered his mind, but he discarded it immediately. All he needed right now was to have everyone in the house up, wondering why he was taking a shower in the middle of the night.

With a curse, he flopped onto his stomach and rammed his fist into the pillow. It was, he suspected, going to be a long time until daylight.

Tate could smell supper cooking all the way from the barn and a small surge of expectation rippled over him. The sensation was totally foreign to him and he paused to savor it before heading for the house. It was kind of nice to know that he wasn’t coming home to cold food and being alone, he decided.

For once, Dog wasn’t lying positioned by the back door as he had been for the last few days. While he couldn’t actually prove it, Tate suspected that Abby had been stuffing the animal with leftovers. Whether it was the hope of more handouts or a case of undying devotion, Dog was never far from Abby lately.

Tate’s smile faded a little as he went through the back door and discovered the kitchen was empty. The oven was on, but there was no sign of Abby.

“Abby?” His voice seemed to ring hollowly in the house. There was no answer. Worry started to build as he checked each room on the ground floor. The truck was still parked next to the house. She had to be there.

What if she were hurt? He ran up the stairs, fear escalating as different scenarios raced across his mind. She’d slipped and was lying unconscious and bleeding. Something was wrong with the baby. She’d had a miscarriage.

Heart pounding, he looked in every room, even Buddy’s, but Abby was nowhere to be found. Think, he told himself. She wasn’t in the house, so that meant she had to be outside somewhere.

He went back though the kitchen, forcing himself to slow down, and stopped on the back porch. “Abby?”

“I’m out here!”

Relief made his knees go weak at the faint sound of her voice. It had come from the direction of the chicken coop. He got there just in time to hear a loud sneeze. A billow of dust erupted from the opened door as Tate watched in amazement.

“What in the hell are you doing?”

Abby’s head suddenly appeared from the cloud of debris that was settling to the ground. Her hair was full of cobwebs and her face was so dirty she looked like a raccoon. Her eyes were constantly blinking from the grit that had gotten into them.

“Hank…” she paused to give a lady-like spit. “Hank called and said she was bringing the chickens over tomorrow. I wanted to make sure we were ready for them. Good thing I checked. This place is filthy. There’s so much dirt on the floor that I can’t even find the bottom.”

“You’re cleaning…” Tate’s words sputtered to a halt and he started laughing. The more indignant Abby looked, the harder he laughed until he was hanging onto the fence for support.

“What’s so funny?” She glared at him, hands on hips.

“The floor,” he choked, “
is
dirt! It doesn’t have a bottom.” He wiped the tears from his eyes and tried to get a grip. “Abby, all chicken houses are like this one. The chickens don’t care. All that needs doing is putting some fresh straw in the laying boxes.”

“Well, someone should have told me that to start with.” She reached back inside for the broom and then marched toward the house, her back stiff. The only thing that ruined the effect was the dust that spilled from her with each step. Apparently she was aware of her condition, because she stopped at the back steps and jumped up and down a few times, then tried to shake her whole body.

Tate was holding his breath to the point of asphyxiation, trying not to laugh again when she looked at him over her shoulder.

“I can’t go in the house like this!”

Smothering his grin, Tate thought about it. “Wait here.”

He went through the house, returning in a few seconds with a sheet. Unfolding it, he motioned Abby onto the porch and held it up between them. “Okay, strip, then you can wrap this around you until you get to the shower.”

“You want me to undress out here in the open?”

“Abby, there’s not another soul but me for miles around. No one is going to see you.”

She eyed the sheet. “Hold it higher.”

He complied, raising it above eye level. “Better?”

“I guess.” She still sounded doubtful, but he heard the thump when her shoes hit the floor, then a rustling noise as she removed the rest of her clothes.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

Tate suddenly found himself in a quandary. If he lowered the sheet enough to get it around her, he was going to see a lot more than she obviously wanted him to. On the other hand, they couldn’t stand out here like this forever.

Taking a deep breath, he lowered the sheet slightly then rapidly reached around her with the edges. Abby grabbed them and pulled them tightly closed, but not before he got a good look at her body. Desire hit him hard, knocking his held breath right back out of him. He had to fight to get his arms back at his sides.

Thank God, Abby didn’t seem to notice. She was already going in the back door, looking like a ten-year-old dressed up in her mama’s clothes. But he’d seen and felt those curves of hers, and knew they didn’t belong on a child.