A Marriage Made in Texas (The Brothers Kincaid) (19 page)

“So, where’s Kincaid?”

“He had to work.” She dug around in the box and pulled out one of her own shoes. Now what was her shoe doing under Mel’s bed? she wondered, before she saw the teeth marks on it. Ah, this one had survived the puppy assault.

“Good.” Barry abandoned the TV stand and came
to sit on the bed. “I’ve been wanting to see you alone.”

Alarmed, Gail glanced up at him. “Why?” Surely he wouldn’t bring up them getting back together again. Hadn’t she been clear enough the last time?

He leaned forward, forearms on his knees and caught her gaze with his. “Because I had something to say to you I can’t say in front of your husband.”

“Barry, I don’t think—”

“Just let me say it. I’m still in love with you, Gail.”

She stared at him, realizing he believed it. “You were never in love with me. But that’s beside the point,” she added when he protested. “We’ve been through this. You and I are never going to get back together. I’m married to another man. I’m happy with him.”

He laced his fingers together and looked at his hands. “I thought—I thought you married him because of the baby. So there could still be a chance for me.” His eyes lifted to hers. “We have two daughters together, Gail. Don’t they count for something?”

“The girls aren’t enough to make a marriage, Barry. That’s all we have. And I’m not in love with you.”

“I know I screwed up, Gail, but I’ve changed a lot since then.”

Maybe, Gail thought, but she would never trust him. “For your sake, I hope that’s true. Because I don’t think you’re ever going to be happy until you do change.” She got up, stood looking at him a mo
ment. She wanted their relationship to be better, not combative, because it would be easier on all of them, especially Roxy and Mel. She did not, however, want to go through this scene whenever she happened to be alone with him. “It doesn’t matter, Barry. I’m in love with Jay. And he’s in love with me.”

He nodded heavily. “I was afraid of that. When I saw you two together at the spelling bee, I think I knew. That’s why I said what I did.”

“Barry, you have to accept that I’m married, and that you and I are over. I don’t want to go through this again. Not ever.”

He closed his eyes, passed a hand over his forehead before he opened them and looked at her. “All right. I’ve had my say. I won’t bother you again.”

Knowing Barry, she wasn’t sure she believed him. But she might as well pretend she did. “Good. That’s settled, then. Now, I’m going to check in the den closet for Mel’s game. You look in the closet here, okay?”

She didn’t think she’d tell Jay about that conversation. He wasn’t likely to be happy about it, and besides, she’d handled it. No reason to upset him and make things even more strained between him and her ex-husband.

Opening the closet door, she glanced around. She thought she remembered packing a box of games. Sure enough, she spied it on the top shelf, perched on top of another box. She dragged a step stool over to the closet and by standing on her tiptoes, managed to wedge the box out. Arms full, she stepped back
wards, her foot missing the bottom rung. The cardboard box went flying and she landed flat on her back on the hard wood floor.

Stunned, she lay there a moment, trying to catch her breath.

“Gail?” Barry called out. “What happened? I heard a crash.”

She tried to answer, but couldn’t get the words out.
You’re okay,
she told herself.
Just a little spill. Nothing major.

“Gail?” Barry stood over her. “My God, are you all right? What happened?” He squatted beside her and continued asking questions, though she couldn’t speak for some minutes.

Finally, she was able to say, “I—missed the step. I’m okay.”

“Here, let me help you,” he said, giving her a hand and pulling her into a sitting position. “Why didn’t you call me? You shouldn’t be climbing on ladders when you’re pregnant.”

“I know.” And Jay had said the same thing. But she hadn’t even thought about it, she’d just done it automatically. Besides, dizziness hadn’t caused the fall. General klutziness had. Gingerly, she got to her feet. “No harm done.” Her leg, where it had tangled in the stool throbbed, and her butt still smarted, but at least she hadn’t broken anything.

“I’m not usually so clumsy. I’m going to sit down for a minute. Why don’t you look in that box I pulled down? There should be some video games in it.”

Barry did as she suggested. A short search pro
duced what he’d come for. “Here it is.” He shot her an irritable glance. “If you’d keep those games in some kind of order, it would be a lot easier to find them.”

Since Gail had never been neat enough to suit him, it was an old refrain, but she didn’t rise to the bait. “You’re welcome,” she said acerbically. “Let yourself out, okay?”

Barry went to the coat rack, pulled his raincoat off and shrugged into it. “You’re all right, aren’t you?” he asked with obvious reluctance.

Gail smiled, knowing the last thing he wanted was to be around an ailing, pregnant woman. Self-centered to the end, she thought. “I’m fine. Tell the girls I love them.”

After Barry left, she debated whether to call Jay or not. On the one hand, she didn’t seem any the worse for her tumble. But she knew talking to him would make her feel better. That decided her. She got up to get the phone. Midway to the kitchen a sharp cramp hit her in the stomach. Gasping with pain, she doubled over. Her arm crossed protectively over her stomach as she waited. An endless time later, the pain eased and she was able to straighten.

Oh, God, no. Please, don’t let it be the baby.

O
H, MY
G
OD
, I’
M LOSING THE BABY
.
The very idea paralyzed Gail with fear and panic.

With a major effort, she forced herself to calm down. One pain didn’t mean anything, she told herself. Surely the cramp had been a fluke. People didn’t miscarry from a fall like the one she’d had. That happened only on soap operas, didn’t it?

Still shaky, but feeling a little better, she walked into the kitchen. If she could just talk to Jay, he would help her calm down. He’d know what to do. Grabbing the cordless phone, she punched in the number and discovered the line was dead. Swearing, she took her cell phone out of her purse, only to find it wasn’t working either.

Neither of these events should have been a surprise, because the phones often went out during storms. A tremendous crack of thunder sounded, and Gail glanced out the window, watching the wind blow a huge plastic trash can down the street. The storm might not carry hurricane force winds with it, but it was no gentle shower, either.

Knowing Jay was likely to come home for lunch, she decided to wait and tell him what had happened
then. There was no sense getting all bent out of shape over nothing. She started for the nursery and had almost reached it when another cramp hit. Tears, as much from fear as pain, filled her eyes. She could do nothing but wait it out, and though it only lasted a minute or less, the wait seemed endless.

Finally, the pain eased, and she was left gasping and frightened. The second cramp had decided her. If she couldn’t reach Jay by phone, she’d just go to the clinic. Without much hope, she tried the phones again, and when that failed, grabbed her coat, purse and keys and left the house. She gave a fleeting thought to the puppies, locked in the laundry room because of the weather, but decided they’d be all right.

Once in her van and on the road, she discovered the storm was even worse than she’d thought. She crept along, dodging branches and debris, hardly able to see through the torrential downpour. A nerve-racking fifteen minutes later, she pulled up to the clinic.

Only to find it shut up tighter than a drum.

She got back in the car and pressed her fingers to her eyes, fighting back tears. Obviously, they were either at lunch, or closed because of the storm. Either way, she couldn’t afford to sit around waiting for someone to come back. If she went back home on the chance Jay was there, she only put herself farther away from the hospital. And if he wasn’t there, she’d have wasted that much more time.

She felt another twinge in her stomach. Not a pain,
but a definite twinge of discomfort. It dawned on her in horror that she might be starting premature labor. Drawing in a deep breath, she started the car.

S
HE DROVE TO THE HOSPITAL
in the teeth of the storm. The rain hurtled down, dumping massive sheets of water she could barely see through. Howling wind buffeted the car, causing it to shake as she crawled along the highway. Even before she’d reached the highway, she’d begun to regret her choice, but by then she knew she’d come too far to go back.

The drive to the clinic had been bad, but the one to the hospital was indescribable. Fingers clenched tightly on the steering wheel, Gail leaned forward, peering blindly through the windshield. She didn’t know how long the drive took, being too occupied trying not to get killed to check the clock, but it seemed like forever. Finally, the exit for the hospital came into sight.

The reddish glare of taillights registered even as she swerved to avoid them. She heard a crash, a sound of shattering glass and shrieking metal, and fought to escape, missing the car’s rear end by inches. She stomped on the brakes, harder than she should have, and the car fishtailed, going off the shoulder into a ditch, and heading straight for a concrete piling. Again, she hit the brakes, pumping them before she applied more pressure. The car jerked to an abrupt halt, not twenty feet from the piling, and her head banged sharply against the steering wheel.

Her head swam and she saw stars, but she didn’t
lose consciousness. Sick, shaking with nerves and fear, she managed to get the car into park. She touched her head, then looked at her fingers, relieved to find no blood. But a lump had sprung up immediately and seemed to be growing larger by the second.

Turning around, she squinted, trying to make out the accident through the rain. In a brief slackening of force, she saw a Mack truck and two cars twisted together in a tangled mass of metal and glass. Her stomach roiled. If she’d been in the middle of that mess, her van would have crumpled like an aluminum can.

And she and her baby could have been dead.

A
T FIRST
, J
AY WASN’T
too concerned not to find Gail at home. He figured she’d gone to see a friend, or possibly one of her brothers, though she hadn’t mentioned she planned to. He didn’t think she’d go much farther, not in this storm. And she wouldn’t be at Cat’s, since Mark had taken the family to Dallas to see their mother.

By late afternoon when she still hadn’t shown up, though, he began to get worried. The phones were out, and had been for hours. The storm grew worse by the minute. Gail wouldn’t voluntarily stay out in this kind of weather. Not when she couldn’t reach him and she would know he’d be worried.

Although his cell phone worked intermittently, it didn’t do him a lot of good with the land lines still out. Especially since he couldn’t reach Gail’s cell
phone either. He did get hold of Gail’s mother, who hadn’t seen her either. That’s when he decided to go look for her, and got in his car.

He checked everywhere he could think of. The clinic, a couple of friends, Gabe’s house, and didn’t find her anywhere. Surely she hadn’t gone to Corpus in this kind of weather, he thought. But if she had, there was nothing he could do about it. He drove to the Scarlet Parrot, his last shot.

Not surprisingly, the restaurant was closed, so he went upstairs to Cam’s quarters and beat on the door. It took several tries, but eventually Cam opened it, wearing jeans, no shirt, and an expression of extreme irritation.

“What the hell do you want?” his brother-in-law said.

“I’m looking for Gail.” He glanced over Cam’s shoulder, into the living room. A trail of clothes led to the hall doorway, among them a lacy pair of panties and a bra. In spite of his concern, he smiled. “But something tells me she’s not here.”

“Brilliant observation,” Cam said, but he moved aside to let him in. “Ever hear of a telephone? Call her. She should have her cell phone with her.”

Since he was soaked and dripping an ocean, Jay didn’t go any farther than the entryway. “The lines are down, but I guess you wouldn’t know that.”

Cameron grinned. “Nope. Mine’s been off the hook since last night. Okay, why would Gail be out in this storm?”

“I can’t think of a good reason. That’s why I’m
worried. I came home at lunch and she wasn’t there then.”

Cam frowned and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I haven’t seen her or heard from her since yesterday, at Mom’s.” He thought a moment and said, “Gabe’s gone and so are Mark and Cat.”

“Yeah, I know. I went by Gabe’s. In fact, I’ve looked for her car all over town. No luck.”

“Who has the girls?”

“They’re at Barry’s.”

“Did you try his house?”

“No.” That was the only place he hadn’t tried. Maybe the girls had gotten through to her earlier, and she’d gone over there to do something for them. But if so, why wasn’t she back? She’d been gone for hours.

Just then a sultry redhead came to the hall doorway, wrapped in a sheet. “Cameron, honey, you said you’d be right back.” She leaned against the doorjamb and asked, “Who’s your friend?”

Cam smiled at her. “Jay, meet Rita. Rita, this is my brother-in-law, Jay. I’ll be there in a minute, baby. We’ve got kind of a problem here.”

“So do I,” she said in a Georgia drawl, her lips pursed and pouting.

“Let me handle this and I’ll be right back,” he told Jay, and went to the redhead. Sliding his arm around her, he led her away.

Jay’s cell phone rang. He snatched it up eagerly, but when he checked caller ID, his stomach plummeted. “Kincaid.”

“Dr. Kincaid, this is Varner Memorial Hospital.”

“Yes. Is this about my wife?”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said, sounding surprised. “She’s just arrived at the emergency room by ambulance. She’s been involved in a car accident.”

His heart literally stopped. He sucked in a breath, managed to say, “Her condition?”

“She hasn’t been examined yet, but I can tell you she’s conscious, and doesn’t appear to be badly injured. She gave me your cell phone number and asked me to call you. And she said to tell you not to worry, that she’s fine.”

He was vaguely aware of Cameron, standing next to him now. “Did she tell you she’s pregnant?”

“Yes. Her OB has been alerted.”

“Good. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“What is it? You look terrible,” Cameron said. “Was that about Gail?”

Jay stared at him blindly for a moment, then nodded. “She’s at Varner Memorial.” He looked into Cam’s concerned eyes. “She was in a car accident.”

Alarm flooded his eyes. “An accident? Oh, God, Jay. Is she—did they say how she is?”

“They don’t know yet, but the nurse said she’s conscious and doesn’t appear to be badly hurt.” That still didn’t give him any clue as to the baby’s condition, but at least Gail was alive and conscious.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, turning toward the door.

“Wait, I’ll come with you. Give me five minutes.”

“Hurry,” Jay called after him.

C
AM HAD TAKEN ONE LOOK
at him and refused to let him drive, so they went in his brother-in-law’s four-wheel-drive truck. Probably a good thing, Jay thought, partly because the truck would handle the weather better and whoever drove needed to keep his mind on the road. For him that was clearly impossible. Jay spent the drive remembering every harrowing vehicular trauma that had ever come through the ER during his time there. What if Gail had internal injuries? What if she lost the baby as a result? Worse, what if— With a strong effort of will, he forced those thoughts away.

Normally, he wasn’t so pessimistic. But he’d never had a wife and unborn child to worry about before. To try to get his mind off what he could do nothing about, he spoke to Cam. “Rita didn’t look too happy with you.” Cam had bundled her up and made her leave when they did. She’d been half dressed and spitting mad when they drove away.

Concentrating on driving, Cam hadn’t said much, either, but he grinned at that. “She’ll get over it. And if she doesn’t—” He shrugged. “It was fun while it lasted. I don’t know her well enough to leave her there, especially with access to the restaurant.”

As they neared Varner Memorial, Jay called, trying to get an update, but he struck out. He hung up and spoke to Cam. “Still no news. The doctor hasn’t seen her yet.”

“Is that a good sign or a bad sign?”

Jay hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. “Could be either. She might be low on the list because she
doesn’t have a life-threatening injury. Or they could just be so busy that no one’s been able to see her yet.” In which case she could have internal injuries no one was aware of. He glanced out the window at the driving rain. He had a hunch the ER was a madhouse. Most of them were during storms like this one.

“Here’s the exit,” Cam said. “We’ll know soon enough.”

“And there’s her car,” Jay said hollowly, staring at the green van, crushed against the concrete piling with the driver’s side completely smashed in.

“Oh, my God,” Cam said, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. “And they said she’s conscious and not hurt badly? How can that be when the car is totaled?”

Jay’s stomach rolled as images of the van flashed in his mind. “I don’t know. But she had to be conscious or they wouldn’t have had my cell phone number to call. Besides, I don’t believe the nurse would have lied to me.”

“I hope to God you’re right,” Cam said.

Cameron dropped him off at the emergency room entrance and went to park the car, saying he’d catch up with him later. Jay stopped at the desk, where one of the nurses recognized him.

“Hello, Dr. Kincaid. I’m the one who called you earlier. Would you like me to take you to your wife?”

“Yes, thank you. Has anyone seen her yet?”

The nurse shook her head. “I think her OB may be in with her now.”

“Why the hell hasn’t the ER doc seen her?”

She looked surprised. “Well, all she had was a bump on the head. With the storm—” she gestured outside “—everyone’s seeing the more severe trauma.”

“A bump on the head? I passed her car on the way here. It’s totaled.”

She looked puzzled. “I don’t know, Dr. Kincaid, but she said herself she was fine. She was anxious to see her OB, though.”

Realizing he’d gain nothing more from her, he abandoned the nurse. “Never mind. Where is she?”

She pointed to a cubicle. Gail wasn’t in it, but he tracked her to ultrasound. She was lying on the gurney while the nurse spread gel over her stomach and her doctor held the transducer, ready to begin the procedure.

Dr. Fletcher looked up, the annoyance on her face changing to pleasure when she recognized him. “Well, look who just walked in. I know someone who’ll be thrilled to see you. Your wife’s been asking for you every five minutes.”

“Jay?” She turned her head to look at him and promptly burst into tears.

He reached her side in seconds, grasping the hand she held out to him. “Shh, baby, I’m here.” She sobbed louder and said something incoherent. He soothed her again, dropping a kiss on her forehead, all the while checking her out. Just as the nurse had said, she had a bruise on her forehead, but he couldn’t see a drop of blood anywhere. He didn’t understand it, but he was sure as hell thankful for it.

“How is she, Merrilee?” he asked the doctor. “Has one of the ER docs seen her?”

“No, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I examined her before I did the pelvic and aside from a bump on the head, she seems fine. She’s not dilated, or having contractions. She’s no longer cramping, so I think we’re safe in assuming the baby is fine, too. But we’ll do an ultrasound, just to make sure. Let’s get started,” she said to the nurse.