If I'd Never Known Your Love (14 page)

Julia walked toward David. "Is she eating?"

"If she doesn't slow down, I'm afraid it's going to come back up."

Not until Julia was beside him did she chance looking at Pearl again, catching one final glimpse as she picked up the last sandwich and carried it into the woods.

"She's not going to make it if we don't do something to help her," Julia said.

"What was in the sandwich?"

"Peanut butter. It was the only protein I had."

He would never have thought to give a dog peanut butter. "I'm surprised she got it down."

"I put butter on the bread first."

"Well, it must have worked." David bent to retrieve his tool belt. 'I’ll go into town to get some dog food."

"I can get it. I was going anyway."

He nodded.

"Unless you want to go," she said. "She is your dog, after all—well, kind of."When he didn't immediately answer, she said, "Or we could go together."

Oh, hell. This was becoming way too complicated. His life was screwed up enough already without adding a homeless dog and emotionally lost widow. "Be ready in five minutes," he snapped."I'll pick you up by the garage."

Seeing her justified confusion, he added, "If that's okay with you."

"I'll be there." Her reply lacked her earlier enthusiasm.

David pulled up in a truck that would have been left on the back forty to go to rust in Kansas, leaned across the seat and opened the door. Julia didn't say anything as she climbed in beside him.

"I owe you an apology," he said, grinding the transmission into first gear. "I wasn't expecting company this summer, and like all true curmudgeons I'm a little slow accepting change. I'm sorry if I've come across as less than welcoming."

Company?
It was a term she would expect from the owner, not the caretaker. "I'll try to stay out of your way from now on."

"That's fair. And I'll do what I can to stay out of yours."

"Now that we have that settled, I was thinking that we can make this trip a lot shorter and get out of each other’s way sooner if we stop at the vet's first." She went on to explain that they could buy a specialized food there and she would go back into town to do her grocery shopping another time. Alone.

The vet listened and nodded as David and Julia told him about Pearl. Plainly, it was a story he'd heard before. He wasn't encouraging about their chances of saving her but suggested vitamins and a prescription food for lactating dogs that he thought would give her the best chance.

"You could try to find the puppies before the coyotes do," he said, walking with them through the waiting room. "Provided they're more than a couple of weeks old, you might be able to save one or two of them if the mom doesn't make it."

When they were in the truck again and headed home, Julia said, "I hesitate asking this, considering we just said we would stay out of each other's way, but would you like help looking for Pearl's puppies?"

"I'm not going to try."

Could she have been that wrong about the kind of man he was? "But if we don't—"

"If I follow Pearl, she'll lose the little trust she has in me. When that happens she'll stop coming in for food and then she'll die. If she dies, so do the puppies."

Julia wasn't about to surrender that easily. "There has to be a better answer."

He stiff-armed the steering wheel. "I don't subscribe to lost causes. And as I see it, Pearl isn't a 'we' project. Either I take her on or you do."

So, it was her he didn't like interfering in his life, not Pearl or her puppies. Had she done something to offend him? After years of forcing her way into offices of people working just as hard to keep her out, she truly wasn't aware anymore when she was being pushy or too assertive or simply expressing interest. She wasn't the same woman she'd been before the kidnapping and had no idea how to go back. Or if she even wanted to.

"I'm sorry. I'll butt out." She rolled down the window, let the wind whip her hair and stared at the passing trees. "Pearl is all yours."

They were almost to the house when David said, "No, I'm sorry. I've been acting like a jerk." He took in a deep breath. "Let's work on getting her back to my place with food and then we'll station ourselves at points along her route to see if we can figure out where she's hidden her puppies."

She could hear the doubt in his voice; he didn't believe for a minute that it would work. But she was grateful he was willing to make the attempt, and that he had included her in the effort. She would have a hard time getting through the day knowing someone or something needed her and she wasn't doing everything she could.

"Thank you," she told him.

He rewarded her one of his heart-stopping smiles. "You're welcome." After several seconds, he added, "I'm sorry about today. Can we begin again?"

She'd known few men in her life who apologized—at least, few whom she believed.

For most, the words were a means to an end. She decided right then, without reservation and despite their rocky start, that she liked David Prescott.

She returned his smile. "Consider it done."

That night when Julia called Shelly and Jason, she told them about Pearl, grateful to have something to talk about other than how much she missed them.

"Grandma's cat had kittens," Shelly said cautiously after they'd exhausted the discussion about Pearl.

Her mother was a founding member of the Bickford Animal Shelter and fanatical about spaying and neutering. It was highly unlikely that she'd allowed one of her cats to get pregnant. "Grandma's cat?" Julia questioned.

"Well, not exactly. It's one she brought home from the shelter. The mom is almost a kitten herself and Grandma didn't think she would know what to do when she had her own babies. They're so-o-o-o-o cute, Mom." She rushed on before Julia could say anything. "She said I could have one—if it's okay with you. Is it? I really, really want this gray-and-white one. He's been sleeping with me and he follows me everywhere.

Grandma said she would pay for his shots and that she'd have him fixed as soon as he's old enough so you wouldn't have to do anything when he comes home."

It was on the tip of Julia's tongue to ask what would happen to the cute little kitten that would become a full-grown cat by the time Shelly left for college, but she'd been the bearer of negative answers for so long that she leaped at the opportunity to be positive. "Okay."

Shelly shrieked. "Thank you, Mom. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You won't be sorry. I promise. I'll do everything. You'll never have to feed Jim or change the litter box or anything."

Julia believed that the way she believed she would be the million-dollar grand-prize winner if she bought a magazine subscription. "Have you named him?"

"Grandma told me not to, but I did anyway. I'm calling him Orlando."

Julia didn't have to ask why. Shelly, like half her friends, had a bedroom wall covered in Orlando Bloom posters. "I like it."

"I suppose I should tell you that Jason will probably want one, too. There's this scrawny little black one that the mom rejected that Grandma has been helping Jason bottle-feed."

How could she tell Jason no when she'd told Shelly yes? Maybe Shelly was wrong and Jason wouldn't ask.

"Jason wants to talk to you, Mom," Shelly said.

So much for that idea.

Six Months and a Day Missing

"I'm pregnant," I blurted out. It wasn't anything like the way I'd planned to tell you.

I'd spent the day going over how to lead you into the news gently. The timing was
terrible. We were in the middle of junior- year finals and you were a week away from
your last summer in Detroit. I held my breath and waited.

You went from wide-eyed surprise to full-face grin, picked me up and swung me
around, which was an amazing feat in our tiny apartment, and plopped down on the
couch with me in your lap. "When did you find out?"

"You're not upset?"

"Hell, no. Why would I be?"

Perversely, your enthusiasm rattled me, even made me a little angry. I'd prepared
arguments to convince you that having a baby wasn't the disaster it seemed, and you
were over-the-moon happy. "Oh, I don't know. How about we still have a year before
we graduate, we're not married, you're about to leave for three months, we're—"

"Two-and-a-half months."

"What?" I glared at you. "I'm telling you my life is in shambles and all you can do
is correct my time line? Are you crazy?"You caught me as I moved to get up and
pulled me back down.

"We can do this, Julia. "You kissed me then—

a kiss filled with such warmth and longing and passion that my unreasoning fury melted
like a marshmallow in a campfire.

"How?" I asked, so near to tears my chin quivered.

"We'll work on that later," you said. "Right now I want to celebrate. With you—"You
put your hand on my still-flat belly. "And with our baby."

We dug through the couch and chairs and under the seats in the car and in the
ashtray and came up with two dollars and twenty-three cents. The side pocket of my
purse yielded a five-dollar bill, which to us at the time was tantamount to finding a
fortune. You took the bottles we'd been collecting back to the store, added it to the
change we'd found and came home with an incredible feast. That night we spread a
blanket out in a wheat field and ate brie and crackers and grapes and toasted our lives
together with sparkling cider. We made love for the first time without any protection. It
was so- o-o-o unbelievably sexy to have that kind of freedom that I swore we'd never go
back to condoms, which plainly couldn't be counted on anyway. When we'd exhausted
positions and each other, we lay with arms and legs entangled and counted stars.

You pointed out the Big Dipper and said, "See the second star on the handle?"

I nodded, my chin rhythmically bumping your shoulder.

"That's our star from now on."

"Why that one?"

"It's not one—it's four. They're so near each other, astronomically speaking, that
they look like one."

I'd learned by then to stop questioning how you knew these kinds of things. You
absorbed and stored knowledge like an intellectual sponge. "And you chose this star—"

"Mizar."

"You chose Mizar because?"

"It represents our family. Or the family we will have one day."

" We haven't had our first baby and you 're already planning a second?"

"Two against two. Us against them. It's only fair to even the odds, don't you think?"

I'd thought about having a family with you, of course, but not this soon. We had
another year of school ahead of us and then graduation, jobs to find, moving and
settling into a new apartment. Adding a baby to the mix complicated everything. How
was I going to fit labor and delivery around finals? I couldn't possibly care for a
brand-new baby and go to classes. I was going to have to quit school, at least for a
semester. I started hyperventilating.

"Hey," you said, and drew me closer. "I didn't mean to scare you. If you really don't
want two, we don't have to—"

"I don't know how I'm going to deal with one," I admitted. "I can't think about two.

Not yet. Maybe not ever." What I was trying to tell you was that I was scared. Really
scared. I still hadn't become a wife and I was going to be a mother.

The wife part was settled when we eloped without telling anyone. We expected my
mom and dad to be hurt, but being able to add that we were married when they
announced they were becoming grandparents went a long way in salving the wounds.

As always, they pitched in and loaded us up with everything we could possibly need for
a new baby, including giving us their time whenever possible.

That was the last summer I spent on the farm. My mother realized I would only be
back for visits from then on and spent the entire time adjusting her moods to
accommodate joy at having her married and pregnant daughter under her wing and
sorrow knowing it would never happen again.

You and I did fine. No, we did better than fine. When Shelly was born in January,
you took to being a father as if you'd been programmed for the job. I used to imagine
you with your baby brother and liked knowing that he'd had you to love and care for
him during his short life.

I didn't have to drop out of school, even though we spent the first six months of
Shelly's life like loving zombies. We were lucky to share a kiss as we passed each other
on our way to and from class and to and from doing the baby duty. Sleep turned into a
distant memory; sex, too.

And then it all came together—graduation, job offers, and a baby who not only slept
through the night but also slept in on weekends and gave us time to rediscover each
other in some really fun ways.

The hard part was after the party my folks threw to celebrate all the changes in our
lives and we had to tell them that you'd accepted a job—in California. Mom cried; Dad
dug deep and came up with a smile.

If he'd been aware we were starting a Warren family exodus to the West Coast, he
might not have been so gracious.

C H A P T E R 9

For two days Julia and David got up at dawn and planted themselves along the path they'd seen Pearl take into the forest. Julia was surprised at how comfortable she felt with David as they sat without talking and how often she noted they were drawn to the same things in their silent, sheltered environment. He pointed out a pileated woodpecker's nest in the cavity of a dead tree and Julia reciprocated when she discovered a tiny lichen-covered cup held together with spider webs. Nestled inside were two almost impossibly small rufous hummingbird babies.