Merry Christmas, Lincoln (A Take Care, Sara Christmas Novelette) (3 page)

She backed away from the door. “Come on, get inside. It’s cold out. Did you remember the turkey?”

“Yeah. It’s in the back of the truck. Got the turkey fryer warming up?” Lincoln replied; glancing at Sara’s drawn face as they entered Spencer’s house. They were immediately enveloped in heat.

Herbs, spices, coffee, and the sweet smell of pie wafted through the interior of the red two-story home, blanketing the home in Thanksgiving goodness. The walls were beige, the floors wood, and Spencer’s simplistic decorating sense of bare walls and plain forest green furniture had been overtaken by rustic wall hangings, red and white-checked stars, and snowman decorations. Gracie had either moved in or was in the process of doing so.

Brows lowered, Gracie answered, “It’s ready to go; the oil is at the temperature it needs to be. Spencer set the fryer up near the garage. The turkey’s in the back of the truck?”

“
The smell…was bothering me,” Sara said, avoiding their eyes. “Need help in the kitchen?” she asked hurriedly, already moving in that direction.

“
Where’s my eye candy?” a voice cackled from the kitchen area.

Lincoln groaned, but a grin had latched itself to his lips, belying his reaction. Gracie laughed as a concoction of orange and brown with white-blonde hair dove for him, cocooning him in heavy floral perfume. A small hand slapped his rear, causing him to jump.

“Hello, hot stuff,” Dana Newman cooed, giving his behind a final pat before pulling back.

“
Dana. Good to see you, minus the groping. Is that a deer on your shirt?”

She looked down. “Well, it isn’t Henry Winkler. Speaking of deer, you boys get any?”

“Haven’t gone out yet. Hoping to go Saturday.”

“
Make me some jerky if you do.”

“
Got it.”

“
Did you get my room ready for the weekend?”

“
I didn’t. Sara did.” His parents’ old bedroom had been converted into a guest bedroom, one Dana stayed in whenever she drove the three plus hours down to visit. 

Lincoln loved Dana, not only because she was a wonderful, if slightly quirky sixty-something woman, but because she’d brought Sara back to herself, back to him. She’d denied it the one time he’d brought the subject up; saying she hadn’t done anything but give her coffee and doughnuts, but when Sara left over three years ago to learn to heal from the loss of Cole, Dana was there with her, and he’d always be grateful for that, and for her—even if his backside got fondled upon occasion.

Dana’s leathery face scowled, her overdone makeup turning her expression cartoonish. “What are you doing making her do that in her condition? You should be taking care of her, not having her get rooms set up and whatnot.”

He frowned. “Her condition? You mean because she’s been sick? She told me she’s better.”

Brown penciled-in eyebrows lowered. “What are you yapping about?”

“
Mason and Spencer are waiting for the turkey,” Gracie said, roughly nudging him toward the door.

Lincoln allowed himself to be pushed forward, halting at the opening of the door. His feet wouldn’t move anymore. As realization hit him, they just
stopped
. His hands griped the door frame and he stared out the window, gazing unseeingly at the snow-filled sky. The snowflakes fell in slow-motion, which was how his brain worked, apparently.

Irritable, worried, withdrawn, pale, sick; for
months
—Sara was pregnant. That had to be it. If she was healthy, and she’d promised she was, it was the only explanation.

He grabbed his head and squeezed, trying to breathe and struggling to perform something that was normally an unconscious motion. God, he was obtuse. His heartbeat picked up at the same time dizziness slammed into him. Everything inside him froze.

Sara was pregnant.

Why didn’t she
tell
him? How could she have kept something like that from him? Emotions ranging from joy to fear to anger crashed through him.

Lincoln spun around, his features stiff.

“Ah, there it is. The epiphany.” Dana cackled. “How’d you get to be so slow-witted?”

He stared at Gracie and Dana, unable to speak.

“I thought you knew,” she added, softening her tone, which said a lot for Dana. He wordlessly shook his head. “Hell, I took one look at her and I knew.”

“
Lincoln—“ Gracie began.

He sliced his hand through the air, silencing her. Air whooshed through his mouth and into his lungs, over and over, a harsh pounding forming between his temples. Eyes locked on the kitchen set apart from the foyer, Lincoln strode to the place he knew his wife was, ignoring the looks of Gracie and Dana.

He walked through the doorway, his gaze immediately finding Sara. Her back was to him as she carefully sliced cheese and set it on a tray. She’d straightened her dark hair so it hung in a silky curtain halfway down her back. Her top was red and baggy. He cocked his head. She’d been wearing loose-fitting clothes a lot lately, and moving away when he tried to touch her stomach. Why didn’t she want him to
know
? Was she unhappy about it?

“
Sara.” Her name on his lips was a caress, though it came out sounding severe. His conflicting emotions were responsible for that.

She dropped the knife as she jumped, whirling around. “You
scared
me,” Sara accused with a smile on her lips.

The smile faded and her eyebrows furrowed as she really looked at him. “Lincoln? What’s wrong?”

“You and me—good or bad—we’re supposed to be in this together.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat.

Her eyes darkened. She didn’t even pretend she didn’t understand; looking away, a hand protectively resting on her abdomen. “I was going to tell you.”

“When?” He crossed the room to her, stopping when they were close enough for him to see the flecks of gold in her chocolate eyes. “
When
were you going to tell me? Six months from now? When you couldn’t hide it anymore? When you were in labor?
When?
” He slapped a hand against the counter top, the stinging sensation in his palm doing nothing to eradicate the hurt and anger stirring inside him.

“
When I knew everything was okay,” she whispered, her head averted, but not enough for him to miss the trickle of tears making their way down her cheek and dripping from her chin.

“
So, what—if it wasn’t okay, you were never going to tell me? You were going to carry the burden yourself, deal with the loss and grief on your own? You don’t get to pick what I can deal with. What were you going to do if you lost the baby? Pretend you were never pregnant?”

Lincoln took a deep breath at the laceration that question caused to his heart. “You were going to take this away from me?” he asked in a low voice.

“I didn’t want you to have to go through any more loss, Lincoln. And with my history of miscarrying, I was scared. I am
still
scared. I was trying to
protect
you. I wanted to save you from that. I didn’t—don’t want you to get your hopes up, to be happy about this, and then I lose the baby. I don’t want to cause you that kind of pain,” she cried, pressing a hand to her mouth as a sob left her, tears streaming from her eyes.

“
You would take the happiness away from me because of the possible hurt?” he said slowly, staring at his wife, feeling like he didn’t know her.

“
Don’t look at me like that. Please,” she pleaded, reaching for him.

Lincoln pulled away, turning his back to Sara. “How far along are you?” His jaw clenched as he waited, looking at the hallway beyond the kitchen. It was a blob of nothing due to the tears blurring his eyes.

“Over four months.”

He cursed, his eyelids slowly closing against the burn in them. He stood there, not moving, not speaking. If he said anything, he would regret it later. Lincoln wanted to shout at her, to pound his fists against the wall and knock some shit over—anything to take the helpless, wounded feeling away.

Instead he walked away.

He faced forward, moving away as she tried to touch him again, ignoring her soft weeping, her cry for him not to go, and he walked through the house. Mason, Spencer, Dana, and Gracie were all there, in the foyer, watching him. No one spoke. He opened the door, walked through it, and softly closed it behind him.

Their house was miles outside of town and it was cold out, barely in the thirties. He didn’t care. Lincoln walked. He thought of his brother, of their childhood, of all the fun they had and all the mischief they got into. He thought of the day Cole was no longer living; the day of the wreck, and later, the day he took his last breath. He thought of his parents. He thought of the rift between them because Sara had been driving the car that took their son away, because she and Lincoln had dared to love one another, because Cole was dead.

He blinked his eyes and warm tears fell. So many bad things had happened, always happened during one’s life. It was inevitable. Bad things happened—that was part of living. It wasn’t reason enough to stop hoping, to give up, to expect the worst instead of the best.

Four months he’d missed of the pregnancy, of his baby’s life, and if that baby only lived in Sara’s womb, and if months was all he got with his child, then he would
cherish
them. Damn her for taking that away from him. He felt betrayed. There was a life growing inside of her and she’d denied him that. That was four months he could never get back; four months he could have been loving his baby. And what if she did have a miscarriage? Then he wouldn’t have anything. He could have had something, if she’d only told him.

With a roar, Lincoln looked for something to throw. His eyes landed on a brittle stick and he launched it into the trees along the road. A car zoomed past, honking its horn. He had the urge to flip his middle finger
up in the kind of hello that represented his current mood, but somehow refrained. His toes were numb in the boots he wore, as were the fingers of the hands he’d shoved into the pockets of his jacket. The tips of his ears stung when the wind swept through his shaggy dark hair and attacked the sensitive flesh. None of it mattered.

When he heard the rumble of a diesel truck ambling toward him, he paused, turning halfway to look down the road toward good old Boscobel, Wisconsin.
If someone honks again, so help me, they
will
get a one finger salute.
The silver truck slowed, stopping beside him.

A door slammed shut and Sara was striding for him. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face unusually pale. “Maybe what I did was wrong.”

He opened his mouth to argue the
maybe
of that and she quickly continued, “What I did was wrong. I know that. And I am sorry. I should have told you, right away, as soon as I knew. But…but I only did what I did because I love you, because I was worried for you, because I don’t want you to hurt when you don’t have to. I lost a baby with Cole and it tore us apart. I didn’t want the same to happen to you. I just needed time, to make sure I wasn’t going to have a miscarriage. I had every intention of telling you, as soon as I knew everything was okay.”

“
But you
never
know that, Sara! Not really. There could be complications farther along, during the delivery, after the delivery, years from now. What you did was…I can’t believe you did that, I really can’t. And all these months, you’ve been scared and worried and you
never told me
. I’m supposed to be there for you too. I’m supposed to be able to help you. And because of your inability to let me in, I’ve lost four months of the pregnancy that are just—
gone
. Have you felt it kick?”

“
What?”

A tick began in his jaw. “Have you felt the baby kick?”

Sara rubbed her forehead, shaking her head as her hand fell away. “No. Just…flutters and those faint.”

“
Have you gone to the doctor yet? Are you on vitamins? Have you done
any
of the things you should be doing in case this baby
does
survive?” he demanded.

“
I’m taking prenatal vitamins,” she said in a voice that shook, her eyes downcast.

Something else hit him and hit him hard. “Oh, God, and we’ve been having—“ He broke off. “What if I’d unintentionally hurt the baby?”

She laughed softly, shaking her head. “You can’t hurt the baby by having sex.”

“
How do you
know
that?” he cried, feeling like he’d been a sex-crazed monster defiling an innocent. He hadn’t known, but
still
. He would have been gentler, more cautious. Hell, he wouldn’t have touched her. Maybe, he amended;
maybe
he wouldn’t have touched her.

“
Okay, let’s compartmentalize, shall we? Baby is in the belly; anything else is
me
. You can be my much-attentive husband and still be a good daddy. The baby doesn’t know we’re having sex. I promise.”