Nobody's Baby but Mine (13 page)

No matter what, she had to keep their tawdry story from becoming public knowledge. The humiliation she’d face, as gruesome as that would be, wasn’t nearly as bad as what that information would do to her child growing up. She had promised herself she would base all her decisions on what was best for this baby, and that was why she had finally agreed to go with him.

She pushed her glasses more firmly on her nose and once again began to read. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cal glaring at her, and she decided it was a good thing she didn’t have psychic ability because the last thing she wanted to do was read his mind.

Bifocals!
Cal thought. God, how he hated those glasses. He mentally cataloged all that he disliked about the woman sitting next to him and concluded that, even if he set aside the issue of her character, there was a lot to choose from.

Everything about her was too serious. She even had serious hair. Why didn’t she loosen it up from that damned thingamabob? It was a great color, he’d give her that. He’d had a couple of girlfriends with hair that color, but theirs had come out of a bottle, and Jane Darlington’s could only have come from God.

With the exception of that small lock of hair that had escaped its confines to make a silky S behind her ear, this was one serious woman. Serious hair and serious clothes. Pretty skin, though. But he sure as hell didn’t like those big nerdy
bifocals
. They made her look every one of her twenty-eight years.

He still couldn’t believe he’d married her. But what else could he have done and still been able to live with himself? Let his kid grow up without a father? With the way he’d been raised, that wasn’t even a possibility.

He tried to feel good about the fact that he’d done the right thing, but all he felt was rage. He didn’t want to be married, damn it! Not to anybody. But especially not to this uptight prig with her liar’s heart.

For days he’d been telling himself she was no more permanent than a temporary live-in girlfriend, but every time he spotted that wedding band on her finger, he felt a sickening premonition. It was as if he were watching the scoreboard clock tick off the final days of his career.

“I can’t imagine buying a car without seeing it first.” Jane gazed around at the interior of the new hunter green Jeep Grand Cherokee that had been waiting for them in the parking lot at the Asheville airport with the key hidden in a magnetic case under the front bumper.

“I hire people to do this kind of thing for me.”

His nonchalance about his wealth made her waspish. “How pretentious.”

“Watch your language, Professor.”

“It means wise,” she lied. “You might try working it into a sentence sometime with a person you really admire. Tell them you think they’re pretentious, and they’ll feel warm and fuzzy all day.”

“Thanks for the suggestions. Maybe I’ll use it next time I’m on TV.”

She regarded him suspiciously, but couldn’t see even a trace of mistrust in his expression. It occurred to her that these last few days were turning her into a bitch.

She stared glumly out the window. Despite the gloom of the chilly, overcast March day, she had to admit the country was beautiful. The mountainous contours of western North Carolina formed a stark contrast to the flat Illinois landscape where she’d grown up.

They crossed the French Broad River, a name that would have made her smile under other circumstances, and headed west on Interstate 40 toward Salvation. Ever since she’d first heard the name of Cal’s hometown, something about it had struck a chord in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t remember what.

“Is there some reason I should recognize the name Salvation.”

“It was in the news a while back, but most of the locals don’t like to talk about it.”

She waited for more information and wasn’t too surprised when none was forthcoming. Next to the Bomber, she was a magpie. “Do you think you could let me in on the secret?”

He took so long responding that she thought he was ignoring her, but he finally spoke. “Salvation was where G. Dwayne Snopes settled. The televangelist.”

“Wasn’t he killed in some kind of small plane crash a few years ago?”

“Yeah. While he was on his way out of the country with a few million dollars that didn’t belong to him. Even at the height of his career, the town’s leaders never thought much of him, and they don’t like having Salvation’s name associated with him now that he’s dead.”

“Did you know him?”

“We met.”

“What sort of man was he?”

“He was a crook! Any fool could figure that out.”

The nuances of polite conversation were obviously beyond his mental capabilities. She turned away and tried to enjoy the scenery, but being plunged into a new life with a dangerous stranger who hated everything about her made it tough.

They eventually left the highway for a winding two-lane road. The gears of the Jeep ground as they headed up one side of a mountain and then curved down the other. Rusty double-wide mobile homes sitting in weedy lots at the side of the road provided a sharp contrast to the gated entrances of posh residential developments built for retirees around lush golf courses. Her stomach was beginning to get queasy from the switchbacks when Cal turned off the highway onto a gravel road that seemed to go straight up.

“This is Heartache Mountain. I need to stop and see my grandmother before we get settled. The rest of my family’s out of town now, but she’ll kick up a fuss if I don’t bring you to see her right away. And don’t go out of your way to be nice. Remember that you won’t be around for long.”

“You want me to be rude?”

“Let’s just say I don’t want you winning any popularity contests with my family. And keep the fact that you’re pregnant to yourself.”

“I wasn’t planning on announcing it.”

He swung into a deeply rutted lane that led to a tin-roofed house badly in need of paint. One of the shutters hung crookedly, and the front step that led up to the porch sagged. In view of his wealth, she was shocked by its condition. If he cared about his grandmother, he could surely have spared a little money to fix up this place.

He turned off the engine, climbed out of the car, and came around the front to open her door. The courtesy surprised her. She remembered that he’d done the same when she’d gotten into the car at the airport.

“Her name’s Annie Glide,” he said as she got out, “and she’ll be eighty next birthday. She’s got a bad heart and emphysema, but she’s not ready to give up yet. Watch that step. Damn. This place is going to fall down right around her ears.”

“Surely you can afford to move her out of here.”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, then walked to the door and slammed his fist against it. “Open up, you old bat, and tell me why this step isn’t fixed!”

Jane gaped at him. This was the way he treated his dear old granny?

The door squeaked open, and Jane found herself staring at a stoop-shouldered woman with bleached blond hair sticking out in tufts all over her head, bright red lipstick, and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. “You watch the way you talk to me, Calvin James Bonner. I can still whup you, and don’t you forgit it.”

“Have to catch me first.” He plucked the cigarette out of her mouth, ground it beneath the toe of his shoe, and folded her in his arms.

She gave a wheezy cackle and patted his back. “Wild as the devil and twice as bad.” She peered around his back to scowl at Jane, who was standing at the top of the steps. “Who’s that?”

“Annie, this is Jane.” His voice developed a steely note. “My wife. Remember I called to tell you about her. We got married last Wednesday.”

“Looks like a city gal. You ever skinned a squirrel, city gal?”

“I—uh—can’t say as I have.”

She gave a dismissive snort and turned back to Cal. “What done took you so long to come see your granny?”

“I was afraid you’d bite me, and I had to get my rabies shots up to date.”

This sent her into a gale of witchy laughter, culminating in a coughing spasm. Cal looped his arm around her and steered her into the house, cussing her out for her smoking the entire time.

Jane pushed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and thought about how there weren’t going to be any easy successes for her the next few months. Now she’d failed the squirrel-skinning test.

She wasn’t anxious to go inside, so she walked across the porch to the place where a brightly colored wind sock whipped from the corner of the roof. The cabin was tucked into the side of the mountain and surrounded by woods, with the exception of a clearing to the side and back for a garden. The way the mist clung to the distant mountain peaks made her understand why this part of the Appalachian chain was called the Smokies.

It was so quiet she could hear a single squirrel rustling through the bare branches of an oak tree. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how noisy a town, even a peaceful suburban one, could be. She heard the crack of a twig, the caw of a crow, and breathed in the damp, chill scent of March woodlands not yet ready to leave winter behind. With a sigh, she crossed the porch to the door. She already knew enough about Annie Glide to realize the old woman would take any retreat as a sign of weakness.

She stepped directly into a small, cluttered living room that was a curious amalgam of the old and gaudy with the new and tasteful. A rich, thick-piled smoky blue carpet held an assortment of worn furniture upholstered in everything from faded brocade to threadbare velvet. The gilded coffee table had a broken leg crudely repaired with silver duct tape, and faded red tassels held fragile lace curtains back from the windows.

There was an obviously expensive stereo cabinet complete with a compact disc player sitting on a wall perpendicular to an old stone fireplace. The rough-hewn mantel held an assortment of clutter including a guitar-shaped ceramic vase filled with peacock feathers, a football, a stuffed pheasant, and a framed photograph of a man who looked familiar, although Jane couldn’t quite place him.

Through a small archway off to the left she could see part of a kitchen with a peeling linoleum floor and a state-of-the-art cooking range. Another doorway presumably led to bedrooms in the back.

Annie Glide lowered herself with a great deal of effort into an upholstered rocker while Cal paced in front of her, glowering. “. . . then Roy said you pulled your shotgun on him, and now he tells me he won’t come out here again without a five-hundred-dollar deposit. Nonrefundable!”

“Roy Potts don’t know the difference between a hammer and his colon.”

“Roy is the best damn handyman in these parts.”

“Did you bring me my new Harry Connick, Jr. CD? Now that’s what I really want, not some fool handyman nibbin’ into my business.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I brought it. It’s out in the car.”

“Well, go on and get it for me.” She waved him toward the door. “And move that speaker when you get back. It’s too close to my TV.”

As soon as he disappeared, she speared Jane with her blue eyes. Jane felt a curious desire to throw herself on her knees and confess her sins, but she suspected the cantankerous woman would simply smack her in the head.

“How old are you, gal?”

“I’m thirty-four.”

She thought that one over. “How old does he think you are?”

“Twenty-eight. But I didn’t tell him that.”

“You never told him different, either, did you?”

“No.” Although she hadn’t been invited to sit, she found a place at the end of an old velvet couch. “He wants me to tell everyone I’m twenty-five.”

Annie rocked for a while. “You gonna do it?”

Jane shook her head.

“Cal told me you’re a college professor. That must mean you’re a real smart lady.”

“Smart about some things. Dumb about others, I guess.”

She nodded. “Calvin, he don’t put up with much foolishness.”

“I know.”

“He needs a little foolishness in his life.”

“I’m afraid I’m not too good at that sort of thing. I used to be when I was a child, but not much anymore.”

Annie looked up at Cal as he came in the door. “When I heard how fast you two got married, I thought she might have done you bad like your mama done your daddy.”

“The situations aren’t the same at all,” he said tonelessly.

Annie tilted her head toward Jane. “My daughter Amber wasn’t nothin’ more than a little white-trash gal spendin’ all her time runnin’ after boys. Laid her a trap for the richest one in town.” Annie cackled. “She caught him, too. Cal here was the bait.”

Jane felt sick. So Cal was the second generation of Bonner male trapped into marriage by a pregnant female.

“My Amber Lynn likes to forget she growed up dirtpoor. Isn’t that so, Calvin?”

“I don’t know why you’re always giving her such a hard time.” He walked over to the CD player, and a few moments later, the sounds of Harry Connick, Jr. singing “Stardust” filled the cabin.

Jane realized Connick was the man in the photograph on the mantel. What a strange old woman.

Annie leaned back in the chair. “That Connick boy has got him one beautiful voice. I always wished you could sing, Calvin, but you never could manage it.”

“No, ma’am. Can’t do much but throw a football.” He sat down on the couch next to Jane but not touching her.

Annie closed her eyes, and the three of them sat quietly listening to the honey-sweet voice. Maybe it was the gray day, the deep quiet of the woods, but Jane felt herself begin to relax. Time ticked away, and a curious alertness came over her. Here in this ramshackle house lying in the shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains, she began to feel as if she were on the verge of finding some missing part of herself. Right here in this room that smelled of pine and must and chimney smoke.

“Janie Bonner, I want you to promise me something.”

The feeling faded as she heard herself being addressed for the first time by her married name, but she didn’t get a chance to tell Annie she’d be using her maiden name.

“Janie Bonner, I want you to promise me right now that you’ll look out for Calvin like a wife should, and that you’ll think about his welfare before you think about your own.”