David viewed her with new eyes after meeting her parents, her friends, and relatives. Sloane had been buffeted with love her entire life, and the gleam in her emerald eyes, the quickness of her lithe steps, was not his doing alone. She glowed with the attention he paid her, but she’d always gleamed like a jewel, and now he understood.
His own family had been so broken, so distant. He wished he’d grown up surrounded by the hard work and easy comforts of a rural lifestyle. He admired the big boned men and their rounded wives. He especially esteemed the affection and graciousness that came so naturally to Sloane’s family.
David sat outside on the veranda watching the hustle and bustle of party preparations when the vibration in his pocket alerted him he had a call.
Reluctantly he answered only to get the news he’d been waiting months for. Time to trade. David gave the go ahead to his accountant with the strict warning that no matter what the outcome of the venture he was not to be disturbed. The news did not sit well with his number cruncher, but David’s tone trucked no argument. David had promised Sloane on the plane that he would not do business that weekend. He avowed his attention belonged to her alone, and he meant it.
As he hung up his phone and put it in his slack’s pocket, he took a deep breath, hoping the deal would go as planned without his constant intervention.
Sloane approached him, and he watched her quick steps and the way her breasts bounced, large and luscious, underneath her hot pink halter style dress.
“Oh, David I love your pin-striped suit. No neck tie…” She removed the silk tie and opened his shirt a bit.
“I don’t recall this…” She fingered the gold medallion at his throat.
“It was my father’s,” he replied brusquely.
Sloane gave him a fond, understanding smile and kissed his throat just above the necklace before whispering, “Let’s go to a wedding.”
David’s heart might have skipped a beat.
David watched the wedding procession cross the dance floor to the white gazebo overlooking the pond. He and Sloane sat in the first row, in white wooden fold-out chairs, next to her parents and Rob. Usually bored with ceremony of any kind, David found himself listening intently as the bride and groom exchanged vows. When Charlie put a golden band on Eva’s finger, David pressed Sloane’s palm into his own and fingered her grandmother’s wedding ring.
Sloane could be my wife, he thought, and then quickly shoved the thought into the back drawer of his mind. He tried to lock the idea away, but everything he experienced encouraged the thought to return again and again, unbidden.
After the marriage vows were exchanged, a DJ played older and contemporary popular songs. David found himself dancing, holding Sloane as she provocatively shimmied and shook to the beats. She had been tired earlier, but the roast beef dinner and wedding cake revived her. She laughed at her brothers trying to dance and told David she’d had a perfect day.
By the time everything wound down and guests began to leave or settle in for the night, David couldn’t wait to get his hands on Sloane. He anticipated another night of lovemaking and pondered why he couldn’t seem to satiate his desire for her no matter how many times they explored each other’s willing flesh. David had been with a dozen women over the years, but none of them had stirred such a zealous response.
Sloane Porter was the only woman in the world right now. Every move she made, every word she spoke drew his interest, captured him, made him feel that anything might be possible. Now, as she led the way to the tent, his loins ached. He had held her, kissed her, danced and romanced her all evening, yet he couldn’t wait to possess her. He followed, quickening his steps to match hers.
Unfortunately, they had no sooner begun to playfully stroke one another’s bodies when Sloane sat up and said, “I think I might get sick.” He helped her out of the tiny tent, and she barely made it to the tree line before she lost the contents of her too full stomach.
He held her hair back from her face and helped her back to the tent. He undressed her carefully, removing her dangling rhinestone earrings, strappy pink heels, silk dress and underwear. He got a water bottle from an ice chest outside and took off his own shirt. Wetting it with the cold water, he bathed her body and held her until she fell asleep in his arms.
All the amorous plans he’d made were quickly forgotten in the wake of Sloane’s sudden illness. He remembered she’d complained of a tummy ache on the plane, too, and he wondered if it was nerves or too much rich food, or perhaps some combination of the two that upset her stomach.
Before he could figure it all out, he found his eyes getting heavy. He closed them after making sure Sloane slept comfortably.
When he woke, the sun was in the sky and Sloane was away from the tent. He looked through the flap and saw her sitting on top of a picnic table near the fire ring. She heard him rustling within and came over to the tent.
Poking her head through the flap, she said, “Hi, babe. Sorry about last night. I don’t know what came over me, but I feel fine today.” David didn’t know if the information or her endearment warmed him more.
“I’m glad. You look well.” And she did. She had already been to the house and showered. Her damp hair hung in waves about her face, and she wore a pair of blue jeans and a pink T-shirt emblazoned with Forster’s logo.
“My brother Rob is bringing the ATVs. Get up, lazybones,” she remarked, and bent in to give him a sweet good morning kiss. Just as David lunged at Sloane, wanting to pull her into the tent for more, he heard the engine of Rob’s truck.
“Some might call your brother’s timing less than perfect,” David said, and Sloane laughed and ruffled David’s hair lovingly, before she slipped away to greet her brother.
The three of them shared a thermos of hot coffee Sloane’s mother had packed, and then they piled onto the ATVs Rob unloaded from his truck’s trailer.
“Follow me,” Sloane said, as she pulled a hot pink helmet over her head and roared away. Rob went next and David brought up the rear. A tingling in his head alerted him something wasn’t quite right. He didn’t like the way Sloane rode with studied abandon, how she turned corners like a race car driver, the way she kept accelerating despite the uneven terrain of the rocky farm lanes.
David could barely keep up, and at one point he decided it wasn’t worth the danger. But there was Sloane, waving her arm for him to catch up, so he obliged.
Just as he was closing the gap, he heard a sickening thud, and he saw Sloane’s vehicle go one way while she went another.
Everything seemed to slow down to a crawl as Rob and Dave careened to halt and ran to where Sloane lie crumpled in the roadway.
She was conscious and moaning, though her eyes were closed.
Through gritted teeth she hissed, “It’s my right arm. Feels broken.”
Rob took off her helmet, scooped her into his arms, and started running in the general direction of the farm house. David got on the ATV and rode at breakneck speed to the campsite where he got the truck and drove to meet brother and sister hobbling up the lane. Sloane’s face, contorted in pain, made David’s whole body ache.
“Oh, Sloane. Damned ATV. You were acting like a wild woman,” David chastised.
“I thought you liked me that way,” she attempted to jest, but David was in no mood for levity. She had scared him badly, and he was shaking as he knelt beside her in the truck’s bed while Rob drove to the hospital only a few miles away.
When they got out at the emergency room exit, David noted Sloane was pale as a ghost, and he hoped she wouldn’t go into shock. Having broken a few bones in his lifetime, he knew the pain could be excruciating. While he and Rob supplied Sloane’s information to the registering nurse, Sloane was wheeled into a cubicle in the emergency ward. Bill and Dora arrived within minutes, and all four waited anxiously to hear the doctor’s report.
Minutes seemed like hours to David as he waited, pacing the floor of the emergency room. It was a quiet Sunday morning, and he was grateful they appeared to be the only ones in the ward. When the nurse finally appeared through the double doors, they all approached as if she had Sloane in his arms.
“What’s going on? Has she seen a doctor?” David was the first to ask, though each of them spoke similar phrases.
The nurse smiled reassuringly and said, “She’s waiting to go to x-ray. Looks like it could be a break, though it may only be sprained badly. We’ll know more once we get some pictures. She’s asking for David.”
David grabbed the nurse by the arm and said, “That’s me. Please take me to her.”
He gave a quick hug to Dora before following the nurse into a small white cubicle where Sloane waited on a portable gurney. David bent to kiss her lips softly, and said, “I’m here, sweetheart.”
Sloane smiled wanly at him, and he asked, “Does it hurt terribly? Nurse, can she get something for the pain.”
The nurse eyed him and said, “She refused medication.”
“Why?” he asked and every hair on his body stood rigid. “Sloane, why won’t you take medicine?”
“I feel queasy enough already. I don’t think it’s broken. I can move everything.” And she bent her arms to prove her theory, adding, “I just want to go home.”
“First, you need x-rays,” he said and smoothed her brow with his palm.
“Please take off your jewelry,” the nurse advised, and David saw Sloane’s green eyes go wide. She held her left hand to her chest as if to protect it.
“Do I have to?” she asked, and David was struck by how childlike her voice sounded. Sloane didn’t want to remove her grandmother’s ring. She’d told him she never took it off, and the thought clearly distressed her more than the fall from the ATV.
“I’ll hold it for you, keep it safe right here in my pocket, sweetheart. I promise nothing will happen to it,” he entreated, and Sloane looked at him accusatorily.
“Please, Sloane. Take it off,” and he unclenched her hand to help her to remove the diamond ring. She didn’t help him, but she didn’t fight him either.
A young man in blue scrubs came to the curtained doorway with a wheelchair, informing Sloane he would wheel her down to x-ray. “Your husband can wait here,” he said, and David smiled for the first time in more than an hour.
“I will be right here when you return,” he promised, helping Sloane into the waiting chair. She held David’s hand tightly, and he felt her short nails dig into his palm. He knew she was scared. “You’ll be fine, my brave girl,” he cajoled and she gave him a little grin despite her pain.
David held her ring in his pocket as he paced the little room. He felt his phone vibrate, and he switched it off. No cell phones were allowed as the many signs clearly indicated, but he wouldn’t have answered anyway.
Sloane was only gone fifteen minutes, but it seemed like an eternity to David. When the technician wheeled her into the room again, David asked, “Well?”
The technician shrugged, “Ask the lady.” David moved to her side and helped Sloane back onto the gurney. He pulled a blanket up to ward off the cool air pouring from the ducts above.
“Is it broken, Sloane?”
“No,” she said and held out her hand for her ring.
David pulled it from his pocket and held her wrist as he struggled to put it on her finger.
“Wrong finger,” she smiled, and he looked down at his clumsy hand. He was attempting to put the jewel on her ring finger, on her left ring finger, as if he were Charlie marrying Eva instead of David helping Sloane. He felt his face grow hot at his fumble. Sloane looked away, perhaps sensing his embarrassment and not wanting to add to it. He slipped the ring on her pinky then, and she was able to meet his eyes.
“Can we go home now?” she asked, and she wiped gingerly at her dirty face.
“We have to wait for the discharge papers. It shouldn’t be long,” he comforted, kissing her hand. The diamond caught and reflected the fluorescent light.
A nurse bustled in and said, “Well, I guess we’ll just wait for the blood work.” She seemed conciliatory, as if something might not be right. Once again, David felt ominous premonition wash over him.
“Blood work?”
Sloane rushed to say, “Only a formality. Really. David, will you please update my parents? I’m sure they’re anxious.”
“Sure thing,” he said, backing out through the curtained opening after pecking her mud stained cheek. “I’ll be right back.”
Sloane exhaled and put her hand to her stomach.
Her brain buzzed with fear. The fall forgotten, she focused now on the test results, which should be forthcoming soon. She felt a nervous wreck, but she twisted her grandmother’s ring and tried to calm her breathing.
When she had gotten to x-ray, the technician had asked her if she could be pregnant. The answer was yes. In fact, Sloane was now almost sure all her recent symptoms added up to one thing. She was carrying David’s child.
The nurse had drawn blood right then, and the x-ray had been cancelled. Somehow she had to get David out of the hospital without him finding out. She felt like bees were boomeranging in her head, and she was excited and sick at once.
“Can you please ask my family to stay in the waiting room? Tell them I’ll be out shortly,” she requested, and the nurse nodded before leaving Sloane alone.
“A baby,” she whispered to herself and shook her head in disbelief. Why hadn’t she figured it out before now? She had never maintained a particularly regular cycle, but she couldn’t remember having her period once since applying at Grant Oil. Add to that her on again off again queasiness and the weight gain, and the possibility of a pregnancy became a probability. Though she now used birth control, she hadn’t that first night at David’s mansion. They’d made love with reckless abandon, without any heed to a possible pregnancy. Sloane groaned aloud. What would she do? She couldn’t tell anyone yet. She had to figure this thing out if it were true. She twirled her ring around her finger again and again as she waited.