Mich.e.l.le held the stack of brochures and paperwork in front of her like a shield as they walked out of the hospital annex. "You want me to drive home?"
"No. I"m fine." Before long, they were heading back down the highway.
"The psychologist kept making notes on me," she remarked.
"Temple? He"s got a bunch of notes on me, too."
"What do you suppose he was writing?"
Gavin stared straight ahead at the road. "I imagine he"s wondering if we"re up for this."
"That"s stupid. You need a kidney, I"m a match, end of story."
He cleared his throat, seeming to draw words from a hiding place deep inside him. "You have every right to resent me, Mich.e.l.le."
"I don"t resent you."
"Sure you do. Christ, I don"t blame you. I wish I"d been a father to you when you were growing up."
Before she could stop herself, she thought of her childhood, the older split-level home in Bel Air. Though there were plenty of single-parent families in Southern California, Mich.e.l.le always focused on the unbroken ones. She couldn"t help the sharp envy she felt watching her friends with their two doting parents. The terrible ache that would engulf her when she saw a girl playing Frisbee in the park with her father...
"Is it too late to be a father now?" she asked, the words surprising even her.
A long, awkward silence. His hand came across the seat, touched her shoulder. "I"m willing to try, Mich.e.l.le. But remember, I"m new at this. I"ve got a lousy track record."
"What"s that supposed to mean?"
He took his hand away. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a furtive flash of guilt in his expression. "You know, last time. You took off, and I didn"t know what the h.e.l.l to do. So I did nothing."
Mich.e.l.le shut her eyes, but the memories rushed in. "I"m pregnant, Daddy."
"I"m not surprised. Your mother was careless, too."
"I figured that McPhee boy was up to no good," her father had said on that bitter November night.
She hadn"t asked him how he knew it was Sam"s. Jake Dollarhide had probably ratted on them, just as Sam had predicted.
"I shouldn"t have told you," she had said, scared and hurt by his reaction. "Sam will help me through this."
"Is that what he promised?"
"He will when I tell him."
Gavin had snorted with disbelief. "He"s cowboy sc.u.m, and his mother is trash. Even if he says he"ll stick by you, Tammi Lee will drag you both down. You"ll be living in some trailer park trying to hold off the law from her. Don"t look for any promises from him."
And-d.a.m.n him-Gavin had been right. That evening when Mich.e.l.le went to tell Sam about the baby, he was gone without a trace, the shotgun house he"d shared with his mother an empty sh.e.l.l.
"Mich.e.l.le?" Her father"s voice brought her back to the present. "You got mighty quiet there."
"I guess that"s because there"s so much to say."
Chapter 11.
Sylvia was in labor. The mare had been restless all night, hadn"t eaten. She was fully dilated, her sides bellowing in and out in the peculiar manner of laboring mares. She kept looking back at her own flanks as if they didn"t belong to her. As Edward had taken such glee in showing Cody the day before, her udder was full, her nipples waxy, the milk veins distended. Now she was covered in sweat, a sure sign that her water would break soon.
Sam walked across the field where Edward Bliss and Cody were uncoiling snow fence, readying the slope for the avalanches the spring thaw would bring. He had to force himself to walk at an even pace, to keep his expression neutral when what he really wanted to do was rush headlong and gawk at his son. His son. His own flesh and blood.
How was it that Cody had been born and Sam hadn"t realized it? Shouldn"t he have felt some upheaval inside himself, some alteration in the most essential part of his being?
Babies were born all the time without their fathers knowing. Maybe Sam was no different from Calyx, the champion stud quarter horse that had sired Sylvia"s foal. But he still couldn"t understand how a baby boy with half his chromosomes had been born and he hadn"t even felt a ripple in the pond water.
At the time of Cody"s birth, he"d been running. After he and his mother had left Crystal City only hours ahead of the law, they hadn"t made much of a home anywhere for a while. Hot checks, unpaid bills, and collection-agency notices had trailed behind them like kicked-up dust.
On that long-ago night, when everything had fallen apart, he hadn"t even had time to b.u.t.ton his shirt. In the months that followed, they stayed in motels with weekly rates, lay low in a couple of run-down trailer courts, even slept at a roadside park or two. Nothing lasted-not their jobs, not their money, not their luck.
Until the Lander rodeo. It had been pure dumb luck that the Valiant had broken down in Wyoming, right under the billboard for the annual summer event. Tammi Lee had scrounged up enough cash for a pint of Ripple, and Sam had walked into town, hoping to earn a few bucks helping out as a gate runner.
Instead, he"d encountered a guy lying on a stretcher, his face floury white and his severed thumb in a Dixie cup with a piece of ice. Sam had looked on with more interest than horror as the paramedics whisked the cowboy off to reattach his thumb.
It was a cla.s.sic injury for a team roper. If he dallied the rope the wrong way, the tug of the fleeing steer could sever a thumb. The guy"s roping partner had cast a worried eye at the pay window. He didn"t want to disqualify himself, even though without a heeler, he couldn"t compete. With nothing left to lose, Sam had stepped up. Everyone was so ball-squeezed by the accident that there hadn"t been much discussion. They pinned a number on Sam and off he went.
By the end of the night he and the header had won the regional t.i.tle and nine thousand dollars. Fired up by good fortune, he"d launched a new career by buying an old beat-up trailer and pickup. Then he"d gone looking for a horse. It took him four months to find Sherlock and several more good purses to acquire him, but the quarter horse was worth the trouble. He became Sam"s business partner and best friend.
Sam went solo, specializing in calf roping. He didn"t want to split his earnings with half of a team. Leaving his mother in a motel on the outskirts of Cheyenne, he took off in the pickup, entering rodeos from San Angelo to Calgary. At night he slept in the gooseneck of Sherlock"s trailer and ate his meals out of fast-food bags. He often went home with a woman-there was no shortage of rodeo groupies, and they loved a winner-but he always felt hollow after those encounters. Always caught himself thinking too much of a soft-limbed girl with soulful eyes. He"d lie awake listening to the crickets and consider calling her, and once he actually picked up the phone.
"You got a lot of d.a.m.ned nerve, boy, calling here," Gavin Slade had roared at him.
Sam had braced his fist on the window of the phone booth, an ovenlike kiosk in Oklahoma City. "I want to talk to Mich.e.l.le, Mr. Slade."
"Over my dead body. You stole from me, McPhee-"
"That"s a d.a.m.ned lie." Over the months of rambling, Sam had put the puzzle together. The day Jake Dollarhide had seen him and Mich.e.l.le come out of the art studio, several hundred dollars had turned up missing from the foreman"s cashbox. Sam had been set up, plain and simple. He wasn"t certain Gavin was in on it directly, but it sure as h.e.l.l was convenient timing-Sam being run off the day he"d been caught nailing the boss"s daughter.
"Don"t call here anymore," Gavin had warned him. He"d slammed down the phone.
Sam didn"t try again. There was no point. His mom was in trouble, and he had to stay on the circuit. Mich.e.l.le had to go to college. The impossibility of a rich girlpoor boy romance was finally real to him. Shame and hurt pride burned away the last of his innocence. Did Mich.e.l.le believe he was a thief, or would she realize he"d been framed? Shoot, it really didn"t matter.
By the end of that season, Sam had won enough purses to lease his mother a little clapboard house near Seguin, Texas. A year later, he"d pa.s.sed his G.E.D. and saved up for college tuition. Between rodeoing and school and his wet-brained mother, he hadn"t had time to come up for air, much less realize the only girl he"d ever loved had given birth to his son.
As he approached Cody, Sam told himself not to wonder about him as a baby, a toddler, a little boy. That child was gone now, and in his place was an angry teen. The h.e.l.l of it was, Sam didn"t know what to think. Did he really want to know this kid, learn his rage and his flaws, excavate his virtues from beneath the layers of resentment?
"Hey, guys," he said, scanning the fence. "How"s it coming?"
"Okay." Cody stood back and gestured at the long line of pickets curving under the brow of a hill where the avalanche danger was the worst. "I guess."
Sam held his breath. Did she tell you, Cody? Did she tell you I"m your dad?
Clearly not, judging by the kid"s offhand manner. He held his shoulders hunched up, and his nose was bright red from the cold.
"See any sign of that cat?" Sam asked.
"You mean the mountain lion?"
"Yeah, Edward spotted a carca.s.s last week."
"Snowshoe hare," Edward said. "How"s Sylvia doing?"
"That"s why I came to get you," Sam said. "It"s time."
"What?" Cody snapped to attention, forgetting to sulk.
"Sylvia, the mare," Sam explained. "Her water"s about to break, and the foal will come pretty fast after that."
"Yeah?" The kid"s face brightened a hundred watts. He was a d.a.m.ned good-looking kid even with the ponytail and earrings. "Can we see her?"
As Sam returned to the snowmobiles, he concealed a smile. "You"re not squeamish, are you, Cody?"
"Me? No, man. I got a stomach of iron."
The icy wind blasted their faces as they drove back to the barn, dismounting fast and running inside to attend the birth.
A low grunting sound issued from the birthing stall. A foaling kit, with OB sleeves, tape, the foaling record, a stopwatch, instruments, and drugs lay on a crate. Sam hurried in to find the mare bobbing her head up and down, pawing the straw and acting skittish.
"Everything okay?" Edward asked.
"Let"s have a listen." Sam took a stethoscope from the foaling kit and pressed it to the mare"s abdomen. The vigorous hiss and swish of her pulse rea.s.sured him. He could detect the faint racing pulse of the fetus as well.
But it was beating too fast and shallow for comfort. "Might be some fetal distress, possible dystocia."
"Should I call the vet?" Edward asked.
"Go ahead and put in a call, but I have a feeling the foal will arrive before the vet does. Let"s see what kind of shape the amniotic sac"s in when it emerges." He set his jaw against a curse. He loved this mare. He sure as h.e.l.l didn"t want to lose her.
"What"s that mean?" Cody peered over the edge of the stall. "Dystocia. Sounds bad."
"It means a bad presentation and stress on the foal. Not great news. Edward," he called down the breezeway, "see if you can get the heat turned up higher in here. Don"t want the baby to catch a chill." He indicated a bucket outside the birthing stall. "Cody, do me a favor and wrap her tail with that white tape. Then you can wash her perineum and teats, okay? If we don"t get everything clean, we"re risking infection."
"Wash her..." Cody gaped at him in disbelief.
"Teats. And perineum."
"What"s a-"
"It"s exactly what you think it is."
"Oh, man."
"You said you had a stomach of iron."
Cody grumbled, but he picked up the wrapping. Gingerly, he lifted the mare"s tail, grimacing as Sam palpated the abdomen.
"Gross," Cody commented.
"A mare in labor urinates and defecates a lot," Sam said unapologetically.
"Great."
But the boy did a good enough job of wrapping the tail; then he brought out the bucket of water and disinfectant. With all the diligence Sam could have hoped for, he scrubbed away at the teats.
"Hey," he said, "something"s, um, dripping from her."
Sam examined the teats. "Colostrum."
"What does that mean?"
"It means you might want to hurry and get that perineum disinfected, because things are going to speed up pretty soon." Sam tried not to seem anxious. He and Edward had yanked foals many times before, usually with good results. But G.o.d. Sylvia. She was the best mare he"d ever had.
The kid took a deep breath and dipped a clean cloth. He lifted the wrapped tail and dabbed hesitantly at first. Then he blew out his breath in a show of determination, planted himself right behind her, and finished the job.
"You might want to stand a little to one side," Sam advised as Cody was rinsing. "Because if you"re directly behind her when her water breaks-"
Too late. It broke before he could finish speaking.
She spewed like a fire hose, directly at Cody. The projectile of warm fluid, probably a couple of gallons of it, completely drenched the boy.
"Holy s.h.i.t," he yelled, jumping back.
"Sorry." Sam bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. "I tried to warn you."
"Thanks for nothing, man."
"You want to go find some dry clothes?"
Cody made for the door, then hesitated. "Will I miss anything?"
"The foal will come any minute now."
"I"ll stay then." He ripped off his coat-the black leather thing Sam hated-and dropped it on the floor in the corner. And it was odd, but it seemed to Sam that the kid shed some of his cynicism along with the coat. He could look at Cody now and see a boy, eager and bright-eyed, his young face ablaze with interest.
"Holy s.h.i.t," he said again. His eyes grew round.
The silvery-slick balloon of the amnion started to come through. "Lie down, baby," Sam said to Sylvia. "Lie down, there"s a girl."