On the long, silent return trip, Tess stared at her ballpoint ink wedding ring. Her real wedding ring was sealed away in a box in her bottom dresser drawer. As she studied the smudged ink around her finger, she knew she had to stop drifting. Everything had changed. If the Dennings kept their word, Wren would be hers, and Tess would have to get her life in order. That meant finding a real job that would support the two of them, something the Broken Chimney couldn’t offer.
The miles slipped by. As much as she wished otherwise, she could come up with only one solution. She had to go back to nursing. There was no other way she could provide a decent living for them.
The images from the nightmares swept through her brain. The blood. The helplessness. Nursing, yes, but not midwifery. Never that. Geriatrics maybe, or dermatology. Anything that didn’t involve coaxing another slippery, cone-headed, vernix-coated infant into the world. A job where she’d never again have to watch a young mother slip away.
By the time they picked up Wren at Heather’s house, she’d resigned herself to the inevitable. She had no passion for either geriatrics or dermatology, but she’d do what she had to.
Heather opened the door, took one look at Tess’s and Ian’s stony faces, and grimaced. “Congratulations?”
Tess spun on Ian. “You told Heather what we were doing, but you didn’t tell me?”
“Heather’s like God,” he retorted. “You can tell her anything.”
Heather chided them as she handed Wren over. “Babies pick up on the energy around them. Be patient with each other.”
Ian and Tess replied at the same time.
“Tell her, not me.”
“I’m always patient.”
Heather fingered her mala beads. “You could both benefit from a regular meditation practice.”
“Especially him,” Tess said.
Heather sighed.
At the schoolhouse, nothing had changed. Ian’s boots still lay where he’d abandoned them. The morning’s dishes remained in the sink. Tess carried Wren upstairs and managed to transfer her into the sleeping nest without waking her.
She sneaked into the bathroom. Her reflection stared back at her: dull skin, bloodshot eyes, tense jaw. She looked like hell. She tried to wash away her ballpoint wedding ring, but the ink was too stubborn.
She carried the monitor downstairs and found Ian slouched into the couch with a full tumbler of whiskey. He lifted it toward her in a mock toast. “This is it. You understand that, right? You and Wren are no longer my responsibility.”
She felt an odd tenderness toward him. “Absolutely,” she said. “You’ve done more than enough. I’ll take it from here.”
It was her turn to make a grand gesture. She sat next to him on the couch. Always the seductress. Never the seduced. She slipped one leg over his thighs and straddled him. He curled his palms around her waist. “This would be so much better if you’d stop frowning.”
“I’m not frowning!” Crap. She was frowning. And he was hard. She forced her face to relax. “Better?”
“Marginally.” One of his hands strayed to her hip. “But, Tess, this isn’t a job.”
A loud rap sounded at the door. She jumped, and he glowered. “What now?”
It was nearly ten o’clock. Too late for casual visitors. She gritted her teeth and extracted herself from his lap. “You answer and tell them I’m not a doctor!”
He stalked to the door and opened it.
“Is . . . Tess here?”
The voice was young and male. She looked over Ian’s shoulder and saw four teenage boys standing on the other side. She recognized Ava’s boyfriend, Connor, a good-looking, blond, athletic kid, and Imani’s tall, bespectacled boyfriend, Anthony. The other two she vaguely remembered from the Broken Chimney, a slightly built kid named Noah and a redheaded giant everybody called Psycho.
Connor shoved his hand in his pockets. “Ava . . . She . . . like sent us.”
Tonight? Tess had to do this tonight at the end of what was surely the longest day in history?
“It’s late,” Ian said.
“Could you come back maybe tomorrow?” Tess asked. “Or the next day?”
“Oh, sure . . . Yeah.” They backed off so quickly she knew they’d never come back.
“Wait.” They were already at the end of the walk.
Ian groaned. At the same time, he moved aside, whispering in her ear as he let them in. “Worst idea yet.”
* * *
They shuffled toward the two couches but jammed themselves into only one of them. The four of them were all gangly legs and arms they didn’t seem to know what to do with. Ian was right. This would only bring her more trouble. “Do your parents know you’re here? Never mind. Of course they don’t.”
Each of them developed a passionate interest in his feet.
She struggled between her duty and her sense of self-preservation. Duty won. Unlike the girls, this might be her only chance with these boys, and she needed a quick icebreaker. “Let’s get this out of the way first. Stop worrying about your penis size, okay? Bigger isn’t always better. Right, Ian?”
He came to a screeching halt in his stealthy journey toward the stairs. The grooves in his forehead grew into highway ditches. She must be punch-drunk from the day because she didn’t have much trouble mustering her brightest, most chipper smile. “Bigger, smaller . . . Everyone’s is different, and they all tend to work equally well, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I wouldn’t dream of contradicting you,” he said, in a way that told he’d very much like to contradict her about a lot of things, especially her intention to draw him into this discussion.
“Could you find some paper and pencils for these guys.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.” He didn’t even try to rein in his sarcasm.
The boys would be more reticent to open up than the girls, and she needed an efficient way to cover the essentials and get them out of here. “Write down all your questions, no matter how stupid you think they might be. Disguise your handwriting if you want.”
The giant who called himself Psycho snorted, but after Ian handed them paper from the kitchen grocery pad, they began scribbling. She picked up the monitor to check on Wren and heard the reassuring sound of baby snorts. She walked across the room and positioned herself between Ian and the stairs so he couldn’t escape. He saw her game and bent down to whisper in her ear. “I have a couple of questions.”
“I’ll give you a copy of my pamphlet,” she whispered back.
“That’s nice of you, but . . . I was wondering . . .” His gaze was deliberately perverse. “How big is too big?”
He’d gotten the best of her, and she hurried over to collect the boys’ questions.
What if your penis gets stuck?
How many inches really is too small? For real?
Is it bad if you fart when you’re doing it?
How do lesbians have sex?
How many times can you jack off without being a pervert?
“Great questions, guys,” she said with a straight face. “But too much for us to cover tonight, so let’s start with the most important stuff.” She sat on the couch across from them. “First. You don’t have to do it just because you think you should or because you think everybody else is. Having sex before you’re ready is a sign of immaturity. There are a thousand good reasons to wait.”
“I’m ready,” Connor boasted.
“Me, too,” Psycho said.
“Really?” She pointed the slips of paper at them. “Then why haven’t any of you asked about birth control? Or maybe you want to be teenage fathers.”
That got their attention.
She began doling out the basics of birth control and STDs, along with bringing up some of the finer points the girls had mentioned including hot tubs, oral sex, and—without looking at Ian—anal sex.
Imani’s Anthony leaned forward as she talked, his arms braced on his thighs. Ava’s Connor slouched into the couch cushions looking sulky. Psycho seemed like he wanted to take notes, and Noah started chewing his nails.
She made another pitch for waiting to have sex, then went back to the basics. “If you ever tell a girl you don’t want to use a condom because it doesn’t feel good or tell her that she doesn’t really love you if she makes you use one . . . If you do any of that it means you’re a total asshole who only cares about himself.”
With a cocky smirk, Connor splayed his arm across the back of the couch. She was developing a hearty dislike for Ava’s good-looking boyfriend.
“There’s something else none of you have asked me about,” she said. “It’s called consent.”
She started to say more and then had a better idea. She turned to Ian. “Ian, maybe you could talk about this. From a man’s perspective.”
Instead of backing away, he came over and sat next to her. “That’s easy.” He shot them straight in the eyes. “‘No’ means ‘no.’ ‘Maybe’ also means ‘no.’ Let’s say a girl is drunk . . . You back off. Because if she’s drunk and you keep at it and she wakes up with regrets, you’re going to feel like a real shit, and you also may end up in jail.” Tess resisted the urge to applaud, but Ian wasn’t done. “Some guys tell themselves a girl is playing hard to get, and that means they can get rough. That’s called rape. Women aren’t afraid to speak up, and here’s the thing. . . . Walking away from a situation will make you more of a man than trying to fuck every woman you see.”
Blunt and perfect.
She rose from the couch. “Would you all please talk to your parents? I know it’s embarrassing, but try waiting until you’re driving with them in the car. That way you won’t have to look at them.”
Only Psycho seemed to be considering the possibility.
As the boys unfolded from the couch, she glanced at Noah, still chewing fingernails already bitten to the quick. He alone hadn’t spoken. “One more thing. We’ve only talked about girls tonight, but this can be a confusing time for teenagers. Maybe some of you or some of the guys you’re friends with— Maybe they already know they like boys better than girls.”
They hooted at that, the loudest hoot coming from Noah. Without making eye contact, she said, “Being gay or being trans isn’t nearly as big a deal as it used to be, but it’s still really hard for teens trying to figure everything out. If anybody wants to talk to me about it, I’m not that hard to find.”
Ian poked her hard in the ribs and then shocked her by saying, “Me, either. I don’t have much patience with intolerance. It makes life too small.”
After she’d closed the door behind them, she sank down on the piano stool. “All I ever wanted to do—or used to want to do—was deliver babies. Not keep them from getting born.”
He picked up the slips of paper with the boys’ questions and began thumbing through them. “You know there’s going to be hell to pay for this, right?”
“I know.”
He held up one of the paper slips and cocked his head at her. “Point of information. How many times can you jerk off without being a pervert?”
She laughed then rose from the piano stool as the baby monitor picked up Wren stirring. “I need to feed her.”
“You do that.”
* * *
The next morning, she put Wren in the sling and walked down to the cabin. After everything Ian had done, he deserved to have his privacy back, and she needed to get the cabin ready so she and Wren could move in.
The place was empty, the curtains still drawn. It was also warm. Too warm. She should send Kelly a note telling her to turn off the heat when she left.
Maybe she was making a mistake by letting this situation with Kelly go on, but right now, home invasion was the least of her problems. She was a lot more worried about her complicated relationship with Ian and her fears that the Dennings would still refuse to let Wren go. She gazed around the dim, depressing interior. No sparkling white beadboard walls and cornflower-blue paint, no shiny dark wooden floors and brimming bookshelves. Somehow she had to turn this into a real home.
She carried Wren upstairs to park her in the middle of the bed, away from the cleaning fumes, while Tess gave the bathroom a fresh scrub. But as she entered the bedroom, she froze. The bedspread was rumpled, one pillow dented, the other on the floor.
Goldilocks had been here, too.
“Damn it!” Tess stomped into the room. It was bad enough having Kelly sleeping on her couch. This was too much.
A board creaked behind her. She whirled around to see Kelly trying to sneak downstairs. “You could at least have made the bed!”
“I was . . . I was checking the property. The . . . roof used to leak.” Kelly hurried down the stairs.
“Stop right there!”
Tess rushed after her, but Kelly kept moving. “This . . . this cabin has had problems over the years. It was built before World War II, so it’s quite old.” She hurried toward the front door, her rumpled silk blouse hanging loose from one side of her slacks. “The second floor was unfinished until—”
“I know you’ve been sneaking in here.” Tess closed the distance between them.
Kelly faltered. “I haven’t—”
“I’ve seen you. A week and a half ago. You were asleep on the couch.”
Kelly had nearly reached the door. “I— Well, then . . . I apologize.”
“I don’t want an apology. I want to know why you keep showing up.” She pushed in front of Kelly and saw what her intruder didn’t want her to see. That she’d been crying. Her hair was flattened against the side of her head, her makeup had worn off, and her eyes were red-rimmed.
Kelly looked away. “This was my grandmother’s place. I—I have happy memories of the time I spent here growing up. When I get stressed . . .” She curled her hands into fists at her sides. “It won’t happen again.”
Tess wrapped her arms protectively around Wren and thought of Ava and her worrisome boyfriend, Connor. Was that what had Kelly so worried, or could it be the pressure of being the wife of the town’s most important citizen?
Kelly ducked around her. “I have to go.”
“Wait. My shoulders are killing me. Hold Wren.” Tess took her baby from the sling and placed her in Kelly’s arms. Tess’s shoulders were fine, but something about the woman’s vulnerability tugged at her.
Only the most callous could resist a newborn, and Kelly wasn’t callous. Her arms instinctively closed around Wren, who didn’t look happy with the transfer. Tess told herself this woman’s pain wasn’t her business—a woman she didn’t even like—but butting into other people’s lives seemed to be her obsession these days. Besides, it was easier to be clearheaded about other people’s troubles than about her own. “I’ll make some coffee. Or tea. Tea is supposed to make everything better. And I need some advice.”
Kelly moved away from the door. “You want advice from me?”
Kelly would eventually hear about the boys’ visit last night, so why not broach it now? Maybe it would mediate the fallout. She lifted the teapot from the stove and gestured toward the kitchen table. “You know the town a lot better than I do, and I seem to have stepped into it again.”
“How?”
“Four teenagers showed up at the schoolhouse last night. Boys this time.” The teakettle had a dusty film, and Tess rinsed it off at the sink. “And before you say anything—I told them to talk to their parents.” One of the kitchen chairs squeaked on the floorboards as Kelly sat at the table. “They weren’t having it.”
“Who were they?”
“Local boys. Nice kids. Or at least three of them seemed that way.” If she called out Connor by name, she’d be breaking the teens’ trust. She set the teakettle on the stove and turned to the table.
Kelly held Wren to her shoulder. Tess couldn’t see from here if Wren’s eyes were open, but the baby didn’t appear to be squirming. “If you’d been me,” Tess said, “and you suspected at least one of the boys might be ready to have unprotected sex, what would you have done?”
Kelly’s expression hardened. “I would have told them to stop. Teens shouldn’t be having sex.”
“I doubt that would have been effective.” Tess couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice, but Kelly was too wrapped up in her own misery to notice.
“They have no concept of how sex can ruin their lives.” Kelly blinked, fighting tears. “They’re too young. They think love will last forever. They don’t understand the consequences. They think they know everything, but they know nothing.” She lost her battle, and Tess watched the woman whom she’d disliked so thoroughly fall apart. “You have to make them understand how hard life can be. They think they’re in love, but they have no concept of what love is. They don’t see what a trap sex can be. How it can destroy their lives. You have to . . . They have to stop before that happens. You have to tell them.”
Wren began to cry. Tess picked her up and tucked her back in the sling. Kelly buried her face in her hands, and Tess put it all together. “That’s what happened to you.”
“The town scandal,” Kelly said bitterly.
“You were trapped.”
“People still haven’t forgotten. After all this time. All my charity work. The women’s alliance. The school board. All of it.”
“And yet you wouldn’t give Ava back for anything.”
Kelly swiped at her running nose with the back of her hand. “She’s the most important thing in my life.”
Tess handed her a tissue. Now she understood Kelly’s strident support of abstinence sex education. She’d been a pregnant teenager. Tess did the math in her head. Ava was only fifteen, so Kelly was only a few years younger than Tess, although she looked older.
Kelly stared across the room. “I was the most popular girl in high school. I wasn’t one of those mean girls, either. I was nice to everybody. I was happy. And then I wasn’t.” The mass of diamonds on her wedding band caught the light as she blew her nose. “I was home with a baby while Brad went to college. I don’t want that life for my daughter. I want her to get an education and find a career so she learns how to be her own person.”
“You want her to have the chances you didn’t get.”
Kelly’s eyes clouded, as if she were far away. “I’m disappearing. Every day, I get smaller.”
This wasn’t what Tess had expected, but then she’d heard more than her share of strange confidences over the years.
Kelly twisted her wedding band. “Getting smaller and smaller until I’m afraid I’ll wake up some morning, and I’ll be so small that Brad won’t even know I’m there.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth and shot up from the table. “I have to go.”
Despite the grief this woman had caused, Tess pitied her. “You can talk to me if you’d like. I’m the town pariah, remember? Your secrets are safe.”
The teakettle whistled, and Kelly slumped back into her chair, as if she didn’t have the energy to do anything else. “I don’t have any secrets. Forget what I said. I’m being stupid.”
“You don’t sound stupid.” Tess turned off the kettle and posed the question she’d been trained to ask. “Do you feel safe at home?”
“What do you mean?”
“Has your husband ever hurt you?”
Kelly’s red-rimmed eyes widened. “Are you asking if Brad abuses me? God, no.” She bit out the words. “Brad is perfect. I’m the one with the problem.”
Tess dropped the tea bags in the mugs. “I doubt he’s perfect. Not if you’re afraid he’ll squash you.”
“I’m not afraid. I told you. I’m being stupid.” She fell silent.
Tess brought the tea to the table one cup at a time, not pressing her.
Kelly gazed around the cabin. “Sometimes I imagine living here. There used to be an iron patio set in the back, a little table and two chairs. My grandmother and I had tea parties. She . . . She made me feel like the most important person in the world.” Her eyes lost their focus, as if she’d drifted far away. “I imagine Ava coming to visit me here. And Brad . . . Brad standing outside the window. Not able to get in.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “I—I can’t believe I said that. I must be insane.”
“Not insane. Just unhappy.”
“I have no reason to be unhappy. I have everything I could ever want. Everything!” She crushed the damp tissue in her hand. “It’s only that . . . He’s so big. Everything about him. His voice. His appetite. His ambition. He sucks all the oxygen out of the house until I can’t breathe!” Her eyes widened with alarm. “I don’t know what I’m saying. He’s a good husband. A good father. He gives me anything I want. He loves me.”
Tess settled at the table, saying nothing.
Kelly curled her hands around the warm mug. “It’s . . . exhausting.”
“Have you thought about talking with someone?” Tess said gently.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re dealing with a lot. A counselor might help.”
“I don’t need a therapist! God, no. Brad would be so hurt.”
Tess cocked her head, speaking softly. “Then how are you going to fix this?”
“I don’t need to fix anything! I’m fine. In a mood, that’s all.” She pushed the mug aside and rose. “I’m sorry you had to listen to this.”
“It can help having someone to talk to.” Tess hesitated, then gave in to her do-gooder instincts and found a scratch pad from the clinic where she’d worked. She wrote her name and cell number. “I can’t always get a signal, so I don’t know how useful this is.” She held out the paper. “If you need to talk . . .”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Kelly said, even as she stuck the note in her purse.
Tess didn’t want to say it, but she had to. “You’re welcome to use the cabin whenever you need to get away.”
“Really? You’d let me do that?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you.” Kelly fiddled with the clasp on her purse. “If anybody found out what I’ve said . . . I’d appreciate it if you kept this conversation to yourself.”
“Tell that to Wren. She’s the blabbermouth.”
Kelly managed her first smile. “Thanks.”
* * *
Kelly had just left by the front door when the back door opened and Ian came in. So strong and steady. So decent. Beneath that hard-bitten exterior, the most honorable man she’d ever known. He gestured toward the front windows. “Is it my imagination or did I see Kelly Winchester heading down the trail toward town?”
“Not your imagination. She’s my new bestie.”
“How did that happen?”
“The magic of my personality.”
“Why do I think there’s more to the story?”
“Because you’re more perceptive than you like to let on. What are you doing down here?”
“Checking up on you. The next time you decide to disappear, leave a note.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re hauling around a six-week-old baby!”
She was glad he didn’t know about the nasty messages on her car.
As he wandered toward the fireplace and bent over to look up the flue, she curled her toes in her sneakers. She had something she needed to get out of the way before she let another hour pass. “Wren’s asleep,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs and get this marriage thing off the ground.”