Countdown To Baby (Merlyn County Midwives #2) Read online

  That was certainly the way his elder relatives had behaved. Rumor had it that Gerald and Billy Bingham had fathered kids all across the county without staying around to be responsible for them. She knew of at least four of Billy Bingham’s offspring, her future sister-in-law among them, and Billy hadn’t bothered to marry any of the mothers or to be directly involved in his children’s lives.

  The men in her own family certainly hadn’t set any higher example. Eric’s father hadn’t stayed around to help raise his son. In fact, Reuben had shown no interest in his child at all. He had left before Eric was born and had never made any effort to get back in touch.

  Her own father had loved his child, but had continued to pursue his daredevil sports until he’d gotten himself killed. Only within the last few years had Cecilia acknowledged the grief-stricken anger at him that she had carried since. A resentment she was sure her mother had shared, though they had never spoken of it.

  As for the man Cecilia had married, it had turned out that he didn’t really want children at all, despite what he’d said to the contrary. A child would have interfered with his own immature need to always be the center of attention.

  So maybe Geoff was different from so many of the other men Cecilia had known. He had made it apparent that he wasn’t interested in being married right now, but she thought he’d also made it clear that if and when he had children, he intended to do so the traditional way. It would certainly be expected of him by his family—and hadn’t he told her that he always did what his family expected of him?

  She sighed. Oh, well, it hadn’t hurt to ask. She would never hear from him again, of course, but she hadn’t expected that, anyway. She would spend the rest of the weekend cleaning her house, doing some reading—and giving serious consideration to her plans for motherhood.

  Maybe Geoff had given her an idea, after all. Maybe she could swing a loan, mortgage the house, perhaps, to finance fertility treatments. It was definitely a possibility.

  She wasn’t sure she could ever get up her nerve to make that embarrassing proposition to another man—not that she knew any other reasonable prospects at the moment, anyway.

  Too bad about Geoff, though, she thought with another long, regretful sigh.

  Geoff sat on his sofa with his guitar across his lap and stared down at the strings, wondering why he had suddenly forgotten how to play. He’d been turning to the guitar in times of stress since he was fourteen, taking pleasure in old Beatles tunes that had been written before he was born. Songs his mother had loved.

  Today he couldn’t even remember the tunes. His mind was still filled with the echo of Cecilia’s voice as she had asked him to father her child.

  Despite all the suspicions that had poured through his mind—all the precautions that had been programmed into him almost from birth—he had finally come to the conclusion that she had been completely honest with him. She’d wanted nothing more than what she had asked of him. He simply couldn’t believe anything else of her.

  She wanted a baby. He supposed he could understand that. Most women did seem to want children, and he imagined Cecilia’s biological clock was clamoring pretty loudly at this point. But did she really think he was the kind of man who could walk away from his own kid? A man like—

  Like his uncle Billy.

  Grimacing, he set the guitar aside and stood to pace. How many times during his late teens and early twenties had he secretly wished he could be more like his father’s wild and footloose brother? While Geoff had been bound by smothering rules and regulations, spending his weeknights studying and his weekends working in the family businesses to “build his character,” Uncle Billy had been bouncing from one party to another, one beautiful woman to the next.

  Billy had tried occasionally to draw his nephew into the fun, urging Geoff to rebel occasionally, to slip away and forget about family expectations, at least temporarily. But, as much as he might have been privately tempted, Geoff had been too tightly bound by the sense of obligation that had been impressed upon him from birth.

  He had done everything that was asked of him—and more—without complaint, watching his uncle’s exploits with a vague wistfulness. When Billy died piloting one of his expensive airplanes, the family had sadly pointed out how wise Geoff was not to have been influenced by his uncle’s wild ways. Hadn’t they always predicted that Billy would come to a bad end? While Geoff had taken their lessons to heart, he had grieved for the man who had always been the happy clown among the somber, respectable Binghams.

  While his beloved mother had lived, he’d have cut off his arms before he caused her any disappointment or distress. After her death, he’d felt he owed it to his father and sister to cause them no more worry or grief. He had rebelled in only two relatively minor ways since: the big motorcycle he kept in the condo garage, to the great disapproval of both his father and his grandmother; and his refusal to go along with their efforts at finding him a suitable match.

  He thought again of the longing look in Cecilia’s eyes when she had spoken of the child she wanted so badly. He wished there was something he could do to help her. His awkward offer of financial assistance certainly hadn’t impressed her.

  It wasn’t hard to guess what his uncle would have done. Billy would have happily provided his services in Cecilia’s bed until her objective was accomplished, and then he would have moved on to the next adventure without a backward glance.

  He knew what his father would say about Cecilia’s request. Ron would accuse Geoff of making an error in judgment getting intimately involved with a clinic employee in the first place, even for one night. After another lecture about the expectations of upholding the Bingham name, Ron would remind him about the number of people who would take advantage of him. He would question the motives of a woman of limited financial means who just happened to choose a man with money to sire her child. And he would predict disaster if Geoff were foolish enough to fall for her scheme.

  Was there any way he could combine Billy’s daring and Ron’s caution and still find a way to help out a new friend?

  Cecilia was digging weeds out of the herb garden in her tiny backyard when she heard someone call her name. She swiped the back of one dirty hand across her perspiration-beaded forehead and twisted to look over her shoulder.

  “Oh, hi, Brandy,” she said to the teenager standing on the other side of the low wooden fence that separated Cecilia’s yard from the one next door. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay. Can I come over?”

  “Sure.” Cecilia rose, grimacing when her leg and back muscles protested being in a kneeling position for too long. Apparently she had needed a break anyway. “Want some lemonade?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’ll get us some. We can drink it out here.”

  Brandy was waiting for her when she came back outside carrying a tray that held two plastic tumblers of lemonade and a plate of oatmeal-raisin cookies. The sixteen-year-old redhead sat in one of the four wrought-iron spring chairs grouped around a small round wrought-iron table. The stone patio on which the furniture was arranged was surrounded by plantings and potted plants and shaded by several large old trees.

  Eric had built that little patio for her a couple of years ago, and they had both enjoyed it since. She often ate outside on pretty days.

  After handing Brandy her lemonade, Cecilia settled into one of the spring chairs, looking around in satisfaction. There were so many things she liked about her little house, and this tidy backyard was one of her favorite features. It had been a wonderful place to play as a child, to daydream and swing during the daytime, and to gaze at the stars at night.

  “Your yard looks good,” Brandy said, her gaze following Cecilia’s.

  “Thank you.” Turning her attention back to her guest, Cecilia suddenly frowned. “What happened to your face?”

  Brandy shrugged, and one strap of her pink tank top fell off her skinny shoulder. Her shaggy red hair tumbled into her face, which was why Cecilia h
adn’t immediately noticed the purple bruise that darkened the girl’s left cheek. The smattering of acne that marked the girl’s skin looked even less attractive in combination with the bruise.

  Brandy’s green-gold eyes shifted, and she appeared to study the plate of cookies very closely before making her selection. “Played a game of catch and didn’t get my glove up fast enough. Caught the ball with my face.”

  “Ouch. That must have hurt.”

  “Nah. No big deal. Who was that guy who was here this morning?”

  Cecilia swallowed. “Um…guy?” she parroted, stalling for a moment.

  “Yeah. I heard a car door and I looked out my window and I saw him drive away in that totally sweet car. It wasn’t your brother, was it? He didn’t get a new car?”

  “No,” Cecilia admitted. “He’s a man I know through my work.”

  It was true enough, and all she intended to say to a curious sixteen-year-old. “I haven’t seen you around much during the past few weeks. Busy summer?”

  “Yeah, kind of. What with my job at South Junction Burgers and my boyfriend and all.”

  Ah, yes. The boyfriend. Cecilia had seen him a time or two with Brandy, and she hadn’t been particularly impressed by the swaggering, wannabe tough guy. From a few brief conversations, she knew Brandy’s grandmother worried about the intensity of the relationship, but Maxine Campbell was still being rather hesitant in setting boundaries for the girl.

  Another example of a child whose father hadn’t bothered to hang around, Brandy had moved in with her grandparents a year ago when her mother’s substance abuse had become a problem that could no longer be ignored. Cecilia had befriended the girl then, and she genuinely liked Brandy, but she knew there had been some adolescent problems in the Campbell household.

  “I haven’t seen your friend Lizzie all summer,” she commented, thinking of the chubby, giggly blonde who had been Brandy’s shadow for months. “Is she out of town?”

  Brandy shrugged again. “Nah. She’s kind of pi—er, mad at me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “She’s all, like, jealous or something because I’ve been too busy to spend much time with her lately. Jeez, I don’t know how she thinks I got enough hours to work almost every evening and spend time with Marlin and hang out with her, too. I told her maybe we could go shop or something when Marlin plays basketball at the Y on Monday nights, but she’s all, like, that’s not enough. Just as well, I guess. Marlin don’t really like her, anyway. He says she’s too all about herself—and obviously he’s right.”

  Although Cecilia knew how intense teenage romances could be, it still concerned her that Brandy seemed to be obsessed with Marlin to the point of dropping her friends. She would hate to see the girl make the same mistake she had—rushing into an ill-fated teenage marriage, ending up a disillusioned young divorcée.

  “You know, boyfriends come and go while you’re young, but your friendships can last a lifetime,” she said, almost cringing at the triteness of the remark. “Maybe you should…”

  “Now you sound like Grandma,” Brandy cut in irritably. “She’s always trying to tell me I spend too much time with Marlin. Well, I don’t care. Me and Marlin are going to get married as soon as I graduate. There won’t be any more boyfriends for me.”

  “Oh, Brandy, I’m sure you think that now, but you’re still too young to know what will happen in the next two or three years. Don’t try to grow up too fast.”

  “I’m old enough to know what I want,” Brandy insisted, sounding as though this was a familiar, and increasingly frustrating, argument for her. “No offense, Cecilia, but I don’t want to end up like you, living alone and working all the time. It’s okay for you, but I want a man and a family of my own. And I’m not going to let anyone come between me and Marlin, because he’s the only one who really understands me.”

  Flinching at the words that cut much too close to her own vulnerabilities, Cecilia tried to concentrate on the danger signs hidden in Brandy’s words. Something was worrying her about Brandy, and even though the girl was openly defiant of anyone who tried to give her advice, Cecilia couldn’t help feeling as if she needed to say more.

  But before she could think of the words, Brandy looked beyond her. “Looks like your boyfriend’s back,” she murmured.

  It took Cecilia a moment to figure out what the girl had just said. And then, with her heart in her throat, she looked quickly around to find Geoff Bingham standing on the stone pathway that led around the side of the house, gazing at her over the chain-link fence.

  Chapter Five

  “Hi,” Geoff said, his eyes locked with Cecilia’s, his expression hard for her to interpret.

  Hoping he hadn’t overheard Brandy’s comments, Cecilia set her lemonade glass on the table. “Um…hi, yourself.”

  “I thought I heard voices back here. Is this a bad time?”

  “No. I was just having a visit with my neighbor. Brandy Campbell, this is my, er, friend, Geoff Bingham.”

  “Nice to meet you, Brandy.”

  Brandy jumped to her feet, automatically hitching at the low-riding denim shorts that hung precariously on her bony hips. “I gotta go, anyway. Marlin will be here pretty soon. We’re going to the arcade so I can watch him play video games.”

  Which didn’t sound particularly entertaining to Cecilia, but she was too busy wondering why Geoff had come back to spend much time contemplating Brandy’s choice of entertainment. “Um, yeah. See you later.”

  “’Kay.” Brandy checked Geoff out quite thoroughly as she sauntered past him. “’Bye.”

  “’Bye, yourself.” He watched her head for the house next door, then turned back to Cecilia. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

  All too aware of her yard-work dishevelment, Cecilia resisted an urge to reach up and smooth her unraveling braid. “No. I was just taking a break from weeding. Would you like some lemonade?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  Standing and picking up her tray, she nodded toward the back door. “Let’s go inside.”

  Whatever he had come to say, she thought it best not to discuss it out here, where there was the possibility of being overheard. He moved to open the door for her, and it was impossible for her to walk past him without her shoulder brushing him. Even that brief, rather impersonal contact made her pulse rate increase.

  So much for convincing herself that she had already put last night behind her.

  Setting the tray on the counter, she heard Geoff close the back door. She wasn’t able to look at him just yet, so she busied herself by opening a cabinet and reaching for a glass.

  Geoff rested a hand on her arm. “Cecilia?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t really want any lemonade.”

  “You don’t like lemonade, either?” she asked, referring to his comment about the coffee the night before.

  “I like lemonade. I just don’t want any right now.”

  She closed the cabinet and turned to face him, his hand still resting on her arm. “I didn’t expect you to come back today.”

  “I didn’t expect to be back,” he admitted.

  “So why…?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  She felt her cheeks warm. “If you’ve come to discuss the proposition I made to you earlier, it isn’t necessary. I told you to forget about it.”

  “Have you forgotten about it?”

  “If you mean, have I realized that I made a mistake discussing it with you, the answer is yes. It was an impulse that I should have stopped to think about before blurting it out to you. If I had, I would have realized what a crazy idea it was.”

  “So you aren’t going to try to…well, to conceive, after all?”

  She lifted her chin. “I didn’t say that. If I’m ever going to have a child, I’ll have to do something about it very soon.”

  “With someone else.”

  Her cheeks burned hotter. “Despite my indiscretion this morning, my re
productive choices are personal. I would rather not discuss them with you any further.”

  He eyed her moodily. “Do you have someone else in mind?”

  “Geoff!”

  “Well, do you?”

  Jerking her arm away from his grasp, she whirled to pace. “No. But I’m not giving up on my dream. If it means mortgaging my house for treatments or hanging out at singles bars or whatever I have to do, I will have a child. I can’t accept that I won’t ever be a mother.”

  She wasn’t sure what, exactly, she had said to bring a scowl to his face and an edge to his voice. “It sounds as if you’ve made up your mind.”

  “I have.”

  He nodded. “Then so have I.”

  She studied him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve decided to help you.”

  There was something decidedly surreal about calmly discussing the making of a child as if it were just another business transaction, Cecilia thought a very short while later. She and Geoff had moved to the living room to continue their conversation. As she had led him in, she had tried to hide the fact that her knees had gone suddenly weak when he had announced so abruptly and unexpectedly that he had decided to help her conceive a child. Now she wondered if he had referred to his earlier offer to help her financially with the process of artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization, rather than a more, um, active role in the conception.

  “When you said you’ve decided to help me, what exactly did you mean?” she asked, deciding that the best way to clear up the confusion was simply to ask.

  Geoff had settled onto the end of her couch closest to the chair she had chosen for herself. Clean shaven and casually dressed in a green polo shirt and pressed khakis, he looked relaxed enough sitting there facing her, but she could see the faint lines of strain around the corners of his mouth, indicating he wasn’t quite as casual about all this as he seemed.

  He leaned slightly toward her as he spoke. “I’ve done a lot of thinking about what you said this morning. You said you aren’t sure you want to marry at this stage in your life—and I understand that completely. As I told you, I’ve been under a lot of pressure to get married, and it doesn’t interest me now, either. I just don’t want to make myself answerable to another adult when it already seems like I spend my whole life trying to please too many people.”