And after that, she and Derek spent every spare moment together. That New Year’s Eve, when he’d said he loved her, she’d believed him and declared her love right back. He promised there would never be anyone but her. Amy wanted him so much and he wanted her and, well, it was young love.
She couldn’t wait to have it all—all the kisses, the caresses, the soft, secret sighs. Making love was bound to happen.
And it did. In the early spring.
It was scary, that first time. Scary and a little awkward. But, oh so beautiful.
Already set to go to the University of Colorado on a full scholarship in the fall, Amy turned eighteen in May. In early June, she and Derek both graduated from Rust Creek Falls High.
“Remember graduation?” she asked, lost in the past now.
He made a low noise in the affirmative. “I remember your speech as valedictorian. ‘We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to do the best that we can every day, as we go forward into a future full of promise and the challenge of—’”
“Please.” She cut him off with a groan. “No more. There is no way I was ever that young.”
“Yeah, you were.” He reached up, brushed a rough-tender finger along her cheek, leaving a sweet trail of lingering sensation in his wake. “So was I. We were that young. And you were all set, with a big future ahead of you. I never wanted to hold you back.”
“I know that.”
“We were too young.”
She bit her lip, knowing he was right. She’d wanted to go to CU, wanted a good job that challenged her, and she’d doubted she would find that job in their tiny Montana town. At the same time, she hadn’t known how she would live without the boy she loved.
He said, “Think about it this way. It all ended up according to plan.”
“Right. Just with that big, painful detour stuck in the middle of it.”
Because by the end of June, her period was late. She’d waited a week and it didn’t come. She went to Derek. He drove her to Kalispell to buy a test and they rented a cheap room where she took that test.
She shivered a little and wrapped her sweater closer around her. “I was so scared when the test came out positive. And you took a knee right there in that motel room.”
“I wanted to marry you, Amy. I really did.”
She stared down at him, saw the moon reflected in his eyes. “I know. And I loved you. So much.”
“It was the Fourth of July. There were fireworks going off all night long, remember?”
Oh, yes, she did. “I remember.”
The next day, the fifth of July, they went to the courthouse and said I do, just the two of them, two scared kids with a baby on the way.
And for their honeymoon, they returned to the cheap room with its lumpy bed. At night, she could hear the trucks whizzing by on the highway.
“You were sorry, though, weren’t you?” he asked. “Sorry from the first.”
“It was only that I—”
“Don’t lie,” he said gently. “Let’s just tell each other the truth now, okay, and be done with it?”
“Yeah. All right.” She admitted, “I, well, I had serious second thoughts.”
“I knew it.” At least he didn’t sound angry.
But why should he? It was so long ago. And this wasn’t any big confession. This was making peace. With the past.
With each other.
This was putting it behind them, once and for all.
She said, “I just had trouble coping, you know? With my whole life turned around and a baby on the way.” She really had loved him. But it had all just seemed so overwhelming.
The next day and the day after that, he drove back to the Circle D to work. She stayed in Kalispell. She had a cell phone, though reception in the area was hit and miss back then. Her parents kept calling her. She let the calls go to voice mail for three days and then she finally answered and told them she had married Derek. Her dad demanded to know where she was. She hung up on him.
“And then, the night of the fourth day,” she said in a raggedy whisper, “my period came.”
Had she lost the baby? Or had she never been pregnant in the first place? Who knew?
“That hurt,” he said. “I mean, the baby had turned everything upside down. But suddenly, there was no baby and somehow, that was even worse.”
She agreed with a slow nod.
The next day—the fifth and final day—to cheer her up, he’d taken her to visit the Armstrongs while he went to work at the ranch.
Nobody knew that she’d married him—except the two of them and her parents. She’d made him promise not to tell his family until she was ready. When his mom and dad asked questions about where he got off to every night, he just said he was fine and for them not to worry. His parents had let it go at that. After all, he was nineteen, old enough to stay out all night if he wanted to. And besides, their ill-fated elopement didn’t last long. Before Rita and Charles Dalton got around to insisting that Derek tell them what was going on, it was over.
That day, the fifth day, when he dropped her off at the Armstrongs’, she had longed to confide in her friends—maybe not Eva, who was only thirteen at the time. But Delphine and Calla, definitely. They were like sisters to her.
She just couldn’t do it, though, couldn’t tell them what she was going through. They knew she was really upset about something and they hugged her and fussed over her. They told her that, whatever it was, it would be all right, that they would always be there for her, no matter what.
She asked Derek, “Did I tell you that Delphine quizzed me about you that day? She wanted to know if something had gone wrong between the two of us.” Everyone knew she’d been dating Derek, and the Armstrongs had seen him drop her off that morning.
“No, you never told me that. You hardly said a word on the drive back to the motel in Kalispell.”
“I was all turned around inside, so sad about losing the baby, wondering how it was all going to work out.”
“I remember.” His voice was flat. Bleak. And then he asked, “What did you say to her that day—to Delphine?”
“I just shook my head and promised that I was fine and so were you.”
“But she guessed you were lying.”
“Yeah. I’ll bet they all three did.”
“Even Eva? She was so young.”
“But she’s always been sensitive to what other people
