the forsythia. “It’s hard being back, isn’t it?”
He laughed under his breath. “It’s all I wanted for months, to escape the snow and the outdoors and quiet—things I now miss in some ways.” He put his hand over hers. “But don’t think I’d rather be there than here. You know that, right?”
“Right,” she said softly.
“We’ll work things out,” he said as if he’d been thinking about the same things she’d been thinking about.
“I hope we can,” she said.
There was a moment of silence as they both folded their hands in their own laps and stared into the night. “You’ve really kept the yard up nice,” he finally said.
“You can see it in the dark?” she teased.
“Almost. It seems to glow. But really, I noticed it earlier today. I’ve never seen anything like it. How did you manage it all by yourself?
“I didn’t,” she admitted. “Do you remember Billy Summers?”
“The kid who does odd jobs at the airfield? What about him?”
“After you...didn’t come home...he showed up on the doorstep. I hadn’t seen him since he graduated from high school and that has to be at least three years ago now. He’d heard about your plane disappearing and he wanted to know if he could help me. I refused at first, but he kept coming back and offering. I started giving him odd jobs. He proved to be very reliable, especially when it came to the yard.”
“I would never have guessed that of Billy Summers.”
“I know. He was a surprise. I told him about how I always bought flowers for the veterans’ graves on Memorial Day and he offered to plant some if I would tell him how. He brought me some little index cards and I wrote the directions down for him in simple words. I saw him checking the instructions all the time, but I don’t really think they were necessary. He seems to have a way with plants. Anyway, we owe the flowers to Billy.”
“And we’ll be able to skip the last-minute dash to the big-box store to order flowers for Memorial Day,” Alex said.
She nodded and bit her lip. She’d been about to tell Alex that all last week she’d planned to honor his memory and years of service, as well. He didn’t need to hear that. “Alex, I have something to tell you,” she said.
“Your tone of voice worries me.”
“It’s nothing bad. It’s about that ‘virus’ I was fighting in February.” She took another deep breath. “Do you remember that big fight we had in January?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I do. I can’t remember what it was about, though.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, but she could have enlightened him. He’d been working extra shifts, coming home late and grumpy. Talk about water under the bridge. “What’s important is how we made up the next day,” she added.
She could feel him staring at her. Was he remembering that night? They’d made love with a vengeance, downstairs in front of a blazing fire and slept there all night. “I’ve been trying to tell you this since you got home,” she said. “I was wrong about the cause of my nausea. Brace yourself. I’m about four months pregnant.”
She could see the whites of his eyes widen. “Say that again,” he whispered.
“We’re going to have a baby,” she said, wishing she had waited until morning to tell him so she could see the expression on his face.
“I can’t believe this,” he said, springing to his feet. “Four months? Are you okay, shouldn’t you be lying down or something?”
“No. The doctor said if it’s going to stick, it’s going to stick.”
“You shouldn’t be working every day, should you?” he asked, and she could hear the panic in his voice. She understood how he felt, how amazing this must seem to him. It was the same to her, the difference being that she’d had months to get used to the idea, she’d spoken to the doctor, she knew what was going on.
“Summer vacation is coming and then the baby is due in October and with you home, I won’t go back to work right away. Really, Alex, everything is fine. What I wanted to explain is that I found out about it a week or two after you disappeared. And that’s why I got on Facebook. See—”
He interrupted her by pulling her to her feet and crushing her in his arms. “This is absolutely wonderful! I can hardly believe it. I promise you I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. I love you.”
She closed her eyes and held on to him. In a way, it was like he’d finally come home.
* * *
AFTER LAYING AWAKE for what seemed like hours, Alex got up quietly the next morning. He’d been rising with the sun and it felt unnatural to lie there when he could see daylight filtering through the curtains.
Besides, there was a lot on his mind.
Mentally he made a list. Call Nate. Make sure he still had a job on the Blunt Falls police force. Get checked out by the doctor.
He looked down at Jessica’s slumbering face and added the most important thing of all: win back his wife before his baby was born.
She was so beautiful with her hair spilling over her pillow like a billowing russet-colored cloud, her lashes sweeping her cheeks, her peachy lips soft and yielding. No wonder she glowed. She was having a baby, his baby, after eight years of trying. He knew what it meant to her, he knew what it meant to him. And the urge to protect her at all costs surged through his body.
He had to pull himself together. Just as he’d planned for and worked toward walking out of the mountains every single day of his exile, he now had to put that behind him and work at moving forward in his marriage, in his job, in his life. What’s done was done. He couldn’t erase the past, but he could learn from it.
His reflection in the mirror wasn’t particularly inspiring. The healed gashes across his cheek and forehead caused by the Cessna’s broken windshield hadn’t healed perfectly. But inside he knew he was stronger and more focused than he’d ever been and it was time to put all that energy to work.
The first thing he did was call Nate in Arizona. Again. The phone switched immediately to message and he wasn’t sure if there was any point in leaving one. Nate had a habit of disappearing into the wild with his horse and a dog or two for days on end, fishing and camping, no phone, no interruptions.
On the other hand, Alex knew his best friend would appreciate knowing he was back from the dead, so he left a message. Then he went downstairs to start a pot of coffee for Jessica, something he’d dreamed about doing over and over again, only this time it was for real. He found the bag of coffee beans where they’d always been, but they were labeled as decaf, he supposed in deference to her pregnancy. Still, the freshly ground beans smelled like heaven on earth and even the familiar perking sounds were like music. He didn’t like to drink the stuff, but he used to make her a cup and carry it upstairs to her bed every morning when they were first married. He wasn’t sure when that had stopped.
For himself, he dared hope he might find one of his favorite
