At once, the whole sprawling room was a beehive of frantic activity.

“Oh, my sweet Lord!” a woman cried.

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“It’s Madeline. She’s fainted.”

“What?”

“Step back everyone, give her air.”

“Bob, follow me. To her room. This way.”

Andie watched, clutching the arms of her chair, as Madeline was carried away.

“What in the world happened?” A painfully slim woman with rather wild-looking, curly gray hair asked Andie.

Clay was the one who answered. “We don’t know.”

“But what did she say? What were you talking about?” The woman tipped her head to the side, a birdlike movement, curious and alert.

“Nothing, just small talk,” Clay insisted.

The woman, however, wasn’t taking Clay’s word for it. Her little brown eyes were on Andie. Andie struggled to give her some kind of response. “Clay’s right. We don’t know what happened. She, um, asked me when the baby was due and then…”

The woman finally saw that Andie was almost as distressed as poor Madeline. “There, there, dear.” Her voice had become soothing. “Don’t you go getting all upset. I’m sure she’ll be fine. It’s just the stress, you know. She loved Jeffrey so.”

“I’m sure it must be awful for her,” Andie heard herself murmur.

“But she’ll survive. Madeline is very strong. Very strong, indeed.”

“Yes, I’m sure she is,” Andie agreed.

There was a moment of awkward silence, then the woman launched into the amenities. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t even tell you who I am. My name is Suzanne. Suzanne Corey. Jeffrey’s mother was my cousin.” She held out a thin, veiny hand.

Andie took the hand and murmured her own name. “And this is my husband, Clay.”

Suzanne nodded at Clay. “You were Jeffrey’s friend, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s so hard to believe,” she said in sad little whisper.

“Yes,” Andie agreed.

“He was so young, so vital. And now he’s gone. All the Kirklands, gone now.”

“Yes,” Andie said again, not knowing quite what else to say.

“But Jeffrey was always a little wild. Too much of a risk taker.” Suzanne glanced at Clay. “Do you know what I mean?” She went on before Clay could say anything. “He had it all. He was bright and handsome and there was always plenty of money. And everyone loved him. How could we not? He was so very full of life, brimming with it. Always. I’m sure you remember.”

“Yes.” Clay’s voice sounded a little hoarse, Andie thought. “I remember.”

“And then there was Madeline. A wonderful girl. They grew up together, did you know?”

“Yes. I know.”

“But somehow it wasn’t enough. It was just never enough. And it was hard on him, to lose both of his parents so close together, even if he was a grown man. He felt very alone then, I think.” Suzanne shook her head. “Poor dear boy.”

Right then, a tall man put his arm around Suzanne’s narrow waist and bent to whisper something in her ear.

Suzanne nodded, “Yes, I know. All right.” She looked at Clay and Andie. “This is my husband, Lou.”

Andie and Clay nodded and said hello.

Suzanne smiled fondly at her husband. “Lou says I talk too much.” Lou looked down on her indulgently. “And maybe he’s right. Well.” She was suddenly brisk. “We have to be on our way now. I do hope we meet again.”

“Yes, nice to meet you,” Lou said. Then he took Suzanne’s arm and off they went.

As soon as Suzanne and Lou were out of earshot, Clay bent near Andie’s ear and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

Andie was more than ready. But it didn’t seem right, somehow. “No. We should stay. We should see that she’s okay.”

“Do you really think it’s necessary?”

“Yes.”

He let out a long breath. “All right.” In spite of his eagerness to get out of there, she knew he agreed with her. They should stay.

And they did, though each minute seemed like a year. Finally, half an hour later, Madeline returned.

The moment she entered the room, everybody, even the children, grew quiet. Then slowly the conversations began again. Madeline went from guest to guest, touching and hugging, reassuring everyone that she was just fine.

“She’s all right,” Clay said in Andie’s ear.

“Yes.”

“I think we should go.” There was dread in his voice. He knew, of course, that something had happened, that Madeline had come to some awful realization. And he didn’t want to learn what.

Probably because, in his heart, he already knew.

“No.” Andie reached up and patted his hand, which rested on the back of her chair. “Wait. She’ll work her way around to us.”

And slowly she did.

“I’m sorry.” Madeline’s smile was distant and gracious. “It’s a hard time. I hope you understand.”

Andie looked in the other woman’s eyes, saw denial, saw the desperate plea that she say nothing at all of what they both knew had really happened.

“We do. We understand completely,” Clay said.

“Yes.” Andie smiled, a smile as distant as Madeline’s. She saw a little of the tension leave Madeline’s face. “And we really have to be going.”

Madeline simulated regret. “Oh, no. Not so soon.”

“Yes.” Andie levered her heavy body to a standing position. Then she took Madeline’s hand. Madeline allowed that, though Andie felt her flinch. “Take care of yourself. Please,” Andie said.

“Oh, I will.” Madeline’s smile looked as if it could break right off her face and fall, shattering into a thousand sharp pieces, to the tiles below.

Clay came around the chair. Dutifully, Madeline lifted her cheek to be kissed. Clay brushed his lips against her skin.

“Keep in touch now,” Madeline chided. Both Andie and Clay knew what those words were worth: nothing. Madeline was only making the noises people make when they don’t dare say what’s really on their minds.

 

“She knows.” Andie waited to say the truth until after they had returned to their hotel room.

Clay tossed his jacket on a chair and yanked his tie off as it were strangling him. “You can’t be sure of that.”

“I can. I am. And so are you.”

“Look. What’s the point in talking about this? We don’t know what she knows. We’ll probably never know.”

Andie gaped at her husband for a moment, wanting to strangle him. Then she kicked her shoes into the corner of the open closet area and lumbered into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

When she came out wearing her robe, Clay had changed into jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes. He was sprawled in one of the chairs next to the small table by the window, drinking a beer from the beverages that were stored in the half refrigerator beneath the sink of the room’s small courtesy bar.

Andie hung up her dress and decided she could use a drink, too. So she got herself a ginger ale. Then she went to the bed she’d been using and began moving her pillows around.

“You want some help with that?”

Andie turned to look at Clay. “No. I can manage.” She crawled up on the bed and settled in, then treated herself to a little ginger ale. After one long refreshing drink, she set the bottle on the stand between the beds and looked at her husband defiantly. “Madeline knows about the baby, Clay. I saw it in her eyes.”

Clay drank from the beer, draining it. Then he admitted, “Maybe. But what can we do about it if she does? There’s just no point in stewing about it. Let it be.”

“I am not stewing. I just want you to admit that—”

He sighed. “How? How could she know? Nothing at all was said. Except that your maiden name is McCreary and Andie stands for Andrea. How do you figure she knows from that?”

“I saw her face. I know she knows. And so do you.”

Clay got up, lean, unfettered, his body hard and proud. As she had envied Madeline, Andie envied him. She felt so huge and slow just watching him move. One of those strange, contractionlike cramps gripped her. She grabbed one of her pillows, clutched it against herself, to her heart.

Clay didn’t even notice what was happening to her. He was striding to the refrigerator, bending to yank the door open. When he had another bottle in his hand, he straightened with his back to her, shoved the refrigerator door closed with his leg and knocked off the bottle cap with the opener that was built into the side of the counter. By then, the cramp, or whatever it was, had crested and was fading away. Still not facing her, Clay tipped the bottle and drank from it.

Andie stared at his back, wondering if she should tell him what had just happened. But no, it really hadn’t been that bad. Like the other contractions, it was one she had ridden out easily. It was nothing to be too concerned about, she was sure. But if she mentioned it to Clay, he’d make a big deal about it. And he’d use it to end this painful—but important—conversation.

Gently Andie reiterated, “Madeline knows the truth, Clay.”

That did it. He turned around and faced her. His eyes were like cold green stones. “All right, fine. Madeline knows. Isn’t that terrific?”

Andie chose to ignore the sarcasm. “It will take her some time, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing from her.”

Clay made a disgusted sound. “What the hell are you talking about? We’ll never see or hear from Madeline again.”

“You’re wrong.”

He stared at her for a long time. Then he swore and drank some more.

Andie wanted to cry. But she didn’t. She dared to try once more. “We have to talk, Clay. We can’t go on pretending that nothing’s wrong between us.”

His hand shot up, palm out. “Stop. Right there.”

“But we—”

“No.” He turned enough to set his beer down, hard, on the counter, then he glared at her once more. “Listen. You just listen. For a change.”

Andie bit her lip. “All right.”

“You just had to get me to admit that Madeline knows about the baby. All right. I’ve admitted it. But why stop there? You’re so brave and honest, let’s take it all the way. Let’s examine why she knows.”

Andie suddenly found she couldn’t look at him. She was still holding the pillow. She clutched it tighter. “I—”

He cut her off before she even started. “Right. Look away.”

“I’m not, I—”

“Fine. Then face it. She knows because of you, Andie. Because you just had to come here. Because you wouldn’t do as I asked you to do and stay home where you belong right now.”

That hurt. Badly. The pillow Andie hugged brought no comfort against that. Again in her mind, she saw Madeline, pale faced, slowly sinking to the floor. And Madeline later, with her brittle, ghastly smile, reminding them to keep in touch.

Oh, yes. Clay was right. Andie had begged for honesty. And he was giving it to her. It had been a bad call for her to come here. Those awful moments at the reception never had to happen.

Clay wasn’t through. He demanded, “What’s going on, Andie? What the hell are you up to?”

She made herself meet his eyes, willed him to believe. “I just wanted to be with you. I swear. I wanted to be here for you, in case you needed me.”

He grunted. She could see he wasn’t buying. How in the world could she convince him that her motives had been true ones when he simply refused to believe her every time she tried to explain? “I want to get something clear right now.” Clay leaned back against the counter, his hands behind him, gripping the counter rim. “I want to be sure you hear it. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Look. I am angry at you. For coming here. But I want you to know that I can live with that. I’ll get over that. If you’ll just…get off me for a while. Just let it go. You did what you did and that’s that. We have to go on from here. There’s no sense in belaboring all of this. As I keep trying to make you see, there is nothing more to talk about.”

“But there is. There’s—”

“I’m not finished.”

“I…okay.”

“I don’t know what happens with you sometimes. I don’t understand why you do what you do. And it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. It does matter.” She put everything she had into those words.

He only shook his head and looked down at his shoes, waiting for her outburst to end. When she said nothing more he looked up. “Are you through?”

Bleakly, she nodded.

“Okay, then. I don’t like that you came here, but you did come here. It’s done. And as for the rest, well, it’s my problem and I have to handle it.” He rubbed at his eyes, scrubbed his hair back from his forehead. “Jeff is dead. And for some reason, I’m having a little trouble dealing with it. But I will deal with it.”

“But Clay—”

“No. Hear me out.” He waited. She said nothing. He went on. “I want you to know that I believe in your basic integrity, Andie. I swear I do. I know that you’ve been a good wife to me, that you’ll continue being a good wife. We’ll get on with our lives. And everything will work out well enough in the end.”

He appeared to have finished. For a moment, there was quiet.

She asked, her tone carefully controlled, “May I speak now?”

He shrugged.

“Thank you. I think you’re wrong. Very wrong. I don’t believe that everything is just going to work out by itself. I think we have to tell the truth. All the truth. To each other. I think we have to drag it out into the light and look at it and see what it really is.”

“What truth? I know the truth. There’s nothing more to say about it.”

“Yes, there is. And you know there is. I want us to talk, Clay. Really talk. You say that I do things you don’t understand. And I say I’m willing to explain those things to you. But you don’t want to hear. That doesn’t make any sense, Clay. It won’t work. You have to know. I have to tell you. About Jeff and New Year’s Eve. About what happened, why I—”

“No!” He seemed to realize he had shouted the word, and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “There’s no need for that. No need at all.”

“But there is.”

His jaw was set. “I’ve said all I’m going to say on this subject. Drop it. Just let it go.”

She stared at him, thinking about walls, the walls they’d breached for a golden time. The walls that were so high and impenetrable now. Andie felt as if she were clawing at those walls, raking her nails bloody. But they were made of stone, impervious to her feeble efforts to batter them down with her two soft hands.

And she felt so tired. Tired and huge and ponderous. The baby seemed to drain her, to demand everything of her. She didn’t have enough of herself left right now to keep battling Clay like this. And it couldn’t be good for the baby, all this tension and frustration. She had to take care of herself, not allow herself to become so upset.

She met his eyes. “All right, Clay. Have it your way.”

She saw relief on his face—and something else, too. What was it? Disappointment? Despair?

She didn’t know, was just too tired to try anymore to keep fighting and find out.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“No. I just want a nap. A long nap.”

He was suddenly all solicitude, helping her to lie down in the bed, fluffing her pillows. When she was settled, he touched her cheek. “You have to take care of yourself.” He echoed her own thoughts.

“I know.” She sighed, understanding with a stab of regret that his kindness, his attentiveness, were her rewards for not saying what needed to be said. She thought of all those years they’d been enemies. Had she been wiser then than now, to keep him at bay with hostility? Had something inside her always known how dangerous it would be to give her heart to a man like him, a man who refused even to believe that the very special love she bore him was real?

Gently he asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“There’s a gym in the basement. I thought maybe I’d—”

She completed his sentence for him. “Go work off a little tension?”

“Yeah. More or less.”

“Sounds like a great idea. Do some sit-ups for me.” She closed her eyes.

His lips brushed her forehead. “I will.” He left her and moved around the room, changing into shorts, she imagined, getting ready to go. She heard the door close behind him just as another contraction took hold down inside her. But it faded quickly. Not real labor. Surely not.

Minutes later, she was asleep.

 

When Clay returned, they ordered room service and watched a movie. The contractions Andie had been experiencing became more frequent and pronounced as the evening went by. It became impossible to hide them from Clay. He wanted to call the doctor in Meadow Valley.

Andie soothed him. They should wait until tomorrow. If the contractions were still happening in the morning, they would get hold of the doctor somehow, and ask his advice before she got on a plane. But it was very possible that a good night’s rest would make all the difference. And really, she was getting along in the pregnancy. These were probably the normal contractions that a mother often felt in her last month as her body begin readying itself to give birth.

Rather unwillingly, Clay accepted her judgment about it.

They went to bed at dusk, planning to be up before dawn since their flight was an early one.

But in the middle of the night, Andie awoke from a dream where some awful, cackling, witchlike person was pressing on her stomach. She dragged herself to a sitting position and pushed her hair away from her face.

Clay, who had lain down next to her at bedtime, sat up beside her.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, really. I just…I think I want to go to the bathroom, that’s all.” She slid off the far side of the bed and edged her way toward the bathroom.

And then something stunning happened. Her uterus contracted, from the top down. It was the most incredible thing she had ever experienced. She could feel it, moving like a living thing, over her extended belly and down to the depths of her.

“Oh!”

“My God. Andie, what—?”

And then something gave. Inside. She looked down. There was liquid trickling between her legs.

Clay was out of the bed and at her side in seconds. He put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close against his solid strength. “What? Tell me. Please, Andie.”

“I think…”

“What?”

“I think my water just broke.”