Dance Away with Me(55)

Her baby, she thought when Eli finally left. But Wren belonged to someone else.

“Jeff Denning called while you were in the shower.” Ian put down the empty coffeepot in the sink. “They finally reached their son.”

The toast stuck in her throat.

“Bianca neglected to let him know he was going to be a father. Jeff didn’t come right out and say it, but it’s clear her son’s not exactly thrilled, because he gave his parents carte blanche. Told them to handle it however they want.”

“It?”

Ian finally turned to face her. “They’re coming to get Wren next week. In six days.”

Six days. She grabbed Wren and fled the kitchen.

*

Ian wasn’t exactly sure why he’d thought making breakfast would help soften the news. Losing Wren would be hard on Tess, but she’d known this would happen. She’d survived the loss of her husband. She was tough enough to survive this, too. And with Tess and Wren gone, he’d finally be able to pull himself out of this creative muck he was floundering in.

It had started to rain, but he needed to clear his head, and he grabbed his rain jacket. He didn’t like having the forest sounds muffled, so he left the hood down, and by the time he got to the fire tower, the neck of his shirt was as wet as his jeans.

He climbed the slippery steps and ducked inside. Despite the smell of dust and damp, he liked coming here. It was quiet. Isolated. Nothing much had been left behind except an old four-burner stove that no longer worked, a rickety wooden table, and a couple of straight-back chairs. The windows were still intact and cleaner than his first visit, thanks to an old broom he’d used to sweep away the worst of the cobwebs. Today, the clouds hung so low there wasn’t much of a view, but on a sunny day, he could see for miles.

He pulled up one of the chairs and propped his feet on the window ledge. He wanted Tess to pose for him again. Wanted to do another of those fussy, kitschy drawings that had no audacity, no grit, no call to arms—no point at all. He wanted to draw her nude. Every part of her. To capture her sensuality in pen and ink: the way she relished food, slipped her fingers into her hair, stroked the stem of her wineglass. The way she lifted her arms to stretch and tugged on her lower lip with her upper one. He’d watched her raise goose bumps on her own skin simply by stroking the inside of her wrist with the tips of her fingers, yet she seemed oblivious to this part of herself.

Now he needed to decided how far he was willing to go with this compulsion, because one thing was for certain. Capturing the luscious Widow Hartsong naked would only make the mess he was stuck in that much worse.





Chapter Twelve




Ian came back from one of his mystery walks dripping muddy water on the varnished wooden entryway in the same way she imagined generations of schoolkids had once done. He changed into dry clothes and took off in his car without telling her where he was going.

It was harder today for Tess to leave Wren with Heather. Tess wanted to curl up with the baby. Experiment with her little patch of hair and ponder whether her eyes would always be such a dark blue. She wanted to admire the way her cheeks were filling out and watch the play of that minikin mouth. To smell her head and treasure every moment she had left.

She made herself do the right thing—kiss Wren on her tiny cowlick and leave for the Broken Chimney.

*

Whenever she was at work now, she went on high alert, watching everyone who came in, trying to figure out who believed she’d caused Bianca’s death and who was vandalizing her car. The women seemed especially hostile. So much for women sticking together.

Michelle had dark circles under her eyes and more frequent backaches as her pregnancy advanced. “You don’t know what it’s like to have precipitous labor like I had with Savannah,” she told every customer who’d listen. “You can’t imagine how scary it is.”

Tess could imagine because she’d seen it. Precipitous labor occurred when the baby was born less than five hours after the first contraction, with some mothers delivering in less than three. Instead of feeling lucky at having such a short labor, they had no time to adjust to the violence of the contractions. Although their babies were healthy, some women ended up experiencing postpartum depression or even PTSD, while others were able to put it behind them. Michelle didn’t seem to be one of them.

She confronted Tess, who was wiping down the doughnut case. “If I go into precipitous labor when you’re around, promise me right now you won’t lay a hand on me.”

“Michelle, the last thing in the world I want to do is deliver your baby.” The last thing Tess wanted to do was deliver any baby. Even the thought of it made her light-headed. Something that had once given her so much joy and satisfaction was now twisted in the images of her nightmares.

Michelle emptied the knock box in the trash, spilling wet coffee grounds on the floor. “You find somebody to get me to the hospital as fast as they can. Don’t wait for Dave.” In several conversations with Michelle’s husband, Tess had discovered that Dave Phisher’s main goal in life seemed to be staying out of his wife’s and daughter’s tumultuous paths.

“I’ll do that,” Tess said.

Savannah piped up from across the shop, where she was enjoying a hazelnut latte. It was her day off, but she liked to watch them work. “I wouldn’t put it past Tess to try to deliver your baby herself just to show off.”