The Baby Notion. Dixie Browning

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СКАЧАТЬ baby! She was talking right out here in public about having a baby? Jake thought, What am I, invisible or something?

      Faith opened her mouth to speak, but Priss beat her to the draw. “Oh, I know what you’re going to say—it takes nine months, but, Faith, just think—your baby is due in November, and if I hurry, I could have mine by next April. Our babies can grow up together. Wouldn’t that be sweet?”

      “Priss, have you…who—”

      “Nobody, silly, and no, I haven’t, but I’ve been thinking about going down to the sperm bank.”

      With one hand on the doorknob, Jake turned back to stare. The what bank?

      “Pricilla Joan, you wouldn’t!”

      Her name was Jones. Pricilla Jones. Jake decided it went with the accent.

      “What in the world would you go there for?” Faith Harper demanded.

      Which was exactly what Jake was wondering. He knew about New Hope’s sperm bank. The day he’d first heard about it nearly five years ago—heard who had donated it to the town for the good of New Hope’s future generations—he’d gone on a bender that had lasted nearly a week.

      “…all alone in that big old apartment out on Willow Creek,” the blonde was saying. “So I thought, why not? Everybody in town seems to be getting pregnant—mercy, I’ve never seen so many hatching jackets in my life. So I thought, why not me? Why can’t I have a baby, too, if I want one?”

      Faith took Pricilla Jones by the arm with more force than Jake would have credited her with possessing, and led the blonde over to a white wicker settee. “Sit! Now, you listen to me, Prissy. Don’t you dare go and do something stupid just because Eddie ran off and married Grace Hudgins.”

      Priss-Prissy-Pricilla shrugged again. It occurred to Jake, who was becoming almost as fascinated with the woman’s mind as he was with her body, that she could’ve given lessons in body motion to a belly dancer. “Oh, him. I didn’t like him all that much anyway.”

      Jake thought Faith’s expression looked sort of dubious and sympathetic all at the same time, which made him wonder who this Eddie guy was.

      Whoever he was, he was evidently out of the picture now.

      With studied casualness, Jake turned to examine a display of miniature quilts near the door. From there he had a perfect view of the blonde’s profile. Go ahead, you jerk—make the lady’s acquaintance and ask her out!

      She had a high forehead under that heap of streaky blond hair that reminded him so much of the haystack he’d like to lay her down in. Her big brown eyes were set off with a thicket of lashes that looked too dark for a natural blonde, but what the hell? Her nose was a little on the short side, and even from here he could see a few freckles, but it was a real nice nose, and Jake had never even thought much about noses.

      As for the rest of her…

      His gaze followed the hilly route south. He hitched up his jeans, which seemed to have suddenly shrunk a couple of sizes.

      It struck him that he was behaving more like a fifteenyear-old kid high on hormones than a thirty-five-year-old horse broker who ought to know better.

      “I made the mistake of stopping by this morning to pick up some literature, but I forgot that Miss Agnes works there on Thursdays. Honestly, Faith, that woman has a tongue like you wouldn’t believe. She looks so sweet, with her purple hair and her lace-collared dresses, but do you know what she said to me? She told me right to my face that I wasn’t cut out to be a mother.”

      Jake knew breeding stock. With those hips, the lady was cut out, all right, although doing the job with a turkey baster was a crime against nature, if you asked him.

      Which nobody had, he admitted wryly, giving his jeans another twitch.

      “Pnss, you must have misunderstood her. Miss Agnes means well, she just—”

      “I did not! My ears are working just fine. Her exact words were that I’d do better to order me one of those great big fancy dolls from that fancy toy store because then, when I got tired of it, I could just give it away. Have you ever?”

      Faith glanced his way again, and Jake, his face reddening under a perennial weathered tan, pretended an intense interest in a handkerchief-size quilt covered in calico butterflies. He couldn’t have left now if the store was on fire.

      Barely missing a beat, the two women picked up where they’d left off. “Oh, Priss, you know Miss Agnes. Her bark’s a lot worse than her bite.”

      “It is not, either. Anyhow, I told her right flat-out that it was my money and my decision, and what’s more, it’s my birthday, and if I decide to have myself a baby, no busybody, who only works at the sperm bank so she’ll have a basketful of gossip to spread all over town, is going to keep me from it.”

      “Priss, you didn’t!”

      “Well, I didn’t actually tell her that last part, but I wanted to.”

      “I have to admit, Miss Agnes is right about one thing,” said Faith softly. “Having a child without a husband is no laughing matter. I should know.”

      Suddenly some of the fun seemed to go out of the chase. Jake had a few memories of his own along those lines. The day he’d heard about that damned sperm bank, he’d decided that Tex Baker, the rich son-of-a-bitch who’d founded it, had to be the world’s biggest hypocrite.

      “Oh, I know that,” said Priss, and the accent that had irritated Jake before didn’t seem quite so irritating. “Look, I know you probably didn’t go to the sperm bank, Faith—at least, that’s what everybody’s saying.”

      Faith made a strangled sound in her throat. Honey, you’ve got all the tact of a cactus, Jake thought, amused, while Priss blundered on. “But if you ever want to tell somebody who the father is, you know I won’t tell a soul, because I never gossip.” Jake rolled his eyes. “And if you need some help in the shop when your time comes, you know you can count on me.”

      “Thanks. I’ll remember that. Beth’ll be in school then, so I probably could use some help.”

      Guilt was eating on him. He hadn’t come in here to eavesdrop on a private conversation. A simple pick-up, that was all he’d had in mind. He ought to get the hell out of here, only his boots didn’t seem to want to move in the direction of the door.

      “And, Prissy—don’t take this the wrong way—but Miss Agnes is right. Taking a course in landscaping is one thing—I think you’re real smart to do it—but having a baby is something else again.”

      “Oh, for mercy’s sake, Faith, I thought you, at least, would understand.”

      “Priss, I do understand, but—”

      “No, you don’t! You’re just like everybody else in this stinky old town! You think I can’t do anything! You think just because Daddy owned—”

      Breaking off, she stood, and Jake got his first close-up, head-on look at her face. It was gorgeous. It was also red. Even as he watched, a freshet of tears spilled over her thick, dark lashes, leaving a faint trail of navy blue down her СКАЧАТЬ