Their Child?: Lori's Little Secret / Which Child Is Mine? / Having The Best Man's Baby. Christine Rimmer

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       Chapter Ten

      The story of the twister that brought down the clubhouse on top of three hundred wedding guests made the first page of the Abilene News-Reporter. It also made the Dallas Morning News, though not the front page. Some eager newshound had gotten a great shot of the collapsed clubhouse under a lowering sky, with a bedraggled little knot of drenched wedding guests surveying the ruin. The picture was picked up by the wire services and popped up in papers all over the country. The story—a sound-bitesize version of it—even made it onto CNN and MSNBC.

      Sunday afternoon, Dr. Zastrow released Lori into the loving care of her parents. Once she’d hugged her son and let her mother fuss over her for a while, Lori retreated to her room and called the Double T.

      Miranda answered and asked her to please wait a moment.

      Lori said, “Sure,” and knew, beyond the last fading shadow of a very scary doubt, that Tucker would refuse to talk to her.

      Then he picked up the phone. “Lori. Hello.” And she didn’t know which was worse: if he’d refused to talk to her at all, or his voice as it sounded now. Distant. Cool. Dangerously polite. “How are you feeling?”

      “Better. Better all the time.”

      “That’s good to hear.”

      “Tucker I…um…” Oh, God. How to even begin?

      “Yeah, Lori?”

      “Well, you know,” she said, her voice wobbly and weak. “We really have to talk.”

      “Talk,” he replied, as if mulling over the meaning of the word. “Yeah. I guess we do.”

      “I’m home—I mean, at my parents’ house. I was thinking maybe you could come over and—”

      He finished for her, “Have it out? Now?”

      Have it out? Dread curled through her, burning a guilty path. “Well, yes. We could—”

      “No,” he cut her off again. “Not now. We’d better wait.”

      She put her hand against her bandaged head. Suddenly, it was aching like a sonofagun again. She dared to ask, “Wait for what?”

      “How’s your head? I’ll bet it’s still hurting pretty bad.”

      It seemed like a dangerous question, somehow. She started to lie and say no, it was fine. But then she reminded herself of how she would never lie again—not even a little one. “Yes. It still hurts.”

      “I thought so. We’d better wait a while.”

      “Until?”

      “Until you’re feeling better—in fact, I’m thinking you’re going to want to cancel that appointment we had for tomorrow. You remember that appointment, Lori?”

      “Of course I do.”

      “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

      “Yes,” she said, out loud and clear. “I remember that we had an appointment tomorrow.”

      “An appointment to discuss the little matter you’ve known for, oh, eleven years or so that you really should talk to me about. Right?” She pressed her lips together and swallowed convulsively. He prodded, pumping up the volume, “Right?”

      “Right,” she said tightly. “Yes. To talk about—”

      “Wait. Not now. Later.”

      She echoed, miserably, “Later?”

      “Yeah.”

      “When?”

      “Oh, come on, Lori. You’ve waited such a long time to tell me. It’s not going to be any skin off your nose to wait a few more days.”

      His words hit home. Squarely. She wanted to crawl in a deep, dark hole and stay there—but she forced herself to argue, “I know Lena already told you, about that night. And I think you have to see that we—”

      “I want you feeling good. Strong. When I talk to you.”

      “Tucker. Please. I just—”

      “Thursday. I’ll call you Thursday. We’ll see how you’re doing then.”

      “But I—”

      “And in the meantime, I’d like to see Brody. Would that be all right with you?”

      “See Brody?” She didn’t know why that surprised her. Of course, he’d want to see Brody.

      “Is that a problem for you?” Beneath the fake-cordial tone, his deep voice vibrated with subtle threat.

      “No. Not at all.” God. СКАЧАТЬ