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“That’s why this sucks so much,” Tucker relented as his shoulders slumped. “Because I can’t live your life for you, can I? I can’t get you past this rough patch. God. This has to be the worst part of parenthood.”
Grady wouldn’t know. His child had been born dead, cut out of his wife with a knife.
He busied himself by setting his equipment in the bed of his truck. “I saw him, you know.”
Tucker frowned. “Saw who?”
“Bennett.” His son.
His dad sucked in a breath but didn’t respond. Grady stared into the bed of the truck, assailed by memories.
“He was bloody and still, curled in the fetal position. The doctor and nurses were so busy trying to work on him and Amy, I don’t think they realized I was still in there, watching the cesarean.” Grady lifted his face and glanced over his shoulder at his dad. “He had a really thick head of hair. . .just like Tanner.” Though they would’ve only been cousins, the two boys probably would’ve looked like twins.
Tucker wiped at his face and quietly said, “God, Grady. I was wrong. I haven’t lived through the worst part of parenthood, have I?”
Grady sent him a sad smile. He shook his head, thinking he shouldn’t have said anything. But he couldn’t seem to forget that flight to Houston when B.J. Gilmore had talked about Amy. When she’d told the story about Amy baking Leroy’s porn, he hadn’t felt like someone was cutting him in half. It made him wonder if maybe he was going to get through this after all.
But seeing his father’s sympathetic glance told him otherwise. The despair came rushing back, clogging his windpipe and making it hard to breathe. He couldn’t understand why he’d been able to share an Amy-story with B.J., a woman he wasn’t all that close to, and he couldn’t bear to mention his son to his own father.
Maybe it was because B.J. hadn’t looked at him with pity or tried to find a way to fix his misery. Instead, she’d opted to remember a happy time, and she’d actually made him smile over the recollection. Grady hadn’t smiled from hearing Amy’s name since the day she’d died. But somehow B.J. had given him joy from a simple memory.
He wondered briefly if that was why it’d been so good to be inside her. She was the first person in two and a half years to look at him and see a man. . .not a widower.
In the blink of an eye, all the bitterness and anger he’d been feeling for the tomboy evaporated. Suddenly, he was very glad she’d prodded him into her hotel room.
****
B.J. was late to work the next morning. Not that there was any kind of set schedule around the Gilmore Hangar, but she usually showed up before eight. This morning, though, she slept in for some reason. Stranger yet, she’d gone to bed early the night before. When she’d finally opened her eyes, she hadn’t felt like moving. Thinking she was probably getting a nasty summer flu, she pushed herself up and took a long, hot shower until she worked out the soreness in her muscles.
But as soon as she started the coffee for breakfast, her stomach rejected the smell. So, she dumped out what she’d brewed and fixed herself a couple pieces of dry toast.
On the drive to work, she frowned, wondering why she didn’t have a sore throat. Experimentally, she coughed and then pressed her fingers to her larynx, but her windpipe wasn’t even raw. Then she sniffed through her nose and frowned. None of her nasal passages were congested. It was just her stomach going to town with a nasty cramp fest and a strange dizzy feeling, making her continually lightheaded. She wasn’t achy like she usually got when she was sick, but she sure felt tired.
It made no sense. What was even more confusing, she started to recover by the time she hit the airport. Shaking her head in bemusement, B.J. parked her truck and started for the hangar. She veered toward the office so she could check the day’s schedule. She had a few aerial pictures she wanted to take, but other than that, she didn’t remember any particular runs that had to be made.
The second she opened the office door, however, where her father was already seated behind the desk, the smell of freshly brewed coffee hit her like a twister attacking a trailer park. The aroma went straight to her gut and started the uneasy feeling all over again.
Covering her mouth, she pushed inside and plowed her way to the bathroom. Five minutes later, she exited on unsteady feet and glared at the coffee machine as she headed toward the water cooler.
“Weren’t you scrawny yesterday too?”
B.J. nodded and guzzled water, mopping at her face when some spilled over the brim and dribbled down her chin.
“Well, you pregnant or something?” Pop asked.
B.J. stopped drinking, lowered the cup, and stared at her father. A sudden vision filled her of Grady levered above her, straining as he said, “I want slow.” Her mind had been so busy on trying to speed him up, she hadn’t even worried about protection.
“Damn, Pop,” she murmured, running a hand over her suddenly clammy face. “I hadn’t even thought of that.”
He scowled and pulled a can of chew from his back pocket. “Well. You been with a feller?” he asked as he flipped the lid and pinched out a finger full of tobacco.
She nodded, not able to meet his gaze as she silently answered.
“Use rubbers?”
B.J. gave a slight shake of the head. She risked a brief glance his way and watched him tuck the chew in his cheek and then wipe his hands on his pants.
“Well,” he said and sighed as if he was too old for this. Frowning disapprovingly, he started in. “What’d I always tell you about protection, girl?”
