The Nine-Month Marriage Page 19

“You know what I mean. He loves you as a man loves a woman. He loves you deeply. He loves you more than he’s ever loved any other person on this earth.”

  “He has a strange way of showing it.”

  “You could get him back if you tried.”

  “Look. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Fine, fine. Ruin your life.”

  “Mom. I didn’t come here to argue.”

  “No, you came here to listen to some good advice.”

  “I did not.”

  “Oh? Then what?”

  “I need your help.”

  Edna frowned. “What kind of help?”

  “I want to get a job.”

  “A job?” Edna rolled her eyes. “You don’t need a job. Even if you’ve driven him away, Cash will always take care of you. That’s the way he is.”

  Silently, Abby reminded herself that she wanted her mother’s help—and if she started yelling at her, she probably wouldn’t get it. With great patience, she explained for what seemed like the hundredth time, “I don’t want him taking care of me. I want to take care of myself.”

  “Oh, I do not understand you. I will never understand you.”

  “Will you help me, Mom?”

  Edna released a long, weary breath. “What kind of job?”

  “I don’t really know yet. But I have the better part of a business degree. So I think I can find something. But I need you to look after Tyler for me while I look. And then, when I do find something, I would want you to watch him while I’m working.”

  “This baby needs his mother.”

  “And this mother needs a job. Will you help me or not?”

  Edna smoothed the blanket around Tyler’s sleeping face. “What a little angel. A beautiful, perfect angel.”

  “Mother. Will you help me?”

  “Just like his daddy.”

  “Mother. Yes or no?”

  “Oh, do what you have to do. And I’ll take care of this beautiful boy whenever you need me to.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But I won’t stop hoping that you and Cash will work things out.”

  Abby pushed the remains of her toast away. “He’s left me, Mother. And I don’t want him back. Get used to it, because that’s the way it is.” She looked over and saw that Tess was standing in the arch that led to the living room. “Come on in. The coffee’s hot.”

  “I don’t believe what I just heard,” Tess said. “Cash would never leave you.”

  “Believe it,” Abby replied. “And can we please talk about something else?”

  Just then the door to the garage flew open. Jobeth stood on the concrete steps beyond the threshold, soaking wet and shivering. “Mom!” she wailed.

  “What happened?” Edna demanded as Tess hurried over and ushered her daughter into the warmth of the room.

  Jobeth began babbling something about the boy down the street, a gate and a bucket of water rigged to a string in a cottonwood tree.

  “You got doused,” Tess said.

  “I am never playing with that Nick Collerby again,” Jobeth whined.

  “Come on,” Tess said. “Dry clothes. Now.”

  “Why would he do that to me, Mom?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. We’ll get you dry, and you can go ask him.”

  “I will not ask him. I can’t ask him. I’m not speaking to him. Ever again for as long as I live….”

  Patiently, Tess herded her toward the stairs.

  Edna grinned at Abby. “Children. Always up to something.”

  Abby stared at her mother, wishing she’d been one tenth that serene while Abby was growing up.

  Moments later, Tess and Jobeth reappeared and Tess got to work making hot chocolate for Jobeth.

  “Use the double boiler,” Edna instructed. “It’s down in that cabinet there.”

  Tess bent down and looked in the cabinet. “I don’t see it, Edna.”

  Clucking her tongue, Edna handed Tyler to Abby and went to find the pans herself.

  Abby cradled her son, enjoying the warmth of the kitchen and the chatter of the others. She also felt relief that her mother had agreed to look after Tyler—and that the subject of herself and Cash seemed to be closed.

  Tess appeared at Abby’s door at eight that night.

  Abby looked at the other woman with suspicion. “Is this about Cash?”

  Tess shivered. “It’s really cold out here, Abby.”

  “All right, all right.” Abby stepped back and let Tess into the house.

  In the living room, Tess perched on the edge of the sofa. “I just, well, I can’t stop thinking about what I heard today. It makes no sense at all. You and Cash love each other. And you were meant to be together.”

  Abby sat in the caramel-colored leather chair and fiddled with the little carved box in which Cash kept the cigarettes he was always trying not to smoke.

  “Abby. Talk to me.”

  Abby shut the lid of the box with a snap. “Look. He doesn’t want to be married. He is not a marrying kind of man. He only married me because of Tyler, because we didn’t…take precautions. And I got pregnant.”

  “It happens that way sometimes.”

  Something in Tess’s voice tipped Abby off. The women shared a long glance. Finally, Abby asked, “You and Josh?”

  Tess nodded. She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. “I was seventeen.” She raised her head, gave Abby a sad smile. “And he was so handsome. We had nothing in common. It was just one of those things that happen, between a foolish girl…and a reckless man.

  “When I found out I was pregnant, he said he’d marry me. It seemed like the best choice at the time. But we were so different. He couldn’t stay in one place—and all I wanted was to go home.” She relaxed back onto the couch, her eyes far away now, lost somewhere in the past. “My parents had a ranch. In South Dakota. I always thought that in the end I’d go back there. But my mother lost it after my father died. And I can’t ever go back.”

  “I’m so sorry….”

  Tess shook her head. “Don’t be. I do have Jobeth. She’s a big consolation for…everything that might have been.”

  Abby thought of the baby sleeping in the other room. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Abby blinked. “What?”

  “You don’t know what I mean. You can’t know. You and Cash aren’t anything like me and Josh. You and Cash are a good match.”

  “Tess…”

  “You are. Better than good. You’re exactly right for each other. I knew it the first time I saw you together.”

  Abby made a disbelieving sound. “Tell that to Cash.”

  “I would. If he was here.”

  “Well, he’s not. Because he doesn’t want me.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “Of course he does. I was there, remember, the night Tyler was born? I saw with my own eyes how Cash feels about you. He loves you more than his life. You just have to find out why he thinks it’s best for you if he leaves you. Because believe me, that’s the only reason he would do what he’s done.”

  Abby stared at Tess. “You think that Cash has walked out on me…for my own good?”

  “I know that’s what he’s done.”

  Right then, looking at Tess’s earnest face, Abby found herself wanting to believe—and thinking of how she had once imagined that Tess was in love with Cash. She had a crazy urge right then to ask her friend if there might be any truth to her suspicion. But to ask would be to cross some invisible boundary. And Abby didn’t know if she could deal with what she’d find on the other side.

  “When you love someone, really love someone,” Tess said softly, “you want what’s best for them, no matter what the cost to yourself.”

  A tight laugh escaped Abby. “But he won’t talk to me. I’ve reasoned with him, I’ve yelled at him. I’ve tried everything. You just don’t know….”

  Tess sm
iled her gentle smile. “Have you actually told him that you love him?”

  Abby looked away, then made herself meet her friend’s eyes again. “Once.”

  “And?”

  “It didn’t do any good. If anything, I think it pushed him away. Like I said, he’s not a marrying man. Talk of love makes him really nervous.”

  Tess stood. “So he needs to get adjusted to hearing it. You have to tell him again. You have to tell him a lot.”

  “But Tess, he won’t let me tell him. Every time I try, he puts me off or walks away—or says he wants a divorce.”

  Tess moved around the coffee table and came to stand before Abby’s chair. “Then you must be relentless.”

  “I’ve been relentless.”

  “Not relentless enough.”

  “I’m just…” Abby hung her head.

  “What?”

  Abby let out a long sigh. “So tired. Of having him reject me.”

  Tess dropped to her knees in front of Abby. “Of course you are. But tell the truth. Do you want to spend the rest of your life without him?”

  “Oh, Tess…”

  “Well?”

  “No!” It was a cry of longing. “I want him back. I want him beside me.”

  “Then go after him.”

  “He won’t give me the chance.”

  “Make the chance. And don’t let your foolish pride get in the way this time.”

  Abby hardly slept all night. She tossed and turned, thinking of the things that Tess had said. By the time the first rays of the sun were turning the sky orange-yellow in the east, she had decided to give winning Cash Bravo one more try.

  She talked to her son as she fed him and dressed him, explaining that he would have to stay with his grandma for a few days, but when she returned, she would bring his daddy back with her. “And from then on, Tyler, I swear to you. We will take you with us, wherever we go.”

  She prayed she wasn’t lying. To her son. Or to herself.

  Once she had Tyler ready, she searched Cash’s office, checking for an address that might belong to Earl, in Provo, last name unknown. She came up with zero; she’d have to look elsewhere.

  “I might be gone a few days, Mom,” she said when she showed up at Edna’s to drop off Tyler.

  Edna let out a small cry of dismay. “You’re looking for a job out of town?”

  “I’m not looking for a job.”

  “Then what?”

  “I just don’t want to go into it now. Please understand.”

  And it seemed as if she actually did. At least she stopped asking questions.

  She kissed Abby’s cheek. “You call me. Let me know where you are.”

  Abby promised that she would.

  And then she headed over to Main Street, and Cash’s storefront office there. Abby let herself in with the key that Cash had given her years ago, during the first summer she came to work for him.

  Inside, Renata’s cluttered desk sat in the center of the rectangular room, with two chairs for visitors facing it. Renata wasn’t in yet, of course. She rarely showed up before eleven and it was just past eight.

  Abby headed straight for the desk. She booted up the computer and ran a search on the name “Earl” in the word processor address book she had taught Renata to use. No luck. Either Earl had never actually dealt with Cash Ventures, or Renata wasn’t keeping up the file.

  Abby tried the Rolodex, thumbing through every card since she didn’t have a last name. Either she missed it, or Earl wasn’t there.

  With a sigh, she picked up the phone and called Renata at home. Cash’s secretary answered on the fourth ring.

  “Huh?”

  “Hi, Renata. It’s me,” Abby said cheerily. “I’m really sorry to wake you, but I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Uh. Yeah. Huh?”

  “Do you recall a guy Cash knows named Earl, in Provo?”

  “Uh. Earl. Sure.”

  “I can’t remember his last name. Can you?”

  “Uh.” Renata yawned and sighed. “He just goes by Earl, I think.”

  “I was afraid of that. What’s his address?”

  “Uh.”

  There was a long pause. Abby feared Renata might have grown suspicious—or gone back to sleep. But she was only thinking.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said at last. “I remember. Cash called on Thursday. He gave me Earl’s address and phone number just in case.”

  “Great. Where is it?”

  “It’s, um…the Rolodex?”

  “I looked there. Didn’t find it.”

  “Well, I meant to put it in the Rolodex….”

  “Fine, Renata.” Abby assumed her best fed-up employer voice. “But it’s not there.”

  “Well, I don’t…oh. Wait. Look under my coffee cup. There’s a notepad.”

  Abby lifted Renata’s coffee cup, which was shaped like a smiling cat with a tail for a handle. Underneath she found the notepad—and on it, Earl’s address and phone number, only partly obscured by a dried coffee ring. “Here it is.”

  “Good.”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  “I will. Oh. Ab?”

  “What?”

  “Did you want Cash—is that it?”

  Abby felt her stomach knot up. “Why?”

  “Because he left Earl’s on Friday.”

  Abby muttered something rude as she dropped into the chair behind the desk. All this silly sneaking around when she could have just come right out and asked.

  “Did you try that cell phone of his?” Renata asked. Abby hadn’t. She considered the phone a last resort. She wanted to track him down and confront him face to face.

  “Where is he now?” Abby asked.

  “The Nugget in Reno. I scribbled his room number somewhere…oh, yeah, I remember. The lower right-hand corner of the desk blotter. See it?”

  “Well…” The blotter was a virtual explosion of scribbles and doodles.

  “It’s in purple ink, under a green smiley face, with a—”

  “Right. I got it.” She grabbed one of the hundred or so scraps of paper stuck under the edges of the blotter and wrote the number down. “What’s he there for? A card game?”

  “No, some meetings with Redbone Deevers and some investor group, about a time-share condo deal, I think.” Renata paused to yawn again hugely. “He’ll be there until Tuesday, he said.”

  Abby went back to the house to pack a small bag and line up a flight. Then she drove to Sheridan, to the small airport there.

  She didn’t touch down in Reno until late afternoon. She took a cab to the Nugget, which was actually in nearby Sparks. At the Nugget, she went straight up to the room whose number Renata had provided on the chance that Cash might be there, between meetings on the condo deal. She set her suitcase on the carpet, took three deep breaths and then knocked.

  After what seemed like forever, she heard the lock turn on the other side. The door swung open. And Abby found herself face to face with a beautiful blonde in a slinky pink silk robe. “Yes?” the blonde asked politely.

  Abby saw red. “All right. Where is he?”

  “What? Excuse me?”

  “Who is it, darling?” A man Abby had never seen before appeared in the door to the bedroom behind the blonde.

  Abby gulped. “Er, I’m looking for my husband. Cash Bravo?”

  The blonde and the strange man exchanged glances. “Sorry,” the woman said. “No one by that name here.” Swiftly and firmly, she shut the door in Abby’s face.

  Abby stared at the door for a moment, feeling foolish and lost. Then she picked up her suitcase and went down to the main desk.

  The clerk punched some buttons on the keyboard of his reservations computer, then he shook his head. “I’m sorry. Mr. Bravo checked out this morning.”

  The desk clerk said he’d watch her suitcase, so she left it with him while she found a phone and called Renata. But Renata hadn’t heard from Cash, not since he’d called to tell her he’d be staying at the Nugget. She g
ave in and tried Cash’s cell phone: no answer.

  She was just hanging up in despair, when a voice several feet away drawled, “I’ll be damned. Is that you, kid?”

  She turned to find Redbone Deevers lumbering toward her on his ebony cane. She ran to him and he enfolded her in a bear hug. Then he stepped back. She looked up into his broad face with its fringe of white hair. He sported a goatee and favored white three-piece suits. To Abby, he always seemed the image of the courtly Southern gentleman, though Cash claimed he’d been born in Detroit, son of a steel-mill worker and a grocery-store clerk.

  “Investors like a little glamour and romance,” Cash had told Abby. “So Redbone gives them what they want.”

  Now Redbone was looking appropriately concerned and solemn. “You come after that husband of yours?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, he’s gone.”

  “I know. They told me at the desk.”

  “We finished our business. And profitably, too.” His white eyebrows lifted. “You come to work things out with him?”

  “Oh, Redbone…”

  He patted her shoulder with his big, gentle hand. “Now, now. Come on over here. Sit yourself down.” He led her to a pair of black leather chairs against a nearby wall.

  Once they were both settled, she dared to demand, “All right, what did Cash tell you?”

  “Not a thing.” Redbone shrugged. “But you weren’t with him. And he growled at me like a flea-bit hound when I asked him how you were doin’. I drew my own conclusions.”

  “I see.”

  He leaned a little closer. “You want to know where he’s gone?”

  Hope made her sit up a little straighter. “You know?”

  Redbone chuckled. “He said he had a yen to get away from it all. Can you believe that? Cash Bravo with a yen to get away from it all?”

  “It doesn’t sound much like him.”

  “No, it does not. But I couldn’t stand to see him looking so glum. So I offered him the use of my private cabin on the lake.”

  “Did he take it?”

  “He did.”

  “Where is it?”

  The old gentleman looked at her sideways. “Is he goin’ to be unhappy with old Redbone when you show up lookin’ for him?”

  Right then, someone hit a jackpot on a slot machine not twenty yards away. Bells clanged and lights flashed. Abby glanced over to where the winner stood calmly, watching the river of coins as it poured into the tray.