Fifty Ways To Say I'm Pregnant

Starr took a sip of coffee. “I don’t need to go in today.” Like her employer, she did any and everything over at the Clarion—including a little reporting on local goings-on. “I’ve got a piece for the Ranching Life section to finish up and I have to put together an article on what’s going on with the plans for the county fair. I’ll do those on my computer and send them over by e-mail. And I can take the opportunity while I’m at the Hart place to do a follow-up on how Mr. Hart’s feeling.” Jerry had done the original piece, but he’d be pleased if Starr handed in an update. “And besides,” she added, “you two have been baking pies and making beans. I’d like to do a little something to help out, too.”

“Well,” said Edna, still at the table beside the jars of preserves. That was all. Just, well, and nothing else.

Tess pinched the edges of her pie and sent Starr a soft smile. “Why not, if you’d like to? That’d be real nice.”

Edna’s baked beans were the slow-cooking kind. They didn’t come out of the oven until four. By then the pies had cooled and the bread was all wrapped and ready to go. They loaded everything into the old Suburban that Zach had bought Tess when they first got married. Starr had inherited the vehicle last year, when Zach bought his wife a new one.

As she was heading off down the long, dusty driveway, one of the ranch pickups came in. Her dad was driving, Jobeth at his side. Starr pulled to the bumpy shoulder so the pickup could get by. Her dad honked and Jobeth waved as they went past. The pickup was covered in mud and so were the two in cab. Starr grinned as she watched the filthy tailgate recede in her rearview mirror. They’d probably been out pulling something large and obstinate from a muddy pond.

It took about twenty-five minutes to get to the Hart place. Starr used a series of back roads made mostly by oil companies drilling test holes, seeking oil-bearing strata. Through the ride, she was aware of a rising feeling of anticipation.

Okay, it was silly. It didn’t mean anything, but she was really hoping that Beau would be at the house. Maybe they’d talk a little.

The Suburban lurched over a bump in the dirt road and Starr licked her lips and swallowed. She was kind of thirsty. She’d ask for a tall glass of iced tea. If Beau was there, he could keep her company out on Mr. Hart’s big front porch while she drank it. Just being neighborly, of course.

And professional. She’d interview Beau on Mr. Hart’s convalescence while she sipped that cool, refreshing tea.

Beau was standing on the porch, staring off into nowhere, trying pretty much unsuccessfully to get his mind around the enormity of what Daniel had just told him, when he spotted Tess’s old Suburban coming up the drive.

For a moment or two, he just stared, his mind still back there in the bedroom, hearing, but hardly daring to believe, the things Daniel was saying to him. And then, as the vehicle drew closer, he frowned. He hadn’t seen Tess driving it since Zach bought her the new one….

In fact, hadn’t Zach said they’d passed the old one to Starr for her use whenever she was home?

Beau straightened from the post he’d been leaning against. With the wild mustangs on the loose in his chest again, he stuck his hands in his side pockets and waited for the Suburban to pull to a stop about ten feet from the base of the porch steps.

Starr beamed him a smile through her side window. The mustangs bucked high and his breath snagged hard in his throat. The window slid down and she stuck her head out. That midnight hair, loose around her angel face, caught the sun and gave off a blue-black shine.

“Hey, Beau.”

Dazzled, he gulped to make his throat relax. “Hey.”

“How’s Mr. Hart?”

“Doing well. Real well. Chomping at the bit to get out of bed and back to work.”

“I heard you hired him a nurse.”

“Yeah. He’s already making the poor woman crazy with his demands to be up and about.”

“Hope she’s strong enough to make him stay in that bed until he’s well enough to get out of it.”

“You know Althea Hecht?” The nurse, a local woman, stood about five-eleven and weighed a hundred and eighty or so pounds, very little of it fat.

Starr was nodding. “Althea can keep him in line if anyone can—and I’ve got a Suburban full of food. Pies and Edna’s baked beans, fresh-baked bread and half a pantry’s worth of preserves.”

He came down the steps, his boots seeming to him like they barely skimmed the old boards. “My stomach is already growling.”

“Come on, then.” She leaned on her door. It swung open and she jumped lightly to the ground. “Help me get it all inside.”

He followed her around to the hatch in back, noticing the little spiral-top notebook and the pen she had stuck in a back pocket, but more interested in the way her womanly hips swayed as she walked, in that gleaming waterfall of shining raven hair.

Today was stacking up to be pretty nigh on perfect. Daniel Hart had called him the son he’d never had.

And Starr Bravo was right there in front of him, close enough to reach out and touch.

Beau led Starr into the house and signaled the way back to the kitchen. He fell in step behind her, where he could admire the sway of her hips a little more. Coming or going, Starr Bravo was a pleasure to look at.

They found Althea in the kitchen. She was brewing decaf for Daniel. The nurse and Starr greeted each other. Althea sighed over the scent of Tess’s pies and groused in a good-natured way over her patient’s orneriness.

“‘Real coffee, damn it,’ he growls at me. ‘Real coffee, strong and black.’ Well, I didn’t even bother to inform him that decaf is the closest he’s getting to real coffee while he’s in my care….”

Starr laughed, the sound making the dim old kitchen seem sunny and bright, as if someone had knocked out a wall and the warm daylight outside had come streaming in to push back every shadow, to fill every corner with golden light. “Althea, we know you can handle him.”

Althea grunted. “You got that right. I give my patients the best care there is, no matter how hard some of them try to keep me from doing it.”

Starr asked, “I wonder if could step in and say hello.”

Althea poured the coffee. “Don’t see why not.”

Daniel was propped up on his pillows, looking grouchy, when they entered. He’d let Whirlyboy in to lie on a rag rug in the corner. At the sight of Starr, the dog thumped his tail. The old man’s scowl lightened to a grin. “Well, if it isn’t Starr Bravo. How you been, girl?”

“I’ve been just fine.” She went over and gave Whirlyboy a scratch behind the ear. “Home for my last summer and enjoying every minute of it. But what about you, Mr. Hart?”

Daniel made a low noise in his throat and his scowl returned—directed at Althea, who was easing the bed tray across his lap. “Better than some people would have you believe.” The nurse got the coffee from where she’d set it on the bed stand and handed it over. He sniffed it suspiciously. “Not strong enough. I can tell by the smell of it, by the watery way it sloshes in the mug.”

“It’s all you’re getting,” Althea informed him with exaggerated sweetness. “I suggest you enjoy it.”

Daniel slurped and grumbled some more. “It’s not bad enough I’m a prisoner in my own bed. I can’t even get a decent cup of coffee anymore.” He set the cup down and winked at Beau. Beau gave him a nod in return and Daniel smiled at Starr. “But even if the coffee’s bad, a pretty girl is always welcome. Brightens my day and that is a certainty.”

Starr gave him a modest smile and told him her family had sent pies and some other things.

“I thank you,” Daniel replied with a regal nod of his big, nearly bald head. “I always did appreciate Edna’s slow-cooked beans. And there are no words to describe those pies of Tess’s. Pass my thanks to both of them, will you please?”

“I’ll do that. And the word is you’ll be on your feet again real soon.”

“That’s right.” He sent Althea another look. “Real soon.”

They spoke for a few minutes more—of the weather, which was mild, of the alfalfa crop, which looked like a good one this year. And, as always, about beef prices, which had been better, but could be worse.

As Beau led her from the room, Daniel urged her to come back and visit anytime. Starr paused in the doorway to promise she’d be around to check on him again soon. Beau felt his ears prick up when she said that. With a little luck, he might be there at the house the next time she came by.

“You’d better do what Althea tells you,” she warned in a teasing way.

Daniel snorted. “Can’t see as how I have any choice.”

She turned to Beau and he led her through the hall and around through the front room, on the way to the door. She spoke before they reached the entry hall. “Beau?” He stopped and turned, pleasure running in a warm current all through him, that she was here in the place where he lived, saying his name in a friendly, hopeful tone. “I went off without the cooler. I’m a little thirsty. A cold drink would be so nice….”

Damn. He’d never even thought to offer her something. “I’m sorry.”