Good Husband Material

Not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it gave him time to change her mind. “I have to go inside to get my jacket and tie,” he said. “What do you want me to tell Melissa? Because she’s going to ask where you are.”

“Tell her we’re going for a drive.”

NATALIE SAT IN Josh’s fancy car waiting for him to return and ordered herself to calm down. She needed to downplay what they’d just done, or Josh would know how profoundly it had affected her.

She’d had no idea what she’d been missing. She’d thought her memories of Josh were pristine, untouched by the years of separation. Every so often—probably more often than was healthy—she trotted out those treasured memories and relived them. But clearly she’d suppressed some things—like how Josh could send her to the moon with a simple touch.

Her hormones hadn’t had a workout like this in a very long time. But it was more than just the physical stimulation. Memories assaulted her from every direction, things she hadn’t thought of in twenty years. Like when Josh had carved their initials in that picnic table, her first real indication that what he felt for her was more than fondness or teenage lust. And all those times they’d driven out to Cemetery Road and made love in his truck. They’d always done it in the cab, because the one time they’d spread some blankets out in the truck bed and attempted to make love, a sheriff’s deputy had driven by and caught them with their clothes half-off. He hadn’t turned them in, hadn’t called their parents, but he’d told them to get dressed and go home.

Natalie had never been able to look Deputy Klegg in the eye again.

So many good times—picnics, taking Josh’s family’s boat to the lake with their friends and waterskiing, parties at Melissa’s house dancing to MTV. So much love.

Though they’d raised a lot of eyebrows by marrying so young, most people thought they’d make it. The only ones who weren’t surprised when Josh and Natalie divorced were his parents. Though they’d always been civil to Natalie, she’d known they thought Josh could do much better.

Josh returned a couple of minutes later with his jacket and tie in hand. “Good news,” he said as he climbed into the car. “Melissa was out on the dance floor. I didn’t have to tell her anything.”

Good. Maybe Natalie had a chance of returning to the reunion before it was over and pretending nothing had happened.

She and Melissa had once shared everything, but Natalie would never tell anyone what had happened tonight.

The Holiday Inn was a good twenty-minute drive and two towns away. Josh turned down the air-conditioning and opened the sunroof. Natalie was quiet as the breeze blew in, whipping her hair around.

“This is a gorgeous car,” she finally said to break the silence.

“Thanks. Kind of a cliché, though, don’t you think? A guy hits forty and buys himself expensive toys to compensate for his loss of youthful virility…”

“Ah, trust me, you haven’t lost anything. In the dark I’d have thought you were seventeen again.”

“I hope my technique has improved some since I was seventeen.”

“Fishing for a compliment?” Still, she couldn’t help smiling, remembering their early fumblings. They’d been each other’s firsts. They’d learned together through trial and error. Lots and lots of trial and error, followed by even more trial and success.

She squirmed a bit in her seat and deliberately changed her line of thought. She didn’t want to get all hot and bothered again, not when they would soon be alone in a hotel room. She could only hope Josh would honor her desire to freshen up and return her to the reunion.

The hotel was nice, built only a couple of years earlier. As Josh let Natalie into his room, she noted the open suitcase on the bed as well as the faded Levi’s and golf shirt he’d draped over the back of a chair, probably the clothes he’d driven here in.

The bed was covered with a snow-white duvet, but the pillows had been rearranged. She could see him propped up in bed, probably shirtless, one arm behind his head as he channel-surfed.

Her mouth went dry and she walked briskly across the room, out of touching range. She tossed her purse on the bed and kicked off her shoes. “Guess I better get busy. You made quite a mess of me.”

“I think you look better than you have in your whole life.” The way he looked at her almost did her in.

No, no, no, she couldn’t succumb again. But she froze as Josh followed her, walking slowly, purposely, with a devilish intent obvious in his blue eyes.

But instead of reaching for her, he reached for her purse and opened it, snagging her cell phone and pulling it out. He extended it toward her. “Call Melissa and leave a message that you won’t be home until morning.”

A whole night with Josh? Did she dare? Or rather, did she dare pass up the chance? How much fun did she allow herself, anyway? Her life was devoted to her work and her child. Not that she and Mary didn’t have fun, but Natalie seldom did anything for herself.

One night with Josh. Melissa would know the truth, but so what? Even if she told their friends—and she probably would—Natalie was no longer a part of this community. It wouldn’t matter what they thought.

She opened the phone, located Melissa’s cell number and dialed it.

Chapter Three

“So what is it?” Natalie asked her gynecologist, pulling her sweater more tightly around her. “You’re not saying anything. I’m in early menopause, right?” When her doctor still remained quiet, Natalie became alarmed. “Is it something worse? Cancer? Am I going to die next week? What?”

“Oh, no, no, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you ’cause it’s nothing like that. I just didn’t know how to say it, but I guess I better just blurt it out. You’re pregnant.”

Natalie laughed. “Of all the people in the world, you know that’s not possible.” Surely Celia Brewster was kidding. She’d been Natalie’s doctor for close to twenty years, but more than that, the two had become friends.

Natalie’s laughter died as Celia stared at her with an unreadable expression. “It must be a mistake,” Natalie pointed out. “A lab mix-up. I could not possibly be preg—” She couldn’t even finish the word.

Celia’s steady gaze never faltered. “There’s no mistake. You are most definitely pregnant.”

Natalie couldn’t believe this. Pregnant at forty-three, when she was supposedly terminally infertile. She’d had sex exactly once in the last several years—okay, more than once if you got technical. She’d lost count of the number of times she and Josh had made love that crazy night of the reunion two months ago. But still…

“How is it possible, Celia? What about my underfunctioning ovaries? Women just don’t get pregnant at my age, even normal ones!”

“You’d be surprised how many women give birth in their forties. As for how you could have overcome your fertility problem, I have a theory about that. Remember when you first came to me as a patient? You were very thin and your periods were almost nonexistent. Underweight women often don’t ovulate.”

Natalie did remember Celia’s concern about her weight. But Natalie’s diet had been more than adequate. She just hadn’t easily gained weight and she was perfectly healthy in every other respect.

“Over the years you’ve put on a few pounds,” Celia continued. “I’m not criticizing—you looked a bit malnourished before. Now you look great and you’re healthy as a horse. But discounting the last couple of months, have your cycles become more regular?”

Frankly, Natalie had never paid that much attention. After adopting Mary, she’d put all thoughts of conceiving her own child out of her mind, so her cycle was inconsequential. But now that she thought about it, she had been more regular the last few years.

She nodded numbly.

“My theory is that in your late teens and early twenties, your body weight was slightly under what you would need to regularly ovulate. In addition, you were under tremendous stress.”

“Because of how badly I wanted to give Josh a baby, you mean?”

“And because you were so young, married, both of you trying to go to school and make ends meet.”

“My doctor at the time did say if I could relax a bit, it might help,” she admitted. “But I thought that was just something doctors said to nervous women patients.”

Celia laughed. “You’re right. But in this case, it’s true. Stress impedes ovulation, too. At some point, when your weight reached a certain level, your ovaries corrected themselves. Absent the stress of worrying about conception, perhaps you approached something like normal fertility. Only you never realized it, because you weren’t having unprotected sex.”

“I wasn’t having any sex.”

“Well, clearly, you’ve had some.”

Natalie groaned. What was she going to tell Josh? What was she going to tell Mary?

“Then there’s also the one-in-a-million theory. Yes, the chances of a woman your age conceiving are quite small. But the chance is there. Kind of like your chances of winning the lottery.”

“Great. Why couldn’t I have won the lottery instead?” But then it hit her. This was better than winning the lottery. She was going to have a baby. Right now, a life was growing inside her. She put a hand to her abdomen, and a sense of wonder replaced the shock and terror.