Losing Gabriel (13 page)

“What would that be, Mama? What do I get?”

“An eighteen-year meal ticket if you handle it right. Those men will do anything to keep that baby near them. So here's what I'm thinking. You have this baby, and you bring it back to the trailer. We'll take care of it together. And they'll give us money to raise it up for a real long time.” She flashed a smile. “That sound like a good idea, honey?”

Sloan's insides turned cold and solid as ice.

LaDonna patted her again. “Now let's put on our smiley faces and go have a big old dinner that Franklin's just itching to pay for. It's graduation day.” She beamed a smile, grabbed the door handle, and stood back so that Sloan could pass in front of her.

“Little tummy episode,” LaDonna said once they sat down at the table, her hand on Sloan's elbow. “You know how delicate a mama-to-be is at this stage.”

Franklin gave Sloan a concerned look, and Sloan offered a weak but hesitant smile to assure him she was all right, although it wasn't true. When the waiter returned, she ordered a salad, unsure she could keep it down. She felt battered and bruised. Under the table, she felt Dawson grope for her hand; he captured it and held on until her icy fingertips warmed from his touch.

W
hen he was a kid, Dawson had owned a furry brown and white hamster he named Earl. Earl's lifestyle commitment was to live in a cage where he slept, ate, burrowed into fresh sawdust changed every week, and exercised like a demon on a hamster wheel most of the night. Now all these years later, Dawson knew what it was like to live like Earl. Except that Earl probably didn't think much about his life, while Dawson Berke dwelled constantly on his own life and what it had become—mind-numbing, pathetic, lonely.
Lucky clueless Earl.

The first thing he'd done after Sloan moved in was to open the file folder with his college letters of acceptance, brochures, forms, and applications and stuff each one into his dad's paper shredder. He didn't want to be reminded of what he wouldn't have come September. Plans deferred due to unforeseen circumstances.

After graduation, Dawson took a job with a lawn service and came home every day hot, sweaty, and covered with grass clippings. He hated the job, not because of the hard, sweaty work but because he felt trapped, hammered in place, and without options. Months before, he'd had plans for college. He'd had choices. Now he was on the hamster wheel, spinning and spinning and going nowhere.

Franklin had told him that after the baby was born, they could live with him so that Dawson could save up money, maybe get his own place. He also said he'd pay Dawson's tuition at MTSU community college. Dawson knew his dad was attempting to help, but no way could he think about his impending fatherhood plus classes, studying, and holding down a job. In truth, not much
was
helping him during this long hot summer of Sloan's pregnancy. Gone was the fun they once had together. She was moody and temperamental, but the good news was that they rarely argued. That would have required talking to each other. He kept reminding himself that he
loved
this girl—didn't he? Still he was unhappy, angry, and scared. And yet watching her belly expand, feeling the baby kick when he lay beside her in bed, was a head trip.

The baby, seen only in sonograms, had a human shape in shades of gray. Once, the image caught the fetus sucking its thumb. They also learned it was a boy. All the little guy had to do was gain more weight, turn his head downward into the birth canal, and be born in mid-September. All Dawson had to do was figure out how to take care of his…what? Family?

He wished he could talk to his mother. Would she be heartbroken over what was happening? Would she like Sloan? Would she still love
him
? Endless unanswerable questions. Another hamster wheel.

Sloan was sharing the guest room with a crib and a changing table. Dawson and Franklin had painted the walls pale blue, set up a dark wood crib, and draped a blue baby blanket over the railing. She usually slept in the room's double bed but would sometimes venture down to Dawson's bed and the comfort of his arms. Most of the time, she felt bewildered and disconnected, unable to get her head around the idea that a living human being would emerge from her body and that she would instantly turn into a mother.

She rarely left the house. She had no car. She spent hours writing music, playing her guitar, remembering how great the world looked from a stage with a view of an audience clapping and shouting her name. Life wasn't turning out the way she'd planned. Dawson said he loved her many times. She wanted to love him. But her head wouldn't stop filling with memories of the things she had always wanted. Her bright spot was separation from her mother.

LaDonna came around occasionally, usually during her noon lunch hour if she was in town working. Not wanting to listen to LaDonna's plans about Sloan and the baby moving in with her, Sloan never answered the door before two o'clock. She was stacking clothes from the dryer one July morning after Dawson and Franklin had gone for the day when the doorbell started to chime and wouldn't quit. This early, she figured it wasn't LaDonna. She went to the door and threw it open to a flood of sunlight and to Jarred Tester standing on the porch.

Stunned, she backpedaled, looking for shadows to cover her. When she found her voice, she said, “Go away.”

“Can we talk?”

A rush of heat flushed through her. “Go. Away.”

“Please, Sloan. Just let me talk to you. I'll leave as soon as I do.” Boldly he tried the screen door handle. It wasn't locked. She pushed back, but he pushed it open, reached in, and caught her wrist. “We can sit on the porch. In plain sight. I haven't come to scare you.” His voice was soft, non-threatening. He tugged her gently into the sunlight. “I just want to talk.”

She was powerless against the pull of him and followed him to the wicker chairs at the far end of the porch. He turned and took both her hands in his, his eyes assessing her, widening as he took in her expanded belly. She felt humiliated. “Please leave.” She couldn't stop staring at him. He looked different now, more polished, and slimmer, with an expensive haircut and clothes that fit his toned, muscled body perfectly.

“Not till I say what I want to say.” Jarred gentled her into a chair and then took the one across from her, a small wicker table between them. He didn't let go of her hand. “You look—”

“I know what I look like, so forget any lies you're going to tell.” She snatched her hand from his, angry because he'd stirred up feelings and memories she didn't want. “Why are you here? To gloat? I'm not sorry about homecoming, Jarred. Not one bit!”

“Not asking you to be sorry about it.” He offered a conciliatory smile. “That was all on me and I deserved it. But that was then. This is now. New day. Fresh start.”

Her gaze tracked the arrow tips down his neck that disappeared under the collar of his shirt and reemerged from under the sleeve. Easier than looking into his eyes. “How'd you find me?”

“Stopped by the trailer last night and your mom told me. Drove here and parked down the street last night.” He gestured with his head and she spied his Mustang sitting along the curb.

“Last night?”

“Slept in the backseat. I cleaned up at a gas station around six this morning and waited for the house to clear so we could talk.”

She remembered the last time she'd looked into the Mustang's backseat. Feeling angry all over again, she pushed against the rising tide. “So what did my ‘mommy' have to say?” She could only imagine how LaDonna must have dissed her to him.

“She was drinking, so I got an earful.” He waved his hand to blow off whatever LaDonna had told him. “But she kept saying she's looking forward to you moving back with the baby when it's born. That true?”

“I'm not.”

“You married to this Dawson?” She shook her head. “Planning to?”

“Don't know.” She lifted her chin. “He
wants
to marry me.” Jarred went quiet. A butterfly settled on a bush next to the porch railing. A bird chirped. Heat built. Sloan fingered the hem of the oversized tee she wore. “So why did you come and sleep all night in your car just so you can talk to me alone?”

Jarred leaned forward. The wicker creaked. “I'm putting the band back together. Bobby and Hal are on board. Calder's headed off to college, but that's all right. I have a new keyboard man in Nashville named Josiah. He's older and he's good, better than Calder. His dad's some big-deal hedge fund guru and richer than God. They have an estate
and
Sy has a recording studio on-site. Very sweet…you wouldn't believe the equipment.” Jarred's eyes shone as he described the state-of-the-art sound-mixing boards, amps, mikes, and top-of-the-line everything. “But Sy's parents don't live there. They've got a place in New York, so Sy's got the Nashville house to himself. Been living there myself for three months.”

She closed her eyes, pictured the former band, felt tears behind her eyelids. “Sounds like you landed on your feet with this Josiah.”

Jarred planted a hand on her knee, and warmth seeped through her skin. “Look, we won't be some cobbled-together garage bangers. We'll have a new sound, a new look. We have a place to live and one hundred percent access to Sy's studio. We'll pull our music together, cut a demo, shop it around. I'm talking a business deal between us, nothing more.” He made a circle in the air. “This will be my band, but we'll all be partners. This is legit, Sloan. I want this music thing real bad.”

Me too.
“So you're starting over. I'm happy for you.”

He rested his arms on the chair and leaned back, studying her. “When I first got to Nashville, I worked my ass off, barely scraped by at first. Slept in my car for a while. Lots of odd jobs and a fill-in as a session artist for other bands. That's how I met Sy. We clicked artistically.”

“And the drugs?”

He waved his hand as if shooing a fly. “Nothing, I swear. Sy doesn't touch the stuff, so neither do I. Music business comes first. Always.”

“And what do you want from me?”

“I want you to sign on, Sloan. You're the best singer I've ever heard. We were good together…the writing, the way we were on the same wavelength.” He didn't mention everything else they once had together, but she couldn't forget it. Jarred continued. “Everything I've been writing was with you in mind on vocals. There are people out there who still remember Anarchy. We were damn good. And you know it.”

She knew it, all right. And, oh God, how she wanted it. A kick from inside her belly cruelly flung her back to earth. She flattened her palm on her protruding abdomen. “I'm not exactly in singing shape, Jarred. I can hardly breathe, much less sing.”

“When's it supposed to be born?”

“September.”

A smile lit his face. “No prob. Hal's coming next month, but Bobby can't come until after Labor Day. We'll wait for you.” He let the offer dangle, then added, “If you marry this Dawson, he's welcome to come too. Lots of bands have families and hit the road with them.”