Love You to Death (27 page)

“Oh my God! Aurora must be so mad. I was
supposed to help her make the crab dip and peel shrimp to boil.” I
ran a hand through my hair, fingers snagging in the snarls.

Gideon laughed. He flung back the covers and
grabbed his jeans that he’d tossed over the winged back chair.

“She’s fine. She said to let you sleep.
Maggie’s been helpin’ her.”

“I promised,” I said, hurriedly dressing.
Gideon sat on the edge of the bed, watching me with a curious
stare.

“What?” I asked, darting into the bathroom to
get a hair band, frantically pulling my hair into a ponytail.

“Nothin’,” he answered, lifting the corner of
his mouth secretively.

“I don’t have time for games, Gideon. Just
tell me. Do I have dried drool on my face?”

“No. But if you did you’d still be the most
beautiful girl I ever saw.”

I rolled my eyes. He was always telling me
that. I walked briskly from the bathroom doorway and into his
waiting arms. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of him. I kissed
him a thank you for the compliment, but when he started to take it
further, I pulled back.

“No time for hanky panky. I gotta go earn my
keep.” I tousled his hair. It was a little longer now and curling
over his ears.

“You’re family now. And for the record, you
earn your keep just fine. If I thought you’d listen I’d tell you
how you work harder than almost any female I know.”

I shook my head, telling him to sell it
someplace else. Hand in hand we walked downstairs to the
kitchen.

“There’s no need to get het up about it.” We
heard Sissy say as we reached the door into the kitchen.

“I’m not,” Maggie said.

“Well it seems to me you are. I’m just
saying. That needs to sit to the left, not the right. And it’s too
dang big.”

“What’s all the fuss?” Gideon asked.

“Sissy here thinks the centerpiece is too
big,” Maggie explained.

“Never saw such a thing. Looks like ya dug it
out of the yard,” she sniffed offhandedly. Maggie rolled her
eyes.

“Whatever. Mama and you can decide where it
goes. I’m outta here. I got a hair appointment.” She looked me up
and down. “I think you should come with. You look like crap.”

“Maggie!” Aurora swung through the door of
the pantry.

“Arden knows what I mean,” she defended
herself. “She could use a full spa day, but hair and nails is all
she’ll get today.”

“Thanks, Mags. I think I might take you up on
that after I peel the shrimp,” I said, heading for the
refrigerator.

“Too late sugar, Sissy already did ’em.”
Aurora smiled at me. Then she began sticking cloves into a big
juicy ham. “Go on. Get a little pamperin’ before the party.”

“Yeah, indulge with me.” Maggie hooked her
arm through mine, pulling me out of the kitchen. Gideon winked at
me. Sissy waved absently. She was still messing with the
centerpiece.

* * * *

The point of an open house is to let people
arrive and depart whenever they want. It is also to relieve the
house of being inhabited by too many people at once. It seemed to
me that this was more of a party than an open house because all the
invited people arrived at the appointed start time and would most
likely stay until last call.

So here I was, standing at the buffet table.
My salon appointment didn’t rejuvenate me, but with hair done and
some makeup, I didn’t look like death warmed over. I shoved a mini
quiche in my mouth just as Harriet Darren cornered me.

She was the nosiest woman I ever met.

“So dear, are your parents visiting this
year?” Her beady little eyes focused on me.

“No,” I said around the food in my mouth.

“Oh, what a shame. I was so hoping to meet
them.” She pretended to pout. “Ah well, an ambassador’s life can be
very busy, I’m sure.” She patted my arm and, with short mincing
steps, went on to the next poor victim.

The rumors about me were hysterical. I was
everything from being an Ambassador’s daughter to being in the
witness protection program. We laughed over them all, never
correcting anyone. It was too much fun. However, for no reason I
could think of, neither the Shepherd’s nor the Ross’s questioned me
about the past, and if they questioned Stewie, I never knew. But I
didn’t worry about it. Once Stewie was sworn to secrecy he was shut
down tighter than an airport with a terrorist threat.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them anymore. I
trusted them more than I ever trusted anyone ever before. It was
more of a protection thing now. I was protecting them from my
trouble called Cass, and I was protecting myself from them not
loving me anymore. Mostly Gideon.

Scanning the room I looked for him. He wasn’t
hard to find. A head taller than most of the men here, he was
standing by the Christmas tree with Cort and two other guys. Lorne
and Lance, the Taggert twins, who had graduated with Gideon.

Suddenly, as if he sensed me watching, he
lifted his gaze, caught my stare, and winked. I sent him a friendly
smile. I could barely keep my eyes open. I ate another quiche
before slipping upstairs. I figured a little nap couldn’t hurt. I’d
set my alarm for thirty minutes.

When I reached the top step a wave of nausea
rolled through me. I grabbed the newel post to steady myself. Must
be the quiche. I shuffled as fast as I could to my room. To my
shock and dismay, Les Houghton was emerging.

“What are you doing in my room?” I asked.

He had the grace to blush. “Nothin’, just
lookin’ for a quiet place to sit a spell.” His suspenders were
cinched a little too tight, hiking his pants well above his ankles.
He reminded me of a little old toad with his wide mouth and bug
eyes.

“I’m sorry to say I’m not feeling well so
this room will be occupied,” I told him. “I think Sheriff Packer is
looking for you.” I lied.

Les looked startled, hustling past me to the
stairs.

My room was cool and quiet and dark. The
shades had been pulled. I inched my way to the bed, switching on
the lamp to set my alarm and crawled beneath the covers.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

“I’ll jump down, turn around, and give the
dog a bone if you want—just say yes,” he pleaded as his eyes
searched for the answer in my face.

This was a familiar argument between us these
days. Gideon had proposed to me on New Years’ Eve. My heart broke
in a million tiny pieces when I told him I couldn’t. The look on
his face would haunt me for a lifetime.

This late Sunday morning we were riding along
the eastern border of the farm. Newly fallen snow blanketed the
ground. The air was glacial, our breath billowing out in streaming
puffs when we talked.

I was trying to explain to him why I didn’t
want to get married.

“Isn’t being together enough?” I asked.

“No. I want you to have my name. I want us to
be a family.”

“We are. We don’t need a piece of paper to
tell us that.”

“That’s a cop out. It isn’t just a piece of
paper. It’s a binding promise to each other.” Then he added, “I
don’t need a license to know how to drive, but it’s nice to have it
in case I get pulled over.”

“That’s not the same,” I huffed, knowing he
was giving me two lectures in one because I refused to get a
license too.

“It is! I want the world to know that Arden
Elliott is my woman,” he said, eyes snapping.

“So it’s about me being your possession, a
matter of male pride? I’m not a horse, Gideon. You don’t own
me.”

Gideon spit and sputtered, sliding from Midas
Touch to pace back and forth in front of the horse before he
tethered him to the fence. “Dang it, woman! I don’t wanna own you.
I wanna love you and protect you for the rest of my life.”

“You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.” I forced
a smile. It broke my heart to keep telling him no.

He finished tying the horse and came to stand
in front of me. He grabbed me by the arms, hauling me from Sampson,
giving me a light shake. “Don’t you love me, Arden? Aren’t you
happy here?”

I swallowed the lump rising in my throat.
Didn’t I love him? With all my heart. That’s why I was still lying
to him.

I raised my gloved hand to brush the hair out
of his eyes that the sporadic wind kept pushing forward. “I love
you more than life itself, Gideon Shepherd. And the only way you’ll
ever be rid of me is if you tell me you don’t want me anymore.”

Lightning quick he crushed me to his chest.
The cold metal buttons of his coat pressed into my cheek.

“Then why?
Why
won’t you marry
me?”

He sounded like a little boy who’d been told
he couldn’t ride his bike in the street.
It’s for your own
good,
I thought.

“Can’t we just wait?” I leaned back to look
into those shining eyes. “Just a little while longer. What’s the
rush?”

He took a deep breath, held it for a second,
then let it out slowly.

“Fine, I’ll wait until Valentine’s Day. Then
I’ll want an answer.” His voice was stern.

We rode back to the house in silence. Both of
us lost in our thoughts, surrounded by the beautiful rolling hills,
blanketed in white, specked with evergreens here and there under a
ceiling of bright blue. I’d really grown to love the wide open
skies and unfettered land. I didn’t miss the city at all
anymore.

My stomach grumbled. I was starving. It seems
like all I did was eat these days. I needed to cut back on my food
intake. My pants were tight. Even now I had the top button undone
under my coat.

Gideon shot me a surprised look. “Was that
your stomach?”

I blushed in answer. He threw his head back,
issuing a loud rumbling laugh. “Lord Almighty, you just had
breakfast.”

“I know! It’s insane,” I grumbled.

“Let’s head back,” he said, giving me a leg
up, groaning with exaggeration, pretending I was a heavy load. I
reached out and gave him a love tap to the back of the head.
Laughing, we raced back to the house. When we reached the stables,
Gideon helped me off Sampson.

“Go on,” he said. “I got this.”

I reached up, placing a firm kiss on his
mouth, and then pivoted around. Gideon swatted my behind. I threw
him a pretend disgruntled look and kept walking.

The house was a warm and waiting oasis. I
came in through the kitchen, shed my thick winter parka and knee
high boots, and made a bee line to the stove. There was a pot of
chili simmering on the stove. I pressed a hand to my belly. It was
hard. I gave it a quick pat.

“Feeding time at the zoo,” I said out loud to
the empty kitchen.

Spooning a healthy portion of chili into a
bowl I grabbed the bag of Fritos from the cupboard and sat down.
Gideon came in when I was chewing the last bite and setting the
bowl in the upper rack of the dishwasher.

He raised curious brow, but said nothing.

“Want some?” I asked.

“Is there any left?” He grunted, using the
toe of his one boot to slide the other off.

“Smarty pants.”

A few hours later I was suffering the worst
heartburn in the history of the human race. I rummaged in my
medicine cabinet, finding nothing but Tylenol and toothpaste. I
picked through Gideon’s and found the same stuff, along with his
razor and shaving cream.

I stomped downstairs. Sissy was emerging from
the bathroom hidden under the stairs.

“Good Lord above, gal, you got the step of a
Clydesdale.”

I ignored her, asking my own question. “Isn’t
there a bottle of Tums in this whole house?”

Sissy eyed me thoughtfully for a minute then
stepped back into the bathroom and came out with the familiar blue
container, which she handed to me. I immediately popped the top and
chewed two tablets, waiting for the relief.

Sissy was still staring at me.

“What? I ate chili earlier and it isn’t
agreeing with me.”

“Never bothered you before.” She followed me
into the family room. “You got a cast iron stomach.”

“Maybe I caught a bug or something.” I
stretched out on the sofa, grabbing the remote with one hand and
hugging the Tums in the other.

“When was your last period?” she asked,
easing into the recliner beside me.

That brought me up short. “What does that
have to do with heartburn?”

“You been tired since before Thanksgiving,
now you’re eatin’ like a hog and gettin’ heartburn almost like
clockwork.”

“So?” I said, sitting up on the sofa, pushing
down the panic rising like bile in my throat.

“You think I’ve been on this earth as long as
I have and can’t recognize the signs of pregnancy?” she said
sagely.

I sucked in a breath.
Pregnant? Me? I
couldn’t be.
Gideon and I were careful. Very careful. My mind
raced to remember all the times we had been together. I groaned.
There was that one night we went for a midnight swim down at
Miller’s pond. It was one of those Indian summer days that came
late in the season. It was unusually warm and muggy so we drove out
there to cool off and ended up fooling around.

“I can’t—”

“Course ya can. You are. I’d bet my best
horse on it.” She leaned forward in the chair, arms braced on her
knees. “You didn’t know?”

I looked into her face. She didn’t believe
that. She thought I was hiding it. I could see the suspicion
written between her wrinkles plain as day.

“I’ve never been regular. I didn’t think
anything of it...” My mind was collapsing under this revelation. A
baby. Gideon’s baby. For the briefest moment I allowed myself to
feel the incredible joy of having this baby. I hoped he had his
father’s beautiful whiskey brown eyes. Then reality came crashing
down. Now I would have to come clean and tell them the truth. There
would be no getting out of it now.

Would they all hate me?
Before I could
stop them, tears filled my eyes, coursing down my cheeks.