Loe raamatut: «The Pregnancy Clause»

Chapter One

“You must have a baby before you turn thirty or Clover Hill Farms will be turned over to charity.”’

A baby? In ten and a half months?

Twenty-nine-year-old Emily Kingston stared in awe across the highly-polished mahogany desk into the somber face of the young lawyer. Lawrence Tippens recited the conditions of the codicil to her father’s five-year-old will as if he’d just told her to put on fresh lipstick.

“Why didn’t someone tell me this five years ago, when my father’s will was read?” She felt her eyes widen. “If I have a baby that means I have to…to…”

A red blush suffused Lawrence’s face. “Yes, well, the codicil doesn’t stipulate how you have the child, only that you have one by the time you turn thirty.”

Despite this emotional upset, Emily had to hide a smile. Lawrence would never change. He was as much a prude now as when he was in high school.

“Now, as to why you weren’t told about the codicil at the reading of the primary will—” He brushed imaginary lint from his navy, pin-striped lapels and avoided her gaze. Obviously, he hadn’t counted on her asking about the delay in the notification, or he’d hoped that she wouldn’t ask for details. “I regret to say that my father’s memory wasn’t too acute in his last years, and he did not employ the best filing system. In fact…ahem…he didn’t really have a system to speak of at all. He did most of his work at home and failed to transfer it to his town office so his secretary could put it in the proper place.”

Emily leaned toward the embarrassed man. “Exactly what are you trying to tell me, Larry?”

He bristled at the use of the nickname. “Last week, while cleaning out the closet in my father’s home office, my mother found a box of legal papers. My secretary discovered the codicil in that box. Since my father passed away only a week after your father, I doubt anyone knew about the codicil other than the two of them. As it was, if you recall, because my father was so gravely ill at the time, it took two weeks to locate the original will.”

“But this doesn’t make sense. When my father told me about the terms of his will, he gave me the impression that I would have sole ownership of Clover Hill Farms. He never said anything about a baby or the farm reverting to charity.”

Lowering his wire-rimmed spectacles to the bridge of his bony nose, Lawrence stared at her. “I cannot speak to your father’s reasoning or his decision. I can only relate what the codicil says. The terms of the original will were just as you say. The farm went solely to you—however, the codicil changes all that.”

Emily shook her head. “I don’t understand any of this.”

The young lawyer sighed impatiently. “Let me explain.” Lawrence straightened the papers on his desk, lining them up like soldiers at a dress parade. “When your father originally had my father draw up his will, the terms were as you’ve stated them. This codicil applies conditions to that original document and to your continued ownership. You must meet these terms in the allotted time or lose the horse-breeding farm to the charity your father has designated here as his new beneficiary.” He used his forefinger to push his glasses back in place, then shuffled through the papers. “The Horseman’s Benevolent Association.”

Emily sighed, leaned back, then took a deep fortifying breath. The smell of lemon oil, leather-bound books, stale smoke and Larry’s expensive, overpowering, cologne assaulted her. The combination turned her already queasy stomach. “Is it legal? Could he do that?”

“Yes, he had every right to put additional stipulations on the distribution of his estate. I’m afraid you will have to produce a child in ten and a half months or you’ll lose your horse farm.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, I’m sure he assumed that marriage would precede the blessed event.”

“That’s impossible.” Emily wasn’t about to tie herself to any man.

He eyed her over his glasses, his gesture making him look older than his thirty years. “You mean you don’t have a young man who’s pressing you to marry?” Lawrence leered. “Of course, you didn’t date all that frequently in high school, but you’ve turned into an attractive woman. There must be men lined up on your porch.” His leer deepened. “If I can be of any help with the…uh…baby problem, don’t hesitate to ask.”

His condescending tone caused Emily’s anger to churn inwardly. Whatever made this pompous ass think she’d resort to asking him to father her child? She’d spent four years in high school avoiding his amorous overtures. Why would she change her mind now? Not in this lifetime. She’d rather walk over hot coals than climb into bed with Lawrence Tippens.

And as far as her personal life went, she wasn’t about to share with this stodgy legal machine that the Sahara Desert had a better chance of getting a torrential rain than she did of getting a date. She couldn’t be expected to run a business like hers and still play the social butterfly. The only nursery she should be planning to furnish should be one with hay on the floor.

“Thanks but no thanks, Larry. This idea needs getting used to. I’m a horse breeder—I’m not cut out to be a mother.”

He bristled at her rejection, just as he’d done in high school, then became all business again. “Am I to assume then that you’re willing to let the farm go to charity?”

“No, certainly not.” The smug—Emily fought to remember she was a lady.

“In that case, short of contesting this, I see no other alternative for you except to comply.”

A dim ray of hope rose in Emily. “Contesting? You mean I can fight this legally?”

“You can.” Lawrence jogged the papers, papers that had changed her life, into a neat stack, then returned them to the manila folder from which he’d taken them a half hour ago. “However, since your father was of sound mind, your chances of winning are slim at best.”

Standing, Emily walked to the window overlooking the main street of the small town of Bristol, New York. She’d lived here all her life. Everyone knew everyone, along with their business. The thought of having to face people with the news of what had gone on here today made her want to crawl off in a corner and hide. And it would spread beyond these doors, she had no doubt. Larry could never keep a juicy little tidbit like this to himself.

A movement in the windowpane drew her attention from the lazy activity of Main Street. Reflected in the window, she could see Larry fingering a cigar, no doubt in anticipation of her leaving. He was much too proper to light it with her there, but the stale smell of predecessors to the cigar he held already clung to the legal books and drapes. Little did he realize that the cigar didn’t fit his professional personae any more than being a mother fit hers.

She knew nothing about raising babies. What could her father have been thinking? Larry had described Frank Kingston as being of sound mind. An arguable description from her standpoint.

She shouldn’t be shocked at this turn of events. Frank Kingston had either been breaking promises to her, her sister Honey and her brother Jesse all their lives or running other people’s lives. He’d known how much the breeding farm meant to her. He’d promised it would be hers. Hers. Why the change of heart? She shook her head. It didn’t make sense.

However, little her father did made sense to those not privy to his reasoning. Sense or no sense, he’d trapped her by making it all very legal and very binding. Men! They just couldn’t be trusted. Hadn’t she figured that one out a long time ago?

“If you have no further questions….” Lawrence stood and walked around his desk, obviously anxious to get rid of her.

“No. I think that’s quite enough for one day.”

As Emily made her way across the thick carpet to the door, she decided that her opinion of Lawrence hadn’t changed since high school. He was a pompous windbag of a man, so full of himself and his profession that she doubted there was room left over for a heart inside his bony chest. Nothing like his gregarious, soft-spoken father.

Emily halfheartedly shook the hand he offered, then left the cigar-scented offices of Tippens, Tippens and Forge.

AS KAT Madison watched out the café window, a young woman, obviously intent on something other than her safety, walked into the street and was nearly run down by an oncoming car. She looked familiar. That he couldn’t place her from this distance didn’t stop him from appreciating the gentle sway of her single dark braid against her denim-encased hips or the swell of her breasts beneath a white T-shirt shouting in black letters, I’ve Got The Answers.

Lucky her. Finding answers had brought him home to Bristol for the first time in over sixteen years, since his parents’ funeral. He’d only stayed for a day. Thoughts of that day drove a pain through his heart. Out of habit, he pushed them to the back of his mind.

“More coffee?”

Kat glanced at the young blonde he’d been flirting outrageously with before spotting the T-shirt-clad woman across the street. Nodding, he turned his gaze back to the street in time to see her red pickup drive by the window, heading out of town. Across the truck’s door in white letters he read Clover Hill Farms.

Emily?

Just his luck to be ogling the one person he really wasn’t ready to come face-to-face with. The one person who would inevitably confront him with questions he couldn’t answer.

“Here’s the key.”

Dave Thornton’s deep voice roused Kat from his observations. “Thanks.” He took the key to the summer cottage his friend had arranged for Kat to use until he found somewhere to live.

“I told the power company that you’d call when you leave so they can cut off the electric. Oh, and I had the phone turned on, too.”

“Thanks.” Kat shook the key. “I owe you one.”

Dave smiled. “So, what do you plan on doing with your parents’ house, Kat? Or do you go by Rian now?”

Kat wanted to correct him, but for all intents and purposes, Hilda and Charlie Madison had been his parents. Were still his parents. Besides, what other name could he use?

He shrugged. “Kat’s fine.”

He fell silent, remembering how his father had come up with the nickname because of his son’s ability to enter and leave a room without being noticed, a trait that had proven helpful on more than one occasion.

Stirring his coffee, Dave grimaced. “I’m sorry. I guess you don’t want to talk about them, huh?”

Kat laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It’s been sixteen years since they died in the fire.”

“I know, but when you love someone, it’s hard to forget.”

The sharp pain of their death had dulled with time. What hadn’t diminished was the pain brought on by what he’d found the day he’d sifted through the ashes of the partially burned house. He wondered if that ache would ever fade—or if he’d get any answers.

Dave stood. “Well, I gotta run. I promised Marilyn I’d meet her and go wallpaper shopping.” He grinned. “We’re turning the spare room into a nursery.”

Kat grabbed Dave’s extended hand and shook it, feeling envy eat at him. “Hey, congratulations, Dad. Thanks again. Say hello to Marilyn for me.”

“Will do.” Dave waved and slipped out the door.

Kat watched Dave leave the café. He hadn’t changed since high school. Tall, lanky and devoted to the woman he’d loved exclusively since seventh grade, Dave had found happiness, happiness compounded by the addition of a child. Lucky devil.

For a moment Kat allowed the envy to seep in, before he stopped it with a reminder that he was here to rebuild his parent’s house and sell it, not to form relationships. He had other things to settle first. Wives, homes and babies would have to wait their turn.

Throwing some change on the counter, he smiled at the blonde, then headed for his car. If he was going to rebuild the house, he might as well bite the bullet and take a look at it to figure out what he was going to need in the way of building supplies.

A BABY.

Emily had been pacing her living room and repeating those two words for over an hour, but full comprehension of her father’s demand still hadn’t registered. Why had he done this to her? If only Rose were here. Having been with the family for nearly sixteen years and having acted as Emily’s father’s sounding board, Rose knew better than most why Frank Kingston had done things.

Fine time for Emily’s housekeeper cum maternal confidant to be somewhere in Mexico touring pyramid ruins with her friends. Emily’s mother had died when Emily was a teenager and Rose was the closest thing to a mother that she had now. She’d gotten used to talking through her problems with Rose. Rose had more logic in her little finger than most people had in their whole heads, even if she was a bit on the old-fashioned side.

Emily nearly had this self-pity thing down to a fine art when the doorbell rang. The last thing she wanted right now was company. Cautiously, she peeked through the side window, then swung open the door.

“Hey, sister.” Honey and her four-year-old son Danny smiled at Emily from the front porch.

Pushing between his mother and his aunt, Danny tugged on Emily’s shirttail. “Aunt Emily, c-c-can I go s-s-see the horsies?” Danny’s eyes glowed with excitement.

“May I, Danny.” Honey frowned at her son. “And it would be nice if you said hello before you start making your aunt crazy.”

“Aw, Mommy.” Danny rolled his eyes at his mother, but adoration shone from his gaze.

For the first time, Emily thought about the baby her father insisted she have as something other than a complication she didn’t need in her life right now. How bad would it be to have a little person like Danny to look at you with love, trust and honesty?

“Hello, Aunt Emily. Now, c-c-can I go s-s-see the horsies?”

Honey sighed and shook her head. “The child is going to grow up illiterate despite my best efforts.”

Another, more insistent tug on her shirt drew Emily’s attention back to her nephew. His stutter hadn’t gotten any better. She’d hoped that time would ease his grief over his father’s death, and his stutter would go away, as the doctor had predicted. So far, it wasn’t working.

Emily scooped his sturdy body up into her arms. The feel of him cuddled to her chest made her suddenly aware of how good it felt to hold a child close, to inhale that special child-fragrance. “Sure you can, sweetie. Just stay out of the stalls, do as Chuck says and don’t get too near the mommy horsies, okay? But it’s gonna cost you.” She tapped her cheek with a blunt nail. “Plant one right there.”

Danny grinned and bestowed a wet kiss to her upturned cheek. She set him back on his feet. Without hesitation, he scampered down the steps, then raced in the direction of the barn. Emily watched him, her heart assuming a strange new beat.

Honey sighed. “The child is incorrigible.”

“You worry too much about how he’s going to grow up. He’s a good kid. He’ll be fine.”

“I plan on making certain of that. Speaking of fine, will he be okay out there?”

Emily nodded. “Chuck will keep an eye on him. He loves having Danny around.” She continued to watch as Danny’s short legs carried him to the barn. “And you can stop worrying about him. He’ll make a fine man some day.”

“Well, you don’t help matters when you—” Honey leaned into Emily’s line of vision. “Do I see maternal longing in those green eyes?”

Emily straightened and glared at her sister. Sometimes the closeness they had was more of a liability than a blessing. Maybe if she just ignored her…. “Did you come over here just to antagonize me or is there another purpose for your visit?” She walked into the house ahead of Honey, leading her into the kitchen. “Coffee?”

Honey feigned a look of horror. She backed up, as if to escape some threat. “What terrible thing have I done to be subjected to a cup of that black poison you call coffee?”

Smiling for the first time today, Emily waved her into a chair and got a can of soda for each of them from the refrigerator. Honey could always cheer her up. “Okay, so I can’t make coffee to save my life. Shoot me. With Rose around, I don’t need culinary talents.”

“Em, you may be an ace with those four-legged beasts you love, but you wouldn’t know a culinary talent if it bit you on the backside.” Honey popped the can, tucked a wayward strand of her long, blond hair behind her ear, then took a sip. “When’s Rose due back?”

“Not for a while. About two weeks, I think.” Sighing, Emily looked around the sparkling yellow kitchen. “If someone doesn’t take pity on me, I just may starve to death before then. One can survive for just so long on peanut butter and banana sandwiches.”

Honey snickered at her younger sister’s blatant bid for a dinner invitation. “You sure picked the wrong night to wangle a dinner invitation. Tess is making her prizewinning meat loaf tonight. Now, if you’d waited until tomorrow night, Tess has it off and I man the kitchen.” She curled her nose. “But I don’t dare go near it while Tess is there.”

“It’s a good thing the woman has a day off, or I’d worry more about Danny’s nutrition than his manners.” She shook her head. “I’ll never understand why your mother-in-law has kept her for all these years. Amanda can certainly afford someone better.”

Honey shrugged. “Tess grows on you.”

“So does bacteria, but most people don’t encourage it.” Tess made the only gray meat loaf Emily had ever seen in her life. She wasn’t a cook by any means, but even she knew meat loaf should be brown.

Avoiding Emily’s comment, Honey took a sip from her soda can.

Lowering her voice as if she might be overheard, Emily leaned toward Honey. “Wonder where she won that prize, and how many drinks the judges had before they awarded it to her.”

Honey snickered. “Never mind where she won it. If hers was the winner, can you imagine what the losers were like?”

Both women laughed.

“So, what does bring you here, aside from being thrown out of Amanda’s kitchen by a woman small enough to have learned how to cook in a hollow tree with a bunch of elves?”

“Just plain nosiness.” Honey set her soda can down. “What did Tippens want to see you for?”

Emily’s good mood evaporated. She rose, then walked to the trash and deposited her empty can. “It seems Dad’s will had a codicil.” She turned to her shocked sister.

“A codicil? Can they do that? I mean, so long after the will has been read?”

“From what Lawrence said, it can be done any time the deceased requests it be done. Apparently, due to a filing glitch, the codicil was just discovered.”

“But how can something like that get misplaced?”

Emily glanced at her. “Larry said his father’s filing system left a lot to be desired.” Grabbing another soda from the refrigerator, Emily popped the top. Gas hissed from the can. “It gets better. Seems Dad insisted that if I’m to keep Clover Hill Farms, I have to have a baby.”

“A baby?” Honey’s lower jaw dropped. “And if you don’t?”

“If I don’t, the farm goes to the Horseman’s Benevolent Association.”

“What? Well, that sucks dead canaries.” Honey leaned forward and rested her forearms on the pine table. “What in blazes possessed Dad to do such a thing?”

“Beats me. But when did he ever not make a sharp left when everyone else was ready to go right?” Throwing herself back in the chair facing her sister, Emily rubbed at the ache in her temple. “He promised me sole ownership of the farm. Why did he lie to me, Honey?”

Honey laughed derisively, took a sip of her soda, then shook her head. “Heaven only knows. Why did he do half the things he did? Why did he insist I marry a man I didn’t love? Why did he alienate his own son?” She rose and walked to the window. Pulling the curtain aside, she looked out, presumably checking on Danny’s whereabouts. “Everyone in this valley knows that Frank Kingston was a law unto himself. That he left the farm to you came as a surprise to no one, considering that I detest horses and Jesse detested Dad.” She shook her head. “He wasn’t well-liked, but he sure was obeyed. I figure that Henry Tippens died of that heart attack so quickly after Dad died only because Dad was up there already and poor Henry didn’t dare keep him waiting.”

Despite Honey’s attempt at levity, Emily knew her sister still felt the pain of their father’s interference in her life. When he’d insisted Honey marry to make her unborn child legitimate and preserve the Kingston’s good name, he’d sentenced his daughter to a life with a man who suffered from a Peter Pan complex. The best thing Stan Logan ever did for Honey and Danny was get himself killed last year in a motorcycle accident. Since then, Honey had made it her life’s mission to make sure Danny didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps.

Emily’s father hadn’t cared that he’d forced Honey to marry the wrong man. He just didn’t want the whole valley to laugh at him. Emily had never mentioned any of this to Honey. Aside from the fact that Honey didn’t seem to want to talk about it, Emily had promised her father she would never tell Honey just how much she knew about Danny and his father. To Emily, a promise was golden. Once made, it could not be broken.

She laughed to herself. Frank Kingston had been dead for five years and ironically, he was still running their lives from his grave.

“This may not be as bad as we think.” Honey had left the window and returned to her seat across from Emily. “Since you are going to marry sometime, it follows that you’ll have children, too. Right?”

“In theory that works, but I didn’t tell you the whole thing.” She glanced at her sister’s raised eyebrow. “I have to have the baby before I turn thirty. Since I just turned twenty-nine, that gives me exactly one and a half months to get pregnant.”

Honey let out a long breath. “Hells bells.”

“Of course, there’s the small problem of finding a man before then.” Emily smoothed the corner of the lacy doily in the center of the table. “That is, if I even want a man in my life to begin with.”

Honey’s laughter filled the kitchen. “I hate to tell you this, little sister, but it’s gonna be damned difficult to have that baby without a man.”

Emily placed both palms on the table and stared at her sister. “Honey, I can’t be a mother. I have no idea what to do with a baby. I don’t even know which end to diaper. I didn’t even help you take care of Danny when he was small.”

“Well, that would have been a little hard, considering I was traveling all over the United States from car race to car race with Stan. And as far as taking care of a baby goes, it’s an inborn instinct. Oh, and by the way, you diaper the end with no hair.”

“Cute, Honey. Really cute. I’m at a crossroads in my life and you’re making jokes.”

“Sorry.” Honey didn’t look contrite.

Emily stared at her sister. Maybe for some women mothering was inborn, but for Emily, the only babies she had any acquaintance with had four legs and a mane, and not a one of them grew up and attended college or got the measles or…or called her Mommy.

THE NEXT DAY, Emily settled more comfortably on her horse’s back. She did her best thinking in the saddle, and she planned on riding out to the west pasture, just to clear her head.

As she rode farther from home, hammering coming from the old Madison place disturbed the silence. She couldn’t imagine who would be hammering over there. It had been deserted since fire had partially destroyed it years ago.

She reigned in Butternut and walked him through the barrier of trees dividing her property from the Madisons’. The hammering stopped, replaced by the loud squeak of a rusty nail being torn from old, dry wood. Pushing the branch of a maple out of her way, she peered through at the ruins of the house.

On a ladder, shirtless and bronzed from exposure to the sun, was a man. With one hand he held on to the ladder, while with the other he tore off a half-burned board.

She eased the horse closer. When she was within shouting distance, she stopped.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Surprised, the man spun toward her, almost losing his balance. As he clutched the rung of the ladder, the muscles in his shoulders and arms danced under his tan skin. Butternut sidestepped and a shaft of bright sunlight blinded her from seeing the intruder clearly.

“I would have thought that after all these years, you’d have given up trying to send me to an early grave.”

Taken aback by his words and the familiar tone of his voice, Emily eased the horse closer. “Who told you you could tear this house apart?”

“I did. I own it, Squirt. Or have you forgotten?”

Squirt?

Emily sucked in her breath. Only one person in her entire life had called her Squirt, and he’d walked out on her without a word sixteen years ago. Gently nudging Butternut in the ribs, Emily moved into the shadow of an overhanging maple tree to see him more clearly.

Shock ebbed over her. Above his left eyebrow, just below a wayward lock of wavy, jet-black hair, a pencil-thin, two-inch scar marred his tanned skin. She knew that scar very well—after all, she’d been the cause of the injury that had produced it. When she was seven and he was eleven, she’d dared him to jump from the maple in her front yard with a homemade bedsheet parachute. Because he always did anything she asked of him, Kat Madison had jumped and landed facedown on a piece of glass in the driveway.

Kat, the only man she knew who could enter a room and not be heard. She might have known that, true to his nickname, he’d sneak back into town on silent feet. She recalled hearing the story of how he’d insisted on spelling his name with a K to make himself unique. He was unique all right, a unique jerk who cared nothing about a friend’s feelings.