Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 15

“Come on back, Loretta.”

Zinnia’s voice jarred me from thoughts that had infiltrated my mind. Buck’s fake kiss had shaken me. It was hard to explain how I’d felt so much—the hardness of his body, his clean and manlysmell, the warmth of his lips. He’d even manhandled me a little when he’d backed me into the doorway and pushed me up against the wall. And damn if it hadn’t gotten me right in my bits.

“Oh. Hey.” I rose from where I sat in the waiting room chair. Zinnia was Dr. Lindy Littlejohn’s nurse practitioner, a slender woman with freckled skin and ginger curls. She held the door that led to the exam rooms open, her face lit with a welcoming smile as she waited for me to pass.

“How long have you been back?” I asked congenially.

“Going on two months.” She led me down the hall. “And I’ve been wanting to thank you. That oil you gave me for my stretch marks fixed me right up.”

“I’m so glad!” I beamed with pride. I’d been perfecting my belly balm for more than a year. It was made with rose hips and lavender from my garden.

“Girl, you ought to be selling that stuff.”

I waved her off, not telling her that, technically, I did, through the decoy website for Sniffing Around.

“I grow more of the ingredients than I know what to do with. It’s a labor of love.”

I shot her a grateful smile for her kindness as she ushered me into a room.

“Lindy’s running a little late. She’s got a mom in labor.”

“The mom had the baby?” I asked.

“Not yet. Lindy’s been back and forth. That’s the benefit of having the hospital right across the street.”

I appreciated Lindy—who insisted that no one call her “doctor”—so much that I drove a long way for my annual checkup and occasional gynecological woe. She was the first doctor I’d ever been to who actually listened to me. Being treated more like a partner than a patient had given me the confidence to find better doctors across the board.

“We seeing you for anything special today?” Zinnia had me in an exam room now.

“My annual checkup...” My heart sped as I prepared to say the words. “And family planning.”

Zinnia threw me a warm smile. From there, she took my blood pressure, confirmed that I’d been doing my breast self-exams, and apologized in advance for the general unpleasantness of my pap smear, which I didn’t like, but which was still preferable to undetected cervical cancer.

Not two minutes after Zinnia stepped out, Lindy stepped in, sat down, and rolled her chair to where I sat on the table. With my testing done, I’d already changed back into my clothes. Since Zinnia did the physical exams, my visits with Lindy were more like conversations.

Lindy was about my height, a few inches north of petite. Her loose, white curls were cropped above her shoulders. She didn’t wear a lab coat or traditional scrubs, but the tunic style uniform she always sported added to her air of wisdom.

“Has anything changed in your sexual history?” she asked after answering my initial questions and assuring me that a few pubic hairs turning gray wasn’t a harbinger of doom.

“Other than me not getting any?” I quipped.

“Last time I saw you, you were pretty active.”

“I think my wild oats are sown.”

“Have you met someone?” She smiled in premature congratulation.

“Actually . . . I think I’ve given up on that.”

“Modern dating isn’t all we think it should be, is it?” There was sympathy in her tone.

“I just don’t think I can hold out for Mr. Right. My biological clock isn’t just ticking. It’s sending up flares.”

Lindy smiled kindly. “Biologically speaking, there is no hormonal reaction inside your body telling your brain to procreate. People who want children want them for psychological reasons.”

“But biological clocks are a thing...” I argued lightly. My urge to raise children was impossible to ignore. I noticed babies everywhere—sitting in carts at the supermarket, running in the park, at church in their Sunday best.

“That vocabulary—biological clock—is a fairly modern term. But that doesn’t mean your sense of urgency isn’t real. We call it baby lust now.”

I thought about this for a minute. This wasn’t the conversation I’d been expecting. Though, if I was honest with myself, I’d wanted a baby for upwards of ten years and I’d known I wanted to be a mother from a very young age. Now, it just felt more pressing.

“What are my options?” I asked next. “I know I want to experience pregnancy. But I’m guessing I can’t just walk into the sperm bank and place an order.”

“Actually, you can,” Lindy said a bit sourly. “But that’s not what I advise. The most important thing right now is to educate yourself about the process. Not all cryobanks uphold the same standard of screening donors and testing samples. There are other decisions you’ll have to make, like whether to choose a donor who consents to releasing his identity to your child when your child comes of age.”

“Which sperm bank do you recommend?”

“The one that does the most screening is out in Reddy. I’ll have Zinnia give you some literature on your way out. They book out pretty far, so factor that into your thinking.”

“What about the getting pregnant part?” I asked. “I mean, I’m thirty-five. Won’t it count as a geriatric pregnancy?”

I’d been reading up and I didn’t like what I’d seen. I didn’t feel old, but according to the medical establishment, my eggs were ancient.

“I’d bet money that stupid term was coined by a man,” Lindy griped. “Look. You’re thirty-five, but your overall health is excellent and your periods are still regular. Right now, those are more important predictors than your numerical age. But it will get harder the longer you wait. Don’t drag your feet if you’re sure.”

HostingCheated On-Onymous the very same evening felt serendipitous. My thoughts were jumbled and thick, heavy with the weight of consideration. Two weeks ago, I’d been making slow progress toward being able to afford motherhood—stashing money and preparing in my own time. Now, the sheriff had handed me job security and benefits on a silver platter, and my doctor had advised me to try for pregnancy now.

So much of my original timeline had hinged on shifting into a workload I could manage once I became a parent, maneuvering myself into desk work and training Clarine on investigation. So much of it had centered on the economics of being self-employed. With that having changed, was I really ready to walk into a clinic and leave with a vial of sperm?

Two minutes before the meeting was slated to begin, Peggy came in looking ashen, bags under her eyes and features drawn. She set down a store-bought lemon loaf, issued halfhearted hellos, and sat in her place. A store-bought cake was unprecedented. Peggy was a gourmand who always baked from scratch—mille-feuilles, and roulades, and Linzer tortes.

“Who gets chocolate?” I offered. Heads shook all around. It was my signal to progress to the sharing part of the meeting. “Would anyone like to begin?”

Seven pairs of eyes swung to Peggy.

“I’ve got something,” she said quietly. “I need—” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m open to advice. I need to figure out how to get past it.”

A few women straightened, poised to hold space. It took Peggy a good minute and some hand-wringing before she began.

“I have the kids this week. I’m not supposed to. Ty wanted to switch so he could go on a trip. I naturally assumed it was a work trip.” Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. “Turns out he’s on my dream vacation. With her.”

Shewas Ty’s girlfriend, Heather, former friend of Peggy, a divorced single mother who lived on the same street. Everyone knew Peggy’s dream vacation. She was saving up for a French cooking class and talked about Paris nonstop.

“I just—” Peggy cut herself off. “I don’t want him back. And they can live whatever life they want. I just wish it didn’t feel so much like they were living mine.”

Nods of support came from all around. Clarine produced a box of tissues that was passed down the line. For seconds, we all sat in silence.

“Both of them are deep in their own bullshit,” Shenita finally said. Her ex-husband had come out of the closet the day they’d dropped their youngest off at college. His confession had been tearful and his bags had been packed. He said he’d stayed for years for the sake of the children. She’d never let him martyr himself on that.

“Ty knows he’s wrong,” Shenita went on. “And Heather sounds insecure. If she didn’t feel like she was competing with you, she’d come up with a dream vacation of her own.”

“But everyone loves Paris,” Peggy sniffed.

“Baguettes taste better with a clean conscience.” That was from Darlene. “Being happy and acting happy are two different things.”

I stayed quiet a minute longer, even as the froth of my own story brewed inside. Clarine looked around the room expectantly, fully in her facilitator persona as she asked for more commentary with her eyes. And then it all came out of me—the memory I hadn’t planned on sharing—the memory I’d already thought of once today.

“I ran into Shaina, three years after Floyd.”

My eyes found Jolene’s. She was the only one who had heard the story. None of the others who were present now had been here when I’d survived that part of my grief. Shaina was the nineteen-year-old Floyd had been cheating on me with.

“By that point, it had been two years since I found out everything I thought there was to know—about the women, and his gambling, and him losing his job. I thought I’d been through every possible hurt. Then, I see Shaina again, happy and glowing, walking down the street. She was pushing a baby carriage.”

A collective gasp went up when I revealed that last bit.

“You want to know how to get past it.” I looked back over at Peggy. “The truth is, you never do. Betrayal isn’t something that reveals itself all at once. This wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time Ty shows you who he really is. You’ll get past it if you remember that it’s easier to leave him behind now that you know.”