8
T he town that used to be my home is now a stranger. It’s a different place. Just like I’m a different person.
“Where’s the deli?” I ask Davis as we walk up the street to the clinic.
Main Street is quiet in the afternoon light.
A Bobcats banner blows in the chilly winter air as I try not to concentrate on the fact our fingertips keep brushing during our in-sync lockstep.
The brief contact does something unfair to my heart.
A soft, barely there touch of skin. It’s enough to have electricity sizzling up my arm.
Davis clears his throat. “Turned to a ski shop last year.”
“I remember doing this with you,” I muse, taking in a soft pink sign that says The Last Bookshop on the Left. “Showing you around Resurrection when you first got here.”
A crease forms on his rugged brow, like the memory annoys him. Maybe it does. Maybe all I am is a burden he’s stuck with because of a promise he made to Stede.
Two old men—friends of my father’s—are sitting on a porch swing outside Zeke’s Hardware. I tug my jacket tighter over my belly. Heat shoots into my cheeks when they look me up and down, but say nothing.
They don’t recognize me.
Maybe no one will.
My head swivels as we pass the Neon Grizzly. Even at ten a.m. country music blasts through the windows and every barstool is full.
Right next door is an art gallery. The contrast is staggering.
“The town’s gotten so big,” I breathe.
Davis chuckles, nods at a passerby. “People still say hello on the street, so not that big.”
Resurrection is different. It’s not so much gentrified as it is hip. The saloons, antique store, and candy shop from my childhood still exist, but now there’s a small-town cool to it. There’s hardly a chain-store in sight. Instead, mom-and-pop shops and cute boutiques line the storefronts.
A hollow ache fills me as I take in the sights while we walk.
The soul of my hometown hasn’t changed, it got better.
But I never wanted Resurrection. I never wanted The Corner Store.
Or my father’s legacy. Or my sister’s wild.
I wanted to be perfect and to work hard.
Older daughter status that led somewhere.
I was a cheerleader and a straight-A student.
Homecoming queen and valedictorian. I was Resurrection’s golden girl, and I left.
It’s clear I’m not one of them anymore. I’m an outsider, an interloper, a deserter.
No one in Resurrection will be happy I’m back. We take off for greener pastures when we should keep tending our own. People invest their life here, so when you’re new, or come home, no one welcomes you with open arms.
I had all this hope in leaving Aiden, and now…coming back to Resurrection feels like some perilous journey instead of a hopeful one.
“We should keep moving.” Davis’s low rumble sends warmth cascading through my stomach.
Then I blink. I’ve stopped on the street corner and didn’t realize it.
The oxygen leaves my lungs when Davis puts a hand out. It hovers over the small of my back, not quite touching it as he gives me a stern frown. A long sigh bubbles up in my lungs before I swallow it down. He keeps doing that. Not quite touching me. What does it say about me that I want him to?
What does it say about him that he won’t?
Everything about it is just like the cowboy himself—infuriatingly frustrating.
“Let’s go,” he says, his voice cool and collected.
We cross the intersection, headed for the end of Main Street. Davis strides ahead, back straight, broad shoulders stiff and on edge. For such a massive man, his energy radiates stealth, calm. His nimble movements are like a shark slicing through water.
Powerful. Dangerous.
I want to complain that he’s here with me, but I can’t. The truth is, I feel safer with Davis beside me. Isn’t that why I came back? Because, deep down, I wanted those five seconds he promised.
Davis holds the door for me, and I step inside the Bear Creek Clinic.
I exhale and square my shoulders, scanning the signs on the wall. First floor. Suite Two. Obstetrics.
A strange mixture of revulsion and fear courses through me. I’m horrified when tears hit my eyes. Even more horrified when I feel the heat from a big, muscled body behind me. The temperature in the room suddenly rises.
I jerk around, put a hand out like I can stop him. “You don’t need to come with me.”
Still, Davis moves toward me. Worry flashes in those chocolate-brown eyes. “Are you sure?”
No, I’m not fucking sure. I want him there to hold my hand, to take it with me. I want his stern face and that commanding rasp of a voice to tell me it’ll all be okay. But I can’t have that. I can’t—and won’t—ask that of him.
I lift my chin and wipe my eyes. “Does it look bad? My face?”
His expression softens, the hard apple of his throat working up and down as he stares at me. And, oh god, this time he does touch me. His big, calloused fingers tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, lingering there. My eyes flutter close at the sensation. The air between us warms at least ten degrees.
“No, Koty,” he finally says, his voice ragged. “It doesn’t look bad.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Breathe, Dakota. You got this.”
I blink back tears. Somehow, he always has me.
Before he can say anything else, I turn on my heel and leave Davis behind.
Thirty minutes later, after a variety of pregnancy related tests and a blood draw, I’m reclined on an obstetric table in an itchy gown when the door opens.
“Well, if it isn’t little Dakota McGraw. I swear I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw your name on my chart.”
I look up from my spot on the bed and smile weakly. “Lucky you, I guess.” Every sigh inside of me is fighting to come out.
My old babysitter, Agnes Winfrey, is now the town obstetrician. And why wouldn’t she be? It makes perfect sense she’d be the one to see my vagina after she changed my diapers.
In her early fifties, Winfrey’s a woman of boisterous laughter and solemn serenity. I remember her sneaking me Red Vines from her purse when she bribed Fallon and me to get back into bed and leave her and her boyfriend alone.
“What’re you doing back in town?” Winfrey shakes her head, her silver locks curling over her shoulders. “Haven’t seen you in ages.”
“New move,” I say, trying for breezy when all I want to do is melt into a puddle. “Back home.”
Winfrey makes a snippy little noise of consternation and snaps on a glove. “You know, I left Resurrection once. To get my degree. And then I came back. I swear this town has some kind of alien-beam hold on you.”
I stare at the cracked ceiling with fluffy white clouds painted on a blue surface. The cheery scene does little to reassure me. So much for keeping a low profile. Within an hour, everyone will know I’m back home.
“Haven’t seen a doctor yet?”
“No,” I tell her, ignoring the way her gaze bounces to my cast and back to my face. “I haven’t.”
A lie. I didn’t try to find a doctor.
Aiden finding out was one risk I couldn’t take. This baby was my little secret.
Silence lapses for a second and Winfrey clears her throat. “Okay. Let’s get down to business, then take a look at this baby.”
Winfrey completes her internal exam, snaps off her gloves, and discusses the results of my labs. She informs me I have low blood sugar, but I can fix it by eating frequent small meals and healthy snacks.
“Scoot,” she says, slipping on a clean pair of gloves. “Time for that Kodak moment.”
I recline on a table and lift the upper portion of the two-piece gown.
Winfrey glances at the door, then pins me with a curious look. “Would the father like to come in?”
“He’s not here,” I say quickly and leave it at that.
Inhaling a steeling breath, I glance down at my belly. I’ve avoided looking at myself in the mirror. Like looking makes this real. And it is. Suddenly, there’s my belly. My breasts are full, spilling out of my bra.
An overwhelming sort of hopelessness coasts over me.
I need bras.
I need books.
I need prenatal vitamins.
I need so many things.
A job. A home. A life. The heavy weight of responsibility, of happiness.
I squeeze my eyes shut as she squirts a cold gel on my stomach. While the wand coasts over my bump, blood roars in my ears and my heart pumps double time. To calm myself, I grip the cool metal of Davis’s dog tag and rub my thumb over the bumpy, raised lettering I’ve memorized like a prayer.
I wish Davis and his rumbling voice were here to fill the space inside my head. But he’s not. I have to handle this myself.
“There.” Winfrey’s gentle voice breaks the silence. “There’s your baby, Dakota.”
Breathe, Dakota. Rope that moon.
I open my eyes and incline my head to the monitor.
A spine, the curve of the skull, a protruding leg. And a heart. Tiny and furiously beating.
A sad smile curves across my lips. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. Now, let’s see…” She does some calculations on the screen. “Based on measurements, you’re about eighteen weeks along, which puts you at a due date of approximately June twenty-ninth.”
Panic grabs me by the throat. I’m further along than I thought.
All of this is too soon. Too fast.
Winfrey nudges her glasses up on her nose. “Have you felt the baby move yet?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. The roar of blood pounds in my ears. “I don’t think so. Is that bad?”
“Not at all. Your little one’s tucked in there tight. They’ll make themselves known when they’re ready.”
I swallow, staring at the little baby on the screen.
“Would you like to know the gender?”
“No,” I blurt.
Winfrey arches a brow. “Excuse me?”
“No.” I shake my head vigorously. “I don’t want to know.” Guilt heats my cheeks.
I’m not ready. Because if it’s a boy, then I have to worry that he’ll be like his father. If it’s a girl, I’ll worry about warning her away from men like Aiden.
All my life, I will hate myself for not being a better example.
Winfrey sets down the wand, her eyes narrowing in a wise way I don’t like. “Are you sure, Dakota?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
The little flickering heart up on the screen terrifies me. Another life I’m responsible for when I can’t even manage my own. It’s like that little beat is an SOS signal, a reminder of how badly I’m about to fail.
Tears cloud my vision.
I just want to begin again.
I want to love my baby without sorrow. I want to bake without pain, and I want to learn to love again without flinching or fear.
I just want me back.
A sob bursts out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“Oh god.” I sniffle, sitting up on my elbows. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey,” Winfrey says, handing over a clump of tissues, and I’m reminded why I liked her so much as a babysitter. “It’s normal. Hormones.”
“Right.” I dab at my eyes, tears still blurring my vision.
“Here. I’ll print you a photo of that beautiful little blur.”
The wand’s hung up, the jelly’s cleaned off my stomach, and the machine’s silenced.
I tug the gown down and take the photo Winfrey hands me. Without looking at it, I shove it into my purse.
A better mother would want this. A better mother would take the sonogram and hang it on her fridge. And then I’m reminded I don’t even have a fridge and fresh tears hit me once more.
I don’t feel bonded with my baby. I think of my mother and how she always felt so out of reach. How she’d stand at the kitchen counter and stare out the window at the white moonlight. When I asked her what was wrong, she’d pat my head and send me to bed.
What I understand now is that she wanted to run. And she did.
Like my mother, I’m already running scared.
How can I do this? I’ve been on my own for twenty-four hours and already I’m crumbling. But I made my choice. I am here in Resurrection. I can begin again.
I can.
“Dakota?”
I gasp, nearly jumping out of my skin as Winfrey’s hand hits my shoulder.
Her forehead furrows as she settles herself on the stool beside the table.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I wipe furiously at my face, wishing I could stop crying, grateful that I can at least blame the hormones.
“Dakota.” Winfrey leans in, her wise gray eyes searching my face.
“I know Stede’s still in town. Fallon too.
You ask them for help, you hear me? If things are bad, you ask for help.
This is why we have tribes. We lean on them.
Even if sometimes asking for help feels like you’re jackknifing into a pit of vipers. ”
“Okay.” I sob-laugh, grateful for the moment of peace she’s given me. “I will.”
“Here.” Winfrey rolls her stool to the cabinet, reaches inside a drawer, and rolls back to me. “You still like these?” she asks, holding out a bag of Red Vines.
“Yeah,” I say, a wobbly smile finding its way to my tear-stained face. “I do.”