Out of the Depths

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

KYNDAL EASED HERSELF ONTO the chair, hoping the nausea would pass. The cushion she sat on still bore the duct tape her mom had repaired it with fifteen years before. Kyndal had sliced it by sitting on her foot while wearing in-line skates. The owl cookie jar, the chipped blue willow dishes, the wallpaper with teapots and teacups. Everything in this kitchen looked exactly the way it had for as long as she could remember. And while the familiarity was comforting, it was disconcerting, too—a reminder of how many rungs down the ladder of success she’d actually fallen.

All the way back to where she’d started.

That she’d had a fling with Chance Brennan and he was once again out of the picture seemed to magnify the fact that her upward mobility had simply curved into a closed circle.

“You okay?” Bart pulled a Dutch oven from the box and sat it on the counter.

Kyndal wiped her sleeve down her face. “Just too many changes in six weeks’ time, I think. The cave, the surgery, the job, the move.” She indicated the boxes strewn around the kitchen and to the living room beyond. “At least I’m hoping that’s what it is and not some dreaded disease I caught from breathing bat guano.”

“Well, if there’s a cure for bat shit fever, I’ll bet Rick knows what it is.”

Kyndal laughed. Bart managed to find the humor in everything. “Have you ever known anybody who knows so much about animals?”

“Not without their own TV show. And if he doesn’t get back with those sandwiches pretty soon, I’m gonna have to hunt down the neighbor’s cat.”

“Ack.” Kyndal grimaced at the sick joke.

“And where’d Jaci go?” He held up the Dutch oven with a questioning look, and Kyndal pointed toward the cabinet above the refrigerator.

“I don’t know. She said she had an errand to run.” Her friend’s sudden disappearance a half hour ago was perplexing since the job here was almost done.

Bart hefted the last box onto the counter, reading the tape on the side. “DVD player. Why don’t we go ahead and get this hooked up in case you want to watch a movie later?”

Kyndal followed him into the living room, noticing her limp had worsened with fatigue. She was thankful she’d gotten a walking cast before this move. Moving was tiresome—even with four people—but trying to do it on crutches would’ve been impossible.

“Tell me about the job. What is it that you’ll be doing?” He shifted the small television off the shelf, which was nothing more than a wide board painted black atop two stacks of cinder blocks.

“I get to take Christmas pictures of pets while dressed as an elf.”

She waited for the inevitable snicker, and Bart didn’t disappoint. “When do you start?”

“Next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.”

“And when does the cast come off?”

“December first.” She rapped her knuckles against the cast a couple of times. “Hallelujah.”

Bart pulled some cords from the box and studied their tips for a few seconds. “Have you heard anything from Chance lately?”

The mention of the name brought on another bout of queasiness. She shook her head. “Not since the hospital.”

Bart placed the DVD player on the shelf and the TV on top of it. “I don’t understand it. That night at Max’s, he was drinking you in more than the beer. And I noticed the way you tried not to look at him. It definitely seemed like love to me.” He pulled some more cords out of the box and began attaching one end of them to the TV and one end to the DVD player. The umbilical symbolism wasn’t lost on Kyndal, and she vowed not to stay here in her mom’s house too long. “I thought y’all would be picking out china by Christmas.”

“Nope. We really have moved on.”

The back door closed and Rick appeared holding sacks from Starnes Barbecue. “Your favorite, I believe.”

He pitched one to Kyndal and she held it to her nose, breathing in the spicy aroma of hickory smoke and pork shoulder that never failed to make her mouth water. The nausea had passed and she was ravenous.

They all three scrambled to the table and dug into the feast Rick had brought.

Kyndal was halfway through her sandwich and the men were each on their second when Jaci returned. She disappeared into Kyndal’s room before coming into the kitchen.

“Where’ve you been, shug?” Bart pulled her in for a kiss before she sat down.

“Needed feminine supplies.” She batted her eyes at him. He groaned and abruptly let her go.

Kyndal noticed Rick blushed slightly at Jaci’s comment. He’d been around them all so much lately, he felt like family. She sometimes forgot he was a relative newcomer to the group. “Jaci keeps no secrets,” she warned.

“I’ve noticed.” He gave Jaci a wink as he wadded up his sandwich wrappers and tossed them into the sack. “Okay, y’all, I need some advice. I’m going to Arkansas for Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, I’ll bet your mom’s glad to have you home for a few days.” Jaci gave his back an affectionate pat before she sat down.

The mention of mom caused the bite Kyndal had just taken to catch in her throat. Her mother wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving. She’d called last week and said she and Lloyd had gotten jobs at a motel on Route 66. He worked as the handyman and she as the maid. She sounded thrilled that the perk was a free room. The horror in her voice as Kyndal recounted the cave saga had been genuine, but apparently her daughter’s near-death experience wasn’t enough to bring her home.

But it had given Kyndal the go-ahead to move back to Paducah rent-free.

“So Denise and I have been dating a month. Is that long enough to invite her to Thanksgiving dinner with my parents?”

“No,” Bart answered.

Jaci snarled at him and raised her eyebrows. “Yes,” she said to Rick.

Kyndal shrugged. “Maybe.”

Rick shook his head with a laugh. “Well, hell-pee-roo, forget I asked.”

The men wolfed down the rest of the food and headed to Rusky’s Sports Bar to catch the Kentucky game in high-def.

As soon as they were out of sight, Jaci ran into Kyndal’s bedroom and returned holding a small sack. Her usual smile was gone, her expression serious and a bit pained.

Kyndal’s stomach tightened. This wasn’t like Jaci. “What’s wrong?”

“Kyn, you’ve been sick a lot lately. You hardly touched Mom’s chicken and dumplings last Sunday. You didn’t eat any pecan pie.” She thrust the bag into Kyndal’s hand. “I don’t think it’s from anxiety or the surgery or bat dung flu.”

Kyndal’s hand shook as she pulled the box out and read it. “A pregnancy test?”

“I want you to go pee on that stick. Then I want you to come back in here and tell me the whole truth about what happened in that cave.”

* * *

PREGNANT.

Kyndal stared at the word. This wasn’t one of those plus or minus deals that might be iffy depending on your perspective. This home test spelled it out with no uncertainty.

“It never entered my mind.” She raised her eyes to Jaci. “How did you know?”

They were sitting on her bed, which was covered in the same beige bedspread with blue hydrangeas that had covered it when they sat there ten years ago discussing how they would feel if this ever happened. She might’ve been this stupid at seventeen. At twenty-seven, it was unfathomable.

“You haven’t been yourself since the cave. I’ve never known you to cry so much. You’re usually so tough.” Jaci gave an apologetic shrug. “At first, I thought it was like post-traumatic stress disorder, which Bart says Rick is struggling with, by the way.” She paused, and then seemed to refocus her attention. “But then, the blouse you had on at Mom’s was pulling across the boobs. I don’t know. It just hit me.”

“I thought the dryer got too hot and shrank my stuff.” Kyndal gave a little snort and wiped her hand down her face. Pregnant. She tried to ground her brain to the concept, but it kept bouncing thoughts around like balls in a pinball machine.

“So, I’ve gotta ask.” Jaci clasped Kyndal’s forearm firmly. “Was there more to you and Rick than you ever told me, or—”

Kyndal shook her head. “It’s Chance’s.”

Even as she said it, with all the turmoil and upheaval those words caused, there was something calming and comforting about them, too. She wasn’t sure if the tear that dropped from her cheek onto Jaci’s hand was one of sorrow or fear or frustration or joy. Somehow, she was feeling all those things at once. No wonder women had morning sickness. It was enough to keep her head spinning.

“I’m on the Pill, so I thought it was safe. I didn’t have them with me in the cave, and I missed those four days, but I didn’t think that would make a difference. And I had a light period while I was in the hospital, so it never occurred to me…”

“You were under a lot of stress in the cave.” Jaci stroked her hair. “You were vulnerable. And, hey, it was Chance.”

Jaci was blaming him. That didn’t seem fair. “It wasn’t Chance’s idea. He didn’t even want to. Well, he wanted to, but he turned me down at first. I was the one who kept insisting.”

“I’ll bet it didn’t take too much persuasion.” Jaci scooted over and hugged her tightly. “The question now is what are you going to do about it? I’m here for you. Whatever you decide.”

There was no decision to be made. She already knew what she would do. Abortion was out of the question. Maybe at seventeen, but she couldn’t even consider that an option now. She’d stared into the face of death in the cave and had seen her desire for life reflected there. Life was precious. She remembered the high school kids who’d brought their baby girl in to Shop-a-Lot to have her picture taken. Things couldn’t have been easy for them, but the baby obviously brought them joy. The child made their circumstances worth it.

And her own mother. Life had been tough. But her mom continually told Kyndal she was what gave life meaning.

It was time to find meaning to her life. She’d always known in her heart that financial success was a shallow goal. Taking photographs of what was already there was easy. There had to be more to life than that.

Creating a person? That was the highest form of spiritual calling. A goal worthy of committing her life to. The fact that it was Chance’s baby gave validity to the love they’d shared. It may not have lasted forever, but what they had was real.

“I want this baby.” Her voice was firm, her resolve solid. Needing Jaci to see the conviction in her eyes, she broke free of the hug and held her friend at arm’s length. “I want this baby. More than anything else in this world.”

Jaci wasn’t a pretty crier—thankfully she didn’t do it often. Kyndal watched the redness bloom quickly from the rim of Jaci’s eyes, down her cheeks, and gather on the point of her chin. “When are you going to tell Chance?” she blubbered into a tissue Kyndal snatched from the bedside table.

Kyndal closed her eyes and shuddered. She’d promised him no strings attached, and now they were going to have to deal with the biggest attached string of all—an umbilical cord.

“Not until I’ve been to the doctor,” she resolved. “I want to be absolutely positive about this before I tell him, but I’ll call the doctor first thing Monday morning.”

“How are you going to have time for a baby? You’ll have to work. You’ll need a babysitter.” Jaci was fighting to lower her voice. She did that when she was trying hard to sound like a mature adult.

“I’ll figure out a way.” Kyndal moved over to the mirror and looked herself in the eye. “I can do this. My mother did it, and I turned out okay. I can, too.”

In the reflection, she watched Jaci flop back on the bed and cross herself—adding a dramatic sigh for effect.

* * *

“I DON’T THINK THIS SYSTEM is the one you need for this job.” The design engineer from the security system company folded his arms around the clipboard he’d been scribbling on and eyed the entrance to the cave again.

“Why not? What’s the problem?” Chance had hoped the vandalism would be taken care of by the end of the week, but that wasn’t sounding like much of a possibility.

“Well, to begin with, if we run the alarm to your house, you’re likely to get yourself killed. It goes off, you come busting down here with your shotgun, somebody down here is high—maybe got a weapon—it’s dark, you’re outnumbered—”

“All right, all right.” Chance held his hand up to stop the guy from getting any more graphic. “You’ve made your point. I got chased away from here one time by the former owner wielding a shotgun. Scared the crap out of me—but kids today are different.” A brief memory of Kyndal’s big eyes and her tight grip on his hand scampered across his mind. He let it go and forced his attention on the problem at hand.

“You hear what I’m saying then. Best to leave that to the law enforcement officials.” The engineer glanced at his scribbled notes. “You’d need to call the sheriff, and if you’re not at home, it wouldn’t do any good. And if we set the alarm to sound at the sheriff’s office, depending where the responding officer is in the county, it could take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour to get here.”

“Which wouldn’t give the kids much time to do anything,” Chance countered.

“Long enough—if they’re smart enough to set up a look-out. This system you’ve ordered isn’t underground cable. There will be wires—too high to reach without a ladder, but they’ll be visible.”

Chance could hear the cost of the system going up with each statement the engineer made. “So what do you suggest, and how much is it going to cost me?”

“We’ll have to draw up a custom plan, and I’m not going to lie to you, it’ll be expensive.” His smile seemed to convey that the truth wasn’t hurting him a bit. “Running cable underground all the way to the house will be the bulk of the cost. I hate to say this, but Thursday’s Thanksgiving, and we’re talking another couple of months before we can get to a project that big.”

“A couple of months?”

“February, at the earliest, provided we don’t get too much cold weather that’ll freeze the ground. If that happens, we’ll have to wait for the March thaw. Sorry, but I want to be up front with you about it.”

Chance ran his hand down his face in exasperation. The cave could be ruined by then. He wanted to protect it, and there appeared to be only one way—one very costly way—of doing that. “Draw me up a design and give me an estimate. But, in the meantime, go ahead and install this one. Maybe it’ll act as a deterrent for a while at least.”

Cha-ching. He was standing close enough to hear the sound of the cash register ringing in the engineer’s mind. No doubt it was going to cost a fortune to have this done right. But someday, when he brought his children down here to explore the cave, it would be worth whatever it cost.

The thought of kids brought the memory of making love with Kyndal to the front of his mind. Damn the woman! What would it take to be rid of her for good? The weeks since he’d seen her last had him worried that wasn’t going to happen.

But sure as hell he was trying.

* * *

A BABY. SHE WAS GOING to have a baby. She was going to be a mother. A little more than seven months from now, her whole life would change.

Forever.

Jaci had finally left, and Kyndal lay in bed watching the progression of Sirius across the window. How many times, as a kid, had she wished on that star from this very spot? Adulthood…motherhood seemed so far away then. How many times, as a teenager, had she wished on it for her and Chance to be together?

Forever.

She ran her hand across her abdomen. That wish had come true now. They may not be physically together, but a part of him would be with her forever. And a part of her would love him forever, though it was a part she would keep in a secret place—the way she was sure her mom did with her feelings for Mason Rawlings.

She wouldn’t be like her mom, wouldn’t move from man to man trying to find someone who could fill the empty space. The baby would be all she needed.

Someday, she might meet a man who would complete the circle. But she wouldn’t need him. She might love him. Might want him. Might even marry him. But she would never need him.

Of course, he’d have to be a fabulous father—that would be the first criterion. He’d have to be a person she could trust. Someone who would never, ever leave.

Mason Rawlings, her three stepdads, Chance. They’d taught her how not to trust, and she wouldn’t make any mistakes this time. For the rest of her life, this child would be her number-one priority, hers to love and nurture and protect.

She grabbed the purple Grateful Dead teddy bear from the pillow and hugged it close, marveling at the ferocity of the protective instinct already present.

She would have to provide for her baby from Day One.

Getting a good job had suddenly become more important than ever.

* * *

JACI RINSED THE EMPTY ice cream bowls and placed them in the dishwasher, her head still spinning with the news. Kyndal pregnant with Chance’s baby. It was like she was watching a bad soap opera and couldn’t change the channel.

She filled the soap dispenser and shut the door. Why did life have to suck so much? She and Bart had tried to have a baby but lost it. Kyndal hadn’t been trying, but was having one. Bart would be thrilled to be a father. Her gut told her Chance wouldn’t have that reaction, but she prayed she was wrong.

If I’d cut his balls off like I wanted to the first time he hurt her, this wouldn’t have happened.

She punched the button harder than necessary, and the sound of swishing water filled the kitchen.

Who was she kidding? She could blame Chance all she wanted, but she was the real blame behind all of this.

“Hey, babe,” Bart called from the other room. “Would you fix me a cup of coffee?”

“Okay.” She placed a pod in the coffeemaker and waited while the liquid brewed.

All of this could’ve been avoided if I’d kept my mouth shut.

Kyndal wouldn’t have gone back to the cave with Chance…wouldn’t have almost died…wouldn’t be pregnant now.

Overwhelming guilt weakened her knees. She leaned on the counter for support.

What did this show her about the kind of mother she’d be? She blinked back the tears that burned her eyes.

A good mother anticipated danger, she didn’t send her child into it deliberately. She thought back to her childhood and how often her mother had warned, “Jaci, don’t…”

The coffee finished brewing. She took the cup and stared into it, the dark liquid reminding her of Kyndal’s descriptions of the blackness in the depths of the cave. How terrified she must’ve been—and in pain with a broken ankle.

She stirred in some cream and watched the black change to tan.

Life’s bitterness can’t be taken away with a swish of something stirred in. But then she thought of Bart—the something that mellowed any bitterness that came into her life.

Despite what he kept insisting, he wanted a baby, and her head kept telling her she should want to give him one. But this ordeal with Kyndal made her doubt her capabilities more than ever.

She picked up the cup and started for the living room, pausing at the light switch. Since she was a child, she’d always hated turning a light off when she left a room—afraid something would grab her out of the dark.

She flipped the switch off with a shudder and hurried out.

I’m such a coward, she thought.