LITMIR.BIZ

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their trip to Carlo’s Place, he’d become quiet, more remote. A little voice full of common sense told her that was best. If they got to know each other better…

      However, picking up the phone, she heard Barbara Simmons’s voice.

      “Hi! Tori?”

      “How are you?” Tori asked, always glad to hear from the teenager, yet always fearful, too.

      Once Barbara signed the consent papers to give up her parental rights, her decision was irrevocable. She understood that and had asked the court to allow Tori to act as the baby’s legal guardian for sixty days before she signed the final papers. In essence, Tori would become the parent, but not officially. She’d agreed to those terms because Barbara was an intelligent, sensitive young woman, just trying to do what was best for her and her baby. And once Tori had seen that baby’s picture on the sonogram, she’d fallen in love with him. She had wanted to be a mother so badly, she was willing to take this risk.

      “I gained another two pounds,” Barbara almost wailed. “Dr. Glessner said it’s okay, but I have to get it all off afterward. I’ll only have three months. I don’t want to be fat when I go to college.”

      “You’ve been officially accepted for the winter term?”

      “Yes. The letter came last week. Mom and I have been shopping for everything I’ll need.”

      Just as Tori had been shopping for baby supplies. Her closet was full of them, and she couldn’t wait to get the baby’s room ready. As soon as Jake did the closet and patched the plaster, she could paint.

      Her doorbell rang.

      Carrying the cordless phone with her, she opened it. Her heart fluttered. Jake looked incredibly sexy in a beige polo shirt and jeans.

      Still, she concentrated on Barbara as she motioned him inside.

      “I just wanted to tell you,” Barbara went on, “that the doctor said everything’s A-okay. I can’t wait to get this over with. I can hardly see my feet.”

      In a few weeks, she would be bringing Barbara’s baby home. “Keep me up to date on how you’re doing. You know I like your progress reports. And stop by if you want to talk.” It was better to know than to guess exactly what Barbara was thinking about everything.

      Whenever she talked to Barbara, fear crept into Tori’s heart—fear that the young woman would change her mind, that she wouldn’t go through with the adoption. It was a worry Tori couldn’t put out of her head.

      After she said goodbye to Barbara, she pushed the worry aside and smiled at Jake. She remembered again how good he was with his nephews, how much he enjoyed them.

      Then she breathed in the scent of his spicy aftershave and forgot about his nephews. “I just have to grab my purse. Would you like something to drink before we go?”

      He shook his head. “I told Luis we’d be there around two. We’d better get going.”

      A few minutes later Tori was sitting beside Jake in the truck and awkwardness hung between them. Jake’s remote attitude gave her the feeling he didn’t want to make this trip with her, even though he’d suggested it. “You know, Jake, if you’d given me the directions, I could have driven up here myself.”

      “Luis’s place isn’t easy to find.”

      “I can follow directions and I can read a map.”

      “Some women don’t like to go to strange places by themselves.”

      “And some women don’t mind. I guess I’m one of them.”

      At that he glanced at her. “You’re as independent as Nina.”

      “Is that a compliment?”

      A smile twitched the corner of his lip. “Yeah, I suppose. Independent women are just thorny to deal with sometimes.”

      “As are remote men,” she returned before she could stop herself.

      The hum of the truck’s engine filled the cab as the tires ate up the distance to Taos. Tori stared out the window. She never tired of the Southwest’s beauty, a beauty that seemed to change with each passing mile, with the angle of the sun, with the time of the day.

      The mountains up ahead were cloaked in sunlight, and streams of it played over peaks and valleys, brush and earth. Sometimes Tori yearned to wrap herself in the scenery and just let the landscape of the yucca, sage and piñon beat through her in primitive rhythms. As old as the land, the vibrations were the same kind of primitive rhythms that thrummed through her with Jake only a couple of feet away.

      Except for a glance at her every once in awhile, a flip of the switch to start the tape on the truck’s cassette player, Tori thought Jake was lost in his own world.

      Finally he asked, “Was that the mother of the baby you’re going to adopt on the phone? I couldn’t help overhearing.”

      It seemed funny discussing this with Jake. She hadn’t really discussed the adoption with anyone but her lawyer and her mother. “Yes, her name’s Barbara. She was accepted for the winter term of college and is looking forward to it.”

      “When’s her due date?”

      “September twenty-ninth.”

      “And then you’ll be a mother.” The way Jake said it made her think he was reminding himself of that.

      Because her worries were so very tied up with her joy, she murmured, “Not exactly.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Once Barbara signs the papers, her decision is irrevocable. But she’s smart enough to understand that feelings aren’t something you turn on and off like a water spigot, so she asked for a sixty-day grace period. I’ll be legal guardian as soon as the baby’s born, but Barbara won’t have to make the final decision for sixty days.”

      “You agreed to that?” There was concerned amazement in the question.

      “I don’t know how to explain this, Jake, but I can’t imagine any woman giving up her baby and not having doubts. I don’t want to adopt a baby and then have some kind of war afterward because the mother changes her mind. I want Barbara to be absolutely sure about what she’s doing. If those sixty days will do it, then I’m prepared for life to be a little uncertain for that amount of time.”

      “But what if you’ve cared for this baby and Barbara does change her mind?”

      “I don’t believe that will happen. I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I thought it might. She wants to be a doctor. Her mother wants her to be a doctor. Her mom’s divorced and won’t accept care of Barbara’s baby. She won’t even help her with it, because she believes Barbara will be destroying her future if she keeps it. Barbara does, too. She chose me out of fifteen women. She cared about every aspect of the social worker’s report. The judge understood that she’s a conscientious teenager who wants the best for everybody involved.”

      “I still think you’re taking quite a risk.”

      “Maybe I am. But motherhood is a risk, no matter how it happens.” Now she had a question for him. “Do you want kids someday?”

      He was silent for a few very long heartbeats, and then he answered firmly, “That isn’t going to happen.”

      Why? was on the tip of her tongue. Yet she didn’t let it slip off. If she knew why, that meant they would be getting to know each other much better. If she knew why, she’d be delving into the part of Jake’s life he kept guarded. If she asked why, she had the feeling he wouldn’t tell her, anyway.

      The sun’s brilliance made the landscape dance with golden light. It played over the cottonwoods along the Rio Grande. It flowed over the mountains, outlining a ramshackle house here, a small adobe there. And then there was nothing but land and scrub and piñon. Mountain crests seemed to envelope them, only to disclose higher crests, pink

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