Nobody's Baby But Mine

Chapter Six

I’ll never forgive you for this,” Jane hissed as she snatched up the two halves of her seat belt and shoved them together.

“Just remember who showed up with a bow around her neck.” Cal jabbed the stubs from their boarding passes into the pocket of his sport coat and settled into the seat beside her. He bristled with hostility, and she couldn’t remember ever being in the presence of such naked hatred.

It was Monday, only five days since their makeshift wedding ceremony, but everything had changed. The flight attendant serving the first-class passengers stopped beside their seats, calling a temporary halt to the bitter verbal battle that had been going on between them in one form or another since the Tribstory had been published three days earlier. She held out a tray with two glasses of champagne.

“Congratulations! The crew’s so excited about having both of you on board today. We’re all big Stars’ fans, and we’re thrilled about your marriage.”

Jane forced a smile as she took the champagne. “Thank you.”

Cal said nothing.

The flight attendant’s gaze slipped over Jane, assessing the woman who had managed to snag the city’s most prominent bachelor. Jane was beginning to grow accustomed to the flicker of surprise on people’s faces when they saw her for the first time. They undoubtedly expected Cal Bonner’s wife to look and dress like a Victoria’s Secret model, but Jane’s well-cut tweed jacket, camel trousers, and bronze silk shell fell short of the mark. All of her clothes were of good quality, but conservative. The classic styles suited her, and she had no desire to make herself over into a fashion butterfly.

She’d arranged her hair in a loose French twist, a style she had always liked because it was neat and timeless. Her friend Caroline said it was too stuffy, but she’d also admitted it did a good job of setting off Jane’s rather delicate bone structure. Her jewelry was minimal, small gold knots in her ears and the plain gold wedding band Cal’s attorney had purchased for the ceremony. It looked strange on her finger, and she pretended it wasn’t there.

As she resettled her glasses, she considered Cal’s well-known partiality for very young women. He would undoubtedly have been much happier if she’d shown up in a miniskirt and rhinestone bra. She wondered what would happen when he discovered how old she really was.

Just looking at the belligerent thrust of that hard, square jaw unnerved her. If the man had ever held an elevated thought in his head, he concealed it. Sitting next to him, she felt like a detonated smart bomb.

“Drink this.” She passed her champagne glass over to him as the flight attendant moved away.

“Why should I?”

“Because I’m pregnant, and I can’t. Or do you want everybody to know about that, too?”

He glared at her, downed the contents, and thrust the empty glass back at her.“Next thing, you’ll turn me into a damned alcoholic.”

“Since you’ve had a drink in your hand most of the times I’ve been with you, I doubt you have far to go.”

“You don’t know crap.”

“Charming vocabulary. Pungent.”

“At least I don’t sound like I swallowed a dictionary. How much longer do you figure it’ll take you to finish burpin’ up all them big words?”

“I’m not certain. But if I do it slowly enough, maybe you’ll be able to understand a few of them.”

She knew that sparring with him like this was infantile, but it was better than the hostile silences that left her nerves ragged and her eyes searching for the nearest exit. Instead of reassuring her, the fact that he had been making an obvious effort to avoid the slightest physical contact between them left her feeling as if he didn’t trust himself to hold back if he ever got his hands on her. She didn’t like being frightened, especially when she knew she was so very much in the wrong, and she’d made up her mind to meet his belligerence aggressively. No matter what, she wouldn’t let him suspect she was afraid.

Her emotional upheaval was only one of the changes that the catastrophic events of the past few days had produced. She’d arrived at Newberry on Friday morning, two days after their wedding, to find an army of reporters shouting questions at her and shoving microphones in her face. She’d pushed through the crowd and made a mad dash for her office, where Marie had met her with an awestruck look and an enormous stack of phone messages, including one from Cal.

She’d reached him at his home, but he cut off her questions with a snarl, then read her the press release his attorney had written. It stated that the two of them had been introduced by mutual friends several months ago, and that their decision to marry had been sudden. It listed her academic credentials and described his pride in her professional accomplishments, a sentiment he’d accompanied with a derisive snort. Then it announced that the couple would be spending the next few months honeymooning in Cal’s hometown of Salvation, North Carolina.

Jane had erupted. “That’s impossible! I have classes to teach, and I’m not going anywhere.”

His sneer carried over the phone line. “As of five o’clock today, you’re taking one of them-what do you call ’em?-a temporary leave of absence.”

“I certainly will not be.”

“Your college says different.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ask your boss.” He slammed the phone down.

She’d immediately marched into the office of Dr. William Davenport, head of Newberry’s Physics Department, where she discovered Cal was giving the college a major endowment as a token of his appreciation for their flexibility regarding her work schedule in the upcoming months. She’d felt impotent and humiliated. With nothing more than the stroke of a pen over his checkbook, he’d taken control of her life.

The flight attendant stopped to pick up their glasses. As soon as the woman disappeared, she vented her smoldering resentment on Cal. “You had no right to interfere in my career.”

“Get off it, Professor. I bought you a few extra months vacation. You should be thanking me. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have all this free time to do research for that lab you work for.”

He knew far too much about her, and she didn’t like it. It was true that being temporarily relieved of her teaching schedule would benefit her research for Preeze, although she wasn’t going to admit that to him. Her computer equipment was already en route to North Carolina, and with the aid of a modem, the change in location wouldn’t affect her work. Under other circumstances, she would have been delighted with three months free time, but not when she hadn’t arranged for it herself, and not when she had to spend any part of it with Calvin Bonner.

“I could do my research a lot better in my office at home.”

“Not with a whole army of reporters camped out on your doorstep asking why the city’s most famous newlyweds are livin’ in two different states.” His eyes flicked over her as if she were debris. “I go to Salvation this time every year and stay until training camp starts in July. Maybe that giant brain of yours can come up with a convincing excuse for not bringing my brand-new bride along, but I can’t seem to think of anything.”

“I don’t understand how you can perpetrate a fraud like this on your family. Why don’t you just tell them the truth?”

“Because, unlike you, nobody in my family’s a good liar. It’d be all over town before long, and then the whole world would have the details. Do you really want the kid to grow up knowing how we met?”

She sighed. “No. And stop calling her ’the kid.’ ” Once again she wondered if the baby would be a boy or a girl. She hadn’t made up her mind whether she’d let them tell her after she’d had her ultrasound.

“Besides, my family’s been through enough in the past year, and I’m not puttin’ them through any more.”

She remembered Jodie mentioning the death of Cal’s sister-in-law and nephew. “I’m truly sorry about that. But whenever they see us together, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

“That’s not going to be a problem because you won’t be spending a lot of time with them. They’ll meet you, they’ll know who you are, but don’t plan on getting chummy. And one more thing. If anybody asks how old you are, don’t tell ’em you’re twenty-eight. If you get pressed, admit to twenty-five, but no older.”

What was going to happen when he found out she was thirty-four, not twenty-eight?“I’m not going to lie about my age.”

“I don’t see why not. You lied about everything else.”

She fought back another wave of guilt. “Nobody’s going to believe I’m twenty-five. I won’t do it.”

“Professor, I’d seriously advise you not to piss me off any more than you already have. And don’t you have contact lenses or something so you don’t have to wear those damned egghead glasses all the time?”

“They’re actually bifocals.” She took a certain pleasure in pointing that out.

“Bifocals!”

“The kind with an invisible line. There’s no correction at the top, but magnification at the bottom. A lot of middle-aged people wear them.”

Whatever unpleasant response Cal was about to make was cut off as a burly passenger struggling toward the coach section with two large carry-on bags banged one of them into his arm. She stared at the man in fascination. It was fifteen degrees outside, but he was wearing a nylon tank top, presumably so he could show off his muscles.

Cal noticed her interest in the man’s attire and gave her a calculated look. “Where I come from, we call those muscle tops wife-beater shirts.”

He’d obviously forgotten he wasn’t messing with one of his little love bunnies. She smiled sweetly. “And here I thought hillbillies never hit their sisters.”

His eyebrows slammed together. “You don’t have any idea what hillbillies do, Professor, but I suspect you’ll be finding out soon.”

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, Cal, but I was wondering if you’d autograph this for my kid.” A middle-aged businessman thrust a pen at Cal, along with a memo pad that bore the name of a pharmaceutical company. Cal complied, and before long another man appeared. The requests continued until the flight attendants ordered everyone to their seats. Cal was polite to the fans and surprisingly patient.

She took advantage of the interruption to begin reading a journal article written by one of her former colleagues on the decay products of the six-quark H particle, but it was difficult to focus on nonlinear physics with her own world so far out of kilter. She could have refused to go with him to Salvation, but the press would have hounded her and cast a shadow over her child’s future. She simply couldn’t risk it.

No matter what, she had to keep their tawdry story from becoming public knowledge. The humiliation she’d face, as gruesome as that would be, wasn’t nearly as bad as what that information would do to her child growing up. She had promised herself she would base all her decisions on what was best for this baby, and that was why she had finally agreed to go with him.

She pushed her glasses more firmly on her nose and once again began to read. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cal glaring at her, and she decided it was a good thing she didn’t have psychic ability because the last thing she wanted to do was read his mind.

Bifocals! Cal thought. God, how he hated those glasses. He mentally cataloged all that he disliked about the woman sitting next to him and concluded that, even if he set aside the issue of her character, there was a lot to choose from.

Everything about her was too serious. She even had serious hair. Why didn’t she loosen it up from that damned thingamabob? It was a great color, he’d give her that. He’d had a couple of girlfriends with hair that color, but theirs had come out of a bottle, and Jane Darlington’s could only have come from God.

With the exception of that small lock of hair that had escaped its confines to make a silky S behind her ear, this was one serious woman. Serious hair and serious clothes. Pretty skin, though. But he sure as hell didn’t like those big nerdy bifocals. They made her look every one of her twenty-eight years.

He still couldn’t believe he’d married her. But what else could he have done and still been able to live with himself? Let his kid grow up without a father? With the way he’d been raised, that wasn’t even a possibility.

He tried to feel good about the fact that he’d done the right thing, but all he felt was rage. He didn’t want to be married, damn it! Not to anybody. But especially not to this uptight prig with her liar’s heart.

For days he’d been telling himself she was no more permanent than a temporary live-in girlfriend, but every time he spotted that wedding band on her finger, he felt a sickening premonition. It was as if he were watching the scoreboard clock tick off the final days of his career.

“I can’t imagine buying a car without seeing it first.” Jane gazed around at the interior of the new hunter green Jeep Grand Cherokee that had been waiting for them in the parking lot at the Asheville airport with the key hidden in a magnetic case under the front bumper.

“I hire people to do this kind of thing for me.”

His nonchalance about his wealth made her waspish. “How pretentious.”

“Watch your language, Professor.”

“It means wise,” she lied. “You might try working it into a sentence sometime with a person you really admire. Tell them you think they’re pretentious, and they’ll feel warm and fuzzy all day.”

“Thanks for the suggestions. Maybe I’ll use it next time I’m on TV.”

She regarded him suspiciously, but couldn’t see even a trace of mistrust in his expression. It occurred to her that these last few days were turning her into a bitch.

She stared glumly out the window. Despite the gloom of the chilly, overcast March day, she had to admit the country was beautiful. The mountainous contours of western North Carolina formed a stark contrast to the flat Illinois landscape where she’d grown up.

They crossed the French Broad River, a name that would have made her smile under other circumstances, and headed west on Interstate 40 toward Salvation. Ever since she’d first heard the name of Cal’s hometown, something about it had struck a chord in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t remember what.

“Is there some reason I should recognize the name Salvation.”

“It was in the news a while back, but most of the locals don’t like to talk about it.”

She waited for more information and wasn’t too surprised when none was forthcoming. Next to the Bomber, she was a magpie. “Do you think you could let me in on the secret?”

He took so long responding that she thought he was ignoring her, but he finally spoke. “Salvation was where G. Dwayne Snopes settled. The televangelist.”

“Wasn’t he killed in some kind of small plane crash a few years ago?”

“Yeah. While he was on his way out of the country with a few million dollars that didn’t belong to him. Even at the height of his career, the town’s leaders never thought much of him, and they don’t like having Salvation’s name associated with him now that he’s dead.”

“Did you know him?”

“We met.”

“What sort of man was he?”

“He was a crook! Any fool could figure that out.”

The nuances of polite conversation were obviously beyond his mental capabilities. She turned away and tried to enjoy the scenery, but being plunged into a new life with a dangerous stranger who hated everything about her made it tough.

They eventually left the highway for a winding two-lane road. The gears of the Jeep ground as they headed up one side of a mountain and then curved down the other. Rusty double-wide mobile homes sitting in weedy lots at the side of the road provided a sharp contrast to the gated entrances of posh residential developments built for retirees around lush golf courses. Her stomach was beginning to get queasy from the switchbacks when Cal turned off the highway onto a gravel road that seemed to go straight up.

“This is Heartache Mountain. I need to stop and see my grandmother before we get settled. The rest of my family’s out of town now, but she’ll kick up a fuss if I don’t bring you to see her right away. And don’t go out of your way to be nice. Remember that you won’t be around for long.”

“You want me to be rude?”

“Let’s just say I don’t want you winning any popularity contests with my family. And keep the fact that you’re pregnant to yourself.”

“I wasn’t planning on announcing it.”

He swung into a deeply rutted lane that led to a tin-roofed house badly in need of paint. One of the shutters hung crookedly, and the front step that led up to the porch sagged. In view of his wealth, she was shocked by its condition. If he cared about his grandmother, he could surely have spared a little money to fix up this place.

He turned off the engine, climbed out of the car, and came around the front to open her door. The courtesy surprised her. She remembered that he’d done the same when she’d gotten into the car at the airport.

“Her name’s Annie Glide,” he said as she got out, “and she’ll be eighty next birthday. She’s got a bad heart and emphysema, but she’s not ready to give up yet. Watch that step. Damn. This place is going to fall down right around her ears.”

“Surely you can afford to move her out of here.”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, then walked to the door and slammed his fist against it. “Open up, you old bat, and tell me why this step isn’t fixed!”

Jane gaped at him. This was the way he treated his dear old granny?

The door squeaked open, and Jane found herself staring at a stoop-shouldered woman with bleached blond hair sticking out in tufts all over her head, bright red lipstick, and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. “You watch the way you talk to me, Calvin James Bonner. I can still whup you, and don’t you forgit it.”

“Have to catch me first.” He plucked the cigarette out of her mouth, ground it beneath the toe of his shoe, and folded her in his arms.

She gave a wheezy cackle and patted his back. “Wild as the devil and twice as bad.”She peered around his back to scowl at Jane, who was standing at the top of the steps. “Who’s that?”

“Annie, this is Jane.” His voice developed a steely note. “My wife. Remember I called to tell you about her. We got married last Wednesday.”

“Looks like a city gal. You ever skinned a squirrel, city gal?”

“I-uh-can’t say as I have.”

She gave a dismissive snort and turned back to Cal. “What done took you so long to come see your granny?”

“I was afraid you’d bite me, and I had to get my rabies shots up to date.”

This sent her into a gale of witchy laughter, culminating in a coughing spasm. Cal looped his arm around her and steered her into the house, cussing her out for her smoking the entire time.

Jane pushed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and thought about how there weren’t going to be any easy successes for her the next few months. Now she’d failed the squirrel-skinning test.

She wasn’t anxious to go inside, so she walked across the porch to the place where a brightly colored wind sock whipped from the corner of the roof. The cabin was tucked into the side of the mountain and surrounded by woods, with the exception of a clearing to the side and back for a garden. The way the mist clung to the distant mountain peaks made her understand why this part of the Appalachian chain was called the Smokies.

It was so quiet she could hear a single squirrel rustling through the bare branches of an oak tree. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how noisy a town, even a peaceful suburban one, could be. She heard the crack of a twig, the caw of a crow, and breathed in the damp, chill scent of March woodlands not yet ready to leave winter behind. With a sigh, she crossed the porch to the door. She already knew enough about Annie Glide to realize the old woman would take any retreat as a sign of weakness.

She stepped directly into a small, cluttered living room that was a curious amalgam of the old and gaudy with the new and tasteful. A rich, thick-piled smoky blue carpet held an assortment of worn furniture upholstered in everything from faded brocade to threadbare velvet. The gilded coffee table had a broken leg crudely repaired with silver duct tape, and faded red tassels held fragile lace curtains back from the windows.

There was an obviously expensive stereo cabinet complete with a compact disc player sitting on a wall perpendicular to an old stone fireplace. The rough-hewn mantel held an assortment of clutter including a guitar-shaped ceramic vase filled with peacock feathers, a football, a stuffed pheasant, and a framed photograph of a man who looked familiar, although Jane couldn’t quite place him.

Through a small archway off to the left she could see part of a kitchen with a peeling linoleum floor and a state-of-the-art cooking range. Another doorway presumably led to bedrooms in the back.

Annie Glide lowered herself with a great deal of effort into an upholstered rocker while Cal paced in front of her, glowering. “… then Roy said you pulled your shotgun on him, and now he tells me he won’t come out here again without a five-hundred-dollar deposit. Nonrefundable!”

“Roy Potts don’t know the difference between a hammer and his colon.”

“Roy is the best damn handyman in these parts.”

“Did you bring me my new Harry Connick, Jr. CD? Now that’s what I really want, not some fool handyman nibbin’ into my business.”

He sighed. “Yeah, I brought it. It’s out in the car.”

“Well, go on and get it for me.” She waved him toward the door. “And move that speaker when you get back. It’s too close to my TV.”

As soon as he disappeared, she speared Jane with her blue eyes. Jane felt a curious desire to throw herself on her knees and confess her sins, but she suspected the cantankerous woman would simply smack her in the head.

“How old are you, gal?”

“I’m thirty-four.”

She thought that one over. “How old does he think you are?”

“Twenty-eight. But I didn’t tell him that.”

“You never told him different, either, did you?”

“No.”Although she hadn’t been invited to sit, she found a place at the end of an old velvet couch. “He wants me to tell everyone I’m twenty-five.”

Annie rocked for a while. “You gonna do it?”

Jane shook her head.

“Cal told me you’re a college professor. That must mean you’re a real smart lady.”

“Smart about some things. Dumb about others, I guess.”

She nodded. “Calvin, he don’t put up with much foolishness.”

“I know.”

“He needs a little foolishness in his life.”

“I’m afraid I’m not too good at that sort of thing. I used to be when I was a child, but not much anymore.”

Annie looked up at Cal as he came in the door. “When I heard how fast you two got married, I thought she might have done you bad like your mama done your daddy.”

“The situations aren’t the same at all,” he said tonelessly.

Annie tilted her head toward Jane. “My daughter Amber wasn’t nothin’ more than a little white-trash gal spendin’ all her time runnin’ after boys. Laid her a trap for the richest one in town.” Annie cackled. “She caught him, too. Cal here was the bait.”

Jane felt sick. So Cal was the second generation of Bonner male trapped into marriage by a pregnant female.

“My Amber Lynn likes to forget she growed up dirtpoor. Isn’t that so, Calvin?”

“I don’t know why you’re always giving her such a hard time.” He walked over to the CD player, and a few moments later, the sounds of Harry Connick, Jr. singing “Stardust” filled the cabin.

Jane realized Connick was the man in the photograph on the mantel. What a strange old woman.

Annie leaned back in the chair. “That Connick boy has got him one beautiful voice. I always wished you could sing, Calvin, but you never could manage it.”

“No, ma’am. Can’t do much but throw a football.” He sat down on the couch next to Jane but not touching her.

Annie closed her eyes, and the three of them sat quietly listening to the honey-sweet voice. Maybe it was the gray day, the deep quiet of the woods, but Jane felt herself begin to relax. Time ticked away, and a curious alertness came over her. Here in this ramshackle house lying in the shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains, she began to feel as if she were on the verge of finding some missing part of herself. Right here in this room that smelled of pine and must and chimney smoke.

“Janie Bonner, I want you to promise me something.”

The feeling faded as she heard herself being addressed for the first time by her married name, but she didn’t get a chance to tell Annie she’d be using her maiden name.

“Janie Bonner, I want you to promise me right now that you’ll look out for Calvin like a wife should, and that you’ll think about his welfare before you think about your own.”

She didn’t want to do any such thing, and she struggled to hide her dismay. “Life’s complicated. That’s a hard thing to promise.”

“ ’Course it’s hard,” she snapped. “You didn’t think bein’ married to this man was gonna be easy, did you?”

“No, but…”

“Do what I say. You promise me right now, gal.”

Under the force of those sharp blue eyes, Jane’s own will dissolved, and she found she couldn’t deny this old woman. “I promise that I’ll do my best.”

“That’s good enough.” Once again, her lids closed. The creak of her rocker and her wheezy breathing underscored the smooth molasses voice coming from the speakers. “Calvin, promise me you’re gonna look after Janie Bonner like a husband should and that you’ll think about her welfare before you think about your own.”

“Aw, Annie, after all these years of waitin’ for the right girl to come along, you think I wouldn’t take care of her once I found her?”

Annie opened her eyes and nodded, having failed to notice either the malevolent gaze Cal shot at Jane or the fact that he hadn’t promised a single thing.

“If I’d of made your mama and daddy do this, Calvin, maybe things would of been easier for them, but I wasn’t smart enough, then.”

“It didn’t have anything to do with being smart, you old hypocrite. You were so happy to see your daughter catch a Bonner that you didn’t care about anything else.”

Her mouth pursed and Jane saw where her crimson lipstick had bled into the age lines around her lips. “Bonners always thought they was too good for Glides, but I guess we showed them. Glide blood runnin’ true and strong in all three of my grandsons. At least it is in you and Gabriel. Ethan’s always been a sissy boy, more Bonner than Glide.”

“Just because Ethan’s a preacher doesn’t make him a sissy.” He rose from the couch.“We have to go now, but don’t you think I’ve forgotten about that front step. Now where are you hiding those damn cigarettes?”

“Somewhere you won’t find them.”

“That’s what you think.” He headed for an old bureau next to the kitchen door where he dug into the bottom drawer and pulled out a carton of Camels. “I’ll be taking these with me.”

“You just want to smoke ’em yourself.” She rose from the rocker with great difficulty. “When Calvin comes back, you come with him, Janie Bonner. You got a lot to learn ’bout bein’ married to a country boy.”

“She’s working on a real important research project,” Cal said, “so she’s not going to have much time for visiting.”

“Is that true?” Jane thought she saw a flash of hurt in the old woman’s eyes.

“I’ll come visit whenever you like.”

“Good.”

Cal’s jaw clenched, and she realized she’d displeased him.

“Now go away.” Annie shooed them toward the door. “I want to listen to my Harry without all this talk.”

Cal opened the door for Jane to slip through. They had just reached the car when Annie’s voice stopped them.

“Janie Bonner!”

She turned to see the old woman regarding them through the screen door.

“Don’t you wear nothin’ to bed, not even in the winter, you hear me, gal? You go to your husband the way your Maker made you. Stark naked. Keeps a man from strayin’.”

Jane couldn’t summon an appropriate response, so she waved and got in the car.

“That’ll be the day,” Cal muttered as they drove away from the house. “I’ll bet you wear clothes in the shower.”

“It really galls you, doesn’t it, that I didn’t strip for you?”

“The list of what you’ve done that galls me, Professor, is so long I don’t know where to start. And why did you tell her you’d come back whenever she likes? I brought you here because I had to, but that’s it. You’re not spending any more time with her.”

“I already told her I’d come back. How do you suggest I get out of it?”

“You’re the genius. I’m sure you can figure something out.”