CHAPTER SIX
Patrick was unsurprised by Doug and Madeline Enright’s massive log house. It sat off by itself in the heart of the Enright compound. Zeke had told him that Col. Douglas Enright was one of the Enright lumber boys, recently retired and now working for Homeland Security.
There was already a beat-up hatchback parked under a tree. He parked his rental SUV next to it and walked up the gravel path to the front porch. It was opened by a burly man with a grim face and an air of command. His eyes took Patrick in from head to toe. His lip curled as if Patrick smelled bad and looked worse.
“Name?” he snapped.
“Patrick Bascom,” Pat held out his hand. After a few seconds, it became apparent that the man at the door had no intention of shaking it and he dropped it.
“You better get in here, Bascom.” His host strode down the hallway to his sitting room.
A lanky young man in uniform was folded up in a deep armchair like badly constructed origami. His knees were up around his chest, and his feet were waggling. When Patrick came into the room he stood up nervously and swallowed hard.
“Colonel,” the boy squeaked, “I guess I should be going.”
“Sit,” Enright instructed. The boy subsided and put his arms back around his knees. He shot glances at Patrick out the corner of his eyes and he swallowed several more times, his mouth opening and closing without making a sound clearer than a gurgle.
Patrick went to take a chair, and found his path blocked by his host. “I hope,” the colonel said, “you’re here to do the right thing.”
“I came to see Heather Dupré,” Patrick said as peaceably as he could. His ribs still ached and he did not want to risk another fistfight. What was wrong with these bumpkins?
Enright made a noise like an infuriated bull moose. “Right now, my cousin is outside playing with my children. Which is just as well. Because you and I have some talking to do, before you speak with Heather.”
The boy in the chair spoke, “Uh, Colonel, I can go wait outside for Heather if you need to speak to Mr. Bascom.”
Before Patrick’s eyes Enright’s shoulders broadened and his face turned to granite. “Keep your seat, Miller, you probably will be interested in what this fella has to say.” He turned to Patrick. “This is Private First Class Benjamin Miller of French Town.” Miller lurched to his feet, was given the stinkeye again, and collapsed back into his chair. “Do you know why he’s here, Bascom?”
“I can’t say that I do, sir,” Patrick said.
“Stand up straight when you address me, Captain.”
Christ on a crutch, this guy was pulling rank, when he had been retired for most of two years. But Patrick remembered the enthusiasm with which Heather’s other cousins had decided to teach him how to behave. He stood up straighter.
“Miller is here because he thinks Heather needs rescuing. And do you know why he thinks she needs rescuing?” Enright paused as if he dared Patrick to speak. Patrick kept his mouth zipped.
“He thinks she needs rescuing because some sad, sorry son of a bitch left her high and dry with a litter of cubs in her belly. But young as he is, he knows how to do right. Miller came here to offer her the protection of his name and such resources as a private first class can muster in these hard times. And do you know why? Because you are a low-down, belly-crawling skunk.” Enright ended his diatribe just below a roar.
There didn’t seem to be much to say in response to such a comprehensive condemnation of his character. But it set the tone for the rest of Col. Enright’s lecture. While Benjamin Miller tried to make himself even smaller and less conspicuous, Col. Enright enlarged on Patrick’s antecedents, his known behavior, and how it diverged from that of honest bears, and ended with the particular wrong he had done an innocent young girl.
“Just how old do you think Heather Dupré is?” Enright concluded.
“Thirty?” Patrick hazarded.
“Twenty-two,” Enright corrected. “Twenty-fucking-two.”
That did shock Patrick. It’d been a long time since he had thought twenty-two was old enough to play with.
“You have two choices here today, Bascom. Either you can marry Heather and try to make her happy, or this young man over here will marry her and make her happy while you pay child support. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Patrick responded. There was the ideal solution. Heather Dupré could marry her spotty young hero and he could write a check. It would be perfect. All he had to do was make Heather think it was her idea. Piece of cake.
The front door opened. A cheerful voice called, “We’re back.” Heather’s voice was drowned out by a chorus of small voices shrieking in unison.
Three knee-high children toddled into the room and knee-capped Enright. “Dada,” three little voices babbled with different levels of clarity. Enright’s grim face might never have been. He picked up the overall-clad tots and kissed and was kissed. He plopped one onto his shoulders while he balanced the other two in his arms.
Heather Dupré came into the room pulling off a worn blue coat. She smelled right. Ripe. Lush. His. But she looked dreadful. Her hair was dull. Her skin was pasty. And her eyes had sunken and dark circles had formed beneath them. Her rosy cheeks had been replaced by sharp cheekbones.
She stopped dead as soon as she caught sight of him. She backed up a couple of steps as if she were afraid. And that hurt far more than anything Enright had said. PFC Miller had staggered to his feet and at last was looking animated.
“Hey, Benny,” she said in a soft voice that was much like her sister Amber’s. Now that he knew they were identical twins, he realized that Heather had her own distinctive fragrance. And her voice was subtly different too.
Benjamin cleared his throat. “Hey, Heather.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down on his long neck. The boy was so thin he looked like a collection of enormous joints joined together by sticks. He was tall but he had not yet filled out. Just how old was young Lochinvar? Eight-fucking-teen?
“I need to have a word with you, Heather,” Patrick said.
His words made her look more frightened. She turned to Enright. “It’s time for their snack,” she said desperately. She held out her arms for one of the children Enright was holding.
“You have to go talk to him, Heather. I’ll give the kids their snack.”
“I cut up the fruit before I went out, and Abby’s soy milk is on the bottom shelf – behind the roast.”
“I’ll manage.” Enright smiled. He might never have used his tongue to eviscerate Patrick. He turned his head and there was no vestige of a smile. “Twenty minutes. Don’t make me come looking for you.”
* * *
Heather did not want to go for a walk with Patrick Bascom. But Dougie thought she should. She had a lot of respect for Dougie Enright. He was older than she was and a good man. A good husband and a good father. Wise too. If he thought she should give Patrick a hearing, then she probably should.
She also remembered that Madeleine had said she didn’t have to marry Patrick. Only she hadn’t expected that when she saw him she would feel the same attraction she had felt in the forest. She didn’t want to feel this way about this guy.
There was a mountain of reasons why he should not be her fated mate. She reminded herself that he was unkind, treacherous, and a stranger. Madeleine was right. She should just ask him for money. And keep her distance.
He took her coat out of her hands and helped her on with it. It no longer did up. His eyes flickered up and down her front and he compressed his lips as though he was displeased. Did he think money grew on trees? It wasn’t cold enough for her to buy a new coat. She was saving her money, because now she had more than just herself to think about.
She knew she was not looking her best. She was showing already. And she felt sick all the time. Dr. Newcombe had said it was morning sickness – as if she hadn’t realized that. Her mirror told her that she looked pale, washed out and exhausted.
“Which way shall we go?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter, as long as we stay on the trails.”
“Is that a river I hear?” he asked. “We could go that way. Or is that where you went with the kids?”
She shook her head. “I took them to climb on the play set around the back.”
“They look pretty young to be climbing on anything.”
She stopped in her tracks to glare at him. “Just what would you know about what children do or don’t do?” she demanded.
“Nothing much. But they’re not even two. Am I right?”
“Seventeen months. And they love to climb. Inside, outside, at the park, in the backyard.” Heather lowered her voice. “That’s just how bear cubs are.” He ought to know that much.
Patrick grunted. He reached for her hand but she whisked it away. This wasn’t going to work if he touched her. There seemed to be an electrical field around him that made all the hairs on her body stand up and her heart start thrumming. But she had to be sensible. He didn’t have the least bit of respect for her. Letting him touch her like they really were lovers would be a mistake. She had already proven that she had no self-control around this man.
It was obvious from the green and yellow bruises around his eyes that the only reason he had come after her was because her kinfolk had beaten the tar out of him. Not that he didn’t deserve it. But she didn’t want a forced match. And whatever she felt, it was obvious that he had not felt it too. One-sided love was worse than none.
“You don’t look well,” he said in that smug voice that made her want to smack him.
“Thank you. I had noticed.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“And?” he prompted.
“He wants me to take something for morning sickness. I said no. I’m afraid of possible teratogenic side effects.”
“Do you even know what that means?” He chuckled.
“Just because I don’t have much schooling, doesn’t mean I’m stupid, Patrick Bascom! I know all about the hazards of birth defects caused by drugs. It’s not complicated. Even a hick like me can understand that a drug that is perfectly harmless to a grown woman, can cause birth defects – especially in the first trimester. I have chosen to feel sick instead of risking my babies’ health.”
“Babies?” he echoed.
She answered him by pulling her coat apart to display her bulge. “Twins or maybe triplets.”
He set his jaw and didn’t speak for a while. The river appeared. “It’s time to turn back,” she said. “Dougie said twenty minutes.”
“Dougie?”
“That’s what we call Cousin Douglas. On the Ridge, we don’t give up our nicknames when we grow up. But don’t mistake that for not growing up. Dougie said twenty minutes, because he figured that was all I could take of you. And he was right.” She started to walk more briskly back to Enright’s house.
His hand stopped her by taking her elbow. His clasp was surprisingly gentle. “We haven’t settled anything,” he said. “Do you really want to marry that boy?”
“Bennie Miller is a friend of mine. A good friend. He’d be a good daddy too. Don’t you think he wouldn’t.”
“But do you want to marry him? Or do you want to marry me?” He bent his head and kissed her. She was kissing him back before she remembered she wanted nothing more to do with Patrick Bascom. She sank her teeth into his bottom lip and pulled away and tried to pretend he hadn’t made her heart race and her blood pump.
He let her go. “You’re a feisty little thing.” The masculine satisfaction and amusement in his voice set off all her alarm bells.
Heather didn’t look at him. This was too important to just be about passion. For all that he made her heart race, nothing she had heard about Patrick made her think he would be a good father or a good husband. Did she want to be tied to a jackass who didn’t take her seriously? She had to remember that a life mate was more than three legs in a bed with your two.
“What is it with you Dupré girls?” Patrick continued. “Your sister kicked me when I kissed her. But at least she didn’t bite.”
She whirled on him. “You kissed my sister?”
“I thought she was you. She set me straight.”
“I hope Amber was wearing boots.”
“She was. Is every bear in Washington State as violent as you and your relatives?”
“We’re not particularly violent – unless driven to it. You purely do not have any manners whatsoever. What do you mean by talking to me about marriage one moment, and the next bragging that you’ve been kissing my sister?”
“I didn’t know there were two of you.” He sounded amused again. She made a fist and thumped him in the arm. He walked on a step or two and then he grabbed his biceps and said, “Ouch.”
“That didn’t hurt you the least littlest bit,” she said.
“Not much. But I didn’t want you to feel ignored. I don’t think I like the idea of you marrying that boy. I think we should give ourselves a chance. There is a lot of spark between us. You feel it too. Besides, I don’t like the idea of my children growing up not knowing me.”
“That sentiment does you credit. I might even think you meant it, if you didn’t have a shiner under your eye. Which I would guess was put there by my cousin.”
“I think it was Asher Bascom. But it might’ve been Gideon. They were both pretty busy.”
That made her feel better. “I’ll think about it.” Not.
“And in the meantime, while you’re thinking about it, maybe we should get you some maternity clothes.”
“You do not know when to shut up, do you?”
“And some shoes that aren’t worn out. And a warmer coat.”
How could this clueless jerk be her fated mate?