"Hey, Naomi," Neil said, cheerfully. "Did you see this little bit of perfection?"
I nodded and grinned at him.
"She's a miracle, all right," I told him, and he nodded enthusias
tically.
I didn't want to interrupt their family time any longer, and I slipped out the door, waving a goodbye to Sarah.
Outside Sarah’s hospital room, I sighed and headed for the exit.
Once in the parking lot, I got into my car and sat there for a few minutes, leaning my forehead on the steering wheel.
I’d parked pretty close to the entrance, though, and people kept walking past me. Even with my eyes shut, I was self-conscious. I fumbled for my keys and started the engine, checking my mirrors absently as I pulled out onto the street to head for somewhere a little more private.
I found an empty parking lot and stopped my car under a tree in the corner. By the looks of the boarded-up windows, no one had been to this gas station in years, even to check for valuables.
I turned off the engine and put the keys on the passenger seat. My hand wavered over my cell phone for a minute, but in the end, I picked it up and clicked it awake, typing in Clint’s number.
“Hey,” he said, almost immediately. The phone hadn’t even gotten out a full ring.
“Hey,” I said. Our greetings were shallow, but they made me feel a little better. None of the earlier anger was in them. “You answered pretty quickly.”
“I’m sitting at the kitchen table with a drink,” he said.
I smiled. “Did you hope I’d call?”
“I did,” he said, calmly. I’d never been with a man before who was willing to admit to his feelings that baldly.
Maybe other men I’d been with had tried to control me too, but been more sneaky about it. At least with Clint, I knew exactly where I stood.
I shut my eyes, listening to our breathing for a minute.
“I stopped by the hospital to see Sarah and the baby,” I told him. I’d talked about Sarah before.
“Born already?” he asked.
“Do you want kids?” I blurted out.
Silence came down the line for a minute, and I dug the hole deeper. “I was holding Sarah’s little girl, and she was so perfect and tiny, and I was picturing what your baby would look like, and then Neil came in and I saw how proud he was of Sarah, of Cindy, of himself, and how happy they were, and I wanted it to be you. Not you in Sarah’s room, you in my room. With our baby. I wanted to have a baby with you.”
Clint’s deep voice cut through my rambles. “You’d be a beautiful little mother,” he said. “I’ve always figured I’d have a few kids, looked forward to it.”
“Oh, good,” I said. “So that wasn’t entirely crazy.”
“No,” he said with a chuckle, “It was still a little crazy, but I’m crazy about you. I miss you. Come over.”
I hesitated.
I’d had such a firm resolve, to stay away from him for a full weekend. It was already Sunday afternoon. I was so close.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” I said.
My drive passed uneventfully through the edge of the city and suburbs and then out to miles of empty land.
Clint lived half an hour from the nearest, well, anything. It was beautiful, but it was inconvenient as all get-out. A few hands were around, but it was mostly quiet. Weekends were a skeleton crew.
Briefly, I thought about Friday, and what could have happened to me on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with only a few strange men who disliked me.