Cross Your Heart Read online

  Cross Your Heart

  Book Four of the True Heart Series

  by

  Saxon Bennett

  &

  Layce Gardner

  This is a work of fiction; names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Square Pegs Ink

  Text copyright © Saxon Bennett & Layce Gardner 2017

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the authors’ written permission.

  Editor: Kate Michael Gibson

  Katemichaelgibson.com

  Cover designed by Lemon Squirrel Graphics

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  Chapter One

  “Don’t get your hopes up. It doesn’t usually work the first time,” Parker said.

  “It works for teenagers the first time,” Amy said. She was sitting on the toilet, her pants pooled around her ankles. Parker sat opposite her on the edge of the bathtub.

  “Yeah, but they’re young,” Parker said.

  Amy frowned.

  “I don’t mean you’re old,” Parker amended.

  “No. You’re right. The older you are, the more your chances go down. We knew that going into this.”

  “Look at it this way…it will give us plenty of time to get married,” Parker said. “Do you want me to turn on the water?”

  “I don’t know,” Amy said with a sigh. “It would be nice if it happened on the first attempt, but I know my chances are slimmer. I wish I were twenty-five and fertile again.” She felt like she was blathering.

  Parker turned on the bathtub faucet.

  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Amy coaxed her shy bladder. “You don’t have any problem letting go when I sneeze or laugh.”

  “I think your bladder is suffering from performance anxiety,” Parker said. “Should I leave the room? Would that make it easier?”

  “No! Stay here with me,” Amy said. “I want us to see it together.”

  “Okay, plug your ears and close your eyes. Hum the theme song to The Flintstones. That usually works for me,” Parker said helpfully.

  “That’s really weird,” Amy said. “I’ll never look at Fred or Wilma the same way again.”

  They laughed. Then Amy took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stuck her fingers in her ears. She willed her mind to go blank. The past couple of years had been such a wild ride. Her life had changed drastically since she had moved back home and met Parker. First, they had been friends. Parker had helped her when Amy’s mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Next, they had fallen in love and pledged their hearts. They’d gotten a dog, and now, they were getting pregnant. How did it happen so fast? Amy thought, it’s like that old saying: Life happens when you aren’t looking.

  She was excited by this new chapter in her life. She was also scared to death. She hoped that she could give her child a better childhood than she had experienced. Amy’s mother had turned distant after her father had a massive heart attack and died on the kitchen floor right in front of their eyes. Amy and her mother had been estranged until her mother’s illness and Amy had returned home from New York City to care for her. Parker’s childhood was even worse. Her parents were drug addicts and had disappeared from her life a long time ago. Parker had been raised by her grandmother, who’d been a wonderful guardian, but it wasn’t the same as having parents that loved you unconditionally.

  Having a baby together was their very own do-over. And they both had vowed to do it right. If this little tester turned blue, a whole new life would open up to them. Amy hoped with all her heart that she could give this to Parker. She tinkled, finally, and her eyes popped open. Parker stared at her, frozen, expectant. Amy shook off the tester, lifted it up, but turned her head away. She couldn’t bring herself to look at it. “What’s it say?”

  “It doesn’t say anything.” Parker squinted at the back of the pregnancy test box and read the directions. “It takes two minutes to turn colors.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we use a hair dryer to speed it up?” Amy asked.

  “I don’t think so. Let’s count the seconds. It’ll keep us busy. One Mississippi, two Mississippi…”

  “What are you doing? What does Mississippi have to do with it?”

  “That’s approximately the length of a second. Four Mississippi…”

  Amy joined in, counting. After one hundred and twenty Mississippis, Amy held up the test strip in Parker’s direction and closed her eyes. “You look. I can’t.”

  “It’s blue!” Parker shouted, jumping to her feet.

  Amy’s eyes popped open. She looked at the indicator. It was blue! It was as blue as blue could be. Amy couldn’t believe it. Overjoyed, she sprang to her feet, threw her arms wide to hug Parker, took a step forward, and tripped. She had completely forgotten that her pants were still around her ankles. She fell against the bathtub, nose-first.

  “Ow, my nose!” Amy yelled. Blood gushed from both nostrils.

  “Get in the tub,” Parker said, calmly. “You’re getting blood all over everything.”

  Amy crawled in the tub. Parker quickly wet a washcloth and held it to Amy’s nose, pressing firmly.

  “Ouch,” Amy complained. “Not so hard.”

  “Tilt your head back.”

  Amy lay her head back against the rim of the tub. “This isn’th a good omen,” she snuffled.

  “Hush. It’s just a banged-up nose.”

  “I think I broke it.”

  Parker whipped her phone out of her back pocket and pressed a button.

  “Who’re you calling? An ambulance?” Amy asked.

  “I’m calling Susan.”

  Susan Everett lived next door. She was a doctor and used to getting odd phone calls at odd times from her friends.

  Susan picked up immediately. “Who’s hurt?”

  “Is that what you think whenever I call?” Parker said. “Keep your head back,” she told Amy.

  “With you, yes. What happened?”

  “Amy fell in the bathroom and I think she may have broken her nose. There’s quite a bit of blood. I didn’t realize the human body could hold so much blood.”

  “How’d she fall?” Susan asked.

  “It’s a long story. Please come over right away. There’s a lot of blood.”

  “I’ll be right there. I just need to grab my kit,” Susan said. She clicked off.

  Amy had first met Susan when her mother was admitted to the Brookside facility. She lived on the lake next door to Parker with her partner Tess who was a social worker. Both Tess and Susan had been transplants to Fenton, a little college town nestled among the rolling hills of Missouri.

  “I know you can’th tell it right now, but I’m happy. Really, really happyth,” Amy said. “I’d hug you, but…” she gestured at the blood leaking from her nose. “I’m sorry I ruined this moment for us.”

  Amy swiped at her eyes. She hated to cry. Ever since her fifth-grade teacher had written on her report card “cries too easily,” she had viewed tears as a sign of weakness.

  Parker sat on the edge of the tub and looked deep into Amy’s wet brown eyes. She plucked a stray hair away from her bloody nose. Amy was pretty, even if she didn’t think so. Amy referred to herself as brown on brown, referring to her brown eyes, brown hair and in summer, brown skin. Amy thought she looked like an acorn. Parker thought she was gorgeous and ha
d a body to match. A body that would be changing in a beautiful, life-giving way.

  “Keep your head back,” Parker ordered again. She smiled down at Amy. “This is the second-best moment in my life.”

  “The second?” Amy asked. She put the cool washcloth back on her nose. The pressure made her wince. “What was the first? Or should I asthk?”

  “The first best moment was finding you,” Parker said. She leaned down and kissed Amy’s forehead. It was the only place that didn’t have blood smeared across it.

  “You’re so sappy,” Amy said, her voice muffled by the washcloth.

  “You do realize this means we have to get married.”

  “I know, and we will. I’ll take prenatal vitamins and get right on it.”

  “We have seven months to tie the knot before this baby is born,” Parker said.

  There was a knock at the front door, followed by a ring of the doorbell.

  “Be right back,” Parker said. She went to answer the door.

  Amy heard only a muffled conversation as she quickly squirmed back into her pants. Susan came into the bathroom. Parker hung back, holding Rascal, their pit bull mix, back by his collar. It wasn’t exactly a small bathroom, but it wasn’t roomy enough for three humans and a big dog.

  Susan squinted one eye down at Amy. “Let’s get you up on the commode so I can take a good look at you. Can you stand?”

  “My legs are fine,” Amy said, getting up carefully with Susan’s help. She was going to be sore in a few spots but that seemed minor compared to what was going on with her nose. Amy sat on the toilet.

  Susan pulled out a penlight and gingerly pulled the washcloth away from her nose. “Did you hit your head?”

  “No, I was saved by my nose,” Amy said. She blinked as Susan shined the light first in one eye then in the other.

  Putting the penlight away, Susan seemed satisfied that Amy didn’t have a concussion. “Let’s check out your nose.”

  Susan gently felt Amy’s nose. Amy moaned. Susan straightened up and put her hands on her hips. “Well, would you like the good news or the bad news first?”

  Amy looked past Susan’s shoulder to Parker. “You choose.”

  Parker said, “I’d go positive. It’ll increase your endorphins before the bad news pricks it like a deflating balloon.”

  “Give me the good news,” Amy said to Susan.

  “Your nose is definitely broken.”

  “That’s the good news?” Amy asked.

  “No. The good news is that…” Susan paused, thinking hard. “Well, there is no good news per se.”

  “Oh,” Amy muttered.

  Susan opened her kit bag and pulled out some gauze padding. “Parker, would you go get a bag of frozen peas from your fridge?”

  “Peas. Got it,” Parker said. She turned to leave, then stopped. “You want me to cook them?”

  “No, Parker. I’m going to use the bag of peas as a cold compress,” Susan answered with no trace of sarcasm. She was used to Parker’s linear, black-and-white type of thinking. Parker had a mild case of Asperger’s syndrome. Social cues, reading faces, and emotions that other people took for granted were much harder for Parker to grasp.

  Parker raced down the hallway with Rascal on her heels.

  Susan wadded up the gauze. “This isn’t going to feel good,” she warned Amy.

  “I know. I’ve watched Rocky,” Amy said. She leaned her head back.

  Parker returned, a bag of cold peas in hand. “By broken do you mean like a small fracture?” Parker asked. “I’m fond of her nose the way it is. I would prefer if it weren’t misshapen.”

  “It shouldn’t change anything about its shape,” Susan replied.

  Amy gripped the toilet lid while Susan packed her nose with gauze.

  “I love you no matter the shape of your nose. I want you to know that,” Parker said to Amy. “Big noses can be really sexy. I always thought Barbra Streisand was sexy. Especially in Yentl.”

  “I appreciate that,” Amy said. She gritted her teeth as Susan added more gauze.

  “There. That should do it,” Susan said.

  “It hurts,” Amy said. She sounded like she had a wicked-ass cold. “How long do I have to keep this stuff in my nose?”

  “That depends…” Before Susan could finish her sentence, she saw the pregnancy tester with its telltale blue strip lying beside the sink. Eyes widening, she looked from it, to Parker, then at Amy. “You’re pregnant?” she asked incredulously. “I didn’t even know you were trying.”

  “We kept it under wraps in case things didn’t work out,” Amy said.

  “I can’t believe you two. First, you don’t make an announcement on your engagement and now you’re having a baby,” Susan lightly scolded.

  “We feel that secrecy is necessary for us,” Parker said. She picked up the test strip, wondering if framing it would be considered odd. Not that she minded being odd. She was used to that. But she was worried that Amy might consider a peed-on object to be offensive. After all, the artist Robert Mapplethorpe had angered people with his pee exhibit. Of course, it did involve a crucifix in his urine, and it was 1990. He did win the obscenity trial, though. Art triumphed in the end.

  “Parker?” Susan said.

  “What?” Parker said, jerking her thoughts back to the present.

  “You said secrecy was necessary,” Susan asked. “How?” She began to gently clean the blood from Amy’s face.

  “It’s a private matter and should only be shared at the appropriate time,” Parker said. “And if it doesn’t work out as planned, you don’t have to explain to everybody.”

  Amy nodded in agreement. “It’s hard to handle the town grapevine sometimes.”

  “I can understand that, but I don’t know how you’re going to keep this a secret,” Susan said.

  “Why not?” Amy asked.

  “Where did you buy the pregnancy test? Holladay’s Drugstore?” Susan asked.

  Amy nodded. “Uh huh.”

  Parker screwed up her mouth. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Thought of what?” Amy asked.

  “Myrna Holladay,” Parker answered.

  Susan nodded, adding, “She knows everything about everybody in town. What medicine everybody is taking. Who’s diabetic, who’s depressed, who’s bipolar, who’s on a diet, who has high cholesterol, who’s pregnant or trying to be pregnant.”

  At that moment, Amy’s phone rang. She grabbed it from the counter and looked at the display. “It’s Millie.”

  “She knows already,” Parker said.

  “Told you,” Susan said.

  Millie had been Amy’s next-door neighbor when she lived in her mother’s house. Amy wouldn’t have known what to do without Millie and her friends during her mother’s illness. Millie was an active, yoga-going, eighty-two-year-old who lived with Amy’s Aunt Bernie. They were so much in love it made Amy’s heart sing.

  “Well?” Millie said. “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?” Amy asked, rolling her eyes for the benefit of Susan and Parker.

  “You know what I mean,” Millie said. “I got a call from Edna who heard from Myrna that you were trying to have a baby. Is it true or not?”

  “True.”

  “Have you taken the test yet? Are you pregnant? Am I going to be a grandma?”

  “As a matter of fact, I just took the test,” Amy said.

  “Now, honey, don’t get dejected,” Millie said. “Sometimes it takes a while. Keep trying, okay?” Suddenly, Millie got quiet. “Why do you sound so funny? Do you have a cold?”

  “Well, after I saw the test results, I got so excited that I fell and broke my nose,” Amy said.

  “Does that mean…? You are? Are you really?”

  “I am,” Amy confirmed.

  Amy heard Millie call out, “Bernie, get in here! Amy’s with child! We’re going to be grandmas!”

  Bernie whooped in the background.

  “Technically, you’ll both be aunts,�
� Amy said.

  “Oh, that’s much better,” Millie said. “Aunt Millie doesn’t make me sound as old as Grandma Millie.”

  “I want to be Uncle Bernie!” Bernie shouted.

  Amy laughed. Now she didn’t feel so bad about her wedding being postponed indefinitely. A new niece or nephew would excite Bernie as much as walking her down the aisle. Amy could see Bernie in her overalls, with her twinkling eyes and brilliant smile, bouncing a baby on her knee. Bernie beamed with happiness every day because she had Millie. Imagine what a child would add to her life.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Amy. I need to hang up and call everybody and tell them the good news,” Millie said. She clicked off.

  Amy looked up. “She’s calling everybody in town.”

  “Well, so much for secrets,” Parker said.

  Susan laughed and held the bag of peas to Amy’s already-swollen nose.

  Chapter Two

  Jeb Marshall leaned back in his chair and placed his cowboy boots up on his desk. He was the owner and editor of the Fenton Sentinel where Amy worked as the human-interest reporter and columnist. Jeb had the same rugged good looks as Robert Redford, but underneath that manly exterior beat the heart of a true feminist.

  When Amy walked into the newsroom sporting two black eyes and a swollen and taped nose, Jeb quickly sat up. His boots thumped down onto the floor and he clenched his fists. He looked like he was ready to fight somebody. “What the hell happened? Do I need to go beat some sense into somebody?”

  “It’s not what you think,” Amy said. “I did this to my myself.”

  Clementine, Jeb’s wife, dashed across the room and embraced Amy. Clementine’s blue eyes sparkled and her stylish blond bob seemed to blow back with the speed at which she crossed the room. Clementine was also the town mayor.

  “I’m so happy for you,” Clementine gushed. “What a blessing and a delight.” She stood back and looked Amy up and down. “I think you already have the glow. Though it’s hard to tell with those black eyes. But look at it this way: it’ll make a great story later on.”