Always Dakota - Debbie Macomber [90]
Dennis parked his gasoline truck close to the tank he was scheduled to refill. Jeb didn’t run much farm equipment anymore; as much as anything, filling the tank was an excuse for them to visit. Dennis noticed that men needed excuses to get together. Not so with women. They seemed to throw a party for every reason imaginable.
“About time you got here,” Jeb said by way of greeting.
Dennis grinned as he pulled out the nozzle and went about his business. “You talk to Sarah lately?” he asked casually a couple of minutes later.
“Last week.”
“How’d she sound to you?”
Jeb shrugged and his brows came together in a frown. “Same as always. Is everything all right?”
Dennis wished he knew. “I think she’s doing too much. She won’t slow down. The doctor said she should use her judgment, but…I’m worried. I’ve tried to convince her to let me do more around the house—she won’t hear of it.”
“How’s the pregnancy going?”
“Supposedly everything’s as it should be. But…” Dennis sighed. His fears were rampant. He didn’t go to sleep without worrying about Sarah and the baby. He feared the unknown, feared some unexpected complication that would cost him either the life of his child or that of his wife. Perhaps both. There were nights he’d lie awake for hours, consumed by dread.
Dennis wasn’t the kind of man who could bear the grief of losing a wife or child. He wasn’t the kind of man who could ever get over it, whose personality would remain intact.
“You want me to talk to her?” Jeb asked.
“I want you to tell me everything’s going to be all right with her and the baby,” Dennis snapped. He ran his hand over his face and glanced apologetically at his friend. “Sorry.”
Jeb slapped him on the shoulder and waited until Dennis had finished with the pump. He sat on the fuel truck’s bumper, where Dennis joined him.
“I worried about Maddy, too,” Jeb said quietly.
“She had complications?”
“No,” Jeb admitted, “but that didn’t keep me from worrying. When I learned she’d gone into labor and refused to leave for the hospital without me, I nearly lost it. Luckily everything turned out all right. I told her never again, but she’s already after me to have another baby.”
“So soon?”
“She was an only child and she wants to be sure Julianne has siblings.” Jeb stood, paced two or three steps, then turned around. “The problem is, Maddy knows there’s damn little I can refuse her, so give or take a few months I figure she’ll be pregnant with our second baby.”
Dennis chuckled.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“You. I never would’ve believed a woman would get to you like this.”
“Maddy isn’t just a woman. She’s…Maddy.”
Dennis nodded, understanding far better than he let on. He felt the same about Sarah. He was crazy in love with her. Nothing could change that.
An advancing car sounded in the background, and Jeb peered around the fuel truck. “That’s Calla.”
A heaviness settled over Dennis’s heart. “Did you know she was coming?”
“She called earlier and mentioned stopping by this afternoon sometime.”
Dennis stood. “You might have said something.”
Jeb frowned. “Why? She’s your stepdaughter.”
“True enough, but we don’t get along, never have. I don’t know what I did that was so horrible—other than love her mother.” He shrugged helplessly. “She seems to think we’re in competition.”
Calla parked her grandfather’s truck and climbed down. Dennis noticed her hesitation when she saw him, as though she wasn’t pleased to be running into him, either.
“What’s he doing here?” she demanded of Jeb.
“I have a name, Calla,” Dennis said mildly.
She glared at him. “Whatever.”
“No, it’s Dennis, and like it or not, I’m your stepfather.”
She sighed, signaling that she was bored with the subject. “Whatever,” she said again, infuriating him with her rudeness.
“Dennis is here delivering fuel,” Jeb said, coming to stand between them, obviously accepting the role of peacemaker