Splitting the Defense Read online

  “I haven’t heard or seen anyone around our place. Maybe if you see him, you should warn him I shoot on sight.”

  She’d only ever fired warning shots when a bear seemed to be nosing around the place, but Meredith was fairly certain that if she felt threatened, she’d be able to take care of the problem. Her late husband hadn’t taught her everything that went into the remote wilderness life they lived, but he’d taught her to shoot a gun. The rest she’d been able to pick up on her own.

  “Now that would be plain stupid of you. I hear he’s some hot shot from the city, up here to scout out some new development possibilities. You shoot him and you’ll be having that baby in jail.”

  “Well, then I guess it’s prudent that you make sure everyone knows to tell him not to run around my place. Now, I’m going to finish my shopping and get Caleb back home. I left some stew on the fire and I’m sure he’s hungry.”

  The drawl in her words mimicked what Meredith usually heard from everyone around her. Even Caleb had the twang that anyone born around Keene seemed to have. It wasn’t something Meredith had expected when she settled there, and she fought to keep from falling into their dialect. She was afraid it’d make her sound as snooty as they were.

  “I don’t understand why you continue to insist you two live up in that house all alone. Lawrence has been dead for months now. You two should come down and live closer to town.”

  If Meredith was alone, she doubted the idea would even be mentioned. The only reason Lilly Anne wanted her to move closer was because Caleb was one of their own and clearly Meredith wasn’t doing a good job of raising him in their ways.

  No one had come right out and said anything of that nature, but Meredith felt it every time she saw someone look at Caleb like he hung the moon and then looked over to her like she was the gum on the bottom of their shoe. If there was one thing Meredith vowed never to do, it was move into town. She could barely stand coming in for supplies. The idea of being there twenty-four-seven caused a nauseous unease in the bottom of her stomach. It could’ve just been the baby moving, but Meredith had gotten used to all the fun with her acrobatic little one.

  “For now, I think we’re fine, but thanks for the advice. I’ll see you later, Lilly Anne.”

  It could have been the fact that she was the only female in town who didn’t have two first name that made everyone hate her. Meredith hadn’t met everyone, but the people she had been introduced to all had two names. She knew that really didn’t have any effect on whether they liked her. It was just fun to come up with silly excuses.

  Meredith pushed her cart away from the woman, hopeful the conversation was over. For once, she wanted to get the last word, something rarely granted. She had bigger things to worry about with some hotshot from the city supposedly sharing her woods.

  “That baby’s due any day now. We all know you like to pretend you can do everything yourself, but you can’t give birth alone.”

  Any day now was a little dramatic. Meredith had a least a month left, so there was plenty of time for her to figure out some kind of birth plan. The doctor in town thankfully wasn’t a catty woman. He wasn’t a woman at all, so that worked in Meredith’s favor.

  “I’m well aware of my abilities when it comes to having a baby. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  Not bothering to turn around, Meredith walked away. The idea that anyone in town knew what was best for Meredith made her want to punch something, but she managed to take deep breaths all the way to the checkout. There were more items she would’ve liked to pick up, but sticking around to listen to whatever else Lilly Anne had to say wasn’t in the cards.

  “You know, if you just started dating me, they’d leave you alone.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Meredith stared up at Paul as she loaded her items on the conveyor belt for him to scan. Even before she’d married Lawrence, Paul had been flirtatious, but it wasn’t until after Lawrence’s death that he started asking her out. He’d waited a whole week after the funeral before stating his intentions.

  Meredith always had trouble taking his offers seriously. She had no doubt he was serious because after seven years he was still single and asking, but there was something about his baby face and the laughter that his blue eyes always held that made her wonder whether it was all some kind of joke.

  “How in the world would that work out in my favor, Paul? They already hate me for taking one of their eligible bachelors. They’d probably burn me at a stake if I snagged me another one. Plus, I don’t know if you noticed, but this twenty extra pounds isn’t me just eating a few extra helpings of chocolate cake.”

  Not losing eye contact, Meredith made sure to reiterate her rounded belly by rubbing her hands across it. When all that did was elicit Paul’s tongue darting out of his mouth to lick his lips, she rolled her eyes. There was something utterly wrong with the guy.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you have problems?”

  There wasn’t much else for her to say. Paul had let his eyes gravitate to her stomach, where they were apparently stuck.

  “More times than I can count, but I don’t let that bother me. You haven’t told me what you’re having yet. Do you know?”

  Paul managed to stop staring down and at least started scanning again as he looked at her expectantly. His eyes had softened, which made Meredith wonder exactly where his mind was headed. She couldn’t recall ever seeing whatever his eyes were trying to tell her.

  “We didn’t know with Caleb, so I decided to keep it that way.”

  Shortly after Lawrence died, Meredith had been given the opportunity to find out whether the baby was a boy or girl and had turned the offer down. Since the cabin only had two bedrooms, she was hoping for another boy. If it wasn’t a boy, eventually things would get a little awkward between brother and sister.

  “There’s excitement in not knowing. Well, it looks like this will be thirty dollars even.”

  While Paul bagged the groceries, Meredith pulled the money out of her purse. At some point, she’d need to start worrying about getting a job, but she figured the life insurance check she’d gotten would keep them in good standing for at least a year.

  “Here you go. You know, I made a big pot of stew today and it’s usually best the second day. If you’re not busy, maybe come up tomorrow evening and have dinner with us. I’m sure Caleb would appreciate the company.”

  Meredith didn’t know where the invitation came from. She’d never invited someone to the cabin. There was something about the way Paul looked at her with whatever change was in his eyes that made her want to see if maybe she could find a friend in the world. Meredith had no intentions of making it anything more than that. She knew that wasn’t what he wanted, but he’d have to deal with it.

  “You serious? You won’t shoot at me if I show up at your door?”

  Grabbing her sacks from the man and pushing her cart forward, Meredith laughed on her way towards the door. She had a feeling she was going to regret the offer, but her stubbornness kept Meredith from rescinding her momentary lapse in judgement.

  Chapter Three

  Toby always thought his peace came from being out on the ice, but there was something about sitting on a dock surrounded by nature that almost felt like a piece of him that was missing fell into place. He generally wasn’t the kind of guy who thought about those things.

  Taking a step back and smelling the roses wasn’t his deal. Clearly he needed to spend more time doing it, because after the first episode that left him practically comatose on a dirty cabin floor, he hadn’t even had a mild headache. That didn’t mean he was stupid enough to be sitting out in the sun taunting it without glasses, but looking around the large trees surrounding the quiet cove he’d found on his morning run didn’t cause him pain.

  It was early morning, only a little after six according to his phone. It’d taken him a full week to get everything at the cabin figured out and set up. The note he found could’ve been a little more descriptive on what to do with the g
enerator once he found it. Getting that beast fired had taken a whole day by itself.

  Then there was cleaning the cabin out and making it habitable. He’d found the bed was okay for his purposes, definitely not five-star worthy, but it would do as soon as he found some sheets for it. Along with the need to clean, the missing sheets had sent him into town for a quick trip to the store. He’d thought the trip would take longer than it did, but a little over an hour later he was back to the cabin, ready to take it on.

  It still didn’t look anything like the pictures, but it looked a little less like it would fall down at any second. The chores had been labor intensive, and since they were over, Toby had to find another way to keep his muscles on their toes, so a jog through the woods seemed called for.

  He hadn’t done much research on what was around the cabin. He simply knew there were a bunch of trees, which made jogging around them a task worthy of his usual routine. Finding the lake was a bonus. After running for about an hour, it was great to sit down, feel a morning chill coming from the water and listen to whatever insects were around serenading him.

  Never being one for the outdoors, he had no clue what any of the trees, plants, bugs, birds, really anything around him was. It was probably a good idea to read up on those kinds of things in case he found something crawling up his pants or smack dab in the middle of a forest of poison ivy.

  The sound of water rippling behind him caused Toby’s thoughts to break from the peace he’d zoned in on. He’d allowed himself to think about the probability of catching a fish for a split second and wondered if he’d get a chance to see the one causing the disturbance. Fishing equipment hadn’t been on any of his lists, so it was more of a pipe dream activity.

  What he didn’t expect to find was a woman using a ladder on the dock to pull herself out of the water. Judging by the wide-eyed look on her face, he wasn’t exactly what she expected either. Her head had just made it to the point it could look over the dock and it was frozen in place.

  With his sunglasses on and the sun coming over the peaks of the trees behind him, it was hard to make out her features. He assumed it was a woman based on her thin cheekbones, what appeared to be long hair and the delicate-looking arms raised above her head on the ladder.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Her question was quiet, but harsh. The voice asking the question was definitely female based on Toby’s vast knowledge of communicating with the fairer sex. He’d had dozens of girlfriends over the years, but none of them had stuck. Most of them hadn’t even warranted a second date.

  He hoped the lashing he felt was because she didn’t know him and not because one look at him had her instantly hating him. He wasn’t sure why that was important, but he didn’t like giving bad first impressions.

  “I could ask you the same thing. I just got done with a run and was circling back to my place. What in the world are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  The woman sighed rather than immediately answer. While contemplating, or whatever caused her to not fill him in on what she was doing in the lake, she pulled herself up the rest of the way. Toby watched as her grapefruit-sized breasts cleared the edge of the dock. They threatened to spill out of the black swim suit trying to hold them in. Toby felt the need to run over and try to help corral them, but he stayed in place, watching as her rounded stomach also made an appearance.

  With how thin her face and arms were, there was little doubt in his mind the expanding stomach carried a child. He hadn’t let himself think his time in the woods would involve a little fun when he noticed the woman, but seeing that she was pregnant felt a like a letdown. Lifting his sunglasses up on his head, to hopefully get a little better idea of what she looked like without a haze, he realized that pregnant or not, the woman was a looker.

  Toby knew that without verifying her hair was more than likely a dark shade of brown when not sopping wet and that her eyes were a light color, either blue or green, but it drove home the concept that his body wasn’t as sleepy up on the mountain as he thought it would be. Something stirred in his running shorts as he stood up and turned to face his company, and the something wasn’t one of the rampant insects that had been buzzing around his head.

  At least he was fairly sure it wasn’t. The thought made him worry about what he’d find when he took a shower. Shaking his head, he remembered that showers weren’t possible, so it’d be a dip in the lake. After a week of cleaning the cabin, the task was long past due.

  “You must be the developer guy I heard about in town. You’re staying at the Tinker place, right?”

  The woman was still tense, but her words didn’t sound it. There was a cute drawl to them that Toby found endearing. He’d heard some of the townsfolk talking when he made a run for supplies, but her accent was a little different. It didn’t sound quite as thick.

  “I’m not a developer, and I couldn’t tell you if the rundown cabin I’m calling home is the Tinker place or not. It’s through that clearing over there, so you tell me.”

  Toby pointed to where he was pretty sure his giant loop around the woods was taking him back to. There was a tall coniferous tree of some sort by the cabin he was using as a guide. He’d found on his run that there were a number of those kinds of trees, so he hoped he’d kept his eyes on the right one.

  “You’re not a developer? What in the world are you doing up on this mountain if you’re not planning to build something?”

  The woman had stood basically motionless after getting out of the water. It was a little odd and robotic, but the hands to the hips he witnessed as she asked her questions were more natural to him. Toby couldn’t complain about her lack of movements, because he was basically standing like a statue himself.

  He didn’t want to scare her away, and he was afraid any movements after he got to his feet would send her running. He probably shouldn’t have bothered even standing, but he wanted to get a better look at her. It was hard to figure out how old she was, and he couldn’t begin to calculate how pregnant she was.

  Both of those questions were at the front of his mind; along with one about her finger missing a wedding ring. It wasn’t any of his business, but she seemed to be running around the woods alone about ready to give birth. It made sense to Toby to think there was an expectant father somewhere going crazy wondering where she was.

  “I think I’ll keep my reasons my own for now. What are you doing out here alone? You’re pregnant, right? Aren’t you worried about the baby?”

  Her eyes narrowed at Toby’s rushed questions. He knew there was no way she wasn’t pregnant, so he didn’t think he’d offended her that way, but he got the sense he had definitely said something wrong.

  “I know these woods like the back of my hand. I think there’s more risk of you getting hurt than me, so don’t you dare question whether or not I’m doing what’s right for my child.”

  She didn’t move from her spot, but Toby found himself taking a step back to get away from her words. He was close enough to the edge of the dock that he had to catch himself from falling back into the water. A move that only helped prove her point.

  “I wasn’t saying anything about your parenting skills. I just didn’t expect to find a pregnant woman out here while I contemplated jumping in the water.”

  “Really? Because it sure sounded to me like you’re one of those guys who thinks he knows better than a woman what to do with their body.”

  The woman shook her head as she hurried to walk by Toby and off the dock. As she moved by him, he sucked in a breath of air, worried his breathing would in some way disturb her and set her off even more. He didn’t have much experience with pregnant women, and it was pretty obvious his tact needed some work. His overall interactions with women probably needed work.

  “Whoa, just hold on a second there. I was worried about you knowing nothing about your situation, so don’t go lumping me into a bucket of people you already hate without giving me a chance.”

  Toby took a s
tep forward like he was going to follow the woman, but as she spun around to face him again about three feet into the grass in front of the dock, he froze in place. He knew nothing at all about the woman, only the fact that she was clearly a force of nature. It was hard to imagine being able to know that about a person from only spending five minutes, maybe, with them, but he had no doubt whoever she was, she didn’t let the world dictate her life.

  “I’m not someone you need to worry your pretty little head over. I come down every morning at this time for a swim, so if you don’t mind, work around my schedule. I’m not a people person, nor do I plan on becoming one.”

  She turned and started to walk away, but Toby didn’t want their encounter to end so absolutely. He could understand if she had some private time carved out that he interrupted. That didn’t mean they couldn’t at least be cordial, especially since they appeared to be neighbors of some sort.

  “Wait, my name is Toby. I’m not sure how long I’ll be sticking around here, but you know where I live if you need anything.”

  He’d hoped the statement would include something similar, at the very least her sharing her name. It didn’t surprise him, though, when all he got in return was a scoff. She didn’t even falter her steps for a second as she headed down a trail to the left of the dock.

  Toby made note of the general direction and tried to seek out a house or cabin in the distance. All he saw were trees, so he’d have to rely on the direction to guide him when he got brave enough to go exploring that way. For the time being, he turned so he could sit back on the dock and let his legs slide into the water. He had to stink, and he hoped that was one of the reasons she seemed standoffish, not so much the fact that she already hated his guts.

  Chapter Four