Spring Valley by T. L. Haddix

Author:T. L. Haddix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: T. L. Haddix
Published: 2016-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Coughing fits kept Walker tossing and turning most of the night, peppered with periods of uneasy sleep and vivid nightmares that blended the worst of the past with his present. By the time morning came, he was huddled in blankets in the living room, hands curled around a hot mug of tea, staring out the window and watching the sun peek up over the horizon. As soon as it was a decent time, he would put in a call to his Aunt Joline, who was a traveling nurse practitioner, and see if she could swing by on her way to work. Judging by the crud he was coughing up, he needed antibiotics.

For now though, he let the kittens play around his feet, dashing in and out of the folds of the blanket as they chased each other. The girl, whom he’d named Sneezy, sat on his knee and peered down at her brothers as though she was too good for their shenanigans. She’d improved nicely since he’d taken the litter in, and he’d be able to find the cats a home soon, a thought that left him feeling lonely.

“Maybe I’ll keep you,” he told her in a husky rasp. “What do you think about that?”

She gave a tiny yawn and stretched, then she pounced on Dopey, her brother, making him hiss in outrage.

Walker chuckled. “Okay, then.”

Offhand, he wondered what Brooke would think about him keeping the kittens, then he remembered Dr. Harvey’s revelations. Remembered that everything had changed. The tightness in his chest when he sucked in a breath was only partly due to the congestion in his lungs. Pregnant. A baby. Would she even want it? Walker didn’t know if he could stand it if she didn’t.

They’d not talked about kids, about the future, about anything serious. Other than the teasing remarks they’d exchanged a few weeks ago in the barn, they’d deliberately kept things light, easy. And until that day in the barn, he’d have sworn that was what he wanted. Since then, he’d been coming to terms with the knowledge that it wasn’t. Now this…

“There are worse things, kits,” he said a while later to the cats, who’d stopped playing to curl up into a mass of sleepy, furry cuteness. “Really, there are.”

The thing was he knew firsthand how bitter a relationship could turn when it was built around the existence of a child. He didn’t want that for himself, and he didn’t want it for Brooke. He sure as hell didn’t want it for any child of his. Maybe she would be happy about the pregnancy; Walker just didn’t have much hope that’d be the case.

When Joline stopped by an hour later, following his call, and examined him, she tsked him with maternal concern. “If you’re not feeling better very soon, get yourself to the doctor for a chest x-ray. And for goodness’ sake, stay out of the weather.”

Given the nature of her job, she had injectable antibiotics on hand, and she gave him a shot in addition to writing him a script for pills that he’d pick up later that day.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.