Stephen King - The Stand

Author:[email protected]
Language: eng
Format: azw

They lay on the grass in the last of the twilight. Flagrant red had given way to cooler purple as they made love, and now Frannie could see stars shining through the last of the clouds. It would be good riding weather tomorrow. With any luck they would be able to get most of the way across Indiana. Stu slapped lazily at a mosquito hovering over his chest. His shirt was hung on a nearby bush. Fran's shirt was on but unbuttoned. Her breasts pushed at the cloth and she thought, I'm getting bigger, just a little right now, but it's noticeable . . . at least tome.

"I've wanted you for a pretty long time now," Stu said without looking directly at her. "I guess you know that." "I wanted to avoid trouble with Harold," she said. "And there's something else that-"

"Harold's got a ways to go," Stu said, "but he's got the makings of a fine man somewhere inside him if he'll toughen up. You like him, don't you?" "That's not the right word. There isn't a word in English for how I feel about Harold."

"How do you feel about me?" he asked. She looked at him and found she couldn't say she loved him, couldn't say it right out, although she wanted to.

"No," he said, as if she'd contradicted him, "I just like to get things straight. I guess you'd just as soon not have Harold know anything about this yet. Isn't that right?"

"Yes," she said gratefully.

"It's just as well. If we lie low, it may take care of itself. I've seen him lookin at Patty. She's about his age."

"I don't know . . ."

"You feel a debt of gratitude to him, don't you?" "I suppose so. We were the only two left in Ogunquit, and-" That was luck, no more, Frannie. You don't want to let anyone put you in a headhold over something that was pure luck." "I suppose."

"I guess I love you," he said. "That's not so easy for me to say." "I guess I love you, too. But there's something else . . . " "I knew that."

"You asked me why I stopped taking the pills." She plucked at her shirt, not daring to look at him. Her lips felt unnaturally dry. "I thought they might be bad for the baby," she whispered:

"For the." He stopped. Then he grasped her and turned her to face him. "You're pregnant?"

She nodded.

"And you didn't tell anyone?"

"No."

"Harold. Does Harold know?"

"No one but you."

"God-almighty-damn," he said. He was peering into her face in a concentrated way that scared her. She had imagined one of two things: he would leave her immediately (as Jess undoubtedly would have done if he had discovered she was pregnant with another man's child) or he would hug her, tell her not to worry, that he would take care of everything. She had never expected this startled, close scrutiny, and she found herself remembering the night she had told her father in the garden. His look had been very much like this one.

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