Page 47 of Tempting Fate
Drew told Kristy about Harper’s unfortunate fall from Ginger and how Raylene had come to the rescue. He left out the part about Emily freaking out over Harper sneaking off with the horse. Kristy thought they were both too overprotective, but she hadn’t gone through the trauma of losing a child. It was a topic they steered clear of. There were so many subjects that they now tiptoed around that Drew had lost count.
“Harper appears to be very taken with the woman,” he said.
“Why do you think that is?”
Drew chuckled again. “I’m guessing partly because she looks like a teen idol. Kind of Daisy Duke meets Hayden Panettiere.”
Kristy cleared her throat. “Sounds like you were quite taken with her, too.”
“Jealous?” He patted her leg teasingly.
“Should I be?” She laughed.
It was the closest they’d come to being playful with each other since the police had found Hope at Christmastime. Drew found it encouraging.
“Nope. I’m a one-woman man.” He changed lanes to get out from behind a semitruck. “I also got the impression that Harper liked talking to her. The way she put it was, ‘Raylene doesn’t treat me like a freak or a victim.’” He supposed most people, nervous about saying the wrong thing, handled Harper with kid gloves.
“They had that much of a chance to talk? I thought you said she brought Harper right home.”
“Yeah.” Drew nodded. “But then Harper saw her again at the wedding. Clearly, the woman has made a big impression.”
“How soon is she leaving? It seems silly not to let Harper take a lesson. What harm could it do?”
“That was my thought, but Emily’s pretty adamant about it.”
Kristy turned to stare out the window.
“Kris? What’s on your mind?” He didn’t have to ask, really. Emily had become another one of their off-limits topics.
She sighed. “You’re Harper’s father. Shouldn’t you also have a say in what’s right for your daughter?” She leaned her head against the seat and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know why I get involved. It’s between you and Emily, and that’s the problem, Drew. I’m not part of this. You want me to be, but every time I open my mouth, it’s Emily-this and Emily-that. She’s Harper’s mother, I get that. I get that I’m the interloper here. But it’s hard to sit back and watch you smother that beautiful little girl. What happened all those years ago was beyond monstrous. Your child was stolen from you. My God, Drew, it’s every parent’s nightmare. But the fact is, Harper had a good life. She was loved and cared for and raised like any normal child. I’m not giving her abductors a pass. What they did is unimaginable…and unforgivable. All I’m saying is that Harper is a well-adjusted girl. It’s her parents…” She paused, then went back to staring out the window.
“Go on and say it. It’s her parents who aren’t well-adjusted.”
“And how could you be after what the both of you went through? I understand that, Drew. I feel every drop of your pain. All I’m saying is, don’t transfer all that anguish to Harper. Don’t suffocate her; let her be a thirteen-year-old, and let her pick her own idols.”
In his heart, he knew she was right. But loosening up and letting go was easier said than done.
“I want to talk to you about something else,” she said, and he stiffened. The tone in her voice signaled the gravity of whatever she was about to say.
“I want to do another round of IVF,” she continued. “I know with the expense of the new house we really can’t afford it, but I was thinking we could take out a second mortgage on the Palo Alto house. We have plenty of equity, and we can put that bathroom remodel we were planning on hold.”
“I thought we already put it on hold to buy the Nugget house.” The truth was he didn’t want to do another round of IVF. He didn’t think he could live with Kristy’s disappointment. “Babe, you heard what the doctor said.”
“She said she couldn’t predict what would happen.”
“But as long as there was no remediable explanation for failure after three attempts, she didn’t recommend a fourth one.” The doctor had indeed made it clear that she no longer thought IVF was a viable option for them, but Drew wondered that it was his convenient excuse to stop trying.
“So we just give up? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, what I’m saying is we go back to the old-fashioned method.”
“That hasn’t worked either,” she said with an edge in her voice. “I don’t care what Dr. Melly says. There’s new research showing that two-thirds of women who undergo six or more cycles of IVF get pregnant. It just came out, and it’s legitimate, not some fly-by-night study.”
He let out a breath of frustration. She spent hours trolling the Internet, reading whatever she could get her hands on. Research that said you could increase fertility by standing on your head, painting your headboard yellow, eating royal jelly, and drinking baboon urine. Drew had lost count of all the ways.
They hit a bottleneck in Sacramento, and he considered pulling off at the next exit and waiting out traffic at a restaurant. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and was hungry.
“You want to get dinner?” he asked.
