A Baby Changes Everything. Marie Ferrarella

took a long sip of the cool liquid before offering a vague answer. “Just me, feeling sorry for myself, that’s all.”

      Vanessa gave her a long, penetrating look. This wasn’t just a passing mood, she thought. This was something more. Was there trouble on Paradise Island? “Want to talk about it?”

      Savannah stared at the amber liquid. In the background, Luke’s monster gave a bloodcurdling yell as Jake killed him. “No.”

      Vanessa glanced in Luke’s direction to make sure everything was all right. The boy had started a new scenario. She looked back at Savannah.

      “Yes, you do,” Vanessa said firmly. Savannah began to protest, but the words never left her mouth, halted by Vanessa’s knowing look. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. You know I won’t leave it alone until you tell me. When you walk in here—” she gestured around the house with her free hand “—or anywhere near me, you do not have the right to remain silent.” She leaned closer, lowering her voice even though she doubted that Luke could hear. He was too busy being Jake and the monster. “Now, what’s wrong?”

      Feeling empty, weary beyond her years and lonelier than she could remember being in a very long time, Savannah murmured, “It’s nothing.” She stared again at her tall, frosted glass, noting the tiny rivulets of water had begun to run along the sides.

      Like tears, Savannah thought. Just like my tears.

      Vanessa frowned. “‘Nothing’ wouldn’t have you looking like a wilted flower.” Her eyes swept over her friend’s form. Five months pregnant and barely a discernible clue from her body. How did she do it? “You’re supposed to be glowing by now.”

      Glowing, ha. Most mornings Savannah felt like ashes from a day-old campfire. With a shake of her head, she laughed dryly. “Whoever made that assessment of motherhood was obviously a man. On my best day, I don’t ‘glow.’ I manage.”

      And just barely, she added silently. Between doing the bookkeeping for the ranch, handling Luke, morning sickness and the housekeeping, she was coming perilously close to losing it on all fronts. The faster she juggled, the more certain she was that she was going to drop something. Or everything.

      But in her heart she knew that if she just had a little support, she could do it.

      She might as well be wishing for the moon, she thought sadly.

      Savannah could feel her friend studying her. Vanessa always seemed to know just what she was thinking. Now was no exception.

      “But it’s not just the pregnancy getting you down, is it?” she asked.

      “No, it’s not.” Taking another sip of her iced tea, Savannah put the glass back on the tray. “You know, the police force could use your clairvoyance. You’re going to waste here.”

      Vanessa put her hand on top of Savannah’s, forcing her friend to look at her instead of avoiding her eyes. “Stop trying to change the subject. Tell me what’s wrong.”

      Savannah knotted her fingers together in her lap, staring down at them.

      “Everything,” she finally whispered, so quietly that, even sitting next to her, Vanessa had to strain to hear.

      Tears suddenly filled Savannah’s eyes, spilling out. Annoyed, she wiped them away with the back of her hand. “Damn, I still haven’t gotten the hang of riding this emotional roller coaster. You’d think that the second time around would be easier, not harder.” She sighed, feeling as if everything was conspiring against her. But she knew that if only Cruz would love her the way he used to, everything else would fall into place. “There should be a way to put your hormones in cold storage for the duration, get them back after you push out the baby.”

      Feeling for her, Vanessa put her arm around Savannah’s small shoulders. “Have you told Cruz what you’re going through?”

      Savannah drew back and laughed. The sound had no pleasure in it.

      “Cruz?” He was the whole problem, not a solution. Although if he’d only change again… “I’d have to make an appointment to talk to him. And even then he’d probably only break it or, worse, forget to show up altogether.”

      Vanessa was very quiet for a moment. There was something in Savannah’s face that had her heart freezing. She tried to read between the lines and hoped fervently that she was wrong. “My God, there’s isn’t another woman, is there?”

      Another woman, Savannah thought. If only…

      “Well,” she said slowly, “yes, in a manner of speaking there is another woman.”

      There might as well have been, for all the time Cruz spent away from the house, Savannah thought. A slight trace of bitterness entered her voice. Who would have thought that the promise of success would do this to them? Money had never meant anything to her. Only love and Cruz had.

      “He spends almost all his time with her.” Savannah laughed shortly, recalling the last few months, so awful in their loneliness. “By the time I get him back, he can hardly make conversation, much less act like the man who made my head spin and my pulse race.”

      Vanessa curled her fingers into her palms, trying to curb the desire to beat on Cruz even though she’d grown up liking him. Until he’d married Savannah, Cruz had worked on her father’s ranch, the Double Crown. She and her brothers and sister had grown up playing with Cruz and his sisters, calling him friend.

      Now she was calling him something a whole lot less flattering in her mind.

      “Well, who is she?” Vanessa demanded. “Have you tried confronting her?” She put herself in Savannah’s shoes. “I know if there was some woman who was trying to get her hooks into Devin, I’d knock her into next Tuesday.” She looked at Savannah, suddenly mindful of her condition. It was so hard to remember she was pregnant, given what Savannah looked like. “I could do that for you, you know. You’re pregnant, you don’t want to get yourself upset. But I could certainly handle this bitch for you. What’s her name?”

      “La Esperanza.” Hope, that was what he’d named it. Hope, because that was what it represented to both of them. Hope for a new start, hope for the future. And now it had taken all hope away from her.

      Vanessa stared at her. “The ranch?” she asked incredulously.

      “The ranch,” Savannah confirmed. “Cruz refers to our ranch as ‘she.’” The more she thought about it, the more fitting it seemed. “And La Esperanza is a hell of a lot more competition than any flesh-and-blood woman I ever knew.”

      At least, if it had been another woman, she’d like to think she’d know how to compete. But the ranch had been her husband’s dream ever since she could remember. How could she possibly compete against a dream?

      “But he’s just doing that for his family. For you,” Vanessa argued.

      No, not for her, Savannah thought. Because if it was for her, he would have stopped knocking himself out a long time ago. He would have tried to fit her into his day, into his night, instead of living and breathing work on the ranch.

      “He’s doing that for himself,” Savannah said firmly. Ever loyal to the man she loved with all her heart, she softened slightly, as if she couldn’t help but take his side, at least to a minor degree. “Oh, he wants to be a good provider and all, but part of being a good provider is being there in more than just body. And he’s not.” She sighed, looking past her friend, focusing instead on the last few months. Maybe even years, she amended. This had been going on and steadily getting worse for a long, long time. “He hasn’t been for a long while now.”

      Trying to lighten the moment and do away with the dark look in her friend’s eyes, Vanessa patted Savannah’s stomach. “Well, he must have been there in body and spirit at least once.”

      Savannah shook her head. “I need more than just once. I need more than just a part-time husband, although at this point I’d settle for that. What I