Between Heaven and Texas by Marie Bostwick Read Free Book Online

to Too Much . . .”
    Mary Dell’s eyes went wide. “But . . . aren’t we going to live on the ranch?”
    â€œOf course we are,” Donny assured her. “It’s nice of your folks to let us live with them, but I’d like us to have a place of our own as soon as we can afford it. What if we got a trailer, a double-wide? It’d be the quickest way to get a house of our own. There’s some nice ones out now, and those double-wides are roomier than they look.”
    â€œI don’t care where we live as long as it’s on the ranch and we’re together.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought too,” Donny said. “We don’t need anything fancy. Just someplace close to the big house, but not too close, where we can have some privacy but still be close to the barns.”
    He stroked her hair with his big, broad hand and said wistfully, “The F-Bar-T might not be the biggest spread in Texas, but I never saw such good grazing land. I think we can really make something of it, honey. I’ve got some ideas.”
    â€œYou do?”
    He looked at her and nodded, coming back to himself. “All kinds of ideas. And you’re part of them all. And you know something else? After we see that doctor and whenever he says it’s all right, whether that’s today or tomorrow or next month, I think we ought to spend a whole lot of time trying to make a whole lot of babies. What would you say to that, Mrs. Bebee?”
    Mary Dell turned her face toward his shoulder so he wouldn’t see her embarrassing eagerness and smiled. “I’d say that sounds like a real good plan. And I’d say I love you, Donny. I’d say I love you something terrible.”

C HAPTER 7
    July 1983
    Â 
    D r. Eloisa Brownback pulled off her latex gloves and tossed them into the wastebasket before snapping off the goosenecked exam light.
    â€œAll right, Mary Dell. You can sit up now.”
    Mary Dell took her feet from the stirrups and pushed herself into a sitting position at the end of the table. She didn’t ask the doctor if the baby was all right. Eloisa’s solemn expression told her everything.
    â€œI’m so sorry.” Dr. Brownback sat down on a rolling stool and sighed as she took Mary Dell’s hand. “Did you tell Donny you were pregnant?”
    â€œI didn’t want to talk to him until after the first trimester. Didn’t want to get his hopes up again.”
    â€œI think you should talk to him—about adoption. It’s time.”
    Mary Dell shook her head. “I’ve tried. Donny is dead set on us having a child of our own. He says it’s up to him to carry on the family name.”
    The doctor sniffed. “Look, Mary Dell. Maybe it’s not my place to meddle in family affairs, but it’s not like the entire future of the Bebee clan rests solely on Donny’s shoulders, does it? He does have a brother, after all. Can’t he be the one to carry on the line?”
    Eloisa raised her eyebrows to underscore the question, then turned her back and started scribbling notes on Mary Dell’s chart. Mary Dell slid off the exam table, wrapping the white sheet around herself like a sarong.
    â€œDoesn’t seem likely,” Mary Dell answered as she stepped behind a privacy screen and started to dress. “Graydon’s up in Kansas now, works as a hired man and lives like a hermit. He lives in one room, doesn’t have a telephone of his own, doesn’t keep company with anybody, never even goes to town unless he has to. I can’t see him getting married and making babies anytime soon.”
    Mary Dell sighed as she reached around back to hook up her bra. She felt sorry for Graydon. Life in that POW camp must have been unimaginably difficult, but that wasn’t what had driven him to his hermitic lifestyle. No, it was coming home to discover the woman he’d pinned his dreams on had married someone else that