CYBIL WOKE GROGGY, HEADACHY. THE GROGGY wasn’t much of a surprise. Mornings weren’t her finest hour, particularly after a restless night, and the dreams were a plague now. More, Gage had been closed in the night before. Barely speaking, she thought, as she grabbed a robe in case there were men in the house.
Well, his moods weren’t her responsibility, she decided, and felt fairly closed in herself. She’d take her coffee out on the back deck-alone. And sulk.
The idea perked her up a little, or would have if she hadn’t found both Layla and Quinn holding a whispered conference in the kitchen.
“Go away. Nobody talk to me until I’ve had two solid hits of caffeine.”
“Sorry.” Quinn blocked her path to the stove. “You’ll have to put that off.”
Warning flashed into her eyes. “Nobody tells me to put off my morning coffee. Move it or lose it, Q.”
“No coffee until after this.” She picked the pregnancy test off the counter, waved it in front of Cybil’s face. “Your turn, Cyb.”
“My turn for what. Move!”
“To pee on a stick.”
Cybil’s jones for coffee tripped over sheer shock. “What? Are you crazy? Just because sperm met egg for the two of you doesn’t mean-”
“Isn’t it funny I have this on hand just like I had one for Layla.”
“Ha ha.”
“And it’s interesting,” Layla continued, “how you pointed out yesterday the three of us are on the same cycle.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
Layla looked at Quinn. “Isn’t that what I said?”
Nearly desperate for coffee, Cybil rolled her eyes. “I saw you pregnant. Both of you. I didn’t see me that way.”
“It’s always harder to see ourselves,” Quinn returned. “You’ve told me that a few times. Let’s make it simple. You want coffee? Go pee on a stick. You won’t get past both of us to the goal, Cyb.”
Fuming, Cybil snatched the box. “Pregnancy’s made both of you bossy and bitchy.” She stalked off to the first-floor powder room.
“It has to mean something.” Layla rubbed her hands over her arms, ridiculously nervous. “If we’re right, or if we’re wrong, it has to mean something. I just wish I could figure out what.”
“I’ve got some ideas, but…” Worried, Quinn paced to the kitchen doorway. “We’ll think about that later. After. And either way, we have to be with her on this.”
“Well, of course. Why wouldn’t… Oh. You mean if she is, and she doesn’t want to be.” With a nod, Layla stepped up so she stood beside Quinn. “No question about it. Whatever it is, whatever she needs.”
They waited a few more minutes, then Quinn dragged both hands through her hair. “That’s it. I can’t stand it.”
She marched to the door, knocked for form, then pushed the door open. “Cyb, how long does-Oh, Cybil.” She knelt down immediately to gather Cybil up as her friend sat on the floor.
“What am I going to do?” Cybil managed. “What am I going to do?”
“Get off the floor to start.” Briskly, Layla leaned down to help her up. “I’m going to make you some tea. We’ll figure this out.”
“I’m so stupid. So stupid.” Cybil pressed her hands to her eyes as Quinn led her to the kitchen and a chair. “I should’ve seen it coming. All three of us. It’s a perfect goddamn fit. It was right there in front of my face.”
“It didn’t click for me,” Quinn told her. “The possibility of it didn’t click in for me until the middle of the night. It’s going to be all right, Cybil. Whatever you want or need, whatever you decide, Layla and I are going to be right there to make sure it’s all right.”
“It’s not the same for me as it is for the two of you. Gage and I… We don’t have any plans. We’re not…” She managed a weak smile. “Linked the way you are with Cal and Fox.”
“You’re in love with him.”
“Yes, I am.” Cybil looked into Quinn’s eyes. “But that doesn’t mean we’re together. He’s not looking for-”
“Forget what he’s looking for.” Layla’s voice was so sharp, Cybil blinked. “What are you looking for?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t this. I was looking to finish what we started here, and to have some time with him outside of this. If I looked further than that, and I’m not so strong and coolheaded that I didn’t look further and hope that we might make something together. And not so wide-eyed and optimistic that I expect to.”
“You know you don’t have to decide right away.” Quinn stroked Cybil’s hair. “This is between the three of us, and we’ll keep it that way as long as you want.”
“You know we can’t do that,” Cybil replied. “There’s a purpose in this, and that purpose might be the difference between life and death.”
“Gods, demons, Fate-,” Layla snapped. “None of them have a right to make this choice for you.”
When Layla set the tea on the table, Cybil took her hand, squeezed fiercely. “Thanks. God. Thanks. The three of us, the three of them. Ann Hawkins had three sons and they were her hope, her faith, her courage. Now there are three more-the possibilities of three more inside us. There’s a symmetry there that can’t be ignored. In many cultures, in much lore, the pregnant woman holds particular power. We’ll use that power.”
She took a deep breath, reached for the tea. “I could, when it’s finished, choose to end this possibility. My choice, and yes, screw gods and demons. My choice. And I don’t choose to end this possibility. I’m not a child, and I’m not without resources. I love the father. Whatever happens between Gage and me, I absolutely believe this was meant.”
She took another breath. “I know this is the right thing for me. And I know I’m officially scared to death.”
“We’ll all be going through it together.” Quinn took Cybil’s hand, took a good, strong hold. “That’s going to help.”
“Yes, it is. Don’t say anything yet. I need to work out the best way to tell Gage. The best time, the best method. Meanwhile, the three of us need to try to figure out how we can use this surprising bout of mutual fertility. I can contact-”
“Hold that thought,” Quinn said when the phone rang. After glancing at the display, she smiled. “Hello, lover. You-” The smile dropped away, and so did her color. “We’re coming. I-” She shot alarmed glances at Cybil and Layla. “All right. Yes, all right. How bad? We’ll meet you there.”
She hung up. “Bill Turner-Gage’s father-he’s been shot.”
THEY’D TAKEN HIS MOTHER AWAY IN AN AMBULANCE, Gage thought. All the lights, the sirens, the rush. He hadn’t gone with her, of course. Frannie Hawkins had bundled him away, given him milk and cookies. Kept him close.
Now it was his father-the lights, the sirens, the rush. He wasn’t entirely sure how it was he was speeding behind the ambulance, wedged in between Fox and Cal in the cab of Fox’s truck. He could smell the blood. Cal’s, the old man’s.
There had been a lot of blood.
Cal was still pale, and the healing wasn’t complete. Gage felt Cal tremble-quick, light shivers-as his body continued the pain and the effort of healing itself. But Cal wasn’t dead, wasn’t lying in a pool of his own blood as he’d been in the vision. They’d changed that… potential, as Cybil would call it.
Score another for the home team.
But they hadn’t seen the old man. There’d been no vision of his father-dead or alive. No foresight of the old man leaping through the door and onto crazed Cy Hudson’s back. No preview of that hot, determined look in his eyes. There sure as hell hadn’t been any quick peek through the window to show him the way the old man lay on the floor, bleeding through Fox’s wadded-up shirt.
He’d looked broken, Gage realized. Broken and frail and old when they’d loaded him into the ambulance. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t the right image. It didn’t match the picture of Bill Turner that Gage carried around in his head the way, he supposed, he carried the picture of his mother in his wallet.