Page 238 of Restless
She had to get her family right before she had the surgery. Right now, she didn’t have the time. She especially wanted Jo home. Besides, according to Johnnie, her hysterectomy would break Christopher’s heart. Every argument she put up, including pointing out Christopher’s botched vasectomy, Johnnie shot down. She was afraid she’d die and leave the kids she’d already been blessed with; die and leave the man she loved more than life itself.
Johnnie called her a failure and a disappointment. He wanted her to go. He said she was a handicap to Christopher. Her illnesses and her inability to have more children left him saddled with her.
Until Christopher told her he didn’t want her or love her, she would stay.
Jordan snapped a folder shut and leaned forward in her desk chair. Her offices were now housed a couple of miles from Hortensia General instead of in the medical building across the parking lot.
“I need you to calm down before you end up in the hospital again. This time, with a stroke. Your blood pressure was slightly elevated today, so I’ve sent in a prescription. Cut back on the salt and processed foods. Take it easy,” she reiterated.
“Christopher wants me to hire May and Gurly as cook and housekeeper. Bunny has given up her teaching position because it has become too stressful, so she is back with me full time. I feel so…so…” What had Johnnie called her? “Useless.”
Jordan studied Meggie closely. Gray sprinkled her long braids, a style she’d worn ever since Meggie had first met her when she needed an obstetrician to see her through her first pregnancy.
“You have eight surviving children, Meggie,” the doctor said kindly. “You’ve done your duty as Outlaw’s wife and provided him with beautiful sons and daughters.”
“You’re right,” Meggie said raggedly, unable to reveal the pressure Johnnie was putting on her to either leaveordo the one thing she was good at. As he saw it, Christopher’s one and only request he’d ever made of her was that she give him children. “He loves kids.”
“He loves you more.”
“I know, and Iamtired of having babies,” she confessed. “I have another girl, which I have always wanted. Admittedly, I wasn’t planning for her when it happened.”
“I understand. We’d discussed your options for another baby before your fortieth birthday. At which point, you intended to have your tubes tied. What’s changed?”
Meggie shrugged.
“Roxy is picking up Molly from the hospital. Once you visit Jo, why don’t you go home and enjoy your family. You’re in a vulnerable state right now.”
“I’m meeting CJ for lunch in a couple of hours. He’s been so worried about me. I thought it was a good idea if we talked away from home or the club. The holidays are always a beehive of activity.”
“Are you sure nothing else is on your mind?”
A lot. She cleared her throat. Right now, she wanted to think of something happier and plan for the future. Maybe, after Christopher’s birthday, she’d take Tabitha’s advice and go to the cabin to clear her head and get away from Johnnie. She could only be away for two days at most if Jo wasn’t out of the hospital. At the thought of her baby, she hung her head, blurting the first thing that came to her mind. “When is it safe to have sex again?”
“You’re healing very well but give it another two or three weeks.”
Twenty minutes later, Meggie checked out. After phoning her husband with an amended truth about how she got to the appointment and how she currently felt, she went to Hortensia General and visited Jo, then called Rebel, who told her Gunner had gotten into an opened jar of Vaseline and caked it on his face and hair. Apparently, Digger was back because Bunny was at the house, still cleaning Gunner’s mess, so Meggie didn’t call and disturb her. Once she talked to Diesel and messaged her other sons, she texted CJ to meet her.
Christopher had a meeting hours away and wouldn’t be home until late, so Meggie thought it was a good time to spend 1-on-1 time with her potato. Besides, she was evading Johnnie. If he didn’t already know Christopher wasn’t waiting for Meggie, he’d harass her the moment he realized it.
Somehow, she needed to convince Johnnie to back off. Before Christopher found out and killed him, which would completely destroy Kendall.
The Medical District and her favorite coffee shop were on opposite sides of town. She really needed to talk to Christopher about getting the owner to open a second shop.
Hortensia didn’t have as much forested areas as it once did. The town was thriving, although the park with the creek she’d lived in when she first arrived remained untouched. She zoomed past Kendall and Brooks’s law firm, sped by the street where Ridge Moore was located, and tried to force her unease and sadness away.
Meggie turned up the radio, blasting the holiday music, hoping to drown out her racing thoughts.
Ten minutes later, she arrived at the coffee shop and turned into a parking space, close to the small building, decked out in Christmas decorations straight from a Norman Rockwell scene.
Stepping out of her Lexus, she glanced around, but didn’t see Christopher’s pickup.
Crap!
She’d have to give CJ a reason why she had her SUV.
Ideas running though her head, Meggie started toward the shop. The cold, bracing air invigorated her.
“Megan?”
