Sidney Sheldon - Chasing Tomorrow

But all rides must come to an end. Tracy had trusted Jeff utterly, but he had betrayed her utterly, shattering that trust and, with it, Tracy’s heart. The image of Jeff in the bedroom with Rebecca was seared permanently in Tracy’s brain, like a cattle brand.

She still loved him. She would always love him. But she knew she could never go back. Not to Jeff, not to London, not to any of it. From now on it would just be her and the baby. My baby. My Amy.

Right on cue, Tracy’s daughter gave a whopping kick. Tracy laughed out loud. You’re trying to break out of prison, aren’t you, my darling? Just like Mommy did.

Tracy had learned at her twenty-week scan that her unborn child was a girl, and she amazed herself by bursting into sobs of relief. A boy would have reminded her too much of Jeff. She decided at once to name her daughter Amy, after Amy Brannigan, the warden’s daughter at the penitentiary whom Tracy had come to love like her own.

Amy Doris Schmidt.

It was a good name, a fitting blend of the past and the future. Doris was the name of Tracy’s beloved mother. Doris Whitney would never know her granddaughter, but her memory would live on in Amy. Schmidt was the family name Tracy had chosen for her new identity, a tribute to dear old Otto Schmidt, her father’s business partner back in New Orleans. Tracy had adopted countless alter egos over the last ten years, but this one was different. The name she chose now would be hers and Amy’s for life. Tracy Whitney no longer existed. Nor did Tracy Stevens.

My name is Tracy Schmidt. My husband, Karl, a wealthy German industrialist, was killed in a freak skiing accident in February, shortly after Amy was conceived. I came to America to start a new life with our daughter. Karl always loved the mountains. I just know he would have adored Steamboat.

With Tracy’s computer background and long experience as a con artist, forging a new identity had been easy. Passports, credit history, medical records and Social Security cards—all could be created and altered at the click of a mouse. Telling Amy the truth, as she would have to one day—that would be the hard part. But Tracy would simply have to cross that bridge when she came to it. For now, Mrs. Tracy Schmidt had enough on her plate, decorating the nursery—Tracy had gone for a whimsical, Flower Fairies theme—and attending pregnancy yoga classes and doctor’s appointments down in town. Between that and managing the ranch—Tracy’s luxurious log-cabin home came with over a hundred acres of private land—she had little time to dwell on the future. Or the past.

“Knock knock. Don’t suppose you’ve got any coffee perkin’, ma’am?”

Tracy spun around. Blake Carter, her ranch manager, was in his early fifties but looked older, thanks to countless hard winters and hot summers spent outdoors in the mountains. Blake was a widower and handsome in a craggy, rugged sort of way. He was also shy, hardworking and relentlessly old school. Tracy had been trying for months, but nothing would stop Blake from addressing her as “ma’am.’ ”

“Morning, Blake.” She smiled. Tracy liked Blake Carter. He was quiet and strong and he reminded her of her father. She knew she could trust him not to ask questions about her background, or to gossip about her in the village. She knew she could trust him, period. “There’s plenty in the pot. Help yourself.”

She walked back into the kitchen. “Waddled” might be a more accurate word. At over eight months pregnant, Tracy’s belly was enormous and in the last two weeks her ankles had started to swell terribly. Come to think of it, everything had started to swell. Her fingers looked like five sausages sewn together and her face was as puffy and round as a Dutch cheese. The effect was made worse by the ultrashort haircut she’d adopted for her new persona as Mrs. Schmidt. Tracy had thought it looked so chic in the salon, when she was still slim and barely showing. Now it made her feel like a lesbian prison warden.

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

Blake Carter watched anxiously as Tracy slowed down, grabbing her belly.

“Yes, I think so. Amy’s been trying to break out of there all morning. She’s got quite a kick on her now. I . . . ow! ”

Doubling over, Tracy grabbed the kitchen counter. Moments later, to her intense embarrassment, her water broke all over the newly tiled floor.

“Oh my God!”

“I’ll drive you to the hospital,” said Blake. He had no children of his own but had delivered countless calves, and unlike Tracy, he wasn’t remotely embarrassed.

“No, no,” said Tracy. “I’m having a home birth. If you wouldn’t mind just calling my doula and asking her to get up here? Her number’s on the refrigerator.”

Blake Carter frowned disapprovingly. “With all due respect, ma’am, your water just broke. You should be in a hospital. With a doctor, not a Dolittle.”

“Dou- la. ” Tracy grinned.

She was determined to have a drug-free birth and to do it herself. Being a mother was the one role she had waited for her whole life. She needed to be good at it. Capable. In control. She needed to prove to herself that she could manage alone.

“I’d really feel better taking you to the hospital, ma’am. As your husband . . . you know . . . ain’t with you.”

“It’s all right, Blake, truly.” Tracy was touched by his concern and grateful for his calm, strong presence. But she’d planned for this. She was ready. “Just call Mary. She’ll know what to do.”

THE SCREAMS WERE GETTING LOUDER.

Blake Carter stood outside Tracy’s bedroom feeling increasingly alarmed. He knew a woman’s first delivery could take awhile. But he also knew that once the water has gone, the baby needs to get on out. Mrs. Schmidt had been in there for hours. And the noises she was making weren’t normal. Blake Carter had only known Tracy Schmidt a short while, but it was long enough to see that she was a tough cookie, physically and emotionally. It simply wasn’t like her to holler like that.

As for the do-lally, Mary, the girl looked like she was barely out of high school.

Another scream. This time there was fear in it. Enough’s enough.

Blake Carter burst into the room. Tracy was lying on the bed. The entire sheet and mattress were soaked with blood. The girl, Mary, hovered beside her, white-faced and panicked.

“Jesus Christ,” said Blake.

“I’m sorry!” The doula had tears in her eyes. “I . . . I didn’t know what to do. I know some bleeding can be normal but I . . .”

Blake Carter pushed the girl aside. Scooping Tracy up into his arms, he staggered toward the door. “If she dies, or the baby dies, it’s on your head.”

TRACY WAS LYING ON the floor of the plane. It was a 747 from the Air France fleet headed for Amsterdam and it was bumping around like crazy. Must be a storm. She was supposed to do something. Steal some diamonds? Tape up a pallet? She couldn’t remember. Sweat was pouring off her. Then the pain came again. Not pain, agony, like somebody cutting out her internal organs with a serrated kitchen knife. She screamed wildly.

In the front seat of the truck, Blake Carter fought back tears.

“It’s all right honey,” he told her. “We’re almost there.”

TRACY WAS IN A white room. She heard voices.

The prison doctor in Louisiana. “The cuts and bruises are bad but they’ll heal . . . she’s lost the baby.”

Her mother, on the telephone, the night that she died. “I love you very, very much, Tracy.”

Jeff, in the safe house in Amsterdam, screaming at her. “For Christ’s sake, Tracy, open your eyes! How long have you been like this?”