the perfect birthday party thrown by the perfect mother.”
“Not to mention,” Nic said, her heart filled with love, “the perfect friends.”
SEVENTEEN
Summer arrived with the influx of seasonal residents and a glorious trickle of tourists. The pace of life picked up as gift shops and restaurants opened their doors and all businesses extended their hours of operation. Between the return of the season and the spending by a constant parade of contractors working long hours at Angel’s Rest, the citizens of Eternity Springs enjoyed an unusually loud jingle in their pockets.
Then the second week of June a once-in-a-generation weather system moved in over the Colorado Rockies and parked for days, dumping rain and causing significant flooding throughout the state. Eternity Springs fared better than many areas of Colorado, though early Wednesday morning Angel Creek did top its banks and only concerted sandbagging effort by townspeople along with good design on Gabe’s part saved the hot springs garden from destruction. By Wednesday evening the creek returned to its banks and everyone breathed more easily while keeping a sharp eye on both the sky and radar reports.
Nic ended a busy day at the clinic: she’d released a canine heartworm patient, spayed two cats, and performed emergency surgery on the broken leg of a mountain lion kit rescued from the creek by the Cartwright boys. As she paused in the doorway of her clinic to open her umbrella, she hesitated. Something felt strange. Wrong. She set down her umbrella and made another round of the clinic looking for something, anything, out of place, but nothing stuck out. “Guess the rain is spooking me,” she murmured to herself. Ordinarily this time of year, rain came from thunderstorms that moved through the valley quickly, not this dreary, steady rain that didn’t stop.
She stepped outside and stayed on the path to take the long way to the house rather than step across the sodden yard to her back door. Once inside, she showered and changed into warm, dry clothes. She put chicken in the oven to bake and went into the living room, where she sat down to watch television and to wait for Gabe to come home.
The babies were active tonight, doing their kicking and punching thing that never failed to thrill her. At her appointment the previous week, her obstetrician had mentioned that by the time Nic was ready to deliver, she’d be tired of her status as a punching bag. Maybe Liz Marshall was right, but for the moment Nic enjoyed sitting quietly and feeling her babies’ bump.
Except tonight she continued to be plagued by a quiet sense of unease.
Gabe and Tiger arrived home just as she pulled the chicken from the oven. Over dinner, her husband caught her up on the day’s events at Angel’s Rest. “As bad as this weather is, we’re lucky it didn’t start two weeks earlier or Celeste’s grand opening might have been delayed.”
“I’m glad for that, but I do worry about other businesses in town. The tourist trade is suffering.”
“I know. I spoke with Henry Moreland today. He said the Double R has canceled their trail rides for the rest of the week. Even if the forecast proves true and the rain clears out tomorrow, they need three days of sunshine for things to dry out enough so that the rides won’t tear up the trail.”
“Will the grounds at Angel’s Rest be okay for the birthday party Saturday?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he replied.
“Good. I think—” She broke off abruptly and grimaced as she shifted in her seat to ease an ache in her back.
“You okay?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah. I think I tweaked my back bending over earlier.”
He frowned at her. “You need to be more careful.”
“I think my muscles are stretching—everything is out of whack.”
Nic thought about that moment later as she prepared for bed and realized that the nagging backache, though mild, hadn’t gone away despite the doctor-ordered stretching exercises and a doctor-approved painkiller. For the first time she felt a moment of concern.
She snapped her fingers. “I forgot to email Sage the punch recipe for tomorrow. I’ll be right back.”
Already in bed, worn out from a long day doing physical labor in the rain, Gabe didn’t lift his head as he grunted into his pillow.
“I’m being silly,” she murmured to herself as she sat down at the computer and opened the browser. She went to her favorite pregnancy website and started reading. Five minutes later, filled with unease, she drank a large glass of water, then went