Chapter Five

"Hanging By A Moment"

Samantha was the one that told me that I needed a day spent away from the track. We got into the car and just drove. I didn't know where we were going and neither did she. We looped around the track, and then out by all the old farm houses. We drove downtown and got lost in the busy intersections. We didn't talk for a long time, the only sound was the radio and the sound of rain pattering against the windshield.

"So your pregnant." She finally said after a long time of silence.

I noticed the way that my fingers clutched the steering wheel at her words. "Yup." I said and went a little faster.

"With Brad Townsend's kid." She pulled her knee up to her chest and looked around some more.

"Yup." I said again, turning onto a gravel road. Did I know where it was going? Nope. But I also didn't know where my marriage was going.

"At least you married him before you got pregnant." she said and I couldn't help but laugh, a little nervously but a laugh, no less.

"I just can't believe he didn't say anything." I said, running my fingers through my dark hair. "I mean, I tell him that we're about to have a baby, that our lives are about to change drastically and he just stares at me." I blew out a breath. "How can he say nothing?"

Samantha shrugged her shoulders, looking sympathetically at me. "I'm sorry, Ash. I don't know either."

"Oh, I'm sure that you and everyone else I just loving this. Let me guess, you all have some big, elaborate party to celebrate my failed marriage to Brad. Your going to all tell me that I should of gone back to Mike and I never should of let myself fall in love with Brad." I could of kept going on, I almost did but she stopped me, her green eyes growing fierce.

"Why would we celebrate something that hurt you? We may not like Brad but we still love you and that means that we have to care about what happens to him, too. And your marriage isn't failed yet."

I blew out another breath and pulled over to the side of the road. "Thanks, Sam." I said.

It wasn't easy thinking about me and Brad as parents. My twenty-second birthday would be tomorrow and already I was married and pregnant and already I felt as if my whole world were falling down around me. I was just about to peak at my jockeying career and Brad and I were suppose to wait a couple of years before we had kids, not three weeks into our marriage.

I could just imagine my parent's less-than-thrilled faces when I told them, Caroline's horrified shriek over the phone, Clay Townsend's dry shake of the head and Charlie's disgusted sneer as he told me that "that Townsend kid" was going to destroy every dream that I had.

But I was his wife now and soon I'd be the mother of his baby. My loyalties were to him now.

*

He wasn't there when I got back to the hotel. Samantha had taken me to see some brainless movie and then she'd made me spend some of Brad's money on a ridiculously expensive bridal for Wonder. If I had been with Caroline, she would of made me spend my money on something for myself, clothes or jewelry but with Samantha it was stuff for the horses.

She'd walked me to the hotel room, kissed my cheek and told me that she was just down the hall if I needed anything at all. I slipped inside, almost cried when I saw he wasn't there and went straight to the bathroom to take a relaxing shower.

I could feel the muscles in my shoulders and neck bunched up as I undressed. I stood in front of the mirror naked and examined my flat-stomach. I didn't know how far along I was, I'd have to make an appointment for when I got back to Lexington. I tried to imagine myself growing larger, my pants and shirts no longer fitting, being unable to balance myself on a horse's back. Not being able to race for the next couple of months. Of holding a little baby in my arms and being responsible for it for the rest of it's life.

It just didn't seem real to me.

I stepped inside the shower and felt immediately comforted by the hot spray that relaxed my muscles. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, the events of that day flashing before my eyes. I'd tried so hard not to cry all day long and so far I'd been successful but now I felt the watery waves splashing up against me and I knew I wouldn't be able to sand much longer. I let myself sink to the bottom of the shower and curled up in a ball, letting my pain and hurt all pour out of me like a dam that had just broken.

I was angry with Brad for not being there for me. For not answering my phone calls, for not being here now so that we could talk about all of this. I needed him now more than ever and he was nowhere to be found. It hurt me in ways that I hadn't thought possible. But now, here I was, broken in the bottom of some hotel shower.

I felt his arms around me then, lifting me up and wrapping me in a robe. He handed me a towel for my hair and then he walked into the next room, sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes. He was so practical about all of this, so logical but yet he hadn't said a damn word to me about what he was feeling. "Where were you today?" I asked quietly as I tried to dry my hair with the towel.

"Ken and I spent the day in his office going over training schedules." He said. He looked tired. If I wasn't still so angry with him I might of given him a massage or done something to soothe him. But I was angry with him. And hurt. It was all becoming too much.

"When are we going to talk about this, Brad?" I asked, going through my suitcase and coming out with a warm pair of pajamas.

"Talk." He said and just looked at me, as if I were holding the magic bag with all the answers. I just stare back at him, suddenly so insecure and unsure about it all. "If you want to talk, Ashleigh, then talk. I don't know what you want me to say."

He was standing in front of me now and I looked up into those blue eyes that I had fallen for not so long ago. "I want you to tell me that you love me and that your going to make sure that everything's okay. That you've never been happier in your whole life and you can't wait to have a child with me."

"I can't lie to you Ashleigh," he said and it was that moment that I felt my heard crack, that I forgot my reasons for loving him. I put my head down and felt him brush past me, heading towards the shower. "I can't lie to you." he said again but in a whisper this time.

"You stop right there," I growled, the anger in me that I'd been pushing down all day finally rising and rearing it's ugly head. "I will not allow you to walk around and act like you're the only one who was surprised by this, the only one who is scared by this. I didn't plan this, Brad. Now, damn it, sit your ass down and we are going to talk about it."

His eyes were heavy with anger when he looked back at me. "Not now." He said back, his voice dangerously low. I watched as he turned away from me again and headed towards the bathroom door.

I grabbed his arm and turned him back towards me. His face was just inches from mine and I felt his body twitch with irritation. "I won't allow you to be like this. You'll tell me right now if you want this baby or not. You'll tell me right this very second if you want a life with me. I'm not going to sit here and wonder anymore."

He leaned forward and brushed his finger's through my hair, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead against mine. "I love you." he finally said.

So it wasn't the fairy-tale that everyone talked about it being when you found out about your first child. There wasn't any balloons or a celebration and I knew there wouldn't be with the rest of our family either. But he pulled me closer, resting his head on my shoulder and I laid mine on his chest, my body easily fitting together with his. So it wasn't what I'd dreamed it would be but nothing had been with Brad. It had been more…so much more.