Read Online Blue Skies by Catherine Anderson - Free Book Online

felt much like it had the first time she’d gone skydiving with Cricket. “Congratulations are in order.”
    Carly drank the water. Then she set the glass on the counter to dry her hands. Her meal forgotten, Bess crossed the room to give her a hug. “Ah, Carly,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to say.”
    Clutching the towel between them, Carly pressed her face against her friend’s shoulder. “There’s nothing much to say.” She expelled a shaky breath. “I know this will sound really dumb. My mom’s been gone for over two years. But, oh, God, I miss her right now. I want to call her so bad.”
    “You want to phone mine? After she goes into cardiac arrest, she’ll probably handle the news fairly well.”
    Carly laughed weakly. She’d known Bess’s mom, Norma Grayson, practically all her life, and the woman was nothing if not excitable. “I guess I could try to get through to Cricket. After the first shock, she’ll make all the right noises.”
    Bess pulled back to look Carly in the eye. “Isn’t there a certain cowboy you should call first? This is his baby, after all.”

Chapter Five
    T he last person Carly wanted to speak with was Hank Coulter. As childish as she knew it was, she gave Bess a pleading look and asked, “Do I have to?”
    Bess lightly tapped Carly’s chin with her fist. “Yeah, you’ve got to. It’s the right thing to do.”
    Carly clamped her palms to her waist. “What’ll I say to him? Hello, and by the way, I’m pregnant? What if he doesn’t believe it’s his baby?”
    Bess rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. You went from being a twenty-eight-year-old virgin to Lolita overnight? If he doesn’t believe it’s his, he’s a jerk, and you and the baby are well rid of him. The important thing is for you to know he’s been notified.”
    Finding Hank in the phonebook was more difficult than Carly anticipated. There were several Coulters, but none had the right first name.
    “You’ll just have to dial them all, I guess.” Bess slowly read off the first number while Carly punched in the digits.
    “Darn it!” Carly depressed the receiver to start over. “I never had trouble like this when I couldn’t see the dratted phone!”
    “Here, let me.” Bess tried to take over.
    “No. I need to do it myself. It’s only a number pad, for heaven’s sake. I know the layout by heart, but now that I can see, it seems backward.”
    “It’s a whole new ball game now,” Bess reminded her. “If you need to, just close your eyes.”
    “What about training my visual cortex? You’re always grumping at me about it.”
    “Yeah, well, under the circumstances, I think it’s okay to make an exception.”
    Carly was in no hurry to get Hank on the phone. She persevered, staring at the number pad, trying to correlate the visual images with the number shapes she’d memorized by touch. The digits began to blur, and then the lot of them started jumping around. She closed her eyes and passed the phone to Bess. “Maybe you should do it, after all. I don’t need this right now.”
    “Just calm down. If he gets nasty, it’s no skin off your nose. Right?”
    “Right.”
    Bess began the process of dialing each number and then handing Carly the phone. Midway down the list, Carly finally spoke to an older woman who claimed to be Hank’s mother.
    “I, um—well, I guess you could say I’m an acquaintance of Hank’s,” Carly explained after introducing herself. “And I really need to get in touch with him. Do you have a number where I can reach him?”
    “Have you called the ranch?”
    “I, um—no. Hank mentioned the ranch, but he never told me the name.”
    “That’s strange,” the older woman mused aloud.
    “Yes, well. I guess he just never got around to it.”
    “Normally,” Mrs. Coulter went on to say, “I don’t like to give out contact information over the phone. But if you’re a friend, I’ll make an exception.”
    Carly wasn’t sure she qualified as one of Hank’s