by Raina Lynn
“How do you do that?” she sputtered.
“I told you. Mothers are psychic.” The teasing edge left her voice, and she laid a hand on Jill’s wrist. “The morning after can be a killer. Especially if lightning strikes from nowhere, and both people are left to wonder what hit them.”
The philosophy worked. It just didn’t fit this particular situation, at least from Jill’s perspective. Maybe Vicki ought to be having this conversation with Mason.
By the time the dessert tray arrived, Jill had talked until her throat hurt. She’d analyzed her actions, grieved over what could have been, then waxed poetic on her regrets. Nothing had changed, but the first round of the healing process seemed to have gotten off to a good start.
Absently, she glanced at her watch. “It’s two o’clock!” Vicki shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. When I mentioned to Mason I planned to take you to lunch, he looked like I’d lifted something really horrid from his shoulders. Said to take as long as we needed. All afternoon if necessary.”
Jill bristled. “Oh, so that’s how you figured things out. So much for psychic powers.”
Rolling her head back, Vicki chuckled low in her throat.
Mason kept a close watch on Jill. Despite her nonchalant air, he worried about her. One morning they arrived at the paper at the same time.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” he asked, holding the door for her.
She shrugged. “I have a dentist appointment today. I figured if I do my work first, I won’t have to catch up tomorrow.”
The wounded longing in her eyes told a different story. The break room was empty, and he took her by the arm and guided her in there. He hadn’t touched her since the night they’d made love, and the intensity of the instant fire stunned him. It took an inordinate amount of fortitude not to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Making love with her had been the most incredible experience of his life, one he wouldn’t mind repeating. But she deserved more than sex, and that’s all he could offer now.
“Jill, it has been a month. Things aren’t any easier between the two of us than they were that first day.”
Panic flashed across her face, and her chin came up. “Are you asking me to leave?”
“No!” How could she even think that? “I’d be absolutely lost around here without you and Vicki.”
She stepped back, casually removing her arm from his grip. Holding her had seemed so natural, he hadn’t noticed until just then that he’d let go.
“I’m glad we’re appreciated. Now, whose turn is it to make coffee?”
Her insistence on pretending that their night together meant nothing irritated him to no end. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jill.”
Tears sprang into her eyes, and her chin came up again. “You’re awfully arrogant if you think my sun rises and sets on one roll in the sack with you, Bradshaw.”
The retort would have flayed him alive if her obvious pain didn’t pulse around him. He wanted to hold her, to undo what he’d done. When he’d first taken over the paper, she’d been perky and bright, with a kind word for everyone—including him. One night of self-indulgence had killed it, at least between the two of them.
They stared at each other a while longer, words impossible. All the words had been said.
“I’ll make the coffee,” he murmured.
“Fine by me.” With a shrug, she headed to her office.
Jill sank onto the edge of her bed and stared numbly at the trash box where she’d thrown the home pregnancy test. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Fate wouldn’t be this cruel.
She walked into work in a fog, unable to come to grips with the implications of that little pink dot. When she walked past Mason’s office, she couldn’t quite make her feet move any farther. He looked up and forced a smile. Regret clouded his eyes to one degree or another whenever he looked at her. It seemed particularly pronounced today.
Frowning, he stood up. “Jill, are you all right?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“You don’t look well. Are you coming down with something?”
She cleared her throat and tried again. “I think I already did.”
He crossed the room and stopped less than an arm’s length away. To touch him, she need only to reach out. The temptation to fall into his arms swelled over her. It was on the tip of her tongue to blurt out, “Mason, I’m pregnant,” but the words stuck in her throat.
The future course of their lives depended on how she handled this. That required clear thinking, a skill momentarily beyond her. Pessimistically, she wondered if she’d ever be clearheaded again. Oh, Lord, how could one mistake have such long-reaching implications?
“Jill?” He tipped her face up and gazed into her face. His touch was torment, and she closed her eyes. Then his hand came to rest on her forehead. “You’re not feverish, but you don’t look good at all. Come in here.” He guided her to one of the extra chairs in his office and sat her down. Then he filled a paper cup from the water dispenser in the hall. “Here. Drink.”
She wished passionately that something as simple as a cool drink would fix the problem. One thing was certain. She needed to pull herself together before she did something even more stupid than getting pregnant—not that she could imagine what that might be.
Mason knelt before her, frowning in concern. “Is that helping?”
She took another sip and rested one hand over her stomach. Over her baby. Mason’s baby. Tenderness and terror swept through her, and she began to shake.
“That does it,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’m driving you home.”
“But I—”
He waved her off. “You’re sick. You need to be in bed. Do you have any chicken soup?”
The world tilted completely out of control. She blinked at him. “Probably.”
Letting him believe she had the flu seemed to be the path of least resistance for now. She needed time to figure things out. As he stuffed her into his sedan and drove her to her apartment, she stole furtive glances at him. An incongruous blend of thoughts swirled through her mind. How would he react? What would their child look like? Mason had beautiful eyes. Would the baby inherit them?
Jill shook her head, hoping the fog would lift. Her life had crumbled down around her ears, and she was counting fingers and toes!
“Feeling worse?” he asked, unlocking her door. “You look like you’re chilling again.”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks.” She smiled into his worried face. He really was something special. “It’s probably just a twenty-four hour bug.”
“Would you like me to buy you some orange juice?”
She wished his concern ran in deeper veins. “Bradshaw, just because we had sex and you feel rotten about it, doesn’t mean you’re responsible for me for the rest of my life.”
He looked irked. “If you’re sure you’ll be all right.”
“I’m fine, thank you.” She wanted to rise up onto her toes and kiss his cheek, but decided against it. He’d probably think she’d exposed him to God knows what. Worse, she didn’t think her battered emotions could stand it.
She closed the door, then stood in the middle of the living room, staring into space for a long time.
“Morning, Bradshaw,” Jill chirped as she swung past Mason’s office.
His head snapped up. As sick as she’d been the day before, he really hadn’t expected her to come in today. “Feeling better?”
“Yep. No flu. I’m doing great.” She stopped, backtracked, then leaned through the doorway. “Actually, I had a thought.”
“About what?” There was something different about the way she stared at him. Intense. It made him feel like a bug under glass.
“Are you doing anything Saturday night?”
His defenses kicked in. “No, why?”
“Would you like to take in a movie?”
The question effectively kicked the wind out of him. “A what?”
“My treat. I owe yo
u for taking me home yesterday.”
He took another look at her eyes and decided that bug under glass had been too mild a comparison. She’d just put him on trial for something. But for what? “You don’t owe me anything.”
“Yes, I do, but that’s not all of it.”
“Oh?” His skin started to crawl.
“I thought dinner and a movie might give us a chance to get to know each other, see if anything develops.”
She couldn’t be serious. “Jill, I’m very flattered, but the one time we got together, things became...well....”
“Complicated?” Her impish grin didn’t match the heightened scrutiny in her eyes.
“That’s putting it mildly.” Even after a month, he couldn’t look at her without castigating himself. Letting emotions run out of control was bad enough. Sleeping with an employee had been an inexcusable lapse of judgment. “Jill, you’re an incredible woman, but the timing and circumstances aren’t right. I need to put my divorce behind me. Dating is—” The most repulsive thing I can think of “—not in my plans.”
“I’m not proposing that we make love again. Just see if we have the ingredients for something worth pursuing.”
“Jill, we have to work together.”
“What if I didn’t work for you anymore? Would that help?”
The words seemed straightforward enough, but the undercurrents were all wrong. “Jill, what is this conversation really all about?”
Squaring her shoulders, she sighed. Her gaze dropped from his face to somewhere on his desk. “I thought we established that, Bradshaw. I’m a woman asking a man out on a date.”
He felt every muscle in his body knot up.
“Well, Bradshaw, since you look thoroughly revolted, I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”
“Jill, office romances beg for trouble. Haven’t these last few weeks been bad enough?”
She inhaled a trembling breath. “So there’s no chance you could ever be interested in me? None at all?”
Lord, why was she putting him on the spot like this? “I’m sorry.”
The intensity left her eyes, replaced by the pain of yet another wound he’d inflicted.
“It’s not you, Jill,” he said, his eyes imploring her to understand. “Please believe that.”
“Don’t sweat it, Bradshaw.” Her voice sounded strained. “I understand.”
She pushed off the doorjamb and headed down the hall. Mason knew he’d missed about ninety percent of that conversation and rose to follow her. Halfway across the room, he stopped. If Jill was that interested in him, he needed to pull back and let it end on its own. Despite his attraction to her, no good could come of it. Every time he looked at her, he saw Karen. With a heavy sigh, Mason turned around and went back to his desk.
Mason’s reaction had been no more or less what Jill expected, but she closed herself in her office and trembled anyway. Her world had tilted on its axis, and she didn’t know how to right it again.
She’d thought the horror of her loveless, first marriage had faded, but the pink dot brought it all back with demonic intensity. She’d adored Donald, but he’d thrown her heart back in her face. Mason didn’t have a self-centered bone in his entire body, but that still didn’t mean he loved her. Just the idea of deliberately stepping back into a one-sided relationship was enough to make her want to run screaming into the night.
Jill tried but didn’t get much work done for the next couple of weeks. Mason seemed to be hiding from her. The worst time to make a life-altering decision had to be while sitting on an emotional powder keg, and she couldn’t think of a more volatile one than this. She knew there was no way on earth that she could make good decisions right now. But how would she support a baby alone? Mason had a right to know. Yet how could she tell him when she knew he didn’t want her?
Oh, she knew exactly how he’d react. His first response would be, “We’re getting married.” That was the problem with men of integrity: They tended to make personal sacrifices. And this was one Jill knew she couldn’t live with.
One thought gave her a lifeline to hang onto. She had time. Nothing needed to be done yet. Once the shock passed, maybe another option would present itself. She wasn’t past hoping for a miracle, either.
One week crawled after another, and nothing changed.
Chapter 4
Jill eyed the jumbo employee coffee pot longingly, then settled for an unappealing fruit juice from the vending machine. Her obstetrician had come unglued over her blood pressure and yanked her off every vice she’d ever considered having. She didn’t smoke, had never touched drugs and she’d quit drinking the occasional glass of wine the moment she’d failed the pregnancy test. That left taking away the only things she had left—coffee, donuts and fast food. Losing them for the duration really stung.
“For someone who insists they don’t like coffee anymore, you sure grieve over that pot every morning,” Vicki drawled. The break room had one table, and Vicki motioned for Jill to pull up a chair.
She shrugged and sat down. She’d worked hard at hiding her pregnancy, even from her best friend. Fortunately, the way she carried the baby, not much showed. Even so, at four months bulky sweaters weren’t going to cut it for much longer, and life was about to get very sticky.
“Coffee’s bad for you, Vicki. It’ll put hair on your chest.”
The other woman laughed. “At least you’re putting some meat on your bones. Thin may be fashionable, but the waif look offends me.” She sobered. “Truthfully, what’s rattling around in that head of yours? The last few months you’ve had all the spark of a dead battery.”
“Thanks for worrying, but I’ve got some personal issues to resolve.”
Vicki looked wounded. “Ouch.”
Jill took her arm apologetically. “It’s not you. It’s me. You know how I am with a problem.”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Vicki shook her head in sad disapproval. “Girl, you turn into a one-woman island.”
Jill gave her a chagrined smile. “Sorry, but this is bigger than a bread box, and I need a little space.”
She resisted the urge to wrap her arms protectively around herself in the telltale maternal gesture. Never had she imagined it possible to love anyone as deeply as she loved this baby. At times, she ached from it.
Before Vicki could utter the comment that obviously hovered on the tip of her tongue, the door swung open and Mason trudged in. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and throat, and he headed for the coffeepot as if navigating on autopilot. Jill’s heart did its usual painful lurch.
To Jill, he was the epitome of the tall, dark, handsome male, a tender man with warm hazel eyes that twinkled every time he parted with one of his rare smiles. Over time, she’d noticed his features were a little too sharp, a little too well defined to fall under the category of perfection. But to her, the overall effect just made him more appealing.
Lately, his demons appeared to haunt him less. She could see it in the more relaxed set to his brow and jaw. That didn’t mean he’d finally gotten over his ex-wife, or that he had suddenly become interested in her. For months, she had waited patiently for some indication that as he healed from the battle wounds of his marriage, he might change his mind about her—but he never looked her way. The miracle she’d hoped for hadn’t happened, and time was no longer on her side.
“Bradshaw, are those the same clothes you wore yesterday?” she demanded bluntly. Most men wouldn’t want a business that routinely required fourteen-hour workdays. Then again, Mason Bradshaw wasn’t most men.
He gave her a sheepish look over his shoulder as he filled his mug. “Would it do any good to plead the Fifth?” he asked in his gentle baritone.
An almost irresistible urge swept through her to smooth his rumpled hair and rub the exhausted tension from his shoulders. One-sided love hurt, but she had no intention of ever letting him learn how she felt. Her emotional stupidity wasn’t his fault or responsibility. Damn you, Mason! Why can’t you be a self-centered louse like n
inety-nine percent of the other men I know? “Did you work all night again?”
“Last I heard, it’s not a crime.”
Jill made a scoffing sound low in her throat. “In your case it ought to be.”
He snorted.
“News flash, Bradshaw. Normal people sleep each and every night.”
His sensual lips quirked into that aloof half smile that kept walls securely between him and the rest of the world. It broke her heart. Taking a slow, obviously fortifying pull on his coffee, he headed toward the door. “I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me.”
Jill squirmed as Vicki intently watched the byplay. When Mason left, Vicki stuffed the last bite of yogurt into her mouth and skewered Jill with a look.
“By the way,” she said in a tone far too casual for Jill’s peace of mind. “Are you ever going to put some more moves on that man? Or do you intend to keep drooling over him forever? Sparks flew once. No reason they can’t again.”
Jill blushed purple. “Who said I still want sparks?”
For a moment, Vicki looked stunned, then disgusted to the core. Slowly—and with entirely too much force—she tapped her spoon on the rim of her empty yogurt container. “Girlfriend, whenever Mason walks into the room, you look at him like he’s the dessert your diet won’t allow.”
Having her best friend catch her in a lie, then call her on it, humiliated Jill. But she feared if she said even one word, the whole disaster would come tumbling out. Hiding behind walls gave her the only protection she had. Besides, lifelong habits weren’t easy to break. And you had the nerve to criticize Mason?
“Come on, Vicki. Every woman breathing looks at him like that.” She stood up and dumped the rest of her unwanted juice in the sink. “His wife’s affair scarred him pretty badly. Just because he’s single doesn’t mean he’s available.”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with being first in line when he’s ready to step out again.” I had my shot at him
Jill stifled a pain-filled shudder. “I had my shot at him and lost. Let it go. I have.”
