by Sandra Brown
She stamped her foot in exasperation. “Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying?”
“Is that coat heavy enough? I don’t want you catching a cold.”
“All right, you asked for it.”
“Where are you going?” he demanded, opening the door after she had slammed it shut and mutinously started back toward the building.
“I’m going to call the police.”
“And tell them what? That your husband is concerned about your well-being, even if you’re not?”
“I’m going to tell them that there is a pervert in a trench coat lurking around the elementary schoolyard. I may add that he has a funny Yankee accent. That’ll get them here fast, believe me.”
He had returned home from jogging just minutes before her recess period. He had unthinkingly thrown on his trench coat as he raced from the house. Now he looked down at his naked legs sticking out of a four-hundred-dollar coat and stifled a laugh. “A flasher? You’re going to tell them that I’m a flasher?” He began to unbelt his coat, and when the belt was free, he caught the sides in his hands and threw them wide.
Laney gasped in shock and then relief. He had on a pair of running shorts and a T-shirt beneath.
Deke bellowed with laughter. “Scared you, didn’t I? Come here, you.” He wrapped the coat around both of them as he drew her against him. “The only person I’m going to expose myself to is you,” he growled in her ear. “As soon as I get a chance.”
She breathed in the scent of his citrusy cologne and healthy perspiration. “I still think you’re a fool.”
“You’re right. Where you and Scooter are concerned, I behave like a man with no sense whatsoever. That’s a peril of fatherhood, I’m afraid. You’ll just have to put up with me.”
He put up with her and for that he should have been canonized. After the incident with the trench coat he did refrain from going to the school, but he still dogged her every move, which irritated her to no end. She didn’t feel well. Her movements reminded her of a walrus, as did her shape. And Dr. Taylor repeated his warnings and instructions until she wanted to scream at him.
Deke bore the brunt of her bad humor. He bore it with admirable forbearance. The only thing that raised his temper was her constant nagging that he shouldn’t be in Arkansas when he had a major trial coming up in New York.
“I don’t need you to remind me of my responsibilities, Ms. McLeod,” he said acerbically when she broached the subject one evening after a particularly arduous day. It was late February and the weather was cold and rainy. She had been forced to stay indoors with twenty-six hyperactive students all day.
“I was practicing law before you got to high school,” he added, and returned to his notes.
But Laney was spoiling for a fight and wouldn’t let it drop. “You’re cheating your client. I don’t want that on my conscience.”
Deke slammed a book down on the coffee table and came to his feet. The flames in the grate were reflected in his eyes. “I’ve never cheated a client in my career. I give each one the best defense I can.”
“You’ve postponed the trial date three times!” she shouted. “I’ve heard you on the phone. What is your excuse?”
“A completely valid one. That my wife is having a baby and I can’t get away at the moment.”
“I am not your wife.”
“I’m glad you brought that up,” he said. He rounded the coffee table and came within inches of her. “I don’t want my baby born a bastard, Laney.”
She recoiled at the ugly word. “D-don’t call him that.”
“That worries you, does it? Well, you’d better worry about it, because that’s what the rest of the world will dub him. Is that what you want for your child?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Then marry me.”
“I can’t.” Her hands were wringing each other.
“Why? Because your mother was pregnant when she got married and your father bolted?” He took a step closer and his voice became persuasive rather than abrasive, silk rather than burlap, “That was them, Laney. They have nothing to do with us.”
“I told you from the beginning I’d never marry you. Why don’t you just accept it?”
“I don’t want to.” His temper flared again and he couldn’t contain it. “What makes the thought of marriage to me so hideous? Night after night we lie together naked in each other’s arms. We tease each other with caresses until we’re practically frothing at the mouth, until we want to make love so bad we’re nearly senseless. Yet, we don’t stop the foreplay because it feels so damn good.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!”
“Why? Because talking about it keeps it from being a shameful secret? Makes you face up to what’s what? Rids you of those blinders that are as much a part of you as your thumbprint?” He took a deep breath, but it did little to calm him. “The times we’ve been together have been pure magic. I can’t wait for the next time, and by God, if you’ll admit it, you can’t either. We’re compatible. We rarely argue over anything except this subject. I’m financially solvent. We both want what’s best for our child, which is a family environment with two parents. So what’s your problem, Ms. McLeod? Huh?”
His arrogance infuriated her. “What’s yours? You’ve spent forty-two years as a bachelor. Why do you insist on marrying me all of a sudden? Are you afraid you won’t find anyone else? Or am I just a convenient baby machine who’s going to provide you with the one plaything you don’t already have?”
“That’s not true and you know it.” His jaw clamped tightly and he pushed the words through a fence of teeth. “You’re afraid to chance loving anybody. You’re a coward.”
“I’m—”
Suddenly she went very still. Then she extended her hand to him as she bent double. “It’s my water.”
Deke called on every deity in heaven as he led her to the nearest chair and dropped to his knees beside her. “Is this it? Should I call Dr. Taylor?”
She nodded just as a pain knifed through her vitals. Deke saw her face go white, felt her breath stop. He gripped her hand until the contraction subsided. Oddly her concern was for him. He looked ready to collapse. She touched his cheek. “Call the doctor,” she said softly. “Then we can go to the hospital.”
She never remembered the next half hour clearly. Deke was shouting into the telephone, cursing answering services in general and making rude suggestions as to what the operators could do with their switchboards. In a flurry Deke got her bag, which had been packed for weeks, and they put on their coats, found the keys to one of the cars—both sets of keys had disappeared—and painstakingly made their way to the car.
Deke drove like a madman. “It’s too early, isn’t it? How early? Laney, are you in pain? How early?”
“Three and a half weeks.”
“Three and a half weeks! Almost a month!”
“Deke, would you please stop shouting. I may have gone into labor, but I have not gone deaf.”
“Oh, God, three and a half weeks,” he groaned as though she hadn’t spoken. “That damned quack. I never thought he knew what he was talking about. I know you think I’m just saying that now, Laney. But I never took his word on anything. I’m gonna kill him.”
Laney started laughing and he whipped his head around, fixing her with wild eyes. “Actually I’m pleased,” she said. “At least now you can’t back out of claiming it’s yours.”
“Very funny, Laney. Very— Oh, God, another pain? Hold on, darling.”
Through a mist of pain she saw the lights of the hospital looming in the windshield, and never was there a more welcome sight. Deke had gotten her there without smashing them into any obstacles. She was put in a labor room while he took care of having her checked in. When he joined her he flew into a rage and summoned the head nurse.
“What kind of room is this?” he demanded. “It’s small and dark. Laney is claustrophobic and this room looks like a cell on Devil’s Island.”
“I’
m sure your . . . uh . . . Ms. McLeod will be fine, Mr. Sargent.” He could have slapped her then for the knowing tone in her voice. “This is the only labor room available, and—”
“You’re not listening,” he ground out. “I want her out of here. I’ll go through every damn room in this hospital until I find her one that’s bright and cheerful. Got it?”
The nurse got it, with stern-lipped disapproval and mutterings about obscene rudeness, but she got it. Laney was moved into a room with wide windows and rows of fluorescent lights. Deke stormed at the nurses; threatened Dr. Taylor with malpractice for his inaccuracy and tardiness when he sauntered in a half hour behind them; and paced. But to Laney he was solicitous and loving.
Her labor progressed through the night and he was beside her the whole time, holding her hand, spooning ice chips through her parched lips, talking to her softly, going through the exercises they had learned at their childbirth classes.
It wasn’t quite dawn when Dr. Taylor told them it was only a matter of minutes and went to scrub. Deke moved to her side and took both her hands. “I called you a coward. God, I’m sorry, Laney. You’ve been so damn brave.”
“It hasn’t been bad. You’ve been here.”
His eyes were strangely glossy as he leaned over her. “Laney, marry me before the baby is born. I summoned a minister out of bed. He’s been outside the room for hours, waiting for me to get up my nerve to ask you again. Please, if you have any feelings for me at all, let me give my child my name.”
Amidst the pain and the medicinal smells and the twisting agony of her insides, she began to laugh. “Deke, how like you.” Then a pain gripped her and they counted through it together while a nurse announced that it was time to go to delivery.
Laney looked up and said weakly, “You’d better get your preacher in here fast.”
Seeing the look on his face was worth the pain she was suffering. A blinding light as brilliant as any of her pains seared her brain, and with it came the realization that she loved him. It almost didn’t matter that he would soon leave her. For right now he was with her and she would seize this moment and treasure it.
Deke rushed to the door and brusquely summoned the minister.
“This is highly irregular,” the nurse said nervously as the man was pushed inside the room. “If Nurse Perkins finds out—”
“Just keep your mouth shut and she’ll be none the wiser,” Deke snapped. “Think what an interesting tale it’ll make. Well, hurry up, Reverend, she’s about to deliver.”
The poor man fumbled and stuttered through the ceremony. They had to pause once while Laney suffered a gripping contraction. When the minister called for the ring, Deke slipped a huge diamond on her finger.
“Where did you get that?”
“Tiffany’s.”
“In New York?”
“I brought it with me. Are we done?” he asked the minister.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
“Good.” Deke kissed her hard.
“She really shouldn’t wear that ring into the delivery room,” the nurse said, pushing the gurney toward the door.
“Here, keep this until we come out,” Deke said, thrusting the ring at the befuddled minister. “I can trust you not to steal it, can’t I?” Deke winked at him as the door swung shut behind them.
“Well, I was thinking I would have to come get you,” Dr. Taylor said from behind his mask as she was wheeled into the delivery room.
Laney couldn’t quite register it all, but she knew Deke was there with her, encouraging her, shouting his delight when the doctor held up a squirming, squalling baby boy. “He’s a perfect specimen,” the doctor reported.
Laney let her body sink gratefully onto the table while everyone went about the routine tasks of an event that is nonetheless miraculous. She was marvelously content, tears of joy silvering her lower lashes, when Deke was allowed to lift her son so she could see him better.
“He’s beautiful,” she sighed.
“Beautiful?” Deke roared. “He’s . . . he’s . . . beautiful!”
A nurse took the infant to footprint and weigh him. Deke clasped Laney’s hand and was lovingly staring down into her face when he saw her eyes go wide and her teeth bite down on her lower lip.
“Darling?” he said with mounting panic. “What is it?”
“Ohhh,” she wailed in agony. Her head lolled against the table.
“Dr. Taylor,” Deke shouted. “Something’s wrong!”
CHAPTER 8
Kevin Todd Sargent slept in the hospital nursery bassinet, knees drawn up under his tummy, fanny in the air, head turned to the left, oblivious to everything, including the adoration being heaped on him . . . and his sister. Amanda Lea Sargent’s lips pursed and she made a sucking motion with a perfect rosebud of a mouth. Her father squeezed her mother’s shoulder and laughed softly.
“You scared hell out of me just before she was born.” He pressed Laney close to him and shivered when he recalled those terrifying seconds when he had seen her face contort with pain. Dr. Taylor had still been attending her between the high stirrups over which her legs were draped.
“Nothing’s wrong, Mr. Sargent, unless you have an aversion to twins.”
Mandy Sargent had been a surprise to everyone. Because of the crowding of her brother, who was five ounces heavier and an inch longer, her heartbeat hadn’t been heard. Mandy had made her entrance into a totally unsuspecting world.
“I apologize,” Laney said with the kind of serenity granted exclusively to new mothers.
Deke Sargent pressed his lips to his wife’s temple and said, “Apology accepted.” He kissed her. “Ready to go back?”
“No. I love looking at them.”
“But you need all the rest you can get while you’re here in the hospital. That’s twelve pounds of baby you were carrying around, my love.”
She groaned and massaged her flatter, though still spongy, stomach. “Don’t remind me. I’m so glad they’re where they are now rather than where they were.”
Deke laughed out loud, to the annoyance of the head nurse, who still regarded him as a troublemaker. “So am I.” Gently he steered Laney back toward her room, the largest maternity suite the hospital offered. He made a comical picture as he teetered, trying to match her baby steps with his long legs.
Entering the room, Laney spied a modest bouquet of carnations. They were flanked by the elaborate arrangements Deke had provided. “Did you thank Mr. Harper for the flowers when you called him?”
“Yes.” He eased her down on the bed and helped her lift her legs, folding the covers over them with great care. “He said for you not to worry. They’ve already found a substitute to finish the rest of the year.”
“But, Deke, I want to go back. I can teach the last six weeks at least.”
He was already shaking his head. “For Godsakes, don’t be such a martyr. You’ve just given birth to twins. One baby would be hard enough to take care of properly while you were teaching. Two babies would be impossible. You couldn’t help it that you had to take off sooner than you planned because the babies were early. Now, that’s all I want to hear about it. Do you want some more custard?”
She made a face. “No, but a cheeseburger and fries sounds delicious.”
He leaned over, grinning conspiratorially. “Tomorrow for lunch I’ll sneak in the greasiest cheeseburger basket money can buy.”
“And risk getting all four—my God, four—of us thrown out of here? Nurse Perkins nearly had a billy fit when she caught us drinking champagne.”
“How else is one to celebrate the birth of twins? That broad has no soul.” Sitting on the edge of her bed, he took her hands. “Have I told you thank you?”
“About a thousand times.”
He wasn’t the least abashed. “I’ll say it every day of my life. They’re wonderful, Laney.”
“I know.” She let her head rest heavily on the pillow in well-earned but pleasant weariness. “For more than half my life
I thought I couldn’t have a child.” She looked at him then and her eyes were filled with unshed tears. “Can you imagine how happy I was when I learned I was pregnant? Dismayed, yes, and worried about what it would mean to my job, but elated that I was to be given a child after all. And now, two!” She laughed in spite of her weeping eyes. “I thank you, too, Deke.”
“You’re so sweet.” He leaned over her and touched her lips with his. It was a brief kiss, tender and dear.
When he drew away she said, “I can pity Mother now. My father should have been there with her when I was born, as you’ve been with me.”
Deke laid a hand along her cheek. “I’ve been thinking about that.” He paused, not wanting to upset her. “As you know, I have access to records and files, by fair means or foul. I could start tomorrow trying to locate your father if you want me to. I can’t promise that we’d ever find him. He may be dead. But I’d give it a hell of a try.”
Her eyes drifted to the large window that overlooked the front lawn of the hospital. A setting sun gilded the winter landscape. “It occurred to me when Mother died that I had no living relative that I knew of. It’s a panicky feeling, that you’re a solitary person in a world built around families. I suddenly wanted to find my father or learn what had happened to him.
“But I decided then, and I still feel, that if he had wanted me in the first place, he would have stayed at least long enough to develop some kind of kinship with me. He may be someone I’m better off not knowing. And if Mother was responsible for his leaving, if he was just a miserably unhappy man, he probably has another life now, another family. I would only be an unwelcome intrusion to remind him of an unhappy time in his life. I wouldn’t want to be that.”
She brought her eyes from the window to the much brighter glow in Deke’s eyes. “Thank you for offering, Deke, but no. I think it’s best to start with Todd and Mandy as my family.”
“And me?”
She looked down at the diamond on her left hand. “You forced me into marriage, you know. I thought shotgun weddings were for the poor bride’s benefit.”
“So did I. But in this case the bride has a warped view of a lot of things.”
