When they were all seated, Lacey suggested a prayer of thanksgiving for the babies’ safe return, which Garth offered with heartfelt aplomb.
“What I don’t understand is why Bunny took them in the first place,” Cody said, and that necessitated explaining Bunny. Then Kim wanted to know where the fishing cabin was where they’d found the babies, and Cody asked if Delilah had ever returned from her cruise, and Garth told about the pacifier they’d found in Delilah’s driveway.
In between explanations, they fed the babies, who had napped all the way home and were in fine fettle, banging on their high chair trays and grabbing at each other’s food. Michele stood up in her high chair so that they had to pull her back down and strap her in, Ashley called Garth Dada, and everyone clapped.
And then Lacey remembered with a pang of apprehension that neither she nor Garth had yet broached the topic of what they were going to do about these babies, how they were going to handle the serious problem that faced them now.
It had been all too easy to lose herself in the joy of homecoming, but now she and Garth were going to have to sort things out between them, and she dreaded not only the process but also the result. She hated to hurt anyone, ever. She couldn’t, wouldn’t hurt either of those babies. So what were they going to do?
Chapter Eleven
After dinner the babies went to bed in the nursery. Kim and Lacey worked together to clean up the kitchen, and while Garth and Cody were in the office talking ranch business, Kim lowered her voice so they wouldn’t hear her.
“Cody said he’ll move with me to Wichita Falls,” she told Lacey, her eyes shining.
“So you’ll be leaving!” Over and above her trepidations about her own well-being and that of the babies, Lacey was dismayed. She and Kim had begun to build a solid friendship.
“I’m afraid so. I learned by staying here at the ranch with Cody while you were gone that I’d definitely be miserable way out here. I like a lot of people around, I enjoy my job, and Cody was always busy with one thing or another all day long and half the night. You never get any rest when you run a ranch the size of this one.”
Lacey knew how hard Garth worked, and by this time it was clear to her that Cody was not willing to put in the hours or the effort it required to keep the Colquitt Ranch going.
“Cody and I want to give our marriage the best possible chance,” Kim said earnestly. “We both know that we can’t make a go of it if one of us is unhappy and resentful—that person being me.” She laughed a little, and Lacey hugged her.
“Garth isn’t going to like it,” Kim said. “Cody’s going to tell him tonight after I’ve left.”
“It will be best to get the whole thing over with,” Lacey said with great certainty. “This whole move-to-Wichita-Falls thing has been upsetting Garth for a long time. Once it’s out of the way, I think he and Cody will stop being at each other’s throats over every little thing.”
“I hope so,” Kim said fervently.
After they finished cleaning up, Kim left for her own place, saying that she expected Cody to follow after he’d finished having his conversation with Garth.
“And then we’ll start planning our wedding. We’ll get married next month, probably, and move right after.”
Lacey could only wish Kim well, but she was wistful about it. Kim’s eyes were aglow with happiness, and she seemed fittingly hopeful about her future with the man she loved.
Lacey had been that way once, with Bunny. And now she didn’t know what her future held.
With the babies asleep, Lacey needed something to do to keep her from brooding about her own problems. Since Garth and Cody remained closeted in his office, Lacey decided to take advantage of the sewing machine in Garth’s bedroom. She wanted to mend a tear in the yellow playsuit that Michele had been wearing for her wild ride with Bunny, and she’d noticed a rip in one of Cody’s shirts that she could sew at the same time.
Lacey became so involved in her task that she didn’t even notice when Cody’s truck left the driveway. The first sign that Garth’s discussion with his brother had ended was when Garth walked into the bedroom, looked surprised to see her sitting at the sewing machine and told her not to get up on his account. Then he sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and stared at the opposite wall.
“Garth?”
He looked around, his eyes solemn. “Yes?”
“I guess Cody must have told you what he and Kim have decided.”
“He did. I can’t believe it. I never thought he’d leave.”
“Kim told me that they’re planning to go. I’m sorry, Garth,” she replied.
Garth shook his head as if to clear it of his disbelief. “Cody said that they reached the agreement this morning. He said that after staying here with Kim while we were gone, watching her frustration at the way of life we lead on the ranch, he knew their marriage would never work out if he insisted that this is where they had to live.”
“I know.” She clipped a thread and set Cody’s shirt aside.
“I’ll have to accustom myself to the fact that I’m losing Cody. He’s such a help here, he always has been ever since our folks died.”
Lacey got up and pushed her chair in under the sewing machine table. She was stalling for time, not sure what to say. Her heart felt heavy on Garth’s account; she knew this was a low blow and that he would have a difficult time accepting that he was going to have to continue on his own.
She sighed. “I guess I’ll go on up to bed, Garth.” She brushed past him, but he reached out and caught her hand.
“Don’t, Lacey,” he said, his voice low in his throat. “Don’t go.” He looked up at her, and she couldn’t ignore the naked despair in his eyes. And she saw something else, too—lust, pure and simple. And longing. And more.
A tremor of recognition danced up her spine. She knew that look, knew it well, but it frightened her. She understood her own vulnerabilities. She knew how they had misled her in the past. Garth Colquitt was dangerous for the mere reason that he was a good-looking man, and she’d had her fill of the grief that a handsome man could bring down upon her.
On the other hand, it would be self-defeating if she allowed Garth’s good looks to blind her to his essential goodness. Wouldn’t it?
He stood up slowly. “Lacey?” he said. It was a question that she couldn’t answer. The whole world, her whole life was in that question. “I—”
He reached over and turned out the lamp above the sewing machine, leaving the room dark except for a sliver of light from the hall. It fell across his face, across his wonderfully expressive face, and Lacey closed her eyes and told herself that she’d better run. She’d better get out of here right now while she could think straight.
“I need you, Lacey. I want you.” She was mesmerized, not only by his presence but by his words. And then he crushed her to him in a strong embrace, one that she was powerless to stop. Not that she wanted to stop it. Not that she even thought about it.
No, what she thought was that this moment was the culmination of all that had gone before, that something warm and solid had been built between them in the recent days and nights they had spent together. Maybe it was no more than any healthy, attractive people would feel for each other. Maybe it was only sexual attraction. But at the moment it seemed like much more than that.
A tremor of emotion rippled through her, and Garth felt it. He relaxed his embrace and lifted a hand to tip her face upward. His eyes delved hungrily into hers, and he said, “Go now if you want to. I won’t stop you. But this is going to happen, Lacey, eventually. I’m saying it should be now.”
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes to block out his face, so close to hers, and his eyes, so demanding.
“Look at me, Lacey,” he commanded, and she couldn’t disobey. “See how much I want you. And if I read you correctly, you’re as eager as I am.”
When she didn’t speak, couldn’t speak, his mouth captured hers, exquisitely at first, exploring and taking his time abou
t it. Her hands gripped his shirt, then slid around his back and clutched him to her. Sensing her desire, he kissed her more fiercely, his tongue tangling with hers in his haste and invoking the most delicious sensations, his hands reaching lower to mold her to his own contours.
Then, against all reason, she was unbuttoning his shirt, and he was shrugging out of it in one fluid motion. He freed her blouse from her shorts and slid his hands underneath until they cupped her breasts. She was the one who unfastened her bra so that she could feel his skin against hers, and in her haste she popped a button off her blouse so that they both laughed self-consciously.
“More sewing for you to do,” he said, his breath close to her ear, and then her blouse fell away, exposing her to his gaze.
“I never have seen more beautiful breasts,” he said, and she was about to remonstrate when he pulled her down onto the cool sheets beside him. He caressed one breast, then the other as she inhaled his musky male scent, feeling her nipples rise and harden against his palm into sensitive points of pleasure. A flush of melting sweetness burgeoned deep in her belly, urging her on. At this point she was already hot and wet, and she knew that there was no going back. For good or ill, she and Garth were going to make love, and she was powerless to stop either him or herself.
As if in a dream, he reached over and loosened her hair from its narrow band. It tumbled around her shoulders in slow motion, and he lifted a strand of it to his lips. He gently kissed her eyelids, her earlobes, and pressed his lips to her throat, all the while murmuring the loveliest compliments until she thought she would swoon with longing. Dimly she realized that he no longer wore jeans, and then he was unzipping her shorts and sliding them down her legs so that he could pull away the thin triangle of lace and silk underneath. He lightly brushed his fingers across the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs, and said, “Oh, Lacey, my darling.”
But this was not the time to remain idle. She was as eager as he was, as primed for pleasure, and she wanted him to know it. Slowly she caressed the length of his back and lower, beginning her exploration of him with a delectable sense of anticipation. His buttocks were hard and firm beneath her fingers, and she gasped when he guided her hand to himself. His fingers slid into her, starting a long wave of sensation that reached from the tip of her toes to the top of her head. She was on fire, her blood sang in her ears and surged through her veins, and she rocked against his hand, wrapped her legs around him and savored the flood of sensations.
His mouth sought hers, demanding more, and unable to wait any longer, she pulled him on top of her so that she was crushed beneath him. She drank in his kisses, opened her eyes to gaze up at him and saw that his eyes flared with the dark heat of desire. She was too moved to speak. It seemed as if they had always done this, as if the two of them were meant to make love, as if this was only the most recent episode in a lifetime of giving themselves to each other. She couldn’t comprehend the connection, nor did she know where this feeling came from. She only knew that Garth felt it, too.
“Dearest Lacey, I can’t believe how perfect you are, how kind and generous and sweet you have been. I cherish you, Lacey.”
She was dismayed at his words, didn’t know what they meant to their future. But she was also electrified by the passion in him. And in her. It was like a web that entrapped the two of them, wove itself around them, wouldn’t let them go.
He slid inside her with excruciating slowness. Instinctively her body arched beneath his in total surrender, taking him deeply inside, and then she was the one who was setting the rhythm, setting them free. Her heart sang with the rightness of it. She was made for this man, and he was made for her. His hands on her breasts were hot, his body pulsing and warm. She gave herself up to it, to the waves of ecstasy that flowed from him to her and back again. She gasped his name, soaring beyond thought, totally abandoned and free, in exquisite harmony with another human being as she never had been before.
Above her, Garth’s face was a mask of passion, of joy and delight. Together they spun the world on its axis, exploded in a shower of fiery stars and drifted down to earth again like petals borne on a gentle wind.
Afterward, they lay in each other’s arms, sated and weak in the aftermath of loving. Lacey felt a deep peace in the heart of her being, a sense of fulfillment unlike any she had ever known.
Tenderly Garth gathered her closer and murmured sleepily in her ear. “Dearest Lacey, I’m never letting you go. Marry me, Lacey.”
Marry him? Garth had asked her to marry him?
Stunned, she caressed his forehead and whispered something indistinct and noncommittal. He only cradled her closer.
Marry him? How could she marry anybody?
As soon as he was asleep, her lips still swollen from his kisses, she slid out from between the sheets and pulled on one of Garth’s old T-shirts. Then she went to stare out the window at the nighttime sky.
Lacey didn’t smoke. She never had. But this was the kind of moment when she would have liked to feel the comfort of a cigarette, to have something to ingest to make her feel better or sharper or more able to cope. The truth was, she was tired of problems. She didn’t need any more of them, and at the moment she didn’t feel ready to marry anybody. She hadn’t liked being married, and she had only recently extricated herself from that relationship. She didn’t think she was ready for another. And she certainly hadn’t expected a proposal of marriage from Garth Colquitt just because they had slept together.
And what if he had only proposed because it would solve the problem of who would end up with Ashley?
LACEY WAS QUITE SURE that she didn’t sleep a wink all night long. She tried. Lordy, she tried. But in Garth’s bed, warm from the heat of his body next to her, all she could think of was that he was trying to fix The Situation in the only way he knew how. Oh, it had been great sex, all right. It had been fireworks on the Fourth of July, Christmas night with reindeer on the roof and a really great time all the way around.
Still. Shouldn’t they talk this over? Shouldn’t they expand on the emotion they had both felt at the height of passion and figure out if that was what was driving Garth to ask her to marry him? Or, as she had with Bunny, did he expect her to just, well, go and do it? Get married, without a whole lot of forethought? Get married so that they could raise these babies together?
Sometime before dawn, she crept out of his bed and up the stairs to her attic room. She didn’t want Cody to find them together when he arrived back from Kim’s for the day’s work.
In the morning, as soon as the babies woke and started chirping to each other in their own private language, she dragged herself down to the nursery and diapered and dressed them for the day. Garth stopped in for a moment, winked at her and kissed her happily on the lips. That was when Cody appeared and started talking about some kind of hoof disease, a conversation to which it was easy for Lacey to shut her ears.
“Catch you later,” Garth said to her during a lull, and then he and Cody were clomping downstairs and into the kitchen. Which reminded her that there was breakfast to be made, Al and Tipper to be fed, the spots of lasagna sauce on the dining room rug to be sponged and removed, ironing to be done. Oh, and Garth had mentioned having Donna take a look at the babies to make sure they were all right, and she didn’t know if he had meant her to take them to Donna’s office in town or what.
She fastened the girls securely in their high chairs, cooked breakfast and served it to Garth and Cody, fed both girls and tossed in a load of laundry, managing to down a cup of coffee and half a cantaloupe before Garth and Cody rose from the table to leave.
“Call Donna, please, and let her know you’ll be bringing the babies in for a checkup,” Garth said on his way out. “And let me know what time. I’ll meet you there.”
“All right,” Lacey said distractedly.
Donna said she could see them at two in the afternoon, so when Garth came in at noon for dinner, Lacey told him. He said he’d be there and sneaked a kiss from her behind the
pantry door where Cody couldn’t see. She pushed him away, blushing at the cheekiness of it but enjoying the kiss all the same. “Have you been thinking about what I asked you?” he whispered in her ear.
“No,” Lacey said before Cody came out of the office and Garth had to let her go.
“Well, you should,” he said, smiling at her as he followed Cody out the door.
Lacey looked down at the dirt that the two of them had tracked in on her floor. There was nothing to do but clean it up. While she swept, she worried. She had liked being trapped behind the door by Garth, liked his sneaking a kiss. But she didn’t want to get into the habit of enjoying Garth’s kisses. She didn’t want to be forced into something that would indeed solve most of her present problems but perhaps create a whole lot more.
“What does he think I’m going to say?” she asked Ashley despairingly.
“Dada?” Ashley said, making Lacey think that she understood exactly what was going on.
“Mama,” Lacey corrected her. “I’m your mama.”
And that was the crux of the problem. She was Ashley’s mother and therefore bound to do what was in her child’s—children’s—best interest. If that included marrying the man that Ashley had thought was her father all along, would that be the right thing to do? Even if she didn’t love him?
Or did she love him?
Considering her last experience in love, how was she to know if this feeling she had for Garth, this empathy and caring and concern, this enjoyment of his company, was the real thing? And then there was the sexual aspect, which had been opened in all its glorious splendor last night like a Pandora’s box of temptation and delight.
She didn’t want to close the lid on that box, she knew. Even thinking about making love with Garth Colquitt again started a tingling at the base of her spine that worked its way out to every single cell of her body and made her wild with anticipation.
But there was no time to contemplate that at the moment. “I’m putting you two down for a short nap while I get ready to take you to see Dr. Faber,” she told Ashley and Michele. Surprisingly, neither of them resisted. Maybe their schedules had finally synchronized. Maybe things would finally settle down around here.
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