"No. I'm just offering me."
She looked relieved. "Good. I don't know if I care so much for respectability, but I love you." Her smile came back then. "Do you really want to have a baby with me?"
"You know I do."
The smile turned sexy and sensuous. "Good," she repeated as she moved her hips in a long, slow caress against him, the action meant to remind him of the precautions they'd skipped tonight. "Like I said earlier, I seem to get pregnant easily."
He lifted and rolled with her until his body sheltered hers in the warm soft jumble of the covers. "We have plenty of time to practice if you don't." Supporting his weight on his arms, he moved down, his tongue leaving a wet trail across her breast until it reached her nipple. He licked across it and watched the skin pucker, the peak harden. "Did your breasts swell when you were pregnant?"
She let her head sink into the pillow and her eyes close, the better to enjoy what he was doing. "Yeah, they did. Brent said that finally I looked—"
He traced a circle around her breast, then tasted her nipple once again. He could well imagine what her bastard of a husband had said. "Brent was a fool."
"Yes." The word was barely a whisper, because he was suckling her breast now, drawing her nipple between his teeth, sending the most pleasing nerve-quivering sensations racing through her body. Sliding her fingers into his thick dark hair, she held his head, reluctant to let him end the gentle torment.
At last he drew her hands away and laid them on the mattress at her sides, then moved lower on the bed. Her legs were trapped by his body, leaving her vulnerable to the torture of his tenderly stroking fingers, his gentle bites, his hungry kisses. He combed through the honey-colored curls, parting them, parting her, for the painfully slow, painfully sweet invasion of his fingers, and Sarah moaned.
Daniel rested his head on her hip, his eyes closed while he gathered strength. Farther down the bed, far out of her reach, his manhood was hardening again, swelling, aching for the sweet warmth inside her. He was as easily aroused by merely touching her as he was when she touched him. He could fill his place within her a thousand times and still crave more, still need her tight, heated welcome to feel complete. "Sometimes I think I didn't begin to live until I met you."
His voice was as thick and heavy as his need, and it flowed around her, securing her in its warmth. She opened her arms to him, beckoning him. "Love me again."
"Always, Sarah." He moved into position, sinking into her until the fit was snug and complete. "Always."
She was almost asleep when Daniel's voice tickled in her ear. Turning onto her side to face him, she snuggled closer to his chest. "Hmm."
"This disease Tony had…" He wrapped his arm around her, providing a pillow for her head. "Could our children have it?"
She blinked a couple of times to clear the sleepy daze from her mind. "It's not hereditary. It's a sort of birth defect, where the system just failed to develop properly. According to Tony's doctors, Brent and I could have had a dozen more children together, and the risks would have been practically nonexistent. There's no reason to believe it will affect any child that you and I have together."
"I'm sorry." It was a blanket apology—sorry that he had awakened her to ask, sorry that he'd had to refer once more to the sadness of her son's life, sorry that he'd judged her, sorry that she'd gone through such sorrow, sorry that Tony had had the disease in the first place.
Sarah understood and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "Good night, Daniel."
Saturday was cold, the wind blowing over the mountain-top with a force that rattled the windowpanes. They spent the day inside, the living room fireplace filled with a crackling fire that spread its heat into the distant corners.
"Winter is definitely coming," Sarah said, lying on the couch so she could see the leaves, their stubborn hold broken by the fierce wind, sweeping across the clearing.
"We'll have some nice weather before the first snow."
She frowned at Daniel, who was lying at the opposite end of the couch, his legs tangled with hers, Katie sitting on his stomach. "How do you know we won't get snow now? Look at that sky, how dark and gray and cold it looks."
"It's not going to snow."
He said it so smugly that she couldn't stop her laugh. "I suppose Grandfather Ryan taught you how to predict the weather, didn't he? And I bet when you farmed, you planted by the phases of the moon, didn't you?"
"It's worked for years. It fed me, my father, my grandfather and all the Ryans who came before him."
"And it fed you well." With her foot, she rubbed over the powerful muscles in his thigh. "You're a walking advertisement for fresh air, hard work and homegrown food. I hope Daniel the fourth will take after you."
A son of his own to carry on the family name. He liked that idea, liked it immensely. But, hiding his pleasure behind barely opened eyes, he simply said, "If he's lucky, he'll look like you."
"If he's lucky," she corrected, "he'll be just like you. In every way." She moved her foot to tickle Katie's belly. The girl giggled and brushed it away, but continued to look at her book without so much as a glance for her mother. "You think you can ignore me, you little rascal?" Sarah tickled again, and this time Katie laughed out loud.
But when the laughter ended, she gave her mother an admonishing look, commanded, "No, Mama," then took her book to the rocker, safely out of Sarah's reach, where she continued to solemnly study the pictures.
"Those are Tony's books, aren't they?" Daniel asked.
"Yes."
"Do you have any pictures of him?"
"Yes."
"Where are they?"
She glanced out the window. "In an album in the trunk of my car."
It was parked outside next to Daniel's truck. "Can I see them?"
She hesitated only a moment. "The keys are in the pocket of my jacket."
He got up immediately and put his shoes on. There was a rush of cold air when he opened the front door, then another when he returned, a brown vinyl album in hand. Sarah sat up, making room for him beside her, then drew her knees to her chest, clasping her hands around them.
The first pictures could have been of any newborn baby—homely and wrinkled and normal. But gradually, as the baby grew older and the wrinkles smoothed out, he took on qualities that Daniel found familiar—the dark blond hair, the brown eyes, the delicate bone structure, like Sarah, and the sweet baby smile, like Katie. As he grew older, he also took on a faint yellow color, the jaundice that had been the first symptom of the disease that killed him.
There was one picture in the album of Brent Lawson, taken when Tony was about a month old, Sarah said. The man held the baby, but he kept him at a distance, not cradling him closely the way most fathers would have. He looked uncomfortable, almost annoyed that he'd been forced to sit still for this single photograph with his infant son. Daniel looked from the picture to Sarah. "Did you love him?"
She wished she could pretend that he meant Tony. It would be a much easier question to answer. But she had never taken the easy way out, and she wouldn't start now. "Yeah, I did. Even though we fought a lot, even though he was childish and immature and selfish, even though he resented Tony, I loved him. When he moved out and filed for divorce, I was angry and hurt, but I didn't want a divorce. It wasn't until later, when I realized how completely he'd abandoned Tony, that I really began to hate him."
"And now?"
"Now I feel nothing. He means nothing."
"Not even as your son's father."
She shrugged. "Tony had no father. All he had was me."
He turned back to the pictures, flipping the pages, seeing the signs of the disease's progression. All the holidays were represented—Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, his birthday, Halloween. Soon there were pictures of Sarah, heavily pregnant but thinner, burdened by the fullness of her belly and the sickly twenty-one-month-old boy who clung to her.
"One of the nurses at the hospital took those." Sarah touched the edge of one photo.
"Katie was born about a week later."
"You look tired."
"I was. All the time." She smiled faintly at Katie. "She was active long before she was born. Her favorite times to kick were when I was trying to sleep. I had a constant backache from carrying both her and Tony."
"You said he learned to walk."
"He did, and he tried, but walking up a flight of stairs left him exhausted." She turned the page and pointed to the top picture. "There's Katie's very first picture."
It was taken in the hospital nursery, with a bright-colored blanket bearing a placard with the name Lawson covering the sleepy eyed baby. Lawson was her legal name, Daniel thought absently, named for the bastard who'd run out on his own son, who certainly wouldn't have welcomed another man's daughter. His first action, once he and Sarah were married, would be to adopt Katie, to legally change her name to Ryan.
There were pictures of Katie and Tony together, the boy obviously pleased with his younger sister. Daniel studied them for some resemblance and found nothing but the structure of their faces. Tony looked more like his father than his mother, and Katie resembled her own father.
The photos of Katie ended at three months. Daniel recognized the last picture, not because he'd seen it before but because it had been taken on the last day that Sarah had had Katie. On his first day with her. The little dress and the blanket were tucked in the bottom drawer of the chest in her room, and the teddy bear was sitting in the rocker with her now.
"Did he miss her?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah. In the beginning he wanted to see her, to go with her, but … he got pretty sick after that, and…" Her voice trailed off, and Daniel closed the album, putting his arms around her, stroking her.
She didn't cry, although the tears burned her eyes. For a long time she sat in his embrace, absorbing his warmth, drawing from his strength.
Daniel brushed the hair from her forehead and kissed her there. "When do you want to get married?"
"Soon. Tomorrow. Today."
He kissed her again. "Do you want a church wedding?"
"It doesn't matter. There's only Beth to invite."
"I guess I'd invite Zachary." He sighed softly. "We can do it in the courthouse. It's not very romantic."
"That depends on who you're doing it with. The courthouse is fine. Or the church. The reverend would be happy to see that I'm correcting the error of my ways." She rested her cheek against his flannel shirt. "Now I'll be suitable for those jobs."
"I don't object to you working now, but after the next baby's born, I'd like you to stay home for a while," Daniel said hesitantly. "I make more money than we'll ever need."
Sarah thought of the bills she got each month and cringed. "I need to work at least part-time. I owe…" She sighed. "A lot of money. Tony's care was so expensive. Even with everything that was written off or done free of charge, his bills were still incredible. I know I'll never be able to pay them off, but I'd like to pay as much as I can."
He had seen the amounts listed on the detective's credit report. If business remained good, if he could make steady large payments, he could pay off the bills sometime in the foreseeable future, although he didn't want to think about how many years it would take. Once they'd had all the children they wanted and the kids were in school, Sarah could go back to work and could contribute her entire salary to the process.
Smiling, he gave a shake of his head. For the first time in his life, he was making plans for the future—five, ten, fifteen years ahead—with someone else. All the times he'd thought ahead, he'd seen himself alone, as he'd been for eighteen years. But now there were Sarah, Katie and all those babies they were going to have. Now there was his family.
"Do you want to let your mother know before we get married?" Sarah asked. It would be nice if his mother would come back to Tennessee for the wedding, if she would show Daniel that he meant enough for her to travel a few hundred miles. But the woman who'd made no effort to see her only grandchild probably wouldn't care about her son's wedding, either.
He was thinking about her failure to see Katie, too. "No," he replied, no hint of emotion in his voice. "I'll write and let her know later."
"I love you, Daniel." Sarah hugged him tightly, as if trying to force that love into him through the physical contact. "We'll be happy, all three of us. I promise we will."
He looked down at her with a gentle smile. "I am happy, Sarah. I—"
For a moment she thought he was going to say it: I love you. For a moment he thought he was, too, but the words caught, and instead he kissed her. He would learn someday, she thought as she accepted his kiss. Someday he would overcome this reticence and say those three sweet words. But she didn't have to hear them to believe them. She could feel his love in his touch, his kiss, his lovemaking. She could see it in his eyes, his smile, his actions.
But when the day came that he could say it … that would be the sweetest day of all.
October 28
On Sunday, for the first time in a week, Sarah woke up in bed alone. She rolled over to where Daniel usually lay, but the sheets were cold, signaling that he'd been up for quite a while. With a regretful sigh, she slid back into her own warm cocoon and fell asleep again.
Down the hall, in the room where his parents' bedroom furniture was now stored, Daniel sat on the bed, a clumsily carved wooden box in front of him. The box had been one of his first attempts at woodworking. One corner had never fitted together properly, the lid was warped, and the design he'd carved on the sides was awkward and childish. But his father had appreciated the Christmas gift from his ten-year-old son, had praised and encouraged him, and had honored the gift by placing all his important belongings in it. The next year his father had died, but his mother had left the box on the dresser, filled with papers, a few pieces of jewelry, some old photographs.
He lifted the lid and removed the pictures. There was one of his parents as newlyweds and another of the three of them when Daniel was two years old. There was another, old and faded, of his grandparents, their hair gray, their shoulders stooped from hard work, but still smiling, still holding hands. He laid them aside, then added the papers to the pile without looking at them. Any important papers were now kept in his file in Zachary's office. These were old copies, meaningless documents.
On the bottom was the jewelry, along with a pair of oval-shaped wire-rimmed glasses that had belonged to his grandfather. There was a pocket watch, the crystal broken for as long as he could remember, that had been his great-grandfather's. There was a brooch, ornately engraved, the silver tarnished now, that he'd seen pinned to his grandmother's church dress when he was little. And there was the ring.
It had come to Sweetwater with Leanora Ryan, the bride his grandfather had brought from Asheville nearly seventy years ago. It was a pearl mounted on a gold band—not a large pearl, but one of good quality. One that after years of neglect in this old wooden box still retained its soft luster. In his large palm it looked impossibly small, but it had fit his grandmother's finger. He was certain it would fit Sarah's.
Quickly he replaced the papers and the photos, fitted the lid on and set the whole box back on the dusty dresser. Hiding the ring within his hand, he left the room, closing the door behind him, and returned to his own room.
Sarah was still asleep, but she'd been moving restlessly. The covers had slipped below her arms, barely covering the soft swell of her breasts and leaving her left hand, resting on the pillow, exposed. Daniel sat down and waited to see if the movement would awaken her. When it didn't, he reached for her hand and carefully slid the gold ring onto her third finger. He'd been right. It was a perfect fit. After pressing a kiss to her hand, he replaced it on the pillow and left the room once again.
When Katie woke up, he dressed her and took her downstairs. "What do you want for breakfast?" he asked, setting her in her high chair while he circled the counter into the kitchen.
"Pancakes."
He frowned, thinking of the mess Katie and syrup could make
. "You would. How about eggs?" She shook her head. "Bacon?" Another shake. "Cereal?"
"Pancakes," she repeated.
"All right. But after that our new rule goes into effect: you can only have pancakes when your mom's here to clean up after you."
"Mama go?"
"No, she's in bed. She's a sleepyhead." He found the pancake mix, set it on the counter with a bowl and milk, and reached for a cup. He was measuring the milk when, behind him, Katie giggled.
"Morning, s'eepyhead," she said in her sweet voice.
Sarah bent to kiss her mussed curls, then continued into the kitchen. She hadn't taken the time to dress, but had simply tied her robe around her waist and gone looking for Daniel. "Sleepyhead, huh?" she asked, sliding her arms around his waist. "Teaching my child to call me names because I sleep an hour late?"
Before he could respond, she pulled his head down and kissed him, her tongue sliding into his mouth, meeting his own tongue, searching as if to fill a hunger deep inside. When she finally released him, she took a deep breath, then extended her hand. "This is beautiful, Daniel."
He ran his fingertip over the ring. "It was my grandmother's. When she died, she left it to my mother, and when she remarried, she gave it to me. I want you to have it."
"You said your grandparents were happily married for forty-two years." She smiled, the love gleaming in her eyes. "Maybe we'll have the same luck."
"Maybe we will." After another kiss, he turned back to Katie's breakfast. "I'm fixing Katie some pancakes, but I'd like to go out for dinner. The restaurant in town isn't fancy, but the food's good, and the service is pretty good if you get there before church lets out. What do you think?"
She thought it sounded fine. And in addition to being a pleasant afternoon out, it would give her a chance to call Beth, to reassure her that everything was all right and to tell her, Sarah thought with a sly smile, about her change in plans. It would also give her a chance—her smile faded a bit—to take Beth to task for telling Zachary about Tony. Regardless of the intent—or the results—she'd had no right to go against Sarah's wishes.
SOMEBODY'S BABY Page 22
