What a Woman Wants

by Tori Carrington

Saying the words ignited a dull ache in John’s gut. Simply because it was strange to be sitting here with the woman he wanted to sleep with, the woman who was pregnant with his child, and tell her that her late husband loved her.

  “I did know it. Sometimes.”

  “Sometimes.”

  John got the feeling that Erick wouldn’t be happy at all to hear his wife say this.

  “That’s why…that’s why I can’t marry you, John. Somewhere in my mind, I’d always wonder, you know? Did he marry me just because I was pregnant? Or because he…” Her words drifted off.

  Or because he loves me?

  John got up abruptly from the table.

  “John?” She reached out and touched his arm. He looked down at her. At her beautiful face. The question in her eyes. The sexy curve of her lips.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “But I still haven’t said what I meant to.”

  John brushed his knuckles along the curve of her cheek. “I think enough has been said for one night, don’t you?”

  He took his denim jacket from the coat tree in the corner and shrugged into it, watching her stare at her coffee. Just when he thought he had everything straight, a different layer was revealed, another dimension, making him wonder if he’d ever figure it out. And it scared the hell out of him.

  “Thank you,” he said, gripping the doorknob.

  She looked at him. “For what?”

  He shrugged. For what, indeed? For making him feel like a heel for hurting her and straining her relationship with her kids? “For, um, dinner.”

  She smiled. “Anytime.”

  Darby exchanged her coffee for a cup of warm milk, then curled up on the couch, an Ohio State Buckeyes stadium blanket warding off the chill of the spring night. She’d given up on the remote, and the television flicked silent images across the screen because she’d muted the sound. Not even her work could hold her attention. Photographs were strewn across the coffee table in front of her. She’d intended to choose from the various shots she’d taken of rural Old Orchard for framing, but realized after the third go-round that she wasn’t seeing the pictures at all.

  She propped her head in her hand. What had she been thinking, telling John what she had? The truth was she hadn’t been thinking. Rather, on some fundamental level she’d felt the need to talk to him about Erick, about her marriage to her late husband, and her mouth automatically followed.

  It was important that he know the reason, the real reason, she couldn’t marry him.

  She reached out and plucked up the ring she’d meant to return to him off the table and clicked open the box. The gold was warm on her index finger as she worried it around and around, contrasting it against her platinum wedding band. On those days when she knew with her entire being that Erick loved her for her, not just because she was the mother of his children, life had been good. Very good. And when he’d died…well, she’d never expected to love again. Not in the same intense way that left her in a mess of hormones and drowning in a sea of insecurity. Yet here she was wondering what John was doing right now, feeling his presence in the house as surely as if he was still there. And she’d known the moment that had happened, the moment he’d stolen a piece of her heart. Well, maybe she didn’t know the exact moment that had happened, but she did know when she grew aware of his holding such a key part of her in his hands: When she’d watched him with the girls earlier. When he’d patted the sofa and asked her to come sit with them as if they were a family, and more. She’d known in that moment that he’d make a wonderful husband. And a terrific father.

  She slid the ring back into the box. No, she couldn’t marry him. But she did want him to play an important role not only in their baby’s life, but also in the twins’. And she’d hoped to do that with a proposal of her own until he’d practically run from her and what she’d been trying to say to him.

  She put the box down on top of the pictures and glanced at the cordless phone on the table next to her. No, her words were better said in person. But right now she didn’t have that option. And they were words that needed to be said.

  John shut the door behind him, grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator, popped the top and walked into the living room. Tossing his jacket onto the back of the recliner, he tipped the bottle and drank from it until he had to come up for air.

  He ran the back of his hand across his mouth and cursed a blue streak. What was it about Darby Parker Conrad that made him want to run out of the trailer and shout at the top of his lungs? He felt ready to burst, the emotions in him accumulating, mutating, taking over his body and mind until he didn’t recognize himself. Oh, he was still the sheriff of Old Orchard County. That hadn’t changed. But even standing there in the trailer, a place that had served just fine as his home for the past six years, made him feel like a foreigner, as if he no longer belonged there and knew it. Whereas he would have automatically taken a seat in the recliner and clicked on the television to see if some game or other was playing, now he didn’t quite know where to sit.

  Damn, but the woman had evicted him from his own skin. And she didn’t have one clue how he really felt about her.

  Of course he was a little fuzzy on that detail himself, so he couldn’t really blame her.

  He caught himself staring at the leather sofa, remembering her pale skin and dark hair against it, her back arched in passion, her nipples pert, delectable peaks….

  He cursed again, then dropped into the recliner and kicked off his boots. The place was quiet. Too quiet. Yet he didn’t want to turn on the TV or the radio. He merely sat there staring at the opposite wall, replaying the words she’d said earlier in his mind.

  I never knew if Erick loved me for me, or because I was the mother of his children.

  Was she insane? Didn’t she know that a million men would be standing in line if they thought they stood a fraction of a chance with her? Of course Erick had loved her. To pieces. What wasn’t there to love? She was beautiful. Sexy. Down-to-earth. The most courageous woman he’d ever known.

  So what was he saying? That he loved Darby?

  He scratched his brow and took another swig of beer, the barley drink bitter on his tongue.

  He honestly didn’t know. He desired her. Hell, physically he wanted her beyond reason.

  What he did know was that she deserved to be loved. Loved the way Erick had loved her. Deserved to love the way she had loved Erick.

  He grimaced, realizing that was where his thoughts had been leading him all along. To the fear that if he could get Darby to love him, she’d never do so the way she’d loved Erick. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d always be thinking of the man she’d lost. The man who had been taken from her. The father of her girls. He could never hope to take Erick’s place. Was surprised that he even wanted to.

  No, not surprised. He’d always envied, in a way, what Erick had. Despite his stance on marriage, he’d often found himself looking at his best friend, wondering at the grin on his face, the wife he had at home, the kids who loved him, the house that had everything a home should.

  And if that wasn’t enough, Erick had gotten to make love to Darby every night….

  John pushed himself out of the recliner, then went out to the sink and poured the remainder of the beer down the drain. Sitting around here doing nothing but thinking certainly wasn’t getting him anywhere. Maybe he should head to the office, see what was going on and check in on their temporary prisoners. He’d just gone into the bathroom, switched on the shower and was stripping off his clothes when he heard the phone ring. Someone from the office? was his first thought. He switched off the water and, clad in only his jeans, stepped into the bedroom to pick up the extension there.

  “Hi,” Darby’s voice filtered over the line.

  A knot tightened in John’s stomach. “Hi.”

  A hesitation. In fact, her greeting had sounded a little reluctant, as if she wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to go about saying it.

  “I’m n
ot interrupting anything, am I?” she asked quietly.

  “No.” John scratched his head, then ruffled his hair. “I was just thinking about heading downtown.”

  “Something happen?”

  “No. Just thought I’d check on things, that’s all.” And get out of this trailer before I go crazy thinking about you. About being with you. Making love to you until you cry out my name, instead of Erick’s.

  “The twins?” he asked.

  “Fast asleep.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  He winced at the mundanity of their conversation, then glanced at the clock to find it was after eleven. “Is there something in particular you wanted?”

  He hated that he sounded abrupt, but just hearing her voice made him aroused, and if he didn’t end the call but quick he was afraid he’d say something he’d regret. Like ask her if he could come back over.

  “Yes, there is something I wanted,” she said, some mettle back in her voice. “I didn’t get a chance earlier. Anyway, I have a proposal of my own I’d like to make.”

  John sat down on the bed and switched the receiver to the other ear.

  “Maybe not so much a proposal, really. Maybe it’s more of a compromise.”

  “Go on.”

  She took a deep breath, her soft sigh drifting over the line and making him want her even more. “Move in here with me and the twins.”

  John felt as if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water on his head. “What?”

  “Temporarily. I’ll fix up the guest room. You can stay as long or as little as you’d like. Not as husband and wife, you understand, but as…parents to be. That way you can be involved in the pregnancy. The birth, even. You know, if you want…”

  Seldom were the times he’d heard Darby babble. And she was definitely babbling. That he was the cause of it made something interesting ignite in his chest.

  “So what do you say?”

  Chapter Nine

  On the other end of the phone line, Darby mashed her eyes shut, waiting for John’s response.

  When she’d initially considered making the proposal, she’d had no idea how it would actually sound coming out of her mouth. She decided she’d come off like an idiot. A woman who didn’t know what she wanted except for everything and everyone to be happy.

  “What will the town say?” John asked.

  “What?” She stared at the receiver. Then she caught the teasing in his voice and relaxed against the cushions, tension oozing out of her. “They’ll probably think we’re having wild-monkey sex in every corner of the house.”

  “And will we?”

  Darby’s heart skipped a beat and she licked suddenly dry lips. “Um, no, John. If you agree to this, I’ll have to insist you stay in the guest room. The girls…well, they’re already confused enough.” To say nothing of her own emotional condition. She knew she could connect some of her moodiness to her pregnancy, but not all of it.

  “There’s always the barn,” John suggested.

  She smiled as her hand made absent circles around her stomach. Was it her, or did she feel a slight poof? Was her, their, baby already beginning to let herself be known? “Didn’t that get us into enough trouble the last time?”

  “Well, since we’re already in as deep as we can get…”

  Were they? Darby wasn’t convinced. She was beginning to fear that where they stood now was just the start of a long, emotional roller-coaster ride she wasn’t sure she was up to.

  But John did deserve to be involved in as much of the birthing process as possible. She wanted their baby to bond with him. Know him the way she did. Love him. To know that he returned that love. Just the way her mother’s love for her had always been unfaltering.

  And if John’s staying here, getting a real taste of what life at the farm was like also served to scare him but good, well, that was in her best interests, too.

  “So when do we do this?” John asked, clearing his throat.

  “Um, I think I should tell the girls first.” And her mother, and her brother-in-law, and Jolie…

  “Why don’t we do it together?”

  Gratitude filled in her chest. “I’d like that.” Even if she would be on her own in everything else, she’d welcome his support with the twins. In some ways, the girls seemed to respond better to him than her. Familiarity dictated that they knew what buttons to push to get the response they wanted from her. John, however, was an unknown quantity. And as such had a much better chance of success.

  “Let’s say tomorrow night?”

  He was silent.

  “John?” She hated the plaintive sound of her voice, but was afraid he was having second thoughts. She didn’t realize how invested she was in the hope that his staying there would scare him off the topic of marriage until she thought he might not go with her plan.

  “I’m here,” he said, then fell silent again. “Tell me, Darby,” he said at last. “What are my chances of getting you to agree to go the whole nine yards?”

  “Marriage?” Her gaze locked onto the ring box on the table in front of her. “Oh, about zero to none.”

  “Remember you said that.” She heard the grin in his voice. “See you tomorrow at six.”

  “Okay,” she said softly, but realized he hadn’t heard her. He’d already hung up.

  She put the cordless back down on the table next to her, wondering at the slight trembling of her hand. In less than twenty-four hours John would be here, in the house, not as a guest, but as a part of it. No matter how temporary the arrangement, Darby found that her body sang. And that the slightest bit of fear began to blossom in her stomach, fear that John would never give up trying to get her to marry him.

  She stared at the wedding band she still wore. For some reason she was surprised to still find it there. A reaction that didn’t make any sense because she didn’t remember taking it off. It just suddenly seemed…inappropriate to be wearing it now.

  For long minutes she sat still, merely staring at the circle of metal and all it had once signified. She’d always wondered when would be the right time to remove her wedding ring. She twisted the band around her finger, then halfway removed it before sliding it home again. She’d assumed she’d know when the right time was.

  Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes and completely removed the ring. She waited for guilt to assault her. A sense of wrongness. Instead, she felt a rightness so complete, so overwhelming, that it nearly took her breath away. She closed her fingers around the warm metal. One word echoed through her mind. “Goodbye.” And she knew she wasn’t only saying a final farewell to her husband, but to life as she’d known it before.

  Three days later Darby set the coffeemaker to brew, then snuggled more deeply into her terry-cloth robe, trying to ward off the spring-morning chill. She hadn’t slept very well last night. Hadn’t slept well for the past two nights, if she was being honest. Ever since John had easily taken up residence in the guest room down the hall from her room.

  She glanced out the back window, at the crisp frost still on the ground and the strong sun just breaking the horizon. She didn’t know how, but already it seemed they’d settled into a routine. Every morning she got up first, put on the coffee, started breakfast, got the twins up and ready to go to school, then John stumbled downstairs in his black uniform pants, his gray shirt left open to reveal the rippling muscles of his abdomen. And every morning she watched him, longing for something she had forbidden either of them to have, but thought about every moment of every night, robbing her of much-needed sleep.

  It would help if she knew he felt the same. But she suspected that when they parted ways every night, saying an awkward good-night in the upstairs hall, he didn’t give her a second thought. If the soft snoring she’d heard the first night when she’d padded barefoot to stand outside his door was any indication, he dropped into bed and was dead to the world until the following morning.

  While she lay, a trembling pile of needy hormones, three door
s up.

  Of course, it couldn’t be easy for him having a houseful of people when he was used to just having himself to contend with. The twins even on a good day could be a handful. And the past three days had definitely not been good days. They had not been pleased with Uncle Sparky’s taking up residence in their house. The first night, she’d heard one or the other of them, possibly both, get up no fewer than three times to make sure the adults in the house were in their own beds. She smiled now, wondering just who was supposed to be the parent, and who the children. They took great relish in giving John a hard time at every turn. Asking him to read them a book, then changing the reading material halfway through, so that by the time the twins finally dropped off to sleep, he’d read them a good chunk of at least three of their thickest offerings.

  She eyed the brewing coffee longingly, then sighed when she found it wasn’t even halfway ready. Instead, she opened the cellar door, switched on the light and descended the stairs. Some homemade marmalade might be nice on this morning’s toast.

  Okay, she admitted to herself, maybe she liked having a man around the house again. So far, John had proved inexhaustible in seeing to chores that had gone undone for months. The upstairs bathroom door that stuck. The cracked front basement window. The drip under the kitchen sink that she’d been using a bucket to catch for the past five months. And the tasks were made doubly difficult by the presence of two would-be helpers who seemed hell-bent on making his life miserable.

  Upstairs she heard the sound of scuffling feet and frowned. She’d woken the girls, but it usually took them a good three wake-up calls before they finally got up. She eyed the marmalade and wondered what they were up to now.

  John tried to hold on to the dream. Wispy, sexy images of Darby writhing beneath him, her back arched, her mouth swollen from his kisses, her fingers in his hair. But the more he tried to hold on, the more the visions slipped away. Except for the hair part. He grinned and settled more deeply into the pillows, allowing himself the luxury of Darby slipping into bed next to him, wonderfully nude. Perhaps she was just as needy as he was and had made the first move.