The Baby Agenda

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “What are you thinking?” he asked now.

  It took her a second to recall what they’d been talking about. Her not accompanying Mom to the airport. That was it. “Just Mom. About today…I know she understood. It’s not that.”

  When she hesitated, Will said, “You miss her?” His gaze was keen on her face. She wondered what he was thinking.

  “I guess I mostly feel bad that we didn’t need her more. You know?”

  He nodded. “If it had been a busier time of year, I might have picked up some work for Clay while your mom was here to take care of you. To give you two time alone. But he’s got crews idled as it is, so I didn’t want to ask.”

  Moira looked at him in surprise. “Are you thinking about going to work for him?”

  After a minute Will shrugged. “Maybe later. Not long-term, and not for now. First I want to do the bedroom.”

  The guest room was to become Caleb’s, but they’d agreed to wait to redecorate until Moira’s mother came and went. Although they had bought a crib, Caleb was currently sleeping in a bassinet beside their bed. Now that Mom was gone, though, Will was going to paint and put up a wallpaper border. Moira didn’t sew very often, but she’d bought fabric to make a valance for the window, too. Will would be taking down the bed and storing it in the basement.

  “You know,” he said, “we might want to think about putting on an addition.”

  Moira had been switching Caleb from one breast to the other, something that was easier to do when she wasn’t trying simultaneously to whisk the cup of the bra up with lightning speed to cover her breast even as she freed the other one. But that brought her head up. “An addition?”

  “To the house?” He looked amused but also…wary, she thought. “Another bedroom or two maybe. Do you really want to be without a guest room?”

  “Well, maybe not forever, but…”

  “Your office is too tiny to make a decent bedroom. I might want my own office down the line, too. And then if we have more kids…”

  They hadn’t even decided whether they were going to stay married, and he was talking about them having another baby? Something that might have been jubilation tangled with apprehension.

  “Wow.” She cleared her throat. “You’re, um, thinking way ahead.”

  “Why not? I’m free right now, I could do most of the work.” He shrugged again. “Think about it.”

  Moira made herself speak calmly. “I think I’d like to wait until we know better where we stand.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “We agreed we’d talk when Caleb was a little older.” Her stomach squeezed into a ball at the thought, and she silently pleaded, Argue. Tell me we don’t have to, that you never plan to leave.

  But…he didn’t. His eyes narrowed and she had the sense that he was mad, but he only said tightly, “If that’s what you want.”

  No. No, it wasn’t.

  Caleb’s mouth slipped off her breast. Moira eased him against her shoulder and patted his back until he gave a sleepy burp and nestled into her.

  “I’m going to put him down,” she murmured.

  Will didn’t move as she stood and went down the hall. Moira hesitated once she’d settled Caleb into his bassinet. The coward in her wanted to hide out in the bedroom and not return to the living room. Will was in a strange mood tonight. She couldn’t imagine what had set him off, unless… Had he felt excluded while Mom was here?

  Heavens. Maybe, Moira thought unhappily, she’d made both of them feel unappreciated.

  And maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she was seeing Will’s naturally pushy personality in action.

  But when she entered the living room, he only said, “Like some ice cream? I was thinking a bowl would be good.”

  She moaned. “You can’t keep tempting me like this.”

  “Nursing takes a lot of calories.”

  “Yes, but look at me.” Moira laid her hands on her still too-soft stomach. “I have so much to lose.”

  He pushed himself to his feet. “There’s no hurry, you know.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Moira muttered.

  “So no ice cream?”

  She sighed. “Mocha almond fudge?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, God. Just a scoop. Okay?”

  Will grinned and disappeared into the kitchen.

  He brought two bowls back, hers containing one perfect round scoop, his mounded high. After a resentful glance at his bowl, she concentrated on eating her own ice cream in tiny increments, stretching it out, letting the richness melt on her tongue.

  “Why do you worry so much about your weight?” Will asked after a time.

  Moira looked up sharply. He sounded too casual.

  “What did Mom tell you?”

  He lifted those dark eyebrows. “About?”

  Okay, maybe not.

  After some internal debate, Moira said, “Even before prepregnancy, I wasn’t exactly a sylph.”

  “No, you had a luscious, curvy body that made me want to—” He broke off, color slashing his cheekbones.

  Moira’s eyes widened.

  “You know what I wanted to do,” he muttered. “I did it.”

  “You mean, I begged you to do it.”

  Abruptly, Will frowned at her. “Begged? I don’t remember any begging.”

  “You were reluctant.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, that’s why I insisted on walking you to your hotel-room door. Because I wasn’t dying to take you inside and peel that dress off you.”

  “But you were such a gentleman. I thought—”

  “Whatever you thought, it was obviously wrong. Any hesitation was only because of me planning to leave the country so soon.” He hunched his shoulders. “And I suppose I didn’t like the idea of being a stand-in for the creep.”

  “The creep.” She made an awful face. “Do you know, if I’d slept with him, and used that condom…”

  Will didn’t say anything. His expression was so unchanging, she could tell the thought had already occurred to him. And if it had…he must have wondered how she would have felt about Bruce Girard being the father of her baby instead of Will Becker.

  “For your sake, I wish it hadn’t happened,” she said, meeting his eyes. “But for mine, I’m really glad. Glad you’re Caleb’s father.”

  His face relaxed, and she hadn’t even been aware how rigid it had been. Voice scratchy, he said, “Don’t be sorry. You think after holding Caleb I can regret anything?”

  “No.” Moira felt inexplicably mushy inside. “That would be awful, not having him, wouldn’t it?”

  They were both quiet for a moment, and she could see that he was as incredulous as she was at the very idea: no Caleb.

  “You’ve managed to evade my question,” Will pointed out.

  She pretended not to know what he was talking about, even though she did.

  “Do you really not know how sexy you are?” he asked.

  With a shrug, she said, “Men tend to see me as best-friend material. I always figured it was the freckles. They positively shout girl next door. You know?”

  “I’ve never lived next door to anyone who looked like you.”

  With no idea why she was arguing, Moira still shot back, “I’m just saying…”

  “I watched you at the gala.” Will sounded thoughtful.

  “For quite a while. I told you that.” She nodded.

  “You danced. Men kept coming on to you, and I didn’t need to hear you to be able to tell you were saying, ‘Thanks but no thanks.’”

  “That’s ridiculous. I don’t remember anyone special.”

  Will looked at her.

  Well, there was Stan Wells, when she’d first arrived at the gala, but then she’d decided she must have imagined the way he had reacted. So maybe…

  “I used to be fat,” she blurted.

  “Were you,” Will murmured. It wasn’t a question. She had the awful sense that she’d answered all his questions instead.

>   He might as well know. “When I was a kid,” she said. “I don’t know why. I was okay until…oh, third grade or so. The fatter I got, the more I wanted to eat. I’d sneak food. Mom would bake cookies and think they’d last for a week, only I’d have eaten the whole batch in two days. That’s why I never learned to swim, you know. I didn’t want anyone to see me in a bathing suit. I ended up getting dropped by the girls I thought were friends. And boys are such jerks in fourth or fifth grade.”

  “I don’t think they can help themselves.”

  “They should,” she muttered. “I pretended I didn’t care, but I did.”

  “When did you lose the weight?”

  “Oh, it was gradual. Being fat in middle school was really horrible. I had crushes on boys, but I knew they’d never in a million years look twice at me.” She shrugged.

  “They probably wouldn’t have anyway, but…” Moira heard herself and cringed. “That’s what I always think, you know. That no guy could be interested in me.”

  She hadn’t known he could move so fast. One minute Will was lounging in the chair, the next he was on the sofa beside her, his hand grasping her chin.

  “You’re wrong. Guys can be. I am.”

  She gulped. “I think maybe my self-esteem issues are left from those days. After a while, you sort of…give up.”

  His thumb stroked her lower lip. His voice was a low rumble. “You shouldn’t.”

  Wow. Moira gazed into his dark eyes and felt this swell of complicated emotions. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He swore and took back his hand. “Damn it, there you go again.”

  “Again?”

  “Why would you thank me for wanting you?”

  “I was thanking you for being nice!”

  After a moment he sighed. “Okay. I can accept that.” He leaned back but kept watching her. “So, go on. How long did it take to gradually get slim?”

  “I never got slim. It would have helped if I had. But… I’m not built to have skinny hips.”

  “A woman is supposed to have hips.”

  “Well, I do.” She didn’t know why he was being so insistent about this, but she was, after all, the one who’d decided to tell him why she maybe lacked confidence. “By the time I was a senior in high school, I’d mostly lost the pudge. Too late to be a social success.”

  “You mean, the idiots you’d gone to school with didn’t notice what was in front of their eyes.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re good for my ego.”

  His mouth quirked in return. “I’d like to be.”

  “I finally dated and then had a serious boyfriend in college. End of tale.”

  “Okay, next question. Why do you hate the freckles so much?”

  “Because hardly anyone else has them.”

  He waited, something he was good at. Moira couldn’t help squirming under Will’s patient regard. “Maybe because they came from my father.” It had taken her a while to figure that out. “He was the redhead.”

  “Ah.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Will took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Just that now it makes sense. You don’t want to owe anything to him, but ignoring heredity is hard when it’s right there every time you look at yourself in the mirror.”

  Moira made a face at him. “Plus, kids teased me about my freckles, too.”

  “I got teased for being big.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He sounded wry. “I was always the tallest, from kindergarten on up. And talk about middle school. I had all the grace of a Saint Bernard puppy. My feet were huge.” He lifted one and they both looked at it. “I wore a size twelve by the time I was in seventh grade. I tripped over my own feet. I was too clumsy to be any good at sports until later. Way later. I was probably eighteen, nineteen, before everything really started working together.”

  Why was she so dumbfounded? Did she really think she was the only person in the world who’d grown up knowing she was different, that she didn’t fit?

  “I like your size,” Moira told him. “You’re strong and gentle both. You make me feel…safe. Which I guess is a silly thing to say, since I’m not in any danger, but it’s true anyway.”

  “I like your freckles.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “And your hair, and your curves. Skinny, stringy women don’t do it for me.”

  “A match made in heaven.” She tried to sound sarcastic.

  He grinned. “I keep trying to tell you.”

  They sat in silence. Will didn’t let go of her hand. Moira had butterflies in her stomach that reminded her of Caleb’s tumbles in midpregnancy. Her skin tingled. She wanted…

  Will released her hand and, before she could feel disappointed, cupped her face and turned it toward him. Then he bent his head and kissed her. His mouth moved softly over hers, not demanding anything, only…asking. Her lips parted, but his kept dancing over them, nibbling, licking, almost kneading them the way his big, strong hands did on her back, seeming to know her body better than she did. Moira quit breathing. Eyes closed, she only experienced, wonder filling her.

  Finally, Will eased back and waited until she lifted heavy lids and looked at him. “Someday,” he whispered, “I want to kiss you all over. Just like that.” She swallowed.

  “But not yet. I don’t have enough self-control to stop. For now, we’ll pretend we’re shy thirteen-year-olds who know Mom or Dad is only a room away.”

  “Oh.”

  He stroked one fingertip from her chin down her throat. It was all she could do not to moan. In a low, husky voice, he said, “Okay?”

  Moira bit her lip. “Okay.”

  “I think,” he said, “it will be fun to flirt with you, Moira Cullen Becker.”

  Dizzy with unexpected pleasure, Moira tried for a saucy smile. “I might enjoy flirting with you, too, Mr. Becker.”

  “Good.” He kissed her cheek, his breath warm, the small caress raising goose bumps on her nape. “And now, sweetheart, you’d better go to bed if you’re going to get any sleep at all before our tyrant of a son starts screaming.”

  “Yes.” She stood. “I take it you’re going to stay up?”

  “Yeah.” His gaze was heated. “Cuddling you sounds a little too dangerous right now. I’ll, uh, be along in a little bit.”

  Moira nodded, said, “Good night,” and fled. Tonight, she loved knowing that he’d risen to his feet and was watching her go.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CLAY CALLED AND ASKED if Will was interested in working, if only temporarily, as foreman on a job in Everett.

  “Doug Redmond quit on me today,” he explained. “No notice. Not really his fault. His parents have been going downhill, and now his dad has had a minor stroke. Doug and his wife decided to move to Texas and take care of them.”

  Doug was a nice guy who’d worked for Becker Construction as long as Will could remember. He was unimaginative but steady and reliable.

  “You’ll have to replace him,” Will said.

  Clay grunted unhappily. “I’m thinking maybe Ward Stevens, but I don’t want to pull him from that drugstore we’re building in Lake Stevens.”

  Will opened his mouth to comment, then closed it. The decisions weren’t his anymore.

  Instead, he said, “I wouldn’t mind being busy for a little while. Moira doesn’t plan to go back to work for another six weeks or so. It doesn’t really make sense for us both to sit around staring at Caleb.”

  His brother laughed. “Is that what you do?”

  “Just wait,” Will said good-naturedly. “Man, there’s nothing like seeing your own kid be born.”

  “Does he do anything besides sleep, nurse and piss?”

  “He craps his diapers, too. And sucks his thumb. That’s riveting.”

  Clay laughed. “Brother, you need to get out more.”

  Amused, Will said, “And you’re giving me the chance.”

  Moira seemed fine with the idea when Will told her. Prob
ably more than fine, he thought ruefully; having him hover 24/7 had to be getting on her nerves.

  She was the one to catch his mood, though. They were loading the dishwasher and putting away leftovers when she said, “We haven’t really talked about money.”

  “No.” He guessed they should have. Knowing she was still paying utilities and a mortgage, if she had one, had been bugging him, but when he’d said something about splitting expenses she’d been evasive. He’d settled so far for buying most of the groceries and gas. “Well…do you need to go to work for your brother?”

  Will set down the saucepan he’d dried. “Do you mean, financially?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “No. I have savings and investments. I put away most of my salary all those years. Living in the house we inherited from Mom and Dad, I didn’t need much money.”

  “Then…why did you say yes?”

  “I feel pretty useless sitting around.”

  “Now that you figure I don’t need you anymore?”

  That sent a cold chill through him. He hoped like hell she did still need him, if not in the same way. But he nodded.

  “The thing is…” Moira hesitated again. “I could be wrong, but I just got an undertone there that you weren’t very happy about working for Clay.”

  He went still, thinking about it. “I didn’t realize,” he said after a moment. “Hell. Are you reading my mind?”

  Her face went blank. “If you don’t want to talk about it…”

  Damn it, he’d given the impression that he disliked her being so perceptive. He was shocked by a lightning quick thought: Did he? Will didn’t let himself stop to examine the idea.

  “No, you caught me by surprise. And you’re right,” he admitted. “It’s not that I mind working for Clay. It’s that…” He hesitated.

  “You’re used to him working for you?”

  “That’s part of it.” Will fumbled his way, trying to figure out his own reluctance. Good God, was he oblivious to his own motivations? Did Moira understand him better than he understood himself? Unsettling thought.

  “Maybe more of it than I want to admit,” he said finally, with a shrug. “It’s not Clay, it’s that I haven’t taken orders from anyone in a lot of years. He started talking about promoting this guy and I almost said, ‘I think you could do better.’ But the truth is, he has to make his own decisions and his own mistakes. It was easier to keep my mouth shut when I wasn’t around.”