by Jeanne Allan
“With a little bit of effort, you could have prevented him from doing either. Parker was threatening you and Birdie with a knife, and I didn’t see either of you putting up much of a fight. What was I supposed to do? Say, ‘Excuse me, I need to start dinner. Could you take them and your knife into another room?’ ”
“Ev was on his way. I didn’t go into the kitchen to start a war. I wanted to give Parker a target besides Birdie. He stopped hitting her when I went in because he thought having the upper hand over me a lot more fun.”
“How was I supposed to know you’d called the sheriff before you went into the kitchen? You didn’t give me any signal to back off or go away.”
“I thought I was perfectly clear. I told you what you were doing was idiotic. I told you not to waste your energy.”
“I didn’t know you were talking to me.”
“Would you have preferred I asked you what the hell you were doing sneaking up behind a drunken, armed man?”
“I was armed, too.”
“Armed!” Luke turned and clamped his hands on the windowsill. Leaning his forehead against the frosted glass pane, he swore fluently before tossing cold words over his shoulder. “You were not armed. You had a telephone and a set of elk antlers.”
“And the element of surprise.”
Luke turned back to her, his rigid posture radiating anger. “I’m not getting through to you, am I? You think you’re some kind of damned Texas ranger who rode in and saved the town. You’re practically blowing the smoke off the ends of your six-shooters. You could have gotten one of us killed. If Parker hadn’t dropped the knife and—”
“But he did drop the knife. Just as I intended when I hit his wrist with your phone.”
“If he’d been holding the knife correctly, you could have dropped a piano on his wrist and, no matter how drunk he was, he wouldn’t have let go of his knife. You think those damned antlers would have kept him off you for even a second? He’d have gone for you, and I would have been forced to rescue you. And if Parker and I got into a struggle for the knife, who knows what Birdie would have done?”
“None of those things happened, so I don’t know why you’re carrying on and on about something that’s over and done with.”
“I am not carrying on,” he said through his teeth. “I am trying to get you to recognize that you recklessly endangered all of us. I had everything under control. I didn’t need some hysterical female with heroic fantasies dashing to my rescue.”
J.J. bolted upright on the sofa. “That’s what this is all about. I dented your masculine pride.”
“This has nothing to do with my masculine pride.”
“Of course it does. You can’t handle the idea that I, a mere woman, got you, Mr. Macho Man, out of a jam. It’s fine and dandy if you rush to my rescue, whether I need it or want it, but let me do something to help you and you go ballistic.”
“Do not turn this into a man-woman thing,” Luke warned her coldly.
“I’m not. You are.” J.J. thrust out her bottom lip in imitation of a pouting child and chanted, “All because the great big hairy cowboy can’t bear to say ‘thank you’ to the little bitty woman who saved him from the bad guy.”
Luke stalked over to the sofa and leaned down, his hands gripping the back of the sofa on either side of J.J. “I can’t believe,” he said deliberately, “not one of your brothers has strangled you by now.”
J.J. blatantly fluttered her eyelashes at Luke. “Gosh, you’re cute when you’re mad.”
Luke straightened with a snap, yanking J.J. to her feet. Digging his fingers into her scalp, he held her head immobile as he plastered her mouth with a hard, possessive kiss.
J.J. returned his kiss with interest. This was what she needed. Intoxicated with the success of her rescue efforts, every cell in her body simmered with suppressed excitement. Kissing Luke released the pressure and kept her from boiling over. To the victor goes the spoils, she thought triumphantly, her lips parting as Luke deepened the kiss.
Sliding his hands down her back, he curved them around her bottom and lifted her from the floor. JJ. clutched his hair, refusing to relinquish his lips. Luke’s laugh was strangled in the back of his throat and carried her across his office. Lowering her carefully to the wooden table, he wrapped her legs around his waist and slipped his hands under her heavy sweater.
Heat poured from every pore of J.J.’s body. A sensuous, writhing heat that eddied around her and Luke, binding them tighter and tighter together until she could barely distinguish where her body left off and Luke’s rock-hard muscles and sinews began. Despite their clothing, J.J. felt the warmth of his body. He smelled of soap and outdoors. And intensely male.
Luke shifted, drawing J.J. nearer. His mouth left hers to travel over the planes of her face, leaving the searing imprint of his lips on every square centimeter of her facial skin. Beneath her sweater, he’d found the fastening to her bra. It opened as easily as the gate to his pasture, and Luke laid claim to her breasts.
The heady exhilaration of victory disappeared, replaced by emotions of quite another sort. J.J.’s bones melted away. Her head fell back, exposing the pulse at the base of her neck. Luke immediately pounced, his mouth relishing the shallow, rapid beating of her heart. Hot, callused palms cupped breasts heavy with longing. Thumbs circled the tips, never quite touching them, until J.J. thought she’d go mad. She pressed against his hands, and he caressed her nipples with knowing fingers. J.J.’s nails bit into Luke’s shoulders.
He stilled, then removed his hands from her sweater. Reaching behind his back, he loosened her legs binding them together and took a single step backward. “That,” he said in a harsh growl, “is the only man-woman thing between us.”
J.J. wanted to slug him. Her entire body quivered with wanting him, but she had too much pride to beg a man to continue making love to her. Especially when the man made it clear he hadn’t been making love, but had been teaching her some stupid object lesson. She’d be darned, no, she’d be damned, if she’d accept any lesson from Luke Remington. Shoving him aside, she jumped off the table. Only to promptly trip over one large booted foot and fall to the floor.
Ignoring her ineffective efforts to ward him off, Luke pulled her to her feet. He looked at her face and swore viciously for the second time since the sheriff had gone.
J.J. flinched at the darkness she glimpsed in his slitted eyes.
“No, O’Brien, don’t.” He ran a gentle finger over J.J.’s bottom lip. “It’s swollen. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just that you scared the hell out of me when you waltzed into the kitchen with those damned flimsy antlers. All I could see was Parker burying his knife in you.” He cleared his throat. “Which doesn’t give me the right to force a kiss on you—”
J.J. jammed her palm over Luke’s mouth. “You stop right there, cowboy. If you don’t want to kiss me, be man enough to say so. Don’t insult me with garbage about forcing kisses on me. If that’s your backhanded way of saying I should have been fighting you off, when we both know I was close to ripping off your clothes—ouch!” J.J. snatched back her hand and sucked on the smarting, tender flesh. “Why did you bite me?”
“Because you are driving me insane.”
“Oh yeah?” she said inelegantly. “I’m not the one picking up hay bales so I’ll have an excuse to flex my muscles. I’m not the one running around with blue jeans painted on my tight bottom. I’m not the one exuding pheromones every time he breathes.”
Luke gave her a blank look, then burst out laughing. “Tight bottom?” He choked out the words. “Exuding pheromones?”
J.J. shrugged.
His laughter faded away, and Luke ruefully shook his head. “We’re a pair. If I watched you floss your teeth, I’d probably think it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen a woman do.”
J.J. made a face. “Physical attraction is senseless. It makes me crazy. Anthony and Cleopatra. Helen and Paris. Incompatible, nothing in common, yet they caused wars. All because of hormones
gone berserk.”
“Maybe if everyone had left them alone, their heated passions would have quickly burnt out,” Luke said. “Cleo would have realized she preferred barges while Tony liked horses. Helen and Paris would have tired of the other always hogging all the mirrors.”
J.J. elaborated on Luke’s scenario. “Tony would have thought Cleo wasn’t much without all her makeup, and Cleo would have said Tony smelled of the stables. Paris and Helen would have accused the other of being vain and shallow and unfaithful.”
“You see? Proof positive.” Luke grinned at J.J. “All they needed was to get the physical attraction out of their systems.”
Not easy if Anthony or Paris grinned anywhere near as sexily as Luke Remington grinned. J.J. hated the gooey feeling deep in the pit of her stomach. “I better throw something on for dinner. Rescuing cowboys makes me hungry.” She fled to the kitchen.
A quick glance at the kitchen clock told her the hour was later than she’d realized. Dinner would have to be something quick. Forays to the pantry and the freezer in the basement yielded the makings for macaroni and cheese, hamburger patties, fruit salad and blueberry muffins. JJ. measured and mixed, but busy hands failed to keep her mind from dwelling on what had occurred between her and Luke.
They couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Every situation, no matter the emotion or events precipitating it, seemed to end with Luke kissing JJ. She grimaced and attacked the cheese with the grater. Saying Luke kissed J.J. didn’t paint an accurate picture. He wasn’t exactly kissing a block of wood. Not only had JJ. never pushed him away, but she welcomed his kisses. Most of the time it was difficult to know who was kissing whom. All J.J. knew was, she liked Luke’s kisses.
Therein lay the problem. She didn’t want to like Luke’s kisses. She didn’t want to like Luke. They had absolutely nothing in common. She stared out the window over the sink into the dark night beyond the enclosed back porch. Big, fluffy snowflakes danced around the tall ranch light poles. In Denver she’d have picked up dinner on the way home from work and be looking forward to an evening spent in front of her gas fireplace, curled up in a cozy chair studying briefs. She’d be anticipating weekend plans—dinner with Burton and Carrie, maybe a movie, or a concert or the theater. On Sunday she and Carrie could go to the mall.
The thought of spending the rest of her life on a ranch made JJ.’s blood run cold. She’d gone to college because she wanted to make a difference. She hadn’t gone because her goal in life was to walk three steps behind some man. She wanted to be out front in the fight for justice. People who’d been second in their law class did not feed beef cows. They sued cash cows.
She put water for cooking the macaroni on to boil. Being Luke’s wife meant giving up her career, her goals, her dreams. Being Burton’s wife meant freedom to do what she’d always wanted to do. She had no difficulty choosing. Marriage to Luke was like eating cotton candy. Attractive, heavenly on the tongue and quickly over. Marriage to Burton was like... J.J. stared at the stovetop. Like macaroni and cheese. Not glamorous, but filling. Life-sustaining. The water in the pan boiled over.
J.J. reached for a dishrag and heard a low moan from down the hall. Switching off the stove burners, she hurried to Birdie’s room.
It if weren’t for the fact of her pregnancy. Birdie’s slender form would have been lost beneath the blankets she’d heaped over herself. She didn’t stir. Either J.J. had imagined the sound, or the rising wind was playing tricks. She turned to tiptoe silently away without disturbing Birdie.
A small cry came from the bed. J.J. twisted around to see Birdie curl her body tightly in a fetal position. “Birdie, are you all right?” she asked softly, not sure if the young woman had cried out in her sleep. A husband like Ad Parker would give any woman nightmares.
Birdie’s voice quavered with fear. “I think my baby’s coming.”
J.J.’s heart stopped; her mind went totally blank. Then reason asserted itself. “Have you called your doctor?”
“I was afraid to get out of bed.”
“When is the baby due?”
“Two weeks.”
J.J. thought a minute. “I don’t think you’re having your baby, Birdie. I remember my mom had false labor pains before she had my youngest brother.” She filled her voice with reassurance. “The excitement with your husband probably got Junior’s attention and he’s a little restless. Lay here and rest and everything will be fine. I’ll bring you a little dinner—macaroni and cheese—doesn’t that sound good?”
Birdie moaned.
“I’ll tell you what,” J.J. suggested. “I’ll get Luke’s cordless phone in here and dial your doctor and you can talk to him. I’m sure he’ll tell you bed rest is what you need.”
“The bed’s all wet down there. I’m afraid to look. J.J.—” Birdie’s voice rose in panic “—what if I’m losing my baby?”
J.J. moved swiftly to the foot of Birdie’s bed. “How about I check?” Without waiting for an answer, J.J. carefully pulled the blankets free from between the mattress and bedsprings and lifted them up. One look and J.J. let out the breath she’d been holding. “Everything’s fine, Birdie. Your water broke, and you’re going to have a baby. You take it easy while I go tell Luke to call your doctor. I’ll be right back.”
Flashing Birdie a confident smile, J.J. walked from the room. She didn’t break into a run until she was out of Birdie’s sight and hearing. Luke was on the phone when she tore into his office. Grabbing the receiver from him, she slammed it on its base. “Birdie’s going to have a baby.”
“Damn it, J.J., I was talking to the sheriff. I know Birdie’s going to have a baby. Did you have to—Oh hell, you mean she’s having her baby right now?”
J.J. nodded her head, her mind searching frantically for the best way to cope with the urgent situation. “Call her doctor. Her water broke. Don’t just sit there looking at me. Call her doctor. Call an ambulance. Call the sheriff. No, wait, what if we don’t have time? We’ll have to drive her. Go start your truck. No, call an ambulance first, then start your truck. We’ll meet the ambulance halfway. Hurry up, call them. Move!”
Luke moved. Around his desk to clamp his hands on JJ.’s shoulders. “Take a deep breath and calm down.”
“Calm down! Didn’t you hear what I said? Birdie’s having her baby. Right now!”
“Your panicking isn’t going to help anything. I’m sure Birdie has lots of time. Relax.”
“I’m not panicking.” J.J. tore out of his grip and dashed back down the hall. Outside Birdie’s room, she skidded to a stop, and counted to ten. Wiping her trembling palms down her side, she pinned a smile on her face and walked into the room. Birdie lay on her side, her body curled into a tight ball.
“Luke’s calling your doctor, and everything’s going to be fine.” J.J. tried to think of the shows she’d seen where a woman gave birth. Granted, they gave birth Hollywood style, but they couldn’t be too far wrong, could they? Didn’t they have to have experts around when they filmed or something?
“Why don’t we see if we can make you more comfortable. How about a clean nightgown?” J.J. moved over to the dresser and started opening drawers. She found a faded flannel gown in the second drawer. “This looks like just the thing to greet a new little human being in. Think you can scoot over here...?” J.J. abandoned the rest of her question as Birdie grabbed her hand and squeezed incredibly hard.
By the time Luke knocked on the bedroom door, J.J. had managed to put clean, dry sheets on the bed and get Birdie into a clean nightgown.
“How’s everyone in here?” Luke asked.
“Well.” J.J. divided her beaming smile between Birdie and Luke. “We’re going to have a baby, Luke.” She swallowed hard. “Real soon.”
“I’ll go get the pickup warmed up.”
“I don’t think we’re going to need the pickup. It seems this baby has decided he wants to be born right here.”
Luke frowned. “I think—”
J.J. smiled wider. “
It doesn’t matter what you think. We have a very impatient baby here.” She plumped the pillows behind Birdie’s head. “Remember what I said, Birdie. Breathe in and out, real deep and slow. That’s the way. I’ll bet yours isn’t the first baby born in this house. Isn’t this exciting? Think what a story you’ll have to tell your son or daughter. Who knows? Breathe deep, Birdie, breathe. Thatta girl. Maybe having a lawyer around when you give birth is some kind of good luck omen. Your baby could grow up to be a Supreme Court Justice or something. Maybe I’ll get to argue a case in front of her. Wouldn’t that be something? Breathe, Birdie.”
“J.J., can I see you in the kitchen a minute?”
J.J. gave Birdie a smile that stretched back to her molars. “I’ll be right back. Luke probably wants dinner. Men. Don’t forget to breathe deeply.”
The smile disappeared before J.J. made it through the bedroom door. In the kitchen, she didn’t give Luke a chance to speak. “When’s the ambulance going to get here? Did you tell them to hurry? I think this baby is coming any minute.”
“Have you looked out the window lately? It’s snowing like a son of a gun out there,” Luke said patiently. “If this turns into a full-scale blizzard, I don’t know when or if the ambulance will get here.”
“They have to get here. They have to.” Hearing the alarm in her voice, she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists at her side. After a minute, she opened her eyes, and asked, “What are we going to do?”
“Wash your hands. I’ll call the hospital and tell them the situation. If need be, I can relay their instructions to you.”
“Instructions to me? For what? Delivering a baby? Don’t be ridiculous. Call your ranch hands’ wives. Jeff’s wife, Donna, may not be much older than Birdie, but Becky, Dale’s wife, has two toddlers. Call her. She can make it across the ranch yard even if it is snowing.”
Luke shook his head. “I called. Becky’s in town at her mother’s. Dale said he’d already talked to her and told her not to try coming home tonight in case the weather worsens.”
“I’m not going to deliver a baby.” The thought of being responsible for two human lives terrified J.J. Not that she’d admit it to Luke. “I know nothing about it. If I screw it up, Birdie could sue me.” A faint outcry and the sound of her name coming from the bedroom knotted J.J.’s stomach.
