Harlequin Special Edition November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Lilian Darcy

  “What are we going to say about our relationship?” she asked Mac quietly, when they were seated and she was filling in the forms he’d correctly predicted.

  “Not their business, is it?”

  “But it’s going to come up. Dr. Cartwright is going to have to call us each something. ‘Your wife.’ ‘Your partner.’ Unless she’s one of those people who refer to all pregnant women as Mom.”

  “Then let her call me ‘your partner’ or ‘Dad,’ I don’t care.”

  I care.

  It bothered her that they might both get trapped in a role that didn’t fit and wasn’t true. Husband and wife, or even amicable exes. She didn’t know what they were, or what they were going to be.

  Not together. That seemed to be clear.

  But so closely linked.

  It was weird. Uncomfortable. Not fun.

  She kept trying to forget about his body, about the easy way she’d claimed it in Colorado, and enjoyed it, and felt so easy with him on so many levels.

  Casual levels.

  Nothing was casual anymore. She was still so aware of him, every minute they were in the same space. Filling in her forms, she felt every movement he made—the crossing and uncrossing of his legs, the sigh of boredom, the way he ran his hand over his jaw. He couldn’t find a magazine that appealed, and the TV in the waiting room was tuned to a local morning talk show where the hosts were currently enthusing about some amazing new kind of therapy, involving salt or seaweed or something.

  Lee wanted to lean into Mac and tell him to chill, give him a saucy kiss with a promise in it for later, ask about lunch, the way she would have before.

  The way they were both so good at, before.

  There seemed to be this huge dividing line between Before Pregnancy Test and After Pregnancy Test, and she didn’t know how to behave in this new universe, the way she’d never known how to be a proper bride-to-be ten years ago with Tucker.

  It wasn’t just Mac’s fault. She knew that. Maybe it wasn’t his fault at all. Maybe it was all her. She was a cat, and she wanted to walk alone. Was that it? When it was time to give birth, who knew, she’d probably slink off somewhere and have her kitten on a pile of newspaper in the bottom of a broom closet.

  Could she share this joke with him? Would he laugh?

  Somehow she thought not. She had a gut sense that in some way it would cut too close to the bone.

  Anyhow, it was too late. “Lee Cherry?” said one of the nurses. Time to go in.

  * * *

  “That went okay,” Mac said. Once more they were standing in front of the old Victorian that housed the ob-gyn practice, not ready to part company just yet.

  She could feel the relief in him. He seemed giddy about it, as if he’d feared something very different, and, okay, she felt the same, so she shouldn’t question the undercurrents she could detect in him. She agreed with a smile. “Yes, it was good.”

  Better than good.

  They had a due date, September 23, and a theory about those condoms in her drawer. They’d been just a little too close to their use-by date, and the period she’d vaguely remembered from January hadn’t been a period at all. Apparently women quite often had some light bleeding in early pregnancy, so it had been an easy mistake to make, and Lee was already close to the three-month mark.

  “Feels like coming out of the principal’s office after not getting detention,” Mac said.

  “Oh, that happened a lot to you?”

  “Detention, hell, yeah. Getting out of it, not so much.”

  “What did you do, in high school?”

  “Few things. Nothing really bad. The police were never called in.”

  “Good to know. What was the worst?”

  “Setting fire to the girls’ locker room.”

  “And the police weren’t called for that?”

  “It was an accident!” he protested, with wounded puppy eyes.

  “I’m not going to ask.”

  They grinned at each other, happy about the easy back and forth between them. It was familiar and good and a relief. The grins stayed, turning into smiles that were soft at the edges, and a long, long sizzling look. He was such a beautiful man. She loved the shape of him, the taste of him, the soul in his eyes. Her heart flipped. She didn’t want the distance between them. She didn’t want to forget the fun they had together when they talked.

  Didn’t seem as if he wanted to forget it, either, because the look between them held and held, and his shoulders relaxed, and when she stepped a little closer, without even knowing her feet were going to move, he didn’t step away. He held out his hands and she took them and they both squeezed, letting their fingers tangle and caress. Then he bent and kissed her, just one swift, soft touch across her mouth that was gone before she could kiss him back.

  “I’m not nearly so much of a bad boy now, I promise,” he said.

  “You can be a little bad, if you want....”

  “Yeah?”

  “Like me a bad boy, I do.”

  It was the best moment they’d had since she’d told him she was pregnant. This was how it used to be, in Colorado. If they could just get back to that...

  “Want to go for coffee?” he asked.

  “I wish I could, but there’s a delivery coming this afternoon, and I need to be there for it.”

  The appointment had taken longer than she’d expected. She’d thought they would be in and out in twenty minutes, a piece of naiveté on her part that she didn’t want him to guess, since in fact they’d been there well over an hour, and busy for all of it, seeing the nurse, the obstetrician and the office manager. Mac hadn’t seemed surprised about all the questions and the big dump of information. His sister had kids, Lee knew. He’d apparently picked up a few things.

  The truth was, she didn’t know a whole lot about pregnancy, herself. She wasn’t one of those people who’d been able to calculate her due date before she even got to the doctor’s office, and who knew about five different pregnancy books off by heart. She didn’t even have a pregnancy book yet.

  Must get one.

  “Coffee at your place, then,” he suggested.

  “It’s out of your way.”

  “I have nothing major scheduled for today, maybe a couple of phone calls is all, so that’s not a problem.”

  “Okay, then. Coffee would be good.”

  They both hesitated. She wanted to touch him, disappear into his arms, but that didn’t work anymore. It wasn’t part of the agreement. They didn’t really have an agreement, just a rather angry decision yesterday that they weren’t together now as a couple, and it felt weird. She didn’t feel as if they weren’t together.

  “Hey...seeing the heartbeat was great, wasn’t it?” he said. “Really good.”

  “I know! I had no idea we would. That we could. Already.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No! When she put the wand thing on my stomach I couldn’t work out what we were seeing at all, but then when she got to the heart and there it was, pumping away, and we could see the rhythm and the movement...wow!”

  “I know. It was amazing.” He smiled, and that seemed to give them both a way to turn their backs on each other and head to their cars. “See you back at the ranch.”

  “Yep. Half an hour.”

  She liked him.

  She really, really liked him.

  If I wasn’t having this baby, we could have just kept going with no pressure. We wouldn’t have needed any decisions or plans or compromises or labels. We wouldn’t have had to wonder about what we felt or why we were together. Those are the things that are giving us trouble.

  For a moment, she felt an intense flood of irritation and anger and regret at the way the positive pregnancy test had mucked up her life, and maybe some ang
er at herself, too, for not being the kind of person who could just go off to a clinic and get rid of it. But then she stopped short, appalled by the coldness of some of those phrases.

  Mucked up my life... Get rid of it.

  No.

  No, never!

  There was a beating heart inside her.

  There was a tiny little being, gender as yet unknown, beavering away the best it knew how, growing and developing and becoming a person, working for life, depending on her, surviving on the nourishment from her body, utterly vulnerable to every choice she made, every morsel she ate, every mouthful she drank, taking its first tenacious steps along its path to the future.

  Mucking up her life?

  No!

  Dear Lord, dear baby, darling baby, I don’t feel that way. I couldn’t. I never will again. I’ll make this work, I promise you. I love you.

  She blinked back tears of intensely powerful emotion, and had to take the slow lane on the highway until she was sure she could see well enough to keep going. She knew that whatever happened from now on, she would never wish the baby away. She had a need to love and cherish this little being, a need she’d never known before, and it was good...wonderful...better than she’d ever imagined.

  Mac was already waiting for her in a parking space outside the Spruce Bay Resort office. The landscaping crew from Tucker’s company had been here this morning, preparing the beds for the spring planting that would soon take place, but they’d left now, and as yet there was no sign of the truck that was supposed to be bringing supplies of wine, beer and spirits for the restaurant bar.

  They went inside and up the stairs, and Mac followed her the way he had yesterday. Except he was closer, she was sure of it. Wasn’t that the warmth of him she could feel? And the eddies of air created by his movement? He’d lost all of yesterday’s bristling anger.

  Coffee together in the Cherry family kitchen felt like a do-over, a chance to get it right this time. Yesterday, she’d made some but they never drank it, never even took out the mugs.

  “You’ve unpacked your mugs,” he noticed now.

  “Yep, but Mary Jane’s made me put half of them back in a box because there isn’t room.”

  “You have the book cover mugs out of the box. Does the same rule still apply as before?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  “Good, because I’ve added another one to the list.”

  She laughed. “You’re crazy.”

  “Hey, I have my eReader—the world of books is my intellectual oyster. Your mugs are as good a guide as any to what I should download next.”

  “So which new one are you allowed to drink from now?”

  “The Body in the Library. Classic whodunit from the queen of crime.”

  “You’re picking all the short, easy books. That’s possibly cheating. I’ll have to consult the rule book.”

  “Fine, I’ll read Great Expectations next, if you want. Plus, I have to point out, A Room of One’s Own wasn’t exactly light, escapist reading, even if it was short.”

  “You really are crazy.”

  “You like that about me.”

  “I do.”

  They forgot that they weren’t together anymore. It just felt so natural to move close and lean against each other and look into each other’s eyes. He pressed his forehead against hers and brushed a kiss on her mouth, as soft as the one outside the doctor’s, but longer.

  “Promise me...” he whispered.

  “Promise you what?” She touched his face, rediscovering the texture of his skin, the shape of him, the rightness of him.

  He kissed away her smile, parting her lips with his, talking against her mouth. “That you’ll take care of yourself. That you’ll let me take care of you a little bit, too.”

  “I shouldn’t like the sound of that so much.”

  And I shouldn’t love the feel of my hands running over your backside so much, because it’s distracting me.

  “Why shouldn’t you?” he murmured.

  “Because I’m a cat, remember? I’m independent.” She rubbed her cheek against his, and he turned into the contact and gave her a slow yet careless smooch.

  “Cats love to be pampered,” he said.

  “Only on their own terms.”

  “What are your terms?”

  “My terms, wow, I could get a really good deal out of this....”

  “Seriously, Lee.” He pulled back a little and looked at her, searching her face.

  “Seriously, what? My terms?”

  “Seriously promise you’ll take care of yourself. And the baby. The absolute best you know how.”

  “Of course I will. You know I will.” She touched his face again.

  “Don’t know it,” he said in a mutter, “but if you’re saying it, promising it...”

  “I am, Mac. It was scary at first, yes, but now I believe in this baby with my whole heart. When I saw those tiny beats this morning...” Once more, she was blinking back tears.

  “Then I believe you,” he said slowly. But she wasn’t sure that he did. He saw a tear brim over and slide down her cheek, and touched it with his fingertip, as if it was as precious as a diamond. He added in a different voice, just as complicated, “I do believe you. I have to, don’t I? I have no choice.”

  He began to kiss her, at first as if searching for something, then fiercely and hungrily, on the corners of her mouth, in the middle, going deeper, and if kissing could create belief, then she was all for it. If kissing could communicate belief, then she was for it even more.

  Yes, Mac, yes, I’ll take care of myself. Why wouldn’t I? Feel the way I’m holding you, feel the way I’m drinking the taste of you, and believe it.

  She slid her hands up beneath his shirt to trace the shapes of the muscles in his back. She’d missed these. She’d missed all this. The distance between them those last few days in Colorado and then the long drive had made her forget, but now that he was here she remembered, and just needed it.

  Needed him.

  “You feel so good,” he muttered.

  “Can we go to bed?” she whispered into his mouth. “Please?”

  He groaned and muttered, “How the hell do you think I’m going to say no to that?”

  He scooped her into his arms and carried her like a bride across a threshold, as if she weighed about as much as the cat she might—not really—have been in a previous life. She rested her head against the hard pad of his shoulder muscle and let him do it. “Tell me which bedroom.”

  “Here.”

  “Single bed, Lee?” He looked down at her, black lashes almost sweeping against his cheeks, dark eyes glinting.

  “We’ll fit.” That look had almost robbed her of breath.

  “Stuff I might want to do to you that doesn’t fit, quite...” He stood her on the floor and cupped his hand against the mound at the top of her thighs.

  “So we’ll squash in.” Because she wasn’t going to put a dampener on his intentions in that department.

  “Are you always such an optimist?” He ran a finger along the seam of her jeans, the one that matched the seam in her body, where she was already swollen and moist.

  “When it comes to sleeping with you,” she answered shakily, “I’ve learned it pretty much always pays off.”

  “Let’s just see then, shall we?” He unsnapped the jeans and slid them down, pulled off her top and bra, and kissed her across miles of skin, then knelt to bury his face in her lower belly and knead her backside with his gorgeous strong hands, while she ran her fingers through his hair.

  * * *

  I don’t want to do it like this. Not again.

  Mac shouldn’t be thinking about it, not while he and Lee were making love—or she was trying to—but the gut-level resistance and reluct
ance wouldn’t leave him on command. He loved her body, loved its sleek, toned muscle and the contrasting softness of her surprisingly full breasts and rounded butt. He loved the suppleness, and the rippling, and the depth of her breathing, and the ease in her when she stretched.

  He’d always had a thing for women who managed to be superbly athletic yet very female at the same time, and it had cost him before. He’d gotten totally carried away by a beautiful, toned body and hadn’t taken the slightest notice of anything else, until his casual attitude came back and bit him, and he probably still wasn’t over what had happened after that.

  He was over her totally, over Sloane.

  But over it, no.

  Hell, he didn’t want to go there right now. He really didn’t.

  Lee’s different, he told himself. She’s older. She’s less driven. We have more together. We laugh more. She’s kinder and more giving and—

  “Hey...” she whispered. “Are we on the same page, here?” She reached for him and pulled him farther up the bed so that they lay face-to-face. Her blue-green eyes dazzled him, and her soft mouth was flat and closed and serious, and he wanted to kiss it until it was panting and gasping and calling his name. “What’s up, Mac?”

  “Nothing. The doctor didn’t say anything about this not being safe....”

  “Which she would have, if it wasn’t. I’m sure the whole world is full of pregnant people having sex. Personally, I’m liking it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I feel...squishier.” She squirmed a little. “Rounder.”

  “Nothing round yet.” He laid his hand on her stomach. He kept doing that, couldn’t help himself. It was a promise, every time.

  I’ll protect you, baby. I’m here for you. You don’t just have a mom, you have a dad, too, and this time I don’t care what I have to do to keep you safe.

  “Up here, I’m round,” she said. “Feel. I have these lovely soft round melony balloony things.” She took his hand and placed it on a breast, leaving him in no doubt about what he was supposed to do. And say.

  “Wow, you do.” He cupped each breast in turn, and felt how they’d grown. Her satiny skin was tight, and her hardened nipples practically jumped against his palm. They were darker, he realized. Bigger.