by JoAnn Ross
Passively, she relaxed again. Sensing her trust, Caine took pains not to abuse it. Slowly, banking the rising desire born of six long and lonely months of celibacy, he ran whisper-soft kisses across her lips, from one corner of her mouth to the other, before going on to kiss her cheeks, her forehead, her temple, the bridge of her nose.
All the time, his fingers circled her breasts, caressing, stroking. Caine could feel her pulse beginning to thunder; still he took his time, determined not to succumb to any quick burst of pleasure.
“I’ve been going crazy, thinking about this.” His tongue traced a line from her throat down to her breasts. “Remembering the sweet, sexy taste of your skin.” When he took a nipple between his teeth and tugged, she gasped, then arched against him. “How you turn to liquid silk in my arms.”
“Oh, Caine.” The softly spoken name seemed to echo off the wall, surrounding them. Embracing them. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me everything you’ve been thinking.”
“Everything?” He wove his fingers into her hair, holding her gaze with his. “Are you sure a woman in your delicate condition is up to some of my more graphic fantasies?”
“Why don’t you try me and see?” she suggested with a smile that managed to be both shy and seductive at the same time.
“All right.” He coaxed her onto her back and skimmed a trail of wet, openmouthed kisses down her rib cage. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Her maternity jeans had an elastic insert to allow room for her expanding belly. The jeans were, Caine considered, highly practical and decidedly unsexy. After unbuttoning them at the waist, he began pulling them slowly down her legs.
What he found beneath the durable denim came as a distinct surprise. “Black silk?”
“They were a wedding present from Karin.” Nora’s cheeks flamed.
“I think I like these a lot better than the pots and pans my parents gave us.” Caine smoothed his hands over her stomach, where the child—their child, he thought wonderingly—had been growing all these months. Imbued with tenderness, he pressed his lips against her flesh.
Then, moving on, Caine slipped his fingers beneath the lace-trimmed legs and inched upward to secret pleasures. “Remind me to thank your sister-in-law, first chance I get.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“It won’t do any good to pretend to be scandalized, my dear wife.” He lowered his mouth and drew a wet swath just above the waistband of the low-rise panties with his tongue. “Because any woman who’d wear panties like this in your condition is a wild woman at heart.”
“I must be.” Nora combed her hands through Caine’s hair and writhed beneath his increasingly intimate touch. “Because this is just about all I’ve been thinking about lately.”
“Really?” The admission brought a burst of male pride.
“Really. My obstetrician says it’s raging hormones, but I’m not so sure she’s right.”
He dipped his tongue into her navel. “Then what do you think has been making you all hot and bothered lately?”
“I don’t know.”
She was lying. Caine could read it in her eyes. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d found forced celibacy a burden.
“Perhaps you’ve been reading my mind.” He lay down beside her and cupped her breast. “Perhaps you tuned in on how much I wanted to taste you again.” He took the hardened nipple into his mouth, causing a moan of pleasure to slip past her lips.
The soft moan brought a fresh surge of arousal—one Caine managed, with effort, to bank.
“Maybe you knew how I’ve been imagining the feel of your body against mine.” He yanked his T-shirt over his head and pulled her against him, heated flesh against heated flesh. “And how the thought of you, hot and wet, makes me hard.”
He took her hand and pressed it against the placket of his jeans, letting her feel the full extent of his need. “See how much I want you?”
“I’ve tried to understand,” she murmured with reluctant wonder. Her fingers began stroking his burgeoning flesh through the thick material. “I’ve lain awake nights trying to analyze why everything’s so different with you, but I can’t come up with a logical answer.”
“Then don’t think.” With fingers that were not as steady as he would have liked, Caine unfastened the five-button jeans, vowing to go out and buy a pair with a zipper as soon as the stores opened in the morning. “Don’t analyze. Just feel.”
The room was washed in shadows. A full moon rose in the sky outside the bedroom, bathing the lovers in a soft silvery light. But still Caine refused to rush.
Even when they were laying together, naked, he kept his own flaming hunger tightly reined as his hands continued to stroke and his lips took long, leisurely tours over her body—her rounded stomach, the small of her back, her shoulders, that sensitive spot he’d discovered on her ankle—always to return again and again to her soft, pliant lips.
When he finally slipped into her, a deep current of love flowed through him, like a river, and he realized how fulfilling tenderness could be.
Very soon after that day, Nora’s obstetrician had cautioned against engaging in intercourse. But that hadn’t stopped them from exploring myriad other imaginative ways to pleasure one another. Nora was the only woman Caine had ever met who could actually be brought to orgasm by nibbling on the tendon at the back of her knee.
And he was positive that she was one of the few women who’d ever climaxed during labor. At the time, he’d only been trying to take her mind off her pain. But when his stroking hand had moved under the hospital sheet, beyond her undulating belly and between her legs, to recklessly toy with the hard pink nubbin of flesh, Nora had cried out, not in pain, but in absolute, stunned pleasure. Her noisy response had brought the nurse, who, after examining her, had found her not fully dilated. The nurse had patted Nora’s head in a maternal way, and told her to go ahead and yell whenever she felt the urge.
The moment she’d left the room in a rustle of starched cotton, Nora and Caine had collapsed in gales of shared laughter.
The memories made Caine’s body throb. He tipped the bottle back, only to discover it was empty. “Damn.”
Cursing inarticulately, he flung it into the lake, struggled to his feet and wove his way back to the cabin.
He staggered across the living room and crashed onto the newspaper-strewn sofa. The painkillers were on the coffee table where he’d left them that first night. Caine picked up the plastic bottle, shook a handful of the pink pills into his palm and stared blearily down at them.
What would happen if he just said the hell with everything and swallowed them all? It would, he considered for a fleeting second, solve a hell of a lot of problems.
Except he couldn’t do it. He might be nothing but a drunk, washed-up ballplayer with two failed marriages behind him, but he damn well didn’t want his fans to remember him as a coward.
Cursing, he flung the tablets away. They scattered over the clothes-covered floor and were immediately forgotten.
Then, exhausted by the too-vivid memories and numbed by too much alcohol, Caine fell instantly into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER 9
“What in the blazes do you think you’re doing, Caine O’Halloran?”
Maggie crossed her arms over her chest, where a trio of pilot whales swam against the bright blue background of today’s sweatshirt. “Chasing after Nora Anderson when you’ve already got yourself a wife back in New York City.”
“Now, Maggie,” Devlin soothed as he put a cup of coffee down in front her. “Don’t you think you’re bein’ a little hard on the boy?”
“That’s just my point,” Maggie snapped. “Caine is not a boy. He’s a grown man with a wife.”
“Tiffany and I are getting a divorce.”
Caine took a bite of one of the glazed doughnuts Devlin had brought to the table along with the coffee. He’d come to turn over his grandmother’s garden, a spring ritual Maggie was definitely not up to this year.
Maggie frowned at Caine over the rim of her mug. “Even if that’s the case, like it or not, the law still says you’re a married man, Caine. Which means you have no business chasing after Nora.”
“I wasn’t chasing after her,” Caine argued. “Hell, after Harmon beat me up, Dana and Tom took me to the clinic to have her patch me up.”
“You’re not going to try to tell me that you invited her to your cabin the other night for medical reasons, are you? I may be old, but I’m not senile. Least, not yet,” Maggie muttered.
Caine silently cursed Trudy down at the market. The woman had the biggest mouth in town. Second biggest, he amended, remembering Ingrid Johansson.
“I invited her to the cabin for dinner. And to talk.”
“It’s still not right, Caine,” Maggie said. “It isn’t fair to your wife. And it damn well isn’t fair to Nora.”
“But—”
“Better hear your grandmother out, Caine,” Devlin said in a quiet but firm tone.
“All right.” Feeling like he had when he was nine years old and had accidentally driven Maggie’s Cessna twin engine through the side of the hangar, Caine tilted the kitchen chair back on its rear legs, crossed his outstretched legs at the ankle and waited. “Fire away.”
Maggie nodded, satisfied that she had his undivided attention. “Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your feelings for Nora. Everyone in town can see that you and that girl are ripe for a second chance. And the way things ended the last time, Lord knows you both deserve one.
“But you were brought up to do the right thing, Caine. And courtin’ your first wife while you’re still married to your second one just isn’t the right thing to do.”
“Even if it feels right?” he couldn’t help asking.
Maggie’s stern gaze softened for a moment. “If everybody did what felt right at the time, Caine, the world would be in an even worse pickle than it is now.”
“You gotta choose, Caine,” Devlin advised. “One wife or the other.”
“Hell, there’s no choice.” Caine dropped the chair back on all four legs. “I want Nora.” The moment he heard himself say the words out loud, Caine knew they were true.
“Then take care of your problem with the other one,” Maggie instructed. “This Tiffany. And then, when you’re free, you can do whatever it takes to get Nora back.”
“Speaking about doing the right thing,” Caine ventured carefully, “I’ve been talking to Nora about you.”
Maggie’s expressive face instantly closed. “You had no right doin’ that, Caine.”
“I’ve every right. I love you and I can’t stand by and watch you…”
“Die?” Maggie finished matter-of-factly, when Caine couldn’t say it.
“Don’t you see,” Caine said, leaning forward, his own problems momentarily forgotten, “you don’t have to give up, Gram. I’ve got more money than I can count—”
“I told her about the seven million,” Devlin broke in.
“And it’s a right nice piece of change,” Maggie allowed. “Your pappy and I are real proud of you, Caine.”
“Thank you. But the point is that all the money doesn’t mean a damn thing if I can’t make life better for my family.”
“Our lives are pretty good the way they are, boy,” Devlin said quietly.
“But if you had a new heart, Gram…”
“I like the heart I’ve got just fine,” she told him briskly. “It’s served me right well for all these years.”
Maggie pushed herself up from the table and came over to stand beside him. Her always-wiry frame looked heartbreakingly frail. But the feisty determination gleaming in her blue eyes reminded Caine of a bantam rooster.
He rose and gathered the small woman into his arms. “Nora told me she’d talked to you about a hospice program. Will you at least take her advice about that?”
Maggie tilted her head back to meet his entreating gaze. “I’ll think about it.”
Well, it wasn’t the answer he’d wanted, but, Caine told himself, it was a start.
“On one condition,” Maggie warned.
“I figured there’d be a catch.”
“There usually is with your grandmother,” Devlin murmured knowingly.
“I want you to stop actin’ like a crazy damn fool,” Maggie insisted. “It’s time you stopped drinking and drivin’ too fast and gettin’ into fistfights and whorin’ around.”
She poked a bony finger into his chest—a vivid reminder that she hadn’t always been so weak. “Nora Anderson is a nice, sensible girl. She deserves a whole lot better than the idiot you’ve been since you came back to town. So it’s high time you straightened up and flew right.”
She wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t been telling himself. Truthfully, Caine had been finding his recent lifestyle depressing.
There’d been a time, in his admittedly reckless youth, when he could party like a wild man all night, then show up at the ballpark and blaze that little white ball a hundred miles an hour past a stunned batter. But no more.
Maybe, he considered, he really was getting old. Lord, that was a depressing thought.
Refusing to consider such a negative idea when he already had enough problems to work out, Caine reached down and ruffled Maggie’s pink-and-silver hair affectionately.
“Okay, Gram,” he said, flashing her the bold smile that had brightened the cover of Sports Illustrated on three separate occasions. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, seeking companionship, Caine drove to the hospital to visit Johnny Baker. He dumped his purchases—an enormous bag of buttered popcorn, a six-pack of cola and a red-and-white-striped peanut bag—on the rollaway table. Then, making himself comfortable, he sprawled out on the vacant bed.
They were watching television when Nora entered the room.
“Hi, Dr. Anderson,” Johnny greeted her. “The Yankees are playing the Twins,” he explained, his enthusiasm a vast contrast to the dispirited little boy who’d shown up at her emergency room. “And boy, are they gettin’ stomped. They need Caine real bad.”
“I’m sure they do,” she murmured absently. “How are you feeling, Johnny?” She crossed the room, picked up the remote control from the rumpled sheet, pointed it at the screen and muted the audio.
“I’ve been kinda lonely. This is a big place and the nurses are too busy with all the sick little kids to come visit me. But I’m feelin’ a lot better,” Johnny assured her. “Now that Caine’s here.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have a major stomachache,” Nora said, looking pointedly at the peanut shells scattered over the table and the bed.
“Can’t watch a baseball game without the proper food, Doc,” Caine said easily. “It’s downright un-American.”
“The hospital dietician would have a heart attack if she walked into this room right now.”
“Caine just wanted to cheer me up,” Johnny argued. The color drained from his face as if he feared she might send his hero away. “Please don’t get mad at him, Dr. Anderson.”
“I’m not angry at Caine.” She flashed the seven-year-old an encouraging smile. “I hear we’re losing you this afternoon.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t sound very eager. “The social-worker lady found me a foster home.”
“I know. She told me they were nice people.”
“Yeah, that’s what she told me, too.” He sighed.
“Worried?”
“Kinda.” He looked up at her, a tense white line around his mouth. “What if they don’t like me?”
“Of course they’ll like you. You’re a terrific kid, Johnny,” Caine assured him.
“Caine’s right. All the nurses say you’re one of the best they’ve ever had on the ward,” Nora added.
“Really?”
“Really. And I agree,” she said. “One hundred percent.”
There was a little silence as Johnny thought about that.
“B
esides,” Nora continued, “you don’t think an important ballplayer like Caine O’Halloran would spend so much time with a kid who wasn’t terrific, do you?”
Johnny chewed his bottom lip as he considered that. Apparently satisfied, he announced, “Caine’s going to Canada.”
Nora shot Caine a surprised glance. “Oh?”
“I was going to stop by your office and change my appointment to get the stitches out.” Caine wondered if it was disappointment he saw in her guarded gaze and hoped like hell it was. “I’m flying some guys up for a few days of fishing so Gram won’t lose her charter fee.”
“His grandmother’s sick,” Johnny offered.
“I know.” Nora knew Maggie had started Caine flying young. He’d earned his private pilot’s license before he was old enough for a driver’s permit. “That’s a nice thing to do.”
He shrugged. “It’s not as if I’m real busy these days. Besides, it’s an excuse to go fishing and get paid for it.”
“When Caine gets back, he’s takin’ me flying.”
A light gleamed in Johnny’s eyes and Nora knew that Caine was responsible for putting it there. She’d seen that same pleasure in Dylan’s eyes, in what seemed like a lifetime ago.
That her son had adored his father had always been obvious. And it had been just as obvious that Caine had loved his little boy.
“Caine, may I speak with you? Outside?”
“Sure.” He slid off the bed, rumpling the sheets even more. “I’ll be back in a flash, sport.” He tugged on the brim of the autographed Yankees cap, then turned it around backward.
It was only a casual gesture, but it made Johnny’s eyes turn as adoring as a cocker spaniel’s. “Don’t be too long. The seventh-inning stretch’ll be over in a minute.”
Nora returned the remote to Johnny, who immediately turned on the sound.
“I’m really sorry about the popcorn, Nora,” Caine said when they were alone in the waiting room at the end of the hallway. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
