The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby (Man of the Month)

by Dixie Browning

  By Friday afternoon she was ready to go. Jobless or not, she had earned herself a vacation. It had been so long since she’d had one, she’d almost forgotten how, but maybe if she just set out in the general direction of someplace interesting—the mountains of North Carolina, for instance….

  Eleven

  Mariah got as far as the front door, car keys in her hand. At the sight of the familiar pickup truck pulling up in her driveway, its bed resembling a portable jungle, she started laughing, which made it all the harder to understand why her eyes should be watering.

  “What is this, an arbor day parade float?” she called through the screen door. “You’re blocking my driveway, Wydowski. What are you doing here, anyway? Did you forget something?”

  Gus swung open the door of his truck and climbed out, looking even prouder, tougher, more invincible than she’d remembered.

  Not that she hadn’t memorized every hair on his head, every line and scar on his wonderful face. An overhead sun glinted down on his brass buckle, his polished boots, and picked out the hint of red in his beard and a few silver strands in his freshly trimmed hair. He looked tanned and fit and altogether beautiful, which, for some reason, brought fresh tears to her eyes.

  “I didn’t think you were coming back”, she said, her eyes brimming with joy and hope and uncertainty as she went to meet him.

  “I wasn’t. That is, I tried not to. It didn’t work.”

  He sauntered up to stand in front of her, hands shoved into the pockets of his stiff new jeans. Now that he was closer, she thought he didn’t look quite so sure of himself.

  But she wasn’t taking anything for granted. “What didn’t work?”

  “Me,” he said with a self-conscious grin.

  “Did you, um, find a job in the area? Building something, I mean?”

  “Nope.”

  “I give up,” she said helplessly. “Gus, what’s go ing on? What are all those trees in the back of your truck?”

  “Just some stuff I picked up. They’re all tagged if you need to know the names.” He held out a square, callosed hand, and like a fool, she took it, and then it was too late. He was standing much too close. She could smell the familiar Gus scent of coffee, soap and leather, and he wasn’t even wearing his leather coat.

  What Gus smelled was lilacs. It was too early for them to be blooming, even if she’d had any. Maybe he’d get her a few. She might like that.

  “I like that thing you’re wearing.” He indicated the creamy yellow slacks and the gauzy matching top that was knotted below her waist. She wore a lot of yellow. On her it looked good.

  On her, anything looked good!

  She had on those damned clogs again, which put her eyes on a level with his own, and her lip s…

  Gus groaned. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. “I missed you,” he whispered, his voice husky and deep.“ God, how I missed you, Mariah.”

  “You almost did, literally,” she replied when she could make her voice work again. “I was actually on my way out the door. See? Here are my car keys.” She jangled them beside his left ear. “I was planning to drive north and maybe explore the area around Banner Elk, only I’m not quite sure where it is.”

  Gus chuckled, and then he threw back his head and roared. “You’re kidding, right? You were actually coming after me?”

  She stiffened in his arms. “Well, you don’t have to take it personally. You’re not the only attraction the mountains have to offer.”

  “Ski season’s over, honey,” he reminded her gently.

  “I don’t ski.”

  “Well, there’s trout fishing, but—”

  “I don’t have a trout pole.”

  Gus’s arms tightened. He closed his eyes and wondered what he would have done if he’d arrived and she’d been gone. Planted a truckload of shrubbery while he waited, probably. Dug up a forest or two. “Let’s go inside,” he said gruffly. “We need to talk first”.

  “First before what?”

  Swinging her around toward the house, Gus walked beside her, one arm around her waist. “What do you think?”

  “Before we start planting all that stuff in your truck? Gus, if you meant that for me, I think it’s only fair to tell you that I’m thinking about putting the house on the market. For sale this time, not for rent.”

  They passed under the pine trees and Gus eyed the bare roots of a twenty-foot specimen. She had a system all her own that consisted of undermining the roots with a mattock, cutting them off underground, and then toppling the entire tree: It was easier, she’d said, to find someone to cut up and haul off a load of f irewood than it was to find someone to grub up a stump.

  Looking at her now, with that cloud of weimara-ner-colored hair, those cheek bones—those legs—he thought, Sweet salvation, was there ever such a woman?

  “A little landscaping might help it sell.”

  “For a fish camp? That’s all it’s good for. Nobody ever moves to Muddy Landing to live anymore. We’re all moving away to find work.”

  “So maybe we’ll keep it as a vacation place, how’s that?” He tried to sound calm and thoughtful, just as if he weren’t so nervous his palms were sweating.

  Just as if proposing to a woman was no big deal.

  Just as if he weren’t already randy as a goat, just seeing her, touching her. It was a wonder she hadn’t noticed. There was a lot to be said for baggy khakis.

  So far, he hadn’t dared to kiss her, because if he kissed her before they got inside the house, he might wind up laying her on the ground and taking her right there, which was no way to treat a lady.

  Besides, he liked that yellow outfit she was wearing too much to risk it on a muddy driveway. She’d been wearing yellow the first time he’d seen her. Yellow splashed with red, and smelling of lilacs and rain and cherry flavoring.

  He barely made it through the door. “We’ve got to talk,” he said, trying to look serious instead of lecherous.

  It didn’t work. With a groan, he gathered her in his arms and took her with a kiss that rocked him right down to his boot heels. Before he’d even begun to slake his thirst, he knew it wasn’t going to be enough—not nearly enough.

  “Take off those damned shoes,” he muttered.

  “I can talk with my shoes on.”

  Bumping toes and knees, he began backing her along the hallwaytoward the bedroom. “You can talk without ‘em, too. You can talk even better without your clothes on.” And he kissed her again.

  “Gus, what are you—”

  He lifted his face, his eyes pleading. “Mariah, you see before you a desperate man. I’ve got a limited amount of time—”

  Her heart sank at that revelation.

  “And a limited amount of patience. Think of a big stick of dynamite on a very short fuse.” She knew about short fuses. He was sizzling all the way down to the quick already.

  “Woman, if you don’t want me in your bed, you’d better speak up real fast.”

  She wanted him in her bed. That was the trouble. She wanted him permanently, temporarily—wanted him any way she could have him, for as long as she could manage to keep him.

  “How much time?” she asked.

  “Enough.”

  “You’d better be telling me the truth.” Stepping out of her clogs, she indicated his boots. “No fair. If I’m going to be barefooted, then you are, too.”

  “Honey, that’s not all that’s going to be bare.” Gus hopped on first one foot and then the other, shucking off his boots and his brand new socks. His hands went to the flat knot at the waist of her cross-over blouse, and he made short work of what had taken her all of five minutes to get right. Next he tackled her slacks, catching the waistband of her yellow panties and sliding them down over her hips.

  His gaze moved over her like a laser beam, lingering on the lacy bra that was all she was wearing now that her pants were puddled around her bare feet. “We’re going to take this slow and easy,” he promised in a husky whisp
er, and she nodded.

  Gus unbuckled his belt and she heard the sound of a zipper. She still hadn’t lowered her gaze from his. Didn’t dare. Her heart was already pounding so hard it shook her whole body. “But not too slow and easy,” she said anxiously.

  Lord ha’ mercy, he was magnificent! She’d forgotten how lean and flat his waist was, how his sides flared out just under his arms. And those shoulders…

  There was probably a name for all those muscles, just as there was probably a name for whatever it was that made her want to hang on to him and never, ever let him go—made her want to taste him and feel him and absorb him into her body until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.

  “I hope you aren’t expected anywhere in the near future,” Gus said, his hands trembling as he folded back the chenille spread and laid her down on the crisp, cool sheets. “This may take a while.”

  It took less than three minutes. The first time, at least. One touch and they both went up in flames. Mariah wrapped her legs around his hard, sweat-sleeked body and held on while Gus rode her fiercely, driving them both higher and harder as he felt her begin to spasm around him.

  With a guttural groan, he collapsed, still holding her tightly in his arms. “Sweet salvation,” he muttered. “I needed that.”

  Mariah had needed it, too, but she needed far more than one blazing moment of bliss, no matter how earth-shaking it had been. “Gus, do you think…” She paused, uncertain how to say what she needed to say.

  “On rare occasions.” He lifted his head to smile down at her, his face still flushed, his breathing deep and harsh. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I promised myself I’d take things one step at a time—give you a chance to get used to the idea.”

  She was almost afraid to ask. “What idea?”

  “The idea of me. Sort of, uh, permanently?” He ventured one swift, unreadable look, then lowered his head to the pillow beside her. “I’m pretty adaptable: I mean, if you want to go back to modeling, I guess I could handle that as long as—”

  “No.”

  He lifted his head again, and Mariah thought it was as if a light had gone out behind his eyes. “No?”

  “I mean, Gus, I can’t breathe. Could you move just a little bit?”

  Gathering her in his arms, Gus deftly re arranged their relative positions until he was flat on his back, with Mariah sprawled on top of him. “There, that better?”

  “Not much. At least not when it comes to trying to think clearly.”

  His laughter was slow in coming, and when it did, it set off all sorts of repercussions in the most sensitive areas of her body. “Never let it be said that I’m not an equal opportunity lover.”

  “Gus!” Mariah felt a rush of heat sting her cheeks. If she’d been ten years younger, she might have thought she was blushing. She was propped up on her elbows, but with a minimum of effort Gus managed to bring her face down to his level. The kiss involved a lot of exploration on both sides, gentle at first, then fierce and openly carnal.

  This time, they really did take it slow and easy, savoring every touch, every taste—the discovery of every exquisite, quicksilver nerve ending. Pausing for breath, Gus closed his eyes and groaned. When he opened them again, it was to gaze up at the woman sitting so proud and tall astride his body, her long sleek legs caressing his flanks with every subtle movement of her hips.

  “You’re killing me by slow, sweet degrees,” he grated.

  “I can’t help it, I love this feeling of power.”

  “Keep it up and you’ll be a widow before you’re even a wife.” He gripped her shoulders and held her still while he thrust higher, harder, driving them over the edge in a blind explosion of sheer sensation. His last lucid thought as he lapsed into semiconsciousness was that she hadn’t yet said she would.

  Later, as they lay propped up in bed sipping coffee—it was strong and dark and sweet, just the way Gus liked it—he reminded her that she had not yet given him an answer.

  “I didn’t? Which question didn’t I answer? I thought we’d covered everything. I told you, didn’t I, that Jessie’s still asking for Dus-Dus?”

  At that, he beamed. “ Hey, I was pretty good, wasn’t I?”

  “You mean, as a baby-sitter?”

  “Well, I haven’t had a whole lot of practice, but I wasn’t half bad.”

  “Oh. I thought you meant as a lover,” she teased gently.

  Gus’s arm tightened around her and her head found the place on his shoulder that pillowed it so perfectly. “Like I said, with a little more practice…”

  “I thought you had a problem with time?” Mariah ventured.

  “Nothing we can’t work out. How do you feel about a working honeymoon at the beach?”

  “I don’t even have a job.”

  His hand moved under the covers and found a place in the crease of her thigh where she’d just discovered she was incredibly sensitive.“ I’m offering you one,” he said gruffly.

  Mariah was beyond playing games. “Gus, have you really thought about it? I mean, I know you don’t have a lot of use for models, not that—”

  “I can adapt.”

  “Not that I want to go on modeling. I’d rather find something a lot less visible—maybe something outdoors.”

  “Like I said, I’m easy. I can support us both, but if you’d rather work until the babies start coming, I can handle that, too.”

  The babies. Oh, good gracious! “But what if we’re not compatible? You really haven’t known me all that long.”

  “Okay, what about a deal, then?” He carefully placed his cup on the bedside table, took hers and placed it beside his, then gathered up both her hands in both of his. “We’ve already wasted a lot of time, so what do you say we get married right away, I’ll find us a place of our own instead of sharing with the guys, and we’ll see how you like the coast? After that, we can spend some time in the mountains, and in a year or so, maybe build something of our own somewhere in between—something big enough to hold a family. I mean, in case Jess ie wants to come for a visit. What do you think?”

  Mariah felt like pinching herself. She couldn’t believe it was actually happening. “You haven’t said anything at all about love.”

  “Yeah, well…I guess it’s not one of those things a guy talks about. I did ask you to marry me, didn’t I? I’ve never done that before. Came close a couple of times, but I never felt like this. Nowhere near it.”

  “Does that mean you do?”

  “What, love you? Yeah.” He stared down at their joined hands, and then he sighed. “Yeah, I do. I mean, big-time. As in, I can’t imagine the rest of my life unless you’re a great big part of it. That kind of love.”

  Mariah nodded thoughtfully. “Hmm. In that case, I reckon we could give it a try. All right then,” she said decisively. “I’ll marry you, and we’ll go wherever you need to go, and maybe over the next fifty years or so we can work out the details.”

  “Lady, you’ve got yourself one great big deal. Shake on it!” His slate blue eyes darkened even as they began to glow.

  Smiling in a way that made the Mona Lisa seem like a stand-up comic, Mariah whispered, “I’ve got a much better idea.”

  And she had.

  eISBN 978-14592-7863-9

  THE BEAUTY, THE BEAST AND THE BABY

  Copyright © 1996 by Dixie Browning

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, an
d all incidents are pure invention.

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