Matchmaking Baby

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Unfortunately that knowledge did nothing to cut short Joanie’s daydreams about the situation. Except that in her daydreams she was married to Steve, and Emily was not an orphan any longer but their child, free and clear of any gossip and scandal.

  Oblivious of her secret thoughts and desires, Steve parked in front of Joanie’s quarters. By the time they took Emily, her blanket and teddy bear inside and put Emily gently in her crib, Liz was at Joanie’s door.

  “What’s up?” Joanie asked, almost glad of the interruption as she invited Liz in. Things were getting altogether too cozy for comfort between her and Steve.

  Liz smiled affably. “I thought I’d baby-sit for Emily and give you two a break from the responsibility for a few hours.”

  Joanie looked at Steve. It was still early, only nine o’clock. Neither she nor Steve had to work the rest of the evening. Nevertheless, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go off with Steve. She was already fantasizing enough about them as it was.

  Joanie folded her arms. “That’s really sweet of you, Liz—”

  “Nonsense. I owe you many favors. Besides—” Liz released a beleaguered sigh “—I told my grandmother I’d be over here helping out with Emily.”

  “Problem?” Joanie guessed intuitively. She knew Liz loved, admired and respected her grandmother. She also resented the fact that Elizabeth Jermain had a tendency to want to run Liz’s life with the same conviction and determination she had run Bride’s Bay all those years. Liz, since taking over as manager of Bride’s Bay recently, had to constantly struggle to keep her own identity as a woman separate from her grandmother’s idea of what a Jermain woman should be.

  Liz tossed off her suede-collared riding jacket and sank onto Joanie’s sofa.

  “So what have you been up to lately?” Joanie asked. Liz wasn’t dressed to baby-sit. She was dressed for a midnight ride on Bride Bay’s horse trails.

  Steve surveyed the jodhpurs and boots Liz was wearing. “I’d like to know that, too.”

  Liz smiled at them mysteriously. “Never you mind about that. Besides, I came over here to get away from questions. You two just get going and have fun until midnight. I’ll hold down the fort here.”

  Steve looked at Joanie, the corners of his mouth curving up. “Want to go over to the clubhouse?”

  “Actually…” Joanie sighed, looking down at the rumpled business suit she had yet to have the opportunity to change out of. Getting into casual clothing and running shoes sounded like heaven to her. “I’d like to get some exercise.”

  His eyes glittered with anticipation. “You still run on the beach?”

  “Every chance I get.”

  Steve stepped closer and her skin registered the heat. Hands on her shoulders, he grinned in a way that sent Joanie’s pulse skyrocketing.

  “Race you into your jogging clothes,” he teased, guiding her toward her bedroom door.

  Maybe she did need to run off some of this adrenaline, she thought. Scarcely breathing, she glided off.

  When she went outside in a pink T-shirt and white shorts, Steve was already waiting for her. His muscles rippling beneath his plain gray T-shirt and matching shorts as he stretched out, he looked every inch the Olympic athlete he was.

  “I won.”

  “Maybe, but I already stretched out inside,” Joanie said, darting past him with a laugh.

  He caught up with her in moments. They kept pace with each other as they jogged past the road that circled Jermain Island, through the grassy knoll beyond it and down to the beach. Moonlight shimmered on the water, waves lapped against the shore, a balmy breeze ruffled their hair. On and on they ran, past the beach spa and the wilderness preserve, all the way down to the southeastern end of the island, where the lighthouse rose above the shore in majestic splendor. The pace was a little faster than what Joanie ordinarily kept, and she was beginning to feel it.

  Steve slowed and pointed to the lighthouse. “Does that belong to the hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  He moved closer to her, all six foot six of him brimming with a curiosity that was distinctly male. And distinctly disturbing. “Can we go in?” he asked, the longing on his handsome face plain in the moonlight.

  Joanie nodded, already reaching for the master key she routinely carried with her just in case. “If you want.”

  He caught her hand and said, “I want.”

  The sound of his voice sent a ripple up her spine. Joanie’s breath was rasping in her chest as she unlocked the door, but, to her annoyance, Steve wasn’t nearly as winded as she. He gave her a sympathetic look.

  “Want to rest a minute before we tackle the stairs?” he said.

  Joanie shook her head and bounded up the circular staircase as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Don’t need to,” she fibbed.

  But when she reached the top, she knew she’d about had it. Her knees felt like rubber, and she had a stitch in her side that made her want to double over and groan. Struggling to get enough oxygen into her lungs, she opened the second door and stepped out onto the upper balcony. Heart pounding, she leaned against the wall and gestured at the sea. “The view is magnificent,” she puffed, “isn’t it?”

  Steve nodded. “It’s beautiful.” He turned and looked down at her affectionately. “But you should have told me I was going too fast for you.”

  Her pride had her responding before she could think. “The day you’re too fast for me is never going to come, Steve Lantz,” she mocked with a toss of her hair, and planted her hands on her hips.

  His eyes lit up. “Well, I’m mighty glad to hear that, Ms. Joanie Griffin,” he drawled in a bad parody of John Wayne. Grinning, he stepped closer and continued, “’Cause I want you comfortable when you’re with me. Comfortable in every way.”

  His gaze traveled over her, the desire in his eyes unmistakable as he gathered her in his arms. “Steve…” Joanie cautioned, but she was already melting against him, her eyes fluttering closed with a sigh.

  “One kiss,” he whispered against her lips, his hands stroking her back persuasively. “That’s all I ask, Joanie. Just one kiss. One long, lazy kiss. And then we’ll head back.”

  But she didn’t want to head back, she thought. Not yet. And then his lips met hers. She felt his need and his yearning, and hers. Again and again in that endless kiss they drew from each other, Joanie yielding to him one instant, taking control the next. Their mouths tasting and touching, embroiling them in smoldering passion and pleasure. He shifted closer, his tongue parting her lips, touching the edges of her teeth and then returning in a series of soft, drugging caresses that robbed her of the will and the ability to think. Desire was flowing through her, more potent and mesmerizing than ever before. And it was then, when he had thoroughly claimed her as his, when she had moaned low and deep in her throat, that his kiss slowly, reluctantly, came to a halt—just as he had initially promised.

  When they drew apart, she noted with satisfaction that he looked every inch as unsteady and thoroughly loved as she felt. “Darned if your heart isn’t beating even harder now,” he teased her wickedly, gently pressing a hand to her breast.

  Joanie’s hands were splayed over his chest. Her lips curved in a smile. Yes, her heart was pounding, but she could feel the pounding of his beneath her fingertips. “Yours isn’t so slow, either.”

  He smoothed a thumb in a semicircle across her cheek. His mouth was very close and very tempting. “Think our hearts are trying to tell us something?”

  Joanie moved her shoulders helplessly…wanting everything…risking so much…and yet, when all was said and done, still feeling so painfully alone. “We know very little about each other,” she reminded him, wishing he didn’t look so handsome in the silvery light. Wishing he’d never given her reason to mistrust him. Wishing most of all that she didn’t want to love him…

  His eyes darkened soberly. He took a moment to answer. “What do you want to know?” Now he, too, seemed wary.

  Joanie paused. Here was her chance, and she
was going to take it. She drew a deep breath, marshaling her resolve. “Why you asked Elizabeth Jermain for a job, for one thing.”

  Steve stared at Joanie in amazement. “How do you know about that?” He had planned to tell her the good news himself when the time was right.

  “The news hit the Bride’s Bay grapevine as soon as you left Elizabeth Jermain’s suite this morning. The unofficial word is that you will be starting next week, once the mentoring conference is over.”

  “It’s true.” Steve drew Joanie down onto the circular bench that rimmed the outer wall of the lighthouse balcony. “Elizabeth’s given me a six-month trial.”

  Joanie swiveled to face him. “You’d have to live here on the island.”

  “Somehow I thought that would make you a little happier,” Steve said.

  “Maybe it would if you didn’t have such a reputation as a lady-killer.” She vaulted off the bench.

  “I admit there’ve been plenty of women chasing me,” he said. “Nothing like a couple of million dollars attached to your name to make you attractive to the babes.” He got up and joined her at the rail. “But I’m not interested in being wanted for that reason, and so, as soon as I see it’s the money a woman wants and not me, I’m out the door.”

  “No doubt those hasty exits have only added to your reputation as a lady-killer, “ Joanie said dryly.

  “And it’s a reputation that has followed me since the Olympics,” Steve agreed.

  Joanie straightened to look at him, her blue eyes glimmering with a faintly accusing light. “And yet, you haven’t exactly gone out of your way to fight the unfair rep.”

  Steve shrugged. “I figured any woman who was really interested in me would want to see past the tabloid stories to the real me.”

  “Are you looking to be married?” Joanie asked.

  Steve wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He slid a hand beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. He looked down at her intently, aware he was betting everything on the two of them. “Yes, I am, and when I do get married, I want it to last, and there’s only one way that will happen,” he said hoarsely.

  “Which is?”

  “One, if my wife has faith in me—no matter how things might look on the surface. And two, wants the same kind of normal, down-to-earth life I do. My jetsetting celebrity days are over, Joanie.”

  It was clear from the expression on her face that Joanie had no problem with that; she, too, wanted the same kind of life. As for trusting him…to Steve’s disappointed resignation, she was still working on that.

  Time would help fix that, he decided. And so would their getting to know each other better. He lifted her hand and traced the underside of her wrist with his thumb. “And as long as we’re on the subject of past loves, don’t you think it’s time you told me about your failed engagement to Dylan?” he asked.

  Joanie’s lip trembled slightly as she looked away from their joined hands and out at the sea. Her face filled with remembered despair, and he could tell even before she spoke that she was still hurting inside, that for her the healing would not be complete until she opened herself to love again.

  “What do you want to know?” she said.

  “Everything you want to tell me about what happened.”

  She met and held his gaze. “Months after my…fling with you, right before I came to Bride’s Bay, I made the mistake of getting involved with a very wealthy guest.” She pressed her lips together in silent regret, then seemed to continue by rote, “Dylan had come to Myrtle Beach after turning his back on the life his blue-blooded family wanted for him—which was heading the family investment company—to follow his dream of becoming a novelist. He had plenty of money and took a room in the hotel where I was working. I thought we were in love. By the end of the summer we were engaged.”

  “Then what happened?”

  A furrow appeared between her brows. “His parents tired of his literary hiatus and cut him off. Dylan swore it didn’t matter, but I knew it did.”

  She pulled her hand from his and stared at the moonlight glimmering off the Atlantic. “After two months of scrounging around to make ends meet, he realized he missed his old life and went back to it.”

  “And that was that?” Steve couldn’t imagine any man turning his back on Joanie. A more beautiful, giving, gentle woman he had never met.

  She shrugged, as if her acceptance of the situation could take away the memories of her hurt. “He said that his returning to his previous life-style wouldn’t change things, that he would come back for me once he had straightened things out with his parents and told them about me…but in the end he realized that it would never work. I wasn’t part of that life, Steve. Nor, in his family’s estimation—or his, given my very middle-class upbringing—could I ever be.”

  “His rejection must’ve really hurt,” Steve said, wishing he could do more to help.

  Joanie moved restlessly, her fingers trailing lightly over the rounded edges of the balcony rail. “It did hurt.” She stared at her fingers and sighed. “Worse, I felt like a fool for believing our relationship ever had a chance, given our different backgrounds and life-styles.”

  “And since?” Steve closed the distance between them. Tell me you’re ready to find love with me.

  Joanie whirled and faced him with a street-smart smile. She tipped her head back, what Dylan’s treachery had done to her was revealed. “Since, as you might very well imagine, I’ve only dated ordinary people like myself.”

  Steve shook his head at her. “There’s nothing ordinary about you, Joanie,” he said, taking her into his arms again. He sifted his fingers through her hair, tilting her face up to his and staring down into her eyes. “You,” he whispered softly, already lowering his lips to hers, “are the most incredible woman I’ve ever known.”

  His lips came down on hers, soft and sure. A disquieting shiver ran through her. Her knees trembled. Her heart took a little leap, and then she was throwing caution to the wind, following her instinct, twining her arms about his neck.

  Steve reacted in kind, and his next kiss forced her lips helplessly apart. His hands moved sensuously in her hair, then moved lower in long, smooth strokes over her shoulders, down her spine, to her hips then up to her breasts.

  With a tenderness she’d never imagined, his mouth trailed a provocative path down her neck. Breathtaking hunger and soul-deep need—she felt both in his kiss. His hands were on her breasts, caressing and soothing until her nipples swelled and peaked. Tremors of desire shuddered through her, further weakening her knees.

  He murmured her name and she moved toward the sound, blindly seeking the touch of his lips on her breasts, the stroke of his tongue across her nipples. Again and again, until a fire built within her and her skin sang with the heat.

  Wordlessly he swept her up in his arms and carried her inside the lighthouse. There, on the uppermost floor, with the moonlight streaming in through the open door, he tugged off her clothes, then his. She had missed him so much, Joanie thought hazily as he clasped her to him and they kissed again and again. She had missed this closeness, the intimacy of being with him, the thrill of being in his arms.

  Steve hadn’t expected this, but he had wanted it, he thought with a satisfied shudder, just as he had wanted her, heart and soul. For months now, he’d felt lost as a man and so alone. No more. Joanie was back in his life and this time he was not going to let her go. She’d been his ever since they’d made love and she always would be. He could feel it in the way she shifted beneath him and in the ardent way she returned his kiss. Awed by the beauty of her, the perfection of her supple curves, he explored every inch of her with his hands and then his lips. Lingering in the vee between her legs, he felt her tense and moan. He shuddered in response. He’d never thought he could be so aroused without losing control.

  Joanie couldn’t contain the wild pleasure he was evoking. The passion in him demanded a response and she was helpless to contain it, helpless against her need to have him s
training for more, too. Wanting to drive him as she was being driven, she urgently explored his hard, hot length, letting everything she felt pour into her deliberately tantalizing touch.

  Steve moaned in response. The next thing she knew she was flat on her back, their discarded clothes a soft cotton bed beneath them. He was moving over her, cupping her hips in his hands, whispering her name and bringing her against him.

  And then they were as one. Moaning again, she shifted, wanting him closer, deeper yet. He obliged her with long, deliberate thrusts and she met each one with an abandonment of her own. Desperate for more, unable to get enough of her, he kissed her with an intensity that took her breath away. And then there was no more thinking, no more talking, only feeling, only the slow, inexorable climb to the edge, and the lazy inevitable slide back to reality.

  Looking as if he would never get enough of her, he framed her face with his hands and kissed her again. With a sigh of contentment, she gave herself over to it. Her body molded to his, her breasts rubbing against the steely muscles of his chest, her thighs sweeping heat into his.

  When he finally ended the kiss, he kept her in his arms. Her body still throbbing with the aftereffects of their lovemaking, Joanie shook her head and lamented softly, “I knew this was going to happen if I spent any time at all with you.”

  “So did I.” But Steve didn’t sound upset.

  Joanie rose above him. “We’re moving too fast, you know.”

  “No we’re not. According to my calculations, we’re right on schedule.”

  Joanie groaned, remembering Liz and Emily. It was time for a reality check. “And speaking of schedules—” Joanie reluctantly began to dress “—it’s almost midnight. We promised Liz we’d be back by then.”

  “Saved by the clock,” he teased, and he, too, grabbed his clothes. Their eyes met, and she knew this wasn’t the last for them. Rather, it was just the beginning….

  They finished dressing and descended the spiral stairs. Joanie locked the lighthouse and pocketed the keys.