“I was going to tell you,” she said. “I just didn’t expect that you would have heard about it from someone else already.”
“I wasn’t given any intimate details,” Louise said. “If there are any intimate details to give.”
“Yes, we’ve had sex,” she admitted.
“Was everything okay?”
Antonia couldn’t hold back the smile that curved her lips. “Better than okay.”
The doctor laughed. “Glad to hear that. But what I really wanted to know was if you experienced any discomfort during intercourse?”
“None.”
“Any cramping or spotting afterward?”
“No.”
“Is this an ongoing relationship?”
“It’s ongoing,” Antonia admitted, reluctant to call it a relationship.
And the doctor somehow picked up on what her patient didn’t say as much as her words. “I’m as concerned about your emotional state as much as your physical condition,” she said.
Of course, she was one of only a very few people who knew the true story behind Antonia’s pregnancy, and she knew how devastated the expectant mother had been when her baby’s father took off.
“I’m fine,” Antonia said, because she really was fine now. Because she wasn’t in love with Clay, she was just having a good time with him.
Though Louise didn’t look entirely convinced, she nodded. “Okay then. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
* * *
It was lunchtime when Antonia left the Lone Pine Medical Building and, since she was close to the downtown core, she decided to see if Catherine was free to grab a bite at The Tottering Teapot.
“I was just thinking about you,” her newlywed friend said when she answered Antonia’s call. “You have to come in to the store.”
“What’s up?”
“I just unpacked a crate of furniture from an estate sale and found an incredibly gorgeous antique cradle inside.”
“You have got to stop doing this to me,” Antonia told her.
“What am I doing?”
“Encouraging me to spend money that isn’t in my budget.”
“Just come and see it,” Catherine said. “If you like it, it will be a baby gift from me.”
“You wouldn’t even have mentioned it if you didn’t know I would love it.”
“So how soon can you be here?”
Antonia sighed. “I’ll see you in ten minutes.”
And when she did, she couldn’t deny that Catherine’s assessment was bang-on. The cradle was not only incredibly gorgeous but made of cherry wood in a style similar to the rocking chair that Antonia had purchased from Real Vintage Cowboy only a few weeks earlier.
She stroked a hand over the glossy wood but shook her head regretfully.
Catherine frowned. “You don’t like it?”
“I love it,” she admitted. “But I don’t need it. I have a crib—”
“I didn’t ask if you needed it. I asked if you liked it.”
“I can’t afford it.”
“I told you it would be a baby gift.”
“You already sold me the rocking chair for about half of what you could have got if you’d put a price tag on it and displayed it in the front window.”
“Or it could have sat there collecting dust for years,” her friend countered. “Most new moms want the glider-style rockers, not the old-fashioned ones.”
“Speaking of rockers,” Antonia said. “How about lunch at The Tottering Teapot?”
“Yeah, because that was a smooth segue,” Catherine said dryly.
“Seriously, I’m starving.”
Catherine picked up the cradle and carried it into the back room. “I’m holding it for a week,” she said, when she came back out front. “All you have to do is tell me that you want it.”
“Right now, I’m only thinking about whether I want a hamburger or chicken sandwich.”
The Tottering Teapot was located on Main Street near Pine in Old Town, just a short walk from Real Vintage Cowboy. The tables were covered with lace cloths and the food was served on mismatched china to an almost exclusively female clientele. It was famous for its endless variety of teas and vegetarian sandwiches, but there were free-range chicken and grass-fed beef options on the menu, as well.
Antonia ordered the grilled chicken and roasted pepper flatbread sandwich with spring mix salad and a lemon ginger tea; Catherine opted for the portobello mushroom burger with macaroni salad.
“What’s new with you?” Catherine asked after the waitress had delivered their cups and saucers and miniature pots of tea.
Antonia blew on her cup to cool the steaming liquid, then sipped carefully. “Not much,” she said. “Aside from the fact that I recently discovered I’m capable of multiple orgasms.”
Catherine choked on her tea.
“Well, um, I’m not sure I know what to say,” she admitted once she’d finally stopped coughing. “Congratulations?”
Antonia laughed. “Thanks.”
“So how long have you been doing the deed with the cowboy daddy?”
“Every night since Saturday.”
Her friend’s brows lifted. “Every night?”
And several times a night, Antonia was tempted to say, but she bit her tongue because that would just be bragging.
“Where do you find the energy?” Catherine asked, sounding genuinely baffled.
“You can’t be more surprised than I am,” Antonia said. “Not only that I have the energy and the desire, but that he could desire me in this condition.”
“Not everyone does pregnancy well,” her friend said. “But you do—and obviously Clayton Traub agrees.”
But Antonia could tell that she was still worried about something, and she was pretty sure she understood the origin of her friend’s concern. “I went into this with my eyes open,” she assured her. “I’m not expecting anything long-term. I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“No,” Antonia responded immediately. Vehemently.
Catherine lifted a brow.
“Do you really think I would make the same mistake twice?”
“I think that we can’t always control who we fall in love with,” her friend said gently.
“I’m not in love with him,” she insisted.
Catherine held her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, you’ve convinced me.”
Antonia sipped her tea, relieved that her friend wasn’t making an issue out of something that wasn’t.
She just had to make sure that she did the same.
* * *
Since Antonia had declined Clay’s invitation to take a trip into Bozeman, he decided to check out the New Town Mall instead. While it didn’t have anything on the scale of Toddlers & Tots, it did have a department store with a decent baby department where he was able to pick up a few things. And then, after their shopping was done, he and Bennett decided to meet Forrest for lunch.
Clay wasn’t sure if his brother’s disposition had improved simply by being in Thunder Canyon or because he was under Dr. North’s care or participating in the veteran’s pet therapy group—or maybe it was a combination of the three factors—he only knew that he genuinely enjoyed hanging out with Forrest again.
At least, he was thinking that he did before his brother commented that Clay and Antonia had been spending a lot of time together.
“We’re just hanging out,” Clay said.
“But only in your bedroom after dark, where you don’t have to worry that anyone will see you together.”
“The rumor mill in Thunder Canyon is just as productive as the one in Rust Creek Falls.”
“So who are you trying to protec
t?” Forrest wanted to know. “Antonia or yourself?”
“Neither one of us wants to be the subject of any more speculation or gossip.”
Forrest bit into his burger. “What are you really afraid of?”
Clay stabbed a potato wedge. “I’m afraid that Antonia is going to start expecting more than I can give her.”
“It doesn’t seem—at least to me—that she expects anything of you.”
His brother was right. Antonia had never really asked him for anything. Certainly she’d never asked for any promises or guarantees with respect to their relationship. In fact, she seemed to take it for granted that their relationship was only temporary, that eventually he would go back to Rust Creek Falls and she would stay in Thunder Canyon and they would each go on with their lives as if the past week—the most incredible week of his life—had never happened.
“So maybe what you’re really afraid of,” Forrest suggested, “is that you want to give her more than she expects.”
Clay scowled. “I’m not even sure I understand what that’s supposed to mean.”
“And people think I’m the emotionally stunted one,” his brother mused.
Clay sipped his soda.
“It means that Antonia is a strong, independent woman,” Forrest explained, “and you’re not accustomed to being with someone who doesn’t rely on you for every little thing. You want to be needed, and she doesn’t need you. But—for some inexplicable reason that I couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend—she wants you. So the only question left is—are you ready to admit that you want her, not just for a few nights but forever?”
Clay picked up his brother’s glass, sniffed the contents. “Are you sure this is straight cola? Because you must be drunk if you just said ‘forever.’”
Forrest shrugged. “So maybe you don’t care about her as much as I thought you did.”
“I do care about her,” he admitted. “But I’ve only just started to figure things out with Bennett. The last thing I need is to add another baby to the equation.”
Forrest shook his head. “And I always thought you were pretty good at math.”
“As you once said, double the kids, double the diapers.”
“I think what I actually said was ‘double your diapers, double your fun,’” his brother teased.
“It’s the ‘double’ part that matters.”
“Except that hooking up with Antonia doesn’t just add a second baby to the equation, it adds a mother for both of those babies. And a mother and a father with two babies equals a family.”
The possibility of giving Bennett a family was incredibly tempting. Clay had been doing the best that he could as a single father, but he’d always believed that a child deserved to be raised by two parents in a stable and loving home.
In fact, when Delia had first shown up on his doorstep and Clay had been trying to get his head around the fact that he was a daddy, he’d immediately thought that they should get married. Thankfully, his rational mind had kicked that irrational thought right out of his head before it moved to his lips, because as much as he did believe in taking responsibility for his actions and that a child should have two parents, he knew that settling down with Delia was not a good idea.
Even when they’d been dating, they’d never been able to spend too much time together without driving one another crazy, and he knew that “till death do us part” with Delia would undoubtedly have driven him to an early grave.
But the thought of spending his life with Antonia didn’t fill him with panic. In fact, the idea of building a life and a family with her was incredibly tempting. And the prospect of spending every night in her bed was even more tempting.
But how much of what he was feeling was about his own emotions and how much was based on his son’s attachment to their landlady?
He certainly enjoyed making love with her. And he liked spending time with her, even when they were just hanging out and talking. He also enjoyed watching her with Bennett, the easy way she had with his son, and the baby was clearly head-over-heels for Antonia, smiling and giggling whenever he was with her.
Thinking about her now, he realized it was entirely possible that he was falling for her. But even if what he felt wasn’t love, there was no denying that they shared genuine affection and sizzling chemistry, and he figured a marriage based on those factors was a win-win for everyone.
Except that Antonia had given him absolutely no indication about her feelings for him. Not that he’d asked. A guy didn’t ask those kinds of questions. Although, in his experience, he usually didn’t have to. Women liked to talk about their feelings; they liked to ask questions about where a relationship was headed. But not Antonia.
As his brother had noted, she didn’t seem to want or expect anything more than what they had. Which made him wonder if she had any feelings for him at all.
Chapter Eleven
When Antonia went down to the stables that night, Clay was already there—and he had Bennett with him.
“He fell asleep after dinner,” Clay said, explaining why his son was still awake at 10:00 p.m.
“And now he’s full of energy,” she guessed.
Bennett confirmed her suspicion by grinning and holding out his arms to her. Clay just sighed and relinquished the baby.
“You obviously spoil him rotten.”
“Maybe he just thinks I’m prettier than you are,” she teased.
“Well, I’d have to agree with him on that.”
“Spending time with Bennett makes me all the more anxious to hold my own baby in my arms.”
“Newborns aren’t as easy to win over,” Clay warned. “Their only form of communication is crying and it’s your job to figure out if they’re crying because they’re hungry or wet or just because.”
“If you’re trying to talk me out of having this baby, you’re a little late,” she said dryly.
“I just want to give you an idea what you’re getting into. And what you won’t be getting, which is sleep.”
“I haven’t been getting much sleep for a while now,” she pointed out with a smile. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“You will be when you’re getting up to feed a baby at midnight and then at two and again at four and six.” He shook his head. “Believe me, I do not miss that.”
Antonia didn’t have any trouble reading between the lines. Clay had been there and done that when it came to caring for his newborn son and he had no interest in another baby. And if she’d been foolish enough to let herself hope that their midnight liaisons might lead to a relationship, his comments quickly put that notion to rest. He was a single dad, she was a soon-to-be single mom, but they were never going to be a family.
It was an important reminder to Antonia, and it made her appreciate this precious time with Clay all the more because it was limited. As soon as her baby was born, their relationship would be over—if, in fact, it even lasted that long. And because she knew that every night she spent with Clay brought her one night closer to the end of their relationship, she didn’t want to waste this night debating issues of childcare.
So they walked around the property for a while, until Bennett finally grew tired. And when his head dropped onto Antonia’s shoulder, they made their way to Clay’s room. After settling the baby in his crib, Antonia took the extra blanket from the end of Clay’s bed and draped it over the slats.
He shook his head, because he knew what she was doing—making sure that if Bennett woke up he wouldn’t be able to see what they were doing in the bed—but smiled indulgently.
“You think I’m silly, don’t you?”
“I think you’re beautiful.” He drew her closer and touched his lips to hers. “And sexy.” He eased her back onto the bed. “And absolutely certifiably crazy.”
About you, she thought, alth
ough she didn’t dare speak the words aloud. But she didn’t think there was anything wrong with being crazy about a man so long as she didn’t fall in love with him. Allowing oneself to be overcome with lust was fine—and perfectly understandable when a woman was lucky enough to have a spectacular male specimen like Clay hanging around. Feeling a certain amount of genuine affection for a man was okay, too. Falling in love, on the other hand, was not acceptable in any way, shape or form.
But she wasn’t going to worry about such things now, because Clay had stripped away all of her clothes and his, too. He was spooned against her, his front to her back, his arms around her. He was touching her breasts and kissing her neck, and the subtle friction of his naked skin against hers was just too glorious a sensation to resist. Then he slipped a hand between her thighs, and groaned his satisfaction when he found that she was already wet and ready for him.
When he eased into her, she wasn’t worrying about anything at all. In fact, she couldn’t even think. Her mind had gone completely, blissfully blank, emptied of all thought except for the pleasure he was giving her.
* * *
“I have to go back to Rust Creek Falls tomorrow.”
It wasn’t just Clay’s words but the casual tone that stabbed like a knife through Antonia’s heart. Their bodies were still warm and tangled together from their lovemaking, but he was already on his way out the door.
She’d known from the beginning that he would leave, but she hadn’t expected it to happen like this. Not so abruptly, and not when she was halfway toward falling in love with him. She could deny it all she wanted—and she’d been doing a pretty good job of just that—but the truth was now undeniably and painfully clear. Because nothing a man said or did could make a woman feel as if her heart was being torn apart inside of her chest unless she’d already given it to him.
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t intended to do so, that she’d been determined to keep her emotions in check. Because it was apparent now that all of her internal pep talks and reassurances had been nothing more than false bravado. Despite all of her efforts to the contrary, Clay Traub had somehow taken hold of her heart.
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