by Robyn Grady
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you and your husband better. He’s only started at Bishop Scaffolds recently?”
Bishop held himself taut, but Hayley showed no sign of inappropriate curiosity and only smiled. Obviously, Willis had clued his wife in.
“Willis said you invited us to your home in the Blue Mountains. I’ll look forward to it.”
“You might be showing by then.”
Hayley beamed and touched her belly. “I’m only twelve weeks. The doctor said another month or so before I feel him move.”
“You want a boy?”
“I’d be happy with either—” she sent her husband a knowing grin “—but I think Willis would like a son.”
Willis’s hand covered his wife’s where it rested. “What man doesn’t?”
Bishop felt Laura’s gaze edge over to him and his neck burned. Yes, he’d wanted a son. He’d wanted a family. Still did.
But he hadn’t let himself think that way for so long.
Hayley dropped a kiss on her husband’s cheek. “I’m going to serve the cake. Would you like some?” she asked them both.
“None for me,” Bishop answered.
At the same time Laura said, “I’m good.”
And Bishop stopped and thought, This must be the first time either of us have passed on dessert.
As Willis and his wife moved away, Bishop found and held Laura’s hand. “Would you like to stay?”
“Actually, would you mind if we go?”
She was looking at her shoes and he suspected those tears had welled in her eyes again. She might be happy for Hayley, but she was also envious, and hurting because of it. Her logical side would be assuring her that her husband would agree they should try to conceive while her subconscious might be reliving the miscarriage and heartache that followed. That would explain why she felt so fragile. So ready to break.
Only Laura didn’t know that.
“I’ll take you home.” He threaded his arm through hers and added, “We’ll talk.”
He couldn’t wait for the specialist’s appointment. She needed to be told and she needed to hear it from him, no matter the consequences. No matter if she slapped his face and called him every name invented.
But as he began to lead her out she stopped. Her glistening lashes lifted and her needful eyes found his.
“I don’t want to talk. Bishop, I want to make a baby. I want to make one tonight.”
Eleven
During the drive home, she and Bishop didn’t discuss her no-frills request. She’d said she wanted to make a baby…not sometime in the future or next month, but tonight!
Rather he turned on a CD, and when the road didn’t demand two on the wheel, held her hand, his thumb grazing the back of her fingers. She wanted to speak with him more about it. It was one thing to insist and another to have her husband’s blessing.
The reality was that they’d only been married a short time. They didn’t need to leap into this, particularly given the roadblocks Bishop perceived to be in their way—her heart condition, his fear of losing a child. But when Willis had made his announcement tonight, something greater than logic or fear had whispered in her ear. Spoken to her heart. Some inner deliberate voice had embraced her and stated, Now is the time.
Call it women’s intuition or blind faith. As weird as it sounded, she only knew she had to act.
Their baby would start off smaller than a pinhead but from the moment of conception, the life growing inside of her would be a person with a soul, already loved, so very much longed for. When the good news was confirmed, Bishop would overcome his concerns because, as Willis and Hayley’s joy had proven tonight, hearing that you were soon to be parents must be the very best feeling in the world. She couldn’t wait to know it herself.
As they moved from the garage into the living room, Bishop took her hand, ready to lead her to the bedroom, she guessed, but she pulled back. Already in her mind she knew how this scene should play out, how and where she wanted to fall pregnant. In the quiet of the shadows, she reached behind, tugged the bow at her nape, and the black evening dress rustled into a silky puddle on the rug at her feet.
Bishop’s hot gaze raked her body, drinking in every line, every curve she knew that he admired and loved. In that moment, she felt the heat in the room, in their blood, grow and thicken and beat. Tossing back hair fallen over her eyes, she tried to make out his expression in the shadows. She wanted to know what he was feeling other than fast-rising physical arousal.
Was he concerned? Feeling trapped?
“I’d like to stay out here by the fire,” she said.
Bishop lobbed his jacket at a chair while his gaze skimmed over her tingling breasts then dropped to take in her quivering belly and the black silk triangle covering the apex at her thighs. As she stood before him, trembling, anticipating, he removed his tie, purposefully flicked open each button then rolled his shoulders out of the shirt.
Gloriously naked from the belt up, he moved forward and, in the gray darkness of the room, their eyes connected. He reached for her. Warm palms shaped down the column of her throat before arcing out over her shoulders and upper arms. His grip tightened slightly. She heard the groaning rumble in his chest as his fingers fanned to curve around the outside of her breasts.
He stepped closer and then his face was hovering over hers, so close their noses touched. His voice was deep and husky.
“You want that fire now?”
That’s what she’d asked for, and yet now that his hands were upon her, she didn’t want him to leave, not even to build that fire. She wanted to say they could create their own. Already, flames were licking a blistering causeway through her veins.
But then she glimpsed a vision of Bishop prodding the kindling, a theater of light and shadow rippling over his perfect torso, shoulders and arms. She smiled into his eyes.
“A fire would be good.”
His thumbs slid up the underside of her breasts, brushing the aching tips and making her light-headed before his hands slipped away and he moved toward the fireplace. While he collected small logs from the stack, Laura heeled off her shoes and hunted down blankets and pillows. When she returned, Bishop didn’t turn or acknowledge her, even as she made their campout bed. As she spread a blanket out over the large center rug, she studied his broad back and her stomach began to churn.
He wanted to make love, she was certain, but was he that agitated over what she’d asked of him tonight? She’d been firm about what she’d wanted. He hadn’t said no. She knew he was way less than one hundred percent comfortable with this. She hated the thought of him being angry with her then having that anger linger and, perhaps, burrow deeper and spread. She would hate that at any time, but particularly if she were to fall pregnant.
A shiver scuttled over her skin and she held the second blanket to her chest.
Maybe she should tell him that she knew she was pushing; they had plenty of time yet. Having a child—her own flesh-and-blood child—was important to her. But so important she was willing to risk her relationship with her husband? Risk their marriage? Still, she couldn’t agree to adoption when there was every reason to believe she was fertile, and Bishop, too.
Another shiver—more a chill—racked her body. As the warm feeling in her tummy began to wane, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She was about to tell Bishop to forget the fire, that they should head off to the bedroom, or perhaps not make love at all. Earlier he’d said they should talk.
But then he turned to face her.
Balanced on haunches, he smiled, the kind of smile that left her blissfully warm all over. An expression that, in an instant, touched and reassured her like nothing else could.
He wasn’t angry. She’d let her imagination run away on her. He loved and supported her in everything, just as she loved and supported him.
He noticed the blanket cloaked around her.
“I didn’t realize you were that cool,” he said. “I’ll get this heat turned up.”
Laura slid down onto their “bed” and let the cover slip from one shoulder. Hugging her knees, she soaked up every smoldering movement he made. Arranging the logs, seeing to the kindling. After pushing to his feet and scouting down matches on the mantel, he struck one. A flare went up, illuminating the dramatic angle of his jaw, the GQ dimensions of that chest.
Bishop was classically handsome with the rugged features Australian men were famous for. He possessed an air of confidence that was innate but never overstated. She loved the way he laughed and moved and smelled and felt. What would have become of her life if they hadn’t met and fallen so instantly, deeply in love…if he ever truly turned his back on her and left?
Her gaze drifted up to their wedding picture. The frame was glowing in the firelight, but the photo itself was dark. She could still make out the happy couple, one dressed in black, the other in white.
Making herself comfortable, she lay back on the pillows.
She was a homebody where Bishop was a highflyer. One was step-by-step cautious, the other more casual. But she didn’t see herself and Bishop as different so much as complementary. Perfect foils.
Ideal as man and wife.
When orange flames curled high behind the grill and the logs were crackling nicely, Bishop rotated back. His eyes glued to hers, he heeled off his shoes, unbuckled his leather belt with one deft pull, and stepped from the rest of his clothes. She reached out and he moved closer, kneeling beside her carefully, as if she were a bubble that might burst at any time. His face in the flickering light appeared both tender and intense, the prisms of his eyes black but for the occasional sparkling flash of blue.
With a fluid movement, he spread out beside her. The masculine breadth of his chest rose and fell in a regular hypnotic rhythm. His body radiated its own perfect heat. Cords, ridging his biceps, wound down to his equally strong lower arms. Still lower, his heavy erection demanded relief.
When he reached for her, drew her close, she swallowed a short breath. They’d made love before, this past week so many times, but what was unfolding here, the prize this particular union might bring, left her giddy.
Her mouth welcomed his and he gathered her close. His hand smoothed over her hair, trailed her cheeks then lifted her chin high so that his kiss could penetrate deeper. For an endless moment, she reveled in the feel of his chest pushing against her breasts, the way he moved enough for the friction and simmering tension to build naturally. Swiftly.
As the kiss eased, she drove down a breath and her arms came from around his neck. Cupping the sandpaper roughness of his jaw, she spoke to his eyes. From her heart.
“Know what?”
“What?”
“I’ll love you forever.”
Beneath the shifting shadows of his eyes, a fire ignited. Then he grinned, a slow slant of a smile.
“Forever,” he said. “Is that a promise?”
“On my soul.”
That fire blazed again then his mouth covered hers, possessing her, thrilling her, filling her with a desire that was rare and precious and all theirs alone.
If two people were ever meant to be together, it was them. One wasn’t complete without the other, and having a child could only make that need stronger. Nothing would go wrong. Not when everything about them…about this…felt so right.
Reluctantly, his mouth broke from hers. She sighed to her bones as his tongue trailed down between her breasts and his thumb and forefinger toyed with a nipple until liquid heat pooled at her center and her hips tipped invitingly up. He dropped loving kisses over her breasts, his head tilting this way then that as his tongue and teeth worked to create a cadence that set fireworks off in her head.
Her touch wandered down, over the superb landscape of his chest and abdomen, then lower until her fingertips combed through strong, dark hair and curled around a shaft that felt too hard to be human. Savoring the heat and the rock, she gripped him low. As his tongue flicked and teased, she dragged her hand up, the pressure unforgivably firm the way he liked it. On reflex, his teeth tightened and her hips bucked while her nipple burned and cried out for more.
“Do it, Bishop.” Already, his skin was deliciously damp. She tried to slip beneath him at the same time she whispered in his ear, “I’ve never wanted you more.”
Every muscle in his body seemed to lock. She ran her hand down his side and her fingers came away wet. As he moved above her, her head rocked back. Mind and body, she was more than ready.
He kissed her thoroughly, a caress that made her tremble so badly, her core throb so much, she worried she might climax then and there. His palm slid from her hip to the mound at the top of her inner thighs. His touch curled between, slid over that most sensitive spot, and she gasped, clinging on and concentrating on the purest of energies smoldering there. His touch swam up, circled around, and again. Laura ground against him as the pulse inside of her beat faster.
He nuzzled her neck. “You want to do this?”
Make a baby? “Yes. Do you?”
He took less time to answer than she expected. “I do.”
He scooped up her hip, captured her mouth with his, and as her leg wound around his thigh, he nudged in, naked and hot. A blissful goose-tingly shudder rolled through her. She bit down on her lower lip and moved beneath him, willing him deeper inside, feeling the ceiling beginning to lift as his concentrated rhythm bit by bit increased.
She was vaguely aware of the hiss and crackle of the fire…the smell of wood and passion smoking. Then the pulsing and glowing deep in her womb was absorbing all her attention. As he murmured her name and his thrusts became urgent, she clenched her inner muscles, clung to his arms, and sent up a prayer that this would all turn out well.
A heartbeat later, the blast went off, and fire and ecstasy consumed them both.
The next morning, rubbing his eyes, Bishop rolled over and stared at the empty space beside him. After they’d made love last night in front of the fire, they’d shifted into her bedroom. Their bedroom. Where had she gone?
He elbowed up, sniffed the air.
No smells from the kitchen.
Sweeping back the covers, he set his bare feet on the floor and craned his neck. No sign of life from the attached bathroom, either. He dragged on some trousers, trod out into the hall and looked up then down and up again.
“Laura! Laura, where are you?”
A twinge knotted high in his gut.
But she couldn’t have vanished. Most likely she was on one of the verandas or lounging around the setting on the eastern porch. It was her favorite place, particularly in the mornings. His, too.
He moved past the empty kitchen; no breakfast preparation in sight. Past the offices, the library and other rooms. His heartbeat picking up, he strode out onto the porch and flung a glance around. The mountains murmured with the usual soothing noises of the Australian bush—a kookaburra laughing, insects clicking. Everything was eerily calm.
That twinge grew into an ache and he turned back to the house. Perhaps she’d taken the car and gone into town. She was a stickler for having her pantry well stocked.
At a jog, his soles slapped on the timber hall floor all the way to the other end of the house. He flung back the adjoining door.
Both cars were parked in the garage, engines cold. Bishop rotated in a slow, tight circle. The walls started to close in and the edges of his world began to darken. He couldn’t shake the thought that had scratched at the back of his mind since he’d opened his eyes and found her gone. A horrible, this-can’t-be-happening-again feeling.
His heart in his throat, he sprinted out the door.
Flying down the front steps, he spotted her in that long red negligee she’d slipped into late last night. She was exactly where he’d worried she would be—standing on that footbridge, right on the edge, peering out as if in a trance.
“Laura!”
Panic rocketing through him, he shot off. He didn’t stop until, out of breath, he reached her and snatched her away from any poss
ibility of another fall. His grip hard on her arms, he willed her to meet his eyes. But her gaze—her mind—was a thousand miles away.
He held her face, tilted up her chin. Gradually her gaze tracked back from some faraway spot. But she looked at him as if he were a stranger. Or as if she couldn’t see him at all.
“Are you all right? Laura, answer me.”
Her brow creased and she shut her eyes tight. After a heart-stopping moment, she shook her head slowly.
“I…I’m not sure.” Her eyes blinked open and she seemed to focus more. “I woke before you and decided to take a walk. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t mean to come this way…this far.” The distant look in her eyes cleared more and then she shuddered enough for goose bumps to rise on her arms.
“Bishop, I had the weirdest… I think it was a dream.”
“Come inside.” He swallowed against the lump rising in his throat. “It’s cold out.”
But she wound away, edging two steps back toward the railing. As if dizzy, she touched her brow with one hand, gripped the wooden rail with the other, and peered over the edge at the bed of hedges below.
With measured steps, Bishop moved to join her. Her hands were shaking. So were his.
This was it—the moment when all the snippets that Laura had been too proud to mention these past days filtered together and gelled. He’d planned to tell her everything last night. No matter the outcome, he believed she needed to be brought back to the present. But he’d been weak. When she’d told him she wanted to make a baby, he’d remembered the thought he’d had earlier…about her falling pregnant and being able to keep the baby and their marriage this time. To his core he’d known it was wrong and yet he’d gone ahead and had sex with his ex without protection.
Last night at the party had affected him as much as it had her. He wanted a son. He wanted to be with his wife.
Had he fallen back in love with Laura?
He wanted to feel what she had felt this past week without reservation. But this moment, when she began to remember—remember it all—had constantly played on his mind, holding the possibility of total surrender to hope back.
