Babies And Badges (American Baby)

by Laura Marie Altom

Wrinkling the chip bag shut with a vengeance, she then stuffed it into the corner trash.

  Chips were bad.

  Kisses worse.

  Obviously, all this junk food she’d been eating was already having an adverse effect. The only things filling her heart and mind with these alluring what-ifs were way too many saturated fats and monotriglycerides!

  “DAMMIT.” Noah slapped the butt of his hand against one of the rear tractor tires. Before slitting it, Zane and his gang had painted it their trademark neon green. While Noah, Jimmy and Briggs had spent the night staking out Floyd’s place, the hoodlums had been busy over at King Marshall’s. The tractor was only a year old and worth thousands more than Floyd’s charbroiled outbuilding. Zane and his boys needed to be taught a few manners, and it looked like the job was going to fall to Noah.

  “Okay, gang,” he said to Briggs and Jimmy, who had his arm in a cast. “We all know who did this, but let’s go ahead and dust for prints—the tractor, those beer cans hitching a ride on the seat. Take casts of foot traffic. I want this done by the book. When you finish all that, do the same with that pile of beer cans over at Floyd’s.”

  “Yessir.” Using his good arm, Jimmy took off his hat, swiping it across the sweat beads on his forehead that’d formed in the muggy morning heat.

  LATER, SHOULDERS HUNCHED, feeling like the walking dead, Noah trudged up the few steps to his porch. At least one good thing had happened that morning: Cass wasn’t out there waiting for him, all sleepy-eyed and cuddly, looking like she needed a thorough kissing before spending a good eight hours spooned beside him in sleep.

  Just one more reason to curse Zane and his gang of roving thugs. If it hadn’t been for their escapades, he’d be back on his day shift, leaving his nights free to help Cass with the babies. No doubt she was every bit as exhausted as him. A woman shouldn’t be on her own like that—especially so soon after giving birth. Oh, he knew full well she was capable of doing the whole parenting job on her own, he just wished she didn’t have to.

  Shoot, once this thing with Zane wrapped up, he’d give her all the help she needed—least ’til her car got fixed. From there, maybe he could take some time off. Head down to Little Rock with her just to make sure she had everything under control.

  Key in the front door lock, he felt like a world-class scum.

  Hadn’t he just yesterday afternoon made that whole speech about how he wasn’t about to go declaring his eternal love?

  And how many times before that had he sworn off women altogether?

  How lame his speech must’ve sounded, he thought, shoving open the door. At the very least, he owed Cass an apology. This damn case. It was messing with him. He wasn’t thinking straight. Not that that was an excuse, just—

  Aw hell, who was he trying to kid?

  Inside, he closed the door behind him.

  He was falling for Cass. He already loved her kids. He wanted to watch them grow and learn. Teach them to take their first steps and ride bikes and swim. He wanted to shoo away overeager boys, tear up when the girls graduated from high school and college. And then there were the things he wanted to do with their momma. Things he ought not even think about here in the bold light of day.

  Removing his utility belt, he set it on the table beside the door, then crossed the room to practically fall into his recliner.

  Oh, the things he’d like to do with their momma…

  Rent a secluded cabin on Beaver Lake, holding her on his lap while they watched the sunrise after they’d spent the whole night making love. He wanted to cook deliciously unhealthy foods for her, watching her big old green eyes widen in pleasure when she took her first bite of his barbecued chicken straight off of the grill. And what about his world famous potato salad? He knew all the guys from the sheriff’s office and fire station loved it, but what about her? Why was it only her opinion that mattered?

  Even though he and Cass hardly knew each other, technically speaking, something about the way they’d first met had forged an invisible bond he neither understood nor wanted. It just was. And apparently there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it other than bide his time until she was gone. Because even as much as he wanted to share all of those things he’d just rattled off with her and her girls, he didn’t want any of them bad enough to make her an honest woman.

  He couldn’t marry her.

  And he wouldn’t use her.

  That what you essentially did with all of those women who hate you?

  Noah fiercely scowled.

  No. Hell, no.

  He’d loved each and every one of the women he’d been with over the years in their own special way. The difference was, they’d known up front about his failed marriage with Darla. They’d known from the start that he wasn’t the marrying kind and they hadn’t cared.

  Cass, on the other hand, knew nothing about him except he’d helped her out of an awfully big jam one afternoon on the side of the road. She didn’t know the real him. The Noah who emotionally left women before they had the chance to leave him. Because they would. Just like Darla, they would.

  With an exhausted sigh, Noah pushed himself up from his recliner, figuring since the rest of the house was evidently snoozing, he might as well, too.

  The shades were still drawn in his room, making it dark and cool with just a whisper of light seeping past the heavy blinds’ sides and bottoms. Wincing at his aching neck and shoulders, he drew off his uniform shirt, then tugged his white T-shirt over his head.

  He needed a shower, he thought, unbuttoning his pants, slipping them off, then draping them across the back of a chair. Once he had his socks off, too, and was standing there in just his boxers, he gave himself a scratch, worked the kinks out of his bum knee, then headed for the shadowy alcove housing his bed.

  Yep, a couple hours of sleep and he’d be back to his old self. He’d get Moe on the horn, tell him to rush Cass’s car. Then he’d take her back to Little Rock himself, insuring for his conscience that she was safe, while at the same time insuring his own emotional safety by getting her not just out of town, but out of his house!

  He eased into his bed only to hit curves.

  Warm curves—lots of them!

  What the—?

  He drew back, fumbling for the bedside lamp. He switched it on, illuminating the Tremont girls—snug as bugs in his rug. Cass in the middle, a snoozing baby cozy in the crook of each arm, the TV remote hitching a ride on the lucky pale yellow afghan tucked around all three.

  Noah sighed.

  Great.

  What was a guy to do? On the one hand, what? Hadn’t he like only ten minutes earlier wished to spend the next eight hours sleeping beside her? Yet on the other, he couldn’t sleep beside her and her babies. It was too intimate—too close to the reality a long-buried part of him had so desperately wanted.

  Dammit, why had Darla ever left him?

  If she hadn’t, he wouldn’t even be in this situation. He’d be like one of the old married guys down at the station. Guys who had inner tubes around their waists from good home cooking, and smiles on their faces while watching their kids catch touchdown passes or march with the band.

  Growing up, Noah had seen nothing but the for worse side of marriage, but back when he’d married Darla, he’d been young enough and dumb enough to believe his marriage would be different. He’d been naive enough to believe by sheer will he alone held the power to make it different.

  Now, he knew better.

  Something in him wasn’t right. Maybe hearing his folks bickering while growing up had soaked in by osmosis, and now—

  “Noah?” asked a sleepy female voice from the center of his bed.

  He sharply looked Cass’s way. “Hey. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “That’s okay. Especially since we’re kind of camped out in your bed.”

  Why?

  Casting him a luminous, sleepy-eyed grin, she said, “You’ve got the only TV in the house where I can comfortably stretch out, and…” Eye
ing the babies, she blushed. “Well…you know. I hope you don’t mind. I’d planned on being out of here before you—”

  “Came home.”

  “Yeah.”

  He shrugged.

  Struggling to sit up, she said, “Give me just a sec, and we’ll head back to our own room.”

  “No,” he said, fingertips cool on the ivory satin sleeve of her button-up-the-front pajamas. Judging by the way they gapped atop the important parts, giving him a sideways view of her right breast, she’d been so tired when she’d finished feeding the girls that she hadn’t even correctly buttoned her top.

  Had she been his, he’d have buttoned it for her, skimming the backs of his fingers across full breasts that gave his daughters nourishment and him pleasure. Only Cass wasn’t his, and neither were her girls, so he looked away.

  “If you’d just give me a hand with these two,” she said, “we’ll be out of your way.”

  “You’re not in my way, Cass,” he said, somehow managing to speak past the ache that lately seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the back of his throat.

  “Oh.” She licked her lips. “Well, it’s a big bed. If you want, why don’t we just share?”

  Yeah. Oh, heck yeah.

  “I, ah…” He swallowed hard. “Nice as that offer sounds, I think I’ll just grab a sheet from the hall closet and camp out on the couch.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “No, Moe, that’s not good at all. She needs it done sooner than that.”

  “That the guy fixing my car?” Cassie mouthed, strolling into the kitchen that afternoon to find Noah on the phone.

  He nodded. “No, that won’t work, either, but…Okay, then, catch you later.”

  “Bad news?” she asked, filling the kettle with water, then setting it on the stove.

  “Yeah. The dealer Moe ordered your parts from is over in Tulsa. They sent the wrong color hood, so unless you want a nice red and yellow mix—”

  “It’s going to take a little longer.” She shot him a grin.

  “I expected you to be more upset.”

  She shrugged. “It’s only time. I was supposed to be on maternity leave for a few more weeks. I figure at this point, it doesn’t much matter where I spend them.”

  “Right.”

  “Of course, if you’d rather we get a room someplace else.”

  “Here’s fine.” He frowned. “You’ve, ah—” He waved toward her pajama top.

  “Oops. Missed a button after feeding number forty-eight.”

  “Rough night?”

  “’Round about 3:00 a.m., I was convinced I hadn’t given birth to babies, but screaming demons. Nothing I did helped. Yet now, they’re both snoozing away while I’m too exhausted to sleep.” Joining him at the table, she asked, “How ’bout you?”

  “I’ve had worse nights.”

  “Sorry about you coming home to a bed full of women.”

  “Shoot,” he said through a devastatingly handsome lazy grin, “Don’t apologize for fulfilling a long-running fantasy.”

  She matched his teasing smile. “Right, only in your fantasies, we were all stacked blondes?”

  “Hey, I’m not choosy. Redheads’ll do just fine.”

  Already on her way up to answer the whistling kettle’s call, she bonked his head.

  “Hey!”

  “Is for horses. My girls and I prefer to be fantasized as auburns.” She blew him a kiss.

  He made a big production out of pretending to catch it, then, while she messed with her tea, he read the paper and sipped fragrant coffee.

  Cassie hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this kind of spirited bickering she’d once shared with her aunt Olivia. Tom had been all business, all the time—at least with her. Who knew what he’d been like with his other wife? Oh sure, they’d shared plenty of romantic moments, but in retrospect, those moments seemed almost so perfect they might have been choreographed.

  Hot shame enveloped her over the fact that her whole life with Tom had been designed to make her love him enough to toss open the family coffers.

  Only the joke was on him, because she’d loved him enough to have given him anything he’d wanted if only he’d asked. Her aunt had always told her that loving too fast was one of Cassie’s biggest faults. She was too quick to share her heart. Too quick to depend on others.

  Since learning of the depths of Tom’s deceptions, though, Cassie had forced herself to be just the opposite.

  She’d become a one woman dynamo, depending on no one but herself. For now that her aunt was gone, along with her every shred of dignity, who else could she trust? No one. At least until she’d met Noah. Only the more attracted to his quiet strength she became, the more put off he seemed by her.

  From behind her came the rustle of the paper, then the scraping of Noah’s chair, followed by his footsteps as he walked her way. His heat touched her back when what she wanted was his hands. “What’s for breakfast?”

  Cassie’s Ego on a Stick.

  She swiped away a silly sentimental tear for the wish that she’d met a man like Noah before Tom. No, not a man like Noah—but the real deal.

  Hands gripping the edge of the counter, she asked, “Want me to make you an egg-white omelet?”

  He laughed, turning to face her while leaning his back against the white tile. “I was thinking more along the lines of—uh oh, what’s with the waterworks?” His touch whisper-soft, he wiped away a few stray tears. “If it means that much to you, I’ll eat a dozen egg-white omelets.”

  “It’s not that,” she said, turning away from him while wishing her messy sniffle-snort was dainty like the ones in movies.

  “O-okay. Did I leave the toilet seat up? Eat the last of something you had saved in the fridge?” He shook his head. “Nah, couldn’t be that since I wouldn’t eat your stuff even when—”

  That started up a whole new bunch of tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her into the solid strength of his arms. “I was just teasing about your food. And whatever else I did, I’m sorry for that, too. Please don’t cry.”

  “I-it’s not you,” she said against his chest. His wall of a chest that earlier, in the shadows of his room, she’d seen bare and in all of its muscular glory. He now wore a plain white T-shirt, making her sorry that he’d bothered to put it on. Which only made her cry all the harder, because she never used to be this needy, this hungry for a man’s touch. But then again, she wasn’t talking just any man, she was talking Noah, only he didn’t want her.

  That last thought made her cry all the harder.

  “Think this might be some kind of pregnancy hormone thing?” Noah asked. “Want me to get hold of your doctor?”

  Fisting his shirt, she shook her head.

  “Okay, then, um, what seems to be the problem? Are you in pain?”

  She nodded.

  “What hurts? Just tell me, and I’ll fix it. Well, not fix it, fix it, but you know what I mean.”

  She nodded.

  “Great. Let’s have it. Tell me where it hurts, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “There’s n-nothing you can do.” Except hold me forever. Except after the mess Tom made of my heart, I no longer believe in forever.

  Cupping the back of her head with his big, strong hand, he pressed her even closer. “You need sleep. I’ll bet that’s it.”

  She nodded.

  Yes. That was it. Hours and hours of sleep. Every minute of it spent cradled in your arms.

  Scooping her up, he carried her to her bedroom, but she didn’t want to go to that room with it’s Sanitized For Your Protection perfection. She had that at her own house.

  Here, with Noah, she wanted what was real. His dirty socks and shoes lying in the same spot where he’d taken them off. Half-full glasses of watered-down soda that’d left rings on the dresser. Comfortable bed linens smelling clean of detergent, feeling soft to her skin from years of use—his use.

  “Take me to your bed,” she said, knowing hers
elf out of her mind from lack of sleep, but not caring.

  Locking his gaze with hers, her lips mere inches from his, he stopped at the end of the shadowy hall. The only light spilled through the open door of her sun-flooded room.

  “The girls don’t seem to mind sleeping with all the lights on,” she said. “But I do.”

  “Ah, sure.” In his room, he placed her gently on the bed. He reached for the pale yellow afghan, presumably to cover her before reclaiming his previous spot on the sofa, but she sat up, circling her fingers around his wrist.

  “Stay.” Hold me. Kiss me. Tell me Tom didn’t steal all of me. The parts I now find myself wanting to share with you.

  Sighing, he looked at the door.

  “Please stay. I’ve been told I snore, but I’m pretty sure I don’t bite.”

  “How would I know? Can you insure you won’t attack me in a fit of slumbering gnashes?”

  Grinning, she urged him down beside her. “Stay.”

  Looking at the door, he said, “Might be dangerous.”

  Hand on his chin, drawing his gaze back to her, she said, “Never know, could be danger out there, too.”

  “True.”

  Sliding her fingers to the back of his head, easing them into his coarse dark hair, she drew him closer still. “Lions, tigers, juvenile delinquents. Who knows what could be lurking just beyond that door?” Her heart pounded, warning she wasn’t nearly as brave as her words sounded.

  She slipped her hand down to his neck. It felt tight. Beneath her wandering fingers, his muscles stood corded. “Relax,” she said, gently kneading his warm, sweat-damp skin. “We’ve already established the fact that I don’t bite.”

  “You established that—not me,” he said, grazing her lips with his.

  “Maybe you ought to investigate further.”

  “Maybe…” He relaxed just enough to lean into her, mounding her breasts to his chest, filling her mind and body with yearning heat, thrilling her by deepening his kiss until by mutual consent their mouths parted to explore each other still farther with their tongues. Deeper still when she groaned, and then he groaned, and was rolling onto his back, pulling her along for the ride. Deeper still when he plunged his fingers into her hair, pressing him to her, sending hot waves of sheer bliss spiraling through her. They rolled yet again, this time he landed on top, grinding against her.