by Diana Palmer
Dani laughed at the expression on Harriett’s face. “Well, we didn’t spend much time talking.”
Harriett started at the young woman’s belly. “So I noticed.”
“Stop that!” Dani sighed wearily. “Besides, he said he never wanted children. He’d go right through the roof if he knew. It’s just as well that the divorce go through without his finding out.”
“How can you divorce a man you can’t find?” Harriett asked reasonably.
“He’s getting the divorce, not me. He has my address.”
“Lovely. Shall we sell some books? Call the doctor first,” Harriett said, and went back to her pricing.
Dani was healthy, and after her family doctor put her on prenatal vitamins, she began to bloom. Dr. Henry Carter laughed delightedly every visit she made to his office for checkups, pleased with her progress as well as her attitude toward being pregnant.
“You really love being pregnant, don’t you?” he asked when she was having her third checkup, at a little over four and a half months.
“Every second!” She touched the swell of her abdomen. “I think he moved this morning,” she added excitedly. “Little flutters, like a bird trying to get free.”
“Yes,” he said with a warm smile. “That’s what it feels like, I’m told. The first sign of a healthy baby. The tests we ran assured us of that.”
She’d liked the test—it was done with ultrasound, and they’d given her a Polaroid picture of the baby’s head, just visible in the X-ray-type sound scan.
“Has there been any word from your husband?” he added quietly.
Dani felt herself go cold. “No.” She started down at her hands. “He might…never come back.”
“I’m sorry. The reason I asked is because I’d like you to sign up for natural childbirth classes. Even if you don’t want to have a natural delivery, they’ll help you cope with labor,” he explained. “They involve exercises that prepare you for childbirth. And, sadly, they require a partner.”
“Can—can Harriett do it?” she asked.
He knew Harriett, and he grinned. “Best person I know for a coach. All she really has to do is stand beside you and tell you when to breathe.”
“She already does that very well,” she said dryly.
“Okay. Next month I’ll sign you up. You’re doing fine. Get out of here. And don’t exert yourself too much. The heat’s terrible this summer.”
“Tell me about it,” she murmured, sweating even in her loose sleeveless tent blouse and elastic-fronted skirt. “See you next time.”
She made another appointment and dawdled on her way back to work. It was a lovely summer day, the kind that lures dreamers to quiet ponds and butterfly-laden meadows full of flowers. She sang a little as she walked along, feeling the tiny flutters in her stomach and laughing as she went. What a beautiful world. How wonderful to be pregnant and healthy.
Finally, she gave in and went back to the bookstore, because she knew Harriett would worry if she was gone too long. She strolled lazily along the small shopping center in the heart of Greenville, oblivious to shoppers and the sounds of children playing on the sidewalk.
With a slow, dreamy smile, she opened the door of the shop and walked inside. And came face-to-face with Dutch.
He was wearing khakis—a bush shirt with slacks—and there was a new scar on one cheek. He looked as though he’d lost a little weight, although he was as handsome, as physically devastating, as ever. Harriett must have thought so, too, because she was openly staring at him, wide-eyed.
Dutch did some staring of his own. His eyes were on her stomach, and their expression was frankly terrified. He felt as if he’d never breathe again. He’d come back to see if they could work out a compromise, if she might be willing to rethink her position. Only to find—this!
Dani saw the stark terror in his eyes. If she’d hoped for any kind of reconciliation, she knew now that it was all a pipe dream. After all the long nights of remembering, worrying, hoping, praying, for him, of thinking how he’d react if she told him about the baby, now she knew.
It was too much all at once. The sight of him, the hunger for him, the weeks and months of worry. He began to blur, and then to darken. And she fainted at his feet.
She came to in the back of the shop, in a storeroom that Dani and Harriett used for lunch breaks. There was a big armchair there, and Dani was lying across it, her shoes off, a cold cloth on her forehead.
“… had a hard time of it,” Harriett was saying grimly. “She’s healthy enough, but she won’t rest.”
“I never should have married her,” came the harsh reply.
“You’re a prize, aren’t you?” Harriett was saying. “That child has never had anything or anyone in her life to make her way easier. Her parents deserted her when she was just a baby—she doesn’t even know where they are. She never really had a boyfriend of her own. She’s had no one except me. And now you sweep her off her feet, get her pregnant, and walk out on her. Mister, you are a walking blond plague, and if there’s one iota of human decency left in you, you’ll do her a favor and get out of her life.”
“And leave her at your mercy?” Dutch came back idly. “Like hell.”
Oh, no, Dani thought sickly. She’d known that would happen. World War III. Dutch and Harriett were just alike….
“What kind of mercy would she get from you, you…!” Harriett retorted.
“No,” Dani whispered hoarsely, opening her eyes to see them squared off, glaring at each other scant feet away. They both turned toward her. “No,” she repeated more strongly. “If you two want to brawl, go stand in the street. You can’t do it here. I can’t cope.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Harriett said softly. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” She sat up, smoothing the wet cloth over her face while Dutch glared down at her with fierce anger in his dark eyes. His blond hair was slightly mussed, his handsome face harder than she remembered it. “Well, you needn’t glare at me,” she told him shortly. “I didn’t get pregnant all alone, remember!”
Harriett had to hide a smile. “I’ll leave you two to talk,” she offered.
“We’ll talk at home,” Dani said firmly, glaring at Dutch. “Where I can throw things and scream. The store cramps my style.”
She got up while Dutch tried not to grin at her fury. Glasses and all, she was something in a temper.
“Don’t rush around. It isn’t healthy,” he said, taking her hand in his. He glanced at Harriett. “Can you manage for an hour or so?”
“Of course. Can you?” she returned.
He couldn’t help the faint smile. “Yes, Mama,” he said mockingly. “I won’t hurt your lamb.”
He guided her out the door, letting her show him the way to her nearby apartment. It was up a flight of stairs, and he frowned as they climbed. He didn’t like the stairs.
“You have to move,” he said when she’d unlocked her apartment and they were inside in the white and yellow homey confines of the living room.
She turned and gaped at him. “What?”
“You have to move,” he said shortly. “You can’t be walking up and down stairs like…that.” He indicated her belly.
“It isn’t a that. It’s a baby,” she said firmly, planting her feet as she challenged him. “It’s a boy, in fact, and I am going to call him Joshua Eric.”
His face gave nothing away. His eyes went over her quietly, and for the first time in months he felt whole again. Leaving her had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. All the time he was away, he thought of her, longed for her, wanted her. He still wanted her. But she was pregnant. He didn’t want a baby, he didn’t want her pregnant. It brought back memories that were unbearable.
He hadn’t even meant to come back; he hadn’t wanted his life to change. And his worst fears had confronted him the instant he saw her.
“Do you have the divorce papers with you?” she asked calmly.
He sighed angrily and lit a cigar
ette without even asking if she minded. “You’ve put ‘paid’ to that, haven’t you?” he asked, his voice as cold as his dark eyes. “How can I divorce you in that condition? You’ll want child support, I imagine?”
He couldn’t possibly have hurt her any more, not if he’d knocked her down. Quick tears welled in her eyes, and she glared at him through them.
“Get out!” she shot at him.
“Is it even mine?” he goaded, feeling trapped and straining at invisible bonds fiercely.
She picked up the nearest object, a small statuette of some Greek figure, and flung it at him. “Damn you!”
He ducked and it hit the door, shattering into a hundred pieces.
“Get out of my apartment! Get out of my life!” she choked. “Oh, God, I hate you, I hate—!” The nausea hit her all at once. She turned, running for the bathroom, where she was horribly sick. She cried helplessly, oblivious to the tall man holding the wet cloth to her head and hating himself so much he wanted to jump off a building to make the guilt stop.
“I hate you,” she whispered weakly when it was over and she could talk. Her head was leaning against the cold porcelain sink. She could hardly move.
“Yes.” He bathed her face gently, her hands. Then he put the cloth aside and lifted her, carrying her into the bedroom. He laid her down and turned on the oscillating fan, positioning it so that it wouldn’t blow directly on her.
“Go to sleep,” he said quietly. “Then we’ll talk.”
“I—don’t want to,” she murmured drowsily, but she was drained and overwhelmed and so tired. Her eyes closed, and seconds later she drifted off.
Dutch sat down on the bed beside her, frightened and sick at what he’d done to her. His eyes ran lovingly over her body, and without conscious thought he eased up the hem of her maternity blouse and moved the elastic of her skirt down, and looked. Her belly was slightly swollen, round and womanly. So that was what pregnancy looked like. He winced, remembering another time, another pregnant woman. But Dani wasn’t like that, he told himself. Never like that. His lean fingers touched the soft flesh gently, hesitantly. Yes, it was firm. His child was in there. His child. A boy, she’d said. Could she be so certain? Of course, there were tests they did now. His big hand smoothed over the swell, pressing, and all at once something fluttered against his fingers. He jerked them back with a gasp.
Dani had woken with the first light touch of his fingers, and she found the expressions that flickered on his face fascinating. But that last reaction amused her, and she laughed softly.
His eyes darted to hers. “What did I do?” he asked softly.
“The baby moved,” she said simply.
“Moved?” He looked back down, frowning. Hesitantly, he reached down again. She took his fingers and placed them against the side of her belly. She pressed them close, and it happened again. And he laughed. Slowly. Softly. Delightedly.
“When they get bigger, they kick,” she told him. “The doctor says the more active they are, the healthier they are. He moves a lot.”
“I never knew….” He looked up from her belly to her rib cage. His hand moved up to the bunched top and he glanced up at her face with the question in his eyes. “I’ve never seen a pregnant woman this way.”
“I don’t mind if you look at me,” she whispered, fascinated by the way he was reacting to her. There was something in his face, a kind of tenderness. She wondered what had soured him on pregnancy, and why he hated the thought of a child.
He lifted the blouse to under her chin and his body stilled as his eyes sought the subtle changes in her breasts.
“You’re bigger,” he said quietly. “Darker…here.” His fingers brushed an enlarged areole, making her tense with remembered pleasure.
“Little changes,” she said, fighting for breath. “All that will increase as I get further along. It prepares me so that I can nurse him.”
He felt a wild charge of emotion. It showed when he looked into her eyes. “I didn’t think women did that anymore.”
She smiled. “I want to do everything. I—” She laughed. “I love it. Being pregnant, I mean. I’ve never had anyone to fuss over, you see,” she tried to explain. “Never had anyone of my own to worry about, to care about, to love. He’ll be my whole world. I’ll take care of him, and sit with him when he’s sick, and play games with him when he’s older. I’ll take him everywhere with me, I’ll—” She lowered her eyes at the expression on his face. “What you said, about child support. It’s not necessary,” she added proudly. “I make a comfortable living from the bookstore. I can take care of him. He’ll be my responsibility.”
He’d never felt so empty and alone in all his life. He stared at her belly, hearing the words and wanting all that tender caring for himself. But it wasn’t possible. She didn’t want him. She was telling him so.
He tugged the blouse back down. “You’ll be a good mother,” he said numbly.
“I’m sorry that you had to find it out this way,” she murmured. “I would have written you, but I didn’t even have your address.”
He drew in a slow breath and got to his feet. He went to the window, smoking another cigarette. He looked so alone. So lost.
“You…weren’t hurt?” she asked, averting her face so that he couldn’t see her eyes.
“A few scratches.” He stared at the glowing tip of the cigarette for a minute before his dark eyes went back out the window to the city traffic. He’d done nothing right since he got off the damned plane. He’d wanted to talk about reconciliation, but when he’d found her pregnant, he’d gone off the deep end. It was because of the memories, of course; they’d haunted him for so long. Perhaps he’d blown the whole incident out of proportion over the years.
He turned back to her, uneasy at the way she looked. That woman, Harriett, had mentioned how tired Dani was. Yes, she was tired. Run down. There had been a radiance in her when she’d come into the bookstore, but it was gone now. He’d taken it away with his cold attitude and stupid accusations. He’d hurt her. Again. And he hadn’t meant to.
“What I said, before,” he said hesitantly, glancing at her. His hand, holding the cigarette, moved aimlessly. “I know the baby’s mine.”
“Do you?” she asked with an empty smile as she sat up. “I might have had a legion of lovers since you left.”
“I came back to see if we might salvage the marriage,” he said after a minute, hoping for some reaction in her face, but there was nothing.
She looked up at him, schooling her features to remain calm. “And now?”
He shifted restlessly, pacing near the window, his blond head bowed, one hand in his pocket. “Now I don’t know.”
She swung her feet to the floor. “I haven’t changed my mind, even if you’ve started to change yours,” she said before he could speak. She looked at him with quiet gray eyes. “It’s all I can do to manage carrying the baby and running my business so that I can support him. I can’t have any additional pressure right now. I hope you understand.”
“You keep referring to it as a ‘he,’” he said curtly.
“He is a he,” she told him. “They ran some tests.”
He felt odd. A son. A little boy who might look like him. He stared at her as if he’d never seen a woman before, studying every line and curve of her body.
“Don’t look so worried, Eric, I don’t expect anything from you,” she mused, getting slowly to her feet. “Now, if you’ve said all you came to say, I’ve got to work to do. I’ll give you the name of my attorney….”
“No!” The word came out without conscious volition. They couldn’t divorce. Hell, he didn’t even want to think about it! She had his child, and he…wanted it!
She clenched her fingers together and glared at him. “I won’t live with you,” she said stubbornly.
His face hardened. “You will.”
“Make me.”
He stared at her. Mutinous bow mouth, stormy gray eyes, flushed face. Pregnant. He started to laugh helplessly
, a deep, rich sound like velvet.
“I like you,” he said absently. “I honestly like you. No deceit, no tricks, no lines, no backing away from trouble. You’re a hell of a woman.”
She shifted from one foot to the other. No, he wasn’t going to get around her that way. “Remember me?” she asked coldly. “Miss Frump?”
He put out the cigarette, still smiling faintly, and moved toward her with a gleam in his eyes that made her back away.
“Sexy frump,” he murmured dryly. “Very pregnant, very desirable. And I don’t want a divorce. I want you.”
“I’m not for sale,” she told him, moving backward until the wall stopped her. “Go away. Go blow up something.”
“I don’t blow up things, actually,” he murmured, pinning her to the wall with a strong arm on either side of her. “I’m more into logistics and strategy.”
“You’ll get killed, anyway,” she said.
He shrugged. “I could get hit by a car downstairs.”
“Not quite as easily,” she argued.
“I want you,” he said quietly.
“Yes, I know,” she replied softly. “But wanting isn’t enough. You’ve already said you’d never fall in love again, so all you’re offering me is your body, between wars. It’s a gorgeous body, and in bed you’re all any woman could ever want. But you’re asking me to live with death, day in and day out, and I can’t.”
He drew in a breath and started to speak, but before he could she took one of his hands and pressed it slowly against her belly.
“I have your son under my heart,” she whispered, pressing his palm flat against her. “I can’t live with the fear of losing both of you.”
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Eric, I could miscarry,” she said, her voice soft with a fear he was just beginning to sense.
“Is it likely?” he asked.
“I’m healthy. So is the baby. But there are no guarantees,” she said, lowering her eyes to his chest.
“It…frightens you, to think of losing him?” he asked hesitantly.
She looked up wide-eyed. “Of course it does!”
He was remembering another woman, another time, and he cursed himself for that lapse. Dani wanted the baby. It was written all over her.
