Rock-a-Bye Bride

by Tracy Madison

  “I...I’m sorry,” she said as her brain absorbed his words and his demeanor. Of course he thought there was a problem. What had she been thinking, yelling like that? “I didn’t mean to scare you. My excitement got the best of me, and I guess I just wanted you to be a part of it.”

  “There isn’t anything to apologize for,” he said in a gruff manner. “I jumped to a conclusion that was false. I’d say that’s on me, not you. So, let’s start again.” He smiled and the tension percolating between them lessened. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “The baby was kicking or tumbling, and this is the first time I’ve really felt her move. I wanted to share that with you, see if you could feel her, too.” Anna held out her hand, trying to regain her earlier enthusiasm. “I don’t feel her as much now, but...do you want to try?”

  “Yes,” he said instantly, stepping forward and taking her hand. “Show me where?”

  Slightly lifting her shirt with her other hand, Anna placed Logan’s palm on her stomach, directly against her skin, where she felt the most movement. Now, rather than a fizzling pop, the sensation was fainter. Gentler. She doubted Logan would feel anything.

  A moment later, the disappointment etched into his features confirmed that was the case. “Nothing,” he said. “Maybe next time.”

  “Well, wait a minute.” Anna sent a silent plea to their daughter, asking her to kick and twirl and spin—whatever it took—because she wanted so much to share this moment with Logan. “Give her a chance to switch positions or do another somersault or something.”

  Logan knelt down and, with his hand still pressed tight against her stomach, leaned in close. “Hey there, princess,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “This is your daddy. Nothing would make me happier today than to feel you kick. Can you do me that favor?”

  A wash of heat wound tight in Anna’s belly and stretched through her body, limb by limb, until she was saturated with want. Need. Oh hell, with desire. Because standing here, with Logan so close, in such an intimate moment, brought forth all sorts of images from their night together. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe the images into nonexistence.

  But they were stubborn and flashed through her mind, one after another, in excruciating, vivid detail. How he’d kissed her, long and slow and with purpose, in a potent mix of passion and tenderness and strength. How he’d taken his time to make sure she was as satisfied as he, and how he had grinned when she’d finally given in and moaned.

  That night, he said he’d never heard another woman make quite the same sound, and his intention was to have her moan just like that again and again and again before they were done. And oh yes, he most certainly had.

  It had been a long, delicious night, unlike any other. Hours later, when she assumed he’d prefer her to leave rather than spend the entire night, he proved her wrong. She had used the bathroom, and was attempting to put on her clothes as quietly as possible, when Logan had opened one eye and said it was late, morning was only a few hours away and she should stay.

  She remembered now that he’d held her for those few hours, had grazed her neck with his mouth, and all of it—every action done and every word spoken—had felt as natural as breathing. When morning arrived, they’d shared coffee and light conversation, and after a shower, she’d headed to her aunt’s house. And even then, she hadn’t experienced any shame or embarrassment over her out-of-the-ordinary behavior. Or really, any regret.

  For her first—and very likely, her last—one-night stand, she couldn’t have asked for a better experience with a hotter, sexier or...sweeter man. He’d remained respectful of her, from the first minute they met to the second she walked out of his hotel.

  “I see how it is,” Logan was saying to her stomach, his voice a deep thrum that seemed to penetrate through her skin. “You’re already a headstrong female, aren’t you? You’ll let me feel you move when you’re good and ready and not a second before.”

  And Anna had to use every ounce of her willpower not to reach out and touch Logan. His cheek, his jaw, his hair. Any part of him, really. Forcing lightness into her voice, she said, “It’s probably too soon for you to feel her, but I wanted to try.”

  Standing, Logan smiled. “Thank you for the opportunity. Now,” he said, glancing at his watch, “we should probably get moving. Are you all set or do you need anything from me?”

  Idly and with some humor, she wondered what he would say if she announced that, yes, she did require something from him. Something specific that only he could provide: a repeat of their night together. Or several repeats, if the way she was feeling now was any indication.

  Another round of heat filtered in at the possibility. He’d likely remind her in his oh-so-kind and considerate way that they had left sex off the table for solid, logical reasons and that none of those reasons had changed. And he’d be right.

  Of course, logic and reason did nothing to assuage the sudden and traitorous demands of her out-of-control, hormone-filled body.

  “Anna?” he asked, watching her curiously. “Did you need—”

  “Nope! I don’t need anything. Not one thing. Nothing at all!” Avoiding his gaze, she picked up the box from the counter. “The pies are ready. I’m ready. You seem to be ready, so...what are we waiting for? Let’s go celebrate Thanksgiving!”

  “Oh, no you don’t. Stop right there.” Logan stepped in front of her, took the box from her hands and asked, “What’s going on here? What’s bothering you, Anna?”

  “Nothing. I’m...hungry. Ravenous, actually! I can’t wait to eat.”

  “You don’t look hungry. You look...feverish, maybe? Are you feeling ill?”

  “Oh, no,” she said in complete honesty, both disarmed and touched by the deep concern glittering in his eyes. “I promise, Logan, I’m not ill at all. I’d tell you if I didn’t feel well.”

  “Worried about something, perhaps?”

  “Nope! Not that, either!”

  “Alrighty then,” he said after a longer-than-normal pause, “I won’t belabor the point. Just do me the favor of remembering that we’re a team.” Leaning over, he gave her a sweet, brotherly type of kiss on her cheek. And even that chaste peck made her want him that much more. “When you need something from me, anything at all, all you have to do is ask.”

  Oh. Anything at all, huh? If only.

  He exited the kitchen, and she hoped—prayed, really—that her suddenly fired-up libido was, indeed, yet another passing side effect of pregnancy, and that in a day or two or three, she’d stop wishing that he’d pick her up and carry her to bed. If not, then she was clean out of luck. Because no, she couldn’t just ask Logan to fulfill this particular need.

  Or...could she?

  * * *

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Gavin said, sitting down next to Logan later that afternoon. “Have been most of the day, for that matter. At first, I figured there were just too many folks here, and you needed some time to settle in. Now, though, I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “Nah, I’m used to crowds.” Logan shrugged. “Just relaxing. Enjoying the day.”

  “Gotcha. Half the family is about to start a round of card games.” Gavin nodded toward the farmhouse’s large kitchen. “The other half is either shooting the breeze or napping on the back porch. Feel like joining either group?”

  Logan gave it an entire second of thought before shaking his head. “I’m good sitting here, watching the fire. Surprised folks aren’t in here napping, actually.”

  “I think you and your brooding scared them off.”

  Startled, Logan eyed his brother. “Seriously? I’m sorry—”

  “Stop. I’m joking.” Gavin scratched his beard. “Or mostly joking. Though I gotta admit I’m curious about what might be eating at you. If I were to guess, I’d say this has something to do with Anna. Anything going on there you want to talk
about?”

  Annoyed and amused by his brother’s ability to get right to the heart of the matter, Logan considered how best to answer. There wasn’t anything to talk over, really. He was just finding it difficult to keep his growing attraction toward Anna under control. This morning, he’d almost given in to the temptation to kiss her. Hold her again. Just touch her.

  He’d pulled himself together, barely, because he wouldn’t do to Anna what his father had done to his mother. Keeping true to his word, remaining honorable, was vital to Logan. And that meant following through with his take-everything-nice-and-slow-until-the-baby-is-born plan.

  Then he should be better able to assess.

  Since admitting any of this wouldn’t solve the core issue, he shrugged. “Not really. We’re good. There isn’t a thing to complain about, and other than a few oddball details in getting used to living with each other, this whole marriage deal is a lot easier than I thought.”

  Not a lie. Well, not really. The framework of their marriage remained solid.

  “Is that so?” Gavin’s eyebrows shot up. Both of them. “Easier, huh?”

  “That’s so,” he said, toeing the line he’d set. “Makes me happy we spent so much time working out our agreement and deciding beforehand what we wanted. There aren’t any hazy areas to worry about. If something comes up I’m unsure of, I just have to check the rule book.”

  “Hmm. A rule book, huh?” Gavin swiped at his beard again, shook his head. “Now, isn’t that something? Maybe you should publish that rule book of yours, for the greater good. You never know. It just might lower the divorce rate in this country, help folks see that all they need for a successful, effortless marriage is a list of rules and agreements for each party to follow.”

  Logan took in his brother’s too-serious-to-be-truly-serious tone and expression, considered his words and laughed. “Almost got me there with that one.”

  “Got you with what?” Gavin asked in mock innocence. “I’m just saying that if you’ve figured out how to keep a marriage golden—after, what? About a month of wedded bliss?—then it’s your duty to share that information with the rest of the male population.”

  “Point taken,” Logan said. “But we can’t really compare our marriages, now can we? You married for love. You’re in it for the long haul. Whereas I married for—”

  “The love of your child, and unless I’m way off base, I believe your plan is to stick around for the long haul as that baby’s father. Correct?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Not that different, then, and eventually, that rule book of yours isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference. One of these days, you’ll walk through your front door and Anna will be crying or spitting mad or have her mind set on some fool fact that to you is anything but fact, and you’ll be pulling at your hair trying to figure out what is going on.” Gavin cast him a sly sidewise glance. “Does your rule book cover even one of those scenarios?”

  “Nope, but I already handled a crying spell just fine, so I’m confident I can maneuver through whatever else might come up regarding Anna’s moods without too much of an issue.”

  So long as that “whatever else” didn’t entail holding his wife who wasn’t really his wife for an entire night again. He did not think he’d be able to hold steady if that were to happen.

  “Huh. Okay, if you say so.”

  He did say so, damn it, but why not learn what his brother had to say? Couldn’t hurt anything, as far as that went. “Any marital advice you feel like passing my way, on the remote possibility something unexpected arises?”

  Sighing, Gavin rested his hands behind his head and stretched out his legs. “I’m still learning, but I know a few things. For some reason, and I do not understand why this is, when women are stuck chin-deep in their emotions, they do not like being told to calm down or that everything will be all right. This applies whether they’re sad or angry.”

  Well, if that was the truth, then Logan had done okay. He hadn’t uttered anything close to either of those statements that night Anna was locked tight in her room, or for that matter, this morning when she’d obviously been hiding some type of trouble from him. That bugged him, not knowing what was going on in her head, but what was he to do about it?

  Focusing on Gavin, Logan said, “Really? It seems counterproductive, as I would think that having a calm voice of reason would provide some relief when you’re tied up in knots.”

  “I agree, but it doesn’t always work that way with the opposite sex,” Gavin said. “Like this morning, Haley was bent out of shape, worried that since we overslept, the turkey wouldn’t be done in time. I tried telling her we weren’t on a schedule and that not one of our guests would complain if we ate an hour later than intended. But she kept right on worrying anyway.”

  Aw, that was sweet. “She probably just wanted the day to go perfectly, and since it didn’t start off as she’d planned, was unable to focus on the truth of your words.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Gavin said with a quick grin. “Another thing I’ve noticed is that females are contrary creatures. They want us to be there for them—as we should—and they want us to understand them—again, as we should—but they dislike telling us something they think we should already know. This type of a situation can turn into a mess real quick.”

  Huh. Maybe the reason Anna hadn’t let him in on her thoughts this morning was that she thought he should already know? Possible, he supposed, but if so...well, Gavin was right. He did not have anything in his marital rule book to cover such a scenario.

  “What are you to do, then, if you can’t friggin’ ask?”

  “Well, first...say you come home one night and Anna’s madder than a wet hen. How would you try to solve the problem and calm her down some?”

  “The logical process is gathering information, processing the issue and then moving on to fixing the problem, but you just said that asking is a bad idea. So, I don’t know.” Logan tried to imagine an angry Anna and couldn’t. “Stay out of the line of fire, I guess, until she calms down, and then try to have a rational conversation?”

  “Now, that is a good, thoughtful answer, but it’s also dead wrong. You’ll just tick her off more by ducking for cover.” Gavin shrugged and his lips twitched in humor. “What you have to remember is that a woman’s brain and ours function differently. We tend to narrow our focus to logic. But women? They can sift everything under the damn sun into the picture. Logic is there, but so are emotion, memory, expectation, instinct and who knows what else?”

  Logan repressed a shudder, because his brother had touched upon one of his greatest fears. Oh, not in the scenario Gavin was describing, but in the use of the word expectation. He did not want to behave in any way that would lead Anna to expect more from their relationship than it currently was. And that was why he had to stick with his plan.

  “I know, Logan, I know,” Gavin said, mistaking the reason for his silence. “It’s confusing as hell. Women are formidable beings. They have an entire bag of tricks at their disposal, while we have nothing but a...a useless and tiny coin purse.”

  Chuckling, enjoying this moment with his brother despite his concerns, Logan said, “A coin purse, huh? Does anyone even use those anymore?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Okay, enlighten me,” Logan said. “What should I do if I ever encounter a madder-than-a-wet-hen version of Anna? I doubt it will happen, but...might as well have the information.”

  “Say as little as possible. Just watch and listen even if she isn’t making a whole lot of sense—remember, you’re clueless as to what she’s upset about—and wait for the pieces to click together. They will, eventually. But if you ask and she believes that you should already know, her level of mad—” wincing, Gavin pointed to the ceiling “—will go way, way up.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you t
alking from actual experience?”

  “I am.”

  “With Haley?” Logan asked, trying to picture his sweet, always calm, always smiling sister-in-law throwing a...well, what boiled down to a temper tantrum. “Or are you exaggerating in an effort to make some other point you haven’t shared as of yet?”

  “Nope, I am not exaggerating one lick,” Gavin said, his voice holding nuances of pride. “I married a stubborn, headstrong, impulsive woman who does not take no for an answer. And she isn’t a huge fan of listening to logic over her heart, so yeah, we’ve had our share of disagreements. That being said—and don’t tell her I’m admitting this—she’s usually right.”

  Huh. “I won’t, and I appreciate your take, but I doubt I’ll ever face any sort of a high-octane moment with Anna like you’ve described. She appreciates logic, for one thing. For another, our relationship is built on an entirely different type of foundation than yours.”

  “And there we are, right back where we started.” Gavin added another log to the fire. “I sure hope you’re right and that rule book of yours is as good as you think.”

  “It is. There isn’t much that can go wrong between us.” Well, a lot could go wrong, if Logan wasn’t careful and did something to screw up all that was right. So. He’d be careful. “What we have is equivalent to a cooperative business partnership.”

  “So you keep saying.” With another sidelong glance in Logan’s direction, Gavin said, “Though I have to wonder. Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

  “Neither. Just stating fact.” And because he was done—as in, completely—with this conversation, Logan stood. “Guess I’ll check in on Anna, see if she’s almost ready to leave. She’s been tiring earlier and earlier each evening, and she was up late baking those pies.”

  “You know,” Gavin said, following suit and rising to his feet, “there aren’t that many business partners so attuned to their platonic associates’ sleep schedules. I’m impressed.”

  Logan sighed. Yeah, his brother had quite the gift for sarcasm. “Noted and duly ignored,” he said, pivoting and leaving the room.