A Very Special Delivery

by Brenda Harlen

  The mother of three shrugged, unapologetic. “I like happy endings.”

  “And you got your very own when you married Matt.”

  “Actually, I like to think of the day I married Matt as a happy beginning,” her friend clarified. “And speaking of weddings…”

  Kelly sighed. “I know—I need a dress.”

  “Not that you should rush into anything,” Georgia said. “After all, you still have three whole weeks before the wedding.”

  Julie’s jaw dropped. “You’re getting married in three weeks and you don’t have a dress?”

  “I’ve got the groom,” Kelly said, just a little smugly.

  “And an appointment at Belinda’s Bridal in Syracuse next Saturday,” Georgia told her.

  “Why do I have to go all the way to Syracuse to go shopping?”

  “Because your daughter found a beautiful strapless satin Alfred Sung gown in stock and in your size, and she begged and pleaded and somehow convinced the manager to hold it until next weekend.”

  “She just wants me to go strapless so that she can go strapless,” Kelly muttered.

  “Possibly,” Georgia admitted. “But she showed me a photo of the dress she picked for you, and it’s gorgeous.”

  The bride-to-be still didn’t look convinced. “Any dress looks good on an airbrushed model in a glossy magazine.”

  “Next Saturday,” Georgia said firmly.

  Kelly wiggled her painted toes, then looked at Julie. “Can we kidnap you again next Saturday?”

  Julie grinned. “For shopping? Anytime.”

  Only later did she realize that none of them—herself included—had questioned the assumption that she would still be in Pinehurst a week later.

  * * *

  Julie enjoyed her visit to the spa with Kelly and Georgia, but by the time she slid her “Fabulous Fuchsia” painted toes into her shoes, she was anxious to get back to Caden and Lukas. Not that she would dare admit as much to either of the women in her company.

  When they arrived at Matt and Georgia’s house, they found a much quieter scene than the one they’d escaped from a few hours earlier. Lukas was in the living room with Caden in his lap, watching a football game and explaining the set plays and terminology to the baby. When there was a stoppage in play, he told them that Matt was in the basement playing video games with the twins, Pippa was napping in her crib upstairs and Jack was in the kitchen working on a science project with Ava.

  As the other women went off to track down their respective partners, Julie crossed to the sofa and scooped her baby into her arms. She breathed in his sweet baby scent and noisily kissed both of his cheeks. “There’s my big guy.”

  “And still in one piece,” Lukas said proudly.

  “If I hadn’t been absolutely certain, I never would have left him with you.”

  “Did you leave him with me?” he asked. “Because Ava seemed to think she was in charge.”

  She smiled at that. “Kelly says she’s desperate for a baby brother or sister of her own.”

  “And in the meantime, she’s been practicing with Pippa—and now Caden.”

  “Did either you or Ava have any problems?”

  Lukas shook his head. “Aside from the fact that he did not want to take the bottle you left for him.”

  “I wondered about that. The books warn that when nursing mothers attempt to bottle-feed, their babies can suffer from nipple confusion…” She let the explanation trail off as she felt her cheeks flush. “Sorry, I spent the last few hours with two women who have been through the same thing, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that you probably don’t need to hear those kinds of details.”

  He just shrugged. “He screamed for a while—and let me tell you, that boy has a very healthy set of lungs—but when you didn’t miraculously appear to give him what he wanted, his hunger won out.”

  “I guess that’s a good thing,” she said. “But it almost makes me feel superfluous.”

  “It was one bottle—you’re not superfluous.”

  “I know I’m being silly. It’s just that I really missed him. I had a fabulous time, but I missed him.”

  “You look like you had a good time. In fact, you look…” He trailed off, as if not quite sure how to complete the sentence.

  “Rested and refreshed?” she suggested. “Kelly promised that I would be both when Gia was finished with me, and that’s definitely how I feel.”

  “I was going to say beautiful,” he admitted.

  “Oh.” There was something about the way he was looking at her, the intensity in his eyes that started her heart pounding just a little bit faster again.

  “But you’re always beautiful,” he continued. “Even the first time I saw you—through the foggy window of your car—you took my breath away.”

  “Of course, that was before I got out from behind the wheel and you saw me waddle like a penguin behind the belly of a whale,” she teased.

  “You never waddled,” he denied.

  “I was eight and a half months pregnant,” she reminded him.

  “And beautiful.”

  He brushed his knuckles down her cheek, but it was her knees that went weak.

  “And I’ve been thinking about kissing you since that first day.” His words were as seductive as his touch, and the heat in his gaze held her mesmerized as he lowered his head, inching closer and closer until his lips hovered above hers.

  “You have the most tempting mouth.” He traced the outline of her lips with his fingertip. “Soft. Shapely. Sexy.”

  “Are you still thinking about it?” she asked, the question barely more than a whisper. “Or are you actually going to kiss me?”

  Luke breached the tiny bit of distance that separated their mouths and lightly rubbed his lips against hers.

  They were even softer than he’d suspected.

  Even sweeter.

  He kissed her again, another gentle caress—a question more than a statement. She sighed softly, her eyes drifting shut—the answer that he’d been seeking.

  He nibbled on her mouth, savoring her texture and flavor. Her response was unhesitating. Her lips yielded, then parted, and her tongue dallied with his. They were barely touching—it was only their mouths that were linked, and the taste of her made him crave more. He slid an arm around her waist, to draw her closer, and finally remembered that she had a baby in her arms. And that they were standing in the middle of his brother’s living room.

  With sincere reluctance, he eased his mouth from hers.

  She looked up at him, her eyes clouded with desire and confusion.

  “That wasn’t an actual kiss,” he told her.

  She blinked. “Then what was it?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that honestly without scaring her off. Because the truth was, it had been just enough of a taste to make him realize that he was starving for her, and that he wanted to feast not just on her mouth but on all her delicious parts.

  “Let’s call it…a prelude to a kiss,” he decided.

  “So am I ever going to get a real kiss?”

  It was reassuring to know that she was experiencing at least some of the same attraction that was churning him up inside. Unfortunately now wasn’t the time or the place to figure out how much.

  “Yeah,” he promised. “But not when I have to worry that we might be interrupted by either of my brothers, their significant others, kids or animals, or any combination of the same.”

  * * *

  When they were home and Caden was fed and settled down for a nap, Julie went to the laundry room to take the clothes out of the dryer. She carried the basket into the family room, intending to fold while she watched TV, and froze in the doorway when she saw Lukas was already there.

  He was reading a veterinarian periodical and didn’t even look up when she entered the room. She exhaled an unsteady breath and sat down on the edge of the sofa, with the basket on the coffee table in front of her.

  At Jackson and Kelly’s house, when Luka
s had been looking at her and talking about kissing her, all she’d been able to think about was how much she wanted the same thing. Now that her mind wasn’t clouded by his nearness and her hormones weren’t clamoring for action, she was having second thoughts. Mostly because what he’d called a prelude to a kiss was actually one of the best kisses she’d ever experienced in her entire life.

  “I’m not going to jump you, Julie.”

  But she jumped when his voice broke the silence, knocking the basket off the table and spilling its contents all over the floor.

  He immediately crossed the room, dropping to his knees beside her to help gather up the laundry.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

  She wanted to say that she wasn’t, but since it would obviously be a lie, she remained silent.

  “Although I have to admit I’m a little curious about why you’re suddenly so on edge,” he continued. “Is it because you’re afraid I’m going to really kiss you? Or disappointed that I haven’t already?”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted, picking up scattered baby socks. “Maybe a little of both.”

  His smile was wry. “At least you’re honest.”

  She scooped up the last sleeper and dropped it into the basket.

  “Your pulse is racing,” Luke noted, and touched his fingertip to the side of her neck, just beneath her ear.

  Her skin felt singed by the touch, and her throat went dry. She lifted her gaze to his, and saw the desire in his eyes. She hadn’t seen it when he looked at her before. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to see it. But there was no denying it was there now.

  “It’s the way you look at me,” she admitted. “You make my heart pound.”

  He took her palm and laid it against his chest, so she could feel that his heart was pounding, too. And then his head lowered toward her, and her breath caught in her lungs.

  “Can I kiss you now, Julie?”

  She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to feel his lips against hers so desperately she ached, but she also knew that if he kissed her, everything would change. And she wasn’t sure she wanted anything to change.

  She genuinely liked Lukas. She enjoyed spending time with him, talking to him. She even enjoyed being with him when they didn’t have anything to talk about, because the silence was never awkward or uncomfortable. She didn’t want things to get awkward between them.

  But as his lips hovered above hers, she couldn’t deny that she wanted his kiss a lot more than she wanted the status quo.

  His hands—those wide-palmed, strong, capable hands—cradled her face gently. He tilted her head back, adjusting the angle to deepen the kiss. He touched his tongue to the center of her top lip, a light, testing stroke. She met it with her own, a response and an invitation. He dipped inside her mouth, and the sweep of his tongue sent shockwaves of pleasure shooting down her spine, leaving her weak and quivering with need.

  After what seemed like an eternity—and yet somehow nearly not long enough—he finally eased his mouth from hers. “That was a kiss,” he told her.

  She made no attempt to move out of his arms, because she wasn’t sure her legs would support her. “Maybe we should have stopped with the prelude,” she said, when she’d managed to catch her breath.

  “I don’t think that would have been possible.”

  “I don’t want to start something we can’t finish. You know I’m only going to be in town for a few more weeks.”

  “How could I possibly forget when you keep reminding me every time I turn around?”

  “I just don’t want to give you mixed signals.”

  He tipped her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Are you attracted to me, Julie?”

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  He grinned. “Then I can be satisfied with that.”

  She eyed him doubtfully. “Really?”

  “I’m not going to push for more than you’re ready to give.”

  “I’m grateful for that,” she told him.

  “And until you trust me enough to talk to me, I can’t see a few kisses leading to anything more.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “And yet you haven’t said a single word to me about Caden’s father.”

  Well, that was a complete mood killer. Except that she knew it wasn’t unreasonable for Luke to want at least some of the details. “Not because I don’t trust you,” she told him. “But because I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “As I said, I’m not going to push for more than you’re ready to give.”

  She understood why he would have questions, and maybe it was time to give him some answers. She sat back on the sofa and drew in a deep breath. “His name is Elliott Davis Winchester III. He works in public relations at the Springfield Medical Center but has aspirations of a career in politics. I’ve known him for two years—well, I guess closer to three now, although I haven’t seen him since I gave him back his ring seven and a half months ago.”

  * * *

  Luke had been reluctant to push for answers—probably because he suspected he might not like what he learned. Her words confirmed it. “You were engaged to him?”

  She nodded.

  He wasn’t really shocked by the revelation. Julie didn’t seem the type of woman to get pregnant as a result of a one-night stand. But a relationship, however long-term, was different than an engagement. An engagement was a promise to marry, a plan for forever. If Julie had been engaged to Caden’s father, she’d obviously been in love with him. Maybe she still was.

  He cleared his throat. “What happened?”

  “I realized he wasn’t the man I thought he was—and he definitely wasn’t a man I wanted to marry.”

  “Have you been in touch with him, to tell him that you had the baby?”

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t you think he has a right to know?”

  “Of course, the biological father has all kinds of rights, doesn’t he?”

  Something in her tone alerted him to the possibility that there was more to her situation than a jilted lover not wanting to fight over custody of her child. “Tell me what happened, Julie. Because I can’t imagine that you went from making wedding plans one minute to hiding out with your baby the next without a pretty good reason.”

  His patient tone succeeded in dimming the fiery light in her eyes. “He hit me.”

  Luke hadn’t seen that coming, and he almost felt as if he’d been punched.

  “We’d been out to a political fundraiser and Elliott had been busy working the room, drinking and chatting with everyone who was anyone, telling jokes and laughing and drinking. When we got back to his place, he poured another drink and wanted to rehash every word of every conversation he’d had, but I was tired and just wanted to go to bed. He accused me of not being supportive, I said that he seemed more interested in Johnny Walker’s company than mine, and he backhanded me.

  “He only hit me once,” she said, and touched a fingertip to her cheek where there was a tiny white scar he’d never before noticed. “But it was with the hand that proudly displayed the Yale class ring, and that was enough for me. I left.

  “There was a pattern of escalating behavior, of course, that I only recognized after the fact. But the slap was—for me—the final straw.”

  “What else did he do?” Luke asked the question through gritted teeth.

  “Does it matter? I left him. It’s over. Now I just want to forget.”

  “Yes, it matters,” he insisted. “Because unless you tell somebody about what he did, he gets away with it.”

  “Most of the time he was very courteous and considerate,” she finally said. “But sometimes, when he was drinking, he would become impatient, angry, aggressive.”

  “What did he do?” he asked again.

  “He’d berate my opinions, belittle my feelings. Outwardly, he would be attentive and affectionate, but he’d hold my hand a little too tight, or his fingers would bite into my skin
when he took my arm.”

  “Did he leave bruises?”

  “Not really. He never really hurt me before the night I left. But…”

  “But what?” he prompted.

  “I guess I knew it was escalating toward that,” she admitted. “I wasn’t really scared of him, but I was uneasy. I think that’s one of the reasons that I didn’t want to set a wedding date, because I was waiting for something like that to happen so I could leave him.”

  “Why did you need a reason to leave?”

  “Because until he actually hit me, he seemed like the perfect man. My parents knew him, respected him. And for the first time in my life, they approved of a man I was dating. When we got engaged, they were thrilled.”

  “Do you think they would be thrilled to know that he’d hit you?”

  “Of course not,” she immediately denied. “Neither of them has any tolerance for domestic abuse.”

  Luke didn’t, either. He’d never understood how anyone could hurt someone they claimed to love—spouse, child, parent or even pet. But he knew that it happened far too often.

  “I understand now why you don’t want him to be part of Caden’s life, but I don’t understand why you didn’t immediately go to the police and press charges,” he said.

  “It was my first instinct,” she confided. “My cheek was still burning when I reached for the phone. Elliott saw what I was doing, and there was a quick flare of panic in his eyes…and then he smiled.

  “And he warned me that if I called the police—if I told anyone at all—he would destroy my father’s career.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Luke knew it didn’t matter if the man had the ability to follow through on his threat, what mattered was that Julie obviously believed he did.

  “How was he going to do that?” he asked her now.

  “My father’s a judge—a superior court judge, actually, with a reputation for being strict and unyielding. He built his career on a foundation of ensuring everyone had equal access to justice and was treated equally by the law.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you that he might be a little bit upset that you gave in to your abusive fiance’s blackmail?”

  “It occurred to me that he’d be devastated if his career was ended and I could have saved it.”