Ella stepped around Ben and lifted Cori’s bed covers. “Don’t worry, darlin’. You won’t even see this one.”
Cori moaned as she realized Ella was pulling down her panties. “Not there,” she muttered. “Oh, please, another part of my body he’s seeing. Is there nothing sacred?” She was so lost in her misery she didn’t notice the faint prick of the needle.
“If people heard her now they’d think you just might not be the father,” Ella murmured as she adjusted the sheet and lightweight blanket covering Cori. “Now, dear, I’m making you some broth. You’ll feel better after you’ve had something in your stomach.”
“Oh, please don’t torture me,” Cori moaned. “All my stomach does is get even when something comes near it.”
“It shouldn’t now.” Ben crouched down by the bed. “By now you should start to feel a difference.”
Cori silently took stock and noticed the rock-and-rolling motion in her stomach had started to subside. She took a shallow breath. Surprisingly, it didn’t seem to hurt as much this time.
Ben smiled as he noticed a hint of color come back into her cheeks. “The miracle of modern medicine.”
Cori started to cautiously sit up. Ben rushed to help her, adjusting the pillows behind her back. And as he did, he noticed the enticing dip of her nightgown’s neckline showing the tops of her breasts. For a moment, the last thing he felt like was a doctor. He took a deep breath to bring himself back into control.
“It’s just chicken broth, so you shouldn’t have any trouble with it.” Ella entered the room, carrying a mug. “Now you drink every drop, but drink it slow since you haven’t had much lately. After two days, you have to be severely dehydrated.” She shot a keen gaze in Ben’s direction as she handed Cori the mug. “I have a husband waiting for me, so I’ll leave you in the doctor’s care.” With a knowing smile on her lips, she took her leave.
Cori huddled under the sheet while Ben sat in the chair by the bed.
“Feeling more human?” he asked, taking her wrist and pressing his thumb against her pulse point. He was gratified to feel her pulse beating at a more regular rate. As a test, he gently stroked the soft skin and noticed her respiration pick up.
“Yes, thank you.” She slid her hand from his and curled her fingers around the mug. She blew on the steaming broth and sipped the hot liquid cautiously.
“I’ll prescribe something for you, so you won’t have to worry about this again,” Ben told her.
She soon finished the broth. Ben took the mug from her and set it to one side.
“I’m more trouble than I’m worth,” she said softly. “If I had any sense, I’d call my father and tell him he could do whatever he wanted with my life. Even if it meant working for Peyton Consultants.” Her lower lip trembled. “Damn, I hate these spurts of hormones,” she muttered, swiping at her tears with the back of her hand.
Ben dug inside his jeans pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He sat on the edge of the bed and dabbed at her cheeks.
“Is that what you want? Your father to fly out here and pick you up?”
“No.” She said the word so softly if he hadn’t been looking at her lips he wouldn’t have known she replied.
“You don’t have to worry, Cori. I’ll take care of you.”
She winced. “I left my dad for a very good reason. He tried to run my life and take care of me.”
This time Ben winced. “And I’m saying the very thing you don’t want to hear.”
Cori nodded.
He pulled her toward him and wrapped his arms around her. She rested her cheek against his chest.
“What do you want to do next?”
Cori placed a palm against his chest, content to feel the warmth of his skin. “If they would have let me, I could have done any of the jobs I had.”
“Honey, you couldn’t even hold your job at the convenience store.”
“I didn’t like George calling me Sweetcheeks. He’s lucky I didn’t smack him with a sexual harassment suit.”
Ben’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep sigh. “Okay, take tomorrow to rest and I’ll see what I can come up with.”
Cori nestled closer to him. “Only on one condition.”
Ben couldn’t help laughing. “Only you, after obviously throwing up anything you put in your stomach and as weak as a kitten, could think to set conditions on your next job.”
“This is important,” she said forcefully. “I am willing to do anything.”
“But—” he inserted.
She tipped her head back so she could look up at his face. She hadn’t noticed before how tired he looked. She wondered what he had been doing the past couple days to have him looking so weary.
“Except work at that feed store. I refuse to smell like a cow.”
He smiled as he kissed the tip of her nose. “No problem. Martin’s already warned me about the limits of friendship.”
Chapter Nine
Farrington Grammar School
“Are you really Dr. Ben’s girlfriend?” a tiny elf of a girl, named Melissa, asked Cori.
She debated what answer to give. She sensed telling a five-year-old she was in lust with a man wouldn’t be a good idea. “Not exactly.”
When Ben first approached her about working as an aide at the kindergarten summer program for working mothers, she thought it sounded like a wonderful idea. Until he explained it wouldn’t be a paying job, but he figured it would keep her out of mischief until something else came along. She didn’t appreciate the latter notion, but she did know she didn’t want to be housebound any longer now that the nausea medication had her feeling like her old self.
Cori had assured him she could do this. In fact, standing out here on the playground helping shepherd the kids and organizing games with them proved to be a lot of fun.
She hadn’t expected to discover that five-year-olds were a lot more advanced than when she had been at that age. All she had cared about was finger-painting and playing games. These little girls asked her if they could wear her lipstick and the boys told her she was sexy.
“Did you ever see it?” Melissa insisted.
Cori grimaced. She realized she hadn’t been listening to the little girl’s rambling conversation. “Did I see what, pumpkin?”
“The cartoon about the swan and the duck? When the mean ole buzzard took the swan’s babies, the duck got mad and flew in the air to get him, and when he did he turned into an airplane.” Her eyes widened with excitement as she related the story. “And he gave the buzzard a thing of dynamite so he’d blow up. And the mama swan was so happy she let the baby duck stay with her baby swans. It was really neat. I like cartoons with babies in them.” Melissa looked up and tentatively reached out to touch Cori’s abdomen with her fingertips. “My mom says you’re going to have a baby.”
“That’s right.” As Cori said the words, she realized how matter-of-fact she had become about it. Which was surprising for someone who didn’t have any prospects in her future.
Melissa frowned. “But how can you have a baby if there’s no daddy?”
Cori swung the little girl up in her arms. “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you ask your mommy that? I bet she’ll tell you all about it.”
“Okay!”
“That’s the way to wiggle your way out of a problem.”
Cori turned around. “Denise! What are you doing here?”
“I came to town to do some shopping and Ella told me you were over here.” Denise looked over the playground and the children running around. “You’re a braver person than I am. There’re days when I feel I can’t handle my three.”
“Ben thought it would be good practice for me. I never had any idea they had so much energy or could ask so many questions.” Cori wiped the back of her hand against her forehead and looked around. “By the way, Ben is not the father, Denise,” she murmured.
“I might believe you, but most people won’t. He’s shown an awful lot of interest in someone he’s not involved with.”
She shifted from one foot to the other. “He feels sorry for me.”
Denise continued looking at Cori’s profile. “I don’t think so. Ben’s a caring man about people, but he’s never been this caring about one person.”
“I’m a novelty.”
“Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?”
Cori could feel her lower lip wobbling. “Hormones are hell.”
“Wait a few months when they go completely out of control,” Denise said. “Stan used to say that my pregnancies were harder on him than on me since he was never sure what creature he was going to come home to.”
“Oh, gee, I can’t wait.”
The other woman smiled at Cori’s sarcasm. “Don’t worry, the end result is worth it.” She glanced across the playground and winced at a glare directed her way. “I can’t believe Mrs. Timmerman is still teaching. I had her when I was in kindergarten and the boys have had her. She scared the hell out of me. Stan said she was all bark and no bite, but I noticed he dragged his heels when it came time for parent-teacher conferences.”
“She is intimidating,” Cori admitted. “The first thing she told me when I walked in was that her word was law here and she didn’t care if Benjamin did recommend me. If she felt I didn’t work well with the children, I’d be out of here.”
Denise chuckled. “She always was tactful. I better get out of here before she comes up with a suitable punishment. Come on out to the farm Saturday afternoon. We’ll barbecue.” She suddenly grinned. “Bring Ben with you.”
“Miss Peyton!” The teacher’s voice rang out with the same authority. “You are here to help with the children, not to socialize.”
“I’m out of here,” Denise muttered, patting Cori’s shoulder before she almost ran for the front gate.
“Coward,” Cori called after her. She turned around, threw back her shoulders, pasted a bright smile on her lips and headed for the autocratic teacher, murmuring under her breath, “Coming, you dictator, you.”
*
WHEN BEN GLANCED out the window in one of the examination rooms he noticed a chaise longue angled outside the cottage’s front door and a slim body resting on it. A body wearing white shorts and an orange tank top. Oversize dark glasses covered most of the woman’s face, obscuring her identity.
“But I’d know those legs anywhere,” he muttered.
“Doctor, I suggest you worry more about Mrs. Wheeler’s arthritis than the pair of legs out there,” Ella murmured as she passed by him.
“This medicine you gave me isn’t working!” the elderly woman shouted at Ben.
“It isn’t working, Mrs. Wheeler, because you haven’t been taking it on a regular basis,” he reminded her. “You can’t just take it whenever you think about it.”
“Don’t know why not.” The woman thumped the carpet with her cane. She slowly rose to her feet.
“I’ll need to see you next week,” Ben called after her retreating figure.
“I’ll see if I have any time to spare for you. Can’t come in here whenever you want me to, you know.”
“Go on and ogle your woman.” Ella pushed him toward the back door. “Just don’t do anything that could be seen by anyone who would tell your mother.”
“Terrific. I live in a town filled with clones of my mother.” He picked up his step as he walked toward Cori. As he got closer, he heard the throbbing beat of a sixties rock group coming from a small radio sitting next to a bottle of nail polish. A large glass of ice tea was set on the ground near the chair within easy reach. He had to smile at the picture of total relaxation she portrayed.
“How’re you doing?” he asked, nudging her feet to one side as he sat down on the end of the longue.
“You are a horrible man to put me through such a sadistic time.” She didn’t bother taking off her sunglasses.
Ben picked up her glass and sipped. “I thought I told you no caffeine.”
“I don’t want to hear any lectures. If you put in the morning I just did, you’d insist on having it infused directly into your veins.”
He concentrated on the rosy coral coloring her toenails. He noticed only two of her fingernails had been painted, as if she couldn’t go on.
“I thought you’d have fun working with the kids.”
“Oh, the kids were great.” She took her glass out of his hand. “Get your own, Dr. Cooper. Admittedly, they asked questions I couldn’t answer and expected me to know the plot of every cartoon made, but they weren’t the ones who turned me into a mass of jelly.”
“Mrs. Timmerman.”
“You got it, Doc. That dragon lady is downright scary.” She sucked on a piece of ice. “The kids are in awe of her, but adults are afraid she’s going to put a spell on them, so they stay away. I’m sure she put one on me. I didn’t think anything could ever scare me until I met up with her.”
“A lot of us were convinced she was a wicked witch who would never die.” He picked up one of her bare feet and began massaging her instep. Her skin was warm to the touch and he enjoyed the silky sensation between his palms. Along with the soft groans she emitted.
“Don’t stop,” she ordered. “That woman kept me running all over the playground. Do you know how hard a playground surface is? And how hot it was out there?”
He looked at her skin bared by the tank top. Her upper chest and shoulders glistened with moisture from the afternoon heat, but what had his temperature rising was seeing her breasts push against the soft cotton of her top. There was no denying her breasts had already become fuller. A cold shower for two suddenly popped into his mind.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Cori asked.
He figured he might as well be honest. “I was thinking about the two of us cooling off in the shower. Wanna see if it would work?” He was pleased to see a pink color travel up her throat.
She took her time answering by slipping her sunglasses up to the top of her head. “Somehow, I think the opposite would happen.”
His eyes darkened with desire as he gazed at her. “Sounds interesting.”
She smiled a slow, lazy smile. “I do declare, doctuh,” she purred in a husky drawl that would have done a Southern belle proud. “Are you tryin’ to compromise me?”
His grip slowly slid upward until his fingers circled her calf. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Because you have a fascination with blue-eyed blondes?”
“There’s only one blue-eyed blonde I’m fascinated with.”
She tipped her head to one side. “Or maybe because you figure it’s something I might be good at.”
His lips curved. “We can always practice until we both get it right.”
Cori bent upward from the waist and looped her arms around his neck. “Then, Ben, let’s give the townspeople something to talk about.” The tip of her tongue appeared between her parted lips and slid across his lower lip as her mouth brushed against his.
Ben’s hands rested on her hips. He deliberately kept a slight distance so Cori would have to take the initiative. He didn’t doubt she would take advantage of the situation. And she didn’t let him down.
Cori discovered acting as the aggressor was fun. She nibbled his lips, whispered saucy suggestions in his ear and pressed her breasts against his chest. All she had to do was lay back and draw him down with her. It would be so easy. She couldn’t say she didn’t know Ben now after all the time they had spent together.
“If we went inside right now,” she breathed the words in his ear as she traced the curve with the tip of her tongue, “how long do you think it would take for the entire town to know what we were doing in there?”
“Including outlying areas?” He sounded as if it was difficult for him to breathe.
“Uh-huh.” She grazed her teeth along the soft skin behind his ear.
“Five minutes tops, since Ella’s looking out my office window.”
Cori didn’t draw back at the news. She took her time unlooping her arms from around his neck and scooted b
ack along the chaise. She leaned over and picked up a white hat reminiscent of a riverboat gambler’s and settled it on top of her head.
“Then I guess I better go inside before we do something we shouldn’t.” She smiled at him to soften the blow.
“You’re teasing me again.” He also smiled.
“No, I’m very serious this time.” She stood and quickly gathered up her things. “If you’re feeling brave, come over tonight for dinner. I’ll even cook.”
He picked up her radio and handed it to her. “When there’s a good doctor in town, one doesn’t have to worry about food poisoning. What time?”
She thought for a moment. “How about when you finish up?”
“I’ll be over a little after six.”
Ben whistled as he walked back to the clinic.
“Should we have a talk about the birds and the bees?” Ella asked as Ben went into his office and changed lab coats. While he liked the idea of Cori’s perfume on the cotton jacket, he wasn’t sure his patients would understand. Or, if they did, they would be only too happy to comment on it in great detail.
“Should we have a talk about that night you went out with your buddies for a supposed bridge game?” Ben inquired.
The nurse glared at him. “That’s blackmail.”
“I know.”
“You just remember that pregnancy enhances a woman’s emotions. She shouldn’t be toyed with.”
In the process of shrugging on another lab coat, Ben looked over his shoulder. “Ella, the last thing I want to do with Cori Peyton is toy with her,” he said seriously.
“Oh, my God,” she said, shocked. “You’re falling for that girl!”
“Damn straight.”
Ella shook her head. “Oh, Ben.”
“Why so unhappy about it? Everyone else seems to want to see a romance between us.”
“Only because they think you’re the father and hope you’ll do right by her. I just don’t want to see you heartbroken when she goes back to California.”
Ben drew her to him for a hug. “Who knows. Maybe she’ll decide to stay for good.”
*
Mommy Heiress (Accidental Dads #2) Page 14
