A Child for Christmas

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “There’s not.”

  “Because you’d remember?”

  “Because the only concerned face around me when I was in the hospital was Jefferson’s. No women came to visit. I doubt I’d ever even had a woman inside that apartment that’s supposed to be mine.”

  Tears knotted in her throat. “You make it sound so lonely.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was.”

  “Your career meant the world to you, Sawyer.”

  “If it did, why have I not recalled one thing about it? And why don’t I care? You know what memory I want to regain the most, Rebecca?”

  She realized they were no longer on the dance floor, but standing in the shadows outside the gymnasium, next to a row of lockers. The double doors he’d guided her through swung shut with a soft whoosh. “What?”

  He cupped her face in his broad, callused hands, his thumb brushing her skin. “You. I want to remember you. And even if I never do, I’m glad for the accident, because I can know you now. I won’t hurt you again, Rebecca. I can see in your eyes that it’s exactly what you expect me to do. But I swear to you, I won’t hurt you again.” His thumb smoothed over her lip. “Believe me.”

  Weak, Rebecca curled her fingers into his arms. “Oh, Sawyer. There’s so much you don’t—”

  “Are you still in love with him? With your husband?”

  “I loved him,” she whispered. “But he’s gone. The last thing Tom would have wanted was for me to mourn him forever.”

  “Was he your first love?”

  She shook her head, dropping her forehead to his chest.

  “Spend the night with me.”

  “It wouldn’t be right.” Or smart or sane.

  “We’re not kids, Becky Lee. We’re not Dylan Reese and Taylor Blankenship.”

  At that, the tears she’d kept at bay spilled over. If he only knew. “Ryan...” She couldn’t finish.

  “My room, then.”

  “You always were persistent.”

  “What else was I?”

  “Willing to do anything to achieve your objective.” She moistened her lips and tried to think rationally. “I think you’re pushing your natural healing processes because you’re impatient to put together the pieces of your memory. And I’m just a small part of the puzzle.”

  “And I think you think too much.”

  “Sawyer—”

  “Shh.” He pressed his lips to hers, halting the words.

  Her rational mind shattered and all she could do was feel. Taste. Sigh against him and open to him when he sought more. Her fingers blindly explored cashmere-covered shoulders, felt his neck, so warm and strong. Felt his pulse thunder in tempo with hers, grazed his sharply angled jaw, the curve of his ear, slipped into the heavy silken hair.

  His hands, on her hips now, pulled her tightly to him, and she murmured wordlessly when her body curved softly against his hard angles.

  A sharp peal of laughter cut through the thick fog encircling them with all the finesse of a dull knife.

  Rebecca gasped, pulling away, but Sawyer wouldn’t let her go far, allowing her only to press her hands against his chest. “Sawyer, please. Someone will see. Let me go.”

  “After one question first. Who was your first love?”

  “Sawyer—”

  “Who?”

  She looked at him, at the silver-tipped hair, disheveled because of her fingers. At the dark blue eyes, with faint shadows beneath them because of too many restless nights sleeping at the end of her building. “I suspect you already know the answer to that,” she said huskily.

  “I was. Where? When?”

  That would be treading in far too dangerous waters. For a former SEAL who was used to danger, it was fine. But for the town doctor who’d worked hard to make a new life for herself and her son it was much too deep. “You said one question.”

  Sawyer grimaced, wanting to push, knowing he shouldn’t. He reluctantly slid his hands from her hips. “I don’t know what it is, Doc, but once again my patience seems to be nonexistent where you’re concerned.” He hauled in a long breath and shoveled his fingers through his hair. “Before you decide you’re sorry you came with me tonight, if you haven’t already, maybe we should go back inside.”

  He realized he was holding his breath when she smoothed nervous hands down her figure-skimming dress and nodded. He breathed again and turned back to the transformed gymnasium. “Doing what’s right can be a real pain,” he said softly.

  He caught her elbow when she seemed to stumble. “Why would you say that?”

  Why, indeed? An all-too-familiar throb reappeared in his temples, and he shrugged, pulling open the inner doors. “I have no idea. Just another one of those things that pops into my murky mind.” He managed a faint grin and touched his finger to the little line that had formed between her level brows. “Put the doctor to rest, Becky Lee.” Her smile was too shaky to suit him. “Don’t let a few kisses get you down.”

  “It’s not the kisses,” she said in such a soft voice he had to strain to hear her. “It’s the ‘Becky Lee.’”

  And he knew then, why the name always came into his mind. A name that ought to belong to an innocent girl, rather than a grown, coolly professional doctor transplanted to Wyoming from a New York hospital. “You got so mad at me the first time I called you that,” he remembered slowly. “I didn’t know you were just a student or I wouldn’t have given you such a hard time. But you turned positively green when you had to stitch up my leg—whoa, Doc.” He caught her when she turned equally as green now as she had that long-ago day. He didn’t know what was wrong with his brain that he could remember some things with such clarity, and other things—like just how long ago it had been—were out of his reach.

  The look she was giving him was torn between horror and agony, causing a sharp stab of pain in his chest that had nothing to do with bruised ribs. And all he wanted to do was rid that well of pain from her golden-brown eyes, but he had no clue how to accomplish it. “Ah, sweetness, it was a long time ago.” Which didn’t seem to help matters at all, and feeling totally inept, he wrapped his arms around her, rocking her slightly. “Call me names or something, Doc,” he murmured against her temple.

  “Why?” Her voice was choked, her palms on his chest caught between them. He felt her fingers curling. “Why would I call you names?”

  His laugh was humorless and short. “I don’t know. To make me feel better, I guess. You know this would be a helluva lot easier if you’d just spill your guts on what I did. Though I can probably guess.”

  He tucked her head beneath his chin. Realized that smoothing his hand through her silky hair soothed him as much or more than it was meant to soothe her. “I was your first love and I broke your heart. No doubt through some monumentally selfish stupidity on my part. That much has become abundantly clear. But just as clear is the fact that you moved on. You were still a med student when we met, and now you’re a respected physician. You and your husband—whom you obviously loved—had a son you’d do anything for, even to the extent of asking me to spend time with him just so he’ll be able to remember his father more easily. Is that about it?”

  Rebecca stirred and he let her go, feeling cold inside without her warmth against him. “Essentially,” she said.

  He watched her, probing the gray veil in his mind for more details, more explanations. Nothing. He leaned back against the cold wall of lockers and pushed his fingers in the front pockets of his trousers. “So where do we go from here, Becky Lee?”

  Beneath silky royal-blue fabric, her shoulders straightened. “For now, back inside the dance,” she said evenly. “Later, when you’ve recovered, I’ll sign your release and you’ll go back to your life.”

  “What if I decide I want a different life than the one I’ve forgotten?”

  She turned on a slender high heel and reached for the gymnasium door. “You can trust me on this one, Captain. You won’t decide anything of the sort.”

  Chapter Eleven


  The rest of the evening passed in a haze, as far as Rebecca was concerned. She hovered behind the refreshment table, deliberately making herself busy. But her attention was on Sawyer, across the room, sitting at the big round table with his brothers and their wives, as if nothing untoward had happened that evening at all.

  Every time he looked her way, she grabbed up another handful of debris and turned away. And every time she did so, she was more disgusted with herself.

  Huffing out a breath, she moved out into the hallway. Hearing footsteps behind her, she whirled around. But it was only Bennett. She nodded distractedly. “I think everyone in town came tonight.”

  “You know, you never did give me the pleasure of a dance, despite your promise.”

  “Bennett, you know how busy we’ve all been tonight. It was worth it, though. We raised enough money to keep the elementary school open another year.” She went still when he caught her shoulders in his too-smooth hands. “Bennett, really.”

  “Rebecca, you must know how I feel about you.”

  “The same way you’ve felt about every other available female in the county,” she said pleasantly.

  “None of them were like you, though,” he assured, stepping even closer. “With your breeding and intel-ligence—”

  “Breeding? I’ve tried to be nice, Bennett, but I’m simply not interested in you that way.”

  “But Rebecca, who else in this little town is in your class? Nothing but ranchers and—”

  “People who’ve given you a livelihood,” she reminded.

  “I suppose you think you’re going to score big with the Clays. But you’d do better to set your sights for the old man than Sawyer. Everybody knows that Sawyer doesn’t want anything to do with the family holdings. He won’t hang around here for long and you’ll just be left hanging when he goes.”

  It wasn’t so different than what she’d thought, herself. But delivered in Bennett Ludlow’s snide tone, the statement infuriated her. Not about setting her sights for Squire, which was simply beneath contempt, but about Sawyer’s expected actions. “I’d rather take one minute with Sawyer Clay than a lifetime with the likes of you,” she said coldly, shoving his hands away. “I have work to do yet, so get out of my way.”

  “Now, listen here, Rebecca. I haven’t spent all this time waiting for that ice-princess act of yours to thaw, just to have you fall for Sawyer the minute he comes slouching back into town.”

  Disbelief crowded against disgust when he closed his hands around her arms and pressed his lips to hers. She yanked back, stomping her heel into his foot and twisting his wrist in a particularly painful way. “Don’t ever touch me again, Bennett, or any other unwilling woman for that matter, or I’ll break something the next time.”

  “If she doesn’t it’ll be my pleasure to finish the job.”

  Paling, Bennett backed away from Rebecca, giving Sawyer, who’d soundlessly appeared, a wary glance. He looked like he was ready to say more, but Sawyer lifted an eyebrow, his smile deadly. Bennett huffed and stomped off. Rebecca was so relieved to see the last of him. And so ridiculously touched that Sawyer had wanted to protect her.

  Rebecca reached for the trash bag that Bennett had left on the floor, but Sawyer was there first and tossed it into the bin. “Don’t say it,” she said. “I don’t need an I-told-you-so just now.”

  “Right. How about a final dance, then? They just made the last call.”

  One minute with Sawyer... “I’d rather go home,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

  If he did, his expression didn’t show it. He opened one of the double doors and waited for her to enter first. “I’ll get our coats and you can find Ryan.”

  Ryan was still over the moon, having danced through three consecutive songs with Melanie. Rebecca anticipated an argument, but none came. Probably because she gave him permission to go home with the Fieldings and spend the night there when they invited him.

  It took several minutes to say their own goodbyes and work their way to the door; longer actually, than the drive home. Sawyer stopped outside the garage to let her out, and Rebecca hovered on the sidewalk, holding the long folds of her coat around her, but still shivering at the frigid air that swirled around her ankles. The night was impossibly clear and impossibly cold, and she simply didn’t want to end it yet.

  Sawyer closed the garage door and stopped next to her. “I suppose—”

  “Would you like—”

  They broke off. Feeling awkward, Rebecca tucked her chin into the turned-up collar of her coat. “Would you like to come in for some coffee?”

  “Is that all you’re offering?” His teeth flashed in the moonlight and he waved his hand. “Forget I said that,” he suggested.

  Not likely. So repeating her invitation for coffee was probably foolish, and she did it anyway. After a moment, he nodded, and she silently led the way through the kitchen. She left Sawyer for a moment to hang up their coats, and when she returned, Sawyer was paging through one of the thick photo albums she kept on her bookshelves in the living room.

  She swallowed a jab of unease, and was starting a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen when Sawyer came in. He sat at the table, long legs stretched, his gleaming boots crossed at the ankles. “When you said coffee, you really meant it. Do you always say what you mean?”

  Her ears heated. “I try to.”

  He made a noncommittal sound. He’d propped one elbow on the table beside him, pressing his fingertips against his temple. “Tell me about New York.”

  “It’s a really big city—” She leaned back against the counter at his look. “What do you want to know?”

  “How’d you get there from San Diego?”

  “What do you know about San Diego?”

  “That is where we met, isn’t it?”

  She hesitated. Then nodded. Wondered how much more he remembered about San Diego, but was afraid of the answer should she ask.

  “So how’d you get to New York?” he asked.

  “By plane.”

  “Is this another one of those forbidden areas of yours?”

  Yes. But that would only increase his curiosity. “Tom was a partner in a practice there,” she said. “I’d known him nearly all my life.”

  “You wanted to specialize in baby stuff, didn’t you?”

  She’d once had visions of a neonatal specialty. But life had a way of directing a person on different paths. “I enjoy family practice,” she said truthfully. If she stayed in one place long enough, she could end up being one of those country doctors who delivered babies of the babies she’d delivered. She rather liked the sound of that. The continuity of it. Of life renewed, over and over. “In New York I was on staff at one of the county hospitals. It was a good learning experience.”

  “Too many hours and too little pay,” he commented.

  She shrugged. “Money is only a means to an end,” she said. “It can ease a lot of the world’s ills and just as easily it can totally fail to save a person’s life.”

  “Spoken like a woman who has enough green in the bank to be comfortable.”

  “I still have to earn a living,” she countered. “I’m fortunate that I can earn it doing something that means so much to me.”

  “The girl who grew up with the blood of her missionary-doctor parents flowing in her veins,” he murmured, rubbing his temple. “Are your parents still out of the country?”

  Rebecca swallowed, nervously. “Zaire, these days.”

  “They must be proud of Ryan.”

  “Yes. They send us e-mail through the Internet when they can.”

  “When’s the last time you saw them?”

  “Before I met you.” She realized the coffee was finished and poured two cups.

  “They didn’t come back when you got married?”

  Considering her wedding had been put together in a spare two weeks, they wouldn’t have been able to make it, even if they’d planned to. And the last thing she wanted was for Sawyer to start fitting things in
a nice, neat, chronological order that would tear her life apart again. “No.” She carried her coffee into the living room, stopping by the decorated tree to replace a fallen ornament. He followed.

  “What about Tom’s parents?”

  “They died before I met him.”

  “So Ryan’s never met his grandparents.”

  Her hand jerked, spilling hot coffee down the front of her dress. She gasped, staring stupidly at herself while the scalding liquid soaked through to her skin, burning fiercely. Sawyer muttered and took her cup, setting it aside and sliding down the long zipper in the back of her dress. It fell forward over her shoulders.

  “Pull out your arms,” he ordered.

  She automatically obeyed, immediately relieved when the dress slipped down her hips and pooled at her feet. And just as immediately mortified. She stepped out of the dress but Sawyer caught her shoulders, bringing her up short when she darted for the hallway.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She looked down at herself, skin pinkened from the hot coffee. “It’s, uh, it’s fine.”

  “I guess I know now what you’re wearing under the dress.”

  She flushed.

  “It’s a good thing I didn’t know earlier,” he continued, his voice dropping a notch. “Or I’d really have been in sorry shape.”

  She wished she’d chosen a different dress. One that required a slip beneath it. At least then she’d be covered in something more substantial than matching bra and panties. She could feel him standing right behind her; could feel that sinfully-soft cashmere against her back.

  He ran his warm fingertip over the stretchy lace that held her thigh-high stockings in place and she sucked in a long breath; realized she was just standing there in front of him wearing nothing but lingerie and heels while he explored the little swirls and whorls of that lace edging. Realized, too, that she didn’t want him to stop. At that moment, she wanted his touch more than any single thing in the world.

  She clamped her fingers over his wrist. Felt his thudding pulse, despite herself. She turned, but he didn’t move and now that cashmere was pressed against the black lace covering her breasts.