“If you’re gonna ask me to leave, it’s only fair to warn you I’m gonna do my level best to persuade you otherwise.”
Rebecca didn’t doubt that his means of persuasion were considerable. She told herself not to act foolishly.
But inviting him in for coffee had been foolish.
Going to the dance with him had been foolish.
Moving to Wyoming had been the most foolish of all.
“I guess that means I don’t have to do my best to persuade you to stay,” she said huskily.
His eyes, so darkly blue they were nearly black, devoured her. “Are you sure?”
She managed an uneven smile. “No.”
His jaw cocked to one side. He threaded his fingers through her hair and smoothed it away from her face, then cupped her jaw in his palms and lowered his head. “Live dangerously, I always say,” he murmured. And kissed her.
Rebecca moaned at the onslaught, fisted her hands in his hair, and kissed him right back. His hands burned over her skin, everywhere; oh, God, everywhere. He knelt at her feet and kissed her stomach, the lace edging of her hose. He wrapped his long fingers around her ankles and lifted, sliding her shoes free. Rose again, shucking his sweater somewhere along the way and her bra, too, she realized foggily. But the sensation of the wall of his chest against her breasts was crystalline clear.
She kissed the hot column of his neck, gasped when he lifted her around the waist and carried her unerringly into her bedroom where an antique lamp cast a dim glow over the ivory eyelet. She didn’t even think to protest, and when her feet touched carpet once more, she pressed herself unhesitatingly against him, pulling his head down toward hers with a breathless cry.
When he reached past her and pulled back the comforter, Rebecca pushed aside a mountain of decorative pillows. When he pressed her back against crisply cool cotton sheets, she pulled him with her. So long. The thought cried through her soul and her hands reached for him, unconsciously yearning, when he stood and unfastened his belt.
Rebecca struggled for breath, her gaze greedy on his beautifully male body. His eyes were blue fire when he bent one knee on the mattress and reached for her. Then she was bare, save for the lacy-edged silken hose still covering her from toe to thigh. And his eyes told her he reveled in the sight.
“You’re so beautiful.” With deliberate movements, he placed his warm palm on her flat belly. “Warm and real.” His fingers brushed her breast and her breath stalled, her flesh tightening—tightening with anticipation.
“Sawyer—”
“You’ve been like a dream in my head,” he murmured. “Only you’re so much more than that, and I want...you,” he finished, his voice deep and rough. “I want you, Rebecca Morehouse.”
Rebecca moistened her lips, teetering on a precipice of need and fear. Need won. “I’m right here, Sawyer.” She leaned toward him, smoothing her palms over the rigid muscles in his shoulders. Heaven help her, she’d been right there for so very long. “I want you, too.”
A muscle ticked in his hard jaw. She brushed her fingertip over it. And still he didn’t move. Swallowing, heart thundering, she placed her hand on his, and drew it upward, over the curve of her breast.
His nostrils flared with a hard exhalation, then he settled his long body next to hers, hair-roughened legs tangling with silken-clad ones. She stopped thinking then; how could she think when he touched her so? When his fingertips played her with the skill of a virtuoso?
When he drove her, masterfully, unrelentingly toward one peak, then another, while denying them both the ultimate pleasure of union. Nearly begging for relief, she felt for him, guiding him to her, rejoicing mindlessly at the low groan he gave.
Then he swore harshly and fell back, leaving her blinking with confusion. And realized her phone was ringing.
“I’m beginning to hate that thing,” he muttered.
Rebecca scrambled across the tumbled pillows and answered the phone mid-ring. She listened for a moment, pushing her tumbled hair out of her face. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hung up and turned to look at Sawyer. Her stomach clenched at the sight of him among her eyelet bedding, big and fierce and fully aroused.
“Gotta go out?”
She nodded, already sliding off the bed and rooting through her drawers for warm clothes. She didn’t dare look back at him, lest she forget her physician’s duty. “You might want to go, too,” she said, yanking a thermal undershirt over her head. “That was Jefferson. Emily’s water broke. She’s in labor.”
Chapter Twelve
“She’s not supposed to do this until January,” Jefferson said. He was looking like a caged lion when Rebecca entered their bedroom, alternating between pacing around the wide bed and sitting beside his wife.
Emily, huffing her way through a contraction, glared at him. “I’ll buy a calendar for his first birthday,” she said as soon as she could speak again. She hauled in a long breath and blew it out evenly. “I didn’t think a few dances would upset the applecart like this.”
Rebecca set her bag on the dresser and glanced at Sawyer, who immediately picked up her thought, and herded his brother out of the room. It was a double blessing, Rebecca thought. Jefferson’s tension had been palpable, and Sawyer was simply a distraction she couldn’t deal with now.
“How far apart are the contractions?” she asked, focusing her thoughts. “Never mind, I can see,” she answered for herself just as Emily entered another contraction. Moving quickly, she readied the room as best she could, snapped on sterile gloves, and called Jefferson’s name. He must have been waiting with his ear pressed to the door because he was beside his wife in half a second, propping her against his chest His expression told Rebecca that if he could, he’d have the baby himself just to spare his “Em” the pain.
Ten minutes later, Rebecca helped guide a wonderfully healthy squalling baby boy into the world, and knew that no matter what Jefferson thought, Emily wouldn’t give up the experience of bearing the child of the man she loved.
Giving the parents a moment with their newest as soon as she’d examined him, she swiftly cleared away the mess and washed up. She was rolling the kinks out of her neck when she saw Sawyer hovering in the doorway, a sleepy Leandra resting her blond curls on his wide shoulder.
“How’s it going?”
She blinked hurriedly and turned back to her tasks. “Fine and dandy,” she said over the unexpected lump in her throat. “Leandra, you have a new brother,” she said. “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”
“Bring her in, Sawyer,” Emily said.
Though he turned slightly green at the notion of entering the birthing room, Sawyer did. He set Leandra on the floor, and she scrambled onto her daddy’s knee, peering into the baby’s face. “He’s so small,” she breathed.
Rebecca chuckled, taking the newborn for a moment to finish examining him. Busy with the wriggling infant, she didn’t immediately notice the start that Sawyer gave. He looked from his brother to his new nephew and back again.
Finished with the baby, she cradled him, her maternal instincts crashing into her professional ones. She brushed her hand gently over the thatch of downy black hair the child possessed; drew the pad of her thumb along the little arm so soft and fresh and perfect; traced the beautiful shape of his head with her gaze. And looked into the face of a baby who would, God willing, grow up to be happy and healthy and treasured in the cradle of his family’s love.
She realized that the room was silent and glanced up to see Sawyer, Jefferson and Emily watching her. Finding an easy smile from somewhere, she put it on her face and walked around the side of the bed and put the baby into his father’s arms. A muscle worked in Jefferson’s jaw for a moment, then he cradled his little son’s head in his big palm.
The emotion in Jefferson’s ordinarily stern face as he looked at his wife was hard to see, and Rebecca felt silly tears clog her throat. Painfully aware of Sawyer standing so near, she excused herself, quickly gathering up the bundle of disposable cloth
s she’d already bagged and her other supplies, leaving the bedroom neat and tidier than it’d been when she arrived.
She stowed her things in her Jeep, then went back into the kitchen where she phoned Maggie Clay to let her spread the news to the rest of their family of the early arrival. Then, because Sawyer still hadn’t appeared, she found the makings for fresh coffee and started making a pot. If her experience with the Clays proved at all true, she figured they’d start arriving en mass within the hour.
The adrenaline rush fading, Rebecca leaned tiredly against the counter in the dimly lit kitchen, sipping her own coffee. Ryan’s birth swam in her memory. Tom had been there. Had never held it against her that when she’d been in labor with her son, it hadn’t been his name she’d cried, though he’d been the one with her, helping her breathe, coaxing and encouraging when, so exhausted with the long labor, she’d felt like dying.
But her son had fought his way into the world and his perfectly formed head had been capped with a wealth of black downy hair and his skin had been—
“Tired?”
She swallowed and brushed her fingers quickly over her cheeks, bracing herself before turning to face Sawyer. “It’s been quite a night.”
“Yes.”
“I called Maggie to spread the word.”
“Means they’ll be descending soon.” He crossed toward her. “It’s what they always did. More so now that there’re women in the family again.” He took the coffee cup from her and set it aside, slid his arms around her shoulders and pulled her against him where her head found its way to his chest. “I remember them, Doc,” he said in an even voice that didn’t quite hide his absolute relief. “I remember Emily when she was just a squirt of a girl, come to live at the Double-C. I remember tracking down Jefferson four years ago when Squire had his heart attack. I remember my mother.” This last came in a voice rough and husky.
On top of a day too full, Sawyer’s remembrance was more than she could take. Rebecca twined her arms around his waist and lay against him, tears running silently down her cheek as Sawyer recounted dozens of snippets from his childhood.
Then they heard a door open and suddenly the kitchen was full of Clays, grown and not-so-grown. Self-conscious at having been found cradled against Sawyer, Rebecca disentangled herself, avoided Sawyer’s sharp gaze when he saw the drying tears on her face, and hurried into the hall bathroom where she quickly freshened herself. She checked over Emily and the baby once more, then nodded her agreement when the new mother requested that everyone stop hanging around in the kitchen and family room and come in and see her.
With Jaimie and Maggie there, Rebecca knew that Emily wouldn’t be given an opportunity to overtax herself. So she told Emily that she’d come back and check on her in the next day or two if Emily wasn’t up to making the trip to Weaver, then headed back down the hall.
She gave the all-clear, and moved out of the way at the mini-stampede toward the master bedroom.
The men, however, didn’t stay long, and were already trooping back to their precious coffee in the kitchen by the time Rebecca had buttoned up her coat and found her keys where Sawyer had dropped them on a table when they’d come in.
She hovered in the foyer, listening to the mingling timbre of male voices coming from the kitchen. She easily picked out Sawyer’s voice from the others owned by his father and brothers. Heard the bone-deep satisfaction in his tone if not his words that he remembered his family.
Tugging up her coat collar, she quietly walked to the front door and let herself out into the darkness.
He remembered his family.
It was only a matter of time before he remembered all the rest.
In the kitchen, Sawyer sat around the table and thought about other times when he and his brothers and father had surrounded another table in another kitchen—the big oval table in the kitchen at the big house. They were only one brother short.
“Tristan’ll be sorry he missed this,” Jefferson said, uncannily echoing Sawyer’s own thoughts. Tristan and Emily, who were closer in age than the rest of them, had grown up as best friends, remaining close even after Em had married Jefferson. “He thought he might make it here for Christmas.”
“Got a name for the young ’un?”
“I was positive we’d have another girl,” Jefferson admitted, his smile crooked. “So we didn’t pick out any boy names.”
Sawyer absently poured his scalding-hot coffee into a saucer and lifted it to his mouth, letting the conversation flow around him. It was wholly satisfying, he realized, being there. Everyone he cared about, nearly, under one roof. Welcoming another life into the world on a cold winter night.
It hadn’t always been that way, he remembered, probing the thought gingerly, like a tongue against a sore tooth. He looked over at his father, who held a sleeping Leandra on his lap as if he’d been doing it all his life. The truth couldn’t be more different.
Squire Clay had run cattle, sired sons and buried a wife. He’d been hard and cantankerous and until he’d brought little Emily Nichols into their household to raise, had shown little evidence of softness. He’d raised his sons the same way. And then had found it a betrayal when some of those sons wanted to go their own way.
Sawyer started to tip more steaming coffee into his saucer, realized that Squire was doing exactly the same thing, and let the saucer sit, empty.
He closed his eyes and remembered the day he’d finally had enough of Squire’s autocratic ways.
“You’re going to college.”
Sawyer’s hands curled into tight fists at the flat statement. His old man didn’t even look up at him when he said it. Just kept right on methodically hefting sacks of feed out of the pickup bed. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t go, ” Sawyer said, feeling his chest tighten until it was hard to get the words out. It was always this way. He thought one thing, and his father commanded another. “I only want to take off a year.”
Squire Clay didn’t snort with disgust at the idea. He simply reached for another bag of feed and hefted it over his shoulder. “You take off a year, then you can spend it working the ranch,” he said flatly.
The ranch. Always the ranch. Sawyer was sick to death of the ranch. It had killed his mother. It obsessed his father. And from the look of things, was coming to obsess his younger brother, Matt, too. Sawyer didn’t think any less of his brother for being satisfied with the cows and the dust and the day-in, day-out monotony of it all. Matt liked it. Sawyer didn’t. His other brothers were even younger. Yet the five of them, including himself, understood each other.
If they could understand, why couldn’t his old man? “It’s one damn year,” his voice rose embarrassingly and he curled his fists.
“Don’t swear at me, boy.”
“Don’t call me ‘boy.’”
Squire heaved the last of the sacks onto the pile and turned to face Sawyer. He thumbed back his dusty hat and stared at him through eyes the pale blue shade of a lake icing over. “You’ve got five universities knocking on our door, all wanting to get you in their fancy mathematics programs. And you want to take off a year to lollygag around.” He lifted his hand before Sawyer could speak “Explore the world. Call it what you want. It’s a pure waste of a man’s time.”
Sawyer’s jaw tightened, and his fists clenched and unclenched. He was nearly eighteen years old—as tall as his father, though the old man outweighed him by a few pounds yet.
“Don’t even think it, son,” Squire said softly. “Because I’ll let you get one good swing and then you’re gonna have your butt planted in the dirt.”
Sawyer thought it might be worth it. But then, dammit all to hell, his throat tightened and his eyes stung, and he’d be hanged before he’d cry like some baby in front of his hard-as-nails father. It was bad enough that he felt like a fish out of water on the ranch. But he’d had folks from universities all across the country calling on the phone, or driving out to visit him and his father, who “surely must be terribly proud of his son’s abiliti
es.” What a joke. The old man was proud of one thing only. The Double-C and the ability his sons had—or in Sawyer’s case didn’t have-to run it.
He didn’t want any of it. He didn’t want teachers parading him around like some damned freak. He didn’t want to spend his days from before sunup to after sundown tending the needs of a bunch of bawling cows. He just wanted...away.
That was all. Away.
Just once he wanted to wake up and smell the ocean. Just once he wanted to look up and see palm trees waving over his head, instead of looking up to see heavy gray clouds overhead, waiting to dump snow on him. He wanted to go to sleep at night not feeling like he was suffocating from expectations and disappoint-ments and a million other things he couldn’t even put a name to, but felt pretty sure had to do with being Squire Clay’s oldest boy.
He was supposed to be graduating from high school in a matter of weeks. Top of his class. Considering his class consisted of thirty people, that wasn’t too damn hard. He was also top of the class for every single student in every single senior class in the whole damn state, and he couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t work hard at school. It just came easy. So why was everybody making such a bloody fuss over it?
Away. That was what he wanted.
That was what he’d have. No matter what his old man said.
He heard Squire’s faint sigh and watched him swing the gate of the truck up into place with a clank and a bang. “Sawyer, if you want to go exploring the world, do it after you get your education under your belt. You’re going to college, boy. Count yourself lucky. I never went.”
And Sawyer realized at that moment something he’d never thought much about before. His father hadn’t gone to college. He’d married Sarah Benedict before either one of them had turned eighteen. Against all odds, he’d built a successful--an unusual thing in itself—cattle ranch from the ground up. He’d weathered the death of his wife and raised their sons by himself. He’d accomplished many things in his life, but college hadn’t been one of them. So maybe that was why making sure his firstborn did accomplish it was so important.
A Child for Christmas Page 15
