A Baby for Mommy

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Emily turned her glance to the kitchen window and gloomy landscape outside. “I know it has to be done,” she said slowly. This was, after all, why he was here.

  “You just can’t bring yourself to start the process.”

  Emily began to pace. “The house is so beautiful just as it is, inside and out.” When she had come to see it, before putting in a bid on the place, it had been so easy to see herself living here again, raising her child.

  So easy to chase after old dreams.

  She swallowed. “It seems a shame to destroy it. And that’s what gutting the inside to add on a dining area and a commercial kitchen would do.”

  So don’t, Dan’s look said.

  “On the other hand—” Emily forced herself to take a deep breath and be practical “—I know the orchards will attract a lot more business during busy season if we have an elegant tearoom and a retail store on-site. With the seed money Tex is willing to put into this venture, if we start now, we could have both up and running by the time the first crop of peaches ripens in mid-May.”

  Dan’s brow furrowed. “Isn’t that about the time you’re due?”

  Good point, Emily thought uneasily. One she hadn’t really considered. “A month or so later. I’m due April tenth.” She studied his suddenly poker-faced expression. “What?” she demanded impatiently.

  He kept his eyes locked with hers. Said, with a great deal of sympathy, “I was just thinking that’s a lot for anyone to handle alone.”

  Emily had heard that a lot since becoming pregnant. She just hadn’t expected to hear it from him. She stiffened her spine and glared at Dan. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She’d thought that Dan understood how very badly she wanted a family of her own, that he approved of her decision to become a single mother.

  He spread his hands wide and gave her an understanding look. “I wasn’t trying to be insulting.”

  Emily folded her arms in front of her, her temper spiking. “You succeeded admirably, nevertheless.”

  Dan smiled at her in the same indulgent way she had seen other men smile at their pregnant wives.

  A mixture of wistfulness and pregnancy hormones combined, leaving her feeling all the more out of sorts. “Now what?” she asked.

  Dan made no effort to hide the affection in his grin. “I was just thinking, we’re having our first fight.”

  Unwanted emotion welled up inside her. “We are not!” she tossed back.

  Dan’s sexy grin widened. Laugh lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “I think we are.”

  Indignant, Emily threw up her arms and sputtered, “To have a fight we’d—” Suddenly she couldn’t go on.

  “What?” he coaxed, coming close enough to lace his arms around her waist.

  The warmth and strength of his body engulfed her, making it difficult to keep track of the argument she was trying to make. Harder still to fight the need for closeness. She drew a deep breath and tried again. “To have a fight we’d have to be…involved.”

  “Funny.” Dan lowered his head and scored his thumb across her lower lip. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

  A thrill soared through her. “Dan…”

  He touched his lips lightly to hers in an angel-soft kiss. “Have I told you how much I like it when you catch your breath and look at me like that?” He kissed the side of her neck. “As if you can’t help but want me as much as I want you? And I do want you, Emily,” he told her in a low, gravelly voice, tangling his hands in her hair, bringing his lips closer still. “So much.”

  “I—” The rest of her sentence was cut off by a real kiss. Deeply passionate. Sensually evocative. And wonderfully, incredibly tender. A ribbon of desire went through Emily, followed swiftly by a torrent of need. The next thing she knew she was standing on tiptoe, pressing her body to Dan’s. His hands drifted lower, sweeping up and down her spine, and still they kept on kissing, while the rain lashed the windows and drummed on the roof.

  Emily heard herself moan, and then he was lifting her in his arms. Carrying her through the hall to the four-poster bed in the master.

  He laid her down gently in the shadowy light.

  And suddenly there was nothing else to say. Nothing but the need to feel his body stretched out along the length of hers. Quickly they undressed and slid beneath the sheets.

  Dan pulled her back into his arms. His touch as hot and sensual as his kiss, he made his way down her body, taking his time. Caressing each curve, stopping to pay tender, reverent homage to the maternal slope of her tummy, before going lower still. Reveling in the intimate contact, Emily closed her eyes and gave herself over to him and the feelings gathering deep inside her.

  She had made the baby inside her in the most scientific of ways, thinking that new life growing inside her was all she needed to make her life complete. Dan made her see things differently. He made her feel as if this baby was his, too, in ways that went beyond the facts to something far deeper and more wide-reaching. He made her feel as if a complete family was well within her reach. As if it was possible to give this baby she was carrying a daddy and a mommy. And a brother and sisters, too.

  And that was a dangerous idea to have, she knew.

  Yet she couldn’t stop herself from having the fantasy any more than she could stop herself from responding in the here and now, she thought as their mouths fused in an explosion of heat and hunger. He laid claim to her, his tongue sweeping her mouth, his palms molding her breasts, his thumbs caressing the tender crests. And wise or not, she wanted to lose herself to him. She wanted the bliss and the intimacy only Dan could bring.

  EMILY LAY WITH HER HEAD on Dan’s chest, her legs tangled with his. She felt content to the point that if she’d had any common sense at all, it would have scared the heck out of her. But she didn’t have any common sense. Not when she was alone with Dan. This afternoon had proved that.

  The thought that she wanted many more times just like this was more disturbing still. She had become accustomed to being alone, to having no family but the child growing inside her.

  Dan made her yearn for so much more.

  And she could tell by the look in his eyes, sometimes, that he yearned, too. For a way to fill the empty spaces in his life and heal a family fractured by divorce.

  He smoothed a hand through her hair, the movement enough to lull her to sleep. Or it would have been if not for the distinctive ring of her cell phone.

  And that quickly, she knew who it was. And what he wanted to know. Once again, she couldn’t believe she had let herself end up in such an untenable position.

  DAN WAITED FOR EMILY to get off the phone with her future business partner. She walked back into the bedroom, a blanket wrapped around her, her cell phone still in her hand.

  He was lying in bed with the sheet drawn to his waist and hands folded behind his head. “What did Tex say?”

  Emily’s eyes took on a troubled sheen as she related, “He was surprised I couldn’t give him a detailed description of my plan for the proposed tearoom. He expected things to come together more quickly.”

  Tex Ostrander was being completely unreasonable, Dan thought. And pushy, to boot. “You just got started four hours ago,” he said.

  Emily stepped into the bathroom. When she came out, she was wrapped in a charcoal-gray terry robe. She dropped the soft cotton blanket on the foot of the bed and sat down beside it. Regretfully she met Dan’s eyes. “My dad was always very quick to make things happen when it came to business. And Tex is an impatient man.”

  “Too impatient, it would seem,” Dan said.

  “Can’t say I mind the interruption, though.” Emily compressed her lips together. Regret laced her low tone. “The way I behaved this afternoon…is not at all like me. I don’t get physically and emotionally involved with clients.”

  Dan had thought they were a lot more than personal chef and client. The fact that she never did this just proved it.

  But sensing that now was not the time to bring that point up,
he let his argument go and concentrated, instead, on bringing her what comfort he could from a business perspective. “Deciding whether to double the width or the depth of the building, or keep the footprint of the house as is and put on a second floor is a big decision.”

  Emily stood, restless again. “And one that must be made quickly if we are to proceed. The problem is—” she threw up her hands in frustration “—I can’t seem to make it!”

  It was all Dan could do to ignore his instincts and not take her in his arms again. Aware such a move was not likely to be well received, he stayed where he was. “Maybe you just need to take a break. We could go have dinner in town, relax for a bit, then get back at it.”

  “No.” Emily tightened the belt of her robe. “The last thing we need is to sit across from each other in a candlelit room.”

  Dan could see how that could easily turn romantic. All they had to do was be near each other and look into each other’s eyes to accomplish that. He shrugged. “So we’ll go to a bar that’s crowded and noisy.” Whatever would help, he thought.

  Emily pressed her lips together in that stubborn way he was beginning to know so well. “I don’t want to end up getting sidetracked with you again.” She gathered up her clothing and disappeared into the bathroom once more.

  Knowing their lovemaking was over—for now, anyway—Dan rolled off the bed and took the opportunity to get dressed, too.

  When Emily emerged from the bathroom, she had her clothes on and her hair brushed. She strode past him to the kitchen. “I’ll cook dinner for us while we work.”

  As Dan watched the sexy play of her hips beneath her jeans, he realized a simple affair was never going to be enough. Not for him and not for Emily. To be happy, they both needed so much more than fleeting intimacy in their lives.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Dan said.

  She lifted a hand. “I had planned to cook for both you and Tex this evening anyway, and besides, it helps me think.”

  Willing to do anything to help her feel better, Dan took a seat in front of his laptop computer and sketch pad once again.

  “The thing is,” Emily said as she pulled ingredients for a traditional German meal from the fridge, “I could make food for a small tearoom in the kitchen I have right now, if I were offering a limited menu and doing it more or less on my own. Sandwiches and sweets are things that can be prepared in advance.”

  Dan watched her search the cupboards and pull out a large cast-iron skillet.

  “We don’t have a commercial cook space the way this kitchen is currently laid out. But we wouldn’t need one for tearoom fare.” Emily poured a little olive oil into the skillet.

  “Seating would still be a problem,” Dan thought out loud. “Unless you wanted to limit it to twelve or so customers at a time.”

  “I’m afraid if we did that, we’d lose more business than we’d gain. Customers coming out here to buy fruit aren’t going to want to wait forty-five minutes for a table.”

  Dan picked up his sketch pad. “Will the retail store be open year-round or just in peach season?”

  “Tex wants to ship fruit from his apple and citrus orchards in the Rio Grande Valley for sale here, as well. He’ll make more money if he can cut out the middleman. And apples are in the fall, citrus in winter.”

  “So you’d be year-round,” Dan surmised.

  Emily nodded and slid German-style Texas smoked sausage into the pan.

  “The climate here is temperate. You could always offer outdoor seating under umbrellas, when the weather cooperates.” Dan began to sketch what he meant.

  Emily stopped chopping red cabbage long enough to look over his shoulder. “I think the tables would look better around the outside of the converted barn.”

  “Doing it that way would offer a lot more natural shade,” Dan agreed. Inspired, he began to draw a rough approximation of what they were talking about. “You could also configure it to put a small self-serve café in the retail space like they do in a lot of bookstores now. Either at the very center of the space or off to one side in the front. It wouldn’t be as formal as a tearoom, but it would probably be more customer-friendly.”

  Emily went back to the counter and chopped up two Granny Smith apples and slid the pieces into the pan, along with the cabbage and thin slices of red onion. She wiped her hands on a towel and crossed to look over his shoulder again. “Actually,” she said, smiling for the first time since they’d entered the kitchen, “I think I like that idea a lot.”

  Finally, Dan thought, they were on their way to a plan.

  The only thing left to do was sell their ideas to Tex.

  Dan used a software program on his laptop to create a three-dimensional vision of what he and Emily had talked about. He e-mailed it to Tex. And at eight-thirty that evening, the three of them connected via phone and Internet for a conference call.

  “I like the idea of easing into the restaurant aspect of the business,” Tex said. “But what about the house?”

  “I’d like to live there with my baby,” Emily said.

  There was a silence on the other end of the connection.

  “Are you sure you want to be that close to the retail space?” Tex asked at last. “During peach season, it will open at seven in the morning and close around nine at night. That’s a long time to have people traipsing on and off the property, especially when you’ve got a little baby around. Instead, you both could, as we discussed, live in my parents’ old home—rent free—as property manager.”

  Once again, Dan wondered if Tex was making a play for Emily.

  “I’m going to want someone living in the house,” Tex continued matter-of-factly. “Someone I can trust.”

  “You’re still going to need somewhere to stay when you return to the property from time to time,” Emily countered.

  “I can stay in your parents’ old place,” Tex said. “The commerce won’t bother me. And I’d appreciate being close to the construction as it unfolds.” He paused. “I’m just thinking about what’s best for you and the baby,” he said.

  Dan had to admit that what Tex was saying made sense.

  Emily looked around, her fondness for the house they were sitting in evident. “I don’t know, Tex,” she murmured. “I’ll have to think about it and get back to you.”

  And that, it seemed, was that.

  Tex e-mailed Dan the budget his firm had for the plans to be drawn up, and also a firm schedule, as well as the limit for construction costs. Dan promised to get him something by the middle of the following week. They ended the call.

  Looking a lot more relaxed, albeit still somewhat restless, Emily went to the fridge. She opened both compartments then shut them again.

  “I can’t believe it,” she murmured.

  Aware he had no valid reason to linger, Dan began packing up his computer. “What?”

  Emily swung back to face him. She put a hand to her tummy, clearly distressed. “I’m hungry again!”

  Dan strapped his computer between the protective pads in the carrying case. “I can’t believe it, either,” he said, chuckling affectionately. “We both ate like field hands.” He tossed her an appreciative glance, thanking her for the effort. “Dinner was delicious, by the way.”

  Emily wrinkled her nose. Clearly unsatisfied, she complained, “It would have been better if we could have topped it off with German chocolate cake.”

  Dan saw no reason Emily couldn’t have what she wanted most, now or at any other time. He set his briefcase aside, glad for a reason to delay. “I’m sure there are places in town we could still get a slice.”

  She studied him skeptically. “You’d really do that?”

  And so much more—if you’d let me. But, wary of moving too fast, Dan put aside what he wanted—an entire night in her bed—and shrugged. “We’ve already done as much as we can or probably should today. Walt and the kids aren’t expecting me back until tomorrow afternoon. It’s Saturday night. We worked hard. Accomplished a lot, too. And—
” he moved past her to peer out the window at the darkness of the November night “—it’s stopped raining.”

  Emily glanced out the window, too. “You’re right.” She smiled. “It has.”

  “So what do you say?” Dan swung around to face her and took her hand in his. “Is it a date or not?”

  ONCE AGAIN, EMILY THOUGHT, Dan had thrown her completely off her guard by making a move on her when she least expected it.

  She swallowed around the sudden parched feeling in her throat. “Dan…”

  He tugged her nearer, entwining their fingers as intimately as they had their bodies, earlier in the day.

  Emily looked down at their clasped hands.

  Dan continued softly, “We’ve made love twice. Had coffee together once. Yet never so much as shared a piece of cake.”

  He spoke as if it were a terrible tragedy.

  And in a way, Emily thought, it was.

  If only they were at the same point in their lives, or even planning to be in the same city after December first. Instead, she was starting a family; he was looking forward to a reprieve from the constant parental duties. She was likely moving home to Fredericksburg; Dan was remaining in Fort Worth, some four hours away. Once she became a lot more pregnant, travel that far would not be advisable.

  And that left them nowhere.

  Emily forced herself to be practical. With a smile, she offered gently, “Which is perhaps why we shouldn’t go down that road.”

  Dan shrugged, not about to give up. “If we aren’t going to be lovers—” he looked into her eyes “—can’t we at least be friends?”

  Chapter Nine

  “Ohhhh,” Emily moaned, not sure whether she was still in gastronomic heaven or about to be in overeating hell. Placing a hand to her sternum, she leaned against the outside wall of the German pastry shop on Fredericksburg’s main drag. Inside, customers filled the tables, enjoying desserts every bit as decadent and luscious as the one she and Dan had just shared.