"You can't be serious." She was shocked.
Cowboy shrugged. He hadn't meant for it to be such a big deal. "You want me to get you a soda or something to help settle your stomach?"
Melody wouldn't let herself be distracted. "You're telling me honestly that since we were together in Paris, you haven't...? Not even once?"
"No." He was starting to get embarrassed. He stood up. "Why don't I run down the street and get us a couple ginger ales?"
"Jones, why?" Her eyes were wide. "I can't believe you didn't have plenty of opportunities to... I mean..." She laughed nervously. "Well, I've seen the way women look at you."
Cowboy sighed as he sat down again. He should have known she wouldn't simply let this go. "Yeah, you're right. Over the past months, I've been in bars where I've known for a fact that I could've gone home with some girl." He held her gaze. "But I didn't want just some girl. I wanted you." He twisted his mouth into a crooked smile, aware that he'd revealed far more than he'd intended. "Pretty powerful for a feeling based only on lust and relief, don't you think?"
He saw the confusion in her eyes as she tried to process all that he'd just told her. He willed her to reach for him, to surrender to the truth, to admit that he was right-that there was more between them than pure physical attraction. He wanted her to whisper that she, too, hadn't taken another lover since they'd last been together. He couldn't believe that she had, but he didn't know for certain, and he wanted to hear her say it.
But most of all, he wanted her to kiss him.
She didn't.
So Cowboy did the next best thing. He leaned forward and kissed her.
She didn't pull away, so he kissed her again, coaxing her mouth open, pulling her closer, pressing the palm of his hand against the sensual fullness of her belly. She was so sweet, her lips so soft. He felt himself melt inside, felt his muscles turn liquid with desire, felt his soul became infused with new hope.
He was going to have another chance to make love to her. Maybe soon. Maybe even—please, God—today.
"I've dreamed about kissing you like this." He lifted his head to whisper, hoping to see a mirror image of his own breathless passion in her eyes.
She was breathless all right, but when he lowered his head to kiss her again, she stopped him. "God, you're good, aren't you?"
"I'm what...?" But he understood what she meant the moment the words left his lips. Melody thought that everything he'd said, everything he'd done, was all just part of his elaborate plan to seduce her.
In a way, she was right. But she was wrong, too. It was more than that. It was much more.
But before he could open his mouth to argue, he felt it. Beneath his hand, Melody's baby—his baby—moved.
"Oh, my God," he said, his mouth dropping open as he gazed into Mel's eyes, all other thoughts leaving his head. "Mel, I felt him move."
She laughed at his expression of amazement, her accusations forgotten, too. She slid his hand around to the side of her belly. "Here, feel this," she told him. "That's one of his knees."
It was amazing. There was a hard little knob protruding slightly out from the otherwise round smoothness of her abdomen. It was his knee. It was their baby's knee.
"He's got a knee," Cowboy breathed. "Oh, my God."
He hadn't thought about this baby in terms of knees and elbows and arms and legs. But this kid definitely had a knee.
"Here." Melody brought his other hand up to press against her other side. "This is his head, over here."
But just like that, the baby shifted, and Cowboy felt a flurry of motion beneath his hands. That was not Melody doing that. That was...someone else. Someone who hadn't existed before he and Melody had made love on that plane to Paris. He felt out of breath and tremendously off balance as the enormity of the situation once again nearly knocked him over.
"Scary, huh?" Melody whispered.
He met her eyes and nodded. "Yeah."
"Finally," she said, smiling slightly, sadly. "Real honesty."
"I've never even really seen a baby before, you know, except in pictures," Cowboy admitted. He wet his suddenly dry lips. "And you're right, the idea of there being one that belongs to me scares me to death." But the baby moved again and he couldn't keep from smiling. "But God, that is so cool." He laughed with amazement. "He's swimming around in there, isn't he?"
She nodded.
He was still touching her, but she didn't seem to mind. He wished they were alone in the privacy of her kitchen rather than here on a bench outside the very public library.
She closed her eyes again, and he knew she liked the sensation of his hands on her body.
"I know you think you're winning, but you're not," she said suddenly, opening her eyes and looking at him. "I'm as stubborn as you are, Jones."
He smiled. "Yeah, well, as a rule, I don't quit and I don't lose. So that leaves really only one other option. And that's winning."
"Maybe there's a way we can both win."
He tightened his grip on her, leaning closer to nuzzle the softness of her neck. "I know there is. And it involves going back to your house and locking ourselves in your bedroom for another six days straight."
Melody pulled away from him. "I'm serious."
"I am, too."
She shook her head impatiently. "Jones, what if I acknowledge you as the father and grant you visitation rights?"
"Visits?" he said in disbelief. "You're going to give me permission to visit the kid two or three times a year, and I'm supposed to think that means I've won?"
"It's a compromise," she told him, her eyes a very earnest shade of blue. "It wouldn't be a whole lot of fun for me, either. So much for the clean end to our relationship I'd hoped for. And imagine how awful it's going to be for the man I finally do marry—you showing up, flashing all your big muscles around two or three times each year."
Cowboy shook his head. "No deal. I'm the baby's father. And a baby's father should be married to that baby's mother."
Melody's eyes sparked. "Too bad you weren't feeling quite so moral on that flight to Paris. If I remember correctly, there was no talk of marriage then. If I remember, just about all that you had to say concerned how and where I should touch you, and the most efficient way to rid ourselves of our clothing in that tiny bathroom."
He couldn't hide a laugh. "Don't forget our three point five seconds discussion about our lack of condoms."
She frowned at him. "This isn't funny."
"I'm sorry. And you're right. I've picked a hell of a time to join the moral majority." He picked up her hand and gently laced their fingers together. "But, honey, I can't help the way I feel. And I feel—particularly after spending the morning with Andy—that it's our responsibility, for the sake of that baby, at least to give marriage a try."
"Why?" She turned slightly to face him as she gently pulled her hand free from his grasp. "Why is this so important to you?"
"I don't want this kid to grow up like Andy," Cowboy told her soberly. "Or me. Honey, I don't want him growing up the way I did, thinking my old man simply didn't give a damn." He gave in to the urge to touch her hair, pulling a strand free from where it had caught on her eyelashes and wrapping it around one finger. "You know, I honestly think this morning is the first time Andy's ever been inside a library. He didn't know what a library card was—I'm not sure he can read half of what we pulled up on that computer screen. And I know for a fact that boy has never held a book in his hands outside of school. Tom Sawyer, Mel. The kid's never read it, never even heard of it. 'Mark Twain, who's he?' Andy said. Damn. And I'm not saying that if his father was around, it'd be any different, but fact is, it's hard to like yourself when one of the two most important people in your life deserts you. And it's hard as hell to get ahead when you don't like yourself very much."
Cowboy took a deep breath and continued. "I want that baby you're carrying to like himself. I want him to know without a shadow of a doubt that his daddy likes him, too—enough to insist upon marrying his mom and g
iving him a legitimate name."
Melody met his gaze as she pulled herself to her feet, and he hoped his plea had made an impact.
"Think about it," he told her. "Please."
She nodded. And changed the subject as he followed her into the library. "We better go rescue Andy. Britt's not one of his all-time favourite people."
But as Cowboy looked, he saw Andy and Mel's sister sitting where he'd left them, in front of the computer, heads close together.
The two of them barely glanced up as Cowboy and Melody approached. They were playing some kind of bloodthirsty-looking computer game they'd no doubt found while surfing the Net.
"This would be so much better on my computer at home," Britt was telling Andy as she skillfully used the computer keyboard to engage a pack of trolls in mortal combat. "The graphics would be much clearer. You should drop by some time-I'll show it to you if you want."
"Can your computer do an Internet search like this one did?" Andy asked.
Brittany snorted. "Yeah, in about one-sixteenth the time, too. Wait'll you see the difference. I swear, this library computer is from the Stone Age."
Melody looked at Cowboy, her eyebrows slightly raised.
He had to smile. If Brittany and Andy could form a tentative alliance, there was definite hope that he and Melody could do the same.
As Melody moved off to glance at a shelf filled with new books, Cowboy watched her.
She had no idea how beautiful she was.
She had no idea how badly he wanted her.
She also had no idea how patient he could be.
He'd once gone on a sneak and peek-an information—gathering expedition—with Blue McCoy, Alpha Squad's XO. They'd been assigned to scope out a vacation Haus in Germany's Schwarzwald that was, according to FInCOM sources, to be inhabited at the end of the week by a terrorist wanted in connection with a number of fatal bombings in London.
The Fink sources had been wrong—the tango showed up five days early, leaving McCoy and Cowboy pinned down in the bushes next to the front door and directly beneath the living-room window. They'd been trapped between the house and the brightly lit driveway, hidden by the shadow of the foliage but unable to move without immediate detection from the teams of security guards and professional soldiers that constantly patrolled the premises.
They'd lain on their bellies for three and a half days, counting soldiers and guards and listening to conversations auf deutsch and in various Arabic dialects from the living room. They'd relayed all the information to Joe Cat over their radio headsets and they'd waited—and waited and waited—for Alpha Squad to be given permission to apprehend the terrorists and to liberate McCoy's and Cowboy's butts.
He'd come away from that little exercise smelling really bad and hungry beyond belief, but knowing that he could outwait damn near anything.
Melody Evans didn't know it, but she didn't stand a chance.
Chapter 10
Melody woke up, aware that her afternoon nap had stretched on far past the late afternoon. It was dark in her room and dark outside, as well. Her alarm clock read 11:14 p.m.
Someone had come into her room while she was asleep and covered her with a blanket. But that someone couldn't have been her sister, who had been called away to the hospital before Melody had gone up for a nap, and who, from the obvious emptiness of Britt's room and the quietness of the house, had not yet returned home.
Melody glanced out the window at the tent in the backyard. It was dark. No doubt Jones had gone to sleep himself after he'd tucked her in.
Either that, or it had been Andy. The boy had been spending a great deal of time over at their house, working—or playing—with Britt on her computer. In the week since Jones had done his "tough love" Intro to Drinking 101 session, Andy had been acting less like a twenty-three-year-old ex-con and more like a twelve-year-old boy.
He and Brittany had really hit it off—which was good for both of them. Ever since Britt's divorce, she'd been more likely to focus on the negative instead of the positive. But when Andy was around, Melody heard far more of her sister's musical laughter.
Oh, Britt complained about him. Crumbs around the computer. Dishes left out on the kitchen table. But she gave the kid his own screen name on her computer account and let him use it even while she was doing the evening or night shift at work.
He was a nice kid, despite his bad reputation. He had a natural charm and a genuine sense of humour. But there was no way he would've left Britt's computer long enough to come upstairs and throw a blanket over her. It had to have been Jones who'd done that.
In the past week, he'd been up every morning, sitting in the kitchen while she'd had her breakfast before going to work. After watching her half-heartedly eat dry toast for several days in a row, he'd actually cooked her bacon, eggs, pancakes and oatmeal in the hopes that one of those foods would be something that she would want.
He'd been waiting when she'd returned home from work, as well. She'd gotten into the habit of sitting on the front porch with him, talking quietly and watching the setting sun turn the brilliant autumn leaves even more vivid shades of red and orange.
Jones was always around for dinner, too. Just like Andy, he'd managed to totally charm Brittany. And as for Melody, well, she was getting used to him smiling at her from across the kitchen table.
She was waiting for him to kiss her again-the way he'd done out in front of the library. But as if he sensed her trepidation, he was keeping his distance, giving her plenty of space.
But more often than not, when their eyes met, there was a heart-stoppingly hot spark, and Jones's gaze would linger on her mouth. His message was very clear. He wanted to kiss her again and he wanted to make sure that she knew it.
The thought of Jones up in her room, covering her with a blanket and watching her as she slept was a disconcerting one, and she tried to push it far away. She didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about Jones at all. She focused instead on her hunger as she went downstairs to the kitchen. She was, as they said in Boston, wicked hungry.
Melody nibbled on a soda cracker as she searched the refrigerator, then the pantry, for something, anything to eat. With the flu still running rampant through the nursing staff at the hospital, Brittany hadn't had time to pick up groceries. There was nothing in the house to eat. Correction—nothing Melody wanted to eat.
She would've gone shopping herself, but Britt had made her promise under pain of death that she wouldn't try to wrestle both the shopping cart and the crowds at the Stop and Shop until after the baby was born.
Of course, if Britt had her way, Melody would spend the next few months in bed. And from the way he'd been talking last week outside the library, Jones was of the same mind-set. But he wanted her to stay in bed for an entirely different reason.
Melody couldn't quite believe that his motive was pure passion. She wasn't exactly looking her sexiest these days—unless, of course, one was turned on by a pumpkin. Andy's words, "fat and funny-looking," sprang immediately and quite accurately to mind. No, she had to believe that Jones wanted her in bed only because he knew that once he got her there, he'd be that much closer to his goal of marrying her.
For the baby's sake.
With a sigh, she took her jacket from the hook by the door, checking to make sure her car keys and her wallet were in the pockets. Brittany may have made the supermarket off-limits, but the convenience store up by the highway was fair game.
Maybe if Melody wandered through the aisles she'd see something she actually wanted to eat—something besides an entire sleeve of chocolate chip cookies, that is.
She unlocked the door and stepped out onto the porch, nearly colliding with Jones. He caught her with both arms, holding her tightly against him to keep them both from falling down the stairs.
His body was warm and his hair was dishevelled as if he, too, had just woken up. She'd seen him look exactly like this in Paris. She couldn't remember how many times she'd slowly awakened underneath wa
rm covers, opening her eyes to see his lazy smile and sleepy green eyes.
Time had lost all meaning back then. They'd slept when they were tired, eaten when they were hungry and made love the rest of the time. Sometimes when they woke, it was in the dark hours of the early morning. Sometimes the warm light of the afternoon sun slipped in beneath the curtains.
But it never mattered. The rest of the world had ceased to exist. What was important was right there, in that room, in that bed.
"I saw the light go on," he said, his voice still husky from sleep, his drawl more pronounced. "I thought I'd come over, make sure you were okay."
"I'm okay." Melody stepped back, and he let her go. The night air had a crisp chill to it, and she missed his warmth almost immediately. "I'm hungry, though. I'm making a run to the criminal."
He blinked. "You're...what?"
She started down the steps. "Going to the Honey Farms—the convenience store on Connecticut Road."
Jones followed her. "Yeah. But...what did you call it?"
"The criminal. You know, because the prices they charge are criminal."
He laughed, genuine amusement in his voice. "Cool. I like that. The criminal."
Melody couldn't help but smile. "Boy, it doesn't take much to make you happy, does it, Jones?"
"No, ma'am. And right now it would make me downright ecstatic to go to the criminal for you. Just hand me the keys to your car, tell me what you want and I'll have it back here for you inside ten minutes."
Melody looked around. "Where's your car?"
"It was, um, getting costly to keep a rental car for all this time." He fished a pony tail holder out of the front pocket of his jeans. Raking his hair into some semblance of order with his fingers, he tied it back at the nape of his neck. "I returned it about a week and a half ago."
"God, and I didn't even notice."
Jones held out his hand. "Come on. Give me the keys and your dinner order."
She stepped past him, heading toward her car. "Thanks, but no thanks. I don't know what I want. I was intending to go and browse."
"Do you mind if I come along?"
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