by Tina Leonard
“I’m sorry. Am I supposed to follow you around, hoping that if I do it long enough, you’ll ask me to marry you one day?”
“Most women would,” he said grumpily. “Of course, you’re not like most women.”
“That’s in my favor, right?”
“At this moment, no. You’re damn hard to pin down.”
“You have no room to talk. You’re not like most men I know, either.”
“I’m scared by the one I’ve seen you with. I damn sure hope I’m not like him.”
“Jonathan is a very nice man. He offered to marry me.”
“So?” He kept his eyes trained on hers, scowling. “I do all the work and he gets to marry you and take the credit?”
Stormy laughed out loud. “Making love to me is work?”
“No. Getting you pregnant through a condom. That took superhuman strength and sperm.” Cody actually didn’t feel like making light of the situation anymore. “I’m offering to marry you.”
She propped herself up on one elbow, which made her breasts tilt in a manner he found most attractive. “Are you?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes. I think I will.”
“Will what?”
“Ask you to marry me.” His whole being shrank under her soft expression. He hadn’t intended to do that, had he? Yes, he had. He was no Wrong-Way Higgins, to leave a woman stranded after availing himself of her body.
“Are you doing this just because of Jonathan?”
He swallowed. Definitely he didn’t want the old geezer putting his hands on his woman—or his child. “No.”
“You don’t seem very…anxious.” She eyed him, a worried look in her eyes.
“I am anxious. I don’t know how else we’re going to solve this, do you?”
“We don’t have to get married just because…” She drifted off, realizing what she was saying. She wanted him to ask her so bad that she was putting words into his mouth. She wanted him. He wanted to do the right thing. He had never once said he was in love with her.
And that was what she had said all along that she would not do. Make the mistake of marrying because of the baby. There were too many other obstacles in the way to compound the problem by tying him to her with holy matrimony. It would never work out. Marriage was a momentary stopgap to make them feel like they were working out their differences. Compromising.
But over time it would turn into a yoke holding them together. The child would suffer. They both wanted to do the right thing for their baby.
It was not right to say yes, no matter how badly she wanted to.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too.”
“I know you do.” Like a friend. Somewhat like anybody else he rushed in to take care of, whether it was his mother, or Mary, or asking Annie to marry him after Carlos died. She didn’t want to be a responsibility. She wanted him to be in love with her. She lay her head down on his shoulder and wrapped her leg over his. “I don’t know what I want.”
“I didn’t think so.” He wound his fingers into her hair and held her face against his cheek, wondering what he was going to do with this movie scout who was holding his future in the cradle of her belly.
Outside the bedroom, the telephone rang. The answering machine clicked on. “Stormy, this is Jonathan. Good news. The head honchos decided you did such a good job with the film location in Texas that they want to give you a promotion and a blockbuster film to scout a location for, possibly China or Africa. Lotta, lotta bucks involved with this one, luv. Give me a call…when Crocodile Dundee rides out of the big city.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Africa!” Cody hollered. “Have you lost your mind?”
Stormy glanced at him, startled. Beautiful gray-mist morning eyes watched him warily as she moved to sit at the small breakfast table. One bare, sexy foot wrapped around the chair rung as she considered him.
“No, I haven’t lost my mind. Why would going to Africa and China constitute me losing my mind?” She bit into a piece of toast before reaching for a pad on which she began scribbling notes.
“Hey.” He went over and sat at the table too, putting his hand over hers to stop her writing for a moment. “You wouldn’t actually do that, would you?”
Her brows lifted. “Why would I actually not consider going?”
“Because you’re pregnant!”
“Oh. That.” Stormy lifted his hand off of hers and continued writing. “I would only make a preliminary trip to each location right now. Filming isn’t slated for two years. After the baby is born, I could get into the project big-time.”
His jaw dropped, his stomach curdling with dread. Stormy had spent probably six months shuttling back and forth between California and Desperado while she smoothed the path for the movie deal. She could be gone for a long time—with his child. Obviously, no reasons lodged themselves under that devilish purple hair of hers of why she shouldn’t leave the country for uncivilized places. Damn it! He’d already asked her to marry him. That was his only trump card to keep her from going, and she hadn’t been interested in his offer.
For the first time, Cody recognized the woman sitting across the white table from him as a person with her own plan in life. One that damn well might not include him if he didn’t play it straight with her. His heart began drumlike palpitations in his chest. “Stormy, I really don’t like the idea of you going to China or Africa,” he said slowly.
She looked up from the notes she was eagerly writing. “I know. You didn’t like the idea of California, either.” Nodding, her face held understanding. “You’ve never been out of Texas, have you?”
“Well, once my boy scout troop crossed over the river into Arkansas, but that was at the end of the water where it was only about an inch difference between the two states.”
“You see? My parents dragged me from one end of the country to the other for gigs. So living out of a suitcase and waking up in new places doesn’t bother me. In fact, I find it invigorates my life.” She sighed, shaking her head as she patted her stomach. “I thought I was ready to quit traveling for a while, but this is too big a deal for me to turn down. And I want my baby to have the benefit of being well-traveled. Male or female, I think it’s good for a child to be broad-minded and aware of the world.”
“I know you do.” Cody bit the inside of his jaw. “Maybe you could leave the baby with me after it’s born? Don’t you think that would be healthier? I mean, in China he’s definitely going to eat a lot of sushi, and…” He trailed off, not even able to take in the notion of being separated from his child for months at a time.
“Sushi is Japanese, not Chinese. Well, maybe it would be better while the child is an infant,” Stormy conceded. “We could agree on that. It’s just that later on, I would want my child to have the benefit of traveling, especially on the studio’s tab. It would be silly to pass up such opportunities.”
Cody drummed his fingers on the table. “I guess it would.” Hell, he didn’t even know what he was saying anymore. It seemed sillier to him to fly off to faraway places where millions of people crowded into strange places and ate strange food. He kept drumming. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Chinese person up close.”
“You’re kidding.” Stormy dropped her pencil.
“Well, there aren’t any in Desperado,” he said defensively. “Is it my fault if they haven’t moved to that neck of the woods?”
“No,” she said slowly, “but guess what you’re having for dinner tonight, then?”
“Chinese food?” he guessed.
“I think you’d better, and not at some trendy restaurant that happens to serve specialties like last night. There’s a whole other world out there you’ve been missing out on.”
His brain was fried. Not only did he feel ignorant, but his sweet little lover was turning into a travel guide right before his very eyes. “Do you have to go to China and Africa?” he asked, somewhat pleading. “I know it sounds chauvinistic, but I’d feel a whole lo
t more comfortable if you’d settle down a bit.”
She came to sit in his lap, which unsettled him even more because she wore no underwear underneath the silky wrapper. “I have to do this, Cody. I want to.”
“I know.” He was developing a massive hard-on.
“Let me tell you why this is important.” She held his face between her cool, delicate hands. “I got addicted to prescription pills. It was a bad time in my life. I wish it had never happened, but I was lucky enough to get a second chance in this industry.”
His hard-on died. “Addicted?” What exactly was an addiction to prescription pills?
“Addicted.” She nodded at him, her eyes very serious. “As in, spent time drying out, imagining bugs in my hair and hooks in my skin. Shaking like a maraca.” Her chest heaved as she breathed deeply. “It’s why I wouldn’t let you take me to a hospital. I just can’t face the smells right now, the sterility. I’m too afraid to take anything other than maybe an aspirin. I don’t ever want to fall into that hell again.”
He didn’t know what to say. He’d never met anyone who was addicted to anything before. No, that wasn’t true. Sloan was probably pushing the limit on alcoholism, though neither of them discussed it. But pills? It sounded so Hollywood. “Don’t you think you’d be better of coming to live in Desperado, Stormy? Maybe there’s some bad influences out here in LA you should stay away from.”
She lightly tapped his head at his temple. “You can take the pills out of the addict, Cody, but you can’t take the addict out of the addiction. It’s always with me, no matter where I am. I could get pills just as easily in Desperado.”
“I would keep an eye on you.”
“Yes, and you’d drive me nuts. What you are not hearing me say is that I overcame it on my own. But at that time, I was given a second chance at a job I love. If it hadn’t been for Jonathan, I would never have worked in this industry again. I don’t know what I’d be doing.”
“How come you let him take care of you but you won’t let me?”
With a light finger, she smoothed the furrows out of his brow. “He isn’t going to be taking care of me. I realized that was what I would be doing if I married him. And he doesn’t take care of me where my job is concerned. Obviously by being given this promotion, the studio thinks I’m good at what I do. I earned that, Cody. I earned it all by myself.” She looked into his eyes. “Which is why it’s so important for me to do this next project.”
He put his forehead against his tightly curled palm.
“If you tried to work in an office, would you be happy?” she asked.
“Hell, no.” But he didn’t look up.
“Then can you try to relate to my feelings?”
“I’m trying.” After a moment, he looked at her. “You know, I think when I came out here I believed that this was going to be easy. I thought we could solve this situation. I would ask you to marry me, you would say yes, and we’d live happily ever after.”
“In Desperado.”
“Yes. That’s where my livelihood is.”
“I know. And my livelihood is here. But I do have downtime, when I can come stay at your ranch with our child.”
He took his forehead off his palm. “I’m really struggling with the idea of having a bistate parental agreement, but I guess…there’s no other way, is there?”
“I don’t see it,” she said softly. “The only thing that we have in common is our baby.”
“Our baby,” he murmured. “He’s going to be so screwed up.”
“She’s going to be just fine.” Stormy kissed him along his hairline and tugged at his braid. “She’ll have her mother’s gift for adaptability.”
“But he’s going to want to live on a ranch and raise steers like his father does!” Cody insisted. “He’s going to want a horse of his own, and to enter Future Farmers of America events with his livestock. Then what’ll we do?”
“I don’t know.” Stormy sneaked a hand into his boxer shorts. “It’s safer in California, though, Cody. No rattlesnakes in this part of LA.”
“Hmmph.” Desire tautened the lower part of his anatomy. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about those snake teeth of mine you filched.”
“Come on back to my bed. You can talk while I do something more interesting with my mouth.”
He followed her into the bedroom where early West Coast sunshine touched everything with bright light, and dove under the covers with the woman he couldn’t get out of his system.
Couldn’t live with her. Couldn’t live without her.
An hour later, he opened his eyes, instantly rolling his head to glance at Stormy on the pillow next to him. She gazed at him through tangled burgundy hair, her lips smiling at him.
Dang but he loved waking up to this woman.
He rolled over to nuzzle against her neck. “I want you again.”
She giggled huskily and ran her hand along his back. “I like your direct approach.”
Nibbling at her ear, he said, “I’ve almost gotten used to yours.”
She laughed again. “You have not. Name one thing you like about anything to do with me. Besides my body, because that’s too easy and I won’t accept a cop-out.”
“I like your parents.” He trailed kisses down her neck to her shoulder.
Shaking her head with a wry smile, she stopped his descent, knowing where he’d be kissing next. “You do not. But I give you a passing grade for trying, even if I don’t believe it was an honest answer.”
“I do. Really.” One hand found the smooth rise of her rear. The soft velvet of her skin felt like heaven to his rough hands. “They’re pretty typical parents.”
“They would die to hear you say that. They’ve worked so hard to cultivate eccentricity.”
“Well, they are working from a natural base of it. But overall, they’re just normal parents. Your mother reminded me of my mother.”
Stormy laughed out loud. “How do you figure?”
He tucked his hand around her waist and slid her up next to him. “She wants the best for you. She wants you to be happy, same as my mom.”
“Carmen isn’t suffering from a personality warp, though.”
“Yeah. She is. She’s off on some junket to Alaska right now. Suddenly, she doesn’t want to live where she’s lived all her life. She stayed with her sister for a while, then joined a tour going through Alaska. Who knows where she’ll go after that?”
Stormy gazed up over her shoulder at him. “Experiencing some new things is healthy for a person.”
“Maybe your parents would like to visit my ranch, then.” He gave her an evil grin. “We don’t have many long-haired hippie types in Desperado, but maybe they could start a trend.”
“I’d want Hera to try to fix my mother’s hair, that’s for certain. She must have dyed it with carrot juice or something. Bozo Orange.”
“Aw, now.” He snuggled under her ear to kiss her. “She probably thinks your purple hair is extreme. I know I did when I met you.”
“Did you? You didn’t find me attractive?”
“Well, not in the…um, usual sense of the word. You made me mad. You argued with me.” He bunched her hair up in his hand so he could kiss the back of her neck. “Nothing’s changed, has it?”
“Nothing except that I’ve fallen in love with you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too,” he repeated the words he’d said earlier. “Why won’t you marry me?”
“Because you’re not in love with me. It’s like you just said, you weren’t attracted to me when you first met me. And nothing’s changed.”
“Now, wait a minute! That is not what I said!” Cody pulled back. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”
She sat up and reached for a robe. “But it’s true, Cody. You’re not in love with me. You want to marry me because of the baby. We’re a responsibility.”
“I still love you,” he said stubbornly, reaching for his jeans.
“Yes, but you wouldn’t be here if you hadn
’t thought I was pregnant. You wouldn’t ask me to marry you if I wasn’t having our baby.” She stared at him. “Would you?”
“Well—” He stared at her, hung up like a sheet twisted in a clothesline. “That’s not the case, so I don’t see the need to worry about it.”
“I do.” She rose from the bed. “I’m not your dream come true, Cody. It terrifies me to think that you’ll marry me because you’re doing what you’ve always done, take care of people since your daddy died. But you might meet the woman of your dreams one day, and there I’d be. Tying you down.”
“I don’t understand your brain. You want to talk about what-ifs. I want to act on what is. Let’s not dwell on what might have been.”
“I don’t think I can,” she said sadly. “My parents got married because of me. They weren’t ready for a child, and I was always in their way. I don’t want to be in your way.” She looked at him, her eyes haunted. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to marry a renegade.”
Cody stared at her. “Me? I’m an easy-going, always-been-in-one-place-all-my-life country boy. You’re the renegade.”
“No, I’m not. I just want a normal life for my child.” She turned her back and walked through to the dining area.
“You don’t even know what normal is,” he said, following her. “If you’re defining normal as average, you’re not average.”
“All I know is that I’m in love with you. And you’re not in love with me. It doesn’t bode well for a future together.”
He shook his head at her. “You’re making this as complicated as one of Pick and Curvy’s melodramas. We’re having a child together. It’s irrelevant how I felt about you when I met you.”
“It’s relevant how you feel now. And you’re not in love with me, are you, Cody?” Slowly, she forced herself to slide her gaze up to look at him.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” She was going to have to be satisfied with that, Stormy knew. He couldn’t say what she wanted him to say because he didn’t know what she wanted to hear. “You’re here.”
