MILLION DOLLAR BABY

by Patricia Ryan

  He must have sensed her tension, because he gave her foot a gentle, reassuring squeeze before smoothing his hand up her foot and then down again, as if trying to warm it. Looking down, Laura saw that his right hand, with which he was touching her, was entirely hidden by the fleece throw, along with most of his arm. Kay couldn't see what he was doing, she wouldn't be aware of it unless Laura said something.

  So she didn't. Instead she lifted her wineglass from the end table and settled back to enjoy the rest of the movie.

  Dean continued this nominally chaste caress through the rest of Casablanca, his touch growing gradually more … sensually intrepid. He brushed his fingertips over her instep, slid his thumb beneath her foot to rhythmically massage her sole. Her heart skittered when he glided his hand up over her ankle and under the leg of her baggy jeans to gently knead her lower calf. By the time the movie ended, Laura felt a warm, liquid contentment that had a buzz of awareness to it, as if every cell in her body were humming.

  She could barely look at Dean while they tidied up Kay's parlor and kitchen. She wouldn't meet his eyes when he held her sweater open for her, pointedly turned away from him to sit on the floor of the foyer while she put her sneakers back on. How utterly in his thrall she was, to have dissolved in sensual bliss just from having her foot fondled. She hadn't felt this level of aching desire since…

  Since six years ago, when he had turned around on those stairs and stalked into her room with that look in his eyes…

  "Earth to Laura," Kay said.

  "What? Oh." Laura shook off her daze to find herself still sitting on the floor, staring at nothing. "Sorry, I'm … I guess I must be more tired than I thought." Dean offered her a hand; she took it and let him hoist her to her feet.

  "I was telling you it's started to rain," Kay said. "And hard. Hear it?"

  Laura groaned; it sounded like a real downpour. "I hate having to walk Janey home in this. Can I borrow an umbrella?"

  "Sure," Kay said, "but what a shame to have to wake her up only to take her out in that."

  "Then let's not wake her up," Dean said, grabbing his sweatshirt off the coat tree and zipping it on. "I'll carry her home. Laura, you can hold the umbrella over her. I bet she'll sleep right through it."

  It sounded like a plan to Laura, so that's what they did. Janey, cradled in a quilt in Dean's arms and shielded by the umbrella, was dry and only partially roused from her slumber when Laura unlocked her front door and ushered them into the unlit house. She and Dean kicked off their wet sneakers, and then she followed him upstairs to Janey's room, pulling back the bedcovers so he could lay the child down. Janey stirred and opened her eyes as Laura was pulling the covers back over her. "Mommy?"

  "Go back to sleep, monkey," Laura whispered, stroking her hair.

  Janey nodded and closed her eyes.

  Laura and Dean tiptoed out of Janey's room, closing the door behind them. They went back downstairs and stood for a moment in the darkened front hall, looking at each other.

  "Thanks for doing that," she said, shivering in her damp clothes.

  "No problem." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "Well, then, I guess I'll—"

  "Um, would you like some coffee?" Laura asked. "Or a drink?"

  "Coffee's good," he said. "Thanks."

  She nodded. From the direction of the basement, she heard her new furnace cycle on. "Okay, let's, uh…" She gestured toward the kitchen.

  "Uh-huh." Dean started to follow her down the hallway.

  "Oh, wait a minute." After only one step, she turned around, colliding with him. He grabbed her arms to steady her. It was so dark here that she could just barely make him out. "My sweater's soaked all the way through – it's dripping on the floor. Let me just…" She started tugging on the top button.

  "Oh, sure."

  Her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely manage to get the big wooden buttons through the buttonholes.

  "Here…" He went to work on the buttons himself, pushing one after the other through its hole. His hands, as they brushed against her through the waterlogged garment, seemed almost as unsteady as hers.

  Clutching the sleeve of his sweatshirt, she said, "This is drenched, too." She fumbled for the zipper pull in the dark and tugged it down.

  He shrugged out of it and let it fall to the floor.

  She did the same with her sweater.

  "Everything's wet," Dean said gruffly, running his hands over her hips, clad in sodden denim, and up the front of her damp shirt. He slid the top button through its hole.

  Laura unbuttoned his shirt as he unbuttoned hers, working quickly, awkwardly, their breathing far too loud in the nighttime quiet of the house. She got his shirt open first, and yanked it over his shoulders. He flung it to the ground and tore at hers; something gave, and suddenly it wasn't on her anymore.

  She quivered as he skimmed his hands hotly up her arms, across her shoulders and down over her breasts, still covered by the ribbed cotton tank top she wore in lieu of a bra. He unsnapped and unzipped her wet jeans, shoved them down over her panties. Kicking them aside, she reached for his fly, felt how hard he was, how ready, and flicked open the snap.

  Dean closed a tremulous hand over hers as she began to lower the zipper. "Laura … honey…" He burrowed his other hand into her rain-dampened hair, kissed her forehead. "Let's go upstairs."

  She shook her head. "We might wake Janey – she was restless. Here…" Taking him by the hand, she led him to the moonlit living room and Grandma Jane's lumpy old afghan-covered couch, which she had refused to replace with the Italian leather sofa Dean bought her. "Is this all right, or—"

  He kissed her, his hands wrapped around her head, his body pressing against her, so warm, so hard…

  She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, her heart pounding so wildly she thought it might explode.

  His hands were everywhere on her, restless, needful. He tugged her tank top over her head. She clawed at his jeans, pulled him to her in a fever of need.

  The world spun crazily, and then the couch was beneath her and he was on top of her, tearing her panties off, all heat and urgency now, and then he was—

  "Oh…"

  —pressing into her, stretching her open as he filled her…

  "Wait. Dean, wait. We need … do you have…?"

  His chest pumping, he stilled, half-buried within her. "Yes," he breathed shakily, dropping his forehead to hers. "Sorry. I'm too … in too much of a hurry."

  He kissed her gently, withdrew, felt around on the floor for his jeans. Laura heard the crackle of plastic, and moments later she was in his arms again, skin against skin, need meeting need…

  He drove into her hard, a burning lunge that forced a little whimper from her.

  "Laura? Are you … did I…?"

  "A little slower," she whispered, gathering him close. "It's been … a long time. Six years."

  "Oh, honey…" He kissed her, tenderly this time, his hands tangled in her hair, his body rocking into hers slowly, slowly…

  By the time he was fully inside her, she was quivering on the edge. He kept her there for a delirious eternity, making slow, mesmerizing love to her, the couch springs grating with every sinuous thrust. They kissed and stroked each other as their bodies shifted and slid together, a dance of the senses that grew inexorably swifter, more frenzied, until it consumed them both, together, in a single convulsive burst of pleasure.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  «^»

  "I was so crazy about you," Dean murmured into Laura's ear as they lay snuggled together under Grandma Jane's pink wool afghan, her old fringed velvet throw pillow beneath their heads. Laura had torn the afghan off the back of the couch at the end, he'd told her as they lay together afterward, damp and trembling and still intimately joined; but she couldn't recall having done that. She hadn't been aware of anything but pleasure – astonishing, heart-stopping pleasure – and the bone-deep gratification of sharing it with Dean, after all these years.


  "I was," he continued softly, nuzzling her hair, his arms and legs tangled companionably with hers. "I was out of my mind, back at Rutgers. It was like this … pain, this hurt, every time I looked at you … and yet there was also this amazing joy, this thrill that filled me whenever we were in the same room."

  She turned to look at him, his eyes luminous in the dark, and so achingly sincere.

  "I knew you loved Will," he said, brushing her hair, damp with rain and sweat, off her face. "I wanted you to feel that way about me. I wanted you to feel what I felt." He paused for a moment, took a breath. "I loved you, Laura."

  She closed her eyes, wanting to say it, to share what had been in her heart then and lingered still, but not trusting her own instincts in this charged and breathless moment.

  He seemed to understand; she felt his lips, warm and tender, on her forehead. Quietly he said, "You were afraid of me. I knew that. And then there was Will. I wouldn't have done anything to hurt him, and neither would you – especially not you. Knowing you, you would have belted me one if I'd … you know."

  She said, "If you'd just, like, come on to me, tried to coax me into the sack like you were always doing with girls, yeah, probably. But not if you'd taken me aside and … told me how you felt. We could have talked about it, cleared the air. Maybe we should have."

  He shook his head. "That would have a huge mistake, messed everything up. There were the three of us, you know, and … I mean, I was in agony from wanting you, but at least it was my own business, my own shameful little secret, being stuck on my best friend's girl. If I'd told you, everything would have gotten all awkward, you know? And you would have ended up pitying me, and I don't think I could have taken that."

  "I wouldn't have pitied you." Not much – not any more than she had pitied herself.

  He shifted a bit, tucking her head under his chin. "At the time, I told myself it was for the best. You and I were such complete opposites. I mean, you were – you are – the kind of woman a man starts making plans about, the kind that makes him think about settling down. If he's the settling-down type."

  "Which you've never been."

  He didn't respond to that. From the tension in his arms, she sensed a pensiveness, an uncertainty.

  "I remember how you used to go on about marriage," she said. "All that ranting about how it was the husbands who were the indentured servants, not the wives. You used to say marriage was the biggest scam ever perpetrated under the guise of 'civilization.'"

  "I used to say a lot of stupid things." The statement might have come off as glib had there been a speck of amusement in his voice. "I knew I was lousy husband material. That's why I used to say those things."

  "Ah, the Dean-Kettering-as-screwup theory," she said, trying to lighten things up.

  "I wish it was just a theory," he said gravely. "But judging from my own past behavior, and keeping in mind that there might actually be something to genetics…"

  "I'll accept that you've never been a Boy Scout," she said, "but please spare me the comparisons between you and your father. I'm not buying that voodoo – I never have. You are who you are. If you've made some mistakes…"

  "I've made some whoppers, as you're all too aware. I've hurt people. I hurt you – inexcusably – when I walked out on you six years ago without so much as saying goodbye. You must have hated me. I guess you did, since you never got in touch with me, and I can't blame—"

  "But I did – or tried to. The air force wouldn't tell me where you were."

  "They'd put me in a special intelligence unit, anti-terrorist stuff, real hush-hush." He moved so that he was looking into her eyes. "You seriously tried to find me? God, I would have thought you'd never want to hear from me again, after what I…" He shook his head. "Why did you?"

  Ah, the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Why had she brought that up, about trying to find him? What had she been thinking of? "I … it doesn't matter why."

  "It does to me," he said, pulling her closer. "It means I maybe didn't blow it as badly as I'd thought that night, means you didn't despise me – or did you? You weren't trying to find me just to read me the riot act, were you?"

  "No, no, it was nothing like that." Kay would tell her it was a Freudian slip, blurting that out about contacting the air force, that she subconsciously wanted Dean to know he was Janey's father. Was she wrong to persist in keeping it a secret? Did he have a right to know? At one time – when she'd first found out she was pregnant – she'd thought so, but then so many years had passed, years in which he'd gone his own way, lived his own life, a life that could never have accommodated a wife and child.

  "Were you … did you think we actually had a chance together, you and me?" Dean asked, sounding almost hopeful. "Did you want to see if we could make it work? 'Cause that would have really made me happy, knowing you thought I could be redeemed, even if you were wrong."

  She sighed. "It wasn't that. When I found you gone that morning, I knew there was no chance of … you and me."

  "Yeah," he said shortly. "I knew I'd blown it."

  "I just … I needed to … talk to you. There was … something I wanted to tell you, that's all."

  "What?" he asked, his gaze so serious, so unsuspecting. "What did you want to tell me?"

  Laura struggled, heart pounding, to think this through rationally. If she told him now, everything would change. He would be a part of their lives – of Janey's life – in a way that could never be taken back, never undone. Right mow, basking in postcoital intimacy and contentment, with Dean opening his heart to her with such compelling candor, she ached to tell him.

  But how would she feel tomorrow, in the merciless light of morning, with Dean counting down the days till he left Port Liv and sailed off to Bermuda?

  "Laura?" Dean prompted.

  This wasn't the right moment – not now, while she was so vulnerable, so distracted – to disclose what she'd kept so carefully hidden for so long. There would be plenty of time tomorrow, when they were apart and she could think clearly, to decide whether to tell him.

  "I can't remember what it was," she said without looking at him, the lie imparting a thready, stilted quality to her voice. The Laura I used to know could never have lied so baldly. "It must not have been that important."

  He nodded thoughtfully, gathered her more firmly in his arms. "It must have seemed important at the time."

  "It was a long time ago," she said. "Nothing's the same as it was then."

  "Some things haven't changed." He touched his lips gently to her eyelids, her cheek, her nose. "You're still the only one," he whispered against her lips as he trailed his fingers lightly down over her breast. "It was always you, always. You're the only woman I've ever loved, or ever will."

  *

  She was sleeping, he realized when he heard her steady breathing, felt her warm, somnolent weight against him.

  The second time had been as impassioned as the first, but different. She had taken the reins, rolling on top of him, which was not only intensely arousing, but touching, because he knew why she was doing it; it had to do with his blaming himself for that night six years ago. We were both responsible for that night, she had told him. And now she wanted him to know that she was equally responsible for tonight. Should they find reasons tomorrow to regret making love, it would be on her head as well as his.

  Would he regret it? he asked himself as he gazed at Laura's face in the dark.

  No. Never. He'd just made love to the woman he loved – a woman who, unless he was completely delusional, was also in love with him, even if she couldn't acknowledge it yet. The past obstacle to that love – her relationship with Will – was no longer a factor. Will – sweet, good-natured Will, whom they had both adored – was gone. The pain of his death, which had been such a fresh, stinging wound six years ago, had dissipated with time until it was but a hint of sorrow underscoring the joy of having known him.

  So, no. Dean did not regret this night, would never regret it.

  Would Lau
ra?

  Her breath fluttered a few hairs that had fallen across her face; Dean smoothed them away cautiously, so as not to wake her.

  Her regret six years ago had been a function of Dean's having abandoned her so abruptly and thoroughly. What if he didn't leave this time? What if he was here not only tomorrow morning when she woke up, but the next day, and the next, and the next?

  What if…

  His heart rattled in his chest. He could scarcely believe he was contemplating … what?

  Commitment? Marriage?

  Laura wouldn't go to Bermuda with him; she'd made that clear. What if he stayed here for the summer, took a stab at working it out with her?

  Was he good enough for her? No. Even she seemed to know that, tonight notwithstanding.

  Should that stop him? Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  Marrying Laura would mean becoming a stepfather to Janey. The thought filled him with a profound sense of rightness, tainted just slightly with fear. What if he turned out to be as lousy at family life as his old man? Was Laura right when she called his genetics theory voodoo, or had he actually known what he was talking about all these years? Was he prepared to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of a child?

  He had put the wheels in motion to set up that trust fund; if that wasn't responsible, what was?

  Thinking about the trust fund reminded him of Laura's opposition to it, as mystifying as her adamant unwillingness to accept the myriad guilt offerings he'd laid at her feet these past seven weeks. For her to stymie his efforts to create a nest egg for her daughter hinted at a deep, underlying wariness as regarded Dean.

  Not that she didn't have reason to be wary, given his personal history. But it didn't set well with him that she should deny Janey this financial boon just because … because what?

  Don't ask me to explain it…

  And he'd promised her he wouldn't. But that didn't mean he had to deny Janey her trust fund. It just meant he'd have to come up with her birth certificate and Social Security number on his own.