“I was drinking it straight up by the time I was fifteen.” She held out the bottle. “Little more? Please? Pretty please with sugar on top?”
He deliberately put the lid back on the coffee cup and took a drink.
She huffed and set the milk bottle down, picking up the portion of sandwich he’d given her. “One of these days, I’m going to dangle something right in front of you that you desperately want and not give you any at all,” she warned.
He let out an abrupt laugh directed right at himself. “Sweetheart, that boat’s already sailed out farther than you know.”
She clearly missed his implication, though.
For a woman who wrote some of the cleverest things he’d ever read, she was nevertheless stunningly unaware of a lot.
“Once you finish your food,” he suggested, “we’ll go check on Harvey.”
“Pax.”
The nerves at the base of his spine tightened. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for being here.”
“I said I would be.”
“I know.” She chewed the corner of her lip for a moment. “But, still. Thanks. I’m...I’m really glad.”
“So am I, Shea. So am I.”
* * *
Harvey’s bypass turned out to be a triple. And though Pax’s intention had been to get Shea home as soon as he could, the longer Harvey’s surgery went on, he’d had to settle for getting her to put her feet up in the surgical waiting room. Only one other couple had been there, and the couches and chairs were plentiful, so she’d finally stretched out on one and curled her arm under her head and closed her eyes.
She hadn’t slept though. He could tell.
Finally, shortly before midnight, an unfamiliar doctor came to let them know that Harvey was out of surgery and in recovery. It would be hours yet before he’d be up for even the briefest of visits.
“But he’s going to be okay,” Shea persisted. “He’ll make a complete recovery?”
“No reason why he shouldn’t have his normal life,” the doctor assured her. He was aware that they weren’t related to Harvey and, in the absence of any immediate family, probably gave them more information than was usual. “As long as he makes a few necessary lifestyle changes.” He patted Shea’s arm. “The nurse will tell him that you were here waiting for him. But you should go home. Get some rest. You can see him tomorrow. And he can thank you, himself, for saving his life.” He gave them a tired smile and left the waiting room.
“You heard him.” Pax said. “Time to go home.”
“What kind of a normal life is Harvey going to have,” she whispered, “with the Washtub going under?”
“I don’t know. But that’s not something you need to worry about tonight.” He grabbed her purse and their jackets and steered her out of the waiting room. “Tonight, you can go to sleep knowing he’s going to see another sunrise.”
“And I didn’t save his life,” she demurred. “The surgeons did that.”
“Only because he wasn’t already dead,” he countered bluntly. She looked hollow-eyed and exhausted and it took considerable effort not to push her into one of the wheelchairs that they passed in the corridors and roll her out to the parking lot. But she kept plugging along, and finally they reached his SUV and he drove them home.
Hooch was waiting with a slathering tongue for Shea when they walked through the door, and Pax left them to it while he turned off the security system and went into the extra bedroom she was using. He dumped her belongings on the neatly made bed there.
When he returned, he found her sitting at the counter in the darkened kitchen, looking out at the city lights. “So where are these houses you want to see?” Her voice was soft.
“One’s in the Queen Anne district.”
She looked at him, but the room was too dark to read her expression. “Pricey,” she murmured.
“Yeah. But it’s near one of the best private schools in the area.”
“Brandlebury Academy? Isn’t that a little...excessive? And premature, considering he’s not even born yet?”
“Never too early to think about stuff like that.” He’d always been skeptical when he’d heard others say it, but now that he and Shea had a son coming, he finally understood. “And the other house is in Magnolia.”
At that, she visibly stiffened.
“Is it the fact that my grandparents live there that bothers you, or the fact that your mother does?” he asked.
She was silent for a moment. “I guess that’s probably not difficult information to uncover.”
Not at all. He’d simply asked Cornelia when he’d called her from the hospital. “Would have been easier if you ever offered any information regarding your mother.”
“You know enough.”
“I know the seven marriages bit,” he allowed. “Have you told her about—” he almost said us, “—the baby?”
She shook her head. “She won’t welcome the news the way your parents did.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s just one more sign that she’s getting older. Because it’s just one more piece of proof that I’m exactly like her.” She rubbed her hands down her thighs and sighed. “Doomed to repeat all of her worst mistakes.”
“Why do you care? You know it’s not true.”
“Do I?” She stood. “I don’t want to talk about her, Pax. Okay? I’ll tell her. Obviously, I’ll tell her. Just not—” She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Is that the real reason you don’t want to marry me? Is it less about the baby and more about proving you’re not like her?”
“Pax.”
“I’m just trying to understand, Shea.”
“The only thing to understand is that marriages don’t last.” She raised her palm to cut off his obvious objection. “The various other Merrick and Mahoney unions excluded.”
“You used to say it was relationships that didn’t last. That you didn’t believe in them.”
“Relationships. Marriages. What’s the difference? Is there one without the other?”
“What about love?”
She went still. She didn’t look at him. “I’m exhausted,” she finally said and started to leave the room. “I’m going to go to bed.”
“I never took you for a coward before, Shea.”
She stopped.
“What are you afraid will happen if you just let yourself care about someone?”
“I’ll find him collapsed on the floor in his office,” she said huskily. She looked over her shoulder at Pax, and from the faint light from the bedroom down the hall, he could see the shimmer in her eyes. “I’ll let myself believe and trust.” She took a quick breath. “And need, and when it blows up in my face again, where will I be? Alone. And broken.”
“So you’d rather not try. Not let yourself.” He walked closer, leaning toward her. “You’d rather be a woman who ends up like Harvey?”
She winced. “I’m not going to be like Harvey either. Because we’re having a baby. I’ll be a mother. Always.”
“And do you want to raise our son believing what you believe?” He cupped her cheek in his hand. “You want Fig so afraid of his own emotions that the first time he meets a girl who knocks him for a loop he runs the other direction?”
She sniffled. “No!”
“How’s he going to learn otherwise? You learned what you believe at your mother’s knee, sweetheart.”
She dashed her hand across her cheek. “He won’t have just my knee. He’ll have yours, too.”
“Thought you believed I wouldn’t stick around for the long haul.”
After a moment, she said softly, “I was wrong. I think you’ll be there for your son always.”
His chest ached. “And for you?”
She looked away. “
I think you deserve someone who believes in the same things you believe.”
“Not someone I love?”
“Pax.”
“Come on, Shea.” Maybe it was the long day taking its toll. Maybe it was the weather or the moon or the city lights twinkling in the window behind her or the fact that he was just plain tired of the pretense.
Maybe it was the fact that his plans were blowing all to hell, and he didn’t know what else to do.
“You have to know by now how I feel about you!”
“Responsible,” she returned. “You feel responsible because I’m pregnant!”
“Hell, yes, I feel responsible!” He grabbed her arm and tugged her around to face him, pressing his palm flat against her abdomen. “Fig is my child. You’re his mother. But he wouldn’t exist at all if I hadn’t been freaking crazy for you to begin with.”
“And I don’t want to end up hurting you because you’re his father!” She was breathing fast. “I never said we didn’t have...chemistry. Good, Lord. I’m the one who—” she broke off. “That day on Honey Girl, I’m the one who came on to you. I know that. But chemistry—”
“Passion.”
“Fine! Passion! That doesn’t equal love either!”
“No. Love to you is a guy who promises to marry you and leaves you at the altar,” he said flatly. “Is that right? Are you still in love with that jackass?”
She pushed him away. “Don’t.”
“Is he the one you dream about?” He followed her out of the kitchen. “Long for when you’re all alone?”
She rounded on him, throwing her arms wide. “What do you want from me, Pax?”
He wanted everything from her. But he realized that, even more, he wanted everything for her. “I want you to believe that you deserve more.” His voice sounded as raw as his throat felt.
“And if it’s not you?”
He wondered if the pain inside his chest was the kind of pain Harvey had felt.
“Then it’s not me. But at least there would be someone,” he said quietly. He looked past her to the light shining from her room. “Go to bed. You need to get some sleep.” Then he picked up his keys that he’d left on the hall table.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll bunk down on Honey Girl.” She’d been his first love and she was always waiting. Willing and ready for anything he put her through. “I have her moored at the boat works. Keys to the Audi are on the dresser in my room.”
She made a sound. “This is your home. You shouldn’t have to go somewhere else.”
He didn’t have to. But he wasn’t sure that he didn’t need to. If only for his own sanity. “If you don’t want to drive her, then call me in the morning.” He jabbed in the code on the security panel because Shea was forever forgetting to set it herself, then pulled open the door. “I’ll pick you up and take you to the hospital.”
“I don’t want you to go.” Her husky voice followed him. “You’re the one who’s in my dreams, Pax.” She darted around him until she was standing in his path. One hundred and eleven pounds—according to Dr. Montgomery’s nurse that morning—of curvy, short female blocking him in.
“The only one in my dreams,” she added. “And I don’t want you to leave.” She stared into his face. “I’m asking you not to leave. Not...not tonight.”
“Because you’re upset about Harvey.”
“Because I’m afraid if you go, you won’t come back,” she whispered.
He let out a long, slow breath. Looking at her was a physical pain. But he took a step back through the doorway. She followed and pushed it closed. “Thank you.”
“I don’t want your thanks, Shea.” He wanted her heart, and he was honestly unsure whether she’d ever let herself give it. He dropped the keys on the table again and went into his bedroom. He pushed the door closed, pinching the bridge of his nose for a long, long moment. Then he wearily pulled off his clothes and went into the bathroom to shower off the day. Rinsing away the reality, though, wasn’t so easily done.
He toweled off roughly and yanked back the covers on his bed. But a soft scratch and whine on his door stopped him from hitting the sheets. He went to the door and pulled it open. “Come on in, Hooch,” he murmured.
The dog trotted in and jumped on the foot of his bed. He started to close the door again but a hand stopped him. “What about me?” Shea asked hesitantly from the other side. “Can I come in, too?”
His grip tightened around the door handle. “The rule still stands, Shea. Come in only if you’re going to stay.”
She nudged the door open a little wider and slipped through. She was still in her jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt and he heard her suck in a breath when she looked at him. He hadn’t bothered to turn on a bedroom light, but the one in the bathroom was still on.
He was still mostly wet from the shower and as naked as it got.
“Still sure?”
Her gaze flicked from him to the bed, where the white sheets looked ghostly pale in the dim light, and back again. Then she moistened her lips and walked across the room to the blinds that were wide open at the window. “Do you mind?”
He liked the view of the sky outside, but he was willing to let her desire for a little more privacy prevail. “No.”
She adjusted them slightly, obscuring the view from outside but not closing them entirely. Then she turned and faced him, and with a complete economy of effort, pulled off her clothes and dropped them as haphazardly on the floor as he’d done with his own. Her long hair flowed over her shoulders and down her spine as she padded barefoot past him and knelt on the bed. “Do I look sure enough for you?”
He exhaled roughly and snapped his fingers at the dog. “Go to your own bed, Hooch.”
The dog huffed but obediently jumped off the bed and trotted back out the bedroom door.
Pax walked over to her and reached out, sliding her long, silky hair behind her shoulders. Her skin was as creamy smooth as it had been in December and her hips just as narrow. But her breasts were fuller, the tight crests a darker rose.
And this time, when he pressed his palm against her abdomen, with nothing between them but skin, he could feel a soft curving there that hadn’t been noticeable before.
She made a soft sound and rose on her knees, urging his hand lower as her mouth found his. “Touch me,” she whispered against his lips. “Not just Fig.”
His pulse roared in his head and he slid his hand between her legs, where she was as warm and wet as he remembered in his dreams. He sucked in a breath that tasted of hers and she gasped softly, rocking against his fingers.
She pulled his other hand to her breast. “There, too,” she whispered and shuddered when he dragged his thumb over her tightly beaded nipple.
“They’re not too sensitive?” He’d been doing his reading about pregnancy. About the changes going on in her body.
“Yes.” She twisted one hand in his hair and closed her other boldly around him. “And if you stop, I’ll lose my mind.”
He’d already lost his. The second she rubbed her thumb over his head and started stroking, he was gone.
He tipped her onto her back, replacing his hand on her breast with his lips and sliding his hands beneath her thighs, dragging her to the edge of the bed and burying himself inside of her.
Her back bowed sharply and she cried out, but when he started to pull back, she twined her legs around his and moved with him.
Pleasure, deeper than anything he’d ever known, drilled straight down his spine to his very soul. She threw her arms over her head, arching harder against him and he slid his palms against hers, their fingers twining.
“Please, please.” Her mouth was open, her hair tangling around them both as her hips pulsed against his, her body the sweetest glove that had ever existed. “Don’t stop.”
He couldn’t even if he wanted to.
He pressed deeper and her fingertips curled tightly as she gasped his name. He felt ripples work through her entire body to her very center and the whirlwind was too strong to resist. His head fell to her shoulder and he mindlessly emptied himself into the storm.
And later, when the clutching little spasms inside her finally stilled and their tightly clenched hands went lax, he pulled her head onto his chest and they finally, finally slept.
Chapter Thirteen
Sunlight was streaming through the angled slats of the window blind when Shea finally opened her eyes.
She was in Pax’s bed.
But he was gone.
She stretched out her arm and smoothed her palm over the pillow that still had an indentation from his head. She didn’t know what would change by making love. Didn’t know if anything could change.
Sighing, she rolled over and pressed her face to his pillow.
She just knew that she couldn’t regret it.
“You awake in there?”
She lifted her head.
Pax was standing in the doorway, a towel wrapped low around his hips, and when she finally managed to drag her eyes away from the hard plane of his abdomen to look up at his face, he was grinning faintly.
She flushed from her head right down to her toes.
“Now you’re shy?” He dropped the towel and climbed into bed beside her. “Turn over.”
She was glad to. At least she didn’t have to look at that knowing expression of his.
He slid his arm over her waist and pulled her back against him.
“Oh,” she sighed softly.
“Oh.” He kissed her shoulder and tucked her rear even closer against him. “How’re you feeling?”
Completely wanton. “Fine. And—” she tried to ignore the way his palm was gliding down her hip “—you?”
His erection prodded her backside. “Better than I have in a long, long while.”
A shiver skittered down her spine. “What time is it?”
“Nearly eight.” His fingers inched down the front of her thigh. “Harvey’s sleeping comfortably, according to the nurse I just spoke with.”
ONCE UPON A VALENTINE Page 17
