Accidental Family (The Baby Bet: MacAllisters Gifts #14)

by Joan Elliott Pickart

  “Thank you,” he said. “This looks great.”

  “I telled Patty you liked lots of sugar in your ice tea,” Sarah Ann said, obviously pleased with herself.

  David took a sip of the tea and smiled at his daughter.

  “Perfect,” he said. This three-year-old little girl knew more about him than he did, which he’d better not dwell on or he’d thoroughly depress himself. “Just right.”

  “You two go wash your hands and start on your lunches,” Patty said. “I’ll be right there.”

  “’Kay,” they said, running off.

  “Do they ever walk?” David said.

  “Not often,” Patty said, smiling. “How are you feeling, David? I hated to wake you because you were so sound asleep, but I decided food was important, too.”

  “The nap did wonders,” he said, “and I’m hungry as a bear. I appreciate the lunch and the delivery service.”

  “Well, holler if you need anything.”

  “Couldn’t you join me in here with your lunch? No, I guess not. You have to supervise the troops.” David poked a potato chip that split in two. “I didn’t recognize Sarah Ann, Patty. The only reason I knew who she was was due to the picture you brought me. I lied through my teeth and told her that I’d missed her.” He looked up at Patty again. “I had to lie to my own daughter.”

  “That’s necessary right now,” Patty said gently.

  “Yeah, I know but… Well, you’d best go ride herd on those two. Where’s Sophia?”

  “Snoozing away in her bed.” Patty laughed. “If she stays true to form she’ll wake up after I’ve had three bites—maximum—of my sandwich and think she’s starving to death.”

  “When you laugh or smile,” David said, looking at her intently, “your whole face lights up and your eyes sort of dance, or something. I like the sound of your laughter, too. It reminds me of wind chimes. Well, there’s a memory flash for you. I know what wind chimes sound like—your laughter.”

  “That’s a lovely thing to say,” Patty said, feeling a warm flush stain her cheeks. “Wind chimes. Thank you.”

  “If I thanked you for everything I’m grateful to you for, I’d run out of oxygen. So, I’ll say it once more and hope you know how sincerely I mean it. Thank you, Patty Clark.”

  “You’re welcome, David Montgomery,” she said, hardly above a whisper.

  Their gazes met. Blue eyes and dark, dark eyes. Neither of them moved or hardly breathed. Time stopped, the room faded into a hazy mist, then David’s hand floated from the bed, palm up, moving toward Patty.

  “Mommy,” Tucker yelled, racing back into the room. “I spilled my milk.”

  Patty jerked and splayed one hand on her racing heart.

  “Oh, you startled me, Tucker,” she said, dragging her gaze from David’s. “I’m coming. Go, go, go.” She hurried after him as he left the room.

  David took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, puffing his cheeks.

  Damn it, he thought. Patty was turning him inside out. She wasn’t doing it on purpose, he knew that. She was just being Patty and, heaven help him, he wanted her. The mere image in his mind of kissing her, holding her, then…

  He had to gain control of this raging desire that was consuming him. Patty had brought him into her home, trusted him, was helping him do what was best for his daughter.

  So what does he do? He fantasizes about making love to Patty for hours and hours, then falling asleep with her nestled in his arms. What a sleazeball he was. His wife had died, for God’s sake, and for all he knew he was frozen with grief.

  Well, his body sure didn’t know it if he was frozen. The heat that had consumed him, hot and coiled, when Patty had pinned him in place with those incredible eyes of hers would melt ten tons of icebergs.

  Oh, yeah, he had to get control of this before he did something stupid that diminished him in Patty’s eyes. He couldn’t bear the thought of that. She’d admitted that she didn’t really know him as a man, only as a father. Hell, he didn’t know himself as a man, either. What if he was a scum? A guy who lusted after every lovely woman who crossed his path even though he was supposedly mourning his dead wife? Could he really be that much of a lowlife?

  No. Damn it, no. He wasn’t like that, was he? Patty was adamant about the fact that he was a devoted and loving father. A decent human being. Did he have a split personality? Was he a great daddy and a hustler of women, too? No, that didn’t feel right, didn’t…fit, feel comfortable.

  His desire for Patty was real, belonged to him. It wasn’t tacky, it was honest. But what about his emotions for Sarah Ann’s mother? Where were they? What were they?

  David sighed, ordered himself to blank his mind for now, somehow, and picked up a carrot stick.

  Patty managed to choke down her lunch and comment in all the right places on what Tucker and Sarah Ann were chattering about. Another part of her was listening for Sophia who was due to eat. The majority of her, however, was reliving that unsettling scene in the bedroom when the only two people in the entire universe had been her and David.

  Dear heaven, she thought, pushing her plate to one side. The heat. She couldn’t remember when she’d been consumed with such heat, such want of a man, of David. The very clothes on her body had felt heavy and hot, urging her to tear them from her burning skin, fling them away so there would be no barriers between her and David when they—

  Sophia wailed in the distance.

  “Thank goodness,” Patty said, jumping to her feet. “Two cookies each from that plate, Tucker, Sarah Ann. You both ate very well.”

  “I want to go see my daddy,” Sarah Ann said.

  So do I, Patty thought, then shook her head in self-disgust.

  “Finish your cookies and milk, then you can go visit him,” she said. “I’ll be back. I have to feed the baby.”

  Patty fed Sophia while sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery. She could hear the deep rumble of David’s voice and the giggles of Tucker and Sarah Ann, but couldn’t make out what they were talking about. She lifted Sophia to her shoulder and rubbed the baby’s back until a tiny burp was heard, then put the infant in her crib. Patty traced the perfect shell-like shape of one of Sophia’s ears with her fingertip.

  Okay, she thought. She was doing fine now. Calm, cool and collected. She’d simply overreacted when she’d seen David in her bed, that’s all. She was a normal, healthy woman and it had been many months since… Well, forget it.

  She had no intention of ever becoming involved with a man again, not emotionally, not physically. She was on guard now against David’s masculine magnetism. Immune. There. That was a great word. She was back to viewing David as Sarah Ann’s father. Not a man, a daddy. The end.

  With a decisive nod, Patty left the nursery and went to the master bedroom.

  “Okay, short people, it’s nap time,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s go.”

  “No,” Sarah Ann said. “I want to stay with my daddy.”

  “Sarah Ann,” David said, “you must do what Patty tells you. We’re all going to take naps now, because, well, because it’s nap time.”

  “Are you going to nap on this bed with my daddy?” Sarah Ann said to Patty.

  “Yeah, she is,” Tucker said. “This is my mommy’s bed. There’s lots of room on it so she won’t bump your daddy’s boo-boo. Right, Mommy?”

  “Well, no,” Patty said, staring at a space just above Tucker’s head. “I’ll be sleeping on that bed in Sophia’s room while David and Sarah Ann are here with us.”

  Tucker frowned. “Why?”

  “’Cause only a mommy and a daddy sleep in the same bed, Tucker,” Sarah Ann said. “That’s what my daddy told me when I wanted to sleep with him after I had a bad dream.”

  “They are a mommy and daddy, dumbhead,” Tucker said. “So they can sleep together in this bed.”

  “I am not a dumbhead,” Sarah Ann yelled. “You’re a dumbhead, Tucker, you are.”

  “Nap time,” Patty said. “Definitely overdue.”<
br />
  “It was an interesting discussion while it lasted,” David said, chuckling. He sobered in the next instant when Patty glared at him. “Sorry.”

  “I’ll tuck these charming children in, then get that tray out of your way, David,” Patty said.

  Patty ended up reading Tucker and Sarah Ann a story to calm them down enough to fall asleep after the excitement of David’s arrival on the scene.

  When she returned to the master bedroom, the bathroom door was closed and she could hear water running in the sink.

  David must be washing up, she thought, retrieving the tray from the bed. Dr. Hill had said that the next lighter-weight cast David would graduate to was a nifty new kind that allowed the injured party to shower, but for now David was limited to sponging off in the sink.

  Mmm, she thought. David wasn’t all that steady on the crutches yet. Maybe she should wait right here in case he needed help weaving his way back to the bed. Yes, that was a good idea.

  She put the tray on top of the dresser, then sat down on the edge of the bed opposite from the side David was using. The water in the bathroom continued to run.

  Patty glanced at the beckoning pillow covered by the spread, hesitated, then slipped off her shoes and stretched out with a sigh.

  The very second she heard that water stop, she mused, she’d pop right up again and be ready to assist the patient if needed. She’d just relax here for now, just for a few minutes. That water sounded like rain. Soothing. She’d always liked falling asleep to the music of falling rain….

  David opened the bathroom door and shuffled his way forward on the crutches, an earthy expletive accompanying his staggering trek. At the edge of the bed he stopped so suddenly he nearly toppled over backward. He steadied, then stared at a sleeping Patty.

  Look who’s sleeping in my bed, he thought. Forget Goldilocks, that was pretty Patty. Oh, man, what a lovely picture she made. She was on her side, turned toward him, her jean-clad legs bent a bit and her hands tucked beneath her cheek. Her lips…yes, they were parted slightly, just as he’d imagined they’d be. She was beautiful.

  David’s leg began to ache, and as carefully as he possibly could, he placed the crutches on the floor and eased back onto the bed. Patty didn’t move. He shifted slightly so he could see her clearly, then watched her, simply watched her sleep.

  So peaceful, he thought. The whole house, in fact, had a stillness, an aura of contentment, of all being as it should be as its occupants slept, rejuvenating themselves for the remaining hours of the day. This was a home, not just a house. A real home filled with love and laughter.

  Had he created this kind of atmosphere for Sarah Ann in what Patty said was a very large house that he’d purchased? He didn’t know.

  All he really knew at the moment was that he was inches away from a woman he desired beyond measure. Patty, Patty, Patty. There were so many facets to her, like an exquisite flower with many different petals that fit together to make up the whole.

  Patty Clark was a fantastic mother with that magical sixth sense that natural-born mothers had. She was also a caring, thoughtful and very giving woman, as evidenced by the fact that he and Sarah Ann were presently living under her roof.

  She was independent and had a feisty temper at times, which he’d provoked at the hospital when he’d been acting like a jerk. And yet there was a vulnerability about her, an aura of innocence that made a man want to stand between her and harm’s way, protect her from the harsh realities of the world.

  Oh, yes, a complex and enchanting woman was Ms. Patty Clark, David thought. She’d been deeply hurt by her ex-husband, the dud, but she was moving forward with her life, focusing on her children, wrapping her role of mother around herself like a safe and comforting blanket.

  David frowned as he continued to gaze at Patty.

  She had said, he recalled, that she didn’t separate the woman within from the mother, or something like that. Whatever needs, wants, hopes and dreams that Patty the woman might have, she was overshadowing and ignoring them as she performed her duties as a mother.

  That was wrong.

  He was no expert on the subject but he just knew that was very, very wrong. Who would Patty the woman be when Tucker and Sophia were up and grown and left home? An empty shell who lived for visits and calls from her children? Oh, Patty deserved better than that, needed to embrace the woman within her, allow her to…roar.

  David frowned in self-disgust.

  Wasn’t he just full of himself? There he was deciding how Patty should conduct her life when he didn’t have a clue as to how he conducted his own. Yeah, okay, he was a good father. He’d give himself that.

  But what kind of a man was he? Did he have a reasonable balance in his life between work and his responsibilities at home? Was he an attorney with a reputation of excellence, or was he just mediocre, one more lawyer in the masses that evoked less-than-flattering jokes?

  Had he been a devoted and loving husband to his deceased wife? Was his desire for Patty going to be snuffed out like the flame on a candle when he regained his memory and discovered he was shattered by the loss of his soul mate?

  Oh, that didn’t seem possible. What he was feeling for Patty was so real, so honest somehow. Each petal of that flower that was her was to be cherished, not shoved roughly aside when his memory returned. He wouldn’t do that. Would he? But he really didn’t know for certain because the tormenting mystery continued to plague him.

  Who was David Montgomery?

  Patty stirred and opened her eyes. She smiled at David, a warm, womanly, sleepy smile. Her lashes began to drift down again, but in the next instant, her eyes flew wide open and she sat bolt upward on the bed, staring at David.

  “Why are you in my bed?” she said, then shook her head sharply. “No, correct that. Why am I in your bed, which is actually my bed, but at the moment it’s your bed, and I have no business being here because… How did this happen? Oh, I am mortified, just so-o-o embarrassed.”

  “Why?” David propped his elbow on the bed and rested his head on the palm of his hand. “You took a little snooze. I don’t remember any fine points of the law at the moment, but I find it hard to believe that it’s a felony. No harm was done.”

  “Would you stop and think a minute?” Patty said, scrambling off the bed. “What if the kids had walked in here while I was doing my little snooze number? Huh? What about that, mister?”

  “No biggy.” David shrugged. “They’ve already decided that we’re eligible to sleep together here because we’re a mommy and a daddy…dumbhead.”

  “Dumbhead,” Patty said with a burst of laughter. “Well, I’ll count my blessings. It could have been worse. Some of the kids at the Fuzzy Bunny know language you wouldn’t believe, let me tell you.” She paused and frowned. “I’m getting off the subject. I apologize for falling asleep in…on…your bed.”

  “It’s your bed.”

  “Don’t start that again,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “This could have been a terrible disaster. If Tucker had seen…and then told my father and Uncle Ryan tonight that you and I… Oh, good grief.”

  “You’ve lost me here.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Patty said, “I haven’t informed you of that fun newsflash. My father, retired cop that he is, is having a royal fit because you’re staying here. He and my uncle Ryan, who also happens to be a retired police officer, are coming over tonight to put you through the third degree, buster.”

  “That ought to take about three seconds,” David said, “seeing how I don’t know much more than I like chocolate sauce on my chocolate ice cream and Sarah Ann’s favorite television show is Blue’s Clues. But I take it that your father is a tad upset with this arrangement?”

  “That’s putting it mildly.” Patty sighed. “I love my dad to pieces, but he does have a tendency to forget that I’m a grown woman capable of making my own decisions and dealing with life as it comes. You should have heard him when he found out what Peter… No, that is not a scen
e I care to recall.”

  “From what I understand about Peter Clark he justly deserves whatever your father might have dished out.”

  “Which would have changed nothing, David.”

  David smiled. “No, but your dad would have felt great during that discussion with Mr. Clark.”

  “Big macho deal,” Patty said, shaking her head. “Listen, maybe my mother will be able to talk my father out of coming over here with Uncle Ryan in tow. But if not, I apologize in advance for what those two might put you through. It’s just that…”

  “They love you,” David said quietly.

  “Yes. Yes, they do.”

  “And that, Patty Clark, is very, very easy to understand.”

  Chapter Six

  David sat on the sofa in Patty’s living room, his injured leg propped on a pillow on the coffee table as he read an article in a newsmagazine. Earlier he had read Sarah Ann and Tucker a story as they snuggled close to him, one on each side, smelling like fresh air and soap from their baths.

  Patty had sat in a comfortable chair opposite the sofa while the story was being read, thoroughly enjoying the luxury of having extra time to hold Sophia after feeding her. Prayers were said in the living room so David could hear them, then Patty tucked all three children into bed.

  Now at eight-thirty she paced restlessly around the room, while David appeared completely relaxed as he concentrated on the magazine.

  “Aren’t you nervous?” Patty said finally, stopping in front of him.

  “About what?” David said, looking up at her.

  “My father and Uncle Ryan coming over here.” Patty glanced at her watch for the umpteenth time. “Any second now.”

  David laughed. “You act like they’re going to come in with guns drawn and tell me to get up against the wall and spread ’em.”

  “One never knows,” Patty said, frowning.

  “Patty, look,” David said, setting the magazine next to him on the cushion. “I…”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Oh, good grief,” Patty said, her hands flying to her cheeks. “There they are.”