Surprised by a Baby

by Mindy Neff

  “What are your thoughts about the baby?” Storm asked.

  “My thoughts?” Her hand went to her stomach in an unconscious protective gesture. Only those who were very close to her would even notice the signs of pregnancy—a slightly bloated abdomen that had always been blessedly flat. “I’m having it, of course.”

  “I know that.” He raked a hand through his hair, seemed to just now realize they were still standing in the entry hall. He closed the door, then ushered her across the hardwood foyer and into the step-down living room. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Soon. When the opportunity was right.”

  He raised a brow. “My answering machine isn’t exactly overflowing with messages, darlin’. And I’ve spent a good six hours with you today. Most of it alone. You didn’t find an opportunity that suited you?”

  “Storm, I just took the test today. I don’t know what I’m feeling—other than sick as a dog. And angry that I’m in this position.” And scared. “I don’t think the reality has totally sunk in yet. When it does, things could go one of two ways. In either case, you’d be well advised to keep a cautious distance until I come to terms.”

  The corner of his mouth tilted for a bare instant, dimpling his cheek. “Meaning you’ll either clobber me or fall apart?”

  She glanced at him, annoyed that he’d guessed so accurately, embarrassed that she’d shown her vulnerability. “I don’t fall apart.”

  He ignored her protest. “Technically, that’s only one way. Anger and tears are in the same emotional family.”

  She heaved a deep sigh. “Fine. You want to split hairs, I’ll spell it out for you. In anger, I’m going to slug you. That affects you directly. Tears, I have to deal with on my own. You won’t suffer directly from that again, but I’m not a barrel of laughs to be around when that battle is taking place.”

  “Hell, you wouldn’t even let me kill a spider back when you were twelve, so your threat to do bodily harm is a pretty sorry bluff. I had Tracy Lynn grabbing one of my arms, screaming for the death penalty, and you were yanking my other arm out of the socket, begging for the poor little thing’s parole.”

  “If Tracy Lynn had her way, the world would be absent of all insects. She even shrieks if a fly lands in her hair.” Donetta remembered the incident he’d cited, though. Sunny’s parents had taken Grandma Birdie to Austin for some minor surgery and had planned to stay the night, leaving Storm in charge of his sister and the house.

  Donetta, Sunny, Tracy and Becca had been camping out in the Carmichaels’ backyard, their sleeping bags laid out like the petals of a daisy so that their heads all met in the center. They’d been shining a flashlight in the tent, giggling about whatever twelve-year-old girls giggle about, when Tracy Lynn spotted a fat spider.

  In a bout of pure histrionics, she’d knocked the tent down around them with her screaming and thrashing. Storm, whose open bedroom window faced the backyard, had raced out, wearing only his light blue boxer shorts, gripping a shotgun as though he expected to encounter a wild animal or some madman preying on the four young girls.

  Not until the spider was shooed on its way had Donetta noticed his half-dressed state. Even at twelve, she’d nearly swallowed her tongue. Storm, at eighteen, had been a man well worth drooling over. Of course they’d all gone into the house to camp in the living room, because by that time Tracy Lynn had convinced herself they’d be attacked by tarantulas and June bugs the size of bats.

  Storm had noticed Donetta’s flaming red face, the curse of her red hair and pale skin. He’d mistaken the fiery blush for embarrassment and had made a teasing comment about guys in boxer shorts. Thank God he hadn’t realized her heated face was the result of stupid puppy love.

  “Second,” Storm said, bringing her awareness back to the present, “I’ve never seen you cry before today. And let me tell you, darlin’, that did affect me. I’ll gladly stand still for you to slug me if you promise not to cry again.”

  There wasn’t a single thing about his words that should have choked her up, but the teary emotions were backing up in her throat again. Donetta was fed up with this nonsense. It was embarrassing, upsetting, made her feel out of control, and it turned her nose red and caused her mascara to run.

  “I’ll try to contain myself, but you might be out of luck. I just feel…I feel…” She wasn’t sure quite how to describe it. For lack of a better word, she used one of his. “Fragile. And doggone it, I don’t like that feeling.”

  He stepped toward her, reached out, but she backed away.

  “I don’t need to be cuddled.” Oh, God, yes I do. “Or coddled. I’ll deal with this.”

  “We’ll deal with this.” He studied her for a long moment. “You were always the independent one. I’m not feeling sorry for you, Slim—I’m in this as deep as you are. You might want to pay closer attention before you automatically bite a hand that’s merely extended in friendship.”

  She closed her eyes and scooped her hair back off her face.

  “So, when do you want to get married?” he asked.

  That snapped her eyes open. “Never?” She made it sound like a question because she didn’t want to argue with him again tonight.

  “In my family, when two people are having a baby, they get married.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Nobody in your family even has a baby!”

  “My cousin Tara on my mom’s side, and Brenda Lee on Dad’s side. Both got pregnant and both married their baby’s father right away.”

  “Well, good for them. Tara was nineteen and Brenda Lee was twenty. They’d both been dating their boyfriends for more than a year, plus neither of them was self-supporting.” Being an unofficial member of the Carmichael clan, Donetta knew the scoop on all the cousins, aunts, uncles and extended relations.

  “Comparing them with us is like saying brunette is a shade away from platinum blond. Besides, I’ve been married, and I don’t intend to do that again. Ever.”

  “I’m not Tim, damn it! And you’re having my baby!”

  She flinched at his raised voice.

  His green eyes narrowed, hardened like icy emeralds. For Donetta to stand her ground, when her automatic reaction was to retreat and apologize, took every ounce of strength she possessed. Even now, ideas and excuses were flipping through her mind, ways to defuse the tension and smooth his mood so chaos wouldn’t erupt.

  For two years she’d lived without these reactions. Why were they blindsiding her now? With Storm of all people? Perhaps it was guilt. As a girl, she’d felt guilty for dreaming of the older boy. As a married woman, she’d been sure Tim could read her thoughts, see that she was superimposing another man’s face over his at the breakfast table.

  All her life Storm Carmichael had stirred her in some way or another. Even now, she still felt too much. That frightened her because she’d promised herself never to allow another man to steamroller her with his charm.

  Whether he wanted to be or not, Storm was an authoritative man—with charm to spare.

  Chapter Seven

  Donetta squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’m having my baby,” she clarified. “And for all I know, once you forget to mind your p’s and q’s, you could be just like Tim.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

  “Why? Storm, what do I really know about you? We didn’t exactly run in the same circle of friends. Plus, you were gone for twelve years. And what do you really know about me?”

  “I know that you’ve been part of my life for close to twenty-five years—”

  “During our childhoods,” she interrupted. “I’ve spent more time actually talking to you today than all the time put together over the past twenty-five years.”

  “That’s not so.”

  “Think about it. Holidays when you were older, you hung out with your dad. As a kid, you were in your room or with your pals. We were mostly visual acquaintances. You were aware of me because I was an extra body at your dinner tabl
e most of your life. But ‘Pass the potatoes’ isn’t the kind of conversation that lets a person know the other.”

  “I was a hell of a lot more than aware of you, Donetta. I drove you home from school. I was there when you graduated—from junior high and high school. We played basketball—”

  “Yeah, right. You call stealing my ball and lobbing it into the net on your way to the car playing basketball? You were at your sister’s graduations, and I was graduating, too. You drove your sister home from school—I just happened to tag along. None of that’s talking or getting to know someone, Storm.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this. It’s crazy. What about that night you all camped in the living room—when I found you sitting up by yourself after Tracy, Becca and Sunny had already crashed? We talked.”

  Donetta ducked her head. That night had remained special in her heart. It had colored her fantasies, highlighted her imagination. The memory of a hunky eighteen-year-old boy on his way to the kitchen to make a ham sandwich, noticing his sister’s twelve-year-old friend sitting in the dark with her basketball in her lap, staring out the window at the stars. Oh, how her heart had jumped when she’d heard his soft voice. What’re you doing sitting out here all by your lonesome, Slim?

  He’d caught her at a vulnerable moment, and it had made her mad. He’d just grinned and tugged her hair, then told her to come on out to the kitchen with him and have a midnight snack.

  She’d sat on top of the table, her feet on the chair, and watched him fix sandwiches. He’d had on pajama bottoms over his boxers by then, and she’d sighed a bit over that, but his bare chest with its light sprinkling of dark hair in an intriguing triangle had kept her spellbound for several tongue-lolling moments.

  Looking back now with the advantage of age, she imagined he’d noticed her crush—twelve-year-olds were rarely subtle, even a late bloomer as she’d been. All legs, bony butt and no boobs. But that didn’t mean she’d been a slouch in the looks department. The muscle tone that had molded her skinny bones, and her mane of curly red hair, had turned plenty of heads, even then. She’d just pretended not to notice, because, frankly, it had bugged her.

  He’d taken her outside and challenged her to a game of basketball at 2:00 a.m. He’d won, she remembered, but not by much—and she’d made him work for it. Something had changed between them that night. In the way he’d looked at her. More respect. Admiration. A special tenderness. Still…

  “You were nice to me. But you’re still talking about strictly surface things. People only show what they want others to see. The real truth hides deep down. Can you give me an ironclad guarantee that you’ll never lose your temper? Never strike out of reflexive anger?” She shook her head, answering her own question. “It seems I recall a story splashed across the news showing you doing just that!”

  Silence fell over the room. “You believed what you saw on the news?” he asked.

  “That’s not the point—”

  “Answer the damn question, Donetta.”

  “No.” She looked away.

  “Liar.” He said it softly, yet she heard.

  “Sunny told me it was a setup. At the time, though, I was living male anger. What was I supposed to think? Everyone can be pushed. If you’d put a gun in my hand, maybe I would have used it on Tim. We’ll never know. But sometimes ‘what-ifs’ come true. If there’s any chance of that, I can’t risk it.”

  “Damn, Donetta, why did you sleep with me if you thought I was a guy who got off on hurting women?”

  “I didn’t think that! I wasn’t even thinking at all. I just…you made me feel desirable. Feminine. Excited. It had been so long since I’d experienced that—if ever. I got carried away.”

  “Ah, hell, Slim. How could you let him take that spark from you?”

  The quietly spoken words, though she knew they were meant in compassion, might as well have been fists, because they knocked the wind right out of her. She hugged her arms to her chest and turned away, suddenly freezing, even though it was still a balmy seventy degrees.

  He’d just asked the very question she’d struggled with for so long, the source and core of her shame.

  And he’d phrased it right. She’d let Tim hurt her. With the first incident, she’d been a victim. The second time, she couldn’t claim that excuse. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well… The flashes of temper and heart-wrenching apologies had continued for two years. By not walking out, she’d allowed it to happen. And that was her own cross to bear.

  For a while, she’d desperately searched her memory, trying to recall any hints she might have missed during the year they’d dated. A clue that Tim had the potential for violence. There weren’t any. He’d seemed so perfect. So loving.

  How could she ever again trust her judgment when life clearly offered no guarantees?

  She couldn’t. Which was why she’d vowed not to marry again, why she had to remain free.

  She felt Storm’s hand on her shoulder, would have moved away, but his hold was too firm. He tugged her around to face him, then let go.

  “I feel like I’m dancing in a minefield. Tell me what I just said that would make your face go paler than it already is.”

  She rubbed her chilled arms and shook her head. “Meet me halfway, Donetta.” His tone was filled with frustration and genuine confusion.

  “You just hit a hot button is all.”

  “I know that much,” he snapped. “And damn it, you shouldn’t have that kind of memory in the first place. I’m only a few rational seconds away from driving back into town and hanging that ex of yours by his balls.”

  She knew he was serious, and capable of doing exactly as he threatened, but his aggression didn’t raise her automatic shield of caution. Oddly enough, it jogged a memory, made her smile, gave her an excuse to veer from a subject she’d just as soon forget.

  “When I was sixteen,” she said, “I went out with a guy who did an annoyingly credible job of impersonating an octopus. I finally got fed up and told him if he so much as breathed in my direction again, you were going to show up at his house, rip off that itty-bitty pride and joy tenting his thin sweatpants and feed it to his daddy’s hog.”

  Within the space of three seconds, Storm’s expression went from one of frustration to one of astonishment. She could almost see his brain scrambling to catch up with her words. Then his eyes yielded to amusement as his slow, sexy smile banished the remnants of tension in the room.

  “You told your date I was going to beat him up?”

  “Sure. I’d passed the age where it was marginally acceptable for girls to fight. I could have easily taken him myself—Jimbo Nash only thought he was a tough guy because he’d made varsity quarterback—but I’d just given my newly acquired acrylic nails a killer French manicure, and I didn’t want to mess them up. So I took the easy way out and threatened him with you. He drove me right home.”

  Storm gave a resolute nod. “Damn straight he drove you home. His mama didn’t raise no idiot.”

  “Oh, don’t get all caught up in yourself. Jimbo would’ve wet his pants even if Grammy had shown up at his house.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Upstaged by your grandmother. I could almost feel sorry for ol’ Jimbo. Maligning a man’s Johnson is a seriously low blow. It’s especially rough when the words itty and bitty are involved.”

  “I was only being truthful. It wasn’t any bigger than a perm rod. And I’m talking the size I’d use in Drucilla Taggat’s hair.”

  “Dru Taggat doesn’t have enough hair to wrap in a curler.”

  “I can get anybody’s hair wrapped in a curler. I’m good at what I do—which you wouldn’t know about, since you’ve never let me cut your hair and now you’ve locked me out of my place of business.”

  “Uh-uh. One thing at a time. We were talking about the size of Jimbo’s goods.”

  “You’re the one making an issue of his size. I merely alluded to the particular body part you were going to relieve him of, and I
was politely, delicately, letting you know it wouldn’t have been all that difficult.”

  He hooted with laughter. “You’re a piece of work, Slim. Might have been nice of you to tell me I’d threatened a man by proxy…hey, wait a minute. I was pushing a radiator around the mean streets of Houston when you were sixteen.”

  “Pushing a…oh, the patrol car.” She shrugged. “I told Jimbo you were my boyfriend and came home on the weekends.”

  His dark eyebrows lifted. “If I was your boyfriend, what were you doing going out with another guy?”

  She gave him a wicked smile. “Keeping my options open?”

  Storm reached out, intending to give her hair a playful tug the way he used to when she was a kid. If he hadn’t been a trained observant, he would have missed the automatic flinch and block, which she quickly covered by fluffing her curls, lifting them off her neck as though hoping for a cool breeze.

  His gut twisted into a boulder-size knot and his back teeth snapped together. Damn it, he had to get out of here. He made himself calm down, speak pleasantly.

  “Well, why don’t you exercise your options and pick out a room. I’ll go get the rest of your things out of our trucks. Then I have to go back to the station and mark myself off the schedule, switch some of the deputies around. I shouldn’t be gone too long. Dixie might pretend to have amnesia, but you’re safer with her by your side than you’d be with an armed guard.”

  “Thanks so much for scaring me to death.”

  “You’re welcome. I want you to be careful until this whole Quentin code-violation mess is cleared up. You need anything from town?”

  She shook her head. “Just my life back.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  STORM DIDN’T SHUT OFF his headlights or bother with stealth on his second arrival at Judd Quentin’s house. Tires skidded in dirt and gravel, and dust particles rained in the halogen beams as the sudden stop sent a billowy cloud of brown grit over the cab in the dark night.