Surprised by a Baby

by Mindy Neff

  He kissed her slowly, elaborately, as though he’d invented the very act of kissing and this was the first trial run. She slid her arms around his neck and held on, knowing she shouldn’t indulge, helpless to stop herself. The easy skill he brought to a kiss was something a woman wouldn’t want to miss.

  His tongue never entered her mouth to push for more or explore. With only his slightly parted lips, he nibbled, worshiped, soothed…and aroused. The tenderness was more arousing than she’d ever realized it could be.

  Kisses like these didn’t happen often.

  Muscles flexed beneath the warmth of his skin as he twisted his body, lifted her from his lap and laid her on the bed in a single, effortless move. She was hardly petite—she could practically look him in the eye—yet he’d been carting her around and arranging her to his liking as though she was. Tucking her against his side, he cradled her head in one arm, holding his weight off of her, and placed his other hand on her stomach.

  Somehow, the simple touch felt far more intimate than the kiss, and it gave her a jolt.

  He lifted his head and gazed down at her as if he’d sensed her distraction, his palm still spanning her stomach.

  “What’s not totally correct about your being sick for short bursts at a time?” he asked.

  She blinked. It took her a minute to realize he was picking up the thread of their conversation, proving he had been paying attention. She, however, couldn’t remember a blessed thing about the point she’d wanted to make. “I have no idea.”

  His thumb idly stroked her cheek. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I just…I needed to hold you. It tears me up to see you so miserable.” His green eyes were earnest.

  “This is going to sound really awful, but that actually makes me feel better.” She smiled at his raised eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure I’m kidding. Maybe. Although it does seem a tad imbalanced that the woman goes through all the physical pain and indignities that come with pregnancy and childbirth, and all the man has to do is aim and fire.”

  “Darlin’, if that’s how you remember my part in this, I think you need a refresher course.”

  She slapped a hand on his bare chest, a stop sign, her heart racing. The heat of his arousal pressed against her hip, the thin cotton of his pajamas doing little to disguise shape, size and state of readiness. She definitely didn’t need any reminders of Storm’s clever skill in bed. Her memories were just fine, thank you very much.

  “I was generalizing,” she said, removing her hand now that he wasn’t posing such a sensual threat. Her nipples were hard and clearly visible beneath the satiny camisole, but what could she do? Distraction was probably the best plan.

  “I’d like to know what idiot came up with the cruelly misleading term morning sickness? Sneak attacks of baby fits twenty-four/seven—”

  “Baby fits?”

  She shrugged. “It sounds better than nausea, or throwing up, or collywobbles. You get up on mornings like this and think you’ve felt as close to dying as you’re going to for the day, and soon find out how sadly you’re mistaken.”

  “How long have you been feeling bad?”

  “Close to a week. I just hope it’s not going to last the whole nine months. I’ve heard of that happening, you know?”

  “My ex-partner’s wife had a rough go for the first few months.” He lightly rubbed her abdomen, his palm and fingers nearly spanning her entire stomach.

  Instead of soothing her, his touch made her tense. Maybe the unease was born of memories from the past. Perhaps it was merely an instinctive need to protect the child in her womb. She placed her hand over his, intending to casually move it away. Instead, she ended up lacing her fingers through his, holding his hand aloft between them, softly exploring the contours of his thumb.

  “About that appointment…it’s the whole feet-in-the-stirrups deal I object to. You can come when they do the ultrasound or check for the baby’s heartbeat.” She shrugged, not wanting to sound as if his presence was a big deal. “If you want.”

  He gave her a slow half smile. “That’s where we get to look for extra body appendages and then pick out boy names or girl names?”

  “I suppose. Unless I choose not to know the sex of the baby.”

  “Why would we choose that?”

  She pretended not to notice his deliberate use of we. “For the surprise. Seems to me a person could get in trouble with some of these new tests. What if a woman wanted a boy, but the test showed a girl. Would she resent her daughter? Wonder how long it would be before she could try again for a boy? And what if the test showed a girl and she was prepared with pink everything, and out popped a little boy?”

  “Yikes. What happened to his little peter?”

  “I don’t know! He was bashful and hiding it?” She couldn’t believe he was being so literal. Yet one look at his curious “guy” expression told the tale.

  “This is a hypothetical baby,” she said. “The point is, the test would have encouraged the mother to bond with that child as a little girl the first eight months or so in the womb. To name her, to plan for her.”

  “We can tell the lab technician we don’t want to know unless she’s ninety-eight percent sure. How about twins—do they run in your family?”

  Donetta stared at the open-beam ceiling and let go of his hand. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Oh, man.” He flopped over onto his back. Side by side, they gazed up at the ceiling fan, their legs bent at the knees and hanging over the side of the bed. “I wasn’t thinking, Nett.”

  “It’s okay.” She didn’t know who her father was, and she hadn’t seen her mother in eight years. Cybil had no idea that her daughter had been married and divorced, or was now expecting a baby and had no intention of marrying the child’s father.

  That her life had been paralleling her mother’s of late was a frightening thought. The big difference, though, was that her child would know his or her father. And Donetta would never get drunk and forget to pick up her daughter from her first day at kindergarten. Nor would she shack up with a different man every other month and stay gone for days at a time, leaving her child to fend for herself when she was barely in the second grade.

  “I really wish you’d see a doctor sooner than Friday,” Storm said. “That’s three days away.”

  “I called Lily. She might not have enough hours in the day to squeeze everyone in, but she’s always happy to talk to her favorite hairstylist on the phone. She said there are a couple of prescriptions she can give me for the nausea. But I don’t want to take any drugs. I want everything that goes into my body to be as natural as possible.”

  She turned her head toward him, realized that he’d already abandoned his fascination with the ceiling fan and was watching her.

  It dawned on her then that they were lying together and talking as though they were a young couple in love. She sat up.

  “You seem to have formed an attachment with our baby last night and this morning,” he went on.

  She shrugged. “We’ve been awake together quite a bit this last week. It wasn’t until last night that I knew who or what I was talking to. So, we’ve had a conversation or two.”

  “Did the two of you come to any conclusions?”

  He was asking if she’d made any decisions about him. She shook her head, drew her knees up and rested her forehead on them. The mattress shifted, and wonderful chills raced over her skin when he began a spontaneous backrub.

  “Mmm.” The sound was a purely blissful moan. “I’ll give you an hour to stop that.”

  He chuckled. “Lie down and I’ll do it right.”

  “Uh-uh. Lying down and doing it right is what got us in this predicament in the first place.”

  His hand paused over her middle vertebrae, then resumed stroking. “I’m glad to know you think we did something right…the making-of-the-baby part.”

  He could have put the more blatantly sexual spin on her words. She was touched that he didn’t.

  “I always wa
nted children,” she admitted.

  “Have you noticed that these baby fits seem to be triggered by emotional highs and lows?” he asked.

  “Yes. At least, I thought so, until I wore a path in your rug last night running for the bathroom. I don’t think I was dreaming anything stressful.”

  “Have you ever considered hypnosis?”

  “Sure. But I can’t be hypnotized.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “No one. It didn’t work before. I’m not sure I can give up that kind of control in order to let the suggestions take hold.”

  “What about with me? I’m trained in hypnosis—compliments of the Texas Rangers. We used it in forensic investigations. I was the best in the department.”

  “You hypnotize people?” Odd that Sunny hadn’t told her about that. Then again, during her marriage Donetta hadn’t kept in close touch with her friends—and Sunny had lived out of state, anyway. She supposed there might have been opportunity when she’d stayed those two months in California with Sunny, but under the circumstances, their conversation had been more therapeutic than reminiscent.

  He grinned. “Yep. It’s amazing what the mind can do. You could look around this room and later on probably recall the colors, furniture pieces, stuff like that. You don’t realize that at first glance your subconscious mind captured an intricately detailed picture—for instance, right down to the nick on the base of that lamp.”

  She leaned over to look for the flaw that she surely would have seen turning the bulb on and off as many times as she had last night. Sure enough, the lamp had a small crease in the metal base. “I’ll be darned. But how is vivid recall supposed to get rid of baby fits?”

  “That was just an example of what your brain is capable of.” A dimple creased his cheek. “For your malady, we’d use a little different imagery.”

  “Can you make people lose weight and stop smoking or cussing and stuff?”

  “A bar of soap’ll do all three of those.” He smiled. “I can’t make a person do anything. But offering positive suggestions when someone is in a relaxed state of mind has unbelievably positive results. Roy’s wife, Marnie—Roy’s my ex-partner,” he clarified, “didn’t think she could be hypnotized, either, and she had a really bad case of morning—uh, baby fits. After three months, she gave in and asked me to help. It worked on her. Will you at least let me try to help you?”

  “You wouldn’t go into my thoughts and mess around with anything like…say, making me think I’d agreed to a wedding date or anything?”

  A half smile kicked up at the corners of his mouth. “I hadn’t thought of that.” His devilish expression clearly said he was thinking about it now. “I have a strict standard of ethics. I would merely guide your subconscious to respond differently to the nausea. That’s all.”

  “At this point, I’m willing to try anything. Even my rib cage is sore.”

  He sat up and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Tonight, when it’s quiet and you’re relaxed, we’ll give it a shot. Think you can hold out that long?”

  “I can hold out as long as it takes. The sooner things settle down, though, the happier I’ll be.”

  “Me, too. Now, I better hit the shower so I can be at the salon to greet our contractor.”

  “Can we shower at the same time?”

  His brows shot up, and his green eyes filled with instant joy, gratitude and desire.

  “Whoa. Down boy. I meant, can your water heater handle it if I’m showering in here—” she pointed to the guest bathroom “—and you’re showering in there—” she pointed across the hall to the master bedroom.

  “That was very cruel, Slim.” He shook his head, took a deep breath. “Yes, the water heater can handle two showers running at the same time. But you don’t have to rush. You can go back to bed and rest if you want.”

  “Strangers are going to be messing with my salon and I want to know what’s being done. Besides, you might need my input on something. And the phones will probably be ringing.”

  “You’re not working, Donetta.” His tone rang with warning.

  “Of course I’m not, silly.” She deliberately misunderstood him. “I’m fixing to take a shower. So, shoo. Go tend to your own business.”

  She intended to go into the salon and get an idea how extensive and messy the job was going to be—do a little planning of her own. Perhaps she’d have an opportunity to slip a client or two in for a quick haircut. Two weeks with no income, especially with a baby on the way, wasn’t her idea of security. It made her a nervous wreck.

  After she showered and blow-dried her hair, Donetta dug through her suitcases and plastic trash bags and came up with denim hip-hugger capris, a sleeveless white blouse and black slides that had a three-inch wedge sole. Since it was another warm day, she kept her makeup to a minimum—a tinted moisturizer, blush and lip gloss—then rummaged through her cosmetic bag for waterproof mascara. No raccoon eyes today. With a couple of twists and a few bobby pins, she fixed her hair in a quick up-do that would keep it off her face and out of the way.

  Pandora was still hiding under the bed, forcing Donetta to get on her knees to fish the cat out.

  “Come on, Pandora. I’m leaving, so you don’t have to hold your bladder any longer or starve yourself. You know darn well where the litter box and food are.” She managed to snag the cat. “When I get home tonight, you might try getting out and making friends instead of sulking. You’re gonna be stuck here for a while, girl. So deal with it. Meantime, in you go.”

  She set the cat on the bathroom floor, checked the water and food dish, then grabbed her hobo bag, hoping she’d stuffed everything in it that she would need.

  She was used to having her apartment right upstairs, and was always prepared for whatever came up. From the looks of the trash bags and suitcases strewn in Storm’s guest bedroom and living room, she’d be lucky to find anything left at her apartment.

  She shut the door to the hallway and closed the sliding pocket door leading to her bedroom, safely corralling Pandora in the bathroom. Her car keys in hand, Donetta headed down the sea of dark oak that flowed over the wide hallway. The way between the bedroom suites to the kitchen, which was at the far end of the house, was a straight shot. All the rooms off either side of the wide hallway were open and massive. Although the house had two levels, the upstairs was hardly used. It consisted of several bedrooms and a bonus room that housed the pool table.

  She saw Storm heading toward her from the kitchen, his attention on the dogs. Dixie and Sneak were happily catching chunks of bread that he was tossing to them, nearly tripping him in their exuberance. She stopped in the entryway to wait for him.

  “You’re supposed to chew,” he said to the dogs, “not swallow whole. Now, listen up. You two be good today, you hear? And don’t mess with the cat. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Sneak. That cat’s bigger than you are, buddy. And her name’s Pandora. That ought to give you a clue right there to stay clear. Dixie, you’re in charge, got it?”

  He looked up when he reached the entryway, and Donetta grinned. “Dixie and Sneak are off the hook. Pandora’s spending the day in the bathroom. And after what I just witnessed, I’m thinking you’ll want to retract that warning about me ruining your dogs. It would be pretty hard to top you.”

  He gave her a mock scowl. “If you tell anyone, I’ll just deny it. I have a reputation to maintain, you know.” He bit into a piece of toast spread with a thin layer of strawberry jam and passed her the extra slice he held in his hand.

  “You made me breakfast?” she asked. “What a guy.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. So, do you want to set a wedding date? Snap me up quick? I even do breakfast in bed.”

  She opened the front door and he followed her out onto the porch, offering the dogs a commiserating look as he closed the door behind him.

  Lord, to keep things light between them when they both had different agendas was difficult. Stalling, she took a bite of toast, navigated the porc
h steps and headed toward her Tahoe. Hoping he would let the subject drop if she dazzled him a bit, she gave him a sassy smile full of mystery and gripped the driver’s-side door handle.

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm. She should have known when he followed her to her SUV instead of veering to his truck—which was parked right beside hers—that he wasn’t going to let the subject of marriage slide.

  “It’s a little early to leave. Judd won’t be at the salon until eight. Why don’t you take a walk with me.”

  The air smelled fresh, and the sun had already begun to warm the earth. Birds sang in the trees as though celebrating the gift of summer in October. It was a perfect morning for a walk. Too bad it was going to include a serious conversation.

  After opening the Tahoe’s door, she tossed her purse inside and grabbed a light sweater, then fell into step beside Storm as he headed around the side of the house toward the lake.

  Grass that was still green from recent rains carpeted the land, gently sloping over Storm’s backyard until it reached the banks of the lake. Morning dew clung to the verdant blades, making the toe grips on her slides practically useless as moisture worked its way between the soles of her feet and her sandals.

  “So much for clean feet.” She grabbed Storm’s shoulder and pulled him to a halt. Bunching the soft cotton of his T-shirt to steady herself, she took off her shoes.

  “I don’t know why you wear those deathtrap stilts.” He slid his arm around her waist and plucked the half-eaten toast out of her hand. “In your line of work, you ought to wear something with better support.”

  She tsked. “These shoes are cute. And they have three inches of cushion for support.” She straightened, accepted the toast he passed back to her, took a small bite and breathed deep of the morning air. Shoes were her passion and her one major indulgence. There was nothing worse than putting on an outfit and not having the right shoes to go with it.

  They started walking once more and she didn’t bother to object when he took the sandals out of her hand as if they were a ten-pound weight she shouldn’t be carrying. Let him be gallant, she thought. That would leave her hands free to feed the ducks if they were around.