Pride and Pregnancy

by Sarah M. Anderson

  Again? What the hell did that mean, again? He’d brought her here on the pretense of protecting her!

  She pulled away from him—but she didn’t get far. Her feet slid out from under her and she started to fall—but the impact never came. Instead, she found herself swept into Tom’s arms as if she were something precious.

  “Whoa,” she said, impressed despite herself. It was ridiculous because this entire situation was ridiculous. Tom Yellow Bird was literally sweeping her off her feet. “You can put me down now.”

  “I didn’t bring you all the way out here for you to crack your head on the stone pavers,” he said, his voice the very picture of cool, calm and collected. And he did not put her down.

  She had no choice but to lock her arms around his neck. “Why did you bring me out here?”

  * * *

  It took a lot to rattle Tom. He’d stared down cold-blooded killers and talked his way out of more than a few bad situations.

  But catching a damp Caroline in his arms? Cradling her to his chest? Carrying her all the way inside and then setting her down and turning his back instead of heading straight into the bedroom and spending the rest of the night feasting on her body instead of dinner?

  His hands shook—shook, damn it—as he stoked the fire in the pit. Then, when he judged that she’d had enough time to get dressed, he opened the wine and carried it down to where he’d arranged the patio chairs around the little table close enough to the fire that the worst of the bugs would stay away. It was better to focus on these tiny details than what was happening inside his bedroom.

  Or what he wanted to happen in his bedroom.

  Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He took a healthy pull of his wine. Normally he didn’t drink much. He didn’t like having his senses dulled.

  Right now? Yeah, he needed to be significantly less aware. Less aware of Caroline’s scent combined with the fresh smell of the spring. Or of her weight in his arms or the bare skin at the back of her knees where he’d held her. He wanted to lick her there and see if she was ticklish—but he didn’t dare.

  Damn it all. He was failing at thinking about Caroline with any sense of rationality. So he did the only thing he could—he thought of the one person who could always hold his attention, who got him through the worst of the stakeouts and helped him sleep after the bad days.

  Stephanie. His wife.

  God, she had been too perfect for this world. The first time he’d seen her in that formfitting white dress, her jet-black hair and vivid blue eyes turning every head in the room...

  Oh, he could still see the way her whole face lit up when they made eye contract. He could still feel that spark that had lit in his chest as he’d cut through the crowd to get to her—the spark that had told him she was it. That woman, whoever she was, was his forever and ever, until death did them part.

  But for the first time in a long time—years, even—that memory of Stephanie didn’t hold his attention. Instead of lingering in the past, he couldn’t escape the present.

  He heard the patio door swish open, then closed. He heard the sound of tentative footsteps crossing the porch and moving down the two stairs. He heard the evening breeze sigh through the grasses and the gentle burbling of his spring as it flowed out of his pool and made its way down to the river.

  And when Caroline took her seat, he turned, and damn it, there was that spark again, threatening to jump the barriers he’d tried to erect around it, threatening to catch in the prairie grass, burning everything in its path. Including him.

  Caroline wasn’t Stephanie. Stephanie wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pair of old cutoff shorts and a faded gray T-shirt. Flip-flops would have never crossed Stephanie’s toes. Stephanie wouldn’t have been seen with her hair curling damply around her shoulders. And Stephanie never would have picked up the empty glass and said, “There better be some of that left for me.”

  “I told you,” he replied, filling her glass, “I’m not a terrible host. I’ll be right back with the pizza.”

  He plated up the pizza and snagged some napkins. God bless Lilly for pulling something together on such short notice.

  Caroline hadn’t moved from her spot, except to draw up her feet. She wasn’t perfect. But by God, the woman looked like she fit out here. “Sausage,” he said, handing over her plate.

  She took the pizza, and for a while, neither of them spoke. Tom was used to ignoring hunger when he was on a stakeout and delivery would have blown his cover, but Lilly had, once again, made just what he wanted, almost by magic.

  He knew it was coming, though. Caroline was not going to sit quietly over there for long. Finally, she set her plate aside and turned to face him. “So?”

  “So?” he agreed, refilling both their glasses. “You have questions?”

  “You’re damn right I do.” It could have come out snappish—but it didn’t. Her voice took on a languid tone, one that matched the hazy quality of the fire. “Explain this house to me.”

  “Like I said—I built it.”

  “By yourself.”

  “That’s correct.” He waited, but he knew he wouldn’t have to wait long.

  He didn’t. She was sharp, his Caroline. “With what money? Because that was one of the nicest bathrooms I’ve ever been in—and it’s not like Minneapolis has a lack of decent bathrooms. And the kitchen—it’s a chef’s wet dream.”

  He laughed and she laughed with him, but he knew he wasn’t off the hook. “Quality is often worth the price.”

  There was something sharp about her eyes, and he wished he could see her in action in the courtroom as a lawyer. Not from behind the bench, but in front of it. “But that’s just it. Who’s paying for it? An FBI agent doesn’t make this kind of money—no matter how special you are. You have a top-of-the-line cabin on what I can only assume is a pretty big spread of land.”

  “Eighty acres from the road to the edge of the Red Creek Reservation. I grew up about thirty miles from here.” He met her gaze. “I enjoy my privacy.”

  He could see her thinking over that information. “You maintain an apartment in Pierre.”

  “And one in Rapid City.” Her eyes got wide. “I have a lot of territory to cover. Plus, I have a safe house in Pierre where I can hide people for a while.” Only after he said it did he realize what he’d just admitted.

  He could have put her in the safe house. Sure, it might have been uncomfortable for a judge to suddenly find herself bunking with former prostitutes and recovering drug addicts, but she would have been perfectly secure.

  Instead, he’d brought her out here.

  “In the interest of full disclosure,” he added with a wave of his hand.

  “About damn time,” she murmured. But again, she didn’t sound angry about it. She was looking at him with those beautiful eyes and suddenly he couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t told her all this up front. “You own all these various and sundry properties?”

  “Yup.” He stretched his legs out toward the fire and, amazingly, felt some of the tension of the afternoon begin to drift away, like embers in the wind.

  He was not a man who relaxed. There were too many criminals to track and arrest. He’d made so many enemies just doing his job that he rarely let his guard down.

  But here? Sitting by a fire with a pretty woman on a clear summer night, a bottle of wine to share?

  “Who paid for it?” she asked, her voice curious without being accusatory.

  “My wife.”

  Six

  She hadn’t just heard that, had she?

  “Your wife?” Well, that certainly made sense with the “again” comment from earlier. He was married. Of course he was. So what had happened down by the pool? “Where is she?”

  He dropped his gaze to his wineglass. “Buried next to her grandparents in Wash
ington, DC.”

  The air whooshed out of Caroline’s lungs. “I’m sorry.” Could she be any bigger of an idiot? She might as well have accused him of adultery.

  He shrugged, but his face was carefully blank—just like it’d been on the stand when that defense lawyer had tried to trick him. “She died nine years ago in a car accident—hit by a drunk driver. I should have been behind the wheel—but I’d stayed at the party. I had some business to deal with.”

  The way he said business sent a shiver down Caroline’s back. She had the distinctive feeling that he hadn’t been getting stock tips.

  “In DC?”

  He nodded and leaned back, his eyes on the stars. Caroline followed his gaze, and what she saw took her breath away. The night sky was unbelievably gorgeous, not a single star dimmed by city lights.

  “The FBI was my way off the res,” he began. “But I wasn’t alone. Rosebud, the little sister of my best friend, Tanner, got a scholarship to Georgetown and we stuck together—two Lakota fish way out of water.”

  Caroline had some questions but decided that, since Tom was actually talking, she’d best not interrupt him.

  “She and Carlson were in class together and started dating—she’s the lawyer for the Red Creek tribe now. James and I got along, and he made sure I went with them to all the fancy parties that his parents made him attend. It always struck me as an odd way to rebel, but...” He shrugged. “That’s how I met Stephanie.”

  He spoke with such tenderness that, once again, Caroline felt like an idiot. He’d loved his wife. Was it wrong to be jealous of a dead woman? Because she couldn’t help but be envious of the woman who could hold Tom Yellow Bird’s heart.

  “She and Carlson were childhood friends—I think their mothers wanted them to marry, but they both settled on two dirt-poor Indians with no money and no family names.” He laughed, as if that were funny. “Carlson came west because Rosebud and I needed his help with this case, and he met Maggie—it’s quite a story. Ask Maggie about it sometime.” A melancholy silence settled over him. “He treats her well, which is good.”

  The way he said it made it clear that if Tom didn’t think Carlson was treating his wife well, there’d be bloodshed. “So you’ve been working with Carlson for...how long?”

  Belatedly, she realized what else he’d said. He’d just assumed that she would meet one of his oldest friends. Maggie probably knew all his embarrassing childhood stories, every dumb and brilliant thing he’d ever done. Carlson was Tom’s most trusted friend.

  And Tom had just made the assumption that Caroline would meet them. More than that, that she’d meet his friends in a social setting instead of in a law office or a courtroom.

  Almost as if Tom expected to be doing a lot more of this—sitting out under the stars, having wine and pizza, and talking—with Caroline.

  “We’ve known each other for over fourteen years now.”

  Nine years since Stephanie died—Caroline did the quick math.

  Tom looked at her. “I was married for almost four years. Since I know you’re trying to figure it out.”

  “That’s not the only thing I’m trying to figure out,” she murmured. “She was well-off?”

  “Her mother was an heiress and her father was a senator.” He exhaled heavily. “We tried not to talk politics. They did their best to accept me, which is more than a lot of people in their place might have done. But I was from a different world.” He was quiet for a moment, and Caroline couldn’t figure out if he was done or if he was just thinking. “I still am.”

  “I’ll give you that—this place is different.” She looked back at the stars, galaxies spread out before her, their depths undimmed by something as innocuous as fluorescent lighting.

  A little like the man next to her. She topped off her glass and his when he held it out. “I’m sorry about your wife,” she said again, because it seemed like the thing to say—even though it wasn’t enough. He’d lost someone he cared for, and that was painful no matter what. She reached over and gave his hand a squeeze. He squeezed back, lacing his fingers with hers.

  Neither of them pulled away.

  “So this was all because of her money?”

  “I invested wisely. She ran a charity. Her mother still runs it.” He opened his mouth, as if he were going to expand upon that statement, but then he shook his head and changed the subject. “How about you?” He lolled his head to the side, and for a moment, he looked younger. The faint lines of strain were gone from around his eyes and his mouth was relaxed. He looked ten years younger. “Any dead husbands—or other bodies—in your closet?”

  She kept her face even. As much as she didn’t want to turn the spotlight back onto her occasionally questionable choices, she was relieved that they weren’t going to keep talking about his late wife. “Nope. I always figured that once my career was established, I’d settle down, start a family. I’ve got time.”

  A look of pure sadness swept over his features before he went back to staring at the sky. “I used to think the same thing.”

  She didn’t like that sadness. “I was almost engaged once, in college,” she heard herself say, which surprised her. She never told anyone about Robby. “We were young and stupid and thought we could make it work, us against the world. But we couldn’t even make it through senior year.” That was glossing over things quite a bit.

  The truth of the matter was that she and Robby couldn’t make it past a pregnancy scare. She hated making mistakes, and that particular one had nearly altered the entire course of her life.

  She and Robby had talked about getting married in that wishful-thinking way all kids did when they were crazy in lust, but when her period had been three days late...

  She shuddered at the memory and once again gave thanks that it had been stress, not pregnancy, that had thrown her cycle off.

  “Things didn’t go as planned,” she admitted, which was a nice way of saying that when she’d told Robby she was late, he’d all but turned tail and bolted for the door. The fantasy of living happily ever after with him had crumbled before her eyes, and she’d known then that she’d made the biggest mistake of her life—up to that point, anyway.

  Which was ironic, considering that Trent’s nickname for her when she’d been growing up had been “the mistake.” Not that her parents had ever treated her like that, but Trent had. He would have loved it if Caroline had made the exact same mistake in her own life. “I thought it was going to be perfect, but all it turned out to be was heartbreak.”

  “You didn’t marry him, though?”

  “Nope.”

  Tom shrugged. “No one’s perfect—especially not in relationships.”

  Oh, if only it were that simple. “Regardless, I don’t tell people about that. It reflects poorly on my judgment, you understand.”

  “Of course. I imagine he couldn’t keep up with you.”

  She chuckled at that. “If I agree with you, it’ll make me sound egotistical.”

  His laughter was warm and deep, and it made her want to curl into him. “Perish the thought.”

  Long moments passed. She sipped her wine, feeling the stress of the day float away on a pleasant buzz. He didn’t think less of her because she’d almost tied herself to the wrong man.

  Maybe he wouldn’t think less of her because she’d made a mistake trusting the wrong man.

  “Tom?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You still haven’t answered my question.”

  Why was she here? What was going on between them? Because she couldn’t imagine that he brought other potential witnesses out here and let them skinny-dip in the pond and hold his hand under the stars.

  She wanted to think this was different, that he was different with her. Not like he was with his socialite wife in the rarefied air of DC politics and power—but not li
ke he was when he was stalking bad guys and saving the world.

  It wasn’t egotistical—it was selfish to want a little bit of Tom Yellow Bird all to herself. But she did. In this time, this place—hidden away from the rest of the world—she wanted him. Not as a protector and not as a law-enforcement colleague—but as something else. Something more.

  It was worse than selfish. It was stupid, a risk she shouldn’t even contemplate taking.

  So why was she contemplating it so damn hard? God, it’d been such a long time since she’d risked letting off a little steam with some good sex. And out here, so far removed from neighbors and courtrooms...

  It felt like they’d left reality behind and she and Tom were in a bubble, insulated from the real world and any real consequences.

  Would it be so bad to let herself relax for a little bit? Tom would be amazing, she knew. And now that she’d seen where he lived—how he lived—she trusted that no one would ever know what happened between them. No nefarious stalkers planting bugs here. Tom simply wouldn’t allow it.

  Surely, she thought, staring at his profile, she could enjoy a little consensual pleasure with him without ruining everything, couldn’t she? Take the necessary precautions, not let her heart get involved—not compromise the case?

  He didn’t answer for a long time. Then, suddenly he stood. “It’s late,” he said, his voice gruff as he pulled her to her feet. “Let me show you your room.”

  Yes, she wanted more—but it was clear that, at least right now, she wasn’t going to get it.

  * * *

  Tom had always liked this bed. This was a top-of-the-line memory-foam mattress—king size, with fifteen-hundred-thread-count sheets. The ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, making the temperature bearable. Dinner had been delicious and the wine excellent. This was as close to peace and quiet as he got.

  So why couldn’t he sleep?

  Because. Caroline was at the other end of the hall.

  He forced himself to be still and let his mind drift. Even if he couldn’t sleep, he could rest, and that was all he needed. He didn’t need to be on full alert. He had a lazy weekend ahead of him. He just needed enough to keep himself—and his dick—under control.