Daddy by Accident

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "Hi," she said with decent enough composure as he stepped inside. "You're just in time for lunch."

  He bunched his eyebrows into that intimidating crease she was beginning to anticipate and shot a fast glance around the kitchen. "I figured we'd go out."

  She suspected he ate out a lot. Alone in a crowd of people.

  "I didn't know how much time you could spare so I just improvised." She waved a hand toward the table where she'd laid out plates and silverware. And linen napkins she'd found in a drawer above the towels.

  "Everything's ready, except for the pizza. According to the label, it'll take eighteen minutes. In case you want to wash up, or whatever."

  While Stacy busied herself putting the pizza in the oven, Boyd set the box on the floor next to the fridge and took his time straightening. He'd been surprised to find her waiting for him in the kitchen, wearing a smile as soft and shy as a virgin's. Surprised and shaken by the surge of emotion that had filled him at the sight of her, he held his breath for a moment, trying to calm the violent rush of his blood. It was impossible.

  All morning long he'd thought about her as he'd worked. Worried about her. Tried not to think about her curled up in his bed, nuzzling his pillow with her soft cheek. Tried not to want her so much his skin burned at the thought of touching her again.

  He'd called himself the foulest of names. He'd done eight hours of work in four until his muscles cramped and his lungs all but gave out. Cursed himself all over again for a sinful lack of control.

  By the time he'd stopped by Wattchel's place, he'd been spoiling for a fight and even that hadn't worked out. Stacy's whiskey-soaked landlord had been as surly as ever. What he hadn't been was stupid enough to give Boyd an excuse to use his flabby gut as a punching bag again.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked when she turned to look at him again, her face flushed a delicate pink from the oven's heat.

  "Amazingly strong," she murmured, lifting her chin. "And very clean. I soaked for a good hour in your tub." She gave a self-conscious laugh that seemed to run over his heated skin like a cooling breeze. "It was marvelously indulgent. I loved it."

  His mind wrapped around an image of her small, fecund body immersed in bubbles, her creamy skin sheened by the rising steam and her sleek legs drawn up to give him room to slip into the bath with her.

  Suddenly he didn't know what to do with his hands so he shoved them deep into his back pockets. "I … uh, stopped by your place and picked up the things Wattchel hadn't had time to sell."

  Pleasure flashed in her eyes as she darted a gaze to the carton. "Oh, you brought my pictures. And the afghan!" she cried, moving past him to lift the soft woolen blanket from the box. "It's the first thing I made for the baby." She curved her lips into a smile that showed off the small dimple he'd been trying to forget. "Actually the only thing so far."

  When she brushed her cheek against the bright wool and murmured a small sound of deep pleasure, he felt his body stir. She looked healthier than he'd ever seen her looking. The bruises were scarcely noticeable beneath her lush lower lashes, and her skin had lost the pallor of fatigue and trauma. Still slightly damp, her hair was piled in a shimmering cloud on top of her head, escaping the pins here and there to trail in wispy tendrils to her slender shoulders. His mouth went dry at the thought of tracing those sleek, dark curls with his tongue as he breathed in the exotic scent of her skin.

  Suddenly starved for air, he inhaled deeply and worked at reining in his unruly urges. "Wattchel sold most everything else. Got more for it than you owed. The rest is yours. Nearly two hundred dollars. In cash."

  He took ten folded twenties from the pocket of his T-shirt and held them out. "Sorry it's not more."

  "It's a fortune," she said, her eyes shining beneath thick feathery lashes. "Enough for diapers and baby clothes." She was about to tuck the bills into the pocket of the slacks he'd taken from her closet only a few days ago when a look of doubt crept into her eyes. "Are you sure this is from Wattchel?"

  "Scout's honor." Boyd held up three fingers, glad that he'd perfected his poker face at an early age.

  She cocked her head and studied him like a militant kitten confronted with a new challenge. "Were you really a Scout?" she demanded dubiously.

  He nodded. "Until I got kicked out for fighting." Fighting, hell. He'd creamed Johnny Melrose a good one for making fun of the way he looked in the secondhand uniform that was too short and too tight.

  "In that case, I accept," she said with a new lilt in her voice. "Which means I can now afford to pay you rent."

  Boyd stiffened. Damn, he hadn't thought of that. "Forget it."

  "Let's see, what would be fair?" She ran her tongue over her bottom lip, and he wanted to feel that clever little tongue on every inch of his naked body. Knowing that he never would put an edge on his temper.

  "Stacy, I said no. I'm not going to take your money."

  Stacy heard the snarl in his voice and ignored it. "How about fifty dollars a month? Plus I'll pay my share of the groceries."

  Boyd felt his teeth grind. "No."

  "Okay, sixty, but that's my final offer." Blithely she peeled off three twenties, folded them neatly and stuffed them back into the breast pocket of his shirt. The rest of the money she put in her own pocket.

  His jaw turned hard. "This is not what we agreed on last night."

  "Have it your way, then. I'll just go and pack up the things I unpacked." She started to turn toward the living room but found her way blocked by a solid barrier of muscle and sinew snugged suddenly against her belly. She drew back, but not before she'd felt molten heat spreading through her.

  "Have you always been so set on getting your own way, or is this something you've worked up to drive me crazy?" he drawled. It was less a question than a succinct assessment, accompanied by that same lazy smile that tugged at some deep inner chord.

  "Isn't that calling the kettle black?"

  "I'm not—"

  "Of course, you are," she said in her most soothing tone. "Otherwise, I'd still be sitting in a perfectly charming room at the Budget Motel, watching the cockroach races."

  He blinked, then glowered. "What's wrong with this place?"

  "Nothing that a little healthy clutter wouldn't fix."

  He shot her an insulted look before giving the gleaming kitchen a fast glance. "Looks fine to me," he declared, jutting his chin.

  Stacy felt laughter bubbling, but managed to keep a straight face. "It's too … antiseptic, but then I suppose that's only normal in a doctor's house."

  "Carpenter."

  "Yes, of course." Stacy offered him an angelic smile before checking the clock on the stove. Seeing that the pizza was nearly ready, she opened a drawer and pointed. "See what I mean? Even your pot holders are arranged with geometric precision."

  He uttered a word that had her laughing as she drew out a couple of pads. "I'll make you a deal, MacAuley. You let me mess up your cabinets and I'll let you boss me around—within reason, of course."

  She heard a rumble in his chest an instant before he laughed. "I think I'm in over my head here," he muttered before plucking the hotpads from her fingers. "Go sit down. I'll serve the damn pizza."

  Stacy felt like singing as she did what she'd been told. Wonder of wonders, her somber knight had actually laughed.

  "Stacy, I don't expect you to pack me a lunch. Doing the books is enough for you right now."

  Hearing a note of disapproval in Boyd's scratchy voice, Stacy glanced up from the jelly she was slathering over the thick layer of peanut butter already on the bread and offered him her cheeriest morning smile. Which wasn't saying much, considering she had always been—and would forever be—a night person.

  So was Boyd, she'd discovered after three nights in his house. In the wee hours of the morning, while she lay in his bed reading one of his books and sipping the chamomile tea he'd taken to producing by the gallons just for her, she'd heard him prowling the other rooms.

  "After spending an entir
e week trying to decipher your handwriting, I need a change of pace," she countered with an amused sigh.

  Brow creased, he shot her a worried glance, the coffeepot he'd just lifted from the coffeemaker's hot plate poised halfway to the Thermos on the counter.

  "Look, if it's too much for you, just say so. That stuff has been in that shoebox for months as it is. A couple more days or even weeks won't matter."

  Stacy noticed a look of weariness around his smoky eyes and frowned. "Boyd, all I've done so far is sit at that ridiculous little desk in the living room, making piles of papers."

  He poured coffee into the Thermos until it was full, then returned the nearly empty pot to the hot plate before reminding her brusquely, "Jarrod prescribed plenty of rest."

  "Which I'm getting."

  His frown grew even more intimidating and Stacy pictured him in the OR, glowering at the surgical techs over his mask. It hurt her to think of the skills he'd worked so hard to perfect, skills that became rustier with each day that passed.

  "No stairs, no long trips, no stress."

  Stacy sighed, knife poised. "Boyd, are we going to have this discussion every morning? Because if we are—"

  "You're dripping."

  Stacy blinked. "What?"

  Boyd nodded toward the counter, one side of his mouth curling into that half grin she was beginning to love. "Jelly."

  Frowning, she glanced down in time to catch a dollop of jam on her finger. Boyd reached for a towel, but before he could hand it to her, she lifted her finger to her mouth and licked it clean.

  Biting off a moan, Boyd turned his back to her and busied himself replacing the lid on the Thermos. Behind the button fly of his jeans, his body was hot and hard. No matter how many ways he tried to deny it or how many names he called himself when he couldn't, he wanted her.

  Even now, with the day scarcely begun and sleep still heavy in her eyes, he ached to slip his hands under the thin cotton robe draping her full breasts and ripe belly so enticingly. He wanted to touch the warm silk of her pale skin so badly his hands trembled with the effort to restrain himself. He wanted to taste her mouth and breathe in her scent, to sheathe himself in sweet heat. To drown in her.

  Because he could do none of those things without destroying them both, he hadn't been able to sleep more than a few hours a night before waking in a sweat, his heart beating wildly, his hunger a fierce ache that left him raw.

  "Boyd?" Stacy's voice was soft with a whisper of a tremor, reminding him that she was still fragile. Still healing.

  "Yeah?" He gave the plastic lid another savage twist and stared through the window at the morning haze.

  "I thought I'd work at the kitchen table today instead of the desk. If you don't mind." Stacy slipped a small bag of cookies into the sack that already contained three sandwiches and an apple before turning toward him.

  "Suit yourself."

  "If you leave your checkbook, I can write out the checks to the lumberyard and the electrical supply wholesaler, then you can sign them tonight."

  "My company checks are in the desk, bottom left drawer."

  Stacy gnawed at her lower lip as she stared at the rigid line of his sculpted shoulders and curled her hands into fists to keep from running them over the knotted muscles.

  "Is there anything else that needs immediate attention?"

  "No." She saw his chest lift, heard a sudden tearing sound as he drew breath. He was a man in torment, and it was her fault.

  "Yes, damn it," he said, turning to face her. "We need to set some ground rules before this thing gets out of hand."

  Stacy blinked. "What … thing do you mean, exactly?"

  He glanced down at the scarred toes of his boots, ran his hands through his hair and braced his shoulders before looking at her again. "I've made some stupid mistakes in my life, but thinking I'd be able to stop with a few kisses is one of the worst."

  "That bad, huh?" she murmured when his mouth drew into a firm line and his eyes narrowed.

  "Try frustrating as holy hell." There was just enough wry humor in his tone to take the edge off the tension that had suddenly filled her.

  "I don't recall asking you to stop kissing me." She kept her tone light. "In fact, I distinctly remember telling you how much I enjoyed being kissed by you. And I thought you enjoyed it, too."

  "Too damn much."

  She couldn't help laughing. "So?"

  "So the last thing you need right now is sex."

  "Aha. I thought that was the 'thing' you were talking about. And for the record, if Dr. Jarrod gave his okay, I wouldn't say no to you."

  His mouth flattened into an intimidating line. "Why me, Stacy? Because you think you owe me?"

  She tamped down an instinctive surge of indignation. "You know better than that."

  "Do I? Funny, I thought we'd met only two weeks ago."

  The caustic drawl in his voice was designed to hurt. And it did. "I assume, then, that you make it a practice to kiss every woman you meet."

  Color rose to stain his chiseled cheekbones. "The last woman I kissed before you was my wife."

  Stacy looked into his suddenly bleak gray eyes and ached with a need to comfort him. "Boyd, it's all right to be human," she said softly, closing the distance between them.

  "Don't," he said, his voice strangled.

  "Don't what?" She lifted both hands to frame his face. "Don't make you feel? Don't make you care?"

  "I can't give you what you want."

  "What I want is for you to forgive yourself for being alive." She stretched upward until her mouth was only inches from his. "You don't deserve this purgatory you've created for yourself."

  His eyes changed, and her breath caught. "Look, if things were different…"

  "Make them different."

  "How? By pretending I can give you the happy ending you deserve?"

  "Boyd, I know that you loved Karen. I loved Len, too. But they're gone, both of them. Terribly, tragically, yes. But also irrevocably. Cutting ourselves off from the comfort we could offer one another won't bring them back."

  "Stacy—"

  "Hold me, Boyd. Please." Needing his strength, she pressed closer until she was molded intimately against him, so close she felt his body trembling, so close she sensed the moment his defenses started to crumble.

  "This is a mistake," he murmured an instant before he brought his arms around her, his prodigious strength gentled by the cautious slowness with which he moved. She sensed he held himself back by sheer force of will alone. On a thick moan of surrender, he brought his mouth that last inch to hers.

  His lips were soft, barely skimming hers in a featherlike caress that was more a plea than a demand. Yet she felt the tension in him, tasted it on his lips, a tension she felt skittering and bunching inside her own body. Needing to be closer, she locked her hands around the thick, muscled column of his neck. The texture of his hair beneath her fingertips made her think of raw silk, warmed by the masculine heat radiating from his skin. She clung to his strength as he slowly, inexorably deepened the pressure of his mouth until she eagerly opened hers.

  Boyd felt her yield, felt her tongue touch his in a shy, sweet invitation. He fought a need to crush her hard against his suddenly rigid body. It hurt to want this much and, for an instant, he couldn't breathe. It was as though he were drowning in her, her scent, her taste, the soft pressure of her breasts against his chest.

  Unable to resist, he slid his tongue between her lips and tasted. The hot welcome of her mouth sent spears of hunger gouging deep, yet he reined the worst of his need. Flattening one hand, he stroked the sensuous curve of her back, feeling the tiny shivers running over her skin beneath the nubby robe.

  He slid his hands lower, cupping the intimate flare of her hips, and he heard her moan. Her tongue moved in rhythm with his, her breathing hitching, the soft sounds in her throat telling him that she was as lost as he was. When she arched harder against him, he felt an explosion of hot sensation, as much pleasure as pain as his eng
orged flesh responded. Try as he might, he couldn't contain the groan that slipped from his mouth to hers.

  Her answering murmurs left him feeling humble and aroused at the same time. Yet he made himself ease backward until he could skim his palms over the sides of her breasts. With hands that shook he eased aside the soft rolled lapels of her robe and grazed his fingertips over her breasts, his touch as light as a whisper.

  Unable to control her body's response, Stacy shivered, her nipples growing harder with every touch of his blunt fingertips. Slowly, in concert with the slow thrusts of his tongue, he stroked her breasts, then rubbed the turgid crests in a wildly erotic massage.