And Baby Makes Four

by And Baby Makes Four (v5. 0) (lit)

  Pulling her gaze back to the glass in her hand, she said, “I want to apologize for my idiocy this afternoon. For the mothering comment.” Shame washed through her at the memory. “Especially after everything you told me.”

  His head turned. “Truth is, I should be apologizing for doing the caveman chest thump when you weren’t feeling well.”

  “Well.” Her lips twitched. “It was a tad Neanderthal.”

  Leaning back, he set his arm along the back of the bench and she caught her breath. “You make me want to shout and dance and do dumb things. You make me feel again, Lee.”

  Lord, he’d taken her capacity to speak.

  Discomfort flushed her skin. She had to tell him. Had to tell him she’d flown for Abner Air. That the company once owned the seaplane she now piloted, the seaplane he’d flown in several times. Most of all, she had to tell him it was her ex-husband he was suing.

  Rogan drew closer. She knew he wanted to kiss her, so she let him. In this moment, on this glider, shadowed by the tree’s sweeping branches, she heard the hum of evening approach. She did not want to think about Stuart and his company, or that pilot and what might have caused a plane to go down three years ago. Instead, she let Rogan cup her face, let his mouth cover hers, let herself sink into the sensation that only he elicited.

  “Lee,” he whispered, setting his forehead to hers a little while later. “I haven’t felt this good in a long while.” Inching away, he traced a fingertip slowly along her hairline, igniting a trail of tiny sparklers along the way.

  Oh, how she longed to fall into the softness of his eyes, the kindness of his touch. “Rogan, I need to tell you s—”

  A shriek pierced the air.

  Instantly, Rogan was on his feet. “Danny.”

  Flinging the blanket aside, Lee jumped off the glider, searching the twilight where they had seen the boy moments ago at the fence, and where only emptiness greeted them. The horses had disappeared.

  Danny cried again, and Rogan began running for the barn. “I’m coming, son!”

  Rushing across the yard as fast as she could in the stilettos she’d worn, a single thought whipped through Lee’s mind. He’s been through enough.

  “Daddy! Help me!” The boy’s muffled voice came from inside the barn.

  Oh, God. What had happened? Lee wondered, watching his father’s broad back vanish beyond the entry doors.

  Pictures of the building’s run-down stalls rose up. Although the barn appeared structurally sound during her first visit, she had noted deterioration in several areas: the stall floorboards, the rusted hinges of the rear doors, and the slanted nesting cubicles in the chicken pen.

  “Where are you, son?” Rogan called.

  Darkness cloaked the interior and it took several seconds for Lee’s eyes to adjust before the sea-gray shirt Rogan had donned for dinner came into focus.

  “Up here, Daddy.”

  “There,” Lee said, pointing to where the child’s leg dangled from a fracture in the ceiling above a rear horse stall.

  Rogan strode forward. “I see you.” Panic rode his voice at the sight of Danny trapped in the jagged hole; Lee swallowed back her own dread. “Hang on, buddy,” his father soothed. “I’m here.”

  “A board broke and I fell, Daddy. Can you come up and get me? I’m scared.”

  Lee caught Rogan’s arm before he scrambled up the rickety ladder nailed to the wall above the manger. The ladder led to a narrow rectangular opening used for tossing down hay and straw from the loft. “I’ll go. You’ll be too heavy.”

  His eyes snapped with conflict, and she understood. She was pregnant. She shouldn’t be climbing into haylofts.

  “I’m fine, Rogan,” she assured before he could protest. “I’ve been jogging up and down hills and through wooded trails for three years. A ten-foot ladder is nothing. Besides, we really don’t have a choice. You need to stay here. In case…”

  In case Danny falls through.

  His eyes wove up to his child. “It’s not safe,” he muttered. He scanned her dress, the pointy heels. “It’s not safe,” he repeated.

  She laid her hand against his cheek. “It’ll be okay. Trust me. I’ve climbed up there hundreds of times.” Yes, as a kid, Lee. Not as a pregnant adult. She kept that tidbit to herself.

  “I owe you,” he said, his eyes clinging to hers.

  “You owe me nothing, except to stay right here. Danny,” she called, turning for the ladder. “I’m coming up to get you.”

  “I want my Daddy.” Tears choked the boy’s words.

  “I know, honey, but Daddy needs to stay under you. He’s the only one strong enough to catch you if you fall through. Okay?” Make the situation perfectly clear, she thought.

  “Okay.”

  Eight days ago, when she walked through the barn to see Rogan and Danny paint, the ladder’s structure hadn’t registered. She’d been too intent on Rogan to remember clambering with her friend Eve up a ladder nailed to a wall.

  A ladder that today missed a couple of rungs.

  Removing her heels to stand in panty hose, Lee stared up at the dark square hole in line with the manger.

  How had the boy gotten up there? The same way I did at ten. She threw Rogan one more glance. “You’ll be fine,” she said, and grabbed a rung, tested its reliability.

  Cautiously she made her way upward.

  “Hey, guy,” she said, popping above the floor of the loft. The child sat ten feet inside, one leg curled under him, while the other vanished into the ragged hole.

  “Will I fall, Ms. Tait?”

  “No, honey. But we will need to be careful. Now, I want you to lie down and stretch your hands to mine.”

  From where she balanced on the second highest rung, Lee reached across the floor. The boy’s grip was firm, his palms sweaty.

  With gentle persuasion she coaxed him to draw his leg from the fissure and inch his way toward the loft opening.

  Lee blew a long, quiet breath when she finally tugged him to the edge of the entrance and safety.

  Rogan stood below them, in the stall. “Danny, let Lee climb down so I can come up and piggyback you down.”

  “I’m not scared anymore, Dad. I can do it.”

  “All right, pal.” Rogan held out his hands. “I’ve got you. Just come down nice and easy.”

  A minute later, the boy stood securely in the stall and while Lee slipped on her heels, Rogan checked his child for bruises and scrapes.

  “Why did you go up there, Daniel?” he asked, his tone no longer panicked.

  Danny nudged a lump of dirt with the toe of his sneaker. “Pepper was galloping around an’ then the horses went over the hill and—and I couldn’t see ’em anymore.”

  “So you decided to climb up in the loft when I told you specifically to never go up there?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad.”

  Sighing, Rogan bent down on one knee. Scraping at his hair, he said, “You scared me silly, know that?”

  “I didn’t mean to.” The boy’s lip quivered. “I just wanted to see the horses.”

  “What if you really had fallen?”

  “I’d be hurt?”

  “Or worse.”

  Lee watched Rogan’s Adam’s apple bob as he pulled his son into a hug. “I need you to listen to me, Danny,” he said and his eyes told Lee of possible nightmares. Danny broken and bleeding on the barn floor. Danny in the hospital. Danny in a coma. Danny…

  Don’t think it, Rogan. “He’s okay,” she whispered. You’re okay.

  He got to his feet, looked down at the boy. “Dan, you know when you don’t listen there are consequences.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Tonight you’ll go to bed early.”

  “But, Dad, it’s Friday,” the boy complained, fear of the ordeal vanishing in a blink. “I get to stay up till nine-thirty on Fridays.”

  “Not this Friday.”

  “Aw…”

  “Not another word, Daniel.”

  Bottom lip poking out,
the boy turned and headed out of the barn. Suddenly, he ran back and hugged Lee around the waist. “Thanks for saving me,” he whispered.

  She ran a hand over his silky hair. “You’re welcome, Dan.”

  After he left the barn again, she drew a deep sigh. “Your son is going to break hearts one day, Rogan.”

  “If I teach him right, he won’t. He’ll treat a woman with respect and integrity.”

  “Did you at sixteen?” she teased.

  A half laugh exploded. “I hope so. Though I admit, I wasn’t always interested in a woman’s mind at the time. Here, let me brush the hay off your skirt.” His hand whispered across her lap and knees, and her breath caught. “There,” he said. His eyes were dark as a Pacific storm, and for a second she believed he’d kiss her. Instead, he said, “Let’s go back.”

  They walked across the yard. Danny mounted the porch steps, dragging the ball and chain of consequence. Her heart reached out. “Aren’t you being a little hard on him with the early bedtime?”

  “I can’t take the chance he’ll disobey me at every turn. His life depends on it here.”

  “Here? Rogan, he climbed into a hayloft, not down a well. Kids get into problem situations in a city, too.”

  “A board broke,” he said, not hearing her. “It could’ve been his neck. I would think you’d see my side in this.”

  “I do see it.” She paused by the oak where minutes before they had kissed. On the porch Danny shot his father a last dejected look before entering the house. The door closed softly behind him.

  Letting his head fall back, Rogan blew a hefty sigh. “Do you know he literally stopped my heart?”

  “Nope,” Lee chided, setting a palm against his chest. “Still strong and steady.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “If it hadn’t been for you…” His body shuddered, effects from the aftermath. She wrapped her arms around him.

  “Hush,” she soothed. “It all turned out fine.”

  He didn’t answer. Rather, his mouth found hers in a crushing kiss that spoke of the fear he bottled inside, of the tragedy he still suffered. His tongue vaulted around hers. Hard, passionate, the kiss streamed heat into every nerve ending.

  Rogan, was all she could think. If he wanted to take her right there, she would let him.

  Abruptly, he wrenched free and stared down at her. “Lee, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking treating you like some kind of—” Driving his hands into his hair, he put three steps between them. “It’s this place. I shouldn’t have bought it. Danny could’ve—A farm is no place for a city kid. I should’ve stayed in Renton.”

  Lee gazed at the man who just kissed off her lips, whose shoulders hunched against the weight of his decisions. She wanted to say, It’s not the farm that’s the problem.

  “I suppose,” she said slowly, “your best option would be to sell it. To run away…again.” Although he hadn’t explained his reasoning in so many words, her woman’s intuition said he’d come to Firewood Island to do exactly that. Flee.

  He reeled around, his brows battering rams, his eyes beneath them cold. “You know nothing about it.”

  It. His sorrow. His demon.

  She lifted her chin. “The father of my baby is dead, Rogan. He was killed in Iraq by sniper fire. So, yes, I do know something about it.” We might have only been friends with benefits, but I still miss him.

  His gaze flicked to her stomach where her hands had gone to protect, and instantly the fight in him dissolved. She saw it in the tilt of his head, heard it in the sigh along his lips. “Lee, I’m…”

  She shook her head. “Regrets are useless. The past is done and gone. All that matters is what you decide, here and now.” She walked to her vehicle.

  “Where you going?”

  “Home.” Climbing behind the wheel, she said, “Say goodnight to Danny for me.” Then she started the engine—and left him to his choices.

  A solemn quiet greeted Rogan when he entered the house. After she’d driven away, he paced a rut on the porch. Regrets are useless. Naturally, she was right. He needed to get over his fear of unforeseen tragedies happening to Danny. But, God, it was hard. The boy was all he had left. All he lived for.

  Selling the farm would break his son’s heart. The kid was crazy about the horses; they were the reason he climbed into the loft in the first place. And the reason he’d almost injured himself.

  Ruthlessly, Rogan sliced off the thought. Accidents happened. Hell, since his toddler days he’d heard the tired example, “walking across the street could kill you.” As an adult and a lawyer, he understood that kind of fate. Crud happened. Everywhere. To anyone.

  Living here wasn’t a guarantee for safety. It was a choice, one he wanted to believe was as good as any he had made in his life.

  All that matters is what you decide, here and now.

  With Lee’s words circling his mind, he took the stairs to the upper floor and Danny’s bedroom.

  “Hey, bud,” he said, pausing on the threshold.

  The boy wore his superhero pj’s and his hair lay damp on his forehead from washing his face. “Do I really have to go to bed, Dad?”

  Aren’t you being a little hard on him? Her words again.

  Damn it, she was right; sending a seven-year-old to bed at 7:35 on a Friday night for climbing into a barn loft was a tad harsh.

  “Maybe we can compromise,” Rogan said.

  “What’s compr’ise?”

  “Com-pro-mise. It means we find a solution that suits us both.”

  Danny fidgeted with the sheet. “’Kay.”

  “So. What do you think is a fair consequence for not listening?”

  The child shrugged a bony shoulder. “I dunno. I don’t get to play with my digger?”

  Rogan hid a smile. The boy loved the digger Lee had given him. “Sounds like a good one. All right. It’s mine for the weekend.”

  His son debated the lost fun hours. Mournful eyes looked up. “All weekend?”

  “Until Monday. Seal the deal?” Rogan held out a hand, his heart tugging when his son bumped knuckles. Pulling Danny into a quick hug, he said, “And we won’t talk about this anymore, all right?”

  “’Kay.”

  “Want to watch the movie I brought home this afternoon?”

  “With Ms. Tait?”

  “Lee had to go home.”

  “Aw…”

  Rogan brushed the hair from his son’s eyes. “You like her, don’t you, son?”

  “Yeah. She’s cool. Will she come back to see us?”

  “I hope so.”

  Danny climbed out of bed, sat on the mat to pull on a pair of heavy socks. “She told me when she was little she built a road with a bridge in her mom’s flowerbed. Isn’t that cool, Dad? I never knew a girl who liked playing in the dirt.”

  “Me, neither, bud.” But he could see Lee doing exactly that. He pictured those big green eyes lit with a child’s delight; a smudge on her freckled cheek; fingernails limned with rich, moist earth.

  Downstairs he slid the disc into the player, started the movie. While the trailers played, he made popcorn; then once he had Danny settled on the sofa, he returned to the kitchen and called Lee.

  He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, and certainly not after she mentioned the father of her baby. Rogan wondered when the man had died. At the most a couple of months ago. A very short time. Had he known she was pregnant? Had she loved him?

  Damn. She had suffered the man’s death, and continued to suffer. Tonight he’d seen it in her eyes.

  And how had he treated her? As a self-absorbed jerk, a complete jackass.

  The phone was on its sixth ring. She hadn’t returned home—or she wasn’t answering.

  Her machine clicked on.

  “Lee,” he said, his throat aching. “If you’re there, please pick up. I…” His fingers cleaved through his hair. “I’m sorry for acting like a barbarian after what you did for Dan. Can I make it up to you, take you to dinner or lunch or br
eakfast—or, hell, why not make it all three?” His attempt at humor failed. “Okay,” he said when she still hadn’t picked up. “I’ll let you decide. Talk to you later.”

  He wanted to say soon. Talk to you soon. Better yet, Now.

  With a sigh, he set down the receiver. Truth was, he shouldn’t have called at all—or left that dumbass message. Apologies should be said in person. The last time he left a message on Darby’s voicemail had been the morning he watched her and Sophie get in a taxi bound for the airport. And he’d gone to work.

  She’d never picked up the call, never heard his We’ll get through this, Dar. We will.

  By the time he’d gathered the day’s documents, statements and depositions off his desk for his 10:00 a.m. schedule in court, she and their daughter were dead.

  These days, leaving a voicemail kicked his pulse into overdrive—more so when the recipient was someone he cared for, and especially if he wasn’t sure she would get the message. Nothing’s wrong. She’s just gone to visit one of her sisters. He hoped.

  Kneading the nape of his neck, he returned to the living room and his son.

  She listened to his voice on the answering machine, but remained on the couch, sipping a cup of blackberry tea. Strings of clear, mini lights lit the wharf, adding a silvery sheen to the dark water lapping beneath. To the far left, she saw the white outline of her plane’s wing in the amber glow of a lamppost. To the right, down another jut, Lu’s Foot Ferry was anchored for the night.

  When the machine shut off, she got up and pressed Play and once more let his voice sink into her senses.

  She wanted to accept his apology. She wanted to call back, say, I understand. That when life punches you sideways, it takes a bit to find your footing again.

  She remembered the hunger of his kiss after the loft dilemma, the hot emotions. She knew she should forget him, end their relationship, such as it was. She did not need a man riding the coattails of heartbreak and, God forbid, the trouble her previous association with Abner Air would provoke.

  Still, she reached for the telephone—and withdrew. Somewhere along the way, Rogan had become important to her. Deep down important. She wanted their relationship to survive.