A Child on the Way

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Lisa shouted with laughter. “You, for starters. Oh, Belinda, it’s you. I know you. I know me! I called you. You offered me a place to stay. I remember!”

  Jack’s hand was still on her shoulder, squeezing gently. Lisa placed her hand over his and returned the pressure.

  Jack couldn’t take his eyes off her. While she spoke with Belinda, he watched animation light her eyes and curve her lips. She had her memory back and was glowing with it.

  He’d wanted her memory to return. He was elated for her. He was especially glad to learn that she wasn’t married to Hampton.

  Hell, glad didn’t even come close. The strength of the emotion that swept through him when she’d said ex-husband should probably worry him. After all, it shouldn’t matter to him, except that naturally he wanted Lisa to be happy, and he didn’t see how she could be with the man he’d met the other day.

  But he couldn’t worry about it just then. It was taking all his willpower to keep from picking her up in his arms and swinging her around the room. Which was not the sort of thing a man ought to do with a woman who was within a month of having a baby. Less than a month now, he realized.

  Besides, he was honest enough with himself to admit that he wanted to do more than swing her around the room. More than hold her in his arms. But having been married to a sleeze like Hampton, who would lie to a woman with no memory and try to take advantage of her, Jack wouldn’t be surprised if Lisa never wanted anything to do with a man again.

  “Are you kidding?” Lisa was saying when Jack finally tuned back in. “You should see me. Basketball be damned. I look like I’m smuggling a giant beach ball.”

  The two women spoke for several more minutes, then promised each other a good long visit when Belinda and Ace came home at the end of the week.

  Lisa turned away from Jack to hang up the phone. She took an inordinate amount of time about it, reluctant to turn back and face him. What would she see in his eyes, and he in hers, now that they both knew she wasn’t married?

  Maybe she was wrong to hope, but she wanted…oh, damn, she wanted him to want her, but who was she kidding? Single or not, she was as big as a barn and had never felt so unattractive in her life. What would a man like Jack want with a woman like her?

  “Lisa?”

  She couldn’t stand there all night with her back to him as though she was afraid to face him. She wasn’t afraid. Of course she wasn’t.

  She was terrified.

  But she turned around, anyway, because she couldn’t stand not knowing for another second.

  Neither spoke. They looked at each other, not touching, for a long moment before Jack reached out and pulled her to him. She could read his intention in his eyes. Her heart soared. He was going to kiss her. If he didn’t hurry, she feared she might die of wanting.

  He lowered his head until his mouth was only a breath away from hers. “I want to kiss you.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  He smiled slightly. “Nothing. Absolutely—” he brushed his lips across hers once “—nothing.” Twice.

  At the touch of his mouth, Lisa stopped breathing. She wanted more, much more. And then he was giving it to her, softly, relentlessly. He was so gentle, the kiss so tender, she felt her eyes sting as they slid closed.

  Moments ago she had regained her memory, but as Jack kissed her, every kiss she’d ever had faded away into nothing. There was only this, only Jack. Only now. Never had anything moved her so much.

  He deepened the kiss and she melted. Simply…melted. Kissing Jack was like nothing she’d ever experienced. It was at once a brilliant sunset and a quiet dawn. It sparkled, it shimmered, it devoured her.

  The heat surprised her. So did the low growl from Jack’s throat.

  Oh, my. She had never made a man growl before. How empowering. How liberating. She threaded her fingers through his hair and silently begged for more.

  Jack gave it, and gladly. He’d been holding back, trying not to come on too strong, when what he’d wanted to do was devour her. With her offering, he did.

  Now he knew why he’d been drawn to her, why he’d wanted to taste her lips so badly. Something must have been telling him she would go to his head faster than whiskey. He’d known she would taste sweet. He had anticipated the fire she ignited deep inside him.

  Hunger and need gripped him, and he tasted both on her lips. Deeper and deeper he took them until he was gasping for breath. And still he kissed her, stroked her tongue with his in a rhythm dictated by the pounding of blood in his loins.

  With his hands he explored. Her back was trim, delicate yet strong. When his palms brushed the sides of her breasts and she inhaled sharply, he realized things were about to go too far, and he eased back.

  “He was wrong,” he whispered fiercely against her lips. He took one last hard taste, then tore his mouth free. “You are very good at this.”

  Breathless, Lisa forced herself to open her eyes and look at him. In his eyes she saw the same intense wonder that she felt. Slowly, she smiled. “So are you.”

  They stood there in each other’s arms, staring at each other and grinning for a long moment without speaking.

  Then Jack stroked her cheek with one fingertip and said, “Will you tell me what happened on the phone? Did everything come back to you?”

  Still smiling, Lisa tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “Yes. It just came. One minute my past was a blank, the next everything flooded back.”

  Jack watched her exposed throat as she spoke. It would have taken a stronger man than he to resist. He pressed his lips there, nibbled lightly with his teeth, and was rewarded with Lisa’s small needy whimper.

  “Oh, Jack,” she whispered.

  From her throat he kissed and nibbled his way up and over her jaw to her ear. When she shivered, his hands trembled. His hands had never trembled with a woman before. At least not since his first time, when he’d been fifteen.

  He wasn’t fifteen anymore, but Lisa made him feel all those same hot trembly feelings. He wasn’t some fumbling teenager, yet he was close to fumbling. This was Lisa in his arms, and he was a grown man. With as many highs and lows as her emotions had seen during the past week, she was too vulnerable. When he made love to her, he wanted her steady. He wanted her to know what she was doing. He wasn’t sure she did just then.

  “So tell me…” He took a final taste of her earlobe, then eased back and smiled at her. “Where did you live when you were ten?”

  Lisa blinked at his abrupt change of mood. She didn’t know whether to punch him for getting her all worked up and then leaving her that way, or be grateful that he hadn’t taken them any farther. She settled on grateful.

  “The same place I lived from the time I was three until I was eighteen—the state orphanage.”

  “You said your parents disappeared. You were never adopted?”

  “No.”

  “I…don’t know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing to say,” she told him. “That’s just the way it was. I never knew anything else. I knew there was something else. I knew what families were, and I always wanted one.” She heaved a sigh. “I need to explain about Roger, but it could take a while. I’m going to have a glass of milk. Would you like me to put on a fresh pot of coffee?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  While Jack started the coffee, Lisa poured herself some milk.

  “Maybe,” she said, “if I hadn’t wanted a family so badly, I might not have fallen for Roger’s charm.”

  Jack leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. His eyes narrowed with skepticism. “Charm?”

  “Oh, yes.” She sipped her milk and paced the length of the table and back. “Roger can be very charming when he wants to be. I was young—twenty-two. He was twenty-eight. He’d been working as a public defender for a couple of years and had just left there and joined his family’s law firm. Very old, very prestigious. And he was…dazzling.”

  Jack wanted to snort in disgus
t, but refrained. She wasn’t all dreamy-eyed while she was telling him this. There was a note of self-derision in her voice.

  “But it was his family I really fell for. He had all these brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins. There are scads of Hamptons just in the Denver area alone. The first time he took me to meet them, it was July Fourth. They welcomed me as if I belonged and made me feel a part of them right from the start.”

  This time, Jack noted, there was wistfulness in her eyes.

  “Oh, I loved his family. I knew if I married him I would finally have the family I’d always wanted. I’m ashamed to say I let them blind me to Roger’s true nature.”

  Behind Jack the coffee finished brewing. He took a cup from the cabinet and filled it.

  Lisa set her glass on the table. With her hands splayed across her abdomen, she took up her pacing again.

  “Is she kicking?” Jack asked.

  Lisa smiled briefly. “No, she’s quiet right now. It’s me I’m trying to keep calm, but it’s not easy when I think about that stunt Roger pulled, showing up here and lying the way he did. I can’t believe that jerk. I realize now that he didn’t claim to be my husband the other day until after he found out I had amnesia. The slime. He knew I wouldn’t be able to deny it.”

  If she was trying to stay calm, Jack noted, he didn’t want to see her riled. Anger sprung rapidly to life across her features.

  “His detective must have found me,” she muttered.

  Jack set his coffee cup on the counter. “His detective?” he said slowly. She wasn’t the only one feeling anger all of a sudden. “Your ex-husband had you followed by a detective?”

  “For months,” she stated flatly. “Which is one reason I came here.” She stopped pacing and put a hand to her forehead. “Dammit. I can’t…I can’t remember…”

  “Can’t remember what?”

  She let out a groan of frustration. “I guess there are still holes in my memory. I’m sure I would have checked my rearview mirror to make sure no one was behind me when I turned off at the ranch, but I can’t remember doing it. I can’t even remember getting here, for that matter.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re so used to being followed that you make a habit of checking your rearview mirror before turning off somewhere? What kind of bastard is Hampton?”

  “The royal, card-carrying, certified kind,” she said with a snarl. “I was so happily divorced. What in the world was I thinking to let that conniving egomaniac near me again?” She whirled—or she came as close to it as a woman eight months pregnant can—and stomped across the floor and back. “I must have been out of my mind.” She took another lap, harder, faster this time. “I should have been committed for even speaking to him again.” She spun on her heel.

  Jack snagged her arm before she could start back across the room. “You’re gonna make the kid seasick.” He nudged her toward a chair at the table. “Sit. Take a deep breath. Drink some milk.”

  “Okay.” She sat. “You’re right.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then let it out. “I get worked up when I think about Roger.” She took a sip of milk. “He was having me followed. He was showing up everywhere I went. The stress was getting to me. I was afraid…”

  “You were afraid of him?” Let him show up here again, by God, and I’ll teach that bastard a lesson he won’t soon forget.

  “No, not like you mean. Not for myself, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She sighed. “Several months ago…” She paused and stroked her belly with both hands. “More than eight. About a year, actually. I ran into Roger at a party one of my clients gave. It was the first time I’d seen him since the divorce three years earlier. I told you he could be charming. He was more than charming that night. He was…disarming. He told me that divorcing him was the smartest thing I’d ever done, that he had deserved every accusation I’d made. When he apologized, he seemed so genuinely sincere. Contrite. And for the first time since the divorce, he asked me to forgive him. I really, really thought he’d changed.”

  She paused and took another sip, then set the glass down and cupped it in both palms. “You aren’t asking what I needed to forgive him for.”

  Jack didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “I already know he was emotionally abusive. Was he physically abusive, too?”

  “No. No, nothing like that. I didn’t even understand at the time that he was emotionally abusive. All I knew was that he cheated on me the entire year we were married. I didn’t find out about it for a long time, and even then I kept thinking…Well, I guess I wasn’t thinking at all. He married me to please his family and expected me to ignore his little outings, as he called them.”

  “I was right, wasn’t I. He told you his cheating was your fault.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She slugged back the last of her milk as if it was a shot of tequila. All she needed was a lime to suck on for the picture to be complete.

  “He lied, you know,” Jack said, keeping his tone easy when what he wanted to do was get his hands around Roger Hampton’s throat and squeeze.

  “Anyway, where was I?” she asked, ignoring Jack’s comment.

  “Lisa, he lied. It was not your fault.”

  “Oh, I know that.” She lowered her gaze and stared at her empty glass. “It doesn’t matter how lousy I was in bed, he still made the decision to cheat on me.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “The night I saw him at the party last year, he asked me to dinner.”

  Jack ground his teeth together and let her talk. But he wasn’t through with the topic of her husband telling her she was lousy in bed. Damn the man.

  But what if she was? What if she just lay there like a cold fish?

  Jack snorted at the thought.

  “Did you say something?”

  “No, sorry.” He’d meant what he’d told her that night they came home from town and she’d first mentioned Roger. She was the warmest, most loving, most generous woman he’d ever known. If she and her husband had marital problems it certainly wasn’t because Lisa was cold or unresponsive. She just wasn’t made that way.

  “Jack? You look like you’re trying to swallow ground glass. If you’d rather not hear this…I’m sorry. I thought—”

  “No. I’m sorry. I, uh, made the coffee too strong, that’s all. He asked you to dinner?”

  She eyed him a moment, then went on. “Yes, he asked me out. When I said no, he said he didn’t blame me and wondered if he could ask me again some other time. I was floored. He was being so nice, so reasonable. I thought—hoped—it meant that he’d finally grown up. I thought that maybe working in his family’s law firm, with his grandfather around all the time, had matured him.

  “Oh, he played me like a fish on a line. He waited a month before calling me, and then it was to ask me to his grandfather’s seventieth birthday party. He said his grandfather had been asking about me. God, I was such a sucker.”

  Jack stood behind her chair and started massaging her shoulders. “Talking about this is making you tense.”

  She moaned. “Mmm. Kissing’s not the only thing you’re good at.”

  He hoped she didn’t notice the way his hands tightened abruptly on her shoulders. He’d like to show her a few other things he was good at. “Why, Ms. Hampton, was that a come-on?”

  Lisa giggled. “With this shape?” She held her arms out and looked down at her belly. “Not on your life.”

  “I’ve told you before, I like your shape.”

  “Yeah, you called me a cupcake. I’ll remember that, Sir Jack. Oh, yes, right there,” she said when he hit a particularly tight spot on her shoulder.

  The sounds of pleasure she was making were enough to turn Jack’s knees to jelly. Yet at the same time, he ached for the story she’d been telling.

  “Where was I?” she asked as if reading his mind. “Oh, yeah.” Her eyes were closed now and her neck limp, head hanging forward. “I was a sucker.”

  “I doubt that.�
�

  “No, it’s true. I really was. I went with him to his grandfather’s birthday party, and then we started dating. I didn’t even tell Belinda, because I knew what she’d say. She would have ranted and raved and called me a stupid twit. She would have said that he knew how badly I missed having a family and he was using his to seduce me, and she’d have been right.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting a family. Sounds pretty normal to me, particularly when you grew up without one.”

  “It’s not a good enough reason to marry a man. Besides, when people marry because they want a family, it’s usually because they want to start a family of their own, not just because they want a bunch of in-laws.”

  “You weren’t in love with him?”

  She sighed. “I thought I was. No, I was. I loved him, and he married me because his grandfather liked me.”

  “He didn’t love you?”

  “Ha. The only time Roger Hampton understands the meaning of the word love is when he looks in a mirror. Why I let myself forget that little personality quirk, I’ll never know.” She shifted her shoulders. “You’ve got to quit that, or I’m going to fall asleep right here at the table. I think I want another glass of milk. Talking about Roger leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

  She started to get up, but Jack whisked her glass away and headed for the fridge. “I’ll get it.”

  “Thank you. Has anyone ever told you what a nice man you are?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, placing her refilled glass before her. “I’m a regular prince. Ask anybody.”

  “I don’t need to ask. I mean it, Jack,” she added sincerely. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “You’d have done just fine.”

  “Oh, yeah, like I have such a great track record. I didn’t do so fine on my own in Denver, at least not on a personal level. I’d been seeing Roger again for about a month when he called me at work and asked if I wanted to go to a movie that night. I was…well, I was charmed. Again. He’d never taken me to a movie before.”

  “Never? You lived in a huge city with dozens of theaters and he never took you?”