Daughter on His Doorstep

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “I’ve got to go.” She scrambled none too carefully off Trey and out of the chair.

  Trey let out an umph, probably due to her placing a hand, and therefore her weight, on his chest to lever herself up.

  “Laurie?”

  As she moved around the chair to make a bee-line for the hall and Katy’s room, Trey caught her hand and drew her to a halt.

  “Trey, Katy’s awake,” she said in a rush.

  “Before you go back on the clock…” He drew her hand to his mouth and ran his tongue across her knuckles.

  Laurie’s knees nearly buckled. “Trey,” she gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “I just want you to know how much I enjoyed sleeping with you last night.”

  A bubble of stunned, horrified laughter escaped before Laurie could slap a hand across her mouth to cut it off.

  “I’d really like to do it again,” he said, his voice going deeper. “For real, next time.”

  Laurie’s breath caught in her throat. What was a woman supposed to say to an outrageous comment like that? For a moment all she could do was stare at him, her mind a blank except for the sudden sharp picture of the two of them entwined on his bed at the end of the hall.

  From beyond the room Katy let out a howl. Somebody! Come change my diaper and feed me. Right now.

  Still unable to come up with anything resembling an appropriate response to Trey, Laurie pulled her hand free and rushed from the room.

  Okay, she ran. Katy needed her, after all. She wasn’t running from Trey. Certainly not. He’d only been teasing her.

  Hadn’t he?

  What if he wasn’t teasing?

  Could he have meant it? Could he really want her?

  Oh, heavens, what was she going to do with these hot, tingling sensations running all over and through her? These pictures that danced erotically in her head?

  This knowledge that he wasn’t teasing. That he wanted her. And she wanted him.

  “Oh, Katy,” she whispered as she turned on the light and leaned over the baby’s crib. “What am I supposed to do with your daddy?”

  No matter how much Laurie might have wished it otherwise, avoiding Trey before he left the house for the day was simply not possible. Fixing his breakfast was part of her job.

  She supposed that if she were the cowardly type, she could make him a big pan of oatmeal while he was in the shower and leave a note telling him to serve himself. That would give her until lunchtime to gather her wits and decide how to act around him after that remark of his about wanting to sleep with her again—for real next time.

  Her problem was, the idea of sleeping with him, shocking though it was, was all too appealing, and that worried her. She was too attracted to him. He was too charming, too sexy, for her own good. He was too…overwhelming.

  She had no business getting mixed up with him or any man. She had two young, impressionable daughters. She was doing her best by them and didn’t need to be distracted by a man looking for a temporary fling.

  Besides, considering her track record with men—namely Jimmy…not much of a record—she was better off avoiding men. She was no good at holding a man’s interest, keeping him satisfied. And she didn’t trust them as a species, on general principle.

  It would behoove her, she decided as she warmed Katy’s formula, to simply treat Trey’s remark as the joke she was sure he’d intended. If she laughed off any future comments, he would take the hint.

  If there were any future comments.

  Trey hurried through his shower. After little sleep—and what there had been of it on his recliner with a woman draped over him, cutting off the circulation in one leg—he should feel like something the cat dragged in.

  Instead he felt energized. Eager to meet the day. He couldn’t wait to see Laurie again. His blood was pumping as if he was a teenager in heat.

  He laughed aloud at the thought. Teenager, hell. His thirtieth birthday was only a couple of months away. And there he was, a single father struggling to raise his baby daughter.

  Only he wasn’t struggling these days. Not since Laurie had come to live with him. Laurie and Carrie and Amy.

  How did a man manage to get so attached to two little girls not his own when he’d never been around little girls before?

  Whoever he ended up hiring on a permanent basis to take care of Katy would probably be an older woman whose children were grown and gone. She would likely be divorced or widowed, although it might not be bad having an older married couple living on the place. A retired couple, maybe.

  But a couple might like more privacy than they would get living in someone else’s home. Maybe they would bring their own mobile home.

  Looking into the mirror for a final swipe with his razor, Trey grinned at himself. Hell, he hadn’t had so much as a nibble on his ad in weeks. Who was he kidding? He had Laurie for now, but she couldn’t stay forever.

  Which meant if he wanted to get closer to her, he’d better quit dragging his heels.

  And he most definitely wanted to get closer to her.

  First, however, he wanted to get in a little time with Katy before his day started. He knew Laurie usually changed her, bathed her and dressed her, then took her own shower before she fed the baby. Trey was usually just getting up about then. By the time he had his shower and was dressed, Laurie had finished feeding Katy and was cooking his breakfast.

  A man could get spoiled, having an attractive woman fix his breakfast every morning.

  He got dressed, then zipped down the hall to Katy’s room, only to find the crib empty.

  “There you are.” He found Laurie in the rocker, Katy in her arms.

  “Were you looking for us?” Laurie asked.

  Trey had seen them this way, the woman feeding the baby in the rocker, a dozen times or more. It had always been a pleasant sight, one that made him feel good. But this morning the sight of Laurie in the rocker, feeding Katy her bottle, started an ache somewhere deep inside his chest.

  Trey shrugged and leaned a shoulder against the doorway. “I thought I’d feed Katy this morning, let you get your shower without having to worry about her.”

  Laurie looked down at the baby in her arms. “You’re paying me to worry about her, take care of her.”

  “I never intended you to work seven days a week. You haven’t had a day off since you came here. For that matter, I doubt you’ve had an hour off. We need to do something about that.”

  Without looking up from Katy’s face, Laurie smiled. “This isn’t work.”

  “It is. She’s a lot of work, and I’m going to start feeding her every morning and taking care of her myself every Sunday and give you the day off. I’ll even watch Carrie and Amy for you if you want to go to town by yourself.”

  “And just what would I do in town by myself?” She looked up at him and tilted her head. “I’m fine, Trey. I have nothing to complain about.”

  “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you. And frankly,” he said, giving her an exaggerated leer, “if I’m going to take advantage of you, I’d rather it be for something other than taking care of Katy.”

  “I don’t appreciate being taken advantage of,” she told him.

  “I don’t blame you a bit.”

  “As a matter of fact, I try not to let it happen. As for the ‘something other,’” she said with what looked to him like a smirk, “I’ll pass.”

  He might have bought that smirk, but it was a little ragged around the edge. Nerves? He smiled. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “That may be,” she said, “but I’ll still pass.”

  He might have let the matter rest once and for all if her laughter hadn’t been tinged with nerves. She wasn’t quite as disinterested as she would have him believe. “Well,” he told her, “that’s your right.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a mock queen-to-peasant nod of her head.

  “My right,” he said as he bent down and slipped Katy from her arms, “is to try to change your mind.”


  Laurie paused. Then gave him the baby bottle. She waited until he backed up a couple of steps before pushing herself from the rocker. With a narrow-eyed look, she said, “Trey Wilder, are you hitting on me?”

  Trey raised his brow. “If you have to ask, I guess I need to be a little more obvious.”

  By midmorning Laurie was still smiling at the affronted look on Trey’s face when she’d asked if he was hitting on her. His look hadn’t been because he’d been innocent, but because he’d been perplexed that she’d felt the need to verify what was actually going on.

  She didn’t know why she was smiling. She should be more worried than she was. He really was hitting on her. Gracious. The last man to do that—aside from the teenage checker at the grocery store back home—had been Jimmy, and he hadn’t come on to her during the last several years of their marriage. It had been so long, she’d almost forgotten the feeling.

  Almost, but not quite. She at least had sense enough to recognize the rapid pulse and heated tingling in her blood for what it was. Lust.

  “Mama?”

  Laurie blinked and looked down at Amy, standing next to her at the kitchen counter. For one horrified moment Laurie feared she’d said the word lust aloud, and was now going to have to explain it or figure a way to squirm out of an explanation.

  “How come Mr. Trey took Soldier away?”

  Saved by a horse. “I don’t know, baby. You can ask him when he comes home.”

  “Is it because I fell out of the tree?”

  “Oh, honey.” Laurie knelt before her daughter, and as predicted, Carrie joined them. “No, baby. Why would you think that?”

  Amy toed the floor and stared down at her bandaged wrist. “’Cause maybe we wasn’t supposed to climb the tree?”

  “Weren’t supposed to.”

  “Is that why? Is he mad at us? Are you mad at us, Mama?”

  Laurie put an arm around each girl and hugged them. “Of course I’m not mad at you. I’m not growling or yelling or anything, am I?”

  Amy giggled.

  “Oh, Mama,” Carrie said, “you never growl or yell.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Laurie said. “Remember the time you put my good shoes in the toilet to see if they would float? I seem to remember doing a little growling and yelling that time.”

  “But we were just babies then,” Carrie protested.

  “Does this mean you’re not mad at us for climbing the tree?” Amy wanted to know.

  Laurie sighed. “No, I’m not mad at you for climbing the tree. But you’d never done anything like that before. I wish you had asked me first. If I’d been there I might have been able to keep you from falling and hurting yourself.”

  Amy tilted her head. “How?”

  “She would have told you not to step on that little-bitty branch, same as I told you,” Carrie complained.

  “Listen to me, you two.” Laurie squeezed them tight, then nudged them away so she could look into their precious faces. “There are going to be a lot of changes in our lives. Coming to Wyoming was a new adventure. When we go home we’ll have a house and a yard of our own, and you’ll be going to a new school. A lot of new things will happen to you and around you. I just want you to be careful. And if it’s something you’ve never done before, I want you to ask me about it before you try it. Okay?”

  “Okay, Mama.” Amy was perfectly glad to promise.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Carrie said.

  “Can we go outside and play now?” Amy asked.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Laurie said. “You stay indoors today and make sure your wrist isn’t going to hurt, and if you feel okay tomorrow, you can play outside.”

  “Aw, Mama.” That was as close to a whine as Amy ever got.

  “Can we draw pictures?” Carrie asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  Amy’s face cleared. “Can we draw pictures for Mr. Trey?”

  “Absolutely. I think he’d like that very much.”

  Amy grinned from ear to ear. “Can we draw horsies?”

  “Well,” Laurie said, tweaking Amy’s nose. “I don’t know. Can you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  It should have tickled him, Trey thought, to have two little girls draw pictures just for him, and on one level it did. But if he was so damn pleased about it, why was there suddenly a lump in his throat the size of Utah?

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Trey, don’t you like them?”

  “They’re—” he had to pause and clear his throat “—they’re great, Carrie. I just never had anybody draw me pictures before. I don’t know what to say.”

  “See?” Amy said. “That’s Soldier.”

  “It sure is. And that’s you and Carrie on his back.”

  “And this is you and Mama in this one.” Carrie held out yet another drawing.

  “We did them for you,” Amy said. “So when we go home you won’t forget us.”

  “Forget you?” Trey said, feeling a kick in his gut at the thought of them returning to Utah. “Why would I forget you? I’m not gonna let you go home.”

  Amy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  Carrie rolled her eyes. “He’s just kidding, silly.” Then, after a frown and a pause, “Aren’t you?”

  Trey winked. “Maybe.”

  “They really got to you, didn’t they,” Laurie said after the girls left the supper table.

  “Yeah,” Trey said smiling. “God, they’re great kids.”

  “They are,” she said softly. “They’re the best.”

  “If I do half as good a job raising Katy as you’re doing with those two, I’ll count myself a success.”

  “Thank you. But I think they’ve more or less raised themselves.”

  “No way,” he protested. “I’ve seen you with them, guiding them, teaching them, playing with them. You’re a born mother. What’s Katy going to be like growing up without a mother?”

  “It’s not the sex of the parent that counts,” Laurie told him. “It’s the caring.”

  “Sex?” Trey straightened and grinned hopefully. “Single parents get to have sex?”

  “Not this single parent,” she said with chagrin. Then her eyes bugged and she slapped a hand over her mouth.

  Trey chuckled and shook his head sadly.

  Laurie dropped her head into her hands and groaned. “I can’t believe I said that.”

  “We really ought to do something about it.” Finished eating, he pushed his plate away and folded his arms across his chest. “It can’t be healthy.”

  Another groan. “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “Neither can I,” he admitted. “I’m usually much more romantic.”

  Laurie splayed her fingers and peered through them. “Romantic?”

  “That’s right. You don’t think I can be romantic?”

  Laurie lowered her hands and gave him a teasing smirk. “Would that be before or after you come in from having worked on the tractor all day and are covered in grease and oil and Lord knows what else from head to toe?”

  “Ouch. Okay, so I haven’t shown you my romantic side.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “Want me to?”

  Laurie imagined for one brief moment what it might be like to have Trey Wilder’s considerable charm directed solely at her, an all-out romantic assault. She had no trouble imagining what it would be like, how she would feel. But she couldn’t, for the life of her, picture herself afterward. Was that because there would be nothing left…because he would have overwhelmed her, and she would have given him all of herself?

  She shuddered and shook her head. “No, thanks.” Getting up from the table, she carried her plate and utensils to the sink. “Who’s got time for romance these days, anyway?”

  “Who’s got time?” Trey said in protest as he picked up his own dishes and followed her to the sink. “For romance, you make time.”

  “With your baby and my two daughters? Get serious.”

  When she reached both hands into the sink, Trey moved
in behind her and bracketed her with his arms, his chest a scant inch from her back. “I’d like to,” he said quietly.

  Feeling his heat suddenly surrounding her, Laurie stiffened. “What are you doing?”

  “You said to get serious.”

  Another shudder raced through her. “Trey.”

  He nuzzled his nose against the side of her neck. “I know you feel it, too.”

  Laurie’s mind was going blank. “Feel what?”

  “The energy, the heat. The electricity that snaps in the air when we get close to each other. I know you feel it.”

  Her knees were going weak. “Trey.”

  “Turn around, Laurie, and I’ll show you what I mean.”

  “Trey, I don’t—”

  “Turn around,” he whispered.

  Somehow, for some unknown reason, she found herself turning, reaching, sliding her arms around his neck. She didn’t wait for his next move. He had teased her and tormented her and made promises with his eyes and his voice. She wanted what he’d promised, and she wanted it now. She pulled his head down and took his mouth with hers.

  It was Trey who groaned. He thought. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered just then except kissing her. He curled himself around her and kissed her back.

  He felt her everywhere: her legs were aligned with his; her breasts pressed against his chest; her belly cushioned his growing erection. When he nudged his hips against her, it was her turn to moan.

  Laurie felt the hardness that hadn’t been there a moment ago. It made her want. Heat and dampness pooled deep inside of her and had her stretching up onto her toes in an attempt to put that hardness against the place where she craved it.

  It was the whimper of need coming from her own throat that brought Laurie to her senses. “We can’t do this,” she managed, her breath coming in gasps.

  Trey lowered his head and placed his hot, open mouth against the side of her neck.

  “Trey, stop. We can’t…oh…Trey…”

  “Not here,” he agreed, his own breath coming hard and fast. “Not now. But soon, Laurie. Soon.”

  “Trey.” She braced her hands on his shoulders and tried to push him back, since she was already against the counter. It was like pushing on a brick wall. Except he was warm.