Did he love her enough to do that? Could he survive the gut-wrenching emotions that flooded him at the thought of another man making love to her?
He looked at the drawn face of the woman who meant the world to him, the mother of his children, who was suffering losses so traumatic that her health and that of her unborn children were jeopardized. What sacrifice would he make for her? For her happiness? A calm feeling of inevitability filled him, much like the feeling that enveloped him before he went into battle: acceptance of whatever was to come.
“Yes, I’d make any sacrifice, Kayla. Anything you want.”
“You’d accept Harm as part of our family?” She asked wistfully, adding, “I find that hard to believe, given what you’ve said before.”
“I won’t leave you again, Kayla. I promise you that. And dammit, you are not going to leave me, either.”
She smiled wanly. “I’m so tired, Trey. Hold me for a while.”
He lay down beside her, gathered her frail body, and cradled her in a rocking motion, kissing the top of her head. He didn’t even try to stop his own tears from falling as he said, “I love you, Kayla. God, I love you so much. Fight to get stronger, honey. Fight for me and our babies.”
He held her that way until she closed her eyes. His heart hammered in terror when she grew alarmingly still. He was afraid she had released that tenuous grip on life she seemed to be holding on to. He almost shook her, but then noticed the gentle rise and fall of her chest and knew she was only sleeping.
Careful not to wake her, he slipped his arm from beneath her shoulders and slid off the bed, then drew the covers up to her chin.
He quietly left her bedroom and the apartment and went downstairs to the kitchen, looking for Harm. He found him sitting at the kitchen island, sipping coffee. Without asking, Harm rose, poured him a cup, and slid back onto the stool as he handed it to him.
“She looks so weak,” Trey said.
“She is. But I think now that she’s seen you and knows you’re going to be with her, she’ll get stronger,” Harm said tersely.
Trey studied him quietly, thinking he had never seen a man looking more broken, more defeated.
“So what are your plans now, Harm?”
He shook his head. “Other than touching base with my partner in L.A., getting more hands-on with the business, I don’t know what I’ll do. Last report, our chain of tattoo salons was doing well, so I guess I’ll continue to leave the day-to-day running of things up to my partner. Why stir the pot when the stew is done, right? Maybe I’ll just bum around awhile, try to get my bearings.”
Pushing up, he said wearily, “Well, hell, I guess I’d better get to packing.”
“Wait. I don’t think you should go, Harm. You should stay, at least until after the babies are born. The stress of you leaving wouldn’t be good for Kayla. Don’t you agree?”
“Yeah, but I thought you’d want me gone pronto.”
“Harm, we both love her, and we both want what’s best for her. And God, man, I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am that you let me know about the twins. Can’t say as I’m thrilled with the tangle of our lives. I never wanted to be part of a polyandry lifestyle, but for Kayla—let’s just say I’m giving it some thought.”
Harm went over to the coffee maker to replenish his cup. When he turned to face Trey, his face was expressionless. “Why the change of heart?”
Trey shrugged. “I guess I’m finally realizing how much I love and need Kayla.”
Harm shook his head. “It’s not just your decision to make, you know.”
Trey nodded. “Yeah. I know, but for now, I think us staying together is something we both have to live with, for the sake of Kayla and those babies. I know we may never be friends, Harm, but we can accept each other for the time being, for Kayla’s sake.”
Raking a nervous hand through his spiky hair, Harm snorted, “Stay together, huh? Never heard that one before. Guess that’s about the same as a ménage a trois, only in this case, without the sex.”
Trey flinched at that reference, not wanting to think of Kayla and this man together, or the other men who had been with her, but he remained silent.
“Well, as far as not being friends goes,” Harm continued, “frankly, I never thought I could even be in the same room with the guy I wanted to kill as badly as I’ve wanted to kill you. Guess we’ll both discover the real meaning of tolerance in the next few weeks. So, yeah, I’ll stay—at least ‘til the babies are born. The most important thing here is that we get Kayla back on her feet, physically and mentally. And I believe, as you obviously do, that it might take both of us with her, reassuring her and putting aside whatever animosity is between us, to get her there.”
They sipped coffee in silence for awhile then Trey said, “Sometimes love can be a son-of-a-bitch.”
“Ain’t it the truth!” Harm gritted.
CHAPTER 29
New beginnings
In the weeks that followed, Trey and Harm grew to know and accept each other as they both tended to Kayla’s needs, many times appearing in her bedroom together and smiling as though they were, indeed, good friends and eager to be a united family. If she saw beneath their facade, she never let on.
Though neither Trey nor Harm would have gone so far as to say they had actually developed a friendship, both would have admitted to having gained mutual respect, one for the other. And having them so attentive, Kayla began to rally. She ate better and seemed to be getting stronger daily. Some nights, when she asked that they both lie beside her, they did without hesitation, one to each side, and she slept peacefully.
* * *
The weather had warmed enough for Kayla to sit outside by the pool in the wheelchair she still had to use when she was out of bed. Trey wheeled her to the pool and sat beside her on a chaise lounge as she dozed in the mid-afternoon sun. His cell phone vibrated. He rose and quickly moved a few yards away to take the call, not wanting to disturb Kayla. It was Jerry.
“What’s up, good buddy?” Trey asked. Jerry seldom called unless there was a decision to be made about FSF he didn’t feel comfortable making without Trey’s input.
“Just wanted you to be the first to know Sarah has agreed to make an honest man out of me.” Jerry’s voice betrayed his hardly restrained excitement.
“You’re shittin’ me! Is she crazy?” Trey was grinning widely, hearing Jerry sound so happy. “So when’s the big day?”
“As soon as you get back. Can’t have a wedding without a best man, and that’s you, you know.”
“You better never forget that, Corporal! Congratulations, man. I’m happy for the two of you. She’s a great woman. You better treat her right or you’ll have my foot up your ass.”
After a few more minutes of conversation, Trey disconnected and turned around to find Kayla awake and regarding him curiously from her chair. “Good news?” she asked.
Trey couldn’t contain his elation. “The best. My buddy and business partner is getting married. The woman in question is Sarah, our office manager. They’re a great pair.”
Trey moved closer to sit beside her. He leaned to give her a kiss, glad to see some color back in her cheeks. Even her hair had lost that dull, lifeless look. When their lips parted, Kayla smiled at him, and just like that, his heart tripped. Suddenly, he was filled with a deep envy for Jerry and Sarah, and immediately felt guilty.
Hell, I don’t begrudge them their happiness. I just wish—God, I just wish….
Kayla’s smile faded, and she reached out to touch his face as she asked, “Trey, my darling Trey, is it so bad?”
Trey knew she’d read his expression, as she so often did, and he tried to pretend he didn’t know what she was alluding to, but he couldn’t. “Dammit, Kayla. I want you to be my wife for real. I want the whole nine yards—the paper—the preacher—the vows. I want it all, but most of all, I want it before our babies are born.”
Once again he took her lips with a desperation that almost unmanned him. Kayla mad
e a little hungry sound at the back of her throat as he tongue-traced her lips then delved inside, savoring her taste, the feel of her. All the pent-up needs he had been denying for so long threatened to overwhelm him. He felt his cock jerk in response. Then he came to his senses.
What the hell am I doing?
He broke off the kiss and studied her face. Kayla’s flushed cheeks and closed eyes almost did him in. He wanted her with every fiber of his being, and he moved back a little. Running a hand through his hair, he apologized.
“I—I’m sorry, Kayla. I—“
“No. Don’t apologize,” she whispered, her green eyes dark with want for him. “I’ve needed that, Trey. Maybe more than you. I just hadn’t realized how much.”
Cradling her face in his hands, Trey kissed her again. This time gently, tenderly, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. Then he trailed kisses down the side of her neck where he knew she was sensitive.
With a strangled little cry, Kayla grasped his head, her fingers tunneling through his thick hair, as she pulled him down for a hot, wet kiss.
God, I love him so much. How did I think I could live without him—under any circumstances?
Trey gently but firmly gripped her wrists and drew her away. His blue eyes blazed with a passion that was on the verge of sending him into a super nova. “Kayla…Kayla…” He gently pressed his forehead to hers. “Don’t, sweetheart. You’re killing me, you know that?”
Kayla chuckled, her heart suddenly expanding with joy. “I’m not doing so well myself. God, I forgot how much electricity there was between us.”
“Yeah, electricity—and more.” Trey’s eyes bored into her soul. The love she saw there stole her breath.
“Yes, darling. Much more...”
Harm had watched the intense interlude between then. It hurt more than he believed anything could. He turned from the sliding glass doors to the patio leading to the pool, the feeling of desolation shadowing him all the way back to his suite.
* * *
As Kayla’s delivery date drew near, Trey found himself appreciating Harm more and more. It still galled him to think of Harm’s having been intimate with Kayla much longer than he had had the opportunity to be, but he began to understand why she had welcomed the man into her home and into her life. He was sensitive and gentle with her, and it was obvious he wanted what was best for her.
Trey realized that in any other context, he and Harm Pranston would probably have become best friends, as unlikely a pair as they were. Getting beyond the tattoos and the forced, on-the-surface bravado, Trey came to recognize Harm as a man of deep commitment and integrity.
Many times, after Kayla was sleeping peacefully, Harm and Trey talked well into the night, both silently drawing the conclusion that the other was not the SOB he had originally thought.
When Trey confided he was in the market for investors in his new firm, especially in the personal security division they were thinking of opening in Los Angeles, with an eye toward garnering high-profile celebrity business, Harm said he might be interested, that he actually had a lot of those kinds of clients frequenting his salon.
After that particular discussion, when they had agreed on meeting later to perhaps go over details of such an investment, Harm snorted a laugh.
“If someone had told me three weeks ago that you and I would be discussing collaborative opportunities, or even that we’d be on speaking terms, I would have told them they were nuts. Just goes to show you never know what’s around the next bend, huh? I went from hating your guts, man, to thinking hell, you aren’t half bad.”
Recognizing the irony, Trey chuckled. “Same with me.” Then he held out his hand and Harm shook it, nodding.
“Guess it’s settled then. Later, after the twins are born and we know Kayla is okay, we’ll talk it over.”
They both were startled when they heard Kayla call out for them over the intercom.
“Trey? Guys, better get up here pronto!”
They bounded up the stairs and into her suite. Kayla was sitting up on the side of her bed, her face in a grimace.
“Kayla, are you in pain?” Trey cried.
“I’m wet because my water just broke, and yes, I’m in pain too,” she declared. “My contractions have started.”
The bedroom became a hive of frantic activity—Harm jumped on the phone to the doctor; Trey snatched up the suitcase with things they were to take to the hospital. Kayla watched them with a look of painful amusement.
“Maybe we should call an ambulance,” Trey said as Kayla moaned through another contraction. Then she laughed.
“Only if you two yahoos are too wound up to drive. The contractions are still far enough apart that we can make it to the hospital in a regular car.”
But then she moaned again, and Trey more or less lost it. “Dammit, I’m calling an ambulance.”
Harm patted his back. “Calm down, man. We can make it. But I’m driving.”
“Bless you, Harm, for keeping a calm head,” Kayla said. “I have a feeling the father of these twins isn’t going to be much help.”
Trey pulled himself together enough to assist Harm in helping Kayla discard her soiled nightgown and slip on a maternity smock, her robe, and slippers. Together they placed her in her wheelchair though she protested that she could walk to the stairs. Working as a team, they carefully wheeled Kayla to the chairlift they had had installed and seated her. As it descended, Trey walked beside her, holding her hand, while Harm bolted down the stairs to start the car.
Harm met them at the side door, helped Kayla down the three steps into the garage, and placed her gently in the back seat, then he climbed behind the wheel. Trey folded the wheelchair, stashed it in the trunk, then settled next to Kayla in the back seat. He leaned to kiss her just as another contraction contorted her face.
“Breathe, baby. Remember what we practiced,” he urged her. Though they hadn’t been to a regular Lamaze class due to her imposed bed rest, they had read the pamphlets the doctor had given them and knew the procedures, and they all had been practicing.
Now they all breathed in and puffed out together and soon Kayla was laughing through her pain, at how ludicrous they sounded.
They weren’t that far from Baptist Medical where her doctor was, and there wasn’t much traffic so they arrived within ten minutes. Harm unloaded the wheelchair. Trey lifted Kayla out and gently placed her in it to wheel her into the emergency room.
As Harm talked to admitting, Trey kissed Kayla’s hand, whispering, “Kayla, as soon as you are back on your feet, we are getting married. I want these babies to legally bear my name. I love you so much, honey.”
“And I love you,” she said as the nurse came to wheel her away.
The two men watched her being whisked off, then they were directed by another nurse to the waiting room for expectant fathers. Within ten minutes, Kayla’s obstetrician, Dr. Mayes, stuck her head through the door. “It might be awhile before the babies arrive, but as soon as Kayla is prepped, you can stay with her, Mr. Cameron.”
At first when Kayla became her patient, the doctor had thought that Harm was the father, and she was pleasantly surprised when the real father, Trey Cameron, turned up. He had turned out to be better than any medicine Dr. Mayes could prescribe for Kayla, because she immediately began to show marked improvement.
Trey spoke up as she turned to go. “We'd both like to be with her, Dr. Mayes. I think she needs us both.”
Harm gave him a thank-you nod and the doctor said okay, with one last curious look at them. “I’ll send a nurse to instruct you as soon as Kayla is ready.”
Thirty minutes later the nurse appeared, and they followed her to Kayla’s private room. Though neither voiced it, both were a little taken back by the monitors hooked to her keeping track of the fetal heartbeats as well as her own.
Trey swallowed hard, forcing a smile to his face as he leaned to reassure her. “Won’t be long now, my love, and we will be welcoming our twins into this world.”
“Looks like we’re faced with a placenta previa, so it’s going to have to be a Caesarean birth. We need to get those babies out pronto. But don’t worry—everything is going to be all right. Kayla is in no immediate danger, and the twins’ heartbeats are strong.”
“C-section?” Harm’s face paled.
“What’s a placenta previa?” Trey asked at the same time.
“It means the placenta is partially blocking the cervical opening, and since Kayla has been struggling with health issues and we’re dealing with twins, it’s best if we do a C-section.”
After that, things proceeded rapidly, though to Trey and Harm, the next hours were the longest of their lives.
* * *
When Trey saw his sons in the hospital nursery for the first time, he was so stunned he wasn’t even aware of Harm patting his shoulder and congratulating him. Then they were allowed in to see Kayla, who was exhausted and drowsy.
Trey kissed her gently. “We’ve got two perfect boys, honey. Perfect, beautiful boys. Thank you.”
Harm moved close to squeeze her hand. “How’re you feeling, love?”
Kayla smiled dreamily. “Fine. A bit sore, but fine.”
Breathing a sigh of relief that it was over and Kayla and the babies were all right, Harm stepped out into the hallway, leaving Trey with her. He walked to the bank of windows at the end of the hallway and stared out into the night, frowning as old memories slammed into his consciousness.
Shadowy figures from his past floated through his mind. He felt almost smothered as the hospital smells assaulted his senses. A part of his past he had determinedly long buried suddenly resurfaced and twisted in his gut.
Uncensored Passion (Men of Passion) Page 24