“What do I want?”
Nick reached for her, pulling her closer to him, tangling his fingers in her hair, lowering his lips to her neck, and nibbling his way down to her shoulder. “This.”
Diana closed her eyes, moaning softly, leaning her head back, giving him more access. He had given her another chance to let him know commitment between them didn’t matter. Even if it did, she would put that aside, and take the chance that he’d realize she was important to him. She had to use the opportunity now, or maybe lose it forever.
She couldn’t lose. She wanted to give him the same kind of image to think about, something that would drive him crazy with desire, with longing, like the one he had left her with in the bedroom. The one of them naked together.
She moved even closer to him, barely touching his body, but touching all the same. The tips of her breasts burned against his chest, her stomach and legs became weak from grazing against his.
She moved back slightly staring into his eyes. Her voice all husky and wanting asked, “Are you going to treat my body like one of the homes you build? Like something that needs to be stroked gently with a paintbrush, and lovingly molded to fit the owner’s needs?”
That’s all it took for Nick to draw her flush to him, kissing her hard and raw. His tongue glided into her mouth, exploring, seeking, working its mystical magic on her senses. He must have known her legs had become weak, because he leaned her against the counter for support. His hands slipped under her shirt, kneading her waist, her ribs, inching higher. His thumbs skimmed the soft, tender skin beneath her breasts, feeling their weight, rubbing over her sensitive nipples. She leaned into him, wanting more, much more. She felt his erection against her very core, and rotated herself around him, clinging to his shoulders, feeling him shudder, listening to the masculine sounds coming from deep inside him. She knew she gave him as much pleasure as he gave to her, still that wasn’t enough. She wanted more of him. She needed him buried deep inside her. Fantasy wasn’t good anymore. She wanted the real man.
Diana heard Jessica laughing, somehow, through the fog of passion floating in her brain. She realized the sound had gotten farther and farther away. She slowly, regretfully, broke their kiss. Before he could recapture her, she looked down to where Jessica had been. Then her world tilted. “Where is she?”
“Who?”
“Jessica.”
“She was right here,” he said, pointing down where Jessica had been.
Diana glanced all over the floor but didn’t see Jessica. She looked at Nick. He didn’t seem too steady after their kiss either. “Where did she go?” she asked.
They heard the baby chuckling at the same time, and both scrambled around the kitchen’s island and headed through the doorway, and a short distance down the hall, following the laughter. Diana spotted Jessica just as she was putting a little moth in her mouth and closing her lips. “Stop! Jessica! No! Don’t eat that!”
Jessica’s little body gave a startled jump when Diana shouted her warning. The baby looked up at her, wide-eyed, a tiny white wing hung between her lips.
“Oh, Jessica. We don’t eat insects.”
“No, we don’t,” Nick seconded. “We eat snails.”
“Don’t give her any ideas.” Diana glared at him as she pulled the bug out of Jessica’s mouth. She had to stop herself from running the baby over to the sink and washing her mouth out with disinfectant. She forced herself to contain the anxiety coming over her. “Jessica, please say you pulled off the moth’s other wing and it’s on the floor someplace. Please don’t tell me you’ve eaten it” Diana tilted her head toward Nick and whispered out the side of her mouth. “Do we need to call poison control?”
“What for? Eating a bug? I probably swallowed hundreds of them—now, Diana, you don’t have to wipe your lips off. I didn’t eat one before I kissed you.”
Her hand dropped. “It’s not nice to make fun of a worried caregiver.”
“Oh, come on.” Nick acted all smug as if being a man made him the insect expert. “You know when you’re a kid eating bugs is a fact of life.”
“Not my life. Anyway, the point is, what if the moth had insecticide on it?” She could be self-righteous, too.
“She didn’t eat it, did she?”
“I don’t know, where’s the other wing?”
“Don’t worry about it. She’ll be all right.”
“I have to worry. When you asked me to watch her, you gave me the worrying responsibility, too.”
“All right, you win. I’ll get the number of poison control and call,” he said like a long-suffering male. “I’m only doing this to prove she’s okay.”
“Thank you, Nick.” Diana stood back up and hugged him. Heartbeat to heartbeat. Rigid muscle to softer flesh. His very strong sex zeroed straight toward her womanly center. She leaned further into him, needing to feel his closeness, his hardness, his warmth.
He rubbed his palm on her back and drew her even closer. “Thank you for caring, Diana. Not many people would.”
“It’s my responsibility.”
“Is that what it is?” He rested his cheek on the top of her head.
“Yes.” He felt so good. He smelled even better. She closed her eyes, and just let herself take him in. “For now.”
“For now,” he repeated, dropping his arms, stepping away. “I’ll call poison control.”
Diana scooped Jessica up and hugged her, too. “Just between us girls, if anything good comes out of this I’ll name our firstborn after you.”
She returned the baby to the kitchen floor where she’d been originally and gave her back the bowl and spoon. “I have another idea. We’ll have a moth funeral, and then eat breakfast. We’ll bury the moth in dirt, not in your belly. Insect protein is good for some people, but I have a better breakfast planned for you.”
“Pancakes?” Nick asked when he came back in the kitchen.
“Haven’t you given up on those yet?”
“I’ll never give up.”
“Okay, live in your fantasy world.” Diana certainly had lived in her own for a long, long time. “Is Jessica going to have to have her stomach pumped?”
“She’s fine. I thought I heard you planning something else for her.”
“We are. We’re going to have a funeral for the moth. You’ve got this wonderful ivy sitting right here by the window. Do you think we should pray?”
“For pancakes?”
“Nick! Get over it. You’ll eat your carrots and like them.”
“They’re canned.”
“I know. They’re as good as fresh. Alicia told me I grew up on them, and look at me now.” She spread her arms wide, and gave him a good view of her body.
“You’ve convinced me. Bring them on.”
“All right. That’s what I like to see, a man who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to say so.” She turned to Jessica. “Say bye-bye to the little mothy.” Diana took Jessica’s hand and waved it at the planter. “Bye-bye.”
“Bye-bye,” said Jessica.
“Diana, did you hear that?” Nick shouted in her ear.
Ouch. “Hear what?” She had jumped back, which made Jessica bounce in her arms, causing a string of giggles.
“Jessica said bye-bye.” Nick lowered his voice, his excitement turning to stunned awe. “Two new words. Bye and bye.”
“I’m positive that doesn’t count as two.”
“Bye-bye is two,” he said adamantly.
“On second thought, it sure is.” The way Nick said bye-bye, made her think night-night Kiss-kiss. Hug-hug. Ohoh. She gathered her wits and stomped on her jumbled electrodes. “Babies do that, Nick. They say bye-bye.” She cleared her throat to get her voice back to normal. “So do grown-ups.”
“Jessica’s one and only word is and always has been no. She can say no with different expressions, she can say no in different languages even. At least we think they are, no one can really understand her.” He shrugged those massive shoulders. “But you got her to say
bye-bye. Diana you’re a miracle worker.”
“Thank you.” Getting a compliment from Nick was better than when she discovered her chocolate calorie-buster pill had the possibility of working.
“Throw on some shoes.” Nick hurried out of the kitchen. “I’m taking us all out to celebrate. How about pancakes?”
“Nick,” she called after him.
He stopped in his tracks, looking back at her with a devious expression across his handsome face.
“I’m being conned aren’t I?”
“Do you want to be?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “Sure. Let’s go.”
10
AFTER DIANA AND NICK had finished eating breakfast, and Jessica had finished decorating the carpet, walls, her clothes and the hair of the man sitting in the booth next to her, Diana insisted Nick drive to Barrington’s Bookstore.
“I told you Cathy called and she’ll be home day after tomorrow,” Nick said. “There’s no reason to go to the bookstore anymore.”
“That’s all the more reason to go. You don’t want anything to happen to Jessica in the last few days you have left, do you?” Diana placed her hand on Nick’s biceps. “That moth scared me.” Now she understood how Professor Penleigh felt about the fire. Devastating.
“It was only a little moth.”
“You know what I mean,” she said.
“Listen to me, Diana, it’s silly the way you’re getting all worked up about this. It’s not that important. You know the government even allows a certain amount of insect remains in your food, like your cereal.”
“No, I didn’t,” Diana squinted her eyes at him. “That is so disgusting. I can’t believe you’re telling me this.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing I don’t eat cereal.” She crossed her arms under her chest. “Anyway, you’re missing the point.”
“And that is?”
“What would you do if it had been a tarantula?”
“Taken her to the hospital.”
“Or a black widow spider?”
“Taken her to the hospital.”
“What about a mosquito carrying Saint Louis encephalitis? And without the books, we wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Same thing. Taken her to the hospital.”
“Fine. Where’s the hospital?”
“They’re all over the place.”
“Would you pay cash? Have insurance?”
“All right, Diana. I understand you’re worried. And I know that all those things can happen, but they’re rare. I don’t think those spiders even live in our area. I’m not sure they even live in Texas.”
“Maybe they do, maybe they don’t But you know, Nick, I don’t have good luck with things. It would be my bad luck that something bad would happen to Jessica while I was watching her, and then I’d never forgive myself. This will help me be less worried.”
“I don’t mind going. I only think it’s a waste of time.”
“What would you rather do?”
He sent her a you-know-what grin. “Not a thing. My day is yours.”
“In that case, I have to go to the grocery store—”
“Not quite what I had in mind, but since we do need cereal, I’ll be sure and check the insect by-product on the package label. But I’m putting my foot down on the macaroni.”
“Is that a no more for real, or just a no more for maybe?”
“For real. I’m going to have food brought in.”
“I’m not going to argue with that. Did you invite your father to our party of five, or will it only be three?”
“Not yet. By the way, I have some news that might make you feel better about your luck.” Nick proceeded to tell Diana about her mother’s experiments, and ensuing mishaps.
“Are you saying my mother and I did the same thing?”
“Seems like that’s the case.”
“And so it wasn’t the White Envelope Incident. These things would have happened anyway.” Fate. Destiny. Written in the book of life.
“What white envelope incident?”
“Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
“No you weren’t Are you going to tell me?
Diana handed Jessica a soda cracker. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m going to write to every president and every dean of every university I’ve been asked to leave,” she said as they drove to the bookstore. “I’m going to tell them that I am sorry for what happened, and that I understand their pain.”
“So you’re not going to tell me,” Nick said. “That’s okay. I can wait”
She smiled at him and squeezed his arm. “Thank you.”
When they arrived at Barrington’s, Nick insisted that he hold Jessica. This was good. Jessica didn’t scream much, although she had tears streaming down her face. Diana didn’t know if it was Nick, or whether there was actually something wrong with the child. She hoped she’d find some clue in one of the books.
Diana walked up to a man in a Barrington’s uniform, and asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me if you have a book about how to take care of a baby?” She pointed to where Jessica and Nick had been standing only seconds ago. Now there was empty space. Great Where could they have gone?
The salesperson looked at Diana with red-veined bloodshot eyes that even wire-rim glasses couldn’t hide. Diana repeated the question.
Finally he uttered, “Yeah. We have books.” He went back to stocking shelves.
She waited a few moments for him to complete his answer. When he didn’t, she asked, “Can you tell me where?”
Without looking up, he pointed in the general direction of the ceiling. Diana read the signs, and spotted “Children.”
Diana said, “I know those are children’s books. I’m looking for books that tell about how to raise a child.”
This time he waved his arm to the opposite side, where another sign said Child Care and Diet. It was no wonder she hadn’t seen it. The sign had been hidden by another that read Sex and Impotence.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You diet so you can have sex, then you have children and become impotent?”
His jaw slacked. “Huh?”
She left him and went searching for Nick and Jessica somewhere in this monster three-story building. “Where are you, Jessica?” she called out very softly. The tall bookcases and the quiet atmosphere made Barrington’s seem more like a library than a bookstore. She tried a little louder. “Yoo-hoo, where are you, Nick?” Okay, this was a typical man thing. He said he’d go shopping then he disappears. She figured he probably took Jessica outside. She knew if Jessica and Nick were here together, she’d hear Jessica a mile away.
Diana stopped at the child-care book section. Oh, Lordy. What was she supposed to do now? How could there possibly be this many books? How could she possibly figure out which was the best? She thought about going back and asking the salesclerk. Bad idea.
This was silly. All she needed was a book that had, One Year Old in the title. Something to tell her what they ate, when they went to sleep and when they woke up. Something to tell her how many words should be in their vocabulary, besides the word no. How much crying they’re supposed to do. Something about the psychology of a normal one-year-old. If Jessica was normal.
Diana pulled Cathy’s list out of her purse. Her instructions were fine to a certain extent The problem was, they were more for a person who had some experience with children and babies.
The books were filed in alphabetical order, and not by subject matter. She had to go through each book, one by one, until she had a pretty good selection. Gathering them together, she decided to circle the store one more time in case Nick and Jessica were still there.
NICK KNEW Barrington’s pretty well. When he worked for his dad, they had built the building. Since that time, he liked to come in on Sundays, buy coffee and a paper, and sit outside.
He hadn’t been over to the children’s play area since the bookstore had opened.
Now,
as he stood on the outside of the little carpeted arena, he could see in action what he’d been told in theory would work. Barrington’s had hired college students who needed early-childhood-development credits to work and watch over the children as their parents shopped.
The play area was crowded and Jessica squirmed in his arms, only too eager to get down. As soon as he put her inside the arena, she half walked, half crawled to a wire structure with wooded balls looped throughout She promptly attacked the thing, and seemed happy and content doing just that.
One of the mothers standing around pointed to Jessica and asked if she had a cold.
“No,” he said.
“Her nose is all stuffed up.”
“Allergies.” That seemed like a good thing to say. Everyone in Texas had allergies. Conversations centered around which brand of decongestants worked best. Everyone in his family had had allergies when they were young. Besides, he’d rather say Jessica had allergies than she hated his guts.
The mother next to him nodded in understanding and started a discourse on her own son’s allergies. Nick tried to look interested and nodded in what he hoped were the right places. What he had learned since Cathy had given birth was that a baby gave every stranger in the vicinity a license to become a mother’s, and now apparently an uncle’s, best friend. They offered advice whether he wanted it or not.
Where was Diana?
He let the lady drone on and watched Jessica leave the wire-and-wooden-balls toy and toddle over, on shaky legs, to where some other kid was quietly reading a book. She plopped herself on the carpet and grabbed the book out of the kid’s hand. “No,” she screamed at him, then scooted on her bottom in a half circle, giving the poor little boy whose book she stole her back. “Bye-bye.”
The other child walloped Jessica. Jessica turned around, slinging the book at him. “Nooooo! Bye-bye.”
The incident happened so fast Nick barely had time to get into the arena and retrieve his niece before she gave the boy a black eye with the corner of the book.
The little boy repeated, “Mine…mine…mine,” as he grabbed one end of the book.
Jessica held on to the other end, yelling, “No…no…no.”
Kidnapped / I Got You Babe Page 29