An Unexpected Addition

by Terese Ramin

  The dream was a pleasure so intense he didn’t want to wake.

  He was in Kate’s bed, his hands filled with her hair. Her mouth was on him everywhere, her tongue running in long, slow torture over his chest, his nipples, down his stomach, tickling his belly. Gliding wetly through the furl of hair on his abdomen, into the nest of his thighs. She flicked the tip of her tongue up his jutting length, then took a slower, heavier taste, finally taking him into her mouth.

  He didn’t know if he made a sound, but he couldn’t lie still. His heels and shoulders dug into the mattress, bowing his body taut. His lungs sobbed for air.

  He tried to pull her off, to tell her he couldn’t hold on, but didn’t know if he succeeded. Then he felt the rub of her nipples up his chest, tasted himself on her tongue when she kissed him and straddled him. He thought he held her away, pleaded with her to wait until he could protect her. Thought he heard her gentle his protests with the promise that she didn’t need or want protection from him, that caution of that nature wasn’t necessary any longer, so please, Hank, let me love you.

  Then, because neither his body nor his heart could say no to that, he found himself suddenly taking charge, turning her so he could touch and taste and taste and touch...driving her as she’d driven him until he couldn’t hold back anymore, until all he could do was enter her, fill her. Slide and pump, strain and gasp and meet her until they were no longer two hearts beating in syncopation but one pulsing to a single rhythm. Until they were a stormy jumble in the center of her bed, mouths fused to catch and hold each other’s cries, bodies joined so tightly, so smoothly it was impossible to tell where his ended and hers began.

  Shaking in the aftermath, he thought he heard her say it, words he badly wanted to hear but couldn’t say for fear of cheapening them, “I love you.”

  But it was only a dream and dreams often lied, so he couldn’t be sure and didn’t ask the dream Kate to repeat it. Then the dream faded and he slept the sleep of the dead with Kate wrapped around him.

  It was late dawn before the whine of the back screen door opening and closing woke him. Groggy and disoriented, he rolled out of bed and stood swaying in the morning light, trying to get his bearings.

  He was on the east side of the house, not the west as he should be. He blinked and looked at the filmy half curtains and valances, the short, wide rocking chair with its green flowered cushions, the mirrored dresser and small antique writing desk. Kate’s room. And he was naked, alone.

  Confusion and a kind of startled amusement pulsed through him in equal measures. What the hell had he done? And wasn’t not knowing where he was or how he’d gotten here exactly where he’d come into this thing with Megan and Stone House and Kate two months ago?

  He had a vague memory of falling asleep with Kate, but the rest of it...he had no memory of shedding his clothes, even in his dream, no memory of anything except the incredible intensity of passion and the most profound sense of completion and peace he’d ever felt in his life.

  Except judging from his current state of undress, it probably hadn’t been a dream.

  He shut his eyes and breathed. Memory woke. God, no, not a dream. Certainly not the fact that he’d crossed a line and slept the night in her bed. Certainly not the physical part. As for the rest... He couldn’t be sure about the rest, but he had to find Kate. They had a lot to discuss.

  His gym shorts were on the floor beside the bed; he picked them up and slid into them, stepped to the door and slipped into the hall.

  And ran into Tai.

  Shoes in hand, Kate’s eldest son stopped dead at the foot of the stairs and gaped at Hank. Hank stared back. Between them flared an awkward silence. Hank broke it first.

  “Morning, Tai.”

  “You slept with my mother last night,” Tai responded. Straight to the point, every bit his mother’s son.

  Hank grimaced. So much for the assumption of innocence until proven guilty.

  “Yep.” He nodded, surprised by how easy the admission proved. “I did.” He crossed his arms and propped his shoulder comfortably against the wall, a man on a mission that had yet to be revealed. “You just getting in from Carly’s?”

  Tai’s turn to look uncomfortable—briefly. “Not that it’s your business.”

  A smile ghosted Hank’s features and retreated. “Nor this yours,” he agreed.

  “She’s my mother,” Tai pointed out “I got a sister and younger brothers to look out for.”

  Hank nodded, not the least offended. “Yes, you do, you’re right. But your mother’s a grown-up and my intentions are...honorable.”

  Tai flattened an unruly grin. “I kinda thought so, but I had to check.”

  Flabbergasted, Hank stared at him.

  Tai shrugged, didn’t bother hiding the smile this time. “You guys were on the porch swing when I got home one night a couple weeks ago. You were too...busy...to hear me when I hit the porch. I turned around and came in the back way.”

  For the first time in twenty years, embarrassment climbed Hank’s neck. Great, just great. He was farther gone on Kate than even he had realized if he couldn’t even hear one of her kids approaching when he was kissing her. Or whatevering her. Especially whatevering her.

  Mortification climbed higher, into his cheeks. Geez Louise. ‘Caught necking and petting—and he hadn’t even known he’d been caught—by a twenty-one-year-old with a sense of humor. Exactly what he needed. Who else had seen them that he didn’t know about?

  The question must have been written on his face because Tai’s grin broadened. “Li saw the two of you come back from the pond one night pretty late, too. Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t try the bed sooner. The ground must be pretty tough on older bones and—”

  “Tai!” Kate exclaimed, dumbfounded, coming out of the living room behind him. Tai reddened at the sight of her. “I can’t believe—what do you think you—you’re talking about me—who—” At a loss for words, she closed her mouth and looked at Hank. This was her bed they were talking—laughing—about here. When she wanted Tai to know Hank was sharing it, she’d tell him herself. “And you! I can’t believe you’re standing here encouraging him to speculate about—”

  “It’s a guy thing,” Hank assured her—and recognized the mistake too late to call it back. She’d been a little more sensitive than usual of late. A symptom of guilt over last night or...

  “A what?” Kate asked carefully, calling him back from speculation before any further ideas had a chance to form. He viewed her, guilty but unrepentant. She was pretty sure he wasn’t smirking—quite—but he might as well be.

  The flush started in her belly and crept upward, flashing heat through her chest, sent fire climbing up her throat and neck, into her cheeks. Anger, sweet and pure and clarifying. Egotistical, provincial, sexist pig.

  Oops, Hank thought, noting her rising color with interest and anticipation. He grinned. It had been a long time since he’d been within range of good old-fashioned female fireworks. Kate’s reaction bore all the markings of the killer queen of female fireworks. He could hardly wait.

  Just as well, since he didn’t wait long.

  Her eyes flicked from him to Tai and back, then to the top of the steps where the grunts and groans of rising boys filtered down the stairwell.

  She set her jaw, jabbed a finger at Tai. “We’ll talk about you, Carly and the guesthouse later. You—” she turned and grabbed Hank’s wrist, yanking him away from the wall “—come with me. I want to talk to you.”

  “My sentiments precisely,” he agreed and yanked her back, startling her.

  Tai gave him a What do you have, a death wish? face and headed up the stairs two at a time, getting out of the line of fire. Hank stopped him with a word, silenced the fuming Kate with a glance and a gentle finger to her lips.

  “Tai.”

  Tai turned.

  “We okay with this?”

  Kate’s son inclined his head, shrugged his mouth. “I got questions and concerns, but adult to ad
ult, you’re right. It’s not my business. Just don’t let it hurt the kids.” He glanced at Kate. “Or Ma, either.”

  “Ma can take care of herself,” Kate snapped.

  Hank nodded at Tai. “Do my best.”

  Tai ascended the stairs. Hank looked down at Kate who stuck her nose in the air, turned her back and crossed her arms. He sighed, turned her forcibly around and rested his hands on her shoulders.

  “Kate...”

  She glared at him, ducked out from under his hands. Men could be such high-handed idiots sometimes. “Not here,” she said firmly and, head high, back stiff, stalked off through the kitchen and into the office.

  Hank followed to the percussion thump of boys barging halfway down the stairs, then grabbing the railings like parallel bars and swinging the rest of the way. The thud at the foot of the steps shook the house. Given the force of their landing and how many of them there were, no wonder it felt as if there was a slight dip in the floorboards at the foot of the staircase or that there were constant black handprints on the wall beside the front door from when they flew too hard and had to catch themselves.

  “Knock it off,” he automatically called over his shoulder—just like any real parent. “You’ll break the banister.” You’ll hurt yourself was a mother’s admonition, not a dad’s.

  If they heard they ignored him. Just like real kids.

  Mentally reminding himself to check for a loose newel post or rails, Hank stopped in the kitchen long enough to collect a cup of coffee and say a strangled “Good morning” to Li, whom he hadn’t expected to see. Then he stepped into the office, shut the door and faced Kate.

  She sat cross-legged in the middle of the desk waiting for him, face set, pale eyes darkened with intensity. Her hair was pinned here and there about her head in a futile attempt to control it.

  He wanted to step forward and abet its escape, but a glance from her stopped him.

  Irritably she collected an unruly bunch off the back of her neck, twisted it up and plucked a plastic pin from the nest atop her head and skewered it into place. More rebellious wisps fell into her eyes and she glared at them, stuck out her lower lip and puffed them aside. Hank did his best to keep his smile to himself. The situation before them seemed to call for decorum—or at least restraint—but she did make him want to laugh more than anyone he’d ever known.

  It wasn’t merely that she was often funny—though she was. It was the sheer sensation of release and relief he found in her company, a quality of joy, an effortlessness of being. The welcome that greeted him no matter what or where, no matter when.

  The same qualities that made control impossible when he touched her.

  The same reasons he wanted to touch her now.

  He kept his hands to himself.

  “About last night,” he said quietly, and let it hang, watching for her reaction.

  Her eyes lit, her mouth softened. “Last night was lovely,” she said.

  “I shouldn’t have stayed. I’m sorry if I...embarrassed or...” He hesitated over the old-fashioned word, but couldn’t find another that seemed to fit as well. “Compromised you in front of Tai—”

  “Tai and Carly are getting married,” Kate interrupted.

  Hank stopped. Grinned. “That’s great,” he said. “Carly’s terrific. She’ll be good for him.”

  Kate shrugged, troubled. “They’re young,” she said, surprising him.

  He cocked his head, watching her. He’d never been able to guess what went on in Gen’s head—besides frequent contradictions—but Kate was different. Not predictable, different. He’d have thought she’d be excited by the prospect of having Carly as a daughter-in-law.

  “They’re young,” he offered slowly, feeling his way, “but they’re mature. They know who they are, what they want and where they’re going. They’ve known each other ten years and they’ve been dating for five. I wasn’t even twenty-one when I married Gen. Tai’s got a whole year on where I was. Young marriages can work, Kate.”

  “I know.”

  “Then what?”

  She wrinkled her nose and shrugged, chagrined. “Well,” she hedged. Very unlike herself, she knew. But with Tai suddenly engaged and planning his wedding, things had grown far more complicated in the past half hour than she’d anticipated. From where she was standing, thinking about Megan and Bele and last night and any number of other things, they didn’t look to get less tangled any time soon. She looked at Hank, then quickly away. “Well...”

  “A very deep subject,” he agreed, “but I don’t think your well is the reason—”

  An excited clamor of whoops and yells rose in the kitchen, cutting him off before Kate had a chance to.

  Exasperated, she swiveled and scooted off the desk, headed for the door to find out what was going on. “I’m not punning.”

  “I know you’re not.” Hank caught her before she’d gotten six steps and made her face him, ran his hands up her arms.

  She tried to ease away. “I should go see what’s up before they—”

  “Kate.” He hushed her with her name and a look. “Tell me,” he urged.

  “Well...” She made a wry face, eyed him sideways when he groaned and grimaced. “Sorry. It’s just that, well—I mean um—I don’t know, ah, Tai and Carly want to get married in March and I don’t know. I mean her parents...hmm.” She puffed out a breath, glanced up at Hank and gathered air back into her lungs, then let it out on a whoosh. “I don’t know how well they’ll handle the groom’s single, ex-nun mother showing up eight months pregnant for the wedding, especially since they can’t hide me because Tai’s asked me to walk him in and give him away, too, and I said sure, why not? Now, he might change his mind after I tell him—”

  The tumult in the kitchen now pounded on the office door. “Mom, Ma!”

  Hank swallowed a wealth of emotions he could neither name nor separate. Delight, chagrin, worry, doubt, Megan—who had an entire battlefield of emotions of her own. Disappointment when he decided that was what last night must have been about. Kate was pregnant, they were both healthy, love could be as careless and spontaneous as they wanted to make it. Somehow, he’d figured there would be more to the moment, if it arose, than that.

  Disbelief because somehow, despite the odds, he’d probably figured that maybe this moment wouldn’t arise at all.

  “You’re preg—”

  The door burst inward in the middle of the word, spilling Mike, Bele and an attempting-to-hold-them-back Ilya into the office. “Ma, Ma! Tai and Carly are—”

  “nant?”

  The three boys stared at Hank and Kate in utter fascination, their excitement over Tai’s announcement lost in the possibility of more intriguing news. Kate closed her eyes and let her face thump forward into her hand. Geez-oh-pete-oh-man. This wasn’t how she’d planned to tell any of them, Hank included, but well, that was the reason you had to be fast on your feet, wasn’t it, because how often did life adhere to plans?

  With a sigh and a glance of apology at Hank she eyed Mike and waited, knowing what was coming.

  But she was wrong. Oh, Mike’s mouth was open, the words were formed, but it wasn’t he who stepped into the room and put the question to Hank like an accusation. It was Megan.

  “Who’d you knock up?” she asked.

  Chapter 13

  Pandemonium reigned.

  “What is ‘knock up?”’ Grisha and Ilya wanted to know, their English lacking a certain amount of slang.

  Quick on the draw, Jamal looked at Kate. “Who’s knocked up? And why does Meg think Hank did it?”

  “Is one of the llamas pregnant and we didn’t plan it?” Bele asked.

  “I thought Hank said somebody was going to be an aunt,” Mike said, puzzled.

  “Tai, is Carly pregnant? Is that why you’re getting married?” Li poked her older brother.

  “What?” Tai, whose head was elsewhere, eyed Li as if she’d not only lost her marbles but had deliberately buried them somewhere, then forgotten where �
�somewhere” was. “No, Carly’s not pregnant. What are you talking about?”

  “Hank said someone was pregnant.”

  “Oh, and you just assumed—”

  “Hank didn’t say someone was pregnant,” Megan interrupted tightly, “he asked if someone was.”

  Li eyed her, amazed. “Who did he ask, you?”

  Megan looked at her. Li misinterpreted the look.

  “Oh, Meg, you’re not, are you? I mean, not Zevo—”

  “God, Li, as if! Would I do that to a kid? Besides, I know how to use a condom and anyway, what I asked was who he knocked up. He didn’t ask me anything.” .

  “Who he knocked up? But I thought you said he was the one asking somebody—”

  Mike tugged at Kate’s arm. “Is ‘pregnant’ like when we let Harvey in with one of the girls an’ she lets him mount her an’ we call it breeding her, then if it takes, in eleven months there’s a cria?”

  “Michael Anthony Anden, you know dam well what pregnant is.”

  “I know,” Mike agreed. “But everybody’s talking ‘bout different things at once, so I thought I’d just check an’ make sure we’re all on the same page.”

  “Make sure we’re all on the same page?” Kate pulled in her chin and looked down at him. “Who’ve you been talking to lately?”

  “Nobody. Jus’ Bele.”

  “Yeah.” Bele nodded. “But we been listenin’ to lotsa people an’ that’s what they say.”

  “So,” Grisha said to Hank, “‘Knock up’ means make pregnant?”

  “That doesn’t sound very good,” Ilya observed. “Knocking on somebody sounds like it would hurt and I don’t think getting pregnant is supposed to hurt until the baby is born. Now if you said—”

  What Ilya might consider more plainly descriptive than the term “knock up” was something Hank had no desire to contemplate, let alone hear. “Enough!” he roared, unable to stand the lunatic speculation any longer.

  Surprised, everybody looked at him—even Megan. He looked only at Kate. She hadn’t yet answered his question, and while the answer might embarrass him briefly in front of all these ears, he did rather want to know he’d heard her right, that he was about to become a father for the second time. And since it appeared he didn’t have a choice, he’d worry about how Megan would accept or reject the idea later. Himself, he didn’t plan on rejecting anything, especially not a baby or Kate.