THE TEXAS WILDCATTER'S BABY

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “I noticed a Help Wanted sign in the window, when I drove in.” Cordelia sounded worried. “Is the service here substandard, because of that?”

  Rand caught his mother’s most patient smile as the two women exited and shut the screen door behind them. “I believe that posting has to do with the party barn operation,” Josie replied as their voices faded. “But we can certainly talk to Claire McPherson...”

  Finally silence fell. The spring breeze blew through the open windows. Ginger looked at Rand, then the overwhelming amount of cardboard boxes, and let out a groan. “I don’t have time to mess with any of this.”

  Nor should she have to, Rand thought.

  He sat next to her on the love seat and took her hand in his. “It’s not that big a deal. We’ll take whatever you need out of them and put the rest in storage.”

  “When? I still have work to do tonight.”

  As did he.

  He patted her arm. “Look, the gifts are fine where they are now, on the porch. We’ll get to them when we get to it.”

  “I suppose that’ll work...for now.” Still looking distraught, Ginger ran her fingers through her damp hair. “I wasn’t planning to go out to dinner.”

  Nor was he. He’d been hoping to have a night alone with his new bride, maybe figure out a way to get her back into his arms, wanting to make love with him again.

  He pushed aside his own selfish desires. “It’s just one evening. You heard your mother—she’s leaving in the morning.” The two of them could deal with it. Especially if a good “performance” this evening appeased Cordelia and hence kept her from trying to “help” even more.

  Another long, discouraged look. Ginger plucked the hair dryer from her suitcase, plugged it in and began blowing the residual dampness from the gleaming copper strands.

  Enjoying the sight of her getting ready to go out, something he wasn’t usually treated to, he perched on the edge of the bed and watched.

  Ginger bent from the waist. As she ran the dryer over the underside of her hair, her shirt gaped in front, giving him a very nice view of cleavage and lace.

  Rand felt himself hardening again. A perpetual state of affairs...

  “She’s trying to control my life,” Ginger complained, pouting as she switched off the hair dryer.

  Rand shrugged and stood to ease the pressure. “So don’t let her.” He walked around, willing the blood pooling low to dissipate.

  “Easier said than done.” Ginger shook her head. “You have no idea how smothering Mom can be, when she thinks—erroneously, I might add—that I desperately need her assistance.” Wearily she went to the closet. Her large suitcase was open, the clothes inside a rumpled mess. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders as she studied the choices, then finally plucked out a white knit shirt and a relaxed-fit navy cardigan.

  Rand ambled closer, offering a sexy wink. “Not going to wear my shirt?” He ran a finger down her cheek.

  Ginger flushed and stepped back, her hand flying to the buttons. “Sorry about that.”

  Hungrily, he watched her undo one button, then another and another, as she swiftly undressed.

  Suddenly she wasn’t the only one wishing they didn’t have plans for dinner out.

  Unable to help himself, he moved close enough to see the shadowy valley between her soft, luscious breasts. Aware her spirits still needed bolstering, he bent and kissed the silky skin of her temple before giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t apologize. I like the way you look in it.”

  As elusive as ever, she danced away, slipped the shirt off and tossed it at him. He caught it and lifted it to his face. It was warm and soft and smelled the way she did—fresh out of the shower—like orange blossom and shampoo and woman. Figuring there was no need to let any of that go to waste, when he needed a clean shirt, anyway, Rand removed the shirt he was wearing and slipped on the one she had been wearing.

  Grinning despite herself, she shook her head at him. “Our mothers are going to know what you just did.”

  “So?” He waggled his eyebrows. “I don’t mind sharing everything with you.” Including and especially a bed.

  Her mood improving, Ginger chuckled as she pulled the knit shirt over her head and then worked her arms through the sleeves. Her breasts, which seemed to get fuller every day now, were spilling out of the lacy bra. She tugged the white fabric down over her ribs, started to tuck it into the snug waistband of her otherwise loose-fitting cargo pants, then brought the shirt tail back out again to hide the slow but subtle changes in her slender body. She put the navy cardigan on and began buttoning.

  “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to confiscate your wardrobe. But I was in the middle of a wardrobe crisis when I heard the knock at the door, and I still needed a shirt, so I grabbed the first oversize thing I saw.”

  “Which happened to be my shirt.”

  Ginger picked up her makeup bag and carried it to the bathroom mirror. “It’s big enough to hide the very beginning of a baby bump.”

  He lounged against the portal, making a careful survey of her still-slender body, and watching her apply a thin layer of moisturizer to her freshly scrubbed face. “No one can tell you’re pregnant.” Even he was having trouble discerning the changes. And he’d made an art out of studying every delicious inch of her, even before they’d hit the sheets that very first time.

  She flattened her free hand against her tummy and checked out her profile in the mirror with a worried frown. “Yet.”

  Rand picked up his electric razor. Figuring he might as well get rid of the day’s stubble, he ran it over his jaw. Finished, he reached for his toothbrush. “When do you want to tell our families?”

  Ginger rooted through her cosmetics bag. “Not until it’s so apparent we have no choice.”

  Fascinated, he watched her finish putting on her makeup. The process was quick; the results subtle but pretty. “I take it having your mom show up like this was not a happy surprise?”

  Ginger put on a layer of gloss, then smacked her lips together. Finished, she reached for a pair of earrings and threaded them through her pierced lobes. The golden oil wells dangled sexily. “You see how my mom is reacting, and all we are is married?”

  Rand nodded, aware the ultimate helicopter parent in Cordelia seemed to be operating on full speed.

  Ginger shook her head miserably. “There’s no telling how much she’ll want to interfere when she finds out her first—and probably only—grandchild is on the way.”

  * * *

  TO GINGER’S RELIEF, the first half of dinner with their mothers went well. Josie and Rand kept the conversation squarely on things they could all agree upon, but eventually Ginger’s mom brought the focus back to where she wanted it. The state of Ginger’s new marriage.

  “Honey, I don’t mean to interfere—”

  Famous last words, Ginger thought, bracing herself.

  “—but I really think you ought to forget trying to get your own business going, and go to work for someone else. Or better yet, not work at all while the two of you get settled into a new routine.”

  “We’re already settled,” Ginger said.

  Rand nodded. “I’m happy.”

  He certainly looked happy, Ginger thought, then quickly warned herself not to get too excited, given the fact that he was just living up to familial expectations, same as she.

  With another smile of encouragement, Cordelia pushed on. “The point is, marriage is an adjustment and the newlywed phase is something to be savored, not rushed through blindly. Don’t you agree, Josie?”

  Put on the spot, Rand’s mother paused. “I think Rand and Ginger know better than we do what they need, Cordelia.”

  “Still—” Cordelia ran a spoon through the frosting on her coconut cake “—it never hurts to take the time to get every detail set up
properly.”

  Unable to stop herself, Ginger cut in. “We’ve already done that, Mom.”

  As always, Rand seemed to know where she was going almost before she did.

  He gave her a look that advised her not to continue, but Ginger knew there was only one way to quiet her mother. “That’s why Rand and I saw a lawyer about drawing up both a postnup, to cover the financials, and a marriage contract, to cover everything else that could possibly cause us problems down the line. Because neither of us has any intention of leaving anything to chance.”

  “Well, I have to hand it to you,” Rand told Ginger an hour later, after they had returned to the Red Sage guest ranch, said good-night to the moms and retired to their “honeymoon” cottage. “You took mild parental concern to DEFCON levels of wariness, in a flash.”

  Glad the dinner was over, Ginger paused to toe off her boots. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  Rand hunted around in the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer, left over from his “bachelor” days. He twisted off the cap and sauntered closer. “Ah, yeah, it was. Especially when you referenced your list and told them what was on the agenda for the marriage contract so far.”

  Ginger looked longingly at the icy brew, then frowned and headed for the cabinet. Ignoring his contemplative gaze, she revealed, “My mother already thinks I’m completely misguided.” She twisted the cap off the bottle she had hidden behind the coffee cups and shook a prenatal vitamin into her hand.

  Rand lounged against the kitchen counter and watched her pour a glass of milk. “And now she knows for sure?”

  Ginger rolled her eyes at his teasing. She didn’t know how he did it, but her new husband could always coax a smile from her, even under the most trying of circumstances.

  “Your mother didn’t say much about it.” She paused to swallow her vitamin, then made a face and went for a chocolate sandwich cookie, as per usual, to kill the lingering iron taste of the supplement.

  Rand admitted this was so with a tilt of his handsome head, then took another swig of beer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That’s because she was in shock.”

  Ginger studied Rand over the rim of her glass, curious now. “Your family doesn’t believe in prenups?” She would think, with their wealth and influence, it would be a no-brainer.

  Rand watched her eat another cookie, just for the heck of it. It had been a stressful evening, after all.

  “McCabes believe in marrying for love.” He moved closer, lifted his finger and wiped a drop of milk from the corner of her lip before ever so slowly lowering his hand and stepping back. “And a love that is strong enough to compel one of us to hitch our wagon to someone else’s for the rest of our lives also requires a huge amount of trust. On everyone’s part.”

  Tingling from his light, tender touch, Ginger shrugged and drained her glass. “Maybe that’s the case under usual circumstances,” she acknowledged. “But when all’s said and done in our situation, they’ll be thankful we’ve gone to the trouble to put everything in writing ahead of time.”

  After taking another slow, thoughtful sip of beer, Rand looked her over. “You’re talking about our inevitable split?”

  Ginger nodded. It was what they had agreed upon, what they both knew would happen. Yet to her surprise, she couldn’t help feeling a little discomfited about it, too.

  * * *

  RAND WASN’T SURPRISED to see Ginger go right back to work that evening. He was a little annoyed by the continual chirping of her cell phone. Finally, around midnight, she shut it off. “Who keeps calling?”

  Ginger grinned and reached for The List. She added No Monitoring Each Other’s Calls to the marriage contract must-haves. Then sat back, her expression baiting. “You really want to know?”

  Did he? And if so, what did that say about him?

  He took a chair, set it a distance from her work area and lowered himself into it. “Yeah,” he said, deciding to go with his gut, and satisfy his curiosity no matter how it looked. “I do.”

  “Three were texts from my mother.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “She wants to have a private talk before she leaves in the morning about the ins and outs of being a good wife.”

  Ginger got up and stretched.

  Somewhere in the course of the evening, she had changed into a pair of loose-fitting, pink-and-white-striped cotton pajamas. Her hair had been put up in a loose and messy knot on top of her head. Sexy copper tendrils curled against her nape and brushed at her temple and cheeks.

  Rand stayed where he was with effort. “She’s serious?”

  Another sigh. Another slow, feline stretch. “Oh, yes.” Her rueful smile upped his pulse. “My mom completely doted on my father. Her whole life revolved around making him happy, and when I was younger, taking care of me. She could anticipate our needs before we even knew what they were.”

  Ginger and Cordelia did not seem to be on the same page these days, Rand noted. “What happened to change that?”

  Ginger stood feet apart, hands clasped behind her. She bent down, so her face was at her knees, and stretched the kinks out gently. “My dad died when I was a senior in high school. Massive heart attack. He was out on a rig on the Gulf, doing geological studies for a customer. He was dead before they could get him airlifted to a hospital on shore.”

  Rand could see how much that had hurt—and how much she did not want him to go to her and hold her right now. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  “Yeah.” Briefly, sadness crossed her face. “It was tough. I still miss him to this day. Anyway, my mom was beside herself with grief. To make matters worse, I was leaving for Texas A&M that same summer. She asked me not to go, to skip a year and stay home in San Angelo with her, but I knew if I did, she’d never even begin to move on with her life. So I made the decision to go off to college anyway.”

  Rand noted the complex mixture of emotions on Ginger’s face. Grief. Resentment. Most of all, she bore the look she had when she felt smothered with attention or pushed into a corner. “I’m guessing Cordelia didn’t take it well?”

  “She started driving up to see me a couple of times a week. Always, a surprise.”

  Rand recalled how much he had wanted independence in his first heady college days. “You resented it?”

  Ginger nodded sharply. “Everyone was making fun of me, and I felt...suffocated. I was missing my dad, too, but I also needed to be on my own. Anyway, we had a big blow-up during fall break. I went off with a friend, rather than go home, and she was devastated. But I just... I couldn’t take it. Our family doctor referred Mom to a grief support group and a therapist, and she eventually realized she had to have more in her life and went back to work as a party planner.”

  Impressed, Rand said, “No wonder she did such a good job with our surprise wedding.”

  Ginger smiled in agreement, and then went quiet.

  “You really think Cordelia’s going to be a problem for us?” he asked.

  Ginger raked her teeth across her lower lip. “I hope not.”

  “But?” Rand persisted when she didn’t go on.

  Ginger lounged next to him against the counter. “Any time my mom senses I’m in a dilemma—or even at risk of getting in trouble—she starts becoming over-involved in my life again.” She winced. “She says she just can’t help it.”

  Rand tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “You think she senses something is up with us, other than what we’ve told everyone?”

  Ginger shook her head. She pivoted to face him, and as she moved, the notch collar of her pajama top crinkled, giving him a nice view of the uppermost curve of one lovely breast. “I think she wants to believe you’re the love of my life, and vice versa, and that our impetuousness grew out of the passion we have for each other.”

  Rand had the idea
that his mother, a real romantic at heart, had erroneously come to the same conclusion.

  Ginger moved away again, taking with her the seductive glimpse of her breast. “My mom doesn’t want us to lose sight of that...um...‘passion’ in all the drudgery and domesticity of day-to-day living, so she’s trying to help me—us—keep our focus on what’s important during our honeymoon phase.”

  Rand knew the one thing he did not need was any help remembering to covet his wife. That was an ever-present constant that had him physically uncomfortable whenever they were alone. “But you still want Cordelia to give you your space.”

  “Heck, yes!”

  Rand wanted that, too. Otherwise, he would never have the time and opportunity to convince Ginger to make love with him again.

  And again.

  Ginger’s brow furrowed as if she sensed the libidinous nature of his thoughts. “What are you thinking?” she demanded.

  Already concocting his path to greater marital happiness, Rand grinned. “That for all our sakes, it’s time you and I do a little more convincing.”

  Chapter Seven

  “They’re coming,” Ginger announced as she stepped away from the window.

  Rand held out his arms. Ginger went into them, and began kissing him passionately, just as they had planned.

  It was supposed to be a staged kiss. Purely a means to an end. But, as always, the moment his lips touched hers, she felt a lightning bolt of desire soar through her. All coherent thought fled. Her only focus was the soft persuasive warmth of his mouth on hers, the strength in the arms around her and the hardness of his body pressed against hers.

  A delicate cough sounded behind them.

  Her blush of embarrassment all too real, Ginger turned to see their mothers standing on the other side of the screen door.

  Rand flashed an unrepentant grin at both their moms. “Sorry.” He shrugged. “Newlyweds.”