She’d had half a mind to move into the RV with him for the week, but then he’d made some excuse as to why she couldn’t and so she’d stayed at her apartment. Alone. Lonely.
The week after Linc’s tangle with the Viagra car, Eve had expected some action. She’d anticipated it. But he’d been too worried—his car still wasn’t performing up to par and he was in danger of losing his top three standing, which meant losing points, which meant no shot at the Cup, which meant zero interest in anything that didn’t involve an engine. The next week, she’d faced more excuses and so on.
She told herself he was simply following the video, trying to catch her off guard. But surely he would have made a move by now. Unless . . . Unless he just wasn’t attracted to her anymore.
But that didn’t explain the way he constantly looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, the way he undressed her with his eyes, and touched her whenever she happened by, or the way he cuddled up next to her in the dead of night and she felt the hard press of his arousal against her bottom.
He had to be turned on, right?
She pondered the question for the umpteenth time as she sat at her kitchen table Tuesday night, her laptop in front of her. She was supposed to be going over the edits for the first segment of her documentary—she had to have them done first thing in the morning in order to finish the final cut and move on to the next. Concentrate, she told herself.
But it just wasn’t happening.
She practically ran to the door when she heard the knock, grateful for the diversion.
“Why don’t I join you to walk the dogs,” she started, convinced it was Mr. Wilkie. A burst of panic went through her when she found her mother standing on her doorstep.
“We need to talk, dear.”
“Trust me, Mom. We don’t. I’m happy in my life and nothing you can say will change that. So, see? We don’t need to talk.”
“Okay, I need to talk.” She walked past Eve and headed for the kitchen. “Your father hasn’t called me.”
“Call him.”
“I can’t call him,” her mother said as she sat down at the kitchen table. “He’s the one who’s wrong here. He should call me, but he hasn’t.”
“Maybe he’s busy.” Eve sat opposite her mother and tried to tamp down the sudden uneasiness.
“He’s on sabbatical.” Jacqueline eyed Eve’s half-eaten peanut butter sandwich. “Is that the crunchy kind?” At Eve’s nod, she added, “Crunchy peanut butter is my favorite.”
“It’s all I had.” Eve pushed the plate toward her. “You’re welcome to it. I really don’t like crunchy. Smooth is so much better.”
Jacqueline took a bite of the sandwich and looked thoughtful. “What could he possibly be busy with?” she finally asked.
“He’s volunteering at the local community college.”
“He is?”
Eve nodded. “Two days a week. At least that’s what he said when I talked to him last week.”
Jacqueline’s hopeful expression faded into one of skepticism. “He’s so busy with volunteering that he can’t at least pick up the phone? Then again, your father is very dedicated. He’s probably putting in a ton of extra time preparing for his volunteer hours. To help alleviate those long, tedious hours of boredom and loneliness. Trust me, I know.”
Eve eyed her mother and noted the dark circles under the woman’s eyes. “You miss Dad, don’t you?”
“Ridiculous,” she scoffed, despite Eve’s knowing look. “And I don’t know know. I meant it figuratively because I’m a sensitive person. Unlike your father, who obviously doesn’t give a care one way or the other about my health and well-being . . .” Her voice faded as the shrill ring of the doorbell sounded.
Eve bolted to her feet and hauled open the door to find her father standing on the threshold. She grinned. “Mom’s in the kitchen.”
“I’m not here for your mother.”
“Is that your father?” Jacqueline asked as she came up behind Eve. “Why, it is. I almost didn’t recognize you. It’s been so long.”
“Obviously, not long enough,” her father said, pinning Jacqueline with a challenging look for several long seconds before he turned to Eve. “It’s your sister. She’s having the babies.”
After a four-hour flight and a long cab ride, Eve arrived at Humana Hospital in the Dallas Metroplex area with her mother, father, and grandmother. She was exhausted, nervous, and this close to slitting her wrists after an endless plane ride where she’d been forced to sit between her parents while her gram lucked out and got a seat on the next row.
Her mother had huffed and snorted, and her father had rambled on as if Jacqueline didn’t exist. Eve had read every page of the airline’s shopping magazine and done her best to keep from screaming.
“Is she okay?” Eve asked Xandra when she found her younger sister standing with her husband, Beau, outside the double doors that led to the labor and delivery room. The waiting room to the left overflowed with people, most of whom she recognized from Skye’s wedding.
“She’s fine, but she’s scared,” Xandra said. “We were the first to get here.” Xandra and Beau lived in Houston, which was a forty-five-minute plane ride from Dallas. “We got here a few hours ago. It took Clint longer since he was in North Carolina.”
“Lowe’s Motor Speedway,” Eve said, remembering the race highlights she’d seen touting the upcoming Coca-Cola 600. “Linc’s there. I tried to call him.” He was a member of their family now, for however brief a period of time, and so she’d felt it her obligation to keep him posted on what was happening. It certainly wasn’t because she was nervous and anxious and she’d wanted to hear his voice. “But he didn’t pick up his cell and so I left him a message.”
Xandra looked surprised before her expression faded into a knowing light. “Clint arrived about an hour ago,” Xandra went on. “I was with her until then. The last I heard, she was seven centimeters dilated. She changed her mind about doing natural childbirth and asked for the epidural, but it’s too late.” She took a sip of her Sprite, her hand shaking. “I never realized how painful having a baby could be. I mean, I knew, but I’ve never seen it firsthand.”
“It’s okay, babe.” Beau rubbed the small of Xandra’s back and kissed her temple in a gesture that made Eve smile. “You’ll be okay.”
The minute his words registered, Eve’s expression went from happy to shocked. “You’re not . . .” The smile quickly returned. “Ohmigod, you are.”
“You can’t tell anyone. We just found out, and we don’t want to tell anyone just yet. This is Skye’s day, and I want all of the attention on her and the babies.”
“My lips are sealed. So are you okay?”
“I’m dying for a bag of Doritos, but otherwise, I’m fine.”
“I’ll be right back.” Beau gave her a possessive look and a lingering kiss on the lips before heading for the vending machines.
“You should let the nurse know you’re here,” Xandra told her. “Skye will want to see you. So where are Mom and Dad and Gram?”
“Gram is retouching her lipstick in the ladies’ room in case she runs into any hotties here, and Mom and Dad are downstairs arguing over who is going to pay the cab-driver. He wants to do it, but she’s insisting on paying herself.”
“Arguing? They never argue.”
“They never argue because Dad gives in. He’s not giving in anymore.” At that moment, their parents’ familiar voices drifted from down the hallway.
“. . . need you to pay for me, you overbearing, egotistical man.”
“You wouldn’t know overbearing or egotistical if it jumped up and bit you on the ass.”
Eve turned just as her father and mother approached. Her gram followed them, her lips slicked with a bright peach lipstick that matched her dress.
Donovan kissed Xandra on the cheek and slid his other arm around Eve. “Pardon my language, girls.”
“It’s okay, Daddy.” Xandra gave him a hug.
“It
most certainly isn’t okay,” Jacqueline huffed. “It’s offensive and totally inappropriate and I can’t believe—”
“Farrel family?” A nurse’s voice disrupted her mother’s rant and they all turned to see the nurse holding open the double doors. “Mrs. MacAllister wants you all front and center right now.”
Eve and her family followed the nurse into her sister’s delivery room.
“Should we be in here with her?” Eve asked the nurse.
“She wants you here.” She glanced at the six of them. “All of you.” The nurse hurried to assist the other nurse preparing the tiny incubators off to the side that waited for the new arrivals.
Eve approached the bed where Skye was hunched over, her face a tired, exhausted mask as she blew out a series of breaths. She kissed her sister’s cheek. “How are you doing?”
“I’m”—hee, hee, hee—“so glad”—hee, hee, hee—“you’re finally”—hee, hee, hee—“here—yowwwwwww!”
“Baby one is crowning,” the doctor announced as he dropped down onto a round stool and pulled himself into position for the main event. “Get ready, people. We’re having a baby!”
The next twenty minutes passed in a noisy blur that didn’t slow down until both fat, pink baby boys—five and six pounds respectively—were wrapped in the matching blankets Eve had quilted and placed in their mother’s arms.
Then a calm settled over everyone as all eyes focused on the two new arrivals. Eve gave each of the boys a kiss on the forehead and a quick, “I’m Auntie Eve and if you ever need anything, you come to me.” Then she stepped back and let everyone else make their introductions.
Eve stood near the doorway while her grandmother snapped pictures of the happy couple.
Make that couples.
It seemed her parents had temporarily forgotten their fight. They stood to Skye’s right and smiled down at their grandchildren. Likewise, Beau stood with his arm around Xandra, who had tears running down her face. Clint hugged Skye and for the first time in her life, Eve truly felt like the outsider she’d always pretended to be.
Alone. Lonely.
And then she heard the door swing open and felt a strong, soothing touch on her shoulder.
Chapter 17
I got here as soon as I could,” Linc said, slightly out of breath as if he’d been running. He wore board shorts, a politically incorrect yellow T-shirt that read SAVE A HORSE, RIDE A COWBOY, and flip-flops. A worried expression creased his handsome face and stirred a warmth in her chest. “Clint and I were in the middle of a practice run on the car when the news came,” he went on. “He took off, but I had to wait and give the adjustments to the crew chief before I could leave. I didn’t try to call you back because I knew you had to have your phone off on the plane. Looks like I’m too late.”
She smiled, took his hand, and twined her fingers with his. “Actually, you’re just in time.”
He looked at her and surprise flickered in his gaze, as if he were seeing her for the first time. But then he turned back toward Skye and the babies, and Eve was left to wonder if she’d only imagined the look.
They spent the next fifteen minutes oohing and ahhing over the new arrivals before the nurse ordered everyone to leave so that Skye could get some sleep.
“That sounds like a good idea for everyone,” Donovan Martin said. “But first we need to get your grandmother something to eat.”
“Now, now, I’m fine,” Ruella Farrel said as she cooed at one of the sleeping boys. “Great-Grammie Farrel is just as fine as ever, now isn’t she, sweet pea?”
“Maybe so, but we’re hitting the IHOP next door.”
“That’s right,” Jacqueline said as she came up next to Ruella. “You have to eat, Mother.”
“I could use something to eat, too,” Xandra said. She gave Beau a knowing smile and he nodded.
“I’m really not hungry, Dad,” Eve told her parents. “You guys go on ahead.”
“We’ll go on over to the Doubletree a few blocks from here and get a couple of rooms,” Linc told her father, who nodded his approval.
Eve hugged Skye and said good-bye and then let Linc lead her toward the nearest exit.
“They looked really happy,” she said during the cab ride to the hotel. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Skye so emotional.”
“She just had two babies.” Linc glanced sideways at Eve, the same strange expression on his face that he’d worn when he’d first seen her. “It’s a momentous occasion.”
“I wonder how it feels.”
“I never would have pegged you for the mother type.”
“Because I look totally inappropriate?” She bristled.
“Actually, because you work so damned much. Being a mother takes a lot of time.”
“Oh.” So much for being offended. “Sure, I work hard now. I’m trying to jump-start things with my career, which means complete focus. But that doesn’t mean I plan to do it forever.”
“Are you saying you want to be a mother?”
“Someday. When the right man comes along.”
“Ah, the right man, again. This thoughtful, sensitive, intellectual Mr. Kaboom.”
“He’ll come along in the next ten years or so, and I’ll live happily ever after for the next fifty years after that.”
“I think that’s the plan with most everyone.”
“Not with us,” she pointed out.
“We married for convenience.” Linc gave her another odd look before shaking his head. “There’s no love between us.”
It was true. So why did Eve feel a sudden sadness at hearing him say it?
She didn’t. She was emotional because of the twins, end of story. She most certainly wasn’t this close to throwing herself into Linc’s arms because of him or the fact that she actually liked him. He’d just shown up at the right time and she was feeling needy and . . . Enough said.
At the hotel, Linc registered and paid for four rooms—one for Xandra and Beau, one for Eve’s mother and grandmother, one for her dad, and one for Eve. It seemed Linc wouldn’t be staying over. With Clint busy with Skye and the babies for the next few days, the extra duties fell to him, so he needed to catch the first flight back to North Carolina.
Eve tried to stifle the sudden disappointment as he walked her toward the elevator. She’d been hoping that they might finally get to step two, but it looked as if it really wasn’t going to happen.
Fine by her. If he didn’t want to, he didn’t want to. It wasn’t like she needed to do it, or anything like that. It was her choice, and she could just as easily choose not to.
At least that’s what she told herself as she punched the UP button and waited.
A few seconds ticked by and she felt him eyeing her again. She turned on him. “What? Did I suddenly sprout horns? Because you keep staring at me, and it’s really getting on my nerves.”
“You’re not wearing any makeup.”
“I wasn’t expecting visitors when Mom and Dad showed up and I didn’t have time to put any on.” She indicated the UC-Berkeley T-shirt she wore and the slouchy jeans she’d snatched out of her closet. “To be honest, it was the last thing on my mind. What’s the big deal? You’ve seen me without makeup before.”
“Not completely. You’ve always had something on. Eyeshadow. Lipstick. Mascara. Something.”
“So?” she said when he lapsed into silence, his gaze still on her face.
“So, you’ve got three freckles on your nose.” The tip of his finger caressed the spot. “I never knew you had freckles. They’re sort of . . . cute.”
Eve had been called many things in her life, but “cute” had never been one of them. Puppies were cute. Winnie the Pooh was cute. Mature, exciting, wild women who made sex a top priority in their lives were not cute, and so she shouldn’t feel the least bit flattered by his words.
But her heart did a double thump and her mouth went dry.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to do since I got here,” he said, as he followed her
onto the elevator and the doors slid shut.
“And what would that—” Before she could finish the question, he kissed her.
His lips were wet and hungry, his tongue greedy as he devoured her for a fast, furious moment that left her heart pounding and her head dizzy.
The elevator jerked to a halt as he punched the STOP button and stalled them between floors.
He backed her up against the wall and pinned her in place. He pushed up her T-shirt, flicked her bra open, and bared both breasts.
“I guess we’re doing step two,” she breathed a heartbeat before he dipped his head and drew her nipple into his mouth. He sucked her so hard that she felt the pull between her legs.
She shuddered as he released her to drag his hot, wet mouth to her other nipple and catch it with his teeth. She lifted her hands and threaded them through his hair as he flicked her with his tongue, over and over. She squirmed until he opened his lips and suckled her again.
Heat spiraled through her body and pleasure gripped her for several heart-stopping moments. But it wasn’t enough. She’d waited too long for this and her body was too needy.
With frantic fingers, she grappled at his shirt, pulling and tugging until she found her way underneath. Warm, hair-dusted skin met her fingertips and she shivered. Muscles rippled beneath her eager touch as she trailed her hands over his chest and down to the waistband of his shorts.
She unbuttoned him with several frantic tugs. He sprang hot and huge into her hands and she held him for a breathless moment.
Sweet as Sugar, Hot as Spice Page 19