by Toni Blake
***
Derek lay on top of Holly, nuzzling her neck, raining soft kisses beneath her hair. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
She kissed his lips in reply.
And he couldn’t help smiling at the woman next to him in the darkness. Despite his earlier fears, this had turned into another wonderful and very heated night with her. Even now, the sleeping, the holding—all of it felt so damn good.
Next to him, she yawned.
“Tired?” he whispered.
“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “The last few days have been…”
“Busy,” he finished for her, chuckling.
“Besides this,” she said, motioning to the bed, “there’s been my mother’s heart attack, and of course…you’ve learned all there is to know about babysitting.”
The last part had come out sounding hesitant and he understood why. They hadn’t talked any more about the problem that still hung over their relationship. And he didn’t particularly want to. He was having too good a time to let anything spoil it.
“Derek,” she began, again sounding tentative and filling him with dread, “do you mind…sitting with Emmy…very much?”
He sighed, still not wanting to go into this now. “No,” he said anyway. “I don’t mind helping you out when you need a favor.”
“But what I mean is…”
“Holly,” he said quietly, “I think I know what you mean. And I don’t think this is a good time to talk about it.”
When she stayed quiet, he felt like he’d yelled at her even though he’d only whispered the words. So in way of apology, he reached out and found her hand beneath the covers, gently squeezing.
“Derek,” she said softly, “the thing is…”
He sighed and he closed his eyes, not wanting to have this conversation. It was the middle of the night and he was half asleep. Who knew if his explanations would make any sense? And most of all, he didn’t want to hurt Holly’s feelings. If they were going to discuss this, couldn’t they wait until he was awake, when he could think straight?
“The thing is,” she continued, “that this feels like…something serious to me, what you and I have.”
“It is something serious,” he confirmed.
“Then—”
Damn it—she wouldn’t stop. “But what I feel for you doesn’t change the way I feel about having a family.”
There, he’d said it. It was out now. And it was a horrible thing to tell her after their sex earlier, but she’d just kept forcing the issue.
Still, when she didn’t reply, he felt guilty. And he knew that—like it or not—he had to say more, try to explain. “Holly,” he began, “I love you, but—”
“You love me?”
He hesitated. Aw hell—this is what I get for talking about important things when I’m tired. But there was no point in denying it now. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “I love you.”
He heard her quick intake of breath next to him. “Oh Derek,” she said. “I love you, too.”
He sighed as her words washed over him, sank in, and then seared his heart. Because…he hadn’t expected this. Just because she’d seemed crazy about him…well, he’d still just assumed that he was the only one of them who would leap so fast to calling this love. And to hear that he wasn’t, that she felt it too, made him feel a little dizzy, even lying in bed. “Really?” he asked.
“Yeah, really.”
She loved him, too. Damn—he hadn’t even dared to ponder the possibility. It was amazing. And horrible. Because she was the woman of his dreams—the sweet woman with a sexy side who he hadn’t even known he wanted. But the fact that she loved him…well, it also made everything just that much more complicated. Unrequited love might be easier than this.
“Holly,” he pressed on, “the thing is, even though I love you…”
“Yes?”
“I’m…just not sure, honey.”
Even in the dark, he could sense her eyes clouding over, could feel a heavy new weight settling over the room. “About what?” she asked
And he let out a sigh, just wishing she would let this go for now. But she wouldn’t. And so as much as he hated to hurt her, he had to be honest. “About us. About the future.”
“Because of Emily,” she said.
Derek couldn’t help feeling ashamed. But he said, “Yes,” anyway. It was the truth.
Even in the shadows, he caught sight of something glistening on her face—a tear rolling down her cheek. And he wanted to reach for her, hold her, love her. But he was afraid to right now, afraid that reaching out would be equivalent to conceding, to changing his mind.
But would that really be so bad?
The question burst through him like a ray of sunshine, but before he could form an answer, old memories clouded his thoughts and took hold of his judgment.
Every single moment you spend with a child molds them, shapes them, adds to their perception of the world. Every wrong move counts. Every stupid word spouted in anger, every grimace or frown—all of it goes straight to a child’s heart.
Derek knew all that was true—he’d found out the hard way. And now, the very idea of being put in that same position, of trying to mold a life, trying to always make the right decision…it was too overwhelming for him to even think about.
He couldn’t bear that kind of responsibility—he simply couldn’t, and wouldn’t.
***
Holly opened her eyes and shifted her gaze to the clock. Four a.m. Then she rolled over on her pillow and looked at Derek. She studied his eyelids, his nose, his mouth. She listened to him breathing and noticed the lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead.
She thought back to earlier when he’d told her he loved her. He’d just said it—like it was nothing big, nothing shocking, like something he was totally comfortable with. And it had filled her with joy…but only for a painfully-too-short moment.
If only he could be as comfortable with the idea of fatherhood. And even though she knew that was making quite a leap—going from I love you to being a daddy—in her heart, the chasm didn’t feel quite so wide. She’d seen him with Emily, after all.
He’d looked nervous that first night when she’d invited him to cook out, but that had changed as the days had passed. Now he looked completely at ease taking care of her. And whether he knew it or not, he also looked completely content. In her heart, Holly was convinced more than ever that Derek would be the perfect father for Emily, no matter what he thought.
“You’d be perfect,” she heard herself mumble sleepily.
“Hmm?” She watched his eyes ease open, saw his gaze shining on her in the darkened room.
“Nothing,” she murmured, still half asleep. “I just said you’d be perfect.”
“Perfect for what?” he mumbled back.
“A perfect father for Emily.”
She saw him shaking his head against the pillow. “Nope,” he muttered. “Too much responsibility, too hard to be a good parent, don’t know what I’m doing.”
“No one goes into it prepared, Derek,” she explained, waking up more fully. “It’s a learn-as-you-go experience, and you just do the best you can.”
He reached out and pulled her to him, gentle but firm, in the dark. “Let’s not do this, honey,” he whispered near her ear. “Let’s just sleep. Let’s just rest and hold each other.”
Holly sighed and settled against him—what other choice did she have but to do as he asked? And being in his arms—sleeping with him, holding him—was like heaven. The only hard part was trying to ignore the shadow of doom that seemed to hang over their love.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
First Holly heard Emily crying in the next room. “Waaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaa! Waaaaaaaa!”
Then she heard Derek moan beside her. “Geez…”
She sighed. Who was she to push him into fatherhood if he didn’t want it? He had been right about one thing—you had to really want it if you were going to do a good job of it. She suddenly felt stupid
for her murmurings in the night. She should have just left well enough alone.
“Waaaaaaaa!”
“What’s wrong with her?” Derek asked.
Holly finally opened her eyes as daylight streamed through the curtains, alerting her that it was morning. “She’s hungry.”
“Waaaaaaaa!”
“I’m gonna go get her,” she said, starting to push back the covers.
But to her surprise, Derek reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“What?” she asked.
“Didn’t you get up in the night already?” He sounded as weary as she felt.
“Twice,” she told him. “She had a fussy night.”
“Go back to sleep then.”
“Derek, I can’t. She’s hungry.”
“I’ll get her,” he said.
And Holly couldn’t believe his words. “You’ll what?”
“I’ll get her,” he told her, this time sounding a little impatient, almost as if he was annoyed at having to repeat himself. “What do I need to do?”
“Well, make a bottle, but—”
“How do I do that?”
“The stuff’s on the kitchen counter. You just mix powder and water. The instructions are on the can, but—”
“Okay then,” he told her. “Go back to sleep.”
Still dumbfounded, she watched as he reached for his underwear and pants, then lumbered from the bedroom. She lay there utterly stunned and confused. What on earth was happening here? She didn’t feel completely assured that he was awake and alert enough to read the instructions on the powdered formula correctly, but that was actually secondary to her bigger concern
Let me get this straight. He doesn’t want to be a daddy to Emily, but he wants to get up and feed her when she cries first thing in the morning?
That made no sense whatsoever. But she didn’t let that stop her from getting out of bed, throwing on her robe, then sneaking furtively to the dining room where she could peek around the corner to the kitchen unnoticed.
“Don’t cry, Emmy,” he was telling the irritable baby who sat in the carrier on the kitchen floor. “I’m mixing it, I’m mixing it.”
She watched him hold up the can and paraphrase the directions aloud. “One scoop of this stuff for every two ounces of water.” Then he shifted his attention to the counter, to the clear bottle with the pale pink teddy bears dancing around the sides. “And this is…an eight ounce bottle. Four scoops.”
“Meow.” Claws trotted past Holly and into the kitchen, where he rubbed up against Derek’s ankles.
“Hey buddy,” Derek said, sounding less than energetic. “You’re just in time to feed the baby.”
“Meow.”
“Oh,” he said, looking down at the kitten, “I get it. I guess you’re hungry, too. Well, give me a minute—the baby comes first, and then I’ll get you some milk.”
“Meow.”
“Then, next time, you can make me breakfast and feed the baby. Sound like a good deal?”
“Meow.”
“Hold your horses, Emmy, it’s coming,” he said, shaking the bottle vigorously. “Here we go,” he said, finally lowering the yellow nipple to her mouth.
Holly listened as silence consumed the house. Then she realized Derek was watching Emily eat. He stayed kneeled before her, his eyes full of tired affection, his mouth half open, appearing almost mesmerized with her motions. A lump formed in Holly’s throat.
“Meow,” Claws said impatiently, breaking the silence.
“Sorry,” Derek said, turning to face the cat. “I forgot.” He then rummaged through Holly’s cabinets until he found a small dish and turned hurriedly to the refrigerator. He soon lowered a bowl of milk to the floor for an anxious Claws, who wasted no time lapping it up.
“There, everybody’s happy now,” Derek said, standing up to survey the situation—and then he gave his head a short shake. “Geez, you guys are a handful.” But Holly didn’t think he sounded like he really minded.
Quietly, she crept back to the bedroom. Derek had gotten up specifically so she could sleep, after all, so she didn’t want him to think she hadn’t taken advantage of his generosity.
And besides, she was pretty tired—the last few days had truly been exhausting, in some ways that were bad and in some that were definitely good. She closed her eyes, choosing to remember the good parts—like last night on the dining room table.
Then she sank quickly into sleep, comforted that Derek was with Emily. All seemed right with the world.
***
She awoke to a scintillating kiss.
“Mmmmm,” she breathed, letting her arms wrap around his neck.
“Morning, beautiful.”
“Good morning,” she whispered, opening her eyes to his warm, inviting gaze.
“Sleep good?”
She nodded. “Thank you for getting up with Em this morning. That was sweet.”
“Well, I love you,” he told her by way of explanation.
“I love you, too,” she said, lifting her mouth for another kiss.
“So, listen,” he said, “remember when you invited me to the zoo? For yesterday? You didn’t go without me, did you?”
She pulled back slightly, pressing her head more deeply into the pillow, a little taken aback by the weird question. “No. In fact, with my mother being in the hospital, I forgot all about it. Why?”
“Well,” he said, “I was thinking—why don’t we go today?”
Holly just lay there, feeling a little numb. Was she hearing things? This made no sense. First he gets up to feed Emmy at dawn and now this? “But I thought…you didn’t…” Her voice trailed off helplessly.
“Thought I didn’t what?” he said as if he had no idea what she could possibly be talking about. “I’d like to go with you and Emily to the zoo. Okay?”
“And, um, just what brought on this sudden urge to visit the zoo, Mr. Cassidy?” she asked pointedly, arching one brow in his direction.
Just then Claws pounced onto the bed, walking up between them on the comforter.
And, reaching out to pet the cat, Derek innocently replied, “Well, I obviously like animals.”
***
Derek took his change from the cashier, then worked to balance the soft drinks and a box of popcorn in his hands. Turning from the concession stand, he spotted Holly, and Emily in her stroller, waiting across the concrete walkway that wove a path through the zoo. Holly looked beautiful in a pair of white shorts and a summery top that revealed a soft shadow of cleavage. Emily wore a sleeveless dress with a sailboat appliquéd on the front.
“Help,” he said, reaching Holly. “I’m about to lose the popcorn.”
Holly came quickly to his rescue, saving the popcorn and relieving him of one of the cups.
“Where to next?” he asked.
“I believe the bears are just around that bend,” she said, pointing ahead of them.
“On to the bears then,” he replied—and he instinctively reached out to begin pushing the stroller at the same time as Holly.
“Oh,” she said, clearly taken aback at his silent offer. “You…don’t have to.”
“Well, you have your hands full,” he pointed out matter-of-factly. “You man the popcorn, I’ll man the stroller.”
“You’re not gonna get much popcorn that way,” she said laughingly as they proceeded down the path.
“Maybe you can feed it to me,” he said playfully, then opened his mouth.
She reached for a couple of the fluffy white pieces, but then stopped, sounding very serious when she said, “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I just saw a sign that said ‘Do not feed the animals’.”
As she glanced up at him with gorgeous green eyes, he couldn’t help laughing. Though for some reason, the joke brought to less-amusing thought to mind. “I wasn’t much of an animal last night, though,” he said quietly. “I mean, compared to four times the first night, one seems like…almost nothing.”
&n
bsp; She smiled. “Don’t worry—you still rate animal status. I judge on quality, not quantity.”
Carrying his soft drink in one hand, and pushing Emmy’s stroller with the other, he leaned down for a quick kiss from the woman who so brought out the animal in him. “Mmmmm,” he said, letting his lips linger near hers. Then he murmured, “You’re kind of making me feel like an animal right now.”
“Oh, look,” she said suddenly, pointing. “Polar bears.”
And he glanced ahead and caught sight of an enormous white bear in the distance.
He stopped the stroller—but a crowd gathered around the large, rocky pit where the bears were located and he knew Emily couldn’t see them. So he reached inside the stroller and lifted her out, using both hands to hoist her up over his head.
“Look, Em,” Holly said, peering up at her daughter. “Look at the big bears.”
A few minutes later Derek lowered the baby gently back into the stroller, tickling her stomach and offering a soft bear growl that made her smile.
And when he extracted his head and straightened his body, he found Holly smiling at him, her eyes alight.
He glanced away, though. He loved the woman, but he didn’t want her getting any funny ideas. Just because he had invited them to the zoo, and just because he wanted Emily to be able to see the bears, didn’t mean anything.
Not that she could really perceive what she was seeing anyway, he realized, but it had still somehow seemed important that she get to see them.
He gave his head a brisk shake then, trying to clear various bits of confusion away.
The truth was, he really didn’t know how he’d ended up in this position.
Feeding the baby early this morning had been one thing. He’d thought about how hard Holly worked and how she probably never got any rest and then how she’d been under extra stress because of her mother’s health. He’d fed the baby for Holly.
But the zoo? He wasn’t sure what had made him ask her to go, what had come over him. The sun had been shining in the kitchen window with the promise of a gorgeous day and Emmy had been cooing up at him in between drinks of her breakfast, and…well, it had just seemed like a great day to do something outdoors. So when he’d been lying in bed with Holly an hour later and the thought occurred to him, he’d acted on impulse.