Balancing Act (Silhouette Special Edition)

by Darcy, Lilian

  “I threw it in for today,” he answered. “I might have to go in on the weekend. The temp is hopeless. And we’ll be lucky to get the Powell job back up to schedule before winter.”

  “Don’t think about it. I’m baby-sitting tonight, and the two of you are going out.”

  His face dropped. He couldn’t help it, and he knew both women had seen. Yeah, this was what he needed to cap his week—sitting across a candlelit table from Libby and wanting her with every cell in his body, when he’d decided there were things they had to deal with before he’d let it happen again.

  Mom was glaring at him. Libby was fiddling with her clear-polished nails.

  The girls, bless them, were oblivious. Scarlett had her arms wrapped around his leg, trying to pull him down to the floor to help her with her block tower. He went willingly, glad to have a way to hide his face.

  It was too late, though. Mom, as usual, wasn’t going to let it go.

  “If you two aren’t getting along,” she said bluntly, “that’s all the more reason to go. You have to get along, if you’re serious about putting the girls’ needs first.”

  “We’re getting along, Mom,” he growled.

  Yeah, in bed. And while he wolfed down Libby’s impeccable meals.

  “You should still go. You need adult time. Take in a movie, too. There’s time. I’m making scrambled eggs for me and the girls, and the way Colleen is drooping, I’m going to start making them now, or she’ll fall asleep in the dish.”

  “I have to get her up at five, now, and then she naps early,” Libby said, her tone an uneasy apology. “At least she’ll be too sleepy to get upset when I go.”

  “And she’ll be in her own bed,” mom said. “Go get ready, Libby, and you can tuck her in bed before you leave. Brady, do you want to convince the girls it’s time to tidy up the blocks? The eggs’ll only take a couple of minutes.”

  “Sure.” He was used to his mother in her take-charge moods.

  Mom was a refreshing person. Even her attempts to be subtle and devious were always totally transparent. Maybe this was why it had taken him so long to cotton on to Stacey’s unrepentant tactics. He just hadn’t encountered such things before.

  He hadn’t encountered a woman like Libby before, either. She wasn’t like Stacey, he’d begun to conclude, and she definitely wasn’t like Mom.

  She disappeared upstairs and came down again in fifteen minutes, looking so pretty that he felt as if a giant’s hand was squeezing his chest, and he wanted to take her to bed with him right now, whether it was wallpapering or not.

  She’d put her hair up with a gold-and-silver clip, and she’d made up her face for evening, with darker lipstick that made her mouth look fuller and more sensual, and some different shade of eye-shadow that made her eyes seem huge and almost luminous. She wore a lacy gold chain necklace, and a matching top and skirt that was probably silk. It swished like silk around her body as she moved. He couldn’t have named the color or the style, but he liked it.

  The top fitted close around her waist and breasts, while the skirt flowed around her legs and hips, silvery-gray in some lights and pale purplish-blue in others. Her shoes were silver-gray, too—heeled, satiny, beaded bits of nothing that could have doubled as Cinderella’s glass slippers.

  “I’ll…uh…change, too,” he decided aloud, feeling suddenly work-stained and stale by comparison. “While you’re putting Colleen to bed.”

  In his bedroom, after a sixty-second shower, the only thing that seemed appropriate was a dark business suit, which earned his mother’s complacent comment to Libby, “Doesn’t he clean up nice?”

  That’s right, Mom, he thought. Send me out of the house in the company of a woman I’m sleeping with but feel like I hardly know, blushing like a beet.

  He was aware of Libby through every nerve ending as they walked beside each other to the garage, rain laying a thin cloak of damp over their coats, and when he opened the passenger door for her and she slipped past him, she left eddies of intoxicating desire like perfume in her wake.

  They hadn’t made reservations, which on a Friday night ruled out Columbus’s finest dining. Instead, they settled on an upmarket chain, and were given a quiet table near the windows.

  After they’d ordered, Libby leaned forward and said, “It’s probably good that your mom made us do this. We should start talking seriously about what arrangements we’re going to put in place three weeks from now, when Colleen and I are living on our own.”

  Brady just looked at her.

  “No,” he said. “We’re not talking about that. Anything but, Libby, okay? For tonight? Anything but.” She frowned, and before she could say anything, he went on, “Mom’s right. We have to get along with each other. We have to talk. We have to trust. We have to do more than just jump each other’s bones at night and talk about our daughters when we’ve got clothes on.”

  He saw her eyes widen. Okay, so he’d been a little crude. He wasn’t sorry. She was so nervous, or reluctant to be here, or something, that she’d started shredding her napkin and wadding the pieces into a damp little ball in her palm.

  He waited for one of her sweet, false, “I’m fine” type lines, ready to pounce on it, not caring that his words would probably be clumsy and he’d be crowding her, bulldozing her. He needed to learn to say this stuff.

  But she pulled the plug on his motivation when she picked up a fork, started twiddling it in her fingers and said, “One of my friends made a comment I thought was perceptive before I left St. Paul.”

  She kept looking at the fork, so that all he could see was her smooth forehead, her creamy eyelids and painted lashes. But her voice was low, without that sweet, higher-pitched, “I’m fine” quality that set his teeth on edge. If she meant this, if it was important, then okay, he’d listen.

  “She said this would be like going through the divorce without ever having the marriage. And, you know, I’ve been thinking about it. There’s a weird logic to it. I don’t like the fact very much. But there is.”

  “Well, I’ve never been divorced.” Brady thought about it for a moment. “But, yeah, I can see a couple of parallels.”

  “You’re right.” She looked up, lasering his gut with those beautiful eyes. “We shouldn’t talk about the girls tonight. Tell me… Let’s see… Tell me why you went into construction, and why you enjoy it.”

  They talked for more than an hour. Half teasing, half serious, Libby proposed a penalty system under which if either of them mentioned the girls, they had to put a dollar on the table each time.

  Brady laughed at the suggestion and said, “Let’s see if we can not put in enough to leave for the tip.”

  They succeeded by a good margin, although there was a small pile of crumpled bills sitting between them by the time they finished the meal. By then, too, they were holding hands.

  “If we’re going to make it to this movie…” Brady said.

  “Yes, we should go.” Movies were good, Libby thought. You could sit in the back and hold on to each other. You could even kiss. And the story unfolding on the screen took you far away from your own concerns.

  Brady’s body looked fine and upright and strong inside the formality of his suit. His mom had been right. He did clean up nice. Better than nice. His fingers were like cool liquid on her skin. She’d been fiddling with the silverware half the evening, until finally he’d captured her restless hand and taken the fork out of her fingers. He hadn’t said anything. He’d just looked at her.

  It was such a complicated look from a man who didn’t usually come across that way—a mix of wariness and reproach, giving and desire, that churned up her stomach at once. She hadn’t finished her soup or her salad. He must have noticed, but he hadn’t said anything, the way Glenn would have. He didn’t suggest dessert.

  Probably fibroids.

  She could tell him about it. She wouldn’t even have to put a dollar on the table. But her heart sank and she felt ill every time she thought about it. The kind of solitude
that came from keeping problems and fears and needs to herself was easier to withstand, she’d found, than the kind of solitude that came from admitting to something and not being truly heard.

  What was that old saying? “A trouble shared is a trouble halved,” or however it went. It wasn’t true, in her experience, and she couldn’t yet trust that when it came to the really important things, Brady would be different. He’d laid his cards down pretty forcefully over the issue of which of them should move. He’d been unhappy with her decision about the job.

  Get over yourself, Libby. Just wait until Monday.

  He probably wouldn’t even want to know about her exaggerated fears.

  “Will we make it in time?” she said to Brady as they walked to the car.

  “We’re a little late leaving the restaurant, but watch me floor the pedal.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll keep my eyes shut for that part.”

  “Kidding, Lib.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ll probably miss the Coming Attractions, that’s all.”

  The wet streets weren’t empty, but they weren’t traffic-jam-crowded, either. Brady got a clean, smooth run and had uncanny luck with the traffic lights until they were nearly at the cinema. Then, out of nowhere, as they crossed a wide-open intersection, a pickup truck came screaming through from the right, against a red light.

  For one stark, endless moment it loomed in front of them, a wall of dark-blue metal, and Libby pressed back against the seat, pushed her feet into the floor, curled her toes, held her breath, prayed and waited for the sickening impact, the explosion of pain and the black oblivion that would follow.

  Meanwhile, Brady wrenched the wheel to the left, moving violently in his seat, and rammed the brake pedal toward the floor. The red speed needle plummeted to zero, but with the misting rain that was still falling, the road was slippery and they began to skid.

  The pickup roared through, missing their front bumper by inches, and Brady’s car careened across the intersection on a diagonal and came to rest in front of several oncoming vehicles, which had just slowed to a stop as the light in their direction turned red.

  “I’m going to get sick,” Libby gasped.

  “Get out of the car. Put your head between your legs. Breathe,” Brady ordered. He opened his own door, pivoted his legs and planted his feet on the wet road, heaving in lungfuls of air.

  Libby made it to the median strip, dimly aware that a couple of drivers had pulled over to help, while the rest were steering around Brady’s sharply angled vehicle and continuing on their way. She didn’t see Brady’s approach, just found him crouching beside her, suddenly, with his arm wrapping around her coat-padded shoulders.

  “Going to lose it?”

  “No.” She tried to stand up and he helped her, then they stood there looking at each other, as rain settled on their hair, while behind them the cars flowed in a curve around his vehicle. “I’m okay, now. I’m fine.”

  “How do you expect me to believe you when you say things like that?” His voice was harsh. “You’d say, ‘I’m okay, I’m fine,’ if you had arterial bleeding, Lib! Sweet jiminy!”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” she answered, and burst into shaky sobs. “All right. I’m not okay. I’m completely not okay. I thought we were going to die, and I’m still thinking, if something happens to one of us, or both of us, if one of us—dies—what kind of position will the girls be in?”

  “Put a dollar on the table.”

  “Brady—”

  “No, don’t say it. I know. I know. That’s what I’m thinking about, too. We’re making a mess of this. We’re doing it wrong. We need to get married, so the girls are protected. Their relationship and their future. We’re sleeping together. We’re living together. Don’t move out. Marry me, instead. Will you, Lib? Could you?”

  “Brady?”

  “I’m not talking about love or happy ever after. Maybe we won’t be able to make it work. But—kind of a twist on what your friend in St. Paul told you—even if there’s a divorce down the track, it’ll protect the girls’ relationship a lot better if we’ve had a marriage first.”

  She answered him in one incoherent phrase, and then he kissed her.

  They didn’t tell Brady’s mom about their decision that night. It was too new, and there were too many plans still to work out. After the near-accident and its emotional aftermath, neither of them was in the mood for a movie, so they arrived home early.

  Delia met them at the door, disappointed. “You were supposed to stay out longer than this!”

  “We’re a little shaken up,” Brady said. “Guy in a pickup almost plowed into us, at around fifty miles an hour.”

  “Oh, my lord!”

  “We’re okay, but it felt too close for comfort.” He put his arm around Libby, and she saw at once that the gesture hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  She waited for one of Delia’s typically blunt comments, but she said nothing about it, asking instead, “Do you want me to stay?”

  “No, it’s okay,” Brady answered. “Did you have any trouble with either of them?”

  “They were angels. Colleen didn’t stir, and Scarlett went out like a light after I read to her. I’ll see you soon, then.” She paused. “Look after each other tonight, won’t you?”

  “Maybe a little better than she thinks,” Brady said, as soon as Delia had gone. “You’re precious to me, Libby. You’re important. I’ve been wanting to do this all week, but it hasn’t felt right. There’s been too much we…weren’t talking about, or something. But now I can’t let you go.”

  He began to kiss her, pressing his lips to her hair and her temples, her closed eyes and her expectant mouth. He touched her, confident of her response, sure of what he was doing to her body, and he was right.

  “I feel fragile, Brady,” she said. “That pickup was too close. And there are so many other things that could happen.” She took a shaky breath. “Cancer…”

  “Cancer?” His hands froze against the undersides of her breasts. “Dear Lord, do we need to talk about something like that? Tonight was enough of a scare, but it didn’t happen. And cancer’s not going to happen, either. Hell, Lib!”

  “It did happen. To Glenn.”

  “It’s not going to happen to you. Don’t we have enough to think about without borrowing that sort of trouble?”

  Libby couldn’t find an answer. She let Brady cradle her again, and felt her thoughts fold in to their private, protected place in her heart where it was lonely but self-sufficient, and safe.

  Oh, heck, you know, people said the wrong thing all the time. Human beings weren’t gifted with that degree of sensitivity. What would she have expected, even from an angel sent to protect her?

  Tell me about your cancer fears, Libby, and a few words from me will make them all go away. It’s not like I’m aching to go to bed with you, or anything.

  In the real world, it didn’t happen that way.

  They’d both been scared tonight, and they’d agreed to a marriage. It was a solution to what Libby feared most right now—that the lack of a formal arrangement between them would separate the girls forever, from each other and from their new parents, if something happened to her, or to Brady. This was the important part. They’d found a solution. That was good. It was great. She’d do better—she’d be safer—if she kept the rest to herself.

  “Coming to bed?” Brady said. “I want to carry you upstairs. I want you in my arms tonight. All night.”

  He painted kisses on her neck, her ear, the upper slopes of her breasts, and she let her body sink and sigh against him. This was a kind of safety, too, the uncompromising power of their sensual response to each other. No room for ambivalence here. No room for self-sufficiency, or for holding back. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and it made her dizzy.

  “You’re really planning to carry me?” she whispered.

  “Future wife? I think I should. And I’m sure I can.”

  He scooped his hands beneath her and
bundled her up, one arm around her shoulders and the other beneath her thighs. Her head bumped his shoulder, and he grinned at her and kissed her quickly. “Comfortable?”

  “Ready to see if you can make it all the way upstairs.”

  “I’m confident.”

  He bounced her half into the air, and she shrieked and laughed. They’d both gone a little crazy with reaction, Brady thought, and he was giddy with anticipation and desire, as well. He loved the ripe, rounded feel of her breast pressing against his hand as he carried her up the stairs, and couldn’t help pushing his hand higher, so that her breast pressed more.

  Her top had dragged down a little at the front, showing a dark shadow where he would soon bury his face. He’d hold these fabulous shapes in his hands, he’d suckle her, and he knew exactly how she would sound when she cried out.

  Holding off since Monday had tightened his needs, and he almost threw her onto the bed. She laughed again. Didn’t mind about it. She was impatient, too. Brady dragged on his tie, pulled his shirt over his head with most of the buttons still fastened, flung his undershirt into the corner of the room then found that Libby was halfway through unfastening her bra.

  She was still lying on the bed, twisting a little, arching her back and lifting her hips so she could reach around to the clasp at the back. She finished up on her elbow, with her bared breasts spilling onto the other arm, their nipples hard and dark pink.

  Her body was so honest, and so responsive, meaning that he didn’t feel any hesitation about the power of his own reaction. He knew she liked it. She reached around again to unfasten her skirt at the back, and he shimmied it down for her. He planted a kiss on her hip then let his mouth travel inward, and she gasped and her body whipped.

  “Oh, Brady…”

  She scrambled to her feet and dragged on his pants, grabbed two handfuls of his rear end through the cloth as if too impatient to wait, and then dragged again. At the same time, she kissed him hotly and pressed herself against him, breasts and groin, clearly knowing exactly the reaction she wanted, and exactly the reaction she was going to get.

  He took her breasts, suckled them the way he’d promised himself he would, and instead of falling back onto the bed, he lifted her and they crashed against the wall. She wrapped her legs around him, arched her back to press her peaked nipples against his chest again, and they both lost it, just lost it.