Nick of Time [Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 4] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by JQ Jones

  “Yes, he is,” Manny said.

  “Does he know why you’re dressing like the unwanted bag lady?” Iona said.

  “No, he doesn’t know and I dressed this way to avoid the question. I figured if he didn’t notice who I was, the question wouldn’t come up. And what are you talking about?”

  “You’re pregnant. It’s not hard to figure out. Women’s cycles sync when they live together. You haven’t touched any pads, tampons or cups since you got back from Houston. One plus one equals baby,” Iona said. She waited for Manny to say something.

  “Don’t tell anybody. You know how Ernesto and the boys overreact most of the time. After David’s gone, I’ll tell the rest of the family,” Manny said. She sat cross-legged on the bed popping more and more fruit in her mouth.

  “Why don’t you want him to know? I don’t think that’s fair. If you tell him and he says fuck off that’s one thing. But for him not to know is like cheating him. I hope you rethink that. I ain’t saying, I’m just saying.”

  “I can see why you think that but really, we were a one-night, okay, couple-days stand. It’s also not fair to him to have somebody he had a casual fling with present him with a lifetime obligation, now is it?”

  Iona looked aggrieved. “It’s your call but I know that David would want to know and do right, not by you but by his child.” She got up from the bed. Grabbing another piece of fruit as she headed toward the door, Iona stopped to add, “I’m going to the island in the South Pacific for a couple of weeks. Come with?”

  “I can do that,” Manny said. “And I will think about telling David but after I deliver. I don’t want him hanging around me while I’m in my delicate condition.” Manny rubbed her barely discernible belly.

  “Delicate, my ass but it’s your call. We can leave anytime you want to.” Iona stood in the doorway.

  “Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I have to go to sleep. The Bean and I need our rest, you know.”

  “You do, but you’re just getting rid of me so that you don’t have to answer the burning question of the day. Does David deserve the right to know that he has produced a Bean in the world? Tune in for answers tomorrow. I’ll check with the plane schedule and see when we can leave,” Iona said. She closed the door with a soft click on the way out.

  Manny lay on her bank of pillows watching the guest talk about honesty and trust and went to sleep.

  * * * *

  She woke up because of the change in atmosphere in her room rather than she had gotten enough sleep. A quick glance outside told her that the sun had just gone down so that it was a little after nine in the evening. She didn’t move for a moment knowing that someone else was in her room. Her body and its reaction told her that it was David. He stood with his back against the door looking at her with eyes full of want.

  “So the people at the hotel knew who you were? None of them would give me any information at all. I even tried bribes but they pretended that you were who you said you were. Loyal bastards, aren’t they?” he said.

  “Yes, yes they are. I worked with most of them in different restaurants. The food industry is very small when you work at a certain level. If you know somebody in Houston, they’re attached to somebody in Miami or Las Vegas or even London.” She was trying to get out of the bed without it seeming to be urgent. But it really was, she couldn’t face him with any confidence from a bank of soft pillows with a bursting bladder.

  “I wanted you then, I want you know.”

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea right now.” She bounced off the bed and disappeared into her bathroom. She searched the room for a reason to get him out of the room. She washed her hands and debated with herself. When she got back to the room David was sitting on her bed waiting.

  “I don’t know what I did wrong. If you tell me that you don’t want to be with me I will leave. But if you can’t I’m staying here tonight. I want you and you want me so we can pretend it’s an extension of our weekend but I will have you tonight,” David said.

  Her rooms, cool grays and browns furnished with a chaise lounge by the window, desk, chair and selves for rows and rows of books, felt as if there wasn’t enough room for the amount of passion being pumped into it.

  He wasn’t a big man but tonight he was determined in his lust. He gently placed his hands on her shoulders allowing the natural heat from his body to seep through her. He pulled her closer to him and quickly took off the man’s shirt she wore.

  He bundled the shirt into a ball and threw it into the corner of the room. Manuela stood very still watching him as he growled low in his throat and jerked her shorts off and sent them flying into the corner to join the shirt.

  “I have no intentions of seeing you again,” she said. She was breathless and panting slightly. His hands, hot and dry, pressed her down. She slowly sank to her knees, never breaking eye contact with him as she lowered herself to the floor.

  “It’s not like you planned on seeing me this time, Magdalena. But life has a way of being unpredictable.” His voice hitched as she licked the tip of his dripping dick.

  David’s hands knotted in her ebony hair, twisting a handful around her ears to hold her as he slowly rubbed a trail of pre-cum around her face, concentrating on her mouth until she hummed loudly and used her hands to steady him to slowly slide her lips around the crown. Licking and sucking just the tip until he forced more of him into her mouth. His taste exploded onto her tongue, and she forced her eyes open and looked up as he stared down at her, on her knees taking as much of his length as she could into her mouth.

  He wanted to pound into her, claim her as his but he made himself slow down, to make her feel every inch of him, for him to see his dick as it rode into her mouth, becoming wet with his pre-cum and her spit as she stared deep into his eyes.

  David broke the contact. “Enough. Get on the bed. Now.” Manny had hesitated as she wiped her wet mouth with the back of her hand. She hopped up, allowing her breast to trail up his leg all the way to his chest.

  “You’re not the boss of me.” She smiled at her own childish lament.

  “I rather am, Manny Magdalena. This is going to be slow punishment for leaving me in Houston with no word,” he said. Without touching her he backed her up to the bed until she collapsed onto it, her feet splayed open on the floor.

  David jerked her legs open further and dove into a pussy so wet and so tasty that he lost all sense of time as he chewed and licked her, not stopping when he heard her yell into a pillow she’d placed over her face to cover the sounds.

  He crawled up her bed, pulling her with him. Manny lay without moving as he reached over her to turn off the lamp. The darkness was cut by the pale light of the crescent moon. She reached up to cup his face, kissing him as she licked her taste from his mouth.

  Manny collapsed on the bed, turning her back to him as she tried to get a handle on her emotions. Any minute now he would notice her slightly rounded and hardening stomach or her slightly fuller breast. She had an explanation ready—age, working out, overeating—but didn’t need it. David came behind her, pressing her leg up toward her chest as he slipped his wet bulging dick into a cunt slippery and hot. They both sighed as he hit bottom.

  “You are not to wear other men’s clothes or go on vacation with them or charm them into your bed or look at them. You are mine.” Each word was punctuated with a hard thrust that was answered with a backward flick from Manny. She wanted to scream but his large, muscled arm lay across her chest as his hand snaked around her throat, keeping her pinned to the bed with pressure but not enough to stop her from breathing.

  Her tongue snaked out and captured two of his fingers and sucked them deep within her mouth, where she worried them with her teeth and tongue until he broke the contact to grab her breast, twisting her nipple until she hissed in pain.

  “This is mine, mine, mine,” he rasped against her ear. “You are never to leave me again. If you do, I will…”

  “Marry another woman?” Manny said. She clawed a
t his arm but he hitched her higher up in the bed and fucked deeper into her.

  “I will handle that myself. You just stay put until I get it sorted,” he said. His arms tightened around her body as he began panting harder and harder. He nuzzled into her neck, biting down into it as he began to come with a muted roar. She came with him, clamping down on his sprouting dick as she grabbed David’s hand to cover her mouth. She shouted into it, coming as hard as he did.

  They lay in a hot, damp heap breathing in unison until the both fell asleep. She woke up slowly, judging from the light that it was almost five in morning. Without even looking, she knew that David was gone.

  Chapter Five:

  Thousand Rainy Days

  Manuela took a long hot shower, still unable to remove the smell of David that had permeated throughout her entire system. She was tender all over and still sexually excited. She wandered around the bedroom in her towel picking up her discarded clothes from last night and putting them into the hamper. She pulled on a cotton sundress that stopped just under her knees and slipped into her own flip-flops.

  She normally didn’t bother with turning on lights at this time of the year, the sun was bright enough to cook the morning meal. So she knew someone was in the kitchen before she opened the door. Iona sat at the island smoking her favorite pipe and drinking what could only be tea from a two-handed mug.

  “What’s wrong?” Manny said. “You never smoke early in the morning unless you have some kind of problem.”

  “I am working on that hydro deal and it’s a bugger bear. But I’m smoking because I’ve decided to get pregnant and I want all my stash gone before I go to the island,” Iona said. Her husky voice made all the more so because of her special blend of weed that she grew in a little greenhouse next to the kitchen.

  “I want to clean my system out for a couple of months before I tell CJ I want to start making a baby. When we get to the island, I’ll have Dr. Kingsley remove my IUD and I’ll be clear of any THC.”

  “Why do you want to have a baby now? I thought you wanted to wait five years or so. You said that would give you a clear idea of whether or not you and CJ were meant to make it.” Manny moved around the kitchen. Today was pancake day.

  “Well, I want your baby and mine to be close in age. They’re cousins, of a sort. They should grow up together.”

  Manny had a little trouble seeing the mixture through her sudden, quick tears. “I don’t plan on living here, remember?”

  “We’re still family no matter where we live. I want them to have what you and I had growing up, siblings and family and great big holiday celebrations. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t really related, they need that common upbringing. Besides, it’ll be hard to get CJ to have one child so getting another one will take an act of divine intervention,” Iona said. She took a deep pull on her joint and drank tea, watching Manny mix light pancakes that were devoured as they came off the griddle.

  “As usual, you have great points. But aren’t you taking a chance with Dr. Kingsley? He’s had issues for years. All he does is lay around his island, drinking, smoking and fucking twenty-year-olds. Dr. Spock he ain’t.”

  “He’s one of the best OB-GYNs in the world. Willie Mae’s Jeff swears by him. He’s the one who put me on the time table. I should be able to get pregnant, no problems, just need to get the THC out, calm down and fuck a lot. I can do the last two standing on my head.”

  “You can do all those things at the ranch.”

  “I’m just trying to stay out of CJ’s way for a few weeks, maybe a month, so I don’t get pregnant before it’s safe,” Iona said. Her voice got deeper as she talked and smoked.

  “You could do two things. Put your stash away in a drawer somewhere. Nobody said you have to smoke it all. And don’t have sex with CJ or use a condom.”

  Iona’s rolled eyes and curled lip told Manny that neither circumstance was likely to happen.

  Manny laughed. “Okay, pretend I didn’t say that. You told me once that weed was like ADHD medicine to you, allows your brain to focus and you and CJ haven’t stopped fucking since the day you met.”

  “And if I suggested condoms, CJ would suspect something. Probably another man, and, just to piss me off, would spend all his time under me, making sure ‘his woman’ was doing right.” Iona’s mimicry of CJ’s accent made Manny laugh. She flipped three pancakes into a warming plate for Iona and added four for her on another. She laughed at Iona’s raised eyebrow.

  “I’m eating for two.”

  “I see. When we get to the island you can hang out in the sun. You know Pau loves it when you come, you guys can make food and fight about recipes. I need the time and you need the space. David has a lot of issues to get together before you guys can get back together.”

  “Figured that out?”

  “The walls aren’t that thick. You made more noise than we usually do. You tell him about the baby?”

  “No. He should do what he needs to without extra pressure. I’ve not decided I want to be in our lives yet anyway, ‘our’ in this case is me and the Bean. I’ll go to the island with you. I still have to decide what I’m going to do for a living, where we’re going to live, and names. Thinking about names keeps me awake at night. I don’t have time to scratch an itch with a man I’ve met a few times.”

  “Yes, but they sound like intimate kind of meetings.”

  “I admit they were close meetings, wet meetings, hot meetings.”

  “Sounds like a small sauna.”

  “Stop, you make me laugh and, since I’m pregnant, that means I pee myself a little bit.”

  “I might have to think about this having-a-baby stuff a longer period of time. Sounds uncomfortable,” Iona said. She cleaned her plate in the sink and loaded it into the dishwasher. She poured mango juice for Manny and more hot water into her teapot. Sitting on the counter close enough to Manny to snag a wedge of pancake from her plate, she ducked the slap of a fork that Manny aimed at her hand.

  “I’ll go to the island for a few months. It’ll give me time to format that ‘guess what, I’m pregnant’ speech I have to give to Ernesto, Adriana and Abuela,” Manny said. She stuffed the last of her pancakes into her mouth before Iona could pounce again.

  “Make sure you tell me when you plan on doing that. I sure I have a meeting on another continent that day,” Iona said. She collected her smoking box and teacup and headed up to the suite.

  “Glad to see you’ve got my back.”

  Iona’s rich, deep laugh went all the way up the stairs.

  * * * *

  It took almost a week for Manny and Iona to get everything ready for them to leave for the island. Iona called her semicousin Ebony to take over Manny’s place as chef for the ranch. When the girl came, she never lifted her head. Manny asked Iona if she was old enough to handle the responsibility. Iona laughed and assured the older woman that Ebony was more than capable.

  Manny spent a day showing her replacement where things were. That was enough time to assure Manny that the ranch would be all right and Ebony was a lot older than she looked. Iona wrapped up some deals and postponed a few more. The rest of the time she spent with CJ. They took a commercial flight to the Fijian island that CJ bought for a place to relax.

  It was a typical day on the island. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing and everybody was smiling. Pau had stocked the beach house with food and drinks. The house overlooked a dark blue lagoon. Windows ringed the entire house, allowing light and air to flow in bringing the smell of the ocean, coconut trees and ripening fruit throughout the house.

  It was a house on stilts although it had five guest rooms, six bathrooms, and a disappearing-edge pool that jetted out over the lagoon. Pau and his wife, Lalu, lived there year round and were more than happy to see Iona and Manny. Manny and Pau cooked well together. They liked Iona because she required almost no real upkeep. As long as she had food, water and an occasional bottle of wine around, she was happy.

  Two days later Pau took t
hem to check in with Dr. Kingsley on the next island. The doctor was a Scotsman who had found his way to the island over twenty-five years ago after a tragedy that no one knew any details about. He spent most of his time walking along the beach, drinking rum, and having sex.

  He was a gruff man was not known for his bedside manner. He didn’t have a bedside manner. He was more apt to tell you stop being a fucking baby than to pat you on the hand. On her first official trip, when Manny explained her condition, he gave her a quick physical, found nothing wrong and prescribed vitamins for her to start taking.

  “Make sure you walk around the lagoon. What I’ve seen is that the older a woman is when she gets pregnant the more likely she is to sit on her ass until the baby pops out. That’s a disaster waiting to happen,” Dr. Kingsley said.

  “When have you ever known me to sit on my ass? And my ass is still perky thank you very much,” Manny said. The thing about Kingsley was that he liked to intimidate the patients who allowed him to. If you showed any sign of weakness, much like a wolf, he would tear your throat out. With words.

  “I just said what I’ve seen. Don’t get all bent out of shape because of what I said,” he said.

  “Don’t make generalizations and I don’t have to get mad,” she said.

  “You’re fine. About ten weeks. Baby seems to be developing according to schedule. Who’s the dad?” Dr. Kingsley said.

  “Just because you’ve seen my chula doesn’t mean that I have to tell you all my business,” she said. She walked along the beach as Iona saw the doctor for her checkup.

  On the boat trip back to the Davis island, Manny placed a protective hand around the Bean. She paused to consider her decisions regarding telling David. They were strong together but good sex did not spell a good relationship.

  Over the next few weeks, Manny spent early mornings walking back and forth along the beach. The tropical breeze was light and the air warm without the harshness of the Oklahoma sun. She spent afternoons on the Internet researching restaurants. She still didn’t know where she wanted to live.