“So.” Mom folded her hands behind her empty plate. “How are you enjoying being back in town?”
“It’s nice. So much quieter than Los Angeles.”
“Well. That isn’t surprising.” Mom had only come to visit a couple of times over the years, and she’d never had many kind things to say about LA. “Have you settled into your new place?”
“Sort of. I have my office set up, but I’ve been working so much, I haven’t had time to finish with the rest of the house.”
Her mother scowled. “You’re not working yourself too hard, are you?”
Dara shook her head. “No. I had to catch up a little from moving, but my clients have all been patient. I’m almost caught up now.” She smiled. “Just busy.” And taking mornings off to heave my guts out.
The scowl didn’t change.
“Busy is a good thing, Mom.”
“Yes, but…” Her mother idly rotated her teacup on the saucer. “Maybe if you rented a less expensive place. Do you really need a house? An apartment, or our back bedroom would—”
“I can afford my place just fine. I promise.” And there’s no way in hell I’m moving into the back bedroom. “Money isn’t an issue. The only reason I’m not buying a house right now is I want to wait until the divorce is completely finalized.”
Mom shifted uncomfortably, long nails clicking on the sides of her teacup. “And the divorce is, um, coming along?” Her lip curled as if the words tasted foul on her tongue.
“Slowly. Just a lot of paperwork and proceedings.”
“I see. Well, I suppose it’s just as well you don’t have to go through the process of changing your name.” Though she was probably attempting to find a silver lining, Mom’s tone negated all that. She never had forgiven Dara for refusing to take either husband’s name.
“It’s one less step to go through now,” Dara said quietly.
“Mmhmm.” Mom picked up her tea, and she watched Dara over its rim. She was thinking something—Dara knew that look. Wheels were turning, and the conversation was about to go from uncomfortable to unbearable.
She squirmed under her mother’s scrutiny. “What?”
Her mom broke eye contact and sipped her tea. She set the cup down with a delicate clink and folded her hands again on the edge of the table. “So how far along are you?”
“How—what?”
The exasperated sigh was one she’d heard a million times as a kid, and it grated on her now just the same. “You’ve been home less than a month, and you’ve gone up at least two cup sizes.”
Dara glanced down at her chest. So much for not showing, as it were. And so much for keeping this quiet until she and Matt had a game plan. Immediately, a lump tried to rise in her throat, but she forced it back and cursed these fucking hormones. “Almost ten weeks.”
“I didn’t think you were able to have children.” Her mother’s voice had softened now, thank God. “Didn’t the chemo…”
Dara nodded. “The doctors told me back then that the treatment was almost guaranteed to leave me sterile. So I, um, had some eggs frozen.”
Her mom’s eyebrows jumped. “You never said anything.”
Heat rushed into her cheeks, and she lowered her gaze. “I know. I didn’t want anyone to know. Until I knew if, well, if it had paid off, I guess.”
“Until you were actually able to get pregnant.”
Dara nodded, still not looking up.
“Does Jon know?”
Dara flinched. “Neither of us did when he left. He knew it was a possibility, though, so when he filed for divorce, he included a petition to have his rights terminated for any child.” Bile rose in the back of her throat. “So I didn’t tell him. Quite honestly, at this point, it’s none of his business.”
“This is his child, honey.”
Dara absently ran a finger around the top of her glass. “No, actually it isn’t.”
“What do you mean? Of course it is.”
She sighed. “Biologically, the baby is…” She shook her head and met her mother’s gaze. “My doctor convinced me that frozen embryos were the way to go, so…” She hesitated. Telling her mother she was having Matt Coolidge’s baby would turn this conversation sour in a hurry. “I used an anonymous donor.” The lie didn’t do good things to her conscience, but the truth couldn’t come out. Not right now.
“An anonymous—” Her mom sighed. “Dara.”
“I had to make a decision so we could get it done and start my cancer treatments.” She shrugged. “And I wasn’t dating anyone, so it seemed like the best way to go.”
Her mom’s nose wrinkled. Then she shook her head. “Well, I suppose an anonymous donor couldn’t be any worse than some of the men you had in your life at the time.”
Dara gritted her teeth. They both knew there’d been only one man in her life when she’d had cancer, and suddenly she didn’t feel so bad about lying. The truth meant a conversation she was not ready to have right now.
“Honey.” Her mom put a cool hand over Dara’s wrist. “I think you and Jon need to talk about this. He probably made a rash decision, but when he knows there’s a baby on the—”
“It’s over, Mom. And it needs to stay that way.”
“Except there’s a baby involved now.”
Dara met Mom’s gaze. “That doesn’t change the fact that my husband left me for another woman.”
“But you can’t just bring a baby into the world without a father!”
Dara clenched her jaw. People did it all the time, but not in Aspen Mill, and sure as hell not in the Marley family. It was simply not done here.
“I wasn’t bringing a baby into the world without a father,” she said as calmly as she could. “I didn’t go through all those awful procedures because I thought my husband would change his mind.”
“Right. The divorce was sudden.” Mom wrapped her hands around her teacup. “It was probably just a foolish mistake, and when he realizes there’s a baby on the—”
“Are you defending him?” Dara eyed her mother. “You were ready to wring his neck when I told you he left.”
“And it’ll take time to forget that he did this,” Mom said. “But he needs to take responsibility for his child.”
Dara managed to not roll her eyes. “He doesn’t have any responsibility for this child. He specifically signed that responsibility away.”
“You need to deny him that petition.” Mom casually sipped her tea. “He needs to take care of his wife and child.”
“I don’t need someone to take care of me,” Dara spat. “I can take care of myself and my baby.”
“And you said yourself, that’s why Jon left, sweetheart. He wanted to be a husband, and husbands are providers. He—”
“No, I’m not having this discussion.” Dara shoved her chair back and stood. As she took her glass and plate to the sink, she threw over her shoulder, “Times have changed, Mom.”
“For the worse, yes.”
Dara turned around. Eyeing her mother coolly, she said, “Okay. Fine. Let’s say I do get back together with Jon. And I quit working so he feels more like a man.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “What if my baby’s a girl?”
Her mom blinked. “What if she is?”
“Is that the example I should set for her? That a woman should go stay with a man who abandoned her and cheated on her, and apologetically lower her income so he feels like the man he apparently isn’t?”
Her mother’s jaw tightened. She sat up straighter, looking Dara right in the eye. “Men have needs too, darling.”
“If those needs are a pretty little housewife catering to his every whim, then he and I aren’t right for each other.”
“I raised you better than this, Dara.”
“Better than what? To have a backbone and not be some insecure man’s doormat?” She put
up a hand before her mother could protest. “Here’s the thing—we can discuss it all day long, but the decision is made. Jon and I are getting a divorce, and I’m having this baby on my own.”
“And I think you’re making an enormous mistake. Still, it’s your decision.”
And I’m not going to hear the end of it any time soon.
But at least for today, the subject was dropped.
Dara headed home to get back to work, and all the way across town, her teeth were grinding. Things had been so much easier the first time she’d gotten divorced. Her mother hadn’t approved of that marriage from the start, and though she’d tried not to show it, she’d been thrilled when Dara had tearfully announced she was leaving Charlie.
Jon had taken a while to grow on her, but Mom sure liked him now. As much as she ever liked any man Dara got involved with, anyway. And there was a baby this time. Dara had a sneaking suspicion that if she’d been pregnant during the first divorce, her mother would’ve moved heaven and earth to stop that one too. She could’ve stomached Charlie if the alternative was her daughter having a child out of wedlock.
Dara rolled her eyes. Maybe she did need to go back to Los Angeles. At least that town wasn’t firmly entrenched in the goddamned Dark Ages.
Beneath the steering wheel, she slid a hand over her still-flat belly. No, even if Aspen Mill never emerged from the 1950s, it was quieter and safer than the parts of LA she could afford to live in by herself.
And besides, even though she couldn’t admit it to her family yet, her baby’s father lived here.
Chapter Eleven
As much as Matt had insisted things only had to get weird if they let them, he was genuinely surprised that they hadn’t. As if saying it and doing it were two different things.
But after they’d fooled around on Dara’s couch, they’d fixed their clothes and gotten to work on her house. And now, a good twenty-four hours after he’d left, she was at his front door, ostensibly to return the favor and help him put up some paintings he hadn’t gotten around to hanging.
The second she met his eyes across the threshold, though, he was sure of two things.
One—things had definitely not gotten weird.
Two—no pictures were getting hung up in this house tonight.
He stood aside to let her in, and he’d barely shut the door and turned around before she grabbed him and kissed him. Oh, hell yeah. He let the door catch them and hold them up, and he wrapped his arms around her, his cock hardening between them as they kissed like all the doubts they’d had yesterday were long gone.
And they were. Those doubts, anyway. There were certainly others, and now they started creeping back into his mind. Kissing, he could do. Touching her, he could definitely do.
But then what?
Dara broke the kiss and met his eyes. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Why?”
“Because you’re tense all of a sudden.” She tilted her head, looking him right in the eye like she already knew what he was thinking.
He drew back a bit. “I’m, uh…”
“Nervous?”
“You could say that.”
“It’s okay.” She combed her fingers through his hair. “There’s no pressure and no hurry.”
“I know.” He swallowed. “But I am so clueless. All I know is the technical stuff.”
“The ins and outs?”
“So to speak. It’s the finer points, you know? What do I do with my hands? What do I say? What if a woman doesn’t like what—”
“Sweetie, sweetie.” She shook her head. “You’re overthinking this. I promise, it’s much easier than it sounds.”
Laughing uncomfortably, he added, “Easy for you to say. What I know about sex comes from movies and the Internet, and I’m pretty sure Internet porn isn’t exactly the most educational material out there.”
“Matthew Coolidge.” She clicked her tongue and sighed dramatically. “Are you telling me that you watch porn?”
“Oh please. Don’t act like you don’t.”
“Of course I do. I’m just stunned that a gentleman like you is—” She smothered a laugh. “I can’t even say that with a straight face.”
“Uh-huh.” He rolled his eyes. “Nice try, though.”
She laughed, but her expression turned serious. “And you’re right, porn isn’t educational. It’s all fucking fake.”
Matt groaned. “Great. That makes it that much easier to convince myself I might have some clue what I’m doing when the time comes.”
“Well, it’s a start.” She chewed her lip. “You know what? Show me what you’ve got.”
“What?”
“Show me. Put a video on.”
He blinked. “You… Seriously?”
“Why not?”
“You want to watch a porno with me?”
“No. I want to mock a porno with you.” She flashed a toothy grin. “Consider it educational.”
“Are you—”
“Honey, porn is about as far from real sex as you can get. So I’m going to point out everything they do wrong.” She winked. “And make fun of it too, because it’s been way too long since we’ve heckled a movie together.”
“This will be a little different from heckling the new Star Wars movies, I think.”
“More dicks, fewer light sabers.” She shrugged. “And maybe the plot and dialogue are slightly better.”
“In The Phantom Menace or the porno?”
“The porno. Obviously.”
He stared at her but then shrugged. What the hell? Maybe this would give him a chance to get his nerves under control.
They moved into the living room, where his laptop was already hooked up to feed directly into the TV.
“You do this often?” she asked with a grin.
“No, I stream movies.”
“What kind of movies? Naughty movies?”
“Sometimes.”
“Mmhmm.”
Okay, so he did have a pretty sizeable cache of porn, and he grabbed the laptop and quickly picked a random title before Dara could get a good look at the sheer volume of options he had.
As the video started, he settled on the couch beside Dara, keeping the remote on the armrest where he could reach it if needed.
The opening scene showed a pretty blonde woman in lingerie masturbating on a sofa in a massive candlelit living room.
“Let me guess,” Dara said. “She forgot that the plumber was on his way?”
Matt eyed her. “Electrician, I think.”
“Oh. Right. That explains the candles. Lights must not be working.”
“So you’d think she’d remember the electrician was on his way.”
“You would think.” Dara clicked her tongue. “So forgetful.”
They exchanged glances and both snickered.
Sure enough, the “electrician” showed up, startling the woman, and took the most logical course of action—he dropped his pants and offered to let her suck his dick.
Matt wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but suddenly the startled housewife was on her knees with her lips around the man’s cock, and sitting here beside Dara became even more surreal. This was the first time he’d watched a woman sucking cock since Dara had sucked his, and he thought he was going to come unglued. He wasn’t used to watching this kind of thing with a woman next to him, never mind one who’d already said she’d have sex with him. And definitely not with his jeans still on so his erection rubbed painfully against the zipper.
“That woman’s jaw must not be attached,” Dara muttered. “No way he’d get that thing anywhere near my face. Or anywhere else for that matter.”
“I thought women liked big guys.”
“Big is good, but there are limits.” She waved a hand toward the screen. “That thing would spl
it me in half. No thank you.”
Well, that was encouraging—the guys in pornos had led him to believe he wasn’t packing much, but maybe he was doing all right.
As the couple onscreen continued, he couldn’t decide if he was uncomfortable, or turned on, or in the Twilight Zone, but the first woman he’d ever touched beyond a kiss was beside him and the two porn stars on the screen were now heading toward the couch. The guy laid her back across the armrest, shoved her legs apart, and went down on her.
“Okay, I’m gonna tell you right now”—Dara pointed sharply at the screen—“the way he’s doing it is for the camera, not for her.”
“How so?”
“Because he’s sticking his tongue as far out of his head as it’ll go.”
Matt glanced at the screen, then at her. “What should he be doing?”
“Using his lips, for one thing. It’s easier to show than explain, but for the record, that—oh, there he goes!” Another gesture at the screen, where the man had closed his lips over the woman’s clit, and though it was impossible to see exactly what he was doing now, the woman shuddered. Then he slipped two fingers inside her and started fucking her with them.
Matt gulped. “And that?”
“So right,” Dara breathed, squirming beside him.
The camera got right up in the woman’s face as she moaned and squealed, her lips sticking out in a bizarre pout.
Beside him, Dara groaned, and it was a sound of exasperation this time. “Oh Jesus fuck. What is with that expression?”
“So that’s not normal?” Thank God…
“Oh no. Not even close” She rolled her eyes. “I have no idea why every woman in a porno insists on making a duck face. I can’t tell if she’s enjoying herself or having an allergic reaction that’s making her lips swell up.”
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