THE MAVERICK'S CHRISTMAS BABY

by Victoria Pade

  Before she’d thought about taking off her clothes.

  He closed his eyes and arched his eyebrows high. Nina knew he was regrouping. Regaining some control. Even as the heat of his hand still on her flesh made her want him not to.

  But then that hand slid away and joined his other one in refastening her bra before they both retreated and ended up flat to the wall on either side of her head.

  He dipped down to kiss her again. A long, lingering, openmouthed, seductive kiss that made her have some very serious second thoughts.

  Until he ended that kiss, too, and pushed away from her with a finality that said he was honoring her wishes, regardless of how difficult it might be for him.

  Then he picked up the bag that held his purchases, took a deep breath and said, “I kind of need you to stay right where you are and let me go upstairs, put on my coat and get the hell out of here. Otherwise I’m not gonna to be able to go at all because there isn’t a damn thing I’ve ever wanted not to do as much as leave you right now. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Nina agreed breathlessly.

  “But I’ll be back tomorrow night to pick you up for dinner.”

  Nina muttered another “Okay.”

  “And thanks,” he added. “For the after-hours shopping, for thinking of the boys and for wrapping their shirts.” He grinned at her—a grin that turned her knees to mush because he looked so good and sexy and mischievous, and just so Dallas. “And I’d say thanks for sending me home before we did something we might regret, except I just don’t think I would have regretted it.”

  Then he turned and went up the stairs.

  Nina watched him go, drinking in every bit of the sight of him climbing those steps, until he reached the top and she couldn’t see him anymore.

  Only then did she drop her head back to the wall and close her eyes, trying to tell her body that it was for the best that she hadn’t let things go any further than they had.

  But really, she didn’t care what her reasons were.

  She just wanted him back there.

  She wanted his hands on her again.

  And she wanted a whole lot more that she’d left herself only able to have in her imagination....

  Chapter Nine

  Nina was nervous about spending Christmas Eve with the Traubs and considered begging off at the last minute.

  But such a big part of her wanted to be with Dallas that she couldn’t make herself do that.

  Then Dallas came to pick her up, and one look at him sent any idea of not going right out the window.

  He looked terrific in charcoal-gray slacks and a lighter gray turtleneck sweater that hugged every well-honed inch of those broad shoulders, pectorals and biceps that she remembered so vividly having her hands all over the night before. And there was no way she could deny herself being with him.

  “Wow! Look at you—you look fabulous!” he complimented her when he first set eyes on her.

  She’d changed outfits four times, so she was gratified that he approved. She was wearing the simplest of sweaters—a soft black cocoon of cashmere with long sleeves.

  It was the cut of it that made it special. It was tighter at the bottom, the hem reaching to midthigh, giving it a sexy swing. And the fact that the bateau neckline went from the very end of one shoulder to the very end of the other gave it a sexy allure that also kept the focus above the waist.

  Under the sweater she wore black leather slim-leg pants with a pair of four-inch heel shoes that dipped enough in front to show just a hint of toe cleavage, so the pants and shoes were also hardly matronly.

  But as happy as she was to see Dallas’s genuine approval of how she looked—along with a glint of desire in his eyes—she continued to be nervous.

  “Are you sure all of your family is going to be okay with having me there?” she fretted on the drive to the Triple T ranch.

  “When Ellie Traub gives her stamp of approval to someone it goes a long way with the whole lot of us. And her personal invitation counts as that stamp of approval, so you don’t have anything to worry about,” Dallas assured her.

  But somehow that didn’t help as Nina thought about the years and years—actually the full decades and generations—that had gone into the feud between the Crawfords and the Traubs. About the ugly words and accusations that had been flung during the campaign for mayor.

  And when she added to that her own inside knowledge of how the Crawfords thought and felt about the Traubs—and had to assume that the Traubs thought and felt the same way about her and the rest of her family—it wasn’t easy to believe that a simple invitation was enough to override everything else.

  Dallas must have seen her lingering doubts because he cast her a supportive smile and said, “Plus, this Christmas Eve is a little different than usual. It’s more of an open house tonight, and Mom is expecting a pretty big crowd. One way or another, though, I promise I’ll be right by your side every minute. If at any point you want out, all you have to do is elbow me in the ribs and I’ll get it done before you can blink twice. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Nina agreed, continuing to fret nonetheless.

  But it was all for naught.

  Dallas hadn’t exaggerated when he’d said his mother was expecting a crowd. The large Traub family home was filled to the brim with people—many of whom Nina recognized as mutual friends and neighbors who continued to be in need this year, due to the flood.

  It made the Traubs’ Christmas Eve an elaborate party, and while Nina was glad for the opportunity to get lost in that sea of guests, she had to admit that the party itself was a nice thing to do for those whose Christmas Eve might not have been so festive otherwise.

  And it proved what she’d begun to think about the Traubs before this—that the family she’d been taught to demonize was, instead, much like her own family—people who cared about the misfortune that had fallen on some Rust Creek Falls citizens worse than on others and who wanted to do whatever they could to make things better.

  The house was decorated to the hilt, with the dining room table set buffet-style and laden with food. There were hams and turkeys and pork roasts and pasta dishes. There were green salads, fruit salads and macaroni salads, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and oyster stuffing. There was asparagus and green-bean casserole and sweet potatoes and candied yams. There was hollandaise for the ham, and gravies for the turkeys, the mashed potatoes and the pork roasts. There were pies and cakes and cheesecakes and Christmas cookies and fudge for every sweet tooth. And there were drinks galore, too—soda and punch and wine and beer and eggnog—spiked and unspiked.

  Regardless of what troubles might have been hanging on for anyone, they seemed to be suspended for the time being in smiles and laughter as folks mingled and talked and ate of the plentiful food. Dallas’s three sons and a number of other children dressed in party clothes ran around and played and let out some of their pent-up excitement over the holiday.

  One by one, each of the Traubs made their way to Nina and Dallas, and there was no rancor to be found in any of the encounters. Instead, Nina was welcomed warmly by Ellie and Bob, and found herself chatting amiably enough with each of Dallas’s five brothers at one point or another.

  His brother Forrest and Forrest’s fiancée, Angie, were in from Thunder Canyon, and so was Clay, along with his wife, Antonia, and their two children, her baby daughter, Lucy, and his slightly older son, Bennett.

  Of course Collin Traub and his wife, Willa, were there. Collin, the new mayor, was polite, but it was Willa who actually did the talking while they shared an eggnog with Dallas and Nina.

  The still-single Braden even came up to say hello and tell Nina he was glad she could make it. And Sutter and his fiancée, Paige, stayed to talk quite a while, with Paige seeming overly interested in Nina’s pregnancy.

  Th
e entire evening was so amiable that, as it wore on, Nina began to wonder if anyone there even remembered that she was a Crawford. And she certainly had yet another occasion to forget that the Traubs were supposed to be her sworn enemies.

  It was nearly ten o’clock before the crowd thinned. While the rest of the family helped Ellie and Bob clean up, Dallas enlisted Nina to join him in getting his boys upstairs to bed.

  “Not home to bed?” she asked quietly.

  “Everybody’s spending the night here so we can have one big Christmas morning. We thought maybe if we did it that way it might keep the boys from thinking too much about being without their mother this year.”

  “Ah...” Nina said in understanding, happy for Ryder, Jake and Robbie that their family all cared so much for them that they were willing to do that.

  “Besides,” Dallas added with a mischievous smile. “I still have some things to get ready at my house—a bike to finish assembling and some packages that need to be wrapped. Since you’re so good at that—” his smile turned into an incorrigible grin “—I thought maybe I could talk you into lending me a hand before I take you back to your place.”

  “You’re going to make me work for my supper?”

  “Just a little. If you wouldn’t mind...”

  As pleasant as the evening had been—and even though Dallas had been true to his word and stayed by her side throughout —it didn’t seem as if they’d had much alone time. And while Nina knew—especially after the way the previous evening had ended—that she shouldn’t have any alone time with Dallas, when it was suddenly right there for the taking, she couldn’t make herself not take it.

  So she said, “I don’t mind.” Which was, in fact, an enormous understatement.

  Because the prospect of that alone time had just made her whole night.

  * * *

  “That quiet sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?” Dallas commented as he let himself and Nina into his house after they’d gotten Ryder, Jake and Robbie to bed at their grandparents’ place and said good-night to the rest of the Traubs.

  “Oh, yeah,” Nina agreed, not having realized until now the level of noise they’d been in through the party, especially with so many family members remaining to stay overnight. But they were alone at Dallas’s place.

  Alone with a half-assembled bicycle and several toys waiting to be wrapped.

  It was already late, so they wasted no time getting to work—Dallas in the middle of the family room floor and Nina at the kitchen table—after kicking off the shoes that she’d been standing in too long tonight.

  “Visions of Christmas future,” Dallas said as they went about their separate tasks.

  Nina’s first thought was that he meant that tonight was her glimpse of future Christmases—with him. And her glance shot to Dallas.

  Then she realized he was referring to the many Christmas Eves to come when she’d be assembling toys and wrapping packages for her own child, and she deflated. And relaxed, too, because while there had been the oddest sense of hope in what he’d said, there had also been alarm that he might be suggesting something... Some kind of proposal she didn’t want to have to reject...

  “I can’t wait to tuck in my own little boy or girl and then do this for them,” she said to narrow her focus.

  “Next Christmas...” Dallas said unnecessarily.

  Next Christmas she would have her own child. An almost one-year-old.

  It seemed so strange....

  And wonderful, too.

  It was just difficult to imagine that by this time next year so much would be different. She would have delivered the baby and would know that baby well. Son or daughter. Her son or daughter. And so many stages of babydom and parenting would already be past.

  “Will I be sorry that the year has gone by, or glad?” she wondered out loud.

  “A little of both,” he answered, as the voice of experience. “You won’t be sorry for getting full nights of sleep again. And you’ll be an old hand at diapering and feeding and baths and washing hair—that’s an improvement over the first few times when you’ll be all thumbs. You’ll know hungry cries from fussy cries, tired cries from cries that are just temper and cries that mean you better come quick—that helps. But you’ll also look back and feel sad that some things are over and done with.”

  “It’s so weird to think that in just a year’s time anything will be over and done with.”

  “Some things go fast, though. The newborn stage—sure, you’re exhausted, but at the same time you get to have this soft little ball of baby in your arms, snuggled there like an angel. You’ll have seen a lot of firsts come and go—the first time they hold your finger, the first smile that says they really recognize you, the first time they roll over or sit up or crawl—”

  “I guess that’s part of why people have more than one—so they can do it all again,” Nina mused.

  “Part of it, yeah,” he agreed. “Do you have plans for that? More artificial insemination for more babies...?”

  Why did it sound as if he might care what the answer to that was?

  Nina wasn’t quite sure, so she merely answered honestly. “No, no plans. What about you? Do you want more kids?”

  And why did she care what his answer might be?

  She didn’t know. She just knew that if he said he didn’t want any more it was going to bother her....

  “Three kids doesn’t seem like so many when you come from a family with six. And this is a big house—it could handle a couple more. So I guess I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

  Nina smiled without meaning to.

  “How about Rust Creek?” he asked then. “Could you see yourself leaving here?”

  “No,” Nina responded without having to think about it. “I love it here. I love small-town living. The store. Knowing almost everyone—”

  “Yeah, but you’re only twenty-five. A lot can change between your twenties and your thirties...” he mused, sounding slightly melancholy, so Nina knew he was thinking of his ex-wife’s change of heart.

  It also served as a reminder to her, though. The more she learned about Dallas the more she found that they had in common and the less aware she was of their age difference. But that gap never narrowed, and she knew she needed not to forget about it.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Could you see yourself leaving here?”

  “Not me. Never. My roots here are deep,” he said, also without pause.

  “And you’re set in your ways...” she teased, only to reinforce the reminder that he was so much older than she was. Like Leo, who had used the set-in-his-ways excuse for so much....

  But Dallas heard her and laughed. “Go ahead and have that baby—see how set in your ways you get to be once it’s here,” he challenged. “You’ll be in a state of change to meet every change that kid makes from now until...well, I was going to say from now until it goes to college, but come to think of it, not even my folks have the luxury of being set in their ways. Not with the six of us getting engaged and married and bringing kids of our own around. And then if divorce rears its ugly head? That shook things up for them, too, believe me. I don’t think they know what’s coming at them from one day to the next. I know I don’t.”

  And he adapted to everything he needed to adapt to...unlike Leo.

  But she was trying hard to remind herself why she needed to resist her attraction to him—why she needed to resist him—and finding him unlike Leo didn’t help matters.

  And she was trying to resist what she was feeling for Dallas.

  Because, despite so many people being around them tonight at his parents’ party, despite the half-a-room distance that separated them now, there still hadn’t been a single moment tonight when she hadn’t been ultra-aware of him. When she hadn’t glanced at him and been struck by how handsome he was.
When she hadn’t wanted to have her hands on him. Or his hands on her...

  Actually there hadn’t been a moment since she’d stopped things between them last night that her body had seemed to calm down, to stop craving going right back to what had happened between them and letting it find a conclusion.

  A conclusion that was beginning to seem like the only way to get what he’d stirred up in her to die down again....

  “In case no one has told you yet,” Dallas said then, grinning as if he knew something she didn’t. “Once that baby gets here, your life as you’ve known it will be forever changed and changing. Kiss what you’ve known goodbye, darlin’,” he joked. “And embrace whatever comes your way because you’ll never know what’s next, and there’s no use fighting it.”

  Kissing and embracing...

  She heard what he’d said and knew what he was talking about, but those two words really rang in her ears. Because they were what she really wanted to be doing at that moment.

  She’d finished the last of the wrapping, so she didn’t even have that to do to keep her hands busy.

  Or to keep her distance from Dallas.

  She went around the island and crossed to him, standing slightly behind him to survey his work.

  “Done?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “Me, too. Just about...”

  He gave a few more turns of a screwdriver and sat back on his haunches. “There! I’m getting to be a bike-assembling master!”

  “You’ve done this before,” Nina said even though she wasn’t looking at the bicycle anymore but at his hair. Not too long. Not too short. Carelessly combed. Clean and shiny and sexy...

  She wanted to bury her face in it.

  That wasn’t something she’d ever considered doing before.

  Oh, she just had it so bad for this man!

  And it was getting worse by the minute.