Beauty and the Baby

by Marie Ferrarella

  His eyes looked so serious. Her grin softened into a smile. “Because you deserve to be happy.”

  He lifted his shoulders, shrugging carelessly. “Not according to my ex-wife.”

  “What does she know?” Lori scoffed. She’d never really liked Jaclyn. The woman had turned out to be a self-serving gold digger, pushing Carson to get further along in his career not for his benefit, but for hers. “If she knew anything, she wouldn’t be your ex-wife, she’d still be your wife.”

  The assertion embarrassed him. He didn’t know how to handle compliments. He never had. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  She’d almost forgotten. “I came to see if I could find Angela’s phone number.”

  More than a hundred and seventy kids came to the center during the week. He was drawing a blank. “Angela?”

  “The tall, thin girl who’s so good at basketball. Brunette, dark brown eyes. Laughs like a blue jay,” she prompted.

  The last struck a chord. “Oh, right.” And then he looked at her. He couldn’t think of a more unlikely coupling. “Why do you want her number?”

  She debated just how much she should tell him. “I want to see how she’s doing.”

  “Why? Can’t find anyone your own age to play with?” Carson studied her face in the dim light. “You’re serious.”

  “Yes.”

  He couldn’t read her expression any more than he could read Japanese. “Why would you want to see how she’s doing?” Instincts told him not to drop the matter. “Something wrong?”

  Lori didn’t want to break a confidence. “It could be.”

  The expression on Carson’s face told her she’d lost all chance of leaving the building with the phone number without giving him some sort of an explanation. She hadn’t promised Angela not to tell anyone, but it had been implied. Still, Carson had a good heart, despite his tough, blustery manner and he’d been running this center for a while now. He had a right to know what was going on. Besides, he might be able to offer some insight into how to handle the situation.

  Lori bit her lower lip. “She thinks she might be pregnant.”

  The news stunned him. He stared at Lori blankly, wondering if he’d heard right. “She’s only, what, thirteen?”

  “Fifteen,” Lori corrected, although she could see how he’d make the mistake. Angela had a baby face that made her look younger than she was.

  Thirteen, fifteen, there hardly seemed a difference. “A baby.”

  She knew how Carson felt. But it was a sad fact of life. “Babies have been having babies for a long time now.”

  Carson scrubbed his hand over his face. Damn it, the center was supposed to prevent this kind of thing. The kids were supposed to use up their energy on sports, not sex. “How do you figure into this?”

  “I found her crying in the back of the locker area today and got her to talk to me.”

  Lori had that kind of knack, he thought, the kind that made people open up to her, even hard cases. At times even he had trouble keeping his own counsel around her. “Does her mother know?”

  She shook her head. “I think Angela’s afraid of her mother.”

  “I’d be afraid of my mother if I was pregnant at fifteen.”

  She laughed. “If you were pregnant at fifteen, it would have made all the scientific journals.” Her grin broadened and she was relieved to be able to have something to laugh at. “If you were pregnant at any age, it would have made the scientific journals.”

  Carson gave her a dry look. “Very funny.” Maybe it would do Angela some good to talk to Lori, he reasoned. Girls in trouble tended to do drastic things. Minimizing his current program, Carson typed in something on his keyboard and brought up a directory. He scrolled down the screen. “Here it is, Angela Coleman.” Taking an index card, he jotted down the phone number for Lori, then handed it to her.

  She looked at the single line, then held the card out to him. “How about the address?”

  “Oh no, I don’t want you driving there in your condition.” When she turned to look at the screen, he shut the program.

  She frowned at his screensaver. “The DMV have a ban on pregnant women?”

  She was going to fight him on this, he just knew it. The woman didn’t have the sense of a flea. “Lori, it’s not the safest neighborhood.” He shouldn’t have to tell her that.

  “Angela lives there.”

  There were times he just wanted to take Lori by the shoulders and shake her. Because there were times that her Pollyanna attitude could put her in serious jeopardy. It was bad enough that she traveled here to work. He didn’t want her taking unnecessary chances by pressing her luck. “There’s nothing I can do about that. There is something I can do about you, though.”

  She knew he meant well, but good intentions still didn’t give him the right to order her around. “Slavery went out a hundred and thirty-seven years ago, Carson. You don’t own me.”

  He rose from his chair and looked down at her. “No, but I’m bigger.”

  Lori wiggled off the desk. And met him toe to toe, raising her chin defiantly. “Plan to stuff me into a box?”

  Damn but her chin did present a tempting target. So did her lips. The thought shook him and he blocked it almost immediately. But not soon enough to erase it or its effect on him.

  “If I have to.”

  And then her expression softened. He couldn’t tell if she’d been putting him on or not. Or was doing so now. “In your own twisted little way, you care about me, don’t you?”

  “Don’t overanalyze everything.” He didn’t want this going any further. “You’re carrying around my niece or nephew in there, that gives me the right to tell you not to be an idiot.”

  “You do have a way with words.” Lori looked at him for a long moment. Others might buy into his gruff routine, but she didn’t. She’d seen something else in his eyes. A man who didn’t know how to connect. Even though he sorely needed to. “You miss her a lot, don’t you?”

  Now what the hell was she talking about? It was getting late and he was in no mood for this. “Who?” he snapped.

  “Sandy.”

  The mention of his now five-year-old daughter took some of the fire out of him. He let his guard down an inch. There was no shame in admitting his feelings about the little girl. “Don’t get to see her nearly enough.”

  That was because he spent nearly every waking minute here, she thought. “Why don’t you take tomorrow off? I’ll cover for you. Go see your daughter.”

  It wasn’t nearly that simple. “I’ve got limited visitation rights,” he ground out.

  She’d forgotten about that. He’d told her about it during the only time she had ever seen him intoxicated. The terms of the divorce had just been worked out. Jaclyn in her wrath had hit him where she knew it would hurt the most. She’d used their daughter as a tool to get back at him.

  Lori felt badly about raising a sore point. “It’s not fair, you know.”

  He shrugged. There was nothing he could do about that now. “Whoever said that life was fair?” Carson shut down the computer and closed the monitor. He nodded at the card she was still holding. “Well, you’ve got your phone number. C’mon, I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Nodding, she turned toward the door. “Okay.”

  “What,” he feigned surprise, “no argument?”

  She stopped in the doorway. “I can muster up something if you really want me to.”

  Ushering her over the threshold, he locked the office door behind him. “Never mind.”

  “You leaving, too?” Even as she asked, she laced both her arms through his.

  He tried not to notice how close she was. Or that he found it oddly comforting and unsettling at the same time. He told himself that he was too tired to think clearly about anything. “There’s no squeezing blood out of a stone.”

  She waited as he first locked the rear entrance, then tested the door to make sure it wouldn’t give. “You know, I meant what I said.”

&nb
sp; Turning from the door, he began to walk to the cars. He was careful to keep a little distance between them. The night air felt warm and balmy and for some reason, he didn’t feel quite in control of the situation.

  “About what? You said a lot of things. You always say a lot of things.”

  If he was trying to divert her attention, he wasn’t succeeding, she thought. “About the fund-raiser.”

  It was against his grain to go begging with his hat in his hand. But this wasn’t for him, it was for the center. Maybe that was the way to go. But he was too tired to think intelligently about it tonight. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  She’d more than half expected him to turn her down flat. “Really?”

  Why did she have to question everything? “I said it didn’t I?”

  Pleased at the victory and enthused about the possibilities that a true fund-raiser could open up, Lori threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  It was only meant to be just a light little peck on the lips. That was the way it started.

  But then the peck became something more.

  The contact between their lips opened a door, allowing something to seep out that had been kept, unconsciously, tightly under wraps by both of them.

  Something warm and volatile.

  And demanding.

  Surprised, Lori looked into his eyes as she pulled her mouth back. Exactly one second before she kissed him again, harder this time. And with a great deal more feeling.

  He meant to stop her, he really did. This was his sister-in-law for heaven’s sake. By no means was this kind of thing supposed to happen outside of the realm of the Old Testament where men were encouraged to marry their dead brothers’ widows.

  But the taste of her soft lips feverishly pressed against his had aroused something within him. Had unearthed feelings that he would have sworn on a stack of Bibles had been all but ground out beneath the heel of his ex-wife’s shoe as she’d walked out of his life.

  Carson wasn’t altogether certain about their demise anymore. Those feelings felt very much alive and well, beating their wings within his chest.

  His hands slipped from Lori’s shoulders to her back. For a mindless moment, he pressed her closer as the sweetness of her mouth filled him. Filled all the empty, gaping holes within his soul like water rushing into an abyss.

  Carson could feel his blood pumping hard through his veins, reminding him that there was more to him than just someone who came in early, left late and spent the core of his day trying to make a difference in the lives of kids most of society didn’t care about.

  Reminding him that he was a man. A man with needs that had been long neglected.

  She hadn’t meant for her kiss to be anything but innocent. Maybe her exuberance had gone too far, taking her to a place she had no business being. But oh, it did feel good to kiss a man. To be kissed by a man as if she mattered.

  She could feel her head spinning, could feel her pulse racing. Making her glad to be alive.

  For a moment longer, Lori allowed herself to linger, to ride this wild, surprising wave that took her into regions which were at once thrilling and frightening. Frightening because she wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way, wasn’t supposed to be reacting this way.

  She was more than eight months pregnant for heaven’s sake.

  It didn’t matter. All that mattered was this kiss.

  And this man.

  And then she became aware of something else. The baby picked that moment to kick.

  Carson felt the punt being delivered to his lower abdomen. Reality came flying back with it. What the hell was he doing? This was wrong, all wrong.

  Lori felt his hands leaving the small of her back, felt them grip her shoulders again. Then felt the bitter-sweetness of separation. His eyes were dark when he looked into her face.

  “I’m not Kurt.”

  She shouldn’t have done that, she thought. Shouldn’t have jeopardized their friendship this way.

  “I know.” She smiled at him, struggling for humor, for control. “He wasn’t as tall as you.” Lori rubbed the back of her neck. “You’re giving me a crick in my neck, Carson.”

  Her words diminished the seriousness of the moment. Carson gravitated toward it like a drowning man to a lifeline.

  What the hell was that, he silently demanded of himself. It was so out of the boundaries of their relationship that he could have easily sworn it hadn’t happened.

  Except that it had and he felt shaken down to his shoes.

  “Sorry about that,” he mumbled.

  She didn’t know if he was talking about the crick in her neck, or about the kiss that had overtaken both of them. She took a chance he meant the latter. “Don’t be. I’m not.”

  The look in her eyes went clear down to the center of the soul he was certain he no longer possessed. “It’s late. I’ll follow you in my car.”

  She tried to read his expression. Even if the lighting was better, she had a feeling she’d fail. “Are you coming over?”

  He was surprised at the question. “No, just to make sure you get home safely.”

  “I know how to drive, Carson. Pregnancy doesn’t affect my ability to navigate.”

  If that was true, the last few seconds wouldn’t have happened. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

  She shook her head. “You know, Carson, you’d be a very sweet man if you didn’t get in your own way all the time.”

  He had no idea what that meant. He felt like a man scrambling for high ground. “I don’t want to be a sweet man.”

  “Too late.” She smiled up at him again, her expression doing strange things to his insides. “You can huff and puff all you want, Carson. But you don’t fool me. I know the inner you.”

  “I thought your degree was in digital arts, not psychoanalysis.”

  “This isn’t a football field, you don’t have to bob and weave to avoid getting tackled.” Her voice softened into a whisper. “I’m not trying to tackle you, Carson.”

  Maybe, he thought, but he didn’t know what the hell she was trying to do. Or what the hell was wrong with him. He shouldn’t have kissed her.

  But she had been the one who had kissed him, he reminded himself.

  All right, then, he shouldn’t have kissed her back.

  At a complete loss, he looked down at her as she opened her door and slid in behind the steering wheel.

  “Go home, Carson. I can drive myself home without any mishaps.”

  As far as he was concerned, she’d already had one this evening. They both had.

  Like a man frozen to the spot, Carson stood and watched his sister-in-law drive away. It was better than trying to sift through the jumble that served as his emotions.

  Chapter Four

  Poor Carson.

  Lori felt her mouth curving as she took the freeway off-ramp onto Bedford’s main thoroughfare. He’d looked absolutely stunned when he’d pulled away from her in the parking lot. She supposed she must have, too, though at least she knew that was how she’d felt.

  Talk about surprises. She had no idea the man could kiss that way.

  Had to be the best-kept secret around, she mused, since as far as she knew, her brother-in-law had no social life to speak of. Kurt had tried to fix him up a few times after his divorce but Carson had made it clear in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in dating again. Ever. He’d mumbled something about women being more trouble than they were worth. She’d begun to think of him as a hermit.

  She could feel her smile broaden. And she’d thought that Kurt was a fabulous kisser. She doubted that it was time dimming her memory of him, but her late husband had to take a back seat to his big brother.

  Must run in the family. Maybe it was a genetic thing.

  She turned down a long, oak-lined street. If the women in Bedford only knew what she knew now, the man would never know another quiet moment, she speculated.

  Not that she was all that experienced when it came to male-fe
male relationships, or even kissing. She couldn’t exactly be accused of being a party girl—ever.

  But she knew a lackluster kisser when she ran into one. Until Kurt had come into her life, she’d actually thought that the closeness thing was highly overrated. Until Kurt, no man had ever sent her head spinning and her pulse spiking off the charts the way some of her girlfriends liked to claim that their boyfriends did.

  Kurt had been a wonderful lover. Kind, attentive, tender. It was why she could forgive his transgressions and shortcomings. In bed and out, her husband had been utterly engaging.

  Impatient to get home now, she shifted restlessly in her seat, her seat belt chafing her, as she just missed catching the light. With a heavy sigh, she pushed down on the brake and waited. Traffic was sparse.

  She wouldn’t have thought that was something Kurt and his brother had in common. At least, not the kissing part. God knew the brothers O’Neill were both good-looking, tall, broad-shouldered, slim-hipped, with chiseled features that could set an Egyptian mummy’s pulse going at ten paces. But there’d always been a spark in Kurt’s light blue eyes. Even without saying a word, he had a way of making you feel that you were the only one in the room.

  With Carson, you knew you were in the room but you weren’t sure if he was. The man brought new meaning to the term strong, silent type.

  Except that now, he brought a new meaning to the word “wow.”

  Lori ran her tongue along her lips before she realized what she was doing. She could still taste him. She felt a flutter in her stomach. The baby was trying to get comfortable again.

  Stop it. He’s your brother-in-law, not to mention your boss. Don’t make anything out of this. It was a kiss, a plain, ordinary kiss. Just something that happened, that’s all.

  Maybe so, but she couldn’t help wondering if perhaps, just perhaps, the sensual similarities between the brothers didn’t end with just their lips. She seemed to have less control over her mind than over the earth’s rotation on its axis.

  Could Carson set sheets on fire like Kurt had?

  No reason to believe that, and no way you’re ever going to find out.

  The warning echoed in her brain, causing reality to rush in again.