“It’s been twenty-one years. I can’t believe I still miss them so much.”
“They gave you unconditional love. They’re a part of you. Of course you miss them.”
“You’re right, you know,” she told him, only just now realizing something herself. “And that love gave me the strength to endure all that came after. Through the love they gave me, they are a part of me.”
“And you of them.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SATURDAY NIGHT, after dinner at a restaurant in downtown Lowell, Joe refused Elise’s invitation to watch a movie with her in the family room. He didn’t trust himself to sit with her that long and not think about touching her.
She didn’t seem all that disappointed.
In his room, he put on his earphones, plugged in the MP3 player, grabbed the detective paperback he’d started and forced himself to read. He got through the crime—a brutal murder—without pause, made it past the witness interviews.
And then Detective Harris had a date.
Harris had a penchant for one-night stands. Always with a woman more beautiful than the last. And on this particular night, he was going to score.
Joe skipped a few pages, skimmed a couple more and found the morning after. Harris was hungover.
There was still beer in Harris’s refrigerator—and a threatening note under his door. Someone intended to make sure that he didn’t live to see another nightfall. He wouldn’t know exactly when, or where, but his death had been plotted. He was going to walk right into it. There was no way out.
A crash sent Joe off the bed and to the door without removing his headset. Dropping the apparatus to the floor with the MP3 player he’d dragged along, he ran for the bathroom.
Elise had fallen. He just knew it. She was carrying around more than twenty extra pounds, all in front of her. Her balance was off.
“Elise?” he called, throwing the door open at the same time. He’d been so engrossed in fear, it never occurred to him that he was barging in where private business was conducted.
“Joe!” She grabbed a towel, pulled it against her, but not before he’d seen two of the most beautiful breasts he’d ever laid eyes on—in print or otherwise.
She had on the sweat shorts she wore to bed. And nothing else.
Joe stared at the towel, which concealed little of her breasts. And swallowed. There was something he should be doing. He knew that. He just couldn’t think far enough ahead to get to it.
“I had a cramp in my calf and took a bath.” Her voice was hoarse, as though her throat was as dry as his. “I tripped reaching for my shirt on the back of the door and knocked over the laundry bin.”
“Are you hurt?” He was starting to breathe again.
“No.”
Slowly, he raised his gaze to her face. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open. Beads of moisture dotted her hairline. His gaze traveled back to the towel.
“I want to touch them.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that.
She nodded. “I know.”
“You need to stop me.”
“I covered them.”
“It’s not enough.” His hands were shaking. He couldn’t even think about what the rest of him was doing. In his sleep shorts, his condition would be obvious. If she looked.
“Maybe you should move out.”
“Right now?”
“Uh-huh.”
He thought about it. “I can’t move out. Not for several more months. Maybe we should just do it once and get it out of the way so we quit thinking about it.” Obsessing was a better term. He looked for something to do with his hands. His shorts were pocketless. He put his hands on the side of the sink and leaned on them. “You know…the grass is always greener on the other side. It’s human nature to want what you can’t have, but once you get it, you don’t know why you ever wanted it to begin with. Maybe we just have to do this one time and then we can return to normal.”
She didn’t look convinced. “You really think so?”
“We’ve been together, what, fifteen years?”
“Just over.”
“And we’ve never had even a hint of this problem before, so it stands to reason that we won’t again. The close proximity created the situation and it’s the age-old curse of wanting the forbidden fruit that feeds it. Once the fruit is no longer forbidden, our problem is solved.”
She didn’t openly disagree. She just stood there in the steamy room, her face flushed.
Joe’s gaze returned once again to the towel. It had slipped slightly. Her nipples were a light gold—and larger than he’d expected.
He shifted on the sink, said, “Unless things have changed since last Sunday.”
“Changed how?”
“You said I was turning you on.”
“Yeah.”
“Still?”
“Yeah.” Elise licked her lips, allowing the towel to slip farther, and Joe was sunk.
“Can I have that?” He reached for the towel. She handed it to him. And straightened her shoulders.
With one hand still on the edge of the sink, he leaned forward, touching his lips to her nipple. He flicked it with his tongue, kissed, and then, with her moans urging him on, he gave in and did what he’d been dying to do for too long—took her nipple into his mouth and suckled her as though he had the right. As though she was his.
She pressed her shoulder forward, pushing herself more fully into his mouth.
Joe let go of the sink.
MUCH LATER THAT NIGHT, Joe felt a niggle of worry. Elise had just stirred in his arms, woken up, and her fingers were brushing lightly against his lower abdomen. She wasn’t wearing any clothes. Neither was he.
At the angle she was lying, with her legs slightly spread beneath her rounded stomach, her crotch was in plain view. God, what a view. This was a whole new side to Elise Richardson—one that was so lush, so responsive and moist he couldn’t believe she’d withheld it from him all these years.
The woman had a hair trigger. All he had to do was touch and her body spasmed with pleasure.
Her fingers moved lower, the back of one sliding along the length of his engorged penis.
How in hell was he ever again going to be able to return to normal? One look at her and…
“IT HAS TO BE HORMONES.” Elise sighed late Sunday afternoon, half-asleep but feeling the tiny threads of need spreading between her legs.
Her nipples were tight and straining for Joe’s touch, her fingers running along his lower back—a prelude to dipping lower.
“And they’re contagious,” he mumbled against her lips.
She’d made love with the man twice the night before. And when they’d first awoken this morning, tangled up in the middle of her bed, they’d done it again—without penetration this time as Joe was worried about her condition.
Dr. Braden had told her on Friday that she was still perfectly safe to have sex.
But the doctor probably hadn’t meant multiple times in a twenty-hour period.
And at four that afternoon, they still hadn’t been out of bed except to get his movie player, the paper and a couple of meals—all of which had been brought right back to bed.
He’d canceled his weekly basketball date with Kenny.
Samantha and Darin, who’d been locked out since the night before, periodically complained at the door.
Joe’s lips slid past her chin, down her neck, over her chest, and she almost cried out in need and anticipation, waiting for him to capture her nipple again, suck on it until she exploded.
It took an embarrassingly short time.
“You’re like this with all your men, huh?” he said, lifting his head to smile down at her after her orgasm.
“I wish,” she said before she could think. Or even decide if she wanted to think. “I like sex, don’t get me wrong,” she said breathlessly, accepting his fingers between her legs, hugging him there. “But it’s…you…oh…Joe…”
Giving up, Elise found his penis again, guid
ing it gently to her, inside her, and rode slowly with him, as, on their sides, gazes locked, they came together.
AT SIX, SHE LEFT HIM to take a shower. Joe offered to help. She declined.
“I’m pretty sure that ‘one time to get it out of the way’ means it has to end,” she told him as she pulled a robe off the back of her bedroom door and covered herself.
With a pillow behind his head, he lay against the headboard, watching her. He’d pulled the sheet up to just below his belly button. The sight of that solid and flat stomach, the light scattering of dark hair growing there, almost had her climbing right back into bed.
But she had to be the strong one. The logical one. The one who set the parameters and reined them in. She always had been.
He saw the possibilities. She turned them into reality.
Or so she told herself as she stood alone beneath the shower, crying her eyes out.
“Please let it just be hormones.”
SHE MADE EGGS FOR DINNER. Served them in the kitchen with the news on. And afterward she asked Joe to do the dishes, grabbed a pile of spreadsheets she’d brought home from the office, locked herself in her room with her cats, hungered horribly for Joe and prayed that by morning she’d be cured.
THE ROCKER THAT HAD BEEN on back order was sitting in a box on the side porch when Elise arrived home from work on Monday. She threw a frozen dinner into the oven, changed from her dress into sweats and opened the box. Taking the parts one by one from the porch to the nursery, she talked to her babies. Asked them to give her a knock now and then so she knew they were okay. Told them that she was going to learn how to stand back and let them try and maybe fail and that she’d always be there to pick up the pieces when they did.
And when the chair was gliding smoothly on its rails, she changed the sheets on her bed. On second thought, she switched out the comforter, too. If she’d had the energy she might have gone down to the local department store and bought four new pillows.
Joe was playing basketball with Kenny.
He didn’t come home until long after she was in bed.
JOE TOLD HIMSELF NOT TO, but he showed up at Elise’s office first thing Tuesday morning, shutting the door behind him.
“There’s a rocking chair in the nursery.”
She continued to type on her computer, staring at the screen. “I know.”
“You should have waited for me.”
“I didn’t lift anything heavy. And I’m not an invalid.”
Her refusal to look at him was driving him insane. At least, something was. He’d deliberately given her her space the day before—made goodwill calls on customers all day and spent the evening with his brother, who, if he’d heard about Elise and her pregnancy, didn’t think to say anything about it.
Dropping onto the couch off to the side of her desk, Joe watched her fingers fly along the keyboard. She clicked her mouse. Typed some more.
Her hands were good at what they did.
“Don’t you have work to do? A company to run?”
“Yes.”
“There was a call from Michigan Local Banks. They want to know if we’ll do full-time recruiting and how that will figure into their overall payroll percentages.”
“I’ll work up some figures and drop them off for you to look at. But be prepared, our competitor is on to them, too, so I’ll write this in for no additional cost if it’s going to break the deal.”
She tapped a couple more times, her gaze moving up to the left-hand corner of her screen. And then she was off again, tap, tap, tapping until he wanted to yank the plug out of the back of her hard drive.
“Tamara sent us both a projection and work plan for the HR department, including estimated hours per task,” she said. “Once you’ve had a chance to study it, I’d like to discuss it with you.”
“Do you have reservations?”
“None.”
“I’ll bring it up as soon as I log on.”
Still typing away, Elise nodded. What in hell was she doing? Writing a damned book?
“Look at me,” he said.
She glanced. Quickly. Without turning her head. As though she were on the freeway, changing lanes in rush-hour traffic and sparing a second for whoever was in the passenger seat next to her.
“We have to talk about it,” he said.
“No, we don’t. Talking’s what got us into trouble in the first place.”
“It’s not just going to go away.”
“You said it would.”
“So you just plan to avoid me until it does?”
“If that’s what it takes.” Her hair seemed spikier today. Her makeup more pronounced. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry. Her shoulders were completely covered by a gray, short-sleeved tunic maternity dress.
“Why?”
Her hands dropped. “I’m pregnant, Joe,” she said, looking at him. “Very soon, God willing, I’m going to have four children. You convulse at the thought of living with one. Children are unpredictable. They’re chaotic. No matter what you do it’s never enough. The job is unending.
“And I do not intend to raise them while having sex on the side.”
Generally when she pointed out the flaws to a plan he was grateful. But then, that usually followed with ways to get around them.
“You’re angry with me.”
“No.” Shoulders drooping, she leaned back in her chair, focusing on her computer screen again. “If anything, I’m angry with myself, but I’m not even sure that’s accurate. I’m a realist, Joe. I see the pitfalls. Saturday night was a mistake.”
Something inside him compelled him to speak out at that. “Saturday night and Sunday. You didn’t seem to feel that way then. As I recall, you not only found satisfaction but—what were your words?—unspeakable joy, at times.”
Her eyes, when she looked his way again, were wide open—and filled with sadness. “Lovemaking with you was unspeakably joyful,” she said, her honesty settling the panic inside him, allowing him to really listen as she continued. “And I have a feeling I’m going to miss it for a long time to come.”
Fine then. As long as they felt the same way, they could choose to do something about that.
“But I can live without it.”
His neck started to hurt again.
“I can’t live without B&R, you as a business partner, or you as a friend,” she went on. “And I can’t live with sex on the side.”
There was that term again. “Sex on the side.” Where she’d gotten it, he didn’t know. He didn’t like it at all. But neither could he argue with a single thing she’d just said.
“I’m not moving out.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I need you.”
He needed her, too. Joe was only beginning to realize how much. But he was in no mood to tell her.
He headed for the door. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
“We’re having scalloped potatoes and ham.”
With his hand on the knob he turned to glare at her. “I hate ham.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her expression was completely placid as she stared him down and Joe finally started to grin. He was a heel. A jerk. He was horny and frustrated and his condition was no fault of hers.
“You’re right again,” he said with a sorry chuckle. “And that I really do hate.”
“I know.”
Her last words didn’t sound any happier than he felt.
ALMOST TWO WEEKS LATER, Joe wasn’t feeling all that much better. Waiting while Dr. Braden examined Elise, he thumbed through an old edition of Time magazine, ran over the key points in his upcoming presentation to a commercial construction company later that afternoon and thought about the number of times he’d actually connected with his partner since the night and half the next day he’d spent in her bed.
That didn’t take long. The answer was zero. They were working together, cohabitating, sharing meals and chores and news, but they were no longer lovers or even close friends. Not as far as he could te
ll. She was pleasant. He was pleasant.
And they didn’t talk at all.
He missed her.
And even though he knew it had caused this horrible rift, he still wanted her.
“THE TIME HAS COME a little sooner than I thought.”
Joe’s skin went instantly cold at the doctor’s first words past hello after closing her office door. Elise was going to have her babies now? They couldn’t possibly be ready to sustain life on their own.
She sat beside him in front of Dr. Braden’s desk, showing no signs of undue pain or discomfort. Her color was good. Only the droop of her shoulders, the smudges under eyes gave indication of anything wrong.
He’d thought she simply wasn’t sleeping well.
“You want me to quit work,” Elise said, sounding as though she’d just been sentenced to prison.
“I’m afraid so.”
Joe glanced from one to the other, wondering what all the fuss was about. They’d known this was coming. Elise wasn’t losing the babies. Life was okay for now.
“How about if I go part-time?”
“Why do you say it’s time to quit?” he asked at the same moment.
Dr. Braden turned to him. “We’ve been monitoring Elise’s blood pressure very carefully since before she was pregnant.” The woman’s explanation was businesslike, but with a hint of kindness. “Gestational hypertension is fairly common in multiple births, with almost a fifty percent occurrence rate, and can be deadly, both to the mother and the unborn children. It can cause seizures, visual disturbances and kidney failure in the mother, among other things.”
Joe listened intently.
“The only cure is delivery.”
At least there was one.
“Our goal is to allow these babies to remain in the womb as long as possible.”
“Are you saying Elise has this condition, or just that we’re being preemptive here?”
“My blood pressure is only slightly elevated,” Elise answered him, still facing the doctor. “Not enough to be of concern yet.”
“And sometimes the condition can exist without elevated blood pressure,” Dr. Braden added. “I don’t think we have anything to worry about, at least not yet,” she continued. “But Elise’s face is a little swollen and that’s a common sign of gestational hypertension. There are other symptoms—higher protein waste levels and sensitive hyper-reflexia, knee-jerk, reaction—and so far Elise is testing normal for all of them. But with the swelling as a possible early indicator, if we want to be preemptive here—and I think we should be—it’s time for her to stay home.”
Merry Christmas, Babies Page 15