by Dee Tenorio
Her teeth nibbled on her lower lip. Not the face of a convinced woman.
“You have to believe good things can happen. That they can happen to you. You can’t let go, either. Stay positive, give the baby everything we can to let her know she’s wanted.”
She finally smiled again, one corner of her mouth curving slyly. “Her, huh?”
“I can hope too.” Amanda’s second X chromosome was a miracle not often repeated amongst the Jackman clan, but Susie had probably figured that out.
She shook her head. “I’m not having a Daddy’s Girl, Locke. I’ve waited my whole life for this baby, you don’t get to steal it away.”
“Her, steal her,” he corrected, bringing his hand up to caress her cheek. “And I won’t have to steal. I plan to have you there right along with her.” His kiss this time he meant to be reassuring. But she licked his lips and all those plans went up in flames. Before long, he found himself lying back onto the cushions, Susie stretched out above him, lazily kissing his brains into mush.
Did I do something wrong or right?
Honestly, he almost didn’t care.
Except…
He took hold of her arms, carefully tucking her between his body and the back of the couch. Blue eyes watched him warily as he slid her hand over his heart. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“From what, exactly? You’ve managed to get everything out of me and then some.” Surly. Just the way he liked her.
“From the fact that you haven’t said you’ll stay.” He couldn’t have her walking around in a gray area. She wasn’t the only one in need of reassurances. Facts were, Susie had her secrets—he wasn’t dumb enough to think she’d spilled them all—but she never made promises she didn’t keep.
She opened her mouth to answer him, but he could see her choking on the words. Finally, she gave up trying. She just closed her eyes and pressed her face against his chest.
He held her there, trying his damnedest not to be mad. He understood, he honestly did, but it hurt that she couldn’t trust in him to protect her. Hurt like a blade. But like he’d told her, he was a man who believed in hope. If he had to hold tight a little longer, he could do it. He’d promised to earn her trust and damn it, he would. He’d be made of hope, if that was what it would take.
So he slid his hand into her hair, letting the heavy silk of it slip through his fingers. By the third stroke, he could feel her questioning gaze on his face. He met it, doing his best not to sound demanding. “Can you at least promise not to leave without telling me first?”
Since this was Susie, even that request wasn’t going unargued. “Goodbyes aren’t going to make it easier if I have to go.”
“Just promise me, so I can sleep at night.” So I’ll have a chance to fix it.
She took her time, no doubt looking for every possible angle that he might use to his advantage. “I’ll always make sure you know where I am. I won’t keep you from the baby, either, if we make it to term.”
Damn right she wouldn’t, because she wasn’t going anywhere without him. Not that it would be wise to tell her such an obvious truth. He shook his head. “Not good enough. Promise me.”
“You’re not going to let up, no matter what I do, are you?”
“You’re welcome to use whatever creative seduction skills you know to distract me again, but no, I’m not.” He smiled—he couldn’t help it. Her brow furrowing in frustration with him never failed to give him a kick. She never seemed to realize she had him wrapped around her finger, hers to do with as she pleased.
“You are such a demanding bastard.”
She said it with love, he decided. “Insatiable too, but only for the good things.”
Her groaned wail into his shirt actually got him to laugh, which only made her punch his stomach halfheartedly.
“Ohhh no.” More girly blows on his midsection while she scowled. “You don’t get to laugh at my pain, you nerve-wracking jackass.”
He hugged her close, still chuckling as she gave hurting him another lame try, relieved to have her back to the woman he knew. If he never saw her that afraid again, it would be too soon. “Stay with me, baby. You won’t regret it.”
“First it was promise you, now it’s stay with you?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I move fast when it suits me.”
“Yeah, no shit.” But she wasn’t saying no. Instead she watched him, considering. “I won’t leave without telling you first. I promise.”
“And will you stay with me, so you feel safe?”
She pinched a spot under his ribs that would have made him yelp with laughter as a little kid. “You have no concept of quitting while you’re ahead, do you?”
He caught her hands and brought them to his lips. “I think it’s the concept of quitting in general that I can’t seem to wrap my head around.” Lord knew his siblings had complained about it often enough.
She started at that, then the strangest thing happened. Of all the things he’d said to her, those were the words that seemed to finally reassure her. She lay her head back over his heart and slipped her arms around him. “Yeah, that’s probably the problem.”
He reveled in it for almost a full minute before he tried again.
Tried being the operative word. He’d just sucked in a breath to speak and she growled, all the while snuggling closer.
“You ruin this moment and I will yank your testicles off with your own teeth.”
Oh yeah. Definitely said with love.
Chapter Seven
“I still don’t see why I couldn’t just go to my regular doctor.”
Locke continued to page through a magazine he’d found on the table in the center of the waiting room. He’d had no idea what it said but the way it made Susie bristle was fascinating. “Yes you do.”
“I liked him.” Her rapidly bouncing knee made their wooden-armed chairs knock together with a steady clicking rhythm.
“He was an hour away, and you said yourself this is a high-risk pregnancy.” To say nothing of the fact that the man was a clinic doctor, not an ob-gyn who’d be able to meet her at the hospital for her delivery or anything else, should something go wrong. But last time he mentioned that he’d nearly gotten a shoe thrown at him. He’d also finally gotten her to agree to try the local doctor, and really, bringing it up again would just be rubbing it in.
“He was private,” she hissed, slapping her own unread magazine down on her lap.
“Penelope Montenga is probably the only person in all of RDC—other than you and me—with an ounce of discretion. Besides,” he added, finally looking over at her, biting his cheek to keep from smiling. She’d kill him if he smiled right now. “I’m pretty sure the cat was out of the bag when I started sleeping at the apartment.”
She’d been adamant about not moving in with him, even if she’d been terrified to be alone and wouldn’t say it. Since he was terrified she’d bolt—again—it had been a fairly simple conclusion that he’d stay with her at night. Sure, he’d had to talk her into it, but it wasn’t hard to convince her. He simply climbed into her bed each night and dared her to move him. Now if only she had a bed that didn’t turn his back into an overbaked pretzel…
“Wasn’t it, ladies?” he asked when she looked like she was going to point out whose fault it was he was sleeping in her gnat-sized bed.
The four other women in the waiting room tittered. Two were heavily pregnant, one was filling out a form on a clipboard and the fourth was crocheting, probably waiting for her daughter who’d gotten married the year before. How crazy would it be if Wanda Gardner, who was only a year or two older than himself, was here to find out she was having a grandchild while he was here to see about his first child?
Unfortunately, Susie wasn’t particularly deterred by his attempt at levity. Her mouth pursed in a way that spoke volumes about his upcoming night. Was the couch more or less comfortable than her bed?
“Oh honey, don’t take it so hard.” Wanda chuckled. Not a friendlier sou
l in town than Wanda, which was probably why she took it upon herself to cheer up the dark cloud of woman next to him. “When I had my first, there was a pool at Shaky Jakes guessing how long it would take me to figure it out.”
Susie slowly turned her head to blink at Wanda. “You didn’t know?”
“Of course not. I was eighteen, high on love and still in the honeymoon phase. I wouldn’t have known if I’d landed on Mars.” The other women laughed with her. “There’s no secrets in RDC, you know that.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to like it,” Susie grumbled, but she didn’t look as ready to set him on fire. He’d have to send Wanda some feather fishing lures in thanks.
“If it makes you feel better, everyone’s real happy for you,” Wanda offered, the poor woman not having a clue she was swimming in dangerous waters.
Susie’s slim brow arched in tense question. “Everyone?”
Locke concentrated harder on his magazine, feigning innocence as best he could when Wanda’s gaze flickered his way. She knew that he knew everyone and their grandmother was talking about Locke and Susie’s new baby and if they were getting married. So far, he’d kept it from Susie by the skin of his teeth, but apparently, that cat was out of the bag too.
“Well, we’ve all hoped Locke would find himself someone special one day…” Wanda’s grin began to falter.
“So what you really mean is everyone is happy for him?” Susie asked so pointedly Locke had to cough to cover his bark of laughter.
“Uhhh… Yes?” Poor Wanda, she wasn’t at all sure what the right answer was. Which meant he’d have to fish her out of hot water.
“Come on, Killer,” he murmured into Susie’s ear. “Don’t go chewing on Wanda just because you lost a no-win discussion.”
Did she even realize she leaned her head closer to him, so his lips grazed the shell of her ear? Or did she tell herself he was doing it to make her crazy?
“It wouldn’t be a no-win if you’d just mind your own business.”
“My baby, my business.”
“Do not even attempt male territorialism with this child, Jackman.” She snatched his magazine out of his hands and tossed it back onto the table irritably. Ah well, it wasn’t like he’d been riveted.
“Actually—” he leaned in again, letting his voice deepen, because that always made her visibly shiver and she deserved it for taking away his lame camouflage, “—I was talking about you.”
Satisfaction formed a nice weight in his chest when he caught the bloom of pink on her cheeks and the small smile curving her mouth. She even let him take her hand and hold it in her lap.
After a few seconds, he glanced up at Wanda, smiling a little at her pleased grin. He didn’t smile often—for some reason, most of the town seemed to freak out when he did—but Wanda knew he meant well. She winked and went back to her crocheting.
“Susie?” Penelope’s nurse called from the now-open doorway leading deeper into the office.
He stood at the same time as she did, glad she didn’t shake off his hand. Or maybe she couldn’t, because she gave him what felt like a comforting squeeze.
“You ready to head into No Man’s Land?”
He nodded, though his heart had definitely picked up the pace as he realized he was mere minutes from the first tangible proof that Susie and he had truly created a life. Would Penelope play the baby’s heartbeat for them? Would that sound do something to him, the way it had when he was young and he looked at his mother in wonder, right along with his younger siblings?
Or would it mean impossibly more?
Locke cleared his throat and gestured for her to go ahead of him. “Technically, I’ve already been there, but it’s been about twenty years.”
Penelope had bought this practice from old Doctor Hughes and though she’d updated the decor, all in all, the building was much the same. He didn’t remember feeling like this the last time he’d gone through that door, though. He thought back, watching as Cara, the nurse, directed Susie over to a scale he was told not to look at on pain of death.
“Mom was expecting the younger twins then, and Dad was working, so she needed someone to keep an eye on the kids.”
“Then you really have been taking care of them all their lives.” He wasn’t sure if it was a question from her or not as Cara fit a blood pressure cuff around Susie’s arm.
“They needed me.” He loved them. There wasn’t a lot of math involved.
“Hmmm…” was all she said.
He cast about for something to keep her talking, but his mind had gone blank. He watched as the small standing reader took her pressure, then strolled behind them as Cara took them to the last room at the end of the hall. All the while, a strange nervousness took hold in his belly. Excited nervousness. Like the way he’d felt the first time he raced in front of the scouts, only so much more. That day had only decided his college choices. This day…this day, this appointment, would decide his entire life.
The exam room was pleasant enough. Compact, with the standard sink and cabinets, a patient table and a machine with a small screen and a whole tableau of buttons he didn’t begin to understand. He leaned against the door, listening as Cara asked Susie some general health questions about her history. Had she been tested for diabetes yet? Would she be interested in talking to the doctor about genetic screening? Susie answered no to both, which set him to frowning. Next, she was instructed to undress from the waist down after the nurse left and don a paper sheet while she waited for the doctor.
Things had certainly changed since the days when the doctor came in with a little amplifier and filled the room with the sound of thundering horses. His mother had only to lift her shirt for measuring, prodding and the stethoscope.
Susie, God love her, followed the instructions without even batting an eye.
“Perv,” she complained amiably once she was done, lying back on the exam table. Despite sleeping all week like it was her job, the exhaustion still clung to her. It was the worry. Every day she stayed in town, stayed above the store, it seemed to grow instead of lessen, as he’d hoped. Continually waiting for the other shoe to fall…
“Can you blame me?” Her worry fed his. Not about her rat-bastard ex-husband. He’d relish the chance to rip that asshole limb from limb. But the strain on her could affect the pregnancy, a fact that bothered him in almost too many ways to count. If she lost the baby, it would rip something out of him he was only beginning to grasp. But Susie… It would simply kill her.
He couldn’t allow that.
So he kept everything light. Made her laugh when he could. Fed her as often as he was able. Let her be grumpy and run her claws up one side of him and down the other if that was what she wanted. Sure his brothers called him crazy and Amanda said he was going to stifle any chance he had with her. None of them knew the truth and that was how they were going to keep it. She needed him to feel safe and he needed her not to leave with his heart and his child. If the baby was going to have a fighting chance—hell, if their future was going to have a chance—there was no other way. Moments like this, though, when she was so vulnerable and raw and afraid, keeping it light took every bit of his concentration.
“I’d blame you less if you’d return the favor.”
Now this was a surprise. “You want me to walk around naked?”
All week long, though she’d allowed him the freedom to touch her at will, gave kisses that turned him back into a teenager desperate for the backseat of a car and took her own liberties that had him seeing God, she’d firmly maintained no sex until after she had the okay from the doctor. Since he was the dumbass who’d insisted she see the local doctor, they’d had to wait until Penelope had room in her schedule.
She laughed, getting up on her elbows to look at him as if he was being ridiculous. She really wanted to see him wandering around in the buck, just for the pleasure of looking?
Suddenly he had the urge to preen. “Where would I be doing all this…walking?”
“Oh, sure
, like you’d actually do it for me. You won’t even come out of the shower stall without a towel wrapped around you. Which hides nothing, I might add.” Her frustration at that came through loud and clear. The paper beneath her crinkled as she dropped back down on a huffed breath, stroking his ego further. She kept this up, he was going to have to slap himself to make sure he was awake.
“I never really thought about it. Probably habit more than any sense of modesty. Couldn’t exactly air dry with Amanda running around the house.” And his mother would have haunted his ass for teaching any of the boys to do something so inconsiderate. Especially after she’d had such a hard time getting them all to keep their clothes on.
“Really? Not even after she left? Or when no one else is home?”
He frowned. Wait a minute. Did that mean she’d been running around in her apartment stark naked all this time and he’d been across the street, completely oblivious? “No…”
Susie’s surprise at his answer probably matched his own at the thought of her cruising nude, but she recovered faster. Her gaze raked down his entire length slowly, hungrily, and damn if his mouth didn’t go dry by the time she got back up to his face. “You could always do it at my apartment,” she replied huskily.
He could. But the idea of another night in her torture chamber of a bed had his back twitching. “How about—”
“I knew it!” she crowed before he could finish. “I knew it was too good to be true.”
“I’m not saying no,” he pointed out.
“Uh-huh. Suuuure you’re not.” Suspicious woman. Of course, she was right to be.
“Today’s Friday. We could get the brats to watch the stores and take the weekend off. Have a little time just for us.”
“Just for us to what?” Cruel, cruel woman. Like she didn’t know.
“Were you planning on me walking alone?”
“Actually, I kind of was.” She blinked a few times, clearly mulling pros and cons. “You know what would happen if we were both naked.”
Yes, yes he did. And he wanted to be as close as possible to his giant four-poster bed when it did.