Their Child?

by Christine Rimmer

  She couldn’t help but tease him. “Alone by myself, or alone with you?”

  Catching her to him, he kissed her long and hard and deep. His voice was gravelly when he said, “Definitely alone with me.”

  His bedroom was only ten feet away as was hers, but in the house, they’d be aware of everything and everyone else, too. “Alone with you sounds good,” she said breathlessly.

  His low chuckle told her the kiss had had the effect he’d desired.

  Downstairs, he ducked his head into the living room where his mother was watching TV. “We’re going outside for a while.”

  Eleanor nodded absently and Jillian was just as glad she hadn’t comprehended what they were up to. Sneaking off with Chase could be embarrassing when it came to explanations.

  On the way to the barn, his arm circled her waist and the contact made her body hum. The stars were brilliant and there seemed to be thousands of crystals of light. They were like tiny beacons showing her the way to her future. The moon was so full it was easy to see where they were going as they crossed the gravel lane.

  She thought they’d go into the lower part of the barn where there were empty stalls. But to her surprise, Chase pulled open the door to the upper level and held it for her as she went inside. Hay bales were stacked in one section and a tractor was parked in another. The smell of night and hay and old wood rode on every breath Jillian inhaled.

  “Where are we going?” she asked in a low voice.

  “You don’t have to whisper,” he said with a chuckle. “There are only the horses to hear. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  Taking a ladder from the side of the barn, he propped it against an opening that led to a higher level.

  “I’ve never really noticed this before.”

  Making sure the ladder was sturdy, he asked, “Think you can make it?”

  “Sure. What’s up there?”

  “The hayloft. I tossed a couple of blankets up this afternoon.”

  Chase had planned this, and she realized he’d been thinking about making love with her for some time. That made her feel wanted, yet she wished there was more than want.

  As she started up the ladder, he stayed below. “Careful,” he warned. Each foot rung took her closer to the loft and the intimacy she’d decided to share with Chase.

  Once she’d made it to the hayloft, he followed her up the ladder. He’d turned the light on in the barn downstairs and it flowed up through the opening and the floorboards. She couldn’t see into the corners and the shadows, and it was still very dark, but Chase solved that problem. Going to the outside wall, he flipped open a lever and a small door opened. Moonlight and starshine shone in. It was such a beautiful night. A lump formed in Jillian’s throat.

  “If it gets too cold, we’ll close it.”

  The pleasant, seventy-degree temperature of the day was slipping down now. She had the feeling she’d be anything but cold, though.

  Chase was wearing a T-shirt and jeans tonight, and as he spread a blanket on the bed of hay, she watched the play of his shoulder muscles and everything inside her quivered. She wanted to touch his shoulders. She wanted to touch him everywhere. And she wanted him touching her.

  When he glanced over his shoulder at her, their gazes collided and her mouth went dry.

  Lowering himself to the blanket, he patted the spot next to him. “Come here,” he urged gently.

  As she settled beside him, he put his arm around her and drew her close. Resting his chin on her head, he didn’t say anything more as they seemed to breathe in unison.

  “I want to tell you about my marriage,” she said suddenly. She didn’t know where it had come from, but she knew she couldn’t make love with Chase until he knew some of the most important truths about her.

  Again he was silent and she was almost grateful for that—feeling faith in him, trusting him as she hadn’t trusted a man in a very long time. She began with, “Eric had an affair while I was pregnant.”

  She felt Chase’s body stiffen slightly but she went on. “The signs were there. He’d bought new clothes, had his hair cut a different way, spent more time away from home. At first he claimed it was business and I believed him. But then the hang-up calls started and I found a credit card receipt with his name only on it for flowers and candy and a diamond necklace. I didn’t want to believe any of it. I know I was in denial for a while. Even when I found the receipt, I thought—maybe he’s going to give me the necklace when the baby’s born. But then I found a woman’s compact in his car and I laid it all out in front of him. He didn’t deny it. He made excuses. He said I looked different pregnant and he’d felt the focus of our lives changed away from us to the baby. Facing fatherhood was a big responsibility and he guessed he was running away from it. I tried to stay calm. I tried to stay rational. I knew shouting and screaming wouldn’t help, though that’s what I wanted to do. I asked him if he wanted a divorce. To my surprise, he said he didn’t. He insisted he loved me.”

  She looked out into the night and the stars. “I wanted to believe it, but my sense of trust and self-worth got broken along with my heart that day. Still all I could think about was the baby and how Dad had left and what it was like for Mom raising me on her own. So I agreed to stay with Eric and try again.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Chase asked gruffly.

  “Because I didn’t want to seem foolish or weak.”

  “Staying with him wasn’t weak. It was brave.”

  When she gazed into Chase’s eyes, she felt that he meant it. “You do understand,” she murmured.

  His arm tightened around her and his hand laced in her hair. “I understand you wanted two parents for Abby. But I have a feeling that isn’t what you got.”

  “No, that isn’t what I got. He was going out of town a lot. Although I called him when I went into labor, he said he couldn’t get out of his meetings. After Abby was born…Marianne,” she amended and shook her head. “Babies need so much care and I just put our marriage on hold. Then one day, Abby was six months old and Eric had gone to the doctor’s for blood tests because he was feeling tired and bruising easily, and then there it was—the cancer. I couldn’t let him go through that alone. We didn’t have much left, but he was my husband and he was Abby’s father.”

  “That must have been so hard for you. How long was he sick?”

  “Five months. He was in and out of the hospital twice, but then that was it. Hospice Services helped me a lot. I don’t know what I would have done without them.”

  “You’re an amazing woman,” Chase said, holding her close.

  His words were a balm over everything she’d gone through. She’d earned back her self-worth on her own but it was so nice to see a reflection of it in someone else’s eyes, hear it in someone else’s voice.

  When Chase kissed her, it was all gentle seduction. His lips said he understood, his tongue told her he admired her and wanted her, his hands pressing up and down her back molded them closer until she could feel his heartbeat as well as his arousal.

  When he broke the kiss, he was breathing rapidly and so was she. “Do you want this as much as I do?”

  It was important to him that her desire match his and it did.

  “Yes.”

  That “yes” released all the pent-up wanting between them. As moonlight streamed through the small door, Chase pulled his T-shirt over his head. His hair was tousled, his arms and hands were tanned from being out in the sun. His dark eyes excited her in a way she’d never been excited before. When she reached out to touch him, he sucked in a breath.

  As her fingers played in his chest hair, he groaned. “I’ve waited for this a long time.”

  She didn’t know if he meant with her or with any woman. Chase wasn’t the type to have one-night stands.

  “I haven’t been with anyone since my marriage.”

  With anybody else, she might think that was just a line. But with Chase, she believed him and that scared her because it showed her how d
eeply she’d fallen.

  With infinite slowness, he undressed her as if he intended each graze of his knuckles against her skin and every touch of his fingertips against the material to be foreplay to prepare her for what they were going to share. She didn’t think she needed as much preparation as he thought she did. When she was lying naked on the blanket, he drank in her moonlit shoulders and the starshine in her eyes and she reached for his belt buckle. He let her unfasten the belt. He let her unfasten the snap and zip down his fly.

  Then his hands covered hers before she could touch him. “I want to prolong this.”

  “I just want to feel you inside me.”

  “You’re making this damn hard,” he growled.

  “Exactly,” she said innocently and he laughed out loud. Then his jeans and briefs were in a mound on the hay and he was stretched out on top of her, all hard, long, fit, male. He felt wonderful as she ran her hands down his back onto his backside.

  “That’s it,” he rasped.

  But that wasn’t it. He wanted to prolong her pleasure and he did that by tonguing her nipple, taking it between his lips, sucking on it. All she could do was raise her knees in silent supplication.

  She was surprised when he grabbed for his jeans and used protection. They were going to be married, yet they hadn’t talked about more children and he obviously didn’t want to stop now to do it. When he pressed inside of her, he did it with need and demand and possession. Everything about Chase’s lovemaking thrilled her. Wrapping her legs around him, she moved to the rhythm he set and took him deeper. Her response to his erotic drives took her to a time and place that was strictly theirs. What had brought them together was far away. It was just the two of them, making love in a private place, knowing each other as they’d never known each other before.

  Heat building inside of Jillian glistened on her skin. Her fingernails scraped his back as he pressed longer and harder and deeper.

  “Now,” he decided, rocking against her at just the right tempo…at just the right depth…in just the right place.

  The moon burst into a thousand more stars, the heavens rolled and heavenly bodies glistened with rainbow colors as she spiraled into an erotic dimension she’d never known.

  Chase’s release came moments after hers, and she held him to her as he shuddered. She realized she wanted him to love her the way he’d never loved another woman.

  Would she some day be able to tell him that? Would she someday be that honest with him? She was feeling more freedom with him every day and maybe by the time they were married, she could let go of the past entirely and so could he.

  She still wanted to tell him she loved him, yet their bonds were new and fragile and she didn’t want him to feel he had to say it back. She didn’t want to lie there while he couldn’t say it back.

  When he rolled off of her and lay beside her, his arm went around her. “Are you okay?”

  “More than okay,” she murmured, her voice catching.

  His hand caressed her cheek. “Jillian?”

  “Thank you, Chase. I feel like a desirable woman again.”

  When he smiled, it was teasing and sexy all at the same time. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll show you exactly how desirable you are.”

  She laughed, threw her arm across his chest and kissed him. Everything was going to be all right. They would parent Marianne and Abby together and, some day, Chase would fall in love with her.

  Then she’d have everything she’d ever wanted.

  When Jillian arrived in Daytona Beach on Friday afternoon, Kara met her at the airport. Kara was almost as tall as Jillian and slender, with curly blond hair she wore tied back in a ponytail as if she didn’t have time to deal with it.

  Her blue eyes sparkled now as she hugged her friend and Jillian returned the embrace. “How are you? It seems like years since we’ve seen each other. I can’t believe you’re going to get married in a few months. Are you sure about all this?”

  Kara was always bluntly sincere and Jillian liked that about her. But right now, she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with it.

  The past few days with Chase had been wonderful, but she’d left Willow Creek, her emotions in a turmoil. The girls had seemed oblivious to her leaving. They were like sisters now and loved being with Chase and Eleanor as well as with Jillian. Eleanor had loaned her her car for the drive to the airport. Although Chase had kissed her goodbye before she’d left, she thought she’d felt a guardedness in that kiss. She was afraid again, afraid that the marriage Chase proposed had more to do with the girls than with her. Would he ever truly love her?

  Leaning away from Kara, she smiled. “I thought I answered all your questions in our e-mails.”

  “Not the important ones. Are you having second thoughts about marrying Chase?”

  “Kara.”

  “I know, I know. Give you time to breathe. If I do that and you get caught up in the party, we’ll never talk. I know you, Jillian Kendall.”

  Jillian pulled up the handle on her small overnight case. “So you say.”

  “You’ve told me what he looks like, and he sounds like a hunk. But I want the inside info you won’t send me in e-mail. Have you slept with him yet?”

  “You’re hopeless,” Jillian protested.

  “Nope, just determined. I’ll get every last detail out of you, you just wait and see.”

  But Kara didn’t get every last detail out of Jillian as they drove to her town house and made sure everything was ready for the party the next day. Jillian was reticent to talk about Chase and she concentrated on telling Kara about her days with the girls instead.

  They were going over lists for the senator’s party when Kara said, “Mrs. Grayson was so afraid you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m sure they trust you to handle everything.”

  Kara shook her head. “Not in the same way they trust you. She was in a tizzy when I told her we had to substitute the mocha cheesecake for the double fudge. You can handle her so much better than I can.”

  Senator Grayson’s wife tended to worry needlessly and Jillian could usually use logic to calm her down. “I should give her a call and assure her we have everything under control.”

  “That would probably be a good idea.”

  As Jillian stood to use the phone, her doorbell rang. She answered it and found Loretta there. “Hi, there,” she said with a big grin. “I was going to stop over and see you in the morning.”

  “I thought you might be too busy with the senator’s party and all.”

  “Never too busy for you,” Jillian assured her. “Come on in. Kara’s here.”

  “Are you two working? If you are, I wouldn’t want to bother you.”

  Kara stood and shuffled her many lists into a folder, then thrust it into a leather carrying case. “I’ve got to shove off.”

  “Hot date tonight?” Jillian teased.

  “No, just a date. I met him last week at that chamber of commerce dinner. We’re having coffee. That’s all.”

  After Kara gathered her things, she gave Jillian another hug and whispered in her ear, “You didn’t tell me everything and I know it. We’ll talk again before you leave.”

  Jillian had filled Kara in on some of the things she’d done with Marianne and Abby and how she did feel like a mother to both girls. She’d also explained how she felt closer to Eleanor. But where Chase was concerned, she’d kept silent.

  After Kara had left, Jillian said to Loretta, “Come in to the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea. I’ve missed you.”

  “And I’ve missed you and Abby. But I suppose that’s going to be the way it is now. You’re going to move up there to Pennsylvania, aren’t you?”

  There was real sadness in Loretta’s voice and Jillian felt as if she were leaving a favorite aunt behind.

  “Yes, I’m going to move to Pennsylvania and there’s something else to tell you, too. I’m going to get married.”

  Loretta Carmichael’s eyes grew large and her mouth roun
ded. “Oh, my goodness. Just who are you going to marry?”

  “I’m going to marry Abby’s father, Chase Remmington.”

  “Are you sure about this, Jillian? Are you doing it so you don’t have to leave either of the girls?”

  “It’s much more complicated than that. Chase and I have become close. He’s a great father.”

  “And how does he feel about you?”

  Turning away from her friend, Jillian filled the teapot with water and set it on the stove. Without answering that specific question, she said, “He’s been so good to us. You’d love the vineyard. Maybe you could take a trip up. Abby would love to see you.”

  Loretta fidgeted with the collar of her hot pink and turquoise flowered blouse. With worry in her eyes, she went to the cupboard and plucked out two mugs. After some hesitation, she asked, “Did you know Mr. Remmington called me?”

  Everything in Jillian went perfectly still. “When?”

  Carrying the two mugs to the table, Loretta sat on one of the oak chairs. “Back in February. I remember I talked to him in the afternoon and then you called me that night to tell me the surgery had gone well with Marianne.”

  “You didn’t tell me he’d called you.”

  Loretta popped up from her chair again, went to another cupboard, and pulled out a box of peach tea. “No, I didn’t tell you. I was afraid I’d told him too much and you’d be upset with me. He just had this way of making it easy to talk…”

  Although Jillian’s heart was racing, she told herself to stay calm. “What did he want?”

  “I probably shouldn’t have said anything,” Loretta mumbled, taking the tea bags to the table.

  “Loretta, you know you can tell me anything. I won’t be upset with you.”

  “I know you don’t like to discuss your private life, but he was asking me if you were a good mother and all. Of course, I told him you were. And then somehow, we got into Eric and I told him Eric had treated you badly, that he hadn’t been faithful, but you were loyal to him to the end. All good things. I thought that was important and he seemed to be concerned about you being with his daughter.”