Delinsky, Barbara

by The Stud

  "Because of the food?"

  "Because of the men. In an office, clear lines are drawn. I sit at my desk—whoever I'm meeting sits on the other side. In a restaurant, those lines become blurred. I feel more threatened with men in restaurants. "

  "That's because you're single. "

  "I assume. "

  "Which still amazes me. I can't believe some terrific guy hasn't come along and swept you off your feet. "

  She sputtered out a soft laugh. "The terrific guys aren't sitting around the city wangling meals on expense accounts. They're in the Himalayas looking for Noah's ark, or retracing Peary's expedition over the Pole, or exploring the Amazon. " She gave him a teasing pinch.

  He didn't laugh. Soberly he asked, "What makes those guys terrific?"

  "They're activists. They're nonconformists. They're interesting. " She sighed, knowing what she had to say next. "And they're off-limits, which makes them all the more attractive. But going after them is like trying to catch the wind. Stopping them would be like caging a wild bird. " Which was just how she felt. She was head over heels in love with Spencer, but she would never ground him, much less try. She knew how he resented his parents. She refused to make the mistakes they'd made. Spencer's adventures were too important to him to even hint that he give them up.

  Besides, just because she was madly in love with him, that didn't mean he felt anything beyond attraction and affection for her.

  She forced out a sigh. "Anyway, I told you at the start that I wasn't looking for a husband. I don't need one. I have my life under control. "

  He was quiet for a minute. "I wonder how we're doing with the baby stuff. We've thrown your rules out the window. "

  "I know. " They had been making love whenever and in whatever position they wanted, with no thought at all to what was best for conception. But, then, Jenna knew it didn't matter. Likewise, she hadn't brought her thermometer along. When Spencer had asked her about it, she had said—sheepishly— that she'd known they would be making love often during their time together, so knowing the exact day she was ovulating didn't matter. In truth, she hadn't wanted Spencer to see that her temperature hadn't dipped at all that month. As close as she could guess, she was four weeks pregnant.

  "You're not worried it won't happen, are you?" he asked.

  "It'll happen. "

  He was quiet again for a time before asking, with a kind of reluctant curiosity, "Do you think about the baby much? I mean, not about getting pregnant, but about the baby itself?"

  She was surprised and pleased that he'd asked. "I think about it a lot. "

  "Do you want a boy or a girl?"

  She tipped her head back to meet his eyes. "I'm supposed to say that it doesn't matter as long as the baby is healthy, and the largest part of me truly feels that way. "

  "The other part?"

  "Wants a girl. "

  "Why?"

  She returned her cheek to his chest. Lightly, so that he wouldn't think she was complaining, criticizing or, worse, making a subtle suggestion, she said, "For one tiling, I imagine it would be harder raising a boy without a father figure around. Not impossible. Just harder. For another, there's the issue of companionship. There's mutual identity with a child of the same sex. "

  "There's also competition. Caroline and my mother used to go at it for hours. Didn't you and your mother argue?"

  "Sometimes. It wasn't so bad. I guess because I was an only child, she indulged me. And because they were gone a lot. "

  "Where did they go?"

  "Here and there. They traveled for the business, and whenever they could they tacked on a few extra days. Second honeymoons, they called them. " She smiled. "I think they must have had a hundred second honeymoons over the years. They were very much in love. They were each other's best friends. " Her smile faded into pensiveness. "I suppose if they had to die early, they were better off dying together. If one had been left without the other, the pain would have been unbearable. "

  "It's rare to find two people who love like that"

  "Mmm. "

  "Did you ever wish for something similar?"

  "All I want is a baby. "

  "Right now. But other times. Have you ever dreamed of finding that kind of love?"

  His natural curiosity notwithstanding, Jenna was still surprised to find Spencer talking about love. Most men didn't. Most men were uncomfortable discussing it. They used the term, usually in bed before or after sex, but when a woman asked what they meant, they closed up like clams. Spencer, on the other hand, was pursuing the discussion. She felt she owed him an honest answer.

  "I've dreamed of finding love, " she said quietly. "I used to dream of it all the time. Then it didn't come, so I told myself I could do without. "

  "Can you?"

  "I'll have to, won't I?" she said with a laugh that was supposed to be nonchalant but fell short.

  Spencer didn't answer. When he finally spoke, he asked another question. "Will the rest of your life be enough to compensate?"

  "If I have a baby, it will. "

  He was skeptical. "Even with a baby?"

  "Yes. "

  "And when the baby grows up and moves out?"

  They had touched on that issue in one of their earliest talks, back in Rhode Island, when Jenna was trying to explain why she wanted a baby so badly. Since then she had fallen in love with Spencer. He would be leaving her, too, which made the question and its answer even more apt. "When the baby— child—adult moves out, I'll still have the business, but it's not like I'll cease being a parent. There's a saying to the effect that a parent is a parent for the rest of her life. I'll certainly always love this child. I'll always feel a responsibility for it. With a tittle luck, he or she and I will always be close. "

  "Would you want another one?"

  She caught her breath. "Ahh. A pregnant question if ever there was one. "

  "Would you? If you had that love of your life so that finding a sperm donor wasn't an issue, would you have more than one child?"

  Without hesitancy, she said, "Yes. I'd have at least two or three. If I had that love of my life, I'd want to go off with him, too, but I wouldn't want a child of mine to feel the loneliness I felt. Not that I'm criticizing my parents. They always left me well attended. But I missed them when they were gone. If I'd had a brother or sister, it mightn't have been so bad. " She sighed. "But that really is beside the point I'll be content with one child. We'll keep each other company. "

  Several days later, Spencer surprised her by raising the issue of the baby again. They were sitting in the wet sand at the water's edge, playing with small shells and seaweed, not so much drawing pictures as doodling. The fun came when every few minutes a strong wave washed over their markings, leaving behind something far more interesting and attractive than what they'd started with. Of course, it was changed again with the next wave, and diminished with each successive one, but that didn't matter. They simply started all over again.

  "When you think about the baby, " he asked, "do you think about doing things like this?"

  She hadn't been thinking about the baby then. She hadn't even been dunking about Spencer, though he was her partner in art She had been engrossed in the activity, feeling lighthearted and carefree. Would she do things like this with the baby? "I'd love to. Children are fascinated with the way the sand changes. " She laughed when a new wave rolled in. "I'm fascinated with it. Look. " She bent a knee to let the surf roll past and watched the new design emerging in the sand.

  "You live on the shore. You see this all the time. "

  "But you know our sand. It's different. Harder. Besides, I don't think I've ever sat like this at home. I've never taken the time. Once the baby comes, I will. " Assuming she made it back to Rhode Island. The fact that not even the smallest sailboat had passed by made her uneasy from time to time. But Spencer said they would be rescued, so they would be rescued. If he wasn't worried, she wouldn't be, either. It was far more fun to set new shells in her sand design.

>   Oddly enough, he seemed worried about the baby. "Won't it make you nervous raising a small child so close to the water?"

  "You were raised close to the water. So was I. Neither of us drowned. "

  "I came damned close more than once. My parents never let me forget it. They claim they should have known what kind of person I'd grow up to be when I kept tempting fate that way. What if you have a little boy like me?"

  She grinned at him. "I'd love to have a little boy like you. "

  "He'll give you gray hair. "

  "Maybe not. Maybe he'll keep me young. "

  "You are young. Very young. "

  "Only six years younger than you. "

  "Right now, you look about twelve years old. " His gaze touched her breasts. "Make that fourteen. " He frowned and pushed himself to his feet. "You're turning red. I'll get the sun block. " He headed back toward the plane.

  Jenna watched him for a minute. She was glad his swim trunks weren't the miniscule swatches of fabric he'd worn on Crete years before. Skimpy bikinis were fine on teenagers and men in their twenties, but Spencer's stature called for something more classy. The bathing suit he wore was that. It was like a pair of snug-fitting boxers and did his body proud.

  Boy, was he right about her, though. The preparations she had made for the trip—manicure and pedicure, facial, haircut—might never have been. Had it not been for her breasts, she would have looked much younger indeed, and she didn't need a mirror to tell her. She wore no makeup, no jewelry. On her head, to shade her eyes from the sun, was Spencer's baseball cap, with her ponytail spilling through the hole in the back. Her bikini—of which she wore only the bottom—was from the junior department, and why not? She was making up for lost time. When she'd been a teenager, she'd been too plump to wear anything brief. For a long time after she'd slimmed down, she had continued to feel fat, imagining folds in her skin where her friends assured her there were none. Gradually she had grown comfortable in higher-cut one-piece suits. Only in the past few years had she worn bikinis, and then only in select company.

  Spencer was as select as company got. He had seen her in nothing at all more times now than she could count. He didn't leer. He simply enjoyed looking at her. She had the impression that what he enjoyed nearly as much as seeing her body was her having the confidence to show it unclothed.

  She'd come a long way, she thought with a smile, and watched him return to her over the sand. He squatted so that she was between his knees, dabbed sun block across her shoulder blades, recapped the tube, then began to rub the cream into her skin.

  "You take good care of me, " she said, feeling pampered.

  "Sun poisoning isn't any fun. "

  "I thought I was turning brown. "

  "You are. Under the red. "

  His able hands kneaded, spreading the sun block over her shoulders, back and chest He lingered long enough on her breasts to stir her deeper. In an achy voice, she said, "Are you trying to tell me something, Spencer?" His slightest touch made her ready for love, and it didn't matter whether it was midnight or high noon. She had grown positively shameless.

  He rubbed his forearm under her breasts, lifting them slightly. "These always surprise me. I knew from touching them that they were firm, but I hadn't pictured them as being as big as they are. "

  They were bigger than they'd been the month before, and Jenna knew why. Her stomach was as flat as ever, though, which meant that Spencer wouldn't guess her condition. When she didn't get her period in ten days, he would know, but that was fine. It would be the best way for him to find out. After all, he wouldn't know if the baby came a month early. He wouldn't be around then.

  "When you touch me, " she said softly, "I swell. When you're anywhere near me, I swell. "

  He pressed his mouth to her nape. His palms moved in large, stroking circles, one on her back, one on her stomach. After a minute, he drew in a shuddering breath. "Oh, God. "

  Something in his tone frightened her, and it went beyond the pain of arousal. She looked up. "What's wrong?"

  His silver-blue eyes flashed. "I want you. I always want you. I should be getting past this, but I'm not. "

  As admissions went, it was heart stopping because there was bewilderment in it, and bewilderment wasn't something Jenna normally associated with Spencer. He was always strong and sure. His bewilderment was unsettling.

  But, then, there was what he had said, and that made her heart sing.

  She wanted to tell him she loved him so badly that she could taste the words in her mouth. But she couldn't say them. She didn't dare. He didn't want to hear them. The time might come—she allowed herself to think it for a single minute before pushing it out of her mind—when he wanted those words the same way he wanted her body. Until then, she could only do the second best thing, which was to love him out of his mind with her mouth, her hands and the body that he'd trained for the purpose so well.

  There was no rescue plane. There was no cruise ship, no sailboat, no charter. They had been on the island for ten days, and even Spencer was having his moments of doubt. He tried to hide them from her, but she saw the worried look he sometimes got when he sat on the beach gazing out to sea, with his legs bent and his elbows on his knees. She had stopped asking about it, in part because he never admitted to concern, in part because she didn't want him to admit to it—because the rest of their time was heavenly.

  Jenna had taken vacations before, but never one like this. Neither of them wore a watch. They woke in the morning when they were rested, and went to sleep at night when they were tired. Their days were filled with walking, swimming and sunning. They read a lot; between the books Spencer had brought and those Jenna had packed, there was no shortage, particularly since their tastes were similar enough for them to exchange favorites. Occasionally they listened to his battery-operated cassette player, though they both agreed that the island's natural music was preferable.

  As far as the necessities went, they were faring better than she'd ever have expected. They had gone through first the fresh food Spencer had brought, then the frozen things that had slowly defrosted in the cooler. They were into canned and freeze-dried food now, of which the latter's presence had surprised her. Spencer told her that he used freeze-dried foods in his travels and that the best source for them was located in New York, which was why he'd had a supply along. She thought it a fortunate coincidence. The freeze-dried foods, which were packed in boilable bags, were meals in themselves. He had enough to last them through a month of steady eating, and they weren't even eating them steadily. Once a day, Spencer waded into the water on the end of the island that was banded by a shallow reef and caught fish. He cleaned them and cooked them. Jenna had never tasted anything as fresh or as good. Some of this she knew was due to the island ambiance. She felt part of the environment there, one more living creature struggling to survive.

  No. Not struggling. Spencer had been right about that. They had food and shelter. They were in no danger. Indeed, worry about rescue notwithstanding, she was having the time of her life. She knew the island now, so that even those parts she had once considered shabby had taken on beauty. And then there were those spots that had been beautiful from the start.

  The waterfall was one such place. It was located at the highest point on the island. They had discovered it the second day they were there, when they had followed the stream up the hill to where it first gurgled out through large rock formations. And a more Edenic spot Jenna couldn't have imagined. The trees were high and green here, the ground carpeted with moss. The rocks were smooth, some tall, some flat, and the water that spilled over the highest of them was more gentle and refreshing than any shower she had ever stood under. They had taken to climbing the hill at die end of each day, not only to clean themselves of the salt and the sand that clung to their bodies, but to watch the sun settle slowly into the ocean.

  On this day, Jenna particularly enjoyed the curtain of water that fell from her hair to her shoulders and over her body. She had woken t
hat morning feeling muzzy, and as the day had progressed, the heat had bothered her more than usual. Now, letting the soap stream off her, she felt renewed.

  Spencer had finished his own shower. He was faster at it than her on even the best of days, but he never hurried her along. Rattier, when he was done, he stretched out on the largest and flattest of the rocks and watched her. In time, she joined him. She wiped her face with a towel while he made a gentle twist of her hair and squeezed the water from it.

  "If you have a daughter, she'll have hair just like this. Do you ever think about that? Do you ever picture what our child will look like?"

  Jenna didn't immediately answer. The "our" reverberated in her mind. He hadn't used it before, not in any of the other questions he had asked. And he had asked. For a man who proclaimed to want nothing to do with a baby, Spencer had developed a puzzling interest in Jenna's. But he hadn't said "our" before.

  It was like the phrase "having sex, " she mused. Somewhere along the line, that had become "making love, " and it made sense, since she was in love. But Spencer had used the term first, and he wasn't in love—or if he was, it was a love that came in a far second to his work, which was the love of his life.

  She pictured him going off in November to salvage his Spanish galleon. Then she pictured him going off the following year to explore something else. By then the baby would be born. She pictured it, too, and felt a pulse of serenity.

  "Curls, " she said. "I had curls when I was little. Boy or girl, it'll have curls. And, yes, dark hair. We both have that. Likewise, skin the color of cream. "

  "I don't have skin like that. "

  "You do. "

  "Where?"

  She turned her head and eyed him boldly. "Your groin. "

  "You've been observant. "

  "Uh-huh. " Actually "observant" didn't begin to explain what she'd been. She suspected she knew Spencer's body better than she knew her own. She could certainly see most of it more easily, particularly when he stretched out and let her look, which he did often. The only rule he had was that she not stop at looking. She hadn't broken it once.