The Texan's Baby Bombshell (The Fortunes 0f Texas: Rambling Rose Book 6)

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  He exhaled. Told himself it meant nothing and he pushed the book back into the pocket again. More firmly so it wouldn’t fall out again.

  The nursery was easy enough to find, thanks to the crib. The boxes stacked beneath the window were still sealed. Sooner or later, they’d have to deal with unpacking all of the stuff Eric had bought when Linus had been his. Aside from those items, though, the room was empty.

  Next to the nursery was a bathroom, and beyond that was another bedroom with a rustic four-poster bed. Laurel had plucked a sunflower from the collection filling a milk jar that sat on the windowsill and was waving it in front of Linus. “I’ll take this room,” she said when Adam entered. “It’s closer to the nursery.”

  He set the suitcase on the rocking chair angled into a corner.

  “Have you seen the other bedroom?”

  He shook his head and dragged his attention away from her bed and went to find the third bedroom.

  It sat on the opposite side of the house and was obviously meant to be the master suite. It had a similar sweep of windows as the living area did and its own bathroom complete with a claw-foot tub.

  “Not the Captain’s Quarters, that’s for sure,” Laurel said behind him.

  He tried to rid the image he’d conjured of Laurel neck deep in that tub, but it was too busy tattooing itself on the inside of his eyelids in much the same way she’d sketched images of him. “Yeah.”

  She moved Linus from one hip to her other. Her eyes studied Adam too closely. “You all right?”

  He stepped around them, needing escape. “Going to bring in the rest of the stuff from the truck.”

  Fortunately for him, it took most of the day to get settled. Mostly because they were interrupted almost hourly by one Fortune cousin or another stopping by to see how they were coming along. Callum invited them up to the main house for dinner and Adam was just opening his mouth to accept when Laurel plopped Linus on his lap.

  “That’s a wonderful offer,” she’d told Callum, “but could we take a rain check?” She’d smiled ruefully. “It’s just been a long day and—”

  “No problem,” Callum had said. “Don’t forget there’s always someone around up at the house if you need help with the baby or anything.” Then, sending Adam a knowing look, he’d left, too.

  While Laurel clanged pots in the kitchen—which had to be for effect, Adam figured—he gave Linus his bath. It was something he’d gotten used to in the last ten days traveling back and forth to the hospital in Houston. He’d give Linus a bath while Laurel disappeared for the hour.

  The event always ended with Adam dripping wet, and that evening was no exception. But he’d learned to doff his shirt before the ritual, so at least he still had a dry shirt to put on afterward. With Linus wrapped in a diaper and a towel, he carried him into the kitchen. “I can have something delivered from Prov—” He broke off at the sight of Laurel whisking a pan sauce together in the cast-iron skillet.

  “Chicken piccata,” she said airily. “I told you.”

  He had to admit the chicken cutlets looked perfectly golden and the lemony sauce she was tending in the pan made his mouth water. The rest of the kitchen, however, looked like a bomb had gone off.

  “Mommy’s a messy cook,” he told Linus, not remotely capable of hiding a smile. Adam was pretty sure he’d never felt more content than he did at that moment.

  After dinner, Laurel prepared a bottle for Linus and disappeared down the hall. He went into the kitchen and stared at the mess for a moment before he mentally rolled up his sleeves and started to work.

  The dishwasher was nearly loaded when he heard a soft sound coming from one of the baby monitors that he’d spent ninety minutes that afternoon moving from one place to another until she was satisfied.

  This one didn’t have a video monitor, but it did have an excellent speaker, and he notched up the volume at the sound of Laurel’s distinctly off-key voice singing, “Just My Imagination.”

  He turned the volume off and rubbed his shaking hand down his face. The beard that had started growing on the trip from Seattle was full now. He dropped his hand and started opening one kitchen drawer after another until he found what he needed.

  He went into the bathroom attached to his bedroom and eyed his reflection in the mirror over the sink. Then he lifted the scissors he’d found and began clipping away at the beard.

  He was sitting on the wedge of deck behind the house watching the sunset when Laurel sat down beside him nearly an hour later.

  “Linus asleep?”

  “If he wakes up before morning again, I’m taking Becky’s advice to feed him more before he—” She broke off. “You shaved!”

  He was glad for the dim light because he could feel a hot tide rising up his throat. “Been known to happen now and then,” he dismissed. “What’s with the envelope?”

  “Oh.” She flipped the envelope as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. She dropped it on his lap. “A surprise.”

  Frowning, he tore it open and a slick driver’s license fell into his hand. Even without good light, he was able to identify the picture of Laurel on the front. “You didn’t step outside the hospital until today. How did you get—”

  “I called my father,” she said diffidently.

  If she’d said she’d called Jesus himself, Adam couldn’t have been more stunned.

  “That first day at the hospital,” she added, seeming to feel a need to fill his stupefied silence. “You fell asleep in the chair holding Linus and—” She lifted her shoulder. “I called my father. He put his lawyer on it and that was delivered to me yesterday.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “I don’t know. Less than a month ago I was calling myself Lisa Jane Doe.” She lifted her shoulder a second time. “Now I have back my own name. I have some legal ID and some of my memories. And the most perfect son I could ever imagine. It’s...a lot.”

  She’d also stopped covering up the scars on her arm. The sleeveless blouse she wore was one of several that Becky and Stephanie had gathered and sent with him to the hospital after learning Laurel only had a few items of her own.

  “Is it too much?”

  “You know that feeling you get when you’re afraid to breathe because you might burst the beautiful bubble that you’ve somehow managed to form?”

  “Your life isn’t a fragile bubble, Laurel.”

  “That’s what Dr. Green says, too.”

  “Dr. Green?” He stared at her. “When have you been talking to him?”

  “Every day, actually. While I left you alone to give Linus his bath, I was participating in a support group of his via teleconference.” She cupped her hands around the edge of the deck beneath them and her long hair slid over her shoulders. “I know he’s a pediatrician, but he gave me his card that one day and—” She broke off for a moment. “He’s just been very nice. He said I wasn’t the only mom he’s met who’s dealt with postpartum issues. Between him and Dr. Granger, at least I have a reason why I...left my baby. I had what’s called postpartum panic disorder.”

  His throat tightened. “Sweetheart, you never needed a diagnosis.”

  “I needed it. So I can stop hating myself and maybe start forgiving myself. That’s what a lot of the other moms in the group say, too.” She angled her head, sliding a look his way. “Maybe if I hadn’t been dealing with the news about my mother and Eric and—”

  “Me.”

  Her lashes lowered. “And you,” she conceded.

  His chest ached. “Why didn’t you tell me about all this before now?”

  She shook her head, a bittersweet smile on her face. “You’re no more to blame for my actions than I am for my mother’s. And I didn’t tell you before because it was something I needed to do. For me.” She shrugged her shoulders a bit. “But we’re here now and I didn’t want you to thi
nk I was keeping secrets.”

  “Laurel—”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said swiftly. Huskily. “This isn’t something I want us crying over. If I hadn’t had the accident, maybe I’d have come to my senses and returned straightaway to Linus. But I have to accept the fact that I may never know.” She picked up the driver’s license where it had fallen onto the deck and slid it into her pocket. “But no matter what, you can stop feeling like you need to be responsible for me. I may not have all my cheese squarely back on my cracker yet, but I’m not fragile.”

  He forced a wry smile. “Trust me, sweetheart. Nobody who makes that much of a mess in the kitchen is fragile.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “If you don’t want me to make a mess, you do the cooking. You always used to, anyway.”

  They’d spent more hours together getting from Seattle to Texas than some people spent together after months of dating. He still wasn’t used to the way she sometimes mentioned their past as if she’d never lost her memory at all.

  “When you talked to your dad, how was he doing?” He felt cautious bringing it up. “After what happened with your mom?”

  “He didn’t tell me again that it was my fault.” She plucked the fringed hem of her denim shorts. “And he helped me get my license. So progress is progress, I guess.”

  Adam figured Nelson was still Nelson. “He start insisting yet that you go back to Virginia?”

  She exhaled softly. “He called the hospital every single day, trying to whittle me down. But I’m not going.”

  “He’ll come here. You prepared to stand up to him when you’re face-to-face?”

  “I’m not twenty-two anymore,” she said quietly. “I have a child of my own. A...family...of my own. And if my father behaves, maybe I’ll let him be a part of it.” She pushed herself to her bare feet. “Are you going to be out here for a while yet?”

  He looked away from the racehorse-lean legs six inches away from his face. “Why?”

  “Because you have a claw-foot tub in your bathroom and Becky—it had to be her, same as the flowers—left a beautiful jar full of bath salts for me.”

  No matter what happened, Laurel was still Laurel. He waved his hand. “Go.”

  She didn’t dart off, though. “There’s room for two, you know. And just to be clear,” she said, crouching next to him and drawing her finger along his freshly shaved cheek, “I’m not talking about Linus.”

  Then she straightened and padded silently into the house.

  Adam fell back on the wooden deck until he was staring up at the darkening sky and thumped his head. Once. Twice. Then he gave in and rolled to his feet.

  He went inside the house. Checked on Linus. He was sleeping, sprawled on his back and taking up as much of the crib as he could take. He pulled the nursery door nearly closed.

  He went into the bedroom. He could hear the water running. She hadn’t closed the bathroom door and he stopped in the doorway.

  Her aquamarine gaze met his and she let the blouse in her fingers fall to the floor. The only thing she still wore was the necklace he’d given her all those years ago. He could see her pulse beating in her long, lovely throat, making the gold L glint in the light.

  From the day he’d met her, he’d wanted her. “Be very sure, Laurel.”

  She held out her left hand toward him. The scars no less red now than they’d been the first time he’d seen them. “I’m sure.”

  The water gushed from the tap, plunging through the center of the frothing bubbles. He reached over and turned it off. And then he took Laurel’s hand. He kissed her palm. Her wrist. The inside of her elbow. He kissed the too-narrow point of her shoulder and the pulse beating beneath the necklace he’d given her. His hands shook as he clasped them around her face and he pressed his lips to the scar on her forehead.

  When he lifted his head again, her eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  “Don’t cry. I told you, I can’t take it when you cry.”

  She slid her arm around his neck, pulling him back to her. Her lips—those soft, full lips—grazed against his. “Then take me, Adam.” She slid her fingers through his and pressed them to her breast. “Take my heart. It’s only ever belonged to you.”

  He pulled her closer, sweeping his hand down the elegant line of her spine, the indent of her waist, the swell of her hip. A last bit of sanity intruded. “I don’t have any protection.”

  “I don’t need protection from you.”

  He laughed, growled, caught between aching need and frustration. “And that resulted in the little guy sleeping on the other side of the house, if you remember.”

  She’d managed to unfasten his shirt without him even noticing, and her hair grazed his chin as she kissed his throat. Her fingers drifted down his chest and reached his belt. “Is that regret?”

  He trapped her hand. “Never.”

  Her eyes met his. “Then I don’t see the problem.” She slid her hand free and set to work on his belt. Everything inside him short-circuited when her hand closed around him.

  By some small miracle, he managed not to trip over his own clothes as he lifted her against him. They didn’t even make it all the way to the bed before her legs were wrapped around him and he was buried inside her. And when he felt her tightening, felt that quaking and the sound of her gasps filling his ear with some of the sweetest music he’d ever heard, he finally let himself go.

  * * *

  He woke with a start, hours later and stared into darkness.

  His arms were empty. So was the rest of the bed.

  He pulled on his jeans and left the room.

  Linus was still sleeping when he checked.

  The four-poster bed in the other bedroom was untouched.

  He rasped his hand down his chest, not wanting to feel alarmed, though he did, particularly when he didn’t find Laurel anywhere in the house.

  Soon, he’d turned on every light in the house except Linus’s room. He called the guard at the gatehouse, even though he couldn’t imagine Laurel walking all that way on foot. His truck was where he’d parked it.

  He was on the verge of calling Callum when he heard a noise outside and he bolted out the door, nearly collapsing with relief at the sight of her walking toward the house wearing only the button-down shirt she’d pulled off him hours earlier. “What the hell, Laurel?”

  She stepped up onto the deck and her face looked ravaged. “I remember, Adam. I remember all of it.”

  He stared. His hands fisted. “All—”

  “Seeing you last May.” Her voice sounded raw. “Inviting you up to my hotel room even though I knew I shouldn’t. You sh-showing up at my office in Houston a month later. And the look on your face when I told you I was engaged—” She swiped her wet cheek and brushed past him, going inside.

  He realized she’d been barefoot when he saw the slick of blood on the kitchen tile.

  He grabbed a towel and shoved it under the faucet for half a second before following her. She was sitting on the edge of the four-poster, staring at her hands.

  He knelt down and lifted her foot. “Don’t ever wander off barefoot again,” he said quietly. He carefully wiped the dirt and blood away from her heel.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because you’re bleeding.”

  She sucked in a thick, sobbing breath. “I called it off with Eric before I realized I was pregnant.”

  “Laurel.” His jaw was rigid. “It’s three-freaking-o’clock in the morning. I don’t really want to hear about the guy.” He folded the towel to a clean corner and pressed it against the cut on her foot.

  But she didn’t listen. “He was a good man.”

  Adam dropped the towel and rose. “I just said I didn’t—”

  “He was.” Her throat worked as she faced him down, her aquamarine eyes flooding. “He just w
asn’t...you. And I knew,” she said as she swiped her cheek, “I knew after the things you said to me in June, I knew you’d never forgive me. So I didn’t tell you about the baby, either. I don’t know how many times I started writing you a letter to tell you the truth, but I never had the guts to finish. I did so many things wrong. I went to see my parents and that was a disaster—”

  “Laurel, don’t. You don’t have to do this—”

  “But I do! I was having nightmares about the baby. About being my mother’s daughter. My father had just told me about her death. He was refusing to even have a funeral and I was too pregnant to fly to Virginia, anyway. I stopped in Rambling Rose just because you’d mentioned it last year when you came to the museum. I never expected to go into labor at the pediatric center’s dedication. Everyone there was so nice to me, though. They got me into an ambulance. I barely made it to San Antonio before Larkin was born.”

  Adam jerked. “Larkin.”

  Another tear slid down her cheek. “That’s what I named him.” She spread her palms. “He was in the NICU for days. I stayed in a hotel near the hospital. My father stopped taking my calls. And then it was time for Larkin to leave the hospital and—” She broke off. “I don’t remember leaving him at Dr. Green’s office. I don’t remember how I even got to Seattle. Or the accident or any of it. I just remember I was so afraid of hurting someone else I loved—”

  “Stop.” He knelt in front of her again, closing his hands around hers. “What matters is you’re here now. And Linus—Larkin. God.” He pressed his forehead against her hands until he could speak again. He looked at her. “You’re both here and everything is going to be okay.”

  “But you’ll never love me like you used to.”

  “There’s nothing past tense when it comes to loving you.” He cupped her face. “Don’t you get that by now? I’m never going to stop loving you. If you hurt, I hurt. If you cry—” He hauled in a shaky breath. “Eric told me he thought you were dead. Otherwise he’d have located you. They were the worst three days of my life. Anything can be fixed as long as you’re safe. I’ve loved you since the day I met you and I’ll love you until the day I die. But I swear to God, Laurel, if you ever feel so overwhelmed again and don’t just tell me—” His voice broke.