A Baby for the Bachelor

by Victoria Pade

  His lips were parted a bit more tonight than last night, his breath was sweet from the mint they’d shared, and Marti kissed him back and tried to savor every moment.

  His free arm went around her to pull her closer and rather than ending too soon, Noah deepened the kiss even more.

  His lips opened wider and enticed hers, and his tongue tested the edges of her teeth, greeting hers with a seductive coyness.

  Her arms went around him. His hand moved from her face to cradle the back of her head as his mouth opened even wider over hers, as his tongue plundered and claimed and made her his, kissing her until nothing existed but the two of them and that kiss that drew her in, breathing new life into her.

  And even though it lasted much, much longer than any kiss that had come before it, when Noah began to put an end to it, it still wasn’t enough for Marti…

  But his tongue bid hers a reluctant adieu and retreated. His mouth was less forceful, his lips less parted, and then gone for a split second, back again and gone once more before they abandoned hers altogether to press against her forehead instead.

  His breath in her hair was hot and just heavy enough to make it clear that he hadn’t really wanted to end the kiss any more than she’d wanted him to. But now that he had, he was sticking with it.

  Then she felt him take in a fortifying breath, felt his broad back and his shoulders expand, before he sighed it out as if he were giving in to something he didn’t actually want to give in to.

  And that was when he straightened up and away from her.

  He still held her, though, as he looked down into her eyes again.

  Marti watched a slow, sensual smile take that mouth she wished was lingering over hers even now.

  Noah took another deep breath and kissed her again before he let her go. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, then.”

  “Yes, you will,” Marti assured him.

  They exchanged good-nights and she watched him go back to his truck, drifting into the house and up to her room only after he’d driven away.

  And if he’d meant to kiss her so powerfully that it would erase everything else from her mind for the first time in months, he’d accomplished it.

  Because even much later, when she was lying in bed trying to sleep, it was still only Noah and his kisses she was thinking about.

  Chapter Ten

  N oah worked all the next day in the attic of Theresa’s house, so his path crossed Marti’s only once. When it did, he asked if they were still on for dinner at his place that night. Marti teased him with a “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  So when he answered her knock on his door at seven as planned, he greeted her with a good-natured smile and said, “I’m glad you decided to come.”

  They were still standing at his door, though, and Marti was beginning to wonder why he hadn’t asked her in. “I brought homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert,” she said, raising the plate she was carrying.

  “Great. All I had planned for dessert was another stack of candy bars—I didn’t know what other kinds of chocolate you like. I just figured it was a good bet you’d want chocolate for dessert.”

  “I eat it in any form,” she told him, thinking that she might have to cut down because while she hoped it was due to the pregnancy—and even though the jeans she’d changed into tonight still fit fine—her breasts seemed to be getting bigger every day. They’d barely fit into the built-in bra of the navy blue camisole she was wearing. In fact, she was even showing a little cleavage, which had never happened when she’d worn it before.

  Cleavage that Noah obviously noticed before he raised his gaze to her face again and finally let her know why he was keeping her on the porch.

  “I have to warn you—I just bought this place a few months ago and I’m remodeling it. So it’s kind of a mess and most of my furniture is stored in the basement. It’s probably not the best time to entertain, but I hope you won’t mind.”

  “I won’t,” she answered, uncommonly pleased just to be there with him.

  Gone was the sweat-streaked dust and dirt, the damp hair clinging to his head from the afternoon’s work. He’d showered and obviously shampooed because his rakishly untamed hair was shiny and clean, he smelled of that wonderful woodsy cologne, and how the man could look so jaw-droppingly handsome dressed in an ordinary pair of well-worn jeans and a plain black T-shirt, she would never know. But he did. Probably because the T-shirt hugged every one of those muscles she’d seen for herself that afternoon when the heat in the attic had prompted him to strip down to a tank top.

  Noah ushered her in then, telling her about his newly purchased property that was almost two miles outside of Northbridge.

  “I only have three acres,” he was saying. “If you don’t count the deck that was added a couple of years ago, the house is half a century old and needs an update, but it’s still a great investment.”

  Marti could tell the house was in need of repair. But she could also see that the place had a lot of possibility as he led her through the living room he was obviously in the process of painting, and into a very rustic kitchen.

  “Like I said, the deck is the newest thing here so I thought we could do this out back—I’m barbecuing. But let me get you something to drink before we go out there.”

  He poured two glasses of iced tea, which they took outside onto a huge, roofed-in redwood deck surrounded by a railing that made it an island in the sea of dirt that stretched to the old red barn.

  “I’ll probably plant some grass eventually and actually make some of this a real backyard,” Noah explained when they stepped out onto the deck. “But as it is now it’s just a barnyard and paddock for my donkey, Dilly,” he said, pointing to a long-eared burro in the distance.

  “You have a donkey?” Marti marveled. “For a pet? Instead of a dog or cat?”

  “I don’t know why not,” he said, making her laugh at this other facet of him.

  Marti sipped her iced tea and watched Noah raise the lid on his barbecue so he could put two steaks on the grill, where a pan of grilled vegetables was being kept warm and what appeared to be two foil-wrapped potatoes were cooking.

  When the steaks were just right Noah served them along with the grilled vegetables, the potatoes, a salad and bread.

  “Contractor and master chef, too,” Marti said as she cut into a succulent piece of meat.

  “Hardly. If it can go on the grill and doesn’t need more than salt, pepper or barbecue sauce, I’m good. Otherwise I can’t cook. How about you?”

  “I like to cook, actually,” Marti said as they ate. “I don’t do anything too gourmet, but I can use a few things other than salt, pepper and barbecue sauce.”

  They chatted through most of the meal about the kinds of foods they did and didn’t like, but as they neared the end of dinner Marti changed the subject to venture a question that had been on her mind.

  “Have you told anyone in your family about the baby yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How do you think they’ll react when you do tell them?”

  He shrugged. “They’ll be really worried for me.”

  Marti didn’t understand that.

  And it didn’t sound good.

  Why would his family be worried when they heard he was going to be a father? Did it mean something bad for the baby?

  “Is there some sort of genetic problem? Some hereditary disease that they’d be concerned about?” she asked.

  “Not that I know of. Besides, I didn’t say my family will be worried about the baby. I said they’ll be worried for me.”

  “But why?” Marti persisted.

  For no reason she understood, his only answer was to raise his eyebrows at her.

  Then he said, “Cookie time!”

  “You can’t just leave me wondering.”

  “How about a tour of the house?” he offered rather than responding to that, heading for the back door with plates in hand.

  Or maybe it was just a ploy to get h
elp cleaning up.

  Because if that was what he had in mind, it worked—Marti took the rest of the dishes with her and followed him inside.

  But she still had every intention of making him tell her what he’d meant.

  Noah continued to dodge Marti’s question as he showed her the house.

  Downstairs there was the kitchen, the laundry room, one bathroom and the living room. On the second level there were three bedrooms and another bathroom. All of the paint, the wallpaper, the carpeting and the light and plumbing fixtures were dated and worn and in need of the remodel Noah outlined for her.

  Then, with Marti bringing along the plate of the cookies she’d made, they went back out to the deck to have dessert.

  As Marti set the cookies on the table, Noah lit the candles in the center of it.

  The golden glow enabled her to study him as he took a closer look at the cookies. Right there in front of her was that well-defined chest of his, those massive upper arms stretching his short sleeves taut. His chest was hidden now behind the black knit T-shirt, but something warm began to churn inside of Marti as she became completely absorbed in just looking at him…

  “Chocolate chips, white chips—”

  He was describing what he saw in the cookies.

  Marti yanked herself out of her reverie, but it took a hefty effort.

  “White chocolate, but not chips,” she explained somewhat belatedly. “I like a Swiss white chocolate candy bar cut up into small pieces better than any of the chips I’ve found. There’s also coconut and a secret ingredient I won’t divulge,” she said, knowing she was talking too much, overcompensating to hide her wayward thoughts.

  “Not nuts,” Noah said after taking a bite of one cookie. “Toffee?” he guessed.

  Marti merely smiled mysteriously and tried not to think about how great-looking he was. But it was difficult because he really was great-looking and it seemed as if every time she was with him, it affected her more. He affected her more.

  But not even that was going to keep her from pursuing the subject of how his family would react to news of the baby and she decided she’d given him enough of an opportunity to return to that subject on his own. Since he hadn’t, she was going to do some probing…

  “Okay, let’s have it—I want to know why your family will be worried for you when you tell them about the baby.”

  He finished his cookie and took a second as she chose one for herself and had a bite. Neither of them were sitting at the table, though, and in what seemed like yet another delay tactic, Noah went to the deck railing instead.

  He propped one hip there, raising his right foot to the rail, and leaning his back against the corner post that braced the deck roof.

  Then, finally, he draped an arm over his upraised knee and said, “I have kind of bad luck when it comes to kids in my life.”

  “More recently than the teenage pregnancy?”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “How so?” Marti asked, going to stand beside him.

  “About…I guess it’s been a little more than four years now, I met someone who had a son. She was divorced, she’d moved to town to start over, bought a place and hired me to do some repairs. And we hit it off. Angie Marconi. And Erik—that was her son’s name. He’d just turned three when I met them and he was a little terror.”

  Noah smiled when he said that so Marti knew he’d enjoyed whatever terrorizing the three-year-old had done. But there was enough sadness in the smile, in his voice and in his expression to let her know this had somehow not ended much better than the teenage pregnancy.

  “Erik was a character,” Noah went on, reminiscing affectionately. “He had this toy tool belt and every day when I went to work he had to have it strapped on so he could follow me around and help. He’d mimic everything I did. Angie thought he might be in my way, but I was fine with it. He was so funny—it was like having entertainment while I worked.”

  Marti finished her cookie, hoping this story didn’t end with anything bad happening to the little boy.

  “Anyway,” Noah went on. “Like I said, Angie and I hit it off. After Sandy in high school, I’d dated, played the field, messed around, but I hadn’t gotten serious with anyone. I was kind of skittish that way. But I really liked Angie and I was crazy about Erik, and we were all a good fit. Angie wanted to take it slow—her marriage to Erik’s father had ended on a sour note, she’d had a hard time of it ever since—relationships that hadn’t worked out because she had a kid—and she was leery. So that’s what we did—we took it slow. But still, things just got better and better and after a year, I proposed.”

  Marti had asked if he was married now, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to her that he might have been married before. She didn’t know why it hadn’t, but it hadn’t.

  “So you’re divorced?” she asked.

  Noah shook his head.

  “She turned you down?”

  He chuckled slightly. “No, she said yes. But she was still afraid of rushing anything so she wanted us to live together for a while.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah. I moved in with her and Erik.”

  “And were things still okay?”

  “They were great. Like I said, the three of us were a good fit. She still sort of dragged her feet about setting a wedding date but when it was getting near the two-year mark of our living together she finally decided we should plan the wedding. We also started talking about me adopting Erik.”

  That not only sounded somewhat ominous, but when Marti turned to lean her hip on the railing to look at Noah again she found a frown creasing his forehead and she knew this was where the bump in the road had occurred.

  Then he continued. “Angie’s ex had had a big-time drinking problem—that’s why she’d divorced him. He hadn’t paid child support or had anything to do with Erik since two months after Erik was born, so Angie didn’t think there would be any problem having him relinquish his paternity rights in order for me to be Erik’s legal dad. Which was how I saw myself by then—as his dad. So she tracked the ex down and went to see him to talk about it.”

  “But it didn’t go quite as planned,” Marti said in response to the deepening of Noah’s voice that indicated something had gone wrong at that juncture.

  “No,” Noah confirmed solemnly. “When she came back she was being weird—standoffish, kind of cold, the whole first twenty-four hours that she was home she avoided my questions about her ex and the custody stuff. Then she arranged for Erik to sleep over at his friend’s house the second night and said we needed to talk.”

  “Somehow that never seems to lead to anything good,” Marti observed when he stalled.

  “It didn’t for me, that’s for sure,” Noah agreed. “She said her ex was clean and sober. That he had a job. That not only wouldn’t he relinquish his parental rights, he wanted a second chance with his family.”

  “And she jumped at that?” Marti said in disbelief.

  Noah shrugged and his expression showed some anger still, and some disbelief of his own. “She said she’d never completely gotten over her ex—which was news to me since she’d never even hinted at anything like that. But that night she said the booze had turned him into a different person during their marriage, and that now that he was sober, he was the man she’d fallen in love with again. And because Erik was his…” Noah shook his head. “She wanted them to have a second chance at being a family, too.”

  “And that was it for her relationship with you? For her son’s relationship with you?”

  Noah nodded sadly. “That was it.”

  “Just like that the little boy you were being a father to, who you were ready to adopt, was out the door?”

  “Just like that. I tried to do something legally—to get some kind of visitation privileges or something—but essentially, I was nothing but a boyfriend, and without any biological connection, the court wouldn’t grant it.”

  “And you really were crazy about him,” Marti repeated Noah
’s own words back to him, seeing what a blow it had been to him. “That must have been horrible for you.”

  “He felt like my kid,” Noah admitted, staring into the night. “Erik was six by the time this happened. I’d been there pretty much from the late-baby stage. I’d taken him to his first day of kindergarten. Bought him his first big-boy bike and taught him how to ride it without training wheels.”

  “It was like losing your own son,” Marti said for him.

  “That’s how it felt,” he agreed in a deep, quiet voice.

  “And this time it wasn’t even anything you did.”

  “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse, but no, it wasn’t anything I had a part in.”

  Marti didn’t know if that was better or worse either, and she could almost feel his frustration, his sense of helplessness…

  “When did the breakup happen?” she asked quietly.

  “About a year ago. So between high school, and then Erik…well, now you can understand why my family will be worried for me.”

  Marti nodded, knowing that if one of her brothers was in the same position, she’d be concerned, too.

  “This is why you went to a lawyer the day after I told you this baby is yours, isn’t it?” she guessed, recalling what he’d told her Monday night at the coffeehouse. “The teenage pregnancy and then Erik—that’s why you wanted to talk about what you needed to do to protect your rights.”

  He turned his head to look at her, grimacing slightly at that reminder. “Yeah. But don’t forget, I didn’t go through with what the lawyer suggested. It’s just that like I said, I’ve had bad luck when it comes to kids in my life.”

  “You really have,” Marti commiserated. “And maybe with the women in it, too.”

  He laughed wryly at that. “No argument there,” he said. With his eyes still on her and the shadow of the past gone from them with that wry laughter, he said, “You’re different from the others, though—Sandy and Angie and most of the women I’ve dated.”