The Story Of Us: A Secret Baby Romance (Serenity House Book 1)

by Molly O'Keefe

  He stood and bent over the couch, scooping his arms under Spence, who rolled easily toward him.

  “Light as a feather,” J.D. told Sam, catching her worried expression as she stood at the open door to her apartment.

  He didn’t think about the boy’s implicit trust or the way it seemed to knit certain parts of him back together. He didn’t think about how forgiving Sam for not telling him about Spence settled into place without any effort on his part.

  He didn’t think about any of it. He just held the boy close and thanked God that he had a chance to do this just once in his sorry life.

  Sam’s quarters were stuffy and she went around the room cracking open windows and flicking on the ceiling fan while he laid the boy on the fold-out couch. J.D. eased off Spence’s shoes and slid his feet under the blue-and-white cloud sheets Sam had put on the bed.

  And then, knowing she was there, watching him, waiting for him, her need to talk like a low pressure zone in the room, he stood and met her eyes.

  A moment passed and they said nothing. They just were.

  “It was a good day,” she said. “I’m glad you came.”

  He smiled and tucked his hands into his pockets. “I’m glad you made me go.”

  Her eyes searched his in the moonlight. Damp and glowing, they dug deep looking for something in him that would make what she wanted okay.

  She wouldn’t find it. And she would try to twist something out of the nothing inside him.

  “Go to bed, Sam,” he whispered.

  She shook her head.

  He felt her intentions like fingers reaching for him and he held up his hand.

  “Sam,” he said, warning clear in his voice. “I don’t know what you intend to do, but if you come closer…we won’t be talking.”

  She stopped, blinked at him.

  Stepped forward.

  “Be sure,” he whispered. “Be really sure, Sam. Because I’m not who you thought I was.”

  “I know who you are,” she said. “I’ve known who you are from the day you stepped into this shelter. I may not have known what you’ve done. I may not have known your real name, but I know you.”

  Air churned in his lungs, his flesh was swollen, on fire for her. He couldn’t think past his need to let her touch him.

  “I know you, J.D.,” she whispered, stepping so close her breasts hit his chest and he hissed at the contact. “And you are a good man.”

  With her, he was. He watched her hands reach for him, unable to breathe as he waited. With her he was a better man.

  Then she touched him, her fingers slipping under the sleeve of his T-shirt, and his skin twitched with delight. Her eyes burned into his and even if the house exploded he wouldn’t have been able to look away from her.

  Her hands traced the ridge of his bicep, curled under his arm, traced a vein down to his forearms, then laced her fingers through his, joining them.

  “I want to sleep with you,” she whispered, lifting their hands to press kisses to his knuckles, the tips of his fingers. “But I can’t do it if you are still angry with me about keeping Spence a secret.”

  “I’m not,” he said.

  She smiled sadly, licking his thumb then biting it. “Are you saying that so I’ll have sex with you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m saying it because it’s true. I can’t judge you for how you acted in that situation.”

  She closed her eyes and a tear slid down her cheek. He groaned at the sight, clenching his hands to hers, bringing them to his chest. His lips.

  “I forgive you for not telling me your real name,” she said.

  He shook his head. “Don’t,” he told her. “I don’t deserve that.”

  Her beautiful, baffled eyes met his. “Yes, you do. You—”

  The pressure in him built until it burst, forcing him into action. He pushed his hands into the silk of her hair and kissed her.

  To distract her, to shut her up. Because today had been one of the best days of his life and it was killing him to not kiss her.

  She jerked as if filled by an electric current, then she moaned, deep in her chest, and kissed him back.

  Her hands curled over his biceps, holding him close, her fingernails tiny pinpricks of pain and heat that he adored.

  He relished the way her lips pressed back, opened, let him in. The way her tongue touched his, her teeth scraped his lips. Funny how he never really thought about the way Sam kissed; it was all part of the package. But this kiss, he focused on wholly. Memorizing the taste and feel of her.

  His hands fisted her hair, and she vibrated against him. He eased back far enough to see her eyes. He wanted to drink her down. He didn’t have the strength to deny himself anymore. To deny her. If she pushed, he’d shatter.

  So he didn’t give either one of them a chance to say no, to change their minds, to come to their senses.

  He kissed her again, sweeping her up in his arms.

  The darkness was no hindrance. He knew his way to Sam’s bed from across the country and he carried her there, never lifting his lips from hers.

  The bedroom door clicked shut behind them and he felt as if it was all a dream, a dream he’d had a million times, that he would wake up from, hard and lonely and desperate.

  Her body slid to the ground, but never lost contact with his and somehow in his efforts to get her naked, his own clothes fell off and soon it was her beautiful silky bare skin pressed to his.

  His hands slid over her, from her strong shoulders, down her breasts, over her thin waist to the firm curve of her butt. He cupped her hips in his hands and lifted and pushed her harder against him, his erection jerking against her.

  It was too fast, too much. He wanted to go slow, treasure her. Worship her for hours.

  He eased her onto the bed, helping her scramble over the quilt until just her feet dangled off the edge of the bed.

  She was like some kind of sex-goddess fantasy, lying across that bed, her red hair spilled around her. Her eyes half shut, her lips wet.

  He leaned forward to touch the hardened tip of her breast. She undulated against his hand and he liked that so much that he pinched her, just a little, just like she loved and her legs spread against his, trapping him between her knees.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, falling down on his hands over her body. He licked her other nipple and she groaned, twisting again, so he used his teeth.

  “Now,” she demanded. “Come on.”

  Her hand slipped between their bodies and gripped his erection. He dropped his head to her shoulder, watching her hand on him, unable to breathe.

  She stroked him, base to tip and back again. Her thumb circled the head, caught the clear drop at the tip and she brought it to her lips.

  He realized every minute he didn’t spend in bed with this woman was a total waste of time. Pushing off his hands, he fell to his knees on the floor and cupped his hands under her hips, dragging her closer to him, to the edge.

  “J.D.” His name was a gasp as his lips touched her, his fingers found her and he just settled in. The muscles along his spine, in his belly, relaxed and he curved over her. He pushed away his own raging desire, the erection that throbbed with its own heartbeat. He turned off every noise but those she made. He turned off his doubts, his second-guesses, his demons and his fears.

  He let himself go and focused on the woman under his hands and the love he had for her pounding in his heart.

  Spence jerked awake at the sound of a man and woman laughing. For a second he forgot where he was and what had happened and he thought it was Mom and Dad. It was Sunday morning, the best mornings, when Mom made French toast and Dad would clear off the breakfast table and do a puzzle with him all morning.

  He rolled over on his back, his eyes closed and he could smell the French toast, the bacon, the bitter burn of his parents’ coffee. He thought of which puzzle they’d do today, maybe the New York City one. It was so hard it would take most of the day. That way Dad wouldn’t go into his o
ffice and check e-mail and not come out for hours.

  “Shh, J.D. You’re going to wake him.”

  J.D.? And the woman didn’t sound like his mom and slowly the dream began to fade. His sheets felt different and that sweet French toast smell was actually flowery.

  This isn’t my home, he realized, coming out of the dream.

  “It’s okay, Sam,” J.D. whispered. “He’s still sleeping. I’ll be really quiet.”

  And that’s not my dad, Spence thought. He was at Sam’s house and it was J.D. going into the kitchen making coffee.

  He rolled over onto his side, squeezing his eyes shut against the burning hot tears.

  Sam’s giddiness was tempered by a real fear of the unknown. She lay in bed, J.D.’s hands stroking her belly, his fingers tracing the scar, and she wondered, couldn’t help but wonder, what’s next?

  The words hammered at her teeth, dying to come out, so she kept her jaw clamped. In all their years together, she’d never felt this way—this worried and desperate about their future. It seemed, in those years, that she’d come to convince herself that not knowing was the point. Not knowing was what she wanted.

  Now she could barely stand to look at him, naked and rumpled in her bed, fiercely masculine, stupidly sexy against her silly sheets.

  Drinking coffee like nothing had changed.

  When Christina had asked her yesterday if she wanted kids, it had been easy to say yes. But looking at J.D., Sam realized the hard part was that she wanted his kids.

  She wanted him.

  Suddenly, she was suffocated by all she didn’t know and all she wanted. She parted her lips to breathe, and the words began to tumble out.

  “J.D., what does—”

  Downstairs, Daisy started barking and they both sat up.

  “It’s probably Christina,” J.D. said, reaching for his pants anyway. “Going to the kitchen or something.”

  “Right,” Sam answered. She wanted to believe him, but guard dogs barked because something was wrong. And Daisy was a guard dog. She rolled out of bed and grabbed her robe, swinging it around her shoulders.

  They crept out of the bedroom, but it was too late. Spence was already awake, his hair sticking up in a wild rooster tail on the back of his head.

  “What’s wrong?” Spence asked, sitting in a puddle of blue-and-white sheets, his little body tense with nerves.

  “Nothing, kiddo,” J.D. said, rumpling his hair. “But I’m going to go downstairs and check on Daisy. She probably saw a squirrel outside.”

  Sam was right behind J.D., despite his stern look indicating his disapproval.

  “My dog,” she grumbled. “My shelter.”

  He jogged down the stairs, not even pausing when his phone rang. Digging it out of his pocket, he opened the door to the kitchen and Sam raced around him while he answered the phone.

  J.D. grabbed the edge of her robe, but she jerked free. She didn’t need protecting, not in her own home.

  Daisy was in the common room, her front paws against the glass, barking like mad at a totally empty street.

  “What’s got into you?” she whispered, pulling Daisy off the window only to have her lunge back up. “Jeez, Louise, dog, cool it. There’s nothing out there.”

  Her surging heart rate slowly started beating normally and she led her squirrel-hunting dog back into the kitchen.

  J.D. was nowhere to be found and her office door was shut and so she decided to check in on Christina, who had to be dead asleep to be able to ignore the episode of Dumb Animal Kingdom outside her door.

  “Jane?” she said, knocking lightly on the closed door of the girl’s room. When there was no answer she knocked harder and the unlocked door swung open slightly.

  Weird, Sam thought, the girl was so fierce about her privacy. Sam stepped into the dark room. “Jane?”

  The window shades were pulled and Sam could just make out the girl’s body under the covers on the bed.

  Sam thought about leaving, letting the girl sleep, but Daisy started to growl low and deep in her throat.

  A breeze blew through the room from the open window and Sam’s skin went cold.

  Something was very, very wrong here.

  She reached out to the bed, her hand shaking and when she pressed on the covers, they deflated. She patted down the whole bed and the mounds she thought had been girl-shaped were just an unmade bed.

  Empty. No Christina.

  She ran to the bathroom and it, too, was empty.

  Oh, no. Oh, no.

  Daisy was barking. Growling, leaping around her feet.

  She ran back to Christina’s room and flipped on the light. Something glimmered on the table and she grabbed it.

  Her heart plummeted. It was the diamond ring the girl wore around her neck with a note under it.

  Thank you, it said, in Christina’s curly handwriting. And I’m sorry.

  The note crumpled in Sam’s suddenly sweaty fist. The girl ran? Was it possible? Did her dad pick her up? Realization struck. The boyfriend. The boyfriend who had been heading here.

  She spun, heading back through the house for J.D.

  The kitchen was empty, her office door open and she found him in the common room, about to open the front door.

  “J.D.,” she cried. “Christina’s gone.”

  “Gone?” For a second a panic so profound hit J.D.’s face and seeing it made her own pulse skyrocket. She put a hand over her heart as if to stroke it into a tempo more bearable. “What do you mean?”

  “Her room is empty, her window is open and I found this.” She held out the ring and the note and J.D. snatched it from her hands.

  He swore under his breath.

  “Sam,” he whispered. “This is bad news.”

  “No kidding,” she said. “The girl is six months pregnant and sixteen years old.” She should have marched Christina right back to the house yesterday, once the girl had confessed her age. She should have followed policy. Maybe then they wouldn’t be in this mess. “Oh, I totally screwed up,” she muttered. And that little girl was paying for it. Running around like some kind of fugitive.

  “It’s worse than that,” J.D. said, handing Sam the ring. “Greg just called me and early this morning Conti and his wife went to New York City to talk to their oldest girl, then they headed south.”

  “South?” Sam asked as J.D. took a gun from the back waistband of his pants and checked the chambers.

  “What are you doing with a gun?” she asked, cool sweat gathering along her spine. This whole thing was suddenly surreal. It had to be a dream. A bad one, but one she’d wake up from any moment.

  The doorbell rang and Daisy went nuts at her side and Sam reached down to hold on to her collar.

  “I need you to go upstairs and stay up there,” J.D. said, pulling on a T-shirt he must have grabbed when he grabbed his gun from his stuff in room two.

  “Why?” she asked. She jerked her chin toward the door, holding Daisy back with both hands. “Who’s here?”

  “Just go—”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “Who is at the door?”

  J.D. looked through the peephole and swore before resting his head against the door.

  “Francis Conti,” he answered.

  13

  Sam was being stupidly stubborn and it made J.D. frantic to knock her out and carry her caveman style to some safer cave.

  “Go upstairs. Keep Spence there.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped, keeping her voice low as though Conti could hear them. “This is my home.”

  “It’s a shelter, Sam,” J.D. barked, his temper, his sanity all fraying. “It’s four rooms above a damn women’s shelter. That’s not a home. It’s an apartment and a job. For God’s sake, just be smart about this.”

  She blinked at him and he knew he’d hurt her, wounded her someplace soft and vulnerable, but he couldn’t care about that right now. All he cared about was that Frank Conti was here, looking for a daughter who wasn’t here. A
nd there was no telling what that would result in.

  “Think of Spence,” he said, playing the guilt card. “He’s going to be scared by himself.”

  “He’s hardly here to murder us,” Sam said, looking far too feminine in her robe, far too appealing to be in the same room as the monster Conti. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?”

  “Overreacting?” he asked, and stepped closer to Sam, his hands gripping her shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. “This man is a killer, Sam. A murderer. You don’t know him—”

  “You don’t either.”

  He shook her. “My father was this guy. I would have been this guy. I know who he is down to his socks and I don’t want you in the same room as him. I don’t want you in the same room as me right now.”

  “Open the door, J.D.,” she said, strong as she’d ever been. “He’s here to see me.”

  “At least go change—”

  Sam reached forward and, before he could stop her, she’d unlocked the door and jerked it open.

  J.D.’s worst nightmare stood on the porch. A tall man, dark and thin, with that unfortunate nose, looking ready to tear apart the world at the slightest provocation.

  And worse, he was sweating yet still wearing a leather coat in the hot summer morning.

  J.D.’s blood ran cold.

  He barely noticed the round blond woman with the tear-streaked face mostly covered by big black sunglasses beside him.

  Daisy went nuts, broke free of Sam’s grasp and lunged toward Conti. Conti stepped back, protecting his wife and reached inside his jacket with his right hand just as J.D. collared the dog.

  That the man came armed was confirmed.

  “What kind of place is this?” the blonde whispered, looking close to a meltdown.

  “Sorry about that,” Sam said, managing to sound as normal as can be, while J.D. could barely see straight with nerves and worry. His heart was never going to work right again. “Daisy is our guard dog and she takes her job very seriously.”