by Bonnie Pega
Libby laboriously climbed out of the pitlike backseat of Zac’s sports car and into the front. “Thanks for giving me a ride home. I live just off Pendleton.” She gave him brief directions.
“Where did you take your ailing car?” he asked as they drove off.
“Emerson’s on Beech Road. Are you familiar with them?”
“No, but Beech is just a few blocks over from the museum. I can drop you off to get your car after the exhibit tomorrow,” he said as he pulled up into her driveway.
She fumbled with the seat belt. “That would be nice, thank you.” She tugged at the buckle, then looked up with a grimace. “How do you unfasten … ? Oh, I see.” She released the belt and turned toward him at the same time he reached over. This plopped her left breast squarely in his hand.
Their surprised gazes met and held for a moment, then slowly he drew his hand away, brushing his fingers across her distended nipple as he did so.
“I—I’ll pick you up at, uh, what time did we say?”
“One o’clock, I think,” Libby mumbled as she hooked her fingers through her purse strap and opened the car door. “You don’t need to see me in.” As a matter of fact, it would be better for everyone if he didn’t.
Zac reached out one hand and snared a strand of hair, rubbing it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve been wondering if it was as silky as it looks,” he murmured. “It is.” He let go the strand as if it suddenly burned. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Libby went inside, then turned and looked back at Zac, still waiting in her driveway. She waved and shut the door. Only then did she hear his car pull away. She leaned back against the door. What a disturbing man! He made her aware of herself as a woman in a way that she hadn’t been recently—it was hard to feel feminine when one felt roughly the same size as a hippopotamus.
It was only a little after nine-thirty, but she showered and got ready for bed anyway. She grabbed a book and lay down next to Wells, her golden retriever. She smiled absently as she nudged the dog over. He seemed to take it as his right to sprawl over two-thirds of the bed. Zac would probably sleep like that, she found herself thinking. He looked like a man who needed room.
Any woman who slept with him would have to get by with just a few inches of bed. Of course, any woman who slept with Zac would have other compensations, like his gorgeous body and strong hands.
Libby took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts away—shocked at herself. Eight months pregnant and fantasizing about what Zac would be like in bed. After Bobby, she neither needed nor wanted another man in her life. The only good thing to come out of her disastrous four-year marriage was the baby. And that had been an accident.
A couple of days after she’d told Bobby about the pregnancy, he’d run off, leaving behind a note saying he was relinquishing all rights to the child. Not long after came quickie divorce papers in the mail from Nassau.
And now here she was eight months later, at the beginning of summer. With no classes to occupy her mind, she worried almost constantly about raising a child on her own. Was she capable of it? Could she support herself and a baby on a junior high school teacher’s salary? Would her child be irreparably harmed by not having a male figure around? She already loved this unborn child desperately, but would that be enough to provide an emotionally healthy environment?
The baby began kicking vigorously, something that seemed to occur every night at ten or eleven. Libby smiled and laid a hand on her stomach. It seemed to her that the baby was tap-dancing. “It won’t be long now, Cupcake,” she whispered, and changed position, ignoring the dog’s disgruntled sigh. The baby finally quieted down. Libby turned a page in her book, but found herself thinking about Zac instead of what she was reading.
She changed position again, trying to concentrate. But instead, her breast tingled and she remembered Zac’s touch. He’d cradled her breast so gently and … hiccup. Her abdomen jerked. The baby had hiccups. Libby sighed and got out of bed. The baby was not going to let her sleep. Apparently neither was Zac.
This could have been a perfect date, Zac thought as he pulled up in front of Libby’s house. After all, he was about to spend an afternoon with an attractive, intelligent woman with a flawless complexion and midnight eyes. The only fly in the ointment was the fact that she was pregnant. That was a pretty big fly. He didn’t want kids. He didn’t like kids. And they hated him.
All things considered, he’d better make sure this was nothing more than a pleasant, casual afternoon. That decision was sorely tested, however, the moment Libby opened the door. Her hair swung in a sleek, shiny curtain to her waist. It was beautiful hair. Sexy hair. Hair meant to fall around a man when they made love.
She wore a silky blue dress that almost matched the lighter sparkles in her blue eyes. The short, flirty dress showed off her long, slim legs and clung to perfectly shaped breasts—as well as a perfectly rounded abdomen.
His gaze fastened on that abdomen for a moment, then lowered to her feet, encased in sturdy low-heeled walking shoes. He wondered if she ever wore sexy high heels. “You look … very nice.” Watch it, Webster, he warned himself. He’d been about to tell her she looked gorgeous.
Trouble. Pure trouble. She smiled at him—that same warm smile that seemed to curl right around his heart and squeeze. Why did Hannah get him into these things? He should have known she’d try it, though. Not only was she always telling Zac that he needed to settle down with a wife and family, she’d taken an instant liking to Libby. That was a deadly combination.
Not that Zac couldn’t understand. He’d taken an instant liking to Libby himself. Don’t kid yourself, buster. It’s a little more complicated than instant liking. More like instant lust. Somehow, it felt almost sacrilegious to be lusting after a pregnant Madonna. “Don’t forget your purse.”
TWO
“I’m really looking forward to seeing that exhibit,” Libby confided as she got in his car.
“You must be a big fan of pre-Columbian art.”
“That’s only part of it. The really exciting part is the orchid exhibit that’s going on at the same time.” Her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.
“You didn’t mention the orchid exhibit last night.”
“I thought everybody knew about it.”
“Not everybody.” Zac’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. He didn’t care much for plants, any kind of plants. They took up time and space and dropped leaves all over the carpet. The green was nice to look at, he supposed, but that’s what fake plants were for. “Orchids. Aren’t they parasites, or something?”
“No, they’re epiphytes, meaning they live up on trees, but they don’t send roots down into the tree and live off it like a real parasite does.”
“I guess they’re not carnivorous either.”
“Carnivorous?” Libby looked at Zac with amusement. “Where do you get these ideas from?”
“I read an H. G. Wells story once about a giant orchid that overcame its victims with a sweet scent and then sent out its roots to suck their blood.”
Libby’s eyes lit up. “You read H. G. Wells? So do I! He’s always been one of my favorites. I even named my dog after him.”
“You named your dog H.G.?”
“No,” she giggled. “Wells. H. G. Wells fired a lot of fantasies when I was young.”
Me too, Zac thought glumly. One more thing in common. “I know. He did the same for me.” He wished Libby would stop looking at him with those glimmering midnight eyes.
“Which of his stories did you like the best?”
“The Time Machine. I used to spend hours pretending I’d traveled to different times and places. Maybe it had something to do with being the youngest of three kids and wanting to get away from persecution. How about you?”
“I loved The Invisible Man. With Dad being a minister, everything I did always came under such close scrutiny that I wanted to be invisible. That way, I could pass notes and giggle in school like all the other kids, wear my skir
ts as short and my hair as shaggy.”
“Must’ve been pretty rough on you being a preacher’s kid.”
“Not really. Dad is pretty open and I doubt he’d have batted an eye had I hiked up my skirt a few inches or brought home a note from the teacher about talking too much. It was everyone else back home that had the expectations.”
“Where’s home?”
“Home is a small town in Maine, south of Portland.”
“How did you wind up in Pennsylvania?”
“I went to college here and stayed when I met Bobby. After he left, I thought about going home, but I have friends here and a job I really love.”
“Do you hear from your ex-husband at all?”
She paused for a moment as if she didn’t want to answer. “I got a letter from Nassau a few weeks ago telling me that he and his current bimbo were getting married. I don’t know where he is now, though.”
“Current bimbo,” Zac repeated. “Do you resent her?” Was Libby secretly jealous of her because she was still in love with the low-down, no-good son of a—He called an abrupt halt to his wayward thoughts. It shouldn’t matter to him whether she was in love with ten men or not.
“Resent her? Hell, no! If anything, I feel sorry for her now that she’s got Bobby on her hands.”
“Does he know about the baby?”
Libby explained what had happened, then added, “That’s why I really have a lot of respect for you.”
“Me?” Zac parked the car in front of the museum and turned to Libby. “Why me?”
“Because you’re standing by Hannah and staying so involved in the baby’s birth, even though you’re—you’re not—um—living together.”
Zac looked confused. “We’ve never lived together. I thought you realized—she’s my sister-in-law. My brother Ben’s wife.” He eyed her strangely. “All this time you thought we were married?”
She ignored his question. “I have even more respect for you, then, for standing by her,” she said softly. “So where’s Ben?”
“He’s not where he should be,” Zac said shortly. “We’d better go in.”
Through the rest of the afternoon Zac seemed to be making a concerted effort to keep things carefully impersonal. Libby grew tired of trading inanities like “I love the primitive earthiness of this one” or “That one certainly is interesting.” It was as if he’d decided to keep their relationship from going any farther.
But his composure slipped a little when they came to a collection of statues of short, stout females with big breasts and very round abdomens. Libby watched as Zac reached out and rubbed the tips of his fingers across the protruding stomach of one of the figurines. When he turned a brooding gaze on her, she realized that it bothered him that she was pregnant. It bothered him a great deal.
“I guess she’s supposed to be a fertility goddess,” she said lamely.
“I guess.”
“I expect you’ve seen enough pregnant women the last couple of weeks to last you a good while.”
Zac shrugged and gave a noncommittal smile, but he watched her pensively the rest of the afternoon. The most appealing and interesting woman he’d come across in years and she was having a baby. Zac wondered briefly what kind of relationship they might have had had they both been unencumbered.
But she did have a baby on the way, and he had his company. In a way, his computer programming business was every bit as much a baby as the real thing. It kept him up at night; it took all of his time and most of his energy. He certainly didn’t have much left to devote to a relationship, though Libby made him wish otherwise.
She had an old-fashioned charm that seemed an inherent part of her, and she had that intriguing surface serenity. But he’d seen flashes of fire in her eyes that hinted at deep-seated passions inside.
One look at her stomach was all it took to remind him that she wasn’t for him. Yet something about Libby made Zac begin to think of pregnancy as something sensual. She looked … ripe. Like a peach, soft and sweet.
It was a darned shame, he told himself later as he sat on his white leather sofa and stared at his tropical fish. A darned shame.
Libby and Deb waved to Hannah across the room of pregnant women, then went over to sit by her.
“Where’s Zac?” Libby asked casually as she sneaked a glance around the room.
“He’s in the back corner, hogging the coffeepot.”
Libby wasn’t surprised. Since their one and only date two weeks earlier, he’d made every effort to avoid her. It was obvious even to her—and she’d often been told that when it came to subtleties, she was as dense as a London fog.
She tried not to be hurt that he apparently wasn’t attracted to her. Not that she looked much like a femme fatale just then. Still, she liked Zac enormously—especially after finding out he was coaching his sister-in-law in his brother’s absence. And he was coaching her despite the fact that, according to Hannah, he’d rather be having a root canal. It added to his appeal that he was nice in addition to being sexy as hell.
“What happened when you saw the doctor yesterday?” Hannah was asking.
“He said it will probably be another couple of weeks, even though I’m due next week. I haven’t started dilating or anything. How about you?”
“Right on schedule. He said it could be any time now. Zac would prefer to wait as long as possible. He doesn’t think he’s ready for this yet.”
“Ready for what?” Zac asked as he neared the women, his gaze going immediately to Libby. She looked better every time he saw her, even with the circles beneath her eyes. His own eyes narrowed in concern. Obviously she wasn’t sleeping well. Although, according to the Lamaze instructor, that wasn’t unusual. He wondered if anyone was looking after Libby—making sure she propped her feet up every afternoon, making sure she ate properly.
“Hannah says you’re not ready for the baby.” She cocked her head toward Hannah, who, along with Deb, had turned to join a group of classmates in conversation.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” he muttered. “How about you? I suppose you’re thrilled at the prospect of going through labor.”
Libby gave a serene smile. “I’m not worried about it.”
“Why not?” Zac sank to the floor beside her, arranging his long legs out in front of him. He glanced at his watch. Class wasn’t due to start for another few minutes yet.
“Well, the stress management and guided imagery I’ve learned here certainly helps, but it’s more the realization that this is all a normal part of being a woman. And that there’s a reason for labor. I think that we appreciate only what we’ve had to sweat for. Maybe labor is a physical way of”— she paused to search for the right words—“of preparing us emotionally for the changes that occur once the baby comes.”
Her thoughts seemed to turn inward then, concentrating on the life growing inside her. Zac watched, captivated by the soft, unfocused look in her midnight eyes. One slim, graceful hand absently rubbed the curve of her stomach, as if caressing the baby within.
Without thinking, he reached over and covered her hand with his. She looked up, and their gazes held as she slid her hand from beneath his and placed it on top, pressing his palm into her abdomen. The baby moved then, and Zac found himself grinning.
“That’s a future ball player,” he said softly.
“Or ballet dancer.”
“Do you want a girl?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Libby shook her head, causing long, shimmering tendrils of hair to fall about her face.
Zac lifted his hand from her stomach and brushed back her hair, his fingers lingering on the silky strands, then finding the curved shell of her ear peeking through. He traced its shape with his finger. Libby’s eyes widened and he dropped his hand, forcibly wrapping his fingers around his cup of decaf. He was relieved when class began.
But he had trouble listening to the instructor, his thoughts were so preoccupied with Libby. He had plans, he reminded himself, and there was no room in th
em for a relationship, much less a wife and family. At least not for the next few years. And yet, try as he might to avoid it, he couldn’t deny that he wanted Libby. It was the baby he didn’t want. For his own peace of mind he had to stay as far away from her as possible.
Hannah wasn’t inclined to cooperate, however. The minute she got into Zac’s car after class, she turned to him with a bright smile. “I told Libby we’d give her a ride next week. We both want to try out that new Italian restaurant near the mall, and I figured we could go there and eat before class.
“Hannah—”
“And this might be my last chance to get out before the baby.”
“Hannah.”
“Yes, Zac?” She smiled at him.
Zac sighed. “What time do we pick up Libby?”
“What did your doctor say this week?” Hannah asked the minute Libby got into the car.
Libby gave a patient sigh. “He still says it will be a couple of weeks.”
“Isn’t that what he said last week?”
“Go figure. It’s just as well, since Deb had to go out of town on an emergency. Her brother’s having surgery, and she isn’t due back till day after tomorrow.” She turned to Zac and smiled self-consciously. “Hi.”
He felt the same peculiar tightening around his heart he always felt. He was beginning to like it. Dammit. He forced an answering smile. “Hi, yourself.”
“Are we still going to Spaghetti Plus for dinner?”
“If that’s all right with you.”
“Sounds great.” Libby sighed with delight. “I just love Italian food.”
“Cravings?”
“No, I just like Italian food, that’s all.”
So did he. Drat, another thing in common. He had no idea just how much in common it was until she placed her order. The antipasto appetizer followed by shrimp scampi and grilled zucchini with basil was exactly what Zac would have ordered. Out of sheer orneriness he ordered baked ziti and broiled tomatoes.
They chatted casually during dinner, though Libby grew quieter toward the end of the meal. “Are you going to eat the rest of those shrimp?” Zac asked, covetously eyeing the pink morsels curled on their bed of pasta.