THE BABY PLAN

by Susan Gable

  Like sparkling jewels in the candlelight, her eyes met his. As he removed the rest of the pins, her hair cascaded over her bare shoulders. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

  She dropped her gaze.

  "You are." He planned to spend the hours until dawn convincing her. Shoving the thin strap of the gown aside, he planted smoldering kisses along the slope of her shoulder. She shuddered in response. He moved the other strap, and the gown slipped from her body to pool around her ankles. Jake let his own robe fall to the floor.

  For a moment, everything stopped as he admired her naked form in the candlelight.

  A heartbeat later, he scooped her into his arms and placed her in the middle of the bed, following her down.

  She grabbed for the sheets.

  "No." He stilled her hands. "I want to see you." He set off in slow exploration of her body, touching every inch of her and reveling in the experience. The jasmine perfume he'd chosen suited her perfectly and drove him wild. He wanted her so badly he ached with his restraint, but he was determined that this night would wipe clear any memories she had of other lovers. He might not be her first, but by damned, he'd be the one she remembered for the rest of her life. After all, his ego—his proficiency in the bedroom—was on the line. And that was the only reason he'd gone to such trouble in creating the perfect seduction.

  Jake ignored the tiny voice in the back of his head calling him a liar, and instead began to lavish the attention of his hands and mouth on her sumptuous breasts, kissing, caressing, sucking. Her moans and tiny whimpers of response pleased him. Her hands skimmed his shoulders as he kissed a path down her flat, smooth stomach.

  She twitched beneath him and gasped, then went deadly still. He smiled in anticipation. Lowering his head, he flicked out his tongue and caressed her in the most intimate way, slowly. Maddeningly.

  She bucked, clutching the sheets and gasping his name in that sultry voice he loved. It sounded even sexier when she couldn't catch her breath.

  He continued his loving torment until her entire body tensed in climax, then she collapsed, panting for air. "That … that was…" she said weakly.

  "Fabulous?" he offered, grinning up at her.

  A satisfied smile lit her face. "Definitely fabulous."

  She grabbed his head in her hands. "Please, come up here. I need you inside me."

  "Soon." He teased her first, gliding his erection across her slickness—but not entering—waiting until she trembled with need and he could no longer resist the urge to plunge inside her. "Ask me again, sweetheart."

  "Jake, please! Now!"

  "Since you ask so nicely." He slipped inside her warmth, burying himself completely. An intense rush of pleasure stormed him, and he couldn't breathe. She cradled him perfectly, as if she'd been custom-designed just for him.

  "Jake." Her eyes shimmered with desire, her honey-wheat hair fanned out across the pillow—his pillow—the reality of it ten times better than the fantasy had been.

  He crushed her mouth with his own, claiming her lips as he claimed her body in the most powerful fashion.

  They moved together. Their pace began with a leisurely tempo that quickly dissolved into a frantic, heated frenzy. Her whimpers threatened to spin him over the edge.

  "Harley, open your eyes."

  Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. Pupils wide, she locked her gaze with his. "Yes! Oh, yes!"

  He watched her fall, eyes closing, head thrown back, throaty moan rumbling her satisfaction.

  "Yes, baby!" A few more deep strokes triggered his own orgasm.

  After regaining his breath, he tucked her under his arm and snuggled her close. When her smooth, even breathing indicated she'd fallen asleep, he crept from the warm sheets to douse the candles.

  Jake slid back into the bed and gathered her once more into his arms. He drifted off to sleep, to dream of a baby—his baby. Someone to share his life, his home.

  But in his dreams, the baby's eyes weren't blue like his. They were emerald green.

  Like Harley's.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  «^»

  "Harley."

  Jake's warm breath stirred the hair next to her ear, and Harley struggled upward from the best night's sleep she'd known in ages. She began to stretch.

  "No, don't move. Just lie still and open your mouth."

  Open her mouth?

  His fingertips brushed across her cheeks. "Come on, open up."

  Still groggy, she obeyed. He slipped something cold and narrow under her tongue. She brought her lips together at his urging. "There, now, don't move. Just lie there until it beeps."

  She opened her eyes to glare at him, hoping to communicate her question and her unhappiness with this rude awakening.

  "No, close your eyes and relax, Harley. We want a perfect reading."

  Perfect reading? He'd stuck a thermometer in her mouth! What in the world was the man up to now?

  The bed shifted as he rose from her side. "I'll be back in a minute."

  The fragrant aroma of freshly brewed coffee drifted into the room, and she hoped he'd gone to bring her a cup. If so, maybe she wouldn't kill him for waking her like this.

  Time crawled with agonizing slowness before the thermometer beeped, coinciding with Jake's soft footsteps crossing the bedroom floor. She opened her eyes as he sat beside her and withdrew the thermometer.

  "What the heck is that all about?" Harley clutched the sheets to her body as she sat up.

  Jake reached for a clipboard on the night table. "Basal body temperature. Now, when did you start your last period?"

  "What?" Harley didn't much care for the shrieking quality in her voice. She took a deep breath.

  He stared at her, pencil poised over the sheet of graph paper on the board.

  "You're serious, aren't you?"

  "Absolutely. I need to maximize our chances for conception, and that means knowing exactly where you are in your cycle. So—" he tapped the paper with the pencil "—when was your last period?"

  "Wait and I'll check my day planner," she drawled, rolling her eyes.

  He scowled at her.

  "All right, let me think, I was definitely PMSing the day that jerk wanted a lube job."

  "What?" Jake looked slightly flustered.

  "Nothing. The day you baby-sat the twins and we decided to go ahead with this. So I probably got my period the next day."

  "All right. That was July 18, which makes this approximately day twelve of your cycle." A smug smile spread across his face as he scribbled on the chart. "Not bad. That means you should ovulate in about two days. Provided your cycles are twenty-eight days. Are they?"

  Harley slumped back into the feather pillows and yanked the covers over her head. "This is far more than I told the gynecologist, Jake." Obviously the man's romantic soul had faded with the dawn. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more Mr. Seduction. Now she was back to being a baby factory.

  Jake pulled the sheets and comforter away from her face. "How many days, Harley?"

  "Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine?" She gave him a shove. "Take your chart and go, so I can get dressed. I've got an appointment with my student adviser this morning."

  "All right. Look, I'm going to put this thermometer on the night table next to your bed. You have to take your temperature every morning, just like I did today."

  Ah. So he no longer wanted her sleeping in his bed. She was being returned to the guest room. She closed her eyes to hide the hurt, the regret. By damn, she wasn't going to let him see it.

  "Yeah. Right."

  Jake's footsteps retreated from the room, and Harley rolled over onto her side to burrow deeper into the bed. The scent of his aftershave lingered on his pillow.

  She'd been returned before, found wanting in some way. It wasn't like that was anything new. Time to rebuild the walls. She wouldn't allow Jake Manning to break her heart, she'd allow no one to do that, ever again. And Jake's generally caring and compassionate attitude wou
ld make it even worse. He was too easy to love.

  Whatever last night had been, it was obviously over.

  She jumped from the bed, grabbing the nightgown that now lay neatly draped across the end. Satin caressed her flesh, sliding over her shoulders with a faint whisper. Inhaling deeply, Harley lifted her head. Today she was starting a brand-new life, and her adviser would help her plan it.

  * * *

  Jake leaned against the kitchen counter, clipboard in one hand, oversize mug of steaming coffee in the other. From all the research he'd done, he knew basal body temperature was a fairly reliable tool for aiding conception. It didn't work as well in preventing conception, but it could help them get pregnant faster.

  And after last night, after the way she'd rocked his world and blown his mind, he wanted her pregnant as quickly as possible. With as few trips to her bed as possible. It would be far too easy to get used to having her around, to having her warm, tender body cradled against his through the night. No, he wasn't going to let it happen. He'd been there, done that, paid the price.

  Still, the warmth he'd experienced last night had been wonderful.

  A plump black-and-white cat stalked across the countertop, rubbing his arm.

  "Irving, get off the counter." Jake shooed him with the clipboard. Nose in the air, the cat jumped to the floor, arched his back and skulked from the room.

  A stray. Like some strays he took in, Harley was a temporary boarder. Best for all concerned if she got pregnant right away, then he could keep his distance from her, or as much distance as the small house would allow.

  But the vision of her face as she'd cried out his name in passion would be hard to forget.

  Watch your heart. He didn't intend to get burned again.

  "Still playing with your chart, I see." He breathed in the scent of jasmine mingled with freshly scrubbed skin as Harley moved past him, heading for the automatic coffee machine.

  "Yeah, we architects love anything we can draw lines on."

  "Ah, yes. You architects are planners, while we mechanics, we're doers. Hands-on approach, you know?"

  The image of her hands-on approach last night seared his brain.

  Opening the white cupboard next to the sink, she removed a mug and poured herself some coffee.

  Jake set his on the counter, along with the clipboard, and walked to her side. He plucked the mug from her hands, then dumped the contents down the drain.

  "Hey! What are you doing?" She clenched her fists and propped them against her hips.

  "No coffee. Caffeine's bad for you, and it's especially bad for a developing baby. Kick the habit now."

  The way she glared at him, if looks could kill, the new Mrs. Manning would be a widow. "No caffeine?"

  "No."

  "Fine." She stalked across the kitchen, retrieving the blue mug he'd left on the countertop. "What's good for the egg is good for the sperm." With a quick twist, she inverted the cup over the sink, splashing black droplets all along the nearby countertop, even getting some on the window that overlooked the backyard.

  She smiled at him, setting the now-empty mug in the sink. "Have a nice day. I'll see you later." Her work boots squeaked on the yellow-and-green linoleum as she whirled and left the kitchen.

  Jake grabbed the sponge to wipe down the countertop. "That went well," he muttered.

  * * *

  Harley survived the scattered piles on the dining-room table—the fall semester's course schedule, the catalog and a list of classes she needed to finally obtain her business degree. She rested her chin on her palm and sighed. She needed thirty more credits to graduate in the spring. But she was having problems juggling the timetable. The business policy class she had to have conflicted with the American literature class she needed to fulfill the English requirement, which meant she was probably going to end up taking poetry. She groaned. Poetry was definitely not her style.

  The adviser had been very little help, except to obtain permission allowing her late registration for a full-time fall semester.

  Jake probably wouldn't have any trouble with this. He'd turn the whole mess into a coherent and workable schedule with one flick of his wrist.

  The black-and-white cat rubbed against her ankles. Harley reached down and scooped him onto her lap. Contented purrs rumbled in his throat as she scratched behind his ears. "What do you think, Irving? Should I ask Mr. Planner to use his clipboard to help me?" The cat stretched on her lap, then shook and Harley laughed. "No, you're right, I can manage this by myself."

  Irving rubbed his head against her chin.

  The front door of the house rattled open, and Harley glanced at her watch. It was far too early in the afternoon for Jake to be coming home. She dropped the cat gently to the floor and pushed her chair back, looking through the living room toward the foyer.

  Dusty stood there. He was in uniform, lines impeccably pressed, face contorted in a scowl. Wordlessly he strode across the living room toward her.

  A sense of panic descended on Harley. "What? Is something wrong? Did something happen to Jake?"

  "Yeah, something's wrong. My brother married you." The young cop halted a few feet from her and folded his arms across his chest, staring down at her.

  "Don't do that to me. You scared me into thinking he'd been hurt." She tilted her head back to meet his eyes.

  "Like you'd really care?"

  "Of course I would. What kind of question is that?" A question she should've expected, and probably would've asked, too, if she were in his shoes.

  "An honest one. After his first wife ran off, my brother vowed he'd never marry again. And yet, a little more than two years later, we have you, the second Mrs. Jake Manning. What kind of scam are you trying to pull here?"

  Harley twisted the plain gold band around the ring finger of her left hand. "No scam, Dusty."

  "So you love my brother?" He leaned forward, icy-blue eyes piercing.

  "Your brother is the kindest, most compassionate man I've ever met." Harley swallowed the lump in her throat. Truer words had never been uttered, even if he had stolen her coffee.

  "My brother's a bighearted softie who takes in strays, but he usually limits himself to cats and dogs. What possessed him to take you in?"

  Harley decided to toss the big issue right onto the table. "My stellar past?"

  Surprise flickered across Dusty's face, then a slow feral smile curved his lips. "Doubt it."

  "According to the courts, Officer, I've paid my debt to society."

  "You may have paid that one, but if you're up to something here, I can promise you won't like the next payment plan. Probation and community service are a cakewalk compared to doing hard time."

  Sweat broke out on her forehead. If he discovered the marriage wasn't on the up-and-up, could he arrest her? Was it fraud? She needed to stay strong. "Is that a threat, Officer?"

  "No, a promise. My brother's had enough heartache. He doesn't need any more."

  "Yeah, right, I'm sure your lives were just so awful." Harley waved a hand around the room. "I know for a fact that Jake's lived in this house since he was eight years old. That's not exactly an unstable life."

  Dusty grunted. "And he watched two women who supposedly loved him walk out that door. Are you going to be the third?"

  Yes, actually that was the plan. But she couldn't let him know it. She groped for a way to gain control of the conversation. "I really don't think your brother would be happy to know you're here interrogating me."

  "One more question. Are you pregnant?"

  Harley straightened and arched an eyebrow at him. "Well, after the wedding celebration your brother and I had last night, I very well could be."

  Dusty's cheeks flushed ever so slightly.

  Score one for me.

  He regained his composure. "If you're gonna leave, you do it now. My brother wants a child in the worst way. If you get pregnant and then take his baby, Jake'll shatter. And I don't want that to happen."

  She had to admire his protec
tiveness. She knew if she'd had someone like Jake to take care of her after losing both parents, she'd feel the same way.

  She and Dusty had a lot more in common than the young cop would ever want to admit.

  The heels of his polished black shoes beat a retreat across the wooden floor. He paused in the foyer for a moment to look back at her. "And you don't want it to happen, either." The door slammed behind him, his implied threat hanging in the air.

  Would Jake feel even a tinge of regret the day she walked out? Or would he cling to his child and merrily wave her out of his life?

  Who would pick up the pieces if her heart shattered? Or was there really enough of her mother in her to prevent that from happening?

  Shoving aside all negative thoughts about the future, Harley picked up the course schedule from the table and flipped the page.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  «^»

  She was late.

  Jake stole a glance at the clock mounted on the wall over his computer, just on the outside chance the computer clock was wrong.

  It wasn't. She was late.

  The fall semester was already several weeks under way, but the idea of her on campus at night, alone, made him anxious. Which made no sense at all, given that up to this point, all her course work had been done during night classes. She's a big girl. She can take care of herself.

  Pepper and Benji sprawled on the floor near the office fireplace. Off in the distance, he heard the front door open. The dogs jumped up and raced out of the room, tails wagging.

  He sighed in relief.

  "No. Sit, and I mean it!" Harley's voice carried to the back of the house. "If you want a cookie, you'd better sit."

  Jake chuckled. She'd finally learned that edible rewards ensured doggie obedience. He heard her walk into the kitchen and the squeak of a cabinet door.

  "There. Now, get lost." A trace of warmth rang in her voice; Pepper and Benji had finally pushed their way past her fear.

  She appeared in the open archway to his office, a backpack slung over one shoulder. Her black jeans—his favorite pair—defined her shapely curves. Jake imagined she easily gave the younger co-eds a run for their money when it came to beauty.