Paper Rose

by Diana Palmer

  There was a pause, and then he laughed. “I suppose we’re going to need a house. The baby will want one of those gaudy, godawful outside swing sets when he’s old enough to play, not to mention a collection of equally gaudy plastic toys.”

  “They’re safer than metal or wood ones,” she pointed out.

  “We’ll see what sort of real estate we can find in Maryland, near Matt and my mother.” He toyed with a strand of her hair. “They’re already shopping for things to give their first grandbaby. They’ll be overjoyed to see us together again.”

  She closed her eyes with a drowsy smile. “All our baby needs is us.”

  His hand contracted gently in her hair. “You weren’t going to tell me.”

  “I would have, eventually.” She sighed.

  “I knew that you loved me. It didn’t take long for me to come to my senses,” he murmured.

  “You’ll be bored with a desk job,” she said worriedly.

  “No, I won’t,” he denied, rolling over so that she was lying half under him. “I’m going to be a family man now, with new responsibilities.” He searched her soft eyes and smiled. “I love you, Cecily. And you have to marry me very soon. I really can’t take the chance that you might come to your senses one morning and realize how much better you could do for a husband.”

  Her heart stopped and then ran away. She had to swallow the knot in her throat before she could even speak. “I couldn’t possibly marry anyone else. You really love me?” she asked softly. “You never said so before.”

  He traced the line of her oval face intently with a long forefinger. “Oh, but I think you knew it at some level.”

  “I suppose I must have,” she said softly. “You knew that I hadn’t experimented around, so you had to care about me a little to take me to bed in the first place—and to ignore taking precautions,” she added dryly. She grimaced. “But there was always something standing between us.”

  “I know. I wish I could change the past, but I can’t. You ran because of me,” he said tightly. “Right into trouble. Gabrini would have killed you.”

  She looped her arms around his neck. “You saved me. You’ve been saving me for years, even from yourself.”

  He smiled. “You helped me save you,” he pointed out, kissing her tenderly. “You’re handy in a tight corner.”

  “I had a good teacher.” She traced his eyebrows with tender fingers. “I hope our baby will have your eyes,” she said. “They’re so beautiful.”

  “He’ll be a duke’s mixture,” he said softly. “I have Berbers in my ancestry, and French royalty.”

  There was a note of pride in his voice. “Matt told you?”

  He nodded. “He’ll love having a grandson to talk to.”

  “Leta will love having a grandson, too,” she murmured. “She can teach him all about Lakota traditions and culture.”

  He kissed her eyelids closed. “I went to them for advice before I went after you. We made our peace.” He lifted his head. “Which reminds me,” he said sternly, “I never did get an apology for having crab bisque dumped in my lap, and having it reported on national television! That’s no way to treat your future husband and, I might add, the son of a native sovereignty advocate and a United States senator.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” she agreed, tracing a sensuous pattern just below his collarbone with a teasing finger. “Tate, I’m really sorry about the crab bisque.”

  His heartbeat increased even before she started smoothing one long, bare leg against the inside of one of his. He lifted an eyebrow and pursed his lips. “How sorry?” he asked huskily.

  She grinned wickedly and smoothed her body completely against his, feeling his immediate response to the blatant seduction. “This sorry…” she whispered into his mouth.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next day, Tate brought Cecily to Matt and Leta’s house. There was ice on the driveway from an early-morning weather system, so Tate lifted her out of the passenger seat like fragile treasure and carried her right up to the front door. He’d wrapped her in the black leather coat he’d given her last Christmas and pulled the hood up over her hair so that she wouldn’t get chilled. In the soft beige dress she was wearing with beige boots, she looked elegant and very pregnant.

  “Push the bell,” he instructed, rubbing his nose with hers.

  “No.” She smiled at him teasingly. She was wearing her regular glasses instead of her contacts, and through them, her green eyes looked even more mischievous.

  His chiseled lips tugged up at the standoff. “Okay. We’ll do this the hard way,” he murmured, and dropped his mouth down over her lips. “Give in and push the bell,” he whispered.

  She looped her arms closer around his neck and kissed him back with an enthusiasm that made him groan against her soft mouth.

  Seconds later, she was crushed against his tan raincoat, holding his head to hers, lost in the delight of being held by him, kissed by him, loved by him.

  Neither of them heard the door open.

  “Wouldn’t you like to sit down and do that?” came a deep, amused voice from in front of them.

  They broke apart with self-conscious laughter. Matt gave his son a speaking glance before he turned his attention to Cecily, surveyed her curiously and then looked back at his son.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell your mother and me?” he asked Tate.

  “We’re getting married,” Tate obliged with a grin.

  “No!” Matt said at once in mock surprise and then chuckled as he opened the door wide to admit them. “See what I told you about a battle plan, son?” he asked Tate with glee. “Works every time!”

  “Some battle plan,” Tate murmured dryly. “I went to Tennessee to bring her home, but she wouldn’t come back with me. So I went home and got royally drunk, and when I finally came to, Pierce Hutton had had her delivered to my apartment like a late Christmas present.”

  “That’s some kind of a boss,” Matt said with a laugh. “Leta, we’ve got company!” He raised his voice.

  Tate carried his soft burden into the living room. He was just putting her on the sofa when Leta came flying in from the kitchen.

  “My baby!” she exclaimed, hugging Cecily the minute Tate set her back on her feet. “My poor baby, are you all right?”

  The concern made Cecily feel like a watering pot. She dashed away the tears. “Oh, I’m such a mess,” she said brokenly. “And so happy!”

  Leta looked at her tall son over Cecily’s shoulder and smiled with pure joy. Tate only grinned, supremely happy.

  Tate related the story of Gabrini’s capture, and his pride in Cecily’s fierce defense of herself made her flush. After the explanations were over, Matt and Leta left Cecily briefly alone with Tate at the table eating pie and coffee while they dealt with an unexpected visitor, a colleague of Matt’s in the Senate. Tate seemed to find Cecily fascinating as they sat at the big cherry wood table together.

  “You’re making me self-conscious,” she murmured, eating while he sipped coffee and watched her.

  “Pregnancy is a mystical experience to a man,” he said simply. “I’m hypnotized by it.”

  She grinned. “I noticed.”

  He chuckled. “All that talk about not mixing cultural backgrounds,” he mused, “and the first time I had you, it never entered my mind to do anything that would prevent a child. Didn’t that seem a little irresponsible to you?”

  “Yes, it did. But you didn’t know I wasn’t experienced.”

  “Oh, I knew,” he said quietly, studying her. “I knew it to the soles of my feet, long before your body proved it to me.”

  She blushed, remembering the sensations she’d experienced with him. Her whole body tingled with memories.

  He shook his head. “It was a revelation, that first time. I still get aroused every time I remember it. Then on the floor of your office,” he said abruptly. “I still can’t believe I did that.” He frowned. “You were already pregnant then. I could have h
urt you and the baby.”

  “You didn’t. And, if you remember, I did the seducing,” she added with a grin. “Even under the circumstances, it was something to remember.”

  He sighed. “It still makes me vaguely ashamed. I treated you shabbily, Cecily, and not only then. You’ve put up with a lot from me.”

  “It was worth every tear,” she teased. “I have no regrets.”

  “I wish I could say the same.” He clasped his hands together behind his head and sat watching her again. “You’re very sexy with that swell under your waistline.”

  She gave him a mock scowl. “Pregnancy isn’t supposed to be sexy.”

  “But it is,” he remarked. “You’re radiant. You glow.” He smiled at her. “I’m glad you want the baby, Cecily. I want it, too. I’m sorry I’ve given you such a hard time.” He moved his clasped hands to his knees and stared at the floor. “My world turned upside down. I wasn’t prepared for it. Nothing was as I’d believed it was. My whole life seemed to be a lie. It was hard to adjust.”

  She put her fork down. “I know.” She searched his grim face. “None of us wanted to hurt you. We just couldn’t think of an easy way to tell you.” She met the dark, searching eyes that came up, and the breath seemed to catch in her throat. He had such beautiful eyes. She wondered if the baby’s would be dark like his or light, like her own. “Lies are dangerous, even kind lies.”

  He nodded. His gaze ran over her face and he smiled slowly. “I wonder which one of us the baby will favor?”

  “I was just wondering the same thing. Dark eyes are dominant,” she remembered. “Your hair is black and mine is blond, he’ll probably have brown hair. I hope he has your eyes. And your height.”

  “Are you really sure he’s a he?”

  “Yes, from the ultrasound. Considering that your father was one of three boys a girl was probably a long shot anyway. Did Matt tell you about his brothers?”

  That was interesting. “No, he didn’t.”

  “One of them was much older than he was. Philippe died fighting in World War II. Michel died of a heart attack three years ago. They were the only family Matt had left. Or so he thought,” she added with a tender smile. “Anyway, boys run in his family and the father, not the mother, determines the sex of the child.”

  He smiled at her. “As long as we have a healthy baby, I don’t care what sex it is.” He let his gaze run down to her waistline. “But I meant what I said about getting married soon,” he added quietly. “I don’t care for casual modern arrangements when a child is involved, although I’d want to marry you now even if there could never be a child. Our son deserves a family name and two parents to raise him and love him. As we’ve already agreed, I never considered preventing him.” He grinned wickedly. “And I’m not sorry, either.”

  “Neither am I. Okay,” she said, smiling. “We’ll get married whenever you want.”

  He sighed with relief, glad that she wasn’t going to fight him about it. “I’ll speak to the priest here in D.C. who married my parents, if you’d like that. We could have a civil service….”

  “No,” she said at once. “I’d like us to be married in church.”

  He smiled. “Fine. And the sooner the better,” he added with an amused smile, glancing once more, with unmistakable pride and delight, toward her waistline.

  They were married barely a week later, with Leta and Matt and Colby Lane for witnesses. Pierce Hutton and his wife, Brianne, were there with their son, who was several months old. They seemed radiantly happy.

  Cecily looked up at Tate as he lifted the short veil of the oyster-colored hat that matched her neat silk suit, and thought that she’d never seen anything as beautiful as the look in his eyes at that moment. He smiled at his new wife just before he bent to kiss her, with such tenderness that tears rolled down her cheeks.

  The reception was held at Matt Holden’s home, and it was long and rowdy. A number of strangers had shown up for the occasion, some of them very somber, wearing equally somber suits and looking around as if they expected terrorists to vault through the windows any minute. Two other men, very scruffy-looking even in nice clothing, moved like wolves. A big blond man with a faint arrogance of carriage watched the other men warily.

  Brianne Martin, with her sleeping child in her arms, moved close to Cecily with mischief in her green eyes. She was fair, like Cecily, but her hair was a darker blond.

  “Those two over there belong to the government,” she whispered, indicating the stiff men in suits. “The ones by the punch bowl are ex-mercenaries. The big, lean blond man is Micah Steele. He’s the last man in the world you ever want to make an enemy of. And that girl over there—” she indicated a slender woman with brown hair “—is his stepsister,” she added with a grin. “They don’t get along at all. That’s why she’s careful to keep the room between them.”

  “Boy, does that sound familiar,” Cecily muttered with a glance at her oblivious new husband.

  “You, too, huh?” Brianne asked, shifting the baby in her arms.

  “Yes, me, too. Tate’s been keeping his distance for years.”

  She glanced at Cecily’s noticeably unbuttoned skirt. “My, my, imagine a man being able to do that from a distance!”

  Cecily burst out laughing. Tate heard the sound, glanced at her and smiled with his whole heart in his dark eyes.

  “On second thought,” Brianne whispered, noting the look, “maybe it is possible.”

  Cecily only smiled. She and Brianne moved to the sofa and Cecily took the little boy in her arms, thinking that soon she’d have one of her own to love. Tate came up behind them, momentarily alone, and looked down at the baby in Cecily’s arms with a smile.

  “His name is Edward Laurence, but we call him Laurence,” Brianne volunteered, “and Pierce gets absolutely militant if it’s shortened. He looks like his daddy.”

  “Yes, he does,” Tate murmured, dreaming of his own heir who lay under Cecily’s heart.

  Senator Matt Holden sauntered over to join them, placing an arm around Tate’s shoulders with easy affection. “Good-looking kid,” he mused. He shook Tate. “So is mine, don’t you think?” he added. “I can’t think who he reminds me of…”

  Tate elbowed him with a grin. “Cut it out. I’m a better-looking copy of you.”

  “Better-looking?”

  “Better tempered, too,” Tate said with a warm smile.

  “Only on occasion.”

  “It’s nice to see the two of them getting along so well, isn’t it, Cecily?” Leta asked as she took her husband’s arm.

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed. “I’m getting used to peace and quiet.”

  “Think so?” Tate mused. He looked at his father mischievously. “We’re getting the papers finalized with the state to open the casino on Wapiti.”

  “You can finalize them however much the hell you like, but I’ll fight you tooth and nail to the very last fence!” Matt returned.

  “There’s no outside involvement this time, and we’ve got a referendum coming up on the res to take a vote,” Tate told him. “Do your worst.”

  “You think I won’t? I’ll be standing right outside the polling place with a placard and every protestor I can muster. In fact, I’ll…!”

  “Stop it,” Leta said, getting between them. “This is a happy occasion. You two can go out back and have this out later.”

  The two glowered at each other, neither giving an inch.

  “Don’t they look just alike when they glower like that?” Leta sighed, smiling.

  Cecily’s eyes were like saucers. “Oh, Tate…!”

  He glanced at her with twinkling eyes. Matt did the same. She’d been had.

  “You two!” she muttered, handing the baby back to Brianne. She got up. “I’m going to clean house here,” she said.

  “I have to talk to Steele!” Tate said at once.

  “I don’t know him, but I’m sure I have to talk to him, too,” Matt agreed.

  They retreated, chuckling li
ke the devils they were, leaving a fuming Cecily beside her beaming mother-in-law.

  Leta hugged her. “They’re just pulling your chain,” she said. “Matt’s compromised, and so has Tate. We’ll see what happens now, but I think we’ll get our casino. Actually,” she said, “it’s more of a big bingo pavilion. No faro wheels, no slot machines. Maybe later, but we’re starting small. And this time we’re doing all the groundwork, in the tribe.”

  Cecily hugged her back. “What a nice wedding present.”

  “Only verbal, but we have something better for later. Matt and I are giving you a nursery, when you move into that pretty house down the road from us that Tate found you.”

  “We can have coffee every morning and discuss new campaigns for sovereignty,” Cecily agreed with a grin. “Because now I really am family.”

  Leta sighed. “Really family,” she agreed with love beaming from her face.

  She went back to Matt and Brianne glanced up at Cecily. “I hope you’re going to forgive Pierce for what he did to you,” she said dryly. “He and Colby Lane should be shot. They had no business shocking you like that, especially since you’re pregnant.”

  “I wasn’t shocked. I was outraged. Parceled back to D.C. with my suitcase and delivered to the father of my child.” She sighed as she stared at her husband across the room. “But what a reunion it turned out to be. Your husband has my vote for matchmaker of the year.”

  “I like him myself,” Brianne chuckled and exchanged a long, sweet look with her own husband. Pierce Hutton had dark eyes like Tate’s, and his love for his young wife was very evident, even at a distance.

  “Tate’s very excited about the baby, isn’t he?” Brianne added. “I heard him telling Pierce that he was already looking at potential colleges.”

  “He’ll make a good father,” Cecily mused, smiling across the room at him. “And a very good husband.”

  “Who’d have thought it?” Brianne asked softly. “He always seemed so self-contained. I guess you never really know people, do you?”

  Cecily shook her head. “That’s part of the fun, finding out the little quirks and surprises that make up complex people. The more I get to know him, the more I realize how little I actually knew about him. He’s a very private person.”