“Well, I would hope you wouldn’t put it quite that way.”
“They think I’m with one of my cousins. I’ll just let them think that for a while longer,” she said.
He made his call, then called Sherry, then they went back out into the storm and climbed into the pickup. Blaire was grateful for the ride, as the snow was even heavier, the temperature lower than it had been only a few minutes earlier.
Over a meal of pot roast, mashed potatoes and gravy for her and beef stew and corn bread for him, Justin entertained Blaire with stories of growing up on the Cherokee Rose the youngest of three brothers.
An excellent swimmer herself, Blaire winced at the story of how Sloan and Caleb had taught Justin to swim at the age of three by throwing him headfirst into the stock pond.
“You could have been killed. Drowned, broken neck, water moccasin, anything,” she cried in protest.
“Naw,” he said. “We were in the middle of a five-year drought. The water was only about two feet deep. I could have suffocated in the mud and the muck, but they dragged me out.”
Blaire shuddered. “Remind me not to let our child around its uncles until after he or she learns to swim.”
“Not to worry,” Justin told her. “When Grandmother found out what they’d done she made them go down by the creek and cut their own willow switches and gave them a licking they still talk about in whispers. Besides, they’re older and wiser now. Well, older, anyway.”
Blaire chuckled as she knew she was meant to. Then she wondered aloud. “Do they know about the baby? Your brothers, I mean. The rest of your family.”
“No.” He shook his head. “They know something’s going on, but not what.”
Blaire frowned. “What do they think’s going on? What have you told them?”
“I haven’t told them anything. They’re just observant, that’s all. They know that for the past couple of months, when you wouldn’t take or return my calls, much less go out with me again, I’ve been miserable.”
Blaire started, blinked. “Really?”
He shrugged. “My brothers read me pretty well, but there’s no hiding anything from Emily. That woman knows everything. She’s amazing. Scary, even.”
Blaire hadn’t been questioning his family’s ability to determine his moods, she’d been astounded to hear him state so matter-of-factly that he’d been miserable— because of her.
Wow. That merited some serious consideration. Did he perhaps care for her, a little? During those two months he said he’d been miserable, he hadn’t known about the baby. If he had indeed been miserable, it could only have been because of her. Couldn’t it?
Unless he was stringing her along. Men did that to women all the time.
Oh, she could drive herself crazy trying to read his mind. Or know his heart.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Sorry. My mind wandered.”
“I must not be much of a conversationalist.”
“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “I’m just tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night, and today’s been a little on the stressful side.”
“When we get back to the room you should take a nap.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a wry smile. “But that won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“I can only sleep if it’s quiet and dark. Unless you want to sit in the dark without making any noise, I won’t get any sleep until tonight. Don’t worry about it. Maybe we can find a good movie on TV to pass the time.”
“I’ve probably got a deck of cards in the glove box of my rig.”
“That might come in handy.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he told her. “Besides. After this meal, I may want a nap myself. You’re not the only one who hasn’t had much sleep lately.”
The look he gave her told her she was the reason for his recent lack of sleep.
Was he serious? Did he mean it?
Why couldn’t she just take a man—this man, at least—at his word, take his words at face value? Why did she have to question everything, doubt him and herself, fear lies and deception where none were intended?
“How about dessert?” Justin suggested.
If it would delay the time when she would have to be alone with him… “Yes. Please. That sounds great.”
Not that she didn’t want to be alone with him. That was the problem. She did want to. But she was so afraid of making a fool of herself that she feared to even try.
“You’re zoning out again,” he said.
“Sorry.” She shook her head. “I guess I’m more tired than I thought.”
“Are you sure it’s not something else?”
The look in his eyes said if she gave him half a chance he could read her mind like an open book.
“Something else like what?”
“Like maybe you’re not feeling well?”
“No, I’m fine, honest.”
He let it go, and the waitress came and took their dessert order. A few minutes later the woman delivered Justin’s carrot cake and Blaire’s peach cobbler.
“How do you feel,” Justin asked, “about my spending a little money on you?”
Blaire frowned. “You want to buy me something?”
“I want to get you a cell phone. If you’d had one today you wouldn’t have had to wait for someone to come along and help you.”
“You want,” she said slowly, “to get me a cell phone?” The idea was too logical to argue with. She needed one. But she wasn’t prepared to start accepting gifts from him. She scrambled around in her head trying to figure out a way to afford not only the phone but the monthly service.
“And the monthly service that goes with it,” he added, as if, indeed, reading her mind.
Letting him buy her a phone was one thing, she thought, but allowing him to pay for the monthly service, too? That would give him a hold over her that she wasn’t quite comfortable with.
“You’re right that I need the phone,” she told him. “I’ll check into getting one when I get home.”
“Meaning you don’t want me to take care of it?”
“Meaning I’m not prepared to let you start spending money right and left on me.”
“I guess I can understand that,” he said. “But if I want to spend money on the baby, you’re going to find it impossible to stop me.”
She smiled. “The baby’s a little young to have his or her own phone, don’t you think?”
Justin let out a long breath and shook his head. “Are you going to let me pay for this meal, or did you want to handle that yourself, too?”
She might have taken offense at his remark, or thought that he was serious, but she saw the twinkle in his eyes.
“I don’t mind if you buy us a meal. You are indirectly feeding the baby, after all.”
“That eating-for-two stuff, is that true?”
“Pretty much. Eating for two, sleeping for two, peeing for two. I can’t wait to see what the next seven months bring.”
“And after that, things’ll get really interesting,” Justin predicted. “For about the next thirty years.”
Chapter Eight
When they returned to the motel room, Blaire hung up her coat in what passed for a closet area, then sagged on the bed.
“Kick your shoes off and stretch out for a while, why don’t you?” Justin suggested. He didn’t like the look of those dark circles that were forming beneath her eyes.
She sighed. “I think I’ll do just that. What about you?”
“I’m going to join you. I think I feel a nap coming on.”
She smiled at him and toed off her sneakers. “You’re humoring me so I’ll take a nap.”
“Am I?” He hung his coat next to hers.
“But it’s okay.” She let out another sigh and lay down, punching the pillow beneath her head until it was comfortable. “I don’t mind. This time.”
Justin studied her, tilting his head in thought. “You’re not un
comfortable sharing a room with me like this?”
“No.” She arched a brow. “Should I be?”
“No, you shouldn’t be. But I guess, with the way you’ve been running off to visit one cousin then another rather than sit down and talk to me, I thought you might be uncomfortable stuck in close quarters with me this way.”
“Since you put it that way, I guess maybe I should be. But what can happen? We’ve already talked, you’ve asked, I’ve said no. And I’m already pregnant. What’s left to happen?”
He stared at her for a long moment then snapped his gaping mouth shut. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Of course not. What do you mean?”
Justin shook his head. “You think because you’ve said you won’t marry me, and because you’re already pregnant, that I all of a sudden don’t want you anymore?”
Her eyes widened. “You don’t…what?”
“I think you heard me.”
“I think I did, too, but I’m not sure I understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, either. Is that what you think? That you’re already pregnant so why bother making love anymore?”
“Oh, boy.” She sat up, sat cross-legged on the bed and, groaning, buried her face in her hands. “Does that sound as stupid to you as it does to me?”
Justin sat in the lone chair, which occupied the corner beside the window. “I’m not sure I would use the word stupid, but then, I don’t know what word I would use. Alarming, maybe.”
She chuckled.
“So maybe you could explain to me what you really meant,” he said.
Blaire sat there another minute, breathing in, breathing out. What had she meant, if not the obvious, that she didn’t expect him to want her anymore? He wanted to marry her, didn’t he? Why would he want to marry her if he didn’t want to sleep with her anymore? And sex was the most basic way to bind a man and woman together. At least for a while. So it stood to reason that he would want to sleep with her.
So why was she so comfortable sharing a room—a room with one bed—with the man she was highly attracted to? What enormous conceit made her think she could keep him at arm’s length if he wanted her?
What idiocy made her even think of keeping him at arm’s length in the first place?
“Okay.” She raised her head and looked at him. “I take it back. I’m not all that comfortable sharing a room, and a bed, with you.”
Justin dropped his head against the wall behind his chair. “That wasn’t exactly the outcome I was hoping for.”
“Oh, really? Just what were you hoping for? An invitation? Did you expect me to pat the bed?” She patted the bed at a spot right next to her hip. “Come on over here, big boy? Let’s have a good time? Is that what you thought would happen?”
He let out a bark of laughter. “No, that is not what I thought would happen. It’s not what I expected. It’s not even what I hoped for.”
She smiled slightly. “How deep do you want to dig this hole you’re in?”
He stared up at the ceiling. “I can’t win now, no matter what I say.”
“True, but I’d like to see how you think you can get yourself out of it.”
He took a breath and raised his head to meet her gaze. “I was hoping we could act like two mature adults who happened to be sharing a room through no design of either of them. I was hoping we could try being friends. I was not hoping to get you naked in bed.” He held up a hand to stop her from interrupting. “That does not mean I wouldn’t very much like to get you naked in bed, because I would. But that isn’t why we’re here.”
“Unlike that night a couple of months ago, right? You got that motel room for the specific purpose of getting me naked and in bed.”
“No, but even if I did, where else were we supposed to go for privacy?”
“You had the room booked before you picked me up that night.”
“And you think I did that because I planned from the beginning to get you into bed?”
She tilted her head and frowned. “Didn’t you?”
His lips quirked. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it. I did have hope, but that wasn’t why I booked that room. You think I was that sure of myself?”
She shrugged and looked away. “I thought maybe you were that sure of me.”
“What?” he cried, rising from the chair. “Sure of you? Woman, I have never been so unsure of anything in my life as I have been of you from the very beginning. Why would I think you were willing to go to bed with me?”
“Because I was? That’s exactly where we ended up, isn’t it?”
“You think I knew that was going to happen?”
“If you didn’t,” she said carefully, “how did we end up in a motel room you had already booked?”
“Damn, Blaire, has that been eating at you all these weeks? Everybody in town knows that none of us in my family drives home if we’ve had more than two beers to drink within two hours of going home. Any more than that and we stay the night in town.”
Blaire felt heat sweep up her face. “Because of your father.”
“That’s right. You didn’t know? I thought everybody knew. It’s been a topic of conversation around town for years. I can’t tell you how many times one or all of us have ended up the butt of some yahoo’s stupid joke.”
“But you’re all live butts.”
“Exactly. It’s a pact between us, and we never break it.”
“A pact? Like, what, a blood oath?”
“A blood oath is just what it is. I imagine Sloan and Caleb had one between the two of them when I was little. But when I turned about twelve, we made a pact among the three of us that we would never end up wrapped around a telephone pole like our dad did when I was a baby, from driving when we’d had too much to drink. We vowed we would never do that to each other. And by damn, we’ve kept that vow, and we always will.”
“And you knew, that night before you picked me up, that you’d be drinking because we were going to hear that rock and roll band, Squatty and the Bodies, at the Road Hog.”
“That’s right. There’s a law or something against listening to sixties rock in a bar and not drinking beer.”
“I’m sure there is. I had a few that night myself.”
“And we got closer as the night went on,” he said, his voice softening, deepening. He moved to stand next to the bed so he could touch her cheek with the tip of one finger.
The touch went all through her, a hot shiver that raised gooseflesh along her arms. She was grateful for her long sleeved sweater, so he could not see what he did to her.
“I remember telling you I had a room,” he said, “asking you if you would go there with me.”
“Yes.” Her mouth and throat dried out. She remembered every second of that night vividly. Her body remembered, too.
“When you said yes,” he whispered, “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”
Her smile may have wobbled, but it was still a smile. “When you asked, I thought the same thing.”
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “I know I said that I wanted this time, in this room, to be friendly, but if we don’t change the subject real quick…”
Realizing how right he was, that they were treading on shaky ground, Blaire swallowed. “As soon as we get home,” she said in a rush, “I’ll check the prices on cell phones and service plans. If I need help paying for it I’ll let you know.”
He took a step away from the bed and stuffed his hands into his hip pockets. “Thank you. About the phone, and for the change of subject.”
“You’re welcome, for both. And thank you, for the warning. I think I’ll try that nap now.”
“Okay.” With a nod, he took another step back. “Will it bother you too much if I read the paper?”
She shook her head. “I probably won’t sleep anyway, so don’t worry about it. Resting will be enough.”
She was still, her breathing even, in fewer than ten minutes, despite the occasional rustle of the
newspaper coming from the corner where Justin sat in the stiff, uncomfortable chair.
But Justin, too, was tired. From lack of sleep, lack of physical activity. He wasn’t used to sitting around all day, and that’s all he’d done for the past couple of days.
Carefully, and as quietly as possible, he folded the newspaper and placed it on the small table next to his chair.
Blaire lay curled on her side on the far side of the bed, her back to him and the rest of the room. If she opened her eyes, she had nothing to see but a blank wall barely two feet from the bed.
Even without being able to see her face, he knew she didn’t open her eyes. Her breathing was deep and regular. The stiffness had gone from her shoulders.
He hadn’t realized how tight her shoulders had been until he now saw them relaxed.
She was sound asleep.
So much for her not being able to sleep unless it was dark and quiet.
Of course, the only light in the room was the hanging lamp over the table in front of the window, right next to him. And the only sounds had been his rustling of the paper, and the monotonous roar of the room heater that struggled to blow enough warm air to keep the freezing outdoor temperatures from seeping through the thin walls.
Snippets of their previous conversation ran through Justin’s mind. He shook his head, certain he would never understand the female thought processes.
But whatever she’d been thinking about the two of them sharing this room, she was apparently okay with it. Again. Or still. Or whatever.
Because she thought he didn’t want her anymore?
Fat chance of that. The way he felt right then, he’d still be wanting her when he was ninety.
Want, but not necessarily understand. Who could understand a woman who would run, literally, half the length of the damn state, to avoid talking about marriage, then calmly share a motel room with one bed with the same man she’d been running from.
Across the room, on the far side of the bed, Blaire was not asleep. From the moment she had lain down she had heard every breath Justin had taken, every creak of the chair as he had shifted his weight, every rustle of his newspaper.
The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands? Page 50