Before she could guess his intentions, he’d slid his hands around her neck.
“Please don’t do that,” she begged when she felt his thumbs slowly caress the pulse hammering at her throat.
He was so much taller and stronger than she was. His male aura seemed to engulf her senses.
“Then perhaps you’d prefer this—”
Suddenly she was in his arms, their baby imprinted against him as he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his own.
“No, Cord—” Her words slurred as she fought him, but there was something so intimate and sensual about the feel of his hard body against her protruding stomach, she couldn’t prevent a gasp escaping. It was all he needed to deepen their kiss.
Caught off guard, Ashley found herself responding with a hunger equal to his.
“I’ve never stopped wanting you,” he confessed on a ragged whisper. She could feel his hands roaming her back in that old familiar way, fanning the heat that was already starting to burn out of control.
“To think my baby is inside here.” There was an ache in his voice before she felt one of his hands move around to her stomach and press softly in different places.
“I want to see you, see what I’ve done to you.” He mouthed the words against her lips. Suddenly the tie at her neck was undone. “I want to behold my wife and child. I want to inspect every beautiful inch. Help me, darling.”
By now it was impossible to tell who was trembling the most as his hands started to gather the material of her dress and raise it over her head.
At the last second sanity returned and Ashley tore her lips from his. “We can’t do this, Cord—” she cried and backed away, but he still held on to the hem of her dress.
His half-smile was mysterious and compelling. When he was like this, she didn’t have a rational thought in her head.
“I’ll put a do not disturb sign outside the door. No one will bother us if that’s what you’re worded about. This program is for married couples and we’ve got the rest of the afternoon to ourselves.”
In panic, Ashley tried to put more distance between them, but he wouldn’t let her go. His eyes had darkened with desire. She knew that look and her mouth went dry.
In a deep voice he murmured, “You want me as much as I want you, Ashley. I can feel it with every heartbeat.”
Her cheeks were on fire. “I don’t deny it.” Her voice shook. “But making love instead of resolving our problems is the reason we’re getting a divorce, Cord. Or have you forgotten!”
The reminder of why they were here worked its magic. That blaze of raw hunger in his eyes vanished and he slowly let the material fall from his hands. A part of her died a little more in the process.
“I’ve forgotten nothing,” he ground out quietly. “Especially not the way I felt when I found out I couldn’t give you a child. You could have no idea of the pain I experienced when I realized I wouldn’t be able to do the one thing for you that you wanted and needed most in life.”
“But that’s crazy!” she shot back in consternation. “You were all I ever wanted or needed. Cord—you were my whole life!”
The entire room reverberated with her declaration, but he continued to stand there shaking his head.
“No. Do you think I didn’t know the pain you suffered being raised in an orphanage with no family to care for you? Do you think I didn’t understand how painful it was for you when you realized you’d married half a man? One who couldn’t give you a baby of your own?” The tormented expression on his face crucified her.
“But, Cord—”
“Being my wife condemned you to more of the same hell you’d had to put up with all your life. I lived in terror that you’d leave me as soon as we were given the bad news. I was afraid to mention adoption for fear it would revolt you and drive you away sooner!”
“Drive me away—”
Revolt me? She couldn’t comprehend what he was telling her.
“Come on, Ashley,” he bit out tormentedly. “Let’s not pretend you didn’t want to leave. There are no words to describe how inadequate I felt, how emasculated. Any day I expected you to tell me you wanted a divorce. It killed me because I knew I had no right to hold on to you if you asked for one.”
She stared at him in profound disbelief. “That’s the reason you became so aloof and withdrawn?”
“Why else?” His voice throbbed with emotion.
She clung to the chair back. “Wherever did you get the idea that a baby was more important than you? Don’t you realize that you were my family? My everything! If we couldn’t have children, it didn’t matter. I was blissfully happy with you, Cord.”
“The only reason I didn’t bring up adoption to you at first was because I knew how disappointed you were, Ashley. Here we’d talked about having a big family, and then to find out I couldn’t get you pregnant. Sheila told me I should give you time to get over the blow.”
“Sheila said that?” Ashley cried out angrily. “Oh, Cord— Don’t you see how she manipulated us? I thought you couldn’t bring yourself to raise a child that wasn’t your own flesh and blood. Then I began to have other thoughts. Like the fact that because you and your father were estranged, you decided it might be better not to have children at all, and avoid more pain.”
His features tautened. “The relationship with my father had absolutely nothing to do with anything. You deserved a husband who could give you a houseful of children. After we met, one of the first things you told me was that having a family of your own was all you would ever ask of life.
“When it became clear that I couldn’t provide that for you, I waited for you to come and tell me you wanted out of our marriage.”
Tears stung her eyes. “While you were waiting, I mistook your reticence for indifference. In time, I suspected you’d fallen out of love with me. I no longer knew how to reach you.
“On those visits we took to Salt Lake to visit Greg and Bonnie, and stop by your father’s home, you seemed more interested in talking to Sheila about business than sharing with me. Because she indicated the two of you went back a long way—which is something you never intimated to me—I came to the conclusion that you must still care about her. It sickened me and broke my heart.”
A dark frown marred his handsome features. “I was wrong not to have told you about Sheila. I was wrong about a lot of things,” he confessed on a half-groan.
She lifted her tormented gaze to his. “That’s the problem with us, Cord. We did too many things wrong, made too many wrong assumptions. In the process, we destroyed each other.”
“Not quite,” he came back sharply. “We created a baby together. We did that part right.”
So saying, he grabbed a pair of shorts from one of the drawers and headed for the door, then paused.
“I’m going to the gym, but before I walk out of here there’s something you should know. Now that I realize I’m going to be a father, I’m phoning my attorney to call off the divorce. If you want to fight it, go ahead, but you’ll have to obtain it over my dead body and I don’t plan to give up the ghost for at least a half a century!”
CHAPTER FIVE
It had happened.
The thing she’d worried about had happened. The news that they were expecting a baby had changed everything. Cord meant what he said. He’d fight her on the divorce. With his money, he could afford to keep their case deadlocked for months. Even years, she supposed.
Ashley realized he was upset and had walked out on her just now to cool off before they said anything more hurtful. But she was upset, too, and hated it when he deserted her so abruptly, leaving her an emotional wreck.
There was still another issue they hadn’t touched on. A big one. But she couldn’t very well follow him and get into another discussion when other people would probably be in there using the equipment and could hear every word. Cord was counting on that. No wonder he’d purposely chosen a public place which would make a private talk impossible.
At a totally l
oose end, she walked over to the closet, reached for the large sewing bag Cord had put away for her and sat down on the chair again, relieved to have something to do with her hands.
The ladies at the church near Mrs. Bromwell’s apartment held a homemaking session every Wednesday night and had helped her get started on a quilt for her baby.
The white, silky material was a washable whipped-cream crepe which would be soft against an infant’s skin. Once the adorable lamb pattern had been stenciled on the fabric and she’d been taught how to make those tiny, perfect stitches and knots, Ashley had done most of the quilting herself. Now that it had been taken off the frames, she needed to bind it and had chosen a white lace eyelet for the trim.
Soon she would be able to wrap her new baby inside it. That day wasn’t very far off. There was a lot to be done to get ready. At least she could finish the quilt before she left the hospital.
It made her sad that she knew nothing about her own mother, who had only been a girl when she’d had Ashley. The nuns had no memento, no picture to show her. For that matter, Ashley knew absolutely nothing about her father. He’d probably been a teenager, too. Most likely both of them were alive and married with other children of their own.
Early in their courtship Cord had offered to hire a private investigator to find her parents. Though Ashley adored him for it, she’d told him no. She preferred living with the fantasies she’d woven about her origins. The nuns had been kind to her, had taught her to rely on God and her good mind to get her through life. Then she had had Cord and she’d needed nothing else.
That formula had worked until Cord had found out he couldn’t give her a child. That’s when the real trauma of life began…
While she hand-sewed the lace inserted between the quilt edges, she determined that her own baby would never suffer the same fate. Though Ashley couldn’t see her and Cord getting back together—not when there was too much painful history between them—he would play a loving, vital role in their son’s or daughter’s life, just as Ashley determined to be the best mother on earth.
Cord wouldn’t like the furnished apartment she’d put a first month’s deposit on, but it was clean and quite bright for a basement. The widow who lived in the upstairs portion of the house seemed like she’d be a nice landlady. She welcomed a baby. It was teenagers with loud music she didn’t want living below. Above all, she wouldn’t tolerate smokers or drinkers for tenants.
Ashley felt fortunate to have found a place to live in a decent neighborhood. She could park her car off the street at the back of the house where she could go down the steps to her own apartment which was tiny. The crib she hadn’t purchased yet would have to fit right next to her bed.
She’d bathe her baby on the counter at the kitchen sink. The nuns always bathed the foundling babies in the orphanage’s kitchen sink. When Ashley was old enough, she’d been given the job. Taking care of babies was a joy—not every girl in the orphanage cared about babies, but Ashley was happiest when she was given that task rather than washing dishes or doing laundry for twenty or so residents. Many were the nights she’d helped the sisters nurse a child with colic or croup.
The experience had prepared her for motherhood. She didn’t feel the least bit nervous about giving her baby physical care. It was her son or daughter’s emotional well-being Ashley worried about. She didn’t want her problems with Cord to put a blight on their child’s happiness.
Because of Cord’s estrangement from his father, a man Ashley had only met twice before his death, she was certain that Cord would do everything in his power to be the best parent he could. Even if they lived apart, between the two of them, they would find a way to fill their child’s physical and emotional needs.
Ignoring a nagging voice that told her living separate lives would not make for a contented son or daughter, Ashley worked faster at her handiwork. As a result, she held herself too rigidly. Before long her back started aching.
With a deep sigh she got up from the chair, left the quilt and lace on the seat, then lay down on her side on top of the bed. She only intended to rest for a few minutes, then get up and sew some more.
At some point she must have fallen asleep and knew nothing until she felt the small of her back being massaged with exquisite tenderness by a hand that seemed to know exactly where and how to apply the right pressure.
The feeling was so delightful, at first she thought she was dreaming and lay there in a warm, semiconscious condition as delicious sensations spread throughout her body, even to her fingertips.
The baby was moving in her womb, almost as if it were trying to find its favorite position, but couldn’t quite decide which one it liked best.
In her trancelike condition, she scarcely registered the fact that the source of her pleasure had left her back and was now freely roaming her stomach, absorbing the movement of the life growing inside her.
“Dear God, Ashley—” she heard a deep, familiar male voice murmur in awe.
Her eyes flew open.
She was no longer alone on the bed. Cord lay behind her, his right arm pillowing her head, his left hand getting to know their unborn child. There was no space separating them. She felt the warmth of his hard-muscled body from the back of her head to the back of her knees and all the way to her nylon-clad feet where his stocking feet tangled with hers.
Attempting to get up, she discovered she was trapped. “Don’t move yet,” he begged. “When I lie next to you like this, I can feel the baby’s restlessness and almost imagine it’s a physical part of me, too. The motions are so strong, I think it must be a boy.”
She swallowed hard. “I—I think it is, too,” she whispered. His nearness made it difficult to talk normally.
“Have you thought of a name for him?” he murmured into her hair, his lips lingering against the curve of her neck.
Her body shivered in ecstatic reaction. “Because of your name, I was thinking of having him christened Cabe. It’s Scottish, like yours.”
“I like it.” She could hear him smiling. Her suggestion had pleased him. “Very much in fact,” he murmured playfully. The low tones vibrated through her entire nervous system, almost as if their bodies were linked by some mystical force. “But if it’s a girl, I want to call her Mary-Ashley.”
She blinked in astonishment. “Why?”
“Because you once told me that one of the nuns you loved had secretly nicknamed you Sister Mary-Ashley in the hopes that you’d grow up and find your vocation as a nun.
“Thank God you didn’t, but the name is beautiful, just like you.” His voice trailed off. His arm slid all the way around her stomach and he held her even closer, if that was possible.
In panic she blurted, “I need to get up and use the rest room.”
Instead of a protest, a chuckle met her outcry. “I’ve heard a pregnant woman can never afford to be too far from a bathroom, especially during the last few months.”
She inhaled a huge lungful of air as he released her and helped her to sit up. She braced herself to get off the bed. “I swear there’s absolutely no more room inside me. I can’t even imagine what I’m going to look like in another couple of weeks.”
If they could keep things light when they were alone, she just might survive the rest of the week.
He levered himself behind her, putting his hands to her shoulders once they were both on their feet. “I’m sorry about your discomfort. But if you want to know the truth, after thinking we couldn’t have our own child, I can’t imagine anything more beautiful than the sight of you nine months’ pregnant.”
With another breathtaking kiss to the side of her neck, he let her go. Her body was shaking so hard, she could barely walk to the bathroom door unaided. Cord could have no idea of his effect on her senses.
“We’re going to be late for dinner,” he said as soon as she emerged a few minutes later.
A hand went to her throat. “I can’t believe I slept so long. Did you enjoy your workout at the gym?”
; His half-smile tugged at her heart. “Very much. Most of the guys on the program were in there. They all envied me my gorgeous roommate and wondered where I found the time to smoke when I had a wife like you waiting for me down the hall.”
She averted her eyes as heat filled her cheeks. Inwardly she moaned because all the old feelings for him which had been lying dormant had come to life once more. He was acting exactly like the Cord she’d fallen in love with. It simply wasn’t fair.
“After that comment, I didn’t last long because all I could think about was getting back to the room. To you,” he said in a husky voice. “When I discovered that you were in a deep sleep, I decided I could use a nap myself.
“Though I have a perfectly good hospital bed of my own not six feet away from you, I admit that I took advantage of your vulnerable state. In truth, I couldn’t help myself and refuse to apologize.”
Unrepentant and self-confident, he escorted her to the dining room where she had to face all those married men who had shared some private thoughts and moments together in the gym. She knew all was said in fun.
Nevertheless she blushed once more when she entered the room with Cord’s arm around her shoulders because one of them winked at Cord in greeting.
Fortunately the women appeared to be in a talkative mood. They wanted to know how soon Ashley was due. The conversation centered around children and before long the whole group was sharing pictures of their own children and in some cases, grandchildren.
Every woman in the room had been a mother, so each one had a tale to tell of their delivery which was embellished by their husbands until all were laughing.
It felt good. Six couples, all bonded together because of a desire to make a change for the better in their lives. They shared stories and talked as if they’d been close friends for years. But eventually, the talk got around to the reason why they were all in the hospital.
At that point, Cord’s pleasant, almost lazily satisfied demeanor changed. The hand holding hers tightened into a fierce grip before he seemed to realize what he was doing and let it go with a low-murmured apology.
Baby In A Million Page 7