Her mouth felt cottony. Slade was moving in. He was really moving in. It was happening.
Panic buttons began depressing all through her, going into gear like inhabitants of a town perched at the base of an active volcano reacting to a sudden red glare lighting up the night sky.
“Want me to get anything at the store on my way back?” Slade asked at the door. “Something to celebrate our nuptials?” His mouth curved into a grin, but his eyes were serious.
She’d been too unsettled to eat this morning, she remembered. Her stomach felt as if it was tightening, but whether in hunger or in reaction to the moment, she wasn’t certain.
This was a mistake, a big mistake, she thought. And yet, she couldn’t help hoping that it wasn’t.
“The gooeyest coffee cake you can find.”
That sounded good to him. “I thought you were supposed to have cravings while you were pregnant, not afterward.”
She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “I never had the time.”
“One gooey coffee cake coming up. See you in a couple of hours.”
Slade bent to kiss her before leaving. Sheila turned her cheek toward him at the last moment. He brushed his lips over it and withdrew.
Maybe this was going to be slower going than he’d supposed.
It took him longer than he promised, and Sheila found herself watching the clock. It was a new experience for her. Impatience wasn’t something she was acquainted with. The reverse was usually true.
Waiting for Slade to return was like waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Or the music to begin.
When she heard the doorbell, a sound she’d been waiting for for the last eighty-three minutes, it startled her. She saw Ingrid peer out of the kitchen and waved her back to whatever she was doing.
“I’ll get it.”
“But you should be in bed,” Ingrid reminded her.
A thought, no doubt, that probably occurred to Slade, as well. And to her when she looked at him. “I will be. Later.”
She opened the door just as he rang again.
She looked happy to see him. Or relieved, he thought. “Miss me?”
“Missed the coffee cake” was all she would admit to. She took the plastic grocery bag from him. It hung suspended from his fingertips. The rest of his hands and arms were occupied and filled to capacity.
He realized that she hadn’t shown him where the bedroom was. “So, where do you want me to put all this?”
“All this” consisted of a handful of shirts and slacks and two boxes filled with miscellaneous paraphernalia he considered utterly indispensable. All but a little black book. That he’d bequeathed to the man subletting his apartment.
Sheila eyed the boxes uneasily. Try as she might, she couldn’t picture him here, amid her tidy porcelain statues of people from another era. He seemed too rough around the edges.
That was what had made him so exciting to begin with, she reminded herself. He didn’t belong in her world.
But he was in it now, all six foot two of him. “How much more is there?”
He didn’t believe in a lot of baggage, but what he had was essential. He raised the boxes slightly to emphasize his point.
“This is it, except for the camera equipment. You learn how to make do with very little when you’re on the move. When you find yourself stationary, it’s hard to change old habits.”
That’s just what she was afraid of. Afraid that what they had brought into this hasty marriage were two people who were, at final analysis, as different from each other as the sun and a lantern. She was opting for the part of the sun.
She gestured that he should set the boxes down on the coffee table for the time being. She had something more immediate to attend to. The coffee cake. “Sounds like something printed on a dish towel belonging to someone on the run.”
He wondered if she was trying to bait him into an argument and why. “At times, that’s how I felt.” Depositing the boxes on the table, he slipped his arm around her, preventing Sheila and the coffee cake from making a quick getaway.
“I was running from things then. Had I known about the baby...” He paused.
Her eyes held his. “What? If you’d known about the baby, you would have what?”
Slade shrugged. There was no use lying about the man he’d been. “Maybe I would have still run from, not to,” he admitted.
He used the past tense. The cake could wait. “What changed your mind?”
“Seeing you again.” He took the cake from her, setting it on top of the boxes, and hushed her fledgling protest with the tip of his finger. As she stared at him, intrigued, he slipped his hands around her waist and drew her closer. “When I did, suddenly, I knew everything that was missing in my life. We made a connection that night, Sheila, one that lasted, that went clear down to the bone. I’m not much good with words on a personal level—”
Did he really believe that? “You’re doing well so far.”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “But making love with you went beyond excitement. There was a certain peace to it.” He was telling her more than he had ever told another woman. Because she made him feel more than any other woman ever had. “A peace I hadn’t found yet. A peace that I haven’t felt since I left you.”
For someone who professed to have difficulty saying what was on his mind, he was very good. Too good. She couldn’t help being just a shade suspicious. “And the guns and bombs going off didn’t have anything to do with that?”
He looked at her seriously. “No, they didn’t.” He ran his hand along her arm. There was no reason why she should find it an immensely comforting gesture, but she did. “I’m not saying that this is going to be easy—”
Well, at least he wasn’t trying to snow her. “If you did, I’d tell you about the mental health program that Harris Memorial is sponsoring.” Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. “I still might.” And there would be room for both of them in that program.
“But we can make it work,” he assured her. “I want it to work.” He’d never meant anything so much in his life. Slade lowered his mouth to hers, claiming the kiss she’d withheld earlier.
His lips moved over hers, coaxing them apart, deepening the kiss not by degrees, but like a flash point of a fire, burning a trail through her so quickly, she had no time to think, to save herself.
The kiss singed her, melted her until she barely had enough strength to stand. Sheila dug her hands into Slade’s shirt, twisting it, just as the fire twisted within her.
If he meant to convince her, he more than ably convinced himself. Anything could work if you wanted it to, if you believed strongly enough that it would.
Unable to help himself, he slipped his hands beneath her blouse, wanting only to touch her skin, to touch and fantasize. And remember.
He cupped his hands gently along her breasts, exciting them both.
She tasted like sin, just as she did that night. Just as he knew she always would. Sweet sin. And his eternal undoing.
Blood rushing through his veins, emotions demanding release, he reluctantly drew his mouth from hers. It took him a moment to catch his breath.
“So, how about you?”
Every thought in her head was either scrambled or fried. She looked at him, dazed, disoriented. “What?”
“I said, I really want this marriage to work, how about you?”
Right now, he could have gotten her to swear allegiance to a cult that shaved their heads, wore goat skins and lived on the side of a mountaintop in Tibet. “Yeah, me, too.”
Wedging a hand between them on his chest, his very hard, firm chest, she created a pocket of air. And a tiny space in which to attempt to gather her scattered thoughts together. She looked at him.
Maybe...
“But you’re going to have to give me a little time,” Sheila qualified slowly. “This isn’t what I thought I ever wanted.”
She’d never played house, never dreamed of being swept off her feet.
She thought she’d seen through the hoax and had faced reality at an early age. There were no happily-ever-afters possible for someone dedicated to a career. And she was.
If she thought she had been initially wrong, there was Edward to remind her.
She didn’t want to think about that now. This just might be different.
Maybe...
Slade left his hands on her hips a moment longer and pressed a kiss to her temple. “The best surprises are usually the unexpected ones. Like our daughter.”
Our daughter. It had a hell of a ring to it, she thought.
She cocked her head. “Speaking of whom, I think I hear her crying.”
If he listened, he could hear the tiny wail drifting down through the open nursery room door. “She probably wants to know where her father went.”
Sheila cast one longing glance at the coffee cake. It would have to wait. “More than likely, where her dinner went.”
His glance slid along her breasts, making her warm all over again. “Talking to her father.” Slade picked up the box. “So, where’s your bedroom? I want to stash this for the time being.”
On her way to the stairs, Sheila stopped and looked at his belongings. “My room?”
“Well, you don’t expect me to sleep with Ingrid, do you?”
She bit her lip. She hadn’t thought about giving up her privacy. It seemed that there was a lot she hadn’t thought about when she had ground out the words “I do.” “No, I just hadn’t thought—”
Slade was intrigued by her reluctance. “Didn’t your parents sleep together?”
The smile on her lips had very little humor behind it. “They were hardly ever home at the same time for me to notice.” With a sigh, she led the way upstairs.
Slade followed. “Trust me, married people sleep together. I have it on the best authority.”
Sheila stopped in front of the nursery. “It’s on the right.” She pointed to the last room on the floor.
Sheila watched as Slade backed his way into the room. Her room. Their room. This was going to take some getting used to, she thought, walking into the nursery.
He’d stayed up, watching the news on her television set in the bedroom. It was past eleven before she drifted into the bedroom. The blue satin nightgown brought out her eyes. And his desire. With effort, he banked it down.
Exhaustion was etched into her face. He’d thought that Ingrid was supposed to take some of the burden off her shoulders, especially the first night. But knowing Sheila, she probably hadn’t allowed it.
Knowing Sheila. He liked the sound of that. He planned to make it part of his life’s work.
Slade clicked off the television set and laid the remote on the nightstand. “You look tired.”
She didn’t answer at first. Words took effort, and she had very little energy left to exert. “I am.”
He patted the space beside him. “Then why don’t you lie down?”
This was a hell of a time to suddenly feel shy. That should have happened nine months ago, on the beach, not here in her own bedroom.
Their bedroom, she corrected herself. “Um—”
Slade rose and crossed to her. Taking her by the hand, he led Sheila over to the bed.
“Lie down,” he repeated, his voice soft, but stern. “I have no intentions of knowing you in the biblical sense until you get your own doctor’s okay.” His eyes held hers. “And you give me yours.” His mouth softened into a smile.
“I’m a nice guy, remember?”
Without thinking, she cupped his cheek. “You know, there’s not that much to remember.” With a sigh, she sank down onto the mattress.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Sitting down behind her, Slade began kneading her shoulders. There were knots the size of small boulders there. “I remember a lot. Played it over in my mind in slow motion at times. Like after we went swimming in the cove.”
In hindsight, that had been an incredibly stupid thing to do. But it had felt so right at the time. “If someone had come and found us—”
“But they didn’t,” he reminded her. And that was all that counted. “Tell me, except for that night, are you always cautious?”
She began to turn to look at him, but he forced her back around. God, but his hands felt wonderful. “If you mean do I go skinny-dipping in the moonlight with just anyone, no, I don’t.”
“Just with me.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “Just with you.”
“I like that.” Still massaging her, he pressed a quick kiss to the side of her neck and felt her shiver in response. He hoped that would never change. “I like that a lot.”
Sheila felt her heart racing. Exhausted beyond words, she could feel herself becoming aroused. There wasn’t anything she could do about it yet. “Male ego?”
“Husbandly pride,” he corrected her. He waited a beat. “And maybe a touch of male ego.” He began to work her shoulders a little harder. “God, woman, you’re as tense as an ironing board. Relax. You’re home.”
It wasn’t that simple. She was home, all right, but with a whole new set of ramifications. “With a newborn depending on me.”
“On us,” Slade corrected her. “Depending on us. I’m here for the long haul, Sheila. I already told you that.” He wondered how long it would take her to believe that.
She could see Slade reflected in the dark TV screen, looking a little larger than life. That’s what he was, a little larger than life. And it scared her.
“You know,” she said carefully, “I was always taught that if something looked too good to be true, it usually was.”
Yeah, so was he. But every rule had an exception. And she was his. “What else were you taught?”
Sheila laughed softly to herself at the irony of it. “Not to be impulsive.”
He grinned at the back of her head. “Glad you didn’t take that one to heart.”
She twisted around to look at him. “But I did. I do.”
She had an image of herself as being straitlaced, but he knew better. “Is that why you made love with me that night, because you’re not impulsive?”
She took a deep breath, intending on setting him straight. “I made love with you—”
He was the picture of innocence as he sat back on his heels. “Yes—?”
She’d never thought about it, actually, but she did now. And rattled off the reasons that sounded right. “Because you were the most exciting man I had ever met.” Just what he needed, she thought, something to feed his ego. “Because something just seemed right for us. And because you were leaving the country.”
That would have been the line he would have fed himself, Slade thought. “Is expediency a criterion in your lovers?”
If this was going to have a prayer of working—and of course it didn’t, but that wouldn’t be entirely her fault—then she had to be honest. “I don’t have criteria for lovers.”
“How about lovers, did you have those?” He saw the exasperated look entering her eyes. “Just learning a few facts about you, that’s all. You can reciprocate with questions of your own at any time.”
She looked at him skeptically. “And you’ll give me an answer?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation.
Which aroused her doubts. “A truthful one?”
He grinned as he shook his head. “Where did you learn to be so suspicious?”
Oh, no, he wasn’t going to use his charm to disarm her this time. “It’s in my genes. I come from a long line of suspicious people.”
Unable to resist, he feathered his hands along her face. She was wearing her hair down. He remembered that it had come undone that night, as well. He liked it that way, loose around her shoulders. “Were they all as gorgeous as you?”
She tried to pull away from his hands and found she couldn’t quiet succeed. Or didn’t want to. “You’re changing the subject.”
“No, I’m being charming.” He buried his hands in her hair, tilting her face up to his. “People tell me I do that wel
l.” His breath whispered along her face, but he didn’t kiss her. Not yet. “Charm them.”
“I guess you do, at that,” she breathed, anticipation dancing through her veins.
“Kiss me, Sheila,” he coaxed. “Kiss me the way you did that night on the beach. Kiss me as if I were going away again.”
She swallowed. If she were standing, her knees would have threatened to buckle. “Are you?”
Slowly, he moved his head from side to side. “Not anytime soon.”
“But you will.” And this time, she’d care, care desperately, she thought with a pang. She didn’t want to care, didn’t want to worry.
“On an assignment,” he admitted. He was going to have to talk to Andy about reassigning him to the States again. “Not permanently.” He tried to find a reason behind the look in her eyes. “Why, did someone leave you permanently, Sheila?”
“No.” She had been the one who had done the leaving that one time. But there had been no other choice. “I never let anyone get close enough to leave.” That much was true, she added silently.
Lucky for him, he thought. Playing with her hand, he raised it to his lips and slowly kissed each knuckle. “And why is that?”
It took her a minute to find her voice. He was good, she thought. Damn good. “My naturally suspicious nature, remember?”
“Everything.” He tapped his temple as he released her hand. “I remember everything.” His mouth hovered over hers, and she could taste each word. “It’s part of my trade.”
And then he kissed her, kissed her as if he wouldn’t get another opportunity to do so again for a very long time. He kissed her like a bridegroom coming into his wedding chamber, like a lover who was reunited with a long-lost love.
He kissed her like a man who had suddenly realized that he had come into contact with the other half of his soul.
Her head was spinning so badly as she reached for him that she thought that she would fall off the bed, off the edge of the world. And she didn’t care, as long as it was with him.
Do You Take This Child? Page 9