Baby Be Mine Read online

  When they were situated, she caught him glancing at the things on the rocker, and she thought she knew what he was thinking.

  “I know. I really tore up the place today, didn't I?"

  Jace's smile was impish. "I've seen tornadoes do less damage," he teased.

  “It’s your fault, you know."

  “How is it my fault?" he asked with mock affront.

  "You handle Willy so smoothly that you make it look easy. But it isn't easy." It was anything but. "I have to admit I ended up feeling pretty inadequate."

  Not everyone is cut out for parenting," he answered offhandedly.

  But it made her slightly sorry that she'd admitted anything to him. "I don't think I did that bad," she countered even though she knew it wasn't true.

  “I wasn't talking about you, so much."

  She didn't believe him, but she played along, anyway. "Who else do you know who isn't cut out to be a parent?"

  "My ex-wife, for one."

  The subject of anyone not being cut out to be a parent struck too close to home, but Clair was so curious about his past that she couldn't resist opening the door if he was unlocking it.

  "I know you mentioned that, you were married," she said to encourage him to go on.

  "For nearly five years," he confirmed.

  "And she didn't want kids?" Clair couldn't imagine a relationship with Jace not including children. She'd never met a man so good with them.

  "Stephanie – that's her name – said she wanted kids. At least, she said it before she decided to go to law school. We had our whole life mapped out together – college, marriage, a big family we'd raise here in Elk Creek- – that's what we both said we wanted. But when it came time to put the big-family part into the picture, Stephanie had changed her mind. And lost whatever drive or instincts she might have had for it before."

  Clair hoped he didn't think the same of her.

  "I take it she was from around here?" she asked.

  "Born and raised. We were sweethearts from kindergarten on. We went off to college together and got engaged just before I came back here and she went on to law school. We set the date for the week after she graduated, which was exactly when we got married."

  Clair raised her eyebrows. "You were together from kindergarten?"

  There were some strayings along the way – hers and mine. I don't think we'd have been normal teenagers if we hadn't discovered attractions to other people here and there. But besides a few minor separations, yes, we were basically together from kindergarten on."

  “Even with the separations it all sounds very neat and tidy." And not like a story that would have a divorce at the end of it.

  “I thought it was all neat and tidy. But the first problem was that law school changed her and she asn’t happy in Elk Creek once she got back."

  “She liked it here before that?"

  “As much as I did. But when she came home with her law degree she started to say she thought the town was stifling. She started to talk about moving to a big somewhere she could make a name for herself as a high powered attorney."

  “Oh-oh”

  “Yeah.She thought I should try to get a job with the state agriculture department and then we could both have careers somewhere away from here. 'Course I didn’t want anything to do with that. I wanted to be here. Wanted to start a family and raise it here just the way we’d talked about."

  “It must have been a rocky five years of marriage under those circumstances."

  “It definitely wasn't smooth. Mostly it was a tug-of-war. Subtly, but a tug-of-war just the same. She was tryin’ to get across to me how important her career was – wich was such a change in her that I had a hard time seein’ it – and I was tryin' to convince her she wanted to be a mother."

  "How were yon doing that?"

  "First by talkin' about it all the time.Pointin' out how cute and fun other people's kids were. Lettin' her; know how strong my feelings about bein' a father were. Then I had a three stage plan – fish, puppy, baby."

  "Fish, puppy, baby?" Clair repeated, barely suppressing a smile.

  Jace did smile at it. "I know. It sounds funny. But I figured I'd ease her into those maternal instincts. I couldn't believe she didn't have any. I thought I'd start out with fish – they're easy to take care of, decorative, calming. They only call for a little responsibility, a little plannin' for, a little scheduling. Then once she got involved in them, I'd bring home a puppy – a little more responsibility, a little more work, but who can resist 'em?"

  "And from there you thought she'd decide she wanted a baby," Clair concluded for him. "Right"

  "I've seen the fish but I haven't seen a dog around here."

  Jace's confirming chuckle was wry. "Because we didn't get beyond the fish."

  "She let them die of neglect?" Clair asked, recalling Jace accusing her of that and realizing only now that he'd probably been talking from his own experience with his ex-wife.

  “She would have. I took care of them so that didn't happen. But she did see through my plan."

  “And she didn't think it was a good one."

  “She wanted her career at full blast. She'd worked lard to get her degree, to pass the bar. She wanted to keep her focus on her work. She didn't want to just be doin' the penny-ante legal things around here as a sideline to havin' kids."

  “It does make sense," Clair admitted, understanding the other woman's attitude because her own career was so important to her.

  “Yeah, I suppose it does. But livin' a childless, high-powered, fast-paced, two-career-couple life in a big city was as much my idea of hell as staying here got to be hers."

  “And that was the death knell of the marriage."

  Jace nodded, his expression somber. "The harder pushed for what I wanted, the more determined she to get out of Elk Creek. Finally we had to agree to go our separate ways."

  “And this was even before you ended up with Willy?”

  “Right.Stephanie would definitely not have been happy about that turn of events. In fact, if she hadn't left before, she would have then. She just came to the conclusion that she couldn't have the kind of career she wanted and kids, too."

  Clair was reasonably sure that was the same conclusion he'd come to about her, and she felt as if she couldn't let it slide.

  "If a person really wants both, they can do it," she said with more certainty than she felt.

  She could see the skepticism on Jace's oh-so-handsome face and she knew that, after the day's exhibition of just how incompetent she was at the mothering part, she'd confirmed his doubts. She'd probably actually given him more doubts than he'd had before. And she expected him to say something along those lines.

  But he didn't. Instead he said, "I suppose some people can do it all."

  Clair didn't want to push the issue any further and tempt him to say more, so she accepted that tiny victory and said, "It must have been a terrible blow to end up divorced from someone you'd been with since childhood."

  "It wasn't easy. The five years of tug-of-war went a long way in tearin' us apart, but there was still some grieving for what was lost. For what would never be."

  The solemnity in his voice made Clair pause a moment before she said, "And now?"

  He smiled again. Only slightly. Sadly. But as if to let her know that although he had vivid memories of the pain of his divorce that's ail they were – memories.

  "I'm over it. Over her," he said then, as his denim-blue eyes delved into hers. "In fact, lately I've been surprised by just how over it – and her – I am," he added pointedly.

  "Oh? Just how over it – and her – are you?"

  "Over it enough to be thinkin' about someone else.All the time. Over it enough to be wantin' someone else…”

  He caressed the side of her face with his free hand.

  “Tonight, for instance," he said quietly, his voice no more than a whisper. "You look so terrific I haven't been able to think about anything else."

  If Clair had tho
ught that single curl over her eye sexy, it was nothing compared to the sound of Jace’s voice. Nothing compared to having his gorgeous, masculine face so close. Nothing compared to the woodsy scent of his aftershave or the look in his blue. eyes that said he was enthralled by her.

  And it was certainly nothing compared to the feel of that big, leathery hand on her face....

  “This, in particular, has been driving me crazy all night,” he confided as he kissed the very tip of her collarbone where it was exposed by the boat neck of her sweater.

  Tiny, glimmering flecks of gold seemed to rain from that spot outward and all through her at that first touch of tender lips to her bare skin. And without considering whether it was wise or not, she tilted her head to allow him freer access.

  He took it, too, kissing the sharp ridge of her collarbone to her shoulder where the sweater's neckline reconnected.

  And m that moment Clair forgot what they'd been talking about. She forgot the allusions he'd made to the fact that she might not be cut out to be a mother. She forgot everything but how much she'd been wanting him to do just what he was doing.

  The hand that cradled her face guided it toward him. At the same lime he leaned forward and captured her mouth with his. Not that she wouldn't have willingly complied, because she would have. Something about being with him wiped away all reason in her, all sense, all thought of why she shouldn't be doing what she was doing, and left raw, naked desire underneath – the raw, naked desire that seemed to have been there beneath the surface since the first instant she'd set eyes on him.

  She didn't understand it. She'd never experienced anything quite like it before. And maybe that was why it was so potent.

  But whatever the cause, it was potent. Incredibly potent. So potent that it wiped away her ability to resist his appeal, to resist her own desires even when she knew, somewhere in her clouded mind, that she should.

  Instead she just kissed him in return. She let her head fall back, she reached a hand to the side of his thickly corded neck and she kissed him every bit as intensely as he was kissing her.

  She let her lips part in answer to his. She met his tongue with her own, when it came to play. And when his arms went around her and pulled her close, she went eagerly, taking a deep breath so the hardened knots of her nipples could brush the steel of his chest.

  The man could kiss like no one she'd ever known. Hot and hard and insistent one minute, soft and light and teasing the next. Drawing her out of herself, so totally involving her that she lost herself in kissing him, lost all thought of anything but wanting him to go on kissing her. Wanting him to go on holding her. Wanting him to do more than kissing and holding....

  Her own arms were completely around him then, and she filled her hands with muscles that seemed to have no end. With shoulders so broad she could barely span them.

  His shirt was as soft as it had looked to be – new flannel over solid rock. But even as soft as it was, all Clair could think about was how much she wanted it out of her way. How much she wanted to feel his skin unhampered.

  Their kisses were more serious by then. Deeper. Hungry. Almost urgent. And that almost urgency was sweeping through her to other spots as well. To hands that ached to be exploring bare flesh. To breasts that cried out to be touched. To other, more intimate spots that were dangerous to think about.

  The craving grew and grew until she had to do something about it. Something that would let him know what was coursing through her. A craving that grew big enough to make her more bold.

  So while he kneaded her back, her arms, her shoulders on top of her sweater, she pulled his shirttails from his jeans and took the dive under the flannel to hi bare back.

  The sound that rumbled from his throat let her know she’d done the right thing. That the touch of her hands on those satin-on-steel muscles of his back was as good for him as it was for her.

  And it was good for her. Jace had a body that was wonderful to look at in his clothes, and even more wonderful to the feel of her hands.

  Clair reveled in it. She learned her way around every muscle, every tendon. And she enjoyed it all. It was just that she wanted to feel his touch on her bare skin, too.

  Her nipples were so tight they ached, and she arched her back to convey the need they had for his attention, pressing them into his chest in what seemed like a screaming demand.

  But she had the sense that he knew exactly what he was doing. Exactly how long to keep her wanting so the desire was heightened, so that when he finally slipped his hand under her sweater – just to her back – it was enough to drive her to a frenzy. A frenzy that caused her to dig her fingers into the unyielding strength of his shoulders, his biceps.

  She felt him smile slightly as his tongue turned coy and toyed with hers. As his hands made an excruciatingly slow voyage up and down her spine before one of them continued to her side. To her stomach. Then upward to just the beginning swell of her breast.

  Once more she arched her back and finally – finally! – he took the fullness of that yearning globe into his palm.

  Oh, it felt so good!

  She couldn't help the tiny moan that echoed from somewhere deep inside her. She couldn't help sitting up straighter and pushing her breast even more deeply into his hand. She couldn't help the course her own hands took around to his front, to pectorals she longed to see bared to the fire's glow, to have pressed to her own naked flesh. Her own naked flesh where his fabulous hand kneaded and caressed, where fingertip slightly circled the ultrasensitive nipple that kerneled into a pebble and strained for more, which he granted in gently pinching, pulling, tugging, teasing strokes.

  She was falling ever deeper under the spell of a primitive sensuality that he was awakening within her, and she didn't care. She didn't care about anything but the feel of his hands on her. The feel of her hands on him, and the glittering gold desire for more.

  But she didn't get more.

  Just as her head fell back from his seeking, open mouth and he began to press delicate kisses down the column of her throat, just as she thought he was going to raise her sweater and let his mouth replace his hand on her breast, he stopped instead.

  He stopped kissing her at all. He stopped touching her and pulled his hands completely out from under her clothes, settling into simply holding her. Closely. Tenderly. Almost absorbing her into himself. But nothing more.

  “I don’t know if it's smart to take this any further," he said in a voice so raspy, so husky with raw, unsatiated hunger that it revealed how difficult it was for him to stop.

  Clair wanted to say that he didn't have to stop. That, in fact, she wanted him to take her upstairs to his bedroom and make love to her. That she'd never in her life wanted anything more than she wanted that at this moment.

  But she didn't say any of it.

  Because she knew he was right. She knew it wasn't smart to take this any further. And even though she also knew that it wouldn't take much encouragement on her part to get things started up again, she shouldn't do it. She couldn't do it. Not now that he'd given her a moment to recall all the reasons why it wasn't a good idea – to recall why she was there in the first place and what she was determined to accomplish. To remember that Willy was her real focus here....

  "You're right," she managed to say, her own voice almost as raw with passion as his. "It's that Toy Story movie," she added, joking to make light of what didn't feel that way at all. "I understand it affects everyone like this."

  Jace smiled down at her and laid his forehead on hers. "We'll have to watch something tamer next time," he said to play along. "Although I imagine that the Power Rangers and the Smurfs can be pretty hot, too."

  "Oh, I'm sure," she agreed with a somewhat pained chuckle.

  For a while they just remained the way they were – holding each other, brow to brow. And for Clair it helped to know that Jace wasn't any more anxious than she was to separate, despite the fact that he'd been the one to end what might have taken them all the way to making lo
ve if it had been left to her.

  But they couldn't stay like that forever and, after a few more minutes of giving herself over to the warmth of his big body against hers, she said, "I'd better get home."

  Jace didn't argue. But he also didn't let go of her. At least not immediately. And when he did, it was with a sigh that sounded resolved but reluctant.

  Then he stood and held out a hand to help her up.

  Clair slipped hers into it, feeling a familiarity so strong it was as if they'd been carved from the same stone.

  Jace walked her to the door, still holding her hand, but not saying anything until he'd helped her on with her coat.

  “Church tomorrow?" he asked.

  “Church?" Clair parroted as if it were a foreign concept.

  “Every Sunday. My mother would skin me alive if I didn’t show up. But that doesn't mean you're obliged to go. I just thought – "

  Clair didn't hear much of the rest of what he was saying as the idea of going to church with him sank in. I wasn’t as if she was against organized religion. She’d attended services every Sunday herself growing up. But like so many things, in the fast pace of her adult life, churchgoing wasn't something she'd kept up.

  But now that she was faced with the fact that the spiritual was yet another dimension Jace offered in Willy’s upbringing that she hadn't so much as thought about, she couldn't just ignore it.

  “In the morning? What time?" she asked, not as if her going were dependent upon it but as confirmation that she'd go.

  "All the denominations share the church building. Our service is at nine."

  "And we'd be going together? The three of us, I mean – Willy goes, too?" she qualified, when the first part of that had sounded too much as though she were referring only to herself and Jace.

  "Absolutely. Then there's Sunday dinner out at the ranch. You can meet my mother and brothers."

  He said that so easily. As if it were no big deal. Lyle had had strict rules about when a woman was allowed to meet any of his relatives and would never have let it happen so soon.