Baby Be Mine Read online

  "Church and a Sunday dinner with your family would be nice," Clair said, meaning it, because she actually did appreciate being included.

  Jace was looking down at her, into her eyes, and for a moment she lost touch with things again and very nearly leaned into him so he could take her in his arms once more.

  But she caught herself, tore her gaze away and instead opened the door.

  Before she got through it Jace said, "Clair?"

  She glanced up at him, her heart skipping a beat at how handsome he was, at how much she wanted to be back in his arms.

  He laid one of those wonderful hands of his along the side of her face the way he had just before he'd kissed her for the first time tonight, bent forward and kissed her again. Softly. Sweetly. And yet with the full force of the passion they'd just cut short still lurking around the edges.

  But then it was over, and all Clair could do was herself out that front door into the cold of the snowy evening.

  She hardly felt the chill though, as she walked along the white powdered sidewalk to Rennie's house.

  Because what she felt was the lingering heat of kiss, of Jace's arms, of Jace's touch.

  And the nearly overwhelming drive to feel it again.

  Chapter Nine

  The only way Willy would sit still through Sunday church services was if Jace held him on his lap. But the next morning it was Jace who felt antsy as he juggled the toddler, Willy's favorite picture book and some munchies to keep the little boy occupied and quiet.

  Jace had too much pent-up energy. Sexual energy. And having Clair sitting beside him, their legs and arms and sides coming into contact, even accidentally, wasn't helping.

  Of course, he hadn't been able to find anything that did help since she'd left the night before. Not snow shoveling without a coat on. Not the two cold showers he'd taken. Not push-ups or sit-ups or arm curls. Not lecturing himself or reminding himself why he should be steering clear of her. Not telling himself he was a damn fool. And not even trying to concentrate on the lermon.

  The plain truth of the matter was that he wanted Clair. He wanted her in the worst way. And now that that tap had been turned on, he couldn't seem to turn it off.

  Stopping himself from making love to her the previous evening had been very difficult. It had taken recalling their conversation about Stephanie, starting to think about how much Clair was like Stephanie when it came to her career, and then topping it all off with his suspicions that Clair was in Elk Creek to take Willy away from him, before he'd been able to revive his willpower and put on the brakes.

  But putting on the brakes had been completely on the surface. Below the surface, wanting her had gone on full force.

  Everything that had come to mind to stop him the night before was true, though, and he needed to remember that. He needed to imprint it on his brain and maybe then these burning desires for her would calm down. He needed to face up to how much Clair was like Stephanie after law school and how she might be a threat to his raising Willy. He just didn't know why it was so damn hard to keep the negatives in the forefront of his mind.

  Just look at her, a voice in the back of his head said in answer to that.

  Okay, it was no wonder it was hard to keep the negatives in mind when there she was with that alabaster skin and that soft, curly hair that he now knew felt as silky as he'd thought it might.

  There she sat with those Cupie-doll lips that tasted sweeter than any he'd ever tried, and those eyes – those big, pale-green eyes that looked like sparkling spring water.

  There she sat with that compact little body encased in a brown knit dress that followed every perfect curve from its round neckline to her narrow hips where it fell to those slim ankles he had fantasies about kissing.

  There she sat, and he was mush inside just looking at her from the corner of his eye....

  Oh, yeah, it was no wonder he couldn't keep the negatives in mind.

  Then something else occurred to him for the first time with quite a jolt. If Clair was like Stephanie when it came to career and lifestyle, maybe she was like Stephanie when it came to kids, too. And if that was the case, maybe she hadn't come to Elk Creek to take Willy away from him.

  Okay, sure, she had made a comment here and there that had him thinking she was there to get custody of her nephew. But what if he was just being paranoid? After all, she'd also let him know that her career was important to her and that she worked six days a week. So, realistically, why would she want to add a two-year-old to that mix? Stephanie wouldn't have. Stephanie hadn't even wanted her own kids, let alone someone else's.

  The logic in that seemed strong. It seemed reasonable. And if that were the case, if, like Stephanie, Clair didn't have room in her life for a child and hadn't come for Willy, could he relax with her? Could he relax all the way around with her, not just on the issue of Willy?

  It seemed as though he could, because just thinking about not having to worry that Clair would try to take Willy made him feel instantly better. It made him feel more free.

  More free to let himself go a little when it came to Clair and what was happening between them.

  Because if Willy wasn't at risk, then the only thing at risk was Jace himself.

  And if that was the case, he just might be willing to take that risk. Especially if it let him have what he wanted so much.

  But was it true that Clair didn't want Willy?

  He couldn't be absolutely positive. She hadn't said anything overtly about it in all the time she'd been in Elk Creek, Plus it wasn't as if Clair had a rapport with kids. Not with Willy or with Rennie's niece. So maybe she honestly wasn't any more of a kid person than Stephanie had been.

  Maybe Clair actually was only in Elk Creek to do what she’d said she was there to do – to meet and connect with her nephew. Nothing more than that. Just to establish a relationship that would be sustained through phone calls, the occasional visit and nothing else.

  The more Jace thought about it, the more possible it seemed. The more likely it seemed.

  Which meant that maybe he could relax. Maybe he could let down his guard – well, as much of his guard as he'd been able to keep up. Maybe he could let down his guard and just roll with things. Just let things take their course.

  And afterward, when Clair high-tailed it back to Chicago, what then? he asked himself.

  He didn't want to think about that. At least, he didn't want to think about it beyond thinking that maybe he could just deal with it when the time came.

  Because right at that moment he just wanted some relief. Relief from the stress and worry and fight to keep under control what wouldn't be controlled – his attraction to Clair.

  Besides, it was Sunday and Sunday was a day of rest, he reasoned. And even if that reasoning was flimsy, at that moment it seemed like enough.

  Sure he'd have to face up to things he might not want to face up to down the road – like Clair leaving – but today he could put everything on hold.

  Oh, that was an appealing proposition!

  Too appealing not to grab on to and put into action....

  He took a deep breath and sighed it out, letting a new sense of peace settle over him.

  Yep, that's what he was going to do. He was going to give in, enjoy Clair for the time being and forget everything else.

  A few of the minister's words pulled Jace out of his reverie, and he was ashamed of himself for sitting in church thinking what he was thinking.

  But shame or no shame, it didn't really matter whenWilly dropped his book. Jace leaned over to pick it up and got a glimpse of Clair's legs where they peeked out from under the hem of her skirt.

  Oh man, did he want her...

  And maybe wanting her was what was doing his thinking for him.

  But even as that idea flashed through his mind, he knew it wasn't totally true, because wanting Clair wasn’t all he felt about her. She might be easier to resist if that were the way things were.

  But the truth was, he had fun with her.
He liked to her. He liked sharing even simple things with her, like tucking Willy in for the night. He just liked being around her. And whenever he was with her he fell better than he'd felt in a long time. In a long, long time.

  And that wasn't anything to ignore. In fact, it felt like someone had given him a gift. A temporary gift, but a gift nevertheless. A gift he shouldn't deny himself. Certainly a gift he didn't want to deny himself.

  And maybe whatever came of it was less important than the pleasure he was finding with her right now, in the present.

  Besides, he realized as he thought about it, whether or not they let things between them go further than they already had, if she were to leave in the next hour he’d have pangs, he wouldn't be crazy about her going, and he'd miss her when she was gone.

  So what was he sparing himself by not indulging in lime they had together? Why not just let things between them evolve however they were meant to evolve?

  As long as they didn't affect Willy, he couldn't think of a good reason not to, and that was all there was to it.

  He just had to hope that his hankerings weren't influencing his decision. At least not too much. And that neither was his heart.

  Given the family situation Clair had come from, big Sunday dinners were not things she was accustomed to. And the Brimley Sunday dinner was most definitely big.

  Jace's mother and four of his five brothers were at the ranch when Clair, Willy and Jace arrived after a quick trip home to change out of their church clothes and into more comfortable things. And while eight people might not have been a huge number, the pure size of each member of the Brimley family made it no small gathering.

  Junebug, Jace's mother – a smiling woman with pulled-back-in-a-bun white hair and a booming, no-nonsense voice – was six feet tall and at least three hundred pounds. Since not one of the Brimley brothers was under six feet, two inches of work-honed muscle, Clair felt slightly dwarfed as she was introduced to mother and sons.

  Josh, Beau, Ethan and Scott.

  Josh was Elk Creek's new sheriff and took a rash of joking about playing cops and robbers from Beau, Ethan and Scott, but they all seemed to accept Clair into their midst without missing a beat. None of them was shy. Each of them was warm, welcoming, charming and as handsome as they came. Willy seemed to adore them all, referring to them as Unca Joss, Unca Beau, Unca Etan, and Unca Sott – Unca Scott taking his share of ribbing for that variation on his name. And as much as Willy adored them, the Brimley brothers seemed to adore him, passing him around like a football until he was giggling so hard he could barely catch his breath.

  It was a pleasant day of good-natured teasing and competing over everything from basketball to Ping-Pong to pool to darts. Willy was included in it all and so was Claur, although she had to reject many of the invitations because she knew better than to try to match the brothers' pace and intensity in basketball or Ping-Pong.

  She didn’t display any talent at pool or darts, either, but she gave both her best try and was rewarded with the same kind of praise Willy garnered.

  And the whole time she engaged in the Brimley's amusement or sat on the sidelines, two things kept running through her mind.

  The first was how nice it was that a stranger's child had been taken in so thoroughly by the family. How nice it was that Willy was bathed in a warm glow of love from them all.

  The secondwas that even though one of the Brimley brothers was as gorgeous as the next, the only time her pulse quickened and her senses went on the alert was when she watched Jace.

  The dinner itself was a lively affair, and just as Clair began to think that no time in the Brimley household was calm, Beau suggested they bring out the home movies for Clair to see, and the whole group settled into the ample living room for that.

  Willy gravitated toward Junebug then, asking to sit on her lap where he promptly curled up happily, contentedly, as if the huge woman really was his grandmother.

  Clair felt a fresh stab of jealousy at the knowledge that it wasn't something her nephew would do with her, and she began to wonder if, on some intuitive level, Willy knew she was there to pluck him like a flower from a garden and whisk him away from all this, if that was why he kept his distance from her.

  The home movies helped distract her from her more dour thoughts, though. The Brimleys had had their old reels transferred to video tape so there on the television she got to see Jace – and all the rest of the Brimley brothers – grow up.

  Whoever had compiled the tape had done it by age group rather than in chronological order. All the brothers' first birthday parties came one right after the other, all their first days of school, and on up, giving her a peek at Jace and the other Brimley boys growing into the men they were now.

  But, once again, it wasn't any of the other Brimleys who interested Clair. It was only Jace.

  At least, it was only Jace until later years when another tall, lanky boy began to appear in many scenes with him, and Jace leaned over to tell her that the other adolescent was Willy's adoptive dad.

  Everyone grew quiet when it came to those pictures and some of the fun went out of the room just before the tape ended and someone turned on the lights.

  "Okay, maybe that wasn't such a great idea," Beau laid into the silence that was left.

  "Nah, it was great to see Billy again," Jace said, clearly the peacemaker in the family. "It just came as a surprise."

  Then he glanced in the direction of the rocking chair Junebug had been sitting in with Willy, and Clair knew he was concerned at the effect on the toddler of seeing even the early images of the man whom Willy had known as his father before Jace.

  But Willy and Junebug were no longer there. Or anywhere else in the room.

  "Where'd they go?" Jace asked.

  His mother reappeared as if on cue at that moment, coming down the stairs in the entry way. Apparently she'd heard enough to know that her eldest son was inquiring about her because she answered his question.

  Willy fell asleep so I took him up to your old bed. Are the movies over?"

  "Just now," Jace said, and no one filled her in on those last scenes that had toned down the liveliness that had been the order of the day previously.

  'I’d better get him home," Jace said then, sticking with the subject of Willy. "I didn't realize it was so late.”

  Junebug flapped a hand at him as if she were shooing away the suggestion. "Leave 'im. No sense disturbing 'im when he's sound asleep up there and you'll be back here yourself first thing in the mornin' to work, anyway. He'll be fine. I'll make 'im his favorite hotcakes for breakfast."

  "You know he's up before the chickens," Jace warned.

  "There's enough of us around here to handle him. Don't worry about it," Ethan assured.

  "He may wake up in the middle of the night wan-tin' the washcloth," Jace tried again. "There won't be any gettin' him back to sleep without it if that happens."

  "We'll take care of it. Worse comes to worst we'll call you to bring it out," Scott said with a laugh.

  "Yeah, just go. You can have a night off," Josh added as Beau nodded his encouragement.

  Still Jace seemed to hesitate, but after a few minutes he conceded to his family and looked at Clair sitting beside him on the sofa. "I guess I'm outnumbered. I'll let him stay."

  "It does seem silly to wake him up and take him out in the cold," Clair said, adding her two-cents worth.

  That endorsement apparently cinched it for Jace because he stood and said, "Okay. Are you ready to go, then?"

  It had been a lovely, family-filled day, which Clair had enjoyed, but she was definitely ready to go. Especially since going meant a little time alone with Jace.

  “I’m ready," she answered, standing, too.

  Jace got their coats, helping Clair on with hers before donning his own. She told the Brimleys how nice it had been to meet them all and thanked them for the day and the delicious food.

  Then they said their goodbyes and went out to Jace’s truck.

 
“Should I take out the car seat so you can have your own window for the ride home?" he asked, pointing with his chin toward Willy's seat that had occupied the passenger side since Clair had met him.

  But if he removed it she had no reason to sit in the center of the truck's bench seat. Close to Jace. And while she knew she should have him rearrange things so she could be farther away from him, she just couldn’t make herself do it.

  “Then you'll have to put it back again," she said as if his convenience was all she had in mind. "That's too much trouble for just one short ride into town."

  His smile was slow and amused, as if he knew what was really going through her head. But as he opened the driver’s side door for her, he said, "Okay."

  Clair slid in and only when Jace joined her and started the engine did she realize that this was the first time they’d actually been totally and completely alone. The first time Willy hadn't been in another room or asleep in the car seat. And for some reason that fact was slightly titillating.

  Of course it didn't help that sitting beside her was a man who had more animal magnetism than any man she’d ever known. That his sharply chiseled face was breathtakingly handsome even in the dimness of the truck cab. That the scent of his aftershave lingered just enough to entice her. That his thick thigh was less than an inch away from hers and his big body gave off a heat all his own to chase away the chill of the night air, and that his hands – big, strong, adept, blunt-fingered masculine hands – were a sight to behold as they mastered the steering wheel and reminded her of what it had been like to feel them on her skin the night before...

  The night before.

  The night before when he'd so abruptly ended the caresses of those wonderful hands and told her he didn't think going any further was smart.

  "I like your family," she said too brightly.

  "They're good people," he agreed. "I think they liked you, too. It isn't every woman who's allowed down in the rec room, let alone into a game of pool with Ethan."