Here to Stay (48 page)

Peace. Safety. They were things she didn’t know much about, but she was learning. And Zach was helping. Vaguely she became aware that his body was tense, and she made a small inquiring sound. He rose up on one elbow.

“Mandy.”

“Mm?” She kissed his arm and tried to pull him back down beside her.

“Mandy, look at me.”

She opened her eyes a crack, saw his expression, and started to sit up. “Zach? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I need to tell you something,” he whispered. “If I wait until morning, I’m afraid I’ll chicken out.”

Stark misery lurked in his eyes. A chill swept through her. What in the world could have gone wrong? “Zach, what is it? Can I help?”

“The condom tore. In the shower. It tore clear to the rim.”

“What . . . ?” It took a second for the words to connect. Her lips parted in wordless shock.

“When I came inside you, I didn’t have any protection. It’ll probably be fine. But there’s a possibility I could have made you pregnant.”

Mandy jerked bolt upright and shoved him away from her. Her eyes snapped all the way open.

“What?” Even through her emotional turmoil she felt astounded at the condemnation that rang through the single word she flung at him.
“What?”

Chapter Twenty

P
anic coursed through Mandy. Still groggy, she stared at Zach, who lay on his back, arms folded under his pillow. In the lamplight, he looked incredibly sexy, his body hard, his skin glistening from his recent shower. There was a wary darkness in his eyes.

He couldn’t have said what she thought he’d said. No way. No, she’d heard wrong. “Did you say the condom tore?”

He dipped his chin in what she took to be a nod. “It’s my fault. I’ve had the box for ages, and I should have replaced it. I just didn’t expect—” He broke off and swallowed. “Well, until tonight, you never hinted that you were ready to become intimate, so I wasn’t prepared.”

Mandy did some rapid mental calculations and felt the tension ease off. “Well, I don’t think I’m ovulating right now. I could be wrong but I don’t think so.”

He expelled a breath so carefully that she realized he must have been holding it. He drew a hand from under the pillow, cupped it around the back of her neck, and whispered, “Come here.”

As she gave in to the tug of pressure and rested her head on his shoulder, she said, “Only to cuddle, right? I can’t risk getting pregnant. It would be a disaster.”

“If you’re pregnant, and I stress the
if
, it won’t be a disaster. I’ll step up to the plate. I’d never let you face it alone.”

Mandy closed her eyes. She didn’t want to say it aloud, but Zach’s stepping up to the plate was neither in question nor was it the point. Having Zach’s baby would place her in an awful position. He would not want his child to be born out of wedlock, and she could never marry him. For her, that was impossible. She couldn’t even think about it without feeling breathless. And it wasn’t a good breathless.

“Fortunately I don’t think it’s that time of the month for me, so the mishap tonight shouldn’t be a problem. I just don’t want to push our luck.” Mandy pressed closer to him, craving his warmth even though she wasn’t cold. “Hold me, Zach. Please?”

He shifted and drew her into his arms. Kissing her forehead, he whispered, “You need to rest, sweetheart. Close your eyes, think happy thoughts, and go to sleep.”

Think happy thoughts?
Today she’d seen irrefutable evidence that her father had killed her mother, and now there was a chance, however remote, that she might be pregnant. For the first time, she felt a sense of sisterhood with the many women she’d heard utter, “
Men!
” She doubted she could fall asleep. The events of the day lurked like black shadows in her mind, and on top of all that, the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy was now front and center. She couldn’t be pregnant. She just
couldn’t
be.

That was her last conscious thought.

Zach lay awake long after Mandy drifted off. As beautiful as their lovemaking had been, he worried that she would have regrets in the morning. He’d broken one of his own rules: never to make love to a woman when she was upset and vulnerable. He should have waited until Mandy had recovered from the shock of finding her mother’s remains. It didn’t matter that she’d essentially pleaded with him to do it. He should have found other ways to comfort her and held fast to his resolve.

He pressed his face against her hair, breathing deeply of her scent—clean feminine skin, traces of soap, and an essence that was apparently all her own, a light, airy fragrance that reminded him of roses even though he knew she wore no perfume. Oh, how he loved her. He thought back, trying to recall the precise moment when he’d taken the plunge, but there had been so many special times he couldn’t pinpoint only one. The first time he met her, a strange feeling had come over him, and he guessed he’d known, even then, that she was the one. He smiled, remembering the night he’d found her with Tornado and how she’d reamed him out for mistreating the horse. Zach admired anyone who threw caution to the wind in defense of an animal. Maybe that had been the moment when he’d lost his heart to her.

It didn’t really matter. He loved her, and God help him, somehow he had to make this work. She was so wary, his Mandy. That shallow grave in the backyard of her childhood home pretty much summarized her life experience, and it had ingrained in her a fear of being dominated by a man.

Zach didn’t see marriage that way. To him, it was a partnership. But she wasn’t buying his version, and he couldn’t blame her. Over time, he hoped Mandy would come to trust him enough to become his wife. If and when she did, he’d do everything in his power to make her happy. All he needed was the chance to prove that to her.

Sunlight slanted through the guest room windows, dappling the gold walls and ivory coverlet with splashes of bright yellow. Mandy’s lips curved in an appreciative smile. She didn’t want to budge. She wanted to stay right where she was, in Zach’s arms. He stirred and groaned softly, running his hand into her hair.

“Mmm, I like waking up this way,” he whispered. “I could become addicted.”

Mandy shared the sentiment and shifted her head back to study his face. Wrinkles in the pillowcase had left creases on his jaw. His eyes had a sleepy, unfocused look. In the morning light, his lips shimmered like polished satin.

He arched a dark eyebrow. “How’re you feeling this morning? Any regrets?”

Mandy considered the question and decided that nothing would ever make her regret their lovemaking. It had been sweet and wondrous, the most incredible experience of her life. If she was pregnant, which she seriously doubted, she’d deal with it somehow. Granted, she preferred not to be put in that position, but she wouldn’t be the first unmarried woman to have a child, and she had every confidence that Zach would help her out financially.

“My only regret,” she told him, “is that we couldn’t go back for thirds.”

He gave a startled laugh, kissed her forehead, and then rubbed noses with her. “How about going back for thirds this morning?”

“We can’t. We have no reliable protection.”

He trailed light kisses over her cheek. “There are ways around that.”

“There are?”

He tickled her ear with the tip of his tongue. “Oh, yeah. I didn’t take it there last night, but I will this morning if you’re feeling frisky.”

Mandy felt like a child in a candy shop with only a pebble in her pocket. “I don’t think I’m ovulating, Zach, but I can’t be certain.”

“Trust me. What I have in mind won’t put you at risk.”

She believed him. Weird. He’d told her once that he would never harm her, and she believed that as well. Already aroused by the things he was doing to her ear, she said, “Take us there, then.” His teasing grin made her shiver in anticipation.

He rolled her onto her back and trailed his lips from her ear down her neck. The caress made her breath catch. Her skin grew so warm and sensitive that even the touch of the sheets sent tingles up her spine. He bent his head to her breast, his lips searching for the peak. She gasped when his hot mouth closed over her throbbing nipple. The teasing drift of his tongue brought the already turgid tip to a pulsating erectness, and it felt to her as if every nerve ending in her body convened there. He caught it between his teeth, torturing her with light tugs. Every flick and pull sent a jolt of pleasure streaking to the pit of her stomach. She dug her heels into the mattress, arching toward him. She clutched his shoulders, never wanting him to stop.

“Zach,” she whispered. “Oh, Zach.”

Her thoughts streamed in a dizzying swirl. Last night had been wonderful, but
this
... She felt as if her body had suddenly come alive after a long sleep, instinctively wanting things from him that she couldn’t even name. Intoxicated, she lifted her hips, yearning for his hand at the apex of her thighs. Instead he stopped teasing her breast and moved down to pleasure her there with his mouth.

Startled, Mandy cried out and tried to push him away, but he’d wedged his broad shoulders between her legs, grasped her hips, and settled in for a long stay. With only two passes of his tongue, he put an end to her protests. With three, he pushed her beyond all thought. She felt like a stringed instrument being played by a master. Every pull of his mouth sent vibrations of delight through her. She opened her legs, rocked up with her hips, and allowed him to possess that part of her completely. Her body went into spasms, and still he worked her, suckling, flicking with his tongue, pushing her higher, giving no quarter. After she climaxed the last time, he gentled the assault, soothing her swollen flesh with soft caresses.

Mandy was too exhausted to move and could barely think, but even so, she realized the inequity of this kind of lovemaking. As he kissed his way back up her body, she whispered, “What about you?”

He shifted to lie beside her, his upper body supported on the bend of one arm. She felt his erection against her thigh. The gentleness and warmth in his expression made her heart hurt. “Come have a shower with me, and we’ll take care of that.”

She giggled.

Twenty minutes later, Mandy decided that taking showers with Zach had become her favorite pastime. Well, one of them, anyway.

Luke was awake and sitting at the kitchen table when Mandy and Zach went downstairs. Zach felt bad about that. The kid usually got up at six; it was now half past nine, and he was in an unfamiliar kitchen. Zach went right to work fixing some breakfast, smiling to himself because Mandy blushed every time he glanced at her. He made a mental note to stop by the drugstore after taking her and Luke home, because he wanted to give her more to blush about tonight. The thought that he’d been her first, that he’d given her such pleasure, had him grinning like a burro eating cactus.

She peeled potatoes and diced them up for a skillet fry. Luke wanted to help, so Zach assigned him the toaster detail. When the potatoes were on, Mandy asked if she could use his phone to check her messages at home. Zach had always thought it strange that she didn’t have a cell phone. Was it because she couldn’t afford one?

She returned from the living room a couple of minutes later, phone still in hand. The instant he saw her face, he knew something was wrong. He turned down the flames under the food and went to her. “What is it?”

Eyes huge and filled with worry, she said, “Apart from the fact that every reporter in Crystal Falls apparently wants to interview me, nothing much. Detective Randolph called to say he’s going to the Warner Creek Correctional Facility today to question our father. I think that’s good news. Maybe it means they’ve decided to suspect him instead of me.”

Luke swiveled his head around. “Finally they’re thinking straight.”

Zach took the phone from her hand and hooked an arm around her shoulders to draw her close. “So why are you upset?”

“The reporters,” she said thinly. “My neighbor called and said they’re parked all along the street, waiting like vultures for me to go home.”

Zach wanted to knock some heads together. The color that had been in her cheeks a short while ago was gone. Her soft mouth was drawn into a taut line. She’d been rallying from the ordeal yesterday, and now the reporters were shaking her up again.

“You don’t have to talk with them, you know.”

The tight clutch of her fingers on Zach’s shoulders told him how tense she was. “I just want to forget. Why can’t they leave me alone so I can try to forget?”

Zach had no answers. What really concerned him, though, was how
long
the news media might continue to hound her. A murdered woman buried under a slab of cement had all the elements of a sensational story.

The next three weeks seemed like one long nightmare. Mandy couldn’t go out on her porch, let alone to the grocery store, without cameras flashing and reporters shouting questions at her. The media was camped at the edge of her yard, and she’d had so many calls about the purchase of her rights and offers to tell her story to tabloids that she’d quit answering the phone.

Her attorney, Mr. Payne, had given her strict instructions to say, “No comment.” What he’d failed to tell her was that reporters weren’t that easily discouraged. Their harassment of her was topped off by several phone calls from Detective Randolph to verify or negate information he’d gotten while interrogating her father. He was also keenly interested in Tobin Pajeck’s patterns of abuse. Revisiting the past was difficult for Mandy, sharpening her memories of events that she wanted only to forget. Despite the strain on her nerves, she was advised by Payne to cooperate with the police in any way she could. In light of her mother’s murder, it was imperative that her father never walk the streets again.

Mandy agreed and didn’t object to the detective’s questions, no matter how much answering them upset her. Her appetite vanished. She slept in fits and starts, and had horrible nightmares, even with Zach beside her. As a result, she fell behind in her work and lost two accounts.