Mackinnon 03 - The Bonus Mom (13 page)

She had to stop for breath—and to finish the last sips of wine. “When he got me the ring, our parents were overjoyed. Beyond overjoyed. They considered it a match of the families. Perfect for everyone. To a point, I felt kind of sucked along by the tide. I loved him. It wasn’t such an exciting kind of being in love, but I thought we were solid.” Again, she had to stop for a gulp of breath. “Unfortunately, that’s when the story gets dicey, so it gets a little tough to tell.”

Whit, as if he already guessed that, had shot to his feet and made the trek to the kitchen to bring back the wine bottle. He refilled her glass.

“Well...I went to my doc for a physical. The thing was, if we were going to be married, I wanted the pill or some kind of regular birth control that we could count on. Not that I didn’t want kids. I absolutely did. But I just wanted to set up house, get settled in our lives first. But the point is...in that physical, I found out that I was likely to be infertile. Skinny tubes. Wouldn’t be impossible, but it was highly, highly unlikely.”

“I’m sorry, Rosemary.” His rough hand cuffed her neck in a quiet gesture of empathy.

“Yeah, I was, too. Devastated, to be honest. I love kids.”

“You don’t need to tell me that. I can see it every time you’re around my girls.”

“Anyway...obviously I had to tell George. Immediately, before the wedding. I didn’t know if it could be a marriage stopper for him, but no matter what, I needed to get this out front for both our sakes. I thought he’d be as devastated as I was.”

Whit frowned. “Instead...what? It didn’t bother him?”

“At first...well, I thought he was amazingly sympathetic. Unselfish. He said he was upset, but he didn’t seem to be. And then...for days after that, he kept saying things...like that this could be a cloud with a silver lining. If we couldn’t have kids, we could have more freedom. Freedom to travel. To be spontaneous. To go places and do things we’d never done before. To be adventurous. To experiment in whatever we wanted to try in our lifestyles. I thought—he was trying to be kind, to help me see that we could have a good marriage without kids.”

Whit’s frown became darker. He didn’t get it yet. Well, it had sure taken her a blue moon to get it herself. She swallowed. Hard. “Okay, so then a couple weeks before the wedding, he called, said he had a surprise for our usual Friday night date. And there certainly was a surprise waiting for me at his place. Whit, I wish to bits you could guess what it was, because I for sure don’t want to tell the rest of this story.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t guess. And you can’t keep me hanging, so just get it out.”

That’s what she figured she had to do. It just wasn’t easy. “There was another couple at his place. A married couple. About our age, maybe a few years older. I thought he was introducing me to friends. But they weren’t friends. He’d only met them once before. They were, um, partiers.”

“Partiers?”

“You know. Like when four people play poker, using stakes like taking off clothes, or anteing up for some type of...behavior. They wanted to strip. To share each other. Switch off. Girls and girls. Boys and boys. Two boys and a girl. And then—”

“Rosemary, tell me you’re kidding.”

“I wish.” She swallowed two huge gulps of wine. “Call me naive. I guess I was. And honestly, I’m not one to judge other people’s choices. It’s just that I never guessed in a million years that George had that kind of secret life. And there was just no chance in the universe that I wanted a marriage on those terms.”

Whit crashed on his back, put a hand over his eyes. “It’s hard to admit this,” he said, “but the last time I was this shocked, my dad told me once and for all that a baby didn’t come out of his mom’s belly button.”

Her jaw dropped. She didn’t know how she’d expected Whit to react. She just knew she needed the story out in the open. But to hear him make a joke...she hadn’t known her shoulders were stiff with tension, until all those knots loosened up. Even her face had felt stiff, because when a bubble of a laugh came out, it sounded downright rusty. “Whit.”

“I can’t talk now. I’m suffering too much shock.”

“You goof. I’m glad I told you. You made it easy. You can’t imagine...”

“Oh, yeah, I can imagine. The scene with the other couple. The scene when you told your parents the marriage was off. I’m sure glad it was you, because—even being a guy—I’d have collapsed for sure.”

Another bubble of laughter escaped her. “It was so awful.”

“
Awful
is too light a word. How about mortifying and upsetting and maybe even a little sickening?”

“Hey, could I hire you to be my support person?” she asked wryly.

“Sure. I’m pretty expensive. But not for you. For you, I’ll do it for free.”

She sank on the blanket next to him. Once the rest of the tension eased from her system, she felt as strong as a cooked noodle. “Telling George to take a hike wasn’t that hard. But when it came to calling off the wedding, talking to my parents, my brothers...and his mother, who came over demanding an exact explanation.” She lifted a hand in a helpless gesture. “Whit, I
couldn’t
tell them. It would have affected their friendships. It was George’s business, but all the parents had professional and personal connections together, thirty years of caring about each other.”

“So you didn’t tell. You just broke off the engagement and took off for the hills.”

“Yup. You think it was cowardly?”

“I think it was damned cowardly for your ex to leave you holding the whole bag. He could have tried talking it out, finding something that both of you could say to family and friends about why the marriage was off. It shouldn’t all have been on you.”

“I meant, do you think I was cowardly to take off for the hills, as you put it?”

“You? Cowardly? In what universe? You take on bears and twins. You don’t have a cowardly bone in your whole body.”

“Yes I do.”

“Where? Show me.”

“Show you what?”

“Show me this cowardly bone.”

Chapter Eleven

S
he clearly assumed he was teasing, about finding her cowardly bone.

But she went along with it, lifting her hand to the firelight, motioning to a specific bone.

“I’m pretty sure I have a lot of cowardly bones, but this has to be one of them,” she said deadpan.

“Yeah?” He lifted the hand, examined it, then raised it to his mouth, pressed a soft, soft kiss in her palm.

Clearly startled, she lifted her head. Something had changed. He wasn’t sure what...maybe letting the George story loose had eased her fears? Maybe he couldn’t be sure of the reason, but the expression on her face was different. Unguarded. Vulnerable. And the way she looked at him was heartrending. Her eyes took him in, as if he were magic for her.

That suited him fine, because Rosemary was definitely magic for him.

He leaned closer, scooping her closer, kissing the palm of her hand again. Then looping her hand around his neck and honing down for another kind of kiss. A lip-lock. A serious mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. A kiss of wooing. A kiss of promise.

He wanted his mind and heart on nothing but her. Still, it took a second before he could completely shake off the story about her ex-fiancé. Life didn’t hand out treasures very often. Rosemary was a gift, and if George was too stupid to see it, he was a fool. But he’d hurt her. And trapped her from being able to tell anyone. And in general behaved like lowdown pond scum.

For Whit, the story added even more momentum...to cherish Rosemary. To lavish her with some plain old adoring. She was so beautiful, inside and out—a woman to revere, not a woman to take advantage of. A woman to respect, not a woman who was expendable.

Convenient? No. Easy? No. Simple? No chance of that, either.

He didn’t care.

He helped her sweatshirt come off—because he could see she was getting overwarm, beads forming on her forehead. Her eyes looked increasingly dazed.

His weren’t. He felt he was seeing more clearly than he ever had in his life. This was the woman he wished he’d known first. Before Zoe. Before anyone else.

Her jeans had to come off, then. There was still far too much fabric separating them. He found the waist button, fought with it, won, found the zipper, eased a hand inside.

Her eyes popped open. “We can’t,” she whispered.

“The girls are sleeping like rocks.”

“They could still wake up,” she objected, but then she looked at the expression on his face and perched up on a bare elbow. “Okay, you. I have a place.”

“Not outside. I’d love to make love with you outside, but right now it’s colder than—”

“Not outside.”

“Storm cellar?”

Better than that.”

“Attic?”

“Better than that. My darkroom. It locks automatically. If the girls came to find us, they could knock, but they wouldn’t be able to come in unless or until we—”

“Got it. Perfect.”

He had to admit that wasn’t his first impression of the room. The space was cluttered from ceiling to floor, full of odd smells and strange shapes, with very little space to maneuver. For darn sure, there was no place to lay down. But that was what he saw when she opened the door and switched on the overhead.

He realized exactly how perfect the room was when she closed the door and all light immediately disappeared.

The space was black as pitch. No way to see anything. No way to see her. But his sense of touch and hearing became fiercely acute.

“The office chair,” she whispered. “It swivels and it’s strong. And it might be miserably uncomfortable, but I just can’t think of another place where—”

“It’s perfect,” he assured her. And then quit talking.

He heard her pull off her jeans...the whisk of denim, the wink of sound when she tossed them on the floor.

He listened to every sound she made—at the same time he swiftly peeled off everything he had on. Undressing had never before involved so much adventure or risk. He bumped a shin. An elbow. A shoulder. Partly from speed, and partly because it was tough to maneuver in the small space, much less in the dark.

But he liked the dark. It made inhibitions evaporate. Intensified the other senses. It created a world where only she existed for him. Her breath. Her body. Her sounds. Her scent.

Her.

“Whit...” She was laughing. Or almost laughing. “We’re going to kill ourselves.”

“Yeah. It’s not looking good for our surviving this. But look on the bright side...we’ll have a whole lot of fun en route.”

She chuckled again, the sound throaty and wicked. He loved his sunlit Rosemary...but he loved bringing out the closet wicked in her, too. “I’m just a little worried this isn’t possible.”

“Aw, love. You can’t issue a challenge like that to a man.” He heard her suck in a startled breath, grinned in the darkness. “See? Amazing what’s possible when there’s motivation.”

He’d only gotten one good look at her working chair, but it was one of those mesh things with lumbar support and five castered feet and arm wings. There was ample room for him to sit, even to spread his legs. And it wasn’t hard to lift her on his lap—he had the shoulders and muscle to do that with no sweat.

Still. Just that fast, her softest, most erotic parts shifted against his helplessly susceptible guy parts. His hands suddenly felt too rough, too harsh, for her beautiful soft flesh. And there was no possible place to put her legs, except up and over the chair arms.

And that was problematic at an Armageddon scale, because their closeness was kin to a lock and its key. One wrong move and he’d be inside her. One right move and he’d be inside her.

Either way, he had to conjure up control from somewhere or this was going to be over before it started.

And that just couldn’t be.

He framed her face in his hands, pulled her closer to him for another kiss. A kiss unlike any they’d shared before. A kiss so new that no one had ever experienced it before. A kiss he created just for her. Just with her. Lips and teeth and tongues, soft and deep, owning deep, claiming deep.

She was precious. From breast to elbow, from throat to ribs, from behind her ear to the ripe swell of her breasts...there was no other woman remotely like her. Ever. Perfect for him. Part of that was her loving character and part was her inner sweetness. Part was her strength. She didn’t shrink from anything, just did what was right on her own terms, alone, not expecting or asking for anything from anyone.

He didn’t care if she asked for it.

He still wanted to give her the moon and the stars. To show her she was cherished. And yeah, that she was wanted. Fiercely, passionately desired. For herself. For who she was and who she wasn’t.

It was a lot to tell her without saying a word. It was a lot to show her in a crowded office chair in a velvet-black room. It was a lot to comprehend, for a man who’d never felt those things, showed those things, imagined he was capable of those things.

She moaned and sighed, at first luxurious female sounds, like a cat with a nonstop purr...a sensuous, sensual kitten, responding to every stroke, every caress.

But then she got impatient. At least he thought she was impatient, judging by the small sharp teeth she dug in his shoulder—which was the precise moment he held her fanny in his hands, was holding her, steadying her, as he filled her up. He closed his eyes from the hot blood roaring in his veins, the pain of entering something so sweet, so tight, so silken.

The purrs turned into something louder. The bite in his shoulder turned into two. Good thing she didn’t have nails, because her arms swung around his neck, hands, fingers digging into his skin. Sounds turned into groans. The kitten had turned into a live lioness, with pride in the arch of her spine, elegance in how she teased and enticed. She created an up-and-down stroke, just to let him know who was boss...and it wasn’t him.

“Rosemary?”

“Sh.”

“I’m so in love with you.”

“If you talk and interrupt this moment, Whit, I swear I’ll never forgive you.”

“No more talking,” he agreed, and yeah, he noticed she hadn’t responded when he admitted being in love with her. But he didn’t need her to return an answer or a feeling. Not then. He needed to give her the gift of it. Love. Free and clear.

Her guttural cry of release triggered his. He lasted long enough to give her a second spin, to revel in her after-spasms, the liquid in her breathing. The deep sighs from both of them seemed to define sated. Neither one could talk for a bit. He couldn’t, for sure. Just wanted to hold her for the next hundred years, just like this—or at least until they both regained some lung power.

She was the one who managed to talk first. “I have to be killing you.”

“You are. You did.”

He couldn’t see her smile in the darkness, but he could feel it. “I meant, you have to be uncomfortable. You’re holding all my weight.”

“Oh, that. It’s okay. I lost all circulation a while back. But believe me, I don’t mind.”

She pressed a chuckle on his throat, a soft, devilish kiss. “You don’t think the girls will find it odd if they find us locked together in the morning, unable to move, in this, um, definitely compromising position?”

“That’d be a problem,” he agreed. “Which means we definitely need to move before six in the morning. Not that they get up that early. But being Christmas, I suspect they won’t sleep in like normal.”

“You don’t think we need sleep ourselves?”

“I do. Right now I’m desperate for sleep. But I’m even more desperate to keep my arms around you.”

“You’re a darling, Whit.”

“Now where did that come from?”

“From me. I thought this was going to be a terrible holiday. Instead, it’s turned into one of the best Christmases I’ve ever had. Because of you.”

He wanted to pursue that thought, but she abruptly shifted, threatened all future generations when she climbed off him. Then she started laughing, because her elbow touched something and they both heard the crash of something lightweight and metal hit the floor.

“We’re both crazy!” she said. “What on earth were we thinking?!”

He knew what he was thinking. That he was acting like a lovesick calf. He’d wanted to be her Christmas present...only not exactly. He’d wanted her to want him. To see how they were together. How they could be.

He knew, perfectly well, that they’d only known each other for such a short time. Also that his girls were a critical factor in any relationship he took on—and even though they were nuts for Rosemary, that wasn’t a guarantee that they could instantly work well as a family. They lived in different places. He knew all that.

And he’d never believed in anyone who instantly fell in love.

But that’s how he felt.

Right or wrong, common sense or not, rational or not...he knew she was the right woman for him. The perfect woman for him. A woman he could love the way he’d never loved before.

But he wasn’t sure if he could make Rosemary see it. They were both running out of time.

“Listen, you,” he said gently.

“What?”

“If you could stay up a few more minutes, let’s pour one more glass of wine and meet under the tree in, say...five minutes or so? I just want to tell you something. I promise, it won’t take long.”

* * *

Rosemary cleaned up in the bathroom, pulled on an old, thick robe—the only one she had at the lodge, and then, unfortunately, caught her expression in the mirror. There was a
fat
smile on her mouth. Her eyes were dreamy, drugged. And her face had this absolutely happy look.

Spending even a second more time with Whit Cochran tonight was completely dumb. She should never have agreed. But...she had.

And when she wandered back into the living room, she felt her tension ease. Whit was sitting on the floor with his back to her. He motioned for her to take the reverse position—so she was sitting with her back to him.

“I’m not sure this will work, but I figured we have a chance of behaving if we can’t see each other.”

“I figured you’d take one look at this ratty old robe and wonder what you ever saw in me.”

He poured the wine—a half glass for each, as if promising they weren’t staying up long enough to drink more than that. “I know what I saw in you. And see in you. Trust me, the robe’s no deterrent.” He rubbed her back with his back, making her smile, and she started to relax.

The night had turned quiet as a hush. The fire had gobbled up logs, and become a thick blanket of glowing orange coals. Her body still felt the lushness of Whit’s lovemaking, his tenderness, his care, her impossibly strong response to him...but he didn’t mention that.

He leaned his head back against her head, said quietly, “You shared something hard and uncomfortable to talk about, when you brought up your ex-fiancé. I’d like to tell you something the same way. Something that needs to stay between the two of us.”

“Sure.”

“The girls can’t know this, Rosemary.”

She wanted to turn, when she heard the gravely tone in his voice. She understood he wanted to talk about something difficult for him. But...he’d chosen the sitting arrangements. Maybe because it was easier to say something when he couldn’t see her face.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Zoe and I married straight out of school. I couldn’t keep my hands off her, never doubted that it was the real kind of love. Her family put on a big wedding, all the trimmings, she looked like an angel. The honeymoon, though, only lasted about three days.”

“Uh-oh.”

“She liked to tell her friends that I was a work in progress. She thought marrying a landscape architect meant that I’d have a desk job, make good money, come home and we’d do operas and ballet and attend a lot of fancy functions. Fund-raisers. Charity events. Causes. Black-tie stuff.”

“Uh-oh,” she murmured again.

“I managed to meet one of her expectations. I made good money. It wasn’t that hard, because I love the work. It’s just that planning a site is only a small part of the job. I pick the plants, the trees and I want to put them in myself, work with the growth sites, the shape of the land, the contours.... I mean, all that stuff is the joy of it.”