The Baby Invasion (Destiny Bay-Baby Dreams) (19 page)

She sat very still, thrilling to the brush of his fingers against her neck. He leaned close as he worked. She could feel his heat. It took her breath away.

“There.”
 

He stood back and looked at where the pine cone fell against the white yoke of the nightgown. She looked up, meeting his gaze and searching his eyes.

“Cathy...” He hesitated, not sure what she wanted him to do. He’d rarely hesitated in these situations before. But Cathy was different from any other woman he’d ever known. He didn’t want to hurt her, or lose her. Funny things, scruples. Especially when you developed them at such a late age.
 

“Cathy, I told you I was leaving the sleeping arrangements up to you, and I mean it. You’re going to have to give me a road map. I’m lost.”

Something clicked inside Cathy, like a switch. She needed this man. Maybe she couldn’t have him forever. But she could have him for now. She rose from the chair and stood very close to him, weaving slightly.

“Scott,” she said softly, her eyes shining. “Twin beds can be shoved together.”

His smile was an open invitation and she walked into his arms. He began to pull her toward him, his hands caressing where they touched.
 

“Cathy, Cathy,” he whispered. “You feel like heaven.”

She turned toward him, stretching her arms high to reach around his neck, and leaned into him. His hands found her breasts beneath the heavy cloth and she sighed with pleasure as he stroked them.

Her fingers flexed into his thick hair, tugging slightly. She felt warm, all her senses were alive. This was what she was made for, to love this man, to feel his body take hers, to feel her body take his.

His long fingers skillfully undid the buttons at the front of her nightgown, and then his hand slid in to touch her skin. He pulled in his breath as he looked at her, her breasts full and heavy, the nipples high and hard. He reached out to touch one with the tip of his index finger, stroking with a provocative rhythm meant to excite her.

She gasped, but she didn’t pull away. Her blue eyes held his dark ones and she searched for answers, trying to read in his gaze what he really thought, really felt. Was this just to be another physical encounter? Or was it more? Were they building something, or marking time?

His mouth took hers as though in answer to her doubts. It doesn’t matter, his passionate embrace told her. Nothing matters but this, the two of us here, now, taking and giving, joining together.
 

Show me, Cathy
, he seemed to be saying as his kiss became more demanding, more hungry.
Show me you can forget everything else and hold me to you. Show me how much I mean to you. Convince me to stay.

For a moment his demand frightened her, and then she rose to the challenge. She could show him that. Because right now, for the moment, it was certainly true—nothing mattered but their being in each other’s arms. She threw back her head and arched toward him. He swept her off her feet and laid her gently on one of the twin beds, her hair spread around her face.

Groggy with sensation, she had enough presence of mind to begin the work of unbuttoning his shirt. He helped her, shrugging away cloth, shuddering as her touch explored his chest and the hard, muscled surface of his abdomen. She fought with his belt, then his slacks, until she’d freed him. His long, shiny body was hot and alive in the lamplight.

His hands cupped her breasts, and then he leaned forward, his warm, moist mouth teasing them through the tiny holes in the lace. Sensations moved her of their own accord. She began to writhe, feeling like a woman possessed. She wanted more of him, and she moved toward him again, aching for his body.

“Cathy,” he sighed, his voice almost in anguish. “I think I’m addicted to you. What am I going to do about it? What can I possibly do?”

“Love me,” she whispered hotly, not even stopping to think about the double-edged sword that demand produced. “Just love me.”

His touch was urgent, half with passion, half with anger. “Why did you have to come into my life?” he muttered as he pulled her fiercely against him. “Why, Cathy? Why?”

She wasn’t listening to his words. She only wanted the feel of him, the smell and taste of him. His hand slipped over her ribs and flat stomach, until it rested gently between her legs. His fingers began gathering up the nightgown inch by inch.

Cathy could only stand it for so long, and then she cried out softly, her hips thrusting forward, wanting firmness. And hand met need precisely as the hem of the nightgown reached his grasp.

She shuddered with the burning ecstasy of his touch. His body came against her, taut and ready. She reached to touch him, to slide her hand along the length of him, and a sound came from her throat, so low, so hungry. She trembled.

His groan matched hers, and he writhed beneath her touch, throbbing in her hand. Her fingers tightened.
 

“Now, Scott,” she urged breathlessly. “Oh, now, please!”

She had to have him inside her, and then it was so right, so perfect, and she clung to him, clung to the feeling, wanting it to last forever, wanting him in her arms forever.

White heat, blinding, burning, cleansing. They rode it together, with tangled breaths, tangled sensations, tangled bodies, two halves of a whole.

And then they lay intertwined, hot and wet, their hearts beating fast, then slowing.

Cathy was in love. She knew it was real. There was no question in her mind. She loved this man lying here beside her. She loved him with all her heart, yet she knew that, despite the lovemaking they’d just experienced, she would never have him.

A noise startled her, and she listened intently. It was one of the triplets in the next room. She turned to kiss Scott, then started to get up.

“Where are you going?” Scott asked, lifting his head to watch her.

“One of the babies is stirring. Can’t you hear it?”

He went very still. He heard it all right. Just as he’d heard it a thousand times as a boy. The cry of a baby that came before everything else.
 

Once again he felt the familiar spasm of annoyance, the dreaded sense of obligation. He’d been kidding himself. Babies always came first. They had to. And he was a selfish pig for resenting it. But resent it he did.

Cathy knew what was going through his mind. She could feel it, as though his thoughts were hers. The baby in the next room was getting louder. With all her heart, she wanted to stay. What would happen if she just let the baby cry?

“I’m sorry, Scott,” she said haltingly. “I... I have to go.”

“Of course you do,” he said. “I know that.”

CHAPTER TEN:

Robby Catches Up

 
“The tension around here is as thick as pea soup,” Margy noted when she dropped by the next morning. She didn’t understand why the mention of tension, or of pea soup, should set Cathy off into gales of laughter, but then she didn’t understand much about this little caravan of nomadic stragglers.

The babies were whimpering. Barnaby was making machine-gun noises from around doorways. Beth was singing “Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” and acting out each part of the song. Beanie was tearfully clinging to Cathy as though to let her out of sight would be the end of the world. And Scott’s face looked like a great imitation of a thundercloud.

The teddy bears had brightened the first hour of the morning, but the glow hadn’t lasted. Relations were edgy between Scott and Cathy, and that seemed to sour everything else.

“What is going on?” Margy asked Cathy in an undertone.

Cathy had to force herself to smile.
 

“Not a thing,” she said blithely. “Just the usual chaos. I love this,” she stated in a loud and very unconvincing voice while giving Scott a fierce look. “This is the way I live all the time.”

Margy shook her head. “Give me a call if I can do anything to help,” she said, and left quickly.
 

Just in time, too. A customer had just driven up to park in front of the office—a man in a long white Cadillac with longhorn decorations. The license plate said California, but the decor said Texas.
 

Margy grinned. Texans were always big spenders. She had just the room for the man.

Cathy handed Beth Daffodil and took Blue for herself.
 

“Walk her,” she advised her daughter. “Just walk her. That’s all she wants.”

They paced back and forth, passing each other. Pink was beginning to cry, too, but Barnaby was being too wild for Cathy to trust right now and she wasn’t about to ask Scott to do anything. So she left her and continued to walk.

Watching out of the corner of her eye, Cathy saw Beanie totter on unsteady legs to where Scott was sitting and reach up to him. To his credit, Scott didn’t hesitate. He reached down and helped the baby up into his lap, then stroked Beanie’s head and said things to him in a voice so low that Cathy couldn’t make out the words.

They looked so good together.
 

Cathy bit her lip. There was absolutely no point in crying over spilt milk, she told herself firmly. And there was no sympathy for a woman who willfully fell in love with a man who didn’t want children and then hoped, somehow, to change his mind.

What an idiot, to even let such a thought enter her head! What kind of hell would it be to live with a man who didn’t really want the kids?
 

She ought to know. She’d already gone that route. She knew what it was like to second-guess every decision. To hush the children every moment so they wouldn’t bother the man in her life. To guard what was said so that he wouldn’t hear about the problems, the disasters. To wait in fear for the final straw, the incident that would drive him over the edge and make him leave.
 

Who could live like that? Who could thrive? Certainly not the children.

She glanced at Scott again, and his eyes met hers, but she couldn’t read what he was thinking. She turned away, heartsick.

Suddenly the door to the motel room burst open. Cathy turned, expecting Margy, but instead, there stood Robby Crockett, big as an ox, his hand on the knife at his belt, and anger in his eyes.

Cathy gasped and held the baby close to her chest. He glared at her and sneered, “Well, I’ll say this for you, girlie. You got the drop on me with that frying pan. And I do respect a woman with spunk.”

Cathy whirled to look at Scott and throw him a warning glance. This was no time for macho heroics.

If he would just keep still, she might be able to save this situation. She drew her brows together, gazing beseechingly.
 

“Don’t confront him,” her eyes begged.

Scott looked at her, then turned back to the man in the doorway. Every instinct he possessed said he should drive the man off of his territory. Never mind the knife. Never mind that the man was huge. This was his place and these were his dependents, and he would defend them.

But he could see Cathy’s point. There were too many children around to risk having a major male confrontation. He might as well see what Cathy could come up with.

He gave her an exasperated look, then nodded slightly, letting her know they would try it her way for now.

“You double-crossin’, dirty-dealin’ woman,” Robby was growling out. “You tricked me and you know it. Somebody’s got to pay.”

Cathy tried a sweet smile but he wasn’t buying. She glanced at the knife and then looked away quickly. “Just calm down, Mr. Crockett,” she said. “Let’s be reasonable.”

“I don’t want reasons. I want answers. I want them, and I want them now.” His eyes glittered menacingly as he lurched toward her.

Scott put Beanie on the couch and was up on his feet, moving between Cathy and Crockett in an instant. He put his arms out to protect Cathy, only to hear her begging from behind, “Please, Scott.”

Taking a deep breath, he drew one hand back and left the other out as though he’d been preparing to shake hands all along. Still, he didn’t move from where he stood between the two of them.
 

“Mr. Crockett? I don’t think we’ve met. My name’s Scott Carrington.”

Robby glared at the offered hand and refused to take it. “I don’t know you, mister. And I don’t want to know you. I don’t give a damn what your name is.”
 

He turned back to scowl at Cathy. “All I want is April.” He waved an accusatory finger at her. “You know where she is, don’t you? I want you to take me to her.”

Cathy tried to smile at the man. “Mr. Crockett, I would love to do just that.” Inspiration seized her and she moved around Scott. “In fact, that’s why we came up here to Lake Tahoe, to try to find her for you.”

The man was slow, but not entirely gullible. “What?” he said suspiciously.

“Sure.” She moved the baby from one shoulder to the other and tried to rock Pink’s crib a bit with her foot at the same time, to hush her fussing. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up, in case we couldn’t find her. But we came roaring up here to look for her because...because we want you...and the babies...” She was groping hard for ideas. “To be reunited with April.”

There. She had one. It seemed a long shot, but you never did know. Sometimes the direct approach worked. She threw a warning glance at Scott and then, eyes sparkling, she walked up to the huge cowboy and handed him Blue.
 

“Hold this one for a minute, will you?” she said blithely. “I have to pick Pink up.”

Scott went on alert, every muscle taut, ready to grab the baby back if the man started to do anything to him. But Robby Crockett seemed stunned by what Cathy had done. At first he tried to back away but the door had closed behind him and there was no place to run. She’d thrust the baby right into his arms. He had to hold it.

Hold it he did, though he had the look of a man who’d just found an alien creature crawling on his body.
 

“Wait,” he said desperately. “Wait, I don’t know how to hold babies.”

“There’s nothing to it,” Cathy said, walking away and bending down to pick Pink up. “Don’t sit down! He needs to be walked.”