A Baby by Chance (11 page)

Chance nodded solemnly. “It got there, all right.”

“Then why didn’t you drive it?”

A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “Because I like driving this one.”

Madison arched a disapproving brow. Was he going to be this difficult about everything? “And the seat belt on the passenger side?” she prodded.

“Is still broke. But don’t you worry.” He gave her a little pat on the small of her spine. “The one in the middle works just fine.”

Madison pushed aside the memory of what it had been like to sit so close to him as he drove, his thigh brushing hers with every touch of his foot to the accelerator.

Reluctantly, she allowed him to help her in, but she resisted his assistance with her seat belt, pushing his fingers away. “Look, this is all well and nice, but you can’t go on treating me like this,” she told him crankily. Their fingertips had barely brushed, and already the skin was tingling all the way up her arm, across her shoulders to her breasts.

Chance shrugged laconically. He fit his key in the ignition, started the truck’s motor and slid his sunglasses over his eyes.

He turned to her, smug male possessiveness oozing from every pore. “It’s gonna be damn hard to behave otherwise, darlin’, considering you have my baby growing inside you.”

Madison flushed and drew in a startled breath. “Well, try.”

Seeming in no hurry to speed them on their way, he reached over to adjust the air-conditioning. When the cool air was flowing over them both, he leaned back against his seat. “Have you eaten dinner?”

The way he said it, it sounded as if he were proposing a date.

Madison had a fleeting fantasy of what it would be like to be seated across from him in some cozy, candlelit restaurant, his attention focused solely on her. She sighed, knowing it would be a seduction waiting to happen. A seduction she could ill afford. She had work to do. “I packed a lunch to take with me on the plane. I’ve been munching on it all afternoon—I’ve found small amounts of food frequently do better for me than big meals.”

“So in other words you’re not hungry,” he said, his disappointment evident.

Madison smiled. “Not at all. Thanks, anyway. But if you’re hungry and you want to go out on the town or something after you drop me at the Double Diamond, that’s fine. I can probably even get the agency to pick up the bill.”

“Thanks.” Chance favored her with a smile that let her know he knew exactly what she was doing and wasn’t always going to let her get away with it. He put the truck in gear and backed out of the space. “But I can get something at the ranch later.”

Damn, Madison thought.

“So how are you doing otherwise?” Chance asked as they bumped along in his old pickup on the two-lane highway leading to his ranch. “Have you been to the doctor?”

Madison nodded. Chance was gazing at her hungrily, as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages, when in reality it had just been a week. More disconcerting still was the fact it felt that way to her, too.

“I had an appointment with my obstetrician before I left this morning.” That was why she’d had to take an afternoon rather than a morning flight. “He said the baby and I are both doing fine.” Madison smiled, thinking how exciting it had been to have her first prenatal visit. “He gave me some vitamins and instructions.”

“Good.” Chance smiled, then reached over and squeezed her hand.

It was easier sharing the details of her pregnancy with Chance than she’d thought it would be. Madison wasn’t quite sure what to make of that.

“Have you told your family you’re pregnant?” Chance continued.

“No.” Madison reflected on the fact that although her parents were still alive, she was almost as orphaned as Chance. “My parents are abroad.”

“How about your siblings?” he pressed, determined to know more. “Have you told them?”

Madison fidgeted in her seat. They were headed for dangerous territory. “Don’t have any.”

“Me, either.” Chance turned the air-conditioning to low. “So where are your parents?” he asked curiously. “I mean, if you wanted to tell them, surely there’s a way for you to contact them.”

“Yes, of course there is.” Madison’s shoulders stiffened under his persistent questioning. “I just choose not to do so.”

“You think they’d be upset because we’re not married and have no plans to be,” Chance guessed, looking as if he were beginning to have second thoughts about the wisdom of that, too.

Madison turned her glance to the cattle grazing in a pasture alongside the road. “That’s not it.” She sighed. They’d be less apt to lecture her than shake their heads and say, “Now do you understand?” And maybe throw in an “I told you so” for good measure. Right now, Madison did not want to hear it. She didn’t want to feel that she was more like her parents than she had ever wanted to be—reckless like her father and with the lowered expectations and cynicism of her mother. But there she was—a product of both.

Chance shot her an odd look, as if he were still trying to figure her out. “Then what is it?”

Madison tried to decide how much to tell him. Generally she made it a rule not to discuss this with anyone. Finally, she answered, “My father is a vice president in a multinational public-relations firm. For the last five years he’s been running their London office, so he and my mother have been living over there.”

Once again, Chance seemed acutely aware of all she hadn’t said. “How do they like it?”

Madison trained her eyes on the granite-topped mountains to the west, rising majestically over the plain. It was disturbing to realize how easily Chance read her thoughts and feelings. No one had ever been able to do that before. She was used to being a closed book to all the men she dated. “They’re as happy as they can be anywhere, I suppose,” Madison replied, her irritation growing by leaps and bounds.

“Not exactly a ringing endorsement.” Chance turned the truck onto Double Diamond property. It bumped as it went from pavement to gravel.

“You’re right,” Madison bristled. “It isn’t.” She glanced in the passenger-side mirror and caught sight of the clouds of dust kicked up behind the truck.

Chance shut off the air conditioner abruptly and opened the window. The scent of new-mown grass filled the air. “That must be tough on you,” he said compassionately.

Madison nodded and looked away from the understanding in his blue eyes. She didn’t want to think about how the unhappiness of her childhood had colored her views of marriage or the potential for lasting happiness in any man-woman relationship. “It is and it has been.” She drew a deep breath, aware that it was making her feel a lot better to unburden herself to Chance, even just a little bit. “In any case, dealing with my folks is one stress I’m better off without just now.”

Determined to push the unhappy thoughts from her mind, Madison looked at her surroundings. “Oh, Chance.” She caught her breath as she spotted the collection of pink, lavender and red clouds gathering on the horizon just above the snow-topped peaks of the granite mountains. The vibrant green of the cottonwood trees, the thick groves of blue spruce and pastures strewn with wildflowers stood out in stark relief, gilded by the fading light of an absolutely gorgeous sunset. “This is so beautiful,” Madison breathed. “Would you mind stopping the truck and letting me get out and take a few pictures?”

Grinning, Chance watched as she grabbed her handbag and took out her camera.

“I can imagine it all now,” Madison rushed on enthusiastically. “And it’s going to be so wonderful. We’ll have a tailgate picnic. You’ll be in black tie, of course—”

“You never stop,” Chance observed. The way he said it, it didn’t sound like a compliment.

“And you’ll be accompanied by a beautiful woman.” Ignoring him, Madison pushed open the door and scrambled from the truck. Chance joined her as she began snapping photos. “We’ll get a model, someone who looks good with you.”

Legs braced apart, hands on his hips, Chance turned away. “Let me know when you’re ready to go.” Demonstrating little interest, he strode off.

Ignoring his surly mood, Madison took pictures until she ran out of film. It wasn’t her fault he was bored. But it was her fault that she could readily imagine the two of them sharing a kiss or having a romantic moonlight picnic on this very spot. Which was ridiculous, she scolded herself firmly, because it wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t going to let it happen. Not while she was working on the commercial, and not afterward, either. One erroneous bout of lovemaking was enough. They couldn’t keep falling in and out of bed with each other. They had to decide what their relationship was and then stick to it. Anything else would be too confusing.

When she had finished, Madison returned to the truck.

“So, what else will you be having me do besides frolic with a picnic basket?” Chance asked dryly as he drove the short distance to the ranch house.

Madison shrugged. “A lot of whatever it is you normally do on the ranch with the pickup truck. We’ll have to sit down and figure that out.” She caught the flare of male interest in Chance’s eyes.

Determined to waste no time proving to Chance that her six weeks there would be all business, Madison whipped out a notepad and pen. “For instance, what time do you normally get up and get going around here?” she asked briskly.

Chance’s shoulders stiffened as the talk turned to her business once again. “Five o’clock.”

She jotted it down, then looked at it. “You’re kidding. Right?” More a night person than a morning person, Madison couldn’t imagine having to get up at the crack of dawn every day.

“No.” His voice flowed over her like the warm Wyoming breeze coming in through the open windows of the truck. He slanted her a teasing glance and seemed to be imagining her lazing around in bed well after dawn’s first light. “What time do you normally start your day?” he asked.

“I’m in the office around nine or ten. And I usually knock off around nine at night.”

Chance nodded. Obviously, Madison thought, that wasn’t his timetable. Another big difference between them. Good. She needed to hang on to those. They would serve as reminders why they could never be more than friends, no matter how much chemistry remained between them.

“What time do you usually call it quits for the day?” Madison asked curiously, wondering how difficult it would be to get the two of them in sync.

“Depends. Sundown or a little earlier,” Chance said mildly. Which left a lot of time in the evenings for... Madison brought herself up short. She didn’t like where her thoughts were leading.

As they entered the ranch house, Madison noted it seemed smaller and cozier than she recalled it. Chance carted her bags upstairs, deposited them in the guest room, then headed downstairs.

Madison followed him to the kitchen. Noting it was a little warm inside the house, she took off the jacket of her linen pantsuit and hung it over the back of a chair. She watched as Chance moved about the kitchen, getting out ingredients for his dinner—a thick sirloin steak, a loaf of crusty sourdough bread, a prepackaged green salad. “Do you ever get lonely out here?” she asked as he opened the bag and deposited the salad in a bowl.

Chance poured ranch dressing over the greens and mixed it in with a fork. “After living in the dormitory environment of the boys’ ranch, the privacy here is heaven.”

He opened the oven door and set the dial to broil. “And before that?” Madison asked, watching him move about the kitchen comfortably.

“I grew up in a small apartment with my dad.”

“What did he do?” Madison asked, accepting the glass of lemonade Chance gave her.

“He worked at a lumber yard.” Chance frowned and twisted the top off a bottle of beer. “I never had so much as a tiny yard to call my own, so to have all this land now—” He shrugged and left the thought hanging.

“It means everything to you.”

Chance nodded, the pride at what he’d accomplished evident in his blue eyes.

“As it should,” Madison said, admiring what he had built for himself. “It’s beautiful out here, Chance,” she said softly. “Truly beautiful.” Not only was the commercial they filmed here going to be great, but their child would love it here, too, Madison thought.

A comfortable silence fell between them as Chance put the steak on to broil. Madison yawned. For the first time, she noticed how tired she was.

Chance lounged against the counter and inclined his head at her. “You look sleepy.”

“I am,” Madison admitted, noting there was nothing she’d rather do at the moment than settle somewhere cozy—the sofa or the bed—and snuggle up with him. But that wasn’t going to happen. She couldn’t let it happen. She and the baby both needed their sleep, even if it was only seven o’clock.

“I’m sorry.” Her actions brisk and businesslike, Madison shut her notebook and capped her pen. “I had hoped to do a little work with you tonight and get started on the storyboards for the ad campaign, but I’m so tired after all the traveling, I’m going to have to hit the sack. But I’ll tell you what,” she continued, trying not to notice how disappointed he looked. “I’ll set my alarm for five tomorrow. I’ll get up, and if it’s okay with you, I’ll sort of follow you through your day. Take notes and tons more photos. And then I’ll develop the storyboards for the commercial from that.”

Chance nodded, letting her know her agenda was okay with him. “What’s the slogan for the commercials going to be?” He turned the steak to the other side.

“Ranchero trucks—they work as hard as you do.”

The smile lines on either side of Chance’s mouth deepened. “You think that up?”

Madison nodded, a little surprised at how much his approval meant to her. A cozy silence fell between them as the aroma of sizzling steak filled the air. “Sure you don’t want some dinner before you go up?” Chance asked, searching her eyes.

Madison, sensing this was more than a dinner invitation, shook her head. “Thanks, anyway.” Trying not to see the flare of disappointment in his eyes, she draped her jacket over her arm.

Chance walked her as far as the stairs, caught her hand at the foot of them. “If you get hungry later—”

“I’ll come down and get something,” Madison promised. She paused again. This was where a good-night kiss should happen between two people who were having a baby together. “See you in the morning,” she said, turning away.