Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family) (12 page)

He also wasn’t watching his hand anymore. When she glanced up, she found him studying her face. His eyes were coal black and shaded by the shelf of his brows and she knew he wanted to kiss her again. That he wanted to do more than kiss her.

And she wanted him to. Lord help her. She wanted him to.

All on its own her chin tilted, her lips parted.

His gaze dropped to them. He moved slightly nearer.

But then he stopped.

He’d given his word the night before that this wouldn’t happen again. Beth knew he remembered it. And that he wouldn’t break it.

But never in her life had she craved anything as much as she did the feel of his lips on hers at that moment. And she
hadn’t
given her word.

Still holding his hand to her stomach, she reached with her free hand to the side of his face and raised herself enough to press her mouth to his as tentatively as if she’d never kissed anyone before. It flashed through her mind that if he rejected it, she had it coming for the two times she’d rejected him.

But he didn’t.

His lips parted and he accepted the kiss, answered it with a patience that somehow seemed strained, as if he had to force himself not take over.

His arm around her back tightened. His hand at her middle kept up the caress her breasts yearned for, and his tongue followed her lead, but he initiated nothing, driving her all the wilder inside with wanting him.

Then he ended the kiss, slowly, gently, regretfully enough that it wasn’t a rejection but more like a first-date kiss that had gone far enough.

“Your idea of getting to know each other without sex clouding it—the way we should have the first time around—was a good one. Let’s work on it.”

At that moment, with every nerve in her body awake and alive and desire already turning her skin sensitive, that seemed like the worst idea she’d ever had.

But she wasn’t about to let Ash know that, so she merely nodded her agreement. And this time when she tried to get up, he let her go.

She glanced in the direction of the house. “It really is okay if you stay in the guest room,” she lied, because wanting him the way she did at that moment made it less okay than it had been before.

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t stay in the guest room. I’d last about ten minutes and then I’d be in your room.”

Sounded good to her. Not that she’d say that, either. “Then let me drive you to the lodge.”

“I wouldn’t let you drive back out here alone last night, and I’m not going to tonight.” He stood and her eyes rode his chest all the way.

“What if you fall asleep behind the wheel?”

“I won’t. I’m wide-awake now.”

She understood the feeling. Desire pumped adrenaline through her, too.

He cupped her chin between two fingers and tilted it as he bent low enough to kiss her once more, chastely, gently. “We have to finish the roof tomorrow, and Linc’s bachelor party is in the evening, so I may not see you until the day after.”

She laughed at that, though wryly. Hearing it sparked vivid memories. It seemed their entire marriage had been a series of similar statements—one job or engagement or expectation on top of another, all strung together to keep him busy elsewhere. And even though his absence was what she’d been telling herself she wanted, even though it was her brother he was helping, her brother’s party he was going to, it felt bad.

Bad enough to remind her that there were things she needed not to forget.

“Sure,” she said.

Her tone made him frown again, more seriously this time, but she didn’t give him the chance to ask.

“Be careful driving back to town,” she said, turning from him.

“Beth?”

She didn’t pause. “Good night,” she called as if he hadn’t said anything, going into the house and locking the sliding door behind her.

Ash was still standing where she’d left him, watching her, his hands on his hips, his confusion obvious even from a distance.

But rather than let him know what was going on inside her, she gave him a small smile and a parade-pretty wave.

Then she went through the kitchen and up to her room, wishing all the way that the reminder had the power to keep her from wanting him with her so much she could cry.

Again.

B
eth spent the following day doing the final handwork on Della’s bridesmaid dress for the wedding and listening intently for sounds of her brothers returning from roofing the honky-tonk. Try as she might, she couldn’t help waiting anxiously, hoping they’d be done early and Ash would come home with them.

It didn’t happen.

She delayed leaving for Kansas’s house until Linc and Jackson returned, but Ash wasn’t with them. He’d gone to the lodge to shower and change for the bachelor party.

It was good, she told herself as she drove to Kansas’s place. Good that she’d had all day to feel the old loneliness, the old longing to see him. It was good that now she felt the old disappointment, the old sense of taking a back seat to other things he was doing; of being out of sight, out of mind.

It was all good, because it put things into perspective for her. Things it was easier for her to lose sight of when her view was filled with Ash.

Kansas’s sister Della and her four kids were already there when Beth arrived. As was Danny, who had been staying with Kansas while Linc worked on the roof.

They ordered pizza and broke out a bottle of wine for their own small wedding-eve celebration, taking care of last-minute details while the kids all played outside.

Of course Beth didn’t touch the wine, but she did enjoy the companionship and camaraderie of the two Daye sisters as the liquor loosened them up.

Della drank by far the most, and by the time she gathered her kids to walk home, she’d gone from being giddy to being sentimental.

“I’m glad you’re marrying Linc,” she told Kansas, as Beth stood by while the sisters hugged.

Kansas thanked Della and told her she loved her, then made a joke to lighten the moment before Della finally left.

“Let’s get Danny to bed and then we can relax,” Kansas suggested as they herded the little boy back inside.

Beth didn’t do much in the way of putting her nephew down for the night. Kansas was already mothering the three-year-old and Danny seemed to have accepted her as just that—his mom.

Things would be good for Linc and Kansas and Danny, Beth realized, feeling a wave of sentimentality of her own. They might be a ready-made family, but they seemed to fit together as if it were meant to be. And, as she so often did, she envied them what they had together.

When Danny was in bed, Beth and Kansas took two glasses of ice tea and sat on the white wicker chairs on the front porch.

“So, how are things?” Kansas asked then, making it sound very much like a leading question.

“Good. Everything’s good,” Beth answered as if she hadn’t understood her friend’s intention.

“You know, Linc and Jackson are worried about you.”

“I don’t know why. There’s no reason to be.” Beth could feel Kansas watching her in the dim glow of the porch light, but she merely pretended a great interest in the railing.

“Is everything all right between you and Ash?”

How did a person answer a question like that under the circumstances? Beth shrugged. “He’s still here” was all she could think to say.

“Is that good or bad?”

“It would be good if he left.”

“Then it’s bad that he’s here,” Kansas concluded.

“Well, not really bad, no,” Beth hedged, for her conscience wouldn’t allow her to make Ash the villain. The only thing bad about his being here had been her own difficulties controlling her feelings for him.

“Is it just that I had wine and you didn’t, or is there another reason I’m confused?”

“Maybe because I am.”

“Ah,” Kansas said as if they’d hit on something. “Let me guess—you’re still attracted to him, even though you’re divorced.”

Beth couldn’t openly admit to that. Instead she said, “Ash is a good man. He really is. I admire and respect him.”

“Umm-hmm,” Kansas agreed with suppressed laughter just below the utterance.

“I always did enjoy his company—what I had of it,” Beth conceded, feeling as if she were going a little further out on a limb and yet unable to stop herself. “He has a great sense of humor and he can be very attentive. He’s generous and caring and sensitive...” Just remembering the sight of tears in his eyes as he’d listened to the baby’s heartbeat the day before made her own eyes sting. “And I’m sure he’ll be a good father,” she added quietly.

“None of that makes him sound like someone you wouldn’t want to have around. Does he repulse you physically or something?”

Beth laughed spontaneously and wryly at that, giving herself away. “Lord, I wish he did,” she muttered.

“Then you
are
attracted to him.”

Turned on by him. So hot for him she could melt—and very well might have the night before if he hadn’t stopped things before they even got started. But she avoided responding to her friend’s statement. “His being here is only an interlude. A brief interlude, I’m sure.”

“And then what?”

“And then he’ll leave. Like the last two days with the roofing, for example. Someone or something somewhere will need him—for a good reason, a good cause, in a way that I totally agree he should accommodate—and he’ll be off again. His being here now, spending time together, isn’t the reality of what life with him is like.”

Kansas murmured knowingly. “Linc said that whenever he visited the reservation he barely saw Ash, that he never knew if it was because Ash was leaving the two of you alone to catch up or if it was always that way.”

“It was always that way. Ash and I never saw much of each other. He was—is—a busy man. He’s diligent and selfless when it comes to his foundation. And it’s important work. That’s part of what I respect and admire him for.”

“Still, if the two of you were separated a lot—well, you know what I think about that. That was why I refused to marry Linc the first time he asked. It must have been awful for you, being married to someone you hardly ever saw.”

“It wasn’t good for either of us,” Beth said, her voice sounding far away even to herself. In the back of her mind she was revisiting that awful moment when she’d announced she no longer wanted to be married to him and he’d so calmly, so matter-of-factly, agreed. “Although I have to admit I didn’t know he was unhappy, too, until I told him I wanted a divorce.” She was surprised to hear herself admit that out loud. “Up until then I thought he was okay with the way things were, that it was just me who the marriage wasn’t working for.”

“And it wasn’t?”

“I guess not,” Beth answered, hating that her voice cracked and she was unable to elaborate, even though it was obvious Kansas was waiting for her to. How could she explain something she didn’t understand herself?

Instead she cleared her throat and went on as if she hadn’t been bothered in the slightest. “So he moved into his grandfather’s house by noon the same day we talked about it and that was that. Quick, clean and easy.” Except that their divorce hadn’t been any of those things, no matter how she’d been able to make it look then or sound now.

“Does that mean that even having the baby doesn’t make you want to go back to him?”

“I wouldn’t ever want to go back to the way things were before, no,” she said sadly. Then, as Kansas had done with Della’s parting emotionalism, she tried to lighten the tone. “If someone promised I could have what you and Linc have together, though, who knows?”

“Babies should have fathers in the home.” Kansas seemed to think she was agreeing with something.

“Like I said, I’m sure Ash will be a good father anyway,” Beth insisted, trying to keep up a positive attitude, although the image of her and Ash and the baby as a small family was achingly appealing. But what kind of lessons would her child learn if it was raised in a loveless marriage? “We were just lousy at being married,” she added firmly, hearing the note in her own voice that said she needed to remember that.

* * *

Ash had arrived at the ranch long before Linc’s bachelor party was set to start, in hopes of having a few minutes with Beth. But he hadn’t known she was going to Kansas’s house for the evening, and by the time he got there she was gone.

As the night wore on, it seemed more and more likely that he wouldn’t see her at all today, and while he nursed a glass of soda water, sitting back from the rest of the guests, he wondered at his own feelings about being away from his former wife these past two days.

It was like old times—his being busy, their both going in different directions so that their paths barely crossed.

But unlike before, now it was bothering him.

And he wasn’t sure why.

Probably, he decided, it had to do with the baby. With this sense he had of wanting to catch up on the five months he’d already lost.

And yet, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, his mind wasn’t really on the baby. It was on Beth.

And that made him begin to analyze his feelings for her.

Because he did still have feelings for her and he was kidding himself to deny it. He cared about her. And not just about her health and well-being because she was carrying his child. He cared about the woman herself.

Maybe more than he had in a long time.

And that realization shocked him.

The only explanation he could come up with, when he thought about it, was that for some reason marriage had buried those feelings.

Was it possible that after three years of being with a woman who kept every emotion under tight wraps, he’d closed himself off, too? That he’d hidden his own feelings even from himself?

Maybe it had been a protective mechanism, he thought as a cheer roared up in the room from a raunchy videotape someone had started in the VCR. Maybe after a long time of never hearing her tell him she loved him, of her never letting him know she felt anything for him at all, he’d locked up his feelings for her, too. Because even though he’d tried to convince himself she must care for him at least a little, the longer he’d gone without a sign, the more he’d begun to wonder. And the more he’d buried his own feelings just in case they really weren’t reciprocated.

But he was seeing different things in her now, in spite of all her attempts to maintain her usual show of imperviousness. He’d actually seen tears in her eyes at the sound of the baby’s heartbeat, and she’d held his hand—hard—and shared that moment with him as much as any loving wife might have. He’d seen regret that she’d insulted him by saying he wasn’t like Robert. And there was a general softening to her, a new warmth that seemed to sneak out when she wasn’t hiding it.

Could it just be related to the onslaught of those pregnancy hormones Linc had talked about? Or was it possible that she might still have feelings for him? In spite of all she’d done to push him away?

He hoped it wasn’t only pregnancy hormones.

Because if he had to face that his own feelings for her might be lurking beneath the surface, close enough to find new life, he wanted to believe her feelings for him were in that same position.

A loud hoot called his attention to the big-screen TV, and he was glad to be drawn from these thoughts he couldn’t be completely comfortable with.

But he didn’t have a taste for the movie, and rather than join the group, he headed for the kitchen. He hadn’t noticed that both Linc and Jackson had slipped away from the festivities, but there they both were, too.

“Need a fresh drink?” Jackson asked.

Ash handed over his glass and popped a few peanuts into his mouth. While he ate them, he craned around the two brothers for a look through the window at the garage. “Is Beth spending the night with Kansas?” he asked Linc, who was clearly feeling no pain as he leaned against a counter with a ridiculous grin on his face at nothing in particular.

But it was Jackson who answered. “Nah, she got home a few minutes ago. She was sneaking up the stairs when I came in here.”

Ash had been trying to keep a pretty close eye on the front door so he’d know if she arrived, but clearly he’d been so lost in his own thoughts that she’d managed to slip past him.

“Hold off on refilling my glass,” he said in a hurry just as Jackson was about to. “I think I’ll go up and say good-night.”

Linc began to chuckle at that but Jackson only shrugged and set the bottle of soda water back in the refrigerator.

“Hers is the second door on the left,” Linc offered.

“Thanks.” Ash went back into the living room, heading for the stairs. Leaving the cleaner air of the kitchen, he noticed for the first time that the celebratory cigars had left the rest of the house thick with smoke that drifted to the second level.

If he had his way, he thought as he took the steps two at a time, he’d pack up Beth right then and take her to the lodge with him, away from the smoke and noise and bawdy movies playing in her living room.

And alone with him for the night...

But of course, he wouldn’t have his way, so he curbed the idea as he knocked on her bedroom door.

She must have seen enough of what was going on downstairs to be wary, because she called a cautious, “Who’s there?”

“Just me,” he answered, half wondering if she’d let him in or tell him to go away.

But then he heard the sound of her lock clicking back and she opened the door.

She wore a loose-fitting sundress that left her shoulders bare, and it shot through Ash’s mind to press hot kisses to one and work his way across to the other.

He fought the urge just as he’d curbed his thoughts.

What he did do, though, was surprise her, by moving her out of the way so he could step inside and close the door behind him.

“The place is full of smoke. Don’t let any more of it in here than there has to be,” he said by way of explanation as he looked down into her wide blue eyes. Then he released her and crossed the room to the two large windows on the facing wall, opening them both. “I don’t want you sleeping in it, either, so leave these open all night, even if it does waste the air-conditioning.”

He waited for her to argue, to get mad at him for giving her orders, but it didn’t happen.

Instead, in a congenial voice, she said, “The party seems like a success. Are you having a good time even though you don’t know anyone but Linc and Jackson?”