Jailbird (26 page)

“Charlie,” I admonished. He didn’t need to
know I’d just been thinking the same thing. I scurried as best as a
pregnant woman can.

“I missed you. Oh, I have missed you,” he
offered by way of explanation.

“I missed you, too,” I paused over my shoes
to look at him again. “I still can’t believe Rachel did this. How
long have you known?”

“She called me last night. Anjelita has
Cara.”

“What about the custody trial?”

“It’ll still be there when I get back.”

I wondered how long he’d be here. Would he
have to leave when we walked out these doors? I didn’t want to ask.
Still, the thought brought tears to my eyes again as I fumbled with
my shoes.

“Hey, hey, don’t do that,” he caught my face
in his hands and brushed a tear aside with his thumb. “Unless
that’s happiness spilling out.”

“I don’t think I can take watching you
leave,” I admitted. “I don’t want you to go without me.”

“We don’t have to think about that today,” he
pulled me into his arms. “Today is ours. Maybe we can even steal
tomorrow.”

I nodded. I desperately wanted to steal
tomorrow, too. But at least I knew I had today. “Do you have the
pictures? Let’s go show Conrad.”

“I do,” he held them up for me to see.
Together, we went to show Conrad the nephew he’d been so sure of.
Conrad picked me up for another bear hug and even hugged Charlie.
Rachel hung back, taking it all in and smiling shyly. I don’t think
she was expecting Charlie and me to turn our hugs on her, though.
Startled as she was, she did hug us back.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I
whispered in her ear. “Thank you so much.”

“It was nothing,” she seemed embarrassed by
my praise.

“To me, it was everything.”

“Can we take you guys to dinner or something
tonight?” Charlie looked from Conrad to Rachel.

“Actually, you guys have plans. Sorry,”
Rachel grinned liked she wasn’t really sorry at all as she handed
me an envelope. “Give me a call when you resurface. I should have
more information then.”

“Okay…,” I agreed hesitantly.

“I’ll take care of getting Conrad back to his
car,” she shooed us out the door. I couldn’t quite decipher the
look on Conrad’s face, but I had a feeling it was one Lenora
Smallwood would have given anything to earn from him.

I stood on tiptoe and pulled him down so I
could kiss his cheek before following Charlie out the door.

“Is that your car?” he smiled as I unlocked
the El Camino.

“Conrad gave it to me.”

“Nice.”

“I like it.”

“You would.”

“At least it’s not boring.”

“Are you saying my Corolla is boring?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Boring, maybe, but practical.”

“But this has character.”

“Something like that,” he grinned. “What’s in
the envelope?”

“Room keys for the Hilton in Baton Rouge. And
a note saying that it’s paid through the end of the week. Along
with room service, courtesy of the network.”

“Huh. That’s really sweet of her.”

“She has a crush on Conrad.”

“Really?” Charlie seemed skeptical.

“Yep. I’ll fill you in later. Do you want to
follow me in your boring car?”

“I’d rather ride with you.”

“But we can’t leave the boring car here. Come
on, follow me. I know my way around Baton Rouge. Well, I did ten
years ago.”

“That’s comforting.”

This time I grabbed him for a kiss before
turning him loose to slide behind the wheel of my El Camino. I was
so excited at the prospect of spending the rest of the day with
Charlie, my entire body practically hummed. The baby did a few
somersaults. I assumed he was happy to know he was a boy.

Charles Junior? I shook my head. That didn’t
work. Nathan? No, that was Plan B’s name. Conrad? Maybe….

I spent the rest of the ride trying to name
my little gymnast. Before I knew it, we were there and I was
walking through the hotel lobby with Charlie’s arm wrapped
protectively around my waist. He smelled so good. The heat of his
body sent shock waves rippling through my veins.

It was ridiculous. For a woman who’d thought
of little else besides food and a bed to sleep in for so long, it
was kind of laughable to be feeling like a tigress on the prowl
right now. Still, I’d be really proud of myself if we made it all
the way to the room before I started ripping his clothes off.

He traced feathery kisses along my neck as we
rode the elevator up. My eyelids fluttered and I caught my lower
lip with my teeth. He was making this really difficult.

And then, sweet relief, we were alone in the
room. The instant the door latched, clothes started flying. I
wanted to touch every centimeter of his skin. My fingers greedily
devoured his arms, his chest, his back… I laced them through his
hair and pulled him to me so I could taste his lips once more.

He was trembling with restrained desire. He
kissed my face, my neck, my collarbone. His hand roamed and cupped
and caressed. Neither of us could seem to decide what we wanted to
experience most. We wanted it all.

Together, we stumbled towards the bed. We got
about three steps closer before we gave up and folded together to
the floor. Every nerve ending was on full alert. The carpet
scratched my back and his skin felt hot and alive against my bare
skin.

Maybe there had been a time when sex had been
wielded as a weapon. Evil had used it to try to steal my humanity,
to smother my spirit. But now, in this moment, it was an instrument
of restoration. There was something powerful in being soul to soul
with the one who made you a whole person.

So here, in the dark with him, I could feel
my weary spirit spark to life again. That spirit, along with every
other fiber of my being, was hungry for a taste of him—this man who
made everything suddenly so right.

I didn’t think there would ever be enough of
him to satiate the starvation that had built over the last months.
But sometime in the night, sometime after moving to the bed, we
fell asleep in each other’s arms.

I didn’t want to sleep. That took away from
the time I knew I had. But my body won the argument with my heart
and I eventually dozed off.

Charlie woke me up a few hours later by
placing a trail of kisses from my collarbone to my belly and back
again. We made love and dozed off again. I woke him next. After
another nap, sunlight tried to sneak through our curtains. We
ordered breakfast and took a shower together while we were
waiting.

I didn’t want to ask if we were going to take
another day but I didn’t need to. Charlie made a phone call to tell
the person on the other end he’d be two more days at least. I
breathed a little easier after that.

For the rest of the day, there was no one or
nothing in this world besides our two bodies. We didn’t talk about
anything going on. We didn’t make plans. We ate, we slept, we
picked another area of the other’s body we hadn’t memorized
yet.

As I traced his bicep with my tongue, a
thought struck me and I giggled.

“What?” he eyed me warily.

“You remember that first Sunday together? The
one where we played tag with Isabel and Cara?”

“Yeah….”

“I really wanted to do this then,” I
illustrated exactly what had flitted through my mind that
afternoon.

“You don’t say,” he flipped me onto my back.
“Because I really wanted to do this….” My eyes rolled completely
back in my head at that one. I wanted more, but I was also pretty
sure it would kill me.

By that evening, we’d finally reached the
point we could hold a conversation over dinner. Charlie told me
about Cara not liking her music teacher; I told him about my
reservations over Gabrielle taking to Nick so quickly.

“Aw hell,” I slapped my forehead. Charlie
made a face at me. “Sorry. I just remembered I was supposed to
leave something with Rachel and forgot with all of the
excitement.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s going to look into Nathan Smith’s
finances for me.”

“You two have become quite the bedfellows
lately, huh?”

“Poor choice of words,” I smiled devilishly.
“But we do have a lot to offer each other.”

“I don’t want her turning her attention away
from Daniel Winslow for this.”

“No worries, I’m sure she’ll just ask an
intern to do it. Can we get interns? I want someone to do my
bidding.”

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“It was worth a shot.”

“It would be nice… oh, by the way, thanks for
all of the work you did at the office. I made a killing on wills.
And the place looks great.”

“You’re welcome,” I wiggled my eyebrows at
him. “I accept services as payment.”

“Good grief woman; you’re going to be the
death of me.”

“What? I just want you to rub my feet….”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, for starters anyway….”

Chapter Twenty-Six

I lost all sense of time. I was pretty sure
it was afternoon. We lay sprawled out on the bed, his arm as my
pillow and his free hand tracing lazy circles on my stomach. I
alternated feeding myself a grape, then one to him.

“Did you mean what you said?” Charlie
asked.

“I always mean what I say. Which particular
sentence are we talking about?”

“That you wanted a boy. I mean, about why you
wanted a boy.”

“Of course I meant that,” I set the grapes
aside and cupped his face in my hand. “You don’t know how amazing
you are, do you?”

“I’m nobody special, Neena. I’m just an
average guy in a small town. I’ll never have much money. And I’ll
always cringe when you swear.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a small
town guy. You make enough money to take care of your family. In
case you haven’t noticed, I have been trying to cuss less. And you
are anything but average. The world needs more everyday people who
will do what’s right when it comes down to it.”

“What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“When will you understand what you mean to
me?” I stroked his temple, my eyes trying to say what words could
not. My heart drummed in my chest, seeming to cry out that it, like
the rest of me, was wholly his.

Charlie’s phone chirped—a sound so
out-of-place in the moment it startled us both.

“I’d better get that. I’m waiting to hear
from the court clerk to see when we’re on the docket.”

I nodded, content to watch him search for his
phone. It occurred to me that I should call to check on Gabrielle
soon. And I needed to call Anjelita before she completely disowned
me. Besides, I missed her.

“Good news,” Charlie smiled as he hung up. “I
don’t have to be in court until Monday morning. If I go back
Saturday, that should be plenty of time.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help grinning like a
fool. It was better than Christmas. “Can I call Anjelita for
you?”

“Sure. I think I want another shower. And I
might even put some clothes on.”

“Go for it. It gives me something to do.”

“How so?”

“I can imagine taking them back off.”

“I love you.”

“Go get your shower. You stink.”

Charlie shook his head and chuckled. He went
to round up his clothes and paused. “Do you know what the bags are
along the wall?”

“What bags?”

“Those bags,” he pointed. Sure enough, there
were five bags lined up along the wall. It was scary how
unobservant I was when Charlie was in the room. He padded over to
them and peeked inside the first one. “Huh. It’s clothes.”

He gathered them up and brought them over to
the bed. Together, we emptied them one by one onto the rumpled
sheets.

“Do you think someone forgot them?”

“No, housekeeping wouldn’t have left them.
Besides, do you really think the last couple to stay in this room
was a pregnant woman your size and a man my exact size?”

“Good point,” I hated it when he was logical.
“Did Rachel leave them?”

“Most likely. Do you really think she has a
thing for your brother?”

“They’re crazy about each other. It really
upset her when he blamed her for us being apart, me not going to a
doctor. He shouldn’t have said that to her.”

“We’d still be together in Hampton if she
hadn’t run that prime time special,” Charlie countered. “I see what
he means.”

“She didn’t mean any harm. Besides, how was
she supposed to know I was still alive?”

“I appreciate the room and her helping you
get to the doctor, but the clothes are too much. These are really
nice,” he held up a pair of slacks, an almost covetous look on his
face. He wanted the clothes. Funny, it had never occurred to me
that Charlie might sometimes want things like expensive clothes. I
wondered what else he’d sacrificed in raising Cara alone.

“Take the clothes. I’ll talk to Rachel
later.”

“I don’t know.”

“I want you to have them. Please?”

“I’ll pay her for them.”

“By all means,” I smiled. “But if you don’t
hurry up, I’m going to butt in line for the shower. I can’t wait to
try on real maternity clothes. I’ve never had maternity
clothes.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I’m
so sorry,” he looked absolutely horrified. “Why didn’t you buy
yourself some clothes with the cards?”

“I was saving them for food and rooms and
minutes for my phone. I’m blowing through the cards quickly enough
without wasting money on things like clothes.”

“As soon as this custody hearing is over, I
am going after Daniel Winslow full time so we can end this thing. I
want you to come home so I can pamper you properly.”

“It’ll be over soon. I really feel it.”

“Please don’t go charging after him by
yourself… and Rachel Cooper doesn’t count as backup.”

“How’s Sheriff Taylor?”

“Holding up. And nice job changing the
subject.”