Leftover Love (24 page)

“What are we all doing standing in the door?” she questioned with a discovering laugh. “Come on in and sit down.” Her turn led Mattie into the apartment. She stopped near the center of the living room to pick up a box and clear a path to the chairs. “It’s a mess in here, I’m afraid. We’ve been sorting through my old baby clothes.”

When Layne looked back to make sure she was being followed by the others, her glance went straight past the others to the man who suddenly filled the door frame. Dressed in a western-cut blazer of dark brown corduroy and wheat-tan denims, Creed stood motionless, staring at her from under the brim of his brown Stetson.

“Where did you come from?” The question was driven from her, and a second later her gaze was running to Mattie as the source of his presence.

“I guess I didn’t tell you Creed came with me,” Mattie said, watching Layne closely. “I came on up to your apartment to make sure you were home while he parked the car.”

Suddenly he was moving past her stunned and staring parents straight to Layne. Her heart rocketed into her throat at the sight of him.

“You shouldn’t be carrying that box in your condition,” he said gruffly and took it out of her hands when she thought he was going to take her into his arms.

It stung to know that his first thought on seeing her was for the child inside her. “Less than three weeks ago, I was throwing around sixty-pound hay bales and it never bothered you,” she said, mocking his sudden concern.

With iron-jawed grimness, Creed ignored her observation. “Where do you want me to put this?” He stood expectantly in front of her, holding the box in his arms.

“In here.” Stiffly she circled around him and walked to the new nursery, leading him inside. “You can set it in the corner behind the door,” she directed.

Pausing in the middle of the small room, Layne waited while he swung the door partway shut with his elbow and set the box on the floor in the corner. When he straightened, she looked away so he wouldn’t see the hunger in her eyes. The silence grew heavy but Layne was damned if she was going to be the one to break it.

Creed wandered over to the newly erected crib and accidentally knocked his hat on the hanging lamp suspended from the ceiling. He removed his hat and combed his hair with a rake of his hand to ease its flatness while Layne covertly watched him.

“I guess you’ve decided to keep the baby.” His hands turned his hat in slow rotations.

“Of course, I am.” It hurt her to think he believed she wouldn’t want it.

“You might have decided to have an abortion—or give it away,” he replied with a hint of a challenge.

“How could you even think such a thing?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” He kept turning his hat. “You were so obsessed with Mattie, I thought, maybe, you’d do the same as she had done.”

“The situation and the circumstances are different,” Layne said, at last understanding where he’d gotten the idea. “I want this baby. I love it and I’m going to keep it.”

There was another long pause while she felt his gaze wandering over her. “It doesn’t look like you’ve gained much weight.”

“Only a couple of pounds.” Her hand moved instinctively across the flat of her stomach. “It’ll be a while before I start showing.”

The room was small and Creed was so big and tall that he just made it seem that much smaller. Every nerve in her body was conscious of him. She ached to feel his arms about her and taste the rawness of his kisses.

“I guess you’ve already made a lot of plans.” He bent his head to study the sweatband inside the crown of his hat.

His face was so damned expressionless, and she wished he’d quit messing around with that hat. It was impossible to see what he was thinking, but Layne supposed he was wondering if she expected any help from him, financial or otherwise. She wanted none that was not willingly offered, so she tried to make sure he understood that she could manage on her own.

“I’ve got a good job and I’ll be able to work right up until the baby is born. Afterward my mother is going to take care of the baby so I can go back to work. Later I’ll find a good day-care center.”

“Layne.” There was something poignantly haunting about the way he looked at her, holding her gaze. “No woman has ever had my child before. I want us to get married so this baby can have my name.”

He suddenly seemed so raw and exposed, all that tough-looking
exterior melting to show a sensitive man who wanted a baby. She remembered Mattie telling her about the way some women had recoiled from his brutally cut features. But inside he was like any other man, wanting children, a home and a family. Layne didn’t care that he wanted to marry her just for the sake of their child.

“All right.” She kept her acceptance simple and direct.

Creed took a step toward her, which didn’t leave much distance between them in the small confines of the room. “I believe a child should be raised by both parents.”

“So do I,” Layne replied with growing softness.

“I don’t know how long it takes to get blood tests. We’ll have a justice of the peace or a minister marry us as soon as we can get a marriage license.” With just his fingers, he lifted her left hand. “Would you like a diamond ring or just a plain wedding band?”

“It doesn’t matter.” It was difficult for her to talk about such things without any emotion. She didn’t understand how he could do it.

“I suppose it doesn’t,” he agreed flatly, and let her hand slide off his fingers. “You do understand that when I talked about marriage and raising our baby, I meant that we would live together in the same house.”

“Yes, I know.” Her voice kept getting huskier.

“I’ll be a good husband to you, Layne.” A muscle twitched along his jaw. “I know you love this baby. In time I hope there will be some left over for me.”

“Left over,” she said on a breath, and suddenly realized what he was too proud to put into words. “You have it all backward, Creed. It’s because I love you so much that I have enough left over for our child.”

A look of pain flashed across his face. “Don’t pretend anymore with me, Layne.” He was withdrawing behind that hard, stony shell where he hid his feelings.

“I’m not pretending, Creed. I never have pretended about the way I feel toward you. I know you’re not handsome, but your looks have never mattered to me.” She pried gently at the crack she’d found in his armor and discovered a deep well of tenderness within herself that she hadn’t known she possessed. “It was the proud, gentle man I found inside whose rare smiles were to be treasured and whose caresses gave pleasure without expecting any in return.”

The longing in his eyes was dark and intense as Creed weighed her words, bearing the scars of too many burns to readily trust the flame again. She took his hand and pressed it to her stomach, flattening her own hand over his.

“I’m going to have your baby, Creed,” she said. “Doesn’t that prove how much I love you?”

A low groan rumbled from his chest as she was swept into his arms. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, and bit at her ears and her neck while tremors shuddered through him. It was an intensely deep and passionate outpouring of love as his arms strained to hold her more tightly and his hands moved over her body with raw and restless urgings. There was a spilling over inside her of a love so wild and sweet it tore at her heart.

Never letting her go, Creed made a small turn and sank onto the edge of the desk, as if his legs could no longer hold him. Yet his lips continued to devour her while his arms made a crushing attempt to merge their bodies into one and his thighs spread to fit her body between them. The pounding of her heart became all mixed up with the wild thudding of his pulse.

Then he dragged himself back while his trembling hands moved over her as if feeling for broken bones. “My God, what am I doing to you?”

“I won’t break,” Layne promised him and arched her
hips more intimately against the hard, aroused need of his loins, conscious of the tingling ache it created within herself. “If you ever hurt me, I’ll tell you. Just don’t stop loving me.”

“That’s impossible,” he muttered thickly.

“How could you ever believe I was only pretending?” she murmured with a wondering shake of her head.

“Don’t you know how incredibly beautiful, intelligent, and alive you are?” Creed countered. “The first time I saw you, I was staggered. But I also saw the way you looked at me—the way all women have looked at me, even the plain fat ones—recoiling a little, fascinated a little.”

“It’s true. I can’t deny that.” Layne only wished she could as she traced his face with loving fingers. “But it was before I knew you.”

“It was such a torment to have you around.” His hands tightened their grip on her briefly. “When you started paying me attention, I thought you were flirting with me just for kicks, and I nearly hated you. But it was hard to hate you. Then you started making me believe you really cared.”

“I did care—always. How could you doubt that I loved you when I was practically shameless about it?” She breathed a bewildered laugh.

His hands began to move caressingly over her arched back, touching her with a wondering quality. “When I pried that secret about Mattie from you, I started thinking the lovemaking was just a bribe to keep me silent. It was one helluva bribe. Most of the time I was so drunk with loving you, I didn’t care. I tried to make myself believe that I would enjoy you for as long as I could have you, but it didn’t work.”

“You thought I was using you,” Layne realized with a bitter pang.

“That’s precisely what I thought.” Creed nodded grimly.

“And that stupid, thoughtless remark I made to you in anger that going to bed with you didn’t give you any right to tell me what to do—it convinced you, didn’t it?” There was hurt in her eyes as she looked at him. “All I wanted was to make it clear that no man was going to dictate to me and blackmail me with the love I gave.”

“I can’t imagine any man dictating to you.” A smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

“And you wouldn’t talk to Mattie for me when she ordered me to leave, because you thought I was still trying to use you.” The pieces were falling into place with remarkable clarity. “Even when I told you I was possibly pregnant.”

“I thought once you were back in Mattie’s good graces, a couple weeks later you’d make the happy discovery that you weren’t pregnant after all. But God, Layne, when you first said it—” When Creed looked at her with that wondrous, seeking light in his eyes, she felt the same dazed awe he knew. “I wanted desperately for it to be true. That you would have
my
baby.”

“I was going to write you a letter after the tests were confirmed but I guess Mattie told you.”

“If you hadn’t agreed to marry me, I think I would have carried you off.”

“I’d suggest that you do it anyway, but I have a feeling my father would have something to say about that,” Layne murmured, nuzzling his chin.

“That reminds me, I’m going to have to talk to him …” Creed paused as her lips made a tantalizing brush over his mouth. “… later.”