Loving Jessie (10 page)

“What?” The single word came out on a squeak.

“You heard me.” His smile widened a little, but his eyes were watchful. Shadowed. “I’ll give you a baby, Jessie, if I can.”

“You… I… Oh God.” Her mouth was suddenly bone dry, and she seized her glass, ice cubes rattling against the sides as she gulped the tea. She should be feeling relief. Excitement. He was offering her her dream. What did she say now?

“Thank you.” It was hopelessly inadequate, but there were no other words.

“Don’t thank me yet, Jessie. There’s a condition.”

“Of course.” She drew a deep breath and felt the expected excitement quiver inside her. A baby. She was going to have a child. Matt’s child. “We can set up what
ever kind of visitation rights you want. I’d never try to keep you from—”

He shook his head, cutting her off. “I don’t want visitation rights, Jessie.”

“Okay.” Her smile was uncertain. He looked so serious. So very male. “What is it, then?”

“I want you to marry me.”

“M
-marry you?” Jessie’s voice disappeared on a squeak. He was kidding. He had to be. This was some sort of payback for last night. But he didn’t look like he was kidding. His eyes were still, watchful, and she felt her heart stutter in her chest. Oh my God, he was serious. Breathing suddenly seemed to require a conscious effort. Her laughter held a shaky edge of hysteria. “And I thought I was crazy.”

“It’s not crazy. A little…unconventional, maybe, but not crazy.” Matt straightened away from the counter with an abrupt movement that belied his cool outward image. “It’s a sensible arrangement.”

“Arrangement?” Jessie laughed again and shook her head. “You’re talking marriage, Matt. That’s not an arrangement. It’s a lifetime commitment.”

“So is having a baby, and you’re willing to take that on.”

“But I’ve given that a lot of thought.”

“So think about this.” He moved restlessly across the small space between the counter and the stove and then
back again before turning to face her, his eyes bright, determined. “I’m almost forty years old, Jessie, and the closest I’ve come to a serious relationship is living with a woman for six months ten years ago. I was out of the country for four of those months, and when I got back, she told me she couldn’t maintain a relationship all by herself and moved out with my blessing.”

Feet braced apart, thumbs hooked in his front pockets, he seemed almost to vibrate with energy, with demand. She’d never seen Matt like this. But then, he’d never asked her to marry him before.

“You’re almost thirty,” he continued. “and there’s no one serious in your life. You told me last night that you wanted the whole dream—a home, a family, the white picket fence and two cars in the garage. Marry me and you get the two cars right off the bat. We can work on the family while we negotiate on the picket fence.”

“Matt, I don’t know.” She wanted to stand up and move away, get some distance from the energy that seemed to be coming off him in waves, but she wasn’t at all sure her knees would hold her, so she stayed where she was, her head spinning.

“
I
know, Jessie.” Moving with quick grace, he spun a chair away from the table and sat down on it, so close that his knees nearly brushed her leg, so close that she could see the silvery flecks of color in his blue eyes and feel the heat that radiated from his body. He smelled of soap and some indefinable, warm male scent that made something tighten low in her abdomen. The impact was overwhelming, and she fought the urge to close her eyes against it, or maybe it was the urge to throw herself against his chest and agree to anything he said.

Lust, she thought desperately. Shocking as it was to discover that she lusted after Matt, it was a perfectly un
derstandable reaction. He was practically a walking wet dream, and maybe the only real surprise was that it had taken her so long to notice it. But lust wasn’t reason enough to marry someone.

“Think about it, Jessie.” He leaned closer, and she swallowed convulsively. “We’re friends. We like each other. We know each other. That’s not a bad start for a marriage. We could build something worthwhile together. We could build a family together. A couple of kids, maybe.”

It was hard to think with him so close. Had he always radiated such blatant sexuality and she’d just been too blind to see it?

“What about your work?” she asked, grabbing on to sanity with both hands. “You spend most of your time out of the country.”

“I’m not going back,” he said, and he felt some hidden knot of tension ease at this admission of a decision he hadn’t even realized he’d already made. He said it again. “I’m not going back. I’m quitting. That’s not what I want to do anymore. You’d be taking on an unemployed husband, Jessie.” He grinned, feeling suddenly almost carefree. “There are other things I can do. Other jobs. I’ve got quite a bit of money saved, since I haven’t been around to spend much of what I’ve earned. There’s a publisher who’s been after me to do a book of my photos. Maybe I’ll take them up on it.” He laughed. “Marry me, Jess, and I’ll do the photographs for your grandfather’s book.”

She couldn’t keep up with his quick change of mood. She couldn’t keep up with any of this. “I can’t marry you just to get a photographer for Grandad’s book.”

His expression sobered. “Then marry me to have a baby, Jess.” Leaning forward, he cupped his hands
around her face. She thought it might be possible to drown in the blue of his eyes. “Marry me for this.”

His mouth took hers softly, teasing and tasting, his teeth nipping her lower lip with playful sensuality before his tongue slid inside to fence with hers. Jessie’s hands came up, her fingers wrapping around his wrists, clinging to him as the familiar kitchen dipped and swayed around her.

It had been this way the first time he’d kissed her. She’d tried not to think about it, beyond the acknowledgment that making a baby with Matt might not be difficult at all. She’d told herself that the shivering, sliding feeling that ran down her spine was her imagination or the result of too much to drink. But she couldn’t blame this melting sensation on the glass of wine she’d had with dinner last night.

Matt changed the angle of the kiss, deepening it, shifting one hand to cup the back of her head, holding her still for the hot, sweet hunger of his mouth on hers. He wanted to loosen the braid that held her hair so that he could bury his fingers in soft curls. He wanted to pull her out of the chair and into his arms, wanted to feel the weight of her body against his. He wanted her. Just her. Now and tomorrow. For always.

Slowly, reluctantly, he drew back from her, his body clenching with hunger when her mouth clung to his. His breathing shaken, he waited until she opened her eyes, feeling a wave of pure, male satisfaction at the dazed look in their depths. He wasn’t the only one who wanted.

“Marry me, Jessie,” he said huskily. “Marry me and make a baby with me. Make a family with me.”

She blinked at him, struggling to pull her thoughts together. This was a major decision, not one to be made lightly or in haste. Or in lust. God, wasn’t that an incred
ible thought—that she was lusting after Matt? But that wasn’t the important thing right now. There were things to think about, things to discuss. If she could just remember what they were.

“You really want this, don’t you?” she whispered finally.

“I really want this.” His hands shifted and caught hers, his thumbs stroking over the centers of her palms. “We can make this work, Jessie. I’m sure of it.”

At the moment Jessie wasn’t sure of anything, not even her own name. She looked away from him, trying to think clearly. It wasn’t enough that she was suddenly aware that Matt’s eyes were the bluest she’d ever seen, or that her bones melted when he kissed her, or even that he was offering to make her most fondly held dreams come true. This was a life-altering decision, and it was important that she approach it coolly, make a decision based on calm logic, unaffected by the rapid thud of her own pulse or the searing blue of his eyes.

Matt leaned forward and kissed her softly, his mouth slightly open as it brushed hers, his breath warm against her lips. “Say yes, Jessie. Say you’ll marry me.”

“Yes,” she said, the word slipping out on a sigh that wasn’t—couldn’t be—surrender. “I’ll marry you.”

Matt’s sudden smile made her feel as if she’d been bathed in pure sunshine. She smiled helplessly in return, even as she wondered whether she’d just lost her mind.

It was amazing how little time it took to completely rearrange a life. Two lives. By the time Matt left Jessie’s house, the wedding date had been set and they’d agreed that he would be moving in with her. Her grandfather had left her the house, which sat on over half an acre, most of which was devoted to his extensive rose gardens. The
house itself was two stories, medium-size and of no particular architectural style, but it held the indefinable charm that seems to permeate the walls when a house had been well loved for many years. There was even a small basement area—unusual for California—that Jessie had suggested would make a nice darkroom. If he could bring himself to pick up his cameras again.

It was a good house for a small family. His family. God.

Stopped at a red light, Matt leaned his forehead against the wheel for a moment and wondered if maybe getting shot in the shoulder could cause brain damage. It would go a long way toward explaining the fact that he was running—not walking, but
running
, for God’s sake—straight into matrimony and fatherhood. A family. What the hell did he know about families? His mother had spent most of her life looking at the world through a vodka haze. His father had favored whiskey and dealt with life’s frustrations by beating his sons.

Oh, yeah, he was a perfect candidate for marriage and fatherhood.

Jessie felt as if she’d been swept up in a whirlwind, tumbled head over heels a few times and then set back down with her world in a new order. After Matt left, she wandered out the back door and into the rose garden. The midday sun poured down out of a cloudless, pale blue sky. Dry heat pressed on her from every side, soothing as it warmed.

The garden was laid out in a formal pattern, divided into four quarters around an open area in the center that held a gnarled and twisted Australian tea tree that her grandfather had nurtured as if it were another child. There
was a bench beneath the tree and a fountain that splashed water into a shallow tile pool.

The roses were not at their best this late in the summer, though there were still plenty of blooms nestled among a myriad of greens. Jessie cupped her hands around a blossom the color of ripe apricots and bent to inhale the rich fragrance. It smelled of cloves and rose, a spicy, almost masculine scent that was a surprising contrast to the soft, feminine color.

Every plant was meticulously labeled, but she didn’t bother to look for the name. Her grandfather had known the names of each and every one by heart. He could have told her whether it was a centifolia or an alba or an eglantine, reeled off the parentage and most likely come up with some interesting historical tidbit about this particular variety.

Jessie closed her eyes against a sudden upwelling of grief. She would have given a great deal to be able to talk to her grandfather about the sudden turn her life had taken. Leland Sinclair had been a quiet man who liked to consider his words before he spoke. He’d been able to say more with fewer words than anyone else she’d ever known. Despite the two-generation gap between them, she’d always respected his advice, the more so because he offered it so rarely.

What would he think of her marrying Matt? She rubbed her fingers absently over a silky petal and tried to imagine her grandfather’s reaction to the news that she was marrying, not quite for love, not quite for convenience, but for a sort of hybrid of the two, with friendship and a startling physical heat thrown into the mix. He’d liked Matt. He’d liked Reilly, too, but he’d had more of a connection with Matt.

She flashed suddenly on the year she’d turned eleven.
She’d gotten the measles, and the embarrassment of coming down with such a humiliatingly childish disease had caused her at least as much misery as the illness itself. Matt and Reilly had been home from college for the summer, both of them working for McKinnon Construction, and they’d both come to visit her.

She could remember Reilly standing in her bedroom, looking nearly as miserable as she felt, offering falsely hearty reassurances that she would soon be back on her feet and promising to take her to A & W for a root-beer float just as soon as she was well. And then, a few days later, when she was creeping toward recovery, there was another memory of Matt carrying her downstairs so that she could lie on the sofa and watch television. She could remember lying there, only half-awake, canned laughter chattering in the background as she watched her grandfather and Matt play chess.

A bee wandered aimlessly through the glossy green leaves, perhaps too heat-dazed to locate the fat blossoms half hidden in the foliage. Jessie knew just how the bee felt. Only it wasn’t the heat that had left her dazed. Her life was about to be turned upside down, and the fact that she’d started the process herself when she’d decided to ask Matt to give her a child didn’t make her feel any more in control of what was happening.

She frowned at the bee for a moment longer and then turned back toward the house. She needed to talk to someone. Communing with her grandfather’s roses just wasn’t going to cut it. Today was Lurene’s day off. If she was home, she would certainly make a better sounding board than a sun-drunk bee and a bunch of shrubbery.

“So let me see if I understand the whole picture.” Lurene leaned back, stretching her long legs out along
the black cushion of the deck chair. A shallow breeze drifted across the small balcony outside her condo, fluttering the fringe of the big canvas umbrella that blocked the sun. Lurene was the only person Jessie knew who, given a choice between air-conditioning and lying outside in ninety-degree heat, chose the heat. She claimed it was because she’d been born and raised in North Dakota and was still trying to thaw out.

Wearing a pair of neon-green shorts and a hot-pink tank top that made the most of her generous curves and golden tan, her pale blond hair caught up on top of her head in a careless knot, Lurene looked like an ad for what every California girl wanted to be when they passed the forty mark.

Jessie took a deep swallow of icy lemonade and leaned her head back against her own lounger. The heat was actually almost pleasantly enervating, sort of like sitting in a steam bath without the steam. And it was worth courting heatstroke to be able to tell someone what was going on. She felt better just for having let it all out. Any practical advice she received was a bonus.

“You wanted a baby and decided your friend Matt would be a good candidate for providing the necessary chromosomes.” Lurene nodded approvingly. “Can’t fault you for that one. When it comes to prime genetic material, the man was clearly in the right place at the right time.”

“Careful, that’s my fiancé’s genes you’re discussing,” Jessie said lazily and then had to swallow back a giggle. Referring to Matt as her fiancé, actually saying the word out loud, only made it seem even more incredible.