Momentary Marriage (27 page)

Tom smiled down at Amelia/Nellie. “The first of many occasions together, I’m sure.”

He looked up then, exchanging a quick, intimate glance with his wife.

“We’re holding you to that,” Mike said, laughing as he stood beside his wife’s hospital bed, her hand caught in his.

Still kneeling at Tom’s feet, Kelsey was quiet, half-choked on the warmth and laughter in the room. She’d seen her own mother marry and live with six different men. Even though she couldn’t remember her own parents together, she knew they hadn’t shared an ounce of Tom and Mary Barrett’s love for each other.

Why couldn’t this happen for Amy? For herself?

Here, surrounded by what felt like genuine affection and love, Kelsey struggled with widely divergent emotions. This felt so good, so happy and grounded. She loved being with this group of people…and she found herself filled with longing to really belong with them.

At the same time, it seemed so incredibly unfair that they had this kind of life together when so many families were filled with hatred and anger.

“Here, Dad,” Jared said, coming around the bed. He reached down for the baby. “Let me have a turn.”

Scooping the now-sleeping Amelia/Nellie up, he balanced the small bundle in his hands as easily as a football.

“You can take the chair,” Tom said, getting up and moving to slide an arm around his wife. They stood together, smiling fondly at the baby in their son’s arms.

Jared sat down, cradling the infant close, completely at ease. Next to him, Kelsey wondered when she’d get over the astonishment she felt seeing him this way. More and more men were connected with their children these days. It wasn’t such an unusual thing in a man anymore. But seeing Jared holding the baby so comfortably, his fingers brushing first over her cheek, then stroking her elegant long fingers, made Kelsey go warm inside.

Still standing next to his wife’s bed, Mike bent down and kissed her. “We’ve done a pretty good job, sweetie. Don’t you
think?”

Carla glanced fondly at her new daughter. “Pretty good.”

A shaft of intense longing pierced Kelsey. She wanted this, wanted it to be as real for her as it seemed now to be for Carla and Mike.

But was it real? Was this kind of picture perfect moment ever real?

How long would it be before dirty diapers and a wailing baby built resentment between them? How long before one or the other of them grew bored with playing family?

Kelsey had friends with children. As sweet and lovely as babies were, they brought strain to a marriage, further weakening the fragile, temporary bonds of love.

Had her own father stood beside his wife’s hospital bed on the occasion of her birth, Kelsey wondered. Had they projected this same loving, blissful unity? How long had it taken for the moment to wear off? Not two years later, they’d split up and her father had disappeared from her life.

A welter of pointless longing and grief for her lost hopes churned inside her. No matter how whiny and bratty a child was, she deserved a mother and a father to love her.

But if love between a man and woman never lasted, what hope did any child have of growing up with an intact family? Kelsey had always promised herself she’d give her own child a very different childhood than she herself had endured.

How could she manage that if love never lasted, she thought now looking into little Amelia/Nellie’s contented face. Could a loveless marriage provide a child with the kind of nurturing shelter she deserved? People who stayed together just for the child?

*
**

Acutely aware of Jared’s hand at the small of her back, Kelsey lead the way into the small, exclusive restaurant tucked into a darkened, below street level space in upper Manhattan.

“This way, sir,” the maître D murmured, gathering two menus in his hands.

They followed him into the seating area, the lighting subdued and atmospheric, the conversations of the other diners muted and hushed as if there was a volume control in place.

Kelsey heard the thump of her own heart against her breast and knew she was being overly-emotional. The heightened feelings stirred up by their hospital visit just needed some time to settle, she told herself as they were seated.

Opening the menu, she tried to wrestle her tangled up feelings into manageable order.

Every woman wanted the fantasy of bearing a man’s child and reaping the joy of his love—every woman who had any interest in bearing children, that is. As a life choice, parenting had always been attractive to Kelsey. On some level, she wondered if she were longing to live out an improved version of her own childhood. Surely, that wasn’t the best reason to have a child.

But then she’d see a baby like little Amelia/Nellie and feel flooded with longing. Even the occasional tantrums kids through in Bloomingdale’s didn’t keep her from wanting children. Kids got overtired. They went through rough phases. There were bad moments in every worthwhile endeavor, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a beautiful experience.

Their waiter appeared next to the table then and took their orders before dematerializing.

Kelsey smoothed the napkin in her lap, her gaze lifting to Jared’s.

He watched her from across the table, a smile playing on his lips.

“You have a wonderful family,” she said abruptly, trying to keep the husky note of longing out of her words.

His smile widened. “Yes, they are.”

“It must have been wonderful growing up together.”

“Most of the time,” he acknowledged, his gaze still on her face, a glimmering amusement in his eyes. “There were rocky times. I don’t submit easily to authority, my parents tell me.”

“I can imagine,” Kelsey murmured. She couldn’t imagine him submitting to anyone, even the parents he so obviously loved.

“My father wanted to string me up a few times.”

“I doubt that,” she said with a quirk of her lips. “He’s not a man who seems inclined to lose his temper.”

“No,” her husband laughed. “But I tried their patience a few times just in the process of discovering the world.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Alcohol? Drugs? Petty thievery?”

Jared shook his head, the faint smile still playing on his lips. “Nothing in the legal territory. I just had to make my own decisions about things rather than take their word that I wouldn’t like it. They didn’t want me to take a job when I was in high school—said I’d miss out on too much. But I took the job anyway.”

“And did you miss out?” Kelsey propped her chin on her hand and studied him. He’d have been a handful as a child. Was in fact, still too much man to manage.

“Of course,” he said, shrugging. “But I had money which made up for a lot of it.”

“Raising a child is such serious business,” Kelsey said somberly. “So many mistakes to be made.”

He reached across the table, taking her hand in his. Lightly clasping her, he drew his thumb across the back of her hand. “Maybe, but it looks like a lot of fun to me. It’ll be interesting to watch Carla and Mike raise this kid. Carla has always been a tomboy. I’ll bet this baby likes ruffles and bows.”

“It always seems to work that way,” Kelsey agreed, trying not to notice the connection of their fingers, intertwined now. Trying to ignore the rush of heat and longing for things she couldn’t even understand. “Carla was probably a tomboy because she wanted to keep up with her brothers. Don’t tell me that you and Brian weren’t rowdy.”

He laughed, the flickering candlelight leaving half his face in shadow. “We were wild, but Carla not only held her own. She was frequently the instigator. My mother knew better than to blame everything on her sons.”

“What a wonderful time you must have all had,” Kelsey commented, glancing down, acutely aware of him leaning intimately toward her, his eyes intent and purposeful. She felt the heat and intensity of his focus, the power of his attention all centered on her.

“Fun wasn’t my mother’s description of a few of our escapades. It was weeks before she forgave us for bringing home the baby skunk.” He grinned in remembrance, his face all the more attractive for the hint of devil in his eyes.

“A skunk? Why would you bring it home?” she asked in disbelief.

Jared shrugged. “It wasn’t my idea, but Carla found the thing and didn’t want to leave it to fend for itself. I’d have left it there, alone or not. But I have to say in my sister’s defense that it was pretty small and didn’t much look like a skunk. But my mother knew what it was immediately when we brought it into the house.”

He’d have left the animal to fend for itself. That was Jared, a combination of callous disregard for things and people not important to him. But he’d called his sister everyday this past week, just to see how she was doing.

“Did your mom yell at you to take the skunk outside?” Kelsey asked with effort, awareness and craving swirling inside her.

“No.” He shook his head. “Mother’s a smart woman. She calmly took the thing out of Carla’s hands and walked quickly to the door with it. Later, she told us she felt like screaming when she first saw it, but she didn’t want to frighten the animal into jumping out of Carla’s hands and hiding in the house. So she just got it outside as fast as she could.”

“A very smart woman,” Kelsey approved with a smile. “I’m not sure I’d have been as calm.”

“My mother’s quite a woman,” Jared responded, a quiet pride in his eyes. “She handled the three of us well, most of the time.”

“I like your parents,” agreed Kelsey, glancing up into his eyes. It was hard not to envy the childhood he’d enjoyed when her own had been so chaotic. She loved her mother, but she’d never lied to herself about the woman’s limitations when it came to child rearing.

“That’s why I want to have kids,” Jared commented quietly, his voice firm. “There are so many idiots out there having kids and abandoning them—like your father—I can’t help but think that responsible men need to give the job a shot.”

“You think you could do it better?” she asked, her throat feeling tight at the contemptuous way he mentioned her father’s behavior. There was no reason why she should glow at his championing of her. It wasn’t as if she needed that. She’d given up on her father years ago.

But having Jared look at her like this, hearing the fierce anger in his voice when he spoke of her father—it left her feeling as though she’d been added to the list. Somehow, she’d made the list of people Jared cared about. Championed.

“I think I will do a hell of a lot better job when I have children,” he confirmed, his glance glittering over her face. “A hell of a lot better.”

*
**

Jared closed the apartment door behind them, setting the locks without turning on the lights. The dim light filtering up from the city streets lit the living room. Standing beside him, Kelsey didn’t want to catalog the emotions she felt. They’d finished their dinner and driven home.

Home.

That’s what this place and this man’s arms had come to feel like. She had grown accustomed to him, she told herself as he turned and took her into his arms. Never before had she made love with a man and slept beside him night after night.

How long would it last?

She’d never been this close to a man even this long before. It was proximity and lust and respect that prompted her to lift her arms to his broad shoulders, lift her seeking mouth to his.

Brushing his lips over hers, he drew her closer, scooping her up into his arms like Scarlett being carried up the staircase. Only this was no demand for wifely duty, but the hush of hearts beating together, the anticipation of losing herself in the heat of his touch.

He lowered her on to their bed without speaking, his fingers drawing down her zipper, his breath warm against the skin below her ear.

“So soft,” he murmured, the tips of his fingers caressing the curve of her breast as he tugged her dress down. “You smell…like flowers and rain.”

Spearing his splayed hands into her hair, he lifted it, bunched in his fists, guiding her mouth to his. Helpless, held for his kiss, she met his ravaging with the devilry of her tongue at his mouth. So right, his kiss. So filled with the same need she felt, the same quiet intensity.

With her dress half off her shoulders and falling to her waist, Jared paused in kissing her to remove the rest of her clothing. No raging lover, tearing at each hook. This touch lingered and fondled as if he’d never found such beauty before, never passed his hands over a surface so fascinating.

He cherished off her dress, his hands trailing along her arm, over the curve of her waist, the slope of her hips. With exquisite care, he drew off her hose, lingering over her thighs. Tenderly, he skimmed his hand over her knee, cupping her calf in his palm, circling her ankle. Unexpectedly, he bent to press a kiss to the sole of her foot.

Leaning back on her elbows on the bed, Kelsey found herself holding her breath lest she break the enchantment of this shadowed moment. He knelt before her, smoothing down her stocking, his hand large and warm on her foot. Lifting it, Jared kissed her ankle…and the inside of her knee.

He caressed her sensitive inner thigh with his mouth, trailing a damp path northward, his breath warm on her. Finding the barrier of her panties, he straightened, tugging her upright.