One Night (10 page)

“Why don’t we wait until we know what we’re dealing with before we start fighting about whose responsibility a pregnancy is?” He stood and rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll see you Monday morning.”

“Okay,” she murmured and walked him to the door.

He hesitated. Neither of them had felt comfortable enough to convey how they felt about the possibility of Carrie’s being pregnant. It was still too new, too shocking. Like Carrie, he’d never been in this situation before. Frankly, he didn’t know what he was feeling, other than wanting to kick himself for being so stupid.

“May I kiss you?” Kyle didn’t know where the question came from, but all at once it was there. It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten the taste of her. It had haunted him for over five hundred miles. He was curious, he guessed, to discover if their time together had been a joke fate had played on him. He needed to know if what they’d shared was real.

“Kiss me?”

“Just once,” he coaxed.

“But I’ve been working in the yard. Good grief, I’m all sweaty and—”

“I’ve kissed you when you were dripping mud,” he reminded her.

A soft smile turned up the edges of her mouth. “I suppose one kiss would be all right.”

“Nothing more,” he promised and gathered her in his arms. She stood on her tiptoes and raised her arms to him. Her breath felt moist and warm against his throat. The mere act of touching her produced a deluge of achingly familiar feelings.

He’d meant the kiss as an experiment, but his need for her far outweighed his curiosity. She opened her lips to him and Kyle instantly deepened the contact, seeking her as a political prisoner yearns for freedom, as someone freezing reaches for a blanket.

Leaving her arms was hell. Kyle stepped away from her and exhaled sharply. “That pretty much answers that,” he murmured.

“You had a question?”

“Yeah, but I don’t anymore.” Blindly he turned away from her and stumbled out the front door.

“I’ll see you Monday?” she called after him.

He reached his car, raised his arm, and nodded. Monday. A whole day away. Only heaven knew how he was going to last that long without being with her.

Carrie was trying
to rest, but that was impossible. The fact was, she might very well be pregnant. In the last few days she’d attempted to convince herself otherwise, but it was time for her to face the truth.

The first person Carrie thought who might help her was Cathie. Her sister worked rotating shifts at the hospital, so keeping track of Cathie’s schedule was next to impossible. If luck was with Carrie, which it hadn’t been up to this point, she just might catch her sister at home. Carrie sat down on the sofa, tucked her feet beneath her, and dialed Texas.

After four rings the answering machine automatically came on. Carrie listened to her sister’s short recorded message, drew in a deep breath, prayed she sounded cheerful, and said, “Cath, it’s me. I thought I’d check in and let you know everything’s hunky dory on my end. I do have one itty bitty
medical question for you to answer, though. Nothing important, mind you, just some information I need…for a good friend of mine who might be in a family way. My question is, How soon after conception is it possible to tell if a woman’s pregnant? I’lltalktoyousoon.” The last words were spoken so fast they jumbled together, and Carrie wondered if her sister would be able to make sense of them. Or the phone call itself.

Replacing the receiver, Carrie wandered back to the bedroom and lay down. When she woke, it was midafternoon. To her surprise and delight, her first thought was food. Her appetite had been absent these last few days, and all at once she felt as if she could eat her way through every fast food restaurant in town.

Her phone rang while she was layering cheese on bread for a toasted cheese sandwich.

“Hello,” she mumbled distractedly, thinking it might be Kyle. She’d been avoiding him. She wasn’t sure how to deal with the newscaster just yet. That decision would need to be faced soon but not now, when her head was muddled with other matters.

Whoever was on the other line hung up. Glaring at the phone, Carrie replaced it in its cradle and went back to assembling her sandwich.

Within a minute the phone rang a second time. Sighing, Carrie looked over to the wall and decided to let her answering machine pick up the call. She wasn’t interested in playing silly hang-up games with some weirdo.

The machine clicked in with her sister’s frantic voice. “Carrie, I just got home and heard your
message. You’re pregnant, aren’t you? You didn’t honestly expect me to believe that business about needing information for a good friend, did you? That’s the oldest trick in the book.”

“Cathie.” Carrie spoke into the telephone receiver. “Hold on a minute.” She walked over and turned off the answering machine. “Hello,” she said, making sure she sounded downright chipper.

Now that Carrie was on the line, Cathie stopped speaking.

“I’m here,” Carrie said, wondering what had gone wrong with the connection.

“Yes, I know,” Cathie said, sounding nothing like her usual cheerful self. “You’re pregnant?”

There wasn’t any need to hide it, Carrie decided. The truth would come out soon enough. “I don’t know yet, but I think I might be.”

“You think you might be!” Cathie echoed, aghast.

“It’s too soon to be sure. That’s why I asked you.”

Once more Cathie was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Are you all right?” Carrie asked, growing concerned.

“Of course,” Cathie snapped, sounding oddly hysterical. “But then I’m not the one who’s pregnant. You apparently have had some time to get used to the idea. I haven’t. How far along are you?” The last question came out breathless as if her sister were badly in need of oxygen.

“It’ll be two weeks on Friday. You didn’t honestly think Kyle and I were up playing pinochle all night in his hotel room, did you?”

“No, but I figured if you spent the night together, one of you was smart enough to use some form of birth control.”

“We didn’t.”

“Obviously. Now let me think about this.”

“I should tell you what’s been happening to me,” Carrie said, and went about describing the symptoms she’d experienced since her return from Dallas.

“What’s Kyle got to say?”

“He hasn’t said anything yet.”

“But you must have seen him?”

Cathie knew they worked together. “Of course.”

“Does he know?”

“I think he suspects.”

“What are you two going to do if you’re pregnant?” Cathie asked, sounding very much as if she was at her wits’ end.

“I don’t know.” Carrie hadn’t wanted to think about her continuing relationship with Kyle just yet. As sure as the sun shines in August she knew what his reaction to a pregnancy would be. He’d grit his teeth and suggest they marry. Carrie would prefer to raise the child herself than have a martyred husband.

“It could be all this worry’s for nothing,” Cathie murmured on an optimistic note.

“True,” Carrie concurred, but all of a sudden she knew with a certainty she didn’t question that she was carrying Kyle’s baby.

“You can have a blood test done at your local doctor’s office,” Cathie said, “or you can buy a home pregnancy test at the local drugstore.”

“Okay,” Carrie murmured, disheartened.

“What are you going to tell Mom and Dad?”

This was another aspect of the situation Carrie wasn’t prepared to face just yet. “Eventually there won’t be any way to hide it from them, but I’m
certainly not going to mention it until I’m absolutely certain.”

“Don’t tell Dad who—”

Carrie knew what her sister almost said. Their father would raise hell. One thing was certain: Michael Jamison must never learn Kyle was the father of her baby. When and if he discovered the truth, Michael would make all their lives miserable.

Rarely had Kyle been more eager to leave the radio station. He was tired of waiting to hear from Carrie. It was time for a confrontation.

He stopped off at a grocery store on his way, picking up several items he felt she would need and probably hadn’t bought for herself. First he’d cook dinner for her, he decided, and then they’d talk. Seriously talk.

First and foremost he intended to clear up what it was he’d said that had set her off in the first place. He’d tried once to make amends and utterly failed. This time would be different. He promised himself he’d listen more carefully. He’d try harder. Once they had that out of the way, they could face the second major crisis of their relationship: whether Carrie was or wasn’t pregnant.

Carrie answered the door, her eyes widened as if she were surprised to see him. She looked a bit uncertain, which wasn’t like her.

“I know you said you needed time, but I can’t wait any longer,” he said.

It could have been his imagination, but she seemed reluctant to let him inside the house.

“I brought us dinner,” he said, moving into her kitchen and setting two grocery bags on the countertop.

“I ate just a little bit ago.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “I’m not hungry yet myself.” He took the milk and other items that needed to be refrigerated out of the sacks and left the rest on the counter.

When he’d finished he turned to find Carrie standing as far away from him as was possible and still be in the same room. She was wearing cut-off jeans, and the tips of her fingers were inserted into the front pockets. Her hair was up in a high ponytail and she was barefooted. She watched him wearily.

“First off,” he said, “I thought we should talk.”

“What about?”

“Us.” Kyle pulled out an oak chair but didn’t sit. Carrie didn’t seem inclined to do so either. He braced his hands against the back of the chair.

“If you want to discuss us as a team employed by KUTE, I think you should know—”

“No.” Kyle cut her off. She was avoiding the issue, but he wasn’t going to let her. “We’re going to settle whatever it is that’s wrong between the two of us.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “That’s pretty autocratic of you to decide the subject of our discussion without first…Kyle, are you even listening to me?”

Kyle had trouble answering her. Not because he didn’t know what he wanted to say; the words clogged his throat, unable to squeeze past a deep and sudden awareness of her as a woman. The way Carrie had folded her arms pushed up her breasts,
and for the first time he was conscious that she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath her cotton T-shirt.

“Kyle?”

“Sorry.”

Her nipples had hardened, he noted, thrusting themselves forward against the front of her shirt like an open invitation. Kyle didn’t need to be reminded of how they felt, in his hands or against his lips.

“What’s wrong?”

His fingers bit into the wood chair with enough strength to cause his hand to ache. “You aren’t wearing a bra,” he said impatiently.

“What in the name of heaven has that got to do with anything?”

“I can’t carry on a serious conversation if you’re dressed like that.” He motioned with his hand. “For heaven’s sake, go put one on.”

“I most certainly will not. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s miserably hot and I’m not going to put on a bunch of extra clothes because you think women need to wear bras.”

She didn’t understand it wasn’t women in general who plagued him but one particular feisty one. Her. Otherwise he agreed with what she was saying.

“All right,” he said slowly, drawing in a deep breath. “We’ll forget that.”

“Good.” She waited an impatient moment and then continued. “Go on, I’m listening.”

Kyle looked her way, but try as he might he couldn’t make his gaze reach any higher than her breasts. This wasn’t like him. Kyle was a man who liked being in charge, a man in control of his own emotions. There’d been other women in his life, but
none who had affected him physically as deeply or profoundly as Carrie.

All at once, he needed to sit down; otherwise she’d witness the powerful influence she had on him, and he wasn’t keen on having her learn how weak he was when it came to her.

“Sit down,” he said, “and we’ll talk all this out logically.”

“All right.” She made it sound as though it were a major concession. “I imagine you want to discuss what happened in Dallas, and at this point you’re probably terrified of the consequences.”

“That’s not it at all,” he returned heatedly, surprised with the vehemence of his reply. With just about anyone else, he could disguise his irritation; not with her. Carrie had the power to reduce him to a babbling idiot within minutes. “I want to know what I said that you found so insulting.”

Her face tightened. “I believe we’ve already gone over that. Trust me, rehashing your opinion of my morals isn’t going to solve anything.”

Kyle momentarily closed his eyes as the frustration ate at him. “This isn’t going to work.”

“That’s what I said,” she said in heated tones. “Not when we have far more important subjects to discuss.”

“Like what?”

She eyed him as if trying to decide if she should have his IQ tested. “In case you’d forgotten, I could very well be pregnant.”

“We don’t know that yet.” The subject had been keenly on his mind every day since they got back from Dallas, but he wasn’t about to tell her.

“True, I haven’t been tested yet, but—”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, all right?”

“No,” she said, and he noticed how pale she’d gone. “You don’t want to discuss it because you’re worried sick it might be true.”

“We aren’t going to discuss this subject until we know for sure what we’re dealing with. Why get ourselves all upset over nothing?”

“Upset! Who said I was upset?” she cried.

“I know I’m not!” he shouted back.

Carrie blinked at him several times as if he’d taken her by surprise, and after a moment the hint of a smile caused the corners of her mouth to quiver.

“What’s so all-fired funny?” he demanded, then deeply regretted his lack of patience. She was worried sick and all he could do was berate her, shout at her, when he should have been looking for ways to comfort her.

The humor drained from her eyes, and she stood. “Nothing. It’s just that…oh, Kyle, it was sweet of you to bring dinner, but really I won’t be hungry for ages.”

Her words were a dismissal, but Kyle wasn’t going to leave. He moved out of the chair, walked over to where she was standing by the kitchen counter, and took her in his arms. She came without resisting, as if she too had been waiting for this moment, dreading it yet desperately needing him to hold her.

Kyle kissed her lightly, making sure the contact between them was warm and gentle. She didn’t open her lips to him, but then he hadn’t expected that she would.

Not at first.

So he kissed her again and again, lightly, tenderly, on her temple and cheek. He ran his tongue on the underside of her chin and down her throat, marveling at how soft and silky her skin was and at the primal feminine scent of her.

Between kisses he whispered how beautiful she was and with some finagling managed to free her hair so the glorious weight of it spilled into his waiting hands.

After a few moments he felt the tension ease out of her body and she relaxed against him. Taking her by the hand, he walked into the living room, sat on the sofa, and brought her down into his lap.

Kyle wasn’t sure what he intended. One moment they were arguing and the next she was in his arms. It seemed the most appropriate place for her to be. They certainly didn’t have any trouble communicating on the physical level; anything else was a disaster. Kyle figured they could work on the verbal aspects of their relationship later. Just now he had more pressing interests.

He’d been teased and tantalized to the limit of his endurance. No longer. Holding his breath, he slipped his hand beneath her shirt, kneading her breast in a slow, almost hypnotic motion until she sighed and sought his lips.

Kyle gave her his mouth and, using his tongue, gently stroked her own in deeply arousing kisses. Arched as she was against the barrier of the sofa arm, Carrie’s breasts were thrust toward him. He fondled their satin-smooth roundness until her nipples were rigidly extended. Only then did he rasp his
thumb over the apex of her breast and was instantly rewarded by a soft sigh. Instantly the nipple tightened even more and thrust upward.