Vital Signs (16 page)

H
AILEY'S WORLD
was turning bottom side up.

“Then whose baby is it?”

“Michael Bjorn's. The kids' soccer coach.”

Hailey's head was spinning. “Married?”

“Divorced.”

“So…are you in love with him?”

Laura nodded, but she looked miserable.

“Does he know? About the…” Hailey gestured at Laura's flat belly.

“Nope. And I'm not going to tell him.”

Hailey closed her eyes and blew out a breath. “I hate to break this to you, but it's not something you can hide for very long.”

“If he knows it's his, he'll insist I divorce Frank and marry him. I don't know whether I want to be married to anybody. And I don't want to
have
to get married a second time, either. Besides, if Frank finds out this baby isn't his, it'll give him all the ammunition he needs to crucify me in court.”

“Does Michael have kids?”

Laura shook her head. “They couldn't have any. He wanted them.”

So this would be his first. Hailey whistled. “You're in a major mess, big sister.”

“Yup. That's why I don't want Mom to know.” Laura glanced at the clock and covered the lasagna pan with aluminum foil. “I'm also gonna be late. Don't forget to put this in. See you at dinner.”

When she left, Hailey sat for a while, too stunned and weary and overwhelmed to go up to bed. Her world, her life had been predictable for so long—the job she loved at St. Joe's, visits with Ingrid and Sam, much rarer ones with her sister and mother, work on her house.

Now, in the space of a couple of weeks, a bomb had gone off and everything had changed. She'd gone head-to-head with Margaret, she'd found out her sister wasn't at all what she'd believed her to be, and she'd fallen in love, not just with a baby, but also with a man. Most astounding of all, the man actually seemed to have feelings for her, as well. For the time being, at least.

It was too much for her overtaxed brain to process. She got up and, one step at a time, climbed the stairs, stripped off her clothes and fell into bed.

 

S
HE AWOKE
to the telephone ringing. She fumbled for the phone beside the bed.

“It's me,” Laura said. “I'm calling because I won't be coming back for dinner tonight. The kids are having sleepovers with their friends, and, um, I'm…well, I'm with Michael.”

“Okay.” Hailey's groggy brain worked its way slowly around all that.

“You sound half-asleep. Have you put the lasagna in yet?” Trust Laura to remember the lasagna.

The doorbell rang.

“Not yet. I just woke up.”

“Well, you should. It needs to cook for an hour.”

The doorbell rang again, more insistently this time.

“Okay. Look, I have to go. Someone's at the door.”

“I'll see you in the morning, then.”

So Laura was planning a sleepover of her own. Hailey pulled on the gray shorts and blue T-shirt that were flung on the chair and staggered downstairs.

“Did I get the wrong day?” Roy was standing at the door smiling at her. In one hand he held two bottles of wine in a plastic bag and in the other a bouquet of pink roses.

 

R
OY COULD SEE
she'd been asleep. Her cheek was creased from the pillow, and her eyes were still heavy-lidded. Her hair was flat on one side, and she obviously wasn't wearing a bra under her rumpled shirt. Her legs were long and brown and enticing. She looked sexy and disheveled, blinking at him with those sleepy tiger eyes.

“Nope, it's okay. It's the right day. I just… Darn, I fell asleep. What time is it, anyhow?”

“Six. The exact time you said to come for dinner.”

“Oh, yoiks.” She wrinkled her nose and then yawned. “Come on in. Laura and the kids aren't going to be here, and I haven't put the lasagna in the oven yet.” She took the wine when he handed it to her. One bottle was white, the other red. “Could
you put those roses in something and then open one of these and pour yourself a glass while I go to the bathroom?” She handed the wine back to him and pointed. “The glasses are up in that cupboard.”

“Why don't I put the lasagna in, as well?”

“Sarcasm, sir?” She grinned, which was what he'd aimed for.

“No, absolutely not. Would you believe starvation?”

“I should have guessed. In that case, go right ahead, knock yourself out. There's probably an apron in one of those drawers. Oven's supposed to be at 350. Salad greens are washed and in the fridge. Garlic bread just needs heating.”

He did everything, because she was gone a long time. He was setting the table when she came back, and he could see she'd had a shower. Her face was shiny clean and her hair curled in damp red ringlets around her ears.

“Sorry I was so long. I called St. Joe's to find out how David is.”

“And?”

“He's feeling better. He's asleep. His— Shannon is still there. She's staying the night.”

“For his sake, that's a good thing.”

She nodded, but he could see how much the situation troubled her.

“You look wonderful.”

“Thank you.” She'd put on a loose green summer dress that left her arms and shoulders bare and stopped well above her knees. She hadn't bothered
with shoes, and he was pretty certain she wasn't wearing a bra, which he thought was a great idea.

“You're really good.” She looked around, taking in the lasagna in the oven, the salad on the counter, the two wineglasses he'd filled. He'd stuck the roses in an empty glass jar from the top of her cupboard and placed them in the middle of the table, along with a candle he'd found on the windowsill.

“I've flipped through a couple of women's magazines in my time. I know how these things go.” He handed her a glass of red wine.

She sipped and made an appreciative sound in her throat. “That lasagna won't be done for an hour.” Was that a seductive look she was giving him, or was he hallucinating? “What should we do in the meantime?”

He knew what he wanted to do. “We could work on the bathroom.” And that wasn't it.

“I thought of that, but I don't feel like it.”

What he did feel like doing wasn't something he wanted to verbalize.
Show, don't tell, Zedyck.
Reaching out, he took the wineglass from her and set it on the counter. The easy way she came into his arms told him that their minds just might be on the same wavelength.

She tasted of wine and toothpaste. The sound she made in her throat was of pleasure and greed, and when he deepened the kiss, she pressed herself against him, from breasts to eager hips. The blood left his head and pooled in his groin in a flood of wanting.

“I like how you kiss.” This time she was the one
who tilted her head, found his lips, traced them with her tongue. “Do it some more.”

“I need to touch you.” He had to feel her skin, hot and bare against his hands, or die. He gripped and lifted the hem of the short dress, moving his palms slowly up the back of her thighs. Delicious surprise made him pause an instant and catch his breath when he realized she wasn't wearing panties. Her rounded bottom was firm and silky bare against his hands.

The implicit invitation sent a sexual rush through him, and the way her body trembled made him want to take her right then and there, on the kitchen counter, on the floor, on the table.

“Hailey, I want you.”

“I want you, too.” Her voice was shaking. “Right now. Let's go upstairs.”

“Can't wait that long.” Much closer was the couch in the living room. Or the rug. Or the tile on the hall floor—he was beyond caring.

Holding her against him, kissing her every step of the way, he walked her backward through the hall, and when the backs of her knees hit the sofa, she tumbled down, taking him with her.

The dress slid off over her head, and there was enough light to see that her breasts were perfect, small, rounded, pink-tipped. Her body was long, golden, inviting, and she was shivering. The temperature had to be in the high eighties, so it wasn't ego that made him think she was as hungry for him as he was for her.

She looked at him and whispered, “Take your clothes off. Hurry.”

It took all of ten seconds for him to get naked, grateful for the condoms he'd optimistically slid into his pants pocket.

He kissed her, greedy for mouth and breasts, throat and earlobes, belly and beyond—every part of her his lips could reach. They were too tall for the sofa, so he maneuvered them down to the rug, dragging along the cushions to pillow their heads.

The phone rang, and they both ignored it.

He told himself to go slowly, but the way she moved and moaned when he kissed and stroked her drove him way beyond slowing down.

She arched against him, and his fingers slipped into liquid, throbbing heat. And she climaxed like that, so quick and hard he couldn't restrain himself any longer.

“Hailey. God, you're so hot.” He wound his fingers into her hair and slid into her, and the convulsions that rocked her seconds before began all over again, only this time he was right there with her.

 

T
HE CARPET WAS ROUGH
against her back, but she didn't care. She didn't care about a darned thing, and it was the best feeling in the world.

Stretching, she drew the musky, delicious smell of their lovemaking deep into her lungs, then snuggled more deeply into Roy's arms. Her head was on his shoulder, their legs intertwined.

He had great shoulders. He had great everything. She loved the hair on his chest, the roughness of his
beard scraping against her in places where her skin was soft. Her body was limp and warm, and sensitive nerves were still sending aftershocks of pleasure shooting through her.

This wasn't love, she tried to tell herself.

“It's just endorphins,” she said aloud.

“Endorphins, huh?” His voice was thick and sleepy and unbearably sexy.

“This fantastic feeling after sex—it's just the endorphins in your bloodstream.” Not that she believed it, of course.

“Hardly the most romantic explanation I ever heard.”

She could tell by his voice that he was smiling. She wondered how long he'd go on smiling if she told him the truth about what she was feeling. From everything she'd read, and what she'd heard from the women she worked with, guys got really nervous when a woman said the L-word after sex.

He sniffed and sniffed again. “What's that smell?”

“That's just us. It's— Omigod, it's not. It's the lasagna. If I let that burn, Laura's gonna kill me. She made the whole thing from scratch.” Hailey struggled out of his embrace, clambered to her feet and hurried to the kitchen. She grabbed pot holders from the drawer, then opened the oven door too fast and swore creatively as heat scorched tender parts of her anatomy.

“That's a great word. Seems to me we used it differently a few minutes ago.” He was right behind her. “Is it burned?”

“It may not be, but I am. Maybe it just spilled over, and that's what's burning. I hope so, anyhow.” She lifted the pan out with great care, holding it far away from her naked body as she settled it on a hot pad on the counter.

She turned and looked at him, and started to giggle.

“You haven't got a stitch of clothes on.” All of him was spectacular, but she particularly liked his bum. Nurses saw lots of bums, so she had ample grounds for comparison.

“Neither have you.” He was giving her a heavy-lidded look that made her doubly conscious of being buck naked.

“Are you hungry?” The way to a man's heart, et cetera, she thought. “I'm famished.” Her stomach rumbled as if to prove the point.

“I'm always hungry.” But the look he was giving her suggested that it might not be for food.

“Okay, let's put some clothes on and we can—”

“Uh-uh.” He put a hand on her arm and she stood still.

“No? No what?” Her heart sank. He looked serious.

Picking up one of the wineglasses, he used two fingers to smear red wine on her nipples. She stopped breathing.

Then he leaned closer, not touching her with anything but his tongue, and licked it off.

It was the most imaginative thing anyone had ever done to her, and she could see it excited him as
much as it did her. There were advantages to being naked.

He must have thought so, too, because he said, “You're beautiful the way you are. Don't put any clothes on.”

She digested that. “You mean…you mean you want us to eat lasagna in our birthday suits?”

“Yup.” His eyes were challenging. “Dare you.”

She thought it over for a moment. There were curtains on all the windows. Nobody was likely to come to the door. What the heck—how many chances had she ever had to be kinky?

“Okay.” She found the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. She was going to need all the false courage she could swallow to carry through with this, but it would sure give her something to remember.

The phone rang, and she ignored it. The machine could take the message.

With extreme caution, she loaded their plates with lasagna and salad, and they sat down. She was very glad she'd made soft cushions for the wooden chairs. She was glad, too, of the generous tablecloth. All that showed when she was sitting were her shoulders and her breasts. Which was bad enough, because in terms of size, they weren't anything to write home about. At least there wasn't enough of them to droop onto her plate.

The thought of her nipples resting in the lasagna made her laugh, and although he didn't know what it was about, he laughed, too. Or maybe he did
know; she was beginning to realize that Roy Zedyck had depths to him you'd never suspect.

He'd had his way with the clothes thing. She'd go for the head trip.

“How come you're still single, Roy? It's obvious you really like kids.”
And you're gorgeous to look at and have a repertoire in bed that any sex-minded woman would love to come home to.