That's Our Baby!

A flutter of cream-colored lace snagged his wristwatch, and he paused to disentangle it. The lace edged the sleeve of a silky scoop-necked gown. It was lined in flannel and buttoned up the front, not quite granny-style but almost. Granny or not, he had a vision of Kerry wearing it. She’d look ethereal and graceful, the lace trailing along those dainty hands, the scooped neck revealing a bit of cleavage. No, a lot of cleavage. Kerry was well endowed. He’d never really noticed that about her before.

The back door catapulted open, and Kerry rode in on a wedge of snowflakes. Guiltily he dropped the sleeve of her nightgown and hoped she wouldn’t notice.

“Whew! I don’t think the weather’s anywhere near letting up!” she said, seemingly in better humor than when she’d left. She doffed the shawl and draped it over a chair near the stove to dry.

“You shouldn’t have gone out in the storm.”

She spared him a hard look. “A human body has certain needs. It was necessary.”

He realized that if he hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t needed privacy, she would have taken care of those needs inside. He knew for a fact that there was an ancient chamber pot stored under the eaves upstairs.

“If it’s still storming next time you go to the shed, let me know. I’ll go with you and wait outside. You shouldn’t go out alone.”

“I’ve been going to the shed alone for the past three months and have never had a problem. I think I can still manage it for the next couple of days.” She took in the neat kitchen. “Thanks for cleaning up,” she murmured grudgingly.

“No thanks are necessary,” he said. She’d tucked the light sweater she wore into her jeans, and her breasts strained against the fuzzy fabric. The color was a luscious cherry red, and he found himself studying the curves of her breasts in expectance of seeing the outline of a nipple. He thought he detected a puckering of the fabric, and his unbidden thought was of Kerry’s nipples erect from the cold, shifting tantalizingly against the soft knit.

The thought made him swallow hard past the lump in his throat, and he clamped his lips tight against the wave of desire that swept over him. Which only reminded him that yes, he did have lips, and that so did she, and that they were exactly the same shade of red as her sweater, and that it would be oh so easy to kiss her and let his lips follow the sweet line of her neck all the way down to the swelling of her breast.

This was going much too far. “I’d better check the shed and see what tools we have,” he said, his tone intentionally brusque. He grabbed his parka and pushed past her toward the door.

As he braved the icy barrage that greeted him in the breezeway, he found himself wishing again that he’d accepted his friends’ invitation and hightailed it for Key West last week. He could sure use a margarita right about now.

WHEN SAM WALKED BACK in the cabin ten minutes later lugging a two-by-four and Doug’s old toolbox, he startled Kerry so much that she spilled hot chocolate all over the countertop in the kitchen.

Sam dropped the lumber and the toolbox and grabbed a roll of paper towels. “You didn’t burn yourself, did you?”

“No,” she said, tearing off a wad of towels and blotting at the dark-brown liquid inching across the counter and dripping down the front of the cabinets. “I can’t do anything right lately. Not even make hot chocolate from a mix,” she said.

He spared her a glance. “Maybe you’d better leave cooking chores to me until you can manage with your finger a little better.”

“I feel like such a doofus,” she said unhappily.

He ignored this. “There are spatters on your sweater,” he pointed out.

She looked down at the brown blotches spread across her midsection. “I’ll go change,” she said, reaching behind her with both hands and fumbling awkwardly with several tiny buttons at the neck. She muttered impatiently and turned her back toward him. “Would you mind?” she said.

She lifted her hair out of the way, exposing the pale skin at the nape of her neck, and, acting as if he did this all the time, Sam reached up and unbuttoned the buttons one by one. His fingers grazed her soft flesh, and he thought he felt a shudder run through her. Or maybe she was only shivering. The cabin was well-chinked, but all this going in and out of doors had lowered the air temperature in the cabin considerably.

Well, it was time to change the focus here. He was getting much too rattled over this. Over her.

“Do you mind if I build a fire in the fireplace?” he said.

She didn’t speak, only shook her head, fluttering into motion the loose tendrils wisping around her neck. Sam found himself wanting to push her hands away so that the weight of her hair would swing across her shoulders, brushing against his hands, tangling in his fingers. It shone in the dim lamplight, a marvelous wealth of hair. Her ear peeped through the edges of it, and he wanted nothing so much in that moment as to nibble on the lobe and keep going until he came across something more substantial and equally delectable.

As soon as he finished with the buttons, she said, “Thanks,” her voice murmuring so softly that he could hardly hear her.

“Be careful climbing the ladder,” he said, deliberately trying not to stare at her breasts.

“I guess I do seem accident-prone,” she replied with a rueful laugh, but he noticed she didn’t look at him as she took off lickety-split for the ladder.

The boards above his head creaked as Kerry moved around the loft, and Sam imagined her there, lifting the lid of the big old trunk nestled close to the eaves, tugging the sweater over her head to reveal a lacy bra. But maybe Kerry didn’t go in for lacy underwear. Maybe she wore plain white cotton. Or maybe she didn’t wear any.

When Kerry came back down again she had donned a somewhat less provocative plaid flannel shirt of Doug’s, and Sam was sitting on the raised stone hearth and building a fire in the fireplace.

“Is the finger feeling any better?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral.

“I’m not sure. Maybe I’m getting used to it,” she said.

She walked to the sink and dipped water from the barrel into a large chipped enamel dishpan. He watched her as she dumped detergent into the water and began to swish the red sweater around in the suds.

“I would have done that if you’d asked me,” he said, fanning the growing flames.

Her expression was skeptical. “It never occurred to me to suggest it,” she said. She poked at the sweater; he jabbed at the fire. When he’d revved the flames to his satisfaction, he noticed that Kerry was having a hard time rinsing and wringing as she tried to spare her bum finger.

“Here,” he said, rising to his feet. “If you absolutely must do that, I’d better help.”

She didn’t move when he approached, just stood there ineptly stirring the sweater around in a few inches of water. Her bottom lip was held firmly between her teeth, and he thought that she looked as if she were going to cry.

He couldn’t stand it. Kerry was supposed to be all bite and fizz, not soft and squishy and the kind of woman who would cry, for Pete’s sake. Her present state was so different from her usual persona that he felt at a loss to deal with her.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d deal with her the same way he always had when he felt threatened by her. He had to get her back up, had to rile her.

“Look at your bandage,” he said. “You’ve gotten it all wet.”

“Yeah, but I know where I can get another one.” She moved sideways, and he took over.

“If you’re lucky. Say, was it absolutely necessary to do this tonight?” he said.

“It’s a new sweater. I’ve only worn it a few times.” While he wrung it out, Kerry produced a clean towel and silently accepted the dripping bundle from him, rolling it awkwardly into the terry cloth.

Impatient with her, with her failure to lash out at him, Sam said, “Give it to me.” He blotted at the sweater, then unrolled the towel. “Dry enough?”

“Sure. Here, you can spread it on this paper on the table.” He did, and edging past him in the narrow space, she moved in to shape the sweater into its proper form.

“All right, looks like I’d better rebind those fingers, only don’t think you can get away with this too many times,” Sam said when she had finished.

“So what else is there to do besides this?” Kerry affected a bored tone of voice and presented her fingers as he unrolled lengths of gauze.

“I don’t know. Play tiddledywinks. Engage in intelligent conversation. Reminisce.” He bent close. Her hair smelled fragrant and outdoorsy, redolent of balsam and pine. He wondered what she used to wash it up here at the cabin. Rainwater perhaps.

“Reminisce,” Kerry echoed, clearly taken aback. “Just what would you and I reminisce about?”

“Old times. Good times.”

“If we’d had any, that is. Ouch, you’re winding that too tightly.”

He released some of the pressure. “Reminisce—that’s what Doug and I used to do here at the cabin. We’d fry us a panful of salmon, kick back and examine our experiences in the clear light of reason.”