All That Matters (9 page)

Did she dare open her eyes? What was he doing? It was one thing to be her caregiver for the moment, but this was more care than she’d expected. They were friends, not lovers.

Curiosity won, and she peeked through half-opened eyelids.
 
Nausea was
not
what made her stomach lurch right then. Not what accelerated her heartbeat, either.

Buddy Lee’s hand cupped her chin while he stroked her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. Nothing short of a national emergency could have made her pull away. Frozen in place by the dark intensity of his gaze and the sheer sensual delight of his thumb rubbing her lip, Faith knew there was something going on here that definitely surpassed friendship.

Oh, my! Had he always looked so intriguing? His lean, hard-muscled body did wonderful things to those leg-hugging, bun-defining jeans he’d changed into. Disturbingly dark eyes shot sparks of excitement she’d never noticed before. An aura of subtle temptation radiated around him, captivating her.

She wanted to speak, but her words stopped just short of popping out of her mouth when he leaned over to press a feather-light kiss where his thumb had been.

“I’ve ordered something from room service. Just some soup.”
 
His raspy voice skimmed over the surface of her skin. “You need special attention, Faith. Let me take care of you.”

She clung to the side of the bed to keep from dissolving into a puddle of adoration for this man and his tenderness.
 
Darn it. That was all it took to convince her that this was turning out to be a whole lot more than she’d bargained for. Why hadn’t she ever noticed his feelings before? Now it was too late to acknowledge them. Her plans for the future didn’t include a permanent husband. But how was she going to explain that without hurting him?

“Maybe we’d better wait until later to talk about stuff,” he said, moving away from the bed to stand by the window.

“Stuff?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and turned to her. “Look, Faith, we can’t keep ignoring the situation. When we get back home, people will have questions. Lots of them, I imagine. I don’t have any answers. We need to get our stories straight.”

She sat up in bed, and he was relieved to see color back in her cheeks. In fact, she was glowing—as in sunburned.
 
Well, what next? He didn’t even want to guess.

“Everyone knows we were friends in school. We’ll just let them think we were seeing each other in Granite City,” she said.

“Doesn’t say much for your relationship with Royce the past year.
 
Makes it look like you were two-timing him.”
And makes me look pretty damn sleazy.

Faith sighed. “I know it’s awful, but if we say it happened three months ago, Royce and I weren’t engaged then. Most people in town still consider me irresponsible anyway.”

“Yeah, and guess what they think of me,” he muttered. “Boyd’s boy making trouble, just like his old man.”

“You didn’t make the trouble, Buddy Lee. I did.”

She eased her legs over the side of the bed and slowly made her way across the room. The flimsy blue thing she wore just about covered her fanny. Aw, man, what was she trying to do to him? He turned to face the window before he gave in and kissed her again.

Behind him, she slipped her arm around his waist and his whole body stiffened. If she didn’t knock that off, there was going to be more than
trouble
made. Right here, right now.

He swiveled, scooped her up and carried her back to the bed.
 
That tantalizing, king-sized, made-for-
lovin
’ waterbed.

“
Wha
....” Faith sputtered.

“Don’t start, Faith Nicole. I mean it.” He sat right down next to her and captured both her hands in his. “We’re gonna talk. Now. We’ve been married since yesterday, and nothing’s settled yet. You have to quit pretending. This is real life and, like it or not, we’ve got a
helluva
mess going here.” He shook his head.
 
"I don’t even know why I let you talk me into coming down here. We should be back home, finding you a doctor and dealing with your parents. Instead, here we are in who-knows-where-the-hell Mexico, and you’ve got morning sickness in the afternoon, not to mention a deluxe sunburn that needs attention.”

He brought her fingertips to his lips, kissed them one by one. “
Darlin
’, what am I gonna do with you?”

Unfortunately, what he
wanted
to do with her wasn’t even an option, he thought, and went to answer the knock on the door.

“Couldn’t we eat on the balcony?” Faith asked after the waiter had brought their dinner tray into the room. “I feel much better now. Honest.” The sunset was spectacular, and she didn’t want to miss a single minute of it.

The cautious look in Buddy Lee’s eyes filled her with remorse. She didn’t blame him for not trusting her. All she wanted to do was have these few days to pretend she’d done something right, something normal like everyone else. So far, he was the only normality in her life.

She knew he’d agreed to this unconventional situation only because of the kind of man he was—decent and caring. There wasn’t another person in the whole town of Liberty who would’ve put her welfare above his own. Not one. She squeezed back the hot tears blurring her vision.
Some day
, she’d make it up to him.
 
Prove to him just how grateful she was.

“Just look out there, Buddy Lee.” She pointed to the view from the patio door. “Aren’t those colors gorgeous?”

“Yeah, they are, but we’ve got sunsets back home,” he said as he carried their dinner tray out to the glass-topped table on the tiny patio. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to sitting out here?”

“Absolutely,” she assured him, hurrying to follow. “The fresh air will be good for me.” Ignoring the slight tilt of her stomach when she moved too quickly was easier than ignoring the note of resignation in Buddy Lee’s voice. She took a deep breath and eased into the nearest chair.

He set a bowl of steaming tortilla soup in front of her and tucked a bright yellow linen napkin across her lap. “No sense messing up that fancy thing you’re wearing,” he mumbled.

The robe she wore matched her blue sheer
nightie
but even though it was calf-length, she knew it didn’t do much to protect her from his intense scrutiny. She wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking when she’d purchased it. Had she still been pretending about having a real-life honeymoon? And had it really only been a few hours since she’d dashed through the mall to buy clothes for her temporary escape to Mexico?

Reflecting on her actions made her wonder if she was mature enough to be a parent. Sometimes she felt like a child who’d never grown up. Did Buddy Lee see her that way? Probably.
He’s certainly seen me at my worst, hasn’t he?
she thought, remembering how he never even flinched when he’d held her head through that awful episode in the bathroom.. Maybe he was more qualified to be a parent than she was.

“Something wrong?”

He looked up from his soup, careful to place his spoon on the plate and not on the tablecloth.

“This stuff’s got quite a South-of-the-Border kick. Is it too spicy for your stomach?” he asked. “I should’ve remembered where we are and requested something milder, like chicken noodle.”

“I’ll be fine. And thank you for thinking to order room service. I love sitting out here, looking at the beautiful view.” She leaned back in her chair. “Isn’t it magical? Like a fairy tale.”

He couldn’t stop the way his heart softened when she talked like that. When they were younger, there’d been a part of her that longed for a magic carpet ride to paradise. She’d hated the restrictive, small-town lifestyle and her parents’ rigid expectations. How he wished he could be her Aladdin with a fancy flying rug to take her away.

He never quite understood her discontent, since a stable family life was all he’d ever wanted. Still, he’d always admired her determination to champion those less fortunate. It was just one of her endearing traits.

“You really like it here, don’t you?” He watched her face light up like the neon time-and-temperature sign in front of her daddy’s bank.

“I do. It’s so beautiful here. I wish we could stay longer.”

The wistful yearning in her voice hit him like a fist, and it took all the self-restraint he could muster to keep from whisking her back to that big ol’ waterbed in yonder to love her thoroughly and completely until she loved him back.
Walker, you are one messed up man.

“We have to go back on Monday,” he reminded her, though staying here with her was enough to tempt a saint—which he wasn’t. “And first thing we’re gonna do is make an appointment for you with a doctor. I want to take care of you and the baby, Faith, and I aim to do it right.”

She smiled that soft smile again. “We’ll have to find someone in Granite City who doesn’t know me, or else everyone will find out the baby’s real due date. I’ll go into the city when we get back, I promise.”

Granite City was almost as large as Austin, so finding a competent doctor should be easy. There were plenty of shopping malls, too. “We’ll have to buy baby stuff, won’t we?” The monumental to-do list spinning in his head was mind-boggling. “I don’t know what you need for that, but I’ll get whatever you have to have.”

Lord, he hoped it didn’t cost a fortune. Of course, if push came to shove, he could always sell the Mustang, but that thought purely tore his insides to pieces.

The classic car was his pride and joy, the only thing of value he’d ever owned in his life. He’d poured hours of hard work into restoring it to its original beauty. It was the one accomplishment he’d achieved that was worth anything. The one thing that made him proud. Selling it would certainly put an end to his financial squeeze, but he’d rather lose an arm than lose his Mustang. But if he had to, he’d choose Faith over all of it.

“We won’t need any baby things for quite a while. And I can take care of buying those,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I do worry. What are we gonna tell people when the baby doesn’t arrive when it’s supposed to? Everyone will start counting and know we lied. You know how folks are.”

“I’ll think of something before that happens,” Faith said.
 
“I promise.”

Why didn’t that promise make him feel better?

B
uddy Lee finished his soup and pushed back from the table.
 
“I’d better call Scooter. I promised I’d check in with him. You just sit here and relax. Or would you rather go back to bed?”

“I’ll be fine right here.”

She waved him off, and he wondered if mentioning the bed bothered her as much as it did him. Not likely. Her hormones probably weren’t as riled up as his were. He strode off to find the telephone, swearing darkly as he passed the tempting
jacuzzi
and damned waterbed. The whole set-up must’ve been designed especially to test his self-control.

Stabbing in the numbers of Scooter’s home phone, he waited impatiently for his friend to answer. After several unsuccessful attempts, he slammed the receiver in frustration. Where the heck was the man? Had something gone wrong at the shop? Scooter never went out on Saturday nights, and the gas station closed at six, so he should’ve been home.

Worry nipped at Buddy Lee as he strode back to the patio, carefully avoiding the room’s tempting furnishings. Damn, he hated being so far away from work. Now he knew why he’d never taken a vacation before. He liked being in control of his own life.

Coming to a halt behind Faith’s chair, he stared at the top of her head, her cinnamon curls all tousled and tempting, and stifled the urge to bury his hands deep in those silken tresses.
 
Right then, he knew his life was no longer his own to control.

Faith stirred in her chair but kept her eyes closed. She’d heard Buddy Lee
gallumping
around in the other room, swearing at the phone and guessed his impatience was caused by Scooter not being available. He was being his usual worry-wart self.

When she heard him stop behind her chair, her pulse skittered. For reasons she had yet to understand, this had begun to happen more often than not whenever he got too close. If she’d wanted to, she would’ve taken time to examine the situation and determine just what was going on with her nervous system. However, it seemed safer right then to count it as part of her condition. Maybe later she’d work on figuring it out.

When she felt the warmth of his hands on her shoulders, skittering didn’t begin to describe the way her pulse danced.

“Did you talk with Scooter?” She knew darn well he hadn’t, but couldn’t let him know she’d been listening.

He came around and stood where she could see him. “Nope.
 
Guess he was out. I’ll try again later.”

“Then let’s take a walk on the beach,” Faith said. “I think a little exercise before bedtime would help me sleep.”

“Are you sure you feel like it? You were pretty wobbly there for a while.” A frown of concern wrinkled his brow.

“Oh, Buddy Lee, don’t be such a mother hen. I feel better now, and it’s such a beautiful evening. We might even see those two moons this place is famous for. Let’s enjoy it while we can.” She rose from her chair headed inside. “Give me a minute to change my clothes.”