Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet (24 page)

Even under normal circumstance, he couldn’t get enough of Leila. While she was carrying his child, however, he was like some sort of ever-horny teenager. He wasn't sure what that said about him.

His body took interest even now, as she approached him in the study, wearing a stretchy top that didn’t quite meet the waistline of her jeans because of the wide curve of her belly. Her hair was loose, and she was grinning at him. "Good. You've been working way too long."

“Did you have something else in mind for us to do?” he asked, surprised when his voice sounded so thick.

Leila’s eyes widened behind her glasses. She knew very well how to recognize that particular tone. “Right now?” she asked, her cheeks flushing in a way he found absolutely mesmerizing.

“Why not?” He leaned back in his chair and hoped she was feeling well enough to consider it. He didn't like to pressure her, but it had been almost three weeks.

“Well, I think I'm finally recovered from the end of the semester,” she said, a naughty smile tilting up the corners of her mouth. "So maybe I'll be up for it."

Baron stood up, wasting no time. “I’ll tell the girls not to bother us and then meet you up in the room.”

Leila giggled irrepressibly as she walked into the hallway with him. Whether she was laughing in excitement over their impending lovemaking or laughing at him for being so obviously eager, Baron wasn’t sure.

He decided it really didn’t matter.

He went to find the girls and told them that he and Mommy were going to take a nap so they shouldn’t be disturbed unless it was an absolute emergency. The girls, who were deep in a plot to invade the castle, told him they were very busy and they shouldn’t be disturbed either.

Then he went to the master bedroom and started to take off his shoes and socks, while Leila was in the bathroom. After a minute, Baron started to worry that she wasn't feeling up to it after all, but then she came out wearing a purple, high-waisted chemise with her hair falling down around her shoulders.

At the first sight of her so lush and sensual, his body leapt into an almost painful arousal.

Whatever control he used to have over his body's responses now seemed to have deserted him completely.

“It was the best I could do,” Leila said sheepishly, looking down at her enormous belly beneath the silk. “Is it too bad?”

“Too bad?” Baron managed to choke, his body tight and his pulse now pounding in his ears and his groin.

Leila looked at him closely, her green eyes soft as they scanned him from his hair to his bare feet. Then her eyes widened. “Are you already turned on? How did that happen?”

She looked absolutely delighted by his response to her. Baron might have been a little delighted too.

***

Afterwards, they lay together in bed, Baron spooning Leila from behind and stroking her belly gently. He felt warm, sated, and content. There had been a little awkwardness in finding a comfortable position for Leila, but otherwise they both had a very satisfying interlude.

She felt soft and substantial in his arms, and she smelled and felt like home for him. He still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around how the universe had allowed him to have someone like her. And that she actually loved him.

“That was better than I expected,” she said, turning her head back to kiss the side of his mouth. “Of course, my expectations were very low.”

Baron chuckled at what he knew to be her teasing. “You were making a lot of enthusiastic noises for someone who barely reached low expectations.”

“Oh, did you think those were sounds of pleasure? Sorry to disappoint you, but I was just practicing breathing techniques for childbirth to kill the time until you finally came.”

His chuckle transformed into a real laugh. He kissed her hair, her temple, her cheekbone. “I love you so much.”

She made a husky sigh of obvious satisfaction. “Me too.”

His hand kept stroking the roundness of her stomach. The feel of his baby in the curve of her stomach roused an intensely primitive instinct that had lain dormant inside him for a really long time.

He still wondered if he would be a good father to his son.

“You okay?” Leila asked softly after a minute. She must have read the resonance of his silence.

“Yeah.” He kissed her hair again.

“You’re going to be a great father to him. You know that, don’t you?”

“I hope so.”

“Well, I have enough faith in you for both of us.” She grabbed one of his hands and brought it up to press a kiss into the palm.

The gesture touched him more than it should have, and he couldn’t help but tighten his arms around her. “You always have.”

***

That evening, they were all sitting on a sofa near the fire. Charlotte and Jane were taking turns reading aloud a new book about castles—a higher-level book than the one he’d gotten them last year but with equally beautiful pictures.

Leila had started the girls on reading early, and she’d spent a lot of time helping to develop their skills. Baron couldn’t help but feel a silly thrill of pride that his girls were so advanced for their age.

As they read, Baron found himself looking over the picture they made piled on the couch together. Leila had on sweats and a t-shirt and her hair was pulled sloppily into a ponytail. The girls had on their pajamas—Charlotte’s hiked up on one leg. Jane’s face was still tear-streaked from crying after she’d fallen and bruised her knee on the hardwood floors after dinner. Baron had a spot on his shirt from where Charlotte had accidentally spilled her lemonade earlier that evening, and he wasn’t wearing shoes.

It occurred to Baron then that something had happened to him over the last year. Something fundamental and irrevocable. It wasn’t just falling in love with Leila and the girls. And it wasn’t just realizing that they actually loved him back. It wasn’t just walking away from impossible family pressures, living and dead. And it wasn’t just being so close to having a son of his own.

It was more. It was family. It was what he’d always wanted.

His father had been right all those years ago. Baron couldn’t have everything.

But he could have
this
.

If you enjoyed Revival, you might enjoy A Baby for Easter by the same author.

“What do you mean, she’s
yours
?”

“I mean she might be my daughter.”  Micah still looked almost frozen, as if he hadn’t fully taken in what was happening.

Alice shifted the baby from one shoulder to the other, jostling her slightly as she continued to whimper. “But how…where did she come from?”

“Her mom died in a car accident last week, and her grandparents just showed up and said she’s mine.”

“So they’re taking care of her? They just want you to…to know her?”

He shook his head, his eyes fixed on the baby’s profile. “They said they can’t raise her full time.”

Alice swallowed, trying to understand this, trying to get her mind to work. She felt as stunned and paralyzed as Micah looked. “They don’t want her?”

He shook his head. “I think they do, but they’re not in great health and they don’t think they can anymore. They said I’m the father.”

They stared at each other for a minute, and Alice felt strangely like they completely understood each other, in a way they hadn’t since they’d been working at the summer camp.

“What am I going to do?” Micah breathed at last.

“I don’t know.” She shook her head to in an attempt to clear her mind. “I guess you need to figure out if she’s really yours and if her grandparents are serious.” She glanced down at the baby, who was making soft little gurgles. “Poor little thing. What’s her name?”

“Cara.”

Cara lifted her head and peered at Alice’s face inquisitively. Alice couldn’t help but smile at the round blue eyes.

“Those do look like your eyes,” she murmured.

“I know.” Micah’s tone was subdued, slightly stretched.

He was a single guy who hadn’t spent a lot of time around babies. Having one thrust on him was probably the last thing in the world he wanted or expected.

“Okay,” Alice said, “I can watch her, if you want, while you go and try to figure out some answers. Why do they assume you’re the father? Where did her grandparents go?”

“They were going to the hospital for some sort of procedure. I guess I should have gotten more…I was so stunned I just…”

Alice felt an intense wave of sympathy for Micah, who really looked like he might just fall over under the weight of this development. “I’ll watch her so you can do what you need to do.”

“Are you sure?” He rubbed his jaw, which was slightly scratchy from half a day’s stubble. “I know you have to work—“

“No, it’s fine. I’m finished here for the day, and I don’t have any hours in the library today. I might just take her home.” She faltered, thinking about how her mother would hover, asking questions, if she showed up at the house with a baby in tow. “Or…”

“You can take her to my place,” he said, obviously seeing her hesitance. “If that’s okay with you. It might be easier.”

“Yeah. Good.” She went to put Cara back in her carrier. “You’re in that house on Plymouth Street now?”

Micah was always in the process of flipping a house. He bought a rundown property, moved in, and worked on it in his spare time. When it was fixed up, he sold it—for a huge profit, since real estate was a hot commodity in the picturesque mountain town—and bought another property to do it again.

“Yeah,” he said. “The one on the corner with the oak tree in the yard.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. As he spun one off, he added, “Here. Are you sure you don’t mind? I know I just kind of dumped this on—“

“It’s fine,” she assured him, pocketing the key and then strapping Cara in the carrier. “It’s really fine. I like babies.” She smiled at Micah’s anxious look. “I’m serious. It’s really fine.”

This evidently reassured him because he picked up the carrier as Alice went to get her purse and shut down her computer.

They left the church and headed to Alice’s car.

“Oh,” she said, as she opened her backseat. “We might have a problem.”

Micah just stared at her.

“They didn’t give you a base to the car seat, did they?”

“No. They just gave me the bag and that.” He gestured to the carrier. “I guess we need a car seat.”

“I think that is the car seat, but I thought they latched into some sort of base.” Alice tried to remember the last time she’d seen an infant in a car seat, and she couldn’t even remember. “Maybe it hooks with the seatbelt.”

“The seatbelt would hook to this thing? What would it hook to?” He peered at the carrier but obviously didn’t know what he was looking for.

“How did you get her over here?” She suddenly had a vision of his putting the Cara in the bed of his pickup with his tools.

“I just set it on the floor of the passenger seat.” His face twisted in guilt. “Shit, I’m terrible at this.” Then he gave a start. “Sorry.”

She shook her head to dismiss his concern about his language. “Okay, let’s see if we can strap it into the backseat.” She lifted up the fabric lining the bottom of the carrier and perked up. “It’s got these grooves here, so maybe the seatbelt is supposed to go through here.”

So they put the carrier into the backseat and both leaned over to try to hook it in.

They tried several different belt positions, but couldn’t seem to make it work in a way that made the seat feel secure.

When they kept bumping heads in the small space, Alice went around to the other side to give them both more room to work.

The whole time, Cara just stared at them alternately with big blue eyes, clearly mesmerized by all the activity.

Alice was getting more and more frustrated with their inability to figure out the car seat. Plus, she was getting hot in the stuffy back of the car.

“We already tried it that way,” she said, when Micah tried to belt the carrier in a familiar configuration.

“Well, how is it supposed to go? Don’t you know how to work these things?”

“Why would I know? I’ve never had a baby.
You’re
supposed to be the one who’s mechanically inclined. Why can’t you figure it out?”

“I sure wouldn’t have designed this ridiculous contraption in a way that’s impossible to attach.”

“Oh wait,” she said, remembering something she should have recalled earlier. “I think it’s supposed to face the other way.”

“That can’t be right,” Micah said, turning the carrier as she’d indicated. He was leaning over, and he looked just as hot and frustrated as she felt. “Why would they make the poor babies look at nothing but the back of the seat?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s safer or something. Let’s just try it. Maybe the belt goes through like this.”

Micah fed the belt through the loops, and the buckle got stuck at one point. “Shit,” he muttered, trying to free the belt. “Shit.” Then he glanced up at her. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep saying sorry,” she said, slightly snippy. “I’ve heard worse, you know.”

“I know you have.” He sounded just as bad-tempered as her. “But do you really think I should be teaching her bad language?”

“She can’t even talk yet.”

“Well, she can hear.”

“Fine,” Alice grumbled, tilting the carrier slightly to make room for Micah’s run of the belt. “Try to watch your language then.”

He gave her a cool glare, but it changed when Alice was able to snap the seatbelt closed.

They both tested the carrier to make sure it was stable, but they couldn’t get it to move more than a few inches, no matter how they tugged on it, so they assumed it would do for the short ride to Micah’s house.

Alice sighed in relief as she finally climbed out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side.

Micah was leaning against the car, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked exhausted, defeated somehow.

Despite her annoyance just the moment before, she felt another pull of sympathy. She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Is it?” he asked, opening his eyes and meeting hers.

“Yeah. We’ll figure this out. We don’t know anything yet.”

“But what if she’s mine? What if her grandparents really don’t want her? What if I’m the only parent she has? I can’t even manage to get her strapped into the car.”

***

You can find more information about A Baby for Easter
here
.