Then rubbing a hand over his mouth and the scrub of his jaw, Connor eyed the last bottle warily. “Or if it’s really, really bad...and only for you...” He winced, looking away. “This.”
A twenty-five-year-old Scotch Jeff was willing to bet Connor hadn’t had a glass of since the night Jeff had had to run out of a meeting to head him off at the airport before Connor showed up drunk at his then-estranged wife’s door.
“Wow. You really do love me,” Jeff said, and grabbed the hard stuff as he pushed back from the table and set the bottle at the far counter. Looking back at Connor, he turned the bottle so the label wasn’t staring him down like some school yard bully. “But I love you, too, and even if I didn’t—do you honestly think I’m going to get plowed with my pregnant non-girlfriend God only knows where? Doing God only knows what. With God only knows who.”
“Isn’t she with your mom?”
“No. She’s at her new house. Probably sleeping. Alone.” Of course alone. Definitely alone. For now.
And as soon as that thought hit him, the next certainty followed.... If she didn’t want to be alone, she wouldn’t have to be. He saw the way guys looked at her, eight months pregnant or not. Hell, he knew how he looked at her. How he wanted her.
How he missed her.
“I’ll pass on the beer, too,” he said, but scowled at the remaining selection of iced coffee. “Caramel?”
“Megan bought it. The machine is broken, just man up and drink what’s on offer. It’s actually pretty good.”
Reluctantly, Jeff grabbed his own and tried it. Smacked his lips. “Like liquid candy.”
Connor gave him an I-told-you-so look and settled back in his chair with a bottle of the iced coffee. “Okay. So now that we’ve got the beverage portion of the evening—err, morning—out of the way. Let’s have it. What’s going on?”
“I asked Darcy to marry me.” At Connor’s raised brows, he added, “She declined.”
“Aw hell, I’m sorry, Jeff. I didn’t realize it was like that with you two. Or at least that you’d realized it was—and I’m probably not helping, either. Okay, why’d she say no?”
Jeff ran a finger through the condensation on his bottle, wondering how it was possible to feel half numb and wholly horrible all at once. “The first time, because she didn’t care about ‘the whole legitimacy thing.’”
“Umm, out of curiosity, how many times did she turn you down?”
He shoved his hands through his hair. “A couple. Few maybe. Once because I asked like I was joking around. I know. Big surprise. And okay, then because I asked when she was throwing up.”
“Dude,” Connor gasped, pulling away in his chair even as he said it.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jeff waved at the air. He’d been trying to cheer her up but, yeah. He knew. “And most recently, because she thinks she can do better.”
The coffee clanked on the table as Connor threw up his hands, all what’s-this-world-coming-to? “She thinks she can do better than you? What the hell is she looking for? You’re generous, kind, almost as intelligent as I am, not quite as good-looking, but what you lack in pretty you make up in portfolio.”
Jeff let out a short laugh, but the real thing seemed harder and harder to come by these days. “Connor, no matter how you sweet-talk me, I’m not getting in bed with you again. So don’t even try.”
“Someone’s still smarting over me thinking he was Megan,” Connor responded in a deep singsong voice that really should have made Jeff’s day. “And nice dodge, but aside from the nose and hair, you’re like every woman’s idea of Mr. Right. I’m serious, man. What does she want?”
Jeff took his own drink, only the sugary concoction had turned sour on his tongue. “She wants to be in love with the guy she marries.”
Connor rocked back in his seat. And who could blame him. There wasn’t much room for outrage with a defense like that.
“She said she doesn’t love you?”
Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking about all the times Darcy had pushed him away. Walked out on him. Told him she didn’t want what he was offering. He thought of that last conversation, the way she’d looked at him with such regret in her eyes as she told him she couldn’t marry him because... “She didn’t have to.”
He cleared his throat and met Connor’s concerned stare. “Which was fine. It wasn’t like that with us.”
Connor’s brows pinched together, concern turning to calculation in a blink, as he drawled, “Oh, really?”
Jeff shifted uncomfortably. Whatever that look was, he didn’t like being on the receiving end of it. “Knock it off, Connor.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I got her pregnant. I didn’t fall in love with her. It was never about love. It was about making a family. I’m upset because it didn’t work out like I’d hoped.”
More of that look. “Sure.”
“Damn it, Connor. This isn’t like you and Megan.”
“Didn’t say it was.”
“You’re looking at me...with this infuriatingly...smug look. And it’s making me want to mess up your perfect nose.”
Totally unconcerned, Connor reached across the table, his crooked smile smug and secure as he rubbed his hand over the top of Jeff’s head.
Condescension and delight mixing in his voice, he said, “I love you, man. But come on, I can’t believe you don’t see what I’ve been hearing in your voice for months. In every mention of her. Every frustration, every funny story, every TMI account you can’t seem to contain. And if you can’t hear it in your own words, then maybe it’s time you take a good look at why exactly you are so hell-bent on getting this woman to marry you. You keep asking her for everything, but I’m not sure you’re seeing all you’ve got to give in return. Which means maybe she’s not seeing it, either.”
No. Connor was just reading his own happy ending into Jeff’s story. But it wasn’t that way. They’d agreed up front about the limits so no one would get the wrong idea. It had worked with every other relationship he’d had since Margo. And granted none of those women had held a candle to Darcy. They’d been easy to say goodbye to in a way he couldn’t even contemplate with Darcy...but still.
Jeff collapsed back in his chair, the weight on his chest one of unwilling recognition. “Hell.”
Connor was right. But unfortunately, that didn’t change a damn thing as far as Darcy wanting to marry him. Or live with him. Or see him. Or talk to him. Or laugh with him. Or any of the million other things Jeff wanted to do with her.
That was the heart of it. He wanted everything.
While she wanted to be friendly, independent co-parents to the child they would share for the rest of their lives...he wanted the fairy tale.
And he’d promised Darcy he wouldn’t ask for it.
TWENTY-FIVE
There was something distinctly unsatisfying about going for a drive to clear your head when you were stuck in the backseat behind a paid driver. Who wouldn’t give up the wheel, even for a pregnant woman threatening tears.
Why the hell had she turned down Jeff’s offer to buy her a car.
Her throat tightened as she wondered, not for the first time and with disturbingly increasing frequency, why she’d turned him down for anything. She loved him. And he’d offered to marry her. But because she couldn’t have everything just exactly the way she wanted it, because she was too spoiled, too greedy, too selfish...she’d said no.
And then to top it off, because it felt too good being in his arms, his bed and his home...she’d moved out.
Every day her body grew, filling her more with the child they’d made together. And every day she went without Jeff, she felt like a bigger piece of her was missing.
All the regrets she’d thrown in his face that horrible last day together...there
was only one she could see now. And there was no one to blame for it but herself.
She let out a heavy sigh and then spoke to the driver. “Harvey, I know I said we weren’t going today, but could you take me to Gail’s, please.”
For as much as she’d avoided discussing her relationship with Jeff out of respect for all of them, she needed some advice. Because staying away from him felt more wrong by the minute. And not just because of how much it hurt not to be with him, but because he’d wanted to be a part of her pregnancy and share in the experience. And asking him to stay away, to give her space so she could try to get over him wasn’t fair. And more than that, it wasn’t going to work.
* * *
The drive up from San Diego at rush hour had taken twice the time it took to drive down in the middle of the night, but time to think wasn’t necessarily the worst thing and Jeff accepted whatever traffic holdups the highway gods had in store for him without question. That is until he’d gotten to his mother’s neighborhood and watched an ambulance fly by him, lights flashing, siren going full blast.
Instinctively he reached for his phone, but only came back with a handful of broken technology and a choice expletive with Connor’s name on it.
As soon as the emergency vehicle passed, he hit the gas, telling himself it was going to turn off before his mom’s place. Either that or roll right past. Sure Darcy was getting close, but those lights weren’t for her. It wasn’t the baby. It wasn’t the end of his world. It couldn’t be.
Please, no.
Only as his mother’s drive came into view and the ambulance was already disappearing down it, that kernel of dread in his gut became a cannonball and the fantasy it was just his world that would end if something happened to Darcy went up in smoke. It would be the end of his universe. A loss so great, the limits were beyond comprehension.
Hands gripping the wheel tight enough that they threatened to rip it off, Jeff focused on that final stretch of road. Pulling up the drive. Slamming the car into Park as his mother, looking wild and desperate, pulled one of the responders with her around the far side of the house.
And then Jeff was out of the car, running across the lawn, trying to make a throat seized with panic work so he could call out, demand to know what happened.
The small group was huddled together between the house and a flower bed. The EMTs kneeling beside—
“Really, I don’t need an ambulance. It’s just a sprain. I’m a doctor.”
Skidding to a stop, the air punched out of his lungs as Grant’s voice sounded above the rest.
What the hell?
Only then whatever was happening with Grant became secondary, as one fact washed over him with tsunami force.
Not Darcy.
He saw her, struggling up from her knees where she’d been on the ground next to Grant. One hand supporting her belly as she found her balance and looked up, meeting his eyes as he took those last desperate steps and caught her against him.
“Darcy.” Her name was gravel-rough when he managed to get it past his throat. “You’re okay.”
“Jeff, look at your face.” And he could see from the look on hers, that his must be reflecting exactly the soul-deep horror he’d been experiencing. “The baby’s fine. I swear, we’re okay.”
He nodded, trying not to hold her too tightly, but having her in his arms after weeks without, finding her safe after seeing that ambulance—it was all he could do not to crush her against him and make her swear she’d never leave his arms again. Only that wasn’t what he’d come for, and based on the scene around him, circumstances might not allow for him to make any kind of claim at all.
His eye shifted to Grant who, despite the fact there was an ambulance there for him, seemed to be doing okay.
But what was he doing there at ten in the morning midweek? He hadn’t needed to check on Darcy since she’d started seeing her regular doctor months ago. But then maybe the reason Grant was here wasn’t professional. Maybe he’d found out Darcy had moved into her own place and decided to make his move before any of the other vultures swooped in.
Smart. But it made Jeff wish the guy looked a little worse off than he actually seemed to be.
“What happened?” he asked as Darcy buried her head against his chest.
“It’s my fault,” she started. “I’d told your mother I didn’t think I’d be in this morning, but then I came over anyway. And when I closed the door—”
“Calm down, Gail,” Grant urged, his voice overriding Darcy’s whisper. “I know you’re worried, but I’m telling you, it’s a sprained knee and—”
“Don’t you, ‘Calm down, Gail,’ me. You’re the damned fool who decided to climb out the window and fell. A second-story window, Grant. I already lost one man I loved and I’m not about to let your dinged-up pride cause me to lose you, too.”
Jeff choked on the breath he’d been taking, sure beyond any reason he hadn’t just heard that right.
“Mom?”
His mother’s head snapped around suggesting she’d only just realized he was there. For an instant her eyes registered the kind of shock and nerves one would expect—but then this was his mother. And in the next instant, those eyes flashed steel. “Not now, honey.”
Jeff felt the span of Darcy’s hands pressing into his chest, as though she meant to hold him back, which was adorable in itself. But unnecessary. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Grant and my mom?” he asked. All those times the guy mentioned how limber she seemed... He’d assumed Grant’s mind was on osteoporosis. But apparently not.
“I guess he’s had a thing for her...forever. The night he was going to take us out, really had been about spending more time with Gail. And I guess it worked.” Darcy looked uneasy. “This morning Connor called asking if you’d arrived. When they heard the door downstairs a minute later, assuming it was you rather than me, Grant decided the window seemed like his best chance for survival.”
Jeff took a deep breath, savoring the feminine scent of Darcy’s shampoo and lotion and the woman beneath.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” she asked, sounding skeptical.
“Darcy, I’m not going to attack the guy on his way into the ambulance.” When she looked at him seemingly unconvinced, he added, “My mother would kill me.”
And after all the weeks, he got what he’d missed the most. A flash of the gorgeous smile that started it all. The one he’d never get over. The one he still wanted to earn.
Grant grudgingly agreed to let the ambulance take him to the hospital to get checked out and Gail went along with him, leaving Jeff and Darcy at the house alone.
Since getting her into his arms, Jeff hadn’t been able to let go. And Darcy seemed to understand, settling against him.
Damn, it felt so good to be standing beside her. To have his hands on her.
But as the ambulance disappeared down the drive, Darcy took the hand anchoring his arm across her chest and, with a light squeeze, extracted herself from his hold.
“Want to go inside?” she asked, looking more nervous now that the emergency had passed and it was back to just the two of them.
Jeff gave her a stiff nod, then looked back to his car, half parked on the grass, the door gaping wide from when he’d bolted out for the house.
“Let me pull around back. And I’ll meet you there.”
Darcy started to go, then paused and turned back, asking, “Are you okay?”
Not even a little bit. Not yet. “Give me a few minutes and I will be.”
* * *
By the time Darcy made it back to the kitchen, Jeff had parked and was bringing in a breathtaking vase of flowers and a white pastry box, both of which looked as though they’d taken a hit during their stint in Jeff’s car.
Still, Gail would be touched by the thoughtful
gesture when she got back from the hospital.
Jeff, looking as weary and worn and sexy and compelling as he had that night after his return from Australia, set his load on the counter, and kept walking toward her.
“I know you wanted space and I know I just let you go, but, Darcy— I need— I thought— I’m so glad—”
She went to him, understanding the kind of fear he must have been feeling. Wanting to offer him whatever comfort she could.
Reaching for his hands she pulled them to the round swell of her belly, pressing them flat. “He’s fine,” she promised. And when a swift little kick met the warm spot covered by Jeff’s open palm, she laughed—all the relief that Jeff was here, all the love and all the nerves bubbling up inside her at once. Finding release in that short moment.
Jeff stared down at the spot he was now rubbing in a soft circle. He gave her belly one last pat.
“Darcy, I’m relieved our baby is safe. Of course I am...but—” his voice broke, and shaking his head he cupped her jaw, and then met her eyes with a tortured look “—when I thought something might have happened to you, my God, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.”
The way he was looking at her—what he was saying. It wasn’t the way it sounded. She was seeing what she wanted to see, hearing what she wanted to hear, reading meaning that didn’t exist again.
This time she knew better.
She offered the back of his hand a gentle stroke, wanting to remember the feel of it forever, and then stepped back.
Instead of letting her heart run away from her, she held firm to the reality she knew to be true.
Jeff cared about her. Of that there had never been a doubt.
And if ever there was a moment she had the chance to secure the same offer he’d made to her three weeks before—to make her his wife, make them a family—this was it. He’d been afraid of losing them and knowing Jeff, right now the man would probably do anything—say anything—promise anything to make that feeling go away.
Which was why right now wasn’t the time to talk to him about the possibility of them being together in some capacity. Of finding out what kind of arrangement would give them all what they wanted. Or as close to it as was possible.