A tear slipped from the corner of her eye as she called herself a fool for believing she could have a baby on her own without destroying her life and everyone else’s, but then a small knock sounded on her door.
“Delaney? You awake?”
Conner! Delaney tensed and wiped the tears away as the door cracked open. He stepped into the room, his profile revealed in the moonlight filtering through the blinds on her window, but Delaney would have known him even with her eyes closed. After working for him for almost two months, she could easily single out his footfalls from the others, easily identify his outdoorsy scent, his breathing, his aura. His proximity never failed to make her more aware of everything around her.
“Delaney?”
She didn’t answer. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pretended to sleep, hoping he’d go away and at the same time she was hoping he’d stay. She didn’t want him coming to her out of the sense of obligation that had led him to marry her in the first place. She didn’t want him coming to her because his mother had shamed him into it. Which was why she’d refused to go to the cabin. She wanted him in her bed only if he wanted to be there.
When she showed no sign of consciousness, he moved closer and leaned over her, lightly skimming her cheek with one finger.
She opened her eyes to see him wearing—again—nothing but a pair of blue jeans.
“Sorry to wake you,” he murmured, as a shiver of excitement crawled slowly down her spine to twist and swirl somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach.
“Is something wrong?” she whispered in deference to the quiet that surrounded them.
“No, I was…” His words fell off, and Delaney waited.
“You were what?”
“I was trying to stay in my own room, but…I didn’t want to start out this way.”
“What way?”
“Sleeping apart.” He straightened, shoved his hands in his pockets and spoke calmly, unemotionally. “I don’t think it sets a good precedent.”
Precedent? He wanted to sleep with her to create a precedent? “That is a big concern,” she said, but couldn’t tell if he recognized the sarcasm in her response. His face was inscrutable in the darkness, his eyes shiny dark pools.
He glanced reluctantly at the door. “You’d rather sleep alone, then?”
She considered how she’d feel if he walked away, and how she’d feel if he didn’t, and knew she wanted him here. But pride demanded she establish some standards. “Stay only if you want to, not because you think it’s best or want to mollify your mother or—”
“I want to,” he said, his eyes meeting hers.
Delaney’s breath caught as his gaze lowered to her shoulders, fixing on the ivory material of her negligee. “You’re wearing it,” he breathed. “Can I see?”
She lay perfectly still as he folded back the covers. He looked at her for several seconds, then smiled and ran a hand over the small bulge that was finally providing visual proof of her pregnancy. “Hi, baby,” he said, bending down to brush a kiss across her abdomen.
Smiling in spite of herself, Delaney cupped his cheek and held him against their baby for a moment longer. It felt so right to have him close again—at last.
When she let go, his eyes swept over her negligee as one hand outlined the curve of her waist. “You make me crazy, Laney. There isn’t any question about that.”
Delaney already knew she made him crazy. Any questions she had didn’t revolve around that, but she didn’t want to think about questions right now. Somehow her need for answers abandoned her the moment Conner’s hands started sliding over her skin, caressing her, exploring every sensitive spot he could find while watching the expressions on her face change as she responded to him.
“Pretty,” he said, teasing her ni**les with his thumbs through the fabric. Then he slid the straps off her shoulders and buried his face in the valley between her br**sts, and Delaney felt her body go boneless.
“Come to bed,” she murmured, as he lifted his head to kiss her. Unlike the brief kiss he’d given her at the altar, this one held enough promise to curl her toes.
“Careful, Laney. I might actually think you want me,” he said.
“I do,” she admitted.
Grinning, he stood and stripped off his jeans, and she couldn’t help admiring the changes in his body since she’d first seen it. He’d been muscular and firm from the beginning, but he was slightly thinner now and even more defined from the physical nature of his work.
“Somehow it doesn’t feel real that we could be married, does it?” she whispered.
He tossed his jeans aside as though he couldn’t be less self-conscious, and his teeth flashed in a grin. “It’s going to feel very real in a minute,” he said. Then he climbed into bed with her and the warmth of his bare skin surrounded her as he drew her into his arms.
Delaney didn’t get a moment’s sleep all night. Yet she woke feeling more satisfied and refreshed than she’d felt since…Boise.
THE NEXT WEEK PASSED QUICKLY, and for the most part, Delaney’s days were no different than they’d been before the wedding. She helped Dottie cook and clean, do the grocery shopping, feed the animals and run errands in town. But once the sun went down and the stars came out, things were different. She’d moved into Conner’s room the day after the wedding. He always gave her plenty of attention at night, and she did her best to make sure he’d be too tired to work the next morning. But he never was. He always got up early and closed himself in his office or headed outside to ready the horses. She helped make breakfast for Grady, Isaiah, Ben and Roy, who still grinned broadly every time they caught her eye, even though she’d been married a whole week.
“Roy, how long is it going to take before you stop with all the silly smiling?” she said in mock exasperation when she noticed him grinning at her again.
He chuckled. “How’s that bun in the oven?”
Delaney wasn’t sure, but she thought the flutter she’d been experiencing low in her belly just might be the baby moving. Then again, being around Conner seemed to cause the same sensation, even during the day, when he didn’t show any interest in her at all.
“The baby’s growing,” she said. “I think I can feel it move.”
“Did someone say ‘baby’?” Dottie asked, and started right in on a retelling of her own granddaughter’s birth.