Baby Love (38 page)

"You'll never know how happy it's made me to have Heidi here where I can watch after her myself and keep her safe. She's a very lucky little girl to have you in her life."

"I'm the lucky one." He looped an arm around her

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shoulders. "In fact, I feel like the luckiest man alive. And before you know it, we'll have permanent custody of her, guaranteed."

"I have every confidence," she said in all honesty. "Has there ever been anything you decided to do that you failed to accomplish?"

He cast her a suspicious look. "What's that supposed to mean? That I'm overbearing?"

Maggie giggled. "You do tend to take matters in hand—people included. And you're extremely determined and relentless once you set your mind to something. Not that I'm complaining."

A mischievous twinkle crept into his eyes. "It's a damned good thing. Now that I've got you in hand, I'm not about to turn you loose. You're mine, sugar. Every sweet inch of you." He glanced at the sleeping baby, then fixed his gaze on Maggie again. "Let's have breakfast in bed this morning."

"What?" she said with a laugh. "We're already up and dressed."

"So? What goes on can come off."

"I've already eaten my breakfast."

"I haven't, and Becca's scrambled eggs aren't what I'm craving. Think of it as a special Thanksgiving Day gift to me."

He leaned down and whispered suggestively in Maggie's ear, describing what he wanted in such vivid detail that her face went bright red.

"Oh, I couldn't People don't really—that's
indecent!"

"Glorious"
he countered.

"Scandalous, more like!"

"Incredible"
he insisted. "You'll think you've died and gone to heaven."

Her knees went a little watery. "We made love three times last night."

"So?"

"Will you draw the drapes?"

368 CATHERINE ANDERSON

He paused in nibbling on her ear, his voice a grumble. "No way."

"Please?"

"Do I have to?"

"Yes!"

"You drive a hard bargain, Maggie Kendrick, but I'll take you any way I can get you."

Loving Rafe. Being loved by him. She felt as if her life had been touched with magic, just as he'd promised, and if there were times when she felt a sense of impending doom, fearful that their happiness might go up in a puff of smoke, she kept her thoughts to herself. As long as Lonnie Boyle drew breath, he would always pose a possible threat, but did that mean she had to let thoughts of him ruin her happiness?

No, absolutely not. Determined not to let him taint her new life, Maggie thrust him firmly from her mind and concentrated on being a good wife. Over the next few days, she settled in at the ranch and truly began to feel it was her home. It wasn't only Rafe who filled her with a sense of belonging, but his family as well. Within a day of meeting his parents, Maggie received orders from Keefe that she was to call him Dad, and whenever she forgot, he corrected her. If the edict had come from anyone else, Maggie might have balked, but Keefe Kendrick was as impossible to resist as his elder son. When he entered the house, Maggie often felt as if her home had been invaded by a big, lovable grizzly bear, and she invariably found herself captured in his brawny arms for a gentle hug.

"How's my girl this morning?" he would ask. Maggie soon learned that a standard response of "Fine"

wasn't what Keefe wanted to hear. How was Jaimie doing? Was that boy of his treating her good? What were her plans for the day? Had she gotten a good rest last night? Any word yet about when they might get custody of Heidi? He pelted her with questions, to which he de-BABY LOVE 369

manded lengthy answers, and to Maggie's amazement, he listened with undivided attention, making her feel like one of the most important people in his world.

Though less overwhelming, Ann Kendrick was no less loving. She took to Jaimie as if the baby were truly her grandchild, swooping him from his cradle the instant she entered the house, cooing and kissing him as she headed for the rocker before the hearth. To Maggie's delight, Ann also took an active interest in decorating the nursery, spending hours leafing through the decorating catalogs and offering her opinion.

One morning, she glanced up from an earmarked page and said, "Why don't you run in to town and get the wallpaper and paint? I'll watch Jaimie. When you get back, we'll get started on the room."

"I think Rafe plans to hire it done."

Ann frowned. "What fun will that be?"

Maggie secretly agreed, but every time she approached Rafe about painting the room and hanging the wallpaper herself, he vetoed the idea, saying he could well afford the cost of hiring professionals. "Rafe doesn't want me to do it," Maggie tried to explain; "And I don't suppose I can blame him. I've painted, but I've never hung wallpaper. I'd probably make a mess of it."

"Oh, piddle." Seated in the rocker with Jaimie cuddled close, Ann smiled and tossed her head. "I'm an expert at painting and hanging wallpaper. Grab Rafe's checkbook and run get the stuff we need. I'll watch Jaimie while you're gone."

Maggie went and got the checkbook. Imbued with courage after listening to Ann, she filled out a check and took it to the stable to ask that Rafe sign it. When she finally found him and his father in the tack room, however, her bravado had already begun to wane. "Um, Rafe?"

Seated on a hay bale across from his dad, he glanced up from a stirrup he was mending. "Hi, sweetheart."

370 CATHERINE ANDERSON

His gaze fell to the check in her hands. "What's that?"

"One of your checks. I, um, wrote it to cash for five hundred dollars. Would you sign it for me and lend me the car keys?"

He set aside the stirrup and pushed to his feet. "What do you need five hundred dollars for?"

"Paint and wallpaper for the nursery."

He winced. "I'm sorry, honey. It slipped my mind. I'll call this afternoon and hire a crew to get that done, I promise."

Maggie imagined the look she'd get from Ann if she failed to stand her ground. "Actually, Rafe, I want to do it myself. Your mom says she'll help me."

"Oh, shit," Keefe muttered under his breath.

"Mom? She can't paint. She gets it on her butt and in her hair and all over everything around her. Trust me, you don't want to turn her loose in the nursery with a paint roller."

Maggie's heart squeezed. Her instinct was to nod and give in rather than quarrel with him. But Ann was waiting. "She says she's an expert painter and paper hanger."

"Oh, hell," Keefe said.

Rafe scratched beside his nose and nudged his Stetson back to regard her with a scowl. "Can't you wait a couple of days? I'll get a crew in there, I promise, and it'll be done before you can blink."

"I want to do it myself."

"I'm busy, Maggie. I really don't have time right now to help you."

"I don't expect you to help."

"Oh, boy," Keefe grumped.

Rafe sighed, plucked a pen from his shirt pocket, and took the check. Smoothing the draft against a bare wall stud, he quickly scratched out his signature. "I need to get your name on the account. This is a pain in the ass, and I really don't like the idea of you carrying a bunch
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of cash around. It isn't safe." He handed back the check. "Is Mom going to town with you?"

"Um, no. She's going to baby-sit."

"So who's taking you?"

"I'm just going to drive myself."

"Say what?"

Maggie gulped. "I do have my driver's license."

"Yeah, but you don't know the area. Crystal's a big town."

"I've been there a few times. I think I can find my way around." Maggie held out her hand for the keys.

"I'll be fine."

Rafe glanced at his dad. "I'll be back in a couple of hours, Dad."

"No!" she blurted.

He swung back to stare at her in surprise. "It's no big deal, Maggie. I'll just drive you in."

Maggie straightened her shoulders. "It
is
a big deal. You're treating me like a child, and a not-very-bright child, at that."

"It isn't like that at all," he argued. "It's just that you've never driven all the way to town by yourself. You could get lost."

"I'll call you on the cell phone if I do, but I honestly don't think I will."

"I need to get things straightened out at the bank, anyway, so you can write checks."

"You can do that another time. Today I want to go by myself. I have to do it sooner or later, right? Why not now?"

He fished in his jeans pocket for the keys and reluctantly handed them over. Then he trailed behind her to the Ford like a well-trained hound. "How much gas is there?"

Maggie turned the key in the ignition. "Three-quarters of a tank."

He leaned in to check the computerized dash readouts.

You know how to use the phone?"

372 CATHERINE ANDERSON

Maggie picked it up and studied the buttons. "It looks simple enough."

"You ever used a cell phone?"

"You figured it out the first time you used it, didn't you?"

He huffed and scraped the sole of his boot over the snowy gravel. "You're being just slightly irritating. It's no crime for me to worry about you."

"No, it's actually very sweet. But I
am
twenty-four years old. Remember?"

"And you grew up in a town I can spit across."

"Prior's not
that
small."

"Close."

He was still standing in the drive, gazing after the Expedition, when Maggie executed the first curve and drove out of sight.

Shortly after Maggie and Ann opened the first paint can later that afternoon, Rafe and Keefe magically appeared in the nursery. Rafe leaned down to peer at the paint. "That the color you like?"

Ann smiled and put her hands on her hips. "It's perfect," she said, eyeing the chiffon yellow.

"You have them shake it?" Rafe asked Maggie as he tossed aside his hat and began rolling up his sleeves.

Shoving his own shirtsleeves up, Keefe said, "Better stir it, to be safe."

The next thing Maggie knew, the two men were painting the nursery. Ann strolled in from the kitchen a few minutes after they began, still tidily dressed and coifed, with a mug of fresh, steaming coffee cupped between her slender hands. After watching the men work for a moment, she smiled at Maggie.

"See? I told you I was an expert and could get a room painted in nothing flat."

Acutely conscious of the weight of Rafe's arm around her shoulders, Maggie gazed through the window glass,

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watching the taillights of his parents' Cadillac fade to pinpricks of red in the twilight. She sighed as the car disappeared around a curve. She smiled slightly as she recalled the excited anticipation in Heidi's eyes when she'd been invited to spend the night with her "grandparents." Maggie suspected that Keefe and Ann would see to it that their newly adopted granddaughter had the time of her life at their cottage.

"Tired?" he asked huskily, his fingertips toying idly with a curl at her temple.

"Painting's hard work."

He chuckled and bent to kiss her hair. "My mother's something else, isn't she? She knew the whole time we'd end up doing it all."

Maggie smiled. "I think she's wonderful. I wish—"

"What?"

She shrugged. "Being around her makes me miss my mom. Not the way she is now, but how she used to be. When I was younger, before she got sick, she was so bright and funny. She could always make Daddy laugh. When he got home at night, they always teased and cut up. And every chance they got, they'd kiss when they thought I wasn't looking. It's so sad to not have her with me anymore. You know?"

He grew still, his lips pressed against her hair. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I guess it must be hard. It's a shame it happened to her, Maggie, but now all you can do is love her for who she is."

"Do you think she might come here someday?"

"It's hard for me to say. She loves you and Heidi. I guess it's a possibility."

"She'll probably drive you crazy. She's flighty and scatterbrained. And she gets all in a dither over the silliest things. Like if she forgets to write something on the grocery list when we run out of it. You'd think the world was about to end."

"It probably frustrates her because she can't remember things."

374 CATHERINE ANDERSON

"I suppose."

"She won't drive me crazy," he assured her.
"You
drive me over the edge, though."

"Me?"

"I haven't been able to take my eyes off of you all afternoon. God, Maggie, I can't get enough of you. Jaimie's asleep. Come make love with me."

She threw him an incredulous look. "What will Becca think if we just disappear?" She glanced at the plump housekeeper, who was bustling around in the adjoining kitchen, preparing dinner.

"She'll wonder what we're doing."

"She'll wonder, but she won't know. It's a big house. We'll be clear back in the bedroom." His breath sifted through her hair, warming her scalp and igniting her imagination. "Please, Maggie. I need to hold you."

She leaned against him, giving her answer without speaking. Just as he turned to lead her from the room, the phone rang. "Damn it. It's probably for me." He bent to nibble her ear and the hollow beneath, making chills run up her spine. "Hold the thought. I'll be right back."

He stepped over to the counter and grabbed the phone. ''Kendrick residence.''

Maggie resumed gazing out the window at the swiftly descending darkness, her thoughts no longer on her parents-in-law, but on making love.
Rafe.
She was so happy. Sometimes she wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

"Helen? Is that you?"

Hearing her mother's name, Maggie whirled from the window. As she stepped toward Rafe, she could hear the muted sounds of a woman's voice.

"Helen, calm down. Start at the beginning. Lonnie did what?" He listened for a moment, then cupped a palm over the mouthpiece. "She says Lonnie's left her. She's horribly upset."

Maggie's stomach dropped, not because she would

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