Right by Her Side (10 page)

“We didn't know you'd married, Trent,” Leslie said, smiling. An attractive woman of around sixty, she seemed delighted to hear the news. “Please accept our congratulations.”

Trent returned her smile. “Thank you, Leslie, I appreciate that.”

Peter came by with a round of drinks, and beneath the clinking of ice and glasses, Rebecca heard her speak to Trent again, her voice soft. “And Danny, Trent. Katie says she hasn't talked to your brother recently, but that you have. How is Danny doing?”

Trent took a swallow from his glass. “The same, I guess. Okay.”

“Tell him I asked after him. Please,” the older woman said.

“I will.” Trent's nod was stiff.

Danny was the brother whose son had been kid
napped. The one who'd been friends with the Logans' little boy, Robbie, who'd suffered the same fate. Rebecca felt a chill run down her back, and she crossed to stand beside Trent. He put his arm around her.

Maybe it was just an act for his sister, but she appreciated the gesture all the same.

“Sit down, everyone,” Katie said. “I'm going to put up my swollen feet and Peter is going to serve the hors d'oeuvres, won't you, honey?”

The serious expression on her husband's face vanished at that “honey.” He gave her a smile that tugged at Rebecca's heart. “Only if you let me rub those feet later.”

Katie's face turned pink. “Peter!”

He grinned and mimicked her embarrassed exclamation. “Katie! Considering the state of your belly, my darling, I'm sure even your big brother here realizes you've let me touch you a time or two.”

The others in the room laughed, though Katie turned even redder and rolled her eyes. “Men!” she said, then dropped onto the couch and patted the place beside her. “Come sit next to me, Rebecca, and you and Leslie and I can commiserate.”

Terrence Logan sent both his wife and Katie a fond smile. “Sorry, daughter-in-law, but we can't stay long. We're here to tell Peter what we learned at the Children's Connection directors' meeting.” He glanced at Rebecca. “It's something of a family endeavor, you see, supporting the place.”

“We can go to my study, Dad,” Peter started.

“No,” Leslie interrupted. “We're all family here. As a matter of fact, Trent himself helped out a few months back, though I'm not sure he knew why Morgan and the Children's Connection lawyer, Justin Weber, asked him for that favor.”

Katie shot her brother a glance. “What favor?”

He replied with one word, tersely stated. “Mom.”

“Mom?” Katie echoed. “What now?”

He hesitated, his gaze darting around the room and then landing on Rebecca's face. “Katie…”

“You haven't warned her about Mom?” Katie asked, shaking her head. “Then let me fill her in. It was our mother who should have been watching our brother Danny and Robbie Logan the day he was kidnapped. But she was her usual neglectful self and we've all paid for it.”

“Katie.” Trent's voice was a warning.

His sister flashed him a look. “Don't bother denying it. You blamed yourself, Leslie blamed herself, our fathers feuded, our companies became bitter rivals, not to mention what Danny went through then and again when he lost Noah and after that, Felicia. It's a miracle that Peter and I managed to find each other through all that pain!”

Peter perched on the edge of the couch and stroked his wife's hair. “Katie. Sweetheart.”

“Well, I'm right, aren't I?” Katie switched her gaze to him. “If it wasn't for fate—”

“I thought that was me,” Peter put in with a little smile, “tracking you down in Wyoming.”

Fate,
Rebecca thought. It was sounding better all the time.

“Fate and your persistence, then,” Katie amended. “But my mother still tries to turn all the past tragedies around and make
herself
victim!”

Peter stroked her hair again. “It's not good for the baby if you get so worked up.”

“And it's not good for Rebecca to be unaware of the true colors of her mother-in-law, either.” She ran a hand over her belly and looked back at Trent. “So what has she been up to?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. I only know that Morgan and Justin called and requested a favor. They asked if I would apply some pressure on Mom about her country-club membership—tell her that if she started spreading rumors about Children's Connection that I would revoke her privileges at Tanglewood. I didn't ask any more questions of them, and the minute I broached the subject, Mom saw the writing on the wall and clammed up.”

All eyes in the room turned to Terrence. He cleared his throat. “Let me start from the beginning. You're all aware of the Sanders baby being found?”

“We saw it in the papers and on the news, Dad,” Peter said, “but there were very few details given.”

And not any more from the PAN meeting she'd attended, Rebecca remembered, or via the hospital grapevine in the days afterward, which was even more surprising.

“There's more to the story, much more. It has all
been part of an elaborate scheme that's purportedly about money, but that seems to me to be about discrediting Children's Connection as well. First, there was a heist of frozen eggs from our Portland clinic that were subsequently put up for sale on an illegal Internet site. Then, babies intended for adoption here in the U.S. through our Russian affiliate were stolen and then sold on the black market, though thank God the FBI was able to put a stop to that and apprehend the man on the Russian end. There was the Sanders baby, as I said—”

“And what about what happened to my sister, Ivy?” Katie interjected, then looked over at Rebecca. “Months ago someone tried to steal the baby she was holding as part of the baby rockers program for the drug-addicted infants.”

Rebecca nodded. She remembered the incident well.

“That assault on Ivy was part of it, too,” Terrence confirmed. “Part of another plan, a plan to steal American babies from impoverished mothers and then sell them to wealthy families who want quick, no-questions-asked adoptions.”

Peter shook his head, then sighed. “Who would do such a thing?”

“And why do you think it wasn't purely about the money?” Trent added.

Terrence shrugged. “Just a hunch I have at this point.”

The room was silent a moment, then Peter spoke up again. “Okay, Dad, so how do we know all this?”

“Because a young man came forward in the last few
days and confessed his involvement to the authorities who'd been looking for him, though they've been trying to keep it out of the press. It was he who let them know where the Sanders baby could be found. His name is Everett Baker.”

“Everett Baker!” Rebecca exclaimed.

Now those in the room gave
her
their attention, and she felt herself flush. “Not that I know him, not really. But he's an accountant at Children's Connection, isn't that right?”

“He was,” Terrence said. “How did you know?”

“Because I know Nancy Allen—another one of the nurses at Portland General. Everyone knows Nancy. She's one of those warm souls who talks to everyone and everyone talks to her. No one has said that she had anything to do with this?”

Terrence shook his head. “I haven't heard that she did.”

Rebecca frowned. “I wouldn't believe it. Nancy is wonderful. She has a heart a mile wide and an affinity for picking up strays. I saw her talking to Everett in the cafeteria a few times and that's where I met him—with her.” In her mind, she pictured the tall, lean man who rarely smiled, unless it was at Nancy. “I was sure there was a romance developing between the two of them.”

“And so another heart gets broken,” Trent murmured.

Terrence's eyebrows rose. “I wouldn't be so sure. What I
have
been told is that this nurse is standing by Everett and that he listed her as one of the reasons he finally came clean.”

Leslie Logan looked at her husband. “If this woman is as wonderful as Rebecca says, and she sees something worthwhile in Everett Baker, then maybe there's hope for him.”

Peter gave his mother a fond smile. “The eternal optimist, aren't you, Mom?”

“I saw you through puberty, didn't I?”

They all laughed again, but then Katie frowned. “Wait a second. I'm not seeing our mother's link to Children's Connection.”

“Oh. Well.” Terrence cleared his throat again and his gaze dropped. “She, uh, happened to have come across some information about what was happening that she could have used to make Children's Connection look incompetent.”

“Come across, how?” Katie persisted.

“How do you think?” Trent asked, a sour note in his voice. “Pillow talk, I presume?”

Terrence nodded. “One of our directors happened to tell your mother about yet another ‘mishap' involving the clinic. I don't know any of the people involved, and I trust that all of you will keep this to yourselves, but there was a problem with a couple of inseminations and the sperm used.”

Rebecca felt herself go still. She didn't dare look at Trent.

“They thought the first instance was an accident,” the older man said. “But went ahead and rechecked all the recent procedures. When they found another insemination and subsequent pregnancy from the wrong sperm,
the clinic took a long hard look at the circumstances and possibilities. They were coming to the conclusion that these mix-ups weren't mix-ups, after all, when Everett's confession confirmed what they suspected. The sperm mix-ups weren't accidents. And not mistakes, either. They were—”

“Malicious,” Rebecca finished. She couldn't help herself. And now she couldn't help looking at Trent. They weren't together due to an accident or to simple human error.

And not because of fate either.

A
fter the dinner at Katie and Peter's, Trent took Rebecca home and then steered her into the kitchen. She'd appeared somewhat relaxed and animated at his sister's, but she'd gone tense and quiet in the car on the way back. He pushed her into a chair, raided the cookie jar for a handful of cookies that he put on a plate in front of her. Then he inspected the fridge, bypassing the pitcher of green tea to pour them both some lemonade.

He took a seat across from her and pushed a glass her way. “All right, out with it.” He wouldn't sleep until he silenced all the voices that he could tell were whirling in Rebecca's brain.

She sighed. “Tonight…”

“Was a success. My sister thinks you're great. Peter
got to drill you on baby stuff.” Trent shook his head. “There's an overprotective father in the making.”

She went silent again, staring down at the table. “It's not fair to you,” she finally said.

He took a swallow from his glass, eyeing her over the rim. “About Peter? Don't see how. I'll probably be an overprotective dad myself.”

“It's not fair to you that you're going to be a father.”

She was going to bring up that mistake business again. He frowned.

“You didn't want a child right now,” she continued. “I did.”

“So—”

“So it wasn't anything as…magical, as spiritual as fate that made me pregnant with your baby. It was someone's ugly, malicious act!”

Trent stilled. He could point out that the end result was the same, that if she was going to have his child—by whatever means it had happened—he was determined to be the baby's father. He could bring fate back into the picture again by mentioning that some Greater Order had certainly still had its hand in. Of all the vials that had been rearranged, it was Trent's, after all, that had found its way to Rebecca. But that wouldn't cheer her either.

“Something ‘ugly' is not part of our baby, Rebecca.”

“I don't want it to be,” she whispered. “I wish it wasn't.”

He reached across for her hand. “Nothing that has to do with you could ever be ugly.” After averting his
gaze from her for days, he hadn't been able to avoid looking at her that evening. She wore a matching skirt and sweater, both in a soft fabric the color of vanilla ice cream. Her hair was down in those loose, sexy curls again. “I couldn't keep my eyes off you all night.”

She darted him a swift look. “Thanks.”

But no cigar.
She wasn't fishing for compliments. “What do you need, Rebecca? Can you tell me that?”

“You didn't want a child,” she said again. “You didn't want a wife.”

“I want you.”

Those Bambi eyes met his for another instant, dropped again. “Right.”

“Every day, Rebecca. Every night.”

She shook her head. “You don't need to say that.”

But he needed to
do
something. That was clear. And what he needed to do and what he wanted to do were suddenly coming together in one idea that felt entirely right to him. “Tell me about the insemination procedure, Rebecca.”

Her gaze flew to his and her eyes flared wide.
“What?”

“Well, I'm assuming there's a room, a table, and some kind of turkey baster, right?”

“Trent!”
Her cheeks flushed red.

“No soft music, no candlelight, no kisses and caresses, I presume.”

She frowned at him. “Of course not. Though I think I remember humming ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy' while I was waiting for the doctor to come in.”

He stood, pulling her up with him. “Hum it for me now, sweetheart, and we'll dance.”

She went stiff as he pulled her against him. “What are you doing?”

Since she seemed unwilling to cooperate, he started humming himself, an old Beatles tune, “Eleanor Rigby.” So it wasn't a love song, but he knew how it went and it was getting her moving about the kitchen with him. He danced her over to the light switch and flicked it off.

They fox-trotted through the dining room, through the foyer, where he danced her in circles at the bottom of the stairs. He figured she only went along with it because she was relieved they'd moved away from the intimate and embarrassing discussion of insemination.

His cheek rubbed against the top of her head and he breathed her in, all that sweetness that had been filling his house and his thoughts, everything down to the damn pillows on his bed, which he wished she'd been sharing with him. He let his lips drift over her temple, then down her cheek, then back up to her ear. “Rebecca, let's make a baby tonight,” he whispered.

She tried to go stiff on him again, but he sent soothing hands down her back to her curvy hips and then back up again. “Shh,” he said. “Take it easy.”

“Trent—”

“I know what you're thinking. Besides what a gorgeous hunk of man I am, of course. You're thinking that there already is a baby. But
we
didn't get to do that together. That was between you and the turkey baster and I have to confess I'm feeling a little bit neglected.”

He felt a laugh bubble out of her and figured all those damn hours he'd spent at cotillions as a kid, learning to dance, were finally paying off.

“I wish you'd shut up about that turkey baster,” she complained.

“Then give me something else to think about.” He moved his lips to touch the corner of her mouth. The real plan was to give
her
something else to think about besides those voices and doubts, those fears and worries that were tumbling around in her head. For his part, there was little going on inside of him now but lust and the lingering smoke of his own brilliance.

Take her to bed and take the doubts away. Give her something else to think about and give you both a shared memory of making your baby.

He moved his lips the last millimeter to cover hers. She jerked in his arms, but he held her steady against his body and helped himself to the taste of her mouth.

She moaned, a good sign.

Then the tip of her tongue reached out to meet his, and the brief touch burned like lightning down his body. He deepened the kiss, pressing into her mouth so that he could feel it surround him. She snuggled closer and the combination went to his head—that wet, carnal kiss and that cuddly, curly-headed valentine against his heart.

He tore his mouth from hers and started leading her up the stairs.

“No more dancing?” she asked. Her eyes were smoky dark and her mouth already looked swollen. He thought he'd extinguished the last of her resistance.

“I could try to Astaire you up the steps, sweetheart, but I'm afraid finesse is out of my range at the moment. The only part of my body that's ready for any tricky movement is a part that doesn't dance.”

They'd reached the landing and he paused to take her into his arms again. This kiss was hotter than the first one, and the night suddenly felt like August, not June. Without lifting his mouth, he yanked at his tie even as he shrugged out of his suit jacket.

He knew he'd extinguished the last of her resistance when she pulled the tails of his shirt from his pants and then ran her hands along his bare back.

Lightning burned him again at the touch. Needing air, he turned his head so he could breathe and taste the skin of her cheek at the same time.

She shivered. “I think—”

“I don't want you to think.” He bit her ear and she trembled against him. He slid his hands down to her cute round butt and scrunched the material of her skirt in his fists so he could find her panties and then slide his fingers beneath them. He moved his mouth back to hers. “Thinking now?” he said.

She tipped her head back and tilted her hips into his. “Maybe a little,” she whispered.

He swooped down for a deep, dark kiss, kneading her soft flesh in his hands as he explored her mouth. Desperate for breath, he pulled away and looked down into her half-closed eyes. “What's the capital of Rhode Island?”

She didn't even blink. “Providence.”

He frowned. “Damn it, woman. Don't tell me I'm losing my touch.”

She let him pull her up the next flight of stairs. “I'm sorry. I memorized them in eighth grade for extra credit and they've never gone away.”

At the top of the steps he paused again. This time he slid his hands beneath the hem of her top, taking it away in one smooth action that bared a satin bra and that abundance of pale breasts that he'd gone gaga over the night of the country-club dinner. “Rebecca.” He stroked his palms over her shoulders then over her breasts, cupping them in his hands. His thumbs met at her breastbone and he could feel her heart racing.

He kissed her again, then dropped down a step so that he had better access to that glorious cleavage. Her skin was hot against his tongue and he ran it all along the edges of the bra. She stroked his hair and her fast breaths lifted her flesh to his mouth. Through the satin fabric, he captured one nipple. Sucked.

Her fingernails bit into his scalp and she bowed against him.

Need ran down his spine and up from his toes. “Rebecca, what's the capital of West Virginia?”

Her voice was thready and sounded dazed. “Richmond?”

He clucked his tongue, then swiped it over the plump top curve of her breasts. “No, honey.”

“Arlington?”

He shook his head as he ran his hands up her bare
legs—man, she had awesome legs!—to find her panties again. “Are you confused?”

“No, I—” She gasped as he yanked her underwear to her ankles. “I—”

“Lift up, honey,” he said, patting one foot. She complied and he pulled her panties free first from one foot, and then the other.

“Charleston!” she suddenly said. “Charleston,
West
Virginia.”

He looked up and shook his head. “You are entirely too focused, Nurse Rebecca. You're forcing me to bring out the big guns.”

Hooking a finger around one of his belt loops, she tugged him up the step. A tiny, wicked smile played at the corners of her mouth as she went to work on the buckle. “The big guns? Oh, please,” she said. “Let me.”

His heart slammed against his chest. His erection stiffened to full salute. His valentine, he realized, had gone from soft pink to red hot.

She got him naked, and damn if she still didn't remember the capital of Arkansas. At least he thought she got it right; he couldn't be sure, because his brain was starting to steam around the edges. So then he lifted her in his arms and took the lesson into the bedroom and to his bed.

With his finger, he drew a map of Oregon on her naked midriff and made her name the points of interest that he kissed. She quivered a bit when he touched his tongue to Crater Lake, but got them all right.

She proved her knowledge of the geography of his
chest by tracing the muscles there with her fingers and then with her tongue.

He finally surrendered to temptation and took off her bra. Instead of teasing her with another question, he teased her breasts, tracing elaborate geometric figures on each plump form but studiously avoiding the sensitive centers. When her hips were twisting in his hands, he put his mouth over one nipple and drew in deeply.

She cried out, so needy that he realized she was balancing on the very edge.

“Oh, Rebecca,” he said, staring down at her flushed cheeks and disheveled hair. Her mouth was wet, her nipple was wet. When he ran his hand beneath her skirt, she was wet there, too.

She jerked into his light touch. “Trent, please.”

He slid her skirt off her body, then pressed one finger inside her and lost his breath as her muscles tightened on him. “Rebecca, you feel so good.”

“
You
feel so good.”

“No, you,” he teased, pulling out and pressing in again.

She gasped, and one of her hands clutched his forearm. “Trent, I—”

“Go ahead,” he said, “I'll take care of you.” She wasn't thinking at all now, he decided with smug satisfaction. She was pure sensation.

Then her eyes popped open, proving him wrong once again. “No, Trent. With me. We—we need to make our baby.”

His own idea startled him. Shocked him with the visceral, visual punch it made. “Rebecca,” he mur
mured, then leaned down to kiss her, to move into her mouth as his hand moved out of her body and he positioned himself between her legs.

She made room for him instantly, widening her thighs so that their satiny warmth rubbed against his hips. That alone almost set him off.

He lifted his head so he could watch himself breach the opening to her body. Her breath hitched as he pushed in, and he glanced up to see her watching, too. “It's beautiful, isn't it?” he murmured. “This making-babies business is beautiful.”

Her eyes closed as he sank in to the hilt. He lowered his chest so that it brushed the hard tips of her breasts, and they rocked together, once, twice, three times.

The rhythm caught, and he felt her passion rising again.

“Beautiful,” she whispered.

At the word, the climax caught him. He pumped into it, feeling her body gather, then still, then shake with pleasure. He poured himself into her, letting go in bursts of passion that wrung him out. When it was over, he rested against the pillow of her breasts.

She was wrung out, too. When he rolled off her, she was a rag doll that he was able to gather into his arms and hold against his body as she drifted into sleep.

While he thought.

Before, sex had always been a mind-numbing ride, but now his mind wouldn't shut down. They'd made a baby. They had a baby. He cupped his palm against Rebecca's belly and imagined the life growing beneath his hand.

It didn't scare him anymore.

But the woman in his arms— Oh God, she did.

Because he had a bad feeling that if anyone could, Rebecca could make him want to believe again.