Right by Her Side (13 page)

He'd been sleeping in the guest bed because
she
disturbed
him.

“Trent?”

His gaze jerked up. “Excuse me, Mom. What did you say?”

“I asked you about the Summer Solstice dance at the country club Saturday night. Are you going?”

Still distracted by thoughts of Rebecca, Trent's mind drifted away. “Hmm? Yeah. Sure. I bought a table.” The night before, he'd been tempted to wake his wife when he'd finally wandered home in the dead of night. Seventeen straight hours at his desk hadn't dampened his desire for her.

He remembered every detail of her body from their one night together—the sleek warmth of her skin, the weighty surprise of her breasts, the clinging sweetness of her wavy hair. He'd wanted to anchor his hands in it, twine his fingers with it and hold her against the pillow to take his kiss, wakening Sleeping Beauty to all that he wanted to softly, gently, tenderly give her.

But that was the danger. All that softness, gentleness, tenderness. Giving her that would mean first dropping the protection—the breastplate, the chain mail—that had kept him invulnerable since Robbie had gone miss
ing. Since Danny's Noah had been kidnapped. Since Mara had left him with nothing more than a vial of empty dreams.

Until Rebecca.

But he'd promised himself, promised
her
, that their marriage would be based on strength. On the strength of the notion that love was too nebulous to build a marriage upon. He couldn't go back to her now and say he'd been wrong. That he'd made a mistake.

For God's sake, he
wasn't
mistaken about love.

Katie and Ivy seemed happy enough, but that was the girls. Maybe they were smarter than he was. Hell, braver.

Believing in the unbelievable.

Taking chances on faith.

Risking hurt, risking hearts, when all signs pointed to the fact that love didn't last. That it died. That it didn't, in fact, exist at all.

The rest of the meal with his mother went well enough. He parried when he had to. Threw up a shield when it was necessary. Stood between Sheila and his sisters as he'd done all his life. Not that Ivy's King Max or Katie's Peter would let their mother-in-law do her damage any longer, Plus, he supposed the girls could do fine on their own.

It was just that old habits died hard. Old fears, too.

They were sipping coffee and he was playing with a slice of cheesecake when Sheila brought up the Summer Solstice dance again. “Will your-father-the-bastard be there?”

Trent looked up. “We're sitting together.”

“With the bimbo?”

“With Toni, yes.”

His mother nodded. “Then I must have a new dress.”

Trent set his fork down. “You're going?”

“Of course. I told you that half an hour ago. Weren't you listening?”

Apparently not. Apparently she'd mentioned it when he'd been fantasizing about Rebecca. “I don't want a scene, Mom.” That jungle-drums headache was starting up again.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

He couldn't afford to leave it at that. Not when his father and his father's wife were going to be there. Not when Katie and Peter would be in attendance. None of them needed the embarrassment of any tricks Sheila might be capable of producing. Rebecca's second thoughts about their marriage would rise again. She'd tell him it was a mistake and he wouldn't be able to deny it. “Mom, remember when we had that little talk about rumors and Children's Connection? About how I'd revoke your membership at the club if you started any? Well, the same goes if you make a scene at the Summer Solstice dance.”

She tried a collagen-enhanced pout on him. “I don't know why you'd say such a thing.”

His gaze was steady on hers. “I mean it, Mom. Don't approach Dad.”

Her eyes dropped. “Oh, fine. But maybe I wanted to say hello. You know, for old times' sake.”

“Right. Old times' sake.” Trent didn't bother excising the cynicism from his voice. “The old times were hell, Mom, and you know it.”

“It was what happened with that Robbie Logan,” she complained. “It put so much stress on your father and me.”

Trent sighed. “Whatever, Mom.”

“You think you know everything about the past, Trent. But I loved your father once. I loved him very much. And sometimes I wonder if…” A faraway look came into her eyes.

Trent's jaw dropped. In a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, he wouldn't have believed Sheila would ever have admitted to loving her husband at one time. And from the look on her face…Trent wondered if her bitterness and her complaints masked a hurt that he'd never guessed before.

His mother might not be a nice person. She certainly wasn't an altruistic one. But she was human.

And…she'd loved? She'd loved. And maybe, buried deep beneath her own brand of armor, she still did.

If Trent could believe
that,
then maybe he also had to believe that love existed after all. Could that be possible?

No, damn it, no. Because love could risk all that he was building with Rebecca.

 

Something woke Rebecca out of a deep sleep. She opened her eyes, listening for the sound of Trent moving into the bedroom that had once been hers. But the
noises weren't upstairs noises. They didn't sound like Trent noises either.

On his other late nights he'd always headed straight for the steps. Once at the top, he would stop in the entry of the master bedroom where she'd left the door ajar. She'd know he was there, watching her, and she'd squeeze her eyes shut as her heart squeezed in uncertainty.

And in that same moment, she wanted him, loved him, wanted to dance in delirious circles because love had fallen into her lap.

She wanted him, loved him, wanted to cry in a tantrum of despair because love had fallen into her lap.

After a few minutes of watching her faked sleep, he'd move on, into the other bedroom. And she'd press the one tear she allowed herself against the pillowcase.

But the noises, the non-Trent noises, weren't moving up the stairs tonight. Fear flickered in her throat and she reached for the phone. It was the cordless kind, and she held it against her thumping heart.

The rustling downstairs didn't abate.

Was it a vandal? Burglar? Serial killer in a hockey mask?

Or an idiot woman imagining things? She'd been reading that very spooky romantic suspense book right before turning out her light.

Still gripping the phone, Rebecca slipped out of bed. Then she tiptoed to the top of the stairs and listened. Rustling, all right. From the den, where there was not only the cardboard cottage she'd been making slow
progress on, but also where Trent kept his big-screen TV, his stereo, his techie, rich-guy toys that she'd been so intimidated by that she left them solely to the housekeeper to dust.

We'll call 9-1-1, Eisenhower.

And then feel like a complete fool when the police arrested the homeowner for rustling around in his own house.

Gathering her common sense and a little courage, she made her way, noiselessly, down the stairs. From there she scurried across the foyer and through the dining room to peek into the den.

What she saw inside made her take a hasty step back.

Then she peeked in again, confirming her first glimpse.

Her cottage. Her cottage had changed. Half believing she'd find those little mice-turned-dressmakers from Cinderella had turned into construction workers to transform her playhouse, she walked into the den. But instead of mice, the architect was Trent. He stood with his back to her, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, shoeless.

Trent, messing with her house!

She marched forward. “What are you doing?”

He whirled. One of his front shirttails had come loose from his pants. “I, uh, I…”

Propping her hands on her hips, she tilted back her head to take in all he'd done. Her quaint, cute little cottage had a whole new demeanor. It had two stories. A turret. She pointed. “Is that a
drawbridge?
”

He glanced over, and a grin quirked the corners of his mouth. “Yeah. What do you think?”

“What do I
think?
” She stared at him, feeling shabby and rumpled in her old flannel nightshirt while he looked designer-disheveled and downright tickled by his renovations of
her
project.

It was too much. He was too much. He'd taken her humble playhouse and made it into something fantastical.

“How could you?” she said, glaring at him. “How could you do this to—to—”
Me.

Trent frowned, glanced at the playhouse again. “You don't like it?”

“No, I don't like it. And I don't like—”
What you've done to me. I don't like it that you overturned my modest expectations for our relationship and made me want you to love me like I love you.

Looking at his gorgeous, puzzled, beloved face, she burst into tears.

T
rent rushed toward the sobbing Rebecca. “Sweetheart, what's the matter?” He moved to put his arms around her, but she shook her head and backed away from him. Tears were running from her big, Disney-character eyes, and they drenched him with guilt and confusion.

“Is it the playhouse? If you don't like it, I'll put it back the way it was.”

She shook her head again.

“Then I'll flatten the whole thing.”

“N-no.” She covered her face with her hands. “Never mind.”

Never mind?
Yeah, right. “Rebecca—”

Her hands fell from her face. “Go to bed,” she said,
her voice thick. “Or go to work or go out to another business dinner. Just go away and leave me alone!”

Go to work? Go to another business dinner? Maybe what he'd done wrong
was
to leave her alone. “Rebecca, talk to me. What's the matter? If it isn't the playhouse—”

“It
is
the playhouse!” She glowered at him, then wiped her face on her sleeve. “It was simple, it was unassuming, and now it's something else altogether and it's all your fault.”

“Then we'll put it back the way it was.”

“You can't,” she said, her voice resigned. “You can never put it back the way it was.”

He nodded in understanding. “This is another one of those times when using logic would be a bad idea, right?”

That startled a laugh out of her. “Oh, I hate when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make me laugh.” She swiped her sleeve over her face. “Especially because I really, really want to be mad at you right now. And don't ask me why.”

“Why?”

“Uuuuhh!” Her arms lifted from her sides, fell back. “This isn't the way it's supposed to be. You're not the way you're supposed to be.” She crossed to the nearby couch and flopped onto it.

Trent followed her, then sat down himself.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, nodding to the play castle.

“I came home, I couldn't sleep.” Not with the leftovers of uneasiness and uncertainty he'd brought home from his dinner with his mother.

Rebecca crossed her arms over her chest. “Things always have to be bigger and better for you, don't they?”

Frowning, he focused back on her. “It wasn't like that. I had an idea—”

“Don't you see how wrong we are together? This just proves it. You're castles, I'm cottages!”

The non sequitur sounded like the perfect segue into her calling their marriage a mistake again. The thought made a fire leap to life in his belly. But sucking in a quick breath, Trent clamped down on his sudden spike of temper. He thought he knew what was happening here, and she needed his patience.

Take it easy, Crosby. Don't let her get to you.
“Rebecca—”

“Castles!” She, on the other hand, was working herself up into another mad. “Cottages!”

“But both cardboard,” he pointed out, trying to derail her.

Her head whipped toward him. “What?”

“Castle or cottage, both are cardboard.”

“I don't understand a thing you're saying.” Tears wet her eyes again. “I don't understand what's happening to me,” she whispered.

That got to him. Plunged straight into his chest. “Honey.” Even though she tried to push him away, he pulled her into his arms. “It's hormones, sweetheart. Don't you think?”

She stilled. Sniffed. “Hormones?”

Her next sniff prompted Trent to pull his handkerchief from his back pocket and hand it over to her. “I took a look at that pregnancy book you've left lying around. It says you're likely to get emotional at unlikely moments over unlikely things.”

“Emotional? At unlikely moments?” She looked up at him, hope in her damp eyes. “Do you suppose that's what it is?”

“Of course.” God, if only all his problems could be solved so easily.

“Overemotional at unlikely moments over unlikely things.” Rebecca appeared to mull that over, then her face broke into a beatific smile. “I feel
so
much better.”

And so did he. As a matter of fact, her smile made him feel brilliant.

“I feel
so
relieved.” Dropping his handkerchief, she knelt on the couch to take his face between her hands. “Hormones! For a few terrible moments I thought it was love.” And then she kissed him.

A noisy, friendly kiss. But enough to distract him. Enough to take his mind off the word she'd said. It only came back to him when she leaned away again.
Love?
He grabbed her arm. “What did you say?”

“Love.” Her face flushed, but she managed to meet his gaze. “Silly, huh? I shouldn't have mentioned it.” As she looked away, it appeared she regretted it.

“Love?”

“I know, I know.” She drew an intricate pattern on the fuzzy pink fabric of her nightwear. “It couldn't be,
of course, because cardboard in common or not, you're a castle, I'm a cottage, and never the twain shall meet.”

“That's a mixed metaphor, honey. And we not only met, but we married.” But…love.
Hell.
Love. Why did it keep coming up?

Without stopping to consider what he was doing, though, he pulled Rebecca onto his lap. Without stopping to wonder why that one little word wouldn't stop echoing in his life and sounding in his head, he lowered his mouth to hers.

Love.

She was soft and warm and this kiss wasn't friendly. Yet he took her lips with tenderness, all the gentleness that he could come up with, because that word, that word
love,
sounded so pretty and so delicate when she said it.

When he came up for air, he looked down into her eyes and brushed the hair from her forehead. “And we're not castles or cottages, either. We're a man and a woman. So come on, Rebecca, let's make—”

Her fingers pressed against his mouth. “Hormones.”

Let's make
hormones?

“Please, Trent,” she whispered.

Please let's make hormones, or please let's pretend with that word instead of the other?
He took her hand away and kissed each fingertip. “I want you, Rebecca.”

She swallowed. “I've slept alone all week, Trent. Why?”

He shook his head. “I've told myself a dozen reasons, none of which make the least bit of sense now that I have you in my arms.”

“Then maybe we've both been wrong.”

She meant she thought she'd been wrong about loving him. He closed his eyes. “Let's think about who has made what mistake later. Now let's—”

“Make hormones.”

Whatever way she wanted to play it, it didn't matter. Once again, that other word was in his head and he couldn't seem to let it go. She'd said love. Love.

He opened his eyes. “How do you feel about this couch?” he asked. It was black leather and looked like something that should be in a psychiatrist's office.

She twisted her head to get a look at it, making him fascinated by the soft spot on her cheek beside her ear. He leaned forward to kiss it and felt her shiver.

“It's an ugly couch, Trent,” she said. “Sorry.”

“I think it's the color,” he said, then kissed the corner of her mouth to distract her as he began sliding up the hem of her nightgown to draw it over her head. “It needs one that's softer.”

He laid the empty pink garment on the leather expanse behind Rebecca. “It needs you.” With his hands on her shoulders, he pushed her against the couch and followed her down.

Her thighs parted to make a place for him, and a hot tremor rolled over his skin. He rocked against her silky panties and, leaning on his elbows, filled his palms with her breasts.

Love.

The word was in his mind, in his mouth, on the tip of his tongue as he explored her body. He painted each
letter on her naked chest. He breathed it against her belly button. When he pulled off her panties, it was in his palms as he ran them back up her bare inner thighs.

When he touched her between her legs, her little gasp sounded like something more than passion. More than hormones. She rocked into his fingers, giving herself to him, letting him learn more about her.

He leaned back down, spreading her thighs wider with his shoulders. She seemed to sense his intention and tried to scissor him away.

“Trent, I'm not sure…”

She wasn't sure she could open herself to him. Let him be so intimate with her. But that word was in the air and in her voice—
love
—and it pushed him to push her.

“Please, Rebecca,” he said. He licked a path between her hipbones and cupped her breasts so that he could thumb her nipples. “Please, Rebecca.”

Her breath was ragged. “You…”

“Yes, all for me.”
Love.
He leaned down and nuzzled between her folds. “You, all for me.” Her taste was sweet and womanly, and she cried out as he opened her for his kiss.

He explored her with his mouth, his heart pounding, his shaft aching with excitement. One of Rebecca's hands was in his hair and he reveled in the desperate bite of her nails against his scalp. “That's right,” he whispered. “Give it to me.”
Love.

And as he felt her start to shake in climax, he kept tonguing her wet woman-flesh. Rebecca's flesh. As she
moaned the sound of her release, he breathed out against her.
Love.
She climaxed again.

He undressed with one hand, keeping the other busy caressing her body. She watched him with languid eyes, her body sprawled against the ugly couch that would, from now on, forever be beautiful to him. “You make me feel selfish,” she whispered.

“Selfish? You?” He laughed. “That's the last thing you are, sweetheart.”

He crawled up her body to his favorite place between her legs. She played with his hair, then traced her fingers over his mouth. “You've got quite the technique, Mr. Crosby.”

“I was inspired, Mrs. Crosby.”
Love.

Her legs wrapped around his waist, but he didn't enter her yet. This moment was too good to lose in the heat of sex. “Am I squishing you?”

Her hair swished against the leather as she shook her head. “Eisenhower isn't big enough yet.”

“Eisenhower?” His eyes widened. “I thought you were leaning toward Matthew or Giselle.”

“Inside joke.” She stilled, laughed. “Really an inside joke.” Her hand wandered to the back of his neck so she could pull him down for a kiss. “I like Trent,” she said against his mouth.

“Trent Junior?”

There was a glint in her eye. “Trent Senior. You, I like.”

Love.
He didn't care what she had just said instead. Lifting his hips, he matched up their bodies. Later he'd think about why the word didn't scare the hell out of
him. Later, he'd think about how one pretty little valentine had swept away all vestiges of his cynicism with one sweep of her eyelashes. How she'd washed his heart clean with her tears.

“This is for you, Rebecca,” he said, entering her in a long, tender stroke.
Love.

Her eyes drifted shut and her pelvis tipped into his to perfect the fit. “Aaah,” they said together.

Her eyes opened and she gave him a smile with such power that he thought it could make a cottage into a castle, that it could cause a bitter skeptic like himself to be reborn. In a slow movement, he pulled himself out of her.

This is how it is when we're alone.

Then he sank in again, causing them both to shudder.

This is how it is when we're together.

Love.

A faster rhythm was impossible to deny himself. His body moved on its own, reaching for the pinnacle, while Trent's mind cataloged the details of the journey. Rebecca's flushed skin. Her swollen mouth. Her dark, dark eyes that blurred when he reached between them to touch her where they were joined.

“Trent?”

He felt a bead of sweat roll down his spine, the gathering of lust between his thighs. Pleasure was just out of reach, but Rebecca was right here. Rebecca…and love.

His body vaulted that last distance and his stroking fingers took Rebecca with him. They both cried out.

I love you.

It swirled around them. He could swear one of them had said it aloud.

And as beautiful as the moment was, as the feeling was, he hoped to God it wasn't him.

 

“I have something for you.”

Rebecca turned at the sound of Trent's voice. Her eyes widened. Trent Crosby in black tie. The shorthand for that was…wow. Just
wow.

As he approached, she plucked at the strapless slip she was wearing. Over it would go the new dress she had bought for the Summer Solstice dance at the country club. The slip was not revealing, at least not anymore than the dress itself, but with Trent moving toward her with that look in his eyes she felt naked.

Ever since that night on the couch in the den, every time he looked at her she felt equal parts excited and exposed. Her stomach jittered as he reached out to wrap his finger in one of her curls. “You're so pretty,” he said.

She clamped down on the shiver that wanted to roll down her back. He was her husband, her lover, the father of her child. There was no reason for him to make her nervous.

Except that she'd said the
L
-word to him when she'd been complaining about the changes he'd made to the playhouse. It had popped out of her mouth, sprung by tears, sprung by Trent who'd been trying to help by reading her pregnancy books.
He read her pregnancy books.

She felt herself tearing up at the thought.

“Sweetheart, what's wrong?” He ran his knuckle along her cheek.

“Mascara.” She blinked in rapid succession to take care of the overflow moisture. To distract him, she touched her finger to his snowy shirtfront. “You said you had something for me.”