Right by Her Side (4 page)

He sighed. “Cover for me, will you, Claudine? I might be out a couple of hours.”

It was time to confront Rebecca Holley and demand—in concise, clear terms—what he wanted from her.

Problem was, Trent thought a short car ride later, it was going to be hard to make any kind of demand to a woman sitting on the floor with a baby in her lap and a bigger kid hanging around her neck. Peering around a large poster announcing a children's health fair in the hospital parking lot the following weekend, he watched her through the glass door leading into the crowded playroom on the Pediatrics floor. After another minute, though, he pushed open the door and walked in, because she was laughing and…and the happy expression on her face made him feel as if he hadn't laughed since he was nine years old and Robbie Logan had gone missing while Trent was playing basketball in the rear yard.

She glanced up as he strode into the room, the smile on her face dying. “Oh!”

The last time he'd seen her, her face had been pale with fatigue and her eyes heavy with sleep, but now she looked flushed and alert. “Rebecca.” He nodded a greeting.

She rose to her feet, cradling the baby in her arms. Trent noticed the little guy had two full leg casts and three teeth.

“Gawaa!” Three-Teeth said, waving a fat arm.

Rebecca's cheek touched the top of the baby's head, a caress so natural he wondered if she was even aware of it. “This is Vince, one of my pediatric OR patients,” she said, then looked down at the other child she'd been playing with. “And Merry.”

“Nice to meet you,” Trent said, nodding again.

Merry wiggled the fingers of her thin hand.

Baby Vince made another wild gesture, a right hook that almost connected with Rebecca's nose. “Gawaa!
Gawaa!
”

“Right back at ya,” Trent murmured, coming close enough to capture the contender's little fist. The baby grinned at him, then took Trent's hand to his mouth to gnaw on it like a bone.

“Oh, sorry.” Rebecca tried to step back, but Trent halted her movement by capturing one of her shoulders in his other hand. Beneath his palm, the small curve felt feminine, delicate, reminding him of how fragile she'd seemed when he'd helped her to her bedroom.

“Have you been eating?” His voice sounded abrupt, he knew it, but thinking about her body beneath those dumpy scrubs was doing something to him…. Arousing him. Making him worried, because getting hot over a woman covered in pale pink with raspberry flamingos had to be the first symptom of some weird sexual perversion.

“I've been eating fine,” Rebecca assured him. “And getting more rest, too.” Her face flushed as bright as those long-legged birds she was wearing and she
glanced around at the kids and their parents who were involved with toys or puzzles or who were watching some kids' show on the TV in the corner of the room. “I want you to know I'm sorry about dozing off on you the other night. I've never done that before.”

“It's all right.”

“Well, thank you.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Is there…something you wanted?”

He frowned. He wanted her response to his proposition, of course. Then he jumped, startled by the sharp nip Vince gave his knuckle. “Yowch!”

The little guy grinned without an ounce of repentance. “Ga—”

“—waa. I know, kid. And a gawaa to you, too.”

Rebecca tried shifting the baby away, but Vince wasn't having it. With another “gawaa,” he held his arms out to Trent, smiling so widely that a big dollop of drool oozed over his bottom lip.

In one smooth move, Trent pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed off the kid's chin, and then took him in his own arms.

Rebecca blinked, then looked down at Merry, who looked back with the same surprise mirrored on her face. “So much for the big, bad businessman, eh, Merry?”

The little girl hid her answering smile behind her hand.

“Huh?” Trent lifted a brow. “Big bad businessman?”

“Inside joke,” Rebecca said, not meeting his eyes. Then she glanced down at Merry again. “This is the man I told you about. The one who brought me those boxes for your playhouse.”

“Oh.” The little girl darted a less-shy look in his direction. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Then Trent frowned, irritated that they'd strayed so far from his purpose.

Determined to get to it, he pinned Rebecca with an implacable stare. “Can we talk?”

She blinked a couple of times. “Oh, um, sure. But I have to stay in the playroom. I told my friend Janet I'd cover for her—we have a nurse in here at all times.” She looked down and suggested to Merry that she serve herself a glass of juice and then watch TV. The little girl moved off and Rebecca reached for Vince.

He huddled back against Trent's chest. “Gawaa gawaa gawaa.”

“Don't worry about it. He just needs a little guy time.” Trent reassured the baby by hitching him closer.

“Are you sure?” Rebecca frowned.

“I'm used to babies.”

“I can see that.” She shook her head as if it surprised her.

But if she'd known his mother the way Trent did, it wouldn't. Not that he'd been the perfect parental figure, either, but he'd done his best with the younger ones when he was growing up, when his father had spent all his time at work and his mother had spent all of hers doing as little as possible for her children. Trent would do his best with the child Rebecca was carrying, too.

He followed her to a deserted corner of the playroom and waited until they'd both settled into facing, cushioned chairs. Then he broached the subject that had
been weighing on him for the last forty-two, almost forty-three, hours. “What are your thoughts on my offer?”

She froze. “Your offer?”

“From the other night?”

“From the other night?”

There was either an echo in the room or she was stalling. “Rebecca—”

“Why was your sperm at Children's Connection?”

The question caught him by surprise. “Morgan Davis didn't tell you?” He'd figured the clinic's director had spilled the whole story.

She shook her head. “Only that it wasn't donated for artificial insemination purposes.”

Which led him to another question of his own. “Why did you go that route, by the way? You're what—twenty-five?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Why didn't you wait until you found the right guy? Do it the old-fashioned way?”

“The old-fashioned way was out of the question. The ‘right guy' divorced me two years ago.”

From the cool expression on her face, Mr. Right Guy had put her right off romance. Well, it wasn't as if Trent held any faith about matches being made in heaven, either. His parents' marriage and his own had both ended with unhappiness. He ran a hand through his hair, then stared down at the blue casts binding Vince's short legs. “You sound as if you're as soured on the whole love and marriage thing as I am.”

“
Are
you soured?”

He shrugged, then released a dry laugh. “Yeah. You asked why my sperm was at the clinic. My ex—my wife at the time, of course—was going to be inseminated. We thought it would increase the chances of her becoming pregnant. But when the big day came, she did the big back-out. Of my entire life.”

Rebecca released a little sigh. “I've come to the conclusion that while there
are
some good marriages built on real love, those are the exception. I'm not holding out hope that a fluke will happen to me.”

“Okay, so you're not looking for a man. But why a baby? Haven't you got plenty of them to occupy your time at the hospital?”

As if to emphasize his remark, Vince chose that moment to launch himself toward Rebecca. Trent passed the child over, again struck by the sweet, automatic caress she gave the baby as he settled against her. He could watch her stroke her cheek against a baby's downy head a dozen times, he thought, and never grow tired of it.

“I'm very good at my job, you know,” Rebecca said.

A non sequitur? Something about the way she said the words made it clear it was not. He tilted his head. “Okay. So you're good at your job…?”

Her gaze on the baby's face, she rocked him side-to-side as he snuggled against her shoulder. “There's a need for people who can do what I do.”

“I'm certain you're right, but—”

“It takes a lot out of me.” Her gaze came up to meet
his, and it was both direct and vulnerable. “Sick children, all day, every day.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Sick children, hurt children, suffering children. Dying children, Trent.”

His eyes jumped to Vince, now sound asleep against Rebecca's flamingo smock. He couldn't ask what was wrong with the baby. He didn't want to know.

He couldn't imagine how Rebecca could come to work every day.

“Why?” he asked.

She seemed to understand his question. “Because I can help many, many of them get well. Because I can comfort all of them. Because…because I can.”

For a second he felt ashamed that all he did was run a multimillion-dollar company. Then he cleared his throat. “But another child, Rebecca?”

Her gaze dropped from his. She lifted Vince's tiny hand and set it on top of hers, then stroked the baby's soft skin with her forefinger. “I need my own child, my own family to fill my well, Trent. To be my light, to be the strength I need to do a job that can tear me up inside. I need my own child to come home to, someone to repair the heart that gets broken a little bit every day. I need someone of my own to love.”

He tried to tell himself she'd made the speech with calculation, for maximum effect. With the sound of violins playing in her imagination.

“That brings us to my offer, I suppose,” he finally said.

“Your offer.” She blinked at him a couple of times,
her face paling. “I thought…I was so tired, I thought I dreamed it. I couldn't believe—”

“That I'd make such a proposition?” Trent heard the flat tone in his voice. “But I did. Half a million for the baby you're carrying. And after what you just said, I'm ready to up the ante to a full seven figures.”

R
ebecca stared at the man across from her. He didn't look like a nightmare—no, he looked like a dream—but she should be screaming all the same. “You'd give me a million dollars for my baby?”

“
Our
baby. And yes, I would give you a million, but you wouldn't accept it, would you?”

In relief, her heart tripped up, tangling her tongue, too. “I— You…” She sagged against the back of the chair, swallowed.

One of the kids at the other end of the room let out a screech, drawing Trent's attention. When he turned back to her, he said, “We need to schedule another talk. More private.”

“All right.” She croaked out the words, her voice still rough from surprise.

“I have something this evening I can't get out of.” He rose, towering over her. “But how about tomorrow night?”

She rose, too, with Vince cradled against her in one arm. “Okay.” Her mind was catching up to events. Trent had come here perfectly serious about wanting to
buy
her baby! But he was leaving now, and seemingly convinced that he couldn't, that she wouldn't agree. But did that mean he was going to relinquish his rights? That was what she wanted. That's what she needed
him
to agree upon.

Her free hand crept over her belly.
What should I do, Eisenhower?

As she walked Trent toward the playroom's exit, her gaze landed on the poster taped to both sides of the glass door. “The fair,” she said aloud.

“What?” He paused and looked at her.

If he saw her with kids again, if he got to know her a little better, he would see she'd make a good mother and that she didn't need or want anything from him. He continued to look down at her, waiting.

“Tomorrow's Saturday,” she said. “If you don't have something else going on, would you…like to come help me out at the children's fair? I'm sort of half in charge and we could use an extra set of hands.”

“A children's fair?” He said the words as if he'd never heard of such a thing.

Probably because the big, bad businessman usually concerned himself with big, bad business and not some
thing as mundane as hot dogs and pony rides. She smiled at him, anyway. “You said you were good with babies.”

“I did, didn't I?” Then he turned and strode for the door.

“Ten o'clock!” she called out after him. “I hope to see you there!”

 

By the time 9:45 a.m. rolled around, Rebecca realized she'd organized herself right out of anything major to do. Weeks ago she'd canvassed the hospital staff for volunteers and they'd stepped up without arm-twisting. The proceeds were going to benefit Camp I Can, a summer camp dear to the heart of Meredith Malone Weber, a pediatrics physical therapist. Thanks to that good cause, artistic nursing assistants were in place to paint little faces. Interns were using their rotating breaks to grill hot dogs or hand out sunscreen samples. Other volunteers were lined up to do everything from selling tickets to supervising the line for the ponies.

The flagged-off area for the fair was already starting to fill even before the official opening. Rebecca waved at a few faces she recognized, then went back to the last-minute run-through of her list. With the excited chatter and squeals of children rising around her, the hand that touched her shoulder came out of the blue at the same time that a male voice spoke in her ear. “Reporting for duty, Nurse Holley.”

Trent. It was Trent. Her face heated despite herself as she glanced up and took in his damp, dark golden
hair, white T-shirt and worn jeans. He wore running shoes, the expensive kind that she always thought should do the running on their own at that price tag.

“Is there something wrong with what I'm wearing?” His hand slid from her shoulder and he held both arms out.

She shook her head, thinking,
I was right about those good-looking genes, Eisenhower.
“No, you're perfect.” Her face burned. “I mean, what you're
wearing
is perfect.”

“You look nice, too.”

Right. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her jeans, tennies and man-size Property of Portland General T-shirt was probably as unfamiliar to him as woman's wear as the scrubs he'd seen her in before. But she wasn't hoping to impress him as a
female.
Today was about showing him her maternal, responsible side.

A toddler bumped into her knees and she automatically reached down to steady the child. See? Today was about moments like this, when she could prove to him she was the right person to retain sole custody of the baby he'd unwittingly half created.

“So, what can I do?” he asked.

She ran her finger down the list on her clipboard, then grimaced. Before finalizing the assignments, maybe she should have considered what kind of job Trent Crosby, CEO, would find appropriate. “How do you feel about cotton candy?” It was the single booth not yet manned.

“The sweet, sticky stuff?”

Grimacing again, she nodded. “Sorry, but it's the only job left.”

He chucked her under the chin, then leaned close, as if preparing to share a deep, dark secret. “Don't apologize.” His warm breath tickled the side of her neck. “There's nothing I like better than sweet and sticky.”

Rebecca's muscles froze solid as his words, his teasing tone, the closeness of him sent a wave of contrasting heat over her skin. Beneath her T-shirt, her nipples contracted into hard points, pressing against the cups of her bra. Drawing in a breath, she sucked in that delicious, spicy scent that she'd smelled on Trent's skin the night he'd half carried her to bed.

She inhaled it again, and something deep inside her, something long-dormant, stirred.

Desire, she realized. It stretched, warming up and loosening her insides.

“You okay?”

No.
She hadn't wanted a man since discovering the $988.72 Victoria's Secret charge on her husband's credit card. She hadn't thought about her body in sexual terms since deciding upon becoming a mother.

“I'm fine.” She would be. Some new pregnancy hormone had probably kicked in and was coursing through her bloodstream, causing this odd heaviness in her breasts and belly. It wasn't Trent who was responsible for the sudden tautness of her skin and her enhanced sense of smell.

“Let's go, then.” He looked down at her, his eyebrows raised. Maybe puzzled by her strange behavior, but certainly not under the sexual spell that had paralyzed her.

“Yes, let's go.” She forced herself to move. In a few
minutes her hormone levels would rebalance and she would see him as the rich, unreachable guy he was. She wouldn't
smell
him, be aware of him, want to touch him and have him touch her with such a painful ache.

Today was supposed to be about showing him she was responsible and maternal, not needy and sexual.

The cotton-candy machine was set up at the end of the aisle of food booths. The outfit they'd rented it from had provided the cartons of pink floss sugar to fill the machine as well as the paper cones to wind the candy threads around. It had looked easy during the demonstration.

“Once the machine's warmed up and spinning,” she explained to Trent, as she started following her own instructions, “you just twirl the cone as you move it around the edge, picking up the cotton as you go along.”

But despite the simple instructions, her effort wasn't going well. What was supposed to be a full, puffy ball of cotton candy was wispy and drooping. More of the floss coated her fingers than covered the cone. Frustrated, she stopped and studied the result. “It looks terrible.”

“You better let me taste it,” Trent said.

“Huh?” Frowning, she held it up for his inspection. “I don't know what's—”

His hand wrapped around her wrist.

At the contact, her arm jerked.

His mouth, which had been leaning in for that taste, sampled the sticky back of her hand instead. Warm and wet, his tongue swiped across her skin.

That new hormone flooded her again. Her gaze flew
to his, and her eyes widened as her skin prickled and her nipples tingled, then tightened, in one unstoppable, sexual rush. Could he tell?

Oh yeah, he could. His nostrils flared, as if scenting the desire oozing out of her pores.

Her voice came out a broken whisper. “I don't…I don't know…”

“You don't know what?”
His
voice was lower, raspier.

“I don't know what to say.” But she had to say something, right? “I'm, uh, sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Trent's eyes flicked to her mouth, and then back up. “I told you I like it sweet and sticky.”

His one hand still holding on to her wrist, he lifted the other to pinch a bit of candy off the cone and held it toward her lips. “See what you think.” He sounded like seduction, his voice liquid and coaxing.

Which made her
feel
liquid, sweet and sticky, and she was afraid she wasn't hiding it very well. It wasn't a maternal, responsible response. It wasn't a smart thing for him to see. It wasn't safe or smart for her to let
him,
of all people, make her feel that way.

“Come on, don't be afraid. Open up that pretty mouth and taste.”

Oh, he sounded like seduction, all right. Her mouth was halfway open, her tongue halfway out.

A child's voice pierced the heated air around them. “Mama! Mama! Cotton candy! Please! Buy me cotton candy.”

Rebecca lurched back. Trent's fingers released her and she spun toward the child and parent. “Can I help you?” she asked, trying to sound normal.

She must have looked normal, because the mother handed over the two tickets required instead of running in the other direction to protect her son from the X-rated thoughts rattling around in Rebecca's brain. The little boy bobbed up and down on his heels while Trent started on the candy. His first effort came out perfectly, wouldn't you know? But she didn't have a chance to commend him on it because by the time he handed it over, they had a five-deep line.

It stayed five-deep for the next couple of hours, so she didn't have time to think, let alone worry over her uncontrollable response to Trent. At his insistence, she took one quick break from the booth to eat a hot dog and drink a bottle of water—she brought the same back to him—and then, as quickly as the line had formed, it evaporated. The fair was nearly over and, from the looks of things, had been an unqualified success.

However, the dearth of customers meant Rebecca had to face Trent without anything but the cotton-candy machine between them. She had to face up to those brief, but charged moments of sexual awareness. In their booth's new silence, the whirring noise of the mechanism sounded loud, but not as loud as her beating heart. He switched off the machine, but, unwilling to meet his eyes, she kept her head down and pretended an interest in the coffee can of tickets she'd collected.

What's he going to think about me now, Eisen
hower?
What kind of responsible mom goes wild with desire over a man she barely knows? Maybe he wouldn't bring it up. And even if he did, maybe she could pretend he'd mistaken what had happened.

Yeah, right. And then he'd happen to brush against her once more and she'd melt into a puddle at his feet.

What kind of impression would that make?

“Rebecca.”

Trent's voice, close by, startled her. Worried that he might touch her again, she stumbled back, knocking into the cotton-candy machine. To save herself, she reached behind, her steadying hands plunging into the remnants of gooey candy floss.

Still unbalanced, she staggered backward some more, her foot knocking over an open carton of cotton-candy mix that was still half full. As she whirled to grab the container, the powder spilled all over her tennies.

“Oh, no!” She groaned and, looking down at the mess, ran her hands over her hair—where they stuck like gum.

With another groan, she yanked them free. Aware of her appearance, and that as impressions went, she'd left an indelible one of incredible awkwardness, she raised her gaze to meet Trent's. “I can't believe this.”

His lips twitched. “Maybe it's my fault. But when I said I liked sticky and sweet, I didn't mean—”

“Ooooh!”

“Don't stamp your foot when you're standing in all that powder, because then you'll have more than a mustard stain on your shirt.”

Her gaze dropped. Sure enough, there was a big ol' swathe of bright yellow across the front of her T-shirt. A nice contrast to the pink cast to her sticky hands. “I'm usually a very neat person,” she muttered, annoyed at his teasing and embarrassed all over again. “Seriously. Ask anyone.”

He laughed. “And I'll give you the chance to prove it. Let me see if I can find a bucket of water and a broom.”

“Would you?” At least that would give her a few moments alone to mourn her dignity. “Go to the ticket booth and ask for Eddie. He'll help.”

“Eddie.” Trent nodded, then grinned at her. “Now, don't go anywhere.”

As if she could, she thought, looking at the remains of the cotton-candy booth that needed to be cleaned up. Not to mention herself. Could the day get any worse? Could she
appear
any worse in Trent's eyes?

“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice said. “If it isn't my ex. And looking her usual best.”

Humiliation skittered like a cockroach down Rebecca's spine. Determined not to let her former husband see her reaction, though, she lifted her chin and coolly met his gaze.

He was looking like a million and one bucks, in expensive khakis and a starched dress shirt, his initials embroidered on the pocket. His white doctor's coat was thrown over one arm and his fingers were twined with those of the woman he'd left her for—Constance Blake. In a pastel suit, Constance looked like two million and one bucks, plus all the alimony payments that Rebecca
deserved but that her ex-husband had managed to weasel out of.