Right by Her Side (9 page)

He shrugged. “It's those naked legs, honey. We're all at their mercy.”

That word,
naked,
derailed her. Suddenly she was thinking of her naked legs, of Trent admiring them, and whether his comment was even true or not, she found herself sitting down, smiling, shaking hands as she met the people at their table.

It was like that for the rest of the evening. Every time she stumbled, every time those awkward doubts tried to overtake her, he was there, touching her hand, murmuring something into her ear, making her smile or laugh. Making her relax.

Ray had always left her alone at social gatherings with his friends. Sink or swim, he'd say. And she'd always felt she'd floundered.

As they pulled into the driveway at the end of the night, Trent told her to stay put and then came around to help her out of the car. Gently pulling her from her seat, he said, “You did it. You should feel proud of yourself.”

“I was determined to do right by you,” she said. He gave her a surprised glance, but didn't release her hand as he led her into the house. In the foyer, she tugged him to face her. “And I realize, Trent, I realize…”

He stepped closer, his thighs just inches from her naked ones.
Naked.

“I realize…”

His free hand stroked down her cheek, then back up to tuck a curl behind her ear. “What do you realize?”

She couldn't catch her breath. His touch was putting that strange, sexual spell on her again, making her forget who she was, why she was here.
Naked.
She couldn't seem to get that word out of her head.

“I realize that instead, Trent, you did right by me.”

“‘Did' right by you?” He smiled and in the dim light it flashed with the same bright whiteness of his shirt. “Darling, I haven't even gotten started doing right by you.”

His head dipped down.

 

Trent let his mouth hover over Rebecca's. He needed a moment before she knocked him on his ass again. Because surely she would.

Every time he thought he had a handle on their situation, she shook things up again. Called their marriage a mistake. Drew up household schedules. Informed him she'd wanted to “do right” by him.

Appeared at the top of the stairs tonight like something out of a dream.

His lips landed hard on hers. She tasted like warmth and surprise and there was that pillowy bottom lip that made him think of long, lazy afternoons. He swiped his tongue against it.

She shivered, and he cupped her shoulders in his palms. His mouth moved across her cheek and she moaned in his ear as he moved down the creamy flesh
of her neck. “Your legs weren't the only things making me crazy all night,” he murmured against her throat.

Her breasts. There should be odes written to those breasts. They were creamy, like the rest of her skin, and plump. Man, they were plump. He backed off a little and let his forefinger wander down the neckline of her dress. Under his other hand, he felt her quiver again.

“Rebecca.”

She was staring down at his hand, fascinated, it seemed, by the slow, tracing movement of his darker-skinned finger along her fine-pored flesh.

“Rebecca, we need to talk.”

Her head came up. “About what?”

“About…” The answer was simple, wasn't it? There was no sense denying themselves any longer. It was time they took this to his bedroom and did something with all the sexual heat simmering between them. Wouldn't it only cement their partnership? Then she'd never bring up that mistake business again.

Beneath his stroking fingertip, he felt her skin heat. He drew his knuckle upward again, painting a slow line toward the thrumming pulse in her neck. Maybe they shouldn't talk at all. He was rock-hard, she was trembling, and words could get in the way.

Leaning down, he captured her mouth again. He slid his tongue inside and felt her little hum of response. She stumbled closer, and he slid his hands down to her hips and tilted hers against his own. That hum reverberated through the both of them this time.

Her mouth tore free of his and she stared in the direction of his pants. “Wh-what's happening?”

He gazed down at her, half-dazed himself. “You're a nurse, you figure it out.”

Then he felt that little buzz again, only it didn't come from her. It came from him. His pants. With a groan, he shoved his hand in his front pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “What the hell? I grabbed this before we left, but this isn't mine.” And he never put his on vibrate.

Rebecca swiped it out of his hand. “It's mine.” She frowned at the screen, then flipped the phone open and brought it to her ear. “The hospital,” she said to him, then into the phone, “This is Rebecca.”

In an instant her demeanor changed. She went from dreamy female to hyper-alert nurse. “When? How long? I will, right away.” With a
clack,
she snapped the phone shut.

“What is it? What's the problem?”

“Merry.” She was already rushing for the door. “Her asthma's acting up again. They've admitted her and she's calling for me.”

“I'll drive you.”

She skidded to a halt. “No. Oh, no. I'm sorry, I—” Her cheeks flushed pink. “This was your business evening and…”

And they'd been heading for a lusty workout on his mattress upstairs. “And while I'd like to stomp my feet and then pout in the corner over the change of plans, my car is blocking yours and I'd feel better about
driving you than having you drive yourself over there at this time of night.”

“It's nothing new.”

“Being married to me is.” He didn't let her protest further. The fact was, he
did
want to stomp his feet and pout, but she'd said the magic word.
Merry.
He remembered the little girl. He and Rebecca could postpone their date between the sheets for an hour or so until the child settled down for the night.

The hour or so turned into four.

It was the wee hours of the morning when he heard her dismayed voice. “Trent! I thought I told someone to make you go home.”

He removed the tattered
People
magazine he'd splayed over his face and sat up on his mattress of four molded plastic chairs. “A beefy, fifty-something orderly came by and told me I wasn't good enough for you, if that's what you mean.”

“Oh.” She pulled around her the ends of the lab coat she wore over her dress and dropped onto one of the seats beside him. “Sorry about that. I had to explain about you. People here know you're my husband now.”

Husband. Rebecca's husband.

Now he understood why she'd looked so odd when he'd told her he'd informed friends and family of their marriage. It felt different to know Rebecca's friends were looking at him, judging him. Their relationship didn't seem so simple, so straightforward any longer. “A woman whose badge read Peggy brought me a Danish. Does that mean she approves of me?”

Rebecca closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of her chair. “If you have a Y chromosome, Peggy approves of you.”

“Oh.” He should have known it wouldn't be that easy. “How's Merry?”

“Sleeping now. It's been a rough few hours for her.”

Trent noted the new paleness of Rebecca's face. “For you, too.”

She rolled her head from side to side to ease the stiffness in her neck. “It's the light in here. Makes everyone pasty.”

He stood up, then grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Upsy-daisy, pasty lady. Time for bed.”

Her gaze flew to his. Messages flew back and forth.

We almost made it there tonight, together.

Yes.

Do you feel relief or regret?

Yes.

Looking at the exhausted woman in front of him, Trent realized that going to bed with Rebecca was a lot more serious than the simple slaking of lust that he'd had in mind. Cementing their partnership with sex had repercussions he hadn't let himself consider. Here was a woman who cared about people, who cared
for
people as her profession.

She made apple cobbler, for God's sake.

This was a woman unlike his selfish mother or his self-absorbed first wife. She wasn't a one-night stand, either. He could do damage here if he didn't tread very, very carefully.

“Let's go home, Rebecca.” He'd never thought of it as that, as “home,” but now he discovered there might be something new to the word.

Just like simple wasn't so simple anymore. But he was still right—she'd found a way to knock him on his ass once more.

T
hree days later, Trent arrived home in the late afternoon. He slammed shut the front door, dumped his briefcase on the foyer table and scowled at the neat pile of mail. The scent of something sugary beckoned from the kitchen, but it didn't sweeten his lousy mood.

“Trent, is that you?” Rebecca's voice called from the direction of the den.

“Yeah.” He didn't dare go near her.

At the moment, women were dangerous to him. Tall, short, young, old, the entire female half of the world was out to drive him nuts.

“Trent, is everything all right?” The gentle note of concern only served to rub him wrong.

“No, everything is very
not
all right,” he muttered.

“What?”

I'm a man. You're a woman. Let's have sex.
But he couldn't lead with that, could he?

“My own assistant just kicked me out of the building,” he yelled in frustration instead. “My littler sister apparently considers herself the queen of my life as well as the Queen of Lantanya, because she called four times this morning to berate me about keeping quiet about our wedding. My other sister is insisting on hosting a reception for us, and when I told her where she could stuff her ideas for a cake, she cried. Cried, damn it! That got
her
assistant ticked at me. So I go to their offices to apologize—though why I should, I don't know—and apparently I shoved open the door, startling the assistant who was conducting an emergency trim on her teenage daughter's bangs. I've been informed the bangs suffered.
That
got the fourteen-year-old crying, and moments later there was a corridor full of women who were staring at me as if I'd personally ordered the cancellations of both Oprah's and Dr. Phil's talk shows. And they claim
I've
been in a bad mood lately!”

He paused to take a breath.

He
had
been in a bad mood lately. A hell of a frustrated mood.

“And it's all your fault,” he muttered.

“What was that last part?”

He strode toward the den, determined to get this out in the open. Living with Rebecca and not being able to touch her was turning his mood nastier by the day. He'd
held off coaxing her into bed because he was afraid of hurting her, but the one who was hurting was him.

And everyone he came in contact with.

“Look, Rebecca, I'm a man. And you're a woman.” A woman who had brought her woman's scents into his house, who had brought fantasies of her womanly body—her legs, her breasts, her smooth, pale skin—into his head. “Don't you think it's time we—”

He halted in the doorway, staring at what was in his den instead of Rebecca. The furniture was pushed against the walls. A box cutter and a full roll of packing tape lay on the carpet between himself and an edifice of heavy cardboard. “Rebecca?”

The edifice swayed, and a head half peeked out of a square cut into the side of one wall. “Yes?”

“Your playhouse,” he guessed.

“
Merry's
playhouse. She's still in the hospital and I thought that when I go back on shift tomorrow I'd like to tell her I made some progress.”

“A lot of progress.”

The head disappeared and he heard the distinctive screech of sticky tape being stretched from a dispenser. “I'm taping down the interior walls.” The playhouse swayed again and he heard another screech. “Now, what was it you were saying?”

He shook his head, trying to regain his thoughts. In a corner of the room, the television was alive and on it—wouldn't you know—was that smug Dr. Phil. Well, the guru would approve of his honesty, wouldn't he? “You're a woman, and I'm a m—”

“Would you mind holding this?”

“What?”

Her hand wiggled outside the window opening. “Just hold right here while I reinforce the edges, okay?”

He frowned. “Why don't we just buy Merry a playhouse?”

There was a tiny pause that made him feel like a big-footed clod. “It wouldn't be the same.”

Of course it wouldn't be the same. Before he made another female in his world cry, he crossed to the little window. Rebecca wanted him to hold some cardboard mullions in place, which required him to hunker down on the floor.

“Now,” she said, over the screeching tape, “what is it you were telling me?”

He peered through the window. Rebecca must have been on her knees, too, because he could only see her between the neck and waist. She was wearing an old cutoff T-shirt—was it one of his?—and the knowledge of what was beneath it, what was distinctly hers, smooth and warm, started itching at him again.

I'm a man. You're a woman. Let's have sex.

It was as primal, as essential as that.

He could see it now. The two of them, tangled on his bed. Hell, tangled on the floor, right here, right now, that T-shirt pushed away, the sweatpants she was wearing pushed down and his mouth on her. Everywhere.

Dampness gathered along his spine. He sucked in a breath and drew her light perfume into his lungs. Powdery, sweet, womanly.

He shifted, trying to ease the pull of his slacks. He couldn't turn his gaze away from her shirt, as if any second, X-ray vision would melt the barrier between them.

He didn't want any more barriers. Of any kind.

She froze. Maybe his lust was that loud.

“Trent?”

“What?” His voice was hoarse.
I'm a man. You're a woman. Let's have sex.

“Is something bothering you?”

Yes! Hell, yes!
It was the perfect lead-in. He opened his mouth.

She moved, leaning sideways. The action lifted her T-shirt.

He saw it. Between the hem of the rising T-shirt and the waistband of the sweatpants was Rebecca's belly. Pale and smooth like her breasts. Warm and fragrant, he was sure, like all the rest of her skin.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Under all that smooth, fragrant, Rebecca-skin, his child was growing.

The prickles rose all over his body. There was a baby, he'd been aware of that. His baby. He'd been aware of that, too. But until this second, he'd separated that from Rebecca. Somehow there'd been the woman, and then the child. He'd not seen her as a mother,
the
mother of
his
child.

Lust was replaced by reverence.

He rose, and then backed away from the playhouse, needing air, time, distance.

Man, woman, mother, child. Father.

And…fear.

It was as primal, as essential as that.

 

Rebecca returned to work and for a few days her life with Trent settled into a routine. Not the kind of marriage routine she'd envisioned with her shared-chores, shared-meals plan, but the kind of roommates' routine that she began to believe was what he'd had in mind from the beginning.

Perhaps those moments of sexual awareness had been something only she experienced, and those kisses he'd instigated only experiments.

Experiments that had failed, since he'd never gotten close enough for another.

“Doing okay?”

Her head jerked toward the kitchen entry. Trent stood there, his hair damp, his feet bare, wearing his suit trousers and his tieless, untucked dress shirt. It was his pre-coffee uniform.

“Doing okay?” he asked again.

It was his pre-coffee question. His home-from-work question. His just-passing-her-on-the-stairs/hall/front-porch question.

She smiled as she poured him a cup of coffee. “Doing fine.” Her standard response.

He took the mug with a nod of thanks and stood beside her to drink it. Closing his eyes, he slowly drained the liquid.

She closed her eyes, too and drank in the scent of his just-showered self. The tangy, fresh smell of him woke
her nerve endings better than caffeine ever had. His mug clacked against the countertop, and opening her eyes, she moved away from him.

He poured himself another full cup and she bustled about to brew her own small pot of green tea. “Busy day ahead?” she asked.

“Mmm.”

She slid him a sidelong glance. He appeared preoccupied already, his gaze trained on his coffee. That was routine now, too—that he rarely looked at her. But it freed her to appreciate his handsomeness, a little pleasure that she indulged in without too much guilt. What woman wouldn't admire that strong, tall body and handsome features that belonged to the man she called husband?

In name only.

With a mental shrug, she pushed the small regret away. She'd wanted to make the best of their situation, to do the right thing by Trent and to do the right thing for Eisenhower. That had been accomplished.

She was satisfied.

Trent started out of the kitchen, mug in hand. She allowed herself to watch him leave, her gaze moving from the square cut of the hair at his nape to the muscular male curve of his behind.

Looking was enough.

At the doorway, he hesitated, then swung around.

She jerked up her gaze and felt herself flush. Had he felt her staring?

“It's wrong,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “I…uh…” Should she apologize?

He ignored her stuttering. “It's wrong, but my sister Katie isn't going to let up until I—we give in.”

Oh. Whew. He wasn't talking about the way she was getting her secret jollies. She swallowed. “Give in to what?”

“Dinner. Her house. Tonight.”

“Tonight?” Rebecca's voice squeaked. “But…but…”

“Do it for me, Rebecca, will you? I should have told you days ago, but I kept thinking I'd come up with a way to talk her out of it.”

“But…” The obvious presented itself first. “I don't have anything to wear.”

“Not that black-and-white dress,” he said instantly. “Please.”

Rebecca's face burned. “Okay.” She'd thought he'd liked it.

“My sister's a romantic.”

What did that mean? What did that have to do with the black-and-white dress? She didn't know the man she'd married well enough to ask. She wondered if she ever would.

“My sister will want to see for herself that we're, uh, happy, even though I've assured her a dozen times.” His eyes met hers. “And we are, Rebecca, right?”

“Sure.” She'd just told herself she was satisfied. But would Trent's sister feel the same when she had a chance to judge her brother's marriage for herself?

 

Trent took Rebecca's hand as they ascended the steps to the wood-and-glass house—it looked like a
mansion to Rebecca—that belonged to his sister Katie and her husband, Peter Logan. “Your fingers are cold,” he said, tightening his grip. “You don't need to be nervous.”

“Oh, I'm not. Traipsing into the home of wealthy strangers and playing an ecstatic, yet secretive newlywed comes natural to me.”

“Rebecca.” He stopped midway up the stairs. “Shall we leave? I can call and give her an excuse. She probably half expects it.”

“I don't know. I don't know if I can do this, Trent.” Her nerves had been jangling all day and the sight of the Logans' huge, sleek-looking house wasn't soothing them any. “She probably thinks I'm a gold digger.”

“I already married one of those. Katie knows I don't make the same mistake twice.”

“But what if we've both gotten this all wrong? You said your sister is a romantic. What if we're wrong about romance, about love, and we shouldn't have let our pessimism push us into this marriage?”

He half smiled. “Pessimism didn't push us into this marriage. An accident did. An accidental pregnancy.”

“It wasn't an accident to me,” she responded fiercely. “I
wanted
this baby.”

His expression softened and he lifted his hand to caress her cheek. “What about this explanation, then? Maybe this…situation is destiny. Have you ever considered that? Maybe our marriage is fate.”

She had a feeling he was humoring her. But it sounded better than a marriage made out of pessimism
and a situation that came about through something as simple as human error. “Fate,” she echoed. You could tell your grandchildren about fate.

Your granddad and I were destined to be together.

Were they?

She looked into Trent's eyes. “Do you think…?”

“I think…” He glanced toward the house. “I think we should leave. I'll tell Katie something came up.”

“Oh, good. It's—” Rebecca began.

Ahead of them, the front door popped open and a young woman popped out her head. “Finally! You're here!”

Trent and Rebecca looked at each other and half smiled. “Too late,” they said together.

Katie Crosby was close to Rebecca's age and radiant with pregnancy and happiness. Her brown hair was worn in a short, wispy style that made her dark eyes stand out. She wore a poppy-colored knit dress that showed off her six-months-along belly, the belly that she patted as she linked arms with Rebecca and drew her into the house.

“This place still feels a little cavernous to me, but neither Peter's loft nor my condo was big enough for the three of us. Did my brother prepare you with the news you'll be an aunt soon?” Katie threw a smile at Trent over her shoulder. “He keeps asking me when I'm going to start wearing maternity clothes, but I wore a baggy wardrobe for a lifetime, so as long as the spandex will stretch, I'm showing off all my curves.”

A dark-haired man approaching them smiled and
held out his hand. “Peter Logan, curvy lady's husband. It's nice to meet you.” He reached again to share another firm handshake with Trent.

“Come into the living room,” Katie said. “Peter's parents happened to drop by for a drink.”

Rebecca knew Terrence and Leslie Logan by sight. The older couple were legends around Portland General for their very generous contributions to Children's Connection as well as to the hospital itself. She shook hands with them, and even though she'd never dealt with them professionally and felt they were socially out of her reach, they put her at ease with their seemingly genuine interest in her position as an OR pediatric nurse.