The Baby Track (21 page)

But she’d caught him unaware, and he had missed his chance. His body pumped with sexual tension that could easily escalate into surging lust with just a modicum of encouragement from her. Maybe if he tried again...

He went into the kitchen and found Mrs. Mason sliding a cookie tray into the oven while Courtney removed several loaves of bread from a tin bread box.

“Connor, how many sandwiches can you eat?” Courtney asked brightly.

She was smiling her social smile, which grated on him because it was the kind of smile she gave to everybody and he’d become accustomed to receiving her special intimate smiles, ones reserved just for him.

“Do you want white, whole wheat or rye bread?” she asked with the impersonal friendliness of a waitress at a lunch counter.

Connor heaved a sigh. It was hardly the offer he’d been hoping for. And with the redoubtable Mrs. Mason firmly entrenched, there was no way he could launch a sensual campaign to make her change her mind.

He breathed a frustrated sigh. “I’m not a fussy eater. Whatever you make will be fine.”

So the picnic was on—and he was supposed to turn himself off. He turned and strode from the kitchen, pondering the incredible phenomenon of Connor McKay complying with a woman’s wishes.

Eleven

“Admit it, this isn’t so bad,” Courtney insisted playfully, handing Connor another sandwich. They were both wearing jeans and cotton sweaters, hers yellow and his green, and sitting on a thick faded quilt that Mrs. Mason had loaned them for their outing. The well-maintained park, the pride of the town, was spacious and flat with wooden picnic tables interspersed among the tall shade trees that were already green with new spring leaves. A fast-flowing creek ran through the middle of the park, cascading over a six-foot drop of rocks before continuing its course and eventually emptying into a small tributary of the Potomac River.

Courtney and Connor had chosen to bypass the tables in favor of a shady spot on the ground under the wide branches of a thick-trunked oak tree. Baby Sarah, snug in a portable vinyl carry-bed placed on the far edge of the quilt, seemed completely oblivious to her change of surroundings and slept soundly.

“I know you weren’t too eager to come, but you’re having fun after all, aren’t you, Connor?” Courtney rummaged in the woven straw picnic hamper, also on loan from Mrs. Mason. She pulled out two apples, two oranges, some brownies wrapped in wax paper, a stack of similarly wrapped chocolate chip cookies, a bag of nuts and a bag of candy.

Connor bit into the sandwich—a turkey, ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato combination, his third. “I’ll grant you Mrs. Mason packs one helluva picnic basket. This lunch is big enough to feed a Third World country.”

“I packed the lunch,” Courtney corrected him. “And paid Mrs. Mason for the food, of course.”

“Of course. Mrs. Mason sure knows how to turn a buck. Under that sweet, grandmotherly facade is an enterprising ‘Have-I-gotta-deal-for-you’ entrepreneur.’ ’

“What do you mean?” Courtney cast him a swift, apprehensive glance. That remark had sounded startlingly like his old self.

He stretched out his long legs in front of him. “Can’t I make a simple comment without it being analyzed and scrutinized? Next you’ll be throwing today’s date into every other sentence to keep me oriented to time and place like the hospital’s well-meaning staff.”

Courtney concentrated on unwrapping the brownies and cookies. She offered them to him. “Have some dessert.” Connor arched his brows. “Hoping to sweeten my disposition?”

“Maybe I am. You’ve been irritable since—”

“You decided that you’d rather have a picnic surrounded by the good citizens of Shadyside Falls—” he extended his arn^to indicate the families occupying the picnic tables “—rather than be alone with me.”

Courtney’s cheeks reddened. Anger, that excellent means of distancing oneself and avoiding pain, swiftly rose within her. “So you’re trying to punish me because I wouldn’t have sex with you. Instead of enjoying the beautiful day and the lovely park and good food, you’re—you’re
sulking!’
’

“If I am, at least I’m behaving honestly. That cheerful ingenuous act you’re putting on is as phony as—” He abruptly stopped speaking and clamped his lips together, as if to physically prevent himself from saying the words he’d been about to say.

As phony as our marriage?
The words pounded silently through Courtney’s head. Though he didn’t know it, it was a heartbreakingly apt comparison. But a fleeting one, for their phony marriage had only a few more hours left.

She scrambled to her knees and started loading the food back into the basket. “I shouldn’t have slept with you last night,” she muttered, angry at herself, at him and at the cruelty of fate for tantalizing her with what might have been and then capriciously yanking it away. “We got along beautifully all last week, we never exchanged a cross word, but the moment sex was involved—”

“Present tense, Gypsy.” He knelt up, bringing himself within inches of her. “Sex
is
involved, very much so.” He seized both her wrists and carried her hands to his chest. Automatically she lay her palms against the soft thickness of his sweater, her fingers flexing slightly.

His eyes searched the dark, velvety depths of hers. “You’re mine,” he said in a fierce, husky whisper. “I’m not going to let you go, and I’m not going to let you push me away.”

His thumb traced the shape of her lips, which trembled and parted for him. One big hand slid to the small of her back, and he caressed the sensitive spot until she exhaled a shuddering breath of arousal. He moved his knees apart to widen his stance and drew her even closer to him, nestling her body into his.

Courtney felt the force of his arousal pressing against the most feminine, vulnerable part of her, making her feel full and hot and moist there. When he rubbed intimately against her, her head began to spin. “Connor,” she whimpered breathlessly as his mouth descended on hers.

“I know, baby, I know.” He slipped his hands under her sweater, gliding them over the smooth bare skin of her back as he sent his tongue deep into her mouth. He kissed her, a deep drugging kiss that she returned in full, giving into all the love and passion she felt for him.

He moved his hands, which were still under her sweater, around her sides and upward to her breasts. “Let’s get out of here,” he rasped urgently against her ear. “I want to be alone with you. I want to show you how much—how good—” Words failed him and he buried his lips against the soft curve of her neck.

A small breeze rustled the branches, and Courtney felt its cooling effects on her flushed face. With it came a measure of sanity. When she felt his fingers deftly reach for the clasp of her bra, she dug her fingers into his forearms and pushed his hands away. “Connor, we’re right in the middle of the park! ” Her voice was husky and thick, and he smiled at the sound of it.

“You’re right.” He moved a few discreet feet away. “We don’t want to shock the picnickers with a scandalizing
public display of affection
.
They might be incited to make a citizens’ arrest.”

He was smiling, his good humor fully restored, Courtney noted thoughtfully. He’d been as grouchy as a bad-tempered grizzly when he’d been denied sex, but now that he thought it was imminent, based on her undisguised, unreserved response, his mood was as sunny as the afternoon sky. She suspected she’d just learned an age-old lesson about men, one that had been enacted between husbands and wives down through the centuries.

She felt experienced and sophisticated and wise—for about a minute and a jpalf. Then reality, in the form of depression, set in. She was not a wife, and tonight, after Richard Tremaine informed Connor of their bogus marriage, any chance she might’ve ever had of legally becoming Connor’s wife would be gone in the wake of the deception. Her heart aching, she carried the picnic basket to the car, following in Connor’s wake. She watched him carefully remove little Sarah from the small bed he was carrying and secure her into the molded plastic safety seat in the front seat between them.

Courtney’s eyes filled with tears. Connor was so good to Sarah, so loving and conscientious. The baby needed him as her daddy as much as she needed him as her husband. They were a family! But after tonight...

Sarah!
Courtney’s heart suddenly jumped into her throat, and a wave of anxiety, nauseating in its intensity, crashed over her. Until this moment, she’d been operating under the assumption that Sarah would remain hers, even when Connor left. Now it occurred to her that Richard Tremaine’s third call, after the first one to Nina McKay and the second to Connor, would be to his old pal Wilson Nollier.

Of course Tremaine would tell the attorney that there was no marriage. Courtney’s breath seemed trapped in her chest, making both inhaling and exhaling nearly impossible feats. She saw two scenarios unfolding after that fateful call. In the first one, Connor kept Sarah as a single father; in the other, the baby was given to somebody else so that he could begin his exciting new life as a Tremaine unencumbered by the constant demands of a child. Neither outcome included Courtney; both were intolerable to her.

She was so preoccupied on the brief drive back to Mrs. Mason’s house that she didn’t speak a single word. Connor was equally quiet, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. And by the pleased smile on his face and the way his green eyes flicked sexily over her, his thoughts involved an immediate trip to the bedroom, she noted grimly.

If only it could be that easy and uncomplicated, Courtney railed inwardly. If only they really were married and heading home to passionately make love. But they weren’t, and wishing, no matter how fervently, wouldn’t make it so.

She couldn’t have Connor. Though she hadn’t accepted the fact emotionally, she had absorbed it intellectually. It was the way her mind had worked from the time she’d been a child, then a teenager during her army-brat years, the way she’d handled separations from best friends and beloved teachers and youthful crushes. Her head knew it was over long before her heart had adjusted to the painful reality.

And her head was telling her it was time to move on and get out of Shadyside Falls, even though her heart was breaking at the thought of leaving.

Courtney glanced down at the baby, sleeping comfortably in the rear-facing car seat. Chances were good that Sarah would sleep another several hours before awakening and demanding to be fed. The fully-stocked canvas bag was in the back seat, crammed with diapers, creams, bottles of formula, flannel blankets and two complete changes of clothes. She had learned from their daily visits to the hospital that one packed for an outing with a baby the way an adult packed for a weekend trip.

She fiddled with the zipper on her purse which lay in her lap. In it, she had money, credit cards, everything she needed for departure. Of course, her clothes and suitcases were still in Mrs. Mason’s house, but the landlady could forward them, provided she was adequately compensated for her trouble, of course.

This was it, then. A wave of profound sadness swept over Courtney, and her heart seemed to turn to stone in her chest. There was no use prolonging the agony of goodbye, especially when doing so could cost her Sarah. The maternal bond she’d formed with the baby was unbreakable; she could never give her up.

And Connor? Courtney choked back what felt like a lump of ground glass that had lodged in her throat. She didn’t want to give him up, either, but the choice was not hers to make. He was a Tremaine now, out of her reach, and in just a few hours he would learn the truth about their duplicitous marriage. She didn’t dare risk the cataclysm that revelation would engender, not with Sarah’s welfare at stake. Courtney admitted without shame that if it weren’t for the baby, she would gladly cast aside all pride and beg Connor to let her stay with him under any terms he cared to dictate.

But a mother makes sacrifices for her child, a mother places her child’s interests above her own—and she was Sarah’s mother. She had to remove her baby from the threat of Wilson Nollier and the power of Richard Tremaine.

And that meant leaving Connor. Now.

Connor braked the rented car to a stop in front of Mrs. Mason’s house. “I’ll keep the key in my purse so we don’t lose it,” Courtney said, reaching to remove the key from the ignition.

Connor, hot and primed and ready to take her upstairs to finish what they’d started in the park, failed to notice the nervous quaver in her voice or her ghastly forced smile. He got out of the car and walked around it, intending to open the door for her and to carry the baby, still sleeping in the safety seat, into the house.

Before he could reach the door, Courtney hopped over the bulky car seat and took her place behind the wheel. Inserting the key in the ignition, she gunned the engine and took off, peeling away from the curb, tires screeching.

She had a quick glimpse of Connor, standing on the sidewalk, a look of pure astonishment on his face. She didn’t dare let herself imagine what he must be thinking. He would be hurt and baffled and upset—at least until he heard from Richard Tremaine.

And then he would hate her. Courtney swallowed the sob that welled up in her throat and blinked back the hot tears that burned her eyes. She didn’t dare allow herself the luxury of crying. After all, there was a child in the car for whom she was completely responsible. She had to drive, and driving meant keeping alert and emotionally in control, even though her heart felt as if it had been shattered into a million pieces.

* * *

The road sign indicated the turnoff for Washington, D.C., and Courtney was about to pull into the exit lane when she felt a chilling premonition of danger. If Connor had contacted Tremaine or Nollier, one or both might be waiting at her apartment building for her. Nollier knew she worked for NPB. A phone call to the office might yield her address. Her co-workers were trusting and accommodating and probably would respond to a plausible reason or request for the information. She didn’t dare take the chance.

Courtney glanced down at Sarah, who, blessedly, was taking an extra-long nap today. Where could they go? Mark and Marianne lived in nearby Baltimore, but both Connor and Nollier knew about them and might trace her there. There was another, more poignant reason why she couldn’t seek refuge with her brother and sister-in-law, Courtney admitted sadly. She wasn’t quite ready to face them with her baby, not after their fruitless years’-long quest for a child of their own.