The Black Sheep’s Baby

Chapter 11

“Y our parents are something else,” Devon said without turning from the window. She felt such a heaviness inside-strange that her voice should sound so light.

“Yeah, they are.” And even above the sound of water running in the kitchen sink, she couldn’t mistake the note of affection in Eric’s voice.

It was the next morning-December 23, two days before Christmas-and she was standing with her arms folded across her waist, watching Mike and Lucy’s early model four-wheel-drive SUV lumber down the lane, dragging a feathery plume of exhaust behind it. She watched it fishtail slightly-an almost jaunty little wiggle-as it turned onto the paved road. It was a beautiful, sparkly cold morning; the snowplow had been by earlier, and the sand truck after that. Mike and Lucy had gone shopping; the roads, they’d been told, were clear all the way to Sioux City.

Devon shifted her gaze to her rental car, which was parked in the driveway, still lumpy with snow and looking somehow forlorn, but otherwise none the worse for having spent a day and a half in a drift-filled ditch. Eric had checked it over and pronounced it driveable.

The roads are clear, she thought. I have my car. I can leave if I want to. Strangely, the realization failed to cheer her.

Yesterday afternoon while Eric was pulling the Town Car out of the snowdrifts, Devon had been on her cell phone to her office in sunny L.A., delegating and postponing meetings and other responsibilities-she was assured that her presence at her firm’s annual Christmas party had been missed-and to her parents in Canoga Park, explaining to them why she wouldn’t be spending Christmas Eve with them this year. They’d expressed regret, of course. Now, remembering her parents’ voices, subdued, emotionless, she felt this heaviness inside.

I love my parents. I do.

But she knew they were only words. And though she pressed them into her mind as hard as she could, like a tongue probing a sensitive tooth, no matter how hard she tried, Devon could not find the feelings that went with the words. She tried to remember hugging her parents, or them hugging her. She couldn’t. She couldn’t remember the feel of her mother’s arms around her. Couldn’t remember the sound of her voice, comforting her after a nightmare. Couldn’t remember cool hands stroking her forehead in a fever, or putting a bandage on her skinned knee. Couldn’t remember sitting on her father’s lap, having him read to her, or tuck her in at night.

Overcome with a terrible, panicky sadness, she turned from the window, already in full flight and thinking only of the stairs and the sanctuary of her room. Instead, she ran headlong into a solid object, one covered with a sweatshirt that was slightly damp. That smelled of baby powder, formula, dish soap and man.

“Hey,” Eric exclaimed as his hands closed on her upper arms.

Her head snapped back and she stared at him. Whiskey eyes, startled and golden, gazed into hers. She opened her mouth to say something-to protest, to explain?-what, she never knew. Just that suddenly, she was in his arms, and his hands were tangled in her hair and his mouth was hard and hot on hers.

Hungry.

And, oh, God, she was hungry, too. How good he tasted-fresh and clean, like joy and hope and sunshine and snow. Famished, she opened her mouth to him, and he brought all those things inside.

And it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy her. Greedily, she clutched at his sweatshirt, filled her fists with it as she pressed her body against his, as if she were trying to soak him in, the very essence of all he was, trying to steal from him the warmth, the affection, the security and comfort, the gifts he’d been given in such abundance and hadn’t begun to appreciate.

A sob rippled through her and burst from her mouth. He uttered a groan and stifled it with his as he caught her harder against him.

Something-a shock, like lightning-sliced through her chest. The fascinating little bump that had pestered her heart so often came again-and this time exploded. Her heartbeat resounded through her head like thunder. She trembled. And opened still more…

His mouth softened, persuaded. She felt the prick of his beard stubble on her lips. The delicious tingle of his fingertips stroking her scalp. She heard their breathing, the little groaning sounds he made, the soft whimpers that were hers. She felt the wiry strength of the muscles in his back against her palms, the thump of his heartbeat against her breasts. She felt melting weakness, the overwhelming ache of desire.

Dimly, she was aware of movement-clumsy, awkward, directionless. Blind and uncaring, she let it carry her where it would.

Then he was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs and she was astride his lap, her hands tangled in his hair as she arched above him, her mouth the aggressor now. His hands, free now to roam at will, pushed up her sweatshirt to knead the muscles of her back, reached between their bodies to nestle her breasts and chafe their hardened nipples with his palms, then thrust beneath the elastic of her sweats to grasp her bottom and pull the softest and most sensitive part of her hard and tight against him.

And that, without separating, standing, unzipping, undressing, was as far as they could go.

Devon acknowledged it first, with a tiny whimper of frustration. Eric’s arms tightened in denial, his body tensed, and then his mouth withdrew from hers and his breath came in an exhalation that was more like a sigh.

“What the hell’re we doing?” It was a whisper that grated like windblown sand. The only reply she could manage was the smallest shake of her head, before she let it come to rest against his forehead. She heard another soft, sandy sound and realized that he was laughing. “Whatever it is, I sure hope one of us has the good sense to stop it.”

She cleared her throat, realized it was hopeless and whispered instead. “It seems to me, you just did.”

“Then how come nobody’s moving?”

“I don’t know about you, but my legs are useless.” She was shaking all over; some of it was laughter. She could feel her heartbeat and his, colliding in uneven rhythms.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

“No kidding!” Laughter gusted from her lungs. What she really wanted was to burst into tears.

And maybe it was fear that she might actually do that that gave her the strength, finally, to push herself away from him. To rise, jerky and uncoordinated, to her feet; to turn, hugging herself again, to the window. For a moment she stood blinking in the brilliance of sunshine on snow, and then in utter misery, closed her eyes and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. God-we don’t even know each other.”

Behind her she heard the chair creak, and a gusty exhalation. Risking a glance, she saw that Eric was leaning forward with his elbows planted on his knees and his face buried in his hands, and for some reason she didn’t add the rest: Or like each other much, either.

Instead, she said tightly, “There has to be a logical explanation for this.”

Even muffled by his hands, the sound he made was replete with self-disgust. “Yeah, there is-I’m an idiot.”

“For God’s sake, it wasn’t your fault. It was me. I was…I don’t know, thinking about…you know-my parents, Christmas…”

He glanced up and his smile was almost painfully crooked. “Blame it on the holidays?”

This time the snort of self-derision was Devon’s. “That’s such a cliché.”

“Darlin’,” he said, stretching as if his bones ached, “clichés were meant for times like this.” He’d managed to hold on to the smile, but the eyes that lingered for a moment on her face seemed a hundred years old.

When he pushed to his feet and turned away, she felt an irrational urge to call him back, beg him not to go. Her mind cast wildly about for reasons why he shouldn’t leave her standing there, something that would justify continuing what they’d been doing before they’d both come to their senses. Her whole body felt hollow, empty.

Then, in the kitchen doorway he did pause, hesitate, and for a moment turn back, and her heart jolted with an equally irrational stab of fear. Awash with prickles of adrenaline, she folded her arms tightly across her middle, and a pulse tap-tap-tapped against the wall of her belly.

“Look…Devon. I hate like hell to ask, but since she’s asleep, and I shouldn’t be long, would you mind keeping an ear out for Emily? There’s…something I’ve got to do.”

She was so shaken, she barely hesitated before she nodded. She heard herself say, “Yeah, sure. Okay. Where-”

“I’ll be in the bunkhouse.” He dodged into the service room long enough to snatch his jacket from its hook on the wall and was shrugging it on as he went out. A moment later she heard the back porch door close.

What I’m feeling is wrong, Devon thought. It must be. Immoral and illegal, probably. Unethical, definitely.

I should leave. Right now, this minute. Get in that big Lincoln, drive to Sioux City and hop the next flight to L.A.

And what would you do with Emily? Leave her here, or take her with you?

That was it-the million-dollar question. She clamped a hand to her forehead, gave a distraught whimper and raised her eyes to the ceiling. Even if she’d had the guts to try, she couldn’t take Emily back to L.A. without Eric-until court-ordered tests and a judge said otherwise, he was the baby’s father and legal guardian. She didn’t dare go back alone, either; every instinct told her that would be a mistake.

No two ways about it, then, she was stuck-stuck on the horns of a dilemma, stuck in Iowa, stuck on a farm, stuck with strangers at Christmastime.

Worst of all was knowing that leaving here, even if she could have, was the last thing her heart wanted to do.

An hour later, Devon still had no idea what to do about a Christmas gift for Eric. She’d had no trouble finding something among the meager belongings she’d brought with her that would do for Mike and Lucy. The electronic pocket planner that had been last year’s Christmas gift from her firm’s senior partner, and which she almost never used, seemed perfect for Mike, and for Lucy she’d decided on a designer label silk scarf she’d brought along just in case she’d felt like dressing up a bit for that solitary hotel dinner. The brilliant shades of blue and green that complemented her own coloring so well would go just as nicely with Lucy’s nut-brown hair and eyes and sun-freckled skin.

Mike and Lucy had both insisted, as they’d driven off on the freshly plowed road to finish up their own last minute holiday shopping, that under no circumstances was Devon to give them anything for Christmas. She was an invited guest, Lucy had reminded her, and a spur-of-the-moment one, at that. She was not to worry about gifts, period.

Fat chance, Devon had mentally responded, being possessed of a strong sense of propriety as well as a great deal of pride, the kind of person who wouldn’t dream of showing up at a friend’s home for dinner without bringing along a bottle of wine or a potted houseplant. As far as she was concerned, she was an uninvited guest in the Lanagan household, and the least she could do to repay them for their hospitality was to give them a Christmas gift.

That was fine, as far as her host and hostess went. But what about Eric? She had no real justification for giving him a gift-she wasn’t his guest. She owed him nothing-except a trip back to L.A. and an appearance before a family court judge, as soon as that could possibly be arranged. But she couldn’t keep her mind from chewing on possibilities.

What could I give him if things were different? What might he like?

The fruitlessness of that mental exercise only served to remind her how little she really knew the man-Eric Lanagan, from Iowa. And how far apart they were. The gulf between them seemed enormous, unbridgeable.

How, then, to explain what had happened between them just now, down there in his mother’s kitchen? The memory of that slammed into her like a physical blow; her stomach gave a lurch and her heart began to race.

Pure unadulterated lust?

Oh, no. Lust didn’t begin to explain it-not as far as Devon was concerned. She hadn’t come by her reputation for being one of Los Angeles’s most unmeltable ice princesses by being lusty.

Not that she hadn’t enjoyed her share of relationships-even sex, in her own way. It was just that in both circumstances she preferred to remain…perhaps the best word was the one used most often by her bed-partners, usually shortly before a dramatic departure: Uninvolved. Her most recent relationship, with a senior member of the D.A.’s staff, had ended late last summer when he’d complained that he needed a bit more from a woman than “affectionate detachment, dammit.” Or had it been “detached affection”?

Either way, while Devon had been mildly distressed at his leaving, and in the months since had even thought of him once or twice with a fleeting sense of loneliness, frankly, she hadn’t missed the sex at all.

So, what had happened this morning, with Eric? She’d never felt like that before in her life. Never.

That quickly she was feeling it again-the flip-flop in her belly, the pounding heart, the surging heat, the trembling legs. Oh, man, she thought, hugging and rocking herself. Oh, man.

For the first time in her memory, Devon was afraid.

That in itself was enough to propel her up from the bed where she’d been sitting surrounded by the contents of her briefcase and overnighter, to begin an agitated and jerky pacing-across to the window-where she could look down on Eric’s “bunkhouse,” which she thought looked more like a dollhouse, or a cookie house decorated with spun sugar frosting-then to the door, and back to the bed again.

What was he trying to do? What was he thinking of, to kiss me like that? What is he up to?

She asked herself those questions and was suddenly angry…furious. He had to have done it on purpose, to upset her. She told herself he could not have actual feelings for her. Given the circumstances, even the possibility of lust seemed remote.

He hadn’t mentioned the court order or the mission that had brought her here since the first morning, but he had to have thought about it-how could he not? Just because they’d declared a Christmas truce, didn’t mean they weren’t still at war.

So, what was he up to? Could it be that- Oh, God. The truth hit her so hard she gasped and even buckled a little, as if from a blow to the belly. That was it-it had to be. Eric was deliberately trying to seduce her. Hoping she would then convince her parents-her clients-to drop their custody suit.

As if he could! (As if she would!)

If Eric Lanagan thinks he can get around me that way, he doesn’t know Devon O’Rourke!

With that thought resounding like a bugle call in her mind, she all but lunged across the room, flung open the door and surged into the hallway, intent on setting the man straight, once and for all. She had actually reached the stairs-had one foot on the top step-when she remembered.

Emily. She was baby-sitting.

With a groan of frustration, Devon tiptoed back the way she’d come. She hesitated at her own open doorway, then went on past it and down the hallway to Eric’s room. That door, too, stood open. No sound came from within-thank goodness Emily had slept through the racket she’d made, barging out of her room like that. Still, she supposed she ought to check, make sure everything was all right.

Holding her breath, she tiptoed closer and peeked into the room.

The smallest of movements caught her eye: a tiny pink fist, poking up from the mound of pastel-colored blankets. As Devon stared at it, the fist waved, jerked, punched the air like a miniature shadow boxer. Without a sound. Fascinated, she crept closer, until, by craning her neck, she could see into the nest of blankets. Her breath hiccupped, quivered, then stopped again.

Murky blue eyes gazed intently at the waving fist. The fist jerked, the eyes widened. Budlike lips drew together, forming a look of intense concentration on the round pink face.

Devon couldn’t help it-she gave a squeak of laughter. And tried to hold it back with fingertips pressed against her lips. Too late-the eyes jerked toward the movement and the sound, and the look of concentration became one of expectation.

Busted, thought Devon with an inward sigh. “Hello, little one,” she whispered aloud, and her heart did a stutter-step because that was what she’d heard Eric call her. “Hello, little girl,” she amended as she bent closer still, and daringly touched the baby’s chin with her forefinger.

It was startling to her-it seemed the most miraculous thing-when the baby’s chin abruptly dropped and her mouth popped open, then widened…and just like that, became a smile.

“Ohh…” Devon breathed. Something inside her chest-her heart?-grew huge and began to ache. Her eyes misted over.

How it happened, she didn’t know, but somehow, then, she was sitting on the bed in the midst of all those pink and yellow blankets, and the baby was nestled in her arms, instead. She was cooing to her and rocking, softly laughing, and didn’t know or didn’t care that there were tears running down her cheeks.

It was like stepping into a time capsule. From the moment Eric pushed open the door and switched on the light, he was fifteen years old again, coming home from school, getting off the bus and jogging up the lane, making straight for the bunkhouse. Throwing his backpack down on the narrow bed, reaching up to take the key to his inner sanctum, his darkroom, from its hiding place above the wall heater beside the door.

It had been his dad’s idea to turn the back half of the bunkhouse into a darkroom, the part that included the bathroom with its water supply and drainage system to accommodate the mixing and disposal of chemicals. It had been years since they’d actually housed a hired hand in the bunkhouse, Mike had pointed out, and besides, it would be a whole lot more comfortable-and less expensive-than trying to convert the old root cellar and tornado shelter under the house, which had been Eric’s initial plan.

Eric had insisted on paying for the renovations himself, out of the money he’d earned working summers for his mom and the sale of 4-H project animals, money that was supposed to have been saved for college. He’d been arrogant, he remembered, about the fact that he’d paid for it with his own money. It was only now, looking back, that he realized how much help on the project he’d gotten from his dad-and his mom, too. And that they hadn’t said a word about him spending his college fund. Had he ever even thanked them, for any of that? Probably not. The thought made him feel itchy with guilt.

The bunkhouse was cold as a meat locker. He turned on the heater, and while the shoebox-shaped bed-sitting room was slowly filling up with warmth and the smell of burning dust, he felt above the heater, without much hope, for the key. Incredibly, it was still there. He felt a knot take hold in his chest as he fitted it into the lock, turned the knob, opened the door, flicked on the light. Sucking in a breath, he slipped the key into his pocket and stepped into the murky red gloom.

It was all there. Everything too large and bulky to take with him when he’d left home the summer he’d graduated high school, the drying racks and counters and shelves he and his dad had built out of scrap lumber and plywood from the local builder’s supply store. There were even some packages of paper and chemicals, almost certainly long expired. And more than a few spiderwebs, not to mention dust, but not nearly as bad as he’d expected. Which made him wonder if his mom might have been keeping the place up all these years. That thought was another knot…another guilt.

Methodically then, he began to move among the racks and counters, waving away cobwebs, blowing off dust, sorting, counting, rearranging, setting to rights. And while he did that images paraded through his memory-mostly black-and-white; he hadn’t been equipped, then, to process color-images taken with his old Pentax, his first SLR camera, given to him by his mom and dad on his thirteenth birthday. Images of Mom on her tractor, Ellie feeding baby calves, Dad at his computer, Aunt Gwen-well into her nineties and still wearing jeans-with her apron full of the eggs she’d gathered. Caitlyn on the swing, sticking her tongue out at the camera. School friends, wild geese flying, the tornado that had passed just to the north one spring. He saw the images the way he’d seen them for the very first time, floating in a pan of water, barely discernible shadings on white paper, gradually taking shape, becoming darker…clearer…sharper…while he held his breath and his heart trip-hammered in the excitement of each new discovery, each tiny moment in time now captured forever, each little miracle, like a birth happening right there in his developing trays. He thought it was the way he’d always seen the world-a series of images, flat, like photographs, composed, framed and developed in his mind, frozen and preserved and filed away forever in his memory.

Until Susan. Until he’d held her hand and watched the life fade from her eyes. Until they’d placed her baby in his arms, wet and covered with her mother’s blood. And he’d known that this was life. Not a photograph, and not forever, but all the more precious for being so fragile and so fleeting.

The reality of that had hit him on that day, for the first time not in his head, but in his heart. In his guts. And he had known he would never be the same.

God knows, he wished he could be. God knows he’d been a much more carefree Eric, watching the world through the lens of a camera rather than feeling its pain in the pit of his stomach.

God knows he wouldn’t be aching now for the damaged little girl he knew in his heart must be somewhere in the lost memories of a beautiful woman named Devon O’Rourke.

God knows he wouldn’t be thinking of that woman every waking moment, thinking of her and remembering the feel of her heartbeat banging against his chest, the weight of her across his lap, the warmth and softness of her feminine places a delicious pressure on his masculine ones, and the taste of her still in his mouth…

He jumped, as something thumped against the bunkhouse door, as if he’d been guilty of the action itself rather than just the thought. He lunged for the darkroom doorway and got there as the outer door burst inward, and there was Devon, cheeks flushed, eyes wild and hair flying. She was holding in her arms what looked like a bundle of bedding.

His heart dove into his socks.

“I’m…sorry,” she panted, “I…didn’t know what else to do. I tried…everything. I fed her, and she didn’t want any more, but she was still crying, and…I couldn’t…” Her face crumpled. “I don’t know what’s the matter with her.”

By this time Eric had relieved Devon of her burden and was peeling off the enormous comforter that completely engulfed the carrier-seat. “Let’s hope you haven’t smothered her,” he muttered dryly, before he thought. He could have bitten off his tongue when he saw Devon’s features freeze in a look of pure horror. He threw her a lopsided but reassuring smile as he tossed the comforter onto the bed. “Hey, I’m kidding. She’s fine. Sound asleep.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Her voice was cracked and fragile.

“See for yourself.” He turned the carrier and edged it closer to her. They both gazed in silence at the baby’s plump pink cheeks and delicately curled fingers, her mouth still making sucking motions as she slept.

Devon let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “Oh, God. I feel like such an idiot.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” He glanced at his watch. “My fault, in fact. Didn’t mean to desert you. Guess I lost track of time.”

“Why do you suppose she was crying like that? Did I do something wrong?” Green eyes, bright with worry, searched his across the carrier seat.

Under that stark appeal, Eric’s chest tightened. “Who knows why?” he said gruffly. “Babies cry.” Then he asked, “Did you burp her?”

She clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh, God-”

“Hey, look, it’s no big deal. Obviously.” He turned abruptly and set the carrier on the floor beside the bed, then reached around Devon to close the door. In her haste to sidestep out of his way she lurched awkwardly, and he put a hand on her arm to steady her. He heard a sharp hiss of breath.

Heat engulfed him. His lungs felt sticky with his breath. He glared at her. “Forgot your hat and gloves again, I see.”

She didn’t answer, except to lift a hand to her head, as if to verify that what he’d said was true. When she lowered the hand again, somehow it came to rest on his arm.

Neither of them said anything. Both of them looked down at her hand, resting there on his arm. In the silence, Eric could feel his body rocking with the impact of his pulse. Just when he thought he would have to act or be suffocated by his own self-restraint, he felt the almost indiscernible lift of her shoulders, then a small sigh.

“It’s still there, isn’t it?” she said sadly.