A Daring Proposition (18 page)

Almost without being aware of it, Leigh was cradled in the nook of his shoulder and led out of the kitchen, past the living room and down the narrow passage of hall. “If I’d just understood how you felt, Brian. I thought you wanted Rita, wanted to go back to your playboy lifestyle. I loved you before we ever made love. I tried to tell you. I’ve loved you so long.”

Before she could protest, he had the zipper down on her white linen dress, the lamp on by her bed, and the two of them were leaning back against the pillows. The slip did little to cover the shape of her figure, and he gazed at it tenderly, stroking the silky fabric that covered her abdomen. The weight of the babies nestled between them, as she relaxed for the first time in days. The lower-back pain she had felt all day was forgotten, and her self-consciousness over her appearance…well, it just wasn’t there anymore. He touched her with love, one arm folded around her and the other resting on her burden.

“I thought I would go out of my mind all these months, thinking you didn’t want me.” His mouth twisted in a small, unwilling smile. “No, I didn’t want to love you in the beginning. I had a few barriers of my own to break down.

“For a man who didn’t want ties, Red, I kept finding myself in an incredible hurry to finish work so I could come home to dinner. I expected demands, Red, but you didn’t make any. You so obviously were amazed at even the least consideration. I expected to be bored, but you’ve got so many interests, Leigh, that I can barely keep up with you. And I expected at least a basic exchange of needs, but while you were all prepared to take on mine, it wasn’t the same the other way, now was it? That evening when you barely had the strength to hold your head over a basin…I could have killed you, Leigh, for not coming to me.”

He shifted, still gazing at her as he brought her pillow down and encouraged her to lie flat. He pulled the covers up protectively to her chin and lay on his side next to her. Leigh watched his every move, filled with love, savoring each word. “And then there was this,” he admitted, as his left hand again caressed the mound of her stomach. “I’ve been jealous from the beginning, Leigh. You so obviously intended to put the baby first, before anything else in your life. And even after I made love to you, I still thought it would be that way. I could just picture a houseful of children where all I would ever have of you was the leftovers.” He paused. “I was raised in a home with four boys, all closely spaced together. I hated the confusion, the lack of privacy. You couldn’t even read a book in my house, or study, or concentrate on anything. And then my dad died, and I was responsible for the lot of them.”

“So you don’t want your children raised that way,” Leigh said calmly. “I don’t either, Brian. I love children, but they’re only a short-term loan—they grow up and leave, and that’s as it should be. I never wanted a dozen, or a houseful. Just one. And when you first met me, Brian, that’s all I thought I would ever have. A husband should be forever, but for me there was no forever…”

His hand on her stomach rose noticeably. “Good God, what’s that?”

“They’re just turning over, Brian.”

His hand remained until the motion stopped, and then, with a very set expression on his face, he kissed her firmly and got up. “Time to erase those circles under your eyes, Leigh.”

He would listen to no protests. There were a thousand things she wanted to say to him, but their love was so fragile, the admission of it so new.

“You think I want to leave you, Red?” he reproached her. “You’re out of your mind! But for tonight and tonight only, you’ll sleep alone. Oh, yes, Leigh, you need some solid, uninterrupted rest. No!” He ignored her gesture of protest. “I’ll be right in the next room. Just call me if you need anything.”

“Brian!” It was more a scream than a call. The pain came again, searing sharp, lasting endless seconds before it finally passed.

Brian appeared in shorts and bare feet, his brows knitted together and his black eyes alert. The night-light beside her bed was already on and he blinked as his eyes adjusted to the brightness.

“It’s not going the way it’s supposed to, Brian. I can’t breathe like Dr. Franklin said. It was all right in the beginning, but—”

“How long?” he interrupted sharply.

“Since about one.” Another pain started, bringing beads of perspiration to her forehead as she fought to bear with the wave while it peaked and finally receded.

“Since
one
—you damned idiot! It’s five o’clock! Why the hell didn’t you call me?”

“They were only coming every fifteen or twenty minutes. But then it changed so quickly.”

Furiously, he fumbled at the notepad she pointed to next to the bed, snapping questions at her as he phoned the doctor’s answering service. Dr. Franklin would be calling in shortly. He had barely hung up the phone when the doctor called back, and Brian explained to her that Leigh had gone into labor. Dr. Franklin said she’d be right over.

“I’m glad she is coming here,” Leigh said. “I didn’t want to lie in some hospital room for hours.”

“Where you’re going to lie is directly across my knee when this is over, lady! Those happen to be my kids in there, you know.” He left her, on the run, grabbing his shirt and pants en route to the kitchen, where he put a pan on the stove. The sound of drawers being slammed could be heard all the way in the bedroom. And then his face reappeared in the doorway. “Where the hell are the linens?”

“What are you doing?”

“What I
did,
thank God, is some research with my brother Richard. Towels, Leigh?” he repeated impatiently.

She could not tell him at that very instant. When she could, there were tears in her eyes from the exertion, and she was digging her nails into Brian’s wrists. She had been prepared for the dull, aching cramps; they were short and well spaced and she had been practicing the breathing exercises for months. But she was so very tired now, and there had been so much trauma in the past few days. As each pain grew in strength and intensity, so did the feeling of panic…until she cried out to Brian, and saw him, and felt the strength in his hands. For one strange moment, she even imagined she saw tears in his eyes. “I can’t stand to see you hurting, Leigh.”

“It’s all right,” she said softly. But she did not have to be told she was not going to make it to the hospital. And then Dr. Franklin arrived, and she knew she wanted Brian to stay for the delivery.

“Leigh, listen, sweetheart,” he said soothingly. “I’ll be right here. It’s all right. Dr. Franklin will take good care of you.”

She was close, very close. Her body told her to push, to work—and it was work, more than pain. And she knew she wanted her husband to work with her, to aid her in the effort to bring their offspring into the world. It was partly a cry from her heart, perhaps not totally rational either, a cry for Brian to bond with his children—
his
children. And it was partly the most basic statement of love and trust.

“Red, damn it, push!”

She smiled at his frantic tone, never believing that she would have the occasion to calm
him.
But she was wrong. She had exactly enough time to murmur, “Help me, Brian. Our children are being born. Help me.”

It all happened very quickly after that. The first was a red-faced, dark-haired, skinny, squally girl. Leigh would never forget the wonder, the shock on Brian’s face when he took the baby from her. The second was also a girl—they were identical twins. Red and wrinkled as the babies were, Leigh thought them the most beautiful creatures on earth. And she knew Brian felt the same.

“Never again, though, Leigh,” he said. “Next time you go to the hospital
months
ahead of time. Do you hear me? I’m going to lock you in there with a whole team of doctors.”

“Yes, Brian.” Next time? Her heart soared.

He kissed her, long and lingeringly, before she was strapped on a stretcher with the infants to be taken to the hospital. “I’d rather stay with you,” she whispered to Brian. “It’s over, and lots of women have their children at home these days. I don’t see why I have to—”

“You can have your way for the next thousand years, Red, I promise you, but not tonight,” he scolded sternly.

“That’ll teach you to sleep in a separate room,” she whispered. She was thoroughly exhausted, and yet the smile on her face was immovable, a fixture of happiness.

Brian’s smile was no less real, and she swore she heard him laughing as the doors were closed on the ambulance and it pulled out of the drive.

***

The whisper of a breeze from the open doorway brought the scent of roses into the bedroom. It was nearing midnight, and the house was quiet and peaceful. The moonlight etched silver on the bare back of the man beside her.

Leigh fought the sleep that threatened, wanting to savor the silence and sensations of the warm night. Loretta and Kim were almost six weeks old now, and no longer the red-faced squirming bundles they had been at birth. They now looked very much like their father, dark-haired and dark-eyed, but with Leigh’s creamy skin. Although the twins were identical in appearance, each had her own distinct personality. Kim was a peaceful baby, her eyes taking in the wonder of the world with every passing day. Loretta was more apt to be more restless, less content; she would be constantly carried, night and day, if she could get away with it. Which she could, when Brian was around. For one who was wary of “squalling brats,” Brian had done an abrupt about-face that still caused Leigh to smile.

Ruth had offered to come for the first month, but Brian suggested she come a little later. Instead, he had hired a night nurse, and had taken three weeks off from work to help Leigh himself. On the evenings he was forced to bring work home, he carted at least one of the twins into the library with him. They never fussed for him. They either slept or gurgled contentedly in their infant seats, next to his drawing board or on the couch, intrigued by the sound of a pencil scratch or the crackle of paper.

Leigh sighed, unable to believe how absolutely happy she was. She heard the sound of a baby’s cry, and instinctively she stilled. Brian also was all attention, so she knew he wasn’t asleep. “Loretta,” he said perceptively.

They both listened to the soothing sounds of the night nurse, the cries abruptly ceasing as the infant was cared for.

“We won’t need her much longer,” Leigh said of the nurse. Kim was already sleeping through the night, and it seemed foolish to have outside help for only an occasional night feeding. In the beginning, Leigh had been desperate for rest, but now she was feeling perfectly fit again, with as much energy as she had ever had.

“We’ll see,” Brian murmured. “I don’t want you all tired out, Leigh.”

“Are you awake?” she whispered a few minutes later.

He chuckled. “Getting there,” he said dryly.

“Good.” She kissed the back of his neck, and then rained soft kisses down the cool skin of his spine. With her fingertips, she erased them, in smooth, soothing caresses, and then started all over again. “I’ve been looking at that back of yours for nearly over a month,” she complained.

He turned, pressing her back into the sheets, and drew her hands together in one of his own. “You haven’t been back to the doctor yet, Red,” he reminded her.

His chest was more interesting than his back. Her fingers traced patterns in the swirls of hair, followed by her lips, soft and curious. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she whispered. Crouched on her knees in the darkness, she put both arms on the sides of his face so that she could lean over and gently kiss his neck and ears and forehead. She drew back to look at him, love and a question in her eyes. “I think this is called a very amateur seduction. I love you, Brian. I feel like singing it from the rooftops.”

With one smooth, sure move, their positions were reversed, and Leigh was pressed into the sheets with Brian staring down at her. She could feel his love, a tangible essence between them, and she could feel her whole body react to it, trembling in anticipation. And then his lips came down on hers, and the trembling ceased.

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