FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (12 page)

She froze. “Why not?”

He turned to her,
anguish in his eyes. “I don’t have anything to protect you.”

Her breath rushed out
on a bubble of laughter. Leaning over to put her lips against his ear, she
whispered, “Top drawer of the nightstand.”

He turned and gently
grabbed her shoulders. “You planned this, didn’t you?” She couldn’t tell in the
dim light if he was angry.

“Well, not exactly this
particular moment. But I figured this moment would happen eventually and a
little pre-planning might be helpful.”

He laughed out loud,
then pulled her against his chest. “You are somethin’ else, darlin’,” he said
into her hair.

He let her go, then
turned to the nightstand to extract the needed object from the drawer. One of
the many things he disliked about condoms was having to stop in the middle of
foreplay to fumble with them. But tonight he did
not
have to wait to be
able to put it on. Unbuttoning his jeans, he pushed them off his hips and onto
the floor, then turned slightly away from her as excited fingers struggled with
the small package.
Not exactly the most romantic way to get things started,
Skippy.

But Kate wasn’t paying
attention. She had used his distraction to move around the bed, peeling off the
negligee before sliding between the sheets. Fair is fair. If he was starting
out buck naked, so was she. Drawn-out anticipation was losing its appeal for
her as well.

His task finally accomplished,
he slipped between the sheets and turned to her. She moaned when he touched
bare skin.

“What happened to the
negligee?” he asked as he slid his hand across her rib cage and then slowly
down her belly, stopping, for the time being, when he felt the dip of her
navel.

Distracted by the heat
coursing through her, it took her a moment to remember what the question was.
“Figured it had served its purpose,” she whispered.

She turned on her side
to face him. His hand settled in the valley between ribcage and hip. In the dim
light from the bathroom, Kate feasted her eyes on his broad chest, the muscles
smooth and strong but not unnaturally bulging. She bit her lower lip and ran
her hand over the curve of shoulder and down, coming to rest on his solid bicep.
She heard a soft groan and felt his skin quiver, which set off a responding
quiver down the core of her body.

“Kate?” he whispered.

“Hmm.”

“Can I kiss you now?”

She looked up into his
eyes, a small smile on her lips. “What are you waiting for?”

He knew he had to go
slow, even though it was exquisite agony. He had learned long ago that he was
too big and strong to let himself lose control. He could all too easily hurt a
woman. So he took his time, savoring the slowness, now that he could finally hold
her, stroke her, kiss her, and then do it all again.

Kissing her was
everything he had imagined it would be. When their mouths met and her lips
parted slightly, he slipped the tip of his tongue between them, nudging them
further apart. He lost himself in that warm place, slowly exploring it.

Her arms wrapped
themselves around his neck and she moaned deep in her throat, arching her back
to press against him. He stroked his hand down her side and then up again to
cup her breast. As his tongue made another lazy circuit of her mouth, he
flicked his thumb across her nipple.

The jolt forced another
moan from her throat. She broke away from his lips just far enough to gasp out
his name. He moved his head down and touched his lips, feather soft, to her
breast, and then claimed it with his mouth. A shudder ran down the length of
her body arching into him. After a few moments, he nudged her slightly away to
reach the other breast and give it equal time. She sucked in her breath and
shuddered again. Then her fingers were in his hair, tugging gently.

He briefly reclaimed
her mouth as he rolled her over onto her back. Pushing up off her chest so she
could breathe, he locked his elbows and looked down into her face. Her eyes,
now a smoky indigo in the soft light, locked onto his and her well-kissed lips
slowly spread into a smile.

“What
are
you
waiting for?” she whispered again, opening her legs just far enough for his
hips to fit nicely between them. Her back arched and her eyes glazed over as he
moved into her.

He kept his movements
slow. Her legs were now entwined around his. He felt her hands on his
shoulders, running down his arms and back up again. Then they were tracing fire
across his skin as they explored every inch of his body. He struggled not to
lose control.

She hit a ticklish spot
on his side and he wriggled slightly away from her touch. She smiled.

Then suddenly her arms
were wrapped around his waist, forcing him deeper inside of her. And he was
gone, lost in a sea of sensations he had never felt before. With the few brain
cells that were still functional, he knew he needed to drop down on his elbows,
before he forgot to keep them locked and ended up crushing her. His forearms
along either side of her head, he could feel her breasts pressed against his ribs.
Her lips, warm and soft, were skimming little kisses across his chest. His skin
burned in their wake.

He groaned aloud. Her
fingers ran up his back and down again, trailing fire.

She held on tight as
wave after wave of pure sensation washed over them. He was soaring, all
connections lost except the one with her. She surrounded him, filled him, every
corner of his being.

Slowly, with a twinge
of loss, he drifted back to earth. It felt like their bodies had melted into
one. His thigh muscles were quivering slightly from the strain of holding his
weight off of her. Rolling onto his side, he brought her with him, still welded
together, as he kissed her again–a long, slow and delicious kiss.

Their bodies peeled
away from each other as he rolled onto his back. Another twinge of loss when
cool air flowed over sweaty skin. He gathered her in against him. On her side,
one leg thrown over his, an arm laying across his stomach, she rested her cheek
on his chest.

He heaved a sigh of
contentment.

Her fingers searched
for and found the ticklish spot. He wriggled a little but he didn’t want to
pull away from her. The fingers stilled. He could feel her mouth spreading into
a grin where the side of her face was pressed against his chest.

“You’re gonna use that
against me at some point in the future, aren’t you, darlin’?” he whispered into
her curls. She didn’t say anything but he felt the grin grow wider against his
skin. He tightened his arms around her.

He couldn’t make
himself wait any longer. He tilted her head up. “I love you, Kate,” he
whispered, then touched his lips to hers. They kissed until they were both
desperate for air.

She sighed as she
settled her cheek back against his chest.

He held her, marveling
at his good fortune. He was thirty-eight years old and had never truly been
in
love, before now.

After things had gone
sour with Carrie, he had stopped looking for love, although he still dated.
Dating was fun, and he’d had no desire to be a monk. But he’d come to the
conclusion that this great passionate falling-in-love thing that people talked
about, that songs and movies and novels were written about, that it didn’t
really exist. It was an adult version of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

And then this woman had
snuck up on his heart. Or maybe there really was some naked cherub out there,
flinging arrows randomly at people, for he knew she had no more intended to
fall in love with him than he had with her.

He was congratulating
himself again on his good fortune when he felt moisture on his chest. It took
him a moment to realize what it was. Panicking, he turned onto his side and
pushed up on one elbow to look down into her face. “My God, Kate! Did I hurt
you?”

Tears were streaming
down her cheeks but she shook her head.

“Kate, what’s wrong?
Tell me what’s wrong!”

She shook her head
again, struggling to get words out. Finally she whispered, “Eddie just said
goodbye.” Her face crumpled.

The pain in his chest
was so sharp that for a second he thought he was having a heart attack. It had
been too soon after all. Now how was she going to feel about him? Would she
push him away?

  Stop being so
selfish,
he admonished himself, as he gathered her into his arms. He held
her, whispering, “it’s okay, sh, sh, sh, it’s okay,” until she had cried
herself out.

When her tears finally
slowed, he kissed the top of her head, then said in her ear, “I’m afraid I
don’t have a handkerchief to offer you. No pockets at the moment.”

Rolling onto her back,
encircled by his arms, she looked up into his eyes and tried to smile. But her
tear-stained face couldn’t seem to figure out how that expression was supposed
to be formed.

“What does this mean,
Kate?” he asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. He gently brushed
damp curls off her cheeks.

She stared up at him for
a long moment. Finally her face muscles remembered how to smile. “It means...
it’s okay now,” she whispered haltingly. “To move on... I might miss him at
times, but it’s okay now to...”

She reached up to pull
his face down to hers. “I love you, Skip,” she murmured against his lips.

And he lost himself in
her again.

K
ate was awakened the
next morning by a ray of sunshine sneaking through a crack between the
curtains. It only took a second of staring at the ceiling to know where she was.
She had imagined this moment enough times that finding herself in this bed was
not disorienting. Recalling the evening before, in glorious technicolor detail,
she savored the array of tingling sensations in her body.

Slowly, so as not to
disturb Skip if he was still asleep, she rolled over on her side.

And was startled to
find she was alone. She sat up and started to pull the sheet up over her
breasts.
Oh, come on, girl
, she thought. He’d seen them last night, more
than seen them actually–the tingling got stronger–he might as well see them in
broad daylight. Whatever imperfections age and nursing a child had imprinted on
them, he would just have to get used to.

“Skip,” she called
softly, thinking he was in the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar. No answer.

She swung her feet
around and sat on the side of the bed. She glanced at the nightstand. The baby
monitor was gone. Confused, she looked down to see if it had gotten knocked off
onto the floor last night.
Nope.

She looked around the
room. It was on the nightstand on Skip’s side of the bed.
What’s it doing
over there?
She stretched across the tousled pillows to grab the little
plastic box. It had been turned off.

Panic shot through her
as her mind registered the angle of the sunbeam streaming across the bed.
The
baby!
She never slept this late, and Skip had turned the monitor off.

She jumped up and
started for the door, then realized she couldn’t race downstairs stark naked.
She ran into the bathroom and grabbed the terrycloth robe from the hook behind
the door. Hastily wrapping the robe around her, she raced across the bedroom.
She was looking down, trying to tie the sash, when she ran head on into the
front of Skip’s shirt. Bouncing back a couple inches, she looked up at him.

He wrapped his arms
around her, smiling down into her face, until the fear in her eyes registered.

“Skip, the baby! Why
isn’t she awake yet?”

“She is. She’s fine!
She’s had her morning pony ride around the living room and is now in her
highchair, finger-painting with her oatmeal.”

Kate sagged against
him. He gathered her closer and said into her hair, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean
to scare you. I just wanted to let you sleep in a little, since I kept you up
half the night.”

He took her by the
shoulders and held her away from him, then dropped one hand to pull loose the
half knot in the sash of her robe. He took her face between his hands and
leaned down to kiss her.

He stopped halfway
there. She had a strange look on her face. He eased back slightly. “If you’re
still worried about her, we can go check on her. But Maria seemed to have
things under control.”

“No, it’s not that.
It’s... I’m not sure what...” She was discovering she couldn’t think and talk
at the same time, at least not when he was standing this close, his hands on
her cheeks, his body radiating the medley of scents she had come to associate
with him–the cottony fragrance of his shirt, the lingering whiff of citrus from
yesterday’s aftershave and the smell of warm male skin...
very
warm male
skin.

She reached up and
touched the stubble on his cheek, noting that it was a shade lighter than his
hair, almost blond. “I just felt, uh, realized...”

Skip ended her struggle
to think by covering her mouth with his own. Her knees melted and she sagged
into him. Wrapping one arm around her to pull her against him, he continued to
tenderly explore her mouth. He slipped the other hand inside her robe to do
some exploring there.

She slid her hands up
under his shirt and wrapped them around his waist. It took a long moment for it
to register that something was missing. She broke the kiss. “Where’s your gun?”

He looked over at the
nightstand, where the .38 was laying in its holster. “Careless of me. I forgot
to take it downstairs.” While guarding Edie, he usually kept it on top of an
antique china cabinet in the living room, well out of the baby’s reach but
close at hand if he needed it.

“We’ll need to do
something different. Maybe get a gun cabinet,” Kate said, still looking at the
gun. “Edie’ll be walking soon.”

His heart did a funny
flip at her use of
we
. He took her chin and turned her face back toward
his. “Kate...”

“What?” she murmured,
looking up at him. Her hands, still under his shirt, had somehow moved around
to stroke his chest. His skin quivered under her touch.

“I love you,” he
whispered. “Now shut up.” And he kissed her again.

~~~~~~~~

T
hey had finally had
breakfast and were sitting on the living room sofa, not touching, but Skip’s
arm was draped across the back of the sofa, behind Kate’s shoulders. He figured
it wasn’t his place to make the change in their relationship apparent to Maria.
That was up to Kate.

Of course
, he
thought, smiling to himself.
The fact that our hair is still wet from the
shower is probably a dead giveaway.
The shower that had taken much longer
than it should have, because they had taken it together.

Kate was watching Edie
as she pulled herself to a stand by grabbing the edge of the armchair seat. She
would let go, take a step or two, fall down and then crawl back to the chair
and start the process all over again. Her little girl was learning to walk.

Kate, on the other
hand, wasn’t sure she would ever be able to walk again. Her legs felt like
rubber and there was a relaxed, warm feeling all over her body. It felt like
her joints, bones and muscles had melted into one flowing sensation of
contentment.

Skip glanced at his
watch and was surprised to discover that it was almost noon. “Don’t you have a
lunch date with Rob today, darlin’?”

“No, he’s in court.”

Maria was in full
housekeeping mode, bustling around between the kitchen, master bedroom and
nursery, first with a laundry basket in her hands and now with a feather
duster. She stopped in front of them and opened her mouth to say something.

But Kate didn’t give
her a chance. “Maria, Skip’s going to be staying at night, in the guest room,
to keep us safe.”

“
Si.
Muy bien. Señor
Skip stay.” Maria’s grin was about to split
her face and her head was moving up and down like a bobble-head doll. She
bustled off to dust the master bedroom.

“How will we ever
overcome her disapproval, darlin’?” Skip drawled in her ear.

She turned in the arm
that had now dropped around her shoulders and grinned up at him. “Is that okay
with you? I guess I’m kind of taking liberties here...” her voice trailed off.

“Darlin’, you can take
liberties with me
any time you want.
”

They heard a shrill cry
from across the room. Edie had taken two steps away from the armchair and had
fallen face first on the rug.

Kate started to get up
but Skip put his hand on her knee. “I’ll get her.”

Before she could
respond, he stood up and scooped the crying baby into his arms. He brushed dark
curls, so much like her mother’s, off of chubby wet cheeks. “It’s okay, little
one. Let Uncle Skip kiss the boo-boo and make it better.” He kissed her tiny
nose.

The baby looked up at
him with a solemn expression on her face. Then she blessed him with a
snaggle-toothed grin and said, “Uh Ski.”

Skip’s heart melted. He
quickly looked at Kate to see if she had heard her daughter say his name.

Kate was watching him
from the sofa, a strange expression on her face.
Oh, shit!
Had he
overstepped her parental boundaries? Out loud, he said, “Am I the one whose
taking liberties now?”

Kate shook her head.
“No, you’re fine,” she said, just barely above a whisper.

Skip returned to the
sofa, the baby still in his arms. He assumed Edie would crawl onto her mother’s
lap for additional comforting, but her tumble was already forgotten. She was
content to sit on his lap, playing with the buttons on his shirt. Suddenly, she
pushed herself backwards along one thigh toward his knee. He grabbed her hands
just before she slid off onto the floor.

Edie chortled and
started bouncing up and down. He obliged by jiggling his leg and making
giddy-up noises, while holding onto her plump little arms.

He almost didn’t hear
Kate’s soft voice at first. “That’s the realization you wouldn’t give me time
to sort out this morning.”

“What’s that, darlin’?”
he asked, still watching the baby to make sure she didn’t jiggle off his knee.

Now that she had
brought it up, Kate wasn’t sure she should have. “Well, that...” She hesitated,
considering and rejecting different words, unable to think of a way to say it
that wouldn’t sound presumptuous. For what she had felt earlier, when she’d realized
he had gotten up to take care of the baby so she could sleep in, was the
lifting of some of the weight from her shoulders. Weight she had gotten so used
to carrying in the last eleven months that she’d forgotten it was there, until
some of it was gone.

“Are you gonna share
this realization, darlin’? Or is it a secret.” He glanced over at her and was
startled by that strange look on her face again.

“Uh, I realized... that
I’ll have to, uh, get used to sharing some of my parenting tasks.” Those were most
definitely
not
the right words. They implied too much permanency.

“Is that a bad thing?”
he asked.

“Oh, no, it was kind of
a relief,” she said, then was sure she had gone too far. She hadn’t meant to
convey an expectation that he continue to carry part of the burden–a burden he
couldn’t even know existed yet, since he’d never had children.

Skip looked at Kate’s
worried face. He gave the baby one final bounce, lifted her up to kiss her
again on her little nose and then put her down on the floor. “Go play, little
one, while I talk to your mama.”

He turned sideways on
the sofa and took Kate’s hand in his. “Let’s get something straight here.” He
hesitated, trying to figure out how to reassure her without sounding like he
was rushing things. “I’m in this for the long haul. That is, if that’s what you
want?”

She looked into his
eyes, then nodded, as her arms, of their own volition, circled his neck to pull
him down for a kiss.

The sound of someone
clearing their throat brought them back to their senses before they started to
make love right there on the sofa. Maria was standing in front of them, her
hands on her hips, feather duster sticking out to the side like a lopsided
rooster’s tail. She was trying to look stern but was not pulling it off.

“You two, go! Pretty
day. Go out. I clean here now. You in way.
¡Fuera de aqui!
” She made
shooing motions with her hand.

“Let’s take Edie for a
walk.” Kate’s face was glowing as she looked up at him.

“Uh, I’m not sure
that’s a good idea,” Skip said, hating to burst her bubble.

“Sweetheart, remember
that conversation we had last summer?”

“Which one? We’ve had
so
many
conversations.”

“The one about fear,
that I’m not willing to let fear rule my life. I don’t take unnecessary
chances. I’m not a rash person. You know that. But I’m not going to stay cooped
up in my house, because some kook is running around out there... Whoever’s
doing this is probably going to lay low for awhile, after last weekend. And if
they
are
around, they’re not going to try anything if we’re with you, in
broad daylight.”

“Okay, you talked me
into it.” Skip got up and pulled her to a stand.

“It’ll just take a
minute to change her,” Kate said.

Skip started talking to
Maria in Spanish while Kate picked Edie up and took her into the nursery. For
once the baby lay relatively still while her mother changed her diaper. The
actions were so rote that Kate’s mind wandered.

She couldn’t believe
her good fortune to have this man love her. Without conscious forethought, the
words slipped into her mind,
How did I get so lucky, Eddie, to find two
wonderful men in one lifetime?

Her hands froze as she
was tucking Edie’s arm into the sleeve of her little jacket. The baby squirmed
and brought her mother back to task. Kate held her breath, waiting for an answer,
while she finished getting Edie into her jacket and fastened the strap of her
hat under her chin.

No answer came. Kate
let out her breath.

A wave of sadness swept
through her. Eddie was truly gone. She swiped at a runaway tear with the back
of her hand.

Then she could have
sworn she felt someone press their lips into her hair. And she suddenly had an
image in her mind of Eddie sitting on the edge of a cloud in the sky, smiling
down on her and their daughter. She couldn’t help smiling herself at the silliness
of the image, but she knew Eddie’s spirit, wherever it was, wanted her to move
on and be happy again. And provide a flesh-and-blood father for his daughter,
not just stories of a dead man told to her by her mother.

Edie was starting to
get fussy laying on the changing table. Kate gathered her up in her arms,
turned around, and collided once again with Skip’s chest.

She jumped a little. He
put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle
you. I was just watching. Being an uncle doesn’t require dressing babies...”

“Not your fault. I was
thinking about other things and didn’t hear you come in.” She smiled up at him.

Skip noticed that her
eyes were shiny, her lashes damp. “What were you thinking about, darlin’?” he
asked in a gentle voice.