The Mommy Miracle (7 page)

“Let me get her undressed,” she said, “because that's tricky.”

Jodie stood back and watched as the little wriggly arms came out of the stretch cotton dress, looking so
fragile and small and wobbly it seemed as if one wrong move from Mom's expert hands and the arms might break.

Jodie hissed in a horrified breath at the mental image and Mom turned to her with a question in her face.

“It's okay,” Jodie said quickly. “Just glad you're doing this bit.”

But then Mom did the next bit as well, sliding DJ into the bath and scooping the warm water over her perfect, satiny, slippery skin.

“Doesn't she ever smile in the bath?”

“Ooh, no, bath is way too serious for that,” Mom cooed, gazing down at DJ, her own smile as gooey as a marshmallow. “She used to shriek, at first, but she likes it now. Don't you, sweetheart precious?”

“H-how can you tell, without her smiling?”

“Look at her splashing her little arms and wriggling around.” Mom was still beaming, her hair damp around her face, a damp patch on the front of her blouse and two pink spots on her cheeks. She looked as happy as a young girl, but she also looked deeply tired. She was sixty-five years old, with forty years as a parent and seventeen years as a grandmother already under her belt. How much longer could she keep this up?

I have to start learning.

“Could I shampoo her hair?”

“Of course.” Mom took a step to the side. She kept hold of DJ, while Jodie pooled a tiny amount of baby shampoo onto the round head with its water-slicked hair. She massaged it in, her coordination still jerky. Mom cradled the little head in her cupped palm to keep it steady.

“I don't think I'd better rinse it off,” Jodie decided. “I might get shampoo in her eyes.”

So Mom did that part, also, then picked her up and wrapped DJ in a towel and sent Jodie for a clean outfit and a fresh diaper. “Just one of her little playsuits, in the second drawer. This is what Maddy used to do for you when you were newborn and she was seven, choose your outfits after your bath.”

Great,
Jodie thought.
My child-care capabilities are those of a seven-year-old. I'm so proud.

But it wasn't funny. It hurt. It shook her up. And she couldn't talk about it because that would only shake her up more.

Dev appeared at six-thirty, because Fairfield was a half-hour drive away. Jodie had spent nearly an hour getting ready, and in this area there was genuinely something to celebrate because she didn't need help with any of it now. She could get her arms into both sleeves. She could manage the whole shower. Lipstick and mascara were another story, but this was easily solved. Her face was cleansed, exfoliated and moisturized, but makeup-free.

She met him at the front door and his expression seemed to approve the swirly print dress and tiered jacket, which she had teamed with flat shoes in basic black because managing killer heels at this stage would have made managing lipstick seem easy. He looked so good himself, in dark pants and a lightly patterned button-down shirt, freshly shaven and his hair still a little damp around his neck from the shower.

They'd both dressed as if it were a date, she realized.

Was it a date?

But no, they'd answered that one already.

“How's DJ?” was the first thing he said to her.

“Oh, great. Asleep. I gave her her bath. Well, helped.”

“Did you?” She could tell he was pleased, and felt
guilty that she'd overstated her involvement. What was that really about? Wanting to make him happy? Or hiding her own distance and fear?

He put his arm around her back as they walked to the car. To an outsider they would have looked like a standard pair of new parents, taking a well-earned break for couple time while Grandma babysat. It was such a long way from the truth. Such a long, long way.

 

Dev had a glass of red wine with his meal but Jodie kept to plain water. “I'm not putting anything into my body that's going to interfere with my control.”

It made sense, yet still he told her, “You can let go a little, can't you?”

The idea of this evening had been to relax her, but so far it hadn't worked. He could see her intense concentration on managing the meal, to the point of twisting the pepper grinder over her chicken all by herself when the waiter was eager to do it for her.

He could see her making the right kind of conversation, too, refusing to rehash today's milestones in rehab and instead dragging in current events and politics and celebrity gossip as if this were a neurological examination. Could she remember the name of Scarlett Johansson's latest film? Could she keep track of this summer's star players in baseball and golf?

“I want to progress,” she answered.

“You won't, if you push too hard. You'll get overloaded and go backward. Was this dinner a mistake?”

“No, it's great.” She squeezed out a smile.

“It's not what you need,” he said on her behalf, because he could suddenly see this, and knew she wouldn't say it herself.

“No, you're right, it's not.” Her face fell. “I thought maybe it was, but—”

“I'm sorry. It was Lisa's idea, and I know how much she cares about you and wants you to get strong.”

“They all care about me. It seems to blind them, sometimes. It's always been this way, and it's so hard to fight it when I'm fighting with everything I have just to use a damned fork without messing up!”

She blinked back tears of anger and frustration and all he could think was
Hell! Hell!
Out loud he said, “But that's them. Your family. This is me. You can tell
me
what you really want and need, can't you?”

There was a pause and he could see her struggling, pushing things back deep inside. A familiar fear surged inside him. What might she say? What would he do if she wanted him out of her life completely?

She had no right to insist on it, since he was DJ's father, but how much of a battle did he want, with his innocent daughter as the winner's prize? Would he take her to family court over it? Hell, he dreaded anything like that. He knew that the law could make custody issues worse as well as solving them, especially when the matter crossed state lines.

She pressed her lips together and he knew she'd decided to keep something back, and yet when she spoke, he could see it was going to be important and honest, even if it wasn't the whole truth. “I want to go to Oakbank. I want to see the horses. And ride. People are acting as if that's something trivial, something to think about down the track, but it's not, it's something I want now. It was so much a part of my life. Way more a part of my life than—” She stopped, flooded with color and pressed her lips together again.

He understood and said it for her. “Than being a mom. Because you weren't one.”

“I l-love her.”

“I know you do. Of course you do.” How could she not? He loved her to pieces.

“I want to take care of her, but I'm scared, and Mom and my sisters… They're so experienced with babies. I need to go back to something I used to do well. Even if I can't do it well anymore, I just need to…be a tiny bit of that person again, for a while, or else I can't learn— I won't learn to be the new— This doesn't make any sense.”

Oh, but it did. Shoot, it did. Dev felt he'd been blind, and fallen into the same trap as her family. Not really listening. Not seeing her real needs. “I'll take you tomorrow,” he said.

“It doesn't have to be—”

“Tomorrow,” he insisted. “We can spend the whole day there, if you want.”

“Rehab—”

“Rehab can wait. This is rehab. I'll call Trish and tell her what's happening. I'll call my office and have Marcia cancel my appointments for the whole morning. No arguments, okay, Jodie?”

But she wasn't planning to argue. Her face had lit up. Her eyes were shining. “Thank you, Dev. Thank you so much for not being like my mother and my sisters.” She had some color back in her cheeks now that she'd been able to spend a little time outside and the contrast of that smile and that skin and that blond hair took his breath away.

He remembered the way she'd felt leaning against him a few weeks ago, the first time she'd held their baby, so warm, so focused, yet shaky and uncertain,
bringing out a kind of tenderness in him he'd barely known could exist. If he could have cut off his own leg to have her fully healed and complete and strong the way she used to be, he would have done it.

“You're welcome,” he said, and she must have heard the huskiness in his voice.

D
riving to the restaurant, the summer evening had still been bright and hot, but now it was dark, a kind of misty blue darkness with a big yellow moon rising in the east. The last time she'd been out driving with Dev in open country in the dark, Jodie realized, was the night of the accident. Oddly, she wasn't scared about it. Maybe because she had no memory of the accident or the drive.

They came around a swoopy bend, the same kind of bend they must have come around that night, with forest on both sides. An oncoming car swept past them, going fast. She heard Dev swear beneath his breath. He was thinking of that night, also.

“Do you remember it?” she asked him. “I mean the—”

“I know what you mean. Yes, I remember it. I was conscious the whole time. Let's not talk about it.”

“You were thinking about it.”

“Can't help it, sometimes.”

“Like now, when someone speeds past the other way.”

“Yes.” Gritted teeth.

Oh, Dev. It shocked her to think of how much he'd been through. She hadn't thought of it this way before—that her long sleep had been a protection, in many ways, while Dev had suffered through the accident, suffered the agony in his leg echoing the agony of uncertainty, not just for that one terrible night, but for months afterward. Would there be a healthy baby? Would the baby's mom ever wake up?

She put her hand on his arm. Ole Lefty, which wasn't always fully responsible for its actions. She pressed and gripped too hard, and he took his eyes off the road to look at her, and slowed the car. She could see the suffering in his face, the surge of memory. His hands were clenched and shaking on the wheel.

A turning appeared just ahead, a side road with a sign that shone brightly when the car headlights hit it.
Deer Pond Park.
He took it without a word and slowed even more, taking his foot off the gas pedal as if he didn't trust himself with the vehicle's power.

The parking area was deserted. The car rolled to a stop in the farthest corner, with Dev's arms slumped over the wheel. The engine died. “I'm sorry,” he said, his voice thick as if he was fighting nausea. “It just…hit me. Hell, I'm shaking. And when that car just now— It wasn't even really speeding. It was a family minivan, for heck's sake.”

“I shouldn't have talked about it.”

“It wasn't your fault. I was thinking about it already. It's the first time I've driven on a dark country road.”

“In so long?”

“Couldn't drive at all for the first few months, because of my leg. Since then, I've been pretty busy sticking close to town.” Taking care of a baby. Watching her mom wake up.

“I'm an idiot.”

“No.” He shook his head, ran a still-unsteady hand down his face as if to wipe the emotion away.

“I am. ‘It's not always about you, Jodie,'” she said out loud, with bitterness, mocking herself.

Dev opened the car door. “I need some air. For a minute. But this is not your fault. Let's not do that to each other.”

He slid out into the fresh night air, walking away from the vehicle, lacing his fingers behind his head so that his elbows stuck out. She heard him breathing, big whooshes of air blown out through rounded lips. He circled back and leaned his thighs against the hood of the car, looking out over the moonlit pond just yards away, still blowing those careful breaths.

She scrambled out of the vehicle and went to him. “Dev…”

“You were lying there,” he said, the words torn from him as if by a force he couldn't control. “I could barely reach you to touch. Just my fingertips. Couldn't do anything for you. I could see blood in the dark. I could hear the other driver yelling and moaning. Crying on the phone when he got himself together enough to call 911. I didn't know… I thought you were breathing but I wasn't sure. And my leg was trapped. And shattered. They had to cut us out. It took three hours.”

“Oh, Dev…”

“I'm sorry.” He pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Your family didn't want me to tell you all that.”

“No. They wouldn't.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't do that to me, Dev, don't treat me like a child, the way they do. I'm not. I'm a grown woman. A strong woman. And I'm— I'm—” She didn't know how to finish.

In your debt, forever.

Here for you, forever.

Words weren't strong enough.

Touch just might be.

She reached for him, running her stronger right hand—the one that she might actually be able to control—up his arm. She rested it on his shoulder, beside his warm neck, and leaned her body close. “You're amazing,” she said. “You've carried this load of memory all on your own, while I've been free.”

“I guess I did need to talk about it.” He was still shaking a little, not from weakness, she guessed, but from the effort of holding everything in. She didn't want him to hold it in. Such tightness and control would surely kill him.

Let go, Dev, let go.

Not fully aware of what she was doing, she began to soothe his muscles with her touch, the way her own muscles had been massaged back into life with physical therapy. She knew all those movements so well, by now.

That's better. That's good. Let go, Dev.

He let out another shuddering sigh and wrapped his arms around her. She felt the warmth of the car hood from the hot engine, and heard it begin to tick as it cooled.

“When the paramedics arrived and confirmed you were alive, this rush of relief, I can't describe…” His voice rumbled against her chest, his breath making a
heated caress in her ear. “And then they gave me drugs for the pain and I had this hallucination. I thought we were in a shipwreck, floating in a lifeboat with sharks circling in the water, the only two people left in the whole world. All I could reach was your hair. I held on to it….”

He showed her, taking a soft handful in his fist. She could feel his thumb resting, light and warm, on the back of her neck. He moved a little, bringing his cheek against hers. It was a little rough, so familiar, so good. She turned her head and pressed her lips there, because she couldn't stop herself. He sighed and she felt his mouth against hers, kind of soft and absentminded as if he weren't really here. He was still back in that horrible night.

“That was all I could reach,” he repeated. “And then they cut you free and took you away. And it was just me and the sharks.” He laughed.

“Wasn't funny at the time,” she whispered.

“Nope.”

“Wish I'd been there.”

“I'm glad you weren't.”

“Well, I'm here now.” She took his face in her hands, and her hands did what they were told as if they wanted this, too. She pressed her lips to his forehead and then—because she couldn't help it, she was so overwhelmed with feeling for him, with a sense of all the power that connected them—to his mouth.

Oh, Dev. Oh, Dev.

He kissed her back, hungry about it, desperate. His mouth was almost too hard against hers, and he crushed the breath out of her lungs, leaning into her. She had to ease him away, but, oh, not too far.

Yes, Dev, if kissing you helps to let go…

I'll kiss you for whatever reason you want, for every reason there is.

Their two mouths melted together once more, sweet with the chocolate that had finished off their meal. He let go of her hair and moved his hands down to cradle her backside and pull her closer, the swirly skirt of her dress falling against his legs.

She could feel his arousal and he didn't try to hide it. He wanted her to know what was happening, and he couldn't be in any doubt, himself, about what this was doing to her. Her body came alive, her senses reborn. Even the texture of his shirt seemed magical. The woodsy male smell of him. The dark fan of lashes against his cheek that she glimpsed when her eyes drifted open.

She touched him, her hands not fully controlled so that sometimes her grip wouldn't let go or her hand would land in the wrong place. There weren't any wrong places, really. Everywhere felt right. His hip, the top of his thigh, his shoulder blade.

And then it got serious.

He slid his hands beneath her top to touch her bare skin and she wanted those hands on her breasts. He must have known. He dragged his mouth away from hers and trailed it down, pulled her summery jacket from her shoulders and traced the neckline beneath it with his lips. The straps of her top and cream lace bra fell against her upper arms.

He lifted her breast in his cupped palm and breathed a warm breath against her peaked nipple, ran his tongue around it and sucked, released, kissed, sucked again. A fire of pleasure and need stabbed down into her groin, and her body told him
keep going, we are so good at this, both of us.

She reached for the fastening of his pants, but couldn't make her fingers work. They scrambled helplessly and in the end she just left them there, curled against his stomach, while she kissed her way down his chest then pushed her forehead into the hard, flat place between his hips. Through the textured fabric of his pants, she felt the push of his erection against her mouth.

“No…” he groaned, pulling her up. “I want you closer.”

“That's not close?”

“I want you like this….” He pressed himself into her, kissed her mouth again.

“Yes, oh, yes.” She tried his fly again and did better this time. The button came through the hole, the zipper eased down.

“We can't do this,” he muttered, but he didn't mean it. “I want to.” She always did, when it was Dev. Always. Something about him. No explanation. Just chemistry. “Do you?”

“Hell, do I? How can you ask?” He straightened from his lean against the car hood and flipped her around in one twirl of a movement so that she was the one leaning. The engine was still warm. He cupped her bottom again and lifted her higher until she sat on the smooth metal. “It's not going to be pretty.”

“I don't care.”

“Good. Neither do I.”

Maybe it wasn't pretty, but it was beautiful—dark and moonlit and beautiful. He grew patient, as if there were no hurry in the world now that they'd agreed on what they wanted, and just kissed her for a long, long time. Her mouth. Her shoulders. Her breasts. Touching
her everywhere. Teasing her deliberately until she was almost whimpering, wanting him so badly, swollen with it, more than ready.

Of his own readiness, there was no doubt. His erection nudged at the apex of her spread thighs, hard and hot. She wrapped her legs around him and he slid her skirt until it bunched at her waist, then pushed aside the triangle of fabric at her crotch. They were doing this fully clothed, and that was just fine.

Fully
clothed.

He had his wallet in his back pocket and it carried protection. She held him while he rolled it in place, running her fingers over the taut skin across his lower stomach, brushing the small, tight buds of his nipples through his shirt.

When he entered her, she was as smooth as silk around him, tight with her own need and he filled her so completely that she gasped at the first thrust. Oh, Dev. Oh, Dev. Yes. She clung to him, legs and arms shaking with effort, and he guessed it would have to be quick or not at all.

The car rocked and Jodie sobbed. He pinned her with his hands, stroked her with his hardness until the night exploded. She was a little ahead of him and took him with her, shuddering with gut-deep sound.

Yes. Oh, yes.

They were both breathless. He laughed and held her hard, and maybe she should say something.
That was amazing.
But it seemed trite and so obvious. Hell, yes, it was amazing. When had it not been amazing with Dev? So she just laughed with him and kissed him clumsily. He was just as clumsy, kissing her back.

“You can make a man forget, can't you?” he said.

“That wasn't the reason for it.”

“No, I know, but it helped. It was good, Jodie.”

“Good?”

“Amazing.”

He sounded humble, which was how she felt, too. Humble because she didn't know what happened next. Didn't know how to ask. Didn't know
what
to ask.

Are we dating?

They weren't. They'd agreed.

And yet there was this. Stronger than ever.

He'd gone very quiet, very still.

“I'm not allowed to drive yet,” she said, even though he knew this perfectly well.

“Are you asking if I'm okay to drive?”

“Don't particularly want to have to call one of my sisters to come with her husband and ferry us home.”

“We won't have to do that. Just give me a minute.”

“Have lots of them. As many as you like.”

“Not too many, or we'll get a phone call asking where we are.”

“Mmm, true, and Deer Pond Park probably wouldn't be a good answer.”

“No.”

They giggled like teenagers, and she thought, just as she'd thought last year,
don't spoil this, Jodie, don't try to nail exactly what he thinks and feels. Life is so precious. You almost had it taken away. Don't spoil this, when it's been…

Amazing.

 

Dev made it back to the Palmer home without cracking up at the wheel. His whole body tightened and went on high alert, heart racing and sweat breaking out, every time a car went past, but he made it, breathing out a sigh of gratitude when they left the dark country road
and came beneath Leighville's street lighting. He sighed again when he turned into Barb and Bill's driveway.

Jodie fell against him a little as he helped her out of the car. She often did. It was nothing new, something she couldn't help because of that weakened left side of her body. This time, though, he pulled her against him and kissed her sweetly, because he didn't want her to think he'd just closed the book after one quickie on the car hood in a deserted nighttime parking lot.