Countdown To Baby

“Thank you.” Closing the door behind him, she turned to study the box for a moment. And then she ran to find a knife with which to slice through the wrapping tape.

Her heart jumped right into her throat when she saw the contents of the box. There was no card, but then, none was needed. She knew exactly who had sent this gift.

Fighting back a quick rush of tears, she ran an unsteady hand across the back of the small, beautiful maple rocker. The seat was covered with a gingham cushion in the exact shade of green she and Geoff had applied to the walls of the room she hoped would become a nursery. This rocker was absolutely perfect for holding a baby. And it was even made of the very wood she had said she wanted to use.

He really shouldn’t have done this, she thought, unable to resist sinking into the cushioned seat and rocking a little. It was such an extravagant, unexpected gesture. One that could make her fall entirely too hard for him. The kind that could endanger the carefully objective perspective she was trying to maintain during their temporary affair.

They didn’t even know that their efforts would be successful. Though there was no medical reason that she knew of preventing her from conceiving, there was still a very strong chance that these three weeks of effort would be fruitless, and who knew when—or if—they would try again. The disappointment of that would be bad enough, but it was going to be even worse if she was foolish enough to let her heart get broken in the process.

Chapter Ten

Geoff had tried not to mind when Cecilia turned down his dinner-with-the-family invitation. She’d been afraid it would be awkward, but he really didn’t agree with that fear.

She already knew his family, at least in passing. Because of the clinic, they had plenty of topics for conversation. It wasn’t completely unprecedented for him to bring a date to dinner, though admittedly it had been a while. No one would have wondered why he’d be interested in spending time with an attractive, interesting woman while he was in town.

It certainly would have saved him the ordeal of having his grandmother fixing him up with a lovely young woman who was the granddaughter of one of Myrtle’s ladies-who-lunch friends. Although Myrtle had enthusiastically described the twenty-six-year-old attorney as a paragon of modern young womanhood—beautiful, intelligent, ambitious and personable—Geoff had no interest in meeting her, much to his grandmother’s exasperation.

“I’m not going to be in town much longer, anyway,” he had reminded her. “I leave for Boston in less than a month.”

“But you’ll be back. And as you take over more of your father’s responsibilities, you’ll be staying in town more.” She was as quick with a retort as always. “It is time for you to think about starting your family while you’re young enough to enjoy them, Geoffrey. And while your father and I are around to enjoy them, too,” she had added with a shake of her finger.

Geoff had chuckled and kissed his grandmother’s softly lined cheek. “Emotional blackmail doesn’t work with me, you should know that. And besides, you’re going to be around for a long time yet.”

The truth was, he thought as he drove his car into Cecilia’s driveway Thursday evening, he simply wasn’t interested in meeting his grandmother’s friend’s granddaughter. For the usual reasons, yes. No inclination to get caught up in a matchmaking scheme that would only lead to bruised feelings all around when he failed to cooperate. That same old reluctance to sacrifice any of his cherished freedom.

But there was another reason that he didn’t care about meeting the single lawyer. He was enjoying Cecilia’s company so much that he didn’t want anything to interfere with their time together.

Holding a small package in his hand, he climbed out of his car with a smile on his face that was becoming increasingly familiar whenever he was about to see Cecilia. The smile turned to a frown when he heard a rather disturbing commotion coming from the house next door.

He glanced instinctively that way, spotting the rusty pickup he’d seen before parked in front of the house. Though overgrown shrubbery prevented him from seeing anyone on the shadowy porch, the voices were coming from there.

They sounded young. A male who was obviously angry—irate, even. And a girl who seemed to be speaking in sobs. He remembered the redhead with the bruised face that he had seen with Cecilia. Brandy? The one Cecilia had explained was being raised by her grandparents next door.

Were the grandparents home now? Were they aware that their granddaughter’s boyfriend was throwing an obscenity-laced tantrum on their front porch?

A muffled thud might have been a blow, or a push followed by a fall. The sound was accompanied by a choked cry that made him toss the package he’d been holding onto the hood of his car and move purposefully toward the house next door.

Before he’d crossed Cecilia’s lawn, a door slammed, and the battered pickup peeled out of the driveway, gunned so violently that the tires smoked on the asphalt. Brandy ran down the porch steps into Geoff’s view, crying and calling after the departing truck. “Marlin, wait! Don’t go, please!”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Geoff asked her, raising his voice to be heard over her sobs.

She hadn’t seen him prior to his speaking. She jumped and whirled toward him.

Her face was red and tear streaked, her eyes wild

beneath her tumbled red hair. “What?”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“No.” She swiped at her streaming eyes with the back of one hand, calling his attention to the fading bruise on her cheek.

Softball injury? He seriously doubted it. “Look, Brandy, I heard that lot yelling at you—”

“It was my fault,” she said quickly, defensively. “I said some things that made him mad. He’s got a quick temper, but he’s not a bad guy.”

He suspected that he would accomplish nothing by verbally attacking her jerk of a boyfriend. “Are your grandparents home?”

“No.” Drawing a ragged breath, Brandy turned dispiritedly toward the door. “I’ll be okay. I’m going in to wait for Marlin to call. He’ll calm down pretty soon, and he’ll be sorry he yelled at me like that. He’s really a great guy. I love him a lot.”