"Lori, damn it, stop being flip." The humid night air wrapped around him with claustrophobic weight. He forced himself to breathe. "This is important, and you're not helping."
"Sorry. I know that was difficult for you."
He listened for more sarcasm, hearing nothing but determination.
Tread warily, pal. Land mines ahead. He wasn't going to get anywhere with her now and could too easily make things worse. "Let's save this talk for later. Better to wait rather than to say things we'll both regret only to find out we never needed to say them at all."
"Of course. Why even consider marriage unless I'm pregnant?"
A reasonable stance. Why then did her every word stab at him as if he'd fallen short of the mark?
"I'm sorry for losing contr—"
"Did it ever dawn on you that maybe you're not calling the shots this time?"
He paused buttoning his shirt. "What does that mean?"
"I was the one who crawled across that blanket. I wanted you. Granted, I wasn't thinking straight or I would have remembered about birth control. My brain gets scrambled around you."
Her words fizzled as the air crackled between them. How incredible to think he could move the imperturbable Lori.
For an insane moment he wanted to be exactly what she needed, and that absurd notion warred with his deep-seated need to defend. Protect. Protect her. "Lori—"
"Stop! I knew what I was doing, and I'm the one taking responsibility. No need to worry about being tied down. Go fly your planes, Major." She scrambled to her feet, shaking the wrinkles out of her dress while she slipped on her shoes. "It's been fun, as always. But I've got a child to check on."
She darted into the woods before he could untangle his brain.
Child? The word so close on the heels of their discussion had him wondering how she could already know… Then he remembered Magda.
He knew full well Lori wouldn't be giving up Magda at the evidentiary hearing. And a single, pregnant foster mother wouldn't go over well with the courts.
She would have to marry him.
The air grew heavier, then sparse, not unlike the rapid decompression the day before. He pressed his hands against the ground, the bed of pine needles giving slightly beneath the force.
It was bad enough he'd let Lori down. Adding that impish little kid into the mess left him wanting to ram his fist into the tree trunk, a dangerous thought for a man who made his living with his hands. But Lori frequently had him thinking dangerous thoughts.
And what about a child they may have made? Images of Lori swelling with his baby, giving birth into his waiting hands, stirred a protectiveness so fierce it astounded him. He'd attended deliveries in training and had found the experience—simply awesome. Replacing the mother with an image of Lori was beyond anything he could imagine.
He had placed his foot squarely on a mammoth land mine, blowing to pieces all his plans to keep it simple and leave town.
Gray stood and yanked up the blanket. A scrap of red satin fluttered to the ground. Memories of his and Lori's total lack of control rolled back over him like a tank. Would it always he that way between them?
He jammed the panties into his pocket and sprinted after her. He caught up with her just as she came back out his parents' door with Magda in her arms, the child an excellent chaperone and armor. Lori called her farewell and thanks to Gray's mother and patently avoided him. She wouldn't even look at him.
Instinct told him it would be a long, quiet ride back to her place. Experience from the past year told him that the silence could reach past dropping her off.
The thought of losing her again panicked him almost as much as the idea of marriage.
How far would he go to keep her?
* * *
Could she be pregnant? Lori drummed her fingers against the box of crayons on the kitchen table. She was late enough for it to be a possibility. Although she'd never been regular, and stress had been beyond normal the past two weeks.
No rationale could reason away a totally irrational wish for it to be true. She wanted Gray's baby inside her.
Had she subconsciously risked pregnancy to keep a part of Gray with her? She honestly didn't think so. That didn't stop her from cherishing a tiny dream face just as she cherished the little face across the table from her.