Baby, I'm Yours. Catherine Mann
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thoughts of beds with Vic sprawled across crisp white sheets, “a bed of iceberg lettuce.”
Ice. Yes, cool, chilling thoughts.
“Hmm.” Bo tapped his menu against his chin. “What else?”
Patience, she reminded herself. A mother needed to have patience. “One of our house specialties is country ham.” Would their baby have Vic’s blond hair and his blue eyes? “With blue-eye, uh, I mean redeye gravy.”
“I’ll take the chicken-fried steak after all.”
Chicken certainly seemed appropriate for the day since she felt like a great big coward. “Ooh-kay. One chicken-fried steak and a cornbread catfish coming right up.”
Plucking a folded napkin from her pocket, Claire dabbed the sweat from her brow and willed away the dizziness. Surely it had more to do with her lack of lunch than with the rugged hunk sucking all the oxygen from the room. She pocketed her notepad in her apron and spun away on her heels.
Too fast.
The room tipped.
Thrusting out a hand, Claire stared helplessly at the floor growing closer and could only think how apparently her bad luck wasn’t over for the day.
Two
With lightning reflexes gained from years of dodging potentially lethal horse kicks, Vic shot out of his chair. He scooped Claire up before she hit the hardwood floor.
He bent on one knee, Claire cradled to his chest where his heart pumped. Too fast. Warm and soft, she sagged against him, with dark circles under her eyes. Her head lolled on his shoulder.
“Claire? Talk to me.” What if she was actually sick? He pressed two fingers to her throat and found a steady pulse.
Thank God.
She sighed and snuggled closer, her eyes closed while chairs scraped back throughout the dining room. Footsteps vibrated the floor. Overhead lights dimmed as curious patrons circled, not that he could see anything other than Claire’s pale face at the moment.
Why couldn’t there have been a doctor in today’s diners? His medical training wasn’t worth jack at the moment.
The mass parted as a wiry woman pushed through with a nervous energy that rivaled a hummingbird on Mountain Dew. Claire’s sister Starr fluttered to a stop.
“Move on over, people, and let her breathe.” Not a soul dared disobey the scrappy five feet of frenetic will and wildly escaping hair. “What happened?”
“I have no idea. She just keeled over.” And shaved at least two years off his life. His heart hadn’t slammed this hard against his ribs when he’d jumped a fence to avoid getting gored by an angry, recently castrated bull. “She doesn’t seem to be hurt. I caught her before she hit the floor.”
Starr nodded, rising. “Good. Good. Now put all those hard-working muscles to good use and let’s move her someplace quiet while we decide whether to call EMS.”
Vic gathered Claire more securely in his arms and stood, unable to resist savoring the soft swell of her breasts against his chest, the flowery scent of her hair. And had he mentioned the swell of her breasts against his chest? Of course, Claire would likely clock him with a frying pan when she woke up.
If she woke up.
Concern cranked into high gear. He knew all too well how fragile life could be. In some distant part of his brain, Vic heard Bo speaking to him, but couldn’t concentrate on anything more than Claire in his arms.
He charged around tables after Starr into the hall where waiting patrons gaped. Starr unhooked the golden rope across the stairway that kept guests from going up to the private apartment and waved him past.
Turning sideways, he sprinted up the hardwood steps to the landing and up again. Whitewashed walls gave way to faded wallpaper with cabbage roses. Claire had talked about her plans for stripping the paper in her never-ending task of renovating the house. She worked too hard. Who looked out for her?
He shut down the thought, along with others stinging him with how much this place resembled the family house he’d sold in North Dakota. Not that they actually looked alike, this one full of old southern class and his eked in prairie starkness.
But the air of home, he recognized well.
At the top of the stairs, Vic reached to open the hall door leading to the living quarters, never loosening his hold on Claire. Scents of home-cooked meals gave way to the fragrance of a hundred percent her.
Flowers, the purple kind. Lilacs maybe? The perfume she carried on her body. On her crisp fresh sheets. A scent she’d imprinted on his memory.
Vic turned to Starr a couple of steps behind him. “Where should we go?”
“She’ll be more comfortable on her bed.”
Pivoting on his heel, he charged through the sitting area, down the hall, to the first room on the left.
And froze.
He shouldn’t know which door led to her bedroom. Heat crawled up the back of his neck. Aw, for Pete’s sake, thirty-nine was too old to blush.
He offered a belated questioning look to Starr. “Uh, is this it?”
Starr cocked her head to the side. The heat along his neck flamed a little hotter. Busted.
Since Starr lived in the carriage house out back and their other sister, Ashley, lived on campus at the College of Charleston neither of them had known about his weekend up here. Unless Claire had told them.
Starr’s eyes narrowed before concern returned to wipe away her unspoken question. She nodded, pushing the door wide. “In here.”
Memories nailed Vic. Dead on. Flattening all his defenses as surely as if he’d been the one to pitch onto the floor instead of Claire. Her mammoth four-poster bed loomed in front of him with all those gauzy things draped around the square bracket along the top. The open window rustled the filmy draping like some kind of bridal bower over her bed.
He’d spent the best seventy-two hours of his life with her there—and against that faded cabbage rose wallpaper, and on the stairs.
In his bass boat.
Behind him, Starr cleared her throat. He needed to get his head on straight and think about Claire. Carefully, he lowered her to the fluffy comforter.
Talk about reliving memories.
You’re in big trouble, champ.
Vic looked over his shoulder. “Could you get a glass of water for when she wakes up?”
Furrows wrinkled Starr’s forehead. “Good idea, and a cool cloth, too. Maybe a thermometer? I’ll be right back.”
Claire burrowed her face into the pillow as Starr’s footsteps faded down the hall. Relief kicked through him so strong he almost staggered back a step.
“Vic?” she mumbled in a sleepy voice too like the one that haunted his dreams.
“Yeah, Claire. It’s me.” He cleared his throat along with any thoughts of Claire’s waking-up voice. “You really gave us a scare down there, lady. Are you okay?”
He hoped so, because he needed to make tracks out of her place and away from her appeal before he landed next to her.
“Mmm.” She shifted onto her side toward him. “Now I am.”
Claire flung an arm over Vic’s shoulder and toppled him forward onto her bed.
Claire snuggled into her dream, fighting consciousness just a little longer. Tingles teased along her skin as she inhaled…man. Strong, warm man in her bed, heavy muscled arms and legs tangled with hers.
And not just any man.
The one she’d been dreaming