Her Best Friend's Baby. Vicki Thompson Lewis
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“Tomorrow we’ll think about what to do next.”
He nodded. Slowly he stood and helped her to her feet. Supporting each other like war casualties, they made their way up the stairs.
In her bedroom, Morgan stripped down to his T-shirt and shorts with mechanical detachment and climbed into bed. She left the light on as she crawled in beside him. For the first time since she’d been four years old she was afraid of the dark.
He pulled the covers to his chin. “I can’t seem to stop shaking.”
“Me, either.”
As if by mutual agreement they turned and scooted into each other’s arms, holding each other close.
Fine tremors ran through him, as if he had a fever, and his bristly chin scraped her cheek. “I tried to call,” he said.
“I know.” Not minding his scratchy beard, she snuggled closer, needing the body contact while she tried to keep her own shakes under control, tried to get warm.
“That was stupid. Trying to tell you on the machine. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay.” She wanted to rewind the day and go back to that golden moment before she’d played her messages. That moment when she’d been excited about two days off. She would work every day of her life if she could make this not be true.
“It’s not okay. What if…what if the shock of hearing it on the phone…what if something had happened to the baby?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth against the wail of despair that strained at her throat. Arielle’s baby. And the little girl was Arielle’s, in every sense except that she would develop in Mary Jane’s womb. And now Arielle would never see her daughter.
A heavy steel door seemed to have slammed, separating Mary Jane from the woman she loved, the woman she would do anything for. Now she could do nothing. Nothing. “Oh, Morgan.” Her voice was thick with tears. “I wanted so much to give her this baby.”
“I know,” he said roughly. “The baby is all that’s kept me going.”
“Oh, Morgan.” She began to cry again, and so did he. They held each other desperately, shuddering with anguish.
He choked out the word baby and put his hand over her stomach.
“The baby… Arielle’s still here,” she said, crying.
“Thank God.” He kissed her hair, her wet cheek. “Thank God, we still have the baby.”
She hugged him close as tears streamed down. “Yes.”
“The baby.” He kissed her throat between choked sobs.
“It’s okay.” She needed to comfort him, needed it more than anything in the world. She pressed his head to her breast. “It’s okay, Morgan. Everything will be okay.”
“Oh, God.” He rubbed his damp, bearded face against her breasts, almost as a baby might. “I need to feel….” He slipped his hand under the hem of her T-shirt and flattened it against her belly. His howl of misery echoed in the small room. “Arielle!”
Her heart broke into a million pieces. And she understood what she’d never wanted to know, that death and birth are spokes of the same wheel. Instincts older than time moved within her. Laying her hand over his, she guided it down between her thighs.
“She’s here,” she murmured.
He lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
“Here.” A wisdom handed down through the ages urged her to open her thighs. A wound this deep could only be healed with the ultimate bonding of man and woman. “Come to me.”
Moving like a sleepwalker, he held her gaze as he discarded his shorts and moved over her.
They came together smoothly, as if they’d been making love to each other for years. He said nothing as he thrust again and again into her, his teeth clenched against the sobs racking his body.
Concentrating on his face, she clutched his shoulders and rode the crest of the wave carrying her toward the only salvation they could find tonight. He seemed to understand it, too. As they neared the crest, the despair in his eyes gave way to a new light. At the moment before they climaxed, she drew strength from that light. Then she tumbled with him into chaos, bearing with her the faint yet steady glow of hope.
CHAPTER TWO
MORGAN AWOKE with a sense of well-being. He loved waking up with Arielle tucked in close beside him like this, especially after a night of—
Nausea washed over him, and he scrambled out of bed as if it were full of a million snakes. Snatching up his pants, he held them over his nakedness as he fought the gorge rising in his throat. What had he done?
Mary Jane turned toward him, a smile on her lips, her eyes still dazed with sleep. Then she focused on him.
He watched in horrified fascination as reality replaced fantasy in her blue eyes. He knew exactly what she was going through.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rusty and coarse. What an asinine thing to say. Sorry didn’t begin to cover it. He couldn’t imagine how he could ever make up for what he’d done last night.
She swallowed and kept staring at him, her gaze bleak.
“Say something,” he pleaded. “Call me names. Tell me I’m the worst sort of slime ball you’ve ever come across. I deserve whatever rotten things you want to say about me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Why? I’m the one who threw myself at you like some—”
“No! It is not your fault. You were upset! I hit you with the news, and then I…” He couldn’t bear to think of what he’d done. Unforgivable.
She opened her eyes and sat up, still wearing the pink sleep shirt he hadn’t bothered to remove before he took advantage of her. Arielle had sent her that to wear once they’d seen the pictures from the first ultrasound. And now he had profaned that cute, silly T-shirt.
God, she was so young. He’d never seen her like this, flushed with sleep, her hair a tousled riot of curls falling to her shoulders. Arielle once said Mary Jane’s hair was the color of maple syrup, which was appropriate, because Mary Jane was so incredibly sweet. Morgan closed his eyes, awash with pain and shame. And damn his soul to hell, he wanted her. Still. Stirring like a dark secret, desire taunted him with his worthlessness.
“I knew what I was doing,” she said in a not-quite-steady voice.
His eyes flew open. “You most certainly did not! You were carried away by the news and your fluctuating hormones, which is perfectly understandable, especially at your age. But there’s no excuse for me, a thirty-one-year-old man who’s supposed to be in control of himself.”
Her back stiffened. “What do you mean by that crack about my age? You sound as if I’m a mere child!”
“I consider twenty-two pretty damn young!” He wasn’t going to tell her that this morning she looked younger than that, which made the heat within him even more reprehensible. “That was one thing that bothered me about this whole pregnancy. Physically you’re a perfect age for bearing a child, but mentally—”
“What a crock! You don’t know a damn thing about my mental age. I have to say, Morgan Tate, you are a real pr—uh, prude.”
“Go ahead and use the first word you thought of,” he said. “It fits.” He’d much rather have her anger than the bleakness he’d seen in her eyes when she first woke up. He’d probably shattered her illusions forever, but she was trying to pretend she was worldly enough to handle it. He’d never loathed himself more than he did at this moment.
She whipped out of bed. “Go ahead and beat yourself up about last night if you want. I don’t