Having Tanner Bravo's Baby

Just when she was certain he wouldn’t agree, he said, “All right. If that’s how you want it.”

“It’s how I want it.”

“Then fine,” he grumbled, looking like he wanted to break something. “You have my word.”

The buzzer on the stove went off. “That’s the garlic bread,” she said brightly. “Let’s eat.”

Crystal cut the lasagna, just to see if some of it might be salvageable. It wasn’t. But at least there was plenty of bread and salad.

Crystal offered Tanner wine or another beer. He chose the beer. She left the bottle of wine on the counter.

He looked at her sideways. “You’re not having any?”

It was a great opening. Or at least, as good a one as she was likely to get. She might have gently segued into how she wasn’t having wine because she was having a baby….

But in the end she said only, “No, I’m not,” and that was it. He didn’t look at her strangely or ask if there was something she wanted to tell him. He only pulled out his chair and put his napkin across his hard thigh.

They ate. It didn’t take long.

When the meal was over, he helped her to clear the table. She was bending to put the last plate in the dishwasher when he came up behind her.

Her breath tangled inside her chest, and her skin was suddenly all prickly and hot. She shut the dishwasher door. “Coffee?” she asked as she straightened up.

“No, thanks.” He slid those big, warm hands of his under her arms and clasped her waist.

She stifled a silly, hungry little gasp. “I have these great cookies. Dark chocolate with white chocolate chips…”

He bent close. She felt the lovely heat of him. He was already hard. His erection brushed against the small of her back, making her yearn and melt for him.

“No cookies.” He brushed her hair to the side and kissed her neck.

Oh, those lips of his…

She sighed, even though she tried not to. He ran his hands slowly along the twin outward curves of her hips. Her body went molten. What was it about those hands of his, about those lips, about the feel of his body touching hers?

Chemistry.

Oh, yeah. Chemistry. So good. So right…

“Tanner,” she said on a breathy, drawn-out sigh, bringing her hand up, clasping the back of his head, pulling him closer when she should have been pushing him away. His hair was so silky, so thick. She speared her fingers into it. “Tanner…”

“Mmm…” He stuck out his tongue and licked the side of her neck. Then he nibbled where he’d licked.

She couldn’t stop herself. She wiggled back against him and he groaned, pressing himself more tightly into her, letting her feel what he wanted to give her.

Oh, she was losing it. Losing it again…She groaned in arousal and frustration.

It was the third time Crystal had set herself the task of telling him, and the third time was supposed to be the charm, wasn’t it? She’d sworn she would tell him this time, no matter what. And yet, here she was, her hands in his hair, her body arching, her neck stretched to the side for him, inviting him to kiss her there some more.

He trailed nipping kisses upward and then licked her earlobe.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

He made a low, masculine sound of arousal and agreement. “The feel of you,” he said rough and low. “The scent of you. You drive me crazy, you know that?”

“Oh, Tanner. I know. I’m so sorry.”

He made a low sound that might have been a laugh—or a groan. “Sorry, huh?”

“It’s the same for me.”

And then those amazing hands of his were on her shoulders. He turned her until she faced him. Her body instantly curved close to him. She lifted her mouth to his, helpless at that moment to do anything else.

He still smelled faintly of smoke from the ruined lasagna. But he also smelled…delicious. So tempting in a way she could never quite define. He smelled so very masculine. It was a clean scent. A scent that drew her, that made her yearn, made her forget all over again that he was all wrong for her.

She couldn’t get enough of him; at the same time as she felt shamed deep within herself. After all, she’d sworn, she’d vowed, that tonight was going to be different from all the other nights.

Yet here she was, willingly wrapped in his arms. What a total fool she’d been to imagine it could go otherwise.

And then he kissed her. His mouth covered hers, and the last wispy remnants of the real world, of her obligation to tell him he would be a dad, floated away. There was nothing but the feel of him, the taste of him, the strength in those hard arms around her, the softness of that beautiful mouth as he kissed her.

It was long and deep and wet and wonderful, that kiss. Like all his kisses, starting from the first one, on a night in early March outside the dance studio where his niece, DeDe, had just finished a recital. They’d gone to his place that night.

Afterward, they’d talked about how the night had been just something that had to happen, something they needed to do, to get their yen for each other out of their systems.

Something they would never do again…

He raised his head—but only to slant it the other way and kiss her some more. She could never get enough of those kisses of his. It was probably pointless to even try.

But then he lifted his head a second time. And when he didn’t immediately begin kissing her again, she let her eyelids drift open.

“Tanner?”

He was looking down at her, his eyes so dark—black as a night without stars. “When I touch you, I only want to touch you some more.” His arms encircled her and his magical fingers traced erotic patterns at the base of her spine. “It’s always like this. From that first day we met—the day Candy died, remember?”

Candy was his niece’s dog. She’d been a sweet old mutt. “Yeah. I remember. I felt so sad about the dog. And DeDe was inconsolable. And then you came in…I wanted to jump you right there. I felt terrible about that. I mean, DeDe had just lost a pet she loved. And all I could think of was getting my hands on you. All over you.”

His chuckle was low and much too sexy. “I was suspicious of you, showing up out of nowhere the way you did.”

“I know.”

“I also couldn’t wait to touch you, to do all kinds of shocking things to you.”

“It was the same for me.” She ran her palm down the muscular shape of his arm. Below the sleeve of his black knit shirt, his skin was warm as living silk. She sighed at the feel of him.

His dark brows had drawn together. “But there’s something on your mind tonight, isn’t there?”

Her throat locked up. She gulped to clear it.

“Isn’t there?” he asked again. “I mean, beyond your ass of an ex-boss who I’m not allowed to beat to a bloody pulp.”

Her heart, which a minute ago had slowed to the deep, insistent rhythm his kisses inspired, was now thudding hard and hurtfully under her ribs. She had a sick, sinking feeling low in her belly. She was going to do it. Now.

She had to do it. Now.

“What is it? Just tell me.” His voice was so soft.

And right then, before she could allow herself to back away from it again, she opened her mouth and pushed the words out.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

Chapter Three

A baby…

Tanner gazed down into Crystal’s wide eyes. She had the face of an angel, he’d always thought. Never more so than now. Her cheeks had flushed pink and a few strands of her long, curly hair had gotten loose from the golden mass and coiled over her left eye. He lifted his hand to tuck them behind her ear.

She caught his wrist, her grip fierce. “It’s yours,” she said, hitching her delicate chin high. “It’s yours and I’m keeping it.”

He waited until she let go, and then he continued the action, catching the soft strands, guiding them back into place. “Okay.”

Her honey-brown eyes flashed at him. “Okay? That’s all? Just…okay?”

“Crystal…” He wanted to comfort her somehow, or at least to reassure her that he would be there, that she could count on him.

But before he could find the words for that, she demanded, “Okay, you believe it’s yours—or it’s okay with you that I keep it?”

“Look, I…”

“What?”

“Both, okay? Both.”

“Both,” she whispered, doubting. Defensive.

“That’s right.”

A silence. Her full lower lip quivered. “I…I’m sorry. Suddenly, I’m kind of being a bitch about this, for no reason I can think of.”

He shrugged. “It’s okay. I can take it.”

“It’s just…” She heaved another ragged breath. “I’ve been trying to tell you for two weeks now. I was beginning to think I’d never work up the nerve. And now, all of a sudden, it’s out, I’ve said it. You know.” She stared at him, as if trying to decide what to say next. And then she added, “I’m sure it’s…hard to accept.” Strangely, it wasn’t. She added, “So, if you want a paternity test—”

“No. I don’t.”

She blinked. “Just like that. You believe that it’s yours?”

“I do.”

It was more than mere belief. Tanner knew the baby was his. Because he knew Crystal. Yeah, she could be irresponsible. She really ought to take life more seriously. As of today she was out of work and he doubted she had more than a few hundred dollars in the bank. She never talked about her family, about her life before she met and became friends with Tanner’s brother-inlaw, Mitch Valentine, down in L.A. Tanner knew she kept secrets. But she wasn’t a liar. If she said the kid was his, it was.

A kid. His kid…

How incredible was that?

She backed up against the sink counter. “We should…sit down, don’t you think? Talk about this a little?”

“Right.” He headed for the futon again. Aside from the dinner table with its two mismatched chairs, it was the only place to sit in the living area. She claimed she owned real furniture—she’d just left it behind for six months when she sublet her Hollywood apartment.

She trailed after him. They sat at either end of the long, lumpy blue cushion. The day was fading and shadows filled the corners of the room. She turned on the lamp that she’d borrowed from his sister.

Then she slumped into the cushion, letting her head rest on the back of the futon, and folded her hands on her still flat stomach. “I…sheesh. I hardly know where to start.”

He felt the same. But then he realized he did have a question. “Who else knows?”

It was a reasonable thing to ask. His sister, Kelly, was Crystal’s best friend—and had been almost from the first day Crystal appeared at Kelly’s front door looking for Mitch. Crystal considered Mitch to be the brother she’d never had; she claimed she’d packed up on the spur of the moment and moved to Sacramento because she “sensed” that Mitch needed her. So she very well might have told either of them—or both—that she was pregnant before she told Tanner.

Until then, she’d been keeping her eyes straight ahead, in the general direction of her small TV screen, which was flanked on either side by brick and board bookcases filled with books on things like reading tarot cards, feng shui and natural healing.

But now she rolled her head his way. “No one else knows yet. Just you.”

Her answer pleased him in some mysterious, deep way. “Well, okay.”

That curl of hair had settled over her eye again. She reached up and swiped it aside. “You keep saying ‘okay.’”

He shrugged. “It’s all pretty new. You could say I’m at a loss for words.”

“Oh, yeah. I hear you there.” She was nodding, her irritation of a moment before gone as fast as it had appeared. “And now that you mention it, well, we are going to have to tell them, sooner or later….”

From the first time they ended up in bed together, Tanner and Crystal had agreed to keep this thing between them a secret. It had made perfect sense to both of them all along—after all, each time it happened was supposed to be the last time. And since Crystal hadn’t told either Mitch or Kelly about the baby, chances were the other couple was still in the dark about the two of them.

It was just too damned weird to try to explain to the family that he and Crys didn’t want to go out with each other, that they had nothing in common, didn’t want to get anything started when it was so clear it was going nowhere—and yet somehow they couldn’t help ending up naked together every time they saw each other.

He suggested, “Maybe we should wait until they get back from their trip to say anything about this.”

“Agreed,” Crystal said. “And I think I’ll wait to mention losing my job, too. After all, it’s their honeymoon. It’s a time that’s supposed to be all about them.”

Kelly and Mitch—recently reunited after years apart—were leaving the next day for two weeks on an island paradise somewhere east of Madagascar. Though they’d tied the knot a month earlier, it had taken Kelly several weeks to clear her calendar at work for the trip. Crystal would be staying at the house while the newlyweds were gone, looking after Tanner’s niece, DeDe. Tanner, whose job often took him away from Sacramento for days at a time, was supposed to be helping out Crystal whenever his schedule allowed.

Crystal stared glumly at the dark TV again. “Strange. For two weeks, all I’ve thought about is how I had to tell you. And now that I have, I feel…I don’t know. Limp. Numb. Like I don’t know what to do next.”

“It’s—” he almost said okay, but stopped himself just in time “—all right.”

She looked at him, forced a smile. “Just think. If I’d only kept my mouth shut, we could be having great sex right now, instead of sitting here on this futon not knowing what to say to each other.”

“I’m glad you told me,” he said gruffly.

Another silence fell between them. He heard her sigh. She stared across the room again as he considered the question of what to do next.

To Tanner, family was everything. And now this woman was having his baby. She wasn’t the woman he’d planned to settle down with. Whenever he thought of getting serious with a woman, which he’d always imagined would happen eventually, he’d pictured a quiet, steady kind of person at his side, a practical, thrifty woman—in short, a woman nothing like the one slumped next to him on the futon now.

Then again, he was thirty-one, and where was this ideal woman he’d always told himself he was looking for? Now and then over the years, he’d met women like the one he’d always told himself he wanted. He’d asked each of those admirable females out. They’d all bored him silly.

Crystal never bored him. Also, she was already more or less a part of his family. Not to mention the only woman he’d had on his mind—or in his bed—since she came rolling into town in that dusty red Camaro of hers two and a half months ago.

Most important, he had to think of the baby’s welfare. Yeah, he wanted his kid to have his name. What man wouldn’t want that? But even more than his name, Tanner wanted him to grow up in a real family, the kind he’d never had as a kid.

Crystal heaved a sigh. “Oh, well. It had to be done. You needed to know. And I’m glad I’ve finally told you.”

He stared at her profile, thinking that even in rippedout jeans and a red-and-white striped T-shirt she looked like a princess in some old-timey fairy tale. Her features were even and delicate, her skin that classic peaches and cream. And then there was all that gorgeous, curly hair. He liked to bury his face in it when they were making love, to wrap it around his fist….

She rolled her head his way again. “And one thing I really do want to make clear to you—I mean, I know how you are….”

He gave her the lifted eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

“You’re a total traditionalist at heart.”

He already knew he wasn’t going to like whatever was coming next. “So what if I am?”

She reached across and put her hand on his arm, as if to steady him for what she was going to say next. And then she laid it on him. “I need you to understand, right now from the first, that marriage is not on the agenda.”

Should he have known that was coming? Probably. He lowered his arm out from under her touch. “So there’s an agenda, huh?”

“It’s only a figure of speech—meaning ‘in the plan.’ Marriage is not in the plan. I want us to learn to work together to make the best life we can for the baby. I’m hoping that over the months and years to come our…connection as single parents will evolve.”

Evolve? She wanted them to evolve? Like something that crawled up out of the ocean and eventually learned to stand on two legs? Though he had a fine poker face and used it at that moment, it irked him no end that she said ‘in the plan,’ as if there was only one plan—the plan, meaning her plan.

However, it was enough for the moment that she’d gotten the truth out of that beautiful mouth of hers. There would be plenty of time later to discuss the marriage issue. For now he said, in the same neutral tone he’d been using most of the evening, “Well, all right.”

“Great.” She straightened up and gave him a bright smile and a brisk nod, as if their single-parent future was all settled.

It wasn’t. Not by a long shot. True, the two of them were no match made in heaven. But still, maybe the marriage angle deserved at least a little consideration….

The shining black limousine was waiting at the curb in front of Kelly’s house when Crystal arrived the next morning at ten. The windows of the big car were tinted, so she couldn’t see the driver, but she knew there was one in there.

Mitch, an entrepreneur who owned companies in Dallas and in L.A., must have ordered the car to drive him and Kelly to the airport. He often used limos to get around, so the sight of it was no surprise.

Tanner’s car was there, too, parked in the driveway. Not surprising, either. Of course, he’d want to be there to wish the newlyweds a great trip.

Crystal pulled in next to the black Mustang. He’d been so great about everything last night, so gentle and sweet and accepting. And so agreeable, too.

Agreeable. She smiled to herself. It wasn’t a word she would have associated with the tall, dark and devastatingly sexy Tanner—until now. How wrong she had been.

She got out of the car and strolled up the front walk, enjoying the bright May sunshine, so warm on her back, admiring the red roses in bloom near the porch. Such a fine, fine day. And her life seemed to be shaping up. No, she didn’t have a job. But she would find one, soon. And Tanner knew about the baby.

Things could be worse.

Then a harried-looking Kelly pulled open the front door. “You’re here. Good.” Her smooth brows were drawn together in a distracted-looking frown.

“What’s going on?” Crystal stepped up into the entry hall.

“It’s DeDe.” Kelly shook her head. Deirdre was Mitch’s natural child, the result of his and Kelly’s high school love affair. But when Kelly had left town to live with her newfound brother, Mitch had broken off their relationship and disappeared—after which Kelly had discovered she was having his baby.

Ten years had passed before Kelly had found him again. Now Kelly had the man she’d never stopped loving. Mitch had the family he needed more than anything. And DeDe had her father, at last. Everything should have been perfect.

Kelly added softly, “She used to be the most levelheaded, easygoing kid around. But sometimes lately, I just don’t know….”

“Where is she?”

“In her room. Throwing one hell of a tantrum. Mitch is in there with her. She’s decided she doesn’t want us to go.”

Crystal made a low, sympathetic noise.

Kelly gestured toward the living room, and the kitchen beyond. “Tanner’s here.” All the old fondness was back in her voice when Kelly said her brother’s name. Something had gone wrong between Tanner and Kelly when Mitch had come back. Neither of them would talk about it. But whatever the problem was, it seemed to be over now. “Give us a minute or two. We’re trying to settle her down before we go.”

“Courage.”

“Thanks. I’ll need it.” Kelly disappeared down the hall.

Dropping her purse on the low bench by the big bay window as she passed, Crystal went through the living room. In the kitchen, she found Tanner sitting at the table with a full mug of coffee in front of him.

“’Morning,” he said, his deep voice sending the inevitable thrill coursing through her.

“Hi.” She pulled out a chair.

“There’s coffee…” He frowned. “Or is that off the menu now?”

“Pretty much. Not that I mind. I was never real big on coffee, anyway. Kelly’s got some herbal teas—but maybe later.” His hair was still damp from his morning shower. She wanted to touch it, to put her hand on the side of his freshly shaved cheek—but no. Kelly or Mitch might come in any minute. And they were keeping their relationship to themselves until after the honeymoon.

Their relationship. Crystal almost smiled. Now, with the baby coming and his easy acceptance of the fact, it seemed okay to call this thing between them a relationship. True, it wasn’t your usual kind of relationship. They weren’t headed for a lifetime of love and marriage or anything. But they were committed to the baby, and they were going to work together to be good parents. Now, by any definition of the word, they had a relationship. An important one.

And she found that it pleased her, to think of the two of them as more than just matching sets of wild hormones unable to keep from jumping each other at every possible opportunity.

“What’s up with DeDe?” She kept her voice low.

“Acting out,” he spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Big time.”

“Should we do something, you think? I’d hate to see them postpone their trip.”

“Do something like what?”

She thought about that and shrugged. “Good question.”

“Don’t worry. They’re not backing out of the trip. Or so they said a few minutes ago….”

Right then they heard a door open in the hallway, then Mitch’s voice: “Come on, Kell. We have to get going….”

A cry—from DeDe. “Oh, Dad. How can you do this? How can you just go?”

“Stop it,” said Kelly. “Stop it now.”

“But—”

“Enough.” Kelly’s voice was flat and final. “Your father and I are going on our honeymoon and your behaving badly is not going to stop us.”

DeDe muttered something that Crystal couldn’t make out.

Then Kelly spoke again, in a tone that would tolerate no argument. “Wipe your eyes and blow your nose. And come out and say goodbye to us. Now.”

Footsteps in the hallway. Kelly and Mitch came in through the dining room, looking stressed out when they should have been happy and dewy-eyed, a pair of newlyweds heading off for two weeks of romance in a tropical paradise.

Crystal rose as they entered. She went and hugged them both, Kelly first. When she got to Mitch, she said, “Please don’t worry about DeDe. As soon as you’re gone, she’ll snap out of it, I’m sure.”

Mitch’s brown eyes were full of doubts. “Hold that thought. Because we are going and that’s that. The limo’s packed up and we’re outta here.” He took Crystal’s hand and pressed a check into it.

She looked down at it and shook her head. “It’s way too much. Food is only going to be—”

“Crys.” Kelly stepped in. “We want to be sure that everything’s handled. Extra is better than not enough.”

“Yeah,” Mitch added dryly. “Take the money. For once.” He was always trying to give her money—like the honorary big brother he was to her. He had a fortune and somehow she was always just barely scraping by. He never understood that it was a point of pride with her to pay her own way.

“Thanks,” she said, accepting that now wasn’t the time to argue about it.

Tanner said, “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of DeDe. She’ll be fine.”

We? DeDe’s care, after all, was to be mostly on Crystal. Tanner would be around when he could manage it. She sent him a questioning glance and he gave her a nod. Whatever that meant.