Page 53 of Nobodys Baby But Mine (Chicago Stars 3)

“You might have noticed my parents are a little tense with each other right now. That weren’t like this before Cherry and Jamie died.”

“I know they married when they were teenagers, but they’re even younger than I expected.”

“I was my dad’s high school graduation present. Mom was fifteen when she got pregnant, sixteen when I was born.”

“Oh.”

“They kicked her out of school, but Annie told us that mom stood under the stadium during his graduation ceremony, wearing her best dress even though nobody could see her, just so she could hear him give the valedictory address.”

Jane considered the thirty-year-old injustice. Amber Lynn Glide, the poor mountain girl, had been kicked out of school for being pregnant while the rich boy who’d gotten her that way stood at the podium and received the community’s accolades.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Cal said, “but he didn’t get off scot-free. He had it plenty rough. Nobody expected him to marry her, but he did, and he had to support a family while he went through college and med school.”

“With help from his parents, I’ll bet.”

“Not at first. They hated my mom, and they told him if he married

her, they wouldn’t give him a penny. They kept their word for the first year or so, but then Gabe came along, and they finally kicked in for tuition.”

“Your parents seem very troubled.”

He immediately grew defensive. She realized it was one thing for him to comment on the problem, but quite another for her to. “They’re just upset, that’s all. They’ve never been very demonstrative, but there’s nothing wrong with their marriage, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“I’m not getting at anything.”

He snatched up his keys from the counter and made his way toward the door that led to the garage. She stopped him before he got there.

“Cal, I’ll do what you want with your parents—I’ll be as obnoxious to them as I can—but not with Annie. She’s halfway to the truth, anyway.” Jane felt a kinship with the old woman, and she had to have at least one friend or she’d go crazy.

He turned to look at her.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her head. “That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

He slowly nodded. “All right. I’ll take it.”

Chapter Ten

J ane groaned as she rose to turn off her computer, then slipped out of her clothes to prepare for bed. For the past three days, she’d spent her mornings helping Annie plant her garden, and every muscle ached.

She smiled as she folded her jeans and put them away in the closet, then pulled out her nightshirt. Usually she bristled around dictatorial people, but she loved having Annie boss her around.

Annie had bossed Cal, too. On Wednesday morning he’d insisted on driving Jane to Heartache Mountain. When they’d gotten there, Jane had pointed out the front step and suggested he stop hiring other people to do what he should do himself. He’d set to work with a great deal of grumbling, but it wasn’t long before she’d heard him whistling. He’d done a good job on the step and then made some other needed repairs. Today he’d bought several gallons of paint at the hardware store and begun scraping the exterior of the house.

She slipped into a short-sleeved gray nightshirt with an appliqué of Goofy on the pocket. Tomorrow night she would be dining with Cal’s parents. He hadn’t mentioned her promise to distance them, but she knew he hadn’t forgotten.

Although she was tired, it was barely eleven o’clock, and she felt too restless to go to bed. She began to tidy her work area and found herself once again wondering where Cal went at night. She suspected he was seeing other women, and she remembered the reference Lynn had made to the Mountaineer. She’d asked Annie about it today and learned that it was a private club of some sort. Was that where he met his women?

Even though this wasn’t a real marriage, the idea hurt. She didn’t want him sleeping with anyone else. She wanted him sleeping with her!

Her hands stilled on the stack of printouts she’d been straightening. What was she thinking of? Sex would only make an already complex situation impossible. But even as she told herself that, she remembered the way Cal had looked today with his shirt off while he’d stood on the ladder and scraped the side of Annie’s house. Watching those muscles bunch and flex every time he moved had made her so crazy she’d finally grabbed his shirt, thrown it at him, and delivered a stern lecture on the depletion of the ozone layer and skin cancer.

Lust. That’s what she was dealing with. Pure, unadulterated lust. And she wasn’t going to give in to it.

She needed something to do that would distract her, so she carried her overflowing trash can downstairs and emptied it in the garage. Afterward, she gazed out the kitchen bay window at the moon and found herself contemplating the ancient scientists—Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo—who’d tried to unravel the mysteries of the universe with only the most primitive of instruments. Even Newton couldn’t have envisioned the tools she used, from the powerful computer on her desk to the world’s giant particle accelerators.

She jumped as the door behind her opened, and Cal walked in from the garage. As he moved across the kitchen, it occurred to her that she had never seen a man so at home in his body. Along with his jeans, he wore a wine red hen-ley, the kind made out of waffle-knit underwear fabric, and a black nylon parka. Tiny needle-points of sensation prickled at her skin.

“I thought you’d be in bed,” he said, and she wondered if she imagined the slight huskiness she heard in his voice.

---