Healing Beau (The Brothers of Beauford Bend Book 6) (23 page)

The thought of putting his child in a vehicle and driving three hours was unthinkable for Beau. Too much could go wrong.

“Do you ever worry that you might not be the best person to take care of him?” Beau asked.

“No.” Will’s answer was immediate. “I did have a meltdown once after I let him get a peanut butter cookie when he could have been allergic.”

Allergies?
That was something Beau hadn’t even thought of.

“I busted right into Arabelle’s office while she had a patient. I had some doubts that day, but overall? No, I don’t worry. Except for Arabelle, no one could take better care of him than I do.”

He would try harder. Beau promised himself that every day, and every day he failed. But maybe tonight would be different.

And he did try. He took Christian to dinner at The Café Down On The Corner and told her about Will’s visit. As she’d always done, she celebrated his victory as if it were her own.

Later, at home, he put a romantic comedy on and pulled her into his arms to watch. She looked tired, so he’d planned to let her rest, but a fire caught between them, and soon he was feasting on her breasts and they were groin to groin, throbbing with need.

Just when he was about to move them to the bedroom, she stopped him.

“No. I want you here and now, and I want you this way. Don’t deny a horny pregnant woman.”

And she urged him to his back and slid down the length of him kissing, licking, and caressing as she went. The wait was as exciting as it was excruciating, but she finally pushed his pants down and ran her tongue along the inside of one thigh and then the other, up the length of his penis and down, around his aching, heavy balls.

He always surprised himself when he moaned under her ministrations. Somehow, he’d always seen giving away his feelings during sex as a weakness, but with Christian, it was different. He wanted her to know what she was doing to him, how good she was making him feel. He reached down and gently pulled on her pretty little nipples, careful not to squeeze too hard. She let out a moan of her own and worked her tongue and lips slowly up his shaft again.

And finally, she said, “I love this, love it so much.”

He had never known anything better than hearing that right before feeling Christian’s hot, wet wonder of a sweet mouth close around the head of his penis. And she sucked, swirled, made magic with her hands, and took him deeper and deeper until he knew the explosion was imminent. By now he’d learned not to try to pull away. She wanted to taste him, to swallow.

When she finally raised her head, breathless and eyes heavy with need, he wanted her orgasm on his lips more than he’d wanted his own. He turned her on her back and kissed and stroked until she arched her back and begged.

“Please, Beau. I need it.”

He was as eager to taste her as she was for his mouth on her. He teased and sucked her clitoris until the last second when he drove his tongue inside her so he could feel the spasms of her sweet release—and it was sweet. Sweet for her, but sweeter for him that he could give her this, even if he couldn’t give her anything else.

She reached for him and cuddled against her.

“Wonderful. Thank you,” she said in a sleepy voice.

And he tried. He stroked her cheeks and kissed her temple. “Christian—” There were feelings there. He ought to be able to say it.

She opened her brown, almond-shaped eyes a little wider in expectation.

“I—” He could get no further. It wasn’t rational, not rational at all, but it seemed if he said the words it would all go away.

Her eyes died a little, but she didn’t let it come out in the rest of her face.

“I know, darling.” She pulled him closer. “I know.”

She’d saved him again.

So far, Christian had been lucky, but the luck finally ran out the next morning shortly before five o’clock.

Nothing like kneeling naked on a cold floor while puking your guts out into the toilet. At Beau’s request, she’d slept naked, and if she’d taken the time to find her robe, she wouldn’t have made it.

“Here,” said a voice behind her, and she felt the warmth of terry cloth around her shoulders.

Nobody ought to see this. Christian turned to tell him so, but another wave of nausea hit. It went on quite a while, and Beau sat quietly on the floor holding her hair back. Finally, she reached up, flushed the toilet, and slipped to the floor into a fetal position.

“Are you done?” he asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know for sure.”

“I’m sorry.” She could tell from his tone that he was not simply expressing regret; he was apologizing.

“It’s not your fault, Beau. I’m pregnant. Pregnant women get sick.” God help her, she didn’t want to deal with his demons right now.

He rose and reached out hands. “Come on. You can’t lie here on this cold floor.”

“Yes, I can,” Christian said wearily. “It’s as good a place as any to die.”

 Her eyes were closed, but she knew immediately she should not have said that, even before she heard his sudden intake of breath and felt the world stop. When she looked up, his face had completely shut down.

They looked at each other for a beat. This was one of those times when it would have come in handy not to know each other so well.

“I’m not going to die, Beau.”

“So you say. 289,000 women died from complications from pregnancy and childbirth in this country two years ago. That’s twice as many as fifteen years ago.”

Christian sat up and put her arms in the robe. “That is so reassuring. Beau, can you please stay off the Internet?”

“I don’t mean to scare you.” He looked chagrined. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

“I’m not scared.” She let him pull her to her feet. “See? Standing on my feet. I’m fine. And you need to stop being scared.”

He followed her to the sink. “I’ve been thinking. We should get a monitor so we can keep track of your blood pressure.”

She rinsed her mouth and reached for her toothbrush. “My blood pressure is fine.”

“Do you know that? For sure? High blood pressure is a sign of preeclampsia.” He mispronounced
preeclampsia.

Enough. No matter how good the sex had been last night—and it had been sublime—and no matter that he had come close to saying he loved her—though he hadn’t—this was a new day, and an early one at that. Plus, her stomach was still in the questionable zone.

“When I saw the doctor last week—”

His eyes went wide and he put his hands up. “Wait. You saw the doctor and you didn’t tell me?”

She’d considered it, even thought she probably should have. He cocked his head to the side, still waiting for an answer. It took energy and a clear head to spin the truth to soften a blow, but she didn’t have either one right now.

“I didn’t tell you,” she said slowly, “because I was having a bad day, and I didn’t want to deal with how it would make me feel if you didn’t want to go.”

He looked stricken and she was instantly sorry. Why hadn’t she just said it wasn’t an important appointment and she hadn’t wanted to take him away from his work?

“I would have gone. I’m supposed to go.” He’d probably read that on the Internet, too. Or gotten it from Jackson. “I do what I’m supposed to.”

Yes, you do, Sgt. Beauford. Every time.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It won’t happen again.”

He nodded, clearly not satisfied. “Christian, you have to learn to trust me to do right by you. You have to stop saving me.”

Unfair. And she hated unfair. “How am I supposed to trust you when you act like you don’t deserve to be trusted? Answer me that, Beau.”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then repeated the process twice. Finally, when he opened his mouth, words came out. “I think it best if I go to my shop.”

And he was gone.

• • •

Damn it all to hell! Christian had never, ever in twenty-eight years acted like that toward him. And he didn’t even know what he’d done. He’d only known he had to get out of there, so he’d taken his clothes and gone downstairs to one of guest rooms to shower. With the way his luck was running, he’d probably messed up a room she’d promised an early check-in for, and he’d be in trouble for that, too.

The breakfast and cleaning crews wouldn’t be in for another fifteen minutes, and that would give him plenty of time to clear out before anyone found out that he had failed to shower in his assigned location. No doubt Emma Ruth would be leading the pack, and she might actually kill him. She’d been wanting to for years.

Might not be a bad plan, if he didn’t have Christian and the baby to take care of. He put his hands to his pounding head. One minute he thought how he ought to take care of them, and the next he thought they’d be better off without him. Which was it?

He found a piece of cold ham in the refrigerator and ate it as he went out the door.

Christian pulled her car into the circle drive in front of Beauford Bend because she didn’t want to use the rear entrance, as she’d done all her life, and risk Beau seeing her from the shop.

Despite their tiff this morning that ended with Beau storming out, Christian had gone back to bed and slept for another three hours. She’d woken with a clear head and resolve.

She could not live this way—with Beau apologetic, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and then acting like he was a superhero suited up to take care of business when there was no business to take care of.

But more than that, she couldn’t stand the thought of his heartbreak. It might come to nothing, but she was going to read Amelia’s diaries. It would be worth it if she could gain any insight at all. And it was a damned sight better than doing nothing.

She paused at the front door. Should she knock? She was family; the baby she was carrying was family. But she didn’t feel like it; in fact, she felt less like family than before she’d married Beau. But maybe that wouldn’t always have to be true. Still, it didn’t feel right to just go in, so she compromised by knocking before opening the door and sticking her head in.

“Anybody home?

“Hey, Christian.” The angels had smiled on her. Sammy was in the foyer changing light bulbs.

“Exactly who I wanted to see.”

“Yeah?” He climbed down from the ladder. “That’s good. I thought you were here to see Beau. He had to go to Nashville for something or the other for that cradle he’s making.”

The frustration of the morning lifted. She would do well to remember that he was making a cradle for their baby. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him it might take him longer to make it than the baby could sleep in it. Or maybe not. What did she know about how long it would take to make a cradle? Or how long a baby could sleep in one, for that matter. She giggled. Maybe that was something useful Beau could look up on the Internet.

Sammy gave out a puzzled little laugh, like people do when someone laughs for no apparent reason, but they feel they should join in. Feeling suddenly energized and happy to finally be taking some kind of action, Christian laughed again.

This time Sammy didn’t laugh, but, instead, looked around the room as if searching for what could be causing all this amusement.

Time to get on with it. “Sammy, Emory said you packed up some of Miss Amelia’s things before the renovation.”

He nodded. “Emory moved some of the furniture to other parts of the house, but we put the rest in the attic.”

“What about her small things? Emory said I could go through the books.”

He nodded. “They’re up there, plus all those glass unicorns she had, the little jars and things from her dresser, sewing gewgaws, and all like that.”

“Can you show me?”

“Sure.” They walked toward the staircase. “It ought not be too dirty up there. I cleaned good when Around the Bend was shut down after Christmas.”

“I can deal with a little dirt.”

They climbed to the third floor, where they switched staircases to make the final climb.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever been up here,” Christian said with some wonder. After all these years, Beauford Bend still had some secrets.

“I can’t say the same.” Sammy opened the door and turned on the light. “Especially since Jackson’s been living back here. He’s always sending me up here to look for this or that. Got in his head last week he wanted some of their old toys for his baby. I tried to tell him it would be a while before he’d be needing toys, but Jackson sent me up here anyway. I think he just wanted to see them himself.”

“I can understand that.” Nothing ever got thrown away at Firefly Hall, so her toys would be in the attic there, too. The image that came to mind was not of stuffed animals or dolls. She saw herself, Beau, and a four-year-old with Carolina blue eyes as he drew a card from the same Candy Land that she and Beau had spent so many hours playing with. He would cheat, but they wouldn’t call him on it, because he’d have his father’s smile, and because they loved him so much that they couldn’t bear to.

By then, Beau would be free of the past, and things would be so much more than fine.

“Here you go.” Sammy led her to an area where about ten boxes were stacked. “Trouble is, they aren’t labeled. I told Jackson you had to label things so you could find them later, but he was in such a hurry to get it all done that all he’d let me take time for was to write Miss Amelia’s name on the them.”

“So you don’t know which box has her leather journals?”

Sammy shook his head. “I don’t even know which ones are books. But I can open them up and look, if you want.”

“No. You have work to do. I’ll do it.”

“Okay. Call if you need me.” He went over to an abandoned cupboard and opened a drawer. “Here’s a box cutter and some packing tape.”

When he’d gone, Christian surveyed the boxes. Even if she had to go through all ten, that wasn’t so bad.

The first one she opened turned out to be the glass unicorns. Christian had to smile. Miss Amelia had never meant to collect unicorns. Year ago, before the fire, when on a trip with the church to Italy, she’d bought a beautiful prancing unicorn in Venice. Because she’d displayed it on her desk, people had gotten the idea she liked unicorns, when what she’d really liked was Murano glass.