Born in the Valley. Tara Quinn Taylor
lost weight.
Bonnie tried to sit up, which only brought her breasts and hips against him. “Of course not,” she said, settling back. Her eyes were huge in the moonlight. “Never! Katie is so special. I’d give up my life for her.”
“I still remember the day we found out you were pregnant.”
It had been a Saturday and they’d gone together to buy the home pregnancy kit. And then she’d made him wait outside their bedroom while she’d done the test. He’d burst in, anyway, when her thrilled scream exploded throughout the house.
“Me, too,” she said, her voice softening. “I was incredibly happy. I didn’t have any idea how great it was going to be once I actually held her.”
They were quiet for a moment, a contented quiet. A together quiet. Like they used to share.
“Remember all the hours it took to find just the right crib?” he asked, enjoying the escape to a happier time. “It had to be antique white with spiral spindles, only three inches maximum between the bars.”
“And the wallpaper.” She grinned. “I can’t believe how many days I spent trying to decide between horses and rainbows.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t have to, or the nursery still wouldn’t be done.” He smiled, recalling how excited she’d been when she’d found a paper that had horses on a carousel with rainbows in the background.
Excited. Happy. His. He’d come in from work that night to be greeted by her exuberant “Guess what?” as she’d launched herself at him, throwing not only her arms around him, but her legs, too, catching him off guard. Luckily the couch had been behind him and they’d fallen onto its cushioned softness. As he remembered, it had been a good half hour before he’d ever found out what she’d been so excited to tell him.
And then, without warning or forethought, as they lay there intimately entwined, the solution to the undefined problem became crystal clear to him.
“Let’s have another baby.”
Hips that had been pressing into his withdrew, not far, but then, the bed wouldn’t allow her to move any great distance.
“Katie’s three,” he reminded her. “Potty-trained. The timing’s good.” He paused, but not long enough for her to reject the idea. “If we wait much longer, there’ll be too many years between the kids for them to have anything in common.”
Her hands had dropped, and she ran her fingers along his arms. “You said you didn’t want a bunch of kids.”
The irony was not lost on him. She’d always wanted a big family. The thought of several kids to provide for, several kids taking his and Bonnie’s time until they had none left for each other, had only made him feel trapped.
“I’m not talking about a bunch of kids,” he told her, allowing the weight of his hips to rest completely on her. “Just one more.”
She didn’t say anything. Her fingers were almost frantic as they drew small circles on his upper arms. Her breathing had quickened.
And she wouldn’t look at him.
“Is that a no?” he asked, bracing himself for her answer.
She shook her head. And relief swept over him.
With a surge of protectiveness—and feeling very much in love—Keith bent to kiss her softly. “Talk to me, honey.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“That you want a baby. That you don’t.” He loved her so much, needed so badly for her to be happy. “Just talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking. Let me in.”
“You are in,” she said, stroking his face lightly, her sweet touch making his desire for her immediate again. It astounded him that a gesture as simple as her fingers on his skin could ignite him. “You’re in farther than anyone has ever been.”
It should be enough. Goddammit, it should be enough.
“I’m just tired, Keith. After years of struggle with the business and heartache with my dad and worrying about Greg, I’m finally coming down.”
She kissed him, a full-tongued, wanton kiss that was meant to take him to the place where only the two of them could go together. Sliding his arms beneath her, Keith pulled her closer, kissing her back with every bit of energy he possessed.
She was hungry. Generous. She wanted him.
“I’m still amazed by this,” she said softly. Her eyes were glinting, her lips smiling as she studied him.
She was there. Loving him.
Keith grunted, stripped off her pajamas and explored every inch of her newly thin body.
There was absolutely no doubt that this woman needed him.
Was it possible that the problem was his? Had he somehow imagined the change he was perceiving in her? Was his mind taking him down a dangerous road he didn’t need to travel? Was this remoteness of hers no more than a small case of emotional exhaustion, just as she claimed?
His heart filled with hope, with a resurgence of the peace he’d begun to take for granted over the past few years.
“Now,” she moaned. He drew out the moment, savoring it, her, them.
“Nooowww.” Her groan was louder.
He settled his body in the cradle of her thighs, slid up—
“Wait!”
He froze, confused by the alarm in her voice. “What?” he asked, concerned, afraid something was wrong.
“This.” She’d reached inside the cupboard behind them and pulled out the condom he’d thought they weren’t going to use.
Aroused beyond the ability to analyze anything but his need to have sex, Keith held himself up while she unrolled the condom around him. He plunged inside her before she’d completely finished.
The human body was incomparable. It could accomplish all manner of tasks, from the menial to the perilous; it could also transport, transcend, divert. Keith let Bonnie take him away, his mind wholly on their physical communication.
It was physical. It was exciting. And it was empty.
They weren’t making a baby.
And he had no idea why not.
THE THIRD LETTER from Mike Diamond arrived eight days after the fire. It appeared in a pile of mail that also included the insurance forms she had to fill out.
She waited until everyone was busy feeding lunch to a passel of hungry kids before she tore open the envelope with her landlord’s return address.
Keeping one eye on the space outside her glass-enclosed office—making sure she was alone—she perused the letter quickly.
The tone was more congenial than she’d expected, considering that this was the third letter in almost as many weeks. But the entreaty was just as insistent.
He wanted her to relocate Little Spirits. He had a buyer in Phoenix for the small Shelter Valley strip mall in which the day care was located, and the deal apparently hinged on the early termination of Bonnie’s three-year lease.
According to Mike Diamond, the day-care noise level, as well as the deluge of drop-off and pick-up traffic during rush hour each business day detracted from the strip’s appeal. A couple of weeks before, after receiving Mike’s first letter, Bonnie had placed an anonymous call to the Phoenix-based management company Diamond had named. She’d found that they did indeed have a policy that precluded day cares from renting in any of their strip malls.
A guffaw of laughter sounded just around the corner from Bonnie’s office. She quickly filed Diamond’s letter with the other two in a folder at the back of the file drawer in her desk.
It