Not Quite Married (18 page)

Clara held the little body to her and turned her streaming eyes to Dalton. “Oh, Dalton. Look. I did it. It’s okay. She’s here.”

And he bent close and kissed her sweat-slick forehead and whispered, “Great job, sweetheart,” breathing the sweet words onto her clammy skin.

And she cried a little harder. Because their baby was with them, and safe. And he was right there beside her, calling her sweetheart, being absolutely wonderful when for months she’d been telling herself she had to learn to accept that she was doing this alone.

He straightened beside her. And she stared up at him. He was looking at the baby, a slight smile curving his beautiful black-and-blue mouth, his eyes alight from within—even the swollen one had a gleam in it. The swelling had gone down just enough that she could see a sliver of the eye beneath.

Oh, dear God
, she thought.
I love him
...

And then, as though he’d heard her say those words aloud, he turned his eyes to her. He frowned. “Clara? What is it?”

She swallowed, forced a wobbly smile and lied, “Nothing. I’m just...happy, that’s all.”

“Are you sure? You seem—”

“I’m positive.” She cut him off before he could get specific about exactly how she “seemed,” while at the same time, her heart was chanting,
Dalton, I love you. I love you so much
...

Outside, dawn was breaking. Clara cried some more and watched the rim of light growing brighter above the mountains. She held her newborn baby and promised herself that she wouldn’t think anymore about loving Dalton.

Not for a while yet.

Chapter Ten

T
wo hours later, after Clara and Dalton had eaten breakfast and Clara had nursed her newborn for the first time, it was just the three of them in the room.

Dalton sat in the comfortable chair by the bed with the baby cradled in his arms. He looked up from her tiny red face and caught Clara’s eye.

She smiled at him and started to think how she loved him—but cut that thought off right in the middle. It was
I lo
—and nothing more. She pushed her love deep down inside her and asked, “What is it?”

He touched the tip of the baby’s nose, brushed at the wisps of dark hair at her forehead. A tiny sigh escaped her little mouth. To Clara, it seemed a trusting sort of sound.

And he said, “I was thinking we need to decide on a name.”

“I hadn’t really thought about names,” she confessed. “Is that odd?”

“Not particularly.” His voice was low, a little bit rough, wonderfully tender. “You’ve had a lot to deal with in the past several months.”

She teased, “I’ll bet you want to name her after some stalwart banker ancestor. Or maybe your mother.”

“Not a chance. I would like it better if she wasn’t named ‘after’ anyone. I want her to have her own name—I mean, if that’s okay with you?”

“Yeah. That’s kind of nice, actually.” And surprising. She would have thought he’d insist on some staid-sounding name suitable for an Ames.

The baby yawned hugely. He fiddled with the blanket, readjusting it around her scrunched-up face. “I was thinking maybe you could choose the first name. I’ll take the middle one.”

“All right.” And just like that, the name came to her, as though it had been waiting inside her all along for her to simply let it out. “Kiera. I want to call her Kiera.”

He tipped his head to the side, considering. And then, “I like it.” He touched the baby’s red cheek. “Kiera,” he whispered. The baby made a cooing sound. “She likes it, too.”

“Good, then. And her middle name?”

“Anne,” he said, with certainty. And then he shot Clara a look both hopeful and hesitant, a look that did something lovely to her heart. “Is that too old-fashioned, do you think?”

“Uh-uh. I love it.”

“Kiera Anne, then,” he said softly.

And she agreed. “Kiera Anne it is.”

* * *

They stayed the day and that night in the hospital.

Family and friends came and went. Each of Clara’s brothers and sisters put in an appearance. And Rory and her fiancé, Walker. And of course, Great-Aunt Agnes.

Ryan came, too, sporting a shiner of his own and a very swollen purple nose. He brought a big basket full of baby gear, including a large pink stuffed rabbit. He and Dalton chatted easily, like a couple of old pals—old pals who’d just happened to beat each other bloody a few days before. When Ryan bent to kiss Clara on the cheek as he was leaving, Dalton didn’t seem to mind at all.

Later, Earl came. He brought Dalton’s assistant, Myra, down from Denver, along with a couple of colleagues from the bank.

Myra was a handsome middle-aged woman, tall and thin in a high-quality lightweight jacket and pencil skirt. She took one look at Dalton and demanded, “What in the world happened to you?”

“I fell down the stairs.”

“And into someone’s fist,” muttered Earl on a low chuckle.

Myra wisely refrained from asking any more questions. She and Earl and the others stayed for half an hour and then headed back to Denver.

After they left, it was just the three of them—Clara, Dalton and Kiera Anne. It had been a long day and they went to sleep early. But of course, now there was Kiera, so they didn’t sleep for long.

The baby woke up three times during the night. Clara practiced nursing her. Kiera latched right on and sucked like a champion. Clara glanced up and, through the shadows of the darkened room, Dalton’s eyes were waiting.

They shared a smile that was intimate and companionable. She thought about how far they’d come since that day in the park in Denver.

And now she’d finally admitted to herself that she loved him.

She had no doubt that he still wanted to marry her. For Kiera’s sake, if nothing else.

But were they ready for marriage yet? She just wasn’t sure.

How
could
she be sure? She was thirty-one years old and in love for the first time in her life, with no real experience of what made a happy marriage work. All she knew was, if she ever did get married, she wanted to be absolutely sure it was the right choice. She wanted love and passion and honesty and a true, lasting commitment.

She whispered, “That day in Denver, when we met in the park and I told you about the baby...?” He made a questioning sound. And she said, “I never would have guessed that you would be here with me now.”

He got up from the cot they’d brought him to sleep on and tiptoed to her side, dropping to a crouch so his face and Kiera’s were on the same level. “You need to have more faith in me.”

She almost came back with a snarky remark. After all, the way he’d treated her on the island hadn’t exactly been faith-inspiring. But then, well, no. She was kind of getting past what had happened on the island. She drank in his beautiful, bruised, upturned face.

And she whispered, “You’re right. Maybe I do need to have more faith in you.”

He looked at the baby then, lifting his hand to touch her, running a finger across Kiera’s cheek—a finger that kept going, until it brushed Clara’s breast.

She caught her breath as his finger took a lazy, meandering journey over the pale, blue-veined slope of her breast and upward, leaving a sweet trail of sparks in its wake.

Kiera just kept nursing.

And Dalton’s finger kept moving, across the top of Clara’s chest, over the twin points of her collarbone and then, in a smooth, knowing caress, up the side of her throat to the tip of her chin.

She asked, breathless, “Dalton?” And she lifted her head to track his movement as he straightened and rose to stand above her.

His mouth kicked up on one side. And then he bent down, bent close...

She sighed as his lips touched hers. “Dalton...” He kissed his name right off her lips.

Too soon, he was lifting away again. She grabbed his shoulder before he could escape and tugged him back down to her. “Again,” she commanded.

He chuckled low.

And he gave her what she wanted, slow and light and very sweet.

* * *

Dalton drove them home the next day.

Clara half expected him to start pushing her to move to Denver. But he didn’t.

And Clara didn’t bring it up, either. He took excellent care of her and the baby. She didn’t want him to go yet—and wait. Scratch that.

She didn’t want him to go ever.

But they would get to that—to what the future would look like, to how she hoped he might be willing to relocate permanently to Justice Creek. Later. She saw no reason for them to rush into any big decisions, no reason to start asking each other the scariest questions, the ones about love and the future.

They had a newborn, which was more than enough to deal with right now. They were up half the night every night that first week. He took the baby monitor upstairs to bed with him and he came right down to help whenever she called him, no matter what time of night it was. Sometimes he came down when she didn’t call, because Kiera had cried and he wanted to make sure that they didn’t need him.

Also, he’d become wonderfully affectionate. He kissed her often, soft, sweet kisses. And he touched her a lot. When they sat together in the evening, sharing the sofa, he would put his arm around her and draw her close to his side. He didn’t hesitate to brush a hand down her hair, to stroke her cheek or twine his fingers with hers.

At the end of that first week, Dalton took her and the baby to see Dr. Kapur. It was a satisfying visit. Kiera nursed like a champion and had gained seven ounces. And Clara’s blood pressure now registered normal, her white blood cell count was back up and her iron levels were right where they should be.

And those cankles? Gone.

Dr. Kapur gave her permission to drive and return to her regular activities. “But take it easy,” the doctor ordered. “I understand that you’ll want to check in at that restaurant of yours. But only for a couple of hours a day at this point. If you push too hard and become exhausted, I’m ordering you back to bed again.”

Clara promised she would take care of herself.

Dalton muttered, “I’ll make sure she does.”

Clara shot him a sharp glance for that—a glance he either didn’t see, or pretended he didn’t.

That evening, when they sat down to another of Mrs. Scruggs’s excellent dinners, Clara tried to explain to him that she would really appreciate it if he didn’t treat her like a child in front of her gynecologist.

And he growled, “Like a child? What the hell, Clara? When did I ever treat you like a child?”

“Maybe that was a poor choice of words. How about this? I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t announce to my doctor that if I don’t take care of myself, you’ll do it for me.”

“Why not? It’s the truth. If you don’t, I will.”

She stared across the table at him and almost wished she hadn’t said anything—but then again, no. She schooled her voice to sweetness and asked teasingly, “Is this going to be our first argument since Kiera was born?”

He refused to be teased. “Answer the question. When did I ever treat you like a child?”

She set down her fork, though she knew it was a bad sign. When forks got set down at their table, arguments ensued. “All I’m trying to say is, when I promise my doctor I will take it easy, you don’t have to chime in with threats.”

“Threats? What threats? There were no threats. I said what I said because I care about you, because I
am
going to make sure that you don’t overextend yourself.”

“Sounds like a threat to me.”

He set down
his
fork. “I don’t make threats. I state facts.”

She glared at him, at his dear, handsome face and his granite jaw where the bruising from his fight with Rye was only a shadow now. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to throw her plate of delicious stuffed pork chops at him—or march over there and kiss him until neither of them could see straight.

In the end, she didn’t do either. She just started laughing.

He looked slightly bewildered. “What now?”

She laughed harder.

He asked, “Is this some kind of minibreakdown you’re having?”

And by then, she was sagging in her chair, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, waving her hand in front of her face. “I don’t... It’s just...”

He shoved back his chair and came around the table to her. “Clara? Sweetheart...”

She stared up at him. His dark eyebrows had scrunched together in worry and bafflement. Slowly the fit of laughter ended. She said, feeling suddenly shy, “You just called me sweetheart again.”

He reached down, took her arm, pulled her up into his embrace.

She swayed against him, resting her hands on his chest. She could feel his heart beating, right there, under her palm.
Could you love me? Do you still want to marry me?

The questions were there, on the tip of her tongue. But she didn’t ask them.

She was too afraid of what his answers might be, too unsure of what she wanted in the end, anyway—oh, not about the love thing. She most definitely did want his love.

But the marriage thing...?

She was all turned around about that. They had come a long way together. But marriage seemed so huge. So final.

Better not to go there. Not yet...

“Clara.” He cradled her so tenderly. And he watched her so closely, still with that worried, wary frown. “Are you all right?”

She held his gaze and nodded. “I am, yes. I...suddenly it just seemed so funny, that’s all. You and me. Setting down our forks. Preparing to do battle.”

With his thumbs, he wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks. “I can’t promise I’ll never be overbearing again. I’m an overbearing kind of guy.”

“True.” But she said it fondly, wearing a smile that trembled just a little.

He tipped her chin up with a finger. “Clara...” And his head swooped down. His lips met hers.

It felt so good, so right. His arms around her, his mouth brushing hers. She let out a small cry of eagerness and delight and slid her arms up to wrap around his neck.

And then they were
really
kissing, in the way that they hadn’t done since the island. His tongue touched her lips and she opened for him and...