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“—waa. I know, kid. And a gawaa to you, too.”
Rebecca tried shifting the baby away, but Vince wasn’t having it. With another “gawaa,” he held his arms out to Trent, smiling so widely that a big dollop of drool oozed over his bottom lip.
In one smooth move, Trent pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed off the kid’s chin, and then took him in his own arms.
Rebecca blinked, then looked down at Merry, who looked back with the same surprise mirrored on her face. “So much for the big, bad businessman, eh, Merry?”
The little girl hid her answering smile behind her hand.
“Huh?” Trent lifted a brow. “Big bad businessman?”
“Inside joke,” Rebecca said, not meeting his eyes. Then she glanced down at Merry again. “This is the man I told you about. The one who brought me those boxes for your playhouse.”
“Oh.” The little girl darted a less-shy look in his direction. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Then Trent frowned, irritated that they’d strayed so far from his purpose.
Determined to get to it, he pinned Rebecca with an implacable stare. “Can we talk?”
She blinked a couple of times. “Oh, um, sure. But I have to stay in the playroom. I told my friend Janet I’d cover for her—we have a nurse in here at all times.” She looked down and suggested to Merry that she serve herself a glass of juice and then watch TV. The little girl moved off and Rebecca reached for Vince.
He huddled back against Trent’s chest. “Gawaa gawaa gawaa.”
“Don’t worry about it. He just needs a little guy time.” Trent reassured the baby by hitching him closer.
“Are you sure?” Rebecca frowned.
“I’m used to babies.”
“I can see that.” She shook her head as if it surprised her.
But if she’d known his mother the way Trent did, it wouldn’t. Not that he’d been the perfect parental figure, either, but he’d done his best with the younger ones when he was growing up, when his father had spent all his time at work and his mother had spent all of hers doing as little as possible for her children. Trent would do his best with the child Rebecca was carrying, too.
He followed her to a deserted corner of the playroom and waited until they’d both settled into facing, cushioned chairs. Then he broached the subject that had been weighing on him for the last forty-two, almost forty-three, hours. “What are your thoughts on my offer?”
She froze. “Your offer?”
“From the other night?”
“From the other night?”
There was either an echo in the room or she was stalling. “Rebecca—”
“Why was your sperm at Children’s Connection?”
The question caught him by surprise. “Morgan Davis didn’t tell you?” He’d figured the clinic’s director had spilled the whole story.
She shook her head. “Only that it wasn’t donated for artificial insemination purposes.”
Which led him to another question of his own. “Why did you go that route, by the way? You’re what—twenty-five?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Why didn’t you wait until you found the right guy? Do it the old-fashioned way?”
“The old-fashioned way was out of the question. The ‘right guy’ divorced me two years ago.”
From the cool expression on her face, Mr. Right Guy had put her right off romance. Well, it wasn’t as if Trent held any faith about matches being made in heaven, either. His parents’ marriage and his own had both ended with unhappiness. He ran a hand through his hair, then stared down at the blue casts binding Vince’s short legs. “You sound as if you’re as soured on the whole love and marriage thing as I am.”
“Are you soured?”
He shrugged, then released a dry laugh. “Yeah. You asked why my sperm was at the clinic. My ex—my wife at the time, of course—was going to be inseminated. We thought it would increase the chances of her becoming pregnant. But when the big day came, she did the big back-out. Of my entire life.”
Rebecca released a little sigh. “I’ve come to the conclusion that while there are some good marriages built on real love, those are the exception. I’m not holding out hope that a fluke will happen to me.”
“Okay, so you’re not looking for a man. But why a baby? Haven’t you got plenty of them to occupy your time at the hospital?”
As if to emphasize his remark, Vince chose that moment to launch himself toward Rebecca. Trent passed the child over, again struck by the sweet, automatic caress she gave the baby as he settled against her. He could watch her stroke her cheek against a baby’s downy head a dozen times, he thought, and never grow tired of it.
“I’m very good at my job, you know,” Rebecca said.
A non sequitur? Something about the way she said the words made it clear it was not. He tilted his head. “Okay. So you’re good at your job…?”
Her gaze on the baby’s face, she rocked him side-to-side as he snuggled against her shoulder. “There’s a need for people who can do what I do.”
“I’m certain you’re right, but—”
“It takes a lot out of me.” Her gaze came up to meet his, and it was both direct and vulnerable. “Sick children, all day, every day.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Sick children, hurt children, suffering children. Dying children, Trent.”
His eyes jumped to Vince, now sound asleep against Rebecca’s flamingo smock. He couldn’t ask what was wrong with the baby. He didn’t want to know.
He couldn’t imagine how Rebecca could come to work every day.
“Why?” he asked.
She seemed to understand his question. “Because I can help many, many of them get well. Because I can comfort all of them. Because…because I can.”
For a second he felt ashamed that all he did was run a multimillion-dollar company. Then he cleared his throat. “But another child, Rebecca?”
Her gaze dropped from his. She lifted Vince’s tiny hand and set it on top of hers, then stroked the baby’s soft skin with her forefinger. “I need my own child, my own family to fill my well, Trent. To be my light, to be the strength I need to do a job that can tear me up inside. I need my own child to come home to, someone to repair the heart that gets broken a little bit every day. I need someone of my own to love.”
He tried to tell himself she’d made the speech with calculation, for maximum effect. With the sound of violins playing in her imagination.
“That brings us to my offer, I suppose,” he finally said.
“Your offer.” She blinked at him a couple of times, her face paling. “I thought…I was so tired, I thought I dreamed it. I couldn’t believe—”
“That I’d make such a proposition?” Trent heard the flat tone in his voice. “But I did. Half a million for the baby you’re carrying. And after what you just said, I’m ready to up the ante to a full seven figures.”
Three
R ebecca stared at the man across from her. He didn’t look like a nightmare—no, he looked like a dream—but she should be screaming all the same. “You’d give me a million dollars for my baby?”
“Our baby. And yes, I would give you a million, but you wouldn’t accept it, would you?”
In relief, her heart tripped up, tangling her tongue, too. “I— You…” She sagged against the back of the chair, swallowed.
One of the kids at the other end of the room let out a screech, drawing Trent’s attention. When he turned back to her, he said, “We need to schedule another talk. More private.”
“All right.” She croaked out the words, her voice still rough from surprise.
“I have something this evening I can’t get out of.” He rose, towering over her. “But how about tomorrow night?”
She rose, too, with Vince cradled against her in one arm. “Okay.” Her mind was catching up to events. Trent had come here perfectly serious about wanting to buy her baby! But he was leaving now, and seemingly convinced that he couldn’t, that she wouldn’t agree. But did that mean he was going to relinquish his rights? That was what she wanted. That’s what she needed him to agree upon.
Her free hand crept over her belly. What should I do, Eisenhower?
As she walked Trent toward the playroom’s exit, her gaze landed on the poster taped to both sides of the glass door. “The fair,” she said aloud.
“What?” He paused and looked at her.
If he saw her with kids again, if he got to know her a little better, he would see she’d make a good mother and that she didn’t need or want anything from him. He continued to look down at her, waiting.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she said. “If you don’t have something else going on, would you…like to come help me out at the children’s fair? I’m sort of half in charge and we could use an extra set of hands.”
“A children’s fair?” He said the words as if he’d never heard of such a thing.
Probably because the big, bad businessman usually concerned himself with big, bad business and not something as mundane as hot dogs and pony rides. She smiled at him, anyway. “You said you were good with babies.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Then he turned and strode for the door.
“Ten o’clock!” she called out after him. “I hope to see you there!”
By the time 9:45 a.m. rolled around, Rebecca realized she’d organized herself right out of anything major to do. Weeks ago she’d canvassed the hospital staff for volunteers and they’d stepped up without arm-twisting. The proceeds were going to benefit Camp I Can, a summer camp dear to the heart of Meredith Malone Weber, a pediatrics physical therapist. Thanks to that good cause, artistic nursing assistants were in place to paint little faces. Interns were using their rotating breaks to grill hot dogs or hand out sunscreen samples. Other volunteers were lined up to do everything from selling tickets to supervising the line for the ponies.
The flagged-off area for the fair was already starting to fill even before the official opening. Rebecca waved at a few faces she recognized, then went back to the last-minute run-through of her list. With the excited chatter and squeals of children rising around her, the hand that touched her shoulder came out of the blue at the same time that a male voice spoke in her ear. “Reporting for duty, Nurse Holley.”
Trent. It was Trent. Her face heated despite herself as she glanced up and took in his damp, dark golden hair, white T-shirt and worn jeans. He wore running shoes, the expensive kind that she always thought should do the running on their own at that price tag.
“Is there something wrong with what I’m wearing?” His hand slid from her shoulder and he held both arms out.
She shook her head, thinking, I was right about those good-looking genes, Eisenhower. “No, you’re perfect.” Her face burned. “I mean, what you’re wearing is perfect.”
“You look nice, too.”
Right. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her jeans, tennies and man-size Property of Portland General T-shirt was probably as unfamiliar to him as woman’s wear as the scrubs he’d seen her in before. But she wasn’t hoping to impress him as a female. Today was about showing him her maternal, responsible side.
A toddler bumped into her knees and she automatically reached down to steady the child. See? Today was about moments like this, when she could prove to him she was the right person to retain sole custody of the baby he’d unwittingly half created.
“So, what can I do?” he asked.
She ran her finger down the list on her clipboard, then grimaced. Before finalizing the assignments, maybe she should have considered what kind of job Trent Crosby, CEO, would find appropriate. “How do you feel about cotton candy?” It was the single booth not yet manned.
“The sweet, sticky stuff?”
Grimacing again, she nodded. “Sorry, but it’s the only job left.”
He chucked her under the chin, then leaned close, as if preparing to share a deep, dark secret. “Don’t apologize.” His warm breath tickled the side of her neck. “There’s nothing I like better than sweet and sticky.”
Rebecca’s muscles froze solid as his words, his teasing tone, the closeness of him sent a wave of contrasting heat over her skin. Beneath her T-shirt, her nipples contracted into hard points, pressing against the cups of her bra. Drawing in a breath, she sucked in that delicious, spicy scent that she’d smelled on Trent’s skin the night he’d half carried her to bed.
She inhaled it again, and something deep inside her, something long-dormant, stirred.
Desire, she realized. It stretched, warming up and loosening her insides.
“You okay?”
No. She hadn’t wanted a man since discovering the $988.72 Victoria’s Secret charge on her husband’s credit card. She hadn’t thought about her body in sexual terms since deciding upon becoming a mother.
“I’m fine.” She would be. Some new pregnancy hormone had probably kicked in and was coursing through her bloodstream, causing this odd heaviness in her breasts and belly. It wasn’t Trent who was responsible for the sudden tautness of her skin and her enhanced sense of smell.
“Let’s go, then.” He looked down at her, his eyebrows raised. Maybe puzzled by her strange behavior, but certainly not under the sexual spell that had paralyzed her.
“Yes, let’s go.” She forced herself to move. In a few minutes her hormone levels would rebalance and she would see him as the rich, unreachable guy he was. She wouldn’t smell him, be aware of him, want to touch him and have him touch her with such a painful ache.
Today was supposed to be about showing him she was responsible and maternal, not needy and sexual.
The cotton-candy machine was set up at the end of the aisle of food booths. The outfit they’d rented it from had provided the cartons of pink floss sugar to fill the machine as well as the paper cones to wind the candy threads around. It had looked easy during the demonstration.
“Once the machine’s warmed up and spinning,” she explained to Trent, as she started following her own instructions, “you just twirl the cone as you move it around the edge, picking up the cotton as you go along.”
But despite the simple instructions, her effort wasn’t going well. What was supposed to be a full, puffy ball of cotton candy was wispy and drooping. More of the floss coated her fingers than covered the cone. Frustrated, she stopped and studied the result. “It looks terrible.”
“You better let me taste it,” Trent said.
“Huh?” Frowning, she held it up for his inspection. “I don’t know what’s—”
His hand wrapped around her wrist.
At the contact, her arm jerked.
His mouth, which had been leaning in for that taste, sampled the sticky back of her hand instead. Warm and wet, his tongue swiped across her skin.
That new hormone flooded her again. Her gaze flew to his, and her eyes widened as her skin prickled and her nipples tingled, then tightened, in one unstoppable, sexual rush. Could he tell?
Oh yeah, he could. His nostrils flared, as if scenting the desire oozing out of her pores.
Her voice came out a broken whisper. “I don’t…I don’t know…”
