the word, which meant maybe he should go and comfort her.
Louisa shooed him away. ‘You cleared at breakfast. Off you go and help that girl put her feet up.’
He caught Simon’s perplexed glance at his grandmother and then at him. They both shrugged. How did you help someone put their feet up? Either way, he’d had his marching orders from two women. Maybe he should get his own place or they’d have him emasculated before New Year.
He stood up. Gave Simon a mocking smile and walked after Maeve.
Resting after lunch
MAEVE HAD GOT as far as slipping her shoes off, she’d been stupid, telling him to follow her, and she’d better learn from her mistakes pretty damn quick if she didn’t want to drive him away.
She stewed on that thought for a minute until she heard Rayne’s quiet footsteps coming down the hall and she didn’t know whether to sit on the bed, stand at the window, looking decorative, or just freeze where she was looking at the closed door like a rabbit in headlights.
Time took care of that because Rayne knocked, paused and then opened the door and put his head around. She didn’t get time to do anything except feel her heart thumping like a bass drum.
It was the Rayne from nine months ago. Black brows slightly raised, eyes dark and dangerous, a tiny amused tilt to those wicked lips. ‘Louisa said you needed a hand to get your feet up?’
She licked dry lips. ‘You can come in.’ But when he did push open the door and shut it again the room shrank to the size of a shoebox and they were two very close-together shoes. ‘Um. I am a bit tired.’
He glanced at the queen-sized bed then back at her. Looked her over thoroughly. ‘Want a hand getting your dress off?’
‘Thanks.’ She turned her back and once he’d worked out there was no zip and she only wanted him to help her lift it over her head, the task was accomplished in no time.
No real seduction in that swift removal. She tried not to sigh. While he was draping the dress carefully over the chair she was thinking as she sat on the bed, Thank goodness I changed my stretchy granny undies for the cute lace pair.
He seemed to be staring at her chest. ‘Nice cleavage.’ Well, at least he appreciated something.
He was so big and broad standing over her and she patted the quilt she was sitting on. She wished he’d take off his shirt. ‘Are you staying?’
‘Staying? As in coming to bed with you?’
‘You did say everyone lies down after Christmas lunch?’
He sat on the bed beside her. Then he turned his head and looked her full in the face. ‘I’m not going to have sex with you but I’m happy to lie beside you while you rest.’
She pulled a face at him. Her own desire to snuggle up to him was withering like a dehydrating leaf. ‘I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything you didn’t want to.’
He grinned at her but there was a definite flare in his dark eyes that left her in no doubt she was wrong. A flare that made all the saggy disappointment feelings sit up and take notice again. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to get closer.’ He was telling the truth and at least that made her feel a little bit better. ‘But I think we need to talk a whole lot more before we fall into …’ he hesitated, didn’t even offer a word for what they were both thinking about ‘… first.’
Talk? When she was sitting here in her lacy bra and panties—admittedly with a huge shiny belly out in front—behind a closed door with all those pregnancy hormones saying ooh-ah. ‘Talk?’ She fought back another sigh. ‘That sounds more like a girl thing than a guy thing.’
He shrugged, stood up again and then leaned down, slipped an arm behind her knees and the other under her shoulders and placed her in the middle of the bed. Oh, my, she loved the way he did that.
Then he bent, unlaced his shoes and removed them, loosened his belt and then sat back down on the bed in his jeans. Reached for the folded light sheet at the bottom of the bed she’d been resting under in the afternoons, swung his legs up and draped the sheet over both of them.
Then he slipped his arm around her shoulders so her head was resting on his chest and settled back.
She was still smarting from the ‘not having sex with you’ comment. ‘Is this the pillow talk I missed out on last time?’
He didn’t seem perturbed. ‘You do have a nasty little bite when you don’t get your own way, don’t you?’
She hunched her shoulders. ‘It comes with not knowing where I stand.’
‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘I see that. But I can’t tell you what I don’t know. And if you want me to make something up then you’re resting your head on the wrong chest.’
It was not what she wanted to hear and yet it was. And this particular chest felt so good to lean on. She relaxed and snuggled in a little closer. ‘So you’re saying you won’t lie to me.’
The sound of his heart beating in a slow, steady rhythm reverberated under her ear. God, she’d missed this. ‘I won’t lie to you.’
She lifted her other hand slowly and ran her fingertip down the strong bulge of his bicep. An unfairly sexy bicep. Her girl parts squirmed in remembered ecstasy. Conversation. Remember conversation. ‘Not lying to me is a good start.’
‘You’re supposed to say you won’t lie to me either.’ She could tell he was dead serious. Fair enough.
She wriggled awkwardly, trying to shift her weight until she’d managed to roll and could see his whole face. Said just as seriously, ‘I will not lie to you.’
She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes but his mouth was firm. ‘So if you want me to go, you tell me. Not telling me is a lie too.’
She frowned at him. ‘I’m not sure I want to hear about it if you want to go.’ Then she sighed and lay back down again. ‘But I guess that’s fair.’
He was shaking his head. ‘You don’t understand and you need to get where I’m coming from. I may not be good at this whole father thing, Maeve. I’ll try but I don’t have a lot of family experience, and no paternal role model, to draw on.’ She could hear the slight thread of panic in his voice. Had to remind herself that a few hours ago this guy had had no idea he would be having a child some time in the next few days.
She thought about his ‘no family experience’ statement. Well, she guessed he’d never had a father to learn from or even subconsciously copy. Maybe he was finding that pretty daunting. ‘Did you know your father at all?’
‘Nope. I asked. All my mother said was he was dead and didn’t offer any clues. Not even his name. And my mum wasn’t into men staying over so no “special” uncles. If she spent the night with a man, she usually stayed out.’
Maeve thought about that. ‘So when you were young you stayed home alone? At night?’
Maeve squeezed his arm in sympathy and Rayne could feel himself begin to freeze her out. Had to force himself to let her offer comfort because if he was going to try to make this work he had to at least attempt to learn to do these things too. Apparently it was what families did and he needed to at least give it a shot.
He dispelled the myth that he had been alone. ‘We lived in a dingy block of flats. You were never alone. You could always hear people in the other units.’
She nodded against him. ‘So you never got scared on your own at night?’
He nearly said no. But he’d said he wouldn’t lie. ‘When I was younger I got scared.