Nate (The Rock Creek Six) Read online

  "A boy," Mary announced.

  "Is he all right?"

  "He's better than all right." Mary set him on Eden's belly and proceeded with the after business of childbirth.

  "He is, isn't he?" Eden ran a shaking finger over the dark, downy head. The child let out a squall that made them all start.

  "That ought to alert Papa," Mary announced. "Let's get you fit for guests. Jo, can you wash the baby?"

  Her newfound fear somewhat abated with a successful birth and the perfection of the child. Still, her hands would not stop trembling. Afraid she'd drop him and he'd no longer be so perfect, Jo shook her head. "I'll tell the men."

  Ignoring Mary's scowl, Jo fled downstairs. In the dining room, Reese, Nate, and Sullivan waited. Rico and Lily had stopped by when Three Queens closed. But since Carrie was nursing a cold, the two had gone home once they'd learned everything was well in hand, and it would be hours before the baby arrived.

  On one of the tables sat an open bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Jo found herself wondering the identity of the odd man out. A sharp glance at Nate revealed he knew what she was thinking. He shook his head and pointed at the other two. But the sadness on his face made her sorry for her suspicions.

  He'd done so well. He deserved her trust. What if he did start drinking again? Would she leave him?

  Never.

  Sullivan spied Jo hovering in the doorway and leaped to his feet. "Is she all right?"

  Jo smiled at his immediate concern for his wife. "Fine."

  "The baby?"

  "Didn't you hear him?"

  "Him?" His face brightened.

  Reese clapped Sullivan on the back. "Congratulations."

  Nate shook his hand. "Well done."

  "It wasn't me." Sullivan gave Jo a rare grin. "Can I see her?"

  "Mary's cleaning them up a bit. You might want to wait five minutes."

  "I don't care about that." He sprinted up the steps.

  Nate put his arm around Jo and she leaned against him—exhausted and still uncommonly afraid. He kissed the top of her head.

  She glanced at Reese. He watched them with an odd expression she couldn't place at first. Usually when Reese looked at Nate, Jo saw guilt and sadness, as if he blamed himself for Nate's problems. Right now, she could swear serenity filled his eyes, as if Reese thought Nate was going to be all right.

  "I'm going to crawl in with Georgie." Reese and Mary had arrived with their sleeping daughter bundled in a blanket; they'd tucked her into a spare room.

  Jo nodded. "Good night."

  Silence settled over the downstairs. From above drifted the murmur of Mary's voice, Sullivan's, then Eden's. The baby squalled again. Embarrassment filled Jo at the thought of how she'd run away. "They could probably use my help."

  "They'll be fine. You need rest. Would you like to stay here too?"

  "No. I want to go home."

  "So do I."

  That was the first time Jo had ever heard Nate refer to their place as home. Warmth spread through her, and she took his hand.

  As they walked through the dawn-streaked streets of Rock Creek, Jo considered confessing her newborn fear. But what good would it do to bring up her sudden and irrational terror? She would only make Nate feel worse about what had happened than he already did. And her goal was to make him feel better.

  She was having a baby. Period. There was nothing to be done but get on with the process. So she held her fear close and tamped it down into a secret part of her heart to be confronted later when she was alone.

  Crawling into bed as light spread through the windows and across the floor felt odd. Stranger still to turn to Nate and have desire pulse slow and sure, deep and true. Or maybe not so strange. What better way to conquer a fear of death than to reaffirm life in an age-old manner?

  Nate tucked her against his side. As usual, he wore nothing to bed. Jo smiled. That always saved so much time.

  Her hand trailed across his chest, exploring the ridges of muscle, the hardness of bone beneath his skin. The swirl of fine hair that dusted his belly tangled between her fingers. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, inhaled the scent of him, then pressed her mouth to the side of his neck and tasted.

  "You need to sleep," he protested.

  "I need you."

  The muscles in his stomach quivered against her fingertips. Her hand drifted lower and made something else quiver a well. Smoothing her palm over and around him, Jo lifted her head and gazed into his face. "Looks like you need me too."

  His light blue eyes darkened from within. "Always have, Just Jo. Always have."

  When he kissed her she forgot that need wasn't love. If she waited for love, she'd be waiting all her life, and still she'd be disappointed. She would take what he could give.

  This.

  His fingers played along the length of her legs beneath her fine white chemise. As his mouth teased and took, his thumb tormented, bringing her to a gasping, seeking peak before he left her poised on the edge.

  "Come here," he murmured, his breath mingling with hers.

  She knew what he wanted. She wanted it, too, so she lifted herself above him, taking all of him within her with one firm stroke. His large hands cupped her hips, his thumbs stroking over the new swell of her belly.

  He frowned and spread his palms up her ribcage, then hooked a finger in the neckline of her chemise and pulled. Her breasts spilled free and his frown disappeared as he lifted his head and touched the tip of his tongue to the tip of her nipple.

  The sensation shot through her, quick and bright as lightning across a storm-shrouded sky. She moaned, arched and took him inside as far as he could go.

  The first time they'd come together in this manner, she'd been shocked. But little shocked her any longer, and as the baby had grown, this position had become the easiest for her to manage. Nate seemed to enjoy it almost as much as she did.

  She watched his expression shift and change with every motion of their bodies. Each advance and retreat brought him closer, until she swore he stroked her womb. When he tugged her nearer and buried his face in her breasts, the drift of his breath along her skin caused a shudder; the caress of his lips and tongue made her clench around him.

  She'd discovered she could tighten and release her muscles, stroking him, milking him from within until he writhed and moaned and bucked beneath her. She caressed his cheek, and he opened his eyes.

  The intensity of desire that sprang between them made her believe he had never been as close to anyone as he was to her in that moment. As they rode out the climax together, she pressed her lips to his hair and held him to her heart. Love pulsed within her, secret but sure.

  Almost as wonderful as the act itself was cuddling afterward, their bodies still joined as his hands stroked up and down her back. Some nights, if she stayed there long enough, he would grow hard again while still lodged deeply inside.

  Lethargy gripped her. Some nights, but definitely not tonight. She glanced at the window where sunshine fought to break through the curtains. Make that definitely not today.

  Jo rolled to the side. Nate turned his head, his gaze swept her body, and a lazy smile lit his face. "You're beautiful."

  Jo looked down. The skirt of her chemise was bunched to her thighs and the bodice had been yanked to her waist. "Very attractive," she agreed.

  She began to adjust her clothing and decided she was too tired, and she didn't really care. He'd seen it all before, at least a hundred times. She let her hand fall to the swell of her belly and closed her eyes.

  Something shifted beneath her fingers, like a feather stroking from the inside, so light, so gentle and then gone in an instant. She would have thought she'd imagined it, except it happened again.

  Jo gasped and grabbed for Nate's hand.

  "What's the matter?"

  She pressed his fingertips to her stomach. "Wait. Shh."

  He tried to tug away, but she held on tight, watching his face as he touched her, touched them. His expressio
n had gone completely blank, as if he didn't want her to know what went on behind his pretty blue eyes.

  He'd explored her stomach before, but always in the midst of sex and usually with his mouth. He avoided talking of the child, and that disturbed her, but she'd figured he still felt guilty. He was bound yet to his past.

  But no matter who Nate loved, he wanted her. He needed her. Despite the love he'd shared with his first wife, he would share a child with Jo, something he had never shared with anyone else.

  That had to count for something.

  * * *

  Nate held his breath, both afraid to feel the child move and afraid it would not. He'd learned in the past that either occurrence could lead to disaster.

  The joy on Jo's face consumed him. He had given her a baby, something she had always wanted. He wished he could find the happiness in it that she did. But he'd been through this already on far too many occasions.

  When Jo's time came, would she bless him or curse him? Angela had done both.

  Beneath his fingers, her skin fluttered—gentle as a breeze, flowing like a river.

  "There," she breathed. "Did you feel it?"

  Not trusting himself to speak, he nodded. Enthralled with the novelty, she did not notice when he withdrew his fingers from beneath hers. Because suddenly the child was real, and he was terrified it would die as all the others had.

  Chapter 17

  Nate couldn't sleep with the sun shining so bright and his thoughts looming so dark. Jo had no such compunctions. She drifted off with a hand on their child while he lay there and struggled to remember what Angela had looked like.

  Their eyes were both blue, their skin luminescent. But Angela had been blond where Jo was dark. And her features were...

  He couldn't quite recall.

  The revelation disturbed him. He'd always been able to conjure her face without even trying. Sometimes without even wanting to. But he hadn't thought of Angela much since he'd taken Jo to his bed.

  Shame washed over him. He had sworn never to forget her, never to stop loving her, never to let her memory die. And he could not recall the shape of her face.

  Panicked now, Nate crawled out of bed, yanked on a pair of pants and searched through his small cache of belongings until he found a leather pouch that held the only two items he'd kept from his past—if you didn't count the nightmares.

  With a final glance at Jo, he slipped from their room and went into the kitchen. Sitting at the table, he held the miniature in his palm.

  One glance and everything came back. The love and the laughter, the pain and the tears. Hope turned to ashes. Faith turned to dust.

  He'd been flirting with hope, playing at life while she lay dead. How could he contemplate a future when Angela would never breathe again?

  Nate upended the bag and shook the second item free. The white cotton bonnet was as pristine as the child whose head it had graced for far too short a time. Nate bunched the material in his fist then held it to his face. He could still smell his son.

  God, he was thirsty.

  By putting the reality of the coming baby out of his mind, by refusing to speak of it, touch it, dream of it, had he hoped to stave off the inevitable? Foolishness. The child would come. But would it live?

  He could hope, he could dream, he could even pray—for all the good praying would do. But Nate knew better than to hope, he'd given up on prayer, and he'd dreamed himself dry along with Angela all those years ago.

  He couldn't tell Jo the truth about his past. He didn't want to frighten her. Hell, he didn't want to frighten himself, but it was too late.

  Nate didn't know if he could bear another tiny casket, another infant grave.

  Once whiskey had been not only his penance but his means of oblivion. He could return to the bottle. The pull was almost too strong to resist. Only the thought of Jo was his salvation. She would need him, and for all the times he'd needed her and she'd been there, he owed her his presence at the very least.

  In order to keep himself sane, he could not let himself hope. He could not touch the child beneath her skin, dream of a tiny face, envision the perfect name and then carve it on a gravestone.

  He would not survive that again.

  * * *

  Nate changed after Sullivan's son was born. At first Jo didn't notice because they were both so busy helping the people of Rock Creek. And to be honest, she was enraptured with the myriad changes of her body, the tiny kicks and twirls of their child. As Jo felt the miracle come alive within her, she convinced herself it was only a matter of time until Nate was as enthralled with the baby as she was.

  So it took her a while to realize that whenever she asked him to touch her stomach, he found something else to do. Whenever she spoke of the child, he suddenly had someplace else to be. Whenever she wanted to hold him, there was someone else who needed his presence—now.

  Since she was the one who'd asked him to do this job and was so proud of the way he was doing it, she kept her concerns to herself. What kind of preacher's wife would she be to begrudge others their time with him?

  Jo started to go to bed alone because Nate was working late. But when she began to wake up alone, too, when she counted the days and realized he had not slept at her side for weeks and he had not touched her for longer, Jo began to wonder.

  Time marched on despite her concerns, despite her fears and her joys. Life had a way of doing that.

  There'd been no word of Cash, which according to Reese meant he was fine. The death of Daniel Cash would be big news all over the west. He'd show up sooner or later. Jo hoped it was later, long after their baby was born. By then things would be back to normal, she assured herself, and even Cash's hold on Nate could not compete with the pull of his own child.

  Could it?

  Another letter came from Jed and Hannah. They were having a wonderful time and had no idea when they might come home.

  Eden asked Nate to baptize her son. She argued that since she'd named the child after him, using Nate's middle name of Alexander, her child should be Nate's first baptism in Rock Creek.

  Jo had expected Nate to be thrilled that the son of one of his friends had been named for him. Everyone in town had accepted him; his friends no longer hovered about as if afraid he would do something rash or foolish. But instead of a smile, Nate turned a bit green when Eden told him the child's name. Not only did he refuse to baptize Alex or any other baby in town, he avoided touching them too. But only Jo seemed to notice that.

  And her curiosity gave way to unease.

  The fear that had sprung up within her when she attended Eden's lying-in seemed to grow along with her child. Jo wanted to share her fear with Nate, but found she could no longer share anything with him. He had become a stranger.

  And her unease gave way to alarm.

  She didn't think he was drinking. He hadn't the time. Instead he imbibed in work—as much as he could for as long as he could. He was avoiding her, and Jo wasn't sure what to do.

  How could Nate discover that God lived in the miracle of their child if he wouldn't even look at her?

  Jo tried to talk to Nate, only to have him practically run from the room. She was afraid if she pushed too hard he would drink again or disappear. To her shame, she discovered she couldn't risk that because she needed him so much. As long as he was here, she could survive. If he left her, she didn't know what she would do. She would rather have his presence, however distracted, than not have him at all.

  So in an uncharacteristic manner, Jo let things go on as they were, hoping Nate would touch her and remember the passion. Praying he would look at her and see a family. Dreaming he might discover he loved her and the baby too. But fearing in her heart such things were beyond him and always would be.

  As summer faded toward fall—on the calendar at least, though not in the weather—both she and Mary grew large. In fact, Jo was nearly as big as her friend, even though she was due two months later.

  They bought new, larger dresses from La
urel and Kate, the former soiled doves Lily had turned into dressmakers. Even though the garments reminded Jo of colorful tents—pink and blue to compliment Mary's fair coloring, green and lavender to accent Jo's dark hair and light eyes—she had to admit the girls had a way with a needle.

  One day in early October, the two of them sat in Jo's living room, watching Georgie play with her doll. Neither of them were capable of anything more strenuous.

  "I'd give a hundred dollars for a cool breeze," Mary muttered.

  "Two hundred." Jo fanned her neck. Nothing helped. "Remind me not to get pregnant again so that I'm huge in the summer."

  Mary snorted. "Like we have anything to say about that."

  "True enough."

  "Jo, I've been meaning to ask. Are you sure you've got your dates right for this baby?"

  Jo gave Mary an incredulous stare. "What a question. You know as well as I do this happened in Soledad."

  "You're awfully big. Has Nate said anything?"

  Jo shook her head. She didn't want Mary to know how little Nate had said, how infrequently he even looked at her of late.

  "Well, he would know if anything was wrong, I'm sure."

  Mary's words only increased Jo's secret fear that she would not live to see her baby smile. She opened her mouth to confess—perhaps it would help—but Mary's mumbled curse stopped her. "What's the matter?"

  "It's time," Mary said in a tight voice.

  "Are you sure?"

  Struggling to her feet, Mary froze and cursed again. A gush of water hit the floor. She raised her gaze to Jo's. "Uh-huh."

  "Mama." Georgie's eyes were wide. "You never did that before."

  "And in a few hours I'll be swearing I'm never going to do it again, no doubt."

  Mary's lips twisted, and she shut her eyes and breathed deeply, as if focusing within. A moment later she fixed Jo with a no-nonsense stare and began to do what she did best—manage things.

  "You take Georgie home. Tell Reese to come for me." She hissed in a sharp breath. "Make it quick. This one doesn't want to wait."

  Alarmed, Jo swept Georgie into her arms and headed out the door. She ran smack into her husband. "Nate, thank God."