“This isn’t about us, anyway. This is about our baby. I won’t be an absentee father, Maura.” His fingers folded around her hand, holding it fast. “I won’t see my own child once a month or for summer vacations.”
Clouds covered the sun and the wind sharpened.
“I’m not leaving, Maura. I’m not going to walk away so you’d better get used to the idea of having me around.”
“It’ll do you no good, Jefferson. I won’t change my mind.”
“Don’t be so sure,” he told her with assurance, “and don’t say anything you’ll have to take back later. It’ll only make it that much harder on you.”
Astonished at his raw nerve, she said, “You’ve an ego the size of the moon.”
“It’s called confidence, babe,” he said with a smile that softened his words. Then he bent his head to hers and whispered, “And confidence comes from always getting what I want. Trust me when I say, I will have you, Maura. Just where I want you.”
Aggravated with him and furious at the way her body was humming with a near-electrical charge, she said, “Why you miserable, softheaded—”
He cut off her diatribe with a kiss that stole her breath, fogged her mind and sent her body sliding away into a sort of dazed confusion. His tongue tangled with hers and Maura groaned at the invasion. It had been too long. Too many empty nights had passed. Too many dreams of him had haunted her.
She surrendered to what she’d missed so sorely. It didn’t mean she was changing her mind. It only meant that sometimes, a bit of what you wanted was better than nothing at all.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the taste of him. The feel of him pressed against her. She’d longed for this. Dreamed of this. And now that it was here, she didn’t care if it was only making the situation more difficult. For this one brief moment, she would have him in her arms.
A heartbeat later, though, they jolted apart, with each of them staring down at the slight curve of her belly.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
“I felt…something.” Awed now, Jefferson came closer, laid one hand on her abdomen and Maura covered his hand with her own. She’d thought it was too soon to feel the baby move. But the doctor had told her it would be any day now and that she’d know it when it happened.
And so she had.
A flutter, then a twitch as if her child had wanted to make its presence known while both of its parents were handy. Maura was thrilled, and, looking at Jefferson, she could see he felt the same. It was magic, pure and simple. Life stirring. A life they’d created. What a gift it was to be able to share this moment with the man who’d given her the child. And how sad for each of them that they wouldn’t share more.
“It’s not moving anymore,” Jefferson said in a worried hush. “Why did it stop? Is everything all right? We should go to the doctor—”
She shook her head and smiled. “No doctor, just wait a moment…” She was whispering, as if afraid to have the baby within hear her and stop moving deliberately.
“Maybe…there!” A more solid movement this time, with a sort of rippling sensation to accompany it.
Awed, humbled, Maura turned amazed, shining eyes up to his and Jefferson grinned like a fool.
“He moved.”
“Aye, she did.” Still caught up in the enchantment of that moment, Maura took a second to notice the change in Jefferson’s eyes. They’d gone from amused to aroused and now, they were filled with a dark determination.
“I won’t lose this, Maura. Make up your mind to it.” He gave her belly a possessive pat, then pulled his hand back. “Whatever it takes. That baby is a King and he’ll grow up as one. Whether his mother likes it or not.”
“The problem is,” Cara was saying, “you’re going about this in all the wrong ways.”
Jefferson nodded, sat back in his chair and let his gaze scan the interior of the pub. Dark, noisy, with soft lamplight and a dark red glow of the peat fire in the hearth, the place smelled like beer and wet wool. It was raining again, so the Lion’s Den was busy. Locals gathered there to have a beer with friends and listen to music. To get out of their own homes for a while. And Jefferson was surrounded by a group of them who were now, it seemed, completely on his side of the situation. All it had taken was for them to find out that he’d proposed and Maura had turned him down.
Just remembering her refusal was enough to churn his guts and have him gritting his teeth. Not once had he imagined that she would say no. Should have known Maura would do the unexpected.
“Maura ever was a stubborn girl,” Michael said thoughtfully, waving away a customer clamoring for another beer.
“Nonsense,” Frances Boyle put in, taking a sip of her tea. “She’s a strong little thing is all and knows her own mind.”
“She does,” Cara said, “but she’s also one to take a stand and then not move from it whether or not she should.”
“True, true,” Michael agreed, with a sad shake of his head. Then he pointed his index finger at Jefferson. “She’s a fine woman though, mind, no matter what we who love her say.”
“I know.” Jefferson was still working on his first beer as advice swarmed around him like ants at a picnic.
It seemed everyone in the village had a theory on how he should be handling the situation with Maura. Not that he was listening to any of them. Since when did a King need help getting a woman?
Since now? a sneaky, annoying voice in the back of his mind whispered to him and Jefferson grumbled under his breath in response. He’d never had to work this hard for anything. Always, when Jefferson King set out to do a thing, it got done. He’d never before run into a solid wall like the one Maura had erected between them and damned if he could figure out how to knock it down.
An ancient-looking man on one of the bar stools offered, “Buy her a ram. That’ll do it. A sheep farmer will appreciate fine stock.”
Jefferson snorted. Was the way to this woman’s heart through her sheep? He didn’t think so. Yet as he considered it, he felt a quick stir of something remarkably like anxiety flicker through him. He wasn’t trying to get to Maura’s heart, was he? No. This wasn’t about love. This was about the baby they’d made together, plain and simple. Telling himself that eased him a bit. “I don’t see how buying her a new ram for her flock will win me any points.”