Mom In The Making Read online

  Carolyn laughed again and squeezed Bonnie’s hand. “Oh, Bonnie, I wouldn’t have expected you to show up any other way but unexpectedly. Of course you can stay here. For as long as you want.”

  Bonnie sighed in relief, realizing she’d been half-afraid Caro would turn her away. After all, following their father’s murder, Bonnie hadn’t hung around to help with anything. Instead she’d run, trying to escape her grief and fear by spending money frivolously and partying frantically each night until dawn. It had been easier to stuff her pain beneath a frenzied life-style than to face it and deal with her demons.

  “So, did you tell Bonnie that we have the smartest, most talented boys in the world?” Beau said as he and Russ reentered the living room.

  Carolyn shook her head. “We didn’t even get to the topic of the twins. We’ve got so much to catch up on.”

  Bonnie stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, then grinned ruefully. “Sorry, jet lag,” she explained.

  “It’s late. We should all call it a night,” Beau said. He smiled at Bonnie. “If you’ll give me your keys, I’ll get your bags from the car.”

  “I appreciate it. I’m so tired I can’t think straight.” Bonnie gave the keys to her brother-in-law. She studiously ignored Russ, even though she could feel his dark, disapproving gaze on her. Why was he hanging around? He looked at her as if she were a foreign species sent down to Earth to wreak havoc. She grinned inwardly. Caro had often accused her of that very thing.

  “Bonnie, Russ has been staying with us while he house-hunts. He’s sleeping in our spare room, so is it okay if we put you out here on the sofa? It pulls out into a bed,” Carolyn said.

  Bonnie looked at Russ half-expectantly. If he was any kind of gentleman at all, he would offer to take the sofa and give her the bedroom. Instead he smiled, a mocking, knowing grin, and made no offer to relinquish the bedroom.

  He helped Carolyn move the coffee table and pull out the bed. Bonnie couldn’t believe it. She would go to a motel, but she wasn’t ready to confess to her sister that she’d spent her quarterly inheritance check in record time and was hopelessly broke, at least until the next check due her came in two months.

  She met Beau at the door and helped him with her suitcases, blushing slightly as the evidence of her latest escapade—her discarded white frothy wedding dress—exploded out of the side zipper of one of the bags.

  “Oh, Bonnie, how beautiful!” Carolyn exclaimed as she plucked the gown up from the floor where it had fallen and held it up in front of her.

  “You can have it,” she told her sister. “Maybe you and Beau can have another ceremony in a couple of years.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Carolyn protested. “We’ll hang it in the closet, and it will be ready for you when you decide to get married. Who knows, maybe you’ll be as lucky as me and find your Prince Charming right here in Casey’s Corners.”

  Bonnie laughed. “Believe me, the last thing I want is a man in my life to stifle all my fun. Besides—” she shot a sidelong look at Russ “—if Officer Friendly here is a sample of the single men in town, I might decide to become a nun.”

  Russ laughed good-naturedly. “Ah, Princess, I have a feeling you’ll be long gone from Casey’s Corners before that happens.” He turned to Beau and Carolyn. “I’ll see you in the morning.” Then he turned and disappeared down the hallway.

  “That man...” Bonnie sputtered ineffectually. She grabbed the opposite corner of the sheet Carolyn was fitting over the sofa mattress.

  “I think I’ll go on to bed, too,” Beau said.

  “I’ll be there in just a minute,” Carolyn told him. He nodded and left the room. “Honey, go easy on Russ,” Carolyn said to Bonnie. “He’s been through a rough time. His wife left him a little over a year ago.”

  “Hmm, I can understand that.” Bonnie took the pillowcase Carolyn handed her, ignoring her sister’s look of censure.

  “He has an eight-year-old son and is trying to start fresh here. The boy is back in Chicago right now with Russ’s mother. As soon as Russ gets settled in his own place he’s sending for Daniel.”

  “I’m sorry he’s had a rough time, and I hope he’ll be very happy here,” Bonnie said grudgingly. “But that doesn’t make me like him any better. He’s arrogant and self-righteous and smug.”

  “And I think you’re overtired and overreacting.” Carolyn leaned forward and kissed Bonnie on the cheek. “Get some sleep. We’ll see if you don’t think differently in the morning.”

  “There aren’t enough hours in the night to change my mind on that issue,” Bonnie returned. She picked up her overnight bag. “If you’ll just tell me where the bathroom is, I’ll change into my pajamas and sleep off this jet lag. I’m sorry I’m so cranky, but you know I get this way when I travel long distances.”

  Carolyn pointed down the hallway. “First door on the left.”

  Bonnie nodded and headed for the bathroom, eager to change out of her wrinkled clothes and into her comfortable nightgown. She was so tired and knew the exhaustion was as much emotional as physical.

  As she reached for the knob, the door flew open and Russ stepped out. It was obvious he had just showered. Droplets of water still clung to his hair and spiked his sinfully long eyelashes. He wore only a pair of jeans, which rode low on his lean hips. His chest was a magnificent display of bronzed muscle and swirling, dark hair. The man was an Adonis.

  “Would you like for me to scrub your royal back?” he asked quietly.

  His mocking smile shattered the fantasy image she’d just created. She smiled sweetly. “I would much prefer that you kiss my royal—”

  “Bonnie,” Carolyn interrupted, placing a steadying hand on Bonnie’s shoulder. “The towels are under the sink and your bed is all ready.”

  Bonnie nodded and swallowed the last of her sentence.

  “Good night, Carolyn. Sweet dreams, Princess,” Russ said, brushing past Bonnie and out into the hallway.

  “Sweet dreams to you, too,” Bonnie murmured, wishing with all her might that he would dream of a beautiful princess knighting him over the head with a two-by-four.

  Chapter Two

  Russ Blackburn sat in the chair next to the sofa, staring at the woman who slept deeply. Around him the house was silent, the only sound her deep, regular breathing.

  Bonnie Baker. She was some piece of work. He’d known it the moment she’d flashed her baby blues at him and tried to get out of that well-deserved speeding ticket.

  In the two weeks he’d been staying with Carolyn and Beau, he’d heard stories about Bonnie’s various hijinks. He knew she’d been an unruly child who’d dealt her family fits, a rebellious teenager who’d been kicked out of several expensive boarding schools, and now, at the age of twenty-five, she didn’t appear to be in any hurry to change her ways. The woman had run out in the middle of her own wedding ceremony, for crying out loud.

  Although he didn’t know Bonnie Baker for more than the brief time he’d spent with her the night before, he knew enough to make the assessment that she was a young woman who’d had far too much handed to her on a silver platter and believed rules were for others. The kind of woman he needed in his life like an officer of the law needed an old, rusty gun.

  He leaned back in the chair and sipped his coffee, his gaze lingering on her. Despite the fact that he disapproved of her life-style and knew she was a spoiled brat, he couldn’t help but enjoy her attractiveness.

  When Russ had first met Carolyn, he’d thought she was one of the prettiest women ever. But when he’d seen Bonnie, he’d realized Carolyn had merely been a practice model, and the beauty had been perfected with her younger sister.

  At the moment most of Bonnie’s features were hidden by the pillow she hugged against her face and the tangled spill of her dark hair. Still, those features were fresh in his mind. Bright-blue eyes in a heart-shaped face, a Cupid’s-bow mouth that held just a touch of naughtiness. Each and every physical attribute enhanced her overall appeal.

 
When Carolyn and the twins had left a little while ago to go to the store, she had told him that Bonnie slept like the dead and rarely got up before noon. Russ had immediately envisioned crashing a pair of cymbals over her sleeping head. Something about Ms. Bonnie Baker made him feel perverse.

  He sat up straighter in the chair as a moan escaped her. Ah, the beast awakens. She rolled over onto her side, facing him. Her eyelids fluttered, then remained open, widening at the sight of him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, eyes immediately narrowing.

  “I’m drinking coffee.”

  “How long have you been sitting there?”

  He smiled thinly, irritated that she could look so alluring first thing in the morning. “Long enough to know you don’t snore or drool in your sleep.”

  “What do you care? You’re certainly never going to sleep with me.”

  She sat up, clutching the sheet against her chest, one of the pink silk spaghetti straps of her nightgown slipping off her smooth shoulder. She shoved her dark hair away from her face and glared at him.

  “It’s very rude to watch somebody while she sleeps.”

  “It would be rude if I went into your bedroom and watched you, but your bed is in the middle of the living room.”

  “And whose fault is that? You could have offered me the bedroom.”

  Russ grinned and shook his head. “I have a feeling, Princess, that half your problem is that people always give in to you.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Freud.” She got out of the bed with the sheet wrapped around her. “It must be nice to think you have all the answers. Maybe someday I’ll be as wise and judgmental as you.” With a flourish, she stomped out of the living room and disappeared down the hallway.

  Russ’s smile faltered. He certainly didn’t have all the answers. In fact, most of the time he felt hopelessly out of his depth, floundering in the daily game of survival. Maybe he’d believed he had all the answers at one time, before Anne had walked out on him and Daniel. But when she walked out of their marriage, walked away from him and their son, she’d taken all the answers with her, leaving behind only confusion and chaos.

  He drained his coffee cup and stood up, irritated that Bonnie’s words had reminded him of just how messed up his life was. He checked his watch. He had an appointment with a Realtor in an hour to look at a house for rent. He was anxious to get settled into his own place and send for Daniel.

  Life was much slower paced here in Casey’s Corners, and Russ hoped he and his son could heal some of the scars Anne had left.

  By the time Russ had rinsed out his coffee cup and placed it in the sink to dry, Bonnie appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Where is everyone else?” she asked, her gaze lingering longingly at the pot of coffee.

  “Beau is at work, and Carolyn took the kids to the grocery store.” He opened a cabinet door, retrieved a clean mug, then held it out to her.

  As she took it, he caught a whiff of her perfume, a spicy fragrance that reminded him instantly of a summer he’d spent in the Orient as a private in the army. The scent was exotically sensual, laden with mystery, and it stirred a flicker of a sexual response deep inside him.

  He watched as she poured her coffee, noting how the shorts she wore hugged her shapely derriere and exposed sinful lengths of tanned legs. He wondered if she was that delicious bronze color all over. Weren’t most of those European beaches nude beaches?

  He frowned, irritated with himself at his thoughts. The last thing he needed to be thinking about was Bonnie Baker’s naked, perfumed body. He didn’t know her and was sure that if he spent any length of time around her, he wouldn’t like her very much.

  “So why aren’t you at work?” Bonnie asked.

  “I work the two-to-ten shift.”

  “Hmm, I’ll remember that and do my speeding before two or after ten.” She grinned, a smile filled with playful naughtiness.

  “Judging by the collection of tickets I saw in your car last night, I’d imagine your driving days will soon be over. You’ll either get your license pulled or find yourself wrapped around a tree.” He watched as she sat down at the table and took a sip of her coffee. “You know, I’ve never understood people like you.” He eyed her boldly, his gaze sweeping her face, then continuing down the length of her body in silent assessment.

  She didn’t flinch beneath his scrutiny, just gazed back at him as one dark eyebrow rose arrogantly. “People like me?”

  He nodded. “People who get angry because other people do their jobs. I’m a cop. It’s part of my job to give speeders tickets. You were speeding.”

  “It wasn’t the fact that you gave me a ticket that made me mad. It was that you seemed to take such pleasure in it, as if you enjoyed sitting in judgment of me,” she said. She looked at him dispassionately. “Tell me something, Russ. Do you wear boxers or briefs?”

  “Pardon me?” He felt the blush that started at the base of his neck bring warmth to the tips of his ears. Surely he’d heard her wrong.

  “You see, I have this theory. Men who wear briefs are your garden-variety uptight conservatives. Men who play by the rules, never take risks and have little sense of humor. They are judgmental, restrained and controlling.”

  She paused a moment to sip her coffee, her eyes a darker hue than moments before. “I’m sure my father was a briefs man.”

  Russ thought he saw a fleeting pain, a hint of vulnerability in the depths of her eyes. It was there only an instant, then gone as she continued.

  “I figure it has something to do with briefs cutting off the flow of blood to the brain.”

  Suddenly Russ wished desperately that beneath his stiff, perfectly creased uniform slacks was a pair of paisley silk boxers. Instead he could almost feel the bands of his briefs constricting, slowly strangling the flow of his blood. “You’re crazy,” he scoffed.

  She grinned triumphantly. “You’re definitely a briefs man, Russ.”

  They both turned as they heard the front door open and close. Carolyn appeared in the kitchen doorway, a toddler riding each hip.

  “Oh, my.” Bonnie jumped up and reached to take one of the kids. “They are doll babies!” she exclaimed.

  Carolyn smiled ruefully. “They were terrors in the grocery store. Brent has learned to get out of the cart, and every time I turned around he was climbing out, and Trent was screaming.”

  “Which one do I have?” Bonnie asked, cuddling the little boy close to her.

  “The escape artist, Brent.” Carolyn sank down in a chair and released her hold on Trent, who immediately crawled over to Bonnie and pulled himself up against her leg.

  Bonnie grinned with delight. “They like me,” she declared.

  There was such a look of wonderment, such joy on her face, as if she found the fact that anyone could like her unbelievable. An undefined emotion unfurled in Russ as he watched her sit down. The twins clamored for her attention, crawling on her lap and chattering like monkeys. Russ had always believed that dogs and children had an innate ability to sense a person’s true character, no matter how hard that person tried to hide it. He never trusted anyone dogs and children didn’t like.

  It bothered him that the twins embraced Bonnie so enthusiastically, as if they saw something good in her he had yet to see. He narrowed his eyes, listening as she baby-talked to the boys. Brent managed to crawl up in her lap and grab a handful of her hair. She threw back her head and laughed, a deep, throaty sound that shocked Russ as it sent a wave of pleasure through him. It was the kind of laughter that invited company, and the fact that he wanted to join in irritated him.

  The little traitors, he thought. In the past two weeks he’d become close to the twins, yet now they were totally engrossed with Bonnie.

  “You have grocery bags in the car?” he asked Carolyn.

  She nodded. “I’ll get them for you.”

  He walked out of the house and took a deep breath of the flesh summer air, grateful that it carried no hint of Bonnie’s perfume. He’d obviously been on
his own too long. It had been fourteen months since Anne had left him, and since that time he hadn’t felt a flicker of interest in another woman. But something about Bonnie Baker had reawakened his libido, and he didn’t like it one single bit.

  When he allowed himself to get interested in a woman again, it would not be an irresponsible, spoiled rich girl like Bonnie Baker. He needed a woman who would be a loving, caring mother for Daniel, a stable woman who understood the needs of children. Because at the moment, Daniel was a bundle of need.

  He grabbed the bags of groceries out of Carolyn’s car and carried them back into the kitchen. Bonnie was standing on her head against the cabinets, and the twins clapped and giggled with glee. The bottom of her T-shirt had fallen down, exposing an expanse of smooth, tanned stomach.

  “Where did Carolyn go?” he asked, averting his gaze.

  “She spilled juice on her blouse and went to change.” As Russ set the bags on the table, Bonnie pulled her legs down and stood up, her face a becoming pink from the physical exertion. “This is great. They laugh at everything I do.”

  “Yeah, kids can be pretty accepting,” Russ agreed.

  “That’s what’s wonderful about kids, right, fellas?” She leaned down and tousled their fine, blond hair. Then she straightened up and gazed at Russ. “Utter acceptance—you only get it from babies and dogs. I understand you have a son.”

  Russ nodded. “Daniel. He’s eight years old.” He felt a sudden ache in his heart for the little boy he’d left in Chicago until he could get settled here.

  He was suddenly eager to meet the Realtor, hopeful that the house she would show him would be their new home. It was time for Daniel and him to get on with their lives. He missed his son desperately. He looked at his watch again. “I’ve got to get out of here. I have an appointment to look at a house for rent.”

  She grinned at him. “I can’t tell you how much I hope you like what you see.”

  “Yeah, it will be great to get settled in and get Daniel up here.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking how nice it would be to have you out of here so I can have that bedroom.” She smiled impishly.