PSYCHE, LUCAS AND FLORENCE were all sound asleep on the sunporch when Keegan and Molly returned to the house—Psyche in her hospital bed, Florence in a chair pulled back from the table, and Lucas in his playpen.
The sight had a curious effect on Keegan; they were a brave little band of three, lost in some strange and uncertain place and huddled together for safety.
Molly moved to approach Lucas, probably intending to carry him upstairs and put him to bed in his crib, but Keegan reached out, stopped her. Shook his head when she gave him a curious, somewhat wary look.
He put a finger to his lips when she would have spoken and stepped back into the kitchen. Molly followed, and he reached past her to pull the sliding door shut, careful to make as little noise as possible.
“Sit down,” he said when Molly began to look rebellious.
She balked, then shrugged stiffly, went to the table and sat. “What?” she asked in a testy whisper. Evidently the salutary effects of a double cheeseburger with everything were already wearing off.
Keegan sat down across from her. Hesitated. “This is going to sound crazy,” he said.
Molly leaned forward a little, lowered her brows slightly, practically daring him to say anything she could possibly take issue with. And she waited.
“It’s not just going to sound crazy,” Keegan went on. “It is crazy.”
Molly threw him off with a quick and totally unexpected smile. “It can’t be any worse than what Davis Jerritt did,” she said. “In terms of crazy, I mean.”
Keegan wasn’t so sure of that. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We could get married.”
The smile faded. She looked wary again. “If this is some kind of joke,” she said, “it’s not funny.”
“It’s not a joke,” Keegan said. “Maybe it should be, but it isn’t.”
“You?” Molly pointed to him. “And me?” Pointing back to herself.
“I don’t see anybody else around here,” he said. “Yes, you and me.”
“But…”
He saw realization dawn in her face. As a kid, she’d probably been cute. As a woman, she was beautiful—even with puffy eyes from all that crying.
“It’s what Psyche wants,” he said. “And we could raise Lucas. Together.” He paused, suddenly very uncomfortable, and cleared his throat. “Of course, we wouldn’t have sex or anything like that.”
Molly leaned back a little way, folded her arms across her chest in a reflexive motion, then let them fall to her sides again. “Of course not,” she agreed, but she looked skeptical. “What’s in this for you, Keegan?”
“Lucas,” he said simply.
“You and I don’t get along very well,” she reminded him. As if he needed reminding.
“Not a problem,” he answered.
“Not a problem? How do you figure that? Psyche wants Lucas to have a family. She has a fantasy, I think, that we’ll fall madly in love, you and I, and live happily ever after, if she can just get us together. We both know that isn’t going to happen.”
“We’ll agree to live under the same roof. Most of the time you can go your way, and I’ll go mine. We might not love each other, but we both love Lucas.”
“What kind of home would that be for him?” Molly asked. “And maybe you don’t mind going the rest of your natural life without sex, but I’m not ready to give up on it yet. For one thing, I’d like to have more children—someday.”
“Okay,” Keegan said generously. “If you want sex, I’ll oblige.”
Molly widened her eyes at him. “Gee, thanks,” she said.
He shook his head. “You are deliberately not understanding this,” he said.
“I understand only too well,” Molly replied. “What happens if one of us falls in love with somebody else? There’d be a divorce then, and Psyche doesn’t want that for Lucas. Neither do I.”
“Trust me,” Keegan said. “I’m not going to fall in love with anybody. Been there, done that.”
“Well, I’ve never been in love—” She fell silent suddenly, blushing.
“Not even with Thayer?” Keegan asked carefully. He was a man walking through a minefield, and he had to step lightly.
“That wasn’t love,” Molly said. “It wasn’t even lust.”
“What was it, then?”
“Stupidity,” she answered with flushed certainty.
“Look, if sex is such a big thing to you, we could give it a trial run.”
Molly’s mouth fell open. She snapped it closed, drew a couple of breaths in through her flared nostrils and steamed them back out again. “A trial run? I’ve met some jerks in my life, Keegan McKettrick, but you take the freaking prize!”
“How do you know you wouldn’t like it?” he asked. He was in so deep by then, there was nothing to do but keep wading and hope his boots didn’t fill up, figuratively speaking.
She blinked. “Why, you arrogant—”
He put up a hand. “Molly,” he said, “I’m offering you a choice between busing it back to L.A. empty-handed and staying right here in Indian Rock to raise your son. Think about it. Little League baseball games. School pictures. Trail rides. The kind of things Psyche wants for Lucas.”
“If—if I agreed to this, where would we live?”
“Definitely on the Triple M. This mausoleum is no place for a kid to grow up.”
“You think Psyche would agree? This is her family home, and one of the original terms was that Lucas had to grow up here.” She paused, swallowed. Beneath her thin T-shirt her nipples hardened visibly. Not that Keegan was looking at her breasts. Much. “Besides, she’d surely suspect that it wasn’t a real marriage.”
“She’s betting on both of us falling hard, sooner or later. And what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Molly gnawed on her lower lip. “No, but it might hurt Lucas.”
“Not if we act like civilized adults, it won’t.”
“This is a seriously mental idea. Did Dave Jerritt suggest it?”
Keegan ignored that. “That’s the offer, Molly. Take it or leave it. Psyche made her terms pretty clear.”
She wanted to agree, he could see that.
He could also see the nipples, pressing against the front of her shirt.
“You don’t trust me,” she reasoned. “Why would you want to marry me?”
“I don’t. I want to raise Lucas. So do you. Connect the dots, Molly.”
“But there’s a tremendous risk—”
“There’s always a risk,” he interrupted, “tremendous or otherwise.”
She got up out of her chair unexpectedly, and crossed the room to ease open the sliding door and peek in at Lucas. Apparently he was still sound asleep, because she closed it again, very quietly, and turned back to face Keegan.
“I want the trial run,” she said.
Keegan was so stunned, he couldn’t answer for a moment.
She smiled. “What’s the matter, McKettrick?” she asked. “Are you chicken?”
“Molly, we can’t just…”
“Why not? We can ‘just’ get married. We can ‘just’ agree to raise a child together. I’m not going for this until I know you can deliver, buckaroo.”
Heat surged through Keegan, partly indignation, partly every cell in his body yelling yahoo. “Are you on the pill?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No reason,” she said. “I’m not involved with anybody at the moment.”
What did she mean by “at the moment”? he wondered. Was there another married man in L.A.?
“I didn’t bring…”
“You can’t seem to finish a sentence,” she pointed out, clearly enjoying the fact that she’d turned the tables on him somewhere along the line. “If you were about to say you didn’t bring a condom, no problem—I don’t want you to wear one.”
“Why—” He had to stop and swallow. “Why not?”
“Because I wouldn’t mind getting pregnant,” she said. “I know I can’t replace Lucas, no matter how many babies I have, but if this whole thing blows up in our faces and Psyche decides to give Lucas to Travis and Sierra anyway, I might go back to California with something more than a broken heart.”
Keegan pushed back his chair, but quietly, and got to his feet. “There’s one flaw in your logic,” he said fiercely. “If we make love and you get pregnant, the baby would be just as much mine as yours. There’s no possible way I’d let you just vanish into LaLa Land with my child.”
“If you knew there was a child in the first place,” she said.
Oh, she was a negotiator, all right. Probably very good at her job.
But she was overlooking one important fact. He wasn’t half-bad at driving a bargain, either.
“I’ll know, Molly,” he told her, and he could see by the expression on her face that she believed him.
She jutted her chin out a little way. “Fair enough,” she said.
Then she started off through the kitchen, toward the dining room.
Keegan followed, wondering what the hell he was getting himself into. Moreover, what was he getting Devon into, and Lucas?
They moved through the dining room, into the huge entryway.
Molly jabbed at the elevator button, a challenge in her eyes. And there was something else, too—she thought he was going to back down.
Breaking news: he wasn’t.
The elevator came and they got in, standing as far from each other as they could without plastering themselves against the walls.
Keegan pushed the button for the third floor.
They jolted upward.
Presently the elevator stopped.
Keegan pushed back the folding grate, opened the door beyond.
Molly’s eyes were huge. It was beginning to dawn on her that he was about to call her bluff, big-time. She could always change her mind—it went without saying that he wasn’t going to force her into anything—but he was betting her pride wouldn’t let her back down. And since she’d said she wanted a trial run, she was going to have to be the one to call a halt.
She stood still for a moment in the elevator, then pushed past him into the hallway, marched to the door of her room and pushed it open. Of course, she could still slam it in his face. He certainly wouldn’t try to break it down.
He waited, fascinated and—he wouldn’t have denied it—horny as hell.
Molly left the door open.
He smiled to himself and followed her as far as the threshold. Stood there, waiting for a cue from her.
She dragged the T-shirt off over her head, threw it defiantly aside. Her bra was pink and lacy, a gossamer thing with about as much substance as a breath. He couldn’t be sure, with nothing but a little moonlight to go by, but he thought it had one of those catches at the front. One motion of his thumb and her breasts would spill, warm and deliciously natural, into his hands.
Keegan stepped into the room, closed the door and took off his shirt.
Molly waited a beat, then kicked off her boots.
Keegan, grinning a little in the semidarkness, did the same. Damn, but he’d been hoping the bra would go next, even though he relished the prospect of removing it personally.
She unsnapped her jeans, shimmied out of them, kicked them away. The moon gilded her slender thighs in silver. She was wearing a skimpy pair of panties, pink like the bra.
Keegan was so hard, it hurt. He unfastened his belt buckle, then his jeans. And he enjoyed the look of shock on Molly’s face, visible even in that thin light, when she realized he wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
He was naked.
She was still wearing panties and a bra.
She knew it was her move, and whatever else she was, she was a sport. She hooked her thumbs under the elastic in those panties and pushed them down. Stepped out of them.
He went to her then, more because he couldn’t not go to her than because he had any specific intention. He cupped her face in his hands, bent his head and kissed her—
Keegan’s lips seared Molly’s, and his tongue—well, if this kiss was anything to go by, he knew how to use it. The possibilities made her knees go weak, and she might actually have lost her balance if he hadn’t caught her, his hands strong on her bare hips, and held her upright.
And still the kiss went on.
She’d issued a challenge, down there in the kitchen and again when he’d paused on the threshold a few moments before. She’d expected him to backpedal, been surprised and thrilled when he hadn’t.
He broke off the kiss, stepped back a little way. Worked the front catch on her bra with an expertise that both galled her and vaporized her blood. He caught her breasts the instant they were free, and held them gently. Chafed the already-hard nipples—he’d noticed them in the kitchen, damn him—with the sides of his thumbs.
Molly, who had not been with a man since Thayer, well before Lucas was born, let her head fall back and groaned as Keegan caressed her. She might have told herself any man would have done, her need was that great, but she knew it wasn’t true.
Like it or not, Keegan McKettrick was the only game in town.
He took one of her nipples into his mouth.
Molly gasped and plunged her fingers into his hair, not to push him away, but to hold him closer. She was going to regret this, she was sure of it, but in the dizzy meantime, she intended to give herself up to every sensation.
Keegan eased her down onto the rumpled bed, still unmade. Stretched out beside her, agile and graceful, his hard body warm and solid.
He moved on top of her, and she was relieved.
He was going to take her.
She would come to her senses soon.
Taking her wrists in a gentle grip, he raised them high above her head, pressed them into the pillows. Kissed her again, languidly, but with an intimacy that left her dazed.
Take me, she pleaded silently, too proud to say the words aloud.
He didn’t, though. He moved down her body, still holding her wrists in his hands, nibbling at her neck, the upper rounding of her breasts and, finally, a nipple.
Molly groaned aloud.
Keegan chuckled, the sound a seduction in its own right, melting things inside her. He attended thoroughly to her other breast, and then guided her hands to the brass spokes of the headboard.
“You’d better hold on, Molly Shields,” he murmured.
She would think about his arrogance later. About his audacity—
Oh, God.
He was kissing her belly, parting her legs with a motion of his knee.
He wasn’t going to—he couldn’t be about to—
He was.
He went down on Molly, took her clitoris into his mouth with no hesitation whatsoever.
She arched her back, strangling on a moan.
He feasted on her, tongued her, draped her knees over his shoulders and suckled, now slowly, now greedily, until Molly was pleading incoherently, her body slick with perspiration. She wanted him inside her, she wanted what he was doing to her now to go on and on, forever.
She came to the brink of climax, everything within her tensing for the eruption, but he made her wait. He teased her, brought her back to the edge, left her quivering there, withdrew again. Planted light kisses on the insides of her thighs.
“Oh, Keegan…” she whimpered.
“What?” he murmured.
“Do it. Please do it!”
“Do what?”
“Make—me—come…”
“Ummm,” he said, almost thoughtfully. And then she was full in his mouth again, and he was suckling in earnest.
She let go of the headboard and groped for his hair, buried her fingers in it, would not let him leave her.
The orgasm was shattering, like some enormous collision, fiery and ferocious. It would relent a little, then catch her up again, toss her helplessly about in some high, invisible place where she couldn’t catch her breath. Keegan drove her into the core of it, again and again, and when he finally lowered her to the bed, she was all but insensible with the echoing force of her release.
She felt his enormous erection against her.
He’d satisfied her completely—or so she thought. This part would be for him—she would play along. Pretend a little, if she had to.
Then he moved inside her.
There would be no pretending, she realized, beginning the climb again with the first long thrust.
She had thought the initial orgasm was the pinnacle.
She’d been wrong.
She locked her legs around Keegan’s thighs, tilted her hips up so she could receive everything he wanted to give her and take anything he might hold back, as well.
He raised himself onto his hands, hammered deeper into her, and then deeper still.
After several frenzied minutes they came together, with a ragged cry that might have come from either one of them but probably came from both, Keegan with his head thrown back, Molly sobbing and pressing into his back with her fingers, lest he somehow withdraw from her too soon.
But he didn’t.
She descended slowly, through a series of softer, ever softer releases, so sweetly intense that she groaned at each one. And at each one, Keegan stayed with her, still hard, still plunging deep.
When it was finally over, he lay down beside her, on his back, gasping for breath. He moved her easily to lie on top of him, and tugged up the blankets, keeping her snug.
It was a very long time before either of them spoke—in fact, Molly wasn’t entirely sure they didn’t sleep at intervals. She’d lost all track of time.
He stroked her back, squeezed her buttocks lightly, lifted her head from his neck for a few kisses.
He was getting hard again beneath her belly.
“Keegan,” she whispered, “I don’t think I can…”
Keegan lifted her so she sat astraddle his hips, and entered her in one powerful thrust. By the second thrust she was moaning. By the third, she was pleading.
By the fourth, she was coming again.
After that she lost count—of the thrusts and the orgasms.
KEEGAN LAY ENTANGLED with Molly until he was sure she was asleep. Then, smiling a little, he got out of bed, pulled on his jeans and left the room. Dawn was breaking, and he meant to get Lucas, carry him upstairs and place him in the crib so Molly wouldn’t wake up worried.
But Lucas was already awake and dressed, bouncing in his playpen in the kitchen. Florence was there, too, stirring something on the stove. She gave Keegan a sidelong glance.
“Well, now,” she said. “Look at you, Mr. Keegan McKettrick. Half-decent, at this hour of the morning.”
Keegan didn’t bolt, though he wouldn’t have set foot in that kitchen, wearing only a pair of misbuttoned jeans, if he’d known Florence was going to be there. “How’s Psyche?” he asked.
“Still sleeping,” Florence said.
Lucas stood on tiptoe in the playpen, his arms upraised.
Something happened in Keegan’s heart as he hoisted the boy into his arms. Without saying anything to Florence, he turned and set out for the third floor again, as originally intended.
Molly was sitting up in bed, pink cheeked and sleep rumpled, when he arrived. Lucas strained in Keegan’s grasp, wanting to go to her.
Keegan handed the child over, suddenly self-conscious.
He gathered up his shirt, boots and socks.
“The shower is that way,” Molly told him, pointing to a door. Her expression revealed little or nothing of what she was thinking, but the soft sparkle in her eyes told the story.
The trial run had been a success.
The question was, where did they go from there?
Twenty minutes later Keegan came out of Molly’s bathroom, feeling uncomfortable in yesterday’s clothes. He was both relieved and disappointed to see that she was gone, and so, of course, was the boy.
He padded to the nursery door, having glimpsed a crib there earlier, but that room was empty, too. Paused to tug on his boots.
Molly was downstairs in the kitchen, chatting with Florence and sipping coffee while she spooned some kind of cereal goop into Lucas’s mouth.
Keegan hesitated in the doorway, watching her.
She wore white linen shorts and a green tank top, and her honey-colored hair was caught up in some kind of clip at the back of her head. Keegan wondered if he should have warned her that Florence knew they’d slept together—she’d have had to be an idiot not to figure that out the moment he first walked into the kitchen.
Molly looked bright, rested—and she glowed with satisfaction.
As if sensing his presence, she turned and saw him standing there.
The cereal spoon froze in midair.
Damn, he thought. She regrets it already.
He was stuck, though, with no graceful way to retreat. “How’s Psyche?” he asked Florence for the second time that morning.
Molly frowned slightly, and went back to feeding Lucas.
“Go on in there and see for yourself,” Florence said.
“Shall I tell her?” Keegan asked, addressing Molly.
She turned to him again, color flaring in her cheeks.
“About the marriage thing,” he clarified, annoyed. As if he’d been going to walk out there onto the sunporch and tell Psyche he’d spent the night in Molly’s bed doing what came naturally.
Molly frowned, nodded. Left off feeding Lucas, who had lost interest anyway, and set the spoon and the bowl of cereal aside with a thump.
Keegan wondered, apropos of nothing, when she’d showered. If she’d shared a stall with him, he would have noticed. In fact, they’d probably still be there.
She followed him out after running her palms once down the front of her shorts, an anxious gesture that spoke volumes.
Sorely tempted to bait her a little, Keegan took the high road and assumed a dignified manner. No, sirree, he was not going to mention to Molly, the next time they were alone, that he could still feel her inner thighs squashing his ears.
Psyche looked as though there had been a miraculous healing—her eyes were bright and focused, there was color in her cheeks and she was sitting up, with a book lying open on her lap.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling.
Molly murmured a response. Keegan said nothing.
Psyche raised her eyebrows. “You’ve decided,” she concluded.
“Yes,” Keegan said.
Molly elbowed him. “Tell her what we decided.”
Keegan couldn’t resist nettling her a little. “Last night, you mean?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. He figured she could be dangerous, under the right circumstances.
“Molly and I are getting married,” he said.
Florence must have been eavesdropping. Something, probably a skillet, clattered loudly to the floor.
Lucas gave a chortling belly laugh and clapped his hands, delighted by any sort of ruckus.
“When?” Psyche asked.
“As soon as you promise to let us raise Lucas if we do,” Molly answered.
Psyche smiled, triumphant. “You have to live together, of course,” she said.
“Of course,” Keegan agreed solemnly. If last night was any indication, all he and Molly had to do was stay in bed 24/7, practicing body slams, and they were good to go.
“It’s all settled, then,” Psyche said. “We’ll have the wedding ceremony right here in the house. Three days from now. That’s how long it takes to get a marriage license, isn’t it?”
Keegan closed his eyes in a bid for patience. Reminded himself that the woman was terminally ill, and only trying to assure the best possible life for the child she would soon have to leave behind. “Psyche…”
“Well, of course I need to know for certain that you’re actually married,” Psyche said. “I can’t just take your word for it.”
“Why not?”
“Because too many things could go wrong. It’s not as if I’m impugning your integrity—”
“The hell you aren’t,” Keegan growled.
Psyche merely smiled.
“We’re going to live on the Triple M,” he said. “Not here.”
“Fine,” Psyche said. “We’re all agreed, then. Aren’t we, Molly?”
Molly was the color of the underwear she’d been wearing the night before, and her green eyes looked feverish with hope and temper. “Yes,” she said.
“If there are people you want to invite to the wedding,” Psyche went breezily on, “you’d better get in touch with them. And don’t forget to apply for the license.”
“Maybe you’d like to choose my dress,” Molly said.
Another beatific smile. “As long as it’s not white, dear,” Psyche replied. Then she picked up the book lying on her lap, found her place and began to read again.
Molly turned on one heel and stomped out.
Keegan lingered.
“Was there something else?” Psyche asked innocently.
Keegan approached the bed, gripped the side rail, leaned in and said, “Yeah. There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Call Travis and Sierra and tell them they’re not going to be adopting Lucas after all. My guess is they’re going to be pretty disappointed.”
Psyche smiled again, endearingly. “Well, they might have been,” she said, “if I’d ever actually made the offer in the first place. I asked Travis to play along, hoping you’d come to your senses, and he did.” She paused, savoring his reaction. “Why don’t you go out there in the kitchen and tell Molly the truth, Keegan? You can still get yourself off the hook.”
He stared at her.
She beamed back at him, patted his cheek. “But you won’t do that, will you?”
“What makes you think I won’t?” Keegan asked angrily.
“I know you won’t.”
“Is that right?”
“Of course it is,” Psyche said with cheerful finality. “You and Molly made love last night. I’d have to be blind not to know it. Molly’s radiant—mad as a wet hen, but radiant—and you look…”
Keegan’s neck warmed. “Damn it, Psyche, of all the sneaky, manipulative, underhanded—”
She stretched, kissed him lightly on the mouth. “You’re keeping me from my book,” she said.
“Did you put Molly through that to pay her back for—”
“For sleeping with my husband? Of course not. But there might have been the tiniest barb in that remark about her wedding dress. I like Molly, Keegan. I wouldn’t give her my child if I didn’t.”
Keegan turned to walk away.
All he had to do was go into the kitchen and tell Molly the truth—that Psyche would let her adopt Lucas whether they got married or not. They could write the trial run off as just another memorable night and get on with their lives.
And if he did that, chances were he would not only lose Lucas, he would lose Molly, too.