Expecting his child(10)

Noah swore under his breath. "Not this time. I want to be inside you," he muttered, and eased her back on the desk.

In one swift thrust, he took her, and Martina knew she would never be the same.

She awakened with a gasp and bolted upright. Her heart pounding, her  body hot, she took deep breaths and tried to gather her composure. Her  cotton gown rubbed against her sensitive nipples. She was aroused,  Martina realized in surprise. She closed her eyes against the  sensations. She had been dreaming about Noah, and the dream had felt an  awful lot like the one time she and Noah had made love and forgotten  about contraception. The time, she realized, that their baby had been  conceived. She'd heard there was a thin line between dreams and  memories.

She rubbed her cheeks in dismay. Martina had tried so hard to run from  Noah. First in Chicago, then in her mind and heart. She had only  succeeded in delaying the inevitable. Now he was walking in her dreams.

* * *

Martina stared at the Web page she was constructing on her computer  screen and heard a knock at her door. Actually, banging was a better  description.

"Surprise!" called the familiar voices of her brothers and their families.

Smiling, she clicked "save" and hurried to the front door. Her two  brothers, their wives, and her niece and nephews stood on her front  porch.

"Aunt Martina, we've got presents for the baby in your tummy!" yelled Sam, Tyler and Jill's newly adopted son.

Martina swung open the door and gave the little boy a hug. He had been  one of Tyler's patients, and the way the three of them had become a  family still moved her. "Hurry up and bring them to me, so I can open  them all."

Sam looked at her with huge brown eyes. "Why? Is the baby gonna pop out right now?"

Martina laughed and shook her head at Tyler and Jill. "Not yet. I just love presents."

She stood and hugged the rest of the crowd, amazed at the number of  gifts. "Y'all did too much. My goodness, what possessed you?"

Brock, her oldest brother, hauled in a bassinet. "We kept hoping you  would see reason and move back to the ranch with Felicity, Bree, Jacob  and me."

"Or in with Jill and me," Tyler said pointedly.

Martina sighed and her heart swelled with love for her brothers. "I guess you two are never going to stop looking after me."

Brock and Tyler glanced knowingly at each other, then back at her. "No," they both said at once.

"You need a keeper," Brock said.

"And it takes both of us to do the job," Tyler added.

Unbidden tears filled her eyes, catching her off guard. She gave a muffled sound of dismay and swiped them away.

Tyler immediately looked concerned. "You're crying? You'd rather eat  glass than cry. What's wrong? Is something wrong with you or the baby?"

"No, I'm fine. Darn pregnancy hormones," she said quickly. Martina felt a  twinge of the old frustration she'd felt as long as she could remember.  Her brothers still didn't believe she could take care of herself. Even  though she was twenty-four, gainfully employed, single, pregnant …  She  sighed. The single and pregnant part probably hadn't helped her case.

She smiled and kissed each brother on the cheek. "I'm not going to argue  with you today. I'm too delighted with your visit." She glanced at her  nephew Jacob. "Is that a swing?"

"My idea," Bree, her niece, said. "I baby-sit for the Walters, and the  only time their baby stops screaming is when I put her in the swing. I  have to keep cranking theirs, but the one we got you has a setting for  infinity. That means it never stops."

Martina had a fleeting frightening image of her baby spending the first year of his life in a swing. Her dismay must have shown.

Brock's wife, Felicity, laughed. She put her arm around Martina. "She's  exaggerating. Mrs. Walters usually asks Bree to keep the baby during  colic time."

"If you moved in with us, Aunt Martina, I could take care of your baby  during colic time," Bree said, slyly glancing at her father.                       
       
           



       

Brock gave a wink of approval.

Although she smelled a conspiracy, Martina's heart swelled at the  obvious love between Brock and his daughter. The closeness they shared  was the exact opposite of what Martina and her father had shared, and  she thanked the Lord her precious niece wouldn't spend her childhood  trying to make her father love her.

"That's tempting," Martina said, giving Bree a quick squeeze. "Maybe you can come stay with me awhile after the baby is born."

"I will," Felicity offered.

"So will I," Jill said.

Brock and Tyler exchanged a look of dissatisfaction. "It's bad enough that you won't move in with us," Tyler said.

"Where you belong," Brock added meaningfully. "Now you're going to make us live without our wives."

"Temporarily," Jill said, still a newlywed. She shot a flirty smile at Tyler. "The reunion     could be enjoyable."

Tyler plastered a stern expression on his face. "There she goes doing  that PR thing again, trying to tell me a sow's ear is a silk purse."

"It's like what she did with you," Martina said with mock innocence,  referring to the advertising campaign Jill had used to help Tyler raise  money for the new pediatric wing at his hospital. "Got a great  photographer, featured you in fund-raising ads and turned you into the  state's most wanted doctor."

He slid his arm around Jill. "That ad campaign turned out to be costly, since she paid for it by becoming my wife."

"Best thing I ever did," Jill said.

Martina could see the love flowing between Tyler and Jill and felt a  twinge of envy. They were practically glowing with devotion. It was  disgusting. "Stop. This is so sweet I could throw up. Neither of you  look as if you're suffering. Let's all go into the den while I get a  good look at all the goodies you brought me."

Martina served lemonade while her brothers assembled the swing, a bassinet and a changing table.

Her nephew Jacob presented her with a dozen pacifiers.

He had flourished under Felicity's care. Who would have thought a boy  could become more of a man by getting a Manhattan heiress for a  stepmother? Martina glanced at her well-dressed, warm-hearted  sister-in-law. Felicity had worked magic for everyone at the Logan  ranch. Sighing, Martina supposed the Logans had been due a change of  luck in the romance department, and she was glad love had found her  brothers, even if it hadn't found her.

"Thank you," she said to Jacob, bewildered by the variety of pacifiers. "But why so many?"

He shrugged and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. "Bree said babies  don't always like the first pacifier, so I thought I'd give the baby a  choice just in case he hollers like Dad says I did when I was little."

Martina's lips twitched. "Babies don't cry all the time."

"I know," he said. "They sleep and poop, too. That's why we filled up the back seat with diapers. I'll bring 'em in."

Martina opened her mouth to respond, but the doorbell rang, interrupting  her. She walked to the front door and opened it to a man dressed in a  mechanic's uniform. "I'm Jimmy Steen with Lone Star Auto Service Center,  and I'm here to check a car that belongs to Martina Logan."

Hearing her brothers approach behind her, she shook her head. "Why? I haven't had any problems."

"We got a call from-" he pulled a folded paper from his pocket  "-Coltrane," he said. "Noah Coltrane called and asked us to make sure  your vehicle is in perfect running condition."

"Coltrane," Brock ominously echoed behind her. "I thought he was staying away from you."

"He better be staying away from you," Tyler said.

Martina's stomach twisted. "This isn't a good time," she said to the  mechanic and turned to face her brothers. Even though they had almost  suffocated her by overprotecting her, Martina loved Brock and Tyler with  all her heart. Brock still wore a scar on his cheek from rescuing her  from an unbroken horse when she was a toddler. Tyler had done things for  her most brothers wouldn't dream of, such as painting her nails and  braiding her hair. They had tried to make up for her father's lack of  attention and love.

This was why she and Noah could never be together. This and the fact that Noah wasn't truly in love with her.

She swallowed over a tight feeling in her throat. "Noah found me," she said quietly. "He knows I'm having his baby."

Tyler's jaw hardened. "He hasn't tried to hurt you in any way, has he?"

"No, not at all." She bit her lip. "He, uh, wanted me to marry him, but of course I said no."

"Of course," Brock said. "He should know better. You'd never marry a good-for-nothing Coltrane."