Nobody's Baby but Mine(73)
His gaze traveled over her like a lazy stream on a hot summer day. She flushed, then stumbled on the step and had to grab for the rail.
“Something wrong?” he inquired innocently.
Jerk. He knew very well what was wrong. He was a walking, talking sexual fantasy. “Sorry. I was contemplating Seiberg-Witten theory. Quite tricky.”
“I’ll bet.” His eyes swept over her in a way that made her feel her primping time hadn’t been wasted. “Couldn’t find a halter top, huh?”
“They were all in the wash.”
He smiled, and as she watched that unexpected dimple pop into the hard plane beneath his cheekbone, she wondered what she was doing with a man like this? He was so far out of her league, he might have come from another solar system.
She realized she’d forgotten her jacket and turned on the stairs to go back and fetch it.
“Runnin’ scared already?”
“I need a jacket.”
“Wear this.” He went to the closet and pulled out his gray zippered sweatshirt. She came down to meet him, and as he set it around her shoulders, his hands lingered there for a moment. She caught the heady scent of pine, soap, and something that was unmistakably Cal Bonner, an intoxicating hint of danger.
The soft folds of the shirt settled over her hips. She glanced down at it and wished she were one of those women who looked cute in men’s clothes, but she suspected she merely looked pudgy. He didn’t appear to find anything wrong with her, however, so she took heart.
He’d left the Jeep in the motor-court, and, as always, he opened the door for her. As he started the car and headed down the drive toward the highway, she realized she was nervous, and she wished he’d say something to break the tension, but he seemed content to drive.
They passed through town, where the stores were closed for the night, along with the Petticoat Junction Cafe. Down one of the side streets, she saw a lighted building with a number of cars parked around it. She deduced that was the Mountaineer.
They reached the edge of town and drove around Heartache Mountain. Just as she’d decided he was taking her to Annie’s, he slowed the Jeep and turned into a badly rutted gravel lane. The headlights picked out a ramshackle structure no bigger than a tollbooth sitting just beyond the heavy chain that stretched across the road.
“Where are we?”
“See for yourself.” He stopped the car and pulled a flashlight from under the seat. After he’d lowered the window, he shone the beam outside.
She ducked her head and saw a starburst-shaped sign made up of broken lightbulbs, peeling purple paint, and the words, Pride of Carolina. “This is where you’re taking me for our date?”
“You said you’d never gone on a drive-in date when you were a teenager. I’m making it up to you.”
He grinned at her dumbfounded expression, flicked off the flashlight, and got out of the car to unfasten the chain that barred the road. When he returned, he drove forward, jarring her as the car hit the ruts.
“My first date with a multimillionaire,” she grumbled, “and this is what I get.”
“Don’t hurt my feelings and tell me you’ve already seen the movie.”
She smiled and grabbed the door handle to keep from banging against it. Despite her grumbling, she wasn’t exactly displeased with the idea of being alone with him at this abandoned drive-in. It would benefit their baby, she told herself, if she and Cal got to know each other a little better.
The Jeep’s headlights swept the deserted lot, which looked like an eerie science-fiction landscape with its concentric mounds of earth and row upon row of metal speaker poles. The car lurched as he headed toward the rear of the drive-in, and she grabbed the dashboard with one hand while she instinctively covered her abdomen with the other.
He glanced over. “Waking the little guy up?”
It was the first time he’d acknowledged her pregnancy with anything other than hostility. She felt as if a blossom had slowly unfurled inside her, and she smiled.
He turned into the back row. “He can go back to sleep in a minute. That is, if he’s not too busy solving equations.”
“You won’t think it’s so funny when she starts grouping her Cheerios in multiples of ten while the other kids are gumming away at them.”
“I swear, you’re the most worryin’ woman I’ve ever met. You act like having a brain is the worst tragedy on earth. The boy’ll be fine. Just look at me. Having a brain didn’t bother me any.”
“That’s because you keep yours under lock and key.”
“Well, lock yours up for a while so we can enjoy the damn movie.”
There was nothing much she could say to that, so she didn’t try.