The Baby Bond. Lilian Darcy

      

      Someone was shaking Julie gently. Swimming out of deep sleep, she was totally disoriented. When she dragged her heavy lids open, she found that most of the light had gone from the unfamiliar room. All she could see was the shadowed bulk of a man’s head and shoulders inches from her. A pair of liquid brown eyes glinted beneath impossibly thick lashes.

      Tom Callahan.

      At once, Julie was fully awake.

      Then she realized something else. She wasn’t dressed.

      Julie scrambled into a sitting position then dived off the bed in search of her blouse. “If you’ll leave now,” she whispered, “I’ll get dressed and be down in a minute.”

      “Fine,” Tom agreed, his voice careful. “Barbara, my housekeeper, left a casserole this morning, and I’ve heated it up. We can talk over our options while we eat.”

      He got himself out of the room with almost indecent haste. His groin ached. On entering the dim twilight of the room to waken her, he hadn’t seen that she was undressed. Since six he’d been wondering about rousing her, and had finally set a deadline for nine. He was impatient. They needed to talk.

      But at nine, he’d found her still so deeply asleep that she hadn’t stirred at the sound of his voice, so he’d instinctively knelt by the bed and reached for her shoulder. Only when skin touched skin had he realized she was wearing a silk spaghetti-strapped slip and very little else.

      Even then, it had taken some seconds for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light and to then take in just how much of her he could see. She had such gorgeous skin, satin smooth and tanned pale gold. There were some more of those tiny tomboy freckles on her shoulders, too.

      And her legs! He’d been astounded to realize how long they were now that he could see all the way up.

      All the way up, to the most delicious little piece of female rear end he’d ever seen in his life. It was covered only by a pert triangle of satin and lace, because her silk slip had ridden up, and the way it had twisted around her showed off the sleekly curved tuck of her waist. Her pregnancy wasn’t showing yet.

      Correction. Her pregnancy wasn’t showing at her waist.

      His gaze had moved farther up and come to a screeching halt at two pouting swollen breasts, barely contained inside a saucy wisp of cream lace beneath the loose silk of her slip. It would have been a distinctly sexy bra even when she’d bought it, but still he was quite sure that back then it hadn’t looked anywhere near so low-cut as it did now.

      Quickly, he had turned his attention to her face and had to fight back a gush of breath. In sleep, and after six hours of nourishing rest, she looked like a dream come true.

      

      

      Still shoeless, Julie heard him go. In a few seconds she could slip into her heeled pumps and catch up to him, but instead she stalled, needing more time to shake off the heaviness of sleep.

      This high-ceilinged room was perched dramatically near the top of the house, with two huge windows that met at one corner to give the illusion that there was no wall between inside and out. The large, clear skylight added to the impression of space and nearness to nature. The room was simply furnished, in plain yet rich colors that offset the pale gold of the wood and the ancient, jewel-like patterns of a vibrant Turkish carpet.

      Julie had trained in interior design and had just finished a three-month contract with one of Philadelphia’s most prestigious firms of architects, yet she itched to take notes about the look and feel of Tom’s vacation home. She knew he’d had a large hand in designing it.

      Tom’s house reminded her that she hadn’t chosen interior design as a career because she wanted to gussy up corporate boardrooms, as she’d done at Case Renfrew.

      She’d chosen it because she wanted to make homes for people. She wanted to make a place that worked for her clients, a place that reflected the best of who they were, the way Tom had made sure his house reflected him.

      She wondered whether he was the hands-on type with everything, then realized with a shock of feeling that she knew the answer to this question already.

      “I want the baby very much,” he had said, and she hadn’t understood until this moment how much that meant to her, what strength those words had given her.

      She’d come up here this morning knowing almost nothing about him, too storm-tossed emotionally to begin to guess his reaction. She’d been terrified that he’d demand she hand the baby over entirely to him without a backward glance.

      And then had come the shock of learning that Tom and Loretta were long divorced and he knew nothing about the surrogacy agreement. In that situation, she knew that many men would have treated her pregnancy as a disaster they wanted nothing to do with, something they’d pay to make go away.

      Tom hadn’t. He’d taken both copies of the surrogacy agreement from her and calmly fed them into Marcia Snow’s sharp-toothed paper shredder.

      But he didn’t shred me, my feelings.

      He wanted the baby. He wanted to be involved.

      Knowing this made Julie feel less alone than she’d been since before her father’s death almost ten years ago. She and Tom had said some harsh things to each other this afternoon. Thinking back, however, she didn’t hold anything against him and hoped he felt the same about her.

      For pity’s sake, how could something like this not spark anger and hostility at some point? She felt none of that now.

      Refreshed, wide awake, her nausea really gone for the first time in days, eager to hear what Tom had to suggest, Julie donned her shoes and went downstairs.

      Julie gasped when she saw what Nick had done. The room, and the scene, looked perfect.

      And the six-hour break had done something to the emotions of both of them. Peacefulness, respect, acceptance. They were having a baby.

      It was getting dark, and the landscape outside was slowly mellowing to a blue velvet softness in which air and mountains and water become indistinguishable from each other. The large, airy house was very quiet—so quiet that a creak and a crack could be heard every now and then as the roof and external walls cooled after the hot summer day.

      Nick touched a couple of switches to bring up golden pools of light, and then gestured at the laden table. “Let’s talk while we eat.”

      As restless as a big cat while waiting for Julie to awaken, Tom had already set the food on the table, along with white wine for himself and a choice of juice or iced water for Julie, freshly poured into stemmed glasses. There were two tall red candles burning, and he’d found some flowers Barbara had arranged on the hall table and brought them in as a centerpiece—a small piece of craziness that fitted with the larger craziness to come.

      If you were about to suggest to a near stranger that she hold your hand and leap with you off a sheer cliff of unknown height in pitch darkness, then you might as well set the scene in an appropriate manner.

      He slid a chair back for Julie, and she sat opposite his place setting, close enough to touch him, wondering about the courtliness of his action. Was he simply safe-guarding the vessel that was carrying his child? It didn’t seem that way. The gesture had been fluid and natural, suggesting that courtesy came naturally to him.

      He sat, then slid the casserole and rice to her, and she ladled them onto her plate gratefully. Hunger had made her stomach start acting up again. This looked and smelled hot and delicious. And salty.

      Tom wasn’t saying much yet, but there was something very significant about being here with him like this, about to share a meal. Gradually, they were starting to build a relationship. It had to be that way. For better or worse, they were having a baby.

      Tom’s next words, however, shattered any illusory sense of calm Julie might have been feeling. “I’ve thought about this now, and I know