Baby on Board. Lisa Ruff

back into her hair. The blue bandanna wrapped around her head dropped to the floor. Her hair sprang free of confinement as his fingers delved into the mass of curls. “It’s been too long.”

      Cupping the back of her neck, he bent his head to give her another intense, drugging kiss. Kate began to slide under his spell again. She fought free and put a hand on his chest, twisting away before their bodies could make contact again.

      “Wait a minute. This is going way too fast.”

      “It’s not going nearly fast enough.” He reached for her again.

      Kate evaded his grasp. “I’ve got a piece working right now. I can’t just leave it.”

      “Sure you can.” Patrick’s wicked smile coaxed her. “You’ve done it before.”

      She smiled back at him—she couldn’t help it—but shook her head. “This time I can’t.”

      “All those weeks at sea, I thought of you.”

      His words shored up her shaky resolve, reminding her that he had left her alone for some time, reminding her why she should be rid of this man. “Well, you’ll just have to do more thinking.”

      She stepped around the worktable. Six feet in length and steel topped, it was only a temporary barricade against him. Even the long metal arms at the end of the bench, where she rolled her blowpipe, were poor barriers. What she needed was a defense. She could use one of the glass rods on the table like a foil to fend him off. Or the torch she used for melding glass. It burned at over five thousand degrees, surely hotter than her passion for this man. There were plenty of weapons at her disposal in the studio. Not one of them could guard her heart.

      The baby in her womb kicked, as if to tell Kate that she was not the only one agitated by this man. She took a deep breath and resisted the urge to press a hand to the slight protrusion. Instead, she took a wide paintbrush and swept the broken glass onto a tray. She wasn’t going back around the table for the hand broom and dustpan. It was too dangerous over there, for a number of reasons. Patrick’s eyes followed her, but he stayed where he was, perching himself on a stool at his side of the table.

      “Sorry about making you break that glass.”

      Kate kept her back to him as she dumped the broken pieces of the heart into the melt bin. “It’s not the first time it’s been broken,” she said, and swallowed down the tears that sprang to her eyes.

      When she turned around, Patrick was watching her closely, his head tilted, eyes narrowed.

      She cleared her throat and smiled a little. “I mean, it’s not the first piece of glass I’ve ever broken. It won’t be the last.” Moving over to a large oven—the “garage” that kept glass pieces in progress hot—Kate extracted another glass bubble with a lustrous blue sheen and brought it to the worktable. Setting it on a ceramic-fiber blanket, she pulled out paint and a brush. She could feel Patrick’s eyes on her as she worked.

      “When did you get back?”

      “Yesterday. Actually, it was early this morning.” He smiled. “I came right over to see you.”

      Kate arched an eyebrow and looked at her watch. “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”

      “A man’s got to sleep doesn’t he?”

      “You hardly ever sleep. I bet you were sailing.” When he grinned, Kate knew she had guessed correctly. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? You just spent three months racing a boat on the ocean and within twenty-four hours you’re out on another one.”

      “Different boat, different sailing.” Patrick shrugged. “A wind junkie’s got to get his fix.”

      She shook her head. He always said the same thing, whatever version of the question she asked. She didn’t understand him any better today than she had five months ago when they first met. Picking up the warm, delicate sphere by the punty, she brushed dark blue paint onto it in a spiraling pattern.

      “What’s that?” Patrick asked.

      “A new paint I’m experimenting with. It keeps its color better after it’s fired.” She kept her eyes focused on her task, pretending to ignore him. Her hands trembled slightly as she wielded the brush. She concentrated on the glass in her hand, but her lines were as wavy as if she were painting on a boat at sea. She set the globe down for a moment and went to the furnace, peering into the crucible.

      She checked the gauges and turned one knob up a notch while dialing down another to adjust the heat and flame. The small act of control settled her nerves a little. She went back to the table and took up brush and globe once again. This time, her lines were better, more smooth and even.

      Patrick came around the workbench and stood next to her. He trailed a finger down her cheek. She raised startled eyes to his. The design on the glass ended in a blob of paint.

      “I missed you, Katie.” His voice was soft and caressing. “Did you miss me?”

      “Every now and then.” The brush that slipped from her fingers and fell to the table belied her casual words.

      With an internal curse, she stiffened her spine and evaded another touch by turning back to the furnace, settling the piece inside the garage to rest in the heat. She would finish it when her head was clearer, when Patrick was gone. Surreptitiously, Kate smoothed a hand over her abdomen. This child was more than enough reason to send Patrick on his way, but how? She could tell him that she was needed in the shop in front of the house, but he might remember it was closed on Mondays. She couldn’t hope for an interruption from Molly, either, since she was in Santa Fe.

      She kept her distance from Patrick, aligning a few pieces of flat, dichroic glass that were already in tidy rows. She moved back to the other side of the table, keeping the barrier between them. “How long are you here this time?”

      “That depends.” Patrick followed her around the table and leaned against the bench, his hands braced on the edge.

      “On what?” Kate just barely kept herself from making the circuit to the other side of the table again. She could imagine him chasing her around it all afternoon.

      “I’ve got a couple of new boats to run some trials on.” He picked up a rod of deep green glass from the workbench, twirling it between his fingers. “It depends on you, too.”

      Kate bent down to the floor and picked up her bandanna and the brush and dustpan. His casual attitude grated. After those months apart, did he actually think they could just pick up where they had left off? Whether he knew it or not, things had changed.

      “Really? It never has before.”

      Patrick raised a brow. “I thought you’d want to spend some time together before I leave for the Trans-Oceana race.”

      Kate shoved the bandanna into the back pocket of her jeans and tossed the brush onto the shelf under the table. “I’d have to rearrange my schedule.”

      “Your schedule was never a problem before.”

      She turned and met his eyes with a frosty stare. “It’s been three months, Patrick. I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

      “Why would you think that?” He looked puzzled. He put the glass tube down and walked over to rest his hands on her shoulders. Close enough to kiss, his lips lifted in a slight smile. “I told you that I’d be back.”

      “Then why didn’t I hear from you?” Kate watched him closely as she asked the question.

      “I called you,” Patrick said with a slight frown.

      “Once! One call.”

      “I was in the middle of the Atlantic—”

      “Don’t try to tell me you were cut off from all communication, Patrick.” Kate threw up her hands and spun away from him, away from his touch. If she didn’t put some distance between them, she would strangle him. “Everything