The Housekeeper's Daughter. Laurie Paige

continued rubbing lightly, not quite ready to stop touching her. Her skin was as smooth and soft as he remembered. Her warmth reached down inside him to that place of piercing cold that had been with him almost as long as he could remember. Only Maya had ever eased it.

      He screwed the cap on the liniment bottle and placed it on the night table, then turned out the lamp. The moonlight fell in an oblong of brilliance on the carpet. He couldn’t keep the thought from his mind that next door, Teddy slept in the bed that had once belonged to his twin.

      Last summer, lying in this bed, he’d told Maya about the accident and his part in it, about the guilt he sometimes felt for being alive. She’d simply held him closer and had made tender love to him until he’d forgotten the past. He grimaced slightly. They’d both forgotten everything, including the need to use protection, during those hazy moments of delight.

      It had never occurred to him that she would become pregnant. He’d never thought of having children.

      Without considering the act, he ran his hand around her waist and rested it on the hard mound of her abdomen. To his amazement, he felt something press against his palm, then he experienced a series of bumps. A funny feeling washed over him as he realized the baby was kicking the spot where his hand rested. It came to him that the child was alive and well and real.

      Very real.

      Maybe it was sheer vanity, but he knew it was his. It seemed to him that the baby knew him, too, that it was welcoming him home.

      About time.

      He started as the words popped into his head as if his son or daughter were speaking to him through mental telepathy.

      “Yeah, I know,” he said softly. “Now if we could get your mother to admit the truth, maybe we could figure out where to go from here.”

      Maya shifted in her sleep and gave a little moan. She sighed and became still once more, her knee drawn up on the mattress to support the weight of the baby. Feeling an odd constriction in his chest, he stood.

      Carefully he lifted the straps of her gown back into place, then covered her. After a last long look filled with needs he couldn’t deny, he rose and slipped out of the room.

      In his own bed, he tried to think of a plan of action. That was why his missions were usually a success. He thought of every contingency and had a solution for each and every one. He’d do the same with Maya. As soon as he figured out what her problem was, other than anger at him.

      Maya got the boys up and off to school as usual. Life did go on, or else Ms. Meredith would have a fit.

      Hearing the vacuum going in the living room, she knew her mother was in there. The sprawling hacienda-style home was vacuumed and dusted twice a week. In the spring and fall, it underwent a cleaning that literally left no bed unturned. The same thing happened in the Ramirez household.

      Maya crept into the kitchen. Sure enough, it was empty for the moment, although she could smell a roast in the oven and traces of the bacon from breakfast. Not hungry, but thinking of the baby, she prepared two pieces of toast and poured a glass of milk. She set them, along with a mug of coffee, on the table.

      Halfway through the meal, Drake ambled in from outside. He looked devilishly handsome in old jeans and boots, a blue shirt and denim jacket. He brought the scent of the outdoors and horses into the room with him. After getting a mug of coffee, he joined her at the table. There, she got a whiff of his cologne.

      It transported her back in time to days of riding and playing with the two younger boys at their heels while they searched for arrowheads and wild berries. To long walks along the beach while they talked their hearts out. To nights—

      With a sharp intake of breath, she pulled herself back from that abyss. Remembering brought nothing but pain and the cold light of day to the dreams she’d harbored.

      “What is it?” he immediately wanted to know.

      She glanced at him. A mistake. His golden gaze held hers for a long, serious minute and asked questions she couldn’t answer. She looked away. “Nothing.”

      But the longing was already in her. She wanted him to sweep her into his arms and make everything okay. She wanted him to wipe out the last eight months of worry and embarrassment, of startled and disapproving glances as her family and friends realized she was expecting. She wanted things that weren’t going to happen.

      With a stoic smile, she wondered who she thought she—the housekeeper’s daughter—was, to set her sights upon a son of the mighty Colton clan.

      “Share,” he requested.

      She shook her head. “Just musing on the ironies of life.” She took a sip of coffee, then washed down her vitamins with the last gulp of milk.

      Her maternity top fluttered as the baby moved. Maya waited. Sometimes the movements were too vigorous for comfort. Then she would have to sit for a few minutes and wait for the baby to settle down before she could go on.

      “Is the baby moving?” Drake asked, leaning closer and peering at her abdomen.

      “Yes.”

      He wasn’t put off by her abrupt answer. “May I?” he asked and, without waiting, laid his hand on her tummy.

      Maya was immediately aware of heat rushing to the spot, as if a sun had suddenly blazed to life in her.

      “It kicked my hand last night,” Drake said.

      “Wh-what?”

      “After you went to sleep, I touched you like this. The baby kicked against my hand several times.”

      He grinned, his even teeth a white slash in his tanned face, making him startlingly handsome, the way Tom Cruise was when he flashed his million-watt smile. It was enough to make women fall at their feet, both the actor and this man.

      Chalk it up to being human, she advised her smarting heart. She’d had a crush on Drake Colton most of her life. Once, at seventeen, she’d thought he was interested in her when he came home from college, but he’d abruptly withdrawn, avoiding her the rest of his stay.

      It had hurt, but she’d gotten past the dreams she’d spun of them at that time. She would again. It was merely a wee bit more complicated this time around.

      Removing his hand, she said politely, “Please don’t.”

      He leaned back in his chair, steam rising from the coffee as he drank deeply, his eyes never leaving her. When he set the cup down, he asked, “Do you know whether it’s a boy or a girl?”

      The silence grew too long to be comfortable.

      She had to clear her throat before speaking. “A girl,” she said in a near whisper. She cleared her throat again. “I had a sonogram. It’s a girl.”

      He nodded solemnly, and she couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or not.

      Really, she had to stop thinking this way, as if he might be delighted at the prospect of their having a child. Those hopes belonged to her younger, more idealistic self. Drake’s note had made it clear his intentions had not extended to a future, not with her at any rate.

      “Did you get a picture of her?”

      She nodded.

      “Maybe you’ll let me see it sometime,” he suggested softly, almost wistfully. “Have you picked a name yet?”

      Her chest tightened. “Marissa. Marissa Ramirez.”

      His face hardened for a fraction of a second, then the expression was gone. He smiled as he considered the name. “Marissa. I like that. If she’s lucky, she’ll be as beautiful as her mother.”

      His eyes glided over her in a visual caress, warm and exciting and promising more than he ever meant to give. Maya set her mug down abruptly as her hand trembled wildly, threatening to spill hot liquid down her front.

      “I have studying