Having Tanner Bravo's Baby. Christine Rimmer

arms around her, the softness of that beautiful mouth as he kissed her.

      It was long and deep and wet and wonderful, that kiss. Like all his kisses, starting from the first one, on a night in early March outside the dance studio where his niece, DeDe, had just finished a recital. They’d gone to his place that night.

      Afterward, they’d talked about how the night had been just something that had to happen, something they needed to do, to get their yen for each other out of their systems.

      Something they would never do again…

      He raised his head—but only to slant it the other way and kiss her some more. She could never get enough of those kisses of his. It was probably pointless to even try.

      But then he lifted his head a second time. And when he didn’t immediately begin kissing her again, she let her eyelids drift open.

      “Tanner?”

      He was looking down at her, his eyes so dark—black as a night without stars. “When I touch you, I only want to touch you some more.” His arms encircled her and his magical fingers traced erotic patterns at the base of her spine. “It’s always like this. From that first day we met—the day Candy died, remember?”

      Candy was his niece’s dog. She’d been a sweet old mutt. “Yeah. I remember. I felt so sad about the dog. And DeDe was inconsolable. And then you came in…I wanted to jump you right there. I felt terrible about that. I mean, DeDe had just lost a pet she loved. And all I could think of was getting my hands on you. All over you.”

      His chuckle was low and much too sexy. “I was suspicious of you, showing up out of nowhere the way you did.”

      “I know.”

      “I also couldn’t wait to touch you, to do all kinds of shocking things to you.”

      “It was the same for me.” She ran her palm down the muscular shape of his arm. Below the sleeve of his black knit shirt, his skin was warm as living silk. She sighed at the feel of him.

      His dark brows had drawn together. “But there’s something on your mind tonight, isn’t there?”

      Her throat locked up. She gulped to clear it.

      “Isn’t there?” he asked again. “I mean, beyond your ass of an ex-boss who I’m not allowed to beat to a bloody pulp.”

      Her heart, which a minute ago had slowed to the deep, insistent rhythm his kisses inspired, was now thudding hard and hurtfully under her ribs. She had a sick, sinking feeling low in her belly. She was going to do it. Now.

      She had to do it. Now.

      “What is it? Just tell me.” His voice was so soft.

      And right then, before she could allow herself to back away from it again, she opened her mouth and pushed the words out.

      “I’m pregnant,” she said.

       Chapter Three

      A baby…

      Tanner gazed down into Crystal’s wide eyes. She had the face of an angel, he’d always thought. Never more so than now. Her cheeks had flushed pink and a few strands of her long, curly hair had gotten loose from the golden mass and coiled over her left eye. He lifted his hand to tuck them behind her ear.

      She caught his wrist, her grip fierce. “It’s yours,” she said, hitching her delicate chin high. “It’s yours and I’m keeping it.”

      He waited until she let go, and then he continued the action, catching the soft strands, guiding them back into place. “Okay.”

      Her honey-brown eyes flashed at him. “Okay? That’s all? Just…okay?”

      “Crystal…” He wanted to comfort her somehow, or at least to reassure her that he would be there, that she could count on him.

      But before he could find the words for that, she demanded, “Okay, you believe it’s yours—or it’s okay with you that I keep it?”

      “Look, I…”

      “What?”

      “Both, okay? Both.”

      “Both,” she whispered, doubting. Defensive.

      “That’s right.”

      A silence. Her full lower lip quivered. “I…I’m sorry. Suddenly, I’m kind of being a bitch about this, for no reason I can think of.”

      He shrugged. “It’s okay. I can take it.”

      “It’s just…” She heaved another ragged breath. “I’ve been trying to tell you for two weeks now. I was beginning to think I’d never work up the nerve. And now, all of a sudden, it’s out, I’ve said it. You know.” She stared at him, as if trying to decide what to say next. And then she added, “I’m sure it’s…hard to accept.” Strangely, it wasn’t. She added, “So, if you want a paternity test—”

      “No. I don’t.”

      She blinked. “Just like that. You believe that it’s yours?”

      “I do.”

      It was more than mere belief. Tanner knew the baby was his. Because he knew Crystal. Yeah, she could be irresponsible. She really ought to take life more seriously. As of today she was out of work and he doubted she had more than a few hundred dollars in the bank. She never talked about her family, about her life before she met and became friends with Tanner’s brother-inlaw, Mitch Valentine, down in L.A. Tanner knew she kept secrets. But she wasn’t a liar. If she said the kid was his, it was.

      A kid. His kid…

      How incredible was that?

      She backed up against the sink counter. “We should…sit down, don’t you think? Talk about this a little?”

      “Right.” He headed for the futon again. Aside from the dinner table with its two mismatched chairs, it was the only place to sit in the living area. She claimed she owned real furniture—she’d just left it behind for six months when she sublet her Hollywood apartment.

      She trailed after him. They sat at either end of the long, lumpy blue cushion. The day was fading and shadows filled the corners of the room. She turned on the lamp that she’d borrowed from his sister.

      Then she slumped into the cushion, letting her head rest on the back of the futon, and folded her hands on her still flat stomach. “I…sheesh. I hardly know where to start.”

      He felt the same. But then he realized he did have a question. “Who else knows?”

      It was a reasonable thing to ask. His sister, Kelly, was Crystal’s best friend—and had been almost from the first day Crystal appeared at Kelly’s front door looking for Mitch. Crystal considered Mitch to be the brother she’d never had; she claimed she’d packed up on the spur of the moment and moved to Sacramento because she “sensed” that Mitch needed her. So she very well might have told either of them—or both—that she was pregnant before she told Tanner.

      Until then, she’d been keeping her eyes straight ahead, in the general direction of her small TV screen, which was flanked on either side by brick and board bookcases filled with books on things like reading tarot cards, feng shui and natural healing.

      But now she rolled her head his way. “No one else knows yet. Just you.”

      Her answer pleased him in some mysterious, deep way. “Well, okay.”

      That curl of hair had settled over her eye again. She reached up and swiped it aside. “You keep saying ‘okay.’”

      He shrugged. “It’s all pretty new. You could say I’m at a loss for words.”

      “Oh, yeah. I hear you there.” She was nodding, her irritation of a moment before gone as fast as it had appeared. “And