The Black Sheep’s Baby

the tornado that had passed just to the north one spring. He saw the images the way he’d seen them for the very first time, floating in a pan of water, barely discernible shadings on white paper, gradually taking shape, becoming darker…clearer…sharper…while he held his breath and his heart trip-hammered in the excitement of each new discovery, each tiny moment in time now captured forever, each little miracle, like a birth happening right there in his developing trays. He thought it was the way he’d always seen the world-a series of images, flat, like photographs, composed, framed and developed in his mind, frozen and preserved and filed away forever in his memory.

Until Susan. Until he’d held her hand and watched the life fade from her eyes. Until they’d placed her baby in his arms, wet and covered with her mother’s blood. And he’d known that this was life. Not a photograph, and not forever, but all the more precious for being so fragile and so fleeting.

The reality of that had hit him on that day, for the first time not in his head, but in his heart. In his guts. And he had known he would never be the same.

God knows, he wished he could be. God knows he’d been a much more carefree Eric, watching the world through the lens of a camera rather than feeling its pain in the pit of his stomach.

God knows he wouldn’t be aching now for the damaged little girl he knew in his heart must be somewhere in the lost memories of a beautiful woman named Devon O’Rourke.

God knows he wouldn’t be thinking of that woman every waking moment, thinking of her and remembering the feel of her heartbeat banging against his chest, the weight of her across his lap, the warmth and softness of her feminine places a delicious pressure on his masculine ones, and the taste of her still in his mouth…

He jumped, as something thumped against the bunkhouse door, as if he’d been guilty of the action itself rather than just the thought. He lunged for the darkroom doorway and got there as the outer door burst inward, and there was Devon, cheeks flushed, eyes wild and hair flying. She was holding in her arms what looked like a bundle of bedding.

His heart dove into his socks.

“I’m…sorry,” she panted, “I…didn’t know what else to do. I tried…everything. I fed her, and she didn’t want any more, but she was still crying, and…I couldn’t…” Her face crumpled. “I don’t know what’s the matter with her.”

By this time Eric had relieved Devon of her burden and was peeling off the enormous comforter that completely engulfed the carrier-seat. “Let’s hope you haven’t smothered her,” he muttered dryly, before he thought. He could have bitten off his tongue when he saw Devon’s features freeze in a look of pure horror. He threw her a lopsided but reassuring smile as he tossed the comforter onto the bed. “Hey, I’m kidding. She’s fine. Sound asleep.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Her voice was cracked and fragile.

“See for yourself.” He turned the carrier and edged it closer to her. They both gazed in silence at the baby’s plump pink cheeks and delicately curled fingers, her mouth still making sucking motions as she slept.

Devon let out a long breath and closed her eyes. “Oh, God. I feel like such an idiot.”

“Hey, it’s okay.” He glanced at his watch. “My fault, in fact. Didn’t mean to desert you. Guess I lost track of time.”

“Why do you suppose she was crying like that? Did I do something wrong?” Green eyes, bright with worry, searched his across the carrier seat.

Under that stark appeal, Eric’s chest tightened. “Who knows why?” he said gruffly. “Babies cry.” Then he asked, “Did you burp her?”

She clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh, God-”

“Hey, look, it’s no big deal. Obviously.” He turned abruptly and set the carrier on the floor beside the bed, then reached around Devon to close the door. In her haste to sidestep out of his way she lurched awkwardly, and he put a hand on her arm to steady her. He heard a sharp hiss of breath.

Heat engulfed him. His lungs felt sticky with his breath. He glared at her. “Forgot your hat and gloves again, I see.”

She didn’t answer, except to lift a hand to her head, as if to verify that what he’d said was true. When she lowered the hand again, somehow it came to rest on his arm.

Neither of them said anything. Both of them looked down at her hand, resting there on his arm. In the silence, Eric could feel his body rocking with the impact of his pulse. Just when he thought he would have to act or be suffocated by his own self-restraint, he felt the almost indiscernible lift of her shoulders, then a small sigh.

“It’s still there, isn’t it?” she said sadly.

Chapter 12

H e couldn’t pretend not to understand. He shook his head and breathed a soft affirmation.

“I was hoping…” she lifted her head and gave it a little shake, and he braced himself to meet her eyes “…it was, I don’t know…some kind of crazy fluke.”

“Temporary insanity.”

“Yeah…”

He snorted. “It is, you know.”

“Insanity?” Her lips quivered, and twisted when she tried to keep them from it. The look of utter desolation on her face tore at his heart. “It is-I know it. I don’t know what else it could be.” She would not meet his eyes. “I’ve never felt anything like it before. I know I can’t let it happen. I can’t. But, dammit…” She clamped a hand across her mouth, muffling the rest.

“But…what?” Something made him say it, lowering his face closer to hers.

He could barely hear her whisper, “But, I do so want it to.”

His heart ached, trembled, thundered within him. He could remember experiencing such emotion only twice before in his life. Ironically, once for a birth and once for a death. Which, he wondered, was this?

“You want me-” he whispered, and could not go on.

“Yes-God knows why…beyond all reason.” She said that angrily. “I want you-” her voice broke, then, and she tilted her face upward, defying her own resolve…tempting his beyond all reason “-to make love to me. Only-” with a hand covering her eyes she rushed to deny it “-only I know we can’t. I know it. It’s unthinkable. It’s-”

“We can.” He heard the words dimly, and the stirrings of excitement deep in his belly and groin told him they were his, though he felt them merely as a flow of breath over lush, warm lips, lips that were slightly parted and quivering in anticipation of the kiss they both already felt, and so badly wanted. Wanting made him believe the words were true. Overwhelming need made him nudge her chin with his and caress her lips once more. “We can…”

She gave an anguished moan. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the pain and confusion in hers as slowly, slowly they sank into each other, as their mouths melted together-though their bodies remained apart, swaying a little, touching only where his hand rested on her arm, and hers on his. All he thought about then was how hot and sweet her mouth was, the most intoxicating thing he’d ever tasted, like some enchanted elixir put in his way by a capricious god to tempt him. One taste, and a man would be lost forever.

And yet he could not make himself stop tasting. Do it-yes, everything in him shouted. Do it. Sort it all out later.

Breath drained from him as, in full surrender to the enchantment, he drew her arms around him and gently enfolded her in his. Deep inside her bulky jacket he could feel her body tremble. Galvanized by that, he lifted one hand and drove it into her hair, wove his fingers through the cold, slippery curls to cup her head in his palm, curled his fingers into a fist, tangling them in the vibrant mass of her hair as he held her against the deepening thrust of his kiss. Held her that way, kissed her that way, until he was trembling, too, and dizzy with the need for more.

With the hand not caught in the skein of her hair, he found the pull tab of her jacket zipper. It made a growling sound as he tore it down-a sound echoed a moment later, deep in Devon’s throat, when she took her arms from