The Black Sheep’s Baby

around him long enough to shrug the jacket away. It slithered to their feet, and then her arms lifted, clearing the way, and her body was hard and taut against him. His hand was under her sweater, his fingers spread across the remembered, tender-soft skin of her back, and her hands were tangled in his hair, now, both of them-claiming and holding his neck and head as if they were precious treasures she’d found.

A strange, giddy happiness enfolded him, against all logic and reason, and his body, naive and feckless as an adolescent boy’s, believed in it. He simmered with excitement, shivered with delight and smiled against her mouth as he picked her up in his arms.

What had he expected to do then? Who knew? He was in freefall, drifting on that strange, unwonted euphoria, conscious of and caring about nothing else but the woman in his arms, the soft-firm resilience of her body, the cool, damp smell of her hair, the hot brandy taste of her mouth. Had he intended this? He felt the bed bump against his knees, and he was laying them both down, still kissing her deeply and hungrily, filling his arms, hands and mouth with her. Was he thinking about causes, consequences and aftereffects? He was beyond thought.

And she, too, it seemed. She made no objection at all when he measured her naked breasts in his hands, and gasped when he teased a taut nipple between forefinger and thumb. When his fingers discovered the button on her slacks, when he tore the zipper down, she only arched her body closer, turning…seeking…and her sounds were soft moans and tiny growls, every bit as famished as his. His knee slipped between her legs, urging them wider apart, and she moved them willingly, eagerly, inviting him to know the warm, pulsing, vulnerable softness hidden there. Her fingertips made frustrated forays beneath the waistband of his jeans.

He tore his mouth from hers and raised himself on one elbow, thinking to make the way easier for her. But she ducked her face into hiding against his chest and gasped out a muffled cry. “What are we doing?”

His tongue felt thick, his brain muddy and shocked. “I thought we were-”

“No.” She reared back her head and glared at him. Dimly he registered the fact that her eyes were bright as diamonds, glittery with something that wasn’t all desire. “What is it with you, Lanagan?” Though her voice was sharp and her words angry, her face was defenseless as a child’s. Her hands clutched fistfuls of his sweater. “You can’t possibly love me. I don’t know how you can even want me. Why are you doing this?”

He felt his body go still. The hand still tangled in her hair relaxed its grip and opened to cradle the back of her neck. Accepting the sea change in her passion, he reluctantly gentled his, and with a stroking touch along the sides of her throat, said warily, “I don’t know why. Any more than you do.” He tilted away from her and gave her a crooked smile before he added, in a raspy growl that was meant to be sardonic, “It’s not like I had this on my agenda.”

“Are you sure?” She hadn’t returned the smile. Eyes the impenetrable green of jungles gazed accusingly into his.

The movement of his fingertips over the velvety surface of her skin stopped abruptly. He caught his breath, held it a moment then let it go in a gust of incredulous laughter. “You mean, as in ‘Plan B: If All Else Fails Get Devon into Bed?’”

“Something like that.” Her gaze didn’t waver.

He stared down at her for a long time before he answered, noticing the faint bluish shadows beneath the fine- textured skin around her eyes, the golden tips of her lashes, the faint, unexpected hint of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. Funny-he wasn’t thinking at all about how beautiful she was then, only how terribly vulnerable she seemed. He could feel her trembling still, a fine, tight quivering deep down inside, and it was odd, too, how it affected him so differently now than a moment ago. Definitely not as a spur to his desire, but not to anger, either. He wasn’t sure which he wanted to do most, in fact-turn away from her in utter defeat and thwarted passion, or gather her close and hold her in tenderness and protective care. Like Susan…

“You can believe me or not,” he said in a voice that had become guttural with emotion-and it was odd, too, how much it mattered to him whether or not she did. “But until today it never occurred to me that I could. Get you into bed, I mean.”

She believed him. And wished she didn’t.

“It never occurred to me that you could, either. Until today.” She couldn’t believe she was actually laughing, but she was, in quiet gusts against his chest, but she knew it was the kind of laughter that can crumple into sobs in a heartbeat. Desperately afraid it might, she fought to stop it, drawing in a breath, holding it, parceling it out in little settling-down sighs as she lay back against his arm. “We can’t possibly do this,” she said in a low voice.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Eric gave a gusty sigh of his own and lay back on the cot’s meager pillow, settling her subtly against him. “The bed’s too damn small. Plus, if I have a condom at all, it sure as hell isn’t here.”

Was he joking? She didn’t know him well enough to tell. She sniffed and said, “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

They lay together, side-by-side on the narrow, dusty cot, listening to the baby’s gentle snores and staring up at the ceiling like children watching clouds. Devon’s chest, her whole inside ached as if a tremendous weight was bearing down on her. Filling her lungs seemed a difficult task. She felt air-starved and exhausted when she said, “You could have me disbarred.”

She felt his body flinch as though she’d struck him. “You think I’d do that?”

“I think you’d do whatever it takes to keep Emily.” Listening to her own toneless voice, she felt a chill go through her. “To keep my parents-my clients-from getting her.”

“You’re right about that,” Eric said softly, flatly. There was a pause, and then said, “Having you disbarred isn’t going to accomplish that, though, is it? They’ll just get themselves another lawyer.”

She nodded, feeling her head move against his arm, and she thought how strange it was to be talking about such things as this, lying together like sated lovers. “They’ll be doing that anyway.” She hesitated, then added bleakly, “After this, at the very least I’ll have to recuse myself.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

She had no reply. As she tried to think of one, misery settled over her like a thick, musty shroud.

Silence came, then, too, until it was broken by a baby’s sleeping sigh. Devon felt Eric’s body tense as he turned to check, then relax again beside her.

After a moment he said lightly, with an air of beginning, “Devon…tell me about your childhood.”

The quiet words stirred through her and she held herself in a listening stillness, frightened at the emptiness she felt inside, thinking of images of dry husks blown away by cold autumn winds. The silence lengthened until finally she whispered, “I can’t.”

She felt his body sink as he exhaled. “Look, I’m trying to understand, okay? I just want to know how it was with you, with Susan. Make me understand.”

“I said, I can’t.” His hand, which had been a warm, strangely comforting weight across her ribs, now seemed like the bar to a cage. On the brink of panic, she pushed it away and struggled to sit up, scrambling over his legs and reaching with her feet for the edge of the cot. “I don’t remember, okay?” She threw it over a shoulder, defiantly.

He raised himself on his elbows. “What do you mean, you don’t remember? Your whole entire childhood? Not anything? Even a single memory? How’s that possible?” He gave a disbelieving snort. “Everybody remembers something.”

Anger came, and she embraced it gladly. “What’s with you? What’s this…thing you have about memories? That’s all you ever talk about, you know it? ‘Remember when this? When I was a kid that?’” She was on her feet, now, turning jerkily, hugging herself between furious gestures. “What difference does it make?”

“What difference?” He swung his feet around and sat up on the edge of the cot, occupying the place she’d just left. “Hell, Devon, what are we without memories? Memories are…” He raked a hand through his hair, leaving it endearingly tousled while he searched for the thought. “Jeez-they make us who we are.”

Endearingly? Confused and distressed, she looked away. “Well, I guess that’s just who I am, then,” she said, brittle and defiant. “A person who was never a child.”

“Everyone was a child.”

She wanted to hate him for the sorrow in his voice. She wanted to think of something sarcastic and clever to hurl back at him. Because she couldn’t, she kept silent, while a pulse ticked crazily against her belt buckle, and the tension coiling inside her felt like a watch spring coming unwound.