“What do they need privacy for?” Richard asked. “They’re supposed to be hanging wallpaper.”
Melanie tugged him toward the door “Maybe your brother will get some other ideas,” she told him. “This is a bedroom, after all.”
“It’s the baby’s room,” Richard protested indignantly, even as he followed his wife out the door.
Ben glanced at Kathleen and saw that her cheeks were pink. “Don’t pay any attention to the two of them, especially Melanie. She may not be too fond of her doting husband, but she’s very big on romance these days. She’s as bad as Destiny.”
Kathleen’s gaze caught his. “Actually I was sort of hoping she was right.”
Ben stared at her, not entirely sure he was comprehending. This was one of those things he definitely didn’t want to get wrong. “Oh?”
“I was hoping you might have an idea or two that required privacy.”
“Such as?”
“I wouldn’t mind so much if you kissed me,” she told him, moving closer. “Being around those two has given me a couple of wild ideas of my own.”
Ben tucked his hands under her elbows and held her in place, scant inches away, close enough that he could breathe in her vaguely exotic scent. “I thought we’d agreed—”
“Don’t panic. This will pass,” she reassured him. “But right this second, I really want you to kiss me as if you mean it.”
“But—” he began, still trying to cling to a shred of sanity.
Before he could complete the thought, she was on tiptoe, her mouth on his. That pretty much shot their agreement to hell, he concluded, as his blood roared through his veins.
The kiss might have gone on forever, might have led to all sorts of things neither one of them had planned, if the sound of the doorbell hadn’t finally penetrated the sensual haze enveloping them. He had a hunch Melanie had deliberately let the pizza delivery guy keeping ringing that bell just to tip them off that it was time to quit fooling around.
Or, come to think of it, she might have been slow to answer because she and Richard were downstairs doing the exact same thing, he decided, smiling.
“Pizza’s here,” Richard called up, sounding faintly distracted.
Melanie gazed around, looking dazed. “We didn’t get the first sheet of wallpaper hung.”
“Hey, let them hire somebody,” Ben said unrepentantly. “My brother’s rich enough.”
“I wanted to help,” she said, that odd wistful note back in her voice.
He regarded her with surprise. “Why?”
When she didn’t reply at once, he took a stab at it. “Because it would make you feel like you’re part of the family?”
She nodded slowly. “Silly, isn’t it? It’s not as if they’re family.”
“It’s not silly at all,” he said, wondering again about the mother who could send her into a rage and the marriage she refused to discuss. “We’ll make this our baby gift and come back and finish it.”
Her eyes brightened. “Really?”
“Sure. Why not?” He winked at her. “As long as me helping you doesn’t mean you’ve won our bet.”
She laughed. “No, I’ll give you a pass this time. I have a few other tricks up my sleeve, anyway.”
Ben shook his head. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
8
Kathleen felt an unfamiliar sort of contentment stealing through her as she sat around the kitchen table with Ben, Richard and Melanie until nearly midnight. The pizza was long gone, every single slice of it. She had a nice burst of energy thanks to the caffeine in the diet sodas she’d consumed. And Melanie was making noises about wanting to make ice-cream sundaes, though so far she hadn’t summoned the energy to move. It all felt comfortable and friendly, the way a family was supposed to be.
She’d had that same feeling earlier in the nursery, which was why she’d volunteered to help with the wallpaper. She’d had an uncontrollable need to be a part of the anticipation for this new baby. She’d seen all the questions in Ben’s eyes when she’d said as much, but thankfully he’d simply agreed to work with her, rather than pestering her for answers. She wasn’t sure she could have explained her reasons, anyway.
“I think we should be letting you get to bed,” Ben told Melanie. “You have to be exhausted.”
She gave him a disgusted look. “From doing what? Richard won’t let me work more than a couple of hours at my PR business in the morning. You saw how he is about letting me do anything remotely physically demanding. I took a walk around the block today, and he almost had heart failure.”
“The baby’s due any second,” Richard reminded her. “What if you’d gone into labor?”
“I had my cell phone in my pocket and, believe me, I want to go into labor. This baby can’t get here soon enough for me. Otherwise I might be tempted to strangle my overly protective husband.”
Richard regarded her with a wounded expression. “I just want you and the baby to be safe.”
Melanie’s expression softened. She reached for his hand. “I know,” she soothed. “Which is the only reason I let you get away with this.”
Kathleen bit back a sigh that would have been far too telling. She glanced at Ben instead. “If this baby’s coming any day now, we’d better finish up that nursery. The gallery’s closed tomorrow. I can come by. Can you?”
He nodded. “I’ll be here.”
Melanie stared at them. “You guys don’t need to do that.”
“We want to,” Kathleen assured her. “It’s our baby present.”
“Oh, really?” Melanie said, looking a little too smug. “It’s from the two of you? Together?”
“Yes, and don’t get any wild ideas about it,” Ben warned her. “It just beats the hell out of shopping for itty-bitty booties and diapers.”
Melanie grinned at him. “You’re not fooling me, Benjamin. You’re as sentimental as the rest of us. You want to know that when that baby gazes around the room, he or she will know that Uncle
