“What am I going to do with you, huh? I don’t have any more milk, and I’m so sore-” Her voice broke. Whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…shh…” she scooped up her now-wailing son and cuddled him, joggling him and patting him, to no effect whatsoever.

She began to pace in utter despair, and then from somewhere in her sleep-fogged brain a memory surfaced: a nurse, at the hospital, giving her some bottles of formula…telling her she might need to supplement feedings until her milk came in, if the baby didn’t seem to be getting enough.

Yes!

Okay, she thought, almost crying with relief, this would definitely seem to qualify as one of those times. The bottles-where were they? The kitchen, probably-Josie had helped her unpack, she’d most likely put them in the refrigerator.

She tucked the frantic baby into the crook of one arm, opened her bedroom door, peered out, then hurried down the empty corridor to the kitchen. The Mexican paving tiles were cold on her bare feet, but she didn’t think about that, or the fact that she was only wearing underpants and the sweatshirt J.J. had given her to wear to bed her first night out of the hospital, the night she’d spent in his trailer.

In the kitchen, whimpering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…shh…” she opened the huge custom-built refrigerator and took out the six-pack of formula bottles. She set it on the tiled top of the large island in the middle of the kitchen that served as both work space and casual eating area. Now what? How was she supposed to get one bottle out using only one hand, while juggling a crying baby? She was trying her best to do that, trying not to succumb to sobs of exhaustion and frustration, when she felt a rush of warmth against her back, and hands heavy on her shoulders.

Chapter 10

“Here, here-let me have him.”

J.J.’s voice sounded husky and cracked and rough as sandpaper, and oh-so-beautiful to her ears.

She uttered a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob as she half turned toward him, and his hands slipped down her arms, so deft and sure she surrendered her baby to them without a moment’s hesitation.

“Shh…” he murmured, crooning to the baby as he rocked him, with a rasping sound like a tiger’s purr. And miraculously, her son stopped crying and opened his eyes and turned his face toward the sound.

Then, for a moment, she simply stood still, utterly captivated by the vision of her tiny newborn baby nestled against Sheriff Jethro J. Fox’s broad chest. His bare chest, adorned only by a modest furring of golden brown hair that arrowed down the middle of his torso to disappear beneath the drawstring waistband of the sweatpants he wore, riding dangerously low on narrow hips.

“I’d hurry up with that,” he drawled, glancing up at her and nodding toward the package of formula bottles now forgotten on the island top. “I’ve got his attention, but I don’t know for how long.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” she muttered as she fumbled with the package, at the same time trying to brush the tears from her cheeks without him noticing. “You didn’t,” he said dryly, and his eyes were once more on the baby in his arms.

Which gave her a chance to look at him again, and she did-a longer look that took in the sheet-wrinkle across one cheekbone and the dark beard-shadow on the lower half of his face. Her heart did a curious flip-flop, and she had to look away.

She sniffed. “I’m sorry, I guess I don’t have enough…um, to feed him. I’ve nursed him three times…” Tears threatened again, and she gazed blindly through them at the bottle in her hand.

“You gonna heat that up, or what?”

She cleared her throat…swiped at her cheek. “Um…it says you’re not supposed to microwave it.”

“How ’bout if you just run some hot water in a pan and set the bottle in it. That’s what-couple ounces? Shouldn’t take but a minute.”

Rachel found a pan behind the second cupboard door she tried. She ran water in the sink until it was hot, filled the pan with it and set the formula bottle in the water, then turned and leaned her backside against the edge of the sink.

To her continued amazement, Sean was still staring intently at J.J.’s face, evidently entranced by the sight. So, she discovered, was she. Too much so.

She turned quickly back to the sink, picked up the bottle and swirled it. Silence thickened in the room while she tested the heat of the formula on her arm, swirled some more, tested again. Satisfied at last with the temperature-or unnerved by the silence-she carried the bottle over to where J.J. now sat, comfortably half reclining in a chair at the island, Sean tucked neatly in the curve of his arm.

“Okay-” breathless, she held out her arms “-I think it’s okay now.”

Instead of turning over her baby, J.J. made a hand gesture. Give it to me. So, she passed him the formula bottle. A moment later, with a tiny pang that felt oddly like jealousy, she watched her son gulp greedily at the nipple, making the same squeaky sounds he always made when he nursed. His dark eyes were still fastened on J.J.’s face.

“Where’d you get so good at this?” she whispered.

J.J. didn’t answer right away. He’d noticed her legs were bare all the way up to the edge of his old “Life’s a Beach” sweatshirt. Bare, smooth, pale golden skin that looked silky soft to the touch…muscles firm and well-defined…reminded him of a dancer’s legs. It took some effort, but he managed to haul his attention away from the vision.

“My sister’s got three,” he said with a one-shouldered shrug, keeping his eyes on the baby where they belonged. “Last one came while her husband was in Afghanistan. I helped her out a time or two.” He paused, then glanced up to meet her eyes and said with an unexpected harshness in his voice, “Nobody should have to do this by themselves.”

“I didn’t plan to.” She looked away, and he could see her swallow-hard. “Nicky-” She stopped.

“Should have been here for you,” he finished for her. “Yeah, I know. Should be your husband sitting here right now, instead of me.”

She laughed, and he hadn’t expected that, either. He stared at her. “What’s funny about that?”

“It’s not-except…I can’t picture Nicholas doing…what you’re doing.” She paused, evidently thinking about it, and he could see she didn’t feel like laughing anymore. She hitched a shoulder. “He probably would have hired a nanny.”

J.J. snorted. “Hey, whatever works. I guess if you’ve got the money to hire help…”

She shook her head, and couldn’t seem to look at him. “He wouldn’t have wanted me to nurse, either.”

“You didn’t get a say in it?”

Looking at the floor, she said in a low voice, “It’s just that-” she caught a breath “-he would have wanted me all to himself.”

Nice guy, he thought, but said aloud, “Well, I guess he must have really loved you.”

She lifted her head and shot him a defiant look. But before she looked away again he saw a tear-track glimmer on her cheek.

“What, you don’t think he did?” She shook her head slightly, but didn’t reply. He waited.

After a moment, she drew a breath that seemed to steady her, and said in a low voice, “I thought he did-obviously. Or else, why would I have married him? But lately, I’ve been…wondering about that.”

“That being whether he loved you or why you married him?” It occurred to him that he was interrogating her, but either she hadn’t realized it yet, or didn’t mind.

“Both, actually. I thought he loved me…but now I think-I know he loved the way I looked-the way we looked together. He told me often enough-he thought I was beautiful.”

Suspense sizzled inside him and raced beneath his skin. Was this the moment? They were on the subject. He could easily steer the conversation to that last night she’d spent with her husband. So easily…

She drew another of those bolstering breaths. “Now, what I think is, he loved the idea of me, but I don’t think he ever really knew-never even saw the real me.”

The moment had passed…like a river flowing past his feet.

He smiled and said, “And…who is the real you?”

He saw her lips quiver with the hint of an answering smile. “Well…let’s just say…I’m no angel, okay?” She looked down, her face somber again. “I think the main thing is, I don’t look like who I really am. I think I look…you know, little, and, um…kind of sweet-” she coughed and colored a little “-but actually, I have a temper, and I’m a lot tougher, a lot stronger than I look.”

“I can testify to that,” J.J. said, flashing back to those incredible moments with her in the backseat of his patrol vehicle. “I’ve seen what you can do, remember?” He glanced down at the baby now sleeping in his arms, then back at Rachel, and knew that she, too, remembered. Remembered the intimacies that hadn’t bothered her at the time, but maybe were beginning to, judging from the way the pink in her cheeks was deepening.

The moment stretched while he tried his best to block those memories from his mind. Then he frowned, forced himself to concentrate on the present and said, “How do you know your husband wouldn’t have loved ‘the real you’? Did you ever let him see that side?”

She snorted softly. “I guess not.”

“Why?”

She paused, restless now, and he could see the question made her uncomfortable. In a muffled voice, not looking at him, she said, “I was afraid, I suppose. Afraid he wouldn’t want to marry me. Isn’t that stupid? That I really did want to marry him, so badly.”

“Which brings up the second question-why?”

Again, she didn’t answer right away, and he saw another tear run down her cheek. She brushed at it, sniffed and muttered, “Sorry. I don’t usually do this.”

“That’s okay,” he said gruffly. “Hormones. My sister was a mess for weeks.” He was rewarded with a small laugh.