"You guys want another beer?" Even after a hard day’s rescue work in this small Ohio town, Moira Hampshire was beautiful as she smiled at the two men sitting with her at the scarred wooden table.
Not that Sam was interested. He’d had his beauty once.
Brian Glory nodded slowly. "I’m ready for another." His coarse black hair looked gritty with dirt and sweat; it was exactly how Sam’s felt. Sam could hardly tell the difference between Brian’s darker complexion and the grime that covered his skin. None of them had bothered to change from the jeans and work boots they’d pulled on that morning.
"How many’ve we had?" Sam asked, signaling lethargically for the bar’s waitress. Hell, look how dirty that hand of his was. Maybe they should have taken time for a shower before heading to the first bar they’d found on the highway leading to the tornado-damaged town they’d just left.
"We haven’t had too many," Brian assured them, draining the last drop from the bottle in his work-roughened hand. His bold, confident movements attracted the attention of a woman at the next table. Sam had seen a lot of women fawn over Brian during the past three years, but Brian seemed mostly immune. Except when it came to Moira.
Not that either of them was letting on. Not to each other and not to him. Their communication, Moira’s and Brian’s, was subtle, silent, a matter of glances, of shared understanding.
"Our rooms are right next door," Moira said, still smiling at both of them, though her eyes rested longer on Brian. As they always did. "It’s not like we have to drive anywhere.…"
Damn, it felt good to be with them again. "And we’ve got some celebrating to do," Sam added. Their Peace Corps work had kept them together for months on end; it had forged an intense and unshakable bond. But they saw each other less frequently these days — mainly at disaster sites all across the country, dealing with the devastation of tornadoes and floods and hurricanes.
"How many was it today, do you figure?" Brian asked.
Sam tried to remember. "At least six." He was certain they’d personally helped rescue at least six people and gotten them to the church that had been set up to deal with medical emergencies. Also certain that all six of them had been treated and released. He’d gone back to find out before they’d left. Moira had needed to know.
"We saved at least seven today," Moira said. "There was that man trapped beneath the fallen branch. The two girls who’d been playing jacks when the tornado hit. The family in their garage. There were four of them and that makes seven."
Moira and Brian exchanged another one of those looks that excluded everyone else around them as they silently congratulated each other on a day’s work well done.
They didn’t mean to exclude him. If he had to make a guess, he’d say they didn’t even know they were doing it.
He and Cassie used to be that way. Oblivious to everyone else around them.
"Hey, what about the boy who’d been delivering newspapers?" Brian asked suddenly. "Thank goodness Moira noticed his shoe beneath that car. If he’d lain there much longer he would have bled to death."
Moira took a sip of her beer, including Sam in her glance this time. "And instead, he’s with his family and going to be just fine."
"That makes eight." Sam tallied it up, feeling even better than he’d realized. Almost good enough to call Cassie and tell her about it.
Almost, but not quite. He’d committed just about the worst sin a man could commit against his young wife. He couldn’t blame her for divorcing him. Hell, he’d practically begged her to. And someday, he was going to stop thinking about her.
God, he missed her.
And Shelter Valley…
Moira was happy when Sam signaled for another round of beers. They’d probably had enough, but like she’d said, they didn’t have far to go and they hadn’t had an ordinary day. Far from it… Besides, there was nothing she liked more than spending time with these two. She didn’t want the evening to end.
"So, everybody give a personal update," she demanded. She’d seen Brian about a month ago when she’d had to take the train down to Richmond for a nursing seminar. But they’d been surrounded by her classmates, hadn’t really had time to talk. And she hadn’t seen Sam since the flooding in the Midwest back in the spring. That was the last rescue situation all three of them had been involved in.
"One more semester and I’ll have my teaching degree," Brian said. "I can’t believe it’s really going to happen."
"You could be back overseas by this time next year." She was excited for him. Was just too tired at the moment to feel it.
"You’ll have your nursing certification before that, won’t you?" Sam asked.
Moira nodded. And she was planning to go back to underdeveloped countries, as well. There was nothing better than the soul-deep satisfaction you felt when you’d helped make someone’s life better.
"How are things with you, Sam?" she asked.
"The same." Grinning, he looked from one to the other and shrugged. "Give me any car in the country and I can fix it," he said.
"Or any floor plan and you can build it," Brian added, his lower lip pushed out, his chin puckered, as, in complete testosterone accordance, he took on his friend’s attitude. Moira’s nod of agreement was tinged with all the faux masculine camaraderie she could muster.
"Didn’t you do a stint in plumbing last winter, too?" Moira asked him. Sam wasn’t just a great-looking guy, he had a genuine charm and old-fashioned decency, qualities women inevitably responded to — although he never seemed to notice the effect he had on them.
"Yeah. That was in Kentucky," Sam said. "You can learn a lot about toilets in six months’ time."
Contemplating toilets, the three of them nursed their beers silently, until turning, she saw Brian’s gaze on her and recognized the shadows haunting his eyes — shadows created by some of the things they’d seen that day. And she saw a question there she’d never seen before. A question he shouldn’t be asking. One he didn’t really mean. He wanted something from her that would only last a moment. Something that would change everything. Ruin everything.
Something she’d hate herself for giving him.
Sam excused himself to go to the bathroom and Brian looked again, raising his brows as he silently rephrased his query.
She managed not to answer him before she saw Sam returning. Sam would put away at least another couple of beers. Give her time to gather her defenses about her. Her wits. Her strength.
Because the truth was that no matter how much of a mistake it would be to take what Brian was offering — right then, after the day they’d had, the beer she’d drunk — Moira wasn’t sure she cared.
And she had to care....
And her neck was so stiff it felt as though it might crack in two. She had to move. If she could.
So slowly the movement was barely perceptible, Moira turned her head — and almost threw up when she saw the indentation on the pillow next to hers.
What in hell had she done? Please, God, tell me I didn’t do it.
With the sharp pain pounding in her brain it was a challenge to remember her own name, let alone anything that had happened the night before, but Moira forced herself to try.
They’d been in the bar. Sam had come back from the bathroom. And she’d suddenly thought she wanted to sleep with Brian.
After three years of traveling with him, working beside him, laughing with him, her body had suddenly wanted more.
They’d had a rough day. That’s all it is, she’d told herself. Just a normal, human response to the danger and the intense emotion they’d experienced, hour after hour.
"You ever sorry you signed on for this stuff?" she’d asked the guys, trying to remind herself who they were, what they were about.
They were there because the relief organization had called them. There to help the victims of tragedy. Whatever needs the three of them might have simply didn’t matter.
"Nope," Sam had answered her with utmost certainty.
"Never." Brian’s voice had been filled with such conviction she’d been attracted to him all over again.
Which was nonsense. He’d always been completely committed to the work they did.
Starting in on another bottle of beer, she’d had to agree with them. She wasn’t sorry, either. Ever. Not even on nights like tonight when she was sore and tired and felt like crying.
And then Brian had smiled at her.
Lying in her bed now, closing her eyes with dread, afraid of what was coming, Moira slipped back to the night before.…
They’d talked about some of the other people they’d worked with that day. Some they’d worked with before. Some they hadn’t. And every time Brian spoke, looked at her, leaned toward her, she’d lost a little more control. And when he’d laughed, that deep voice rumbling…
They’d also talked about their lives when they weren’t working in disaster areas. And the more personal the conversation became, the more dangerous.
She knew Brian had no ties. No home. No family left on the Wisconsin reservation where he’d almost starved to death growing up. And she’d never had home ties herself. Growing up a professional Peace Corps brat had seen to that.
But Sam… Somehow if she could just concentrate on Sam, she’d be okay.
"You ever think about going back to Shelter Valley?" she asked him about the hometown he hardly ever mentioned. Not only did Sam seem unwilling to tell them about his home, the place he’d lived his entire life until he’d met them three years ago, he also never talked about why he’d left Shelter Valley. Why, after only one year of college at the town’s prestigious university, he’d suddenly left everything behind. And never, in spite of his obvious intelligence, had he made any effort to continue that education.
Which always made Moira wonder…
"It’s in Arizona, right?"
Moira figured their friendship owed her at least a little peek into the man Sam had been before the three of them had become like family to each other. And maybe, if she was lucky, it would prevent her from falling into something dangerous and unfamiliar sitting right there at the table with her.
"Right." Sam said, taking a long swig on his bottle. "Shelter Valley’s about an hour southeast of Phoenix. And I can tell you, there’s no better place on earth.…"
Pleased by Sam’s unusual expansiveness, Brian and Moira exchanged a glance — a glance that comforted in its very familiarity. It was the kind of look you exchanged with someone in your family. Family was good, she thought. Their odd little family was good. Everything was going to be okay.
"Sometimes," Sam said, tearing the foil label on his bottle, "especially after days like today, it almost seems as though the chains that held me there were more like candy necklaces."
As Sam ventured furthered into his own territory, past the No Trespassing signs, there was another long look between Moira and Brian, this one a little too personal.
Moira scanned the bar for a window. It was really hot. She just hadn’t noticed before.
"What kind of chains you talking about, man?" Brian asked, his words not even a little bit slurred in spite of the beer they’d consumed. She’d noticed before that whenever they shared drinks, he always remained in complete control. She admired that about him.
Sam shrugged. "Expectations, that’s what kind," he said with finality. But then he continued, his face softening. "Shelter Valley is really gorgeous, though, in a rugged sort of way." He continued to tear little strips off his label. "We’re surrounded by desert, but we have a champion golf course that’s green all year round. I grew up with Randi Parsons — heard of her? She’s the young golfer who was on her way to the LPGA championship when she was in the car wreck that ruined her career. She was already playing on the tour when we graduated from high school."
"Did you know her well?" Moira asked. Was this Randi the reason Sam had left? The reason he had no lasting interest in any woman he’d met in the past three years? Was Randi responsible for the shadows she sometimes saw in his eyes?
He shook his head. "She wasn’t around all that much. And I was already gone by the time her career ended."
"So is the weather as good as you hear it is?" Brian asked and Moira sent him a grateful glance for rescuing Sam from whatever painful memory he’d slid into.
Visibly shaking himself, Sam grinned. "Better. Sun shines every day, the purest, bluest skies, 60-degree temperatures in the dead of winter."
"Sounds like paradise," Moira sighed. Brian’s brown hand was close to hers on the table and for a second there, she actually thought about touching him.
"Can be," Sam said, gazing off into space. "It’s the people that really make the place though, you know? They’re great folks. Reliable. Honest. Hardworking."
More than ever, Moira wanted to ask Sam why he’d left. To know. To understand. To help if she could. But a quick glance from Brian told her now wasn’t the time.
"There’s a lot of Indian heritage there, did I ever tell you that?" Sam asked Brian.
"I’ll tell you one thing," Sam said, his gaze focused back on the two of them, "there’re no tornadoes there."
"No tornadoes," Brian said, raising his beer bottle. Sam raised his, too, label shavings falling into his lap. Moira raised her own bottle to join them, but her hand turned at the last moment, her fingers brushing against Brian’s.
Strange charges shot through her, intimate energy that would’ve horrified her if she’d been sober enough to figure out why.
But no amount of sobriety was going to explain the odd look in Brian’s eyes, the look that passed between them even before she’d consumed more beer than she’d had in a year. At five foot four with her dark hair and blue eyes, she’d had her share of admirers. She recognized the look.
She just couldn’t figure out why now, after all these years, she was getting it from Brian. Or why, for that matter, she wasn’t looking away.…
"Ohhh," Moira groaned, lying in bed, feeling sick and trying to ignore the bright morning sun that slashed through the thin curtains. The memory unrolled relentlessly in her head. Unable to halt it, she arrived at the part she’d hoped wasn’t real. But it was; she knew that. It had happened. Hand over her eyes, she lay there, reliving the way she and Brian had walked a barely-able-to-stand Sam to his door; reliving the shaky, anticipatory moment that she’d spent waiting outside while Brian led Sam to bed. Wondering if she was really going to sleep with him.
In the end, Brian hadn’t even asked if he could come into her room. He’d just followed her inside and onto the cheap double mattress in the nondescript motel room — almost as if they’d done this before.…
In the end, she hadn’t had a decision to make. She hadn’t had the energy or the will to stop Brian when he’d so tenderly undressed her, touched her softness with those work-roughened hands, when he’d begged her to allow him to lose himself. To lose, within her beauty, the too-recent memories torturing them.
She’d been too tired, and perhaps too inebriated, to count. To think. To remember that this was her most fertile time of the month. To ask Brian if he carried condoms in his wallet. To ask him if he even had a wallet.
And too tortured by the day’s tragedies, the lives cut so suddenly and unexpectedly short, to believe in any kind of future beyond the moment.
He’d been an incredible lover. Bringing her so much more than forgetfulness. She’d not only escaped that day and those memories, she’d escaped life as she’d always known it. She’d traveled to a place with Brian where only good feelings reigned. Where sensation — and fulfillment — were all that mattered.
And then, sometime during the night, he’d left her. He must have returned to his own room. Returned to normal, to the way they’d always been. Friends. Buddies. Not lovers.
For a very short time, they’d made magic.
Brushing her hand across her belly, Moira felt the tears slip slowly down her cheek as she fervently hoped they hadn’t made anything more than that.
And he’d never take for granted the sense of satisfied fullness in his gut. Clicking off the news, which had been keeping him company from the little TV set on the opposite end of his kitchen table, he pushed away the empty cartons and pulled his books back in front of him.
The Psychology of Teaching
might not be thriller material. Might not even be entertaining. But it was life-changing. It was changing his life.This semester of classes, then student teaching next semester, and he’d be done. The degree would be his, the assurance that he’d never be helpless again.
And then he was going back overseas, to teach children who had such little hope, so few chances. Children who reminded Brian of himself as a boy. If not for the scholarship he’d managed to get from the American government, available because he was Native American, he’d still be fighting his way out.
Having lived with the squalor of poverty and the squandering of hope that pervaded the tiny group of Chippewa Indians he’d been born to, he would never be satisfied to simply have a house in the suburbs and teach in a middle-class school the way most of his classmates intended to. He was too aware of the suffering of innocent children who weren’t lucky enough to be born in those suburbs. Children who, like himself, were eager to learn, but didn’t have the privilege of an organized school — or anyone who thought there was any point in educating them.
Children who had it worse than he ever did.
He hoped someday to go back to the reservation, but he wasn’t ready. Not yet…
They were mostly a beaten people, his people. After more than a century of conditioning, it was all they knew how to be. He was afraid they were going to hunt and fish and have their ceremonies and die of disease until the last one of them was gone. His parents had been born, raised, and buried there; they’d both died young and despairing. Brian couldn’t go back until he felt certain the same thing wouldn’t happen to him.
He hadn’t read a single word of tonight’s assignment, yet when there was a knock at his door, he got up to answer it.
"Moira!" The food seemed to lie heavily in his stomach when he saw her. It wasn’t unheard of for her to come to see him. Since he was in Richmond, Virginia, and she lived in Wilmington, Delaware, they were only an hour apart by train. Ordinarily, the surprise visits pleased him. With his parents gone and no siblings, Moira and Sam were the two people closest to him on earth.
And to a man without a family, that closeness was important.
But he’d screwed up where Moira was concerned. He’d used her, betrayed her. It wasn’t something he could just take back. And an apology would never be enough to make that betrayal disappear.
God knows, in the month since the Ohio tornado, he’d tried his damndest to figure out a way to fix what was wrong between them.
"Can I come in?" she asked, lacking her usual confidence as she stood outside his door.
"Of course."
Yep. He’d screwed up bad. She was avoiding his eyes. Possibly hated him now.
But probably not as much as he hated himself for taking advantage of her so selfishly that night in Ohio. He was her buddy. Her friend. Her confidant and mentor. He wasn’t supposed to be one of the bastards she had to watch out for. He was supposed to watch out for her.
"Heard from Sam?" she asked him, munching on the apple.
Sam was working his way down the Mississippi.
"Not in the last couple of weeks," Brian told her, watching her through narrowed eyes. "He signed on for the rest of the fall with a road crew in Illinois."
Apple juice ran down her chin. Damned if he didn’t have the urge to lick it off.
What the hell was the matter with him? He was already scum for crossing their boundaries, but he hoped that his being drunk that night could afford him some measure of absolution.
Wanting her like this, while he was stone-cold sober, was insanity. Criminal. And completely out of character. He knew better than to look at Moira that way. She was family.
Even if she did have a damn fine body. A finer body then he’d ever allowed himself to imagine.
And the way she —
"I thought about calling Shelter Valley Information for Montford listings." She shrugged. "You know — to find out who his people are. See if we can learn why things ended so badly.…"
That got his full attention. "Please don’t," he said.
"Do you think he’ll tell us in his own time, then?" Moira asked.
Brian nodded. "It would be grossly unfair to him to stir up things behind his back, especially when we have no idea what we’d be stirring up."
"He’s a big boy and he can take care of himself. That’s what you’re saying."
"Yep."
"But don’t you want to call, anyway?" she asked him. "Don’t you want to know? To help if we can?"
"I think that regardless of what drove him away, he has to be ready to go back — and he has to make that decision himself."
"You think he will go home?" Moira met his eyes, but only briefly. Not like she had that night in Ohio when they’d shared this same kind of concern about their friend.
"I’m not sure," Brian told her honestly. Just as he wasn’t absolutely sure he’d return to the reservation someday.
God, he wished he could undo what he’d done. Wished she’d look at him. Be his friend again.
"So, how’s school?" Moira asked, taking another big bite of the apple.
He’d never noticed how white her teeth were. Or how her slim fingers looked so strong and so fragile all at once.
He wasn’t supposed to notice that she was a woman.
"School’s good," he told her. "The load’s not quite as heavy this year. Three classes now, student teaching in the spring and after that, I’m out of here."
"That 4.0 at graduation’s a pretty sure thing, then."
He wished he hadn’t told her about his grade point average. She never let go of it.
She still wasn’t meeting his eyes.
He should say something.
And he would. Whenever he figured out what that could possibly be.
Finished with the apple, Moira tossed the core toward the trash can over by the back door.
And got it in, too.
Brian started to get really nervous. Had no idea what to do with her. What to say. How to bring things back to the way they’d always been. He couldn’t afford to lose her. He needed her too badly.
Had he ever told her that? Told either her or Sam?
Or did they just know? Maybe their needing each other was something they all felt but didn’t talk about. Like those mental images that remained after a particularly grueling rescue mission.
Some things there was just no getting away from.
"You want to see a movie?" he asked her, flicking his pencil against the pages of the psychology text.
"I’m pregnant."
Breathing stopped, Brian stared at her. She looked…normal. Even a little bored.
"What?"
He’d misunderstood, of course. Thank God.
He still couldn’t breathe.
"I’m pregnant."
"I…um…" Where were his words, dammit?
"You don’t need to worry about anything. I’ll handle it all. I just thought I had to tell you — that it was the decent thing to do."
She was making no sense to him. A stranger must have invaded her body, a stranger pretending to be Moira.
"You’re pregnant?" he asked, just to make certain he was getting it.
This couldn’t be Moira. She had no intention of having kids. At least not anytime soon. Once she got her nursing degree, she was planning to return overseas. A working professional in downtrodden countries that needed her.
She’d be doing what her parents had done. Were still doing.
"I ran a test at the lab at school," the woman posing as Moira told him. "It was positive."
If his chest got any tighter, he was going to suffocate.
"And you felt you had to come and tell me."
"Of course."
Of course. In a cold sweat, Brian wished he’d wake from this nightmare. Surely he hadn’t done this to her. Surely he hadn’t messed up all her plans with his one hour of reckless selfishness.
No. He’d never do that to her. He cared for her too much ever to hurt her that way.
He couldn’t be responsible. He’d only been with her once. For an hour. Maybe. He had thought he’d been too drunk to do anything earth-shattering, to leave her with anything more lasting then a hazy memory. Maybe.
Moira, finally meeting his gaze, had confirmation written all over her. But there had to be some other explanation. Something else she wanted from him. Someone else responsible.
Brian opened his mouth, intending to say whatever was necessary to help her. To make everything right.
But the words that came out were, "It can’t possibly be mine."
Moira, pick up, dammit.…"
"It’s been three damn days, Moira, you have to be getting these messages.…"
"Call me."
Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have walked out on Brian the other evening at his apartment. Especially since he’d followed her all the way to the train station, asking her not to go.
But she wasn’t going to speak to him.
She had enough problems without Brian’s insults.
She never would have gone to him if she hadn’t been certain he was her baby’s father. She’d believed he knew her well enough to understand that.
Apparently he didn’t. So, forget him.
For once she wished she had a class. Anything to take her mind off the changes that were happening in her life whether she said they could or not.
But it was Saturday and her nursing school didn’t have classes on Saturday. The most recent calls had come in from Brian that morning while she’d been at the gym, walking off her frustrations on the treadmill. And then, later, when she’d been at the grocery store. And the last one, an hour ago when she’d stood right there listening to him and not picking up.
Which meant he probably wouldn’t call again until tomorrow. She could safely answer her phone for the rest of the day.
Sitting on the side of the road eating a stale sandwich he’d made before the sun had risen that morning, Sam enjoyed a few moments of peaceful contemplation before getting back to the business of road building. The rest of the guys were all gathered around the back of one dude’s pickup truck, telling dirty jokes. Every once in a while, Sam’s peace was interrupted by bouts of raucous laughter.
The last time he’d laughed like that had been with Moira and Brian that night in Ohio. Feeling an odd urge to connect with them, he went back to his truck for his cell phone, punching in Brian’s preprogrammed number first; when he got an answering machine, he pushed the number that would connect him to Moira.
"Hello?"
She sounded tired. Was probably studying too hard.
"Hey there, gorgeous, how you doing?" he asked, grinning suddenly. He was a damn lucky man to have friends who could make him feel better simply by existing, by being who they were.
"Good. I know I should be studying, but I don’t really want to."
"It’s Saturday." He leaned back against his truck. "Time to play."
"And are you playing, Sam?" she asked him.
Okay, she had him there. Still… "I play every evening when I get off work. You don’t. You study."
"I haven’t come this far not to succeed."
"I know. I’m proud of you."
"Thanks."
What, no sassy comeback? No teasing him for being mushy?
"You sure you’re okay?" he asked, frowning. At times like this, it was damn frustrating being so far away.
"Yeah. Fine. Why?"
She didn’t sound fine at all. Did Brian know?
"Have you heard from Brian lately?" he asked. He was going to try calling his friend again, as soon as he hung up. Brian lived closer to Moira. He could get to her tonight if she needed someone.
"Just this morning," she told him.
Oh. Good.
"I took the train down to see him last week."
Brian must know, then, if anything was seriously wrong.
"How’s he doing?"
"Great. Studying hard. Still has his 4.0."
"Yeah," Sam said, nodding. "No one appreciates getting an education more than Brian does.…"
He kept Moira on the phone as long as he could without making her think there was something wrong with him. And then he called and left a message for Brian.
Just in case.
After a nap, Moira left her little one-room apartment, intending to head downtown to the soup kitchen she often volunteered at to see if they needed any help this balmy fall afternoon. She was thinking about Sam’s call, glad she’d talked to him. The day seemed a bit more manageable now.
"You’re not going to walk fast enough to get away from me, so you might as well not even try."
Damn. She hadn’t seen him coming.
"Hello, Brian," she said, walking faster anyway.
"That’s it? Three days of ignoring my calls and all I get is hello?"
"You can’t possibly be the father of my baby," she told him, staring at the sidewalk as she passed the stop where she would have caught the bus. "So I can’t possibly figure out why we have anything further to talk about."
"I’d like to apologize, for one."
"For not being the father of my baby? Or for sleeping with me in the first place?"
She hated the sarcasm. It wasn’t like her. Not with him.
She’d known that night was going to ruin things.
"No — for saying what I did the other day. I still can’t believe you’re pregnant, but I have no doubt about my part in the whole thing."
She stumbled, but kept up her brisk pace. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? His acknowledgement. And that was all she wanted, she told herself again.
She could handle this. She could handle anything. She always had. Hell, she was the one who, at 10 years old, had helped her mother sew up war-torn soldiers in a war that wasn’t a war in a little country whose name she couldn’t pronounce. A little country that was flourishing today.
"Apology accepted," she finally told him, looking up, looking ahead. Still not able to look at him. She saw him differently now that she knew what he was like without clothes on.
"Are we going anyplace in particular?" Hands in the pockets of his jeans, he kept pace with her easily.
"Not anymore."
"Mind if we find someplace to sit down and talk about this, then?"
Moira shrugged, turning up a side street that would take them to a little neighborhood park. One with only a couple of swings and a sandbox, but lots of trees and some benches.
"I don’t know what we have to talk about, but we can sit if you’re tired."
What was the matter with her? She wasn’t a waspish sort of woman. Yet, she couldn’t give it up, couldn’t find her way with him.
This is Brian,
she reminded herself. But it didn’t feel like Brian.It felt too much like someone she’d made love with. Someone her body wanted to make love with again.…
When Moira and Brian reached the deserted little park near her apartment, Brian took Moira’s hand, pulling her over to the bench farthest away from the sidewalk.
Because she couldn’t accept the contact without reacting to him, Moira yanked her hand back a little more roughly than she’d intended. And sat far enough away that her hip was in no danger of bumping into his.
"So," he said, glancing sideways at her. "What are we going to do?" His arm was along the back of the bench behind her. Through her peripheral vision, she could see him just over her right shoulder.
More than that, she could feel him there.
"Do?" she asked him, concentrating on the issue at hand. The only issue that mattered. "What do you mean, do?"
"You’re having a baby, Moira. We have to make plans."
Those three days of thinking had obviously helped him come to terms with some of the facts. But not all of them, and not the right ones.
"We don’t have to do anything," she assured him confidently. "I’ll make the necessary plans."
She didn’t want him involved in this. It would be too hard. Too complicated.
"I’m just as responsible as you are," he said. "Probably more so."
He could have sounded happier about that. But she understood.
"We’re both consenting adults, Brian. I’ll admit to not being as clearheaded as I might have liked that night, but I don’t remember any forcing going on."
"I don’t remember pulling the condom out of my wallet, either," he told her. "And I’m betting that’s not something you could have done even if you’d thought of it."
"No." She frowned, not at all sure what the point of this was. "You’re right about that."
"So, we’ve got plans to make."
Still frowning, Moira shook her head. "No, we don’t," she insisted. "Your condoms, or lack of them, may have contributed to this situation, but from here on out, it’s all mine."
"I can’t accept that."
"You don’t have any other choice."
Somehow, his hand had found its way to her shoulder. He was rubbing her gently, back and forth, the light touch of his fingers sending chills of awareness spiraling down her body.
"Of course I have choices, Moira," he said. "And this is what I’ve chosen — to be a father to my child." Brian’s voice never got louder, but it had a way of sounding so firm. "The baby’s as much mine as yours."
His words brought to mind a sudden vision of her child, his skin darker than hers because of his Indian heritage. His hair black and full. Like his father’s.
The picture made her go mouth dry.
"No." She shook her head. Tried to ignore the touch of his fingers. "You don’t have room in your life for a baby, Brian."
"And you do?" The fingers grew bolder, sliding down her arm, touching her side.
"That’s different. The baby’s part of me." She was finding it hard to think, although she knew she had to. She had to convince him. "But you don’t need to worry about us. Besides, it would kill you to be trapped here raising a child rather than over in some foreign country saving other children."
"So I’m supposed to abandon my own kid to go help someone else’s?"
His hand stopped moving, resting against her side. She knew she should get up, escape his touch, his presence. Leave. But it was more important to make him understand.
"My baby will have everything it needs, Brian; those children do not. And helping them is far more than what you do. It’s who you are. We both know that."
"Maybe, but I’m still not going to —"
"Brian," she interrupted him, placing her hand on his knee to get his complete attention as she turned to look him in the eye. "We can’t do this together."
He frowned, his fingers once more journeying up and down her body. "Why not? Isn’t that how it’s usually done?"
"Maybe, but nothing about us, about the way we live our lives, is usual — is it?" she asked him. When he didn’t answer, she continued. "Two people being together for the sake of a child never works."
"We seemed to do just fine last month in Ohio." His voice had dropped, growing husky.
"Yes, well…" Moira licked her lips. "That was just because we were drunk."
"Was it?" he asked, his dark eyes boring into hers, saying things again. The same things that had gotten her into so much trouble the last time she’d seen them.
She tried to look away. Might have managed it if she hadn’t been afraid he’d know exactly why she’d done so. "Yes." She forced as much bravado into her voice as she could. "It was."
"I’m not so sure…" His voice trailed off to a whisper as his head lowered, blocking out the afternoon sunshine.
She couldn’t let him kiss her. She couldn’t let him.…
Brian’s lips were soft — solid — dangerously exciting as they met hers, covering her mouth, taking and giving and coaxing all at once. His kiss was as powerful as she remembered it. And much more, besides. He was as giving with his kisses as he was with his life. Serving. Always serving.
"I think we’re still doing pretty well," he said softly, breaking away from her lips only long enough to kiss her forehead, the tip of her nose, her chin, before taking her mouth again.
"Mmm." Moira’s protest didn’t come out right. Didn’t really come out at all. Brian’s hand had grown bolder, brushing against the side of her breast, then covering it.
"Oh, God," he said raggedly against her lips. "Can we go back to your place now?"
"No." Breathing heavily, Moira leaned her forehead against his, aiming for strength — until her eyes met his. There was such vulnerability there, such raw need — a need that matched the ache deep inside her. "Yes."
She took his hand and led him across the park, to the nearly hidden sidewalk that cut through the next neighborhood to her street.
They didn’t speak, but she knew what they were going to do.
Just as she knew they were only making matters worse.
"How can anything that feels this good be bad?" Brian whispered to Moira, his eyes taking in her creamy white beauty in the late-afternoon light shining through her apartment window.
"Because it makes everything too complicated."
He didn’t want her words to make sense. Didn’t want her to know that the thought of settling down in the suburbs made him feel trapped.
But he knew she did. After all the nights he and Sam and she had sat up late, winding down from whatever crisis they’d helped people through on any given day during their years in the Peace Corps, she knew him almost as well as he knew himself. Sometimes better, because she could be objective when he couldn’t.
"Things don’t have to be complicated," he said to her now, but he didn’t believe it. He wanted to, though.
He should be satiated from their lovemaking, ready to move on, as he always was afterward. But sex had never been like it was with Moira. He couldn’t figure out if that was because he knew her so well. Or if there was more to it than that. Cupping her breast with his hand, he lay beside her on the pull-out divan in the living room portion of her apartment. Maybe he could distract her again. It had worked for him twice now.
"Have you ever once, in the three years we’ve known each other, thought of me in a romantic way?" she asked
He knew his silence was telling. But so was the fact that she didn’t push his hand away.
Moira was as unselfconscious in her nakedness as he was. He’d never met a woman like her.
"I’ve never thought of you that way before, either," she continued slowly. "Which tells us something. Goals aside, we’re friends, far more than we are anything else."
So why was his hand splayed across her breast? Why were her nipples so taut? And his body begging to make love again?
"Think for a minute about calling Sam," Moira said. "We’re friends, the three of us and —"
Brian abruptly let her go, swinging his feet to the floor, reaching for the jeans that were wadded up, one leg inside out, on the floor.
If Sam knew what he’d done, he’d kill Brian. And Brian couldn’t blame him.
"He’d think we were crazy."
Thinking about Sam, Brian’s heart was burdened with the knowledge of what he must do, what he’d expect Sam to do if the situation were reversed.
"We have to get married."
As proposals went, it probably wasn’t the best. But it was the best he could do. It might not be pretty, but at least it was the right thing.
"No, Brian, we aren’t getting married," Moira said. She crossed the room, reaching in the closet for a white terry-cloth robe. Watching her move made him hungry all over again.
What the hell was the matter with him? Or with her? What had she done to him?
She joined him on the edge of the bed, taking his hand in hers. "Haven’t you been listening to a thing I’ve said?" she asked softly.
"Of course I have," Brian told her, standing, releasing her hand. Moving over to look out the window to the street below. Moira’s apartment was on the second floor. He’d hoped that meant he’d be able to see for some distance — hoped to dispel the claustrophobia he suddenly felt.
"But this is about right and wrong, Moira. We’ve created a baby and now we have to give him the best life we possibly can."
"I intend to."
"A child needs two parents."
"But they don’t have to be her biological parents," she said. "There are other ways of providing a male role model.…"
He swung around to face her. "Do you have someone waiting around to play the daddy role?" he asked her. He’d never even considered that she might be serious about someone else. She hadn’t intimated anything of the sort in the past months, and they stayed in fairly regular contact.
Hell, had he impregnated another man’s woman?
Who was he, this other man? He’d have to be pretty damn perfect to be good enough for Moira. Brian couldn’t imagine such a man.
"No, there’s no one else, but that doesn’t mean I won’t meet someone," she finally said, a little defensively. "But like I said, I don’t have to be married for her to have a father figure. There’re all kinds of programs now that provide kids with the necessary role models."
"That’s not the same as having someone to call your own, someone you can count on for security, for unconditional love."
"She’ll have that from me."
Why had he never noticed how pigheaded Moira could be? Couldn’t she see this was hard enough without making him beg?
"What if she turns out to be a he?" he said.
"Then I’ll love him unconditionally."
Brian felt the muscles in his jaw clench, in spite of his conscious attempt to relax them. "We’re getting married."
"You can get married if you’re so set on it, Brian, but I’m not going to."
"Why not?"
"Because you don’t want to."
Okay, so maybe she did know how hard this was for him.
"Yes, I do." It wasn’t a lie. The part of him that had to do with honor and decency and meeting your obligations did want to marry her.
"No, you don’t, Brian. You’ve been trapped your whole life. You need your freedom to do all the things you’ve set out to do almost as much as you need the air you breathe."
So what? He’d change if he had to.
"And believe it or not, I don’t want to get married, either," she said. "I’m not ready to have half of my decisions made for me, to have to compromise all the time. But there’s another, much more important reason. My parents might have been a bit untraditional, but they taught me one thing that will ensure my happiness in this life. I’m not getting married until I’m crazy in love."
She meant it.
And, God help him, Brian was relieved.
But only for a moment. Until he realized that if he didn’t marry Moira, he was going to lose the two best friends he’d ever had.
After what he and Moira had done, there was no going back.
The hurricane was a bad one. Moira didn't hesitate when she got a phone call asking her to fly down to the little North Carolina coastal town. Everyone who'd worked the Ohio tornado got the call. And all but two were able to make the trip.
She and Sam and Brian worked side by side, falling into a rhythm as they always did when coping with disasters, with other people's tragedies. It was the first time she'd seen Brian since he'd left her apartment so abruptly the month before.
The three of them were mainly cleanup and salvage crew on this trip. But as they fought the debris, they were also on a constant look-out for victims-those who were hurt or trapped or missing. Occasionally they had to stop what they were doing in order to get the injured the medical attention they needed. So far, there'd been no fatalities.
"There are enough people here," Sam said, coming over to where Moira was salvaging as much personal stuff as she could from the floor of a flooded home. Brian and Sam were helping with some of the heavier articles. "Let's move on down the street. I just heard some guys say they didn't check that last house on the block because the family's supposed to be out of town. But there's a car in the backyard. I think we should take a look."
"Sure," Moira agreed, wiping the sweat off her face with the sleeve of her gray oxford shirt. Her jeans - thank goodness she still fit into them - were already filthy and ripped at the knee. "Let me just take these things outside."
They'd already cleared a place on the back lawn for storing everything that might still be usable and laid down a tarp; a second tarp would eventually cover it all, until the family could return to claim their possessions. There were enough townspeople still around to ensure that most of the salvaged belongings would be safe from pillage. By the time Moira had found space on the already full tarp for the pictures she'd been collecting, Brian and Sam had come to join her.
"How you doing?" Brian asked softly as they climbed over a tree on their way up the street.
"Fine."
The house, when they reached it, was worse off than they'd thought. The side they'd seen standing was the best part. Inside, there was splintered wood, debris of various types, broken furniture, some of it beyond repair.
On top of a pile of stuffing from the ripped sofa, Moira saw a ceramic kitchen magnet, still in one piece, that said "Friends are forever." There had to be some significance in the magnet's survival. There just had to be.
Making sure the guys weren't looking, Moira picked up the magnet and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. If the owner of this house was still alive, Moira was going to make sure he or she got that magnet. It suddenly seemed desperately important to do so.
Sam came around a corner, moving carefully past a buckled wall. "No one's back there," he reported, relief in his voice. "Where's Brian?"
"Here." The word was choked.
Panic knotting her stomach, Moira stepped over and around debris, heading through an empty door frame - with only one wall still partially attached - toward the sound of Brian's voice. Was he in a closet?
It was a bathroom. Brian was cautiously lifting smaller pieces of wet debris from a ceiling beam that was lodged in place by the uprooted and crazily tilted toilet.
"I can't get close enough yet," he said, his voice thick with emotion and strained with effort as he worked. "But I think they're both still alive."
They?
"Who -?" Sam's question broke off.
And Moira saw what he'd seen. Trapped beneath the ceiling beam were two people. If she and Sam and Brian hadn't been trained to notice details - the barely visible shoe, the telltale bit of material - they'd never have found them.
Coming farther into the room, sloshing through cold water on the floor, Moira peered behind the toilet and saw the two faces. A very pretty blond woman and, trapped beneath her, a little blond boy who looked about seven or eight. Mother and child.
"I think they're breathing," Brian said, glancing over his shoulder at his two companions while he worked.
Moira and Sam joined in immediately, Moira blocking out all thoughts as she automatically went through the rescue procedures. She wasn't going to think about that woman over there. Nor about the child. She couldn't afford to. One small action at a time - that was the only way to cope.
She was going to think about this splintered two-by-four. That piece of plaster. And the soaking wet towel. The three of them worked quickly and efficiently, throwing debris into one pile, obviously salvageable personal items into another, as they carefully unburied the mother and child.
God, please let them be okay.
Moira saw Brian eyeing the toilet as they drew closer, wondering how much more they could take off the pile without upsetting the precarious balance. An ordinary porcelain toilet - an everyday fixture - had suddenly become lethal and was hovering above the child's head.
"We're going to have to pull it backward, off the beam," Sam said, also assessing the challenge before them while still clearing away the smaller stuff. "It's uphill, and we'll have to yank the pipes out while we do it, but with a rope attached and both of us pulling, we can manage."
Brian gingerly tossed a big chunk of mirror onto the debris pile growing behind them. "You don't think the beam will fall on them when we do that?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't know for sure, but it seems to be the only chance we've got. If it does fall, looks like that cross beam might take the brunt of it."
If it didn't catch the little boy in the chest.
"I can sit on this end of the beam," Moira said.
The two men nodded and when, a short time later, they were close enough to the toilet to tie the rope around it, Moira moved to her position at the end of the beam.
Please, God, don't let them regain consciousness right now. Don't let them be afraid, or try to move at the wrong moment.
It took only a few minutes for the men to start shifting the toilet. The plumbing was firmly attached, but Sam and Brian didn't allow that to stop them.
"Go," Sam said. "Again!"
They pulled together, two pairs of biceps bulging, sweat dripping down their faces and across their grimy work shirts.
The toilet gave way so suddenly both men went reeling backward.
And the beam Moira was sitting on sprang up, knocking her over before it crashed down on both of her legs.
"Moira!"
She heard Brian perfectly well, was a little bemused by the worry in his voice. And too winded to get a word out when she tried to speak. She did, however, get a mouthful of the insulation that was cushioning her.
"Stay with them, Brian! I'm going for help!" Sam's voice was already in the other part of the house. She could hear his work boots crunching through the debris.
"Oh, God, if anything happened…" Brian's voice was a lot closer. And filled with anguish.
"Nothing happened." Moira managed the words while spitting out the insulation. "I'm fine."
She could feel the pain in her right calf — and, fortunately, the lack of pain in her left one, except where it was lying on part of a splintered cupboard door. There was no numbness. No shock. She might need stitches. But nothing was broken.
"Just keep still," Brian demanded. "Don't move, even after I get you free. Don't move until you've been checked over, until we know you're all right."
"I'm fine," she muttered again, trying not to make too much of his agitation on her behalf. He was her friend. Sam would have been just as upset — had been as he'd hurried away for help. "Get to them, Brian. Their situation is a lot more serious than mine."
He continued to pull slowly on the beam trapping her. "There's nothing I can do for them until Sam brings back some medical help. I'm not moving them."
"Then get me free so I can help them."
The beam was lifted off her legs, and Moira inspected her right calf, tying a makeshift bandage — ripped from the bottom of her shirt, which had been tucked into her jeans and was still relatively clean — around the gash. Then she carefully got to her feet.
"Sit still," Brian ordered, studying her intently.
"You have to raise her, Brian," Moira said. The children always came first. "I can't check the little boy with her on top of him." Any other time, she knew, Brian would already have done so. He was really shaken up.
And it was then, in the midst of this tragedy, while Brian lifted an unconscious mother away from her little son, when existence had been reduced to the mere facts of life and death, that Moira finally faced the truth she'd been avoiding. A truth she'd done her damndest not to see…
She was in love with Brian Glory.
He gently took the woman in his arms. After a quick inspection, Moira was fairly certain she didn't have any neck or spinal injury.
"Her pulse is steady."
Brian's eyes were already assessing the young boy, still lying in a puddle of toilet water, before he'd even set the woman down, clearing a space for her by the tiny pile of salvageable debris.
Moira leaned over the boy, reaching for his wrist at the same time she lowered her face to his mouth. His breathing was faint. But his pulse beat strongly.
"He's very much alive," she announced. "His pulse is good. And he's warm. I don't think there's been much blood loss."
Brian knelt beside her, his eyes filled with the same relief Moira was feeling. He knew better than to touch the boy, but he hovered alertly, ready for instant action if he was needed.
"The toilet trapped her, but I think it protected her, too," Brian said. "And her body probably shielded him from any real damage."
Just as hers was shielding their baby. He didn't say the words, but she read them in his eyes.
Tears rolled slowly down Moira's cheeks. "Thank you, God," she whispered, running her hand lightly across the boy's forehead.
Brian's hand covered hers, his eyes brimming with the emotion he couldn't let out.
"Uhmmm." The moan came from behind them and Moira sprang into action, kneeling by the woman's side as she regained consciousness.
"My head hurts."
Checking the woman's pupils, relieved to see them dilating properly, Moira took the woman's hand in hers. "I'm sure it does," she said softly. "But I think you're going to be okay.…"
The woman frowned suddenly, her eyes wide-open, filled with alarm. "Christian!" she cried, sitting straight up. "Where's Christian?"
"Mommy?" The little boy's voice was weak, but the sweetest thing Moira had ever heard.
There was commotion everywhere just then, as Sam arrived with medical assistance and a team of cleanup people. Jenny and Christian Moore were carried out on stretchers, but both were talking normally, telling what they remembered about their ordeal to the emergency personnel who were working on them.
Jenny turned her head as her stretcher moved away, her eyes filling with tears as they locked on Moira.
"Thank you," she said with quiet dignity. "Thank you for saving my son…"
Brian stood on one side of Moira, Sam on the other. Both of them slung an arm across her shoulders as she grinned through her tears.
One more win for the good guys, Moira thought. They'd defeated death one more time.
"You're sure you're okay?" Brian asked her, glancing down to where she'd torn the bottom off her shirt. Glancing at the stomach that was already starting to swell.
Moira nodded. "Fine."
"Thank God," he whispered.
Much later that evening, Sam sat with Brian and Moira at a scarred wooden table, in a bar like many of the others they'd frequented over the years. He was grimy and tired, but feeling pretty damn good as he watched his friends sipping soda and downed the beer he'd been craving for hours.
"Okay, so what gives?" Sam asked, looking from one to the other. He'd raised his eyebrows when Moira had ordered soda. He'd frowned when Brian had.
"I'm just too thirsty for beer," Moira said, using her straw to play with the ice in her glass.
Sam looked over at Brian. He wanted answers.
"Moira's pregnant," Brian said baldly.
Sam's gaze flew to Moira's face, to her belly, and back up again. "You are?" He couldn't believe it. Moira didn't want kids. At least not anytime soon. What bastard had done this to her? And where was he now?
She nodded self-consciously.
Sam stared at her, wondering how to help. Where was justice when you needed it? He had a sudden flashback to Shelter Valley, to Randi Parsons's oldest brother, Will, and his wife, Becca. They were two of the finest people Sam had ever known, and he'd always believed they'd make wonderful parents. Warm. Giving. Financially solvent. They'd tried for 10 years to have a baby and had experienced one disappointment after another. And here was someone who didn't even want children, suddenly facing a life so drastically different from the one she'd planned.
"Are congratulations in order?" Sam asked, still staring at Moira. "I mean, are you okay with this?"
He knew she wasn't.
And what did Brian think? He'd been surprisingly quiet.
Oh, shit. Sam looked over at his friend as it suddenly dawned on him how hard this had to be for Brian. Hell, the man had been in love with Moira for years.
Moira shrugged, a strange little smile stealing across her face. "I love the baby already," she said, her eyes meeting Brian's very briefly before settling on Sam's. "I'm due at the beginning of next summer."
"So you're getting married?"
"No."
Sam frowned again. "You're not planning to do this on your own, are you?"
"You find something wrong with that?" she asked, her chin jutting out.
"Well, yes, frankly —"
"Then you don't know me as well as I thought you did," Moira interrupted him. "I can handle this just fine."
Sam looked over at Brian.
Swallowing hard, Brian withstood his friend's stare. He'd understand if Sam hated him for what he'd done. He knew he deserved the other man's scorn. He'd take what he had coming.
Somehow, he was going to make this right. Somehow, he'd convince Moira that even if she wasn't crazy in love, he was the right man for her. He'd convince both her and Sam of that. And then he'd convince himself.
He'd been trying for the past month to figure out how he could tend to the needs of the driven, starving child inside him, and to those of Moira and his child, too. He hadn't found an answer.
But she could have died in that bathroom today. His baby could have died. Nothing else mattered.
"What do you think of all this?" Sam asked Brian. "Think we should go get this bastard and show him what happens to men who act like boys?"
Brian blinked. Sam hadn't figured it out yet…
Because Brian hadn't told him; for the past month, he'd been so consumed by the fact of Moira's pregnancy, he'd automatically assumed Sam knew about it, too.
Moira hadn't told him, either. He glanced across at her, meeting her gaze. She was protecting him. And telling him he'd be a fool not to take her up on her offer. She was giving him the chance to salvage his relationship with Sam.
"You won't have to go far," Brian said distinctly, still staring at Moira. "He's sitting right here at this table."
He could feel Sam's sharp look. Saw him gaze at Brian's soda, over at Moira's, and then replay in his mind what they'd just told him.
"I intend to marry her," Brian said, before Sam could even begin with all the accusations he knew were coming. Accusations he knew were warranted. "She just hasn't agreed yet."
"It's a crazy idea," Moira said, her expression begging Sam for support on this. "Just because we got carried away once, made one mistake, doesn't change who we are and what we need out of life. It's not a basis for marriage."
"No, it isn't," Sam said slowly, looking from one to the other. "A pregnancy isn't necessarily a good reason to get married. But there is a solid basis for a marriage here."
"What?" Moira and Brian asked in unison.
Sam sat back, both hands behind his head. "For two of the smartest people I've ever met, you two are really dense, you know that?"
He was dense, Brian acknowledged. And that was just the beginning of it. He —
"Listen, Glory…" But instead of the tongue-lashing Brian had expected, he heard Sam say something that shocked him. "It's been obvious since before we came back to the States that you two were meant for each other."
Moira and Brian both stared at him. Brian figured he was supposed to respond, but his mouth was too dry. His mind blank.
"What?" Sam asked, grinning. "You trying to tell me you don't know how much you love each other?"
"No, we don't," Moira said quickly. Too quickly.
"We do?" Brian asked. Did that explain it, then? This obsession he had to be near her? His panic at the thought of losing her?
"Of course you are. I wondered if you were sleeping together while we were overseas, but then, when we got home and you moved to two separate towns…"
"I never slept with Moira while we were in the Peace Corps," Brian felt compelled to assure his friend. No, that hadn't happened until that night in Ohio, two months ago. With Sam in the very next room.
"We aren't in love," Moira said, suddenly. Her voice sounded completely certain. But she was still fidgeting with her straw, not meeting their eyes.
"I am," Brian admitted, sure of it now that he actually had an explanation for his strange reactions over the past months. He'd been so busy being Moira's loyal friend, not wanting to split up the threesome, being a family, that he'd never even considered any other possibility. Like falling in love.
The other reason he'd never considered loving Moira was that he knew he couldn't. He had other plans. Internal needs that were consuming him. But that would all have to change; he had different priorities now. A job teaching kids at a middle-class school, a house in the suburbs — these things would have to be enough.
"You are?" Moira's soft words came a couple of minutes later.
"Of course he is," Sam injected. "Any fool can see that."
Brian looked across at her and nodded. "So," he said, suddenly glad he had Sam there for support, "you have to marry me."
I'll be damned, he thought, when Moira shook her head.
She appealed to Sam. "You know he has to go back — he has to help those kids or he's never going to be at peace. You know that as well as I do."
"Yeah." Sam's agreement was also a question. As in, where was the problem?
"If he marries me, I'll be holding him back from doing that."
It was the oddest conversation, so intimate that perhaps two lovers should be having it privately, and yet Brian felt it was the most natural thing in the world for Sam to be there, involved in their decisions. The three of them had been to the brink of death and back. Many times. As recently as that afternoon.
"I don't see why," Sam said.
"It's okay," Brian assured them both. "Living in some American city will be fine." He'd make it fine. He'd be a fool not to. A house in the suburbs somewhere would be a hell of a lot better than the reservation where he'd spent the first 16 years of his life.
"You'd both shrivel up and die," Sam said. He set his empty bottle on the table and motioned for another beer.
"See?" Moira said. "Even Sam agrees with me."
"Who said I agree with you?" Sam asked. "The two of you need to get this baby born and then head over to do your work."
"With the baby?" Brian frowned. That couldn't be good.
Moira didn't say anything, but she had a strange light in her eyes.
"It's how you were raised," Sam said to her.
"But I always thought I'd had such an odd upbringing that if I ever had a child I should give it a normal life, normal schooling.…"
"Something the matter with the way you turned out?" Sam asked.
"Noooo."
"You having problems with your parents? Some psychic scars we don't know about?"
"No," Moira said, sending him a condescending look. "You know how well we get along. You guys have been with me the last couple of times I've seen them."
Things were happening so fast Brian couldn't think. But he felt…damn good.
Sam took Moira's right hand and Brian's right, bringing them together until they were clasped in the middle of the table, with both of his resting on top. "I have no authority vested in me, but I now pronounce you husband and wife," he said solemnly, his voice only a little slurred from the beers he'd had. "And I want your sworn promise that as soon as the nearest courthouse opens tomorrow morning, we go there and do this right. I have to be back at work in 24 hours."
"I don't think you can get married that quickly in a courthouse," Moira said, her gaze on Brian's. "I think it takes a couple of days for blood tests and stuff."
"Then let's drive that rental car out to the airport and catch a plane for Atlantic City. I want this done before I let the two of you out of my sight."
"Okay," Brian said, standing. "But I'm driving."
"Okay?" Moira asked, standing, too.
Sam watched, arms folded across his chest as Brian pulled Moira around the table.
And then Brian wasn't aware of anything at all. The bar faded away. Sam faded away. There was nothing, no one, except Moira and him. And the baby they'd created. For the first time in his life, tomorrow had meaning beyond paying debts.
"I love you," he whispered.
Nose to nose, Moira smiled. "I love you, too."
"You don't always have to be the strong one, you know, doing everything alone."
"It might take me a while to figure that out."
He had to kiss her then, couldn't wait any longer…
Her lips were soft, intimate, taking him in, accepting him, this man who'd grown up hungry and destitute. Making him part of her. Desire shot through him, almost buckling him with its intensity. Pulling her tight against him, Brian wrapped his arms around her, around his whole world, knowing now why life existed. For the first time, he understood its meaning in a way that went beyond the rational, the practical.
"Uh-hmm." Sam coughed beside them. He'd hauled himself to his feet. "We'd better get this show on the road before you two embarrass the hell out of me…"
Laughing, Brian and Moira broke apart, and Moira, taking one of Brian's hands, offered her other to Sam.
Locked together, the three of them went out, a family that would grow ever stronger as the months went by, a family that would be ready and waiting — eager to welcome tomorrow's baby into the fold.