Her Bull Rider's Baby Read online

  If she hadn’t stopped them, he might have pinned her against the wall with enough force to rattle both their teeth. He’d have given her no time to catch her breath, would have been inside her in half a heartbeat. And she’d have raked her nails down his back hard enough to hurt, to let him know how much she liked it.

  He’d imagined all that as he fisted his cock, alone in his room, eyes shut tight as he worked himself toward a quick, juddering climax. An unsatisfying climax since she wasn’t sharing it with him.

  “Ms. Merrill?”

  The nurse’s brisk summons jerked him out of his imaginings.

  She led them back to an examination room, cold and sterile as these places usually were. A chart on the wall showed a baby at various stages of development, from a fishlike thing, to alien terror, then finally something almost human. Adriano sat with his back to it as Lil settled herself on the exam table, the paper crinkling loudly as she did.

  “Take off your clothes,” the nurse ordered, “and put on the gown.” She shut the door behind her as she left.

  Lil stared at him. He stared back.

  “Do you… do you want me to turn around?” he asked. It seemed ridiculous—they had made a baby together—but suddenly they felt like nothing more than strangers here in this room.

  “Don’t be silly.” But she didn’t sound as if she found it amusing, her shoulders hunched as if trying to hide from him.

  “I’d prefer to.” And truly he would. Seeing that body that he hungered for but couldn’t touch…

  Do not get a hard-on at the doctor’s office.

  “Oh. Well, if it makes you feel better.” She raised her hands to her shirt buttons and he turned his head just in time to miss seeing any skin. Her clothing rustled as she removed it, his gaze hard on the cold white enamel of the sink as his ears caught every whisper of cloth moving across her skin.

  He’d undressed her slowly that last night in Vegas. Their couplings had been rushed and wild and frantic. But that last time, with the sadness of farewell between them—everything had slowed.

  And now he was averting his gaze from the sight of her that he craved.

  “You can look.” Her voice was solemn without a hint of teasing.

  The shapeless hospital gown was falling off one of her shoulders, and an absurd paper sheet was covering her thighs, leaving the curves of her knees and calves bare. No doubt she was entirely naked beneath that thin paper covering.

  His forehead broke out in a sweat.

  “See? All decent.” Ah, there was the teasing now, a green spark of amusement dancing in her gray gaze.

  He smiled, but didn’t laugh.

  I would have laughed at this in Brazil. I laughed more there.

  The thought brought him up short. He had, hadn’t he? When he’d first come here, he remembered laughing at almost everything. But as his winnings grew bigger, his training more intense, his focus even tighter—the laughter had slipped away somewhere. But that was not something to ponder here.

  A rap at the door and then the doctor came in.

  She was a middle-aged woman with a graying bob, crisp in her white coat with a stethoscope draped round her neck. She shook Lil’s hand first. “I’m Dr. Young. So pleased to meet you, Liliana.” The doctor’s movements were those of a woman who was confident in herself and her knowledge. “And you must be the dad.”

  Dad. That was a new one to hang on to him. “I am. I’m Adriano.”

  Dr. Young shook his hand, then settled onto a stool by the computer and began flipping through the novel Liliana had filled out. “Good, good,” she muttered to herself. “Was this pregnancy planned?”

  When she looked up, her gaze was free of judgment. No doubt she asked this of every couple who came before her.

  Adriano still felt his face heat. Lil was staring at her hands. “No,” they said together, Lil sounding as shamed as he did.

  “Hmm.” The doctor frowned down at the chart. “You left the bit about living together blank. Are you two living together?”

  “Yes,” Adriano said firmly at the same time Lil said, “Kind of. We’re trying it out.”

  They’d have to practice their lies together if they didn’t want to let it slip about their unusual bargain.

  Dr. Young’s gaze bounced from Lil to him and back again. “Well, good luck to you.”

  “Thanks,” Adriano said. They’d need it.

  The doctor looked as if she might be trying not to smile. She set aside the novel and said, “Time for the physical exam.”

  What followed was the most excruciating fifteen minutes of Adriano’s life. He’d never had a routine exam at the doctor—setting broken bones didn’t count as routine care—and he’d never imagined the invasive hell a woman went through. Fingers poking, pinching, and prodding everywhere, a thing called a speculum that had come straight from the Inquisition, and as a final insult, something the doctor called a cervical smear.

  Adriano looked to the floor for that and breathed heavily, all the questions he’d meant to ask wiped away. Thank God he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Forget having bones set—being a woman at a routine visit was a thousand times worse.

  Lil didn’t make a peep, as if all this was normal and right. Good thing she was the one having the baby, because Adriano never could have stood something like this.

  He hoped the baby’s care would be less invasive than this. It had to be, didn’t it?

  “All right,” the doctor said with a satisfied snap of her gloves. “Time for the ultrasound.”

  Lil began to push herself up, clutching at the shoulder of her gown to keep it on. In half a second he was by her side, one hand at her back to help her up. His fingers settled on the warm, bare skin exposed by the opening in the gown. He ignored the urge to trail them along her spine and instead busied himself with arranging the gown more securely around her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as quietly as he could. It wasn’t entirely for show, although she might think so—he really was concerned after all she’d just been through.

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, the worst part is over,” she said, as quiet as he. She primly smoothed the paper sheet draped over her legs. “Thank you.”

  He sat back down as the doctor wheeled over the ultrasound machine.

  “We’re already going to see the baby?” Lil asked. He could hear her trying for excitement, but unease pulled her shoulders in toward each other.

  “Yep.” Dr. Young gestured to Adriano. “Come up and sit by Liliana’s head so you can see.”

  Adriano went where he was told. Whatever was about to happen, it couldn’t be as bad as that exam. Lil had said that the worst was over.

  The doctor flipped up Lil’s gown, leaving her belly exposed while the paper sheet covered everything below her hips.

  Adriano felt doubly exposed at the sight of Lil’s bare skin, being here with her yet not with her, and the paper seemed to shield him from unease as much as it did her.

  The questions he’d been holding in came rushing to his tongue. “Should her belly be so small? Is it bad that it took so long to find out she was pregnant? What should she be eating? What kind of exercises can she do? What shouldn’t she be doing?”

  Dr. Young blinked at him as her mouth fell open. Lil wrapped her fingers around her wrist and dug her fingernails in. Watch it.

  He ignored the sting. It was his child too; he had a right to ask questions of the doctor.

  “Well,” the doctor began, “I’m not worried about the size of her belly. Lil is pretty slim and this is her first, so it might be a while before she shows.” Dr. Young gave Lil a quick smile. “While we usually see patients starting at eight weeks, seeing someone at twelve weeks—like Lil is—isn’t so bad. As for the rest of it, we’ll get to that. Don’t you want to see the baby first?”

  He tugged his wrist out of Lil’s grip. “Yes.”

  Lil flashed him one last glare, then turned her attention back to Dr. Young.

  The doctor rub
bed the wand over her stomach, pressing deeply, white fuzz flashing on the ultrasound screen. The pressure Dr. Young was applying must have been uncomfortable, but Liliana didn’t flinch, only kept her gaze hard on the screen. The doctor seemed to know what she was seeing, but to Adriano, it looked no more like the insides of a body than a TV test pattern did.

  Dr. Young shoved the wand this way and that into Lil’s belly, stopping every so often to take a picture of the fuzz or measure something. Disappointment rose in Adriano. In the movies, parents always saw a perfect picture of their baby, their expressions instantly filling with love and devotion. But he saw nothing here that looked anything like anything. Nothing that might inspire such feelings in him.

  Then he caught a glimpse of something that looked like fingers.

  “Was that—?” It couldn’t be. The baby was only a few months along. How could it already have fingers?

  “Yep.” The doctor moved the wand, and five fingers and a hand appeared. “That’s an arm.”

  Suddenly the enormity of it hit Adriano. There was a person inside Lil, a person he’d helped make. A person he’d be responsible for for the rest of his life. And he’d learned about it only two days ago.

  Not quite the moment in the movies—he wasn’t filled with unending wonder—but a profound realization all the same.

  “Is the baby all right?” he asked. There should be more than simply an arm in there.

  “As far as I can tell,” the doctor said. “But if something is wrong at this stage, there’s not much we can do.” She didn’t look away from the ultrasound screen.

  Lil sucked in a breath, and Adriano found himself reaching for her hand, gripping tightly. He’d only just discovered this baby, but hearing that there might be nothing to be done…

  He wanted this child. Wanted it more fiercely than he’d ever wanted anything else.

  Dr. Young kept on prodding Lil with the wand, going past what looked like legs, up the torso, and stopped at a head that looked entirely human. No fish or alien here. “Do you want to know the sex?”

  Lil turned to stare at him. He stared back, unable to decipher her expression. Her eyes were wide—perhaps a yes—but her mouth curved down—perhaps a no.

  “Whichever you prefer,” he said. Girl, boy—it didn’t matter to him. What mattered was that the child was his.

  “Okay,” Lil said, uncertainty stretching the word.

  “Well, she looks fine so far,” the doctor announced.

  She? “You can already tell that?” Adriano asked.

  “Yep,” Dr. Young said, years of assurance behind that one word. “There’s a slight chance I’m wrong”—clearly she thought it very slight—“but you’re having a little girl.”

  He would have a daughter. Adriano wasn’t certain how he felt about that—the immense pressure in his chest couldn’t be named as any kind of emotion he’d felt before—so he concentrated on how his mother would feel. She’d be delighted by the promise of a new granddaughter.

  Yes, best to focus on his mother’s delight and not the overpowering sensation trying to crush him.

  A little girl.

  Lil was staring at the screen, looking as stunned as he felt. No joy, no excitement—only a numbed shock. He couldn’t fault her for that, not when he felt the same way.

  The doctor set the wand aside and wiped Lil’s belly. “We’ll be more certain at the anatomy ultrasound in several weeks. Any other questions until your next appointment in four weeks?”

  “She won’t have an appointment for four weeks?” That didn’t sound right at all. “Shouldn’t you be seeing her at least once a week?” Where was this impressive medical care Americans bragged about? Lil was wealthy and she should be getting the best.

  Dr. Young laughed—actually laughed. “No. She’ll be fine. I should say, since you’re trying to live together, that sexual relations are fine. I recommend you use a barrier method of protection until your STD test results come back. But the nurse will draw blood from the both of you before you leave.”

  Adriano went rigid, felt Lil stiffen next to him. He swallowed hard, flexed his fist, and glanced at her. Her expression was unreadable, which was unusual for her.

  “Is there anything else that’s allowed?” she asked dryly.

  He recognized her aim—she was referring to the book and what it said she couldn’t do. Well, the doctor would soon set her straight on the correctness of the book.

  “Oh, most everything’s allowed,” Dr. Young said.

  Adriano frowned. Everything? The book had made it sound as if nothing was quite safe enough.

  “No heavy lifting,” the doctor went on, “try not to strain your back. No steam rooms or saunas or hot tubs. Food that’s been heated to a safe temperature, no unpasteurized cheese or milk.”

  There. There was what he’d been looking for.

  He tried to keep the triumph from his expression as Lil nodded along.

  “Oh,” Dr. Young said, waggling a finger, “and no horseback riding.”

  Lil blinked as if blinded, then burst into tears.

  And Adriano found out that being right wasn’t quite as sweet as he’d thought it would be.

  Lil wiped down the kitchen counter one last time, although it had been clean several swipes ago. She was stalling, she knew she was stalling—but she went over the counter one more time.

  It had been just her and Adriano at dinner. Luke was off who knew where—probably wining and dining some woman—and Benedict was with Pilar.

  And Lil was wasting time in the kitchen so that she wouldn’t have to spend the evening alone with the father of her child. Luke and Benedict certainly had better evening plans than she did.

  Adriano came into the kitchen with a towel in hand, his expression neutral. “I wiped down the table.”

  “Thanks.” Now what? It was too soon to go to bed. This was the problem with living with a man—you had to figure out what to do with him most of the time. “Do you want to watch TV?”

  TV. Always the answer to any question.

  “Sure.” He sounded about as enthusiastic at the idea as she was.

  She took the rag from him and tossed both his and hers into the wash, then followed him into the living room for their evening of unmarried, sexless bliss.

  He sat at one end of the long sectional, close enough for her to sense him but not close enough for her to accidentally touch him. Or intentionally either.

  She got it. She remembered his rejection of last night.

  But the doctor had said sex was perfectly fine…

  Stop it. No matter what the doctor had said, sex was right out. There were a thousand reasons why they shouldn’t. The chilly atmosphere between them being one. Their bargain being another.

  She grabbed the remote. “Is there a show you’d like to watch?” She called up the guide and began to flip through six hundred channels. Nothing caught her interest.

  “I don’t watch much TV.”

  No, he probably watched videos of bull rides all day long, studying them to improve his own rides. Lecturing her on her pregnancy and riding bulls seemed to be his only pastimes.

  She found a show on natural horsemanship on RFD-TV and left it there. Rather bitter to watch a show about horses when she couldn’t ride for the next however many months. But she left it on anyway.

  When the doctor had said she couldn’t ride, that coupled with seeing the baby had made everything overflow. Her tears had embarrassed Adriano—and her—but she couldn’t help it. The dam had burst.

  Once she’d quit sniveling, they’d hightailed it out of the doctor’s office to drive back to the ranch in silence. She’d run off to her office as soon as she could to do boring, safe paperwork, and he’d… Well, she didn’t know what he’d done. She’d been too caught up in her own reaction to think about his.

  She could do her job without being on a horse, but handling the bulls was now completely out of the question. Her teeth came hard together, and she only just kept from grinding
them. It was her project, and she wasn’t going to be shunted off to piddling managerial crap. Except that she totally was, at least until this pregnancy was over.

  She slid her back teeth across each other, a tiny scrape, just to sand away some of the frustration.

  “We’re having a little girl,” Adriano said out of nowhere in a stunned tone, as if the fact of it had landed too heavily on his head.

  “Yep,” she said. There wasn’t much else she could think to add. “I guess we’ll have to talk about girl names.” Names, baby gear—she knew babies needed a lot of stuff, but exactly what stuff?

  Her head began to throb, that same hammer of realization that had hit him pounding within her temples.

  “Do you have any you like?” he asked, turning to study her.

  She didn’t. Picking out baby names had never been a hobby of hers. She stared at the TV to avoid the golden knife of his gaze. “No. Do you?”

  “My mother’s name is very nice.”

  Her back tensed. They couldn’t name the baby after his mom and not have her mom’s name too. That was a recipe for fighting. It wasn’t fair. “So is my mother’s.” She kept her voice carefully flat, kept her eyes on the TV. The trainer was going on in his Australian drawl about getting the horse to respect him.

  Adriano didn’t train horses; he rode bulls. And only for a few seconds at a time. There was a metaphor for their relationship in there somewhere.

  “I suppose we have some time.” His words were as studiedly neutral as hers had been.

  “Months and months,” she agreed. Months and months to decide on a name, who the baby would go with when. Months and months apart from her daughter while Adriano was with her in Brazil.

  She could make those months shorter if she kept to her plan and convinced him she was right—that the baby belonged with her.

  Silence stretched between them as the TV droned on. Was this what married couples did? Watched TV and waited for the years to pass? And tried not to argue?