His Baby Read Free Page B

meant, unsure what she wanted.
    She looked away, looked at his lips and thought for a moment
that she'd never seen a mouth like that, or at least she'd never looked at
someone so closely, so intimately, never been so aware of a man's mouth. When
she looked back up at his eyes, they had changed, become darker and deeper and
she was even more lost for a moment.
    She felt his gaze all the way to her toes, felt his
nearness, the heat and strength of his body. She felt afraid and thrilled, all
at once, and brought her arms up between them, let her hands rest on his chest,
felt the hard muscles under her fingers, under the smooth shirt. At her touch,
he let go of her and stepped back.
    "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean--"
    "Didn't mean what?" she asked shakily, automatically.
    Before he could answer, Carl spoke softly from the doorway. "Everything
okay up here?"
    Diana swallowed, took a step back. "Everything's fine,
Carl."
    Zack didn't say anything, just turned and pushed past Carl
into the hallway. She heard him take a few steps down the hall then close the
bathroom door. Diana looked up at Carl, unsure what to say.
    "Was he kissing you?" Carl asked sternly. "Or
threatening you?"
    "Of course not," Diana said sharply. "Neither.”
    Carl leaned against the door jamb and crossed his arms. "Well,
I wondered what was happening up here."
    "He came in to look at the baby," she said,
lifting her chin a little to look up at him.
    "I see," he said flatly.
    "There's nothing to see, Carl. Stop it." She
glanced away, annoyed with him. Was he trying a role switch here?
    "I don't want him to think he has to seduce you to get
to Lark," he said softly.
    "Don't be absurd. Why would you say such a thing?"
    "I've seen the way he looks at you. I don't know that I
like it." He pushed away from the door jamb.
    "I think you're seeing something that isn't there, Carl.
Besides, you brought him here. You thought it was a good idea."
    "Maybe I was wrong." Carl took a step into the
room.
    "No, you were right. Lark has a right to have a father,
at least if he wants to stick around."
    "All right. We'll give it a try."
    "But let's set down some guidelines," she
suggested. "Zack is probably right. We need to have some rules."
    Downstairs she started to put together another pot of coffee.
Whether it was the unexpected arrival of Zack White or Zack himself, Donna felt
a little more awake but knew that the energy would fade away. She was, she
decided firmly, definitely going to take a nap as soon as she could get the two
of them out of here.

CHAPTER TWO
    Diana arrived at Carl and Mary's house just before sunset. The
sun was low in the sky, beams broken by the trees at the back of their yard,
throwing long low-angled brilliant sunlight across the narrow open section
between trees and house. Carl had put his three black labs back in their pen
just under the trees and set up some lounge chairs around the barbecue, but
there was no one in sight. They were probably in the house, staying cool.
    Diana saw all this just before she parked the car in her
usual place, which was perpendicular to the double car garage just past the
back edge of the house. She parked next to a strange car, a shiny sedan with
mud splashed on the back bumper and fender. The car had Illinois license plates.
    Safe to assume that Zack decided to stick around for the
weekend, she thought.
    Lark was asleep in her car seat in the back seat. She had so
much sleep today that Diana suspected they'd be up all night again. She held
the car's back door open, unhooking Lark's car seat from the seat belt to
convert it to a carry seat. At least Diana had taken a nap this afternoon as
well. She felt a lot better after that nap, a shower, a little play time with
Lark, and some chores, all of that after making clear to Zack and Carl that
there were going to have to be ground rules but not articulating them. Hopefully
they hadn't figured out she didn't know what the rules were. Instead, she'd
chased them out,