Cooper made a note for himself to call the pediatrician’s office at a less ungodly hour to confirm his suspicions. Until then, he’d feed the baby fruit, and cereal mixed with water—or mixed with formula. Yeah, of course. The kid drank special baby formula, he could use that.
Cooper took an unopened can of the stuff from the cabinet. Milk-free, the label proclaimed.
He used a can opener to open it and poured the perfect amount on top of the cereal. Stirring the mushy mixture together, Cooper pulled a chair up across from Ben’s tray.
The baby smiled at him—a big, fat, drooling grin.
“Just call me Sherlock,” Cooper said, spooning some cereal into the baby’s mouth. “The king of observation. All I need is a pack of obvious clues and a trip to the hospital emergency room to trigger my famous mental powers. Nothing gets past me then.”
EIGHT
J
OSIE LAY
down on the living room rug. “People willingly do this,” she said, closing her eyes. “People actually plan to have children and willingly submit themselves to this torture.”
Lucy was up in bed, asleep, and Ben was . . .
Josie sat up.
Ben was sitting in a strange little device on wheels that had a tray in the front and a sling-type seat holding his butt. He rolled across the dining room floor, bumped into the edge of the rug and stopped, grinning at Josie.
“Ben’s not crying,” Josie said, half expecting him to start in any moment. But he didn’t. He simply drooled on the tray and grinned at her some more, attempting to eat a huge plastic mouse. She looked up at Cooper.
He was sitting on the couch, looking extremely smug and self-satisfied. “Ben and I negotiated a deal this morning,” he said. “I agreed not to give him any more milk in his cereal, and he agreed not to have any more terrible stomachaches.”
Josie looked from Cooper to Ben. “He’s allergic to milk, too,” she said. “And nobody told us?
Shit.
”
“Shoot,” Cooper corrected her gently. “Speech modification. This kid is memorizing everything we say. It would be a drag to have an obscenity be his first word.”
The sound of Josie’s laughter made Cooper smile. She was in a better mood than she had been in more than a week. It was the right time to discuss the children. He reached out and nudged her with his foot. “What’dya say I put Ben to bed and we talk,” he said.
Josie’s smile faded, and she turned away from him, her good mood evaporating as quickly as a drop of water in a hot frying pan.
“I don’t have the energy to argue with you right now, Cooper,” she said tiredly.
“Who said anything about arguing?”
She cast him a disbelieving look. “You’re stubborn. You want one thing,” she said. “I’m just as stubborn, and I want the exact opposite.” She sighed. “You honestly think any conversation we have about this isn’t going to turn into a boxing match?”
“I just want to tell you how I feel,” Cooper said. “I know it would be hard work, but I’m willing to make some sacrifices—”
“For how long?” Josie asked, her voice sharper than she intended. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “How long until you get bored? How long before you want to move onto some new, more interesting project?”
Cooper laughed, but there was hurt in his eyes that he couldn’t hide. “Five years, babe, and you still don’t know me?” he said, trying to make it a joke, but it fell flat.
“Maybe I don’t,” Josie said softly. She pulled her knees in, hugging them close to her chest. She stared down at her bare toes, unable to meet Cooper’s searching gaze.
“All right,” he said quietly, standing up. “It’s time for Ben to go to bed. We don’t have to talk tonight, Josie, but we’re going to have to talk about this sooner or later.”
As Josie watched, Cooper bent down and picked up Ben, carrying him with an easy familiarity that she herself hadn’t yet managed to achieve. He was a natural at this, Josie realized. He was the 90s’ version of the typical dad—sneakers on his feet, wearing snug blue jeans and a faded T-shirt that fit his upper body like a glove, long hair down loose around his shoulders, earring gleaming in one ear.
He was remarkably handsome. Funny how after five years of marriage, his startling good looks still managed to take her by surprise. And his powerful, charismatic sexiness was somehow intensified by the tenderness with which he held the baby.
Cooper caught her watching him, immediately recognizing the look in her eyes. There was a brief flash of surprise across his face, but then he smiled. “Maybe we should just go to bed,” he said softly. His voice was husky, intimate, his meaning clear.
Josie stared up at him, nearly hypnotized by the crystal blue of his gaze. Your wish is my command . . .
He held out one hand to her, and she let him pull her up.
Lucy was upstairs, fast asleep, still feeling the drowsing effects of the antihistamine. But Ben—
“What about the baby?” Josie asked.
“Hey, Ben,” Cooper said. “I’ll give you twenty bucks if you go right to sleep tonight. What’dya say,
chico
?”
Ben grabbed a handful of Cooper’s hair and stuffed it into his mouth.
“I’ll take that for a ‘yes,’ ” Cooper said, heading for the stairs to the bedrooms, pulling Josie gently along behind him.
Josie was in the bathroom brushing her teeth when she heard Cooper close and latch the bedroom door behind him. She heard him click the clock radio on, keeping the volume low. He quickly flipped across the dial, probably searching for a Spanish radio station.
Josie couldn’t keep from giggling as she rinsed her toothbrush. Poor Cooper. It wasn’t likely he’d find one, way out here in the boonies. It had been several days since he’d had a fix of salsa music. She gave him another two days at the most before he drove all the way into Nashville’s Tower Records, to get a tape of songs with a Latin beat.
As Josie dried her face on her towel, Cooper settled for one of the local country stations. He was sitting on the bed taking off his sneakers as she came out of the bathroom.
“Do you know how to two-step?” he asked.
Josie folded her arms across the front of her robe. “Just because I’m from Tennessee doesn’t mean I automatically know how to two-step,” she said.
He stood up, holding out his arms to her. “I was watching this show called
Club Dance
on The Nashville Network, and I think I figured out how to two-step. It’s really bizarre, Joze. The music is in four, but the dance is in a pattern of three—slow, slow, quick-quick—” Cooper pulled Josie across the room.
Josie stopped him. “You should have your right hand up on my shoulder—like this,” she said, repositioning him. “And my left hand rests on your bicep like this.”
Cooper gave her a look.
She smiled sweetly. “I didn’t say that I
didn’t
know how to two-step,” she said. “And by the way, you’ve got to start with the quick step, or everyone’ll know you’re from New York.”
Cooper laughed. “Right.” He started dancing again, maneuvering gracefully around the furniture in the room.
Josie stopped him again. “Wait a sec, Coop,” she said. “I’ve got to tie my robe tighter.”
But it was too late. Cooper had already caught a glimpse of what she was wearing underneath the robe. He pulled the belt from her hands, slipping it free of the belt loops, then pushed the robe off her shoulders and nuzzled her neck.
“Let’s dance without the robe,” he said.
Josie laughed, pulling the robe back up. “Cooper, you can’t two-step
naked,
” she said. “It’s just too polite a dance.”
The song segued into another that had a faster beat. Cooper’s head went up for all of two bars, then he turned back to Josie and smiled.
“This
we can mambo to,” he said. “And the mambo’s never been called polite.”
He pulled her into his arms and began to dance.
Salsa, country-style, Josie thought with a laugh. But it worked. The beat was there, and dancing with Cooper, like always, was a dream. Funny, she had always thought it was the Latin percussion that set him on fire, but heat was in his eyes in a matter of seconds, with nary a Latin drum beat in earshot.
His gaze dropped to the opened front of her robe and he smiled, looking back into her eyes. Josie caught her breath, feeling the unmistakable excitement that was always stirred up by the thought of making love to Cooper.
He caught one finger in her robe, slipping it off first one arm and then the other as he spun her around. He pulled her to him then, holding her close against his body as he ran his hands up and down her bare skin.
Josie slipped her hands down from around Cooper’s neck and unfastened his pants. “If we’re a dance team,” she said, smiling up at him, “we need matching outfits.”
Cooper laughed and pulled off his shirt. Josie wrestled him back onto the bed and pushed his jeans down his muscular thighs. She grabbed the bottom edges and pulled them all the way off his legs.
He grabbed Josie and kissed her, turning so that she was pinned by his weight to the bed. She was as ready for him as he was for her—almost two weeks’ worth of ready. God, had it really been twelve days since they’d last had sex? That was eleven days too many, Cooper thought with a groan as Josie locked her legs around him.
“You know, I still can’t get enough of you,” he whispered, losing himself in the darkness of her eyes.
She smiled up at him, biting her lip to keep from crying out with pleasure as he slowly filled her.
“We could make love three times a day, and I’d still want more of you,” Cooper said softly, kissing her sweetly on the mouth. He pulled his head up sharply. “Oh my God!”
Josie pushed herself up on her elbows. “What? Is the baby awake?”
But Cooper was staring at the radio, an expression of disbelief on his face. “ ‘Prop me up beside the jukebox when I die?!’ ” he said, quoting the song that was playing. “Sorry, babe, but this is
not
music to make love to.”
Josie laughed. “You’re so easily distracted,” she said. “Don’t pay attention to the music, Cooper honey, pay attention to me.”
“I can’t help it,” Cooper said, reaching over and changing the station. “It’s back there and it penetrates.”
Josie wiggled her eyebrows. “Penetrate me, big guy.”
“Ooh,” Cooper said, kissing her. “I love it when you talk that way.” He began moving his hips in a slow, steady rhythm.
“Are you going to change the station every time a song comes on that you don’t like?” Josie asked, her eyelids sliding halfway closed as she joined Cooper’s movements. “And what about commercials?”
“I hate commercials. I’ve got to get one of those portable CD players,” Cooper murmured. “Mmm, Joze, let’s not wait another two weeks before we do this again, okay?”
Josie didn’t answer, she simply held him tighter.
On the radio, the same song about being propped up against the jukebox started playing.
“God, no!” Cooper said.
“Pretend you don’t understand the words,” Josie said, laughing.
“I can’t help it—” he said.
“It penetrates,” Josie finished for him. “When you put on your salsa music, I don’t understand any of the words,” she added, running her fingers through Cooper’s long hair. “For all I know, those songs’ve got the same words as this one.”
Cooper kissed her. “I can teach you Spanish,” he said, “and then you won’t have to wonder. We can start right now. Repeat after me—”
Josie listened, one eyebrow raised as he spoke to her in Spanish.
“Come on. Now you say it,” he said.
“What does it mean?”
“Say it,” he said with a wicked grin, “and you’ll find out.”
Josie laughed. “No way am I going to talk dirty in another language. Especially if I don’t know what it means.”
Cooper whispered the translation in her ear.
“Oh Lord!” Josie said, laughing. “I can’t say
that.
How about if I say something else instead?”
“Like what?”
“Like, ignore the damn music and make love to me!” Josie said. “I can think of a few other things you could be doing with your mouth, instead of talking.”
Cooper kissed her. “Like this?” he said.
“Yes,” Josie said. She pulled his head back down and kissed him again.
Cooper set a new rhythm, faster this time, and Josie sighed her approval. He left a trail of kisses down her neck and she closed her eyes, losing herself in the exquisite sensations that only Cooper could create.
And then the phone rang.
Cooper and Josie had always had a policy of letting the answering machine pick up when they were making love, but now they both lunged for it, afraid the ringing would wake Ben or Lucy.
Cooper got there first. “Hello?” he said hoarsely, out of breath.
“Cooper! Jesus! Where have you been? Why hasn’t Josie returned any of my calls?”
It was David. He was running on an even higher level of frantic stress than usual.
“She can’t talk right now, Dave,” Cooper said. “Call back in the morning.” He dropped the handset into the cradle of the telephone and turned back to Josie. “Where were we?”
The phone rang again and this time Josie picked it up. “David, I’m going to have to call you back,” she said, without even saying hello.
“Josie, Christ, do you think I’d be bothering you this late if it weren’t an emergency?” David said.
“An emergency?” Josie pulled away from Cooper’s wandering hands and sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s going on?” There was a brief pause, then Josie said,
“What?!”
She reached over and turned off the radio. “Oh, Lord!”
As Cooper watched, Josie stood up and, carrying the phone with her, picked her robe up from where it was lying in the middle of the floor. She slipped it on, found the belt and quickly tied it around her waist.
“No, Joze—” Cooper didn’t try to keep the desperation from his voice. But it was too late. Some dire problem with the company had sucked Josie’s attention away from him for God knows however long it would take to solve.
“Yesterday?” she said into the telephone. “No, he did not.” She turned and glared at him.
Glared? Yeah, there was definitely a flash of anger in her eyes. Why the hell was
she
mad at him? If anyone had the right to be upset here, it was Cooper.
“David, let me call you back in about two minutes,” Josie said. “I have to get my briefcase, and—” She glanced back at Cooper. “Right. No, you did the right thing. I just wish I’d known about it sooner. Okay—talk to you in a few.”
She hung up the phone and looked at Cooper. “Why didn’t you tell me David called yesterday?” Josie demanded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot—”
“You
forgot
?” She crossed her arms. “He tells you he’s got a problem that’s so big he wants me to fly back to New York, and you
forgot
?”
How could Cooper have done this to her? It was a slap in the face. It was a glaringly clear message that said her business, her
life
didn’t really matter to him.
Josie felt sick. And angry as hell.