Jamie-5 (6 page)

“Such a charmer. I bet women just fall over themselves to get a piece of you, don’t they?

You baboon, put me down before you break your back.”

“I said hush. Christ, woman, what the hell is wrong with you? Mom, can you please go and get her something to drink? Devin, don’t just stand there, open the door. I’ll take her in here until she looks better.”

He rushed her back into the room they’d been in and sat in one of the chairs with Dane now sitting on his lap. When she started to struggle to get down, he pressed her against his erection and whispered in her ear so that only she could hear him.

“You’re making me as hard as rock moving your ass all over me. If you don’t sit still, I’m going to throw you over my lap and spank you. Not that I think that’ll make me any less hard, but it will be a sight more enjoyable than you just wiggling on me.” She stilled instantly. “Good girl.”

When she looked at him, her eyes were wide and dark. He was not sure if it was from desire of anger, but he was willing to bet it was the latter of the two. It didn’t really matter, she was lovely anyway. Before his mother came back, Jamie quickly brushed his mouth over hers and took advantage of her stunned silence. When his mother returned with a cola, Dane’s cheeks were redder, but Jamie knew it was probably due more to the kiss and comment than anything else.

“I’ll take you home. You shouldn’t drive like this. I have my car right here. Maybe we can get some dinner too.” Manipulative? Yes, but he wanted to talk to her.

“Oh Jamie, what a nice thought. Of course you’ll take her home. And dinner, we could all use some, I’m sure. My treat. I think Chinese is what we need. I love it.”

“No. Thanks, but no. I can get myself home. I’ll be fine now as soon as this idiot lets go of me. Do you mind?” She started to wiggle again and stopped when he pressed her bottom hard over his cock. He might have laughed if it did not hurt so badly.

“Nope. And I’m taking you home. We’ll get something to eat, then I’ll take you home and you can feed me some dessert there. It’s the least you can do for making things so…hard for me.” Devin burst out laughing when Dane turned bright red. Margaret looked at both of them, confused, but let it go.

“Come along then. Devin, I’ll ride with you. Jamie, you and Dane ride in your car and follow us, all right?”

“Mom, give us a minute, will you? I have to tell Dane a couple of things. We won’t be long.” When the door shut behind his mother and brother, she became a wild cat and threw them both to the floor in her effort to get off his lap.

It took everything he had not to hurt her and more not to let her hurt him. Finally, he had to lie over her, his body firmly between her legs so she could not kick him again, to make her stop.

Pulling her hands up over her head, he waited until she wore herself out.

“Are you finished yet? You are a hell cat, aren’t you? Why don’t you want me to take you home?”

“Get off me, you lug! I don’t want anyone to know where I live. Is that plain…you’re touching me.” It took his mind a few seconds to catch up with her words.

“So I am. I’d like to touch you more, Dane. I’d very much like to taste your mouth.” He eased his head toward hers and gently brushed his mouth over hers. He didn’t pull all the way back, but he did enough to look at her. “Was that all right, Dane? Did it hurt?”

“No. Please don’t do it again. You can’t want to kiss me. I’m not…I’m a freak and people don’t kiss freaks, James.”

“Hummm, I like you calling me James. And I do want to kiss you again, Dane. I want to kiss you very badly. Will you give me your mouth, love? Let me taste you?” He didn’t let her answer but brushed his mouth over hers again, then again. The third time he did, he pulled her lower lip into his mouth and nipped at it. When she sighed softly, he kissed her gently.

Her mouth was soft and when he pulled back to look down at her again, he groaned when her tongue came out and licked at her lips. This time, he was not as gentle. This time, he tasted paradise.

When she opened her mouth under his, he cupped her neck and tilted her slightly to deepen the kiss. His tongue swept across hers and in seconds, she was sliding her tongue with his in a sensual dance that had him wanting more. When her legs came up and wrapped around his hips, he reached down, pulled her harder against him, and rocked into her. Sliding his mouth along her jaw to her neck, he nipped at the frantically beating pulse there and suckled it into his mouth before moving back to her mouth. His hand was just slipping under her blouse when someone pounded on the door behind them.

~CHAPTER 6~

Dane looked up at the man over her. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she could barely take a deep breath without smelling him, smelling them. He was looking at her as if he wanted to murder someone.

“Jamie! Spencer called. Cait’s in labor. We have to go. Now!” Devin said on the other side of the door. She could hear the panic in his voice and the urgency.

“She’ll be all right. Both of them will. Spencer is holding his child, his son. They both will hold him and take him home. They’ll be fine.” He looked at her oddly then pulled away. Still sitting on his heels, he looked down at her. She turned away and began pulling her into herself.

“Don’t, Dane. Don’t do this. Something happened here. I don’t…why could I touch you?

What made me so different?”

“I don’t…you should go. I’m going to go home. I hope everything is all right with your family.” When she started to pull away from him and crawl away, he pinned her back to the floor.

“Look at me. Dane, look at me. We aren’t finished here. Something is…I didn’t hurt you. I want to know why.”

“Damn it, Jamie, come on. Mom is in the car. Now, let’s go.” Devin had opened the door then and turned his back on them. “I’m sorry, but Spencer said that she was bleeding. And he was worried. I’m sorry, Dane.”

When Jamie pulled away this time, she got up too. Her legs were slightly wobbly, but that could be from anything. She moved to the table to get her bag when Jamie came up behind her.

“Dane, give me a way to contact you, please. I want to see you again. I want to talk to you, about us, about this.”

“I’ll contact you. There is no us, Mr. Grant. I’m not going to have an affair with you or anyone. You should go. Your family is waiting.”

“Damn it, Dane, this is—”

“Jamie, now. You can fix this later. We have to go.” Jamie pulled her around and kissed her again. It was not like before, soft and searching. This was hard and demanding, bruising almost.

Then he was gone.

Dane sat in the chair, collapsed really, and laid her head on the table. Before she realized it, she was crying softly. She heard someone knock on the door and she sat up, but didn’t turn to the opening.

“Dr. Wallace? The man downstairs asked for someone to take you home. I’ve got a car out front for you. We don’t normally do this, but Jamie and me, we go way back and he—”

“No problem, officer. I have my own car. I’ll be fine. Thank you for your help. I’ll be going now. I’m sorry to have made you wait.”

Quickly gathering her things, she rushed out the door and into the lot. It took her several tries before she got the key in the lock and a few to get it in the ignition. She was on her way home when she realized that she didn’t watch to see if she was being followed. It took her three turns to figure out that she was and then three frantic moves off and on the highway to lose them.

She would have to be more careful in the future. It did not pay to have people know where you lived.

Pi was in the kitchen when she pulled into the garage and walked into the house. She looked pissed. Dane was tired and sore, but she sat down and let Pi feed her. If asked, she was sure she would not have been able to tell anyone what she ate, nor a single word her and Pi had talked about. As soon as she could escape, she went to her office in the basement.

The townhouse they were renting was not all that great, but it was home for now. As soon as possible, they had planned to buy a home, one that they picked out together. Pi wanted a huge kitchen and a place to plant a garden. Dane wanted a pool and a separate place she could go that no one had ever touched. She pulled these plans out now.

The building that she wanted would not be huge, big enough to have a single room and a bath. No kitchen or closest and no phone. She wanted one wall to be floor to ceiling windows that would open in the warmer months and faced a wooded area. Dane even knew what kind of wooded area she wanted. Pines and evergreen along with maples and oaks and trees that would bloom in the spring and color in the fall, something she could look at all the time and not feel the drab of winter or the heat of summer—a forest for year round. Walls of white, carpet too.

Somewhere she would be able to go and have nothing. No sound, no noise, no voices, and especially no emotions. Her own paradisiacal getaway.

Sighing, she reached for her bag and pulled out the bag that Mrs. Parker had given her at the station. She didn’t get anything from any of the items that she brought in, but Mrs. Parker knew that she might not. She had told Dane that the things felt too new, too stiff to be that of three little children. The first one was a shirt. Laying it onto the desk, Dane pressed her hands over the material and closed her eyes.

She had to sort through all the people who had touched it. Mrs. Parker, a woman, and three men. There were several children as well. None related and Dane assumed that it was from the people shopping, people touching the shirt to check sizes, fit, or just to move it. She was ready to fold it back into the bag when she touched the sleeve. A jolt of pain hit her. Carefully, she picked up the phone without breaking contact with the sleeve and called Pi.

“Pi, I’m going under. It’s seven o’clock, correct?”

“Missy Dane, it’s late. Please tomorrow. You be hurt enough. Wait for tomorrow.”

“I can’t, Pi. I wish I could, but it’s too late. Will you watch for me, please?”

“You know I will. You be my sandwich winner. I need you to bring home bacon. Don’t understand that, why people eat bacon beyond me, but you be mine. I watch. I have contact if you don’t come back to me. You come back, okay?”

“Yes, I’ll come back. Four hours, no more. Then you come and get me.” Hanging up the phone, Dane closed her eyes and fell into the feeling.

It was not the child that she felt, but a woman. Pain and hate, then sorrow. Profound sorrow emanated from the spot. Images flashed by, a boy then a man. A girl then the man again. Blood.

Breathless running. Pain again, her own this time and not general. Hunger. Darkness. The woman, this time an image, dark hair—no, wet hair, blood, eyes blue, bruises, then she was gone. A boy, small and huddled in a corner, blood pouring from his head, and his arm lay at an odd angle. Moving closer, Dane could see that he was no longer breathing. His neck had been broken. Sorrow again then deep, deep depression. Then black.

~~~

Jamie was sitting next to his brothers when Damon came out. Something had happened. He knew it as sure as he was sitting there. His mom knew too. She started crying softly as Byron held her.

“The cord is wrapped around his throat. Every contraction strangles him more and more.

They’re going to have to perform an emergency c-section to save him. Cait is losing blood and they are worried about her too. It…it doesn’t look good for either of them. Spencer is frantic.

He’s…Mom, he needs you.”

“She said they would be fine. Dane. She said they’d be all right that they would both take him home,” Jamie said.

“That’s right. In the hospital when Spencer touched her, she told me to tell him that everyone would be all right that he would hold his son. Mom?” Damon asked his mother.

“Go! Tell her. Cait will believe you, tell them. Hurry and bring my grandson into this world.” Damon took off down the hall and disappeared behind a door.

The waiting was long and tense. Twice, a nurse came out to give them updates. Once to say that the doctor was here and he was prepping for surgery. The next time she came out to say that the operation had begun. She could not tell them anything more. She told them that she had not been in the room. She was at the desk and relaying the information they gave her. For another hour and a half they waited until Spencer came out with Damon.

“She’s going to be okay. So is my son, our son. He’s bruised and he’ll be sore for a little while, but he’s fine. They’re both going to be fine. I have a son.” Spencer picked up his daughter, Meggie, and cried in her arms as she held him.

In seconds, they were wrapped around him, all of them holding him, patting his back.

Meggie patted each one on the head and kissed their cheeks. That was how the doctor found them the entire Grant clan, standing in the middle of the waiting room in a large, loving group.

Jamie was sure the man thought they were nuts.

“We’ll leave her in recovery for a few more hours then move her to her room. Baby boy Grant is going to be in the Neonatal area for a few days just to be sure. They both are doing great. Mrs. Grant has lost some blood, but with rest and plenty of fluids, she’ll be her old cranky self in about a week. I don’t know what you said to her, but that was the turning point. She had all but given up in there and we both know it. Thanks, Damon, you saved my patient. If you need me, I’ll be in my office until morning.”

They took turns going in to see the little boy. No one could hold him just yet. The doctor was afraid to over stimulate him and he needed to rest. The bruise was dark against his fair skin, but he was breathing on his own. Meggie touched her brother and he stretched out to her and made her smile. Margaret took a few pictures without her flash to show Dan and the boys later.

Then, when Cait was taken to her room, they converged in mass to see her.

“He’s lovely, honey. Looks just like Spencer did when he was born, only I think this one is a bit more handsome. And the bruise will fade and you won’t be able to tell a thing.”

“What’s his name? You’ve been keeping this huge secret for months now. What are we going to call him?” Byron asked as he held Taylor.