She wasn’t about to take a chance on falling. When she clasped his shoulder, she could feel the strength there, the hard muscles beneath his knit shirt. This little excursion seemed suddenly altogether too intimate. Still, it was too late to back out now.
When she seemed at a loss for a moment, Blake took her hand and she quickly made the descent into the boat. Hoping to put distance between them again, she moved across the deck, examining its cushioned captain’s chairs, burled walnut fittings, and conveniences she’d only imagined could be on a boat. Suddenly she realized she wasn’t going to get much distance from Blake here.
Although he’d released her hand moments before, she still felt the tautness of his skin. His heat seemed to be part of her now.
He motioned to one of the chairs. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll get plates and silverware and cups in the galley.” Then he disappeared down the stairs before she could tell him she could drink her lemonade out of the carton.
“You’ve really never been on a boat before?” Blake asked her fifteen minutes later as they shared supper and gazed out over the water.
She found herself watching him as he ate. He was obviously hungry, as he downed a twelve-inch sub. When he licked mayonnaise from a finger, she found herself watching his lips. They were sensual, mobile, as fascinating as the gray of his eyes.
Giving herself a mental shake, she realized he’d asked her a question. “No, I’ve never been on a boat.”
“So…what do you think?” he asked with a half smile.
“It’s nice,” she said. “Sort of like an outdoor restaurant.”
After he laughed out loud at that, he said, “I’ve never heard it put quite that way before. Would you like a tour? There are two bedrooms, a galley and the head downstairs. That’s the bathroom.”
“That term I’m familiar with. I’ve never been on a boat, but I’ve read about them. Still, I don’t think I’ll need a tour. It doesn’t sound as if I’d get lost using the bathroom.”
“Afraid to go below with me?”
He was much too perceptive for her own good. These quarters were close enough. “Of course not. But I imagine it’s hot down there…”
“I have air-conditioning I can flip on.” Finished with his sandwich now, he leaned forward, his knees almost touching hers. “I’m sorry if I make you nervous.”
She was sure she was blushing now. “It’s just this whole situation,” she said honestly.
“Help me understand,” he requested quietly.
Not sure he could understand, she still attempted to explain. “Discussing artificial insemination with someone other than my husband and doctor isn’t something I’ve done before. Now a whole gaggle of people are talking about it. I’m a minister’s daughter, for heaven’s sake. I still don’t swear in front of my father or anyone who would carry stories to him. I have to talk to him about all of this, and I don’t know how I’m going to do it. On top of that, I’ve driven off with a strange man against my lawyer’s advice. There isn’t anyone here within shouting distance and…” She trailed off, not knowing how to explain the rest. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him she felt things when she looked at him, especially when he got too close.
After studying her for a full two heartbeats, Blake leaned back as if to give her a little space.
“Why would it be so hard to explain all this to your father even if he is a minister?”
“Dad’s very…conservative. He didn’t agree with my decision to become artificially inseminated. He insists that if I was supposed to be pregnant with B.J.’s child, it would have happened before he died.”
“From the background info I read on you, I saw that your mother died when your brother was a year old. You were nine then?”
It bothered her to think he’d accessed information about her so easily. But now she had to make it more than mere words to him. “Yes, I was nine. So I’ve always been more like a mother to Gary than a sister.”
“Did you take care of your father, too?”
“No. We always had a full-time housekeeper-secretary who cooked and baby-sat.”
“I imagine being a minister’s daughter is rough.”
She shrugged. “Not having a mother was rough. Fortunately I wasn’t the wild type to begin with.”
When she mentioned not having a mother, she thought she saw a shadow cross Blake’s face.
After he took a few swallows of soda, he asked, “How about your brother? Is he the wild type?”
“Not really. Gary has just always hated Fawn Grove. We left Pasadena and moved here when he was two. He has his eye on bigger things than a small community can give him. Rafe told me you’ve been back in Fawn Grove for three years. Do you intend to stay?”
“I intend to make it my home base. It was my home when I was a kid, but I’m in Sacramento more than I’m in Fawn Grove. I travel to L.A. and Seattle a lot, too. There’s a charter service I use that makes traveling efficient.”
“We lead very different lives,” Jenna said softly as she thought about his boat and mansion, flying off to another city at the drop of a hat.
“What are you thinking, Jenna?” he asked, his gaze steady on hers.
Again she was chagrined that he could read her so well. She remembered what Rafe had said about not telling this man too much, and yet she had to follow her instincts. “I’m thinking that you can give this child a lot of advantages I can’t, and how a court would look at that.”
“In other words, you think I have the upper hand.”
“No. You may have money, and maybe you can hire the best nannies there are in this world, but I’m this child’s mother. Not by accident, but because I wanted this baby. I think that will pretty much balance the scales unless you resort to something underhanded.”
“You’re not afraid to pitch straight, are you?” he asked, a bit wryly.
“I might be merely a second-grade teacher, and I might live a simpler life than you do, but I’ll fight for this child with every breath inside of me.”
Neither of them spoke for a full minute. Finally he stood and she did the same so he wouldn’t tower over her any more than he already did.
“Round one is over,” he concluded. “I think we both established that neither of us is going to sign away our parental rights.”
“What do we do about round two?”
After studying her for a few moments, he eased one hand into his pocket. “I think we should take an intermission before we jump into the ring again. How about that boat ride?”
“You’re serious?”
“I didn’t bring you to the Delta to sit on the deck and rock in the ripples. I think you’re more fearless than that.”
He
