have this baby so she could try to get her life back on track again. It was going to be a lot better when she could finally hold her baby in her arms instead of carrying it around like a leaden weight.
She tried not to let her mind drift. There was time enough for maternal feelings after the baby arrived, healthy and strong. Until then, she was determined to keep her emotions under tight wrap.
That wasn’t going very well right now.
C.J. noted where her partner’s eyes were resting. On her abdomen. Annoyance rose up three flights.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got my whole family watching my stomach as if it’s a pot about to boil, and I don’t need my partner doing the same thing.”
Warrick straightened. “The person you should have watching your stomach is—”
She shut her eyes, searching for a vein of strength. They’d been down this road before, too. Too often. “Don’t start, War. I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it.”
“Don’t want to hear what?” He meant to make his question sound innocent. It sounded heated instead. But he wasn’t exactly impartial when it came to the FBI special agent who, until seven months ago, had a prominent place in his partner’s life—a partner he was extremely fond of. If he felt anything else toward her, well, that was something that wasn’t going to be explored in the light of day. It couldn’t be. Never mind that, pregnant or not, C.J. was the hottest-looking woman he’d ever come across. “That your insignificant other should at least be around to lend you some emotional support?”
They’d already been through this, she and Warrick. Why couldn’t he get this through his thick black Irish head? “He’s not my ‘other’ anything, War.”
The hell the man wasn’t. He had no idea what the attraction had been, but it was obviously hot enough to get her in this condition. Hot enough for her to want to keep the baby instead of going another route.
Restless, Warrick got up. “I just think that after he got you pregnant—”
C.J. took instant offense. From the moment she’d first opened her eyes on the world, despite the fact that she had a warm, loving family, she’d been her own person. She resented the implication, even for a moment, that she wasn’t.
“Nobody got me anything. We took precautions, they didn’t work. The pregnancy was an accident.”Again her hand went over her belly, as if to block out any hurtful words the baby might hear. “It happens, okay? Now if you don’t mind, Special Agent Warrick, let’s drop the subject.”
She watched the deep frown take root on his face and tried to tell herself she appreciated where he was coming from. He just cared about her, the way she did about him. Cared the way she had when his wife of two years had left him three years ago because she couldn’t stand the instability of the life he led.
“Don’t talk to me like that, C.J., as if we’re two characters out of the X-Files, calling to each other by our titles. It’s not natural. And neither,” he added vehemently, “is walking away from a woman you’re supposed to be in love with.”
He’d never liked Tom Thorndyke, hadn’t liked him from the first moment the man had stared unabashedly at C.J. But he’d made concessions because C.J. obviously cared about the jerk. He hated to see her hurt and abandoned. For two cents proper, he’d make the man eat his perfect teeth. If he could get to him. The man had taken an assignment out of the state right after he’d told C.J. that they were better off going their separate ways.
Which was right after she’d told him she was pregnant.
“Forget about Tom Thorndyke and tell me who’s been assigned to the case.” C.J. shrugged. She’d made up her mind to only look ahead and not back. Looking back never got you anywhere, anyway.
Because he knew they weren’t going to get anywhere waltzing over old ground, Warrick backed off and told her what she wanted to know. “Rodriguez, Culpepper…”
The two other special agents who had been on the original task force. A flutter of unfounded hope passed through her. “And?”
“Me.”
C.J. knew what he was telling her. Disappointment jabbed her with a sharp, extra-long knitting needle. “But not me.”
He’d gone to bat to get her on the team over the assistant director’s reservations. On the team safely. “Unofficially.” Warrick pointed to the computer. “You can cross-check information for us, go through the files, things like that.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “I’ve got too much seniority to be a grunt, Warrick, and I’m not old enough to be stuck behind a computer.”
He looked at her for a long moment. She should never have gotten involved with that character. For once it seemed as if her keen instincts had completely failed her. “Should have thought of that before you tripped the light fantastic with old shoot-and-scoot.”
She’d never been long on patience. Pregnancy had cut her lag time in half. She struggled to hold on to her temper. “Don’t you think it’s about time you stopped with the cute references?”
“I’ll stop when he materializes out of the Bermuda Triangle to live up to his end of it.” He looked at her long and hard. “And there’s nothing ‘cute’ about a man who ducks out on his responsibilities.”
She’d given the matter a great deal of thought even before she’d told Thorndyke about the baby she was carrying. She’d found herself drawing up a list of the man’s pros and cons. Disgusted, she’d crumpled them up. Love and marriage was not decided by a safe, sane list of pros and cons, but on a gut feeling, a lack of breath and an X-factor that defied description. None of the latter applied to Tom Thorndyke. The relationship, short as it was, had been a mistake. A misjudgment on her part because she’d been lonely, and she took full responsibility for it.
She just wished Warrick would let it drop. “The worst thing in the world would have been for Thorndyke and me to get married.”
Part of him felt that way, too. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. “If you felt that way, why did you sleep with him?”
Very simply because she hadn’t thought about any consequences arising from the liaison. For once in her life, impulse had guided her. But once she’d discovered she was pregnant, changes in her outlook followed. She saw Tom’s true colors. And maternal instincts came out of nowhere. She never once doubted that she wanted this baby. But even so, she refused to allow herself the luxury of making plans. Plans had a way of falling through, dragging disappointment in their wake.
She looked at Warrick. “Since when do I owe you any explanations?”
Holding the folder in one hand, he opened his arms wide and shrugged. “You don’t.” With that, he turned away.
Annoyed at him and herself, C.J. called after him. “You can have a serving of ice cream without wanting to marry the ice cream vat.” Warrick stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. She shrugged. “Besides, it was just one of those things that happened. It would be a mistake to have three people pay for one night of passion.” And a birth control method that had failed, she added silently.
He crossed back to her slowly.
