"Do you like it?" she asked and slowly whirled around showing off the dress to full advantage. "Lindy bought it for me. She said she found it on sale and couldn’t resist. It was the craziest thing because I’d tried on this very dress and loved it, but decided I really couldn’t afford to be spending money on myself. She gave me a silver baby rattle, too. I have a feeling Aunt Lindy is going to spoil this baby."

"You look… marvelous."

"I’m getting so fat," she said, and chuckled. To prove her point, she scooped her hands under the soft swell of her abdomen and turned sideways to show him. She smiled, and her eyes sparkled as she jerked her head toward him and announced, "The baby just kicked."

"Can I feel?" Steve had done everything he could to convince himself this child was his. Unfortunately he knew otherwise. But he loved Carol, and he’d love her baby. He would learn to – already he truly cared about her child. Without this pregnancy there was no way of knowing if they would ever have gotten back together.

"Here." She reached for his hand and placed it over the top of her stomach. "Feel anything?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Naturally she’s going to play a game of cat and mouse now."

Steve removed his hand and flexed his fingers. Some of the happiness he’d experienced earlier seeped out of him, replaced with a low-grade despondency. He wanted her baby to be his with a desperation that threatened to destroy him. But he couldn’t change the facts.

"I checked the paper and the movie starts at seven," Carol said, interrupting his thoughts.

He glanced at his watch. "We’d better not waste any time then." While Carol opened the entryway closet and removed a light sweater and her purse, Steve noted the two gallons of paint sitting on the floor.

"What are you painting?" he asked.

"The baby’s room. I thought I’d tackle that project this weekend. I suddenly realized how much I have to do yet to get ready."

"Do you want any help?" He made a halfhearted offer, and wished almost immediately that he hadn’t. It wasn’t the painting that dissuaded him. Every time Carol so much as mentioned anything that had to do with the baby, her eyes lit up like the Fourth of July. His reaction was just as automatic, too. He was jealous, and that was the last thing he wanted Carol to know.

She closed the closet door and studied him, searching his eyes. He boldly met her look, although it was difficult, and wasn’t disappointed when she shook her head. "No thanks, I’ve got everything under control."

"You’re sure?"

"Very."

There was no fooling Carol. She might as well have read his thoughts, because she knew and her look told him as much.

"I’m trying," he said, striving for honesty. "I really am trying."

"I know," she murmured softly.

They barely spoke on the way to the theater and Carol hardly noticed what was happening with the movie. She’d witnessed that look on Steve’s face before when she started talking about the baby. So many subjects were open to them except that one. She didn’t know any man more blind than Steve Kyle. If she were to stand up in the middle of the show and shout out that she was having his child, he wouldn’t hear her. He’d buried his head so deep in the sand when it came to her pregnancy that his brain was plugged.

Time would teach him, if only she could hold on to her patience until then.

Steve didn’t seem to be enjoying the movie any more than she was. He shifted in his seat a couple of times, crossed and uncrossed his legs and munched on his popcorn as if he were chewing bullets.

Carol shifted, too. She was almost six months pregnant and felt eight. The theater seat was uncomfortable and the baby had decided to play baseball, using Carol’s ribs for batting practice.

She braced her hands against her rib cage and leaned to one side and then scooted to the other.

"Are you all right?" Steve whispered halfway through the feature film.

Carol nodded. She wanted to explain that the baby was having a field day, exploring and kicking and struggling in the tight confines of her compact world, but she avoided any mention of the pregnancy.

"Do you want some more popcorn?"

Carol shook her head. "No thanks."

Ten minutes passed in which Carol did her utmost to pay attention to the show. She’d missed so much of the plot already that it was difficult to understand what was happening.

Feeling Steve’s stare, Carol diverted her attention to him. He was glaring at her abdomen, his eyes wide and curious. "I saw him move," he whispered, his voice filled with awe. "I couldn’t believe it. He’s so strong."

"She," Carol corrected automatically, smiling. She took his hand and pressed it where she’d last felt the baby kick. He didn’t pull away but there was some reluctance in his look.

The baby moved again, and Carol nearly laughed aloud at the astonishment that played over Steve’s handsome features.

"My goodness," he whispered. "I had no idea."

"Trust me," she answered, and grinned. "I didn’t, either."

Irritated by the way they were disrupting the movie, the woman in the row in front of them turned around to press her finger over her lips. But when she saw Steve’s hand on Carol’s stomach, she grinned indulgently and whispered, "Never mind."

Steve didn’t take his hand away. When the baby punched her fist on the other side of Carol’s belly, she slid his hand over there. She loved the slow, lazy grin that curved up the edges of his mouth. The action caused her to smile too. She tucked her hand over his and soon they both went back to watching the action on the screen. But Steve kept his fingers where they were for the rest of the movie, gently caressing the rounded circle of her tummy.

By the time the film was over, Carol’s head was resting on Steve’s shoulder. Although the surgery had been weeks before, it continued to surprise her how quickly she tired. She’d worked that day and was exhausted. It irritated her that she could be so weak. Steve had mentioned getting something to eat after the movie, but she was having difficulty hiding her yawns from him.

"I think I’d better take you home," he commented once they were outside the theater.

"I’m sorry," she murmured, holding her hand to her mouth in a futile effort to hold in her tiredness. "I’m not used to being out so late two nights running."

Steve slipped his arm around her shoulders. "Me, either."

He steered her toward his car and opened the passenger door for her. Once she was inside, he gently placed a kiss on her cheek.

She nearly fell asleep on the short ride home.

"Do you want to come in for some coffee?" she offered when he pulled up to the curb in front of her house.

"You’re sure you’re up to this?" he asked, looking doubtful.

"I’m sure."

Carol thought she detected a bounce to his step as he came around to help her out of the car, but she couldn’t be sure. Steve Kyle said and did the most unpredictable things at times.

Once inside he took her sweater, and while he was hanging it up for her, she went into the kitchen and got down the coffee from the cupboard. Steve moved behind her and slipped his arms around her waist.

"I don’t really want coffee," he whispered and gently caught her earlobe between his teeth.

"You don’t?"

"No," he murmured.

His hands explored her stomach in a loving caress and Carol felt herself go weak. "I…I wish you’d said something earlier."

"It was a pretense." His mouth blazed a moist trail down the side of her neck.

"Pretense," she repeated in a daze.

As if he were a puppet master directing her actions, Carol turned in his arms and raised her face to his, anticipating his kiss. Her whole body felt as if it were rocking with the force of her heartbeat, anticipating the touch of his mouth over hers.

Steve didn’t keep her waiting long. His hands cradled her neck and his lips found hers, exploring them as though he wished to memorize their shape. She parted her mouth in welcome, and his tongue touched hers, then delicately probed deeper in a sweet, unhurried exploration that did incredible things to her. Desire created a churning, boiling pool deep in the center of her body.

His fingers slipped from her nape to tangle with her hair. Again and again, he ran his mouth back and forth over hers, pausing now and again to tease her with a fleck of his tongue against the seam of her lips. "I thought about doing this all day," he confessed.

"Oh, Steve."

His hands searched her back, grasping at the material of her dress as he claimed her mouth in a kiss that threatened to burst them both into searing flames. With a frustrated groan, he drew his arms around her front, searching. His breath came in ragged, thwarted gasps.

Carol could feel the heavy pounding of his heart and she pressed her open mouth to the hollow at the base of his throat, loving the way she could feel his pulse hammer there.

"Damn," he muttered, exasperated. "Where’s the opening to this dress?"

It took Carol a moment to understand his question. "There is none."

"What?"

"I slip it on over my head… there aren’t any buttons."

"No zipper?"

"None."

He muffled a groan against her neck and Carol felt the soft puffs of warm air as he chuckled. "This serves me right," he protested.

"What does?"

He didn’t answer her. Instead, he cradled her breasts in his palms, bunching the material of her dress in the process. Slowly he rotated his thumb over her swollen, sensitive nipples until she gasped, first with shock and surprise, then with the sweet sigh of pleasure.

"Is it good, honey?" he asked, then kissed her, teasing her with his tongue until she was ready to collapse in his arms.

"It’s very good," she told him when she could manage to speak, although her voice was incredibly low.

"I want you." He took her hand and pressed it down over his zipper so that she could feel for herself his bulging hardness.

"Oh, Steve." She ran her long fingernails over him.

Exquisitely aroused, he made small hungry sounds and whispered in a voice that shook with desire. "Come on, honey, I want to make love in a bed."

She made a weak sound of protest. "No." It demanded every ounce of fortitude she possessed to murmur the small word.

"No?" he repeated stunned.

"No." There was more conviction in her voice this time. "So many of our discussions end up in the bedroom."

"Carol, dear God, talking was the last thing I had in mind."

"I know what you want," she whispered. "I think we should wait… it’s too soon."

"Wait," he murmured, dragging in a deep breath. "Wait," he said again. "All right, if that’s what you honestly want – then fine, anything you say." Reluctantly he released her. "I’m going to have to get out of here while I still can, though. Walk me to the door, will you?"