Laura Altom - His Baby Bonus

Beau flashed his star, then smiled. “You know, I really hate waking her. How about you please tell me which cabin is hers.”

“How do I know that badge is real? For all I know, you bought it off the Web. You could be some serial killer.”

Beau sighed. “Never mind, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”

He turned to leave.

“Take your money. I don’t deal with any of you late-night sickos.”

Tucking the money in his wallet, Beau headed back out into the night.

One by one, he knocked on cabin doors. “Housekeeping!”

“Get a life, bud!”

“Maintenance! I’ve gotta unplug your john!”

“Screw you!”

Five doors later, a cop pulled into the dirt lot, lights and siren blazing.

“Good girl,” Beau said under his breath about the desk clerk he’d apparently correctly pegged as the type to call the law on him.

“Freeze!” the cop said, gun and flashlight aimed at Beau as he emerged from his car. “Okay, now slowly raise those hands.”

Wincing from the blinding light, Beau did as he’d been told.

Glancing off to his left and right, out of the light’s glare, he saw that just as he’d hoped, lamps flicked on and draperies parted in all but cabins Three and Fifteen. The former had been the one Gracie’s tank was parked closest to, so Beau deduced Cabin Three was hers.

The cop asked, “Mind telling me what you’re doing out this hour of the night, knocking on sleeping citizens’ doors?”

Beau said, “I’m a deputy U.S. Marshal down from Portland.”

“Right.” Rolling his eyes, the cop said, “And I’m Santa. Let’s see some ID.”

Beau obliged, and five minutes later, after the officer made a few calls and found his story checked out, Beau was free to go.

“Ho, ho, ho,” the now jovial cop said. “Sorry to rain on your parade.”

“Not a problem,” Beau said.

Once he was again alone, and all those lamps had gone out, Beau trudged to Cabin Three.

He gave Gracie the benefit of a courtesy knock, then worked magic on the lock with equipment he didn’t officially have.

Inside, he quietly shut the door.

Gracie was sitting up in bed, hands curved around her bulging stomach, looking prettier, softer, more fragile than she ever had.

For an instant he looked away, hating to think himself the cause of her grim expression. If only she’d get it through that thick head of hers that he wasn’t the problem, but the solution.

“I’m so tired of this,” she said softly. And she did look tired. Even in the dim light leaking in from the Alpine Lodge’s blue neon sign, he saw circles under her eyes. “Can’t we just be friends?”

“I wasn’t aware we weren’t.”

She sighed. “Come on, Beau. Enough games.”

“We’re now on a first-name basis?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” he said, drawing the room’s one chair up to the head of the bed. “I do.”

“So then this is it? You agree to let me go on to San Francisco? Alone?”

He laughed.

“This isn’t funny, damn you, it’s my life.”

“I’m not disputing that.”

“Then why are you acting this way? Like my wanting to take my hard-earned spot in a prestigious competition is wrong? I mean think about it, this is the Olympics for cooks. People kill for chances like…” As her words trailed off, she tucked her lower lip into her mouth.

“Oh man,” he said with a groan. “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

“Maybe.” She looked up, slaying him with her baby blues. Only in this light, he couldn’t even really see them, just a shimmer. It was only in his mind those eyes could hurt him. And because he knew that, because he was savvy to her every trick, he pulled his cuffs from his back pocket and slapped one on her wrist.

This time, she laughed, only it wasn’t at all funny sounding, but laced with raspy tears. “I was trying to be serious. You know, open up. But it’s obvious you couldn’t care less how I feel. All you care about is getting your man.”

“Yeah, but you’re a woman,” he said. All woman. Which was why he had to stay strong.

“I’m not going to run again,” she said.

“I know.”

Her face brightened in a smile so hopeful, so lovely and pure that it clenched his gut with ridiculous desires. Silly stupid things like wanting to hold her and protect her and beat the crap out of anyone who dared ruin her pregnancy’s peace. “Does that mean you finally trust me? That you agree I should do the competition?”

“No.”

“Then what? It has to mean something that you finally believe I’m done running.”

“Oh.” He flashed her a slow grin. “It means something, all right.” He slapped his free cuff on his own wrist. “Means you can run all you want, but wherever you go, this time, I’ll be with you.”

Beau groaned.

Gracie was crying. Big ’ol messy Southern belle tears just a little too over the top to be convincing.

When she got to the point in her show where she gazed up at him, batting long, tear-fringed eyelashes glinting in the light spilling in from the parking lot, he yanked the hand cuffed to her to his free one, flooding the now-silent room with bawdy applause. “Woo-hoo!”

He threw in an ear-splitting whistle, too.

“You’re a beast,” she spat, trying to roll over, taking him along for the ride.

“Hey—my arm doesn’t bend that way, thank you very much.”

“And I wasn’t crying for your entertainment pleasure, thank you very much!”

“Look, lady, how about we agree to disagree and call it a night?”

“I would, but I’m cold. I can’t sleep without my faux mink throw.”

“So you’re wanting me to uncuff you long enough to go get it?”

“Yes, please.”

He sighed. Ran his palm over the day and night’s stubble on his jaw. “Tell you what, you want that ratty old thing that bad, I’ll be happy to walk outside with you to get it from my trunk.”

“But I’m tired and my ankles are swollen.”

“Me, too—on both counts.” He stood, yanked her arm sideways to allow himself the range of motion needed to jerk the spread off the extra bed, then the blanket. After lying down beside her, then covering them both, he growled, “Night.”

“I’m supposed to just lay here flat like this? I don’t have enough pillows, and when my head isn’t high enough, I always wake with heartburn.”

“Here,” he said, yanking his own pillow out from under his head to awkwardly ram it under hers.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

After a few moments’ blessed silence, Beau was finally nodding off when she sighed.

Instantly, he was awake. “What?”

“I’ll never be able to sleep like this. If only I could—”

“Roll over.”

“What?”

“If I have to tell you again, I’ll roll you myself.”

She rolled, his arm flailed up at an awkward as hell angle, and because above all he was a gentlemen, not about to have this very pregnant woman accuse him of not having gotten adequate rest on his watch, he somehow managed to fall asleep.

Staying asleep was a whole other matter.

“Quit,” he mumbled when something kept rubbing his wrist.

“Huh?”

“Whatever you’re doing, knock it off.”

“I’m just laying here, trying to—”

“That! That little movement right there suspiciously close to Chinese water torture.”

“That?” She giggled. “That’s the baby, silly. She’s a night owl. Watch…” She flicked on the wall-mounted lamp on her side of the bed, then rolled onto her back and flung off the blanket. “Just keep your eyes on my belly, and—there! Did you see that?”

“Damn, that was pretty cool. Will he do it again?”