“Zane.”
“Zane?”
“Yeah.”
“And is that your middle name?”
“No. My middle name is Lionel.”
“As in Lionel Richie?”
A small grin lifted at the corner of his mouth. “Exactly. I was named after Lionel Richie because my parents were listening to him when I was conceived.”
She couldn’t control the unladylike snort that roared through her nose. “Really?”
He nodded again. “All our middle names are whoever our parents were listening to during conception. They had a warped sense of humor, those two. My mother still does.” Krista noticed that from the start. Joy Hart was a little spitfire.
She shook her head and sat up higher, loving the glimpse she was getting into their baby’s family. They were proving to be fun and loving people, people she enjoyed being around.
“What are your brothers’ middle names?”
“Chase Marvin, for Marvin Gaye, obviously. Rex Barry, for Barry White, and Heath Leppard.”
“Leppard?”
“DefLeppard,” he said dryly, with an amused eye roll.
“Isthata tradition you want to continue with our kid, too?”
He reached over, and his hand grazed her hip. “No. Mainly because we didn’t have any music playing when he or she was conceived, but also because we can start our own traditions, if you’d like.”
She moved closer to him, allowing her breasts to touch his arm, the zing of arousal and need flying through her body once again, settling between her legs.
“Besides,” he said, rolling her over onto her back and covering her with his menacingly powerful frame. She locked her ankles around his back and let her heels rest in the crevice of his butt cheeks. “A Pink Floyd song was playing at the bar before we left, andZane Floydjust doesn’t have a very nice ring to it.” Then he shucked her shorts off and drove home, ending the conversation.
Brock’s eyes flashed open at the sound of someone rattling around in the kitchen. Even though this was his childhood home and the sounds and smells were as familiar as the back of his own hand, it wasn’t hishomeanymore, and he was wide awake at the simplest noise. Barely moving, so as to not disturb the naked, snoring woman next to him, he grabbed his phone and released it from the charger.
It said seven o’clock.
Jesus, couldn’t his routine-obsessed mother sleep in even one day a year?
Of course not. She was probably up at five thirty like she was every day, ran on her treadmill downstairs for forty minutes, did thirty minutes of yoga and had a shower. Now she was getting the coffee going and preparing the Finnish coffee bread her mother used to make each Christmas. Joy Hart was a creature of habit and routine if he’d ever met one.
He pried himself out from beneath the sheets, grabbed what he neededfrom his duffle bag and slipped out the door. When he returned roughly thirty minutes later, he had to stifle a chuckle. Krista was taking full advantage of the empty bed now. She said she found sleeping on her belly painful, but that didn’t stop her from getting comfortable. Arms and legs spread wide, head on his pillow, she was a sprawled-out, sexy naked starfish snoring louder than any man he’d ever met or any bear he’d ever come across while out grouse hunting.
She was something else, that’s for sure. Fierce, hard-headed and frustrating as fuck. And as much as he told himself her stubbornness was annoying and just going to get her into trouble, he had to admit that it also made him admire the crap out of her. She was not a woman who just rolled over and exposed her belly at the first sign of a problem. She was a fighter. And fuck if he wasn’t falling for her. Hard.
Careful not to wake her up, he stuffed his toiletries bag back into the duffle bag, then pulled out Krista’s Christmas present. He’d driven around all fucking day yesterday looking for it. And of course, because he’d left it to the last minute, nearly every store had been sold out. But at the eleventh hour, for a price that made him damn near have a coronary, he’d found a suitable gift.
Would he have preferred something a tad more feminine?
Yes.
But at the eleventh hour, beggars and procrastinators can’t be choosy. This would have to do. Next year he’d get her a better one if she wanted. A matching one with the baby if he could find one.
Fuck! Did he just think aboutnext year?
Shaking his head, he laid the gift out on the bed for her, turned the receipt over, grabbed a pen from off the nightstand and scrawled, “Put this on before you come out” on it. Then with one last look at the naked mother of his child and a smile that made his face hurt, he headed to the kitchen to go and find some coffee.
