The Road to Rose Bend, Naima Simone [jenna bush book club .TXT] 📗

and planted it over her belly. Only when his long fingers splayed wide over her did the impact of her impetuous actions slam into her.

“Oh God, I’m sorry, Cole. I’m so sorry,” she breathed, nearly shoving his hand away in her haste to undo the harm she might’ve unintentionally caused in her excitement. “I wasn’t thinking.”

His body had gone as still as the statue of W.E.B. DuBois outside of city hall. She couldn’t detect the whisper of a breath or the rise and fall of his chest. But his eyes. Jesus, his eyes. They flared wide, as if deep within the cage his body had become, he’d plummeted into a full-blown panic attack. And the amber depths swirled with so much pain, so much grief, that she couldn’t contain her gasp.

It could’ve been that soft sound that snapped him from his paralysis.

Cole slowly tipped his head down and inspected the hand she’d tossed aside as if it were a separate entity from his body. His fingers curled into a tight fist against the cushion. Then, slowly, he stretched them out.

And raised his arm until his palm hovered over her stomach.

“I’m...” He paused, swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his strong throat. “Can I?” he whispered.

The request sounded as if it’d passed through ten pounds of chewed-up gravel before it emerged, rough, jagged and worn. As if he asked, not because he truly wanted to touch her—touch the place where her unborn child lay—but more so to prove a point. Prove that he could.

And because of the almost grim determination in the clench of his jaw and in his pain-drenched golden eyes, she took his trembling hand and guided it to her belly.

Once more, his big hand spanned the length of her.

And once more, as if greeting him, or maybe even congratulating him for his bravery, her baby moved. That butterfly caress brushed against her, and she didn’t even try to contain the soft puff of delight, of wonder, over this proof of the precious life within her.

His fingertips flexed against her, but he didn’t jerk his hand away. The trembling didn’t cease either. Her gaze followed the length of his arm, up over his shoulder until she reached his face. Eyes squeezed closed, his beautiful mouth pressed into a flat line, his cheekbones in striking relief against taut skin, he appeared in pain. An answering ache twisted inside her, and she covered his hand with hers, prepared to end this torture he seemed intent on inflicting on himself. For her? For himself? For the wife and child he’d lost?

As the last question echoed against the walls of her mind, his thick, unfairly long lashes lifted. The soul-deep agony still shadowed his gaze, as did the grief. But the same wonder that shimmered in her chest glistened in his golden eyes.

“This is the first time?” he whispered, as if they were in church instead of his office.

“Yes.” She grinned, and once more those damn tears threatened again, but this time, she let one fall, too overwhelmed to care. And too eager to feel that flutter again to risk moving her hand to wipe it away. “I was expecting it, you know? Waiting on it. My doctor told me it could happen anytime between now and twenty-five weeks. And of course, I’d read books and articles about what it would feel like, but this...” She shook her head, unable to lose her smile. “I wasn’t prepared for this. No article came close to describing the beauty, the perfection of...this.”

They both sat there, their hands stacked on her belly for—God, she didn’t know how long. Minutes, hours, an eternity. And they were rewarded by two more shy movements.

“I think she might’ve gone back to sleep,” Sydney murmured after several more moments passed with no more action.

“She?” Cole asked, arching an eyebrow. “You found out the sex already?”

“No.” Sydney rubbed a small circle over the last spot she’d felt her baby brush against. “It’s still too early for that. Up until today, I’ve been saying he or she. I really don’t have a preference. But today...” She shrugged a shoulder at her fancifulness, the corner of her mouth quirking. “Your sister insists on calling the baby Arwen, the elven princess from Lord of the Rings. I think she’s rubbing off on me.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I remember that. Even if it is a girl, I hope you don’t plan on calling her that.”

“Not even if Tolkien was my baby’s daddy.”

Cole snickered, and the sound warmed her as much as if it’d been a full-out belly laugh. He used to have the best of those. She hadn’t heard it since returning to Rose Bend. If he even did let go like that anymore.

Something whispered to her that he didn’t.

“No, I’m waiting until I see his or her face when they’re born to determine their name,” she added. “Then I’ll know for sure.”

For the second time in a matter of minutes, Cole stiffened as if electrocuted. In the next second, he snatched his arm back and jackknifed to his feet. He stood there, his long fingers curling into his palm. To preserve the sensation? Or to eradicate it?

She was putting her money on the latter.

“Cole?” What had she said? She slowly rose from the couch, running her words through her head like a recording. But no. Nothing in their conversation stood out as something that would garner this kind of reaction.

“I’m sorry,” he said, frost sheeting his voice. “I have an appointment in ten minutes that I need to prepare for.”

He gave her his broad back as he headed toward his desk, his white dress shirt stretching across wide shoulders and molding to the sleek lines of his tapered waist. She jerked her gaze up, but not before it glanced over the firmness of his ass and the strength of his powerful thighs.

Good God. What was wrong with her?

Not yours to ogle. Just a friend. Or rather, the brother of a friend.

If