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Mat nodded. The baby tucked his head against his neck, and he would have given anything right then to go play with him instead of facing how bleak his own future was going to be if the ice queen living inside Nealy’s body kicked him out.
“Well . . . I’m very appreciative that you didn’t betray me in the articles you wrote.”
“Appreciative?”
“And I’m grateful that you’re trusting me with the girls.”
“You’re grateful?” This was a nightmare. He sank back down on the ancestral couch.
“Immensely.”
The grandfather clock ticked away in the corner. She didn’t seem to mind the silence that was stretching longer and longer.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“No, I don’t believe so.”
That ticked him off. She damn well had to have felt something more than that or she’d never have let him near all those hot, moist places he’d made his own.
He set his jaw. Shifted the baby to his other shoulder. “Think harder.”
She arched an eyebrow. Touched the pearls with her fingertips. “Nothing else springs to mind.”
He leaped up from the chair. “Well, something else springs to my mind! I love you, damn it! And if you don’t like it, that’s too damn bad.”
The baby gave a mew of displeasure. Nealy’s eyes shot open. “You love me?”
He waited for her lips to bloom in a smile, her eyes to soften. Instead, she looked as if she’d been hit by the first round of musket fire at Lexington.
Lunkhead! He slipped the baby under his arm and moved forward. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I just— Is it hot in here? Maybe your furnace isn’t working right. I could look at it.”
What was wrong with him? He’d lived around women for years. He understood their habits. Why was he falling apart when he most needed to keep himself together?
A thousand emotions flickered across her face, but for the life of him he couldn’t identify any of them. She leaned back in the chair, crossed those slim legs, and made a little Protestant church steeple with her fingers. “When did you have this startling—and obviously unwelcome—revelation?”
“Sunday.”
Her nostrils flared. “This past Sunday?” Not a question but an accusation.
“Yes! And it wasn’t unwelcome.” The baby’s whimpers grew louder. He jiggled him.
“You only discovered this two days ago?”
“That doesn’t mean I haven’t felt it all along.” As a line of defense, it seemed weak even to him. His voice cracked. “I’ve loved you for a long time.”
“Ahh . . . I see.” She rose and walked over to him, not to fall into his lap as he hoped, but to take the baby back.
The pint-sized Benedict Arnold seemed more than happy to resettle on her shoulder. “You don’t look very happy about it,” she said. The baby wrapped a fist around the Mayflower pearls and shoved them in his mouth.
“I’m happy! I’m delirious!”
There went that eyebrow again.
Damn it! He made his living with words. Why had they deserted him now? It went against his grain, but he knew the time had come to throw himself on the mercy of the court. “Nealy, I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out, but that doesn’t make it any less true. What we have together is too good to throw away just because I screwed up.”
She didn’t seem impressed. “Your idea of showing your tender feelings is to go on CNN and talk about me to the world. Is that right?”
“I was bluffing. You wouldn’t take my phone calls, remember? I needed to get your attention.”
