Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(167)

I could hear Shirleen downstairs, talking to Gracie while Shirleen (and Gracie) banged around the kitchen.

I told Shirleen that she should come with us tonight but she wouldn’t. She’d fashioned herself into the Rock Chick version of Auntie Mame and it was clear her favorite of the Rock Chick/Hot Bunch progeny was, by far and away, Gracie. If Luke and I came home to find Gracie and Shirleen spirited away in the night with a note explaining that Shirleen had kidnapped her and would never return, I wouldn’t have been surprised. She loved that child nearly as much as Gracie’s father and I did.

It was lucky for Gracie, Shirleen had a lot of love to give and I was happy she wanted to give it to my daughter.

The shower turned off and my attention went to the door of the bathroom.

Within minutes, the door opened and Luke was there.

He was clean shaven and his hair, worn much longer now than the way he used to wear it when we first got together (that was to say it was thick, wavy and lush), was wet. He’d long since shaved off the kil er mustache he used to have much to my despair but with the time he spent with me, Gracie and at Nightingale Investigations, not to mention spending time at our cabin in Crested Butte (where, if we were there very long, which we were a lot these days, he’d usual y grow a beard) he said he didn’t have time for ‘tache maintenance.

He’d done his usual half-assed job at toweling off. There were droplets of water clinging to his beautiful shoulders were droplets of water clinging to his beautiful shoulders and perfectly formed, just hairy enough to be sexy as al hel chest and he had the towel wrapped around his waist.

“Towel off much?” I teased and his dark blue eyes sliced to me.

He stopped moving toward the dresser and one side of his mouth went up in a half-grin.

“Babe, get dressed. We’re gonna be late,” he ordered.

“We won’t be late. I’m total y ready.”

I watched as one of his dark eyebrows went up.

“You’re in a robe,” Luke pointed out.

“I just have to put on clothes,” I replied.

“And half a ton of silver.”

He was right about my silver. I stil wore a lot of silver jewelry even though Gracie was usual y tugging at my necklaces. I was constantly in danger of her choking me to death. She was like he-baby, she was so damned strong (that, she got from her father). Not to mention, she kept shoving my rings (while they were on my fingers) in her mouth and biting hard and that child had the jaws of death, kid you not, I should know, I nursed her. She was teething and the silver must feel cool on her gums so I didn’t mind (much, I was pretty sure one day I’d find the baby Gracie gum mark grooves in my rings cute).

I decided to change the subject to one I wanted to talk about.

Luke had made it to the dresser and was rooting through a drawer.

I winced as he rooted. Our drawers were painstakingly tidy. I liked them like that and put a lot of effort into it.

Everything folded neatly and organized by color or color combination or long-sleeved (then by color) and short-sleeved (then by color), etc. I had a system, a tidy system.

Luke didn’t do tidy and he wasn’t al that hot on any of my systems either, no matter how often I explained them to him (which was a lot).

I got over Luke’s ruthless rooting and asked his naked, muscular, sexily dotted with droplets of water back, “What do you think of the name Maisie?”

Luke’s body went completely stil . Then, very slowly, he turned to me and his eyes locked with mine.

“Repeat the question,” he demanded.

“You heard me,” I said softly.

Quick as a flash, Luke was across the room, I was flat on my back, he was on me and wrapping my legs around his hips.

“Luke!”

“Quiet,” he muttered as he yanked the towel away and then kept muttering, as if to himself, “Please God, don’t be wearing any underwear.”

I slapped his shoulder, “Luke, Shirleen is…” He kissed me to shut me up (he did this a lot).

When his mouth moved to my neck, I was breathing faster but I stil said, “We’re going to be late.”

“We’l be quick.”

“Luke, seriously…”

His head came up and his eyes caught mine and I went quiet at their intensity.

“You sayin’ you’re havin’ my baby?”

I nodded.

His face went soft and, just as soft, he said, “Then we’re celebrating.”

I smiled at him. There was no denying Luke when he was in the mood to celebrate (not that I’d want to).

“Okay,” I whispered.

He kissed me again.

I kissed him back.

* * * * *

Sometime later, we were both yanking on our clothes, way late, and Shirleen was shouting up the stairs for us to get a move on. “You never said what you thought about the name Maisie,” I said to Luke.

“I don’t give a f**k what the name is, long as you come out of it alive.”

I felt my breath catch.

Al the Nightingale Men got off facing al kinds of uncertain situations and hair-raising danger but they became a wee bit edgy when their women got pregnant.

This was because Indy had nearly died while having her and Lee’s first, Cal um.

I’d known Lee a long time and I’d never seen him the way he was in the hospital that day when the doctor ejected him from the birthing room. He was always cool and in control. Ultra cool and in control.