Be Mine at Christmas(30)
Author: Brenda Novak

“Can’t we consider it an extension?”

He would’ve smiled at the wryness of her response, but he was still worried that he might’ve gone too far last night. He wasn’t exactly sure how it’d all happened. The passion was suddenly there. It had brought them together. Was it entirely his fault that they’d made love? He didn’t think so. He remembered trying to stop himself, but she’d been pleading with him to continue.

Still, that bump on her head made him nervous…. “Works for me,” he said, “as long as you understand the reality.”

“Which is…”

“You need me to explain it?”

“I thought you were Mark.”

“No, you wanted to think I was Mark, and I let you. There’s a difference.”

“So you were doing me a favor.”

“That’s a good way to look at it,” he said with false cheer.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so self-sacrificing.”

“As a public servant, I aim to please.”

“Do you do those kinds of favors for all your constituents?”

“Now you’re going to attack my reputation?”

She seemed to realize that she was being purposely contentious. “It’s freezing,” she said with a sigh. “Any chance we can seal the hole until we hear a helicopter?”

“You’re kidding, right? We have to get out, do whatever we can to make it easy for the Civil Air Patrol to find us.”

“Do you always have to be so big on reality?”

This time he did smile. “Put on your coat and crawl out so I can get mine.”

She didn’t answer. Neither did she move. “I can’t believe it,” she mumbled, and he knew she was busy replaying the “favor” he’d done her. He’d told her he loved her! But that was when he thought they’d never see daylight again.

“If it helps, we had no choice,” he said. “If we hadn’t gotten so…involved, we probably wouldn’t be alive right now.” Their activities had certainly warmed him.

“I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

He focused on widening the hole. “That scares me, and you know why. Are you going to keep it up?”

“No.” She burrowed under the coats. “You might push me off a cliff if I do.”

“I won’t kill you after going through that just to save you.” He grinned to himself.

“You’re all heart.”

When the hole was finally big enough to crawl through, he tossed the piece of metal he’d been using outside. “Are we going to stay in here and stress over the fact that we—” he wanted say “had sex” to make it as impersonal as possible, but what they’d done wasn’t impersonal at all “—made love? Or can we forget about it, like we should, and move on?”

“You’re willing to forget about it?” She popped her head out from under the clothes, seeming more embarrassed than angry. Maxim could understand why that might be the case. But he couldn’t hold the request she’d made last night against her. He’d read about the disorientation that often resulted from a knock on the head, not to mention the effects of hypothermia. Without those two elements, he doubted she would’ve have been able to pretend. Playing the role of Mark had been a stretch for him, even in the physical sense. Her husband hadn’t been much bigger than she was.

“I’m willing to forget about it,” he said. “Are you getting out or not?”

“There’s just one more thing.”

He was sure he’d regret asking, but she’d piqued his curiosity. “And that is…?”

“What about birth control?”

“What about it?” He hadn’t used any. It’d been so long since he’d had to worry about it that he didn’t even own a condom, let alone carry one around in his wallet, which was in his briefcase on the plane, anyway. “Birth control hardly seemed important when I thought we were going to die.”

“And now that we might live?”

It was taking on a whole new significance. “What are the chances?”

“Considering…everything, they could be pretty good.”

Just what he wanted to hear. Not only had he made love to Adelaide Fairfax while letting her pretend he was Mark, he might’ve gotten her pregnant.

Shit… That was the absolute last thing he wanted. He loved his two children, but they were grown. And he and Adelaide weren’t even friends.

Swallowing a sigh, he refrained from sharing those thoughts. He knew it was better not to show her how upset he’d be if their encounter resulted in a pregnancy. “I see.”

“So…you didn’t get fixed after you were finished having kids?” she asked.

There’d been no need. His wife had had her tubes tied during the cesarean section performed at Callie’s birth. “No.”

Adelaide’s face fell. But a moment later, she set her jaw, and he knew he was looking at the shrewd business-woman who’d taken Fairfax Solar public. “Then I’ll make you a deal.”

Surprised by her sudden calm, he raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“You tell no one what happened up here…”

He liked it so far. “And…”

“And if I’m pregnant, you let me keep the baby and pretend it isn’t yours.”

He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do that, not after being a parent and knowing what it was like. But there were other considerations he felt more comfortable voicing. “You’re running for office. How will you explain a pregnancy when you’re not married?”

“Maybe Mark made a deposit in a sperm bank before he died,” she said with a shrug.

“Is it true?”

“No.”

I love you. She’d been crying when she said that. Her emotion had reminded him of what he’d felt before his own marriage disintegrated, made him want to experience again that same level of intensity. “You regret not having children when you had the chance?”

“I never had the chance. Mark was infertile.”

Maxim had always assumed it was her, that she’d been too wrapped up in her career to want a child. “You could’ve adopted.”

“We were looking into it.”

And then her husband had died.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t have asked for this, wouldn’t have planned it,” she went on. “But if it’s already happened because of last night—”