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hand.
Rachel cleared a space on the cluttered coffee table. "If I drink much more milk, I'll not only look as
round as a cow, I'll start mooing like one," she complained.
"You need to put on weight. The baby may be growing, but you aren't."
"And being a soldier, you would know a lot about pregnant women and babies."
His gaze measured hers. "I've had medical training," he drawled, confirming her own suspicions. He
strode to the door, then paused. "I'll tell Dane to come and help you hang those curtains. I meant it when
I said I didn't want you climbing ladders or doing any lifting."
Cullen's footsteps echoed down the hallway. The front door slammed behind him, sending a shudder
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through the solid old house.
"Well, you knew he wasn't going to purr like a pussycat right off," Rachel muttered to herself as she
dutifully sipped her milk. "And you also knew he wasn't going to help you turn his life upside down when
he fully expects to shunt you out of it in just a few months."
An infinitesimal flutter began deep in her stomach. Startled, Rachel replaced her drink on the table, her
hand going to her abdomen. She'd feltflutterings before now, but nothing this definite. She held her breath
as she waited for the next movement, then the next. The baby was kicking. Suddenly she was grinning,
crying,and the need to share their child's movement with Cullen was sostrong that she was on her feet
and heading for the door before she reminded herself that he wouldn't welcome this. Just as he wasn't
welcoming the changes she was making to his house.
Swallowing her elation and the sadness that went with it, she sat back down on the sofa, waiting for
another kick. The tinyflutterings started again, and her eyes filled with tears. She wasn't alone. She would
never be alone again; she had that certainty, at least.
When the kicking finally stopped, Rachel made her way to the kitchen to start dinner. Cullen's tension
was a heartening sign, she reminded herself. He was as moody as a restive stallion. The Cullen she'd
thought she knew didn't slam doors or behave irritably. But then, he kept so much of himself hidden.
Getting to know him was like lifting the lid on Pandora's box. She was playing a dangerous game in
recklessly pushing him for a response. When that iron control finally snapped&
Rachel closed her eyes, seeing another room barely lit by lamplight. She swallowed against the memory
of hot, wild lovemaking, of Cullen plunging so deep inside her that she shivered and burned in his grasp.
Deliberately, she opened her eyes, blanking out the raw, disturbing images, the automatic response of
her body. She wasbankingon Cullen breaking. Because if he didn't, she would have lost this gamble of a
marriage.
* * *
Cullen prowled the piles of dirt that used to be his lawn. Fury and desire twisted in him. He hadn't
wanted to leave the house. He'd wanted to stay and make sure that Rachel didn't climb that dangerous
excuse for a ladder again three whole rickety steps, damn it, if you counted that she'd been perched on
the apex of the thing. He'd felt the thickening at her waist when he'd lifted her from the ladder, and the
knowledge that she was growing his baby inside her had made him weak at the knees. He'd wanted to
carry her up to his bed, strip the clothes from her and see the evidence for himself.
He still felt strange dazed, disoriented. Cullen stopped andstared in irritable disbelief at the upheaval
around him. A vision of a toddler crawling over soft, smooth lawn had his hands clenching into fists.
This would be someone else's house, he reminded himself. Someone else's garden. And children that
didn't belong to either him or Rachel would play in the shrubbery.
Forcing the images from his mind, he strode over to the barn and began helping Dane load the truck with
the fencing materials they needed for the morning. There was a substantial length of fence down in the
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