Think About Love by Vanessa Grant Page B

it on the dash. Then she picked up the diaper bag and headed for the hospital building.
    Cal was inside, standing beside the elevators.  
    Samantha stopped in front of him.
    "I'm sorry," she said soberly. "I don't know what got into me."
    "I wasn't trying to take over." He didn't smile.
    The elevator doors opened. Cal cupped his hand around her shoulder and led her two steps away from the elevators.
    "You were taking over. Maybe it was some sort of guy thing, but I didn't know how to deal with it."
    "We're going to be a family. The three imperatives of primitive man—protect, provide, procreate."
    She felt heat flush her face, inappropriate laughter welling up at the same time. "You were trying to protect me, look after me?" And procreate?
    "Guilty." He touched Kippy's head, brushed the baby hair with gentle fingers, almost touching Samantha's shoulder. Kippy smiled without opening her eyes.
    "This pack thing you're carrying her in was a good idea. She's smiling. Do you think she's got gas?"
    "You're the one who's used to babies, but no, I think she's smiling for you. Cal, what are we going to do?"
    "Get married. Share the driving. Argue sometimes."
    "You walked away." She hadn't admitted to herself how much that hurt.
    "Stuck in a car with the baby crying, there was no way we could talk about anything. Also, I was angry and I didn't want to say something I'd regret." He ran his hand roughly through his hair. "The only thing I could think of to do was to kiss you. I figured that would be a mistake."
    She felt like a grounded fish, her mouth parted in shock. She'd been whining instead of acting like the independent, assertive woman he knew, and he wanted to kiss her!
    "Why would you kiss me?"
    "Sam, you've got to know I find you attractive."
    She wanted to deny it, but last night she had wondered what it would be like to make love with him, and she hadn't needed to ask herself if he would want to.
    "We haven't talked about it, not really."  
    Her words drew a half smile to his lips, and he said gently, "I didn't think we needed a clause in our contract."
    She felt herself stiffen. "Why not?"
    "When it happens, it will be because we both want it. There wouldn't be any pleasure in it otherwise."
    She knew she was blushing again, wished she could tame the red in her face as well as the tone of her voice.
    "Fair enough. If it happens."
    "We've got to stop having important conversations in public places with a baby who's going to interrupt us at any moment. Let's go up. You can introduce me to your grandmother and tell her the news. We can talk later, in private."
    I'll decide when to tell Dorothy . The words, fast and sharp, flew into her mind, but speaking them would have made her feel like a petulant teenager.
    Cal wanted her sexually.
    She wished she'd left her hair down, wished she could tilt her head forward the way Sarah used to do and have it slide over her face, hiding her expression.
    "Let's go," she said.

    A minefield, a bloody minefield, thought Cal, and he seemed to set off land mines wherever he stepped. He realized she was only comfortable with this marriage as a business proposition, but somehow the knowledge that she was going to marry him, that she'd be his wife, was acting on the primitive centers of his brain.
    He had started treating her differently, touching her, wanting to carry things for her, wanting to see emotion flash in her eyes, wanting her lips to curve... for him.
    Wanting to make love with her, to touch her in secret places and hear her moan, see her eyes glaze with the storm of her own passion as she lost control and screamed his name.
    Damn!
    Last night, it had seemed so straightforward. The knowledge that he mustn't let Sam walk away, the flash of recognition, knowing that Calin Tremaine and Samantha Jones were meant to be together. Partners in life.
    More than partners.
    It was a damned good thing Sam didn't realize this marriage proposal was the impulse of a desperate moment. She'd only