CHAPTER 11

	That night Morgan was especially fussy. Cole walked the hall with her early in the
evening, and managed to get her to sleep, but later, while Hannah was lying in her bed,
the baby started to cry again.   Not bothering with her robe, Hannah went to the nursery
and  took  Morgan into the rocking chair with her.  After a feeding, and a good burp, the
baby finally settled, and soon both mother and baby were sound asleep in the
comfortable chair. 
	This was where Cole found them, long after midnight, when he got up from his
own bed to check on Morgan.  He stood at the doorway for a moment, smiling as he
looked at them in the moonlight, then he carefully lifted Morgan from Hannah’s arms,
settling the baby into her crib. 
	Then he turned to look at Hannah, sleeping peacefully in the chair.  She looked
so beautiful, he thought.  He couldn’t even remember what his life had been like before
she had come into it.  Quietly he went to her side and whispered her name, and she
stirred but did not wake up. 
	“Hannah,” he whispered again. “Morgan’s asleep. You need to go back to bed.”
	Hannah mumbled something and shifted in the chair, but still didn’t open her
eyes.  Cole slipped his arms around her back and tried to lift her out of the chair, onto
her feet, but she resisted, rolling toward her side as if she were in her bed. 
	“Come on, Hannah, lets go, I’ll take you to your bed,” he said, softly, and bent
over to scoop her up into his arms completely.
	“Cole?” she said, dreamily, but as he looked down at her face in the moonlight,
her eyes were closed. She was still asleep. 
	“Shhh,” he said, as he carried her to her room and set her onto her bed. 
	She mumbled something else under her breath, but he couldn’t make it out.  He
was just pulling the covers up over her when she rolled into a ball, hugging herself, and
mumbled something about being cold.  Cole looked down at her for a moment, then
climbed in behind her, moving in close and wrapping his arm around her, bringing the
covers up around them both. 
	“Shhh,” he whispered softly into her hair.  “I’ll warm you up.”
	As he lay there next to her, his arm wrapped around her, he nuzzled his face into
her hair, smelling the scent of her.  With a sigh, he closed his eyes, planning to rest with
her for a few minutes, then go check on the baby again on his way to his own room.
	
	Hannah snuggled into the warmth of the bed, drifting softly on a dream where
she was nestled in Cole’s arms.  She smiled to herself and sighed. The arm draped
gently across her was comforting, and she was enjoying the closeness.  As she slowly
began sliding through the fog of sleep into the early morning wakening, her mind
suddenly came into focus, and she caught her breath.  The arm was real, the warm
body next to her was real, this was no dream! 
	Cautiously she opened her eyes and turned her head.  There was Cole, sleeping
beside her, with his arm over her, looking quite content.  She lay perfectly still for several
seconds.  What was he doing there?  The last thing she remembered was rocking the
baby to sleep in the rocking chair in the nursery. She had no idea how she had gotten to
bed, nor why Cole was there beside her. All she knew was that she had an eerie sense
of deja vu. 
	Carefully she tried to move, and Cole’s arm pulled her in closer.  Her mind
replayed the panic she had felt that first time she had awakened beside him, how she
had slipped out from under his arm, and out of his apartment without a word, while he
still slept.  It seemed so long ago.  
	This time she didn’t move.  Instead, she lay there looking at him as he slept.  The
soft morning light was filtering through her window, she could just make out his face
close beside her, and his hand felt warm and comforting where it rested on her stomach. 
She didn’t want to move. She wanted to stay there, in his arms, and pretend it was
normal, pretend she belonged in his arms. 
	From down the hall she started to hear Morgan fussing and gurgling in her crib. 
Gently she tried again to move Cole’s arm, and again he pulled her closer to him. 
	“Cole,” she whispered.
	He murmured in his sleep and nuzzled against her shoulder.
	“Cole,” she whispered again, a little louder. 
	“Shhhh” he seemed to whisper, then he planted a soft kiss on her cheek,
startling her into stillness. Slowly she turned to look at him and whispered his name one
more time, a little more urgently, and this time his lips found her lips, and he kissed her
warmly before whispering “Go back to sleep,” against her lips.
	Hannah found her head spinning as she tried to maintain her composure.  She
concentrated on the sounds coming from Morgan’s room and tried not to think about the
familiarity that had flowed through his kiss.  He was asleep, she reminded herself.  Don’t
make more of it than what it really was. 	
	“Cole, the baby is awake," she spoke again, softly against his ear, and he cuddled
closer to her before finally opening his eyes slowly.
	“Good morning,” he said, with only a hint of uncertainty in his voice.  “How are
you this morning?”
	“I’m — I’m fine,” she said cautiously, not knowing what else to say.  “Cole — what
—?”  She didn’t finish, just looked down at the bed where she lay under his arm, and he
drew her closer to him.
	“You fell asleep in the chair with Morgan,” he said, and she nodded.
	“I remember that. How did I get here?”  Her heart was beating a mile a minute
and she was trying her best to stay calm, hoping her voice didn’t sound too shaken.
	“I carried you,” he said. “You wouldn’t wake up.”
	“Oh,” she said, then there was a long pause while she contemplated whether to
ask the next question or not. “Why — umm — why were you sleeping here?”
	He grinned and drew her even closer to him. “You were cold,” he said.  “I decided
to warm you up for a while.  I guess I got so comfortable that I fell asleep.”
	He was looking at her with a smile and Hannah felt her heart melt.  She knew
that if he kissed her then, she would be lost and would let him take things as far as he
wanted without any chance for resistance.  For a moment, the look in his eyes made her
hold her breath as she lay there looking at him.  It seemed to take forever until either of
them spoke again, during which time Cole’s eyes slowly travelled from her eyes to her
lips.
	“Hannah —” he said, barely a whisper, and the sound in his voice made her
catch her breath.  He didn’t say anything else, however, but instead he lowered his lips
to kiss her.  It was a deep, searching kiss, much more potent than the one he had given
her while they had been walking the baby.  He broke the kiss only long enough to
whisper her name once again, then he claimed her lips again, this time with such
passion that Hannah let out a soft whimper and clung to him with trembling fingers. 
	Somewhere in the distance she heard the baby crying, and tried to regain her
sanity.  “Cole!” she said, softly against his lips, as she pulled reluctantly away.  “Cole,
Morgan is crying.”
	Cole groaned, and drew her closer to him for a few seconds, breathing into her
hair, then slowly he rolled over on his back and looked up at the ceiling with an arm
across his eyes.  
	“I’ll go get her,” he said at last, and the spell was broken; she was finally able to
breathe. “You stay here, I’ll be right back.”
	She watched him go, then listened to Morgan cooing as he came back with her. 
He rested the baby in Hannah’s arms and slipped back under the covers beside them,
running his hand gently over the softness of the baby’s hair.
	“There’s Mommy,” he said reassuringly, as the baby rested her head on
Hannah’s chest, her face turned towards him, watching intently as he spoke to her.  She
gurgled back at him, squawking and cooing, and he smiled down at her.
	Hannah watched them for a few seconds.  To the outside observer, they might
look like a normal couple, a normal family.  Why then, should she be shy to feed the
baby in front of him?   But Morgan was sucking on the knuckle of her father’s pinkie
finger, so quite soon she would get frustrated with the fact that she was getting no milk
from her efforts and start to squawk again.
	“She’s hungry,” Hannah whispered.
	“Then you better feed her,” Cole remarked, easing his hand away.  As he
lowered his hand, his fingers brushed against Hannah’s breast, and he hesitated.  Then
slowly, he slid his hand towards her buttons and began undoing her night-gown until at
last he felt the warmth of her skin.  He glanced down at her in the early morning light,
then lifted his eyes to her face as he slid his hand under the fabric of her night gown and
cupped her breast with his hand.  Slowly he ran his finger over her nipple as he took a
breath.
	“You better — feed her,” he repeated, huskily, and Hannah reminded herself to
breathe and dragged her eyes away from him to focus on the baby as he drew his hand
away and rolled out of bed.  “I’ll leave you two together.  I have some business to take
care of.”  He paused at the doorway and smiled at her, then he was gone.

	Cole sat at his desk in his study, staring out the window.  It had been three
weeks since Morgan had been born.  He had invited Hannah to move into the house out
of a deep sense of responsibility, but he had never dreamed having them living with him
would change his life so completely.  Even now, he could hear the sounds of the baby
cooing somewhere in the house, and it felt like the most natural sound in the world.  He
had lived alone in this big house since Ty had moved out over a year ago, and never felt
lonely.  
	Veronica had made it perfectly clear that children were not an option, and he had
never thought to disagree with her.  They were both busy people, and Veronica being
the socialite that she was, would have had no time, or patience, for a baby tagging
along.  He had agreed that their lifestyle just wasn’t designed to have children in it, and
yet now Morgan was very much a part of his life and it wasn’t hampering him one bit!  He
had been blinded by Veronica’s cunning ways, and he found it a bit humorous that he
was enjoying fatherhood thanks to her.  Afterall, if she hadn’t chosen to fool around with
everyone under the sun, they might actually have gotten married!
	Cole tossed his pen onto the desk and pushed his chair back.  Who was he
kidding anyway?  It had become painfully obvious that Veronica didn’t want children
because she was playing the field way too much.  That, and her selfish obsession with
her looks. A pregnancy would, afterall, spoil her figure!
	It hadn’t hurt Hannah’s figure! he found himself thinking.  
	His mind wandered to images of Hannah working in the kitchen, or tidying the
living room, and he just could not force himself to picture Veronica in any of those roles! 
In fact, he couldn’t picture Veronica in his house at all any more.  She had done him a
big favour!  If they had married, he never would have known what he was missing not
being a father.  
	Earlier when Hannah had taken Morgan out for a walk he had noticed the
silence in the house louder than ever.  It had been like a breath of fresh air when he had
heard them come home again.  He didn’t even have to see them, just knowing they
were in the house somewhere made the place seem so much warmer.  
	He’d also come to enjoy those first few minutes when he came home from work
and called out Hannah’s name, waiting for her reply, then seeing her smiling face.   No
matter how tired he was, the first thing he thought of when he pulled his car up outside
the house was Morgan, wondering what she was doing, whether she was asleep or
whether he would be able to pick her up and play with her.  And lately, he’d found
himself thinking about Hannah just as much.
	Hannah’s voice broke through his thoughts and he listened to her talking to the
baby in a voice that was half singing.  He’d gotten used to that voice.  He would lay
awake at night listening to her in the nursery, singing lullabies and talking softly to the
baby.  Listening to her preparing to leave the nursery he often held his breath, imagining
her coming into his bedroom and climbing into bed beside him. But she always went to
her own room, and he would remind himself that there was no reason why she shouldn’t. 
True, he wanted her, wanted to make love to her more than anything, but a woman like
her deserved more than just a physical relationship.  She was nothing like Veronica. 
She would never take sex as casually as his ex had, and that was just one more thing
that made her so special!  He couldn’t take advantage of her presence in his house and
ruin the trust they had been building between them.   He’d almost made love to her once
in this house already and if Morgan hadn’t been awake, he knew they would have
finished what they had started.  It was taking all his willpower not to do it again.	
	He sighed, and closed his eyes, but the image of Hannah in his bed with him
drifted through his mind, and he quickly opened his eyes again. Damnit! It was getting
harder and harder to keep his hands off of her, but he was determined not to let his
physical desires get in the way of keeping his little family where he wanted them — right
there in his house.  
	“Cole.”  Hannah’s voice interrupted his thoughts and he went immediately to the
study door.
	“Is everything OK?” he called.
	“Everything is fine,” she said, as she appeared, a bright smile on her face and
the baby propped on her hip. “I’m taking Morgan up to bed now, thought you might want
to see her before she goes to sleep.”
	He smiled back, and reached for the baby.  “There’s my beauty, huh,” he cooed,
as he blew against Morgan’s forehead and listened to her laugh.  He hugged her close
then, and kissed her neck. “You be a good girl and go to sleep for Mommy,” he said,
then handed her back to Hannah.  “Need any help?”
	“No, I’m fine,” Hannah smiled at him.  “When I get her settled, I think I’m going to
go lay down too.  I’m tired, and I could do with the rest.”
	Come to bed with me, he thought, but out  loud he said instead.  “Yes, get your
rest when you can. You deserve it.”
	She smiled again and Cole stifled a groan.  Oh that smile! He wanted her! He
wanted to tell her to meet him in his bed when the baby was asleep, and make love all
night long.   He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and diverted his eyes to the
baby, who was once again propped on Hannah’s hip, with her head resting on her
mother’s shoulder and her eyes slowly closing. 
	Don’t blow it, old man! he told himself. Get a grip on yourself. You don’t want to
do anything to jeopardize these living arrangements.  Having Morgan so close every day
was more important to him than he ever thought it would be, he didn’t want to mess that
up.  He sighed and gave Hannah a gentle smile. Having Hannah close was growing on
him too!
	“Looks like she won’t be hard to put to sleep tonight,”  he said.  “You two go and
get a good night sleep.  I still have to go over these blueprints some more before I head
up.  I’ll check in on her before I go to bed.”
	Hannah smiled, turned so he could see the baby’s face one more time, then left
the room.  He stood there listening to her voice getting farther and farther away as she 
sang softly to the baby.  The urge to go after her was so strong.  He wanted to go
upstairs with them, kiss Morgan to sleep, then kiss Hannah, take her hand and draw her
out of the nursery towards his bed.
	No!  he told himself as he frowned and slowly dragged himself away from the
door.  Swinging in slow motion he turned around and absently drummed his fingers on
his desk, staring down at the blueprints that were spread out all over the place.   He
looked at them for a long time without really seeing them, then turned to look over his
shoulder.  He could still hear Hannah’s soft voice cooing to the baby as she reached the
top of the stairs. 
	Sit down and go over the blueprints, he told himself, but he didn’t move.  The soft
singing was almost inaudible now, and then he heard the soothing sound of the music
box that Hannah always wound up beside the crib when she put Morgan to bed.  Cole
loved the peaceful feeling he got from listening to that music. It meant Morgan was
home and sleeping, and life was good.   
	The music became quieter and he knew Hannah was closing the nursery door. 
Without a second thought he spun around and rushed out of the study, circling the
bottom of the stairs and taking the steps two at a time.  His first foot landed on the floor
at the top, his hand gripping the banister, just as Hannah turned to leave the nursery
door and head towards her own bedroom. 
	“Hannah!”  he said, breathlessly, and she stopped in mid step to turn towards
him.
	“Cole? Are you alright?” she asked, looking at him as if she couldn’t understand
his panic.
	“I — uh — “  He stared at her, unable to speak, his heart pounding in his chest
from having run up the stairs.  That was a stupid thing to do! he scolded himself, as he
tried to catch his breath.  Hannah’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head to the side
curiously.  “Never mind.  Good night, Hannah.  I’ll see you in the morning. Have a good
sleep.”
	She smiled, and sort of shrugged, and hesitated before saying good night and
heading down the hall to her room.  Cole told himself the fleeting look of disappointment
he thought he saw on her face was just his imagination, and turned towards his own
bedroom.  Once safely inside, he collapsed on his bed and draped his arm across his
forehead, staring up at the ceiling. 
	Wouldn’t that have looked good, he chided himself. Chasing up the stairs after
her to tell her you wanted to take her to bed with you! Standing there out of breath like a
damned desperate fool!
	He groaned and let his arm drop onto the pillow on the other side of the bed.  He
must not scare her away! His physical attraction to her must be kept in check.  She
wasn’t like Veronica.  She wouldn’t settle for a physical relationship. He’d already been
on the giving end of an engagement ring once, and if he wasn’t prepared to offer
Hannah the whole package, he had to accept the fact that love making was off limits. 
They were simply house mates with a common bond in Morgan, that was all. Hannah
was off limits! If it took every ounce of willpower in his body, he was determined to
remind himself of that until he got it through his head!