Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: The Maverick's Thanksgiving Baby\A Celebration Christmas\Dr. Daddy's Perfect Christmas (16 page)

But he didn't say that he'd keep her posted, and he didn't kiss her goodbye. He just said, “I'll see you later,” and then he walked out the door.

She sat there for another minute, naked in his bed, staring at the empty doorway through which he'd disappeared and trying to make sense of what had just happened. But she couldn't, and tears welled up along with her frustration.

She didn't understand what was going on with him. The night before, she'd felt so connected to him, not just physically but emotionally. She'd been certain that they'd turned a corner, that they were finally going to start living as husband and wife, building a life and preparing for the birth of their child together.

She'd expected to wake up in his arms; she'd even hoped they might make love again. She knew he had things to do around the ranch, that even on the day after Thanksgiving, stalls needed to be mucked out and animals fed, so she didn't expect he'd stay in bed with her all day. But she'd hoped he'd at least show
some
reluctance to leave her side.

Instead, he'd already been up and dressed and on his way out the door when she'd awakened. She wasn't just hurt by his disappearing act, she was baffled. Why was he so anxious to put distance between them? Did he really not have any feelings for her?

No, she didn't believe that. There was no way he could have kissed her and touched her and loved her the way he had unless he felt something. But she was tired of guessing the breadth and depth of those feelings. She couldn't keep doing this—she couldn't keep putting herself out there only to have him pull back every time they started to get close. She couldn't continue to live under the same roof with the man she loved if he didn't feel the same way.

She dried her tears and picked up the phone.

When the call connected at the other end, she took a deep breath and said, “Nina—I need to ask you a huge favor.”

* * *

Jesse was more than halfway to Traub Stables before he finally acknowledged the question that had been hammering at his mind since he'd responded to Sutter's text:
What was he doing?

Why had he walked away from the beautiful—and naked—woman who was still in his bed? What was he afraid of?

Maggie wasn't Shaelyn. The woman he'd married wasn't anything like the girl he'd been engaged to for a short time so many years before. Maggie was smart and beautiful, warm and compassionate, sexy and fun. She was also making a real effort to meet people and make friends, to fit in—and she was succeeding. He'd heard nothing but positive comments from everyone who had got to know her, his brothers and sisters all liked her, and even his parents were starting to come around.

And most significant to Jesse, she'd left her job and her family in LA and moved to Rust Creek Falls so that they could raise their baby together. He'd been so grateful for that decision he hadn't really asked why. He hadn't dared let himself hope that she'd made the choices she had because she loved him—as he loved her.

And with sudden clarity, he realized that was exactly what he'd been afraid of.

They'd both agreed to this legal union in order to give their baby a family. He'd made it clear that he didn't want to fall in love. But apparently his heart hadn't got that memo, because that was exactly what had happened.

He should have known, from day one, that he was fighting a losing battle. Because he'd started falling the first day he met her—no, even before then. The first time he saw her.

Had he really thought he could share a life with her—his home, his bed—and keep his emotions out of it? If so, he was obviously a bigger fool than he thought.

He might not have wanted to fall in love, but that's what had happened. And now he wanted more. He wanted everything.

So why was he pulled over on the side of the road near Traub Stables instead of with Maggie, telling her how he felt?

His tires kicked up gravel as he made a quick U-turn and headed toward home.

As he took the stairs two at a time, he could hear Maggie moving around in the spare bedroom. He paused in the doorway to catch his breath and saw she was removing her clothes from the dresser. At first, he actually thought she might be moving her things across the hall to his room.

Then he saw the suitcases open on the bed.

For just a moment, his heart actually stopped beating.

“What are you doing?”

She looked up, and he saw the wet streaks on her cheeks, evidence of the tears she'd recently shed. His heart, beating once again but in a slow, painful rhythm now, twisted inside his chest, because he knew that he was responsible. He'd hurt her and made her cry, and he'd never wanted to do that.

“This is your house,” she said to him. “Instead of you always making excuses to run off, I figured it made more sense for me to go.”

“Go,” he echoed numbly, not wanting to believe it. He'd rushed home to tell her that he loved her—and she was leaving him? He felt as if she'd reached inside his chest and ripped his heart out.

And yet, there was a part of him that wasn't really surprised, that understood he'd been on tenterhooks since their wedding in anticipation of this exact moment. But expecting it didn't mean that he was prepared for it—especially not now. Not when he'd finally accepted how much she meant to him.

“Don't do this,” he said. “Please, don't go.”

She folded a sweater and placed it in the suitcase. “I can't live like this.”

“I know we have some things to figure out, but we can't do that if you're not here.”

“I'm not the one who rushed out of here this morning,” she pointed out to him.

“I told you where I was going.”

“I know,” she admitted. “And the fact that you'd rather spend time with a horse than me says everything that needs to be said.”

“That's not true,” he denied.

“Isn't it?”

“No,” he insisted.

But she continued to pack.

“If you won't stay for me, please stay for our baby.”

“I'm not going to keep you from our baby,” she assured him.

“You don't have to—the twelve hundred miles between here and Los Angeles will do it for you.”

“I'm not going back to LA.”

“You're not?”

“My job and my life are here now. I have no intention of leaving town. I'm just going to Nina's apartment over the store until I can find something else.”

He was torn between relief and confusion. “Why would you stay in Rust Creek Falls if you're not staying with me?”

“I'm staying in Rust Creek Falls because I made a promise to Ben Dalton when he hired me, and I don't renege on my promises.”

“Really?” he challenged. “What about the promise you made to me when we exchanged wedding vows?”

She zipped up the first suitcase, and when she looked up at him, the tears that shone in her eyes were like another dagger to his heart. “I would have been happy to love, honor and cherish you for the rest of my life,” she said softly, “if I thought there was any chance you might someday feel the same way.”

“Wait a minute.” He pried her fingers off the handle of her suitcase, linked them with his. “Are you saying that you love me?”

“I would never have married you if I didn't.” She kept her gaze riveted on the suitcase as she responded. “But I can't live with someone who doesn't feel the same way.”

“But I do,” he told her. “I was just too stubborn and stupid to admit—even to myself—how I felt.” He nudged her down onto the edge of the mattress, then sat beside her. “I fell for you, hard and fast, even before we were officially introduced. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. And when you shook my hand—it was like something inside of me just clicked.”

She eyed him warily, as if she didn't trust what he was saying. “I thought it was just me.”

“And I thought it was just me—until you kissed me.”

That first kiss was tame compared to the intimacies they'd shared since then, but her cheeks colored at the memory.

“I think I fell in love with you that night,” he told her. “The next morning, I was so happy, certain it was only the first night of many. Then I found out that you were going back to LA that same day.

“And yes, I wondered if our relationship would end the same way my relationship with Shaelyn did. But when you promised to come back, I believed you. I
wanted
to believe you.”

“And then I kept making excuses as to why I couldn't,” she realized.

He nodded. “And I thought you were brushing me off. I figured you'd gone back to LA and realized you couldn't consider giving up your glamorous life in the city to settle down with a quiet cowboy.”

“You barely got a glimpse of my life in LA,” she said. “Or you would have known that it wasn't very glamorous.”

“But you had palm trees and temperatures that rarely ever dip below freezing.”

She managed a small smile. “There is that.”

“My point is that I was so worried that you wouldn't want to stay here, with me, that I acted like an idiot in an unsuccessful attempt to protect my heart.”

“Are you done acting like an idiot?”

“Probably not completely,” he warned. “But I'm done pretending that I don't love you with my whole heart, because I do. And if you can forgive me for being such an idiot, I promise that I will never give you reason to doubt my feelings for you ever again.”

“I can forgive you.”

He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. “I love you, Maggie.”

“Show me,” she said.

He shoved the suitcases aside, onto the floor, and complied with her request.

* * *

Afterward, while their bodies were still joined together and sated from lovemaking, he held her as if he would never let her go. Maggie, her head cushioned on his shoulder, exhaled a soft, contented sigh.

Jesse stroked a hand over her hair, down her back. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“Missing out on almost two weeks of mornings just like this because I was an idiot.”

“I thought we moved past that part.”

“I guess it's easier for you than for me.”

She pulled back, just far enough to prop herself up on an elbow so she could see his face. “Well, stop beating up on the man I love.”

He lifted a hand to cradle her cheek. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“You loved me,” she said simply.

“I do,” he told her. “You are everything to me—my wife, the mother of my children, my partner in life and the woman I love, for now and forever.”

“And you are everything to me,” she replied. “My husband, the father of—” Her breath caught as she felt a little flutter low in her belly. “Oh.”

His brows lifted. “Oh?”

The flutter happened again, and she took his hand and placed it over the curve of her belly. “Can you feel that?”

“What?” And then he felt it, too. His eyes went wide, his lips curved. “Is that...our baby?”

She nodded. “I think she's happy that her mommy and daddy are finally, truly together.”

“And always will be,” Jesse promised.

Epilogue

“T
hanks for helping me out with this,” Nina said to Maggie and Jesse. “The Tree of Hope was a big success last year and I wanted to do it again, but decorating with a baby underfoot turned out to be more difficult than I imagined.”

The newlyweds, who had stopped in at Crawford's just to pick up a few staples before Nina conscripted them into service, were happy to help.

“This time next year, we'll have a little one of our own to interfere with our decorating,” Maggie said to her husband, already anticipating that day.

Jesse grinned. “An eight-month-old baby whose mother graduated summa cum laude from Stanford Law will probably be directing our every move.”

“Unless she takes after her father,” his sister teased.

Maggie hooked another ornament over a branch and turned to her sister-in-law. “She?”

“You've slipped up and used the feminine pronoun a few times,” Nina told her. “But if the baby's gender is supposed to be a secret, I won't tell.”

“I don't know that we'd planned to keep it a secret,” Maggie admitted. “But I didn't realize I'd given it away so quickly.”

“We only found out at Maggie's ultrasound appointment last week,” Jesse told his sister.

Since then—and since his wife's move across the hall had happily turned “his” bedroom into “their” bedroom—they'd started to set up the nursery in anticipation of their daughter's arrival. Maggie had picked out new paint for the walls and ordered curtains from an online home decor warehouse, and the cradle Jesse had made was already set up in the middle of the room with a big pink bow tied around it.

“Well, I'm thrilled,” Nina said. “Because I know Noelle will love having a female cousin to hang out with.”

“Does that mean you've given up on the idea of giving her a little sister?”

“No, I still want another baby,” Nina confided. “And I think my husband is on board with the plan, but all of the evidence would suggest that Dallas begets boys.”

“At least you know Noelle will always have three big brothers to look out for her.”

“And I'm sure they'll look out for their little cousin, too,” Nina said.

The bell at the front of the store jingled as the door opened and Winona Cobbs entered.

The renowned psychic was a regular customer, usually stopping into the store a couple of times a week to pick up a few things. But this time she chose a cart instead of a basket and moved purposefully through the aisles, filling it with items. Toilet paper, bottled water, canned goods.

“Anticipating a long winter?” Nina asked her.

“There's a storm coming,” Winona said.

“Considering it's nearly December in Montana, I'd say you're probably right,” Jesse noted drily.

The older woman sent him a dark look as she pushed her cart toward the checkout. “A storm isn't always connected to the weather.”

“That was...odd,” Maggie said.

“Winona's odd,” Nina said, as if that explained everything. “But she wouldn't have the reputation she does if her predictions weren't accurate at least once in a while.”

“Even a broken clock can tell time twice a day,” Jesse noted.

“You don't believe she has a gift?” Maggie asked him.

“I'm more concerned about finishing this tree so the deserving kids in the community will have gifts,” he said, resuming his task.

After the tree was done, Jesse and Maggie headed toward home—just as big fluffy flakes started to fall from the sky, adding to the white blanket that already covered everything in sight.

“It looks like our first Christmas together is definitely going to be a white one,” Maggie commented.

“I feel like we've already had Christmas, because I got the greatest gift ever when you became my wife.” He gave her a slow, sexy smile that made her knees weak. “And the best part is that you're a gift that can be unwrapped again and again.”

She lifted a brow. “Is that a promise?”

“Absolutely,” he assured her.

And when they got home, he proved it.

Again and again.

* * * * *

Look for the next installment of the new
Harlequin Special Edition continuity

MONTANA MAVERICKS:
20 YEARS IN THE SADDLE!

Julie Smith never talks about her past—because she has no memory of anything that happened before she awoke in a small New England hospital four years ago.
Perhaps a very special cowboy can help bring her
back to her roots...just in time for the holidays!

Don't miss

A VERY MAVERICK CHRISTMAS

by

New York Times
bestselling author Rachel Lee

On sale December 2014,
wherever Harlequin books are sold.

Keep reading for an excerpt from THE SOLDIER'S HOLIDAY HOMECOMING by Judy Duarte