Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: The Maverick's Thanksgiving Baby\A Celebration Christmas\Dr. Daddy's Perfect Christmas (51 page)

Over her. Nora couldn't imagine the fact that halfway around the world those two men had been fighting over her.

“I told him if he didn't come clean with you, then I would.” Eli raked his hands through his hair and met her gaze. “I hated the thought of you being hurt, Nora, but I also knew you deserved to know. He swore he'd tell you, and when he came home on leave I assumed he was going to. By the time he came back, my tour was nearly up and he told me not to say anything. That he was writing you a letter because he couldn't do it face-to-face.”

Nora bit her lip, trying to keep her emotions under control.

“I honestly had no idea about the divorce papers,” he whispered. “I swear to you.”

A tear slipped down his cheek. The image of this big strong man, a man who'd fought in a war, a man who cared for wounded and dying, was crying...for her, for them.

“I've decided to leave at the end of dad's medical leave,” he went on, swiping the tear as if it meant nothing. “There's a job I've been waiting to hear on in Atlanta and I just found out I got it.”

The very last thread of hope in Nora died. She hadn't even realized she'd come here with the minuscule light left in her heart, but now that it had been doused with his words, she felt even more empty than before.

“Um... That's great,” she told him. “Congratulations.”

He nodded, his eyes not quite meeting hers. “Thanks.”

She stared at him, waiting for him to say something, to say he was joking and he didn't mean to hurt her...anything. He remained silent.

Nora wrung her hands together before turning toward the chair by the door to get her coat. She needed to get out of here, needed distance and needed to realize that her life with Eli was officially over. There was no third chance and this second chance had been blown to pieces so small only slivers remained.

Just as she reached for her scarf, Eli's strong hands gripped her shoulders.

“Fight for us, damn it.” His words were thick with emotion and she knew if she turned she'd see those tears back in his eyes. “If this is what you want, fight.”

Nora dropped her head into her hands and sobbed as Eli pulled her back against his hard chest. His hands came around to rest on her stomach.

“I know I hurt you, Nora. I know you feel betrayed, but I swear on my life, I did it out of love.” His fingers spread over her belly as the baby started moving. “But you hurt me, too, when you said I was capable of infidelity. You know, deep down, that I'm not. I could never even look at another woman when you are all that I've ever wanted.”

Along with the warmth of being surrounded by Eli's powerful touch, his words fueled her with a promise that maybe this second chance wasn't dead. Maybe they both had to fight.

“I don't think you'd be unfaithful,” she whispered between sniffs. “I was hurting so bad I wanted you to hurt, too.”

“I love you.” He took her shoulders and turned her around. Sure enough, tears swam in his eyes. “There's no fancy way to say it. I love you because I want to give everything to you. I want to take care of you. Love isn't about what you get in return, but what you give, and there was no way I was going to give you more heartache than you'd already experienced.”

He was wrong—there was a fancy way to say I love you and he'd just delivered it in a nicely wrapped package.

Nora's fingertips trailed over the scar. “You let everyone think you got this overseas.”

“I did.”

Hand hovering over his face, she smiled. “But you got it because of me.”

Taking her hand, he kissed her palm and laid it back over the scar. “And I'd do it all again. I'd fight for you every day of my life, Nora. You can't possibly know the love I feel for you. You can't even fathom how my heart was so empty when I was away from you for all those years because I can't even find words to describe it.”

“I know exactly how you're feeling.” She framed his face with her hands, wiping the tears that had slid down his stubbled cheeks. “I don't want to live without you, Eli. And if that means I need to move to Atlanta, then I will. Wherever you want to go, I'll go. Are you sure you're up to taking me and this baby? We're a team and not many men would want to raise another man's child.”

Eli's hands slid down to cover her belly again. “Regardless of how Todd and I left things before he died, I loved him like one of my brothers. Raising his baby, your baby, is not even an issue with me. I'll love this baby like my own and treat her as such. She'll never question where I stand.”

He nipped at her lips and rested his forehead against hers. “And neither will you.”

Eli's mouth covered hers once again, hotter and hungrier than before. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him as his hands traveled down to cup her behind.

“I want you,” he muttered against her lips. “What did the doctor say?”

“I've been given the green light for all activity.” Already her body started responding to his touch, his whispered declaration. “I'm healthy and so is my baby girl.”

When he scooped her up and started toward his bed, Nora laughed. “Your mother is going to know what we're doing if I don't come back down.”

“She'll be thrilled when you don't come back down because she wants you in this family just as much as I do.”

Eli sat Nora down on the edge of the bed. “Don't move.”

Confused, she watched as he raced to the drawer in the coffee table and took out a small box. A velvet box.

Nora's breath caught in her throat as he came back and knelt before her.

“Eli—”

“I know it's soon,” he said, cutting her off. “But hear me out. I'm not asking you to marry me. Yet. But I am asking you to wear my ring. I don't care how long we're engaged, I don't care how long you need to get over Todd, to get past all this hurt. I will be here, Nora.”

She stared as he lifted the lid and a thick band of diamonds stared back at her.

“I wanted to keep the ring flat so you could still wear it to work and not scratch the baby.” He removed it from the box and she saw diamonds all the way around the band with a platinum setting. “Please say you'll wear it.”

Her eyes met his as she smiled. “Of course I'll wear it, Eli. And I don't need to wait. I'll marry you tomorrow if you want.”

He chuckled as he slid the ring in place. “Tomorrow is Christmas, honey.”

“Then the next day. I'll marry you anytime.”

Leaning up, Eli kissed her softly. “We'll marry soon, but my mother will want to make it a big deal because she never thought any of us St. John boys would actually settle down.”

“Oh, my gosh. I keep forgetting. I want to throw your parents a surprise anniversary party.” Nora studied his face. “What do you think? I've been meaning to ask since you came home, but...well, you kept sidetracking me.”

He nipped at her lips once more. “I think it's a great idea. And, honey, you're the one who sidetracked
me
.”

Nora stared down at the ring, loving how he'd taken such care in choosing one for her lifestyle and taken her baby into consideration.

“I don't want to go to Atlanta,” he told her. “I want to stay here with you and run Dad's practice.”

Her baby kicked, as if approving of that plan. “I think that's the best idea I've heard,” she told him, looping her arms back around his neck and tugging him up onto the bed.

“I hope you don't mind if your dinner is cold,” she muttered against his lips. “Because I plan on keeping you here for a while.”

His hands traveled up under her shirt. “Keep me here as long as you want. I'm yours forever.”

Forever. All she'd ever wanted wrapped in one simple word.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from A WEAVER CHRISTMAS GIFT by Allison Leigh

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Special Edition story.

You know that romance is for life.
Harlequin Special Edition
stories show that every chapter in a relationship has its challenges and delights and that love can be renewed with each turn of the page.

Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Special Edition every month!
Visit
Harlequin.com
to find your next great read.

Connect with us on
Harlequin.com
for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

Other ways to keep in touch:

Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com

Chapter One

“I
've decided to get pregnant.” As far as sweet nothings went, Jane Cohen's statement didn't rank very high on the scale.

Casey Nathaniel Clay
had
to have heard her wrong. Maybe his head was still reeling from the truly phenomenal sex. Outside of the bedroom, he and Janie couldn't seem to agree on the time of day. Inside the bedroom, though, they were like two halves of a whole.

But in the year since their relationship—for lack of a better word—had moved into the bedroom, not once had either one of them expressed an inclination to take things into the “serious” realm.

He levered himself up on his elbow and peered down at her.

Her long golden hair was tangled around her head, strands clinging to her cheeks and neck, sliding in loose curls down her chest, over her breasts that were still rising and falling as she caught her breath from not one but—hell, yeah, if he didn't mind counting 'em—two orgasms.

He dragged his stupidly reluctant gaze upward to meet her coffee-colored eyes. “What's that you say?”

She pressed her lips together. They were the same soft pink as her nipples. “Don't pretend you didn't hear me.” Annoyance rang in her voice as she impatiently pushed her hair from her face. “I was perfectly clear.”

Ordinarily, people tended to consider Casey a relatively intelligent guy. His degrees from MIT supported that opinion. But just then, he didn't seem capable of forming much of a coherent thought, much less a reasonable response.

What the hell are you talking about?
was in the forefront of his mind. And he was pretty sure that wasn't what Janie was looking for.

She seemed to know what he was thinking anyway, because her lips tightened even more.

Looking disgusted, she rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulders aside, disentangling her warm legs from his, and slid off the bed. “Cool the panic jets, Casey.” Her voice was tart as a bowl of lemon juice with the closest supply of sugar a few counties away. “I wasn't suggesting I wanted to get pregnant by
you.
”

The words stung more than she'd ever know.

He eyed her, wondering why he'd thought that getting into bed with the infernal woman was a good idea in the first place. But that was just what happened when a man followed his baser nature. “Then why on earth did you bring it up now?” he groused.

She made that impatient sound that only women seemed to know how to make, the sound meant to convey he was missing something completely obvious to anyone with a half a brain. The sound that pretty much meant he was dumber than a box of rocks. She retrieved her robe from the back of the bedroom door and slid into it, yanking the belt around her narrow waist.

The action only served to draw attention to her breasts.

They were perfect, those breasts. Surprisingly full for someone with such a lean, athletic figure. Her legs were perfect, too. And don't get him started on her butt—

“Because if I want to have a baby, all this has to change.” Her tone—superior and vaguely snooty—pulled his attention back to her face. She was waving her hand toward the bed. Toward him.

The pink robe was thin. It clung lovingly to her curves as she moved around the room, snatching up their strewn articles of clothing.

Again, he focused with an effort and bunched the blanket around his hips as he sat up. This particular turn of the conversation made sprawling there naked as a jaybird seem ill-advised. “Change,” he repeated warily.

She made that sound again and tossed him his jeans. She hadn't found his boxers yet, but he didn't care. He got off the bed and pulled on the jeans anyway. “Obviously, I can't proceed with my plan while we're—” she waved her hand again “—whatever we are.”

“Friends with benefits,” he hazarded. It was a safer definition than some he could have offered.

She snorted softly. “I think
friends
is overstating.”

He grimaced, not liking the fact that her words bit any more than he liked the way the night had taken such an abrupt turn south. “We're friends,” he grumbled. Maybe it was an exaggeration, but he was pretty sure it wasn't an outright lie.

Her eyebrows rose as if she didn't believe the claim any more than he did. She'd pulled on the pair of black horn-rimmed glasses that she rarely wore when she was working at Colbys, the bar and grill she'd bought five years ago. The lenses made her eyes look unnaturally large.

The first time he'd seen her wearing them, he'd decided the bookish glasses made her look even sexier.

Oddly approachable.

Times like this, he wished he'd never seen her in them, considering they'd ended up in bed together almost immediately after.

“Please,” she drawled. “In what way are we friends? There's nothing on which we
ever
agree.”

Even over that point, he had to differ. “You pour a decent beer. And you came to your senses finally and stopped charging to use the pool tables.”

“High praise. We don't have a friendship. We have a...a sexship.” She didn't look at him as she tossed him his T-shirt. It still hit him square in the chest. “I want to have a baby,” she said again. “But I have no desire to be a single mother.” She bent over again and the lapels of her robe gaped, giving him an eyeful of creamy skin. “Call me old-fashioned, but I intend to be married first.” She straightened and dropped his socks on the corner of the bed in front of him.

Here's your hat; what's your hurry?

“And then stay that way,” she added flatly. “My mom never married my dad. After she kicked him out, she struggled every single day raising my sister and me. Trust me. I am
not
doing that. I want a husband.”

His head felt oddly light. He sat on the bed and shoved his feet into the socks. “You told me you'd had one of those and couldn't imagine wanting another.”

“I don't want another husband like
Gage
,” she said, as if Casey was missing the point. “He was a complete workaholic.” She gave Casey a pointed look, evidently accusing him of fitting the description, too. “I want someone who will put
me
first.”

“Someone who'll let you run the show, you mean,” he muttered. One thing he'd learned about Janie Cohen was that she liked to think she was always in the driver's seat.

She gave him one of her snippy smiles. “At least
I
have a plan.”

He scratched his chin. He'd forgotten to shave before coming to see her. He usually tried to remember to, because her fair skin was so easily marred by his whiskers. But he'd had a long day and hadn't thought beyond seeing her as soon as possible. “Am I supposed to take some hint there that you think I don't?”

“I'm not talking about you.”

Maybe he'd spent too many hours studying computer feeds, because following her thought process was giving him a headache. “And the plan is to get a husband so you can get knocked up?”

“I'm a thirty-two-year-old woman,” she said. “Knocked up is for teenagers who don't know better.”

“Like your mom.”

She made a face and ignored that. “Obviously, I'm not getting any younger. So I need to get started.” She waved him out of the way and smartly flipped the sheets into some semblance of order.

He had the feeling he was being flipped away just as easily as the wrinkles in the fabric.

“Just like that.” He snapped his fingers in her face. “What are you going to do? Order yourself up some husband out of
Mail-Order Husbands Weekly
?”

She hesitated as if she was actually giving the idea some thought.

“I was kidding,” he said hastily.

“There are mail-order brides,” she said. “Guess there are probably mail-order husbands. But no.” She fluffed the pillows, put them back at the head of the bed and turned to face him, her hands propped on her narrow hips. She looked up at him through her glasses with her vaguely buggy brown eyes.

And he was damned if he didn't want to tumble her right back onto that bed and mess up the sheets all over again, even if she was annoying as hell.

“I intend to find a husband right here in Weaver.”

He barked out a laugh before he could stop himself.

“You think it's
funny
?” Her voice went silky but her eyes were as chilly as a Weaver winter. “You think I'm incapable of finding a man who might want to put a ring on it?”

“I think the pickings around Weaver are gonna be a tad slim for a woman like you,” he answered, trying unsuccessfully to curtail his untimely amusement. Their small Wyoming town wasn't exactly a mecca of single, eligible adults. Despite the consumer electronics company he ostensibly worked for, Cee-Vid, the town was first and foremost a ranching community. Always had been. Always would be. And Jane—for all of her talents—didn't strike him as a typical rancher's wife.

A niggle of guilt pricked his mind over that. Among his own relatives, he could count a passel of ranchers. None of their wives were particularly “typical” either. There were doctors, accountants, business owners...

Jane had propped her hand on her hip and was staring down her nose at him. Considering she was about a foot shorter, it was a feat he might have admired under other circumstances.

“
A woman like me
,” she repeated. Her eyebrow arched. “Want to explain that one, Clay?”

“Untie the knots in your little white panties, sport,” he returned. “I just meant you're a tad...classy...for some of the guys around here.”

She didn't look particularly soothed. “I run a bar where the dress code just means wiping the manure off your cowboy boots before you come in,” she snapped. “How on God's green earth does that make me classy?”

Stubborn. Headstrong. A straight shooter who didn't suffer fools. He kept the descriptors to himself. At one time or another—often all at once—they fit the woman standing in front of him. She was also beautiful as hell, uncommonly unpretentious and a challenge to his senses as well as his brain.

He dragged his T-shirt on over his head and pretended not to notice the way her gaze dropped, just for a second, to run hungrily over his abdomen before he yanked the white cotton over it.

Sex.

That was what the two of them were good at.

Exceedingly good at, they'd discovered. And, he'd thought, to their mutual satisfaction and content.

Now she wanted more. A baby. A husband.

“What about love?” he asked.

If he hadn't been watching closely, he might have missed the way her gaze flickered. “What about it?”

“That's usually the reason people get married, isn't it? What's in this plan of yours when it comes to that?”

* * *

It was the first week of September, but Jane still felt a shiver jolt down her spine.

She casually moved away from Casey, crossing the room to retrieve the garish Hawaiian-print shirt he'd been wearing unbuttoned over his T-shirt when he'd arrived. The garment was hideous in the extreme, but it smelled of him and that wasn't hideous at all. No. The scent was warm. Slightly spicy. Definitely heady.

She shivered again and turned to carelessly fling the shirt at him. She wished she could fling away the man's effect on her as easily. “I'm not looking for love,” she said blithely. “Just a—”

“Legitimate sperm donor.” As he caught the shirt, he seemed to look right into the depths of her with his silvery-gray eyes.

“Why does it even matter to you?” She kept her voice tart as much for self-preservation as from habit. Unless she was mindless with lust in his arms, it was always easier to spar with the tall man with the butterscotch-colored hair than have any sort of serious conversation. Mostly because she was never entirely sure what exactly he was thinking.

Despite his outwardly laid-back style, she'd never made the mistake of thinking Casey Clay actually
was
laid-back. He was too intense for that. And much, much too secretive.

When it came to him, sex was easy.

It was all the rest that was impossible.

“Be glad that I'm under no illusions that
you
might be a candidate,” she finished.

His mobile, scrumptious lips twisted wryly. “Janie.” He pressed his splayed hand against his chest. “I might be wounded.”

“But you're not,” she deadpanned, then rolled her eyes when his cell phone chirped and he grabbed it off the nightstand. “Naturally.” It wasn't the first time his phone had interrupted them. At least this time it had waited until
after.

She went into the adjoining bathroom while he answered. Not particularly proud that she tried to listen in but trying anyway, she twisted her tangled hair up into a clip at the back of her head.

However, his voice was low, his words brief, revealing as little as they ever did.

She returned to the bedroom just as he was pocketing the phone. “Let me guess.” She might not have overheard the reason he was being called away, but she had a good idea where he was going and she smiled facetiously. “Somebody's computer is on the fritz at Cee-Vid and you have to go save the day. Or the night, as it were.”

His gaze slid over her, setting off another darned shiver. “That's why I get the big bucks.”

Cee-Vid produced video games. He was in charge of the computer systems there, but she couldn't imagine what could be so critical at the business that he'd get called at all hours of the night in the way he often was even if he'd already been there all day.

She'd have suspected him of having a wife if Weaver weren't so small that such a fact would have been impossible to hide.

Everyone knew everyone else's business around town. Or so it had seemed to her since she'd moved there five years ago. As a result, it was still an amazing thing to her that they'd been able to keep their...encounters...private.