McCallum Quintuplets

Dear Reader,

Harlequin American Romance has rounded up the best romantic reading to help you celebrate Valentine's Day. Start off with the final installment in the MAITLAND MATERNITY: TRIPLETS, QUADS & QUINTS series.
The McCallum Quintuplets
is a special three-in-one volume featuring
New York Times
bestselling author Kasey Michaels, Mindy Neff and Mary Anne Wilson.

BILLION-DOLLAR BRADDOCKS, Karen Toller Whittenburg's new family-connected miniseries, premiers this month with
The C.E.O.'s Unplanned Proposal
. In this Cinderella story, a small-town waitress is swept into the Braddock world of wealth and power and puts eldest brother Adam Braddock's bachelor status to the test. Next, in Bonnie Gardner's
Sgt. Billy's Bride
, an air force controller is in desperate need of a fiancée to appease his beloved, ailing mother, so he asks a beautiful stranger to become his wife. Can love bloom and turn their pretend engagement into wedded bliss? Finally, we welcome another new author to the Harlequin American family. Sharon Swan makes her irresistible debut with
Cowboys and Cradles
.

Enjoy this month's offerings, and be sure to return next month when Harlequin American Romance launches a new cross-line continuity, THE CARRADIGNES: AMERICAN ROYALTY, with
The Improperly Pregnant Princess
by Jacqueline Diamond.

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Kasey Michaels

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

DELIVERED WITH A KISS
Mindy Neff

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

AND BABIES MAKE SEVEN
Mary Anne Wilson

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Epilogue

Kasey Michaels

The room was dark, the only light filtering through the slats in the vertical blinds on the single window overlooking Austin's Mayfair Avenue. The Texas sun wasn't all that strong at five on this March afternoon, but Dr. Madeline Sheppard still squinted slightly as she watched the illuminated screen in front of her.

The room was silent, the only sound the purring motor on the ultrasound machine pulled up next to the examination table where Maggie McCallum lay, also watching the screen on the ultrasound machine.

Madeline leaned a little closer to the screen, her lips moving silently.

“Dr. Sheppard?” Adam McCallum asked as he stood on the other side of the examining table holding his wife's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Is anything wrong?”

Madeline looked at Adam from overtop the tortoiseshell-framed half glasses she'd worn for close work since her thirty-fourth birthday, hoping she wouldn't be in bifocals for her thirty-fifth. She'd taken to attaching the glasses to a strap hung around her neck, although most times the glasses perched low on her nose because that was even easier than having them hang from the strap.

“Hmm?” she murmured, her mind still concentrated on the screen, what she was seeing on that screen. “Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. McCallum. No, no. Nothing's wrong. Quite the contrary. You just lie still a little longer, Maggie. I want to recheck something, that's all.”

“Hey,” Maggie said, laughing nervously, “take all the time you need. And I still don't know how you can see anything on that little screen.”

“Oh,” Madeline said, tongue in cheek, “I'm seeing something. Trust me, I'm seeing something.”

She squirted a little more warmed gel on Maggie's belly and continued moving the sensor, watching the screen as, under her breath, she did a little arithmetic.

“Doctor, you're beginning to worry me, even if you keep saying everything's all right,” Adam complained, walking around the bottom of the examination table to come peer over Madeline's shoulder as she used the small dials on the machine to box section after section of the screen, then repeatedly hit the Print button.

“Okay, all done,” Madeline said, sighing as she lifted the sensor from Maggie's already faintly rounding belly, then wiped her patient's skin free of the lubricating gel. “How about you just zip up your slacks, and we'll go into my office, where we can all be more comfortable.”

Before Adam, still hovering at her shoulder, could ask another question, Madeline grabbed the printouts and walked into the adjoining room. She shrugged out of her white examination coat, smoothed her loose-fitting, ankle-length dress and seated herself behind her desk. She folded her hands together on the small stack of printouts, took a deep breath and collected her thoughts.

The conversation she was about to have would be wonderful, at first. But then the questions would come, the
fears would surface—all of them understandable, all of them possibilities that had to be addressed.

They came into her office holding hands, two good people. Good-looking, good hearts, good friends. Maggie, a schoolteacher and wife as well as an anxious, expectant mother. Adam, the son of Jackson McCallum who, providentially it would seem now, had financed this very building, the latest addition to the Maitland Maternity Clinic.

Officially, the new unit was called the Emily McCallum Multiple Birth Wing, in honor of the woman who had died thirty-one years ago giving birth to the McCallum triplets, Adam, Briana and Caleb.

Emily McCallum's delivery-room death would be very much on Adam's mind in a few moments, and Madeline mentally rehearsed how she would address those concerns.

How ironic that Adam and his wife had come to seek Madeline's advice as a fertility specialist several months ago. How wonderful that she had been able to help them. Now they would learn that the three of them were going to be a close-working team for the next seven months, along with Zachary Beaumont, the wing's highly qualified perinatologist, who specialized in high-risk pregnancies and multiple births.

Madeline watched them closely as the couple sat down in the leather chairs, still holding hands, both of them looking at her expectantly. Good word, expectantly. Because, boy, were these two ever
expecting!

“Dr. Sheppard?” Maggie asked, her voice overly bright with nerves. “Are we right about the timing? I'm just two months along? Because I'm really having trouble with my waistbands, and I thought it would be too soon for that.”

Adam laughed. “Maggie sees no relation between the chocolate-covered marshmallow Easter eggs she's discovered and her weight gain, Doctor. Me, I'm considering buying stock in the company, if their candies are really that good.”

“Ha, ha,” Maggie said, glaring at her husband for a moment, then smiling.

These two smiled at each other a lot lately. Madeline liked that; it made a nice change. Infertility strained many a marriage to the breaking point, and as both doctor and friend, she hadn't been unaware of the tension Maggie and Adam had been under through the months of fertility testing, the “come home, my temperature has gone up” pressure that took a lot of the romance out of any marriage.

But all that was over now. Maggie and Adam were pregnant. Now it was Madeline's job, and Zachary's job, to get Maggie to a healthy delivery.

“Okay,” Madeline said, putting a smile on her face. “First, yes, Maggie, I'd say we're right on the money with your due date, especially since we've been routinely running pregnancy tests and monitoring your cycles. You're two months pregnant. Your uterus, however, is nearly twice the size of a two-months' gestation.”

“It's twice as large
because
…?” Adam asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“Maybe because,” Madeline suggested, “there could be more than one baby in there, Adam. We did discuss this possibility, remember?”

Maggie nodded. “Yes, we did. Adam was one of triplets, so that made us more likely to have a multiple pregnancy, even without the fertility drugs I took. You told us, Doctor. We knew the risks.”

“And we told you it didn't matter. One baby, three
babies—we'd love them all,” Adam added, his eyes going to the small stack of printouts Madeline had just picked up. “We're having more than one? Is that what you're saying? Can you see them on there? I mean, really see them?” He stood up, held out one hand. “Let me see.”

Madeline deliberately put down the printout she'd been holding, folded her hands over the stack once more. “In a moment. And, yes, Mr. McCallum, I can see them. I counted, counted several times, and there's no question. You and Maggie are going to become the parents of what we in the medical profession so ridiculously call multiples.”

Maggie gave a little cry and reached out to Adam, who held her close, kissed her hair, her cheek.

And Madeline watched, smiling with them…and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Adam was the first to sober, to look at Madeline, his eyes dark. “How…how safe is this, Doctor? I mean it, be honest. My…my mother—”

“Your mother, Mr. McCallum,” Madeline interrupted quickly, “gave birth over thirty years ago, in a small-town hospital unequipped to handle her special circumstances. You know I've seen her medical records, and her complications, although still dangerous today, are much more manageable now. And, as we've also already discussed, the McCallum Wing is the most well-equipped, up-to-date facility in this entire region. We're going to take very good care of Maggie and your babies.”

“Babies,” Maggie said, lightly pressing both hands against her belly. “How many, Doctor? Two? Three?”

“They're still incredibly small, but I tried to capture them each separately.” Madeline picked up the grainy printouts and began dealing them out in front of the expectant parents like playing cards, watching Maggie's and
Adam's eyes widening, their cheeks going pale. “One…two…three…four…and
five.
”

Then she grabbed the ammonia packet from her top drawer and broke it under Adam's nose. Funny, it was usually the mother who fainted….

 

“W
E'RE GOING
to have to pile pillows on the floor of the delivery room,” Madeline joked as she ended her story about her newest expectant father. She sat low on her spine on the soft leather couch, her bare legs and feet propped on the glass-topped coffee table. “Otherwise, mother and babies will be fine, and Daddy will be admitted for a concussion. I mean it, Ian,” she said, looking at her friend, who was looking at her bare feet, “the poor guy went out like a
light.
”

Ian Russell picked up Madeline's crossed legs and slipped a section of the morning newspaper under them. “I'd do more than that,” he said, heading to the small wet bar in the main living area of his spacious apartment to snag a bottle of soda from the refrigerator. “I think I'd be on the next fast jet to anywhere but here. Five babies at one time? Damn, Maddie, that's a litter.” He held up a green plastic bottle, wiggled it. “Want one?”

“It is
not
a litter, Ian,” Madeline replied testily. “And no, not that stuff. That stuff has no caffeine. I have about five medical journals to read tonight. I need caffeine. Lots of caffeine.”

“Really? Sorry, all out,” Ian said, grinning at her. “How about I spoon-feed you some of the coffee grounds left over from this morning? That ought to give you a kick start on staying up all night.”

Madeline rolled her eyes, indicated with a wave of her hand that, yes, reluctantly, she'd take the soda he'd offered. “You don't really think multiples are litters, do
you, Ian?” she asked as he sat down next to her on the couch, rested his head against the back cushion.

“No, Maddie, I don't. But I get a real kick out of the way your nostrils sort of
flare
whenever anyone dares to say the word
litter
in your presence. Hell, I think you're doing a great job. Bringing happiness to previously infertile couples, bringing children into the world who will be loved, cherished—really wanted.” He turned his head to look at her. “Okay? Am I forgiven?”

“I'll think about it, while you think about groveling. Because I absolutely love it when you grovel,” Madeline said, raising the bottle to her lips, drinking deeply. Then she closed her eyes, tipped her head back and gave every indication of going to sleep.

Ian looked at her, shook his head. What a woman. She worked harder than any two men he knew, practically
lived
her job. No, her profession. What Maddie did, what she achieved, was a whole hell of a lot more than just a job. She had been this way, this dedicated, ever since he'd met her.

How long had he and Maddie known each other? Fifteen years? No, more like seventeen, ever since their freshman orientation class that first day at the university. Almost half a lifetime, considering they'd both turn thirty-five this year, Ian just two weeks after Maddie's birthday.

The Gruesome Twosome, that's what they'd called each other, a fairly uninventive name, but they'd liked it. He'd given her a little whirl, because that's what he liked—giving the ladies a little whirl—but it hadn't worked. She'd been too caught up in her studies to have much time for romance, and the one time he'd tried to kiss her, she'd laughed at him. Laughed!

But she'd been right. They were compatible. As friends, they were compatible. They'd even shared an off-campus
apartment the last two semesters of school, Maddie doing the cooking, Ian the cleaning. And cleaning up after Maddie in the kitchen had been a full-time job.

Still, they were friends, great friends. Best friends. Nobody applauded louder when Maddie received yet another academic honor. No one laughed harder when Ian had to take to wearing dark sunglasses and a big hat to avoid the latest lady in his varied love life.

They'd gotten drunk together the night he learned that his father, from whom he'd been estranged for years, had died. They'd spent a month backpacking through Europe together before their last year of school. Maddie had cried on his shoulder when her first big love affair went belly-up, and he'd written her application for her internship.

And here they still were, not roommates anymore—Maddie lived in the apartment across the hall—but still best friends. She could tell him anything, and he'd listen, he'd understand. He could show up on her doorstep, feverish, hacking and sneezing, with a morning beard and bed hair, and she'd take him in, cluck over him, make him all better.

In fact, if they weren't such good friends, he'd marry her, except that marriage would probably just break up their friendship.

“Maddie?” he said, pushing a dark curl that had slipped onto her forehead, tucking it behind her ear.

“Hmm?” she said, her eyes still closed. “If you've got a hot date and you're asking me to move, you can just forget it. I'm staying right here.”

“Long day, huh?”

“No more than most,” she said, seemingly trying to open her eyes by raising her eyebrows—a fruitless exercise, to say the least. “But I had to tell one of my patients that the in-vitro didn't work. That was hard.”

“Are you going to try again?”

“Uh-huh, thanks to the fund Jackson McCallum set up to help pay for the procedure for those who can't really afford the high fees.” She finally succeeded in getting her eyes open, her deeply brown, wonderfully compassionate eyes. “I hate it that sometimes a couple's checkbook comes between them and the chance for a baby. It just doesn't seem fair.”

“And she's off,” Ian said, smiling. “I would have thought you'd be too tired to climb up on any of your many soapboxes tonight.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “When you're right, you're right. Topic closed. Now, do you want me out of here or not, because if you don't have a date I think ordering out for pizza sounds like a real plan. We rent a movie, pop some popcorn later? What do you say? Those darn journal articles can just wait for another day.”