Laura Marie - Baby's First Christmas

“I…don’t know.” She put her keys into her purse and sat back down. “I know I was planning on telling you. That’s all I knew.”

“So you’re moving out here with me,” he said, leaning against a wall, quickly trying to devise a plan. “Or I’m moving somewhere with you.”

“No,” Jessie said. “We’re not moving anywhere, at least not together.”

He frowned at her. “Look. We’re not throwing away what we did as just an afternoon of freebie sex. We need to become closer.”

She appeared to shrink into her coat. “I don’t understand you. I know that this is your worst fear come true.”

“Yeah.” He scratched under his hat. “Funny how it doesn’t seem that bad now that it’s happened. If that was my life’s biggest fear, maybe I never had anything to be really afraid of.”

She smiled. “You’re not going to say that I tried to trap you?”

“Did you?”

“No!”

He laughed. “Oh, come on. Leave a guy with a little ego.”

She stood. “I’m not interested in your ego. I would never cling to a man, or trap him, or—”

“Jessie,” he said softly, reaching for her hand to calm her down, “when I met you, you were hot-footing it away from a boyfriend or ex-fiancé or husband or something. You’re clearly not the kind of woman who lets men influence her life. I know you’re a big shot in your company and that you’re more likely to wear pants than panty hose. I get it, okay? Don’t keep worrying that I think you’re some thimble-brained woman who can’t take care of herself.”

“Thimble-brained?”

“Those things Pansy and Helen are always using to sew with and stuff.”

She nodded. “Nice analogy.”

He gave her a wry look. “I know you’re not ready to walk down the aisle with me. You can relax. The electric fence you’ve got up around you is shooting sparks at me.”

She sighed. “I don’t mean to be so uneasy.”

“Well, don’t get too comfortable, either,” Zach said, grinning. “I don’t want to be taken for granted now that you’ve gotten what you wanted from me.”

“Zach!”

He crossed his boots and stared at her. “You did say you had planned to get pregnant as soon as possible after the wedding.”

“Yes, but my fiancé was not a stranger.” She gave him a haughty look. “Wanting children is not unusual inside a marriage.”

He shrugged. “I should hire myself out for stud. I have bulls that don’t perform so successfully.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m leaving to tell Pansy and Helen. I need female advice. Yours isn’t worth a damn.”

“That’s what I hear,” he said cheerfully. “It comes from being middle child.”

“Whatever,” she said.

“I’ll drive you if you promise not to steal my truck.”

“You have no worries,” she said, and he nodded.

“Good. We can break the news together. First we have to tell Duke, of course. Pepper we can tell by phone because we hardly see her anymore.”

Jessie backed up a step. “You can tell your brother by yourself.”

He grinned, liking that she was feeling a little bit nervous. It made him feel big and strong and protective. “Duke won’t throw you in jail.”

She stiffened. “Of course not! What charges would he have?”

“You were trespassing,” he reminded her.

“I was lost,” she snapped.

“You did assault my livelihood with a deadly weapon. Poor Brahma Bud.”

She sniffed. “Any other charges?”

“You did steal my heart,” he said, trying to be light but realizing the moment he said it that he’d made a serious error. Jessie’s eyes went dark.

“I stole nothing worth keeping, then,” she said. “Consider it returned.”

“Whew, prickly,” he said. “Did you know you have a habit of being prickly when you’re nervous?”

She stared up at him, her gaze very serious. “Did you know you have a habit of trying to be funny when you’re nervous? It doesn’t go over very well.”

“Why would I be nervous?”

“Impending fatherhood, a woman you only met once, your worst fears realized, telling your brother—” She paused. “I can’t decide which of those nerves of yours is most rattled.”

“You may have a point.” He rubbed his chin. “I don’t know how to act. Mainly, I don’t want you to go away before I get to know you better. That’s my biggest worry now.”

He meant it, even if sounded silly. How could he do the right thing for her, and for his children, unless he knew who Jessie Farnsworth really was?

“These kids of mine are going to matter to me a lot,” he said gruffly. “I know you’ve got a busy life, but…marry me, Jessie.”

An offer of marriage from Zach was the last thing Jessica had expected from him. Her heart took a dizzying leap. If only it were that easy.

“I know you’re not the marrying kind,” he said, “but we could probably work out a satisfactory arrangement.”

She blinked. “Arrangement?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what. But something we could both live with.”

The front door opened, and they moved away from each other. Duke walked in, sleet spilling off his hat. “Howdy,” he said to Zach. “Well, hello, Jessie.”

“Hi, Duke,” she said, sending a worried glance Zach’s way. Her composure had deserted her with the marriage proposal. Surely he hadn’t been serious!

Yet a secret part of her wondered what marriage to Zach might be like.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Duke said. “Liberty says she needs some bolts of plastic covering she stored in one of the barns. I’m not sure which one. Hellish weather to search four barns but at least you made it in before the storm, Jessie. I heard the roads were freezing up just east and north of Tulips. It’s on its way here.”

Zach frowned. “Plastic covering?”

“Yeah. There should be several rolls of it. Big enough to cover the carpet in a wedding chapel.”

“I never saw bolts of plastic,” Zach said.

“You don’t go into all the barns regularly,” Duke said. “Jessie, you look well. Are you in for a couple of days?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

Duke looked from Jessie to Zach. “Well, good to see you all the same. I’m off to root around out there.”

“No!” Zach crammed a hat on his head and pulled his keys from his pocket. “I’ll look. You stay here and keep Jessie company.”

Duke looked bemused. “I don’t think I should do that, Zach. I believe she came to see you.”

Zach nodded. “That’s true. So I’ll just head off now and do that looking around for you. I’ll call you if I find any of the plastic. In the meantime, grab some soup off the stove and try to warm up.”

Duke looked at him. “Hell, Zach, you wouldn’t have even known I was at the ranch if I hadn’t walked in. Just pretend like you don’t know I’m on the property and go on doing what you were doing.” Duke turned to leave. “You’re acting nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, which, by the way, the ladies whipped up for us. Full of pecans and things. Be sure to stop by my office and have a bite, Jessie. The Gang can cook for certain, and this is the time of year when they really get their aprons on. Our neighboring-town baker, Valentine, has challenged them to a poppyseed cake bake-off, and that’s a holiday snack I look forward to.”

Zach slid out the door while his brother was completing his polite goodbye to her. Jessie looked at Zach’s retreating back, surprised. “He definitely doesn’t want you to get chilled,” she told Duke.

“He is one strange apple that fell off our family tree. If I didn’t know better, I’d think there was something in one of the barns he didn’t want me to see.”