Peggy Nicholson - The Baby Bargain

“And that’s what I’m offering. You help me save Sean. I help you save Zoe.”

What about the fact that every time we come within kissing range, sparks fly? Rafe wanted to say. He was half tempted to reach for her and prove his point. But let him stroke her once and she might fly to pieces. Still, he couldn’t let it go. “Zoe’s requirement for her baby is a two-parent loving family. I don’t see how I can sell her on a make-believe marriage.”

“You seemed to think you could before,” Dana observed.

Putting a finger to her chin, he brought her head around. “I meant to wed you and bed you and make the best of the deal while we were together,” he said fiercely. “I don’t call that a sham.”

She jerked her chin away. “Whatever you care to call it, I don’t want it! I’m offering a merger of interests—not a marriage of hearts.”

Marriage. To Dana. Rings and lace and driving off with tin cans clattering, hands clasped. With my body I thee worship. He wasn’t alone in this feeling, whatever she said. Patience, he reminded himself.

“Well?” she demanded. “Take it or leave it.”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said huskily. “When?”

Dear Reader,

The nicest thing about being an author is that I get to “fix” things. Doesn’t work that way in the real world. But, on paper, Readers, I can make the world so…sweet.

Better yet, I can take the best of the dozen best men I’ve ever met and meld them into one great man. I can give him the postman’s gorgeous eyes, the buns of that senior quarterback who never even knew I existed back when I was fourteen, my father’s fierce “family man” instincts, my own man’s deliciously arrogant, maddening, entrancing sense of macho—but maybe I’ll insert a tidiness gene stolen from my accountant.

Well, I knew from the moment I created Dana Kershaw, in Don’t Mess with Texans, that I’d have to get back to her. Her life needed fixing. No way could I leave her pregnant and grieving, fighting a gallantly losing battle to honor her promises, while she struggled to hang on to a tottering little dude ranch in southwestern Colorado. She needed help, and so did her confused and lonely stepson, Sean.

They needed a good man, a family man, a tall-in-the-saddle, blue-eyed, steadfast Solution to their problems. They needed…Rafe Montana.

So I sat down to my ancient computer, put the cat in my lap and started to write. (“This I can fix!”)

Hope you enjoy their story, and thanks, as always, for reading it!

Peggy Nicholson

The Baby Bargain

Peggy Nicholson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for my dad, Erwin Grimes of Kerrville, Texas, who gave me my wings.

And as always, Ron. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A YEAR AGO TODAY, St. Patrick’s Day, he and his dad had sat here in this booth, eating bacon cheeseburgers. Guys’ Night Out, his dad had called it, and he’d ordered the jumbo basket of onion rings, then winked at Sean, both of them knowing that if they’d brought Dana along, she would have fussed about too much grease and cholesterol.

That was the last meal they’d ever shared. Sean had slept over in town that night with the Wilsons, though he’d protested that he was old enough to stay by himself out at the Ribbon R for a three-day weekend. “Or you could take me with you,” he’d pleaded, not for the first time. “It’s not like missing one crummy Friday is going to hurt my grades.” He’d been a straight-A student last year in ninth grade, when things like that mattered. Seemed to matter.

If you’d taken me along…He’d never have let it happen. Somehow Sean felt that if he’d been with them, he’d have known not to cross that hillside. Or if it had happened—the avalanche—he’d never have quit—never, ever, never—till he found his dad and dug him free. Not like Dana, who hadn’t dug deep enough, fast enough, long enough. Stupid, gutless Dana, who quit and skiied off for the help that came too late.

Quitter. Anger felt like a lump of smoldering charcoal in his stomach, gray-white dust over a ruby center. He picked up his glass of soda and took a tiny sip—had to make it last—then jumped as Judy, the night waitress at Moe’s Truckstop, loomed up behind him.

“Here, you’re done with that, kiddo.” She reached for his plate, which still held a curl of limp lettuce and a slice of tomato.

“Am not!” He caught hold of it and glared up at her. He didn’t have enough money to order anything else, but he was darned if he’d leave yet. The Ribbon R was nothing but an aching and an emptiness. Nobody but Dana and her loudmouth baby waiting there for him.

“Suit yourself.” Judy shrugged and turned to welcome the group coming through the arch from the front room—the convenience store Moe ran—of the truck stop. “Sit anywhere you like,” she called, and headed toward the counter where she kept the menus.

Kids from school, Sean realized, watching them as they chose the big circular booth on the far side of the café. Seniors. They didn’t spare him a glance. The biggest guy, a football jock, maneuvered his date with a possessive hand at the small of her slender back.

The skin on Sean’s palm tingled as if it slid across silk. He curled his fingers hard around the feeling, making a fist, as the jock’s date smiled up at him and edged into the booth. She wore a long, slinky yellow dress, with a dyed green carnation pinned between her breasts. Sean swallowed with an audible gulp, wondering if she had let the jock pin it on her—the lucky stiff—then jumped as the three boys at the table swung their heads to fix him with cold, unblinking stares.

Caught me looking. Wishing. He turned back to his plate and hunched his shoulders. With the girls’ giggles sounding like sleigh bells behind him, he felt his face grow hot, then hotter. Frantically he grabbed his drink and rubbed the misty glass across his cheek. Oh, no, was the back of his neck turning red?

“California,” one of the guys jeered, not bothering to lower his voice.

Almost a curse word, Sean had learned since he’d moved here from San Diego two years ago. Coloradans thought Californians were buying up every last acre of their lousy state that the Texans hadn’t already grabbed. Though who in his right mind would want it? If I had my way, I’d go back to San Diego in a heartbeat. He would, too, any day now, as soon as his mother felt well enough to take him. A wave of emotion swept through him, like a black hole yawning wide; greasy slopes led down into his own private darkness. He closed his eyes tight and waited for the feeling to pass.

“Sean?” Judy patted his shoulder. “Your mama’s on the phone.” She nodded toward the corridor that led to the rest rooms and the pay phone.

“My—” Hope flew up like a startled bird—then fell as he realized. “My stepmother, you mean.”

“That nice, nice lady named Dana, who your daddy liked enough to marry—yep, that one. She wants you.”