Barbara Dunlop: Forever Jake

She could see the longing in his eyes.

His lips touched hers softly. They opened. She followed suit, and his tongue pushed through.

His hands caressed her smooth back and she pressed her fingers into his taut shoulder muscles, desperate to get closer. He lifted her, holding her naked body flush against his own in the flowing river.

She placed her arms around his neck and let her legs encircle his hips. The roar of the river pounded in her ears.

He left her mouth and she whimpered in disappointment. But then he kissed her neck, slipped his hands lower to cup her bottom, and she tightened her knees against him.

“Robin?” His strangled voice was filled with need.

“Yes, Jake?”

“You don’t want this.”

“What?” She wanted this more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. She was his for the taking.

When he spoke again his harsh whisper was precise. “You’re Robin Medford. I’m Jacob Bronson. And you do not want this to happen.”

Dear Reader,

People accuse me of being too decisive. Okay, I’ll be honest, they accuse me of being too impulsive. I plan as little as possible, because there’s nothing more frustrating than strategizing and formulating for days, weeks, or years on end when you could spend that time actually doing something. In Forever Jake, I wanted to feature an impulsive heroine, someone who has an idea and immediately springs into action.

When Robin Medford decides she wants to have a baby, she doesn’t waste time wandering willy-nilly around the notion. And when she decides Jacob Bronson is the perfect candidate to father her baby, she immediately springs into action, all right—with unexpected results!

I hope you enjoy Forever Jake. Temptation has long been my favorite of the Harlequin lines, and I am absolutely thrilled to be in such talented company.

Best wishes,

Barbara Dunlop

HARLEQUIN DUETS

54B—THE MOUNTIE STEALS A WIFE

Forever Jake

Barbara Dunlop

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Marcelle Dubé.

With admiration, respect and gratitude.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

A WOMAN simply couldn’t trust sperm banks these days.

Robin Medford stuffed the latest copy of The New England Journal of Medicine into the leather backpack tucked beneath the airplane seat in front of her. The Beaver floatplane shuddered as it banked left, bringing the town of Forever into view through the tiny oblong window.

Following a long-standing custom in the remote Yukon Territory, the pilot buzzed the small town nestled between a steep, sparsely treed mountainside and the lazy winding blue-green river that was its namesake. Then he swooped over the town hall to determine wind direction by the Canadian and Yukon flags flapping out front in the sunny afternoon breeze.

Taking a deep breath, Robin turned away from the window and let her head fall back against the high-backed seat. It amazed her to read how many mistakes were made by well-meaning fertility doctors and laboratory technicians. Some of the results were downright frightening.

It had taken less than three days’ research to convince her that sperm banks were not a reliable source for her future child’s genetic start in life. Which narrowed her options somewhat, but didn’t necessarily cancel her plan.

She’d simply have to get pregnant the old-fashioned way. Find a promising specimen, pick a fertile day, and send in the troops. Piece of cake, really.

After all, she reasoned, she’d had sex with Juan Carlos at the base camp below Mount Edelrich in Switzerland two years ago. It certainly wasn’t rocket science. In fact, her final paramedic qualification exam had been a whole lot more complicated than Juan—and a whole lot more exciting as she recalled.

She could do it again to get a baby. Not with Juan, of course. Aside from being half a world away, he was far too narcissistic and self-indulgent to be a candidate for fatherhood.

The pilot banked the plane more steeply, coming about above a poplar grove and into the wind as he lined up with the river on his final approach. Robin imagined the stick under her fingertips and automatically checked out the window for debris in the high-running, late August river.

As the water rushed up to meet them, she pictured adjustments to the flaps and watched the altimeter in her mind’s eye. It had been a long time since she’d piloted a Beaver—longer still since she’d visited the small town where she’d grown up.

Fifteen years to be exact.

Fifteen years since she’d graduated from high school and set off to find adventure. She’d been determined to build a life beyond the isolated community that lay three hundred miles north of the Alaska Highway, up against the border of the Northwest Territories.

She’d succeeded.

The Beaver’s floats sliced through the river current. The force of deceleration pinned her against her seat belt as the craft succumbed to the resistance of the water. The pilot backed off the prop speed, and she settled back into her seat.

She’d succeeded, both in building herself a career and in seeing a good portion of the world. And now she’d come full circle. For the first time, she was back home. She removed the hard plastic ear muffs that protected her hearing against the loud radial engine. Then she ran spread fingers through her long, wavy hair as they chugged toward the gray dock.

Forever. A town founded by miners, then kept alive by wilderness tourism and the manufacture of fine furniture from the rare russet birch trees that graced the nearby mountains. The streets were still dusty, the buildings still weathered, and the surrounding wilderness still dwarfed the efforts of nine hundred and fifty townspeople.

The floats groaned against the tire bumpers on the dock as the plane came to a halt. Robin flipped her seat belt catch. When the door swung open, she automatically steeled herself against the impending onslaught of mosquitoes and blackflies.

Biting insects notwithstanding, she was surprisingly glad to be back. She could hardly wait to see the expression on her grandmother’s face when she realized that every single one of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren was here to celebrate her seventy-fifth birthday.

Robin had five days to spend with her family before she had to report to her new job at Wild Ones Tours in Toronto. It was good to arrive, but she was certain she’d be more than ready to get back to civilization by the time her five days were up.

Even now, Forever was extremely isolated. There was no road access to the town and no airport. People came and went by boat and floatplane or they didn’t come and go at all.

Besides, she was a woman with an all new fertility plan. She needed to get back to where there were men. Real men. Intelligent, genetically sound men who liked sex.