Anne McAllister - Fletcher's Baby!

There was no way, he thought as he banged out furiously, that you could have a satisfying argument if you couldn’t even slam a door!

It had been every bit as bad as she’d feared it would be.

Worse.

He’d asked her to marry him. Because he was a gentleman. A responsible man. A kind man.

All the things she wanted in a husband—and couldn’t have.

Because he didn’t love her.

And he was honest enough not to lie and say he did. That was what made it worse.

Josie stood behind the curtain and stared out across the lawn. She could see Sam now, standing on the edge of the bluff that overlooked the city, his shoulders hunched, his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. The wind ruffled his short hair. He looked miserable.

He ought to be rejoicing.

She’d told him no, hadn’t she?

Maybe it hadn’t sunk in yet. When it did, he’d be glad.

Even then, though, he’d still feel responsible. He’d want to make things right. It was the way Sam was. The way he’d always been. Hadn’t he come to console her the night Kurt had stood her up?

She shoved the thought away. She had done nothing but think about it for seven months. She’d hoped...she’d dreamed...she’d wished...she’d been the fool she’d promised herself she would never be. She had not been able to squelch the hope that he might have fallen in love with her.

He hadn’t. And now it was over.

Tomorrow would be better for both of them. He would still try to do the right thing, of course, but it would be a reasonable right thing this time. He would offer child support, acknowledgement, a trust fund, perhaps. Her child would be weighted down with trust funds, she thought with a rueful smile.

Being Sam, he might ask for two weeks in the summer when he could see their child.

She wouldn’t argue. It was his right. She would be polite and properly grateful. And he would be concerned and secretly relieved at having escaped the need to follow through on his proposal, but far too polite to let it show. It would all be very civilized.

And she would be tied to Sam Fletcher for the rest of her life.

It would be hard, but she would do it—for her child.

“Not for yourself?” she mocked herself now as she rocked back on her heels and looked down at the only man she had ever really loved.

If she was going to be scrupulously honest—she would admit that she didn’t dislike the idea of having Sam still a part of her life.

It wasn’t the same as marrying him. She didn’t want any part of forcing him into a relationship which ought to be based on love.

But to know how he was, where he was, what he was doing...

Just to know...

She’d said no?

No?

Sam still couldn’t believe it.

Or maybe he could. Women seemed to be developing a history of not wanting to marry him. First Izzy, now Josie. Was it getting to be a trend?

His jaw was clenched so tight he had a headache. He forced himself to take a deep breath. But he didn’t relax. He paced along the bluff overlooking the downtown and didn’t see any of it. He saw only the disaster the evening, the day—no, his whole damn life—had become.

He didn’t think he was that hard to get along with. He certainly could keep any wife in the manner to which she’d never yet become accustomed. He wasn’t all that bad-looking.

Was he?

No, damn it, he wasn’t.

So what was the problem?

“‘I want to marry for love,”’ he muttered in a falsetto mockery of Josie’s tone as he kicked a rock against the limestone wall that edged the bluff. “Well, hell, sweetheart, so do I. So did I.”

But there was a child to think about now. His child. Her child.

Their child.

That child might owe its existence to circumstances that had been fogged by a little too much whiskey. But their lovemaking hadn’t been a mindless, soulless coupling. He might not remember all that had happened that night, but his body had known, his emotions had known. He had responded to Josie and she had responded to him.

He was willing to bet she would still respond to him!

He looked over his shoulder at the house. On the upstairs landing, a curtain twitched. His jaw set, his eyes narrowed.

“You think the answer is no, Josie Nolan?” he told the woman he was sure was standing behind that curtain.

Well, Sam Fletcher never backed down from a challenge.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS fate, Josie decided.

Surely God couldn’t have that warped a sense of humor. Surely in a twenty-odd room inn, He wouldn’t deliberately stick Sam in the room next to hers tonight, in the bed right on the other side of the wall from hers—again—just for old time’s sake!

She’d actually entertained the notion that she might get away with not having him stay at all.

The inn was fully booked—even the third-floor garret that had been hers while Hattie was alive. Just three days ago Josie had finished fixing it up as a guest room and, with Benjamin and Cletus’s help, had moved her things down one flight into Hattie’s quarters.

“You ought to be pleased,” she’d told Sam when he realized the inn was full. “Another room to rent means more profit for you.”

“The hell with profits. Where’m I going to sleep?”

He’d tapped on her door about ten and she’d opened it warily, but he hadn’t said another word about marrying her. He’d been almost icily polite as he’d asked where he ought to put his things. The iciness had dissolved into irritation at the news that there were no rooms.

“I’ll see if I can get you a room at The Taylor House.” It was another Victorian era B&B. Not, in Josie’s estimation, as nice as The Shields House, but still quite comfortable.

“I’ll sleep in the sitting room,” Sam said, looking past her toward the small room that was part of her quarters. Josie knew Hattie had sometimes put Sam there when all the other rooms were full.

But that had been Hattie. Not her. “I’m afraid not.”

One brow lifted. “Why not? Did you rent that, too?”

Josie sucked in a breath. “I am trying to do my best to run your inn professionally, and that means renting the rooms. So I have. That doesn’t mean I have to give up my own.”

“You sleep in the sitting room?”

“It’s part of my quarters,” she said firmly. The innkeeper’s quarters consisted of two rooms—a bedroom and a parlor—and a bath. And, no, she didn’t sleep in her sitting room, but she didn’t want him sleeping there, either. It would be too intimate, too close.

“You certainly didn’t waste any time moving in, did you? Hattie’s been in her grave—what?—two weeks?”

His words hit her like a slap, and her reaction must have showed on her face, for he rubbed a hand against the back of his head and muttered, “Sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m not usually so tactless.”

“No,” Josie agreed, “you’re not.”

His gaze nailed her. “But then I don’t usually discover I’m about to become a father, either.”

She pressed her lips together and hugged her arms across her breasts protectively, but she was damned if she was going to apologize. “I’ll call The Taylor House.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll sleep in the butler’s pantry.”

Josie’s eyes widened. “You can’t!”

“Why not? Did you rent that, too?”

“Don’t be an ass, Sam. There’s only a love seat down there.”

“Badly named, I’m sure.”

Josie ignored that “You can’t,” she repeated.

“Well, if you won’t let me use the sitting room...” He was baiting her, daring her.

Josie gritted her teeth. “No.”

“It’s not like we haven’t been closer than a room apart...” A corner of his mouth lifted mockingly.