Mary Wilson - When Megan Smiles

At Megan’s touch, feelings exploded inside Rafe, feelings he’d thought were dead and gone

He felt Megan’s breasts against his side, her hand touching his, her breath fanning his skin and her scent filling him. Shaken and trying to recover, he moved to disentangle himself.

Rafe wanted her in the most basic way. She was a total stranger, a woman who was opinionated and infuriating…and incredibly desirable. A woman who made his whole body ache with need, whose presence warmed his soul.

But being with Megan, no matter how good it would feel, was wrong. He needed to stop thinking of her as anything more than someone he’d just caught rifling through her boss’s desk. That was his job. But as she stood and increased some of the space between them, he knew he’d never stop thinking about her. It was impossible.

As impossible as wanting a woman like her…

Dear Reader,

When Megan Smiles is the next story in my JUST FOR KIDS series, and comes with a special heroine. Megan Gallagher has everything in her life in place: a perfect, fast-track career and an equally perfect fiancé. But what she hasn’t counted on is meeting a security guard named Rafe, and realizing that there can be totally different versions of a “perfect” life.

Rafe Dagget is a widower with twins who has decided he’s loved once and completely. And he continues to believe that until he meets Megan and sees her smile. Both Megan and Rafe are in for big surprises in this story—life-changing surprises. And there’s a surprise for you, too, at the end of the book, which I hope proves it’s never too late to find that one special person in this life, and to truly fall in love…again.

When Megan Smiles

Mary Anne Wilson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Beulah Wilson

A great mother-in-law and an even better friend.

Thanks for being part of my life.

Prologue

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

Fort Worth, Texas

Rafe Dagget looked at the “perfect” woman across the table from him at one of the best and most intimate restaurants in the city. He wasn’t so sure she was perfect, or even close. But Dave Lang, his friend who had talked him into this blind date, had been adamant.

“She’s pretty, smart, and she loves kids. She’s perfect, Rafe, just perfect.”

Rafe had tried to get out of the date, but Dave hadn’t given him a chance. “We all loved Gabriella, you know that, and there won’t be another woman like her, Rafe.” Dave’s slightly florid face had gone from intently concerned to being touched by a sad but knowing smile. “But, buddy, it’s time. It’s been two years. You need to get out and meet people. You have to move on with your life, for your sake and the sake of the twins.”

Rafe watched the woman talking to him, and part of him reluctantly agreed with Dave’s assessment. His blind date was pretty, in a girlish sort of way, with an upturned nose, dark eyes, full lips and red hair cut into a stylish feathery cap. But perfect? He doubted that. As much as he doubted Dave’s pronouncement that it was “time to move on.” Why did everyone believe that two years was the magic amount of time to get over a death that left rubble behind and a gaping hole in a life?

“I always thought four children would be perfect,” his blind date was saying earnestly, leaning toward him across the table, making intent eye contact with him. “Just perfect.”

Rafe reached for his wineglass, breaking the contact when he realized how freely people tossed around the word perfect. On top of that, he couldn’t remember the woman’s name. Felicia, Fanny? He swallowed a good half of the smooth merlot before he put the goblet back down on the white linen cloth.

“Two boys, two girls,” she rattled. “Two years apart.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, because he was thinking that the restaurant, with its dim lights and soft mood music, suddenly seemed claustrophobic. He’d been here before, in another life when the world had been right. Then it might have been perfect.

He drained the rest of his wine as his nameless date leaned closer to him across the table. Now he didn’t know what she’d been saying and tried to pick up the threads of her conversation. She tapped her bare wrist. “And my biological clock is ticking. If I want to have children, I need to get started. Francine, I said to myself a few weeks ago, you’re thirty years old, and you’d better get on with things.”

Francine. That was it. And Francine was dead serious about what she was saying. “Absolutely,” he said, buying time while he tried to figure out how to end this date as quickly as possible.

“Absolutely,” she echoed with an emphatic shake of her head. “As soon as I know that I’m having a child, I’m going to apply at the Briar School. Fantastic school. Do you know they vet everyone who applies? Quite hard to get your child into it.”

Rafe casually glanced at his watch. They’d been at the restaurant for only half an hour, but it seemed like a lifetime. “A good school is important,” he murmured, just to say something.

She grinned a toothy smile, as if she’d won a jackpot, and reached over to tap the back of his hand that held the wine goblet. “From what David told me about you, I knew you’d understand, that we’d be on the same page.”

Understand what, and what page? Then she answered without him having to actually ask the question. “David said you are a terrific father to your two little boys, so I knew you’d be up on the schools. So, what school do they attend?”

He shrugged. “They aren’t in school yet.”

“But I thought David said they were around five?”

“They’re four. They’ll be five in a few months.”

“But at that age…” She shrugged, obviously bothered. “Surely they’re on the list?”

“They’re on the list for kindergarten in the fall,” he said. “And they’re pretty excited about it, at least Greg is. Gabe isn’t so sure he wants to go, but if his brother goes, he’ll tag along.”

“Oh, what school?” she asked, her interest piqued again.

“The elementary school near where we live.”

“Public school?” she gasped, as if he’d said they were going into a labor camp. “Why would you do that?”

He drank more of the wine that the waiter had just poured for him. “It’s the school my wife and I planned on for them.”

Francine sat back, looking a bit flustered. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. David explained about your loss, how your wife was…taken, and you were left with the two boys.” She reached out and patted his hand again. An action he knew was an attempt to show sympathy, but it felt intrusive and wrong to him, the way her words did. “I’m sure things would be different if she was still…here.”

If Gabriella was here, the boys would still be going to that school, and he wouldn’t be enduring this stupid conversation with a woman who was looking for a sperm donor. He moved his hand away and sipped more wine before he said, “Yes, things would be very different.”

“How long has it been since she…she passed?”

Passed? Was taken? “Since she died?” he asked bluntly, and wished he had more to drink.

“Yes,” Francine murmured somberly.

“Almost two years,” he said. Then his cell phone rang, and he took it out of the pocket of his dark suit coat as if he’d been thrown a lifeline. He glanced at the LED readout and saw a Houston number he recognized. That of Zane Holden, the CEO at LynTech Corporation, and a man who had proved to be a good friend to him when he needed one.