* * *
She’d done it again. Pulled away from him. Given him another obvious cue she didn’t want what he was offering.
The right thing to do would be to leave her be. But damn it, doing the “right thing” with Darcy always felt so wrong.
He’d been curbing his impulses from the word go. Trying to find compromise by taking more than he should without going after all that he wanted. By lying to both of them about what would be enough.
Letting Darcy down every step of the way.
He’d thought he’d been honest with her.
Thought he’d been fair. But the truth was, with every concession he’d made, some secret dark part of him had known he’d be going back for more.
That time was over.
“How have you been?” It seemed trite, but Jeff hadn’t seen her in weeks. They hadn’t been talking. And he wanted to know.
Darcy went to the sink and started filling a kettle. “We’ve been doing pretty well. Getting used to the new house. Settled in. How about you?”
Jeff pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down at it, watching as Darcy made tea. “I’ve been lonely. Missing you. Wishing I’d done about a thousand things differently and wondering if any of them would have gotten me an outcome other than this.”
The kettle clattered against the stove top and Darcy grabbed the counter behind her.
Every part of Jeff wanted to go to her, usher her into a seat or, better, his lap. But he’d been taking what he wanted with Darcy from the start, pushing for his end goal without giving her the chance to decide what she wanted. He had to stop, for both of them. He wanted Darcy confident in the choices she made so they didn’t end up feeling like regrets trapping her in a place she didn’t want to be. So despite every instinct trying to drag him across the kitchen to go to her, hold her, use his body along with his words to get what he wanted...he made himself stay.
There was only one thing he could give her right now, and that was the truth.
“I’ve been working eighteen-hour days trying to keep myself distracted enough so I won’t start formulating my next plan to get you back, plotting what I can say to convince you to bend your rules just a little to suit my needs. I’m exhausted. I’m miserable. And I’m thinking if I want any chance at the happiness I know we can have together, I need to start figuring out how to be the man you deserve. The one you can trust and count on. Who makes you laugh. Makes you feel safe. And most of all, makes you want to stay instead of leave.”
“Jeff, when we talked last time—” She looked at him like she was terrified, her hands gripping the countertops at either side of her like they were the only things holding her upright. “Maybe today isn’t the day to talk about this.”
He wanted to be what she leaned on. The support she never doubted. Always.
“Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to marry me again.”
She nodded tightly, looking miserable and confused. And it was so damned hard not to go to her that very second.
“I promised you I wouldn’t, and I’m going to be a man you can count on to keep his word.” He cleared his throat then and met her eyes. “But I am going to ask you what I came here to ask today. If you’d give me a chance to take you out on a date.”
* * *
Darcy blinked, not sure she’d heard right. “A date?” Her heart started to speed because he’d said a date and there weren’t a lot of ways to misinterpret that word. And still she was using every bit of her rapidly diminishing self-control to hold herself in check, not to sail into his arms if he meant something else.
He was talking about missing her. About wishing things were different. But the way he’d said it didn’t sound so very different from when he’d asked her to marry him the last time when it was all about wanting to be together for the sake of their child.
At least it hadn’t sounded different until he’d gotten to the part where he asked for a date.
Which was...different. “A date, date? Or just a date...or maybe a date that doesn’t mean what I think it means but—”
“A date, like I want to make you fall in love with me, date,” Jeff answered, his voice steady even as he stared at his hands. “And okay, so that’s maybe a lot of pressure up front, but I’m through telling you all I want is one thing, when the truth is I want everything. I want you to marry me, but I get—”
“Why? So you can be with our child each night?” The words burst past her lips, not in accusation but because she just needed to know. “It’s okay if that’s why....”
He met her eyes and what she saw in his stole her breath, made her grip the counter tighter still. Not to hold herself back—but to hold herself up. Because what she saw when he looked at her like that was enough to floor her completely.
“Because I love you.”
Her lips parted, but whatever words she’d thought to say or breath she’d meant to take didn’t come. All she could do was stare, wait for whatever he had to say next. Because she couldn’t believe him yet. She was terrified and yet some part of her must have made the decision to do just that, because suddenly she wasn’t holding on to the counter anymore. She was crossing the kitchen to the man who was staring at her like he’d just witnessed a miracle.
And then she was standing in the V of his legs, her hands were in the gorgeous unruly mess of his hair, her breath coming in broken little gasps.
“You love me?”
He swallowed and offered her a nod. “I think I have from the very first night, Darcy, I just couldn’t let myself admit it. When I realized you were gone in Vegas—it rocked me. But I tried to tell myself it was no big deal. It couldn’t be. We’d just met. I’d forget about you. Only instead of forgetting, I kept thinking about you. Wondering how I could have misjudged what was going on between us so badly.”
“I’m so sorry,” she started, wishing again she could go back, wondering how differently things would have gone if she’d stayed. If they’d kept in touch. “I was afraid of what you made me feel after we’d agreed to what kind of night it would be.”
“I know, sweetheart. But at the time, and even after we were together again, I kept thinking this is a woman who leaves. A woman who keeps putting her hand up and telling me not to get any closer. And even though it didn’t keep me from pushing past those boundaries we kept agreeing to...it was enough for me to use as an excuse to keep from owning up to the truth. That first night with you changed something in me, made me want more than I’d been settling for in my relationships.”
“And you found Olivia.”
“She seemed like such a smart fit...except for the part where she wasn’t you.”
Darcy buried her head against Jeff’s shoulder, holding on to him so tight. “Everything I heard about her, she was different from me. And everyone said you two were serious. Perfect for each other. That it was just a matter of time. And all I could think was she was everything I wasn’t. I couldn’t see myself as anything but a sacrifice so you could make your family work.”
“No. I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have tried to make either of us believe it.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and stared into his eyes.
“So you really love me?”
“I really do.”
“That’s good. Because I’ve been falling for you from the start, and no matter how I’ve tried to stop it...nothing could. I love you, too.”
Jeff kissed her then. Slow and tender and sweet and perfect. When they broke away, half breathless with desire, Darcy asked, “So what do we do now?”
Jeff nodded toward the counter. “I give you those flowers I brought for you, and woo you into letting me take you out by bribing you with that yellow-box-mix cake I made for you at Connor’s, and then I romance you until you beg me to marry you.”
Darcy laughed, her br
ows high. “I’m supposed to ask you?”
Very seriously, Jeff kissed her again. Then answered, “I’m a man you can count on. I promised you I wouldn’t ask again. But—” He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “I’m a sure thing. So whenever you feel safe. Whenever you feel solid about it. Tell me and—”
“Marry me, Jeff.”
He blinked at her, the corner of his mouth kicking up into a sexy grin that was all mayhem and mischief. “Why?”
She gasped. “You just told me you’d say yes!”
“Oh, you better believe I’m going to say yes. But you asked why. So I’m asking.”
Laying her hand over his heart and taking his to rest over their growing baby, she nodded. “Because I love you. And you make me believe in happily ever afters. So say yes, please.”
“Yes.”
Two weeks later.
Her body heavy with fatigue, Darcy opened her eyes in the dim light of her hospital room to the most precious sight of her life. Her husband, leaning over eight-pound-one-ounce Garrison Jeffrey Norton as he affixed the tiny diaper in place, straightened the little hospital shirt and then, cradling him close, moved into the chair by the bed.
Arranging their son so Darcy could see him clearly, he took off the tiny knit cap revealing a dark brown shock of hair so wild, it made even his daddy’s look tame. “Just look at what we made, Darcy. Can you believe it?”
“Our family,” she murmured, her heart overflowing with love for this precious gift they’d been granted. For the man looking between her and their child with such unabashed adoration, such love, it took her breath away. Reaching out to stroke that silky fuzz, she smiled. “Our beautiful Happily Ever After.”
Jeff looked down at his boy with pride and then shot her his most devastating grin, made even more so by the utter fatigue showing over every inch of him. “Our first one. What do you say we see about trying for a girl with your hair next.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from HOLIDAY WITH A STRANGER by Christy McKellen.
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ONE
Connor Preston couldn’t believe his eyes. She was sitting on his bed in the moonlight, brazen as you like, with her slender back curved towards him. One arm propped her up, taking her weight, and her head was dipped, as if she were posing for one of those romance book covers he’d seen in the airport newsagents.
He guessed she’d just got out of the shower, because her long blonde hair hung in wet clumps around her shoulders. He watched in irritation as a water droplet ran down the shadowed line of her spine before dripping onto his bedspread.
Through his travel-weary eyes she seemed to cast a glow in front of her, as if all the cloying positivity she used to force on him day after day radiated from her.
Katherine Meers.
He’d thought he’d finally convinced her it was over between them, but here she was, waiting naked in his bed again, in his holiday home. A holiday home that he couldn’t remember ever telling her about. Was nowhere a safe haven from her needy optimism?
‘What the hell are you doing in my bed, Katherine?’ He knew his voice was gruff and unfriendly—nothing like the laid-back drawl he’d cultivated over the years—but he was tired and grumpy and not in the mood for another showdown with his stalker ex-girlfriend.
But even that didn’t explain the way she reacted.
Her scream was so loud he thought he felt his eardrums perforating. Her whole body jerked in fright and something gleamed momentarily in a wide arc in front of her, before raining down onto the bed with a worryingly loud splat.
Hair flying, she twisted round towards him and he caught a tantalising flash of her pert breasts—which were rather larger than he remembered—before she grabbed the towel that pooled around her waist and whipped it up around her.
Gazing at her shocked face in the pale glow of the moonlight, he realised he’d made a mistake.
This wasn’t Katherine.
This was an altogether different problem.
* * *
Josie’s heart slammed against her chest as adrenaline ricocheted through her body. After staring at her laptop in the dark for the past ten minutes she had to work hard to get her eyes to focus on the looming shape in front of her. She could barely make out the features of the enormous man standing at the foot of the bed, but she’d swear she could feel his anger.
‘What do you want?’ It was a reflex question—one she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer to—and it came out as a shaky whisper.
‘I want my bed.’ His voice was quieter this time, not exactly friendly, but there was a hint of bemusement mixed in with the exasperation.
Confusion engulfed her. Perhaps she was dreaming? The situation was certainly bizarre enough to be one of her dreams.
‘What do you mean your bed? Who the hell are you? You scared the crap out of me.’
The man took a pace backwards in response to her rankled tone and raised his hands, palms forward. Surrender.
‘Look, I’m sorry for scaring you.’ His voice softened. ‘I thought you were...’ He paused. ‘Someone else.’
Josie’s eyes were slowly becoming accustomed to the dark as her night vision improved. She watched as the tension left his body. Perhaps he wasn’t going to attack her, but she inched closer to her bedside lamp just in case, her muscles tight with anxiety.
She was distracted for a moment by the tinny sound of her music, playing through the earphones that had prevented her hearing his approach—which were now lying discarded on the bed.
Wrenching her attention back, she asked, ‘So who are you?’ forcing more authority into her voice this time, in an attempt to take control of the situation.
Perhaps if she could convince him she was in charge he might leave her alone. She’d heard somewhere that when cornered the best type of defence was attack. Although her only actual experience of being attacked was fighting for funding for the business—facing down aggressively assertive venture capitalists—which was not the same thing as a midnight stand-off with a strange man.
‘Connor Preston. I own this place,’ he said.
Josie blew out a small sigh, her heart-rate slowing a fraction. Preston. Okay. He must be Abigail’s brother—the wanderer—returning home from a life living off his trust fund. He wasn’t what she’d expected at all. Abigail was the total opposite of her brother: petite and willowy. This man was anything but petite. It was hard to gauge from her position in the bed, but she’d guess he was at least six foot four and built like an ox. Not the sort of vision you wanted to encounter alone in the middle of the night.
‘Who are you?’ The gruff timbre of his voice coming at her through the gloom was unnerving.
She leant across and switched on the bedside light. Yup, he was big, all right, and rugged and unshaven. His dark blond hair looked as if it could do with a cut and his clothes were creased and unkempt. He looked exhausted; his eyes dull with fatigue. Based on what Abigail had told her, she guessed he must be in his early thirties—only a few years older than her—but he looked as though he’d lived through every second of them. He had a strong face—not classically handsome, but definitely arresting. The t
ype of man who would always be noticed, no matter where he was or who he was with.
Her skin prickled as he scrutinised her in return and a hot flush travelled through her body, leaving a sizzling pulse in the most unnerving places.
‘I’m Abigail’s business partner. Josie Marchpane,’ she said, aware her voice was somewhat squeakier than normal. She waited for a sign of recognition on his face. It didn’t come; he just stared back, assessing her. ‘Abi said I could stay here for a while....’ She tailed off as his expression grew darker.
‘Is that right?’ His tone was abrupt now, and unfriendly.
There was a heavy silence in the room as they looked at each other.
Silence?
Something was wrong.
The music had stopped playing. With horror, Josie suddenly realised that, in the shock of Connor’s appearance she’d forgotten about the drink she’d thrown all over the bed...and her laptop.
Twisting round, she looked down to see the screen had gone black. When she tapped the space bar, then jabbed all the other buttons in panic, nothing happened.
It looked as if her laptop hadn’t agreed with being showered with juice, and had died in disgust.
‘No, no, no, no, no!’ All the work she’d done since she’d got here was on that machine. She’d stupidly assumed there would be an internet connection, so she could back her work up, but that had been another surprise that Abi hadn’t warned her about. Deliberately. She was sure of it.
‘What’s wrong?’
Connor’s deep drawl broke into her consciousness. She’d almost forgotten him in her panic.
‘I just killed my computer with orange juice.’ It would have been funny if it wasn’t so absolutely devastating. Losing her laptop was tantamount to losing her right hand.
‘Orange juice?’ He nodded slowly. ‘So that’s what you’ve christened my bed with.’