Covert Cowboy. Harper Allen

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СКАЧАТЬ him again, not even when she’d found out she was pregnant.

      Connor Ducharme was a dangerous man. He’d seemed to know instinctively what she’d wanted that night and he’d let her believe he could give it to her. But although he’d made her melt, although his mouth, his hands, his whole body had brought her to mind-shattering ecstasy, what made Detective Ducharme so very, very dangerous was that he’d known just how much more she’d needed. He’d pretended to give her that, too.

      For a few delirious hours he’d made her believe she was loved.

      Marilyn closed her eyes again. Her right hand slid unconsciously to the swell of her belly, and despite the confusing ache in her heart and the problems she knew she was facing at Mills & Grommett, the beatific smile she’d once so envied on Holly’s face crept over her own.

      And immediately faded.

      “I thought I knew what she was going through, but before now I had no idea,” she whispered. “Sky was her whole world, and he’s still missing. I’d die if anyone tried to take my baby—”

      A loud clanking, the signal that another arduous ascent had begun for the freight elevator, drowned out the rest of her words. Almost grateful for the interruption, with an effort she pushed herself out of the chair and began gathering up her shopping bags for the second time.

      A visitor for Jim and Dan, she surmised as the clanking continued. She couldn’t remember the last time the elevator had stopped at her floor with a guest, and as far as she knew the Dickenson’s apartment above hadn’t yet been sublet.

      She put her idle speculations aside as her gaze lit upon a fuchsia sleeve dangling from one of the bags. Heart sinking, she pulled the garment out. It was a blouse, made of some silky blend and with ruffles spilling down the low-cut front. The black pants that went with it were what the salesgirl had called a yoga style—stretchy and form-fitting, with a very slight flare at the bottom. The low-rise waistband was meant to sit below the swell of her belly.

      What was I thinking? These aren’t me at all, for heaven’s sake, she thought in exasperation. For starters, I could hardly have chosen a more attention-getting top. And those pants don’t hide a thing. I might as well hang a big Baby on Board sign around my neck.

      She was going to have to return them. Sighing, she began to cram them back into the bag, but then she paused.

      This pregnancy, unplanned as it might have been, was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. The baby she was carrying was that most precious of all miracles, an evolving little human being. Why would she want to hide it?

      “And those pants were a whole lot more comfortable than the ones I’ve got on.” She glanced down in sudden distaste at the navy suit she’d worn to the office that day. Just as suddenly, she began unbuttoning the jacket.

      Moments later she was padding barefoot across the carpet to the full-length mirror by the door. She stood in front of it and took a deep breath.

      The navy suit’s boxiness had made her look bulky rather than pregnant. But the clinging fabrics of the fuchsia top and the yoga pants hugged her curves—all of her curves, she realized. The ruffled V-neck of the blouse skimmed silkily over breasts that were fuller than she’d ever known them to be, and then stretched even more over her stomach. The low-rider style of the black pants made no apology for the roundness of her belly, but the lean cut also accentuated the length of her legs.

      She looked pregnant…and in what she was wearing, pregnant looked sexy. In the mirror she saw faint heat touch her cheeks, and hastily she turned away.

      The elevator clanged to a halt outside her apartment.

      “Oh, no,” she muttered, aghast. She whirled back to the mirror and her reflection, but even as she fluffed the petal-like ruffles toward the vee of the blouse’s neckline the door buzzer sounded.

      The ruffles fell back into place. Exasperated, she gave it up as a bad job, and jabbed the intercom button with her thumb.

      “Who is it?”

      Marilyn found herself hoping her unanticipated caller was her brother, Josh. Throwing his hat into the political ring seemed to have brought out the stuffed shirt in him and although his recent engagement had loosened him up a little, she was pretty sure the gubernatorial hopeful for the State of Colorado would be none too thrilled with his sister’s pregnancy being flaunted front and center where the electorate couldn’t help but see it.

      Except her mystery guest wasn’t Joshua. Even though he didn’t identify himself, she’d heard those burnt brown sugar tones often enough in her dreams these past three months to recognize them immediately.

      “Let me in, cher’,” the voice on the other side of the door drawled. “That way you get to tell me to go to hell to my face.”

      She’d been planning to contact Connor Ducharme tonight, she thought hollowly. It seemed now she wouldn’t have to.

      TRUST HER Beacon Hill upbringing, Marilyn told herself ten minutes later. Grandmother Van Buren had always haughtily held that a real lady never admitted to an awkward situation, and it seemed her lesson had sunk in. On the sofa across from her, Con balanced the bone-china cup of tea she’d offered him on a carelessly crossed knee, and so far neither one of them had been crass enough to tell the other to go to hell.

      But she had no illusions. She’d seen the flicker of reaction in his eyes when she’d opened the door and he’d seen she was pregnant. Beneath the veneer of civility they were like two prizefighters circling cautiously, each waiting for the starting bell to ring.

      No matter what his original reason for coming here, the possibility that he could be the father of the child she was so obviously carrying had to be in his mind. She needed to dispel that idea before it took root. She knew next to nothing about the man, but it wasn’t inconceivable that he might be attracted to the notion of playing daddy on a part-time basis, and she had no intention of standing by and letting that happen.

      No child of mine is going to grow up caught between two worlds, and never fitting fully into either one, Marilyn vowed fiercely. Grandmother Van Buren’s rules of etiquette be damned, it’s time to get a few things clear here.

      But she’d left it too late. Before she could speak he beat her to it.

      “You once told me you were a coward, cher’.” Leaning forward, he set his cup and saucer on the large Moroccan leather hassock she used as a coffee table. Under dark brows his green gaze held hers and his mouth quirked up wryly.

      “Truth is, it’s me you should pin that label on. No matter what you said you wanted at the time I shouldn’t have left things the way I did between us, but every time I thought about contacting you I lost my nerve. I took advantage of the situation that night. It wasn’t anything I felt too proud about the next day, and I figured you’d have every right to slam the phone down on me if I called.”

      His self-deprecating honesty took her by surprise. “We both know it wasn’t that simple,” she said slowly. “I pretty much threw myself at you that evening in my office. I accept half the responsibility for what happened.”

      She hesitated, and then went on, her heart in her mouth. “This—” she spread her fingers wide over her belly “—isn’t a result of what we did together, in case you were wondering. I know we were insane enough not to take precautions that third and final time, but the dates СКАЧАТЬ