His Baby Bombshell. Jessica Matthews

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СКАЧАТЬ was Adrian. The man she’d never expected to see until she’d plotted out every second of their next encounter, until she could think of him as a casual acquaintance rather than a lover, until she could face him with the cool indifference he deserved.

      As aloof as she wanted to be, as often as she’d told herself she’d relegated him into her past and moved on with her life, seeing him with hardly any advance warning brought all of those painful emotions to the surface.

      Her chest hurt as she realized his presence affected more than her own heart. His untimely arrival complicated everything she’d built for herself during the past year. She’d prided herself on her ability to work with anyone and everyone, but working with Adrian on a daily basis for several weeks was a punishment she didn’t deserve.

      If disrupting her professional life wasn’t enough, he’d turn her personal life into a shambles, too. Pinehaven might be a suburb of Denver, but the people in this community were a close-knit group. Secrets were impossible to keep. All he had to do was ask the right question, and well-meaning people would share her meticulously vague story.

      The same story to which only he could piece together all the bitter details.

      Thank goodness his name had never crossed her lips. No one would associate him with the fellow who’d dumped her, not even Kate, her best friend and the OB nurse who’d coached her through her labor.

      Tears of frustration blurred her vision and she rapidly blinked them away, hating the inevitability of Adrian turning her world into chaos after she’d finally, and with extreme effort, whipped it in order.

      Instantly, her lungs seemed to deflate and she ran through the full gamut of emotions before finally settling on panic.

      “Are we going to play or stand here all day?” Molly Blake, a third member of their Rusty Clubs foursome, whined as she swiped her forehead. “You guys might prefer to swelter under the sun, but I’d rather hang out in the air-conditioned clubhouse.”

      Sabrina’s flight-or-fight response kicked into high gear. The only thought running through her mind was to escape before Adrian saw her. Contrary to what Kate might believe about familiar faces, Sabrina needed to postpone their imminent reunion so she could mentally prepare herself.

      Numb, Sabrina stepped up to her ball and swung blindly. As soon as her driver made contact, she knew without even looking that she’d sliced the ball.

      Time slowed as she watched it head in Adrian’s direction like a computer-guided missile searching for its target. Oh, surely fate wouldn’t be that cruel!

      “Fore,” she yelled just before the projectile struck her nemesis on the side of his head.

      He dropped like a rock and lay motionless on the manicured grass.

      Horrified, Sabrina’s club slipped from her hand as her heart pounded. Dear God, she’d killed him!

      She’d killed the father of her son.

      “What the—?” Adrian squinted up at the blue sky, seeing stars when none had been a few moments ago. His head throbbed in time to his heartbeat and something warm trickled down his ear and neck.

      “Just lie still for a few minutes, son.” A worried face hovered over his, blocking the sun from his eyes. “Give yourself a chance to recover.”

      The world spun at all sorts of crazy angles, so he gratefully complied. “What happened?”

      “Golf ball.” Mosby pressed a semi-clean golf towel to a spot above Adrian’s left ear. “How’s the head?”

      He took stock. “Sore.”

      “Any dizziness, nausea?”

      “Some,” he admitted, hoping the power of positive thinking would slow down the spinning and churning of his internal amusement park ride from Tilt-A-Whirl to a sedate carousel.

      Mosby peered into his eyes. “Pupils are equal and reactive, so you can rest easy on that account.”

      “I’m OK. Just give me…a minute.”

      “Take all the time you need,” Mosby advised, placing a hand on his shoulder. “An ambulance is on its way.”

      “Not necessary,” he croaked, hating to appear weak, especially on his first official day in town. “I’m supposed to work in ER, not check in as a patient.”

      “It’s very necessary,” Mosby assured him. “We take care of our own, and as of eight o’clock this morning, you’re one of us.”

      Adrian folded one arm over his eyes, too befuddled to argue and quite content to lie on the grass until his wits returned. He heard voices and tried to focus on them through the pounding in his head, but none seemed to make any sense until he heard one so familiar it haunted him in his dreams.

      “How is he? Is he OK? He’s breathing, isn’t he?”

       Sabrina.

      He’d known he’d see her again—the hospital wasn’t large enough to avoid it—but he wondered if her breathless concern would fade as soon as she realized that he was the one lying on the ground with a goose egg on the side of his head.

      He lowered his arm and opened his eyes to see her face above his. Through his slightly blurry vision, he recognized her retroussé nose, high cheekbones, kissable mouth and eyes as black as midnight. “Yeah, I’m breathing and talking,” he answered for himself. “In a few minutes I’ll be walking, too.”

      “That was one helluva slice,” Mosby commented. “I wonder who hit it?”

      Even with his head feeling as if his brains had been run through a blender, Adrian was alert enough to watch color wash over Sabrina’s face. “I did,” she admitted.

      Of all the people in this tournament, Sabrina had knocked him senseless? He wanted to laugh at the irony but his skull hurt too much. The best he could do was smile, and that turned out to be more grimace than grin.

      As he covered his eyes with his arm once again to wait for the paramedics, one thought ran through his mind as clearly as a church bell on a calm summer day.

      Paybacks were hell.

      After seeing Adrian awake and alert, Sabrina felt marginally better, until she saw his ashen face and the blood trickling past his ear and down his corded neck to stain his shirt collar. In spite of everything that had gone wrong between them, in spite of past hurts, she’d never dreamed of physically harming him. Not that he didn’t deserve it, of course…

      “I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “It was an accident. Honest.”

      “Of course it was,” Mosby declared. “No one deliberately slices the ball.”

      “That’s right,” she concurred, hoping Adrian wouldn’t accuse her of evil intent, at least not in front of this crowd of witnesses. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve never hit anyone before.”

      “Or you haven’t been told,” Adrian remarked dryly. “That would have been quite a drive if it had gone straight.”

      “Probably,” СКАЧАТЬ