A Heart Decision (32 page)

“We
can’t
go upstairs.” She shoved against
his chest and tried wiggling out of his arms. “I’m not normally
superstitious, Luke, but this is our marriage. Won’t we have bad
luck if we don’t cut our wedding cake?”

“Not possible.” He carried her to the study’s rear
door and opened it. As he climbed the back steps, she grabbed his
hair and yanked his face toward hers. “How can you be so damn
sure?”

“It’s simple, Princess,” he whispered, staring into
her beautiful moss-green eyes. “When you married me, I became the
luckiest man alive.”

The last Sunday in January, Luke drove through
Redemption for the first time since their wedding. The snow-banked
roads had already been plowed, but newly fallen snow still covered
the ground and rooftops.

He pulled the SUV up to the ninety-acre site that
would soon be the campus for The Redemption Academy. He smiled over
at Sabrina. “What do you think, Mrs. Marino? We’re breaking ground
for the administration building and dormitories as soon as the
ground thaws.”

“It’s gonna be beautiful. I’m just worried every kid
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania will want to apply.”

“We’re only planning to admit students through
recommendations by judges, teachers, and pastors. And even then,
each student will have to financially qualify for one of our
scholarships and go through an interview process to ascertain
whether he or she really wants to attend here.”

“That makes sense. We can’t save the kids who don’t
want help.”

“No, we can’t.” He shifted the SUV into first gear
and pulled back onto the road. “My goal is for our academy to
compete scholastically with the most elite prep schools in the
country.”

Two minutes later, he swung the vehicle into their
driveway, and Sabrina burst out laughing. “I think we may have
company.”

A huge banner hung from the covered porch that read,
Welcome Home, Mr. and Mrs. Marino
. Tyler, Annie, and their
children raced out the front door and clambered down the porch
steps to greet them as they climbed from the Jeep.

“Oh, my gosh!” Annie squealed, shifting Sam to one
hip before hugging Sabrina. “I can’t believe how tan you both are.
I’m guessing it’s an
all-over
tan.”

Sabrina wiggled her eyebrows. “We’ll never
tell.”

Annie laid her hand over Sabrina’s stomach. “And I
think someone is starting to show.”

“I know.” Sabrina knelt down and hugged Noah and
Mandy. “Fortunately, my husband likes my protruding tummy.”

That was for sure. He loved laying his head on her
belly and talking to their baby.

“The yacht is amazing.” Sabrina told them. “I can’t
wait for us to all go out on it together.”

He opened the back of the Jeep and pulled out their
suitcases. “I think Tyler and Annie need to go out on the
Sabrina
alone, first, to really appreciate it. We can watch
the kids for them.”

“That’ll have to wait a while.” Tyler said, grabbing
two of the bags.

“So where did you sail to?” Annie asked.

“Bermuda, the Bahamas, Key West, The Virgin
Islands….” Sabrina chuckled. “I think a better question is where
didn’t
we go?”

Tyler jerked his head toward the house. “Let’s get
out of the cold. Annie made dinner. The roast should be done any
minute.”

Luke trudged toward the house with the other two
suitcases. “Is Ben coming?”

Tyler stopped short and glanced at his wife. They
stared at each other for several moments before Annie finally said,
“No. He’s gone away for a while.”

“Gone away? Where?” Sabrina asked, taking Sam from
Annie’s arms and cuddling him.

“It’s actually a miracle you didn’t pass him on your
way out of the marina.” Tyler continued up the front porch steps.
“He and Thomas are leaving on the
Sabrina
this afternoon as
soon as the crew restocks and fuels her up.”

Luke stalled on the last step and set the suitcases
down on the porch. “The idiot couldn’t have waited one more day so
we could see him before he leaves?”

Annie slowly shook her head. “No. He couldn’t. He’s
hurting too much. He needs you to understand.”

Luke turned his back to them and sucked in a deep
breath, trying not to lose it. If he’d been wearing Ben’s shoes, he
probably would’ve skipped town, too, to avoid witnessing their
marital bliss.

Tyler squeezed Luke’s shoulder. “He’ll be okay.”

“Our friendship’s never gonna be the same again, is
it?” he whispered.”

“Probably not.” Tyler shrugged. “At least not until
Ben falls in love again.”

Luke swallowed hard. Considering the pain his friend
had to be in after losing Sabrina, it would take one hell of a
woman to capture his heart.

Sabrina cupped his cheek in her palm. “He just needs
time to forget about me, sweetheart.”

“That could take a lifetime, Princess.” Luke smiled
down at his wife cuddling their baby nephew. “Because, you’re
pretty unforgettable.”

Thank you for reading A HEART DECISION

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Laurie Kellogg is a two-time winner and seven-time
nominee for the
Romance Writers of America
^®
Golden Heart
^®
award, the winner of
Pacific
Northwest Writers Association
^®
Zola
award, and a
Romantic Times
^®
American Title I
finalist. She began writing to avoid
housework and has since resorted to naming the dust-bunnies
multiplying as fast as real rabbits while she plots love stories
that are Steamy, Heartwarming, Romantic Fun

Laurie also writes red-hot romantic comedies under
L.L. Kellogg which she’s branded as
A Little Naughty and a lot
of Fun!
If you would like to know more about Laurie and her
books visit
http://www.LaurieKellogg.com
and be sure to subscribe to her blog at
http://www.LaurieKellogg.wordpress.com

Connect with Laurie at:

e-mail:
[email protected]

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http://pinterest.com/kellogglaurie

Read more of Laurie’s
Steamy, Heartwarming
Fun
romances:

The Memory of You
(prequel to the Return to
Redemption Series)

A Little Bit of Déjà Vu
(Book One of the
Return to Redemption series)

The Great Bedroom War
(Book Two of the Return
to Redemption series)

The Parent Pact
(Book Three of the Return to
Redemption Series)

No Exchanges, No Returns
(Book Four of the
Return to Redemption Series)

Or try her L.L. Kellogg
A Little Naughty and a
lot of Fun
romances:

Hypnotic Seduction
(Book One of the Seduction
Series)

The Naughty Never Die
(Book Two of the
Seduction Series)

Cinderella and Prince Charming never had to consider
the welfare of their children

When widower Tyler Fitzpatrick meets Annie Barnes at
his daughter’s school, his libido goes tilt. The sexy single mother
is everything he and his grieving little girl need. Unfortunately,
Annie flatly refuses his dinner invitation. She wants a husband and
a father for her son—not just a boyfriend. And the last time she
checked, wealthy, summa-cum-laude lawyers didn’t marry
high-school-drop-out housekeepers.

Tyler concedes there’s a vast difference between
their experiences and lifestyles. Still, he’s inexplicably drawn to
the impoverished young woman—even though her little boy reminds
Tyler of an underprivileged past he’d rather forget. While becoming
better acquainted, he offers Annie a job caring for his daughter
and home in Redemption, PA. He also proposes a Parent Pact—an
agreement to become role models to each other’s child and to fill
one another’s needs as single parents while they continue to search
for true love.

Accepting Tyler’s offer would solve a lot of Annie’s
problems. However, surrendering to her weak-in-the-knees attraction
to the irresistible widower could very well leave her and her son
heartbroken. Yet, when circumstances threaten her ability to feed
her child, Annie reluctantly agrees to the pact, making it clear
she has no desire for Tyler to fill her so-called needs in bed.
It’s a bald-faced lie, but she knows the man’s desperation to give
his daughter the nurturing she needs will compel him to accept a
purely platonic relationship.

Now, Annie’s only problem is resisting the
overwhelming temptation to let sin-in-a-tailored-suit Tyler seduce
her.

Chapter 1

It seemed like only yesterday she’d snipped off
Noah’s baby curls.

Annie Barnes stood in front of Redemption’s brick
elementary school and smoothed her six-year-old son’s
blond-streaked hair.

Okay, God, if you’ll cut me a break and keep the
kids from making fun of him, I promise to be a better mother. I’ll
find some way to buy him new sneakers next week.

Right. Considering her life thus far, the window
Noah busted yesterday would count as her so-called
break.
She didn’t know why she bothered trying to bargain with the Big Guy
upstairs.

He hadn’t saved her parents’ lives.

He hadn’t kept her from getting an A-plus on the
four pregnancy tests she’d taken between her tenth-grade final
exams—the last two of which she’d failed.

And He hadn’t allowed her to afford anything more
than a small box of crayons for Noah to carry in his second-hand
backpack the first day of school.

“Have fun today, Pumpkin. And listen to Mrs.
Winslow.”

“
O-kaay
.” Noah ducked, evading the smooch she
aimed at his sun-kissed cheek.

Her throat tightened as he dashed off to the
playground. Today, he didn’t want her kissing him in public. By
tomorrow, he’d want her to say good-bye at the corner.

On the bright side, now that her son was in first
grade and in school all day, she could add more homes to her
cleaning schedule. She’d lost her best paying customer last week,
and as her late mechanic father used to say,
finances were as
tight as a rusted lug nut
.

At sixteen, the decision to keep her child had been
an agonizing one. However, after much soul searching, she’d
promised herself she would do everything in her power to give her
son the best life possible. So far, she’d managed to care for Noah,
but she wasn’t about to win a mother-of-the-year award.

If she didn’t drum up some new business soon, she’d
never be able to buy the winter jacket he needed, let alone the
bike he wanted for Christmas. All summer, the other kids had
whizzed by on their shiny two-wheelers. The envy in her son’s eyes
had sent her on an around-the-world guilt trip. And her inability
to afford a measly pair of new sneakers this week had provided a
first class upgrade.

“Hey, Annie.” Jennifer Hanson, the mother of twin
boys who’d been in Noah’s kindergarten class, stopped her.

“Hi, Jenn. How’re you?”

Jennifer launched into a long-winded tale,
explaining her husband, Keith, had been laid off in June, and
they’d had to cancel the family vacation they’d planned at Disney
World that summer—a place Annie dreamed of taking Noah, despite
that she would need a minor miracle.

Human physiology finally forced Jenn to draw a
breath, and she asked, “How was your summer?”

“About as exciting as watching mold grow. I spent
what little free time I had studying for my GED exam.”
Unfortunately, she hadn’t learned nearly enough to pass the test
for her high school diploma. “If I don’t want to end up scrubbing
toilets the rest of my life, I need to take a prep class.”

“Check out the continuing ed night school. I think
they’re offering a course.”

Unfortunately, it would mean paying for a babysitter
as well as tuition, which was tough living in Redemption. The small
town’s commuting distance to Princeton, Philadelphia, and even New
York attracted successful professionals, which sent the hourly rate
for childcare sky-high.

Jenn had already segued into the huge Labor Day
picnic her boss, Dr. Webber, had invited her family to the previous
day. “I met the new dentist Dr. Webber hired. He’ll take over the
practice when my boss retires in a few—” She suddenly fell silent,
which only proved miracles were possible. The incurable chatterbox
nudged Annie, jerking her head toward the school’s driveway.
“Hull-O.”