Harlequin Special Edition November 2014 - Box Set 1 of 2: A Weaver Christmas Gift\The Soldier's Holiday Homecoming\Santa's Playbook (2 page)

He stepped up to her and raised his hand. She stiffened. Not from fear, but because he was drawing a single fingertip slowly down her cheek and she felt a corresponding line of heat work down her spine. He was a truly impossible man, but for some unfathomable reason, he charged her batteries in a way nobody else had ever done.

And the faint half smile on his face warned her that he knew exactly the reaction he elicited.

Dammit.

“Mebbe you figure you don't need to order up a dose of
love
with this prospective husband of yours, but you didn't say anything about chemistry either.” He waited a knowing beat. “Don't pretend you don't want passion. I know otherwise.”

She wanted to move back from him in the worst way, but she knew that was what he was expecting, so she held her ground. “Passion is overrated,” she said.

His eyes took on an unholy glint. “It gets a couple into the bedroom, sport. I've always heard that making babies is a lot more fun when it's done the old-fashioned way. Or were you thinking you'd be able to get yourself in the family way while keeping your convenient husband at arm's length?”

“Medical science is a wonderful thing.” She savored the satisfaction of actually igniting some surprise in his silvery gaze. “But no. I want a husband. I want to make a baby—or babies—with him.” Though she hadn't expected it, over the past several months she'd come to realize she wanted the same thing her little sister had. She wanted to be more than a business owner. She wanted a real home. A real family. “I expect to get pregnant in the usual manner.”

His lips twisted again. He was probably thinking she was nuts. She knew he wasn't jealous. He didn't care about her that way. He cared that she gave as good as she got when their clothes started hitting the floor.

Chemistry. She and Casey Clay had it in spades.

But that was all they had.

There was no future. He'd made that abundantly clear from the very start. She might have had a change of mind along the way, but she wasn't foolish enough to believe that he had.

Or that he ever would.

“Borrow your sister's baby for a week,” he advised. “The allure might wear off after 24/7 of diapers and bottles and crying.” He tugged the garish shirt over his wide shoulders. “Hell. Get a puppy. Angeline's gonna have a whole new litter of 'em in a month or so that'll be needing homes. I'll hook you up with one.”

She just eyed him. Angeline, she knew, was his sister who lived with her husband and family over in Sheridan. They'd met once in passing some time ago. In passing because family get-togethers weren't part of Casey and Jane's deal. He didn't invite her to any—even though, with the Clay family, who had fingers in nearly every pie in town, there seemed to be many.

And if he had invited her, she'd have told him he was out of his tree anyway. They weren't dating. They were just sleeping together. Nothing more.

“This isn't like deciding I want a new pair of shoes. Or a new dog. I've never even had a dog.”

He gave her a vaguely shocked look and she wished she'd kept that tidbit to herself.

“I want a husband,” she added quickly. “A family of my own. I want it when I wake up and when I go to sleep and I'm too old now not to do something about it!”

Something came and went in his eyes as he put on his worn tennis shoes. He didn't even bother tying the laces. “If you're bound and determined, I could probably set you up with a couple candidates.”

She nearly choked. “I don't need your help finding a husband.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself, sport.” Then his head swooped and his mouth caught hers in a fast, thorough kiss that left her knees weak and her insides hot. When he lifted his head again, she was certain there was amusement lurking at the corners of his lips. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

About
what
? Ending things with him? Allowing him to set her up with someone else?

“I won't change my mind,” she said stiffly. Removing him from the equation would best be accomplished cold turkey. Like a swift yank that removed an adhesive bandage. “So the next time you're looking for a bedmate, you'll have to look elsewhere.” The fact that he wouldn't have to look hard wasn't lost on her. Despite his unfathomable dedication to the ugly shirts of the world, Casey Clay was stupefyingly gorgeous. Intelligent and humorous despite his secretive nature. In her very own bar, Jane had witnessed countless women throwing themselves at him.

She had never been one of them. Their relationship, their sexship, hadn't been planned. It had been more like a head-on collision neither one of them had predicted.

“It won't be the same.” His lips crooked. “Nobody gives good...bickering...like you.”

She pressed her lips together, not wanting to be amused, particularly now, and headed downstairs to the back door. He never parked in front on the street, where his truck might be noticed. She yanked open the door. It was almost midnight and outside, everything was quiet and still. “I'd like to say it's been a pleasure—”

“It's been more than that,” he drawled as he stepped past her. “Since passion isn't factored in this plan of yours, you'll probably want to remember what it feels like when you're working your way through your matrimonial prospects. But if you find yourself in need of a reminder, you know where to find me.”

“Working at Cee-Vid,” she said smoothly. “Because nothing's more important than keeping those video games coming.” Then, before she changed her mind, she pushed the door closed behind him.

If she'd wanted confirmation that Casey would never be interested in redefining their friends-with-benefits relationship, she'd certainly gotten it.

She just wished that it didn't hurt quite so much.

Chapter Two

I
nside his office at Cee-Vid, Casey entered a code on his computer that revealed a security panel in one wall. Cee-Vid had been producing some of the most popular video games in the world for the past few decades. But behind the front, the company did a heck of a lot more as a location of Hollins-Winword, an equally successful organization that hardly anyone in the world knew existed. International security. Black ops. Hollins-Winword did it all and they did it well. And right now, they had an asset on the ground in Nepal named Bax Kennedy who had missed his last two check-ins. Casey's mind should have been strictly on that fact. But it wasn't.

It was on Jane Cohen.

He stepped up to the security panel that looked like a small wall mirror and stared into the iris scanner.

She wanted to get pregnant. Have a baby.

The scan completed and a numeric panel lit behind the false mirror's surface.

Why hadn't he seen it coming? She was a woman. Past thirty. There were enough females among the Clay clan for him to know perfectly well that her desire for a family wasn't unnatural. Hell, his entire extended family believed in having kids.

It was what the Clays did.

Except for him.

He tapped in another code on the smooth surface and heard the nearly soundless, hollow release that came from somewhere inside the wall. A moment later, part of the wall moved, revealing itself as the door it actually was, and he stepped through into the cavernous communications center they called Control.

“Status?”

Seth Banyon leaned back in his chair and stretched, looking relaxed even though his eyes never stopped roving the bank of screens covering the wall in front of him. “Same.”

Casey felt the automatic door closing behind him and he moved across the large blue-lit room to stand behind his associate. Like Casey, Seth collected a paycheck that showed that he worked for Cee-Vid. But also like Casey, his real employer was hidden deep and well beneath that. “This was a simple assignment,” he said. “All Bax had to do was escort the emir's niece back to college.”

“Without drawing attention to the fact that she wasn't where she was supposed to be in the first place. Money,” Banyon muttered. “More trouble than it's worth, if you ask me.”

The emir had plenty of it. His affection for his only sister's three children was well-known. When whispers of a possible kidnapping attempt had reached him, he'd reached out to Hollins-Winword to discreetly resolve matters.

Casey had two sisters and from them, four nephews and a niece. They were still children but whatever their ages, he knew there wasn't much he wouldn't do to help keep them safe.

He stepped around Banyon and tapped a few keys on one of the keyboards that surrounded the room. The uppermost screen on the wall in front of them shifted from a satellite image to a photograph of the emir's niece and nephews. “This isn't about money. It's about a power struggle between the emir and his despot of a second cousin. And a whole lot of oil behind them. Where are the other two?”

“Safe behind the walls of their London estate in the loving arms of their mama.”

“At least that's something. We've only got Samira to worry about. Wish to hell she would have stayed in London instead of going out on this mission trip of hers.”

A series of electronic chimes sounded and a moment later, another interior door slid open and the man in charge stepped inside.

To most of the world—including the regular employees of Cee-Vid, who didn't know anything else was going on beneath the surface—Tristan Clay was merely the brilliant mind behind Cee-Vid.

To a select few, he was close to the top of the food chain inside Hollins-Winword. And to Casey, Tristan Clay was not only his boss but his uncle.

The older man's piercing blue gaze went straight to the bank of screens. “Where're we at?”

Protocols were always followed whenever an asset or an operative went off plan. It was easier for Casey to work through them than it was for him to think about Janie's “plan,” and he nudged Banyon out of the seat and took his position at the controls. “Last contact was thirty-six hours ago.” His fingers started flying over the console, satellites high above the world snapped to attention, and Casey did the only thing in the world he figured he was meant to do.

He kept Hollins-Winword's own safe.

* * *

“You
do
realize that if women could just snap their fingers and find the perfect man, the entire chocolate industry might crumble to dust?” Hayley Templeton's slender fingers hovered indecisively over the opened box of Godiva delectables sitting on top of the gleaming wood bar at Colbys.

Jane wasn't indecisive at all. She plucked a heart-shaped piece from the box and bit it in half, sighing a little over the explosion of bliss on her taste buds. “I know I can't just snap my fingers,” she countered. If her digits possessed such magic, she'd have waved them over Casey and he wouldn't have bothered offering up his friends and associates to put their heads in her matrimonial noose.

He would have given his neck to her willingly.

Instead, he'd bolted.

Just as she'd known he would.

The chocolate suddenly lost its appeal, but she ate the second half of the heart anyway before rinsing her hands at the bar sink and pulling the latest rack of glasses fresh from the dishwasher built into the cabinets below the bar. “Other women manage to find spouses here in Weaver. So why can't I?”

Hayley finally selected a chocolate and replaced the lid on the gold box. “Get that away from me before I eat the rest.”

“They are
your
chocolates,” Jane reminded her. Her friend had brought them with her when she'd stopped by the bar and grill that afternoon.

“And I expect you to save me. I haven't been running with Sam Dawson four times a week only to have a box of chocolates, given to me by a grateful patient, going straight to my hips.” Hayley groaned. “Sam's a slave driver. You'd think she'd have a little sympathy for her friends.”

Sam Dawson was a deputy with the sheriff's department. “She gave me a parking ticket the other day. Sam doesn't have any sympathy for anyone.” Jane took pity on Hayley and tucked away the golden box of temptation before unloading the rack of glasses onto the shelves on the wall behind her. “I think she was just making up for the fact that I kicked her butt in racquetball last week.”

“I honestly don't know how I ended up with such competitive friends.” Hayley propped her elbows on the bar and glanced around. At three in the afternoon, the place was busy with families having late lunches or early dinners, but the bar itself was quiet.

It would pick up later, though. Friday nights were always packed at Colbys. The establishment had been a Weaver staple since long before Jane had bought it from the family of a friend she'd known since college. Well, she amended mentally, since her ex-husband, Gage Stanton, had staked her purchase of the place.

What was unusual, though, was Hayley stopping in at that hour of the day. Finished with the sparkling clean pilsner glasses, Jane turned back to her friend. “So what's wrong?”

Hayley ran her hand down the sleek tail of her ponytail. “Who says anything's wrong?”

Jane shook her head a little. When it came to the town of Weaver, even after several years there, they were still relative newcomers. As was Sam Dawson. But the three of them had all struck up an enduring friendship. She dumped ice into a glass, filled it with diet cola and set it in front of her friend. “You know bartenders are the best listeners. Comes with the territory.”

Hayley pulled a face and reached for the drink. “Counselors are the best listeners,” she corrected her. “My PhD in psychology says so.” She twisted the glass between her fingers. “Just some family dissension. Evidently, after more than thirty years of estrangement, my grandmother has been trying to mend fences with my dad and my uncle, and they're not having any of it.”

Because the bar was so quiet and the restaurant section had its own complement of servers, Jane pulled up the stool she kept behind the bar and sat down to sip at her own soda. “This is their mom you're talking about?”

Hayley nodded. “Vivian Archer Templeton.” She drew out the name, then lifted her shoulders. “She lives in Pittsburgh and has been making noises about visiting them in Braden. I think Daddy and Uncle David are wrong and should be more receptive. They didn't really take kindly to my input. As far as they're concerned, she's just a selfish, filthy-rich snob who'll never change.”

“And Dr. Templeton
never
goes off duty,” Jane murmured. “Is she really rich?”

“Loaded. She married into it, evidently, when she married her first husband. My grandfather. Steel or something.” Then Hayley seemed to shake off her thoughts. “Back to you and the great husband hunt. Believe me. I completely understand a ticking biological clock.” Her lips twisted ruefully as she patted her chest. “Ticktock, ticktock here, too. None of us are getting any younger. But women these days do have babies without rushing into a marriage.”

“Not me.” Suddenly restless, Jane grabbed a clean bar towel and moved to the far end to start polishing the long wooden surface. “I know society has changed since my mother did it, but that doesn't mean single parenting is easy. As a family counselor, you would know that more than anyone.”

“True enough.” Hayley rested her elbow on the bar and propped her chin on her hand. “Though your mom didn't make that choice alone. Your dad walked out on all of you, didn't she?”

“She made him leave.” And once he was gone, her mother had pretended he never existed at all. Since her parents had never married, doing so had been horribly easy.

Hayley made a soft
mmming
sound.

Jane pulled out the chocolate box again and waved it under Hayley's nose. “Stop looking at me like I'm one of your patients or I'm going to open this up again.”

Hayley pushed the box aside. “Fine. Since we've established the fact that you can't just snap your fingers for a husband, what
do
you plan to do about it?” There was a smile in her eyes as she nodded toward the fishbowl on one end of the counter. “Have a drawing like you do for a free meal?”

“I've heard worse ideas.” Jane put away the chocolates again and eyed the bowl where people dropped in a business card or simply a name and phone number, scratched on the back of their receipt, for her weekly drawing. “I wonder if any guys would bother to enter.”

Hayley laughed. “For a chance with you? Half the men in this town—married or not—have probably had a fantasy or two about you.”

Jane grimaced. “I seriously doubt that.” She certainly hoped not. “Kind of an ick factor there, Dr. Templeton.”

“I know who isn't at all icky.” Her friend smiled slyly. “Casey Clay.”

“I should never have told you about him,” Jane muttered.

Hayley's smile widened. “If I were your therapist—”

“You're not.”

“—I would suggest that you think about your feelings where he's concerned.”

“I have no feelings,” Jane lied. “The man is impossible. He can't even keep his truck clean. The last time I saw it, he had a pile of junk on the passenger seat that you wouldn't believe.”

“Good family.” Hayley held up her index finger. “All of the Clays who live in the area are plain old good people.” She held up a second finger. “Well over six feet tall. Exceptional shape.” Her eyes twinkled. “Thick golden-brown hair and gray eyes. In other words, the usual good genes for that particular family.” She held up her third finger. “Intelligent.” Her pinky finger joined the others. “Good sense of humor.” She added her thumb. “Single, heterosexual male. Messy truck notwithstanding, I could go on.”

“Then you date him.”

Hayley laughed softly and glanced around the empty bar before leaning forward over her crossed arms. “You're the one who's been secretly sleeping with him for the past year. Seems to me he'd be your best candidate. And you realize if you're not dating him, someone else will. Isn't that going to bother you?”

Jane shrugged as if it wouldn't, even though the very idea of it made her more than a little ill. “What he does isn't my concern. He's allergic to commitment anyway. He'll tell you that himself.” He'd certainly said that exact thing to her more than once. Before they'd ended up in bed together, as well as after.

“You used to say the same thing about yourself.”

“Some allergies cure themselves, I guess. I want a baby.” She also was afraid she wanted Casey, but that was never going to happen. Cutting her losses now would be easier than having to later.

Hayley's expression turned sympathetic. “I know you do, sweetie. But—” she lifted her hand peaceably “—this is just a little food for thought. Sometimes people will focus harder on a secondary issue in order to avoid dealing with a primary issue.”

“Casey Clay is not my primary issue,” Jane said flatly. “I knew exactly where we stood with each other and that's why I ended things with him last night.” It was her own bad luck she'd allowed her emotions to creep in where he was concerned. She dragged the fishbowl over and dumped the half-dozen business cards and receipts out onto the bar top. “I can't be hunting for a husband when I'm sleeping with him.”

She tugged off the card taped to the front of the fishbowl that described the weekly free-meal drawing and turned it over to the blank side. She pulled a pen from her pocket and uncapped it. “So what do you think? Win a free meal with Jane Cohen? Entries open to single men only?”

Hayley chuckled wryly and covered her eyes. “Girlfriend, you are just asking for trouble.”

* * *

“Is she
serious
?”