Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: A Ranch for His Family\Cowgirl in High Heels\A Man to Believe In (25 page)

She blinked first. “I was a table dealer. Craps, blackjack, roulette.”

God, how much had he had to drink to take her up to his room? At least she wasn't a stripper.

“At Middle Kingdom?” His assistant had booked him a room at the Chinese-themed resort instead of the conference hotel. Greta had thought it would be good for him to have a minivacation—her words. But he'd ignored the brochures about the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon she'd tucked into his work papers in favor of overpriced hotel whiskey. If he'd listened to Greta, he would've come back with a couple of postcards instead of a wife.

Though postcards wouldn't have looked nearly as pretty sitting on his couch in a pink cable-knit sweater and cowboy boots.

Thoughts like that had prompted him to engage Vivian in conversation, to fall under the spell of her mysterious smile and be hypnotized by the rise and fall of her breasts when she breathed. If all he'd done was invite her up to his room, the night in Las Vegas would make more sense, but he'd been thinking about marriage and families, and in his drunken haze had decided he wanted to wake up with her warm skin pressed against his for the rest of his life.

Reality had intruded the next morning and, almost a month later, was sitting on his couch.

“And you're not working there anymore because...”

“My supervisor disagreed with a decision I made.”

“Was I your decision?” She wouldn't have been the first woman unfairly fired because of sex, and she wouldn't be the last.

She turned her head to look out the windows again. An effective nonanswer, which he let go for now. She was—the fetus was—his responsibility for another eight months. He'd get his answer eventually.

“I have a guest bedroom. You can sleep there for now.”

She closed her eyes, the light pink of her eye shadow sparkling in the lamplight, and exhaled. The wool of her sweater must be stiffer than it looked, because even though she went boneless with relief, she didn't sink into the back of the couch. “Thank you.”

“Have you eaten dinner?”

“I'm fine.”

He took that as a no and didn't ask how long it had been since she'd eaten. The worry lines at the corners of her eyes said it had been too long. “What do you like?”

“I'm fine,” she said again, as though hoping if she said it enough times he would believe her. Or maybe she hoped to believe it herself.

Karl stood and walked over to the small table in his entryway. He riffled through the menus in the drawer until he found the one he was looking for, then he handed it to Vivian. “Pick out what you want.”

She looked up at him, one thin black eyebrow raised. “Chinese?”

He ignored the uncomfortable reference. “They have the fastest delivery.”

“Buddha's vegetable delight. Brown rice, please.”

“Soup? Egg rolls?”

Her stomach growled, betraying the casual look on her face and making a lie of her insistence of being “fine.” How long had those ten dollars been all she had to her name? Had she had no savings? All things he could learn tomorrow, after she'd eaten and had a good night's sleep. He called in her order and his, adding enough extra food to give them leftovers for days. He didn't know if she could cook, and he sure as hell didn't. If not for takeout, the baby might starve.

“Let's get your bags put in the guest room.”

* * *

F
OR
ALL
ITS
personality, the guest room might have been in a hotel. There was less glass and more wood than in the living room, but that was because the single piece of furniture in the room was a large, wooden platform bed with a built-in nightstand. The bedspread wasn't white or black, so Karl must at least know color existed, but the geometric pattern and primary colors didn't invite Vivian to snuggle. Still no curtains. What did this man have against curtains?

“There's a dresser in the closet.”

“Thank you.”
Thank you for acknowledging I might be here longer than just tonight.
“Is there something I can put Xìnyùn's cage on?”

“Who?”

“The parrot's name is Xìnyùn. It means luck in Chinese.”

He eyed the cage sitting on the floor. Xìnyùn eyed him back nervously. “Are you sure it doesn't mean bad luck?”

She picked the cage up off the floor and opened the closet doors to find the dresser to set the cage on. Parakeets didn't like humans to loom over them and Karl loomed as naturally as most people breathed.

“Double,” Xìnyùn whistled in approval.

She was pregnant, unemployed and homeless. Her father had fallen off the face of the planet and taken her life savings with him. Xìnyùn, at least, was happy to be off the floor. “At this point, I'm not sure of anything.”

He nodded, left the room for a moment and returned with a small table. “Here's a table for the bird.” He had his hand on the doorknob, about to leave the room, when he turned back to face her, his eyes in shadow and his expression unreadable. “How did you get to Chicago?”

“I drove.” As her gas gauge edged toward empty and the ten dollars felt lighter and lighter in her pocket, she'd turned the dial on her radio until she found a country music station and Carrie Underwood singing “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” She hadn't run out of gas, even if she had coasted into Chicago on wishes and a prayer.

“Where's your car?”

She described where it was parked.

“Give me your keys and I'll move it into the garage. I'll leave money for dinner with the doorman and bring it up when I return.” Without so much as a goodbye, he closed the door, leaving her alone with the skyline.

Inviting or not, all she wanted to do was curl up on the bed and sleep until the nightmare of her life was over and she woke up single, employed and not pregnant. Impossibilities. Time didn't travel backward.

She picked up one suitcase and hefted it over to the closet, which—except for the dresser and some hangers—was completely empty. Karl didn't accumulate crap. Or, if he did, he didn't store it in the closet of his guest bedroom. The room gave her nothing to judge her husband by, other than that his decorating sense was as cold as his hands and as lacking in expression as his face.

No, she was being unfair. She opened a small drawer and shoved underwear in. He'd invited her—a near stranger, no matter that the marriage certificate said otherwise—to stay in his home. He was moving her car and buying her dinner. And the morning she'd woken up naked in a hotel room with him calling her Vivian Milek and asking her if she was a prostitute, he'd handed her a cup of coffee and gotten her a robe.

Maybe he wasn't as unfeeling as his language and his composure made him seem.

She tossed some hangers on the bed and unpacked the rest of her clothes. When she was finished, she turned back to the other suitcase on the floor. Even if she'd wanted to unpack her mementoes, there wasn't a flat surface in the room to hold them. She shoved the last suitcase, without bothering to open it, into the closet and shut the door on her past.

Too melodramatic, Vivian. You just don't want it to look like you're moving in.

Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Lohmann

ISBN-13: 9781460324530

A RANCH FOR HIS FAMILY

Copyright © 2014 by Patricia MacDonald

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www.Harlequin.com

Her luck's changing for the better…right?

Making the tough decisions has always been easy for big-city human-resources specialist Ellison Hunter…until a surprise pregnancy changes everything. Now it's her life that needs major reorganization. Putting her personnel expertise to use on her family's Montana ranch is the perfect escape—even if it means contending with ace rancher Ryan Madison.

His stubborn pride and loyalty to the staff? Those she can handle. But his sexy grin, cowboy charm and instinct to protect her and her baby catch her off guard. As attraction spins into something more, Ellie finds herself even further out of her element. But maybe, with Ryan, she's exactly where she belongs.

He wanted to touch her

Ellie could sense it. And worse yet, she felt the same, as if a wall had fallen away and she'd realized it was possible to touch.

Dear heaven, how she wanted to. She wanted to step closer, take Ryan's face in her hands and kiss him. Softly the first time, hard and deep the second time. To find out what all those lean muscles felt like under her fingers. She wanted to wrap herself around him, experience what this cowboy had to offer and for one brief moment just feel and not think.

But it wasn't possible. That was what had gotten her into this situation, and she'd been stupid to let herself meander along this path. She was pregnant. She was leaving. She couldn't toy around with this guy—it wasn't fair to either one of them.

Ellison stepped back.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever heard the saying that life is what happens while you're making other plans? Well, life happens to Ellison Hunter in a big way when she discovers she's pregnant and that the father of her child is not the guy she thought he was. All of her carefully crafted plans disintegrate, and the next thing she knows, she's in Montana, on a ranch, dealing with cows and cowboys and a lifestyle that's utterly foreign to her. Ellie isn't wild about unfamiliar environments, but now that she's there, she's determined to make the best of it, for both herself and her baby.

Enter my cowboy hero who's too busy to make plans. He takes what life tosses him and deals with it—and he wants to help Ellie deal with her problems, too, but Ellie's not ready to depend on anyone. Not now…maybe not ever.

I've made a few plans over the years that got knocked off track by life happening—like, say, the time I was supposed to go to Washington, D.C., as an intern and instead met and married my husband. I never saw that coming and I've never regretted the rapid career change that ensued. Funny how life works out.

I hope you enjoy reading about Ellie and Ryan as much as I enjoyed writing the story. Please visit my website at
www.jeanniewatt.com
, or contact me at
[email protected]
. You can also follow my adventures sewing vintage clothing at
retrosewingromance.blogspot.com
.

Happy reading,
Jeannie Watt

COWGIRL IN HIGH HEELS

Jeannie Watt

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeannie Watt lives in the heart of rural Nevada in a historic ranching community. When she's not at the computer writing, she collects and sews vintage clothing patterns—her new obsession—and makes mosaic mirrors. Every now and again she and her husband slip away to San Francisco to run a 10K and soak up the city, but for the most part she enjoys living in her quiet desert setting, thinking up new ways to torture her characters before they reach their happily ever after.

Books by Jeannie Watt

HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

1379—A DIFFICULT WOMAN
1444—THE HORSEMAN'S SECRET
1474—THE BROTHER RETURNS
1520—COP ON LOAN
1543—A COWBOY'S REDEMPTION
1576—COWBOY COMES BACK
1628—ALWAYS A TEMP
1647—ONCE AND FOR ALL
1690—MADDIE INHERITS A COWBOY
1749—THE BABY TRUCE*
1755—UNDERCOVER COOK*
1761—JUST DESSERTS*
1821—CROSSING NEVADA
1857—ONCE A CHAMPION**

*Too Many Cooks?
**The Montana Way

Other titles by this author available in ebook format.