by Leanne Banks
Adam and Gideon stood. "You've gone way too far this time," Adam said. "The Coltranes have nothing to do with the Logans. We don't date 'em. We don't marry 'em. We don't get 'em pregnant. Hell, we don't speak to 'em."
"Too late," Noah said.
Swearing, Gideon grabbed Noah by the shirt collar. "It's not too late. Tell her to get rid—"
Instinct raged through him, and Noah pushed his brother away. "I don't want to ever hear that from you or any of you again."
Adam shook his head. "You've gone too far," he said. "I'm cutting you out of the ranch. Just leave and don't come back."
Noah glanced at Jonathan and read the distress and disappointment on his face. His gut wrenched at the thought of leaving. "Okay. I guess that means you don't need the money I make for the ranch by trading cattle futures and leasing the hunting rights."
Adam cursed under his breath. "You know that money has bailed us out during a bad year." He shook his head again. "Now how could you make such a huge mistake?"
"I dislike the Logans as much as you do, but I've been dealt a new hand of cards, and I have to do what's right. We've all spent most of our lives living down the bad decisions our father, or his father, or his father made. I'm not gonna keep making bad decisions. This baby's no mistake."
Adam and Gideon glared at him in hostile silence. Jonathan sighed and broke the angry, tense silence. "I wonder what Zachary would say right now," he mused in a calm voice that was like cool water on flames.
Noah immediately saw the change in his brothers' faces. Adam exhaled and viewed him with grudging acceptance.
Gideon looked away, clearly ashamed. "Sorry I said that about getting rid…" He broke off. "Sorry," he said. True to form, he was quick to anger, but usually quick to apologize. "I'm going for a walk."
"I'm going to bed," Adam said.
Noah stood in the dining room with only Jonathan. Jonathan reached for the bottle of whisky, poured a shot into his glass and held it out for Noah to take. "I like a lot of your ideas and innovations," he said. "When Adam balked, I could see you were going to do good things. I always envied how you could think outside the box. But I gotta tell you – this isn't outside the box. It's not outside the county or the state. It's outside the universe. So what was it? Temporary insanity?"
Noah swallowed the liquor, feeling the fire all the way down his throat and chest into his stomach. "Maybe," he said, and met Jonathan's gaze. "It felt right."
Jonathan shook his head in disbelief. "How could it possibly?"
"I'm not sure I can explain it. The same way it feels right for you to train horses. Why aren't you hollering or taking a swing at me?"
Jonathan covered a faint grin with his hand. "Based on my limited experience with the Logans, I'm just guessing that Martina Logan is gonna torture you more than I ever could."
Noah gave a wry chuckle. "Maybe."
"How does she feel about getting married?"
"She's getting used to the idea," Noah said, thinking that wasn't anywhere near the truth. It must have shown.
"She flat out turned you down," Jonathan concluded.
Noah nodded. "She did. But I've had a lot of practice turning no into yes."
* * *
Chapter 2
«^»
"Thanks for helping with the groceries, Rodney," Martina said as she pushed the key into her front door.
"No problem," her neighbor said. "I— Excuse me, who?"
"I'm the father of her baby," a familiar voice said from behind her, heating her to the core with the simple statement.
Martina's stomach dipped. She had thought he wouldn't be back for at least a week or two. Wishful thinking. She turned quickly and met Noah's gaze, noting the fact that he, instead of Rodney, was carrying her grocery bags.
"What a surprise," she finally managed.
Rodney eyed Noah with suspicion.
"Rodney, this is Noah." She took a deep breath. She rebelled at using Noah's words. They were primal, possessive, and emphasized the connection between them, a connection Martina preferred to diminish. "He, uh, contributed genetic material," she said, and forced a smile. "Thanks again for helping."
"Any time," Rodney said with a nod and curious glance at Noah.
"What brings you here?" she asked Noah after Rodney left.
"You." Noah caught the door for her and followed her into the kitchen. "You missed me," he said, his voice holding a mix of sexy humor.
Martina's lips twitched and she put her bag on the counter. "Like I miss morning sickness."
"Did you have much of it?" he asked more seriously.
"About three weeks when I lived on saltines, soda and vitamins."
"And now?"
She turned to face him. "Now I'm just really big."
His gaze fell over her, lingering on her breasts, tummy and legs. "Just in a few places," he said. "Pregnancy looks good on you."
The way he looked at her reminded her of the passion they'd shared and the way he had taken her body. The way he looked at her reminded her of how much she had wanted him. Martina pushed the thought from her mind and turned back around to put away the groceries. "You didn't really say what you wanted."
"Yes, I did," he said. "You."
Her heart jumped and she nearly dropped a carton of eggs. "You wanted to talk to me about something," she quickly corrected for his benefit and hers.
"Have you thought any more about my proposal?"
She mentally put on her armor as she put away the groceries. "I don't recall any proposals."
"For you to marry me," he told her calmly.
"You didn't ever really ask," she said. "You ordered."
"Will you marry me?"
"No," she said as quickly as he'd asked.
He sighed and she reluctantly met his gaze. "Do you think you are doing the best thing for the baby to not have me involved at all?"
She opened her mouth to say yes, but a strong inner integrity defeated her. She closed her mouth.
"Do you think the best thing for this baby is to have two parents married to each other living in the same home?"
Martina had admired his insight before. Now it got under her skin. "In general, yes, but we have a special circumstance. Our families have held a grudge against each other for over a hundred years."
"What's more important? A grudge or the welfare of our child?"
Martina shook her head. "There's more involved and you know it. You and I wanted each other temporarily. We knew we weren't looking for anything permanent. There's a big difference between what is good on a temporary basis and what is good forever."
Noah walked toward her, his eyes glinting. "Are you saying I'm not good husband material?"
Each step he took closer packed a wallop on her nerve endings. His intensity, his confidence, his personality, his aura had been and still were entirely too sexy for her own good. She lifted her chin. "Yes, I am. There's a big difference between a lover and a husband. As a husband, I can already tell you'll pull the same kind of caveman routines my brothers do. You'll order me around and tell me what to do and expect me to be a good, submissive wife. I'm too independent for that. While you may have been an—" she took a breath and wished for a fan "—incredible lover, you wouldn't work for me as a husband," she said, "at all."
She needed to make that clear to him, to her, to the entire free world, all Third World countries and any planets inhabited by intelligent life.
He put his hands on the counter on either side of her, crowding her. "You're assuming I'll act that way. You don't know that I will. You really only have your experience to judge me. So tell me, what did I do wrong?"
Martina stared into his eyes and bit her lip to keep from repeating the words that flooded her brain. You were too sexy. You made me melt. You made me feel more like a woman than I've ever felt in my life. You made me feel like the most desirable woman in the world. You made me fall so hard I almost couldn't get back up. You made me feel so much for you so fast. You terri
fied me.
She tore her gaze from his and stared down at his boots. "You have the wrong last name. And you have given signs that you would try to rule me," she told him. "You tried to order me to marry you and come live with you."
"What was your reaction when you found out you were pregnant?"
Martina remembered the bloodcurdling scream she'd let out once she'd left the doctor's office and closed herself in her car. "Okay, I'll admit it wasn't a quiet, rational response."
"How many decibels?"
She frowned at him. "I don't know. I just remember wondering if I'd permanently broken my larynx." She smiled. "But as you can see, I didn't."
"The point is, your first response wasn't the most rational. My first instinct was and is to protect." His gaze drifted over her body, warming her. "What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing, as long as you don't go overboard."
"And you don't think you'll go overboard protecting our baby?"
Martina's chest tightened. She was already feeling overprotective of the precious life inside her. "It's my job to protect."
"Mine, too," he said, lifting his hand to cup her chin. "I won't forget it," he told her, and everything about him, his voice, his determined eyes, his posture, made an oath.
Martina felt a sinking sensation. This was why she hadn't wanted to tell him. She had known Noah wouldn't abandon his child, and her life would be intertwined with his for the rest of her days. She just wasn't sure she could see him on a regular basis and keep her good sense intact. Lifting her head away, she steeled her mind against him. "That's nice, but—"
"And it's part of the reason I'm here," he said, dropping his hand to his hip, but still crowding her. "There's a lot I don't know about you, and there's a lot you don't know about me. You may not want to marry me, but we're still having a baby together. In that case, we've got a lot to learn about each other."
Martina hadn't thought her stomach could sink any lower. "What are you saying?"
"We need to get to know each other. We need to spend some time together."
No, no, no, no, no. Sliding past him would have been much easier if she hadn't been seven months pregnant. Martina gently nudged him away. "I hate for you to have to drive so far for something that shouldn't take much time. Don't you think a résumé would work just as well?"
"No."
"We could write each other. E-mail," she said enthusiastically. "Everyone keeps in touch through e-mail these days."
He shook his head. "If this were the Old West, I could haul you off and carry you home. Sadly, in this case, those days are gone," he muttered under his breath. "I know you as a lover. I know what makes you—" his eyes darkened in remembrance "—go," he finished. "But I need to know more than that. I need to know the mother of my child."
His gaze cut through her, and Martina had a terrible premonition that having Noah know her could be more dangerous for her than making love with him had been. His intensity made the prospect feel unbearably intimate. Oh, hell, Martina thought, wanting to kick something. How was she supposed to refuse that request?
He moved closer, leaning on his uplifted arm against the wall beside her. "We might as well start with the hard stuff."
Hard stuff, Martina thought. That would be you. "What's that?" she asked warily.
"What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" he asked.
A rush of relief raced through her. Martina was so relieved she was almost charmed. Almost, but she was determined to stay on guard.
* * *
"En garde!" Gideon cried, and lunged toward Noah. Gideon, whose temper flared quickly but cooled with equal speed, had gotten past his anger and was more than willing to try to best his older brother in a duel.
The parry, the clash and scrape of metal sword-play had been one of the best ways for Noah to let off steam since Zachary had taught him and his brothers to fence in the old barn.
"Rough afternoon with the Logan princess?" Gideon goaded him with a smile.
Noah plunged past his younger brother's defense to touch his chest. He contributed genetic material. Every time Martina's flip words played through his mind, his head roared with anger.
Gideon nodded wryly at the point and backed away slightly. "I'll take that as a yes."
"It could have been worse," Noah said with a short nod. "Ready?" he asked, and they began again.
"In other words, she didn't sic her brothers on you," Gideon said.
"Compared to Martina, her brothers are cake. We've at least been able to reason with Brock Logan about wandering cattle and the pond we share. Martina knows what's best – she just isn't being reasonable."
"And what's best is…?"
Noah stated the obvious. "For us to marry and raise the baby here."
Gideon touched his rib cage.
"Touché," Noah said. "Ready."
"Can't blame her for hesitating. We've never been the favored family of the county," Gideon said.
"That's in the past," Noah insisted. It was one of his greatest passions to put the bad Coltrane reputation in the past and to build a new one based on respect. "All of us have worked to put that in the past."
"Yeah, but for Pete's sake, did you have to pick that Logan woman? Why not someone a little more easygoing?"
"You mean a woman who doesn't have the ability to slice a man to ribbons with her tongue?" Noah asked, pushing Gideon closer to the back wall.
"Yeah," Gideon said, swinging his sword for all he was worth.
"Someone more submissive," Noah said, thinking Martina would probably stab them both if she heard this discussion.
"Yeah. It sounds like you might as well be trying to seduce a porcupine," Gideon said. "A pregnant porcupine."
Noah lunged and pressed the tip of his sword to the protective material covering Gideon's heart. Martina might be acting like a porcupine, but Noah had experienced the soft, giving woman behind the quills. He was determined to find that woman again.
"Touché," his brother said with a shake of his head. "Hell, you make a great case for contraception. What are you going to do?"
"The same thing I do in a fencing match. Find her weakness and exploit it." Noah knew he sounded ruthless, but he wasn't playing for fun with Martina. He was playing for blood, his family name and his child.
* * *
He found her reclining on a chaise longue in her backyard in the late afternoon. Dressed in shorts and a maternity tank top she'd lifted above her belly while she rested. Her legs were long and lithe, and knowing the baby she carried was his made him want her in an elemental way. Her expression was soft, almost wistful and her gaze was faraway. He remembered how she had once looked at him with passion-drenched eyes, and he wondered what tender thoughts she could be thinking right now.
He walked closer and heard her say, "I look like a beached whale. I can't even reach my toenails to paint them."
Noah saw the bottle of nail polish beside her, and his gaze shot to the next yard. He saw a woman wearing a bikini. He bit back a chuckle. "You still have the best legs in Texas," he said.
She turned her head quickly, and her cheeks turned pink with embarrassment. "I, uh, was just—"
"—feeling sorry for yourself," he finished for her. "I brought Chinese food for dinner. Does it agree with you?"
Martina sighed. "Unfortunately every food agrees with me now. And I wasn't feeling sorry for myself."
"Uh-huh," he said, without an ounce of conviction.
Martina stood. No, really. I—"
"Martina, you are a very beautiful woman, pregnant or not pregnant. You just haven't had a man around to remind you."
She stared at him for a long moment, revealing a glimpse of the woman he'd known in Chicago. She took a deep breath. "Don't flatter me."
"I won't," he assured her. "I just tell the truth. I'd say something else," he said, allowing his gaze to linger on her full breasts. "But I don't want you to take a swing at me. You might hurt yourself. Are you hungry for Chinese food or not?"
She blinked and paused as if debating whether to hit him, anyway. "I'm hungry, period. Let's eat inside. I didn't expect you," she said, leading him though the back door to the cool kitchen.
"Didn't your mother tell you to always expect the unexpected from a Coltrane?"
Her smile wavered. "My mother didn't get an opportunity to teach me anything about the Coltranes. She died when I was born."
Noah immediately regretted his joke. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean any disrespect."
"That's okay. Besides, my father and brothers gave me an earful about the Coltranes." She plucked the containers of food from the bag.
"I'm sure they did," he muttered, and carefully voiced his next thought. "I realize you descend from Amazons and you could easily harvest an entire field of corn in the morning, deliver your baby at lunch and finish up another field in the afternoon. But do you ever think you might have problems when you deliver the baby?"
She drummed her fingers on the cabinet. "If you hadn't included the Amazon part, I would say no. But the truth is, although I don't worry about it a lot and the doctor says I'm perfectly healthy," she emphasized, "I think about it every now and then."
He saw the fleeting vulnerability and longing in her eyes and remembered how he had felt when his mother died. "You still miss the chance of knowing her, don't you?"
"I would have given anything to know her. I've always missed her and I probably always will. I was lucky to have two brothers who tried very hard and awkwardly at times to make up for the loss." She pushed her hair behind her ear. "What about your parents?"
"I think I miss more of what might have been. My parents weren't happy together."
Martina lifted her eyebrows. "My parents were crazy about each other. My brothers told me that was why my father never seemed happy after she died. Looking at me was too painful for him, because I reminded him of his loss."
Noah realized he had known Martina's mother was dead, but he'd never heard the whole story, and they'd agreed not to speak of their families during their time together in Chicago. It made him see her in a new light. "We had a foreman named Zachary, who taught my brothers and me about being a man. Zachary always said the strongest love survives distance and death, and it always makes you a better man."
