Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  She’d taken care of that one. As soon as Max had asked her what she wanted to do on her first day out and about.

  And bringing the two of them here, on this very special visit to The Lemonade Stand had been the second.

  It wasn’t often that husbands were welcome inside the shelter’s walls.

  But Max was a very special husband. A very special man. And Meredith wanted her friends to know that men like Max really did exist.

  “Ma...ady.” Ady? Caleb had so many new words that Meredith was having a hard time keeping up with them. But he was pointing. And she understood. Lila was there, standing in the open gate.

  “Yes, Caleb, that is very much a true lady,” she said, and with slow steps and her husband’s support at her back, she moved her small family forward.

  “Surprise!”

  One voice, one body, jumped out at them. A very pregnant Maddie Bishop, all dressed up in a pretty blue maternity dress and matching shoes, with a bow in her blond hair.

  Beyond that, Meredith didn’t have time to assess everyone as they came up to the gate and a chorus of voices, more voices than she could determine or count called, “Surprise!”

  She caught a glimpse of the immaculate, flower-filled grounds just beyond the gate and stopped. Pink and blue ribbons floated from trees. At least twenty tables, each with about ten chairs arranged around them were set up in rows and each one was decorated with a white tablecloth and a pink-and-blue flower arrangement. The chairs all had balloons tied to them.

  Turning, she looked up at Max, and said, “You knew about this.” Just as Lila bent down to Caleb, “You must be Caleb,” she said. “Would you like to come with me?”

  The little boy didn’t answer immediately. His hesitation obvious, he looked up at his parents, who looked at each other.

  Lila waited patiently for his answer, a serene, comforting look on her face.

  “Go ahead, buddy,” Max said.

  “I’ll bet Lila has some fun games for you to play, Caleb,” Meredith added. “Go ahead, sweetie. Mommy and Daddy will be right here.”

  Caleb grinned and seemed to be strutting as he walked away with Lila.

  “So, this is Max.” Renee appeared in the opening of the gate then. And Maddie said, “Would you like me to help Lila with Caleb, Jenna?”

  Jenna.

  She felt the small touch as Max reacted to Maddie’s words. “Yes, Maddie, I would love that,” she said, and turned to introduce her husband to Renee—and then to Carly and Latoya. And many of the other women she’d had the pleasure of getting to know during one of the absolute worst times of her life.

  It wasn’t easy, living with the aftermath of domestic abuse. There were parts of Meredith that would never be what they once were. She was wiser. Less naive. Her innocence was gone.

  She was aware of a depth of pain, mental, emotional and physical, that many people would never understand.

  “I love you, sweetheart,” Max whispered in her ear as she sat with him at the head table and listened while one after another of the residents stopped by and told her that they’d been praying for her, that it was so good to see her, and that she was an inspiration to them.

  “I love you, too,” she told Max. And stood up.

  Lila had used a microphone earlier, and now Meredith picked it up.

  “Excuse me,” she said and waited until she had everyone’s attention. “First off, I want to thank you....” She stopped, started to cry, got herself under control, and then continued, looking at Max, “We want to thank you.” His smile was warm. Tender. Imbued with an emotion she fully understood, a very private message to her that would be with her forever, in this life and beyond. And for her alone.

  Someone coughed.

  “Sorry,” Meredith said, trying to smile, but not doing such a great job of it. What she had to say was extremely important.

  “Ladies, apparently I am the guest of honor at this party because I’m having a baby....” She broke off as the yard filled with cheers and applause. “But!” She held up a hand. “But...” she said again. “I am not the heroine of anyone’s story. I made a very, very serious mistake, my sisters. I almost paid with my life.”

  She searched the crowd. Looking for one face. Not knowing if it was out there or not.

  “I was offered help,” she said, still searching. “I had the chance to trust. And I didn’t do it. I thought I could handle my situation on my own. I was certain I had to. Because....” She paused again. Swallowed back the tears. “Because I was so certain I’d done all of my work, that I was cured and my only problem was the fact that my abuser wouldn’t leave me alone. I felt like the system had let me down. Counseling and shelters had let me down. And I was so, so wrong. I wasn’t healed. I was as much a victim of Steve Smith’s abuse while I was here among you, as I was during all those years he hunted me. Because he made me believe that I was all alone. He had me so deeply manipulated that I felt like I was alone when I was sleeping next to the man I love with all my heart.” She looked at Max, whose expression was filled with an emotion and strength she would never forget. “I felt alone no matter where I was. Even when I was here with you all, especially when I was here with you all, I felt alone.”

  She broke off and searched the crowd again.

  “But I wasn’t alone. And one woman showed me that. Without counseling. Without knowing my story or giving me any advice, she somehow managed to show me, with the help of each and every one of you, that I wasn’t alone at all.

  “And when I lay on that bathroom floor...dying....” She stopped. Waited until she could speak again, and focused on the trees in the distance, the ones that lined the Garden of Renewal. “That one face was there,” she continued. “And the voice. It was in my head. I can’t tell you what it said. It was drowned out by my husband’s,” she said with complete honesty and a grin toward Max, and the entire crowd laughed through their tears. “What I’m trying to say is you aren’t alone. Please, please, if I am to be any kind of example, let it be an example of what not to do. Don’t ever think you have to face your abuser alone.”

  She glanced at Max, and snippets from every one of the late night talks they’d shared over the past five weeks floated in and out of her mind.

  “You can’t have Max, he’s mine,” she said, pausing while everyone laughed again. “But there is always someone. Someone who’s been there. Someone who understands. Who knows exactly how the pain feels, whether it be mental, emotional or physical. Find that someone, my sisters, each and every time you are struggling, anytime you feel alone, most certainly anytime you think you have to handle something on your own, find that someone. I guarantee you, she’s there.”

  As she said the last words, a movement by the Garden caught her eye. And she saw the woman she’d been seeking. She was coming out of the Garden, but as her face turned toward her, Meredith knew that Lila had heard every word she’d said.

  And knew she’d been talking about her.

  * * *

  “WOULD IT BE crass to say that I miss having sex with my wife?” Max half groaned the words as he lay next to Meredith in their bed that Sunday night. He was admittedly a little full of himself.

  He had the most amazing wife in the world. He’d arranged that evening to volunteer at The Lemonade Stand, and to be a part of a growing list of financial donors to the facility, as well. He’d married a victim of domestic violence. The truth wasn’t going to go away.

  And while Steve Smith was being held without bail on charges of kidnapping, abuse and first degree murder, he knew that there was a chance the man would be free again someday. He also knew that nothing that could happen on earth was going to take Meredith out of his heart or away from him.

  “It wouldn’t be crass,” she said. And then, when he did no more than nudge his nose against her neck, said, “So are you saying
it?”

  Was there doubt in that voice? He reared up, looking down at her perfect features in the glow of the night-light plugged into the wall. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She wasn’t kidding.

  “Hell, Meri, it’s about killing me not to make love to you. I wake up with a hard-on at least twice a night....” He probably hadn’t needed to be that crude, but if she thought...

  “I... You haven’t even French kissed me once since...”

  Up on one elbow now, he smoothed the hair away from her forehead, careful not to touch the soft spot on her skull where her ex had hit her. “You’re recovering from a very brutal beating, Meredith,” he said in his best doctor’s voice. “And your mouth needed time to heal.”

  “It’s been healed for weeks.”

  The doctor voice wasn’t doing it. “I didn’t want to...”

  “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Max.” Her soft words fell into the night air. “I won’t break.”

  “You were...” He couldn’t repeat what that bastard had done to her. “By a man you trusted. I can understand completely that having a man touch you might be traumatic.”

  “Max Bennet, are you trying to think for me again?”

  Shit. “Maybe.”

  “Well, don’t. And for your information, you want to know what I was doing on that bathroom floor after Steve beat the living crap out of me?”

  He knew. She’d been bleeding to death. He got sick to his stomach every time he thought about it.

  But he did think about it. Because he wasn’t ever going to make light of anything in their lives. His head was out of the sand and it was staying that way.

  “I was dreaming about this,” she said, grabbing a hold of his penis and holding on.

  He shifted, growing hard in her grasp, afraid he was going to explode in her hand. “You were inside me,” she said, “and doing this....”

  Her hand moved up and down along the entire length of him. Yep, he was definitely going to explode.

  “You said, ‘and two become one,’” she told him.

  “I said that on our wedding night.”

  “I know.”

  Was she trying to drive him crazy? If so, she was succeeding.

  He moved against her hand, beyond caring if he embarrassed himself all over her.

  “Your words were there, Max,” she said, licking his nipple as she continued to ride him with her unbroken hand. “In my head and in my heart. You....” She squeezed his shaft and he was right there. “This.”

  And then she kissed him, full on the lips, tongue to tongue, before lowering her mouth to kiss the head of his penis.

  Max could have died a thousand deaths that night, but he didn’t. He was too busy finding inventive ways to make love with his wife that didn’t hurt her or their baby.

  Because Max was going to spend the rest of his life making certain that his wife, Meredith Jenna Bennet, as he now thought of her, was never going to know pain from a man’s hand again.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from DESERT HEAT by Kathleen Pickering.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  DETECTIVE TICO BUTLER stood outside a stable in the scorching southern Arizona heat, more out of his element than a scorpion in a snowbank.

  His gaze slid from the dust-covered silver Harley Road Glide he’d ridden across the country to the strong, brown, wild-eyed stallion he’d rented to take him the final mile to his destination: the two-bit town of Adobe Creek.

  He’d only been on a horse a few times as a kid in New York. It was something his father seemed to think was important, but the horses they’d ridden were from a local riding stable and docile. This horse looked much more muscled than the mounts Tico remembered and way too unmanageable.

  The stable hand holding the reins eyed Tico’s leather vest and fake sheriff’s badge, letting his gaze rest on the cowboy hat as black as Tico’s hair. Shaking his head, the old man beckoned Tico closer. “Well, Sheriff. This here is Diablo. You good with animals?”

  “Deal with ’em every day.” Tico didn’t want to mention the animals he dealt with were the two-legged kind and usually fleeing a crime scene in Brooklyn. “Are you Charlie Samuels?”

  “Nope. Charlie’s off today. I’m Seth.” He held out the reins. “Diablo was out this morning. Gave him a good run. He should be a pussycat now.”

  The grin on Seth’s face didn’t match the horse’s agitation; the animal threw his head back as Tico approached. Tico used two fingers to push his hat back on his forehead. “Got anything tamer?”

  Seth shook his head. “You said you wanted to look like the Lone Ranger. Diablo is the closest I got to big and white.”

  “This horse is brown!”

  He spit a wad of chewing tobacco into the dirt. “Yep. Closest I’ve got.”

  Tico took the reins. He wasn’t getting anywhere with this guy, and he was running late for his meeting at the Adobe Creek Police Department. The horse sidestepped as Tico put his foot into the stirrup.

  “Hey! Easy, fella.”

  Diablo continued to move away from him. With one foot in the stirrup, Tico had to hop on the other to keep from falling.

  The stable hand chuckled. “Don’t worry. If Diablo tosses you out there, he’ll know his way back.”

  The horseman’s gibe was all Tico needed. He grabbed the saddle horn and leaped into the seat, coming down hard on the horse’s back. Diablo bucked once, then bolted. Tico almost went flying.

  “Whoa!”

  Tico kept his seat, but the hard landing jammed his back something awful. Seth yelled, “Bring ’im back by five. He gets ornery without his dinner oats.”

  The horse ran for a good quarter mile in the dirt along the two-lane highway that led into Adobe Creek. Tico bumped his butt for most of the ride until something clicked. He got a better grip with his legs, leaned forward and found a rhythm with the horse’s gallop. Reins wrapped around his hands, he continued to cling to the saddle horn—the only thing that saved him from falling on his ass when the horse had bucked. He wasn’t about to let go now. No telling if Diablo would buck again.

  It was nothing short of a miracle that he was still in the saddle, and a sense of excitement zinged through his system. Riding those narrow paths in the reeds along Brooklyn’s shores as a kid had never offered the power and freedom of galloping in the open, barren desert. The sun was hot on his shoulders, and the air filling his lungs was cleaner than anything he’d known. It felt as if his Judumi blood was waking up. Not a good thought. If his father hadn’t been such a dirtbag, maybe Tico might have liked the idea of being half Indian.

  No need for that nonsense now.

  The unexpected flash of emotion about his Judumi heritage left him unsure whether he’d made a good decision taking this job or using this horse to break the ice with his hosts. He’d already gotten feedback on how the investigating team in Adobe Creek had blown a gasket when they’d learned he’d been brought in as a consultant. Opinions flew.

  Ex–gang leader.

  Strings pulled to place him in police boot camp.

  A hard-ass cop who lost a partner in a drug raid.r />
  Tico had been cleared of any wrong, but rumor on the force was that Tico had betrayed his partner to the gang they were breaking. Nobody except his mentor and the two remaining men on his team trusted Tico anymore. He was bone weary from having to prove himself over and over again. Even as a gang leader he hadn’t been all bad, just angry. He’d learned the difference a little too late.

  So this time, he wanted to take the Adobe Creek team totally off guard. No doubt they expected a tough, opinionated, half-Judumi outcast to ride in and throw his weight around. Instead, Tico had decided to ditch his Harley for a horse and use comedy to make the team think twice before judging him. He didn’t have time to earn their trust. Too much was happening too fast on this case. He needed to win them over, complete this assignment and get his tail out of Dodge as quickly as possible. He had a job to do. It didn’t help that Adobe Creek was his father’s hometown and a place where Tico claimed he’d never step foot.

  Ever.

  Now it was time to take control of this damned animal if he was going to make his joke about being the lawman-to-the-rescue and get this frustrated team to work with him. The profile picture of the team leader rose in his mind. Meg Flores. Something about those dark brown eyes, the determination in her jaw, had him thinking she’d be just as stubborn as this damned horse. He sensed a kindred spirit there, and the idea had bothered him for the entire ride across the country. But he wouldn’t jump to any conclusions until he met her in person.

  He focused his attention back on the horse, gently pulling both reins to slow Diablo, but the damned fiend bucked again. In a blink, Tico flew out of the saddle, giving him a bird’s-eye view of a police cruiser heading toward him before he hit the desert floor hard.

  So much for being one with the animal. Good thing Tico was in shape. The momentum from the blow to his left side sent him rolling onto his feet. The fall had knocked his hat off. Half his hair had been pulled from his ponytail. With every inch of him aching, he watched the horse run toward the police cruiser. The car stopped. An officer leaped from the passenger side to intercept the horse. The animal slowed to a walk as if to greet the man.