Pregnant by Mr. Wrong

by Rachael Johns

  Dear Aunt Bossy,

  It’s no secret that my world turned upside down when I learned an impulsive night of passion left me pregnant. And the dad? He’s the devil-may-care brother of my former fiancé. He’s a heartbreaker of a man who swept me off my feet—again—before he learned I was in the family way. But our romantic reunion might not have been as unplanned as I thought.

  Aunt Bossy, I don’t want a man who’s with me just because he feels it’s his duty. I want him to be as smitten with me as he is with the idea of becoming a father. As head over heels with me as I am with him...

  “It’s a vanilla milk shake.”

  “You made me a milk shake?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice as she reached out to take it from him, careful not to let their fingers touch in the exchange.

  He cocked his head to one side and smiled that toe-curling grin. “Well, you said you didn’t want coffee. I couldn’t find the ingredients for hot chocolate and you don’t like tea, but of course you had ice cream.”

  “You remembered I don’t like tea?” The surprises just kept coming.

  He nodded, his gaze trained on hers. “Of course. We’re friends, aren’t we? Friends remember each other’s likes and dislikes.”

  She swallowed. Friends? Was that what they were? Friends with benefits? Friends who accidentally made a mistake and slept together? Friends who just happened to have conceived a baby?

  THE McKINNELS OF JEWELL ROCK: There’s no formula for finding true love!

  Dear Reader,

  I’m delighted to be sharing with you the second book in my McKinnels of Jewell Rock series. If you read the first book (A Dog and a Diamond) you’ll have met the McKinnels and their family business, a whiskey distillery in Central Oregon, and you’ll have met the hero and heroine of this book.

  Pregnant by Mr. Wrong was both fun and challenging to write. Fun because the hero is a secret advice columnist for the town’s local newspaper, and challenging because the heroine used to be engaged to his older brother. These two had a brief liaison, but due to their family circumstances and preconceived opinions of each other, they believed it was just a fling.

  When Bailey Sawyer finds herself pregnant by Quinn McKinnel, she is confused and has no idea what to do, so she consults the local advice columnist. Unbeknownst to her and everyone they know, Quinn is actually this columnist. In this way, Pregnant by Mr. Wrong is my twist on the old favorite, the secret pregnancy storyline—the hero knows about the baby but the heroine does not know he knows. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  I love hearing from readers via Twitter, Facebook or my website, www.rachaeljohns.com, so please let me know what you think of Jewell Rock and my McKinnels.

  Happy reading,

  Rachael

  Pregnant by Mr. Wrong

  Rachael Johns

  Rachael Johns is an English teacher by trade, a mom 24/7, a chronic arachnophobe and a writer the rest of the time. She rarely sleeps and never irons. A lover of romance and women’s fiction, Rachael loves nothing more than sitting in bed with her laptop and electric blanket and imagining her own stories. Rachael has finaled in a num­ber of competitions, including the Australian Romance Readers Awards—Jilted, her first rural romance, won Favourite Contemporary Romance in 2012. She was voted in the top ten of Booktopia’s Australia’s Favourite Author poll in 2013. Rachael lives in the West Australian hills with her hyperactive husband, three mostly gorgeous heroes in training, two fat cats, a cantankerous bird and a very badly behaved dog. Rachael loves to hear from readers and can be contacted via her website, www.rachaeljohns.com. She is also on Facebook and Twitter.

  Books by Rachael Johns

  Harlequin Special Edition

  A Dog and a Diamond

  HQN

  Jilted

  The Kissing Season

  Carina Press

  Stand-In Star

  One Perfect Night

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002

  To Scarlet Wilson, Helen Lacey, Fiona Lowe, Melissa James and Leah Ashton for holding my hand as I wrote this book!

  Love you all for all your various help.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from A Family Under the Stars by Christy Jeffries

  Prologue

  As Bailey Sawyer stepped into the warehouse at McKinnel’s Distillery, goose bumps painted her arms and her stomach twisted as if doing some elaborate macramé. She glanced around the quiet space, looking and listening for signs of Quinn.

  This had always been her favorite part of the distillery. Its walls were lined with new American oak barrels, stacked up one on top of another, almost up to the high ceiling, and there were rows upon rows of barrels down the middle as well, all printed with the famous McKinnel’s logo on the end. The thick wooden floorboards almost matched the color of the barrels and the scent of whiskey at various stages of the aging process blended together in the air.

  She inhaled deeply, experiencing a heady rush as memories of this place washed over her. She’d been coming to the distillery for as long as she could remember. McKinnel’s Distillery, a local institution, had become famous for creating one of America’s best boutique whiskeys long before boutique distilleries, breweries and wineries were all the rage. As a child and teenager, she’d hung out here because her mother was best friends with Nora McKinnel. Bailey and the seven McKinnel kids had spent many a day running rampant through the warehouse, chasing each other, playing hide-and-go-seek, making mischief and memories. It had been better than a playground.

  For the past five years, she’d been a regular guest due to the fact she’d been dating and then (briefly) engaged to Nora’s oldest son, Callum. Their moms had been ecstatic about the union, then dumbfounded and devastated when Bailey had ended it a couple of weeks ago.

  But they didn’t know the half of it.

  The macramé in her stomach tightened as she stepped farther into the building, her knee-high boots echoing as they struck the floor. Today, the familiar scent and the innocent childhood memories didn’t calm her. Instead, guilt warred with desire as she called out “Quinn” (before she lost her nerve) and remembered the last time she was in here with him. Although it was late November, the day after Thanksgiving, and the air in here was even cooler than the temperature outside, her whole body, from her fingernails right down to her tippy-toes, heated at the recollection.

  She hadn’t been cold that night a few weeks ago, either. Quinn’s hot bare skin against her own had provided more warmth than an electric blanket, and however wrong it may be, she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head since.

  “What are you doing here?” Quinn stepped out from behind a row of barrels, jolting her thoughts and almost scaring her half t
o death.

  Her heart quivered at his less than enthusiastic greeting, but her hormones jumped up and down in excitement at being so close to him again. He wore only jeans ripped at the knees and a black T-shirt, indicating he’d been doing some physical labor before her arrival. She licked her lips, garnering the courage to speak, the wisdom to know what exactly to say, and tried not to stare at the way his lovely arm muscles peeked out from the sleeves of his T-shirt. He was ripped—that was for sure.

  “I thought we should talk about, you know, what happened...” She didn’t need to finish her sentence. It didn’t take a genius to work out what she was referring to.

  Quinn let out an irritated sigh and ran a hand through his thick dirty-blond hair. Despite his obvious annoyance at her presence, Bailey’s fingers twitched as she remembered how it had felt when she’d knotted her hands at the back of his head while he’d thrust into her. Her cheeks flamed.

  “What’s there to talk about?” he asked.

  “Well...” she began, swallowing, “I can’t stop thinking about what we did that night and wondering what it meant. You and I, we...”

  He held up a hand as if scared she might try to come nearer to him. “It meant nothing, Bailey.”

  “Nothing? We slept together.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “We had sex. That’s all it was. It shouldn’t have happened. But it did. End of story. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

  He gestured toward the door, dismissing her as if she were nothing more than a pesky child. Her cheeks burned, but it was a different kind of heat than before, and inside her organs felt as if they’d turned to ice. What had she been expecting? That Quinn would decorate the warehouse with balloons and crack open a bottle of expensive champagne on her return? That maybe they’d repeat their shenanigans of that fateful night?

  As if. A few weeks ago, she’d been engaged to his brother. Yesterday, when she and her parents had stopped by Nora’s place to wish their old friends a Happy Thanksgiving, it hadn’t been the awkwardness between her and Callum that got to her, but the way Quinn had barely met her eye. Except for one question about how she knew the woman Callum had brought as his date, Quinn had barely spoken to her. And that hurt more than she’d imagined it ever could.

  Was this the way things would always be between them from now on? Perhaps it would be easy if she could just walk away from the McKinnels, once and for all, but due to the friendship of their moms and the small size of Jewell Rock, that was unlikely. She could always move to Bend, the nearby town where she worked at one of the best hotels. It might only be a short drive away, but Bend was like a metropolis compared to small-town Jewell Rock, and she and Quinn would be far less likely to run into each other.

  The problem was, she’d realized over the last few painful weeks, she didn’t want to walk away from Quinn McKinnel. What had happened between them against a whiskey barrel had been explosive. Mind-blowing. Frenzied. Until then, she honestly hadn’t understood all the hype about sex.

  It was the thought of never experiencing that kind of sex again that had compelled her to swallow her fear and doubts and come here to face him today. To find out if he’d felt it, too. That earth-shattering, soul-changing connection, that shift inside when they’d climaxed together and she’d opened her eyes and seen him looking right into hers.

  But now, looking into his eyes for one final moment, Bailey could see it had meant nothing at all to Quinn. It was clear that she was just another notch on his bedpost (or rather his whiskey barrel), and even if he wasn’t such a jerk, the idea of them together was laughable. Unable to stand another moment in his presence, she turned and fled in the direction he’d pointed. She’d never felt more mortified in her life. And if she never saw Quinn McKinnel again, it would be too soon.

  Chapter One

  Dear Aunt Bossy:

  Although I’ve been reading your sage advice for years, this is the first time I’ve ever had reason to write to you myself. And I must admit, I’m terribly ashamed to have to do so, but I’m in a quandary and I need your wisdom.

  I’ve always been a hardworking and sensible woman who prides herself on being organized, planning ahead and making good choices. Until about two months ago, I was with a wonderful man—he was kind, dependable and hardworking—but then I lost my head. I slept with someone I shouldn’t have—a sexy devil-may-care playboy who hasn’t had a steady girlfriend in as long as I can remember. And I’ve known him all my life. Please don’t think too badly of me, I already hate myself enough and the first thing I did was end my relationship.

  But, as if my one-night severe lapse of judgment wasn’t bad enough, somehow, despite using protection, I’m pregnant and I don’t know what to do about it. Oh, I’m keeping the baby, don’t get me wrong. Getting rid of it is not an option. Having a baby might not have been on my immediate agenda, but it was in my five-year plan. Granted I was hoping to be in love and married, but I can’t wait to be a mom. What I’m undecided about is whether or not to tell my baby’s father.

  He’s not the type to marry me out of a sense of obligation (at least I don’t think so, and I wouldn’t say yes, even if he proposed such a ridiculous arrangement), but I’m worried about him being an unsettling influence in my baby’s life.

  What do you think, Bossy? To tell him or not to tell him? That is my question.

  Yours sincerely,

  Pregnant with Mr. Wrong

  Her heart beating like a brass band, Bailey read her letter over once more, glanced around the office to make sure she was alone and then pressed Print. Her stomach churning, she hurried over to the printer, snatched the piece of paper off as it shot out, and then quickly folded it up and shoved it into an envelope. With a deep breath, she took the envelope back to her desk, picked up her pen and scrawled the address of the Bulletin on the front. Snail mail was anonymous in a way email never truly was.

  She couldn’t believe her life had come to this—asking some faceless advice columnist for help—but she’d known about her pregnancy for almost a month now and was still no closer to coming to a decision about what to tell (or not to tell) Quinn.

  In a cruel twist of fate, she’d discovered she was having his baby the day she had been supposed to be marrying Callum. Thank all the stars in the sky she’d broken that engagement a month before or this situation could be worse and even more complicated than it already was. Everyone had thought her crazy, breaking up with the oldest McKinnel brother, but they’d lost their spark—if it had ever been there in the first place—and Callum was more in love with his work at the family distillery than he’d ever been with her. He’d also met Chelsea and they were already engaged—that fact only reinforced Bailey’s belief that she’d made the right decision.

  But it hadn’t done much for her ego. Why hadn’t Callum been as head-over-heels crazy for her? Was there something wrong with her or did she just have zero talent at choosing the right guy? Either way, it didn’t make her current situation any better.

  Four weeks ago, when she’d first seen the two little blue lines on the pregnancy test stick, she’d gone through a roller coaster of emotions.

  Shock—that fireworks hadn’t been the only thing she and Quinn had created that night.

  Denial—that one night, one time, when they’d used a condom, could actually result in this. Five more pregnancy tests later, she’d had to concede it had.

  Terror—that she didn’t know the first thing about babies. Or motherhood.

  Acceptance—that whether she was ready or not, whether Quinn was father material or not, this was real. In eight months’ time, she’d be a mom.

  Excitement—that in eight months’ time, her life would change irrevocably for the better, because she’d be a mom.

  And then confusion—because...well...Quinn.

  If she were honest with herself, she’d ha
d a crush on him years ago in high school—back then pretty much every girl her age in Jewell Rock had crushed on Quinn McKinnel. He’d been that guy; he skipped classes, took girls down to the lake at night to make out, drove way too fast, stayed out too late and came to school hungover. He’d been like Danny in Grease and every girl in their year had been desperate to play Sandy. He’d dated almost every one of those girls in their final year at school. At least, it had felt like that to Bailey when she’d been standing on the sidelines watching, wishing and hoping he’d notice her.

  And he hadn’t slowed down any since.

  But Bailey had grown up, and she knew that although Quinn might be charming and good in bed—heck, yeah, he was good in bed—he wasn’t the type of guy she should fall in love with. She’d almost forgotten that in the aftermath of the best sex of her life, but he’d set her straight and made it more than clear. He was way too much like her father for that to be a smart idea. And the last thing she wanted for her son or daughter was an unreliable dad like she’d had. It was this fear that wreaked havoc within—ethically, she knew it was wrong to keep the baby from Quinn, but her mama bear instincts had kicked in and she wanted more for her child than she’d had. She wanted stability and love without question, without obligation—the kind of love her stepfather, Reginald, had given her and her mother, the kind of love her younger brother and sister had been born to.

  She pressed her hand against her stomach, something she’d been doing a lot these last few weeks, and closed her eyes, trying to imagine the tiny life inside. A site on the internet told her the baby was about the size of a lentil, but that its sex-defining parts were beginning to develop. Would it be a girl or a boy? Would it have dark hair and a pale complexion, like her, or dirty-blond hair and big brown eyes you could get lost in, like Quinn?

  Her tummy still flat, Bailey was struggling to get her head around the fact that she was growing a real live human inside her, but she knew she was on borrowed time. Within a matter of months, she’d need a new wardrobe and would no longer be able to conceal her secret from the world.