Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  After an early dinner with their friends and a small dose of nostalgia from visiting the restaurant where it all started for her and Ian, they headed back to her house. The sound of the car shutting off startled her awake. Glancing over at Ian, she noticed a look of concern on his face.

  “Sorry, I’ve just been so tired lately. Things should get back to normal now that the trial and sentencing are over, and I’ll have more energy,” she said and then yawned.

  “Come on let’s get you inside. I still think you should go see a doctor, just to be sure you didn’t catch something being around all those people in the courthouse,” Ian said.

  “I’ll be fine but can you stay over tonight? Please?” she asked as they got out of the car and headed up the front walk.

  The stress of the trial process and the sentencing had really gotten to her. It left her physically drained by the end of each day and sometimes made her so tired she even had to take a nap. She also had developed really bad headaches, and on a couple of occasions her nerves had gotten the better of her and she’d been sick to her stomach. Now that the trial was over she could only hope that she would feel better both physically and emotionally.

  Since the first week they had spent together it was hard for her to let Ian go home. He’d stayed with her almost every night up through testifying in front of the grand jury. Since then she’d tried to give him some space and let him go back to Rusty’s house, but he still ended up staying over three or four nights a week. She loved him and enjoyed waking up beside him.

  The following morning she awoke so nauseated she barely made it to the bathroom in time. She could hear Ian downstairs in the kitchen and the overpowering smell of scrambled eggs and bacon wafted up the stairs making her gag. Though she prayed he would remain in the kitchen, it wasn’t long until she heard him at the door.

  “I’ve got a warm washcloth and a glass of water out here on the counter for you. Are you going to be okay?” he asked quietly.

  “Can you please turn off the eggs and especially the bacon?” she asked, gagging again just from mentioning the bacon.

  She sighed with relief when she heard him walk away from the bathroom door. After she managed to get her stomach under control she cleaned herself up and then immediately showered in an effort to eliminate the last bits of breakfast smell. Maybe Ian was right. Maybe she’d caught the flu or something. She did ache, at least her back did. Ian wasn’t sick, though.

  As she finished drying off and stepped out of the shower, a single thought made her freeze. She couldn’t remember her last period. The trial had consumed every waking minute when she wasn’t at work, spending time with Aunt Corrine or helping Ian study. Life had been so crazy for the past few months it had completely slipped her mind but she knew it had been a good while. Yet she couldn’t seem to back track to figure out just how long.

  A small thrill went through her at the very thought. What if she was pregnant? She wanted to run downstairs and share her building excitement with Ian, but what if she was wrong? The immediate fear of another miscarriage entered her mind and suddenly she had to know. Digging around in her medicine cabinet she found a second pregnancy test from a two-pack she had purchased after being inseminated. She hadn’t really needed the test then, but some crazy and overly excited part of her had wanted to double-check even after April confirmed it.

  Taking a deep breath, Courtney read over the directions and did as they suggested. Then she waited. It took no more than a few seconds for the test to indicate she was pregnant. She could only stare at it in disbelief as the test results became more and more prominent.

  Ian’s baby.

  Courtney jumped when he knocked on the door. “Beautiful, you’re scaring me. Are you okay in there? Can I call the doctor and make you an appointment now?” he asked, gently pushing the door open.

  How to tell him? After a few moments she finally looked up and said, “Yeah, can you call April and make me an appointment? For today if at all possible.”

  She heard his heavy footsteps walk away from the door to take care of making an appointment for her only to stop and come back. Once again, the bathroom door opened until she could see his handsome face.

  “April?” he asked. His face registered the same shock she felt. “As in Dr. Franklin?”

  “Yeah,” she said breathlessly and held up the pregnancy test.

  April promised to squeeze her in and within an hour she and Ian were both showered, dressed and on their way. As they neared the office building, he looked over at her and said, “I love you, Courtney.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Suddenly he pulled over, put the car in park, flipped the emergency blinkers on and turned to her. His face told her that he had something important to say.

  “I had planned to do this right, but I need you to know now…before this appointment,” he started. “I mean I really love you, and I want to be with you all the time, not just a few nights a week. Marry me, Courtney, whether you’re really pregnant or not, whether we ever have kids. Be my wife. That’s enough for me. I’d love to have babies with you, but mostly I just want to be with you…with or without kids. I need to know that you would be okay with just me, too…regardless.”

  This was surely the best day of her life. She felt in her bones that she was carrying Ian’s baby and knowing he loved her and wanted to spend his life with her was an even bigger blessing. Happy tears spilled onto her cheeks.

  Reaching over, he wiped them away with his fingertips and then kissed her. “Say yes, Courtney. You and me…and whatever life has in store for us. Say yes.”

  “Yes, Ian. I love you so much. You are everything to me,” she choked out before catching his face between her hands and kissing him until they were both breathless.

  * * *

  Courtney felt truly blessed. After having her suspicions confirmed, she lay back on the exam table, waiting for April to check to see how far along Courtney was. She and Ian hadn’t really talked about trying for another baby since before they’d become intimate. This pregnancy kind of felt like destiny, and she couldn’t stop smiling at him. He simply grinned back at her.

  “Okay, I’d like to start with checking the heartbeat and then we’ll go from there,” April said as she entered the room.

  This time there was no searching around for a heartbeat that wasn’t there. The sound filtered through the machine loud and clear, and Courtney sighed with relief. Looking at Ian, he was obviously relieved as well and his handsome smile widened until he got a look at April’s face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his smile quickly fading.

  “Nothing is wrong. Everything’s fine. Right here we hear the heartbeat,” April said. “Over here, though, I’m hearing…another heartbeat. I’d like to do an ultrasound to be absolutely sure, but I believe we are dealing with multiples here…twins.”

  Courtney didn’t hear any more of what April said after that because Ian had his forehead pressed against hers and they were smiling, laughing and stealing kisses from each other. Thanks to one overly large fighter with smoke-filled eyes she was not only going to finally be a mother but a wife, as well. There was nothing normal about their love. It was extraordinary…and made just for them.

  * * *

  For more books by this author, visit the author’s profile page at Harlequin.com or rebeccamaverybooks.com.

  Rebecca Avery is a software support professional by day and a romance author by night. She’s a pint-size mother of two and wife to the greatest man on earth. Born in the South, she now lives in a three-stoplight town in the Midwest surrounded by cornfields and a vindictive bullfrog. A lifelong member of multiple procrastinator clubs and organizations, she has somehow published several ebook romance novels and successfully turned a hobby into a dream come true.

  Also by Rebecca M. Avery

  Maid to Fit (Man Maid Book 1)

  Maid to Crave (Man Maid Book 2)

  When the Lights Go Down

  By Amy Jo Cousins<
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  For Shelley, who took me under her wing and welcomed me to Romancelandia. For dining room table writing dates and late night wine, for karaoke and cornbread, and for the most inspiring debut novel I’ve ever read. You make me want to push my writing harder. Thanks for the friendship, lady.

  Chapter One

  “Uh-oh.”

  Maxie’s stomach twisted and her vision dimmed. Nine hundred ticket-holding audience members, two flawless dress rehearsals, twelve weeks of preparation, two hundred and seven precisely planned light and sound cues had all led to this.

  Opening night.

  The oldest joke in the business was also the truest: What are the last words a stage manager wants to hear on opening night?

  Uh-oh.

  “Don’t do this to me, people. What’s wrong?” she hissed into her headset mike. As if the typical opening-night stress wasn’t bad enough, she’d managed to get an interview next week with the producers of a big Broadway show, who had decided that Chicago was the perfect city in which to begin a second run. To stage-manage such a big production would propel her into the top tier of show business in Chicago, a longtime goal of hers, and she’d invited the producers to attend the opening night of this show.

  She had the sinking feeling that she might have made an error there.

  “The dog is gone.” Ruben’s voice floated back to her through the earpiece she’d wedged in six hours ago. “I repeat, we have no Toto.”

  She cursed under her breath. “Get the can opener,” she called to her assistant and sprinted down metal steps, heading for the tiny kitchen hidden in the building’s subbasement. When she reached the door, she grabbed the combination padlock and quickly opened it. The combination was easy enough to remember, even in times of extreme stress like now: one, two, three. Everyone from the producer down to the after-hours janitor knew it.

  But then again, the lock wasn’t needed to keep out people. Just canines.

  They’d yet to figure out how a schnauzer whose nose only reached knee-high even when it was standing on its hind legs managed to work the doorknob. But he’d broken into the kitchen a dozen times before they’d installed the lock, one time even leaving behind an incriminating trail of powdered sugar paw prints after stealing a box of donut holes.

  “Damn genius dog.” Maxie shoved aside assorted bags of snacks until her fingers snagged on one last can of dog food. She had made it a policy never to run out of them.

  “Ruben!” Her voice echoed in the bare hall.

  “Got it!” Her assistant’s portly form shuffled down the last of the stairs, the puffing of his breath no doubt exaggerated for effect.

  Melodramatization. A symptom exhibited by even the non-actors of a theatrical production.

  Plucking the hand-operated can opener out of Ruben’s hand, she tossed a “Thanks!” over her shoulder and took the stairs two at a time to the top. Muttered curses followed her.

  Maxie cranked open the can as she climbed, then hit the ground floor at a sprint. She took the corner at top speed, and slammed into what felt like a brick wall.

  No way had someone on her crew abandoned a piece of the sliding set scenery in such a ridiculous location. They wouldn’t dare contradict her prop book, which assigned a precise backstage location for everything from hair ribbons to the enormous Emerald City set. Then her brain registered the texture, scent and sound—summer-weight wool fabric, a clean, sharp lemony spice, the sudden woof of breath being slammed out of a person. She looked up to memorize the face of the person she was going to kill as soon as she tracked down the damn dog.

  “Blue.” She blurted out the word.

  Lake-blue eyes froze her in place. They were narrowed at the moment, with fine lines at the corners that looked like they came from frowning, not laughing. Her stomach, already mid-butterfly stampede with nerves, did a slow dip and roll that made her dizzy. She blushed.

  That indignity wrenched her back into the present. That and the realization that this stranger, this arrestingly good-looking man with those stop-you-in-your-tracks blue eyes and the thick shock of black hair, was an unauthorized intruder in her backstage empire.

  “Get out.” She pushed past the man, her elbow out. If he complained, she’d claim the jab to his midsection was an accident.

  She wrenched the lid off of the can, ignoring the sharp pain when the jagged metal sliced across her right index finger. Crossing to the breakfront that would decorate Auntie Em’s living room during a scene in Act One, she tossed the lid behind her, spattering some of the slimy contents of the can. God, how can even dogs eat this stuff?

  When a deep voice registered a protest, she didn’t even turn to look. That meat and grease would be hard to get out of good wool, no doubt. Tough. He shouldn’t be trespassing on her set. She grabbed a cheap china plate off the breakfront and found a spoon in the top drawer, just where you’d expect to find silverware in real life. Verisimilitude, baby.

  “I said get off my stage. Now.” She lowered her voice just enough to keep it from traveling past the heavy drop curtain while she warned off the intruder she could still feel hovering behind her. The light at the edges of the curtain was dim because the house lights had dropped. The audience would be settling down and listening for the first sounds of the play.

  It was a thick curtain. She didn’t lower her voice much.

  She let the plate clatter to the concrete floor and began whistling, long and low, as she slopped the contents of the can onto it.

  Still out of sight behind her, Ruben took up the whistle, and from beyond him, she could hear other crew members whistling, too. Yeah, they knew the drill. Maxie paused for a breath and rattled the spoon around the empty can.

  In moments, the magical, musical sound of Butch’s too-long, unclipped nails hitting the floor at top speed soared to her ears like “Ode to Joy” as the miscreant came out of hiding in search of the one thing that motivated him: food.

  With the perfection of hindsight, it occurred to her that she could probably have dug an empty potato-chip bag out of the trash and rustled it loudly to much the same effect.

  As Butch did his happy food dance in front of the plate she still guarded, she couldn’t help but grin. The damn dog was too clever by half, but in his own way he was more reliable than several members of her cast.

  “You—” she scolded, tossing the can opener behind her and shaking her finger at the dog, who had the nerve to roll over, expose his belly and whine pitifully. Some sort of ruckus was developing behind her. “—better be ready to hit your mark in sixty. Stop being such a ham and eat up.”

  Time to call off the panic. She thumbed on her mike. “Toto’s in the house.”

  “So is a visiting producer,” Ruben shot back at her.

  “I know. Front and center. I pulled a couple of press tickets for them, which means I owe drinks to the two critics standing in back.”

  “No, not those guys—”

  “Okay, well, the more producers in the house, the merrier. Now, let’s make it look like silk for ‘em.”

  “But Maxie—”

  “Not now, Ruben. Sound, one.” She called the first sound cue and classical music rolled out over the audience, settling them down.

  Sixty seconds came and went. She waved Dorothy over, dumped Toto into her basket, called the first lighting cue, the curtain cue, and settled into her high chair with her hieroglyphically marked-up script. It was time to run the show with the ruthless precision that had gotten her the job in the first place.

  Every battalion in her army was dialed up and ready to go and she was Command Central, poised to give the order to begin the battle.

  She took one last look around and caught the eye of the sharply dressed man who was still there, standing well to the back now. He frowned at her and for a moment she wondered who he was. But she trusted her ASM to know which visitors were welcome backstage. Not her problem. Then Ruben, the Assistant Stage Manager in question, flashed her a thumbs up and she forgot Mr. Foxy without
a moment’s hesitation. Her eyes left him and she prepared to enter the fray.

  “Lights, one. Sound, two. Let’s knock ‘em dead, kids.”

  * * *

  Nick’s shoulders locked up and the tendons in his neck tightened.

  A civilized breakfast business meeting would have killed her?

  He’d wanted his nine o’clock meeting to take place somewhere he could drink espresso and eat eggs benedict. Though she hadn’t thrown out the breakfast idea, she’d refused his suggestion of Chicago Cut—the swanky steakhouse did an amazing businessman’s breakfast, in Nick’s opinion—saying she’d take him somewhere after he met her at her office. Tracking down the office’s address on a street in Chicago’s warehouse district had been annoying enough, particularly since he could be sitting comfortably at Chicago Cut instead. Now he was stuck in the entrance to an alley. A ten-foot carving of a banana hung off the building in a manner most precarious above his car and two mental giants in front of him were arguing about a pile of two-by-fours in the back of a van that was blocking his way.

  One of the guys could have stepped out of a Gap ad in his khakis and a plain white T-shirt. The other, who looked like he expected to audition for ZZ Top later that day, crossed his arms under his chest-length beard and glared at his buddy from beneath a black fedora. The lumber sticking out of the back of the van was several feet too long for the vehicle. The argument about how to solve this sphinx’s riddle had clearly been going on for some time.

  An enormous metal door burst open just in front of his car, crashing into the brick wall, and a figure exploded out of the doorway, boots pounding down the potholed pavement of the alley.

  He grabbed for the gearshift and prepared to hit reverse. The warehouse district wasn’t the worst neighborhood in Chicago, but he’d made it through his life so far without getting mugged and keeping the trend going was his preferred plan.

  But those boots…