His Shotgun Proposal

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Mac frowned. Brad could be her accomplice. Or simply someone who didn’t know where she was.

  “Yes,” she said on a long and defeated sigh. “I know there’s not a Camp Two by Two in the Pocono Mountains or anywhere else in the northeast United States.” A pause, then a more agitated, “Because I wanted to be alone and, no, I am not going to tell you where I am. You’d just show up here and cause trouble for me and I don’t need any help with that!” Her voice shook like a willow in a windstorm and Mac turned toward her, no longer caring if she knew he’d been listening in. “Yes, I’m upset,” she said. “I’m doing my best to—” her voice broke “—to take care of…of…” Her voice trailed away entirely, giving way to a sniff that could only mean tears were close behind.

  Brad, whoever the hell he was, had done about enough damage in one phone call. There was no reason for the guy to make her cry. What if this coincided with one of those hormonal mood swings? That would be bad. That would be very bad. Mac took two strides to reach her. With one hand he grasped her shoulder and pulled her gently but firmly against him, then he quickly slipped the phone out of her hand and put it to his ear. “Look, Brad,” he said, ignoring Abbie’s sudden, horrified gasp. “You’ve upset Abbie and in her condition, she may start crying and never be able to stop.”

  With a strangled yelp, Abbie grabbed for the phone, but Mac evaded her attempt to reclaim it—he was doing his best to save her from the insensitive jerk, dammit—and continued talking. “She doesn’t want to talk to you anymore right now, so I’m turning off this phone and she can call you back when and if she wants to.”

  There was a long pause and then a man’s voice, rough with worry, asking, “Who the hell is this?”

  Mac saw no reason not to tell him. “Coleman. Mac Coleman.” Then he terminated the call with relish and turned off the phone altogether, feeling a bit proud at his quick thinking.

  But when he looked to Abbie, expecting at least a hint of gratitude for his rescue, he saw the sag in her shoulders, the dejection in the lowering of her chin, the awful dismay in her eyes. “I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said. “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “Don’t tell me you were enjoying talking to that guy.” Mac wasn’t sure what she thought he’d done, but he’d certainly expected her to be happier about it. “He was upsetting you.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He does that on a regular basis. They all do.”

  “There’s more than one?”

  “Four, altogether. Each one as bad as the next.”

  Mac thought fast. Four men. A gang. And somehow Abbie was mixed up with them. “Why were they calling you?”

  “To make sure I’m all right.”

  “And at the camp in the mountains,” he suggested, trying hard to keep an open mind, “where you told them you were.”

  “It’s complicated,” she said, then sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about this. It’s bad enough that you told them…oh, well, never mind. It can’t be helped now.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, although it irritated him to have to say it. “I thought I was helping.”

  “I know you did. Maybe it’s best this way. My decision is made for me. And I was going to leave in a few days, anyway.”

  “Leave?”

  She almost smiled. “You’ve been trying to get rid of me ever since I got here, Mac. Don’t tell me you thought I’d just stay on indefinitely.”

  “I thought the past few days might have changed your mind about what I wanted.”

  “The past few days, while much more pleasant than the previous week, have only convinced me that you decided to try a different—and admittedly—nicer line of defense. I know you won’t believe this, either, but I never intended to stay at the Desert Rose more than a couple of weeks. Three, at the outside.”

  So his attempt at being a nice guy hadn’t fooled her. But either way, he wasn’t sure his true aim had been for her to leave. “Where are you going to go?”

  “Does it make any difference?” She took a deep breath and then frowned, as her hand slid to cup the underside of her swollen stomach. “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

  Mac’s heart gave a jerk of panic. “What? Are you all right?” Oh, God, what if she was in labor? It was too early. Something was wrong. She could be in real trouble. “Does it hurt?”

  She nodded and rubbed her stomach.

  “I’ll get you to a doctor,” he said, deciding on a course of action and sweeping her off her feet and into his arms. “Who should I call? Do you have a doctor here? Nevermind, I’ll take you to Dr. Graham. He’s Hannah’s doctor.” He was all but running, his boots striking a heavy clop-ka-clop on the wooden dock, his arms cradling her protectively against him. “It’ll be all right, Abbie. The baby will be all right. Don’t worry.”

  “It’s only a muscle cramp, Mac. What are you doing?”

  He stopped dead, frowned down at the amusement glinting in her eyes. “A muscle cramp,” he repeated dully. “You scared the living daylights out of me for a silly muscle cramp?”

  “Well, it didn’t feel silly on this end. It hurts like crazy for the few minutes it lasts.”

  “A muscle cramp,” he said again. “You had a muscle cramp.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “But it’s much better now, thanks.”

  There was laughter in her smile, a more relaxed look about her eyes, an appreciative warmth in the hand she had clasped around his forearm. Okay, so he was two for two in misunderstanding what she needed and attempting a rescue. “Maybe I’ll be a little less open-minded after this,” he said.

  “Somehow, I sort of doubt it.” She looked at him and his heart, which was still racing from his scare, squeezed tight with the fierce longing to keep her near. “You can put me down now,” she said.

  “Nah. I don’t think so. No point in taking any chances on another one of those painful muscle cramps sneaking up on you.” He shifted her a little more comfortably in his arms, bringing her closer to his chest. “I’ll just carry you all the way back to the house to be on the safe side.”

  “I’m not going back to the house,” she said, a shadow descending once again across her pretty blue eyes. “They’ll be calling for me there.”

  “Who?” Mac asked, but realized immediately who she meant. The gang. “They’re not going to call back. At least, not until you turn the phone on, and I’ll just keep it in my pocket to make sure you don’t do that.”

  “You gave Brad your name. It won’t have taken him five minutes to connect Mac Coleman with my friend Jessica Coleman, and from there, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump to finding the Desert Rose ranch. Trust me, he’ll have the house, the office, and probably the barn phone number before you can walk back up that hill and into the courtyard.”

  “You don’t have to talk to him, Abbie. Or any of the rest of them.”

  She sighed, as if he couldn’t possibly understand. “It’s complicated, Mac, and it’s easier if no one in the house can say for sure where I am.”

  “How did you ever get mixed up with a guy like that?”

  Abbie shook her head. “It’s the trying to get unmixed up that has caused me all the problems. Put me down. I’ll just stay out here for a while and hope no one decides to bring out the cordless phone.”

  Mac decided he was zero for two in the rescue department. Maybe the third time would be the charm. “No reason you should have to take any chances. I know the perfect place.” Still holding her tightly against him, he headed off in the opposite direction. “No one will think to look for you there.”

  “Great,” she said. “Now I’m being kidnapped.”

  “Give me some credit,” he said, glad to hear the happier tone in her voice. “I’m doing my best to be a hero here.”

  Chapter Seven

  The trouble with heroes is that they were men, Abbie decided as Mac set her feet on the floor in the dark front room of the guest house. It was perfectly clear to her that, since hijacking her phone and her conversa
tion with Brad, Mac was determined to rescue her whether she needed rescuing or not. Sad to say—because she believed they all meant well—but her heroes just seemed to make things worse. She wished, just once, that the men in her life would allow her to save herself from disaster, instead of complicating most everything she tried to do. “Thanks,” she said. “But this really isn’t necessary.”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” he said, misinterpreting her comment as gratitude. “I think there are some candles around here somewhere.”

  “Don’t you have electricity out here?”

  “Well, yes, but turning on the lights would be as good as sending up a flare. Someone would be over here within ten minutes to check on the place. Once they know you’re out here, anyone might answer the phone in the house, transfer the phone call out here to the guest house and then, you’ll be right back where you started.”

  “I wouldn’t have to answer the phone,” she said logically.

  “Then someone would have to come over to find out why the phone isn’t working or why you didn’t answer when it rang.”

  “Sounds just like home.” She looked around as her eyes grew accustomed to the dusky light. Across one long wall, curtains were drawn and Abbie felt her way around the furniture to reach them. When she found the cord and drew open the drapes, the floor-to-ceiling windows rewarded her with a beautiful view of the lake and the reflections of pinpoint stars and a silvery quarter moon in the dark water. “This is nice,” she said.

  “Mmm,” was Mac’s reply, unless she counted the rummaging sounds coming from the far corner of the room. “You sure you want the curtains open?” he asked. “Anyone passing close enough could see you standing there.”

  Her lips curved, despite the fact that she had next to nothing to smile about. “I’m not hiding out from the Mob,” she told him. “Only from my brothers and, luckily, they’re not anywhere near this neighborhood.”

  The rustling-in-the-drawer sounds stopped. “Brothers?”

  “Brothers,” she answered clearly. “Four of them. All big, burly and fiercely opinionated.”

  “You’re hiding out from your brothers,” he repeated.

  “That’s right.”

  “Your brothers,” he said again, as if he couldn’t quite get his mind around the concept that she had brothers. “Not some abusive boyfriend and his gang?”

  She laughed, wondering how he’d gotten such an idea. “Brad is my brother. He’s second in the lineup of older brothers, right under Quinn, but ahead of Jaz and Tyler.”

  “Brad is your brother,” Mac said, obviously still struggling with his previous misconception. “Why did you lie to your brothers?”

  She sighed, still looking out the window at the night-dusted lake. “I knew the minute I told them the truth, my bid for independence was over.”

  “What truth? That you’re on a ranch in Texas instead of at a camp in the Poconos?”

  “That, and the news that in four months I’m going to make them all uncles.”

  She heard the scrape of a match and turned as Mac’s frown came into view over the flame of a burning candle. “They don’t know you’re pregnant?”

  “They didn’t, but now that you’ve mentioned my condition, they’ve probably figured it out.”

  “Well, hell,” he said succinctly.

  “My sentiments, exactly.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “I haven’t told them, either,” she admitted, ashamed of her delays. “At first, it was too embarrassing and then later, I felt I needed some time to think about what to say.”

  “How hard can it be to say, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m pregnant’?”

  “Plenty hard,” she snapped, suddenly irritated. “Look what happened when I told you.”

  Silence fell like a net, dense and constricting, around her. She hadn’t meant to bring up that sore subject. “There is a difference,” he said finally, his voice as cool as an ice storm.

  “Yes, they will believe me.”

  “I didn’t doubt for a second that you were pregnant.”

  “No, only that you had anything to do with it.”

  He set the candle in its brass candlestick on the table, his movements methodical and calm. “Arguing with me isn’t going to help your situation with them, Abbie. You have to tell them…the sooner the better.”

  “Gee, I wonder why I never thought of that.” She wanted to be angry. With Mac. With every one of her brothers. With the staff at Miss Amelia’s Academy. With the sun, the moon and the stars. But there was only herself to blame and she was getting really tired of being angry with Abbie. “Can we not talk about this? You’ve made it very clear you don’t care what I do or where I go as long as I don’t make any demands on you.”

  “That isn’t exactly true, Abbie, and you know it. I’ve gone out of my way to be nice to you this week and…” His admission trailed away and she realized she’d been right to suspect his motives.

  “What were you hoping to do, Mac? Trap me into admitting my devious designs on your checkbook? Trick me into thinking you’d had a change of heart? Kill me with kindness so you’d have a clear conscience after I was gone?”

  “I lost a wager with Cade,” he said tightly. “He advised me to give you a chance and when I balked, we drew straws. I lost.”

  Her heart hurt, as if it had shriveled inside her chest. “That’s a relief. I’d hate to think you gave me a chance because you thought it was the right thing to do.”

  “I have my reasons for doubting your story, Abbie.”

  “What? Now you’re going to tell me you’re incapable of fathering children?”

  “No, but I am not nearly so gullible as I was before.”

  She frowned, confused. “Before I told you about the baby?”

  His eyes narrowed in the soft candlelight, then he walked past her and stood facing the windows and the lake beyond. “A couple of years ago, I was in love with Gillian. She got pregnant and I proposed immediately, thinking that we’d just gotten a jumpstart on the future we would have had together anyway. The wedding was planned, everything was perfect until the night of my bachelor party, when one of Gillian’s oldest and closest friends got rip-roaring drunk and labeled me an A1 chump behind my back. The laughter and the whispers got louder until they finally got to me. Seems Gillian had known who I was a long while before she wrangled our accidental meeting. Seems, too, she’d been afraid I wouldn’t propose to her without a certain push in that direction and since I proved cautious, she persuaded her friend to help her. It was his baby, not mine.”

  Abbie was stunned. “She confessed that to you?”

  “No, all the evidence came secondhand. She maintained her innocence right to the end.”

  “The end of what?”

  The line of his lips was grim. “Right up until the day of the wedding when Uncle Randy offered her a check to walk away then or take her chances in a divorce proceeding if the paternity test proved she’d been lying all along. She took the check and walked.”

  “I’m sorry,” Abbie said. “That must have been awful for you.”

  He turned to face her. “I got over it.”

  No, you didn’t, Abbie thought. You’re just blaming me for someone else’s lies. But she didn’t think this was the time to challenge him on that. Maybe, though, it was the perfect time for a dose of truth. “I did not know who you were until we met at the airport, Mac. I was as shocked as you were. I didn’t come here to trap you, trick you or humiliate you. I came because Jessica invited me and because I couldn’t bear to go home and face my family’s disappointment. And I don’t really care whether you believe that or not.”

  His eyes held hers, searching for a faith she didn’t have the power to give him. “So what happens now?” he asked finally.

  She shrugged, wondering why she’d expected—hoped—he would change his mind and accept her truth as fact. He was a son of royalty and of Texas, a prince, both arrogant and justly proud. Why had she thought for a second h
e would take a commoner like her at her word? “What happens is, we blow out the candles and walk back to the house,” she said. “Tomorrow, I’ll go home to Little Rock and you won’t ever have to give me another thought.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to stop thinking about you.”

  “Sure you will. It’ll be easy. One pain-in-the-butt out of your life, just like that!” She tried to snap her fingers, attempted a smile but suddenly her eyes were awash in tears and she couldn’t see. “Sorry,” she said over a sudden lump in her throat. “Guess I’m just a little…blue tonight.”

  “Don’t cry, Abbie.” He moved toward her, and she turned away to hide her tears from him, but he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her back against his chest. “I don’t want you to cry.”

  She hiccupped softly, blinking furiously to stem the tide. “I don’t think you can stop me, Mac. Not even to win your bet.”

  He was very still for a moment, his hands massaging the muscles of her upper arms. Then, like a whisper, she felt his lips at her ear, the sensual distraction of his kiss in the hollows of her neck. Warm shivers raced in every direction—down her back, across her chest, to the tips of her breasts and the nape of her neck. Toes, fingertips, even her hair seemed to tingle with a heady anticipation. “Oh,” she said on a long breath, “you shouldn’t do that.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” he murmured against her skin. “But I’ve run out of ideas on what else to do with you, Abbie. Making love to you seems to be the only alternative.”

  She gulped, wanting more than she wanted her next breath to believe he meant that. “Mac, I…this isn’t a good idea.”

  He nuzzled from the hollows of her shoulder to the indentation below her ear. “You’d rather cry?”

  “No, but…”

  “You’re trembling, Abbie. Are you afraid of me?”

  She ought to be. He had hurt her with his suspicions. Even if she stayed with him tonight, if they made love, it wouldn’t change anything. He’d still believe the worst of her tomorrow. But oh, she wanted to stay, wanted to know the powerful passion in his kisses, his arms, his body. “No, Mac,” she whispered, leaning against him, giving herself permission to accept the support of his embrace. “I’m not afraid of you. I probably should be, but I’m not.”