Terese closed her eyes.
Apparently the shock of hearing that from the doctor had dulled her wits because suddenly she knew her plans for everything since then had been feeble. It hadn’t occurred to her that Johnny had taken in what the doctor had told her. Or that he would understand enough to repeat it. But of course he had. Of course he would report what he’d heard. And of course once Hunter had found out, Terese leaving the ranch wasn’t enough to keep him away.
And without knowing what else to do, Terese said, “This time Johnny got it right.”
“So you are pregnant?” Hunter said, his voice low.
“According to the doctor, the blood test can detect the elevation in hormone levels right away—within days of conception.”
“And you found out and ran?” he asked in disbelief.
“I didn’t think of it as running.”
“What did you think of it as?”
Terese shrugged. “There were a lot of things going through my mind. It was the biggest shock I’ve ever had. But mainly I just didn’t want you feeling any kind of…obligation.”
“Obligation…” Hunter echoed the word as if it had no place there. Then he said, “Did it occur to you that I might feel other things?”
“Like what?” she said, making it clear through her own tone that she hadn’t considered anything else.
“That I might be happy about it?”
“Happy that one impulsive night together produced an unplanned pregnancy? With me, of all people? No, that definitely didn’t occur to me.”
“With you of all people?”
“Yes, me of all people. It’s not as if you picked me out of a crowd or met me at a party and said ‘that’s the woman for me.’ I’m the Plain Jane whom you had to let into your life because of unfortunate circumstances and only let into your house because you felt as if you owed it to me after I gave blood for Johnny.”
Hunter stared at her for another long moment before he shook his head with what looked like more disbelief. “Okay, that was how things started out. But that isn’t how they ended up. You of all people are the only person I’ve gotten close enough to in the last two years to think about every waking minute of every day since I first set eyes on you. You of all people are the only person I’ve felt like myself with, the only person I’ve let down my guard with, the only person I’ve really let in at all. You of all people are the only person who’s made me feel alive again. The only person I’ve wanted…”
Terese hadn’t known he felt that way.
Or did he?
He said it all as if he genuinely meant it and she wanted to believe it—more than she’d ever wanted to believe anything. But now that she knew he knew she was pregnant, it was difficult.
“But you wanted a night, maybe, not a baby and a tie to me forever,” she insisted.
“You thought you were just a one-night-stand?”
“I wasn’t really thinking,” she confessed. “I was just…feeling. Getting carried away. And so were you. That’s the point.”
“And then I spent two weeks without you and things fell into place for me. That’s what happens, you know, when you find yourself missing someone so much you can hardly think about anything else. It’s what happens when you can’t sleep at night because you just want that person there with you. It’s what happens when everything you see makes you think of that other person, when the food you eat, the feel of the sunshine on your face, the smell in the air makes you remember something about them. It’s what happens when you count the hours until you can make a simple phone call to hear their voice, when you count the days until you can see them again. When your whole body aches for them…”
He paused to let his eyes bore into her once more and then he said, “What happens is that you come back knowing that you want more than one impulsive night of getting carried away.”
“But not a baby.”
Something about that made him smile a bit wryly. “Okay, so no, a baby is a whole new extreme. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It doesn’t change any of what I came home thinking and feeling and wanting.”
“You came home thinking about maybe seeing me again after I left the ranch, not having a baby with me. And that changes everything.”
“Actually, after my four-year-old gave me the news that I was going to be a father again,” Hunter began with a note of facetiousness, “I did a lot of thinking about what a baby changes. But what it doesn’t change—what dating you would have proven—is that I don’t want just to date you. Dating you wouldn’t have brought you back to the ranch. It wouldn’t have gotten you there every morning when I wake up and every night when I go to sleep. It wouldn’t have gotten you there with Johnny and me every day. And that’s what I really want, Terese. I really want just to have you with me, with Johnny, every day, every minute, in our house and in our lives.”
Again Terese wanted to believe him. But she didn’t have any experience with someone wanting her for herself, and so she said, “Because of the baby.”
That made Hunter shake his head—forcefully and with a dark expression on his handsome face. “Because of you,” he repeated, carefully, slowly enunciating each word.
He pushed away from the door then and came to stand directly in front of her. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “I know you’re thinking that that other guy said he wanted you when all he really wanted was your money. I know now you’re thinking that I’m here saying I want you only because you’re pregnant. But you’re wrong. Johnny and I wanted to keep you even before this.”
“Keep me?”
“It was Johnny’s phrase. When I was packing for the trip he asked me what was going to happen with you when I got back and he said he wanted to keep you. And the longer I thought about it, the more I realized that I do, too. And the reason I do is I’m in love with you, Terese. Pregnant or not pregnant.”
He was standing so near that she could smell his aftershave, she could see the creases at the corners of his eyes, she could almost feel the heat of him. But more than what was right there in front of her, she began to think about what she knew of the man himself.
Hunter Coltrane wasn’t the same kind of man Dean Wittiker had been. And not only in the fact that he worked for what he had, that the one time she’d been afraid he might be after money from her he’d proved her wrong. Hunter was a man without any pretenses. He was an honest man, a plain and simple man of strong character and solid values. And while he was also a man who would feel compelled to do the right thing by her and his baby, he wouldn’t have said the things he’d said to her tonight if he didn’t mean them.
So if she was having difficulty believing him, she realized, it had more to do with her and what had been ingrained in her by her sister and her stepmother and by Dean.
Realizing that, she still found it difficult to grasp that this man—this amazingly handsome, sexy man—could be in love with her.
“Say it again,” she whispered.
“I’m in love with you,” he repeated, once more speaking slowly and clearly, as if they had a bad phone connection.
And for no reason she understood, at that moment Terese remembered what he’d said to her sister about her earlier—things he hadn’t had to say—and it struck her that in Hunter she’d found someone who saw her as a whole person, inside and out, and that he liked what he saw. She realized that was what she’d always yearned for—not to be desired because she had some kind of super-model beauty, not to be sought after because of her trust fund, but to be wanted for all she was.
“You’re sure?” she said.
Hunter laughed. “I’ve never been more sure of anything. Not finding you there waiting for me with everyone, knowing that you were gone, put a hole in me. That only happened for one reason, Terese, because I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, for the first time allowing herself to admit it. Allowing herself to feel it completely.
Hunter closed the small distance that separate
d them then and pulled her away from the desk into his arms.
He looked into her eyes and grinned even as his brows arched in what appeared to be amazement. “A baby?” he said with laughter in his voice.
“A baby,” Terese confirmed, also allowing herself to feel the full joy in that for the first time.
“I knew we made magic that night, I just didn’t know how much,” Hunter said.
He kissed her then, sparking magic again as that initial kiss went quickly from chaste to heated.
Passion erupted without regard to the turmoil that had brought them here, or to where they were or to whether it was wise.
Passion brought Hunter’s fingers to the buttons of her sweater to make quick work of unfastening them.
Passion urged her to slide his jean jacket off his broad shoulders and toss it aside.
Passion put her hands on the hem of his sweater and caused her to interrupt the hungry play of mouths and tongues to pull it off over his head.
Passion took them to the rug in front of the hearth, shedding the rest of their clothes along the way before Hunter lowered her to the floor and let his hands relearn every inch of her body while she let hers roam every inch of his.
They made love right there in the library, aware of nothing but each other, needing nothing but each other, coming together with abandon. And if Terese had any lingering doubts that she was what Hunter wanted, that she was all he wanted, they didn’t survive the hot, steamy explosion that rocked them both when their bodies joined as if one had been carved from the other. The passion that had started the kiss sent them both soaring higher and higher and higher…
And when it was over and they lay with arms and legs entwined, their naked bodies gilded in fireglow, Terese knew one thing for certain—Hunter’s arms were where she really belonged, where she really wanted to be.
“I love you,” she said, kissing his bare chest before resting her cheek on that same spot.
“I love you,” he said. “And I want you to come home with me tonight. I can’t wait until after our wedding to have you there.”
Terese tipped her chin upward to look at him. “Are we getting married?”
“Yes, ma’am. What’d you think I was askin’you?”
“I don’t recall you askin’ me anything,” she said, teasingly mimicking him.
“Want me on one knee?” he offered.
“That would require me moving and I don’t know that I have the energy for that.”
“Okay, pretend I’m on one knee, then.” He cleared his throat. “Terese Warwick, will you take my hand in marriage?”
What flashed through her mind was that she’d take his hands anywhere she could get them. But what she said was, “Yes, I will take your hand in marriage.”
“And will you come away with me to my not-quite-a-mansion and be okay living a simple ranch life?”
“Please,” she said as if requesting just that.
“And will you help me raise your nephew and our new baby and maybe a couple after it?”
“Only if I can wear the tiara every other Sunday,” she joked.
“With the Pretty Princess as his mother, Johnny is liable to make you wear it every day.”
Terese smiled as it occurred to her that this man and his son made her feel as pretty as the Pretty Princess.
“But for now,” Hunter said then in a deep, drowsy voice, “how about if we steal just a little catnap before we pack you up and take you home?”
“Maybe just a little one,” she conceded.
But as Hunter’s eyes drifted closed, Terese didn’t feel a strong tug toward sleep. Instead she just wanted to lie there beside him and bask in her good fortune.
Bask in the knowledge that she loved this man and that she knew he loved her.
In the knowledge that she loved Johnny and that now she would never be without him in her life.
In the knowledge that she was going to have a baby.
In the knowledge that although it was still a little hard to fathom, she’d somehow found what she’d always wanted and never thought to have—a wonderful man and a family all her own.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Victoria Pade for her contribution to the LOGAN’S LEGACY series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6098-0
FOR LOVE AND FAMILY
Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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