by Leanne Banks
“Passed out?” he almost shouted. “Where are you?”
“Fortunately this place is crawling with doctors. Her gynecologist is seeing her now.”
“Her gynecologist?”
“That’s the doctor she asked me to call. I was ready to dial 9-1-1, but when she came to, she said she wanted to see Dr. Morelli.”
A tightening began in Adam’s chest and spread through his body. “How long was she out?”
“She says she wasn’t, and everything just got fuzzy and she was dizzy.”
“She’s in the building where her practice is?”
“Suite 201.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t let her leave.”
“This is Kaitlyn, Adam.”
He shook his head. “Yes, I know. But maybe she’ll be shaken up enough to listen to reason.”
He ended the call, shut his phone and said to Tina, “I’ve got to go. Kaitlyn passed out when she was giving a workshop.”
“If you need moral support, I can come along. Erica’s portable.”
He almost smiled. “I know she is, and thank you for offering. This, I’ve got to do on my own.”
“What’s ‘this’?” Tina asked.
“This” was taking shape in his mind. “This” was a feeling for Kaitlyn that couldn’t be denied. “This” was concern and worry and the urge to wrap his arms around her and protect her forever. “This” was what he was going to explain to her and hope she felt the same way.
* * *
Adam rushed to Suite 201, unmindful of bystanders and other patients he passed when he jogged through the hall. All he cared about was getting to Kaitlyn. All he cared about was finding out if she was okay. All he cared about was telling her—
That he didn’t want on-again, off-again. He was thinking about forever instead of a trip to Thailand. Just how was she going to react to that? Especially after the way they’d left it. Would she trust him? Would she believe in them?
Sara met Adam in the waiting room of the gynecologist’s office suite.
“Where is she?”
“She’s talking with her doctor. She’s probably going to be angry I called you.”
“I don’t care how angry she is. I want to go back there.”
Fortunately, he didn’t have to storm the doctor’s office. Kaitlyn was walking down the hall toward him, looking a little paler than she usually did. But other than that, she seemed to be moving on her own steam, and he wondered if she should be.
Adam met her at the reception window. There wasn’t anyone there.
Kaitlyn eyed him, looking surprised. “What are you doing here?”
“I called him,” Sara confessed, not looking sorry at all.
Still, Kaitlyn gave her a scolding look.
But Sara just waved her hand. “I’m going back to Raintree. The workshop is canceled for today. We’ll reschedule it. Everybody understands that things happen.”
“What thing happened?” Adam asked.
Kaitlyn gave Sara a hug. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Without another word, Sara simply gave Adam a wink. He didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but he took that it meant she approved of him being here.
Taking Kaitlyn by the arm, he guided her toward one of the chairs in the reception area. “Sit,” he commanded.
For once she didn’t argue with him.
“The workshop?” he prompted. “Why did you end up here?”
She waved her hand. “Low blood pressure. It sometimes happens when— Adam, I have something to tell you.”
“I have something to tell you first.” Sitting down beside her, he took her hands into his.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this past week on a lot of fronts. Actually I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the past month.”
“Because of Tina disappearing?”
“Tina disappearing...and meeting you. Whether you know it or not, Kaitlyn, you’ve changed the way I look at the world. I see it through maybe kinder eyes. Sure, my profession and work helps people, but certainly not the way you do. Your one-on-one caring has affected me in ways I never imagined. And to top it all off, when Dad came back, he made me realize I want to be different than he is. I don’t want five marriages. I only want one.”
Kaitlyn’s eyes were wide now with astonishment, and maybe with hope. He was praying he saw hope.
“I love you, Kaitlyn. I may have been slow coming to realize it. I may have called it passion instead of love, but it’s so much more than desire.”
“Adam...”
He didn’t know what she was going to say, but he had to finish. He had to lay it all on the table. He had to bare his heart and soul and hope that vulnerability would be enough.
“I not only love you, Kaitlyn, I want to marry you. I want to have a life with you. With Erica, I’ve seen that I can be a good dad. I’m bringing all my newly learned skills to the table,” he joked, though he didn’t feel like joking. “Will you marry me?”
He could see the tears in Kaitlyn’s eyes, and the emotion she was trying to contain. He wasn’t sure exactly why she was trying to contain it. He waited for her answer but one didn’t come.
Instead, she squeezed his hands. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
She’d said that once before, and now he listened, suddenly afraid. What if she was going to tell him she was going back to her ex-husband? She’d said that was over, but—
Looking directly into his eyes, as if she was trying to see to the bottom of his soul, she said, “Adam, I’m pregnant.”
It only took a second for him to absorb what she’d said. It was so different from what he’d almost expected. But he gave out a whoop, stood and then swung her up into his arms. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes,” she said shakily. “I just found out last Sunday. But then we had that sort of argument, and I thought you just wanted to fly away.”
He held her tighter. “I don’t want to fly away. That’s the whole point. Wilson University offered me that professorship anytime I wanted it. I’m going to accept it. I’m going to do some scrambling to find someone to take over for me in Thailand, but I can do it because I want to stay here and make a life. I want to stay here and be an uncle to Erica and a brother to Tina. I want the connections I’ve run away from all my life. But most of all, I want to settle down with the woman I love. With you...and a baby.”
She laughed and repeated, “A baby.”
“And you fainted from low blood pressure?”
“Apparently it happens. I stood up quickly, stooped over even quicker, and everything went black. My doctor checked me out and everything’s okay. I’ll probably worry every step of the way because of the last time.”
“You’re not going to be worrying alone. Instead of worrying, we’re going to think something positive every time we do. We’re going to take good care of you and the baby.”
“We are?”
“Yes, we are. Are you going to take this spokesperson position with The Mommy Club?”
“I thought about it long and hard, and here’s what I’ve come up with. With this pregnancy, I want to take good care of myself. So I’ve talked with the practice about going part-time. That would also be good when I go back to work after the baby’s born. If I’m part-time, I can easily take a spokesperson assignment once every couple of weeks. That’s sort of what I ironed out with The Mommy Club Foundation’s representative. What do you think?”
“I think it’s smart. I think all of it’s going to play into your strengths. I’ll help you any way I can.”
“I haven’t told you the one thing I was going to tell you before you flew off. I was going to come see you this afternoon, after the workshop.”
“What did you want to tell
me?”
“That I love you. That I think I started loving you that first night we met at the winery. Oh, I put the brakes on because I knew getting involved with you would probably rock my life, and it has. But in the best way possible. I love you, Adam Preston.”
His arms around her, he pulled her even closer. “Can we get married sooner rather than later?”
“We can get married as soon as you and the state of California allow.”
“You want a dress, don’t you? Bridesmaids? A church?”
“I don’t need a princess gown, just something I like and that you’ll think I look beautiful in. As far as bridesmaids—Marissa, Sara and Tina. I’d like to keep it simple if we can.”
“Would you like to have it at Raintree?”
“Sara and Jase’s wedding was at Raintree, and it was beautiful. We can keep it intimate, have a harpist, an elegant ceremony Marissa can help plan. She’s good at that.”
“As soon as possible,” he decreed. “We’ve put the cart before the horse, and I want to get caught up. I don’t want our child to put two and two together too easily when it comes to his birth.”
“Or her birth. A girl would want to know every detail.”
“Are you saying a boy would be oblivious?”
“I’m not sure. I guess we’ll find out. Do you think your dad will come?”
“I don’t think he’d miss it. You have a lot of friends, Kaitlyn. How are we going to keep it small and intimate?”
“Intimate has to do with the setting and a state of mind and the way the ceremony’s handled. If we keep the guest list to seventy-five or a hundred, I think we’ll be okay. I know we’ll be okay because the kind of wedding we have simply doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do after the wedding.”
“You mean the honeymoon?” he asked, kissing the tip of her nose.
“After the honeymoon.”
“Let’s not skip the pleasure of the honeymoon. Where do you want to go?”
“I’ve always wanted to spend time in Carmel.”
He swung her up off the floor and held her tight. “Then Carmel it is.”
Laughing, she asked, “Are you going to grant my every wish?”
“Every wish within reason. That’s what we can do for each other.”
She took his face between her hands. “And just what would your first wish be?”
“That you’ll spend every day and night with me.”
“We won’t get anything done!”
“Sure, we will. I can teach, and we can work together on Mommy Club projects. You can be a spokesperson, and I’ll drive you to and from your events. You can be a doctor. When you come home, we’ll have dinner and talk about our day. On the odd weekend we have nothing to do, we can drive somewhere and have another honeymoon. At least until the baby’s born. We’ll make this work, Kaitlyn. I promise we will.”
“I have no doubt we’ll make it work, because I love you and you love me.”
“And baby will make three.”
Then Adam bent his head and gave her the gentlest, yet most seductive kiss of their courtship. It was a promise that when they got married they’d make everything work—for all of them. Because their love was going to be so big, and so wide, and so high, that it would surround everyone they knew. It would touch everyone they knew.
After the kiss, Adam rested his forehead against hers. “Your town house or my condo?”
“How about a place of our own?”
“I second that.” Then he kissed her again.
Epilogue
“Don’t open your eyes,” Adam commanded as he guided Kaitlyn across a wide porch to the door of a house he hoped she’d like.
“I can’t open my eyes. You have your hands over them,” she pointed out with a laugh.
“My hands could slip but I don’t want you to see until we’re inside. Just lift your foot up over the doorstep, and we’re there. Or I could carry you—”
“You already carried me over the threshold to our honeymoon suite in Sacramento, and over the threshold of each hotel room as we drove along the coast. I think I can manage to step over this one.”
The wedding had been perfect—Kaitlyn dressed in white satin; him in a tux; Sara, Marissa and Tina in cocktail dresses of their choosing. Since they’d wanted to get married quickly, they’d kept everything simple, yet meaningful. He remembered his vows. He remembered Kaitlyn’s.
“What makes you think this is the right house?” she asked.
“You’ll see,” he assured her, and led her inside. Once inside the living room, he took his hands from her eyes.
She blinked then slowly looked around. The living room had a vaulted ceiling with beautiful wood beams. The plank flooring had a rustic look. A floor-to-ceiling native rock fireplace was the centerpiece in the room.
“Oh, Adam.”
In front of the fireplace sat a caned-back rocking chair. On it was a four-foot teddy bear with a big blue bow around its neck.
Kaitlyn walked toward it, her smile tremulous. “It looks perfect there,” she said softly.
“I thought so, too. And check the view out the window. On a clear day, you can probably see Raintree Winery. But no matter what, you can see those mountains in the distance.”
“You listened to everything I said, everything I wanted.” Her voice caught and he knew Kaitlyn was full of the emotion that he felt, too.
“Thanksgiving is almost here.”
“Do you think we can be moved by then?” Kaitlyn asked.
“If we sign the contract on the house today, if we get all of our friends to help us, if we can find a table big enough for Dad and Iris, Tina and Erica and the two of us.”
“And soon there will be three.”
Adam laid his hand on Kaitlyn’s tummy. “And soon there will be three. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He could see the bottomless world of it in her eyes, and he knew their future would be filled with a lot of happy and forever after.
* * * * *
Enjoy this sneak peek from New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer’s TEXAS BORN, the latest in THE LONG, TALL TEXANS miniseries.
Forced from her home by her cruel stepmother, Michelle Godfrey is out of luck…until Gabriel Brandon comes to her rescue. The tall, brooding cowboy is devilishly handsome, but he’s her guardian—and nothing more. As Michelle grows into the woman she’s always wanted to be, can the shy beauty show Gabriel that she’s the only one he needs?
***
Just for an instant, Gabriel worried about putting Michelle in the line of fire, considering his line of work. He had enemies. Dangerous enemies who wouldn’t hesitate to threaten anyone close to him. Of course, there was his sister, Sara, but she’d lived in Wyoming for the past few years, away from him, on a ranch they co-owned. Now he was putting her in jeopardy along with Michelle.
But what could he do? The child had nobody. Now that her idiot stepmother, Roberta, was dead, Michelle was truly on her own. It was dangerous for a young woman to live alone, even in a small community. And there was also the question of Roberta’s boyfriend, Bert.
Gabriel knew things about the man that he wasn’t eager to share with Michelle. Bert was part of a criminal organization, and he knew Michelle’s habits. He also had a yen for her, if what Michelle had blurted out to Gabriel once was true—and he had no indication that she would lie about it. Bert might decide to come try his luck with her now that her stepmother was out of the picture. That couldn’t be allowed.
Gabriel was surprised by his own affection for Michelle. It wasn’t paternal. She was, of course, far too young for anything heavy. She was a beauty, kind and generous and sweet. She was t
he sort of woman he usually ran from. No, strike that, she was no woman. She was still unfledged, a dove without flight feathers. He had to keep his interest hidden. At least, until she was grown up enough that it wouldn’t hurt his conscience to pursue her. Afterward…well, who knew the future?
***
Don’t miss TEXAS BORN
by New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer,
the latest installment in
THE LONG, TALL TEXANS miniseries.
Available October 2014 wherever
Harlequin® Special Edition books and ebooks are sold.
Copyright © 2014 by Diana Palmer
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ISBN-13: 9781460338742
A Match Made by Baby
Copyright © 2014 by Karen Rose Smith
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