The flag across the street still honored the faded remnants of Halloween.
The two stood and admired the view. “It’s gone. All the pink is really gone.”
“Well, it took almost a year, but it was worth it. According to Josie down the street, you’ll make a hefty profit on this house.”
“We’ll make a hefty profit,” she corrected, bending down to place the lid on the can and the brush on top of it. “Remember, this is our house now, and I’d like to enjoy it for a while before we look for something bigger.”
He placed a hand over her belly, just barely beginning to swell with their first child. “I say we’ve got a year or two before the family outgrows it.”
Carly smiled and kissed him, trying to remember a time in her life when she’d dared to dream she could be this happy. There was a time she feared she’d have to choose between a dull and steady man or a wild, sexy bad boy who kept the bed-sheets burning. In Matt she had both, and she’d forever be thankful for the precious gift she’d been given.
While Carly’s mother was still content with her part-time husband, Carly had found love in all its perfection.
A car horn sounded behind them.
“I kinda miss the pink,” Adam yelled from the driver’s seat of his Ford Mustang.
“You would,” Matt replied. “It fit your personality, sweetheart.”
Adam laughed. “So are you ready or what?”
Matt was heading for the batting cages, having decided to join Adam’s softball team in the spring, and no one was happier than Adam. Matt would be their ringer, the man who would win them a championship, he believed. Carly was glad he’d finally put the past behind him. His baseball days were no longer a sour source of resentment but held only fond memories of a chapter in his life he now looked back on with pride.
He’d become a regular batting coach at the Dugout, offering free lessons to kids whose families couldn’t afford the standard fees, and Matt relished the gift of giving back, throwing attention at boys much like himself who often came from troubled homes and needed the sympathetic ear of someone who understood.
Stu Callebrew had been dropping hints that he could use a partner for the Dugout, and Matt was considering it as an option if he chose to retire from Web design some day.
First he needed to make enough money to buy Stu some new machines.
Picking up the paint can and brush, Matt called over his shoulder, “Give me a second to grab my bag.”
Carly followed him into the house, stopping him in her new wood-floored entryway to wrap her arms around him and give him a kiss.
“I love you,” she said.
He kissed her deep and slow. “I love you back.”
Stu had said, Life has a way of fixing things. And it was true. They’d both been on a path in search of love and stability, each heading in the wrong direction until life slammed them together against their will. It had forced them to see what was right in front of them, what two stubborn and bullheaded Web designers had kept trying to ignore.
Life has a way of fixing things.
Matt and Carly Jacobs would forever be thankful for that.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1593-5
Copyright © 2008 Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
One For The Road
Copyright © 2008 Chris Marie Green
Sex, Straight Up
Copyright © 2008 Kathleen Panov
French Kissing
Copyright © 2008 Nancy Warren
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Copyright © 2008 Kimberly Raye Groff
No Stopping Now
Copyright © 2008 Daphne Atkeson
Putting It To The Test
Copyright © 2008 Lori Borrill
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com
One-Click Buy: April Harlequin Blaze Page 110
