The Tycoon's Marriage Bid

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  And she’d heard him laugh, and agree that a celebration was indeed in order.

  Nikki had lost Cody long ago. She’d never have any sort of chance with Alex.

  She’d called Tiff’s that very afternoon and made a reservation. She’d also gone out with some co-workers after work for happy hour at the Echelon, surprising them a lot more than she had herself. And when she’d run into Hunter Reed there, she’d stopped fending off the flirtations he always had at the ready whenever he came to Cheyenne to visit his cousin.

  She’d been tired of being alone, of hurting, and she’d only ended up making her life more complicated.

  ‘I stayed at Tiff’s because that’s where Cody and I had planned to spend our honeymoon, same as his parents had. I tried to go on a sleigh ride because he’d promised we’d go on one each day we spent here.

  The man who drove the sleigh? I think his name was Ivan.’ Some details of the day she’d collapsed were still fuzzy in her mind. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he was the man who’d driven Cody’s parents around back then. I had it in my head that if I just spent some time at Tiff’s, if I went on that sleigh ride, then I’d finally stop’

  ‘Grieving?’ Alex’s hands weren’t kneading now. They were simply holding.

  She had a nearly overwhelming urge to turn around and rest her head on his wide chest. To let him hold her and let everything all the stress of her pregnancy, her work situation, her memories of Cody, her confusion over him just fall away.

  She curled her fingertips into the pillow under her elbows. ‘Wanting things I couldn’t have,’ she said quietly.

  ‘But you didn’t get your sleigh ride, did you?’

  She shook her head, amazed to find her lips tilting in a rueful smile. ‘Not exactly. I got the hospital and you.’

  ‘Some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug.’

  She tucked her tongue between her teeth for a moment. ‘I think that’s a line from a song.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm.’

  ‘So are you the bug or am I?’

  ‘Think maybe we both are.’ He slid his hand up her back and cupped the nape of her neck for a moment that seemed to linger. Then he let go and stood up. ‘Muscles feeling better?’

  Every muscle but her heart. She nodded and rolled onto her back again. ‘Thanks. That really was above the call of duty, Alex.’

  He didn’t deny it. ‘Maybe after your appointment on Monday, Dr. Carmichael will spring you far enough that you can sit in the whirlpool tub for a few minutes.’

  The whirlpool tub that was shaped like a heart and big enough for two. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘It’s getting late. Think you can sleep?’

  She was practically boneless from Alex’s ministrations. But she was no longer sleepy. And she’d already read every magazine that was lurking in the cabin. Alex had done a thorough search for her on that point. ‘Not yet. I’ll just watch television awhile, I guess. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You hungry? Thirsty?’

  She shook her head.

  He nodded. Pushed his hands in his pockets for a moment, only to pull them back out again and pick up her water glass. He disappeared for a moment and returned it full, with several ice cubes floating in it.

  ‘Good thing we were nearly out of food when the power went off,’ he said as he set the glass on the nightstand. ‘Or what was in the fridge might have gone bad before it kicked on again.’

  ‘Are there any apples left?’

  ‘One. Thought you weren’t hungry.’

  ‘Well ’ He already knew what a glutton she could be. What was one more instance of it? ‘I could eat an apple. Is there peanut butter left?’

  ‘Barely.’ The dimple in his cheek deepened. ‘Apple and peanut butter? Together?’

  ‘Almost as good as pistachio ice cream.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said dryly, but left the bedroom again.

  Minutes later, he returned with a plate, a lone green apple, and the small, nearly empty jar of peanut butter. She couldn’t hide her smile at the sight of the plate. ‘You probably have picnics on china, too,’ she murmured as she plumped a few pillows behind her and sat back against the leather headboard. ‘Set it all here.’ She patted the mattress.

  He did so.

  She picked up the apple and the small cutting knife and deftly quartered and cored the fruit, then quartered it again. Then she dipped the tip of the knife in the jar and spread peanut butter over the juicy slice. ‘Try it.’ She held it out for him.

  He eyed it, looking skeptical.

  She made a face. Waved the narrow slice of apple. ‘Come on. Forget about caviar and toast points.

  Live dangerously.’

  ‘I hate caviar.’ His fingers met hers as he took the slice. ‘And there’s probably something dangerous about accepting a slice of apple from a beautiful woman.’

  Even though she knew his amused comment was nothing more than words, pleasure still dipped and swayed through her.

  Beautiful. It was unwise to take that word so seriously. She knew it. Yet she reacted to it, anyway.

  He popped the apple slice into his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. Licked a smear of peanut butter from his thumb.

  She nearly choked on the bite of apple she’d taken herself.

  ‘Hmm.’ His melted-chocolate gaze slid to the plate, where she’d placed the remaining slices. ‘How much peanut butter is left in that jar?’

  She grinned.

  He pushed her legs over and sat down again beside her, rescuing the plate before it tipped sideways.

  ‘Any other treats like this you’ve been keeping secret from me, Nikki Day?’

  Her grin faltered only a moment. The secret she kept from him was in no way a treat. ‘Oh, there are lots of things a person can put peanut butter on,’ she said blithely.

  His gaze slanted over her. He took another apple slice after she’d dressed it with peanut butter.

  ‘Aren’t you just full of surprises.’

  ‘Lots of food,’ she corrected, feeling her cheeks flush.

  His smile widened, and soon she was chuckling, too.

  And even when the apple was long gone, the peanut butter jar completely cleaned out, Alex safely on his side of the fireplace and Nikki safely on hers, she was still smiling.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Oh, happy daaay. Oh, happy day.’ Nikki sang under her breath as she sat on the high bar stool in the cabin’s small kitchen. Alex was outside. She could hear the distinctive thwack of the ax. But she didn’t worry that he was out there chopping wood again as a substitute for chopping off someone’s head. She was in too good a mood.

  Dr. Carmichael had been cautiously optimistic at her appointment that afternoon. No signs of infection. The ultrasound of the baby looked very good. He still wasn’t particularly satisfied with her blood pressure, but he had given her permission to be on her feet for ten minutes at a time, and to sit up for twice that.

  She glanced at the oven timer. She was five minutes into her twenty, and as promised, she was on KP

  duty.

  Happily.

  She had a chicken-and-rice concoction in the oven that would be ready to eat in an hour, she’d rapidly chopped up vegetables for a chunky salad that was waiting in the refrigerator, and for the finish, she was whipping up a quick batch of brownies.

  At the moment, life was really good. So good, in fact, that she’d actually had a sense of fondness for the cabin when they’d returned after her exam Nikki on her own two feet for once.

  She heard the front door open, then Alex stomping his boots on the step before coming inside. From her vantage point in the kitchen, she watched him, her hands paused over the mixing bowl.

  He was wearing jeans again and she would be hard-pressed to decide which look of his she preferred.

  Expensively tailored and dangerous looking, or casually clad and dangerous looking.

  He crouched down beside the fireplace, stacking the armload of wood he�
�d brought in, then briskly stoked the fire that burned day in and day out. When he was satisfied, he planted his hands on his thighs and straightened. Shrugged out of his coat and tossed it haphazardly over one end of the sectional couch, where it slithered off the leather to the floor.

  He walked toward the kitchen, seeming to look at the empty whirlpool tub as he passed it.

  She wondered what he was thinking. She knew what she thought about the tub. She’d had a painfully vivid dream about it. And him. Lots of warm, seductively bubbling water, lots of skin, lots of contact.

  Fortunately, she’d safely refocused her attention on the melted chocolate that she was pouring into the fluffy mixture of sugar and butter by the time he edged into the kitchen. The space was more than roomy enough for one person, but it was definitely cozy with two.

  Cozy. Like the tub had been in her dream.

  She swallowed and tightened her hand on the small saucepan she’d used to melt several chocolate squares.

  ‘Smells good in here.’ He looked over her shoulder at the mixing bowl. ‘What’s that?’

  She tried to swat his hand away from the glossy ribbon of chocolate streaming into the bowl. ‘Don’t taste that,’ she warned. ‘It’s really’

  He’d already stuck his finger in his mouth, though. ‘Bitter.’ He made a face.

  She laughed. ‘That’ll teach you to stick your fingers where they don’t belong.’ She scraped the chocolate pan and deftly folded the mixture in the bowl. Then she slipped her own finger along the edge, gathering some batter on her fingertip. ‘Now this is the good stuff.’ She started to put her finger in her mouth, but Alex wrapped his hand around her wrist and licked the batter off it himself.

  The large wooden spoon plopped from her hand into the bowl. Her fingers, including the one he’d just popped in and out of his mouth, curled against her palm.

  He was nodding, still holding her wrist. ‘Much better.’ He jiggled her hand. ‘Come on. Open up. I want more.’

  What devil was possessing him?

  She figured it was safer not to find out.

  With her free hand, she fished the spoon out of the batter and held it up for him. Batter dripped down the handle, over her fingers. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  He let go of her wrist and she quickly turned away, slipping off the stool to shove her hands under the faucet and wash away the sticky batter. When she figured her expression was schooled again, she turned off the water, dried her hands on a paper towel and turned back to the stool.

  The spoon was pretty much licked clean. And he had a small smear of chocolate right next to the corner of his mouth.

  She tucked her tongue between her teeth and looked away, reaching for the eggs.

  ‘So what’s next?’

  His arm brushed against her as he stretched across her to lob the spoon into the sink.

  So much for trying to keep her composure. ‘Eggs.’ She cracked one on the side of the bowl too hard, and had to fish out pieces of shell from the batter as a result. She dropped the shells in the trash and added two more eggs, this time more carefully.

  Alex didn’t budge. He continued standing there watching, his hands braced flat against the mottled granite countertop, making his shoulders bulge against the thin black crewneck sweater he wore. She stirred in the eggs, feeling completely self-conscious, until finally she looked at him, exasperated. ‘Don’t you have something else to do?’

  ‘One would think.’

  Yet he didn’t move.

  She lifted her eyebrows. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve never really watched anyone cook before.’

  She made a disbelieving sound.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he insisted.

  ‘Don’t you ever watch a cooking show on television? No. Scratch that. The only thing you ever watch is news. Or sports.’ For a ‘suit,’ he was definitely into sports. Made sense that he’d established one of the premier sports medicine clinics in the U.S. Though she slid a glance his way again he didn’t look so much like a ‘suit’ lately, at all. ‘Did you ever want to be in anything other than the health care industry?’

  ‘Like plumbing?’ His lips tilted. ‘There are days.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘Nuts?’

  ‘More often lately,’ he replied blandly.

  She picked up a small bag of chopped nuts, glad she’d had the presence of mind to beef up Alex’s grocery order, which was delivered every few days. ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Good. She loved chocolate, but put a nut in it any kind of nut and she was a goner. She tore open the bag and dumped the entire contents into the bowl. It was twice the amount the recipe called for, but she didn’t care. The more the merrier. ‘Didn’t you ever watch your mom cook when you were growing up?’

  ‘My mother couldn’t boil water if she had to.’

  ‘So who cooked in your family?’

  Now he really looked amused. ‘The cook.’

  ‘How silly of me.’ Nikki started to reach for the pan she’d already greased, and felt a sharp kick in her midriff. She froze. Slowly sat back, rubbing the spot on her abdomen. ‘Wow. Major kick. Can you hand me that pan?’ She pointed.

  He reached around her and pulled it close. ‘Does she do that a lot?’

  ‘Kick?’ Nikki nodded. ‘And I thought you’d decided it was a boy. Because of the way I’m carrying him all up front.’

  ‘Wives’ tales,’ he murmured. He watched her pour the batter into the pan and slip it into the oven.

  ‘Want to lick the bowl?’ She was thoroughly amused at this boyish side of him. Amused and delighted.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Of course. What’s the point of baking if you can’t lick the bowl?’

  ‘Well, if you ask me, you could have left more in the bowl than you did, instead of scraping it all out like that into the pan.’

  She handed him a clean spoon. ‘Eat too much batter and you’d make yourself sick.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ His head bumped hers as they both attacked the bowl.

  ‘My mother. She’s the one who taught me to cook. And bake.’

  ‘Yeah, well, mothers are probably supposed to warn their daughters against all sorts of dangerous behavior.’ He tucked the spoon upside down in his mouth, clearly savoring the bit of batter clinging to it.

  Nikki exhaled a little and patted her stomach. ‘I’m sure she never expected to have to warn me about this. I’m the one who was supposed to have my act together.’

  He shot her a look. ‘And you don’t?’

  She was startled. He thought that? ‘Everybody always thinks I do.’ She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. ‘It’s always been an act.’

  ‘Since when?’ His tone was clearly skeptical.

  ‘I guess since my father died. Belle was having a lot of surgeries she was injured in a car accident about a year before my dad died oh, well, you probably remember that from her working at Huffington.’

  He nodded. Reached past her yet again, his arm brushing against hers, to toss this spoon into the sink, as well. It clattered with a comfortable, cozy jangle.

  Her thoughts scrambled for a minute and she grabbed at them somewhat desperately. ‘Anyway, she Belle was going through a lot, and my mom was having to keep things together after my dad died. I just it was better for me not to add to the burden.’ Keeping herself together, putting one step in front of another, dealing with school and home, making things easier for her mom and sister wherever she could, had gotten her through that time.

  ‘I’ve met your mother,’ he commented. ‘When she and Squire?’ He waited for her confirming nod.

  ‘When they visited you a few summers ago. She didn’t strike me as a woman who’d consider anything to do with her daughter a burden.’

  ‘I know.’ Alex was right, of course. Nikki set aside her own spoon. The bowl was clean as a whistle.

  ‘But it was my method.’

  ‘And it’s never changed. That why you found it so hard to impos
e upon them for help now?’

  ‘Twisted, isn’t it?’

  His long fingers toyed with the handle of the old-fashioned pouring bowl. He was leaning on his arms now, his head on her level. And his gaze was steady on her. ‘Family dynamics. Always an adventure. Some more pleasant than others.’

  His had definitely been less pleasant than hers.

  The knowledge of it made her hurt inside for the boy he’d been.

  ‘Well, I adore my family, which probably makes my mind-set a little hard to understand.’

  ‘You adore them and don’t want to worry or concern them, so you go out of your way to be the pinnacle of self-sufficiency. Taking care of them, in your way. Not so hard to understand.’

  And, it turned out, he was a caretaker, too. She would never have guessed it if not for these past several days. ‘You’ve been away from Huffington for two weeks.’

  ‘As of tomorrow,’ he agreed.

  She focused on the smear of chocolate still near his lips. For some reason, it came home to her how he’d stuck by her for all that time. And he seemed intent on sticking until she was well enough to go home.

  A tickle burned behind her eyes. She reached up and gently brushed her thumb over the smear, rubbing it away. ‘Chocolate,’ she whispered.

  His lashes lowered a little. His voice lowered even more. ‘Is it gone?’

  It was. She shook her head, blatantly lying and not caring one whit.

  He started to lift his hand to rub the spot. But she caught his wrist, the same way he’d caught hers when he’d licked the batter from her fingertip. She leaned forward and pressed her mouth softly to the place where the chocolate had been.

  He tasted better than any chocolate ever would.

  And she’d lost her mind.

  Her pulse thundered. His fingers moved and she vaguely realized her breasts were pressing against his captured arm. She slowly drew back, one aching inch at a time. ‘I’m sorry.’ Sanity ebbed back. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’