Instead, he realized ironically, it was him, pretending he didn’t want the things he did. Not that this current roadblock was going to stop him. He would win her heart, no matter how long it took.
“Like marriage,” he guessed, keeping his attitude as ultracasual as hers.
The soft swell of her breasts rose and fell. “It’s not for me.” She gripped his forearms beseechingly. “And since you’re as wedded to your family business as I am to my new café-bistro, we make a perfect pair.”
That much he could agree on. He’d never met a woman who fascinated him the way Sage did.
That being the case, maybe he should be a gentleman, try it her way. “So how would this work?” he asked curiously. If there was anything his own joke-of-a-love-life had taught him, it was never to crowd a woman. Never jump the gun. It was slow and steady patience that would win out in the end. A tact that had moved them from friends, to lovers and possibly parents, thus far. He took her all the way into his arms. “Us having a baby together?”
Sage splayed her hands across his chest. “As you might imagine...”
Oh, he could imagine, all right, he thought, body already hardening.
“...first, we get me pregnant,” she teased, her golden-brown eyes gleaming with excitement.
Nick savored the feel of her soft body pressed up against his. “Can’t say I mind working on that part...” he admitted huskily, kissing her temple. It would give him ample opportunity to make love with her again and again.
And every time he made love to her, he felt her stubborn resistance to real, enduring commitment slip, just a little bit.
Sage shrugged. “Then we have the baby and parent him or her together.”
“Under one roof?”
She stepped back, clamping her arms in front of her. “Well, I don’t think we have to go that far...”
What if I want to go that far?
She lifted her hand before he could interject. “I think it would be smart to maintain separate residences. You can live at your family ranch, I’ll keep my apartment in town. And we can care for the baby at both places. Be together as much or as little as we want.”
That sounded okay, since he knew better than anyone how one thing could easily lead to another, with Sage.
Soberly, he warned, “You know, if my quest for venture capital comes through, and I can expand into half a dozen new stores in different locations the way I’d like, I’ll be traveling some.”
Sage smiled, unperturbed. “That’s the beauty of my being here in Laramie. I have my whole family, you have yours. Between the Monroes and the Lockharts, we’ll have more backup with this baby than we know what to do with whether you’re in town or not.”
That was true.
Was it possible they could both have everything they wanted?
Especially since marriage per se didn’t mean all that much to him, either. What he really wanted was to be with Sage. Having a baby with her, well...that was the stuff of dreams, too.
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” he drawled.
“We can have it all, Nick. Friendship. Sex. Family. Plus, the freedom to live our lives exactly as we want and pursue our careers without constraint.” She toyed with the top button of his shirt. “So what do you say?”
The only thing he could if he wanted to make Sage his. He lowered his head and took possession of her lips. “Darlin’?” He kissed her again, more tenderly and persuasively now. “Consider me ‘all in’...”
Chapter Two
Four months later
Nick put the closed sign on the door of Monroe’s Western Wear and turned back to Sage.
Wheat-gold hair swept up into an untidy knot on the back of her head, her face glowing with the unmistakable light of happiness and maternal good health, she looked more gorgeous than he had ever seen her.
But the time for avoiding this conversation was over.
He walked through the rustic interior of the store, his attitude as stern as hers was stubborn. “Enough of this evading, Sage. We have to tell people.” The sooner the better, as far as he was concerned.
Sage ducked her head to avoid meeting his gaze, and continued sorting through the stack of women’s jeans. “In a couple of weeks,” she murmured, zeroing in on another size up from her normal.
He resisted the urge to direct her over to the small but well-outfitted area containing denim maternity wear. Settling with his back against the heavy wood display rack, so she would have no choice but to look at him, he asked, “You really think you can keep hiding this?”
Her lower lip thrust out into a kissable pout. “The chef’s coat and colorful aprons have worked so far.”
Actually, Nick thought, his gaze sliding down her newly voluptuous body, they hadn’t. It wasn’t just the waist and hips of the garment that were snug—the double row of buttons over her newly luscious breasts were so tight, they threatened to pop off.
Deciding, however, that might not be the best thing for him to point out, he merely inclined his head. “Your family has been giving me looks.”
“So?” She shrugged again. “They give everyone they think has designs on me looks.”
Not, he thought, the kind of looks they’d been giving him. He cleared his throat, regarded her severely, tried again. “Sage...”
She started to dart past him, then stopped, spying a Bullhaven Ranch pickup truck parking in one of the slanted spaces in front of the store. Her pretty mouth dropped into an O of surprise.
“Oh, heck!” she swore, darting off in the opposite direction toward the back of the store. “There’s Chance!” She ducked through the curtain that led to the storeroom, calling over her shoulder. “If he asks, I’m not here!”
Well, this ought to be fun, Nick thought wryly, as a second, then third pickup pulled up next to the first. Three tall men emerged from the driver’s seats. Headed toward the front of the store.
Chance Lockhart peered around the closed sign. Gestured. He wanted in. So did his two brothers.
Figuring they may as well get this over with, Nick obliged. Garrett, Wyatt and Chance Lockhart stalked in. Not surprisingly, all three of Sage’s older brothers looked loaded for bear. The only sibling not there was her Special Forces brother, Zane, who was as usual off on assignment. Garrett nodded perfunctorily at Nick. “Monroe.”
This was not looking good. “What can I do for you?” Nick asked.
Wyatt jumped in with a suspicious glare. “For starters, tell us what in blazes is going on between you and Sage.”
“Not sure what you mean.”
Chance squinted. “Are the two of you a couple? Or what?”
It took everything Nick had to suppress a groan. “I imagine Sage would classify us in the ‘or what’ category.”
Garrett’s frown deepened. “Not funny, Monroe.”
“Mom is worried sick,” Chance added.
Lucille Lockhart was a wonderful woman. Kind and generous to a fault. Nick did not want to cause her grief.
“She needn’t be.” He would care for and protect Lucille’s only female child with every fiber of his being.
“Really?” Wyatt demanded, slamming his hands on his waist. “Because from where we’re standing, it looks as if Sage has some pretty big news to share.”
So they did suspect, just as Nick had figured. Pushing aside his irritation that Sage had let it come to this, he said, “Then maybe you should be asking her.”
The brothers’ expressions turned even grimmer. “We have,” Wyatt groused. “She won’t tell us anything.”
Sounded familiar.
Suddenly, he felt sympathy for her family, even as he remained boxed in by his first obligation, which was to Sage. “What do you want me to do?” he demanded impatiently. It wasn’t like he could cont
rol Sage. No one could.
“Cowboy up,” Chance said.
Garrett nodded. “Show some responsibility.”
The intimation that he hadn’t stung.
Nick thought about all the times he’d held Sage while she cried—uncharacteristically—over the silliest things. How he’d taken it in stride when she’d fallen asleep, mid-just-about-anything, and/or asked him not to touch her breasts because her nipples were just too sensitive. Surpassed what he really wanted—like sizzling fajitas or a big juicy rare steak—and instead dined on what she was having, even if it was ginger ale and crackers.
Resentment knotted his gut. “How do you know I haven’t been?”
A skeptical silence fell.
Finally, Garrett said, “Have you asked her to marry you?”
Without warning, the curtain behind them was ripped aside. Sage stormed out, temper flaring.
This, too, was par for the course. Since conceiving, her emotions had frequently skyrocketed out of control.
“Whoa, Nellie!” Hormones raging, she marched toward her brothers, shooing them away with both arms. “You guys need to back the heck off!”
Her brothers remained where they were.
And suddenly, Nick knew what had to be done. Whether Sage liked it or not.
“They’re right.” He pivoted back toward her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “The time for pretending there’s nothing going on with us has passed, darlin’.”
Giving her no chance to protest, he swung back to her three brothers. “Sage is pregnant.” He paused to let the words sink in. Aware in that moment he had never been prouder, or happier. “And the baby is mine.”
* * *
“WELL, THAT WENT BADLY,” Nick admitted, the moment Sage’s brothers had left, more than a little disappointed to find out the two of them had no plans to marry.
“You think?” Sage paced back and forth between the aisles. She’d thought Nick was on her side in this! Fuming, she gave him a sharp look. “Now it’s only a matter of time before they tell Mom I’m pregnant with your child.”
His eyes lit up the way they always did when he knew he’d gotten under her skin. “First of all—” Nick shrugged, as if not sure what the big deal was “—you are pregnant. And your brothers are right—you can’t hide it much longer. So unless you cowgirl up and have that talk with your mother—and soon—they’ll be forced to spill.”
As always, his ultramasculine presence, the sun-warmed leather scent of him, made her feel protected and intensely aware. In an attempt to keep her equilibrium, she kept her distance from him. “That’s not really a comfort to me, Nick.”
He rubbed his hand across his closely shaven jaw, then lazily dropped it again, his eyes never leaving hers. “Hey, I call it like I see it. And for the record, Sage? I’d like to tell my family you’re carrying my baby, too!”
The bell above the door dinged.
Sage moaned, thinking it was probably her brothers, back for Round Two of Convince Sage To Do The Traditional Thing. Instead, the interloper was a gorgeous, elegantly dressed young woman Sage had never seen before.
Nick looked surprised but pleased as he moved to shake the lady’s hand. “MR! What are you doing here? I thought our meeting wasn’t until tomorrow.”
This was the lauded MR? Sage thought in shock. From the way Nick had talked about the venture capital executive, she had imagined someone older and stodgier. Not some auburn-haired beauty sporting stylish black eyeglasses who could double as a Hollywood starlet.
Not that Nick had indicated he had noticed MR’s stunning good looks.
He turned back to Sage, backtracking long enough to make introductions. “Sage, this is MR Rhodes, from Metro Equity Partners. She’s the venture capital exec I’ve been working with. MR, this is—”
“Your fiancée?” the exec guessed tartly.
So she was stodgy after all, considering her disapproving tone as her gaze moved knowingly to Sage’s tummy.
“Ah—” For the first time since the other woman had entered the store, Nick looked flummoxed.
“Baby mama?” MR guessed again, with a candid smile that did not reach her eyes.
The set of Nick’s mouth was suddenly as tense as his shoulders. “Did you want to talk business this evening?” he asked brusquely.
MR got the hint. “Briefly, I do. We’re very close to getting approval from the other partners for the deal you and I have been negotiating.”
A long, slow back and forth of ideas that had been going on as long as Sage had known Nick. “That’s great news!” he said.
MR scowled, suddenly seeming as reluctant and unhappy as Nick had a second ago. “It would be, if you weren’t in the midst of a situation.”
Oh, dear. “Maybe I should leave,” Sage said.
“No.” Nick clapped a possessive hand on her shoulder. He gave her a look that said they had nothing to hide. “You stay.”
Okay, then.
He turned back to MR. “What do you mean by situation?”
MR huffed and looked at Sage as if she were a spoiler. “The plan is to make Nick the public face of the new Western-wear stores. Have him featured prominently in every ad, with personal appearances at every location. But we can’t do that if he’s a deadbeat dad.”
Deadbeat dad? “Nick is not shirking his responsibility,” Sage said hotly.
“I know my partners. They are old-school, family men. There is no way they’re going to go for the new company spokesperson—the brand representative, if you will—having a kid out of wedlock. It’s just not going to happen.” MR looked Nick in the eye. “So unless you want to be trapped here in this one-horse town, in this one-horse store, in perpetuity, the two of you need to get hitched. Pronto.”
Sage turned to Nick in a panic. She didn’t want him to lose everything he had been working so hard to achieve, any more than she wanted to be backed into a corner herself. To her relief, he reached over and gave her hand an understanding squeeze.
“What if we had the rest of my family—my three sisters and brother, and all my nephews and nieces—in the ads?” Nick proposed. “Maybe even use photos of the rest of the Monroe clan. We could go back as far as the store’s beginnings, which is four generations.”
“No. You are the one they want to see in all the ads. And you can see why, right?” MR turned to Sage in full business mode. “He’s like a younger, hotter, tall-dark-and-handsome Ralph Lauren. Our vision and the success of the new venture hinges on Nick’s sex appeal, his image as an upstanding cowboy and devoted family man. And with you pregnant, Sage, regardless of how either of you feel about it, that means marriage. ASAP.”
“We can’t make a decision like that on the fly,” Nick countered.
“Understandable. You all need to talk about it. In the meantime, my assistant, Everett Keller, is checking into the Laramie Inn. We’d like to have dinner locally. So if you could recommend a place with fresh fish. Shrimp. Scallops. Salmon.” MR picked up on Sage’s distaste. “Something wrong?”
Sage shook her head. Nope. Nothing to see here.
But the ever-probing venture capitalist wouldn’t let it go, so Nick placed a comforting hand on Sage’s spine. “Sage got sick on shrimp early in her pregnancy. Just thinking about it makes her ill.”
An understatement if there ever was one. She couldn’t even look at recipes. Never mind photos of the cooked food. And she was a chef! Hopefully, the malady would pass. But for now, a simple whiff made her toss her cookies. Pronto.
“I see,” MR said.
When clearly she didn’t.
Eager to discuss something other than her continuing battle with morning—or in some cases, evening—sickness, Sage wrote down the name of a bed-and-breakfast located a short distance away. “They have an executive chef that’s on par wi
th the best in Dallas, and the menu and wine list to go with. You’ll need reservations. But if you tell them you’re here to do business with Nick and he recommended it, I’m sure they’ll find a way to fit you in this evening.”
“Thanks.” MR looked grateful.
“No problem,” Sage said.
She’d do whatever she could to help Nick.
Short of ruining everything and marrying him, of course.
* * *
“MR IS RIGHT,” Hope Lockhart said, a short time later, when Sage and Nick went over to her brother and sister-in-law’s home. The four of them gathered in the kitchen of the Victorian, while one-year-old Max sat in his high chair and ate his dinner of green beans and diced meatballs.
A crisis manager and public relations expert, Hope had guided the family through several calamities since first meeting them the previous summer. “While there are many customers who won’t care whether you or Nick ever tie the knot, there are others who will be up in arms over it,” Hope told them gently. “You don’t want to lose any potential business right out of the gate. Not if you want this venture to be a success.”
“Think of the plus side,” Garrett added, from his place at the stove. Winking, he gave the boiling pasta and spaghetti sauce another stir. “Mom will be delighted.”
It was all Sage could do not to groan. “Did you all tell her yet?”
Garrett shook his head. “Like we said a while ago at the store, that news is yours to deliver, sis. I just wouldn’t wait too long.”
“Want to do it now?” Nick asked, as he and Sage turned down an invitation to stay for dinner and left.
The sun had set, leaving the quiet residential street bathed in the yellow glow of the streetlamps. Stars shone overhead.
Feeling the need for some support, Sage tucked her hand in Nick’s and rested her chin on the solid warmth of his upper arm. “First, we need to talk about what we’re going to do.”
Wanted--Texas Daddy Page 2
