His Brother's Fiancée

by Jasmine Cresswell

  Until she married Jordan, she'd been scared of falling in love, terrified at the loss of control that she associated with sexual passion. She wondered why she had taken so much longer than most people to realize that true love was nothing more—and nothing less—than an intoxicating mixture of friendship and passion, cemented by trust. Looking back, she could hardly believe that only a few weeks earlier her cool, asexual relationship with Michael had seemed the perfect foundation for marriage. Heavens, she'd been seriously screwed up! Until Jordan, love had struck her as something dangerous and complicated. Now it seemed blissfully simple.

  Jordan parked the car and they walked into the loft hand in hand and made straight for the bedroom. The hunger for physical intimacy seemed life-affirming after the emotionally draining encounter with Maria. Emily tossed her wrap and evening purse onto the chair. Jordan shed his jacket and tugged at his black tie, then his fingers fumbled with the onyx studs of his dress shirt.

  Watching him, Emily was seized by a rash of sexual longing so intense that for a moment she couldn't move. Jordan had hands that were steady and skillful enough to produce carvings of surpassing beauty. It was unbearably erotic to realize that he became clumsy with desire in her presence.

  "Let me do that," Emily said huskily, when she could speak.

  Jordan forgot to breathe as Emily slipped the studs out of his shirt and let them drop onto the carpet. She threw his shirt away, indifferent to where it fell. She bent, her hair brushing against his bare skin as she ran her mouth over his chest, then stepped back so that she could slip the thin silk straps of her dress from her shoulders. As he'd guessed earlier, she wore nothing beneath the dress except a pair of panty hose. The effect was still stunning, and he let his breath out in a harsh gasp.

  Jordan had never seen a woman so beautiful. He wanted to make love to her now even more than last night, when her body had been unknown to him. Along with desire, he felt a surge of tenderness. This was Emily, his wife. His wife. He framed her face with his hands, pulling the pins from her hair and letting them drop onto the floor.

  "I love you," he said.

  "I love you, too." She looked up at him, her eyes sheened with tears. "Jordan, thank you."

  "For what?" He brushed away a single drop of moisture from her cheek.

  "For being there tonight. For asking me to marry you. For being you."

  Having grown up in a family that didn't understand the first thing about what made him tick, Jordan discovered there was a special joy in hearing the woman he loved offer acceptance of everything he was.

  "It's me who should be thanking you." He took Emily's hand and held it against his cheek, moving his lips to press a kiss into her palm. Then he grinned, lightening the mood. "Come to bed and let me show you how grateful I am."

  She answered his smile, although her eyes were still a little misty. "I'm so glad I married you, Jordan. You have the best ideas."

  EPILOGUE

  Carolyn St. Clair was late. These days, it seemed she was always late as she tried to cope with problems in her personal and professional lives that had begun to intersect in ways that had destroyed her usual efficiency. She hurried the last few yards to Perk at the Park, slipping into the seat across from Emily and struggling to catch her breath.

  "Hi Emily." She sipped from the glass of ice water her friend had thoughtfully provided. "Sorry I'm late."

  "That's okay." Emily smiled. "I only got here a few minutes ago myself."

  "I've been playing catch-up all morning." Carolyn gave a rueful grin. "This past week would have worked out just fine if I never needed to sleep and there had been twenty-five hours in each day."

  Emily made a sympathetic sound. "You should have called and cancelled. We could have had lunch another day."

  "No. It's Saturday, I refuse to think about work anymore right now. Besides, I wanted to find out how everything went last night. I'm dying to hear the whole story of the meeting with your father. So did Robert Pardoe turn up as promised?"

  "Yes, he came." Emily toyed with the menu.

  "And? And?"

  "It was very strange at first. We'd met several times last year, working on that fund-raising project I told you about, so in one sense you could say we were already acquainted. But it was quite different to meet him knowing he was my biological father."

  "What excuses did he have for abandoning Maria when she was pregnant?"

  "Quite a good one, actually. He admits that he refused to help Maria when she first told him she was pregnant. Then a week later, his conscience got the better of him and he tried to find her. Not to offer marriage, but at least to provide financial help."

  "Why couldn't he find her?"

  "Because Maria had deliberately chosen to disappear. She'd lied to him about her situation. Robert didn't know she was an illegal immigrant, and the address she'd given him was a fake, so he could never find her." Emily gave a shrug. "Maybe he didn't exactly beat down the doors of San Antonio looking for her, but I do believe he at least tried."

  "Which I guess is more than a lot of college kids would have done," Carolyn said.

  "Especially a football star who had half the girls on campus competing for his attention," Emily agreed.

  "Robert Pardoe has a reputation for being really interested in the welfare of young kids who get caught up in the juvenile justice system," Carolyn commented. "Maybe that's his way of making up for not helping Maria."

  "Yes, he said as much to me. He told me that one of the big regrets of his life has been not knowing if he had a child somewhere in the world. Or worse, he wondered if Maria might have had an abortion because his initial reaction had been to refuse to help her financially. He seemed pretty relieved when I told him that I had great adoptive parents, and that they'd provided a loving home, a terrific education. Everything a father could want for his child."

  "Except the chance to know you."

  "Odd you should say that. Robert said almost exactly the same thing."

  Carolyn watched a couple go past, pushing a toddler in a stroller. "Robert's married, isn't he? I seem to remember reading that in an article about him in the local paper."

  "Yes, and he has two teenage sons. My biological half brothers."

  Carolyn sat up, startled. "You have two teenage brothers?"

  "Yes, amazing, isn't it?" Emily stirred her straw in her iced coffee. "We made a tentative arrangement that I should meet them sometime next month. Apparently Robert Pardoe is from an enormous family. It turns out I have enough new aunts, uncles and cousins to fill a jumbo jet if we ever decide to have a family reunion."

  Carolyn shook her head. "Gee, that must be a really strange feeling."

  "It sure is." Emily laughed a touch ruefully. "Having grown up as an only child, it's going to take time to get used to the idea that I have twenty-three biological first cousins."

  Carolyn grinned. "Thank goodness you didn't know about them before you and Jordan got married. At least you avoided horrible family arguments about how many of them were going to be invited to the wedding. Can you imagine Amelia's face if she'd had to plan seating arrangements for Maria, Robert and his wife, and your parents? Not to mention the twenty-three extra cousins!"

  "Amelia would have had a heart attack. Or pretended to have one as an excuse to retire to her bed," Emily said, laughing. "But Raelene and Sam would probably have taken it all in stride. They're really the kindest, most generous parents anyone could have. Look at how understanding they were about Maria. They knew I was only going to have a few weeks with her, and they could have filled that time with recriminations. Instead, they went out of their way to be sure that every day we had together was as happy for both of us as it could be. And Sam would have paid all the expenses for her funeral if Jordan hadn't insisted that we wanted to do it ourselves."

  "This has been an incredibly emotional few weeks for you," Carolyn said sympathetically. "I can hardly imagine what you've been going through."

  "It's been stressful," Emil
y admitted. "But I'm just so grateful that Maria and I managed to have some time to get to know each other. When I start wishing that we could have had longer, I remind myself how lucky I was to find her at all." Her voice was briefly husky. "Between marrying Jordan and having Raelene and Sam as parents, I don't have much cause for self-pity."

  Carolyn smiled a little wistfully when she saw the way her friend's expression softened as she said her husband's name. "From that sickeningly mushy expression you're wearing, I guess I can conclude that the Sutton-Chambers marriage isn't about to break up anytime soon?"

  "No, I've pretty much decided to keep Jordan for the next sixty years or so."

  "That sounded heartfelt."

  Emily's cheeks tinged with pink, and her voice became dreamy. "It was. I had no idea that falling in love could be so wonderful, Caro. I know people write poetry about it, and sing romantic songs, but as far as I was concerned, that was all in the realm of fantasy. I never imagined it could happen to me."

  But it had, Carolyn thought. Emily and Jordan were so much in love that they glowed when they were together. And if Emily could find her true love a mere twenty-four hours before she was planning to walk down the aisle with the wrong brother, then maybe there was hope for Carolyn to find her own happy ending. One day. Maybe. Miracles could happen, after all.

  TRUEBLOOD, TEXAS

  continues next month with

  A FATHER'S VOW

  By Tina Leonard

  The day Ben Mulholland walked in to Finders Keepers, Carolyn St. Clair's life changed forever. The man she'd loved and lost six years ago was asking for her help, and she couldn't refuse. His little girl needed a miracle, so Carolyn would move heaven and earth to find one. Maybe in the process she and Ben would rediscover their own magic.

  Here's a preview!

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Carolyn, this is Marissa," Ben said.

  He didn't know that Carolyn had devoured the pictures of him and his new bride in the newspaper six years ago when they'd married.

  The two women assessed each other and, fortunately, the little girl Marissa held by the hand leapt into Ben's lap so they could break eye contact.

  "Carolyn," Ben said, his voice soft and gentle, "This is my daughter, Lucy."

  And his daughter's bright smile sent all the misgivings she'd been nursing right out of her head. "Hello, Lucy. You sure are pretty."

  "I know." She grinned at Carolyn. "Everyone says I look like Mommy."

  Carolyn smiled. "You do."

  "But I'm going to look like my daddy when I grow up." She turned in her father's lap, then kissed him on the nose and patted him on the cheek with a soft, pudgy hand. "I'm going to marry my daddy when I grow up."

  Well, that makes three of us in the same room who considered marrying Ben Mulholland, Carolyn thought wryly.

  "I need thirty more minutes," Ben said over Lucy's shoulder as he looked up at Marissa.

  Marissa nodded. Her gaze flicked to Carolyn while she reached to take Lucy's hand. "It was nice meeting you," she said. "Ben has a lot of faith in you. I hope you can help us."

  Help us. The plural caught Carolyn off guard. This was, then, a family situation that had brought Ben to her. Nothing she need fear. The past was not going to jump out at her with painful memories. "I'll do my best," she told Marissa sincerely. "Although I have yet to hear the situation, I most certainly hope Finders Keepers can resolve it."

  Lucy and Marissa went out, the door closing behind them. Carolyn glanced down at the blank notepad in front of her, the cassette she had not yet loaded into the recorder. "She's beautiful, Ben," she said, meaning Lucy but knowing the word encompassed his ex-wife as well.

  "Lucy is my sole joy." He leaned forward and Carolyn's gaze involuntarily jumped to his face. "She means the world to me. I can't even tell you how much I love my daughter." It seemed that the earnestness left his eyes for a moment as he focused inward. Then he said slowly, "She has leukemia, Carolyn."