Lawfully Unwed

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  That’s good. Would’ve had to marry you.

  She made an impatient sound and turned off the water. She mopped the mascara smudges from around her eyes, pulled on the soft pink biker-style jacket that Delia had talked her into buying at Classic Charms a few days earlier to go with her black jeans and left the bathroom just in time to hear a truck engine out front.

  Her stomach lurched, but this time it wasn’t because of nausea. It was simply pure nervousness.

  She opened the front door to wave at Archer, then ducked back inside. She went into the second bedroom, where she’d set up a small table and enough shelves to house her collection of books, and picked up the stack of stapled packets she’d been preparing in her spare time for the workshop.

  Archer had told her that his office in Denver could have taken care of it, but if she’d agreed, she wouldn’t have felt like she was contributing anything to what was supposed to be their combined effort.

  It was hard enough being ineffectual while waiting for the bar’s decision regarding her future as a lawyer. She didn’t need to feel useless where everything else was concerned, too.

  She shouldered her briefcase strap and with her arms full of the packets, went back out to the living room. As usual, bells jangled inside her at the sight of him, tall and gold and crazily handsome, as he walked through her front door and set a stack of mail on the little table she’d placed there so she’d have a spot to dump her keys when she came in every day.

  Like her, he was wearing black jeans. His white shirt was rolled up at the elbows and open at the neck. His jaw was clean-shaven and his hair was slicked back and if she hadn’t vowed not to repeat the mistake that had gotten her into her latest predicament, she’d have been busily wondering if she possessed what it would take to seduce him.

  But she had vowed, and she was not in the market to do anything such thing.

  So she summarily dumped the packets into his hands. “I just have another box of handouts to grab.” She frowned when he set the packets on the small table, as well.

  There wasn’t a single trace of amusement in his deep green gaze. Not a hint of a dimple in his lean cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He pulled a thin envelope from his back pocket.

  There was no postage stamp on the corner and she recognized the seal on the front of it and felt her nerves pinch. “Have you become an official deliveryman now for the bar association?”

  “They knew I was seeing you. Instead of making you wait for it to come by mail...” He held it out but when she went to reach for it, he tipped it out of her grasp. “I know you don’t want to wait to see what it says, but there’s something I need to—” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Just...just wait a minute before you decide to open it up.”

  She frowned even harder and her alarm grew. It was rare to see him looking so... She didn’t even have a word for it. Uncomfortable wasn’t quite right. Neither was uncertain.

  “Why?”

  “Because I...well, hell.” He turned to the stuff on the table and sent the stack of packets careening onto the floor. He muttered an oath and if she weren’t mistaken, a dusky tide of color was rising up his throat as he tried and failed to catch them.

  She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, because as alarmed as she was feeling inside, it was seriously, seriously gratifying to see him have to fumble. Just once. Just a little.

  She set down her briefcase and crouched next to him, gathering up the thick packets. Some had even landed outside the open door. She leaned on her hand and reached past him to get them, then sat back on her heels and dropped them onto the untidy pile he’d managed to gather. “Want to tell me what’s going on here or should I start making guesses?”

  “You wouldn’t guess this.” He dumped the packets back onto the table, then straightened and took her hands and pulled her to her feet. “Maybe you should sit.”

  Her mouth went dry. “Is Vivian all right?” His grandmother had returned from Philadelphia the week before without offering any explanations for her abrupt trip. Nell could only assume she’d been seeing doctors despite Delia’s claim otherwise.

  His brows jerked together. “Yeah. Yeah. She’s fine.”

  Nell sank down on the edge of the couch. She’d bought it from Classic Charms. It was secondhand, but it was a pretty shade of blue and comfortable to boot. “Then what?”

  “Martin’s facing federal charges on bribery and extortion,” he said abruptly. Bluntly. “He was arrested early this morning.”

  Her jaw dropped.

  Archer crouched in front of her, his hands clasping hers. “He might not pay the price for anything else, but he’s going to pay the price for this.”

  “But how...what?” She could hardly comprehend it. “Does Ros know? Have you talked to Meredith?”

  “Yes. And yes. I saw Ros for a few minutes before I started heading up here. Needless to say, the law firm’s going to be picked apart before long. Investigations like that tend to spawn more. She’s pretty shaken up.”

  Nell’s eyes dampened. “I can imagine. I hope Jonathan is with her.”

  He made a face. “I think they already split up a while ago. Meredith and my dad are on their way to Cheyenne. I don’t know if Ros will be all that ready to see them, but they’re going to try.”

  Her eyes flooded with more tears. “I can’t believe it.” She swiped her cheek. “Where’s the letter you brought for me?”

  He took it back out of his pocket and set it beside her on the couch. “There’s more.”

  “I’m not sure my nerves can handle more.” She picked up the envelope and slid her finger beneath the sealed flap.

  “What about your heart?”

  She stared. “What?”

  His throat had that dusky color again. “This is one of those when-it-rains-it-pours times.” He got up again and went back to the table by the door, fumbling through the mess until he pulled out another envelope.

  This one was thicker. Larger. And when he handed it to her, she could immediately feel that it contained a book.

  “I should have given it to you a long time ago.” He rubbed his fingers through his hair, looking oddly embarrassed. “I planned to. But things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would, and—”

  “Archer, what on earth are you talking about?”

  “Just open it.”

  Her heart was suddenly chugging inside her chest, pushing up into her throat. She pulled open the flap and tipped the book out onto her lap.

  The dust jacket was glossy. In perfect condition except for the small tear in one corner.

  She traced a shaking finger over the fat little penguin on the cover. “Monty Meets Mary,” she whispered. Her mother’s tenth book. The only one she had never been able to find.

  A tear splashed on the cover and she slowly wiped it away.

  “It was in a used-book store in Montana. Total coincidence that I found it.” He shrugged, still looking uncomfortable. Uncertain. “I’d gotten in the habit of always looking for one of her books whenever I saw a used-book store. I was going to give it to you when you passed the bar. When I—”

  “That long?” She swiped her cheeks. “You’ve had it that long? Why didn’t you—” She broke off, because it didn’t matter how long he’d had it. “It doesn’t matter.” She pressed the book to her heart. “Thank you.”

  “You didn’t let me finish.” He crouched in front of her again and took her hand and her heart lurched all over again at the realization that his hand wasn’t entirely steady. “What I was saying was that I was going to give it to you when I asked you to marry me.”

  She went still. Her eyes felt trapped in his gaze.

  He slowly reached out to draw a curl away from her face. “I didn’t want you just to be my partner back then, Cornelia. You were the girl I w
anted. The girl I wanted to be my wife. I still—”

  “You were seeing someone else. One of the professors. Ros told me.”

  He looked pained. “You think she wanted to share her best friend with the stepbrother she couldn’t stand?”

  “I never told her about us!”

  “I did.”

  “What?”

  He scrubbed his hand down his face. When his gaze met hers again, his eyes were steady. “I know there’s no point trying to whitewash my own behavior. I knew you wanted to join Martin’s firm more than anything. Ros knew it, too, and she liked tossing that fact at me just because she knew how much it stung. So I told her about us just so she’d shut up.”

  “She never said anything to me.”

  “She wouldn’t, would she?”

  “So she lied to me about the professor?”

  “It wasn’t a lie. It was just information that was a couple years too old. And don’t be mad at her for being foolish. We were all foolish then.”

  She was trembling. “You had an affair with one of the professors while you were still in school.”

  “Does it matter now? It was a long time ago. Before I fell in love with you.”

  She pressed the book harder against her breast, feeling his words quaking inside her. “I fell in love with you, too,” she whispered.

  “And now? Because you didn’t let me finish again. I still want you to be my wife, Nell.” He flicked his finger against the envelope lying on the couch beside her. “Regardless of what that says. I’m sick of pretending. Sick of waiting.” He pressed his lips for a moment to the back of her hand that he still held. “Everything that’s happened since you danced on that bar in Cheyenne and landed in my arms has made me face that fact. I want you as my partner. As my lover. And maybe—” His jaw canted for a moment.

  When he spoke again, his voice was husky. “And maybe one day you will be pregnant. Because you want to have my child as much I do.”

  There was a river of tears running down her face and she couldn’t do a thing to stop it. She decided that was just what had to happen when a heart was too full.

  She stood, still clasping Monty Meets Mary with one hand and Archer with her other. “Come.” She pulled him into her spare bedroom and carefully slid the book into place on the shelf next to number nine. “This is number eleven.” She pulled it out and placed it in his hands. “Monty Marries Mary.” She kissed him slowly. “Yes. I want you to be my husband.”

  He started to reach for her but she shook her head. “Wait.” She pulled out the last of her mother’s books. “This is number twelve,” she said huskily. “The final story.” She slowly placed it in his hands, feeling herself sinking into his green gaze. “Monty and Mary Have a Baby.”

  His pupils dilated a little. “You want to have a baby?” He sounded disbelieving. “With me?”

  She leaned into him and brushed her lips against his. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I am having your baby. With you.”

  His head jerked up.

  His eyes searched hers. A sparkle suddenly glinted somewhere deep inside. “Really?”

  She threaded her fingers through his and pressed them against her abdomen. “Really.”

  He dropped right then and there onto his knees and pressed his mouth against their joined hands. “I wish I had a diamond ring,” he said fervently. No hint of disbelief anymore? “It would feel more official with a ring.”

  She suddenly felt like laughing. Because that’s something a person also did when their heart was so full.

  She threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead. His cheeks. His mouth. She had a vague thought about the workshop that they were still going to need to give. About the contents of the letter from the bar association. About Ros and how they were going to have to find some way to be there for her, too, because she was going to need them.

  But for now, for at least these few minutes, and for the rest of their lives, they had this.

  “You brought me Monty Meets Mary,” she whispered. “And that, my impossible, beautiful Archer, is dearer to me than any diamond in the entire world.”

  * * *

  If you loved Nell and Archer, don’t miss the next Return to the Double-C story,

  Something About the Season

  by New York Times bestselling author Allison Leigh

  Coming November 2020

  Exclusively from Harlequin Special Edition.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Marine’s Road Home by Brenda Harlen.

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  The Marine’s Road Home

  by Brenda Harlen

  Chapter One

  Everyone had a story to tell.

  Skylar Gilmore knew it was true, even if a lot of those stories weren’t exactly page turners. Still, she was always willing to listen and fascinated by the characters telling the tales at Diggers’ Bar & Grill.

  From her position behind the polished walnut bar, she heard the accounts of regulars, less frequent customers and even the occasional tourist. To each, she offered a sympathetic ear without censure or judgment. After all, it wasn’t her job to counsel—at least not here.

  And so it was that she knew Chase Hampton intended to propose to Megan Carmichael before he’d even bought the ring, and that Erica Rainville had decided to leave her husband of twelve years—not because he was having an affair with his secretary but because she was, and also that Bobby Tanner and Holly Kowalski had postponed their wedding plans because they were unable to agree on when—or even if—they’d have kids.

  Bobby had been in the bar again tonight, lamenting the apparent impasse with his fiancée. Six years older than his bride-to-be, Bobby was eager to start a family. But Holly, the junior deputy in the sheriff’s department, wanted to establish herself in her career before she took time off to have a baby. Of course, that led to another argument, as Bobby expected that she would give up her job in order to be a full-time mother to their children.

  Sky had to bite her tongue when he told her that. It was the only way to not break her concrete rule about listening without judgment. She didn’t disagree that a job in law enforcement could be dangerous. How could she when her sister was an attorney married to the local sheriff? Sky knew only too well that Kate suffered through nights when her husband was called away from home.

  But Kate would be the first to say that marriage was a partnership, and though partners might not always agree, they should always support one another. Since Kate and Reid would be celebrating their third wedding anniversary in only a few months, Sky had to trust that her sister was more of an authority on the subject of marriage than she was.

  So instead of telling Bobby that he had no right to be making career decisions for the woman he claimed to love, Sky only encouraged him to keep the lines of communication open. He promised to do that, then finished his beer, tipped her generously and headed home to his fiancée.

  “Does everyone who sits at the bar spill their guts to you?” Kate had asked one night, after listening to Roger Greenway bemoan the emptiness of his life as he sipped his rum and coke.

  Sky couldn’t help but empathize with the divorced father who only saw his kids twice a month now that his ex had remarried and moved out of town with them.

  “Everyone,” she’d confirmed in response to her sister’s question.

  Because it had seemed true at the time.

  Before she’d met the handsome—and mysterious—stranger she referred to as John. In the six years that she’d been pouring drinks at Diggers’, he was the lone holdout.

 
She’d been chatting with Jerry Tate when the newcomer walked into the bar around 9:50 p.m. on a Wednesday night five weeks earlier. But she’d caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, as he’d paused inside the door and surveyed the room—as if he was looking for someone.

  Just over six feet tall, he had broad shoulders that tested the seams of his long-sleeved Henley-style shirt, and muscular legs encased in jeans faded almost white at the stress points. The simple attire did nothing to disguise his strength, and she was helpless to prevent the quiver that reverberated through her system.

  And then his eyes had caught and held hers.

  She’d started to smile, because she was a friendly person and because it had been a long time since she’d felt such an instantaneous awareness and intense attraction. But he clearly hadn’t registered a similar reaction on his end, because he quickly shifted his gaze.

  After scanning the room, he squared those wide shoulders and moved resolutely toward the bar. His pace was deliberate, unhurried, and as he drew nearer, Sky noted that his square jaw was unshaven and his eyes were the color of premium whiskey.

  Despite the sting of his visual dismissal, Sky curved her lips again as the stranger edged a hip onto a stool at the bar. “Hi there.”

  His only response was a stiff nod of acknowledgment.

  “New to town or just passing through?” she wondered aloud, as he perused the labels on the taps in front of him.

  “I’ll have a pint of Sam Adams.”

  A New Englander, she guessed, as she selected a glass mug and tipped it under the spout. There’d been no hint of an accent in his voice, but his chosen beverage might be a clue.

  She set the beer on a paper coaster in front of him.

  No “please” or “thank you,” either, she noted, as he wrapped his hand around the mug.

  “Are you from Massachusetts?” she asked.