TheSurpriseChristmasBride Read online

  “Right.”

  “Liar.”

  “Coward.”

  “Okay,” Casey said on a sigh, “I’ll do the test.”

  “Now?”

  “As soon as I hang up.”

  “’Bye.”

  There was a click and then the tuneless hum of the dial tone. Thoughtfully Casey hung up the phone and stared down at the package in her hand.

  “The moment of truth,” she muttered, and headed for the bathroom.

  Jake walked into the kitchen and stopped.

  No enticing aroma welcomed him.

  His gaze shot around the room. No pots were huddled on the stove. No elegant tempting dessert sat on the marble countertop. Even the coffeepot was empty, though the burner had been left on.

  He stepped inside, turned off the coffeemaker, then looked around the empty room as if waiting for Casey to magically appear. Where was she? For the first time in their short marriage, she wasn’t cooking. Surprising how quickly you became used to something. And he’d grown accustomed to hearing the clatter of pots, Casey’s slightly off-key yet enthusiastic singing and, especially, the food.

  The woman was a Michelangelo of the kitchen. After their wedding, people in Simpson had talked of little else but the meal she’d prepared almost single-handedly. It was no wonder she’d received more than a dozen phone calls asking her—no, beggingher—to cater small holiday parties.

  He snatched his hat off, scratched his head and went into the darkened hall. There were no lights on. Not even in the great room, where falling snow was displayed through the window in Christmas-card perfection. Frowning, he kept moving. Something was wrong.

  He snorted a choked laugh at that understatement. What was rightabout their marriage? There probably weren’t many newlywed couples who not only didn’t share a bed but hardly spoke to each other. His fault, he knew. Casey had tried. But every time he felt himself weakening, wanting to hold her, kiss her, he heard her voice again, saying those three words that were enough to douse even hisdesire.

  I love you.

  He frowned and hastened his steps. At the end of the hall his bedroom door—Casey’sbedroom door—stood wide open. He peered into the dusky room, whispering her name. No answer. His chest tightened. What the hell was going on? His gaze shifted. Across the room a slash of light underlined the bottom of the bathroom door. Cautiously he walked toward it.

  From inside, he heard her muttering to herself and immediately felt relief wash through him. At least she was all right. Lifting one hand, he tapped gently on the door.

  “Jake?”

  Relieved beyond words to hear her speaking to him, he said, “Yeah. It’s me. Are you OK?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, then sniffed. “In the pink.”

  He frowned slightly. Something in her voice told him there was a problem. He wanted to know what it was.

  “Casey? Open up.”

  “Go away, Jake.”

  All right. Now he hadto know what was going on. He tossed his hat onto the bed behind him and faced the closed door as he would any other enemy.

  “Casey, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong.”

  She laughed. A short choked laugh that sounded painful.

  “Casey, damn it…” He laid one palm against the wood as if he could feel her through the barrier. Worry sputtered into life inside him.

  “Oh…”

  “Are you going to open the door, or do I take it off the hinges?”

  She laughed shortly, and even through the closed door, he could tell there was no humor in it.

  “Probably simpler just to turn the knob,” she said at last. “It’s not locked.”

  He shook his head, grabbed the knob and turned it. As the door opened, light poured out of the room, and it took a second or two for his eyes to adjust. He saw her sitting on the rim of the tub, staring down at the white plastic stick in her hands.

  “Casey?”

  “White, no. Pink, yes.”

  “What did you say?”

  “White, no. Pink, yes.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. Her gaze was fixed on that damned stick as if it meant life or death. Irritation simmered inside him. He crossed his arms over his chest and stood there, feet wide apart in a comfortable stance he would keep just as long as it took him to get some answers.

  “Why pink, do you think?”

  “Pink what?” He tore his gaze from her bent head and glanced around the room looking for clues. Obviously she wasn’t going to tell him what was wrong. He would have to find out for himself. He hadn’t been in the master bathroom since the wedding. When had she had time to set pots of poinsettias in the terra-cotta window box along the back of the tub?

  He shook his head slightly and continued his inspection. It seemed a little strange to see feminine jars and lotions lined up in perfect formation on a countertop that used to hold only a tube of toothpaste and a bottle of aftershave. His gaze landed on an unfolded set of instructions laying half in the sink. Frowning, he reached for it at the same moment she spoke again.

  “Since it’s pink, do you suppose that means it’s a girl?”

  He froze, then slowly swiveled his head to look at her.

  “No,” she argued with herself. “Pink just means pregnant. It could be a boy.”

  Girl? Boy? His mouth went dry and his brain blanked out. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? No. Of course she wasn’t. It was only the one time. What were the odds?

  She lifted her head and met his gaze through wide teary eyes, and he knew that odds or not, it was true.

  “Congratulations, Jake. We’re pregnant.” She sucked in a breath, tightened her grip on that stick and squared her shoulders as if expecting a fight.

  Pregnant. Uneasiness warred with pleasure and quickly lost. Delight trounced worry in a flat half second. Happiness battled viciously with anxiety and was clearly the winner.

  Moments passed. Two or three heartbeats at most. But in that brief time, he saw at least a dozen different emotions flash across her features. Everything from dismay to joy to a fierce protectiveness glimmered in her watery green eyes.

  He dropped to one knee in front of her, and the cold of the tile seeped through his denim jeans. Absently he told himself to have a carpet installed. He didn’t want Casey getting sick—or worse, slipping and falling on wet tile.

  He took the plastic stick from her hand and barely glanced at the deep-pink test square. Instead, he folded his hands around hers and felt a twinge of guilt at the icy feel of her skin.

  “I’m not sorry, Jake,” she said softly. “I know you don’t want this baby, but I do. And I’ll love it enough for both of us.”

  “You’re wrong, Casey.”

  She blinked at him, clearly surprised. He couldn’t really blame her—he felt a little stunned himself. But he would get over it. The important thing to remember here was that baby hadn’t made itself. And whatever else happened between him and Casey, his child wasn’t going to suffer for it.

  “It’s ourbaby,” he said firmly, willing her to believe him. “We’regoing to have a baby. In fact, this is the best Christmas present I’ve ever received.” He moved and sat down beside her on the edge of the tub. Draping one arm around her shoulders, he pulled her against him. “Whatever this marriage started out like, we just became a family.”

  Eight

  Ababy.

  Three weeks ago he’d been blissfully contentedly single. Now he was an expectant father and married to a woman he hadn’t seen in years. Jake’s gaze lifted heavenward. Somebody up there had a very interesting sense of humor.

  Casey straightened and shook her head, still staring at the test stick as if she couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

  “You know, staring at it won’t make it change color.”

  She swung her gaze to him. “This is so weird.”

  “Being pregnant?”

  “Not just that.” She paused. “Although that is definitely the weirdes
t part. It’s this whole situation, Jake.”

  He let his arm slip from her shoulder as he scooted closer to her on the tub’s edge.

  “Three weeks ago everything was different,” she said.

  Jake scowled, despite the fact that he’d been thinking the same thing only a minute ago.

  “I was supposed to marry Steven, for heaven’s sake.” Casey let her gaze drop back down to the stick she held.

  Fortunately she didn’t see him flinch at her words. It still rankled him that she’d been able to switch gears so quickly when it came to choosing husbands.

  “But then,” she went on, more to herself than to him, “if I hadmarried Steven, none of this would be happening.”

  True enough, but hardly relevant. She hadn’t married Steven. Everything hadhappened, and they’d damn well better start dealing with it.

  She rubbed the tip of one finger across the dark pink test square. “I don’t think Steven wanted children.”

  That caught his attention. “Don’t you know?”

  Casey shook her head. “We didn’t really talk much.” She shot him a quick look. “I guess that makes me sound even worse, doesn’t it? I mean that I was willing to marry a man I didn’t even talk to.”

  “Hell, Casey, I don’t know.” And he didn’t. She didn’t strike him as the type of woman to be so cavalier with her affections. But then, what did he know about women? He’d married Linda.

  “I don’t even know how our engagement happened.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. Sometimes I try to remember exactly when Steven proposed…”

  It bothered him more than he wanted to admit that she’d been thinking about her ex-fiancé while married to him.

  “But I don’t think he ever really did. We both just drifted into this. Our parents were all for it, naturally.”

  Jake hadn’t been too fond of Steven to begin with. Knowing that Casey’s parents approved of the man made him even more disagreeable to Jake.

  Abruptly deciding he’d heard quite enough about the runaway bridegroom, he pushed himself up from the edge of the tub and held one hand out to his wife.

  “Enough about Steven, Casey.”

  She looked up at him, but didn’t take the hand he offered.

  “We’remarried now. Wehave a baby on the way.”

  “There’s definitely a baby coming, Jake,” she countered. “But as for being married, all we shared was a short ceremony.”

  “What?” Feeling a little foolish about his extended hand, which she refused to take, Jake let it fall to his side. “What are you talking about?”

  She stood up and faced him. Granted, she had to tip her head back to do it, but somehow she managed to look intimidating, anyway.

  “I’m talking about us. You. Me.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “No, this marriage doesn’t make sense.”

  He inhaled slowly, deeply. He’d been working diligently for the past two weeks. He’d kept his distance. He’d lain awake at night knowing she was lying in a bed only a few doors down the hall from him. He’d become accustomed to walking with his legs slightly bowed to accommodate a groin that was continually hard and aching.

  And he’d suffered all of it for her sake. Didn’t she understand what it cost him to keep his distance from her? Couldn’t she tell how little sleep he was getting by the shadows under his eyes? Should he tell her how he lay awake at nights thinking about her? Remembering the feel, the scent, the taste of her?

  “If we’re married,” she went on, oblivious to the tightening of his features, “don’t you think we should at least pretendto be a real couple?”

  “We don’t have to pretend. We area real couple. Harry married us. You were there.”

  “We’re not a couple, Jake. We’re two people living in the same house. We’re housemates.”

  He rubbed one hand across his face and struggled to draw air into his lungs. “Casey, I told you, I think we both need time to adjust to this.”

  “If you regret marrying me, Jake,” she said calmly, “just say so. I’ll have my father arrange a divorce. There’s nothing he’d like better.”

  His gaze snapped to hers. Anger bubbled up inside him. He didn’t care if it was reasonable or not. That she could talk so easily about a divorce bothered him more than he could say.

  “There’s no divorce coming, Casey.” He gritted his teeth and went on, squeezing his voice past a tight throat. “Get used to it. I’m not going through that again. And dammit, I’m not going to let mychild go through it.”

  Casey felt a chill from his words and expression, as she would have from a brisk northern wind. His eyes narrowed and she sensed the tension in him. She hadn’t meantit. She didn’t want a divorce. She wanted a husband. The husband she loved.

  Apparently, though, she was going about it in all the wrong ways. Fine. Swallowing back her impatience, she said, “You’re right. There is no divorce for us, Jake. I don’t want that, either.”

  He seemed to relax a little, so she plunged ahead.

  “But I want more than a housemate, too.” She waited for him to argue with her. But he didn’t say anything, so she went on, “I want someone to talk to. To laugh with. To plan with.”

  He was softening. She could see it in his eyes.

  “To love,” she added, and almost groaned as she saw tension arc back into his body.

  “Let’s leave love out of this, all right?”

  “How do you leave love out of a marriage?”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Trust me. It’s easier to leave it out than to try to keep it in.”

  Disappointment quivered through her. Jake always had been stubborn. A less stubborn man would have given in to her clumsy seduction attempt five years before and saved both of them from missed chances at happiness. Casey frowned at him, studying the sharp planes of his face as she would a text written in an unfamiliar language.

  Because of his sense of honor, his conscience, they had both lost the past five years. Casey had no doubt that if he hadn’t turned her away that long-ago night, they would have known the magic that sparked between them for what it was. They would have stayed together. And maybe this child that was coming now would have been their second. Or third.

  “Now come on,” he said, and snatched up her hand. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  As they moved through the dark house headed for the kitchen, Jake turned on the lights they passed. Soon the big ranch house was well lit, warm and welcoming.

  It struck her then exactly how she would have to go about winning her husband. One light at a time, until finally all the shadows were chased from his soul.

  “See?” Jake straightened the aerial map lying on his desk and pointed to a section of land that had been highlighted in bright red ink.

  Casey leaned over his shoulder, and he forced himself to take slow shallow breaths. Just the scent of her was enough to drive him insane. Having the length of her soft shining hair streaming alongside his cheek was especially dangerous. He knew what her hair smelled like. Roses and promises. If he took a deep breath, dragging that scent into him, there was no way he would be able to keep a grip on his rising tide of desire.

  “Who drew the red line around it?” she asked, and tilted her head to look at him.

  “Me.” Deliberately he shifted his gaze from hers. Staring into emerald green eyes was not the way to maintain an even keel. “I’ve wanted that land for years. Outlined it to help me focus on it.”

  “Ah.”

  The knowing tone in her voice made him turn to look at her again, despite his better judgment. For the past few days, ever since the night they’d discovered her pregnancy, he’d made a concerted effort to be a better husband. These days, after dinner, they sat together in the great room. They watched movies, idiotic television shows that he couldn’t concentrate on with her sitting beside him, and they talked about his plans for the ranch or the catering jobs she’d been offered. He listen
ed to her talk excitedly of their first Christmas together and tried to share her eagerness.

  They did everything together but share a bedroom. It didn’t matter that all he thought about these days was being with her. Holding her. Sliding into her warmth and burying himself inside her. Danger lay down that path. That was a risk he still couldn’t bring himself to take. Not yet.

  But there was something else to consider, too. He had no intention of being celibate for the rest of his life. So what he had to do was give himself enough time to distance himself emotionally from Casey before starting in on the physical side of their marriage. Once he’d accomplished that, everything would go much more smoothly.

  She was watching him.

  He pushed his thoughts aside and reached back to pick up the threads of their conversation.

  “What do you mean, ah?”

  “Nothing.” She lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “It’s just that I had no idea you were interested in positive visualization.”

  “Positive what?”

  “Visualization.” Casey straightened and took a step to one side. Jake drew his first easy breath since they’d entered his office.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “All I did was draw a line around something I wanted.”

  “Exactly. Positive visualization means that you focus your energies on the object of your desire and harness the energies of the universe to help you get it.”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it. She looked so damned serious. As if telling the universe was all you needed to do to solve your problems. Shaking his head, he felt his laughter slowly drain away as he noticed she wasn’t laughing with him.

  “Several books have been written on the subject, you know.”

  “Books have been written on UFOs, too.”

  Her lips twitched. “Hardly the same thing.”

  “Right.” He nodded sagely. “Different universes.”

  “Although,” Casey said thoughtfully, “those books are very interesting. I believe my favorite is the one about gods in chariots.”

  Jake snorted and rolled his eyes.

  “Fine,” she said as she turned for the door. “All I’m saying is that you focused your energies and the universe’s, and you got what you wanted.”