Harlequin Romance April 2015 Box Set (15 page)

He closed his eyes. What if he hadn’t done enough? What if his best wasn’t good enough? What if she simply wished him well and turned away? How would he cope?

‘I don’t want to play games, Mac.’

His eyes flew open.

She rose. ‘If you don’t
want to talk then I’d like to go back inside.’

He was being pathetic. Spineless. Waiting for a sign from her first.

A real man wouldn’t hesitate.

Earn her!

‘Please don’t go, Jo. I was just gathering my thoughts. It’s been a crazy couple of months and I’m trying to work out where to start.’

She searched his face. Slowly she sat again. ‘Tell me what happened after I left.’

He leant back against the swing set’s A-frame. ‘I threw myself into finishing the cookbook. I finished it in record time.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘And then, with nothing to keep me occupied, I had a lot of time to think.’

‘Ah.’

‘And some of the things you said tormented me—like trying harder where Ethan was concerned. So I started wondering what more I could do to help him.’

‘And...?’

She stared up at him and her lips glistened as if she’d just moistened them. Hunger roared through him.

‘It took me longer to work out than it should’ve.’

‘And what did you work out?’

‘That he needed to be shaken up the same way you shook me up.’

Her lovely mouth dropped open.

‘I talked to his doctor first. I had no intention of barging in like a bull
in a china shop like I did the last time. The doctor and I came up with a plan to bring him to the beach house, and then we got Diana Devlin on-side.’

‘I bet that wasn’t easy.’

He and Diana might never be the best of friends, but they’d come to an understanding.

‘Once the doctor told her he thought it’d be for the best she was behind the plan a hundred per cent.’

Jo leaned
towards him. ‘How did you convince Ethan to go with you?’

‘I used emotional blackmail. Just like you had on me. By the way, Russ sends his love. I’m staying with him tonight.’

‘You’ve
seen
Russ?’

‘I’ve seen quite a bit of Russ.’

‘He’s not mentioned it to me.’

Because Mac had asked him not to. He hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up. He hadn’t known how long things with Ethan
would take.

She sagged, one hand pressed to her chest. ‘I’m so glad.’

‘I am too,’ he said quietly. ‘There are some mistakes I’m never going to make again. But back to Ethan. I told him his mother needed a holiday, but that she refused to go without him. I told him she’d fall ill if she wasn’t careful.’

Her mouth hooked up. ‘Nice work.’

His chest puffed out.

‘And he’s improving?’

‘It’s taken a while, but, yes. The sea air and the fact he can see how good the break has been for his mother have both worked wonders. It’s the puppies, though, that have really been working magic.’

She leant back, her eyes wide. ‘Wow, that’s really something.’

It was. ‘Every now and again he starts to talk about the future. We even had an argument last week about what recipes I
should put in my next cookbook.’

Her urgings to keep trying, not to give up, to try harder, had made a man of him. Regardless of what happened from here, he was glad—and grateful—to have known her.

‘He doesn’t blame me for the accident, Jo. He’s learning not to blame himself either.’

She set her now empty plate on the ground and rose to stand in front of him. ‘That’s wonderful news.’

His heart started to race. Hard.

‘He still has a way to go. There’ll be more skin grafts down the track. But eventually he’ll be able to return to work. When he’s ready I mean to help him any way I can.’

She moved another inch closer. Mac swallowed, his hands clenching at his sides.

‘I don’t know—’ His voice cracked. ‘I don’t know if you can live with that. You might see it
as me putting him first.’

She shook her head. ‘I see it as you being a good friend—a true friend. I certainly don’t see it as a sacrifice or self-immolation or a sign of guilt.’

He stared at her. ‘That’s good, right?’

‘That’s very good.’

He couldn’t drag his gaze from the smoky depths of her eyes. Was she saying what he thought she was saying?

He seized her face in his
hands, unable to resist the need to touch her. ‘What are you saying, Jo?’

No, wait!

‘No, wait,’ he said. ‘Let me tell you what
I’m
saying. I’m saying I love you, my beautiful girl.’ He brushed her hair back from her face. ‘I’m saying I want a life with you. I’m saying that fighting for you—by fighting to work out the right thing to do where Ethan was concerned—has made a man of me. I’m
saying that if you give me a chance I will prove to you every single day that you are my first, foremost and most cherished priority.’

His hands moved back to cup her face.

‘You are my number one, Jo. Please say you’ll let me prove it.’

She pressed a hand to his lips. Her face came in close to his, her eyes shining and her lips trembling. ‘I love you, Mac,’ she whispered.

He wanted to punch the air. He wanted to whirl her around in his arms. He wanted to kiss her.

‘No man has ever made me believe in myself the way you have. No man has made me feel so desired or so beautiful or so right.’ She swallowed. ‘Yes, please. I really want the chance to build a life with you.’

He stared down into her face as every dream he’d been too afraid to dream lay before him
in a smorgasbord of promise.

Jo’s eyes started to dance. She leaned in so close her words played across his lips. ‘This is the part where you kiss me.’

He didn’t wait another second, but swooped down to seize her lips in a kiss that spoke of all he couldn’t put into words. He kissed her with his every pent-up hope and fear, with the joy and frustration that had shaken through him these
last months since he’d met her. And she kissed him back with such ardent eagerness and generosity it eased the burn in his soul.

He lifted his head with a groan, gathering her in close. ‘I love you, Jo. I nearly went crazy when I thought I’d lost you.’

Her arms tightened about him. ‘You haven’t lost me. I’m in your arms, where I belong, and I’m not planning on going anywhere.’

‘You mean that?’

‘With all my heart.’

And then she frowned. ‘Well, I mean, I
do
start my paramedic training next week, so I’ll have to leave your arms literally, but you know what I mean.’

He dropped a kiss to the tip of her nose. Her very cute nose. ‘But you’ll keep returning here? To me?’

Her fingers stroked his nape. ‘There’s nowhere I’d rather be,’ she whispered.

‘I
can commute between the coast and Sydney,’ he said.

‘And I can commute between Sydney and the coast,’ she said. ‘But, Mac, we need to make sure that wherever we go we always have room for friends and for puppies.’

A grin started up inside him until it bubbled from him in a laugh. ‘I’m glad you feel that way, because Bandit had ten of the little beggars.’

Her mouth dropped open,
so he kissed her again. When he lifted his head—much,
much
later—she smiled dreamily up at him.

‘Did I mention that I happen to love the way you kiss?’

‘No.’

So she proceeded to tell him. Which meant, of course, that he had to kiss her again.

When he lifted his head this time he found himself growling, ‘Promise me forever.’

She reached up to press her hand to his cheek.
‘I promise you, Mac—’ she stared deep into his eyes ‘—that for as long as you make me pineapple upside-down cake, I’m yours. Forever.’

Her voice washed over him like warm honey and he started to laugh...and it filled his soul.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from EXPECTING THE EARL’S BABY by Jessica Gilmore.

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PROLOGUE

‘O
H
,
NO
!’

Daisy Huntingdon-Cross skidded to a halt on the icy surface and regarded her car with dismay.

No, dismay was for a dropped coffee or spilling red wine on a white T-shirt. Her chest began to thump as panic escalated.
This
, Daisy thought as she stared at the wall of snow surrounding her suddenly flimsy-seeming tyres,
this
was a catastrophe.

The snow, which had fallen all
afternoon and evening, might have made a picturesque background for the wedding photos she had spent the past twelve hours taking, but it had begun to drift—and right now it was packed in tightly around her tyres. Her lovely, bright, quirky little city car, perfect for zooming around London in, was, she was rapidly realising, horribly vulnerable in heavy snow and icy conditions.

Daisy carefully
shifted her heavy bag to her other shoulder and looked around. It was the only car in the car park.

In fact, she was the only person in the car park. No, scratch that, she was possibly the only person in the whole castle. A shiver ran down her spine, not entirely as a result of the increasing cold and the snow seeping through her very inadequate brogues. Hawksley Castle was a wonderfully romantic
venue in daylight and when it was lit up at night. But when you were standing underneath the parapets, the great tower a craggy, shadowy silhouette looming above you and the only light a tepid glow from the lamp at the edge of the car park it wasn’t so much romantic, more the setting for every horror film she had ever seen.

‘Just don’t go running into the woods.’ She cast a nervous glance over
her shoulder. The whole situation was bad enough without introducing the supernatural into it.

Besides it was Valentine’s Day. Surely the only ghosts abroad today had to be those of lovers past?

Daisy shivered again as her feet made the painful transition from wet and cold to freezing. She stamped them with as much vigour as she could muster as she thought furiously.

Why had she stayed behind
to photograph the departing guests, all happily packed into mini-buses at the castle gates and whisked off to the local village where hot toddies and roaring fires awaited them? She could have left three hours ago, after the first dance and long before the snow had changed from soft flakes to a whirling mass of icy white.

But, no, she always had to take it that step further, offer that bit more
than her competitors—including the blog, complete with several photographs, that she’d promised would be ready to view by midnight.

Midnight wasn’t that far away...

‘Okay.’ Her voice sounded very small in the empty darkness but talking aloud gave her a sense of normality. ‘One, I can go into the village. It’s only a couple of miles.’ Surely the walking would warm up her feet? ‘Two, I can try
and scoop the worst of the snow off...’ She cast a doubtful glance at the rest of the car park. The ever heavier snowfall had obliterated her footprints; it was like standing on a thick, very cold white carpet. An ankle-deep carpet. ‘Three...’ She was out of options. Walk or scoop, that was it.

‘Three—I get you some snow chains.’

Daisy didn’t quite manage to stifle a small screech as deep masculine
tones broke in on her soliloquy. She turned, almost losing her footing in her haste, and skidded straight into a fleece-clad chest.

It was firm, warm, broad. Not a ghost. Probably not a werewolf. Or a vampire. Supernatural creatures didn’t wear fleece as far as she knew.

‘Where did you come from? You frightened the life out of me.’ Daisy stepped back, scowling at her would-be rescuer. At least
she hoped he was a rescuer.

‘I was just locking up. I thought all the wedding guests were long gone.’ His gaze swept over her. ‘You’re hardly dressed for this weather.’

‘I was dressed for a wedding.’ She tugged the hem of her silk dress down. ‘I’m not a guest though, I’m the photographer.’

‘Right.’ His mouth quirked into a half smile. The gesture changed his rather severe face into something
much warmer. Something much more attractive. He was tall—taller than Daisy who, at nearly six feet, was used to topping most men of her acquaintance—with scruffy dark hair falling over his face.

‘Photographer or guest you probably don’t want to be hanging around here all night so I’ll get some chains and we’ll try and get this tin can of yours on the road. You really should put on some winter
tyres.’

‘It’s not a tin can and there’s very little call for winter tyres in London.’

‘You’re not in London,’ he pointed out silkily.

Daisy bit her lip. He had a point and she wasn’t really in any position to argue. ‘Thank you.’

‘No worries, wouldn’t want you to freeze to death on the premises. Think of the paperwork. Talking of which, you’re shivering. Come inside and warm up. I can lend
you some socks and a coat. You can’t drive home like that.’

Daisy opened her mouth to refuse and then closed it again. He didn’t seem like an axe murderer and she was getting more and more chilled by the second. If it was a choice between freezing to death and taking her chances inside she was definitely veering towards the latter. Besides... ‘What time is it?’

‘About eleven, why?’

She’d never
get home in time to post the blog. ‘I don’t suppose...’ She tried her most winning smile, her cheeks aching with the cold. ‘I don’t suppose I can borrow your Wi-Fi first? There’s something I really need to do.’

‘At this time of night?’

‘It’s part of my job. It won’t take long.’ Daisy gazed up at him hoping her eyes portrayed beseeching and hopeful with a hint of professionalism, not freezing
cold and pathetic. Their eyes snagged and the breath hitched in her throat.

‘I suppose you can use it while you warm up.’ The smile was still playing around his mouth and Daisy’s blood began to heat at the expression in his eyes. If he turned it up a little more she wouldn’t need a jumper and socks, her own internal system would have defrosted her quite nicely.

He held out a hand. ‘Seb, I look
after this place.’

Daisy took the outstretched hand, her heart skipping a beat as their fingers touched. ‘I’m Daisy. Nice to meet you, Seb.’

He didn’t answer, reaching out and taking her bag, shouldering it with ease as he turned and began to tread gracefully through the ever thickening snow.

‘“Mark my footsteps, my good page,”’ Daisy sang under her breath as she took advantage of the pressed-down
snow and hopped from one imprint to the other. Tall, dark, handsome and coming to her rescue on Valentine’s Day? It was almost too good to be true.

Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Gilmore