Christine Rimmer - The M.D. She Had To Marry

He should not allow her to do this to him. She was nine months’ pregnant, for pity’s sake. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “You’re right.” To his relief, his voice sounded fine, level and calm. It gave no inkling of what had just happened under the table. “It’s incredible when you think about it. But it’s true. I have never changed your mind about a single thing.”

“Yes. Yes, you have.”

“Oh, come on, Lacey.”

“I remember distinctly—”

She didn’t either, and they both knew she didn’t. “What?” he demanded. “You remember what?”

The baby, in his highchair, chortled to himself as a slow smile curved Lacey’s eminently kissable mouth. For a moment, Logan thought she would actually say something about the two of them, about how she’d never in her life imagined him as a lover—but that was one thing he had definitely changed her mind about. He had to resist the urge to clap his hand over her mouth.

And then she said, “Broccoli.”

He didn’t think he’d heard her correctly. “Broccoli?”

Lacey nodded. “You convinced me to give it a try. You said I would like it raw. With ranch dressing.”

He stared at her, thinking, Liar. You never ate any broccoli for me—raw or otherwise.

“Yes.” That smile of hers was too innocent by half. “Broccoli. Remember?” She was blatantly teasing him, pouring on the innuendo.

But it could be worse, he reminded himself. At least she hadn’t said what he’d feared she might.

He forced a smile to answer hers and let her have her silly lie. “I don’t know how I could have let myself forget.”

“More string beans?” Tess asked him.

He thanked her and spooned a second helping onto his plate.

The talk turned to safer subjects.

Zach asked Jobeth about a calf she had chosen to raise herself as a 4-H project.

Jobeth explained how she planned to experiment with different varieties of feed.

Then Tess wanted to know how things were going for Starr. Evidently, the older girl had a job at a local shop called Cotes’s Clothing and Gift.

“A summer job is a summer job,” Starr said. “It gets a little boring, but it’s not that bad. Mr. Cotes offered me four more hours on Saturdays. I’m going to take them. Might as well make use of my free time this summer. When school starts, I want to keep my focus on studying, where it belongs.”

“Our Starr is a straight-A student,” Edna declared with pride.

A contrary glint came into the girl’s impossibly beautiful violet eyes. “At least I am now.”

Zach frowned. “We are proud of you. Very, very proud.”

Starr lifted her lovely chin. “Thanks.”

Evidently, the girl had had some problems in the past. Logan wondered what, but the subject had already shifted again.

Zach was suggesting that Logan might want to saddle up and ride with him and Jobeth and the men sometime in the next few days. He could see how things were done on a working cattle ranch.

Logan confessed, “I think I’ve been on a horse about three times in my life. And they weren’t very lively horses, if you know what I mean.”

Zach chuckled. “We’ll find you something sweet-natured and easy-going—or you can ride in one of the pickups. Your choice.”

“Then I’d enjoy a tour, Zach. Thanks.”

Beside him, Lacey slid back her chair and stood. “Excuse me.”

Apprehension pulling a thread of tightness across his chest, Logan looked up over the ripe curve of her belly and into her eyes. “What is it? Are you feeling all right?”

She laughed and put her hand on his shoulder. It felt good there. Damn good. “Relax. I’m fine. I need to…make use of the facilities, that’s all.”

“You’re sure. If something’s—”

She lifted her hand and stroked the hair at his temple. “Logan. Eat.” Her hand was cool and her eyes were a summer sky—clear, stunningly blue. A smile quivered across that soft mouth of hers. He had to remind himself that they were not alone, or he would have laid his palm on her belly, a possessive touch, which would have felt totally appropriate then. At that moment, she was all softness, all openness. And all for him.

But then she seemed to catch herself. She jerked her glance away. Her smile vanished.

She dropped her hand. “I’ll be right back.” She slid around the chair and headed for the hall.

He watched her until she’d disappeared from view, reluctant to relinquish the sight of her, wondering at her swift change of mood. For a moment, she had been so damn…tender.

Just as she’d been when he woke and found her standing over him in the cabin an hour before. He’d seen the softness in her eyes then, too. And something else. Worry, maybe.

But softness, definitely.

And even earlier, while he unpacked his few things. She had sat in that rocker and watched him, a dreamy, contented expression on her face.

As if she…

It came to him. Right then, at the Bravo family’s dinner table, as he watched her waddle away through the living room, then disappear beyond a door that led to the front hall. It all snapped into place.

For Lacey, this was more than a matter of sexual attraction. More than affection, more than the commonality of a shared past. More even than the most important issue of the child she was about to have.

She was in love with him.

It made perfect sense. The abrupt way she had broken it off in September—that must have been when she had realized.

And what about the times he had called her and she’d never called back? That hadn’t been like her. Before, she would have called, if only to insist that she was fine, that he was not to worry about her, that he needed to get on with his life and let her get on with hers.

Yes. She was in love with him—and she feared, because of Jenna, that he would only hurt her.

He wouldn’t. Never. Jenna was gone for good now, living in Florida with Mack McGarrity, a baby on the way. She was no threat to what Logan and Lacey might share.

Damn. Lacey loved him.

True, he didn’t have a lot of faith in love lately. He’d loved Jenna for all those years and in the end, his love had not been enough to hold her.

But this situation was different. He was already committed to making a life with Lacey. He had been from the moment he’d learned that she carried his child. If Lacey thought herself in love with him—whatever the hell that really meant—it could only work in his favor.

A lightness seemed to move through him. A feeling of rightness, of ease.

And of power, too.

She loved him.

He knew now, with absolute certainty, that she would say yes to him. She had that wild streak. And she was willful. She might not be the wife that Jenna would have been. But she would be his in a way that Jenna never had.

She was already his.

Because she loved him. Lacey Bravo loved him.

He hadn’t realized that doubt had been eating at him, eroding his self-confidence, setting his nerves on edge. He hadn’t realized it until now, when doubt was gone.

He turned back to the table, a grin pulling at his mouth—and found six pairs of eyes focused on him. Even the baby was watching him.

“That girl’s a pistol,” Edna muttered under her breath.

“She’s independent,” said Tess warmly, speaking right up in Lacey’s defense. “I admire independence.”

Edna gave Tess a fond smile. “Of course you do. So do I. But the fact remains. She needs a husband.”

Zach Bravo was still staring at Logan. “You’re here to marry her,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Logan felt satisfaction, to have it out in the open, to be able to answer simply, “I am.”

Zach nodded. “Better not waste any time about it. That baby is likely to show up any minute now.”

It was barely eight-thirty when they got back to the cabin.

Logan suggested that they sit outside for a while and watch the sun set behind the mountains.

Lacey vetoed that idea. “I’m tired,” she said.

It was a lie. She wasn’t tired. She simply had to get away from him. Having him so near, having to be so very careful, was making her crazy.

She was no good at carefulness. She had never taught herself how to hide what was in her heart. She wore her emotions on the surface. And she liked it that way, felt comfortable in her own skin because she could always be honest about what was going on inside her. And it translated into her work, gave her a freedom to create whatever came to her, to follow her own ideas wherever they wanted to take her.

But she couldn’t afford to let her emotions show now. If she did, Logan would only use her poor heart against her. Her love would become his ally in his relentless quest to do the right thing—the Logan Severance version of the right thing, which included marrying the mother of his child whether he loved her or not.

She had to watch herself every minute. And still, she kept messing up, kept slipping into ridiculous moments of pure adoration. Kept snapping to attention to find herself staring at him dreamy-eyed, mooning over him as he slept, caressing the side of his face at the dinner table while Zach and his family looked on.

He was watching her strangely now, one corner of that sexy mouth tipped up, a musing, thoroughly nerve-racking look in his eyes. “Tired? You? The original night owl?”

He had her dead to rights, of course. Even far advanced in pregnancy, Lacey Bravo was a night owl. She went to bed late and if she got up by noon, she felt she’d started the day good and early.

She stuck with her lie. “Tonight, I am tired. I’m taking a shower and I’m going to bed.”

Of course, once she got there, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

She decided to do a few exercises. She practiced her Kegels—contracting and relaxing the muscles she would use in childbirth. She sat up and rolled her neck and did a few simple stretches. She got on her hands and knees and flexed her back, then relaxed it, remaining aware of her breathing the whole time.

When she ran out of exercises, she tried to concentrate on a novel, sitting up among the pillows, the book propped on her big stomach. But her attention wandered. The baby seemed restless. The little sweetheart kept surprising her with nudges and pokes. And her back was aching. It was hard to get comfortable.

She heard Logan go out to the bathroom, heard the water pipes sighing as he took his shower. When he came back in, she heard him moving around in the main room and wondered just what he was doing out there.

Then she heard the click as he turned off the light over the table. The springs of the daybed creaked. And then silence.

From outside, faintly, came the far-off howling of lonely coyotes and the hooting of an owl. But there was no sound at all from the main room. She continued her attempt at reading until ten, then gave up and turned off her own light.

As the hours crawled by and she couldn’t sleep, she silently called Logan Severance a hundred nasty names. She practiced more Kegels—hundreds of them. She sat up and rolled her neck, stretched her arms, closed her eyes, breathed slowly and evenly in and out, seeking relaxation and inner peace.

Hah.

By midnight, her poor bladder could no longer be denied. She pulled on her robe and tiptoed out to the back door. With agonizing care, she turned the latch, then tried to pull the door open slowly enough that the old hinges wouldn’t creak.

They didn’t. Or if they did, it was just barely.

Still, he heard them. “Lacey?” His voice was thick with the groggy remnants of sleep.