The Millionaire's Pregnant Bride (Texas Cattleman's Club: The Last Bachelor Book 1)

by Dixie Browning

  “Seventeen.”

  “Smart mouth.”

  She smiled, then winced, and he wondered how he was going to break the rest of the news—that he was taking her home with him and keeping her there for the next sixty or seventy years.

  Correction—until he could sort out this mess at work, get things running on an even keel again—and then he just might retire. He considered asking her how she would like to live at the ranch permanently, but this wasn’t the time.

  He had already lined up a nurse to stay with her while he was at the office, but that, too, could wait until she was back in fighting trim. “Go to sleep, honey. I’m going to stay here awhile and read the paper. I’m supposed to wake you every three minutes—”

  “Three days,” she whispered.

  “Whatever. Anyway, don’t count on getting much rest.”

  She was already asleep. For a long time, he sat there and studied her, wondering abstractedly just what it was about this one woman that made him act so out of character.

  He hadn’t been obligated to marry her. There’d been a time when he and Jack had been as close as any brothers. They’d both been marines, although they’d served at different times. They’d both married young. Neither marriage had lasted long, for quite different reasons. Needing someone to head up the financial end of the business, Jack had brought him in when he’d first set out to build his empire. They’d built the empire—Will liked to think he’d had a large hand in it, but Jack had been the driving force. Gradually, though, the friendship had cooled, due in large part to Jack’s increasing recklessness and corner cutting. Of an entirely different temperament, Will had nevertheless stayed on, doing his best to keep them out of trouble with the stockholders and various government agencies. It had been a challenge, and he’d always thrived on challenge.

  The woman beside him, looking so heartbreakingly fragile, was the biggest challenge of all. One he had accepted without realizing what it was going to involve.

  How the devil did a man make a woman fall in love with him?

  She protested, just as he’d known she would, when, instead of turning off at her corner the next morning, he continued toward his own address. “I’ve hired a nurse to stay for as long as you need help. She’s Emma’s niece. You’ll like her.”

  “I don’t need any help. I’m stiff and sore, but I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Her name’s Annie. If you don’t like her, I’ll get someone else.”

  “I told you, I don’t need—”

  “Shh, think of the baby. She got pretty shook up yesterday—you don’t want her stress levels shooting into the red, do you?”

  “Her what?”

  He grinned as proudly as if he’d just won the calf-roping event. “I’ve been reading up on the care and feeding of mamas and unborn babies. Care to ask me a question?”

  Instead of answering, she yawned. Which was better than taking a swing at him.

  Inhaling a deep breath, he thought smugly, Round One to the Texas Tiger. Little Miss Muffet has finally met her match.

  By the time he had her settled in his bedroom—they’d argued about that, too, but he’d stood his ground—she was too exhausted to go another round. “Let her sleep for a while.” He handed Annie a slip of paper with his cell phone number written on it. “Call me at this number the minute she wakes up.”

  “Will do, Will. Don’t worry about a thing. If she’s half as nice as Aunt Emma said she was, you’re a real lucky man.”

  “Thanks, Annie. She is, and I am.”

  The first day Diana was too miserable to argue. Annie was quiet, Will was absent, so mostly she slept, waking only when Annie brought her something to eat, or helped her hobble to the bathroom.

  She had a lot of time to think, and mostly she thought about Will and her baby. Thinking about the man she was dangerously close to loving only made her more miserable, so she tried not to think about him and thought instead about the baby she was carrying.

  What if it turned out to be a girl and she looked like Sebastian? How would chestnut hair with red highlights and silver-gray eyes translate in a tiny baby girl?

  She thought about how startled she’d been the first time she’d seen Dorian Brady and mistaken him for his half brother. Sebastian had been out of town, so when she’d seen a man she took to be Sebastian coming out of his office on a Sunday morning when no one was there, except for a few people who were working to clear out Jack’s suite of offices, naturally she’d been surprised.

  She’d said, “Sebastian? Mr. Wescott?”

  And the man had turned and she’d seen that it wasn’t Sebastian, so she’d apologized and hurried on to records, where she’d been returning a stack of files.

  He had watched her all the way down the hall—she could see his reflection in the plate glass window at the end. Probably thought she was flirting…or just a little bit nuts.

  Her baby would be Dorian’s half sibling, too. Which somehow wasn’t as welcome a thought.

  She hoped it was a little girl, but as long as she was healthy, who cared what she looked like? Toenail polish did wonders for self-esteem.

  Two days later, when Diana could manage to hobble around without feeling as if her left hip was going to shatter, she took matters into her own hands. “Look, I need to be in my own place, and whatever Will told you, this is not my home, it’s his. We had this agreement—” She broke off, too uncomfortable to explain their complex relationship.

  “He’s going to kick up a fuss,” Annie warned. For all her loyalty to Will, she was inclined to side with the woman when it came to a battle between the sexes, having just gone through a bitter divorce herself.

  “We both know what kind of man he is.” The kind any woman would be lucky to have, but not as an object of charity. “He thinks it’s his job to look after any woman he considers too weak to look after herself. And I’m not. I might be a little banged up—”

  “A little! You’re lucky to be able to get out of bed, much less pack up and go home.”

  The smile Diana gave her was strictly woman-to-woman. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”

  No such luck. “Uh-uh. I’ll drive you out to the ranch and let Aunt Emma look after you, but Will would skin me alive if I took you anyplace else here in town. Wanna know what I think?”

  Diana didn’t, but she had an idea she was going to hear it, anyway.

  “I think you’re the luckiest woman alive for being married to a man like Will Bradford. Believe me, there aren’t very many good guys left.”

  “I know,” she said, and sighed. “Is there any more ice cream?”

  It wasn’t going to be easy. Will knew that much. But for the moment he had to take a chance she’d stay put. The doctor had said her soreness would probably get worse before it got better. He recommended water therapy—hot, but not too hot, which Will could provide.

  In fact, he might just join her in the hot tub. The thing had come with the apartment, but it had gone largely unused. When it came to socializing—or even unwinding—a hot tub, even with the jets turned on full blast, wasn’t his first choice. He’d tried it a couple of times and could hardly drag himself to bed afterward.

  However, it might be just the thing for what ailed Diana. Maybe he’d have one installed at the ranch, he mused, smiling at the memory of Diana perched up on top of old Mairsy, hanging on for dear life.

  With that thought in mind, Will had removed his tie by the time he reached the door of his apartment. First thing he’d do would be to give Annie the night off. He didn’t need a nurse to supervise what he had in mind. But before he could open the door, his cell phone rang. He muttered a soft oath. Not now—I’ve got plans, he thought.

  Jason had reported in, less than an hour ago. Seb was up to his ears, getting ready to take over. Eric was out of town—at least, so far as anyone knew. He hadn’t come in to work today, which was odd, come to think of it. His secretary said he’d
been complaining of hay fever.

  “Bradford,” he snapped, holding the phone in one hand, unbuttoning his shirt with the other. He glanced around for a glimpse of either Annie or Diana. Yesterday he had brought over some boxes from her old place and put them in the spare room. If she was up to going through them, that was a good sign she was up for something a bit more strenuous. If not, he’d just have to soak the resistance out of her, because one way or another, they were going to settle things between them.

  “Jason?” A moment later his face turned ash gray. He lowered his voice and said, “You’re sure. There’s no chance of, uh, mistaken identity?”

  Moments later he signed off. Eric wasn’t suffering from hay fever. He wasn’t suffering at all. Eric was dead, strangled in his own home.

  “Will? Is that you?” The husky voice drifted down the hallway.

  Schooling his face not to reveal his thoughts, Will headed for the spare room, where Diana was kneeling over a battered cardboard carton. Surrounding her were stacks of what appeared to be sheet music, note-books—the kind kids used in school—and posters, unrolled and weighted down with books and several old records. The vinyl kind. Santana. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin.

  “Hi, honey,” he said gently, setting aside for the moment the murder of a man he had worked with for the past four years. “Feeling better, are we?”

  “I am. I’m not sure about you. You look like you have a headache.”

  He had a headache, a heartache—aches in a few other places that weren’t about to find relief anytime soon. “What did you eat today?” he asked, hoping to divert her attention. She didn’t need to hear what had happened—not yet. Not until they knew more.

  “My, aren’t we nosy? For breakfast I had chocolate-covered peanuts. Baby had whole-grain cereal and low-fat milk. For lunch I had a giant serving of tin roof sundae ice cream—baby had mozzarella and salsa on whole grain bread.”

  Still on her knees beside the sagging double bed, she was grinning up at him. Teasing him. As if she sensed something was wrong and was doing her best to distract him.

  He could have told her that verbal distraction wouldn’t cut it. God, what he wouldn’t give to hold her until the world settled back on its axis. To lose himself in her warm, sweet depths. To keep her—to keep his precious new family together from now on.

  Instead he lowered himself to the floor beside her, shoving aside a framed black-and-white photograph. She reached for it, studying it with a wistful look on her face. “My family portrait…or at least, the closest I’ll ever have to one.” She pointed out a small blond woman wearing the uniform of the day—bell-bottom jeans with what appeared to be embroidery trailing up the legs. At least she was wearing a blouse. A few of the women weren’t. Most of the men weren’t.

  “That was Mama. This was my father.” Another out-of-focus face, this one with a scraggly beard. He was holding what was obviously a pot pipe as if it were a trophy he was waving. They were in a muddy field that was crowded with tents and open-sided vans. Guitars, drums and bass fiddles abounded.

  She stood, stretched and rubbed her hip, then sat down on the edge of the bed. “I think there might be a cousin there somewhere, but I never met him. By now he’s probably a stodgy old businessman with a wife and family, living somewhere like Dubuque.”

  It hit him then, the loneliness behind her wistful words. Struck an echoing chord he’d kept buried for so long it had scarred over. “Want me to track him down for you?”

  She shook her head, but he settled down beside her. Protectively, he told himself. She had no business crawling around on the floor after what had just recently happened to her.

  Somehow her hand had found its way to his thigh and rested there, as easily as a tame bird. “Don’t bother. I might not like him, and then where would I be?”

  “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t, huh?”

  “At least you’re not going to run me down in the street.”

  Frowning, he touched the knot on her head, which was smaller today, but still very much in evidence under the glossy mane of hair. Probably because her scalp was still sore, she had let it hang loose. It was tempting beyond his ability to resist.

  So he stroked her hair, and from there it took only a small amount of pressure to ease her head over onto his shoulder. “Haven’t you done enough work for one day?” he asked. “There’s always tomorrow.”

  But was there? Will knew he owed it to her to tell her what had happened at the office. The embezzlement that had suddenly taken a drastic turn for the worst. But that could wait.

  This couldn’t. This had waited long enough.

  If he’d needed a reminder of just how fleeting life was, the phone call from Jason had done it.

  “Diana, Diana…” he whispered. He needed her. The need was there in his voice, and she turned to him and lifted her face.

  It started with a kiss. They had kissed before, but there was something different about this kiss. Not the effect—that was inevitable. All he had to do was touch her, think about her, and every part of his body was on standby alert.

  She was with him all the way, her eyes told him that much. As did the shuddering little breaths she took, long moments later, when they were lying side by side and his hands moved up to cup her breasts. Carefully, reverently, he lifted her shirt, unfastened the bra underneath and paid homage to her newly full breasts, with the proudly swollen nipples.

  Dear heaven, she was beautiful to his eyes. If she’d protested he would have stopped. It might have killed him, but not for the world would he try to lead her into anything she wasn’t ready for. This hadn’t been a part of the bargain.

  But she didn’t protest, and Will didn’t stop, despite his concern about her injuries and the baby. “I’ll be careful,” he promised, adding silently, Darling. Sweetheart. Love…

  And carefully he led her to a place all true lovers knew. A place where there was no yesterday, no tomorrow, only now. Two pairs of eyes began to glow. Two pairs of lips parted, sighed and then gasped with pleasure as tentative touches grew bolder. Caresses more creative. Her hands were timid at first, then bolder. Will forced himself to hold back his own impatience.

  “Does this…? May I…?” she queried softly.

  “Yesss!” he rasped as her hands continued to explore his naked body. Please, please don’t let me disgrace myself!

  She delighted him with her earnest attentions. It was almost as if she’d never done such a thing before. Never taken the time to discover all the places on a man’s body where a single touch could be explosive, incendiary.

  Where a kiss could cause an instant conflagration.

  “Wait…give me a minute.” Gasping, he covered her roving hands with his own, stilling them until he could regain control. He had promised himself to go slow in deference to her delicate condition. If she didn’t choose to play by the same rules, that might be a promise he’d have trouble keeping.

  She was more than ready, and not afraid to let him know. Lying artlessly on her back, her full breasts gloriously flushed from his attentions, she smiled at him. “Well, are we going to do it, or are we going to take it up with the board of directors first and form a study commission?”

  He burst out laughing and swiftly moved over her, carefully spreading her thighs to accommodate his hips. It was another first for him. The laughter. Humor had never been a part of sex before. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re impertinent?”

  “No…ahh!” She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip as he moved inside with the ease of someone coming home. Almost before he started to move, the pulsating bands of pleasure began gathering tighter, closing in on them like a vibrant rainbow.

  “Your hip—”

  “Oh, yes…more, more! Yes, like that.” Breathing in tiny gasps, she clutched his shoulders and began to rock to his rhythm.

  Moments later, when the world exploded, Will collapsed on top of her, then rolled over onto his side, carrying her with him. Holding her tightly
, he breathed in the essence of slightly musky linens, sex and some herbal shampoo.

  And love, he thought, amazed at this thing that had taken him so completely off guard.

  Dare he hope she felt the same way? Was it possible?

  Only one way to find out. “Diana—Danny—I’ve got something to confess, and I want you to have patience. I’m not very good at this kind of thing. Not smooth. But that doesn’t mean I’m not sincere.” Lying naked against her nakedness, their damp bodies still entwined, he searched for the right way to tell her how he felt about her, and about their so-called marriage of convenience. If she was afraid of commitment…

  “Oh, hell, I love you, okay?” he blurted.

  He’d expected most any reaction but the one he got.

  She laughed. Again. One of her arms flopped out, knocking a tattered copy of Mad Magazine off the bedside table onto the floor. She howled.

  Disgruntled, he said, “Well, it wasn’t all that funny. At least, it wasn’t meant to be funny.”

  Rolling back into his arms, Diana gazed up at him, eyes brimming with laughter. “Want to know what I think?” she asked, her husky voice teasing.

  He was afraid to ask, but she told him anyway, whispering, “Oh, hell, I love you, too.”

  It was long after midnight when someone pounded on his door. He’d unplugged the house phones and left his cellular in the other room. They were lying in bed, damp from exertions, not the hot tub. That would come later, when they’d got their second wind.

  “Wait right here. Don’t move,” he said, and she smiled drowsily.

  “I couldn’t if I tried.”

  It was Jason. The low-voiced conference was brief. “Seb and Rob Cole are looking into the murder. I’ve got my sources working on the money drain. The two things are connected.”

  “God, not now,” he muttered, squelching a stab of guilt. But if things were going to break loose—and it had been inevitable—he’d as soon it waited until he’d had time to ease into this new phase of marriage. Like maybe the next fifty-odd years.