From Neighbors...to Newlyweds?
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PAGING DR. DADDY?
When Georgia Reed moved her twin boys and infant daughter out of the bustling city, she didn’t expect to have a doctor on call. But her gorgeous neighbor—and part-owner of the cutest litter of puppies she’s ever seen—wasn’t your typical orthopedic surgeon. Matt Garrett was the most popular bachelor in town...and when he asked Georgia on a date, the single mom couldn’t say no.
All Matt ever wanted was a family—and the right woman. Ever since he moved next door, he had a sneaking suspicion that Georgia was that woman. The beautiful widow and her kids came as a package deal...which suited Matt just fine. Now if only he could make Georgia see that they could be more than good neighbors....
Matt glanced at his watch as he followed her into the hall, and she knew he was eager to head back over to the park.
But when they made their way down the stairs and into the empty living room, he frowned.
“Where did the babysitter go?”
“I sent her home.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt, because now that they were really alone, her stomach was in such a mess of knots she didn’t think they’d ever untangle.
“I thought we were going back to the park to see the fireworks.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Don’t I get a vote?”
She shook her head. “No, but you have a choice.”
“What choice is that?” Matt asked her.
She lifted her arms to link them around his neck. “You can go back to the park for the fireworks—” her fingers cupped the back of his head, drew it down toward hers “—or we can make some of our own right here.”
And then she kissed him.
Dear Reader,
Having grown up with each of a sister and a brother, I understand the importance and endurance of the sibling bond. So when I created the Garrett brothers—Matthew, Jackson and Lukas—I knew they would share a close connection. No doubt they would have different ideas and opinions (and moments of disagreement), but when it really mattered, they would stand by one another.
As Matt starts to fall for the young widow next door (and her adorable children), his brothers can’t help but be concerned. Georgia Reed assures them she doesn’t have time for romance—with four-year-old twins and a four-month-old baby, she barely has time to do the laundry! But she finds it increasingly difficult to resist her engaging neighbor....
So when Matt proposes, what can Jack and Luke do except offer to stand up for him at the wedding? Because brothers support one another through difficult times and celebrate together when life is good.
Of course, they might debate whether marriage is a cause for commiseration or jubilation, but that’s another story. Actually two more stories. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Matt and Georgia’s.
Happy reading,
Brenda Harlen
Brenda Harlen
From Neighbors... to Newlyweds?
Books by Brenda Harlen
Harlequin Special Edition
**Prince Daddy & the Nanny #2147
**Royal Holiday Bride #2160
‡‡The Maverick’s Ready-Made Family #2215
¤¤From Neighbors... to Newlyweds? #2235
Silhouette Special Edition
*Her Best-Kept Secret #1756
The Marriage Solution #1811
†One Man’s Family #1827
The New Girl in Town #1859
**The Prince’s Royal Dilemma #1898
**The Prince’s Cowgirl Bride #1920
††Family in Progress #1928
**The Prince’s Holiday Baby #1942
§The Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Baby #2016
¤The Engagement Project #2021
¤The Pregnancy Plan #2038
¤The Baby Surprise #2056
‡Thunder Canyon Homecoming #2079
**The Prince’s Second Chance #2100
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
McIver’s Mission #1224
Some Kind of Hero #1246
Extreme Measures #1282
Bulletproof Hearts #1313
Dangerous Passions #1394
*Family Business
†Logan’s Legacy Revisited
**Reigning Men
††Back in Business
§The Foleys and the McCords
¤Brides & Babies
‡Montana Mavericks: Thunder Canyon Cowboys
‡‡Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle
¤¤Those Engaging Garretts!
Other books by Brenda Harlen available in ebook format.
BRENDA HARLEN
grew up in a small town, surrounded by books and imaginary friends. Although she always dreamed of being a writer, she chose to follow a more traditional career path first. After two years of practicing as an attorney (including an appearance in front of the Supreme Court of Canada), she gave up her “real” job to be a mom and to try her hand at writing books. Three years, five manuscripts and another baby later, she sold her first book—an RWA Golden Heart winner—to Silhouette Books.
Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her real-life husband/hero, two heroes-in-training and two neurotic dogs. She is still surrounded by books (too many books, according to her children) and imaginary friends, but she also enjoys communicating with real people. Readers can contact Brenda by email at brendaharlen@yahoo.com or by snail mail c/o Harlequin Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.
Because this series is about brothers,
this book is dedicated to Brett (AKA “BIL”).
You became my brother when you married my sister, and through all the years that you’ve been part of our family you’ve proven yourself to be a terrific husband and a wonderful father—a true romantic hero.
(P.S. You’re a pretty good brother-in-law, too.)
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Excerpt
Chapter One
The house was finally, blissfully quiet.
Georgia Reed mentally crossed her fingers as she sat down at the antique dining room table, hoping for one hour. If she could have a full sixty minutes to focus on the manuscript pages spread out in front of her, she might actually catch up on her work. Unfortunately, the thought of catching a nap was much more tempting than the book she was currently reading.
Though she was officially on maternity leave from her job as an associate editor at Tandem Publishing, she had agreed to accept work on a contract basis to help out the senior editor and keep some money coming in. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but Georgia hadn’t been nearly as productive as she’d hoped to be, especially since she’d uprooted her kids and moved to Pinehurst only six weeks earlier.
She sipped from the cup of herbal tea she’d reheated for a third time and skimmed through the previous chapter to refresh her memory. But just as her mind began to focus on the story, it occurred to her that it was too quiet.
The realization kicked her protective instincts into overdrive. She pushed her chair away from the table and raced across the hall to the living room, where she’d left four-year-old Quinn and Shane with a pile of building blocks. The carpet was littered with the chunky pieces but her boys were both gone—no doubt through the wide-open patio door.
The door had been closed when she settled the boys down to play—closed and locked. But the lock was tricky, and sometimes just tugging on the handle would allow the latch to slip and the lock to slide free. She’d talked to her mother about getting it fixed, but apparently that detail had slipped Charlotte’s mind.
And now her children were gone.
She hurried back to the dining room to grab the baby monitor before racing out the back door.
“Quinn! Shane!” She ran across the deck, cursing when she stepped on a red block. They couldn’t have gone far. She’d only left them in the room a few minutes earlier. If anything had happened—
No, she couldn’t even complete the thought.
“Quinn! Shane!”
A flash of movement caught the corner of her eye, and she spun around, her heart sinking when she didn’t see the boys’ familiar faces but the shadowed jaw of a grown man standing on the grass.
“Are you looking for two little guys about yay—” he held a hand about three and a half feet off the ground “—high?”
“Did you see where they went?” she asked hopefully, desperately.
“They wandered into my backyard.” He gestured toward the adjoining property.
Georgia closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see that they’d filled with tears. “Oh, thank you, God.”
“Actually, my name’s Matt—Matt Garrett.”
She opened her eyes again and saw that he was smiling at her.
“And your kids are fine,” he promised her.
“Only until I get my hands on them,” she muttered.
His smile widened.
Now that the panic had subsided and her heart was beating more normally again, she took a moment to look at her new neighbor—and felt a little tug low in her belly.
Matt Garrett had thick dark hair that was sexily tousled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it, a slightly crooked nose and a strong unshaven jaw. His shoulders were broad, his long, lean body well-muscled. And as his deep blue gaze connected with her own, she felt a subtle buzz in her veins that made her feel hot and tingly in a way that she hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
“One of the puppies escaped into your yard and caught their attention,” he explained.
“Puppies?”
“Come and check them out,” he invited.
She hooked the monitor on her belt and followed him, surreptitiously checking out his spectacular backside as she did so.
He’d moved in a few days earlier. She’d noticed the moving truck when she’d gone out to the porch to check the mail Wednesday afternoon—and then she’d noticed the tall, broad-shouldered man supervising the unloading of it.
He was in faded denim with an even more faded Orioles T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. Definitely a man’s man, she decided, and felt a flutter of something low in her belly. He lifted an arm in casual greeting and flashed a quick smile that actually made Georgia’s heart skip a beat before it began hammering against her ribs.
She raised her hand in response, waving her mail at him, then felt the flood of heat in her cheeks as she realized what she’d done. She wasn’t sure if it was sexual deprivation or sleep deprivation that was responsible for her distraction, but thankfully, he was too far away to note either her instinctive physical response or her embarrassment. But wow—the man obviously had some potent sex appeal if he could affect her from such a distance.
An appeal that, she knew now, was further magnified up close.
“This is Luke—and Jack,” Matt told her, gesturing to the two other men on his porch in turn. “My brothers.”
The former was even taller than her six-foot-tall neighbor, with the same brown hair but blue-green eyes; the latter was of similar height but with broader shoulders and slightly darker hair. All three were sinfully handsome.
“I’m Georgia,” she finally said, her heart rate mostly back to normal now that the twins were in her line of sight again. “And these pint-sized Houdinis are Quinn and Shane.”
“What’s a Houdini?” Quinn tore his attention away from the blanket-lined laundry basket for the first time since she’d stepped onto her neighbor’s porch.
“A little boy who is in very serious trouble for leaving the house without his mommy,” she admonished.
Her son’s gaze dropped to his feet, a telltale sign of guilt. “We just wanted to see the puppies.”
“Puppies,” Shane echoed, and looked up at her with the heartbreakingly sweet smile that never failed to remind her of his father.
She took a few steps closer, as inexorably drawn to the basket as her children had been. But still, she had to make sure they understood that leaving the house for any reason wasn’t acceptable.
“If you wanted to see the puppies, you should have told Mommy that you wanted to see the puppies,” she said.
“But you told us not to bug you ’cuz you had work to do,” Quinn reminded her.
And it was exactly what she’d said when she set them up with their blocks.
“I also told you to never go anywhere—even outside into the backyard—without telling me first.”
But how could she blame them for being drawn away when even her heart had sighed at the first glimpse of those white, brown and black bodies wriggling around in the basket?
She looked at her neighbor again. “You have four puppies?”
“No.” Matt shook his head emphatically. “I don’t have any puppies—they’re all Luke’s.”
“Only until I can find good homes for them,” his brother said.
“How did you end up with them?” she wondered.
“I’m a vet,” he told her. “And when someone finds an abandoned animal on the side of the road, it usually ends up at my clinic. In this case, the abandoned animal was a very pregnant beagle that, two days later, gave birth to eight puppies.”
“Eight?” She cringed at the thought. As if carrying and birthing twins hadn’t been difficult enough.
“My receptionist is taking care of the other four.”
“They look kind of young to be away from their mother,” she noted.
“They are,” he agreed.
It was all he said, but it was enough for her to understand that the mother hadn’t survived the delivery—and to be grateful that his response in front of the twins wasn’t any more explicit than that.
“Nice puppy,” Shane said, gently patting the top of a tiny head.
“Can we keep one?” Quinn, always the more talkative and articulate twin, asked her.
She shook her head. As much as she hated to refuse her kids anything, she’d learned that there were times she had to say no. This was definitely one of those times. “I’m sorry, boys. A puppy is too much responsibility for us to take on right now.”
But she didn’t object when Matt lifted one of them out of the box and handed it to her. And she couldn’t resist bringing it closer to nuzzle the soft, warm body. And when the little pink tongue swiped her chin, her heart absolutely melted.
“He likes you, Mom,” Quinn told her.
“She,” Matt corrected. “That one’s a girl.”
Her son wrinkled his nose. “We don’t want a girl puppy.”
“We don’t want any puppy,” Georgia said again, trying to sound firm.
“We do want a puppy,” Shane insisted.
“’Cept Dr. Luke says they can’t go anywhere for two more weeks,” Quinn informed her. “’Cuz they’re too little to eat and hafta be fed by a bottle.”
Shane pouted for another minute, but the mention of eating prompted him to announce, “I’m hungry.”
“So why don’t we go home and I’ll make some little pizzas for lunch?” she suggested.
“With pepperonis?”
“With lots of pepperoni,” she promised.
But Quinn shook his head. “We don’t wanna go home. We wanna stay with the daddies.”
Georgia felt her cheeks burning as her gaze shifted from one man to the next.
Matt’s smile slipped, just a little; Luke kept his attention firmly focused on the animals; and Jack actually took a step backward.
“They’re at that age,” she felt compelled to explain, “where they think every adult male is a daddy. Especially since they lost their own father.”
“He’s not lost, he’s dead,” Quinn said matter-of-factly.
The announcement made Shane’s eyes fill with tears and his lower lip quiver. “I miss Daddy.”
Georgia slipped her arm around his shoulders.
Matt’s brows lifted. “You’re a widow?”
She nodded, because her throat had tightened and she wanted to ensure she was in control of her emotions before she spoke. “My husband passed away eleven months ago.” And although she’d accepted that Phillip was gone, she still missed him, and there were times—too many times—when she felt completely overwhelmed by the responsibilities of being a single parent. “That’s one of the reasons I moved in here with my mom.”
“Charlotte’s your mother?”
“You know her?”
“I met her the first time I came to look at the house,” he said. “But I haven’t seen her since I moved in.”
“She’s on her annual trip to Vegas with some friends,” Georgia told him.
“Leaving you on your own with two young boys,” he remarked sympathetically.
“And a baby,” she said, just as a soft coo sounded through the baby monitor she’d clipped on her belt.
“Pippa’s waking up.” Quinn jumped up, his desire to stay with the “daddies” not nearly as strong as his affection for his baby sister.
“Pippa,” Shane echoed.
Matt looked at Georgia, seeking clarification. “You have three kids?”
She nodded. “Four-year-old twins and a four-month-old daughter.”
* * *
Well, that explained the shadows under her gorgeous eyes, Matt decided. A pair of active preschoolers and a baby would wear any young mother out—especially one without a husband to help ease the burden. But even exhausted, she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met.
She had a heart-shaped face with creamy skin, elegantly shaped lips, a delicate nose dusted with freckles, and the