Harlequin Superromance February 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: His Forever GirlMoonlight in ParisWife by Design

by Liz Talley

  Maddie could only do things in Maddie’s time. Regardless of how pressured the rest of them felt. Or how serious the emergency.

  Maddie’s mind only worked so fast.

  “Darin has been watching the roads every day when Grant drives him and he said he knew how to get us to the beach so we could build another sand castle like we did on our first date. And so we did.”

  Her pulse thrumming, Lynn exchanged a glance with Darin.

  “You two made it to the beach and back.”

  “Yes, Lynn, and I’m sorry. I didn’t follow the rules and now I might have to leave here and...” Her voice broke.

  “You won’t have to leave, Maddie,” Lynn assured the other woman. She’d take Maddie into her own home and hire a nursemaid if the need arose, but Maddie wasn’t going to lose her home or her family.

  She also knew Lila well enough to know that she would not require Maddie to resign her position, although there would be some kind of accountability for having broken the rules.

  Grant made a quick turn and another, sending her sideways in her seat as he took a back route to the beach.

  “Well, if I do have to move I’ll still save Darin and Kara,” Maddie said now, her voice thick with tears. “Darin said anytime either of us gets in trouble, we should have a safe place to go and he said the place we built the sand castle wasn’t safe because it’s out in the open. He says our safe place would be where we can build sand castles and not be out in the open, and I think he went there.”

  “And I know where that is?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She tried to be patient, but blurted, “Where is it, Maddie?” managing to keep her tone soft, at least.

  “Do you remember when we went on our date and went to the beach and Darin and I built that sand castle and then we got scared because we couldn’t find you to show it to you?”

  Grant turned again. And was pulling into the public lot he’d parked in that night.

  She looked all around her, hopeful. And saw nothing except an expanse of beach and massive waves that were strong enough to wash a three-year-old out to sea in the space of a blink.

  “Yes, I remember,” she said, afraid they’d just wasted more precious time on a goose chase.

  “Well, Darin and I said our special place is where you and Grant came from when we found you. Because that was our safe time. You found us because it wasn’t out in the open.”

  “The little cove?” she asked, remembering the cliff face jutting out onto the beach. The cove where Grant had first kissed her.

  “Yes, Lynn, that’s where they are. I just know it.”

  They were out of the truck, striding across the sand. Lynn cursed the thick substance that squished when she walked and slowed them down.

  “Have you talked to Darin, Maddie?” she asked.

  “No, Lynn. He doesn’t answer his phone.”

  Promising Maddie that she would call her back soon and reassuring her that she was very proud of her for telling the truth, Lynn rang off with an “I love you” that came straight from her heart.

  Maddie was challenged. And sometimes challenging, but Lynn loved her dearly.

  And she understood the pained expression on Grant’s face as they sprayed sand behind them with the swiftness of their gait.

  Just as she loved Maddie and Kara, Grant loved his brother.

  Would they find them?

  And if they did, would they be alive? Uninjured?

  She took his hand as they drew near to the cove.

  He held on.

  And as they rounded the corner, they started to run.

  Up ahead, protected by a giant cliff face, sat a tall man and a very small girl, side by side in the sand, their expressions serious as they built the most magnificent sand castle Lynn had ever seen.

  * * *

  “I’M SORRY, GRANT. I left.”

  Taking one hand off the wheel of the truck, Grant gave his brother’s shoulder a squeeze. “You don’t owe anyone an apology, Darin,” he said, swallowing back the emotion he’d been hard-pressed to contain during the long, grueling hours they’d just passed. First, finding out that his brother was missing, then Kara; the helplessness of not being able to do anything; the frantic search.

  And finally, spotting Darin and Kara on the beach, calling out to Darin and hearing his brother’s voice say, quite calmly, “See, little Kara, I told you that if we built a very big castle, they would come to see it and take us home. I told you the bad man couldn’t get us here.”

  “You saved a little girl’s life today, bro,” he said with a sideways glance at his brother.

  He couldn’t stop looking at him.

  And was thinking about hunting down the baby monitor he’d placed in Darin’s room for the first couple of years after his brother’s accident. It was out in the shed. In a bin on the top shelf with other old electronics.

  It might possibly be the only way Grant was going to get any rest that night.

  Unless he crashed on the couch. Darin would have to get past him to get to the front door.

  “I just showed her how to build a sand castle, Grant,” Darin said now. “You and Lynn saved us.”

  “You saved her from a man who was going to kidnap her.”

  “I hit a bad man, but it wasn’t hard to do. It hurt my hand, though.”

  Life in Darin’s world was so simple. And more complicated than he felt equipped to handle some days.

  But his brother was with him. Safe. He’d saved Kara’s life.

  Grant had nothing more to ask.

  * * *

  LYNN WAS IN her room, purportedly to sleep. The lights were out. And she lay, fully clothed, on top of her covers.

  She’d reached Brandon before he’d boarded his plane and now that he knew Kara was safe, unharmed and unaware of the horror she’d narrowly escaped, he’d decided he would wait and fly down as usual over the weekend.

  As far as Kara knew, she’d spent the day with Darin playing in the sand. She’d been unaware of the “bad man” Darin had talked about, thinking only that he’d snatched her up because she’d been left behind by Maddie’s car.

  It had all transpired so quickly, Kara hadn’t known what was happening.

  But she’d rattled on and on about her and Darin’s castle. To her father on the phone. At the dinner table, through her bath and bedtime story. And was probably asleep dreaming about castles and princesses at that very moment.

  Lynn knew about the bad man. And the near-miss. And she couldn’t let her guard down enough to get undressed, let alone sleep.

  She could have lost Kara that day. Risked losing the little girl every single day.

  Just as she’d lost Brandon. Her experience with him had taught her that loving someone made you a hostage to fate—to their choices, their fates.

  She’d kept herself free from any kind of romantic commitment so she didn’t have to face again the burned ashes of an empty life.

  But in reality, any kind of love held her hostage. And she couldn’t stop her heart from caring.

  Tension emanated from her pores and she couldn’t make it stop.

  As evidenced by the way she jumped at the knock on her open bedroom door.

  “Lynn?”

  The voice was Maddie’s. She’d insisted that the other woman spend the night with them. Because Kara hadn’t liked it that Maddie had driven off without her. Because Maddie had saved Kara’s life and was in perpetual panic mode at the thought of being in trouble for breaking the rules with Darin.

  And because Lynn had needed her family together.

  “Yes?” She sat up. Turned on the light.

  She wondered if Grant was asleep. Or sitting up like she was, listening for any sounds from Darin’s room, wondering how
to prevent a repeat of the day, of the fear of losing the one most dear to you.

  She wondered if he missed her anywhere near as much as she was missing him, her partner in fear that night.

  “You’re wearing your jeans and red shirt just like at dinner.” Maddie, her slender little body dressed in the pink-and-white pajama bottoms and top she kept in a drawer in the spare bedroom in Lynn’s house, came slowly into the room, a frown on her pretty face.

  “I know.”

  “You were in the dark.”

  “Yes.”

  Sometimes it was nice not to have to answer unspoken questions. Because Maddie had simply been observing a shift from the norm, not asking a question.

  “I didn’t wake you.”

  “No.”

  The other woman nodded, picking at a thread on Lynn’s comforter.

  “Would you like to have a talk?” Lynn asked softly, her heart going out to Maddie. No one on earth tried harder, or wanted to do right, more than Maddie did.

  The other woman wouldn’t look at her. Her lower lip sucked into her mouth, her teeth biting into it.

  “Come on,” Lynn said, patting the end of the bed. “Have a seat and let’s chat a bit. It was a different kind of day, and I’d like the company, too,” she said.

  Nodding, Maddie climbed up to sit cross-legged on the end of the mattress, pulling at the hem of her pajamas instead of Lynn’s bedding.

  “You were amazing today, Maddie,” she said. Lila had called a gathering in the rec hall that night. She’d had Maddie and Kara sit up front with her. She’d invited Maddie’s parents, as well, but they’d been tired and eager to get back home.

  She’d told everyone how Maddie had helped them find Kara and Darin. And then talked about the fact that there were rules at the Stand for a reason, emphasizing how mandatory it was that they all follow the rules as a contingency to their residency with them.

  She didn’t name names. But Lynn knew that Kaitlynn, the new dance teacher, had received her warning. If the young woman had simply made a mistake, she’d learned from it. If she’d been disrespectfully careless, she wouldn’t be with them long.

  “I’m going to be in trouble,” Maddie said. She chewed on her lip and picked at her clothes, but she wasn’t wild-eyed any longer.

  “I’m pretty sure you already learned your lesson about breaking rules,” Lynn said, knowing that Lila was not going to bring up Maddie’s infraction. Maddie wasn’t a prisoner at the Stand. She could leave if she wanted to.

  But Lynn needed the other woman to know that the rules were there to protect her—and everyone else. She needed to know that Maddie’s breaking of the rules was a onetime thing.

  Or she couldn’t entrust her daughter to her anymore.

  She couldn’t risk another debacle like the one they’d had that day.

  “It wasn’t your rule-breaking that was the problem today,” she said slowly. “It was Kaitlynn’s. She didn’t keep Kara safe. She let her go after you. Do you understand?”

  Eyes wide and serious, Maddie nodded. “Yes, Lynn. Kaitlynn could’ve got Kara hurt really bad. I started to cry when I dropped her off, but I didn’t know she ran out behind me,” the other woman continued. “If I knew she ran out behind me, I would’ve taken her hand and walked her back to her class.”

  “I know.”

  Folding her bottom lip over her top, Maddie continued to pick at her hem.

  “So, we’re agreed?” Lynn asked. “No more breaking of the rules. Even for Darin.”

  “I won’t break the rules again,” Maddie said. “I won’t sneak away. If Darin wants me to go someplace with him, I’ll tell him yes but I have to let you or Lila know first.”

  She didn’t want Maddie leaving with Darin. But she had a much better chance of preventing them from going out alone as long as she knew ahead of time that they planned to leave. So Lynn nodded.

  “Are you tired now?” she asked, thinking about calling Grant.

  She’d hoped he’d call her.

  “I’m not tired, Lynn, because I have to have an appointment with you.”

  She frowned. This was a new one. “An appointment with me?”

  “Yes, Lynn.”

  Maddie didn’t seem panicked. But she did seem...different. Because she’d been brave today and grown stronger from the experience?

  Because Darin had kissed her on the lips when they’d arrived back at The Lemonade Stand from the beach that afternoon?

  “Why do you need an appointment with me?”

  “Because I missed my period.”

  Jaw dropping, Lynn told herself to be calm. This was Maddie. Her heart pounded, anyway.

  “You missed your period,” she repeated in lieu of the words she’d have liked to find.

  “Yes, Lynn.” With a very strange peacefulness, Maddie looked straight at her.

  “You were due a week ago,” she said, knowing Maddie’s cycle because women’s cycles were her business, because Maddie spent so much time at her house—and because their cycles were pretty much the same.

  “Yes.”

  She tried to think back. To remember if Maddie had had her usual few hours of cramps. If there’d been extra trash in the bathroom can, or things used from under the counter.

  And couldn’t recall.

  “You probably had it and can’t remember,” she said now. But Maddie was usually pretty good about her period. It was regular. And so something she counted on.

  “I didn’t have it, Lynn.” Maddie would panic at the thought of having Grant read Kara a bedtime story, but she didn’t seem to be the least bit frightened of something that would strike terror in a lot of women.

  “Okay,” Lynn said slowly, watching her houseguest. “Well, there are lots of reasons for a woman to miss her period. It’s nothing to worry about. You’ll probably get it this coming week.”

  Maddie shook her head. “No,” she said emphatically. “I need an appointment with you, Lynn, because I missed my period and I’m going to have a baby.”

  Oh, God. Not tonight. She was beat. To a pulp. Completely spent and in need.

  Of Grant.

  “You aren’t going to have a baby, Maddie. You know it takes a man and intercourse to make a baby.”

  “I know that, Lynn. Darin is a man and we had intercourse.”

  Lynn’s hands dropped to the bed. She stared at the mentally handicapped woman.

  And knew that life had just taken an irrevocable turn.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE TEXT CAME shortly after eleven on Monday night.

  You up?

  Yeah, he was up. In more ways than one. With Darin safely home, but the day’s emotions still running amok, he’d been sitting in the dark thinking about the woman who’d been by his side through the second worst day of his life.

  The first being the day Darin had injured himself trying to save his wife’s life.

  He’d been thinking about the fact that their regularly scheduled sex date was less than forty-eight hours away. And determining that the odds were in their favor of actually consummating their agreement this week.

  Just the thought had him hard.

  Yeah. His thumbs typed the message back to her.

  He was sitting in the dark in nothing but a pair of silk basketball shorts, prepared for a long night. He looked forward to Lynn’s next message.

  His phone rang. Her moniker popped up on his screen.

  “Hello,” he said, his voice low, a grin spreading across his face.

  “Can you talk?”

  The strangled tone in her voice made him sit up straight. “Of course,” he told her. “What’s up?” He’d help her handle it, whatever it was.

  “Maddie and Darin had sex.”

 
“What?” Grant was on his feet before he realized it, and had to rein in his volume, as well. “There’s no way. No chance...”

  And just as Lynn started to talk again, he remembered Maddie’s voice on the phone that afternoon, telling them how she and Darin had snuck away from the The Lemonade Stand to spend an early morning on the beach.

  “There’s more.”

  What more could there possibly be? They’d been through the entire gamut of life’s crises already that day. “What?” he asked, still stuck on the fact that his brother had had sex.

  And was probably going to be wanting it again.

  So much for his “just friends” speech. His ridiculous idea that he’d be able to distract Darin from Maddie.

  With diving.

  “I think Maddie’s pregnant.”

  Her voice dropped on the last word. But it rang in his ear with the strength of a gunshot.

  “You think she is or you know she is?” The numbness filtering through him was welcome. He’d take more of it.

  He just wasn’t going to think.

  “I went to the clinic for a home pregnancy test and ran it on her. It’s positive. It’s only been a week, and it could be a false positive, but it’s an early-detection kit. We keep them in stock because we need to know as soon as possible if an abused woman is pregnant by her abuser when she arrives at the shelter.”

  She was talking too fast. Faster than he could think.

  Because he wasn’t going to think. Ever again.

  With the exception of the one hope she’d given him. He’d concentrate on that.

  “What are the chances of a false positive?”

  “Slight. More often it would be a false negative because a woman’s body produces hormones at different speeds. Maddie already has elevated levels of the hormone a woman’s body produces when she’s pregnant.”

  “It’s got to be wrong.”

  “I agree. But I doubt it.”

  She sounded stiff. As if she had a scarf tied too tightly around her neck. But try as he might, he heard none of the panic that was raging through him as he listened to Lynn.