Con twisted the kid’s arms further, securing them with his belt. “You hurt either one of them, you’re dead.”
He meant it.
A FLASH OF MOVEMENT warned Con they were no longer alone. Dropping the end of the belt, he ripped open his shirt and grabbed his gun. His finger was on the trigger, ready to fire.
“Hold it, buddy,” Pete said, coming out into the open as he assessed the situation. Robbie was right behind him, followed by a dozen agents and officers.
Just then Joey started to cry lustily from inside the cabin. Con handed his secured charge over to Pete and ran in. He grabbed his son up into his arms, holding him tightly against his chest. And suddenly he started to shake.
Joey was safe. His son was really safe. Thank God.
Weak with relief, he cuddled the boy, crooning softly to him.
“It’s OK, son, Daddy’s here,” he said, his voice breaking as the baby’s wails slowed to whimpers and then stopped altogether. Joey studied Con, a frown between his tiny brows.
“Daddy’s got you now, Joey. Daddy’s got you,” he said, aware only of an intense need for Joey to know that he’d always be there for him.
The baby lifted his hand and began bopping Con’s cheek. Con reached up to take hold of the tiny fist and was startled to find his own face wet with tears.
In that moment he realized what he’d been feeling since the day Sandra Muldoon had knocked on his door.
“I love you, son,” he said awkwardly, the words foreign to his tongue.
He was in love. With his own small son.
And with his wife.
He turned toward the door, looking for Robbie. He was going to do everything in his power, move the damn mountains she kept talking about if that was what it took, to make up to her for all the times he’d hurt her.
She was standing in the doorway, her face, too, streaked with tears. And she was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“You said you love him,” she murmured.
“Yes.” Con felt vulnerable as he stood there, the baby his only protection.
“I’m glad.” She smiled a radiant honest smile, asking for nothing at all. She was happy for him. Only him. And maybe a bit for the baby she adored, too.
The final dam in Con burst. He reached out a hand to her, daring to hope. She looked at his outstretched hand, and the seconds ticked slowly by while she glanced from his hand to his face, searching for something he hoped with all his being she’d find.
And then her fingers stole into his. He squeezed them, looking into her eyes, allowing her to see into his. And into his soul.
She wrapped her arms around him, buried her face between him and the baby and began to sob. Con held her and let her cry, knowing she was shedding tears for both of them, ridding them both of years of stored-up pain.
Joey grabbed a fistful of Robbie’s hair and gave it a yank worthy of the offspring of Connor Randolph.
“Ow!” she cried, lifting her head to grin at her son through her tears. “I can see we’ll have to teach you how to treat a lady, young man,” she told him, freeing her hair from the baby’s grip, and keeping his tiny hand captive within her own.
“I’ll never be a knight in shining armor,” Con said, needing to get things settled once and for all.
“I never said I wanted one. You said I did.”
“You deserve one.”
“But all I’ve ever wanted was you.” The baby squirmed. “Let’s take our son and go home, eh, Randolph?” Robbie took the baby from him.
That was it. Just like that, with nothing more from him, she was going to come home with him, make them the family he’d always wanted. She hugged Joey to her breast, pressing quick kisses to his neck. Laughing when Joey laughed.
Con couldn’t let her do it. Couldn’t let her settle for less than she deserved, less than she needed.
“Rob?” She was halfway to the door, but turned back when she heard him call her name.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“I know you do.” Her voice broke, her chin trem-bling, as he finally admitted what had been there between them for a lifetime.
“I love you, too,” she whispered. “I always have.”
Tears poured down her cheeks again as Con scooped the woman of his dreams up into his arms, baby and all, holding her beneath his heart.
The heart she’d given back to him.
EPILOGUE
ROBBIE SAT with her father on the closed-in porch in Sedona, watching for Con to come back with their son. He’d taken Joey up the mountain to find a Christmas tree.
“The boy’s only two. You think he knows what he’s looking for?” Stan asked, puffing on his pipe.
“I don’t think he cares as long as he’s with his daddy.”
“I always knew that husband of yours would make a fine family man if he ever lost that chip he carried on his shoulder.”
“I’m not doing too badly in the wife department, either,” Robbie said. She was still bothered some-times by the conversation she’d had with her father on this very porch eighteen months before.
Stan cleared his throat and looked anywhere but at his daughter. “I was wrong, girl. I was looking at what I’d raised you to be, and seeing you all alone and lonely, I got to thinking I done you wrong. That it was my fault you were suffering so from loving a man who wasn’t loving you back.”
Robbie smiled, rubbing her hands over her extended belly. “He loves me,” she said.
Stan glanced up the mountain, embarrassed. “‘Course he does.”
“Did I tell you the kid who took Joey is in counseling?” Robbie asked, deciding to let her father off the hook—for now.
Stan harrumphed. He’d made his opinion clear as far as that kid was concerned. Stan thought he should have been tried as an adult, locked away forever.
“He still has another year in detention until he’s eighteen, but he wants to go to college, start over and put the past behind him.”
Stan harrumphed again.
The baby kicked Robbie in the ribs and she gasped slightly. She tried to push the huge mound into a more comfortable position. Except that at thirty-five weeks, there wasn’t one. She was loving every minute of this pregnancy. And with all the miracles that had taken place in her life, she could afford to be generous.
“The kid went a little crazy when he lost his mom, Pop, but he’s basically a good kid. He went out of his way to make sure Joey was all right the whole time he had him.”
“He was going to kill him,” Stan said, his words sharp.
Robbie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think he’d have hurt Joey. Or me, either. He just wanted Con to suffer. And he knows now that Con was already suffering over the death of the kid’s mother. Con wrote to him once, told the kid what really happened that day, how it happened.”
He was also planning to pay for the kid’s college education, but Robbie didn’t think her father was ready to hear that yet.
“He’s a better man than I—”
Stan broke off when Robbie gave a little cry. Con’s younger son was a mighty determined little fellow. He’d never kicked her so hard.
“Susan!” Stan bellowed, his face white as he watched Robbie.
“What?” Susan came running from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.
“She’s—”
“It’s nothing, Mom,” Robbie interrupted. It couldn’t be. Not until Con got back. She was not going through this without him.
“Connor, Jr., just kicked a little harder than usual.” Robbie rose from her chair, hoping to make more room for her unborn son, just as Con came walking across the desert field in front her. Joey was riding on his shoulders, an evergreen dragging behind them. Robbie couldn’t tell whose grin was broader, Joey’s or Con’s.
Another fierce pain gripped Robbie, followed by a flood of warmth between her legs.
“Oh!” Susan said, grabbing Joey from Con’s shoul
ders when they came through the door. Stan, meanwhile, tried to steer Robbie to the couch.
She stood her ground, her discomfort unimportant, as her gaze sought and found her husband’s.
“What?” he asked, crossing to her immediately.
The look in his eyes told her everything she needed to hear. She returned the look and said simply, “It’s time.”
Here’s a sneak peek at Carrie Alexander’s THE AMOROUS HEIRESS Available September 1997…
“YOU’RE A VERY popular lady,” Jed Kelley observed as Augustina closed the door on her suitors.
She waved a hand. “Just two of a dozen.” Technically true since her grandmother had put her on the open market. “You’re not afraid of a little competition, are you?”
“Competition?” He looked puzzled. “I thought the position was mine.”
Augustina shook her head, smiling coyly. “You didn’t think Grandmother was the final arbiter of the decision, did you? I say a trial period is in order." No matter that Jed Kelley had miraculously passed Grandmother’s muster, Augustina felt the need for a little propriety. But, on the other hand, she could be married before the summer was out and be free as a bird, with the added bonus of a husband it wouldn’t be all that difficult to learn to love.
She got up the courage to reach for his hand, and then just like that, she—Miss Gussy Gutless Fair-child—was holding Jed Kelley’s hand. He looked down at their linked hands. “Of course, you don’t really know what sort of work I can do, do you?”
A funny way to put it, she thought absently, cradling his callused hand between both of her own. “We can get to know each other, and then, if that works out…” she murmured. Wow. If she’d known what this arranged marriage thing was all about, she’d have been a supporter of Grandmother’s campaign from the start!
“Are you a palm reader?” Jed asked gruffly. His voice was as raspy as sandpaper and it was rubbing her all the right ways, but the question flustered her. She dropped his hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“No problem,” he said, “as long as I’m hired.”
“Hired!” she scoffed. “What a way of putting it!”
Jed folded his arms across his chest. “So we’re back to the trial period.”
“Yes.” Augustina frowned and her gaze dropped to his work boots. Okay, so he wasn’t as well off as the majority of her suitors, but really, did he think she was going to pay him to marry her? .
“Fine, then.” He flipped her a wave and, speechless, she watched him leave. She was trembling all over like a malaria victim in a snowstorm, shot with hot charges and cold shivers until her brain was numb. This couldn’t be true. Fantasy men didn’t happen to nice girls like her.
“Augustina?”
Her grandmother’s voice intruded on Gussy’s privacy. “Ahh. There you are. I see you met the new gardener?”
eISBN 978-14592-7063-3
SHOTGUN BABY
Copyright © 1997 by Tara Lee Reames.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed in U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Table of Contents
Excerpt
About the Author
Books by Tara Taylor Quinn
Dedication
Prologue
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
Preview
Copyright
Shotgun Baby Page 21