by Rachel Lee
Playing House Or Playing For Keeps?
Motorcycle-riding judge Wyatt Carter runs his life by the book...mostly. But when his old friend Amber Towers calls him in need, he doesn’t hesitate to help her, even though inviting the single and secretly pregnant lawyer to stay in his house has suddenly made him the scandal of Conard County!
Wyatt is the port in Amber’s stormy situation. Even though their friendship sizzles with an underlying attraction, she has to steer clear, because she is pregnant—and he is headed into an important election! But why, this time, does it seem like Wyatt and Amber are willing—no, eager!—to give the town something to talk about?
“Maybe you just need a break from it all. There’s been a lot to deal with.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it,” Wyatt said. “You were awfully clinical when you called me and told me you were in a mess.”
She gazed into his face, reading his concern but more, his kindness. He’d always accepted her just as she was, and he was doing it right now.
He touched her cheek, and a pleasant shiver ran through her. Well, at least she could still feel that. It would have been so easy to just fall into his arms. Because she wanted to know what it would feel like to rest her head on his shoulder. To feel his lips on hers. To feel his skin against hers. To feel him filling the emptiness inside her.
She’d always wanted to know.
CONARD COUNTY: THE NEXT GENERATION
Dear Reader,
Judge Wyatt Carter had been wandering the back of my mind for some time. He’s an attractive figure, and every time he popped to the foreground of my thoughts, I’d think, “Someday.”
Well, Judge Carter’s day finally came. He refused to be ignored any longer, but then he’s a judge. To any who think he’s an unusual judge, I’d like to assure you he’s not. I’ve known judges very much like him, in and out of the courtroom. Despite what most of us see on TV and in movies, judges are human, caring and often kind when the situation warrants. And out of those robes...well, they can be fun, too.
When Wyatt’s old friend from law school falls on troubled times, helping her comes as naturally to him as breathing. He’s not one to care about gossip, and not particularly concerned about his upcoming reelection. It’s enough that Amber needs him to help her through an unexpected pregnancy and the troubles it caused with her career.
Enjoy!
His Pregnant Courthouse Bride
Rachel Lee
Rachel Lee was hooked on writing by the age of twelve and practiced her craft as she moved from place to place all over the United States. This New York Times bestselling author now resides in Florida and has the joy of writing full-time.
Books by Rachel Lee
Harlequin Special Edition
Conard County: The Next Generation
The Lawman Lassoes a Family
A Conard County Baby
Reuniting with the Rancher
Thanksgiving Daddy
The Widow of Conard County
Montana Mavericks: 20 Years in the Saddle!
A Very Maverick Christmas
Harlequin Romantic Suspense
Conard County: The Next Generation
Guardian in Disguise
The Widow’s Protector
Rancher’s Deadly Risk
What She Saw
Rocky Mountain Lawman
Killer’s Prey
Deadly Hunter
Snowstorm Confessions
Undercover Hunter
Playing with Fire
Conard County Witness
A Secret in Conard County
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Get rewarded every time you buy a Harlequin ebook!
Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards
http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002
Contents
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
Excerpt from Baby Talk & Wedding Bells by Brenda Harlen
Prologue
Circuit Judge Wyatt Carter had just finished a pleasant dinner at home, a too-rare occurrence, because he lived alone and was generally too busy to take the time to indulge in cooking. But this was a quiet Sunday evening after a comfortable day of catching up on his reading, and he’d made the effort to cook chicken Alfredo for himself and enjoyed it with a glass of pinot grigio. He felt somewhat self-indulgent, but considering how little time he had for indulgences, he didn’t feel guilty.
When the phone rang, he assumed it was his father. Earl Carter ran the family law practice, although lately it had shrunk because Earl was getting older and didn’t take as many cases. Earl seemed content enough to let the practice contract even though he’d once said it was his legacy to his son. Then Wyatt had become a circuit court judge, and the plans of a father-son practice had melted away.
But it was not his father, much to his surprise. It was a voice out of the past.
“Wyatt?”
He recognized Amber Towers’s voice. They’d kept in touch over the last decade, mostly by email and occasional phone calls. Amber had moved on from law school to a large firm in St. Louis, then recently to a much bigger firm in Chicago, headed for the heights. Wyatt, who had graduated two years ahead of her, had joined the military and spent three years in the judge advocate general’s office. Then he’d come back to out-of-the-way Conard County to fulfill his father’s dream of a shared practice.
He and Amber had once been very close friends, although nothing more than that, and since then they’d maintained a long-distance friendship, except for dinner or lunch at a bar association conference.
Now he heard her voice with astonishment, since she hadn’t called in ages, and concern popped into his mind. “Amber? What’s wrong?”
“You’re never going to believe it. I’m in a mess. Got an hour or so?”
“Of course.”
His mind dived down the byways of memory, recalling Amber as he had first seen her. She was young for a first-year law student, having gone to college two years early and finishing her bachelor’s degree in three years.
She had, in short, been barely nineteen. He’d been twenty-seven, because he’d taken a couple of years after college to try his hand at other things before going to law school. She’d been very pretty, so pretty that every guy who wasn’t already married—and some who were—chased her. He hadn’t chased. It wasn’t that he hadn’t found her attractive, but facing his tour with the military in exchange for them paying his law school expenses, he felt it was the wrong time to get involved, especially since the direction she wanted to take was far from his path. He’d also felt that given the difference in their ages, it might be close to cradle robbing. Amber had seemed so young to him then.
So they’d become friends over textbooks and in oral arguments. He’d mentored her, having already taken the classes she was in, and she’d challenged him with her sharp mind.
A lovely woman barely emerging from adolescence, with dark hai
r, a pleasant figure and a face that had been pretty but painfully young. Of one thing he had been sure, though: Amber would rise to the top. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she reached the Supreme Court.
But now she was in trouble?
He poured himself another glass of wine, carried it to his easy chair and prepared to listen.
It didn’t take an hour, either. Amber was indeed in a mess.
Chapter One
“I think this is a bad idea,” Earl Carter told his son, not for the first time in the last month.
“Amber needs a place to get her feet under her, Dad,” Wyatt answered. The two men were sharing a beer at the kitchen table as they had so many times over the years.
“People will talk, a strange woman moving in with you.”
“Dad, it’s the twenty-first century.”
Earl snorted. “Not in a lot of places in this county it isn’t, Wyatt. Dang, you’re a judge! Decorum and all that.”
Wyatt hid a smile behind his beer bottle. Clearly Earl was one of those who hadn’t quite come into the new century. But while he never would have admitted it to his father, he wasn’t so sure about having Amber here, either.
First off, she was a city gal, and Conard City was barely a blip on the map. Secondly, they’d been friends in law school over ten years ago. A bunch of keeping-in-touch emails and an occasional phone call didn’t mean he really knew the woman she had become. Nor could he know how all those years at huge law firms might have changed her.
“Maybe I should move back in,” Earl said. He’d moved out after Wyatt had come back from his years with the judge advocate general’s office, because—as he’d said at the time—he was tired of keeping up the huge old family house, and besides, what woman would want to marry a man who was living with his father?
“I don’t need a chaperone,” Wyatt said now.
“Maybe you need a headshrinker.” Earl leaned back, his comfortable belly stretching his white shirt. He’d come directly from his law office, where he still wore a suit every single day. A Western-cut suit with a bolo tie, to be sure, but still a suit. He often evinced disapproval of his son’s penchant for wearing jeans beneath his judicial robe. Of course, he voiced plenty of disapproval for Wyatt’s motorcycle, too. “Look, son, it hasn’t been that long since you broke it off with Ellie.”
“What does Ellie have to do with it? That was over a year ago, and you know why I broke it off.” Wyatt shifted irritably. “Any woman who expects me to dismiss charges against her cousin is a woman I don’t want in my life.”
“I get it. You were right, not saying you weren’t. But that isn’t the story she put around.”
“So? What does that have to do with now?”
“Ellie’s gonna make trouble, mark my words. Moving a big-city woman in with you?”
“Temporarily, Dad,” Wyatt said with as much patience as he could muster. “It’s nobody’s business.”
“You know better than that. You have an election coming up.”
“Retention only. And if folks around here don’t want me to be the judge anymore, you’ll have a partner in that law practice again.”
Earl sighed. “You never set your sights high enough.”
Wyatt almost laughed. “I remember a time you thought that the practice of Carter and Carter was as high I needed to set my sights.”
“But now you’re a judge! You could become a district judge, maybe even go to the state supreme court.”
Wyatt experienced a jolt of shock. He had never dreamed that his father envisioned that kind of future for him. It had been surprise enough when he’d been nominated to the bench as a circuit judge. Now this comment from a man whose highest ambition had once been to see his son’s name on the shingle beneath his. “What got into you, Dad?”
Earl shrugged and took another swig of beer. “After you were nominated for the bench, I started wondering if I was holding you back.” Then he winked. “Not that I want to see you taking off again. Hard enough when you were at school and in the military.”
Holding the icy bottle in one hand, listening to the autumn wind picking up outside, Wyatt wondered if his dad was serious. He himself cherished no great ambitions that would carry him far away. He’d done that already, seen his share of the world with the JAG, and had decided things were just dandy here at home among people he’d known all his life. If he wanted adventure, that was what vacations were for. As it was, the daily parade of humanity that passed before his bench was entertaining and challenging enough, as was his work with youthful offenders.
“You should be thinking of these things,” Earl said, returning to the whole point of his visit.
“I don’t see a political future for myself, Dad. It’s enough I can get away for a couple of weeks, that I can go hunting for a weekend or two in the fall...”
Earl snorted. “And when was the last time you brought home any meat?”
Wyatt stifled a grin. “Hunting is good for that image you’re worried about. Someone from the city council or county commission asks me every year. I go to the dang lodge, drink with the boys, and I can’t help it if I’m a lousy shot.”
“You weren’t always,” Earl retorted, but a twinkle came to his eyes. Then his expression darkened again. “I know you’re not going to listen to me. When’s that woman arriving?”
“Amber is arriving some time this evening. Hang around and you’ll meet her.”
“And you’re throwing a party for her, too?”
Wyatt smothered a sigh. He knew perfectly well his father wasn’t this dense and that Earl was giving him a hard time. “Not a party, Dad. I’m having a few people over next weekend so she can meet some other women. I’m not around much, and maybe she can find some friends while she’s here.”
“Hmm.” Earl drained the rest of his beer and tossed the bottle in the trash. “I think I’ll head on back to my place. Maybe give Alma a call.”
Alma was his father’s latest interest, a woman in her midfifties with a warm smile and a nicely plump figure. Wyatt often thought that Earl hadn’t moved out of the family house so that his son could date, but rather so Wyatt wouldn’t cramp his father’s style. Wyatt’s mother had been gone for nearly thirty years, but Earl had never remarried. He had, however, enjoyed a series of relationships.
Apparently, he wasn’t worried about appearances for himself. Wyatt just shook his head as his father grabbed his coat and left. Earl was no fool, obviously, but the way he’d been talking tonight? Wyatt wondered what was really behind it.
A short while later he stood at the front window, the large living room behind him, the lights out so he could see. Wind was ripping the last autumn leaves from the trees and sweeping them down the street.
No, Earl was no fool. So maybe he was right that having Amber here was a mistake. The thing was, Wyatt had never been one to turn away someone in need. Far from it. He always had an overwhelming desire to help.
Mistake or no mistake, Amber was going to have a place to stay while she sorted out her life and where she wanted to go from here. Because she was right: she was in a mess.
* * *
Amber Towers pulled into Conard City and wondered if she was about to drop off the map. It wasn’t that the town was clearly small—she’d been in a lot of small towns in her life—but after driving so many miles with nothing on either side of the road except rangeland and mountains, it felt like the ends of the earth.
The streetlamps had come on, casting sharp shadows beyond the pools of light. From inside most of the houses came a golden glow that somehow seemed to beckon, promising warmth, shelter and friendliness.
Just an illusion, she told herself. Her GPS audibly guided her to Front Street and right up to Wyatt’s door. She pulled up against the curb, not wanting to block him in his narrow driveway. Other cars scatter
ed along the street told her that on-street parking wasn’t forbidden here.
Then she sat, her engine running, wondering what exactly she was doing. But she’d been wondering that for a while now. The whole situation stank, starting with her own naive stupidity and ending with her here, at an old friend’s house, unemployed and scared.
Yeah, she’d admitted she was scared. She’d never imagined that her rising boat and bright future could run aground. Certainly not this way. Not when everything had been going so well.
With both hands gripping the steering wheel, she continued to hesitate. Yes, she’d called someone who was totally outside her current circle, looking for objectivity and a true friend. Wyatt had sprung quickly to mind when she’d wanted a sounding board. Even back in law school, all those years ago, he’d been imbued with common sense, with a way of distancing himself that was excellent for a lawyer and something she’d had to learn. He could put feelings aside and see clearly.
So she had asked him to see clearly.
He had. He hadn’t told her what to do, not even indirectly, but he’d managed to draw the situation for her in sharp lines and propose several options for dealing with it.
She had chosen this one, and as soon as she had he’d said, “Well, then, you’ll need a place to stay while you make up your mind about what you want to do. I’ve got plenty of room.”
That was Wyatt. Always ready to help, a quality she had always admired in him, a quality she’d seen him display repeatedly during that year they’d been in law school at the same time. She’d accepted, but now she wondered if she was taking advantage of him. Even as she had qualms, she knew why Wyatt had been the only person she had told about her situation. She could count on him. Always. Other friends in her life had been nowhere near as steadfast.
It remained, however, this was her problem, her mess, and moving in on him and his life, even by invitation, had probably been a selfish thing to do.
Finally she quit arguing with herself and switched off her ignition. If she felt she was disrupting his life, that she was in the way somehow, she could leave tomorrow or the next day. After all, she was traveling light, most of her belongings packed away in storage for some better future day.