Harlequin Presents January 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Ruthless Caleb WildeBeholden to the ThroneThe Incorrigible Playboy

by Sandra Marton

  “I’ll call you back,” he snapped. Then he tossed the phone on a chair, folded his arms, and glared at her.

  “Well?”

  “Remember what I said about Thomas Caldwell?”

  “I remember. And I resent the hell out of—”

  “I don’t care what you resent. I am not going to hop from the frying pan into the fire.”

  Caleb’s eyes blazed.

  “I am not Caldwell,” he said flatly. “Got that straight?”

  “The principle’s the same.”

  “The hell it is!”

  “You cannot make decisions for me and about me, without consulting me.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, dammit...” He hissed out a breath, pivoted on his heel, turned to face her again. “Look,” he said in a tone so disgustingly, glibly reassuring it made her teeth ache, “I’m simply trying to expedite things.”

  “By dragging me to Dallas.”

  “It’s where I live. Where I practice law. I have commitments...”

  “You have a life in Dallas.”

  “Yes. Exactly. And—”

  “And I have one here. You can’t simply—you can’t simply—”

  “Did you think we were going to do this long distance? You in New York? Me in Texas? Did you think I was going to be a—a part-time husband and father?” His mouth twisted. “I don’t know what your childhood was like but I grew up with one of those.”

  “I didn’t grow up with any, and I—and I—”

  “And you what? Grew up just fine anyway?” He took a step toward her, came so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his angry eyes. “Maybe you did. I sure didn’t. And I’m not about to do the same thing to a child of mine.”

  Sage opened her mouth, then shut it. She wasn’t going to lie to him or to herself.

  “You’re right,” she finally said, “I didn’t, either. Grow up just fine, I mean. But—”

  “But, what? Don’t you want more for our child? I sure as hell do.”

  Sage stared at him.

  Everything he’d said made sense.

  Of course she wanted a different life for her child. For their child. But—but—

  She sank down on the sofa.

  This was all happening too fast. It was all too new. She’d only just got used to being pregnant and now there was a man in her life. Not just a man. A powerful, demanding man, intent on doing the right thing because it was, well, right, which was wonderful, it was amazing...

  Except, what she wanted from him was—was—

  “Sage.” He squatted down beside her. “Sage, look at me.”

  She shook her head.

  She didn’t want to look at him, not when his voice was suddenly so soft, when he was taking her hands in his and bringing them to his lips.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, and she looked into his eyes and saw all the things a woman could possibly hope for in their indigo depths.

  “Caleb.” Her voice broke. “it’s—it’s too much. It’s—it’s like getting on what’s supposed to be an easy ride at the amusement park and—and having it turn into the world’s biggest, baddest, fastest roller coaster.”

  He laughed softly.

  “I’ve been called a lot of things, honey, but the biggest, baddest, fastest roller coaster is a first.”

  She laughed, too, but he knew she was trying not to cry, and it tore him in pieces to see it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I should give you more time. In the best of all worlds, we’d do this slowly. Get to know each other. Go out to dinner. Take in a couple of movies, me yawning through a chick flick, you rolling your eyes while Tom Cruise risks his neck in the hundredth version of Mission Impossible.”

  Her eyes still glittered but she smiled. Caleb smiled back at her.

  “We’d go to the park. The museums. The zoo.” Ah, hell. Two perfect tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Not the zoo, huh?” he said softly, wiping away the tears with his thumbs.

  “I don’t like keeping animals in cages,” she said, and she thought, wasn’t this stupid? That she should be weeping?

  “See? We have something in common already. Neither do I.” His smile tilted. “I’d spend a few days here, fly to Dallas, fly back next weekend. After a couple of weeks, I’d take you home with me. Show you my city. Show you El Sueño—”

  “What’s El Sueño?”

  “The Dream. The family ranch.”

  “A ranch.” She swiped the back of her hand over her nose. “A real ranch?”

  Caleb thought of the half a million rich acres that made up El Sueño. He thought of the stables. The barns. The paddocks. The prize-winning stallions, the mares that dropped prize foals in late winter and early spring, the oil wells...

  “Yes,” he said gently. “It’s a real ranch.” He took a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and folded it around her nose. “Go on, honey. Blow.” She did, and he took away the handkerchief, slipped his arms around her, drew her against him, one hand in the center of her back, the other stroking her hair. “You’ll like El Sueño, Sage. And my family.”

  “Your family,” she whispered, “I almost forgot about them. Two brothers. Three sisters.”

  “And my father.”

  “The rancher, right?”

  Caleb hesitated. How would she deal with his way of life? She could handle it, he was sure of that. But would she want to? There was so much she didn’t know...

  Might as well get it over with, he decided, and he drew back a little and looked into her eyes.

  “Here’s the rundown. One sister, Lissa, lives on the west coast—she’s a cooking nut but don’t ever tell her I called her that.”

  Another smile. He was batting one hundred.

  “Em and Jaimie live right here, in New York. Em’s into music. Jaimie is trying to make it as a designer.”

  “They sound nice.”

  “They are. You’ll like them, and they’ll like you.”

  “And your brothers? Do they live in Texas, like you?”

  He nodded.

  “Jake runs El Sueño and his own place, too. His wife is terrific. She’s a lawyer, like me. That just leaves Travis.” Caleb grinned. “He’s this hotshot financial whiz.”

  “And your father? If your brother runs the ranch, what does he do?”

  Caleb hesitated. “Our father is—he’s an army man.”

  “Ah. A soldier.”

  “A general, honey. General John Hamilton Wilde.”

  Sage jerked back in his arms. “A general?”

  “Four stars,” Caleb said solemnly. “Just to put you completely at ease.”

  She saw the laughter in his eyes, saw compassion, too, and suddenly she was willing to admit her anger had been terror in disguise.

  “It’s going to be hard,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  A muscle knotted in Caleb’s jaw. She was looking at him the same way she’d looked at him the night they’d met, equal parts trust and fear in her lovely face.

  “Challenging, maybe.” He drew her closer. “But we’ll be fine, Sage. What we’re doing is right. For the baby. And for us.” He hesitated. “What I said before. About us being good together. It’s—it’s more than that. I, ah, I care for you. You matter to me. You—you—”

  There were words swimming around in his head, but none that made sense, which meant it was safer to kiss her than to try and say anything more.

  “I’ve been a fool,” he said gruffly. “I asked you to marry me, and then I tried to go on as if nothing had changed.”

  She nodded. “I understand. It’s—it’s a huge thing we’re doing. Getting married. Raising our child together.�
��

  “Yeah. It is. But it’s the right thing, and we both know it.” He stroked her hair back from her face. “I don’t want to take charge of your life, Sage. I only want to—to find the best way to make this work.”

  Sage sighed. His arms tightened around her; she put her head on his shoulder and leaned into him, into all that strong, protective, masculine warmth.

  “It’s hard for me,” she said softly, “hard to, you know, walk away from everything familiar.”

  He nodded. Told himself the way to do this was to keep it light.

  “I know. Heck, who would willingly give up this magnificent apartment?”

  She drew back a little, her palms against his chest, and looked at him.

  “And your neighbors. That pair of charming gentlemen I was fortunate enough to meet, for instance. I can only imagine how you’ll miss them.”

  That won him a tiny smile.

  “And the view. The ambience. The furnishings.”

  “Hey,” she said, “this is vintage stuff.”

  “Especially that sofa. It must date back fifty years.”

  “Seventy-five,” she said, “according to the Salvation Army, but who’s counting?”

  Caleb grinned. “Have we left anything out?”

  Her smile flickered to life again.

  “Only the mouse that lives behind the kitchen sink.”

  “Ah. You didn’t tell me you had a pet.”

  She laughed. Really laughed. He grinned, and then he rose to his feet and brought her to her feet, too. His grin faded; his eyes turned so dark a blue they were almost black.

  “We’re going to be okay,” he said softly. “You’ll see.”

  “It’s just... I grew up poor, Caleb. In a small town. Just the opposite from you.”

  “You haven’t seen Wilde’s Crossing,” he said with a quick smile. “Talk about small—”

  “You know what I mean. We come from such different backgrounds...”

  “We do,” he said gravely. “Like Jake and Addison. Different as night and day, but what can you expect when a Texan marries a Yankee?”

  That won him another smile.

  “Seriously, Addison had to make so many changes—”

  “Not Jake?”

  “Well, some—but mostly, see, easterners, northerners, talk funny.”

  Another smile. Bigger this time.

  “We do, huh?”

  “And your eating habits...”

  “Don’t tell me she had to learn to like grits!”

  “Of course, but mostly... Remember me looking for cheese and hot dogs?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  It was a wary “uh-huh,” but she was smiling again, which was exactly what he’d wanted.

  “Well, one very important thing Wilde brides have to do is learn to appreciate a couple of old family recipes.”

  “Biscuits and yams?”

  Caleb grinned.

  “Fried cheese and fried hot dogs.”

  “Oh, yuck!”

  “Topped off by charred marshmallows.”

  “Caleb Wilde. This is a joke, right?”

  “Old family recipes,” he said gravely “Wilde brothers’ recipes, anyway, from our misspent youth. Jake’s the sandwich guy. Travis is the hot-dog king. And I,” he said with great modesty, “am the marshmallow connoisseur.”

  Sage began to laugh. He felt that laugh rocket through him, straight down to his toes, and he gathered her close and held her tightly to him.

  “I promise,” he said softly. “We’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so,” she whispered, her breath warm against his throat.”

  “We will be. You’ll see.” He lifted her face to his and looked deep into her eyes. “Trust me, sweetheart. Okay?”

  Sage hesitated. Trust him. Trust this man who had broken her heart, then put all the pieces of it together again...

  “Sage? Will you trust me?”

  She took a deep breath.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and knew she had gone from opening her heart to giving it to him, with no restrictions.

  * * *

  He assured her they weren’t going to Dallas, then asked her to go into the bedroom and pack.

  “It’s a surprise,” he said, when she started to ask him the reason. “Trust me, remember?”

  Once the door shut after her, Caleb let out a long breath.

  The truth was, he needed a couple of minutes alone.

  She was scared. Hell, so was he.

  He’d come to New York prepared to make quick work of a woman who’d humiliated him.

  Instead, he’d discovered he’d made a terrible error in judgment. About her. About a lot of things. And he’d—he’d become taken with her. Such an old-fashioned word but how else to describe what he felt?

  If that wasn’t enough to terrify a man, he couldn’t imagine what was.

  His phone rang.

  Caleb ignored it.

  Don’t do anything precipitous, his brothers had said, but how else to deal with this situation except to move quickly?

  He didn’t regret his decision.

  Sage was everything a man could want. Everything he could want.

  She was a woman a man could love.

  The breath damned near seized in his lungs. Was that what this was all about? Was he—was he—

  His phone rang again, this time giving the demented beeps that meant he had a text message. He grabbed the thing as if it were a lifeline.

  The message shot him straight back to reality.

  It was from Thomas Caldwell.

  Is it true you canceled that test, Wilde? I demand an immediate explanation. Repeat, an immediate explanation.

  Caleb bit back a groan.

  How could he have let things slip so badly? He’d have to contact Caldwell...

  But not right now.

  He had other calls to make first.

  He’d used his law practice as the reason he had to go back to Dallas but the truth was, it had just been an excuse.

  His calendar was clear for the next week. He had a handful of client meetings, nothing major, especially since he now had a partner who could stand in for him.

  Jake’s wife. Addison, or Adoré, as nobody was supposed to know Jake called her—except all of them did—was one fine lawyer.

  Caleb almost hit the speed-dial button that would have connected him to his office, but didn’t.

  Why phone, when you could text and head off questions you weren’t ready to answer?

  There would be a lot to tell his family, and soon, but first, he and Sage needed some time to themselves.

  Hung up here, he texted. Can you handle things for a week?

  Addison texted right back.

  Sure. Not a problem. And then she added, Is everything okay? which could have been just a general question or a more specific one, meaning Jake had maybe told her about the phone call he and Travis had with their brother.

  It didn’t matter.

  The only appropriate answer was Everything’s great, see you soon.

  What next?

  Right. A call to his pilot.

  “Take a few days off,” he told Ted. “I’ll be in touch when I need you.”

  The last call was the most important.

  He phoned his hotel, a tower of glass that overlooked Central Park. He liked the place; it was modern, elegant, laid-back. The concierge knew him well; he took the same suite whenever he was in town.

  Now he told him that he’d want the suite for another week, and he added a few important instructions.

  “I’ll attend to it at once, Mr. Wilde,” the man said. Caleb could almost hear the smile in his voice.

&
nbsp; He glanced at his watch. He could get back to Caldwell...

  “Caleb?”

  Sage’s voice was soft.

  Caleb sprang to his feet, turned toward the bedroom—and felt his throat constrict.

  She’d changed into a dress and sandals. The dress was a shade of blue that came as close to matching her eyes as anything that wasn’t the sky ever could. It was simple—thin straps, a full skirt that skimmed her knees. The shoes were simple, too, with skinny high heels and an amalgam of straps. He’d have said their color was tan but he knew enough about women to be pretty sure the right name was far more fanciful.

  Her hair was pulled back, sort of knotted on top of her head, and his hands itched to go to her, undo that knot, undo what looked like half a dozen buttons and leave her in just those sexy shoes and whatever she had on under the dress...

  “What?” she said with a puzzled smile.

  What, indeed.

  “You’re so beautiful you make my heart ache,” he said in a rough voice as he drew her into his arms.

  Amazing, that this proud, incredible woman was his. His to care for. To protect. To cherish. To share his life with.

  Sage was his.

  And he...

  He was hers.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CALEB’S rental car was where he’d left it, the two kids standing next to it with zealous determination in their eyes.

  He dug out the halves of the hundred-dollar bills, gave one to each boy.

  “Excellent job,” he said, and then he thought, what the hell, and gave each kid a hundred bucks more.

  It wasn’t every day a man asked a woman to marry him.

  Marriage.

  “Wow,” he said softly, as he pulled away from the curb.

  “Wow, what?” Sage said.

  Caleb reached for her hand and brought it to his lips.

  “Just ‘wow,’” he said with a quick smile.

  “As in, ‘Wow, this is all happening so fast’?”

  “Yes,” he said, because it was senseless not to admit it. “But I told you, we’re going to be fine.”

  “So,” she said, trying for a smile. “You’re one of those the-glass-is-half-full people.”

  “Actually, I’m a pragmatist.” He laced his fingers through hers, lay their entwined hands over the gearshift. “And that’s how I know we’ll be fine. It’s not as if we’re going into this blind. We know who we are and what we’re doing. We’ve been honest with each other, and honesty’s the basis of any successful relationship.”