His Shotgun Proposal

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  Oh, it wasn’t that he suddenly believed her story and accepted Cade’s love-at-first-sight theory. He didn’t. Not at all. But he felt it was important to maintain at least one line he wouldn’t cross, some measure of just how far he was willing to go to prove his brother was wrong. Abbie was a liar. The baby was not, could not, be his. But he’d agreed to play the game and it wouldn’t kill him to pretend to have a change of heart for the rest of the week, just so long as he kept his hands off her. And who knew? Maybe Abbie would respond by letting down her guard. Maybe she’d decide, all on her own, to abandon her plans and leave the ranch. Maybe she’d get careless and he could catch her in her web of lies. Maybe, nothing would change.

  Or maybe he’d discover that Cade was right.

  Mac didn’t want to think about that possibility, but since his talk with his twin, the idea that Abbie’s baby could also be his baby had circled through his thoughts a million times. If there was one chance in ten million, even one in a billion, he had to consider what he’d do, although he knew in his heart the answer was a foregone conclusion. If a paternity test proved her baby was a Coleman, he would marry Abbie. And he would do it knowing that by insisting on that tangible, scientific proof, he had lost any hope of ever having her respect, trust, love or forgiveness.

  MAC WAS HEADED into the kitchen, thinking that might be where Abbie had disappeared to after dinner. He was halfway there when he heard his mother’s laugh and her voice confessing, “When I was pregnant with the twins, there were a couple of months when I cried at the slightest thing. One time, Ibrahim offered me anything I wanted—jewelry, clothes, a pet monkey, a trip home to visit Randy, anything I wanted, if I’d just stop crying.”

  Abbie’s laugh rang out, along with Aunt Vi’s and Hannah’s. “He offered you a monkey?” Aunt Vi’s voice was pitched high on the wave of her laughter. “As if that would make you feel better. Men are so inept when it comes to knowing how to deal with a pregnant woman. Why, when I was pregnant with Jessica, Randy used to watch me as if he thought I might suddenly pick up the BarcaLounger and throw it at him.”

  Mac turned to escape, knowing he didn’t need to hear this, but then Abbie voiced a hesitant question and he felt it might be in his own best interests to eavesdrop a little longer. “Do you think it’s the crying, or the idea they might be held responsible for it that upsets the men?” she asked.

  “It’s the tears,” Rose said confidently. “Ibrahim was the king of Sorajhee. He could do almost anything by saying ‘Make it so,’ but he couldn’t do a single thing to stop his pregnant wife from crying her eyes out.”

  “Men always want to fix things,” Aunt Vi added her agreement. “If you’re mad, they tell you why you shouldn’t be. If you’re frustrated with a project, they believe the answer is to finish the project for you. Men think if their wife is happy, they did something right and deserve a pat on the back. If she’s not happy, they assume something must be wrong and it’s their duty to find out what it is and beat the problem to a pulp. But if a woman is crying, men are helpless and all they can think to do is try to make it stop, or better yet, prevent it from starting in the first place.”

  “I guess they’re afraid the crying will go on and on endlessly and they’ll feel more and more helpless.” Hannah’s voice added to the discussion. “The doctor told me today to expect some mood swings and some teary moments, but I’m so happy about being pregnant, it’s hard to imagine I’d ever cry because of it.”

  “Crying doesn’t mean you’re unhappy,” Aunt Vi assured her. “It’s just that the hormones in your body are going haywire and you can’t help it.”

  “It’s strange,” said Abbie’s voice again, and Mac leaned in, listening even harder than before. “These past five months have not been easy, but I haven’t experienced much in the way of mood swings. Even when I got fired from a job I loved, I didn’t shed a single tear.”

  “You got fired?” Hannah asked. “I can’t imagine why. Jessie says you can work circles around anyone else she knows.”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t do my job,” Abbie said. “It was because I’m unmarried and pregnant.”

  “What?”

  “They can’t do that!”

  “That’s illegal.”

  “It’s an exclusive private school for young women and it is in the contract I signed that I agreed to keep my behavior as a model for my students. So I don’t really blame the administration, although they could have been a little nicer about the whole thing. But even when all that was going on, I didn’t cry. Didn’t even want to. Then the day before I came here, I was watching an old episode of I Love Lucy and suddenly I was sobbing. I cried and cried and I couldn’t stop it. Then suddenly, it was over. No warning either way.”

  “That’s just the way I remember it, too,” Aunt Vi concurred. “One minute you’re fine, the next minute you’re flooding ocean city.”

  Hannah laughed. “I can’t wait to tell Alex what he has to look forward to.”

  “Oh, don’t tell him, honey,” Aunt Vi advised. “Let him muddle through just like every other guy has had to do since Adam worried over Eve.”

  “You can warn him,” Rose said. “But I don’t think it’ll make a bit of difference. When the tears start, he’ll be as helpless as his father was with me. Don’t worry. Alex will survive.”

  “I’m sure he will.” Hannah sounded as if she was certain of it. “But I want him to enjoy these next few months as much as I intend to. We’ll all hope that nothing happens to really upset my apple cart.”

  “You’re right.” Abbie’s voice again. “Imagine what could happen if the mood swings and something really upsetting happened all at once.”

  “That could scare every man on this place so bad they might all head for the hills. Course, there are days when I wouldn’t mind that a bit!” Aunt Vi said, laughing. In a moment, the other women were laughing, too.

  Then, a chair scraped and Mac decided he did not want to get caught eavesdropping on that conversation. It might upset the expectant mothers—well, one of them, anyway—and he definitely did not want to be responsible for setting off the biggest cryfest this side of the Rio Grande.

  “WANT TO GO FOR A WALK down to the dock?”

  Startled, Abbie blinked and looked up into Mac’s face. “A w-walk?” she repeated, certain she must have heard wrong. “To the d-dock?”

  Mac nodded, solemnly. “If you care…to take a dare, we can walk…to the dock.” His singsong rhyme teased her, toyed with her anxiety, but it was the warmth in his smile that put her heart at war with her head. “I will swear…it’s just for air, but if you’d rather…I can…” He stopped, laughed. “Sorry, I don’t have a clue what rhymes with rather. Will you come with me anyway?”

  Okay, so he wanted to get her out of the house and yell at her or something. For three whole days now, he’d been nice as pie. He’d given her more attention, paid her more compliments than she’d ever received from anyone—with the exception of her brothers—and generally acted as if he wanted to be friends. She still hadn’t a clue what was behind this transformation, but she had a strong suspicion it wasn’t going to last. “Sure,” she said, and rose from the sofa. “If we’re going to swim, though, you should get your denim shirt.”

  The corners of his mouth curved in a softer, somehow more genuine, smile. “Sorry, but this time you’ll have to provide your own swimsuit.”

  The look in his eyes felt intimate, as if he were inviting her for more than a walk, as if he thought rather might be made to rhyme with kiss. “I don’t feel like swimming tonight,” she said crisply, and stepped out ahead of him.

  “Walking’s good.” He followed her from the television and rec room where various members of the family and staff gathered after supper. He held open the door that led onto the courtyard and closed it as he followed her through. “I like a good walk after a good meal. What about you?”

  She peered at him in the gathering dusk, genuinely perplexed by his new attitude. “I
enjoy walking,” she agreed. “I can’t help thinking, though, that this must be how Little Red Riding Hood felt when she met up with the wolf on the road to her grandmother’s house.”

  Mac grinned. “You think I have wicked designs on your basket of goodies?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “I’m thinking you lured me out here so you could stuff me in a box and mail me to Timbuktu.”

  “Nah. I’d have to look up the zip code and it’s just too nice a night to spend with my head in a book.”

  “It is nice out. The temperature feels like it’s still on the high side of eighty, but it’s not bad.”

  “There’s always a breeze off the lake.” His hand touched her elbow to turn her toward the dock, but then dropped quickly away. “Come on. I’ll race you.”

  “That wouldn’t be much of a contest. You could win in a walk.”

  “Or you could win in a waddle.”

  Her face fell in an avalanche of dismay. She couldn’t help it. “Do I really waddle?”

  He turned, started to put his hands on her shoulders, then took a step back. But oddly enough, his expression stayed disarmingly tender. “No, of course, you don’t. It was just a dumb joke. A really dumb, bad joke.”

  She looked into his eyes and was embarrassed at how much she wanted him to kiss her, hold her, crush her against his chest. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better. I knew it. I waddle.”

  “If I wanted to make you feel better, I’d apologize for being such a jerk the day you arrived, and for a few days afterward.”

  She blinked. Her heart stopped, sped off again in a wishful thud-thud, thud-thud. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you swapped places with your twin and that he’s the one who invited me out for a walk and who’s been unnervingly nice to me all week long.”

  Mac cocked his head to the side. “Do you know better, Abbie?”

  “There might be some circumstances in which you could fool me with that kind of switch, but offhand, I can’t think of any.”

  He didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “And how can you be so certain of who I am, and who I’m not?”

  She couldn’t tell him how she knew. It had been stupid even to admit she could tell the difference. “I don’t want to tell you,” she said honestly, and moved away from him, down the slope to the dock.

  He caught up with her in one long stride. “Even Aunt Vi still sometimes mistakes me for Cade or Cade for me. And if we’re really trying, we can hoodwink practically anyone. So why do you think you can tell the difference?”

  She stopped halfway down the pier, braced both hands on the railing and breathed deeply of the fragrant air. “This is such a beautiful place. If I lived here, I’d build a house right over there, so I could look out at the lake every morning and every night.” She felt a change in him and realized how that had sounded. Proprietary. Grasping. Exactly the way he believed her to be. Sighing, she decided to try to explain. “I didn’t mean I intend to live here,” she began. “I only meant that I…oh, never mind. You won’t believe me, anyway.”

  He was quiet for a moment, his hands folding over the top of the dock rail as he looked at the dark guest house just visible on the north side of the lake. “I’d like to ask you something, Abbie.” His voice was husky now, no trace of a smile anywhere in the words. “That night, the first time we met, was it as breathtaking as I remember? Or was it just the circumstances?”

  A whole shower of memories washed over her, drowning her in remembered sensations. If this was a setup, if he intended to lash out with disbelief when he heard her answer, she would never, ever forgive him. “It was better than breathtaking, Mac. It was better than the best night of my entire life.”

  He was still for a moment, staring past her at the water. “So why were you gone when I woke up?”

  “I had a prior commitment.”

  “A commitment that precluded leaving me a name, an address? I’d have been happy with just a promise to meet again at the same time, same place, next year.”

  She could almost believe she’d hurt him, which she’d never, ever meant to do. “I’m sorry. I wanted a night of mystery and passion. I didn’t think about the consequences.”

  “And now?” he asked.

  “I think about the consequences every day.”

  Mac stood apart from her, silent, contemplative, for so long she feared he’d forgotten she was there. Then he turned and, as if he was about to touch a glowing-hot coal, he reached out and placed his hand on the bulge of her tummy. “A baby,” he said. “That’s a lot of consequences to think about all by yourself.”

  She laid her hand over his and looked up into his eyes. “I’m not asking you to share the responsibilities, Mac. I didn’t come here to ask you for anything. Please believe me.”

  He answered by turning his hand until he was palm to palm with hers. Then he drew their conjoined hands down and around her, pulling her closer to him at the same time he tipped up her chin with his other hand. “I’d like to, Abbie,” he whispered. “I’d really like to.” Then his lips came down to close over hers and the sensations flooding her were suddenly real and not just remembered.

  His kiss was tender tonight, unlike the anger-charged embrace her first night at the ranch. Where he’d been seeking an answer then, this time he seemed to be asking a question. The pressure of his kiss parted her lips and his tongue teased hers with a sensuous caress. Her knees turned to mush, as did the protests that flickered weakly in her brain before succumbing to the pleasure. She really had no choice but to lean into him, to accept what he offered, to realize that their chemistry was a powerful combination. The taste, the feel of him was familiar, despite the months of separation, and Abbie wondered why that didn’t seem strange to her, why being in his arms felt so much like being home. She’d been with Mac once and yet she knew things about him it should have taken her years to learn. Like knowing the slight tremor in his lips meant he was exercising a willful restraint. Like knowing he wasn’t conscious of the way his finger stroked her chin during the kiss. Like knowing he wanted her as much as he ever had and was still reluctant to admit it. Like knowing that if she asked for more, either by word or deed, he would withdraw. This kiss was a test, somehow, and try as she might, Abbie couldn’t think of any way she could pass.

  But in a moment, miraculously, it seemed she had. The kiss melted into scattered caresses across her nose, her forehead, her eyelids. His arms tightened around her. His breath blew past her ear in a shaky, sensuous relief. “Abbie,” he whispered. “I’m not sure how this is going to work out, but—”

  Her phone rang. From the back pocket of her maternity-banded jeans, the cell phone jangled a rude and inopportune summons. She thought about reaching back and turning it off. She thought about snatching it out of her pocket and tossing it and its annoying rattle into the lake. She thought about telling Mac to hold on to the words he’d been about to say while she gave the phone a proper burial at sea. But in the end, she knew the moment was ruined already, so as Mac stepped back, looking pale and as if he’d just had a narrow escape, she reached for the phone and answered her brother’s call.

  MAC LEANED against the dock rail and tried to look as if he wasn’t interested in Abbie’s phone conversation. She was turning him into a compulsive eavesdropper, it seemed. But he couldn’t help but listen to her side of the phone call and if it helped him figure out her line of attack, the end would justify the means, wouldn’t it? On the other hand, he was obligated because of his agreement with Cade to do as his twin had suggested and keep an open mind about interpreting what the conversation might mean.

  “Hello,” she said for openers, and Mac decided there was nothing sinister or sneaky about that.

  “I know I said I’d call at seven, but I told you it could be later, too.” Her tone was impatient, but also conciliatory, as if she were sorry she hadn’t called at seven, but annoyed to be asked about it.

  “I was busy,” she said. There was a definite note of fru
stration in her voice, possibly a thread of affection, too. No, he’d imagined the affection. Definitely, no affection.

  “I’m working. Yes, as a counselor.”

  Okay, so he had to call that one a lie. Unless she was a certified counselor and considered talking to him as work. There, Mac thought. That was incredibly open-minded.

  “Didn’t I just say that?”

  From her side of the conversation, it sure sounded like an escalating argument. Not the furious kind of argument he’d had with her several times since her arrival, but the less aggressive kind of argument where she didn’t want to do whatever the person at the other end of the line wanted or expected her to do. A tug-of-war kind of argument. That seemed a fair and unbiased assessment of what he was hearing. “No,” she was saying. “No, this isn’t a good time. I can’t talk right now.”

  Suspicion reared its head. That had to mean she didn’t want Mac to hear what she had to say. On the other hand, a desire for privacy was perfectly normal. That, in itself, wasn’t necessarily suspicious. Score three for being open-minded.

  “I’m exactly where I told you I’d be, Brad.”

  Brad. The same guy who’d phoned her at the restaurant. She didn’t seem any happier to hear from him tonight, either. Although that could be because she’d been right in the middle of kissing another man, weaseling her way around his defenses, insinuating herself back into his good graces, planning how to turn…

  Whoa, Mac reminded himself. Open mind. Keep an open mind. Maybe Brad was just a jerk who called at times she’d rather he didn’t. But if that were true, why didn’t she just turn off the phone?

  Her voice suddenly rose with distress. “Why did you do that? I asked you to only use the cell phone number. You had no business at all to go calling Directory Assistance.”