by Leanne Banks
She took a deep breath. “Why don’t we sit down? Would you like water or ginger ale?”
“Ginger ale,” he echoed, clearly disgusted.
“Water,” she said and laughed. “Have a seat.” She filled two glasses with ice and water and brought them into her small den. Giving one of the glasses to him, she sat across from him. “I didn’t expect you.”
He took several swallows of water. “I didn’t like the way you sounded.”
She winced. “How is your father?”
“Okay at the moment. Alex is checking in on him.” He set his glass down on a coaster on a lamp table. “What the hell is going on? Something’s wrong. If you want to dump me, just say it.”
Pippa dropped her jaw in astonishment. “That thought hasn’t occurred to me.”
“Then why are you acting so weird?” he demanded.
“I wasn’t aware that I was acting weird,” she said.
“Well, you are,” he said.
“We haven’t seen each other in nearly a month and we didn’t talk for almost three weeks,” she pointed out.
“I told you what was happening with my father,” he said.
“Yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that we didn’t communicate for three weeks.”
He frowned at her. “You’re still not telling me what’s going on,” he said. “Spit it out.”
She took a sip of her ice water, hoping the cool hydration would help calm her nerves. “What made you come to Chantaine?”
“You,” he said.
She gave a nod, but didn’t say anything.
“And I missed you,” he admitted.
“That’s good to know,” she said in a dry voice.
“What the hell—” He broke off. “What’s going on?”
“I’d rather not discuss it at the moment,” she said. “I’d rather hear your true feelings for me.”
He met her gaze for a long moment, then raked his hand through his hair. “You’re more important to me than I had planned,” he said.
“What had you planned?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I knew we would be together.”
“So you planned for a fling, a temporary affair,” she said.
“Yes.”
His honest answer, which she’d asked for, stabbed at her.
“What had you planned?” he asked.
His question caught her off guard. “I don’t know that I made any real plans,” she said. “I just knew I couldn’t turn away from you. The situation with your mother made it even more intense. I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be there for you.” She closed her eyes and allowed the words to tumble from her heart. “I fell in love with you, and now I’m afraid I’m in this all by myself.”
“You’re not,” he said. “But I don’t want to be a wedge between you and your family. You would grow to hate me for that.”
“It’s not right for you to make that decision for me. Don’t you see that in another way you’re treating me like Stefan does? You’re treating me like I don’t know my own mind and heart.” She clasped her hands together tightly and voiced her worst fear. “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of smokescreen to hide the fact that you don’t really love me and you don’t want to be with me?”
His eyes lit with anger. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“It isn’t at all ridiculous to me, and it occurs to me that if I have to extract a commitment from you, then maybe I don’t want it after all,” she said, feeling a terrible wrenching sensation inside her.
He pulled her against him. “What do you want from me?”
“Not much,” she said. “Just undying love, devotion and adoration.”
“You’ve had that for months,” he said.
She was afraid to believe him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her eyes burning with tears.
“I had to wait for you to catch up,” he said and cupped her face.
Pippa finally saw everything she’d been afraid to wish for right there in his eyes.
“I love you, Pippa. I just don’t want to make your life a living hell. I want to give you an opportunity to—” he shrugged “—come to your senses.”
“Too late for that,” she said, laughing breathlessly. “Besides, if being without you means I’m coming to my senses, then I don’t want to do that.” She bit her lip. “But there’s something else I have to tell you.”
“What?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Epilogue
Nic felt as if Pippa had hit him upside the head with a two-by-four. In a way, she had. It took three seconds before his mind moved into high gear. His immediate response was primitive and protective.
“You have to marry me,” he said. “Your brother may want to kill me, but our child deserves a father.”
Pippa winced. “That was romantic,” she said in a wry voice.
Nic sweated bullets. He couldn’t lose her. He had to protect her. He had to protect their child. He had to make her see everything he’d tried to hide. “I love you. I want to be with you all the time. Forever. I just didn’t know how we could work it out with your family. Cut me some slack. I didn’t plan on falling for a princess.”
“That’s much better,” she said and pressed her face against his chest. “I wanted you to want me for me, not just because I’m having your child.”
“That was never an issue,” he said, stroking her crazy curls with his hand. He couldn’t believe his luck. Pippa was pure gold without her title and somehow he’d managed to win her heart. “So am I gonna need to do the pirate thing and steal you away?”
She laughed and the husky sound vibrated against his chest. “No. I think everything will be okay once you talk with Stefan.”
Nic anticipated a rough discussion, but was determined to do whatever was necessary for her and their baby. “I’m up for it.”
“My family can be difficult,” she said.
“You’re worth it,” he said and sealed his promise to her with a kiss.
Later that day, Nic met with Stefan. Nic didn’t blame Stefan for being protective of Pippa. She was worth protecting. If the situation were reversed and Stefan had gotten his sister pregnant, Nic would have knocked him into next week. Nic admired Stefan’s physical restraint and did everything he could to reassure the prince that he was devoted to Pippa. Nic suspected it would take a while to win over Pippa’s clan, but he would keep chipping away at it.
Despite their differences, Nic and Stefan had a lot in common. One thing they both agreed on was that Nic and Pippa should get married right away. Three weeks later, he pledged everything including his troth, allegiance, love and devotion to Pippa. He was in it for good and he was relieved that she was, too. Nic hadn’t known he could love a woman this much, but he’d never met anyone who brought him so much peace and happiness at the same time. He knew it wasn’t possible to be any happier than he was with Pippa.
Until Pippa took him to a level he’d never imagined months later, when she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Pippa insisted that they name the baby Amelie and Nic had a feeling that the baby was gonna wrap him around her finger the same way her mother had. He was damn sure he didn’t deserve all this joy, but he wasn’t giving up the treasure he’d been given for anything. Her Highness was stuck with him, and thank God, she seemed to be just as happy about it as he was.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of Once Upon a Matchmaker by Marie Ferrarella!
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Special Edition story.
You know there’s always a new
chapter to be written. Harlequin Special Edition stories show that whether it’s an old flame rekindled or a brand-new romance, love knows no timeline.
Visit Harlequin.com to find your next great read.
We like you—why not like us on Facebook: Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Follow us on Twitter: Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books: HarlequinBlog.com
Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Chapter One
So this was what all the secrecy, giggling and whispers had been about.
Micah Muldare sat on the sofa, looking at the gift his sons had quite literally surprised him with. A gift he wasn’t expecting, commemorating a day that he’d never thought applied to him. He’d just unwrapped the gift and it was now sitting on the coffee table, a source of mystification, at least for him.
His boys, four-year-old Greg and five-year-old Gary, sat—or more accurately perched—on either side of him like energized bookends, unable to remain still for more than several seconds at a time. Blond, blue-eyed and small boned, his sons looked like little carbon copies of each other.
They looked like Ella.
Micah shut the thought away. It had been two years, but his heart still wasn’t ready for that kind of comparison.
Maybe someday, just not yet.
“Do you like it, Daddy?” Gary, the more animated of the two, asked eagerly. The boy was fairly beaming as he put the question to him. His bright blue eyes took in every tiny movement.
Micah eyed at the mug on the coffee table. “I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” Micah told his son. “Actually, I wasn’t expecting anything at all today.”
It was Mother’s Day. Granted he’d been doing double duty for the past two years, being both mother and father to his two sons, but he hadn’t expected any sort of acknowledgment from the boys on Mother’s Day. On Father’s Day, yes, but definitely not on this holiday.
The mug had been wrapped in what seemed like an entire roll of wrapping paper. Gary had proclaimed proudly that he had done most of the wrapping.
“But I put the tape on,” Greg was quick to tell him.
Micah praised their teamwork.
The mug had World’s Greatest Mom written on it in pink-and-yellow ceramic flowers. Looking at it now, Micah could only grin and shake his head. Well, at least their hearts were in the right place.
“Um, I think you guys are a little confused about the concept,” he confided.
Gary’s face scrunched up in apparent confusion. “What’s a con-cept?”
“It’s an idea, a way of—”
Micah abruptly stopped himself. As a reliability engineer who worked in the top secret missile defense systems department of Donovan Defense, a large national company, he had a tendency to get rather involved in his explanations. Given his sons’ tender ages, he decided that a brief and simple explanation was the best way to go.
So he tried again. “It’s a way of understanding something. The point is, I’m very touched, guys, but you do understand that I’m not your mom, right? I’m your dad.” He looked from Gary to Greg to see if they had any lingering questions or doubts.
“We know that,” Gary told him as if he thought it was silly to ever confuse the two roles. “But sometimes you do mom things,” he reminded his father.
“Yeah, like make cookies when I’m sick,” Greg piped up.
Which was more often than he was happy about, Micah couldn’t help thinking. Greg, smaller for his age than even Gary, was his little survivor. Born prematurely, his younger son had had a number of complicating conditions that had him in and out of hospitals until he was almost two years old.
Because of all the different medications he’d been forced to take, the little boy’s immune system was somewhat compromised. As an unfortunate by-product of that, Greg was more prone to getting sick than his brother.
And every time he did get sick, Micah watched him carefully, afraid the boy would come down with another bout of pneumonia. The last time, a year and a half ago, Greg had almost died. The thought haunted him for months.
Clearing his throat, Micah squared his shoulders. His late mother, Diane, had taught him to accept all gifts gracefully.
“Well, then, thank you very much,” he told his sons with a wide smile that was instantly mirrored by each of the boys.
“Aunt Sheila helped us,” Gary told him, knowing that he couldn’t accept all of the credit for the gift.
“Yeah, she drove us to the store,” Greg chimed in. “But me and Gary picked it out. And we used our own money, too,” he added as a postscript.
“‘Gary and I,’” Micah automatically corrected Greg.
The little boy shook his head so hard, his straight blond hair appeared airborne for a moment, flying to and fro about his head.
“No, not you, Daddy, me,” Greg insisted. “Me and Gary.”
There was time enough to correct his grammar when he was a little older, Micah thought fondly.
Out loud he marveled, “Imagine that,” for his sons’ benefit. A touch of melancholy drifted over him. “You two are growing up way too fast,” he told them. “Before you know it, you’re going to be getting married and starting families of your own.”
“Married?” Greg echoed, frowning as deeply as if his father had just told him that he was having liver for dinner for the next year.
“To a girl?” Gary asked incredulously, very obviously horrified by the mere suggestion that he be forced to marry a female. Everyone knew girls were icky—except for Aunt Sheila, of course, but she didn’t count.
“That’s more or less what I had in mind, yes,” Micah told his sons, doing his very best not to laugh at their facial expressions.
Covering his face, Gary declared, “Yuck!” with a great deal of feeling.
“Yeah,” Greg cried, mimicking his brother, “double yuck!”
Micah slipped an arm around each little boy’s very slim shoulders and pulled them to him. He would miss this when the boys were older, miss these moments when his sons made him feel as if he was the center of their universe.
“Come back and tell me that in another, oh, ten, fifteen years,” he teased.
“Okay,” Gary promised very solemnly. “We will, Daddy.”
“Yeah, we will!” Greg echoed, not to be outdone.
Micah’s aunt, Sheila Barrett, stood in the living room doorway, observing the scene between her nephew and her grandnephews. Her mouth curved in a wide smile. While she lived not too far from Micah, it felt as if this was more her home than the place where she received her mail. She took care of the boys when her nephew was at work, which, unless one of his sons was sick, was most of the time.
“They picked that mug out themselves,” she told Micah, in case he thought that this was her idea. “They absolutely refused to look at anything else after they saw that mug. They thought it was perfect for you.”
“And of course you tried to talk them out of it,” Micah said, tongue in cheek. His amusement was there, in his eyes.
Sheila shrugged nonchalantly. “The way I see it, Micah, little men in the making should be as free to exercise their shopping gene as their little female counterparts.”
“Very democratic of you,” Micah commented, the corners of his mouth curving. Aunt Sheila had always had a bit of an unorthodox streak. He learned to think outside the box because of her. He sincerely doubted that he would be where he was today if not for her. “Well, just for that, I’m taking all of you out for lunch.”
“Aunt Sheila, too?” Greg asked, not wanting to exclude her.
“Aunt Sheila most especially,” Micah tol
d his younger son. There was deep affection in his voice. “After all, Aunt Sheila is the real mom around here,” he emphasized pointedly.
Clearly confused, Greg turned to look at the woman who came by every morning to take him to preschool and his brother to kindergarten. Every afternoon she’d pick them both up and then stayed with them until their father came home. Some nights, Aunt Sheila stayed really, really late.
“Aunt Sheila has kids?” Greg asked his father, surprised.
Sheila smiled, answering for Micah. “I have your dad,” told the boy.
They had a special bond, she and her sister’s son. When the world came crashing in on him when his parents were killed in a car accident while on vacation, Micah had been twelve years old. Injured in the accident, too, he’d been all alone at that San Jose hospital. She’d lost no time driving up the coast to get to him. She’d stayed by his side until he was well enough to leave and then she took him home with her. There was no looking back. She’d raised him as her own.
Greg was staring at her, wide-eyed, his small face stamped with disbelief. “Dad was a kid?”
“Your dad was a kid,” she assured him, biting her tongue so as not to laugh at the expression of wonder on the little boy’s face. “And a pretty wild one at that.”
“She’s making that part up,” Micah told his sons. “I was a perfect angel.”
“When you were asleep, you looked just like one,” Sheila agreed, then added, “Awake, not so much.”
“Can you tell us stories about when Daddy was a kid?” Gary asked eagerly.
Sheila’s smile was so wide, her eyes almost disappeared. “I sure can.”
“But she won’t,” Micah interjected with a note of finality. “She’s going to save those for when you’re older.”
Gary’s forehead crinkled beneath his blond bangs. “Why?”
“I’ll tell you that when you’re older, too,” Micah promised him. Changing the subject, he asked, “Now, who’s hungry for pizza?”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than a chorus of “We are!” rose up. It was hard to believe that two little boys could project so much volume when they wanted to.