The Sheriff's Nine-Month Surprise

by Brenda Harlen

  “What?”

  “You’ve got the look of a man who needs a shot—or two dozen—of strong whiskey.”

  He’d never been the type to turn to the bottle, but he’d never been faced with a situation of such magnitude. “Maybe you’re right,” he acknowledged. “What do you recommend?”

  She replaced the glass and selected a bottle, holding it up for his approval.

  Reid nodded and she poured a generous two fingers of Maker’s Mark into a whiskey glass, then set the drink on a paper coaster in front of him. “Anything you want to talk about?”

  He shook his head. He not only wasn’t ready to talk about Katelyn’s disclosure, he didn’t want to think about it. But even if he wanted to talk, he knew better than to say a word to anyone in this town where everyone seemed to know the Gilmore family.

  “I’ve been told that I’m a good listener,” the bartender said to him, her smile encouraging.

  “By anyone who wasn’t drunk?”

  She laughed. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “Well, I have a confession... I’ve never been told that I’m a good talker.”

  “Maybe this will help,” she said, and poured him another drink.

  He stared at the amber liquid in his glass, tempted to throw it back. Then another and another. Until he finally managed to drown out the echo of Katelyn’s voice in his head.

  I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.

  “Do you have a name? Or should I just call you Mister-Not-A-Good-Talker?” the bartender asked.

  “Reid,” he said.

  “Are you new in town, Reid, or just passing through?”

  “New in town,” he said.

  “From...Texas?” she guessed.

  He nodded.

  “Which would make you the new sheriff.”

  He nodded again.

  “Well, you’re a definite upgrade from the old sheriff,” she remarked. “I mean, Jed’s a nice guy and all, but when women sigh over a man in uniform, they aren’t sighing over men like Jed. But you, on the other hand—yeah, women would sigh over you.”

  He looked up from his drink. “Are you flirting with me?”

  “Me?” She seemed genuinely surprised by the question. “No.” Then, more emphatically. “God, no.”

  He lifted a brow.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to sound quite so vehement, I just didn’t realize that you would assume... Although now that I’m replaying the words in my mind, of course you assumed I was flirting with you. But the truth is, I was thinking about someone who hasn’t sighed over a man in a long time.” She shook her head. “Now it sounds like I’m covering up for my own fumbling attempts at flirting with you, and I’m not, and I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

  “You haven’t,” he assured her.

  “But now I have a question that might,” she warned. “What’s your relationship status?”

  “My relationship status?”

  She nodded. “Are you married, engaged or otherwise involved?”

  “If you’re not flirting with me, how is my relationship status at all relevant?” he wondered.

  “I’ll tell you the relevance if you tell me your status.”

  “Are you sure you’re not flirting with me?”

  “You’re cute, Sheriff, but you’re not my type. You are, however, the type of guy I can imagine my sister totally going for.”

  “Thank you, I think. As for my relationship status...there might be a wedding in my not-too-distant future.”

  “That sucks,” she said. “Oh—not for you, of course. It’s great for you. But it’s not easy to meet guys in this town, especially when your last name is Gilmore, and Katie hasn’t had a date in... I don’t even know how long.”

  “Wait a minute.” Reid held up a hand. “Did you say your last name is Gilmore?”

  She nodded.

  “And your sister’s name is Katie—or Katelyn?”

  She nodded again, confirming his suspicion that everyone in town knew the Gilmores—or was a Gilmore.

  “Then you must be Skylar.”

  Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “How would you know that?”

  “Because I know your sister.”

  “You do?”

  “In fact—” he lifted his glass of whiskey, as if making a toast “—she’s the woman I’m going to marry.”

  Chapter Six

  Kate was already in her pajamas when her cell phone chimed to announce a text message. She wanted to ignore it. She wanted to burrow under the covers and fall into a deep and dreamless sleep to forget—for at least a few hours—that her entire life was about to change.

  Of course, she couldn’t do that—at least not without checking the message first to ensure it wasn’t a family emergency or a client crisis or anything else that required an immediate response. She paused the baseball game on TV and picked up her phone.

  She felt a quick spurt of panic when she read the message and keyed a quick response. Then, after exchanging her pajama bottoms for a pair of yoga pants and tugging a hoody over her T-shirt, she headed out.

  Eight minutes after leaving her apartment, she was walking into Diggers’.

  Haven was only one of three cities in the whole state of Nevada where gambling was prohibited, which meant that weekends saw a regular exodus of residents who sought more exciting opportunities than those available within city limits. For those who opted to stay, Diggers’ was a popular destination.

  Tonight, the local watering hole was doing a brisk business, with most of the seats at the bar occupied. Right now, Kate’s sister was simultaneously pouring drinks, taking cash and flirting with several customers. A lot of people knew Dave Gilmore’s youngest daughter worked weekends as a bartender at Diggers’—only a handful knew that she was a masters candidate who tended bar not just for tips and fun but to observe human behavior.

  Kate spotted Reid right away, sitting between Oscar Weston, a local mechanic who was sipping his usual Budweiser straight from the bottle, and a couple of younger guys sipping scotch, neat, and arguing over the validity of the umpire’s call in the same baseball game she’d been watching at home. Despite the presence of other patrons around him, it was apparent that Reid was alone and wanted to be that way.

  She squeezed herself between the stools and leaned an elbow on the bar. “Hey, Sheriff.”

  “Katelyn?” He blinked at her, as if he was having trouble focusing. “What are you doing here?”

  “I got a text from my sister, asking me why a drunk guy at the bar believed he was going to marry me.” She kept her voice low to ensure their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Because I am,” he asserted. “And I’m not drunk.”

  She looked at the empty whiskey glass on the coaster in front of him. “How many of those have you had?”

  “Three?” He nodded his thanks to Skylar when she set a mug of coffee in front of him. “I was celebrating.”

  “What were you celebrating?”

  “My impending nuptials,” he said, the relatively coherent pronunciation suggesting that he wasn’t as inebriated as she’d feared. On the other hand, his brain had to be addled by alcohol if he was thinking a wedding was anywhere in their future. “Not only am I getting married, but I’m going to be—”

  She pressed a hand to his mouth, anticipating and silencing the rest of his words.

  “It’s a secret?”

  She nodded and let her hand drop away.

  He lifted the mug to his mouth, watching her over the rim as he sipped his coffee. “You are so incredibly beautiful. I thought I remembered what you looked like, but when you walked into my office... Was that today? Yesterday?”

  “Today,” she confirmed.

  “When you walked into my office today, you t
ook my breath away.”

  “Are you sure you’ve only had three whiskeys?”

  He swallowed another mouthful of coffee. “Pretty sure,” he said. “And though I wouldn’t attempt to operate a motor vehicle right now, I promise I haven’t had enough alcohol to impair my vision.”

  “Finish your coffee,” she suggested. “And I’ll take you home.”

  He dutifully picked up the cup again. “I’ve been thinking about you for weeks,” he confided. “Dreaming about you.”

  She shot a quick glance to the left and then the right, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to their conversation.

  “In fact, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you walked into that conference room in Boulder,” he continued. Then he shook his head. “No, it was Boulder City, wasn’t it?”

  She rolled her eyes. “And now you’re in Haven, and I need to know where you live so I can get you home.”

  “133 Chicory Drive.”

  She was familiar with the street and mentally placed the number. “Norm and Beverly Clayton’s place?”

  He nodded. “I’m renting the basement apartment.”

  Which Kate knew had been an in-law suite where Beverly’s mom had lived for a lot of years. After she broke her hip and needed to go into a long-term care facility, Norm and Beverly had periodically offered the space for rent.

  “Let’s get you back there and into bed,” Kate suggested.

  “If you want me in bed, you only need to ask.”

  She shook her head, but she couldn’t hold back the smile that curved her lips. “Even drunk you can’t turn off the charm, can you?”

  “Am I charming the pants off you?”

  “You already did,” she reminded him. “That’s why you were trying to drink yourself into oblivion.”

  Reid didn’t tell her again that he wasn’t drunk. He just paid his tab, adding a generous tip for the bartender, and let Kate lead him away.

  She automatically turned south when they stepped out of the bar. “Where’d you park?”

  “I didn’t drive, I walked.”

  He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “You’re not walking me to my apartment, then walking back, alone, to yours.”

  “Reid, I’ve lived in Haven my whole life—I have no concerns about being out on my own after dark.”

  “But you thought I needed an escort home?”

  “Sky’s message led me to believe that you were more intoxicated than you apparently are.”

  “Now that you know I’m not, I’ll walk you home,” he decided, turning in the opposite direction.

  “Fine,” she agreed, falling into step beside him. “We’ll walk back to my apartment and then I’ll drive you to yours.”

  She turned at the corner of Page Street, then again into the parking lot behind her building. She hit the button on her key fob to unlock the doors, then climbed behind the wheel as he went around to the passenger side of the SUV.

  “Why’d you come to the bar?” he asked.

  “Because if you get stumbling-down drunk, people are going to gossip and speculate, and I’ll feel responsible.”

  “Why would you feel responsible?” he asked.

  She started the car and pulled out of her parking space. “Because I turned your world upside down tonight.”

  “Yeah, you did,” he acknowledged. “And I turned yours upside down by launching super swimmers into your fallopian tubes.”

  She laughed softly as she turned onto Second Street. “I have to admit, I’ve never heard the fertilization process described in quite that way.”

  “I’m just trying to point out that we’re both responsible for what happened—and the consequences.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “But I can’t help wondering if you might have made a different decision about coming to Haven if you’d known I was pregnant.”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have made a different decision,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t—I don’t—want to be anywhere else.

  “Well, except maybe a different apartment,” he acknowledged as she pulled into his driveway.

  “What’s wrong with the apartment?” she asked.

  He just shook his head. “You have to see it to believe it.”

  Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “If you’re trying to get me into your bedroom...”

  He shook his head. “It’s the living room—and the kitchen—you have to see.”

  She turned off the ignition.

  He led her to the side of the house, where there was a separate entrance to his apartment, and unlocked the door.

  Kate was still wary, but she followed him inside.

  “It’s very open,” she noted. “Lots of space and natural light. And the decor is...interesting.”

  “I was looking for a place that was furnished,” he explained. “And although I’m not actually allergic to flowers, I want to sneeze every time I walk in here.”

  She nodded. “There are a lot of flowers.”

  It wasn’t just that the sofa and chairs were covered in bold floral fabrics, but the coffee table, end tables, desk, filing cabinet and lamps were all painted with cabbage roses and daisies and tulips.

  “I heard that Beverly took a tole painting class a few years back,” Katelyn told him. “I didn’t realize how much she obviously enjoyed it.”

  “There are flowers everywhere,” he said. “The kitchen table is covered—I thought it was one of those doily things and figured I could fold it up and put it in the linen closet. But it’s painted right on.”

  She went through the living area to the kitchen to examine the table.

  “It’s really very well done,” she noted, tracing a finger along the delicate edge of the “lace.”

  “I don’t know how long I can live like this,” he confided.

  “Some women like a man who’s in touch with his feminine side.”

  “I’d rather be in touch with a woman’s feminine side.”

  His response was so predictably defensive, she couldn’t help but smile. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  “You have a really great smile,” he told her. “Every time you smile at me...even when you’re not smiling, every time I see you... I don’t know how to describe what happens inside me, but I look at you, and I want you.”

  “You’re definitely feeling the effects of that whiskey now,” she said, unwilling to admit—even to herself—the powerfully seductive effect his words had on her.

  “Why are you so determined to deny what’s between us?”

  “The only thing between us is the baby that resulted from a broken condom.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  There was something in his tone, just the slightest hint of an edge that should have set off warning bells in her head, but she was so determined to prove her point, she ignored the signs. “It’s true, Reid, what happened in—”

  That was as far as she got before his mouth came down on hers.

  And if he was under the influence of the alcohol he’d drunk, it certainly didn’t affect his aim or impact his skill.

  The first time they’d kissed, she’d discovered that Reid was a patient and thorough man. Kissing wasn’t just foreplay to him but an incredibly sensual experience that turned her on more than she’d ever thought a kiss could do.

  The same focus and skill that had seduced her then was seducing her now. The rational part of her brain told her that this shouldn’t be happening, but all rationality was drowned out by the clamoring needs of her body.

  She hadn’t consciously parted her lips, but suddenly his tongue was dancing with hers, leading it in a sensual rhythm that promised more, so much more. Liquid warmth began to spread through her body, pool between her thighs.

  His hands slid under her hoody and skimme
d up her sides. She could feel the heat of his touch through the thin fabric of her T-shirt. His palms brushed the sides of her breasts, and paused when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  She held her breath, waiting to see what he would do next. She knew what she should do—push him away, say good-night and walk out the door. But her brain and her body clearly wanted different things, and it had only taken one kiss to remind her of the pleasures she’d experienced in his arms. Pleasures she wanted to experience again.

  Suddenly his hands were stroking boldly over her bare skin, stoking the fire that was already burning inside her. His callused thumbs scraped over her nipples, making her gasp as arrows of pleasure shot to her core.

  He tore his mouth from hers only long enough to yank her hoody and T-shirt up and over her head and toss them aside. Then he was kissing and touching her again, and it was all she wanted, but somehow not enough.

  Desperate to touch him as he was touching her, she tugged his shirt out of his jeans and let her hands explore the rippling muscles of his stomach, chest and shoulders. There was just something about those shoulders that made her crazy.

  His lips eased away from hers to rain kisses along her jawline...down her throat...across her collarbone...over the curve of her breast. Then they fastened around her peaked nipple and drew it into his mouth, and her knees almost buckled. But Reid’s arm was around her back, holding her close. Her fingers dug into his broad, strong shoulders so hard her nails had to be scoring his skin. He merely shifted his attention to the other breast.

  “Reid.”

  It was all she said, all she could manage with so many wants and needs battering at her from all directions.

  He lifted his head from her breast, but his hands immediately took over where his mouth had left off, teasing and tweaking the hard buds. In the past few weeks, she’d noticed that her breasts were a little more sensitive than usual—a not uncommon effect of early pregnancy. Apparently they were even more sensitive than she’d realized, because Reid’s touch had pushed her almost to the point of climax.

  “Do you have any idea how much I want you?” he asked.