LITMIR.BIZ

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not married yet, Michael Lord,” she said with asperity. “I don’t see why we have to share tonight.”

      He paused, but there was no room for dishonesty between them. This was too important.

      “You’re afraid of what Gloria can do,” he said. “I don’t know Gloria and I don’t know what her resources are, but I don’t trust what I don’t know, and I want you where I can look out for you. I don’t want you down the hall.”

      “You think…”

      “I don’t think anything,” he said wearily, “but I’m taking no chances. We’re a couple, Jenny. Get used to it.”

      EASIER SAID than done. Jenny was so tired she should be asleep on her feet, but she was so aware of Michael that every nerve in her body was still wide awake and screaming that there was a man in her bedroom—a very large, very…well, very male man.

      A man who for the past few months had been her boss and was now to be her husband.

      It was too unnerving for words. She went into the bathroom, washed, changed into her pajamas and made a dive for the bed. Safely there, she hauled the bedclothes up to her neck and then glanced over to see Michael sitting on the other bed laughing at her.

      “Very sexy,” he approved, his eyes dancing. “Baggy pajamas wide enough to hide a small house. Just what I’d always dreamed my bride would wear.”

      “Yeah, well, you try being eight months pregnant and figure how to be sexy,” she snapped, glowering. “Go get your own pajamas on.”

      “I don’t have pajamas,” he said soulfully. “The drugstore only carried toothbrushes and razors—not pajamas.”

      “That’s your problem.” Her voice was breathless. “I’m going to sleep.”

      “You do that, Jenny,” he said, his voice gentling. “You must be beat.”

      She was, at that. Why else would the sound of the concern in his voice make her want to weep?

      It was too strange for words. She lay with her eyes closed as she listened to him head for bed—listened to him wash and use his brand-new toothbrush and then secure the room.

      He didn’t just lock the door. He was taking no chances. He hauled his bed across the doorway so no one could enter without stepping right over him. Surely the precautions were unnecessary, Jenny thought sleepily, but she felt safer all the same.

      She lay still until she heard him slide beneath the sheets, pummel his pillows, then settle down. The sound of his deep, even breathing was infinitely reassuring.

      She shouldn’t let him do this, she thought, but there was no way she’d stop him. Not now.

      “Michael?”

      “Mmm.” He sounded half-asleep already.

      “I—I appreciate this,” she stammered. “You don’t know how much.”

      “Don’t mention it,” he said sleepily. “You wanted rescuing and I rescued you. You have no idea how satisfying it is. Maybe I always knew I wanted to be Sir Lancelot and rescue a few damsels in distress.”

      She furrowed through her memory bank. “I thought Lancelot was taken up with Guinevere—the king’s wife.” She frowned. “Did Sir Lancelot rescue damsels, as well?”

      “Sure he did,” Michael said easily into the dark. “In his pre-Guinevere days he was quite a boy. He dashed around on his white charger rescuing maidens all over the place.”

      “What, lots of maidens?”

      “Yep.”

      She smiled into the dark. “Didn’t it get a bit crowded? Up on his horse, I mean?”

      “It might have,” he agreed reflectively. “I guess he must have had some sort of system. You know, when the horse got crowded, the damsel on the back fell off, the dragon got her and he had to rescue her all over again.”

      Silence.

      “I don’t think, then,” she said at last, staring at the darkened ceiling, “that I want to fall off. Not quite yet.”

      “Then you just hang on for all you’re worth, Jenny,” he said, and he chuckled into the darkness. “And let’s see where this dratted horse takes us.”

      THEY WERE married at eleven the next morning.

      It was the strangest wedding Jenny had ever attended, though in fairness she’d only been to the formal white weddings the British were so good at. Although her wedding to Peter had been quiet, they’d done it in a church, she’d worn white, and a vicar had married them in his crimson robes.

      The man who married Michael and Jenny was a portly little judge in a too-shiny suit. He’d known Michael from way back and greeted him like a long-lost friend.

      “I never thought I’d see you facing a shotgun marriage,” he said jovially, and Michael grinned.

      “Have you any idea how hard it is to persuade a girl to marry you these days? Independent, single-minded females—”

      “Hey, she sounds just like the sort of wife you need.” The judge beamed at Jenny. “Step right up, girl, before he changes his mind. If there’s one thing I’d like to see this boy do, it’s marry.”

      So they married, exchanging rings bought half an hour before at a cheap jeweler’s in the next block. A secretary witnessed their signatures, and the entire process took just fifteen minutes.

      “And not a moment too soon, by the look of it.” The judge inspected the last of the documents and nodded his satisfaction. “That’s that, then, and I’m glad to make your little one legal.” He fixed Michael with his sternest look. “You look after them, you hear?”

      Michael smiled and took Jenny’s hand, for all the world as if he was a real-life husband.

      “Yes, sir,” he said softly. “I intend to do just that.”

      “Then there’s only one thing left.” The judge grinned.

      “What’s that?” Michael asked.

      “You may now kiss the bride, boy.” He chuckled. “My favorite part. My wife says it’s the only reason I aimed to be a judge. Go ahead, boy. Kiss her like you intend to kiss her five times a day for the rest of your lives. Or more.”

      He had no choice. Michael looked into Jenny’s confused eyes, and he knew this was what he must do. He must kiss her.

      But for an obligation, it didn’t hurt one bit. He gathered her into his arms, and his mouth met hers, and what was meant to have been a formal kiss of acquiescence suddenly became much more than that.

      He felt her softly yielding to him—but he sensed the tremor running through her and tried to kiss away the doubts and the fears and the uncertainty of what lay ahead.

      And somewhere in that kiss, something changed between them—something that would stay changed for all time. Because when he pulled away—finally—after a kiss that had gone on forever and must have satisfied any onlooking judge, it felt as if he was tearing himself apart to let her go.

      It was as if in her touch, he was where he needed to be, he thought dazed. Forever.

      That was crazy. He needed emotional attachment like a hole in the head!

      And Jenny… She looked at him while their hands were still linked. He could see the faint indentation where his mouth had pressed against hers—like a shadow—and he could see matching shadows of doubt and fear in her eyes.

      And the fear had deepened.

      IT DIDN’T END there. There was a day of legal formalities in front of them. “One of the reasons I brought you to El Paso is that we can do everything at once,” Michael told

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