LITMIR.BIZ

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Kelly knew he was still thinking about the proposal he’d made. They hadn’t talked about it again and for that, she was grateful. But sooner or later, the subject would come up. He would want this settled between them before he left in three short weeks.

      And Jeff wasn’t the kind of man to take no as an answer without a battle.

      “There’s just no easy way out of this,” she complained aloud as she folded yet another of Emily’s freshly washed T-shirts.

      From her walker, the baby gurgled something that Kelly was sure was meant as supportive. Then Emily went up on her toes, waved both arms and scooted forward half an inch on the carpeted floor.

      “You’ll be walking soon, won’t you?” Kelly asked, and clutching the T-shirt in both hands, leaned back against the sofa cushions to watch her daughter. “Then it’ll be school and your first date and then before I know it, you’ll be getting married and leaving poor ol’ Mom behind.”

      Emily leaned forward and gnawed on a bright pink plastic knob attached to the front of her walker.

      “Yep,” Kelly went on. “Your daddy will walk you down the aisle and when the ceremony’s over, he’ll go his way and I’ll go mine.” In her mind’s eye, she saw it all. Emily, radiant in white, Jeff, still handsome and herself, alone.

      “Now why do you suppose ‘alone’ suddenly feels so … lonely?” Kelly asked, and Emily continued to chew, uninterested in the conversation. “I never wanted to get married, you know. It’s not that I don’t want to marry your daddy. I just don’t want another male in my life.” Emily blew a spit bubble. “Your uncles have always been so darn bossy, and who needs that from one more guy?” Kelly scowled to herself, folded the now crumpled T-shirt and idly smoothed out the wrinkles. “Of course, Jeff really isn’t the bossy type, is he?” she mused, remembering that he hadn’t once given her grief over Emily’s day care as her brothers did on a regular basis. And after that first day of caring for Emily, hadn’t he gotten the hang of things? Hadn’t he even cooked dinner for them twice in the past week?

      This was a man used to doing for himself. He wasn’t one to sit on a recliner and shout, “Bring me a beer.” She smiled to herself at the thought. Jeff wasn’t like any other man she’d ever known, and maybe that’s what had her so worried. Because of him, she was even starting to rethink her “never marry” theory. And she wasn’t at all sure she wanted that.

      “First off,” Travis drawled lazily as he reached for his bottle of beer, “you’ve got to figure out just what you want.”

      “That’s easy,” Jeff told him, “I want Kelly. And Emily. Haven’t I just spent the last hour telling you that?”

      Travis, Deke and J.T. sprawled on the couch, chairs and floor of the hotel suite. Jeff looked at them all, each in turn and smiled to himself. Four more unlikely friends you’d never meet. But they had become more than friends over the past few years. They’d become family.

      Travis, one of six kids, hailed from a small town in Texas. Deke came from old-line Boston money. J.T. was the only child of a three-star General. and Jeff, hell, the only family he’d ever had was here in this room.

      The three of them looked at each other before looking back at Jeff. But Travis was the one who spoke up. “All right, then. What you’ve got to do is think of Kelly like you would any other target.” “Target?” he repeated.

      “Hell, yes,” Deke broke in. “Scope the situation out, plan your assault, then go in under cover of darkness.”

      “Sneak up on the enemy, er, Kelly,” J.T. added, “until you’ve got her right where you want her.” Of course, he thought. Go with your strengths. And he’d had plenty of practice for this kind of thing. After all, trying to talk Kelly into marrying him would be every bit as dangerous as slipping undetected into enemy territory.

      “You’ve got three weeks left, Jeff,” Travis said in that slow-moving speech of his, “make ‘em count, boy.”

      “Ooh-rah,” Deke muttered. J.T. lifted his beer in silent salute, and Jeff reached for the phone.

      The telephone rang, interrupting her thoughts, and Kelly reached for it like a drowning woman grabbing at a life preserver.

      “Hello?” “Hi.”

      Even if she hadn’t recognized his voice, the reaction of her body to that deep, rumbling sound would have told her that it was Jeff. Good heavens. He could do this to her even over the phone lines?

      “Kelly,” he was saying, and she drew her hormones back from the brink far enough to concentrate. “You think you could get one of your brothers to baby-sit tonight?”

      “I suppose so,” she said. “Why? What’d you have in mind?”

      “I was thinking about taking you out on a date.”

      A warm flush swept over her, and her fingers curled tightly around the receiver. “A date?”

      “Yeah,” Jeff said, and his voice came soft and intimate in her ear. “A date.”

      “Uh …” she said, stalling for some unknown reason because she knew as well as he did that she would say yes. “Okay. What time?” “I’ll pick you up at seven.” “I’ll be ready.”

      Jeff hung up the phone, then picked up his beer. Lifting it high, he waited for his friends to do likewise before saying, “Target acquired.”

      Nine

      She should have known he’d play dirty.

      Kelly steeled herself against being swayed by his tactics, but it wasn’t easy to stand firm against a man like Jeff—especially when he was determined to be romantic. Especially a man you were already halfway in love with.

      And he’d pulled out all the stops for their “date.”

      Moonlight poured down from a star-filled sky and danced across the surface of the ocean. A soft wind ruffled the sand and lifted her hair from the collar of her turquoise cowl-necked sweater. As Jeff refilled her champagne glass, she glanced around the tiny cove and told herself he’d chosen his spot well.

      This was their beach. The spot where he’d saved her life eighteen months ago. The place where this had all started.

      In a couple of months, the beach would be crowded, even at night, with scores of teenagers. But now, this early in the season, it was deserted. The rock walls of the cove surrounded them on three sides, and high above, perched on a cliff, was a five-star restaurant. The soft strains of piano music drifted down to them and seemed to melt into the sigh of the outgoing tide.

      “More champagne?” Jeff asked, ending her thoughts and bringing her back to the moment at hand.

      “Sure,” she said, though an inner voice was warning her to stay alert. He already had everything going for him here. The romantic setting was perfect. A tablecloth spread out on the sand, candles set in hurricane globes, their flames bobbing and shifting in the breeze, iced champagne and a caterer’s tray of snacks. Moonlight glinted in his blue eyes and a shaft of pure, unadulterated lust shot through her, and Kelly knew she was in big trouble.

      She had to keep her wits about her. He was using the big guns on her tonight, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d find herself pillaged and captured. And right now, that didn’t even sound like a bad idea.

      Oh, boy.

      She lifted her glass and took a sip, letting the icy bubbles slide down her throat. When she was sure her voice would work without quavering, she spoke up. “You really went to a lot of trouble tonight, Jeff.”

      “No trouble,” he insisted, pouring himself more of the expensive wine.

      She laughed and shook her head. “You set all this up, and even posted a guard on it while you came to get me.” She hadn’t gotten a good look at the man Jeff had waved off as they’d arrived, but

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