Her Cowboy Hero (The Colorado Cades) (18 page)

She cocked her head, waiting for him to elaborate.

“Justin’s moving. Both my siblings are moving forward, and I’ve been standing still. Maybe that didn’t matter to me before because I didn’t have anyplace I wanted to be, anyone I wanted to be
with
—but now there’s you. Hannah, I’m sorry. And I don’t want to waste one more day being without you.”

Tears misting her vision, she bounced out of her seat and rushed to his side of the booth to hug him. “I missed you so much,” she whispered.

He captured her mouth in a kiss that told her the feeling was mutual. His tongue delved between her lips, and the kiss became more urgent. Need spiraled through her. She longed for a physical closeness that matched the candid intimacy of his words. When he nipped at her earlobe, she groaned in frustration.

“I love you,” she said. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but
why
did you have to pick a public diner for this reunion?”

He pulled back with a grin. “No one’s come to take our order yet. Would it be an inappropriate time to mention that my child-free hotel room is within walking distance?”

She grabbed his hand. “Then what are we still doing here?”

Fingers laced together, they hurried from the diner and into the sunshine, into their future.

Epilogue

The wedding was beautiful, but Hannah felt a little guilty for her wandering attention. Instead of focusing on the bride and groom, her gaze continually strayed to the gorgeous best man. In her opinion, Colin Cade was the sexiest man in all of Colorado. He was gorgeous in his tux, but she was looking forward to the next time she saw him in jeans and that cowboy hat, too.

When the ceremony ended, guests began heading to the reception at the Donnelly Ski Lodge. The wedding party stayed behind for pictures, and Evan and Kaylee—who’d taken to each other instantly—asked for permission to play tag just outside the chapel. Hannah sat in one of the pews, keeping one eye on the kids through the window while listening to the photographer cajole smiles and chuckles from the bridal party.

Arden Cade Frost was every bit as lovely and spirited as Hannah had imagined. The two women had been seated next to each other at Justin and Elisabeth’s rehearsal dinner. Colin had groaned at the arrangements, seemingly worried that if Hannah and his sister ever ganged up on him, he was doomed. Today, poor Arden had sobbed through the entire ceremony. As she’d pointed out beforehand, now that she was pregnant, she found herself weeping over just about everything. She loudly instructed the photographer to fix her red nose and watery eyes with digital editing.

When all the pictures were done, members of the wedding party and their escorts headed for the appropriate vehicles. Colin had surprised Hannah on the drive to Cielo Peak by suggesting that if they sold her truck and his motorcycle, they might have enough money for a substantial vehicular upgrade.

“You’d sell your motorcycle?” she’d asked.

His reply had been a cryptic, “I don’t need it anymore.”

Elisabeth’s adopted daughter, Kaylee, was supposed to ride with the bride and groom but, at the last second, asked if she could go “in Evan’s car.” The newlyweds seemed happy about the prospect of a few minutes alone, provided Colin and Hannah didn’t mind.

“It’s fine with us,” Hannah assured them. Although neither brother had revealed the specifics of the conversation, she knew Justin had said some things to Colin that had really resonated, helping to bring him back to Hannah. She would always be grateful to Justin for that.

During the brief car ride, Kaylee and Evan discussed bowling.

“Maybe you can come with us next time,” Evan told his new friend.

“I’ve never been before,” Kaylee said, “but I’m sure I’d be very good at it.”

Behind the wheel of the car, Colin laughed. “Looks like someone else is a student of positive thinking.”

As he parked in front of the lodge, Hannah’s cell phone chimed. She pulled it out of her purse and discovered that Annette had texted her a photo. It took Hannah a moment to identify what she was looking at—a tapered, white stick with two red lines showing in a circle. It was captioned
TWO LINES!!!!!!

A smile split her face. “Guess who’s going to be an honorary aunt?” she whispered to Colin.

He grinned back at her, and she took a mental snapshot, wanting to hold on to this moment. It had been a beautiful day. She was surrounded by wonderful people, including her son and the man she loved. Her best friend was going to have a baby. She was brimming with happiness.

Thirty minutes later, Colin stirred even more emotion within her when he lifted his glass of champagne and gave his toast as best man.

“As many of you know already, for a long time, Justin, Arden and I only had each other. Some days it felt like the three of us against the world. I believed family was the most important thing in life. I still do—but that family has expanded. Our circle of three has grown to include some magnificent people, like the beautiful Elisabeth Donnelly Cade.”

The bride beamed at him.

“There was a time, not that long ago, when I would have wondered if a step like marriage was too drastic. Loving someone else so completely opens up the risk of being hurt.” Colin’s blue-green eyes sought out Hannah in the crowd. “What I’d forgotten is that loving someone else is also the only way to reap life’s most incredible rewards. Justin and Elisabeth, you are an inspiration. Thank you for reminding us all that happily-ever-afters aren’t fairy tales. They’re real for anyone brave enough to work for them. My suggestion to you for many blissful years together is to treat each other with respect, live each day with a sense of humor and always remember to look on the bright side.”

* *
* * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from THE TEXAN’S BABY by Donna Alward.

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin American Romance story.

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Chapter One

Two minutes and thirty-three seconds to go.

Lizzie Baron stared at her watch with dismay. It had only been twenty-seven seconds since she started the timer on her watch. She refused to look until the full three minutes was up. Instead she checked her reflection in the mirror of the executive bathroom of the Baron Energies offices. She brushed a flake of mascara off the crest of her cheek and tucked a strand of rebellious hair behind her ear. She smoothed her skirt—a straight, businesslike skirt in boring charcoal-gray that ended just a shade above her knee, and checked the buttons of her matching fitted jacket for stray threads.

Perfect.

One minute, seventeen seconds.

Three minutes had never, ever in the history of the world, been this long. She was sure of it.

Her stomach churned uneasily but she told herself it was just nerves. Stress. She worked long hours at her job and didn’t get much downtime. Everyone at Baron was on edge since they had recently lost a major contract in the Gulf. The tension level in the downtown Dallas office could be cut with a knife most days. Stress could definitely have caused her period to be late, right?

Except,
a little voice inside her head reminded her,
your period was due
before that particular piece of bad news, remember?

Twenty-six seconds.

She breathed in and out. She was not pregnant. It wasn’t possible. Well, it was. Technically. But highly improbable. She didn’t have time for this. And a one-night stand with a rodeo bum...well, how often did people get pregnant from one night?

She smiled grimly at the reflection of her face, her skin oddly pale under the unflattering fluorescent lighting. The answer to that was simple. It
always
only took one time for someone to get pregnant. Granted, the chances went up with frequency of... She swallowed. They hadn’t exactly slept a lot that night.

Zero seconds.

Lizzie took a deep breath. Putting off looking wouldn’t change the result. She reached for the stick and stared at the little window.

A plus sign.

She was pregnant.

Just flipping wonderful.

* * *

L
IZZIE
GOT
OUT
of her car, blinking in the brightness of the San Antonio sun. She’d used the almost four-hour drive to prepare, to work out what she was going to say. The first thing she’d done after taking the home test was visit the doctor, where her pregnancy had been confirmed. Lizzie hadn’t wanted to say anything to anyone until she was 100 percent sure the first test hadn’t been a false positive. Her mind was still reeling with the news, and she was trying to sort out how she was going to tell her family....

They were going to seriously freak. And be disappointed. Who, in this day and age, went around having sex with strangers? She bit down on her lip. She was a joke. A statistic. A casualty of the 1 percent of condoms that failed at a crucial moment.

She’d always felt like the responsible one. When Delia Baron left her kids, Brock had been on his own, and Lizzie had stepped in and mothered her younger siblings. Then her dad had married Peggy and adopted her boys, Jacob and Daniel. Those years had been pretty good. They’d all lived together out at Roughneck Ranch—the name a deliberate hat-tip to the oil industry that had put the Baron name on the map. Lizzie had cared for Peggy a lot, which meant Peggy’s death had been especially hard to take.

Now her father was married again, this time to a much younger wife. Lizzie might have resented Julieta, who was only ten years older than herself, except Lizzie had found an unexpected friend and support in her stepmother.

Telling her would probably be the easiest of the family. Julieta never judged. She was always after Lizzie to get out and enjoy life more. Lizzie was fairly sure, though, that this wasn’t what Julieta meant.

For one night only she’d allowed herself to cut loose. What a fool she’d been for thinking she could work out her frustrations by being so self-indulgent, that she could be irresponsible without repercussions and consequences. It was totally out of character.

But sometimes she felt as though she was the one who took on all the heavy lifting in the family, was the rock for all her brothers and sisters when they went through stuff. She was tired of being Lizzie who never made mistakes, Lizzie who did everything right. Lizzie, Brock Baron’s firstborn.

Yeah, Jacob was pretty much the same age as she was, but he was her stepbrother. Lizzie was the oldest and her brother Jet was the baby. Sometimes she wished they were reversed in the birth order, because Brock wouldn’t give up the idea that Jet would take over Baron Energies one day. Problem was Jet wasn’t remotely interested.

Lizzie, on the other hand, had missed out on her fun years because she had been too busy getting her education and stepping into a role at the family company. She was supposed to set an example.

It was a lot of pressure.

Lizzie sighed and shut the car door, feeling the heat of the sun soak through her tailored jacket. What she really needed was a coffee. A nice, big, strong coffee with two sugars and real cream. Sadly, since the moment the test was positive, she’d given up the caffeine and cut back on the sugar. The result had been three days of caffeine withdrawal headache and irritability.

And through it all one thought had stuck in her brain. Lizzie needed to talk to
him.
The baby’s father.

There was no question about that. Christopher Miller deserved to know the truth and deserved to hear it from her—not from anyone else. What if the media got a hold of the story? They’d been quick to report the lost contract in the biz pages, and she already felt extra scrutiny from all sides as she sat at the boardroom table. Only thirty and vice president of a major energy corporation—not to mention being the boss’s daughter. The old boys’ club was just waiting for her to screw up.

Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to be able to hide her condition forever. She was already almost eight weeks along. Another couple months and she’d be showing. It would be far better to do damage control right now and get on with things.

She looked up at the attractive stucco condos and wished there was a way to make this look like less of a disaster. But no matter how she spun it, the bald truth remained. She’d been stupid. Impulsive. She’d let the family down—especially her dad. She knew how it would look to the shareholders and the press.

Mark Baker, Baron’s CFO, would practically be crowing about it. He was dying to get his chance to be in the driver’s seat at Baron, urging Brock to retire. It burned her biscuits that he might have any leverage on her, the pompous jerk.

Her headache was starting to come back, so she made her way over to one of the low stone walls by the building where there was some shade under a sycamore tree. All she had to do was remember her plan. Plans were good. Plans were soothing. Plans gave the illusion of control in the midst of chaos.

She gathered herself together and walked purposefully to the front door of the building, stepping into a blessedly cool air-conditioned foyer. The second set of doors was locked for security, so she scanned the panel of residents for his name. There it was—C. Miller, unit 406. She pressed the buzzer and waited.

As the seconds ticked past, she looked around. The complex was quite nice. The buildings were well kept, the grass cut neatly and urns of flowering plants flanked the entrance. It was definitely not what she’d expected from the dusty bronc rider she’d met two months ago. He wasn’t that high up in the standings, either, so how on earth did he afford this place? Momentarily she wondered if she’d gotten the wrong Christopher Miller. What if she’d come all this way for nothing?

There was a click and then a voice. “Hello?”

Something stirred inside her at the sound of his voice. It was just one word but it was familiar—the low grit of it skimming over her nerve endings. She swallowed. “Uh...hi. I’m looking for Christopher Miller?”

“That’s me.”

“It’s...uh...” She scrambled to think of what she’d said to him that night. How much she’d revealed.
Plans,
she reminded herself.
Just stick to the script.
“It’s Elizabeth.”

There was a pause.

“From the bar in Fort Worth.”

The words came out strained.

“Come on up. Elevator’s through the doors and to the left.”

There was a click—and a buzzing sound as he let her in.

She pulled open the door and stepped inside. The tiled floor of the lobby gleamed as if freshly waxed and potted trees were spaced throughout the small area. There was a small table flanked by two chairs to the right, adding a homey yet classy touch. An elevator waited and she pushed the up arrow button. Seconds later the door opened and she stepped inside the car.

She could do this. She could see him and speak to him in a businesslike way and explain what she intended to do. She didn’t need anything from him. Didn’t
want
anything from him. He was completely and utterly off the hook.

The doors slid open at the fourth floor and she ran her hands down her skirt and then over her hair, making sure the knot at the back was smooth and neat. Stepping out, she started down the hallway. Number 401 was on the left, 402 on the right. Two more doors to go. She would knock. Smile. Begin with “you must be surprised to see me...”

A door opened and Christopher stepped into the hall. Her feet halted and she stared at him awkwardly, her practiced words flying out of her head. She’d definitely gotten the right guy. Around six feet, with dark hair that curled around his collar and gorgeous chocolaty eyes that crinkled in the corners. He wore jeans and a T-shirt but was in his bare feet, and his hair was glistening, as though he’d recently got out of the shower. Oh boy.

He was staring at her, too, like she was a stranger. “It really is you,” he said, shaking his head a little. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. “What the hell are you doing here?”

* * *

F
OR
WEEKS
, C
HRIS
had been wondering if he should try to find out who she was. She’d only said her name was Elizabeth. They’d met at a honky-tonk in Fort Worth after a less-than-stellar rodeo performance on his part. She’d been sitting at the bar, sipping a beer right from the bottle. His first impression had been surprise. Despite wearing jeans and boots and a T-shirt, there was a look of class about her. She looked more the wine-and-cheese type rather than beer and chips.

He’d had a good first round that weekend, but then he’d drawn Devil’s Spawn. The horse was aptly named, it turned out, because Chris had been launched into the stratosphere in the second round after 4.6 seconds. He’d missed out on the money. No buckle bunnies had followed him to the bar and that had been just fine with him. He’d figured he’d nurse his wounds with a beer and head back to the motel where he was staying. Take a hot bath to soothe his sore muscles.

And then he’d seen her. He’d ordered another beer, looked over at her and she’d smiled, a soft little smile, and all his brain cells turned to mush.

When he’d woken the next morning, the bed had been empty. The only evidence that she’d been there was the earring she’d left behind. How very cliché.

That had been nearly two months ago. Since then he’d done better, hitting the finals in a few rodeos, bringing in a little cash to help cover his expenses. It wasn’t like this was his livelihood or anything. He was only on a leave of absence from his regular job. A job which had suddenly felt very claustrophobic after years of long hours. He missed the outdoors, missed the horses and the thrill. Missed having
fun.

This leave of absence was his one last chance. Not that he expected to earn any titles. He’d been out too long and he was getting older. Another few years and he wouldn’t be quite so resilient. If he were going to relive his youth one last time, it had to be now...before he lost his nerve. So he’d have no regrets. One last chance to live the life he wanted rather than the one that was expected of him.

Now
she
was here, standing not ten feet away. Forget the jeans and boots, too. She was the picture of elegance and power, moderately tall and slim, and wore her dark hair up in a conservative knot rather than the long, sexy ponytail he remembered. A great pair of legs was shown to excellent advantage in a slim skirt and sexy black heels. Buckle bunny? Not in a million years. The woman before him now was used to being in charge. If it weren’t for the stunning blue eyes, she’d barely resemble the woman he remembered from the motel that night.

Something curled through him and his pulse took a strange hop as an image flashed through his mind. Her hair had been down, spread over the pillow and her smile had been sexy and more than a little naughty as she reached up and grabbed the collar of his shirt, pulling him down on top of her. What the hell was she doing in San Antonio now, looking like she did?

“Elizabeth,” he said quietly, stepping aside so she could enter his apartment. He didn’t have a good feeling about her showing up unannounced.

“Call me Lizzie.” She gave him a faint smile and slid into the apartment ahead of him, taking care not to touch him in any way, he noticed. “Everybody does.”

“You didn’t say your name was Lizzie the night we met.” He followed her inside and shut the door. She looked at him nervously, pulling her hands together.

“I was trying to be mysterious.”

“It worked.” He put his hands in his pockets. “How did you find me?”

Was that a bit of color in her pale cheeks? Her gaze skittered away slightly and her fingers twisted tighter together. “I tried 411 first, but there are over one hundred Christopher Millers in the state of Texas.”

He waited for her to go on.

She frowned. “So then I tried Google. I entered your name and added ‘+ saddle bronc’ to the search. San Antonio popped up. But there’s more than one Christopher Miller here, too. So I called a friend of mine, called in a favor, and they gave me your address.”