The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection: Nine Historical Romances Celebrate Marrying for All the Right Reasons (63 page)

Where was she?

Then the crowd parted and Gus Bellows strode toward him.

Behind him came Ally—Alicia—and two others. The woman looked so like her, that she must be Mrs. Davidson.

“Ah, Kirkland, come meet my friends.”

Max nodded to the young ladies and slipped out of their circle, his heart hammering in his ears.

“David and Una Davidson, and my goddaughter, Alicia. Though I guess you two know each other. Splendid idea getting her to paint those pictures. Really adds to the exhibits for people to see the artifacts as they would have been used.” Gus patted his snowy vest. “Jillian and I are so pleased.”

Max shook hands with Mr. Davidson, receiving an optic skewering that made him wonder what his daughter had told him of recent events. He wanted to run his finger inside the high celluloid collar that seemed to be cutting into his neck, but he bowed to Mrs. Davidson, who smiled and nodded. “A pleasure.”

He turned to Alicia, who was as pale as her dress, her dark eyes lustrous. She held herself regally, looking squarely at him, and he felt lower than a burial pit. The room closed in on them, people talking, laughing, waiters circulating, but as he stared into her beautiful face, everything else faded away.

There was only Ally.

Before his courage failed him altogether, he reached for her hand.

“If you will excuse us, I need a moment with your daughter.” He clasped her icy fingers and headed for the door.

Gasps and giggles and whispers trailed in their wake, but he didn’t stop. Exiting the new wing, the main galleries, and eventually the museum itself, he led her toward the park.

Through it all, she said not a word, just hurried after him, a faint tinkling of jewelry and the click of her shoes the only sound. Rounding the museum, he headed up the sloping sidewalk until they stood beneath Cleopatra’s Needle. He paused to catch his breath.

Moonlight shone off her hair and eyes, glinting off the gold threads of her dress, giving her an ethereal look that made him want to gather her into his arms and never let her go.

He could stand it no longer. His hands came up to cup her face, and he dipped his head, kissing her, lightly at first then with the pent-up frustration of the past week. His arms came around her, and he held her tight.

Her fingers twined in his hair, and she kissed him back with all the fervor a man could wish for. When he felt her tears on his cheek, he broke the kiss, tucking her head under his chin, his chest heaving.

“Why, Max?” The pain in her voice sliced his heart. “Why did you turn away from me? Was it something I did? Something I said?”

He stroked her back, squeezing her close. “No, no, it wasn’t you. It was me. I panicked. I fell in love with you, all the while thinking you were a lowly art student, and then when I found out you were an heiress, I thought you’d been toying with me, a dalliance that meant nothing to you.”

She squeaked and would’ve pulled out of his arms, but he held her fast. “No, don’t. I’m not finished yet. I was so angry with you and with myself, I wasn’t thinking clearly. Then the paintings arrived.” He brushed a kiss against her temple. “Did you realize that Princess Meryet-Kai and Prince Kaemqed bear more than a passing resemblance to you and me? I’m surprised no one has commented on it yet. I can’t think of a more obvious declaration of love short of shouting from the museum rooftop.”

Tipping her face up so he could read her expression, he laughed at the blush on her cheeks. “I knew the minute I recognized us that you must love me, so I made up my mind tonight, I couldn’t lose you. You’re too precious to me. I had to have you for my wife. So even though it will mean giving up digging in Egypt, I’m going to take the job the museum offered me. I’ll go on the lecture circuit and I’ll curate their exhibits. It won’t compare to expedition life, but if it means we can be married, it will be worth it.”

Her dark eyes went from dreamy to sparking hot. “What? Give up Egypt? Whatever for?”

“Sweetheart, I can’t drag you off to Africa to live in a tent. Can you imagine it? The heat, the flies, the sand, the rock dust, and bat dung. Bad food, questionable sanitation? No, I’d never ask that of you, not with your background.”

This time she managed to escape his clasp. “And I have no say in the matter? Don’t you dare take that away from me. You seem to think that because my father is wealthy, I can’t or won’t follow my man to the ends of the earth. Just today my father told me to fight for what I wanted if what I wanted was worth fighting for. So I’m going to fight you on this one. I’m not made of spun sugar. I’m tougher than you think. And I want to go to Egypt. With you.”

He pushed his glasses up and put his hands on his hips. “What will your parents say?”

“They’ll deal with it. They want me to be happy.”

“And you think Egypt will make you happy?” He had to be sure.

She closed the distance between them, putting her arms around his neck and standing on tiptoe to place a kiss on his lips. “I think being with you will make me happy. And being in Egypt will make you happy. Ergo…”

He kissed her, deeply, lingeringly. How quickly he’d gone from despair to delight. At last, he whispered against her hair, “We should get back inside. Folks will be wondering where we’ve gone.”

“Just a few moments more, please?” She caressed the side of his face.

“If you change lord to archaeologist, that poem represents all I shall ask of life from now on.”

He turned his face to place a kiss in her palm. “I thought the tomb of Meryet-Kai would be the most important find of my life. Who knew my greatest treasure was here in New York all along.”

Erica Vetsch is a transplanted Kansan now residing in Minnesota. She loves books and history, and is blessed to be able to combine the two by writing historical romances. Whenever she’s not following flights of fancy in her fictional world, she’s the company bookkeeper for the family lumber business, mother of two, wife to a man who is her total opposite and soul mate, and avid museum patron.

Baker’s Dozen

by Gina Welborn

Dedication

For my sisters and girlfriends—young and old—in Bachelor Nation who still believe in fairy tales, and for those who do not. Whether you’re single or married, there is a Prince waiting to set your heart free. This life is merely a prologue to the eternal happily-ever-after He’s prepared for you.

Food is anything which nourishes the body. Cookery is the art of preparing food for the nourishment of the body.
F
ANNIE
M
ERRITT
F
ARMER
,
T
HE
B
OSTON
C
OOKING
-S
CHOOL
C
OOKBOOK
,
1896

I would give gladly all the hundreds of years I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars.
“T
HE
L
ITTLE
M
ERMAID
,”
WRITTEN BY
H
ANS
C
HRISTIAN
A
NDERSON
, 1837

[The L
ORD
] has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted… to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
I
SAIAH
61:1–3
NIV

Chapter 1

Fort Worth, Texas
Summit Avenue—Quality Hill
Baker House
September 23, 1910

W
ith the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up and his suit coat and tie now tossed aside, Duke Baker walked around the billiards table, looking for his next shot. The nearby grandfather clock bonged the hours. Pocket this shot and he’d break his record.

“If I didn’t know better, Lord, I’d think the felt had channels tonight for the balls to roll effortlessly into the pockets.” He paused and chuckled at the hint of sarcasm in the almost audible response. “You could be right. Practice does make perfect.”

At the clock’s final
bong,
Duke decided on the orange number five ball.

Nine p.m. Two more hours before his father would return from the Friday evening performance of
The Merchant of Venice,
a play Duke would be attending, too, if his wife were alive. How ironic his dad had avoided the theater when Duke’s mother lived yet faithfully attended now. Did other people not do things alone that they used to do when their spouses were alive? He imagined loneliness was a good motivator. Not that he was lonely enough to change his comfortable evening routine of solitary pocket billiards and talking out loud to God.

He leveled his gaze. Drew back the stick.

The door creaked open.

Duke turned his head enough to look over his shoulder and see his daughter standing on the threshold, the sides of her white nightgown twisting between her fingers. “You should be in bed.” Fast asleep.

“Daddy, I must have a word with you.” Not
might I have a word?
Not a request for a moment of his time, but an order in the same confident tone reminiscent of her granddaddy.

Accustomed to the way his five-year-old made grand pronouncements, Duke rose to his full “Baby Bear” height, as Janet used to say—not too tall, not too short. He rested the stick against the table. “Do I need to sit for this, or is standing acceptable to you?”

A wrinkle deepened between Tabitha’s light brows. Her face scrunched. A little sigh. “Sit, please.”

Duke grabbed his crystal goblet from where it rested on the edge of the billiard table and carried it to the nearest seating area, the one beside the unlit hearth. He found purchase in the padded leather chair, sliding his drink onto the lamp-bearing table. “What ails you?”

Tabitha, as expected, climbed onto his lap. “I kissed Charles.”

Duke paused a moment in shock at the confession. He shifted Tabitha for a better look at her face. Her blue eyes, so guileless and sincere. What Quality Hill family had a son, or grandson, near her age and named Charles? He couldn’t think of any. Then again, he socialized little. Or the boy could be older. Much older. In the morning he would have to speak to Nanny Ruth about her supervision skills.

“I kissed George, too,” she added before he could speak. “And Mr. Tumpkins, but”—Tabitha sighed loudly—“it didn’t work. I’m quite fustgated.”

“Frustrated,” he mumbled, staring absently at the foot-wide mahogany molding around the matching paneled ceiling that seemed to be closing in on him. He knew of several boys in Quality Hill named George, but Tumpkins? Still, it was oddly familiar. He frowned and felt his brows drawing together. “Isn’t Mr. Tumpkins one of the frogs in your grandpa’s pond?”

Tabitha nodded.

That could only mean—“Charles and George are frogs, too?”

Her eyes rolled. “Of course, Daddy.”

Duke rested his head back against the chair. The thought of her kissing a boy was bad enough, but an amphibian? Three, to be precise. “Sweetheart, why are you kissing frogs?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his wits. “To find the prince.”

“Frogs don’t turn into princes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, they don’t.”

She nodded fervently. “Misery says they do.”

Ah, Misery, her imaginary friend of late.

“Only happens in books.” Princes never lived happily ever after with their princesses. Death saw to that. He leaned forward, spoke gently. “Sweetheart, your grandpa bought those frogs to eat, not to play with. You have to stop pretending they are your friends.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She buried her head against his shoulder, muttering something about family and him breaking her heart.

Duke held her tight. His heart ached over having to be the voice of reason. He shouldn’t have let her play with the frogs. He should have forbidden her from even going to the pond to visit their future dinner. He should have told her to stop talking to Misery and listening to what Misery had to say, because imaginary people aren’t real. If she was lonely and wanted someone to talk to, she should talk to God, like he did. Or talk to him. Times like this…

He swallowed the lump in his throat. Janet would’ve known what to say. Mothers always know the right thing to say. His mother had. He wouldn’t be who he was today if she hadn’t been open about her failings and about the times God did little and big miracles. While his mother and wife hadn’t been “perfect” women, neither had they been full of pretense and platitudes. Some days the sting of missing them was almost unbearable.

Truth slammed into his already aching heart.

He wasn’t enough for his little girl.

She needed a mother.

Finding one for her meant finding a wife for himself. Duke tensed. He couldn’t. He twisted the wedding band he still wore even though he’d buried Janet and their stillborn son twenty-five months ago. Dad was right. Tabitha’s needs were greater than his hurt. Even though his heart still clung to his wife, for his daughter’s sake, he had to do this.