Kitabı oxu: «Rescued: Mother-To-Be»

Rescued: Mother-To-Be
Trish Wylie

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Donna, Mary and Natasha,

who gave me enough information on pregnancy

to scare any sane single gal silly!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter One

‘WELCOME home, Eamonn.’

Colleen McKenna pinned a smile on her face and tilted her head back to look up at him where he stood, leaning against the doorway of the yard office. She had managed to keep her voice calm—even thought she’d come across as welcoming. Which was the least he deserved, on his first visit home after so long.

He hadn’t changed a bit, had he? Still disgustingly good-looking, still able to dominate by sheer presence as much as size. And still, after fifteen years, capable of making her mouth go dry and butterflies flutter their wings erratically in her stomach. It really wasn’t fair.

Surely a thirty-year-old woman should have long since been over the unrequited love she’d felt as a fifteen-year-old? Shouldn’t she?

She felt a sudden ridiculous urge to raise her hand to her hair, to straighten it, tuck a loose strand behind one ear. As if those simple actions would somehow make her look less dishevelled than she felt. But it wasn’t as if Eamonn Murphy had ever cared how she looked before, was it?

And it wasn’t as if she could hope to measure up to the breathtaking sight of him. Not while he was dressed in spotless walking boots, dark, low-slung jeans, and a thick chocolate-coloured sweater that hinted at the breadth of him as much as it hid.

He was glorious.

While Colleen knew she probably resembled a used teabag as much as she felt like one.

Hazel eyes, framed with thick dark lashes, pinned hers across the room, taking a brief moment to make an inventory of her face before a flicker of recognition arrived,

‘Colleen McKenna.’A small smile lifted the edges of his sensually curved mouth. ‘Well, you grew up, didn’t you?’

‘That happens, y’know. I could say the same thing about you.’ She leaned back a little in the ancient office chair, the bulk of her body still obscured by the ridiculously large desk, and allowed her eyes to stray over his face. She swallowed to dampen her mouth. Oh-boy-oh-boy.

Had he got better-looking as he’d got older? She searched her memory to see if his hair had curled that way before, in an uncontrolled mass of dark curls that framed his face and touched his collar. Curls that invited fingers to thread through them, that looked as if that was exactly how they’d got that way in the first place. Yes. She remembered that. It had been a little of that irresistibly sensual edge which had been such a big part of him, and of his attraction.

She continued her mental checklist of his attributes, comparing old memories to the reality. Had he been as tall? Oh, yes, that she remembered. He’d always stood head and shoulders above every other boy she’d known, before and after he’d left. But the lean edge to him was gone, replaced by wide shoulders and a broad chest that made him seem even larger than she remembered.

It wasn’t fair that he’d aged so well. But some people really did get better with age. Like good wine was supposed to. Not that there was enough in Colleen’s weekly budget to cover the screw-top variety, never mind the kind that deserved being swirled around in a glass and savoured before drinking. Not that she was allowed alcohol presently. Not that she couldn’t have used large quantities of it for self-medication these last few months.

Maybe just as well. If she’d started drinking to cover her problems she might not have stopped.

Eamonn dragged his eyes from her face and looked around the office, his eyes taking in the usual disorganised chaos. And inwardly Colleen squirmed.

It was stupid of her. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known he would appear some time soon. But she maybe could have cleared up, filed things away, thrown a cloth over a surface or two. But all it really would have been was window dressing.

It wouldn’t have helped to hide the awful truths she would have to tell him now that he was here.

But the least she could do was let him settle in first. There wasn’t much point panicking about what had to come after that.

To hell with it.

When it came to the office he had to remember that paperwork was usually bottom of the chain around the place. He couldn’t have forgotten everything?

It was plainly obvious she hadn’t.

She cleared her throat and focused on less mundane matters. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t hold off the funeral for you coming home. I really am, Eamonn. I know you’d have wanted to be here…’

Her voice died off into the silence and was eventually answered with a shrug of broad shoulders and in a husky deep voice. ‘It’s no one’s fault, Colleen. You couldn’t have got word to me where I was even if you’d known where to look. They didn’t have phones there.’

Even with his easy dismissal she felt guilty. But what else could she say? She remembered only too well how people had struggled to say the right thing to her when her parents had died. It had been almost as awkward waiting for them to find what they considered to be the ‘right words’as it had been for them to find them. And so many times she had wished they would just drop it, say what they had to in a card, or with a squeeze of her arm or even a hug.

But somehow she definitely didn’t see herself offering a hug. An arm-squeeze was a possibility, maybe.

In the meantime, she picked up the conversation from what he’d said last. ‘Another great adventure?’

‘Something like that.’

She nodded. He was still a great talker, then. It was like getting blood from the proverbial—always had been. Just another thing that hadn’t changed that much.

As a teenager he’d been dark and brooding ninety per cent of the time, and that had fulfilled all of Colleen’s romantic notions. In her adolescent mind she had been going to be the one to tame him, to tease out his smile and put a spark in his eyes. She had even been encouraged by how he’d been in her company—how he had laughed, teased her, ruffled her hair. If he’d just once opened his eyes and noticed her the way she’d dreamed he would…

But she’d been a child and he’d been a mature eighteen-year-old, ready to leave the small hamlet they lived in to take on the world. And he’d left her behind.

Now, as he walked around the office, lifting breeding books and feed invoices and flicking them over, she knew she’d lived several lifetimes since then. She wasn’t some doe-eyed teenager any more—wasn’t a romantic dreamer. A kick or two in the teeth had that effect on a person over time.

He stopped and turned around, leaning back on one of the counters that were attached to three of the four walls and crossing his feet at the ankles before he folded his arms across his broad chest. ‘I have to say I’m a bit surprised. The old place looks like hell. I take it Dad wasn’t up to much the last few years?’

The American twang to his accent distracted her momentarily from his actual words. But when she caught them she automatically straightened her spine in her chair, words in defence of his father immediately jumping out of her mouth. ‘Blaming it on Declan is hardly fair. He wasn’t exactly fit for a lot of the heavy stuff after the second heart attack. You wouldn’t even wonder about that if you’d seen him the way he was.’

Eamonn stared at her for a long moment, his gaze steady and impassive. ‘This place was his pride and joy. It would have had to be something major to keep him from tending to it.’

‘I’d say a couple of heart attacks was major, wouldn’t you?’

There was a minute narrowing of his eyes. Then he blinked thick dark lashes at her. And said nothing.

Colleen suddenly felt like a bug under a microscope. It wasn’t as if she had any right to criticise. All he had done was make an observation. But then, she knew inside that her defensiveness was less to do with Declan and more to do with her own part in the property’s run-down appearance.

She pressed her lips together and released them with a small popping noise before taking a breath. ‘Are you planning on staying long?’

‘Depends.’

‘Well, you’ll be staying the night at least?’

‘At least.’

Her blue eyes studied his impassive face for a few long seconds, and then she leaned forward again and smiled more genuinely. ‘You were always hard work conversation-wise. I should have remembered that.’

One dark brow quirked at her candid statement, the corners of his sensual mouth twitching momentarily to hint at a single dimple on one cheek. ‘Cut to the chase, don’t you?’

‘Well, I could play some kind of verbal game of chess with you, but I doubt I’d win. Life’s too short for that sort of hard work, and I’m not really that smart. I like to try and believe people still mean what they say when they say it. Even when I still get reminded that’s not always true. A girl can live in hope.’

‘An optimist?’

She had to be. If she wasn’t optimistic then there wouldn’t be too much in her life to celebrate. ‘I try to be. You only live the once—bit bloody pointless being depressed every day.’

His mouth quirked again.

Folding her slender arms across the top of the desk, she tilted forwards and bent her head to one side, her arched brows lifting in silent challenge.

Eamonn rewarded her with a burst of masculine laughter, the sound seeming to echo around the room. ‘And to think you used to be shy.’

‘I outgrew it.’

‘Obviously. You outgrew a lot of things, from what I can see. And not too badly either.’

His eyes sparkled across at her, and for a moment her heart caught. Ah, no. He couldn’t just waltz in looking all gorgeous and flirt with her. He was a decade and a half too late for that. And he had as much reliability as an ice cube on a summer’s day.

Colleen had enough problems, thank you.

There was the sound of approaching hooves on the cobbled yard outside, and Eamonn’s head turned towards the sound. He pushed off the counter and walked to the windows in a couple of long strides, looking out at each horse as it went by.

Tempting as it was to just sit and study his profile, all lit up from the window as it was, Colleen knew better than to let herself. So, her eyes on his curls, turning a dark chocolate in the sunlight, she pushed back from the desk and wandered across to stand a little behind him.

Her expert eyes glanced over each of the large animals as they walked by outside the window, taking in their conformation, their condition, the evenness of stride, assessing each one with an all-encompassing glance that took a matter of seconds. The rest of Inisfree Stud might look tatty round the edges, but the horses were still top class. It was the only point of pride she had left.

She glanced up at the side of his head. ‘So, can you still not stand the sight of them?’

Eamonn turned his face towards hers and locked eyes once again, this time up close and personal. There wasn’t the tiniest flicker in the hazel depths, or on his face. Not a hint of humour or regret. Just a simple blinking of his dark lashes as he took a moment or two longer than necessary to answer. ‘Can’t say I want to run out there and feed them carrots.’

So close to him for the first time in years, Colleen was suddenly overwhelmed by his masculine scent. In the company of horses most of the time, as she was, she wasn’t used to such sensual tones. It was musky, spice with an underlying hint of sweetness, and it clung to her nose and pervaded her throat, almost as if she could taste him. And while she still had her head tilted up to look into his eyes the combination of awareness and proximity did things to her nerve-endings that hadn’t been done for a long, long time. If ever.

It just wasn’t fair. Someone somewhere really hated her, didn’t they? Bringing him back now.

‘My dad’s biggest disappointment.’

The words caught her unawares, and for a split second she gaped up at him in open surprise. ‘Eamonn, that wasn’t your dad’s biggest disappointment. Don’t be daft. You couldn’t force yourself to like them when you didn’t.’

‘I should have, though. It was in my genetic make-up.’

‘Not everyone loves horses like—’

‘Like you do?’

Colleen smiled then. ‘I was going to say like your dad did. But I guess it’s true of me too. It’s just something that’s in me.’

‘Then you’ll not understand how I feel any better than my dad did.’

Now, where had that come from? Why would he care what she thought? She was about to open her mouth and quiz him when he turned and, underestimating the space he needed to give her, brushed his arm against her stomach. Frowning, he dropped his gaze in surprise. Then his head shot back up, his eyes wide.

Colleen smiled ruefully. ‘Don’t worry—I bump things all the time now. It’s not your fault. Just comes with the territory.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘No, well, it’s not like I took an ad out in the paper in Outer Mongolia, or wherever it was you were.’ She felt her cheeks warming, suddenly embarrassed by her condition. Well, at least under the scrutiny of someone she had once dreamed would have helped get her into that condition.

‘Peru.’

‘Peru, then.’ She stepped back, her hand going to the small of her back as she made her way back to the desk.

‘I didn’t know you were married.’

‘You don’t have to actually be married to get one of these. I’m sure I have a book on high school biology somewhere you could read.’

Ignoring her sarcasm, he asked the obvious. ‘So you’re not married?’

‘Nope.’ She sat back down on the old chair, which creaked a little under her weight. ‘Not married.’

‘Engaged, then?’

She waved her hands in front of her face. ‘Nope, no rings on these fingers.’

Not any more.

Eamonn looked surprised. ‘You’ll be getting engaged soon, though?’

Momentarily amused by his assumption, she shuffled the paperwork on her desk into a neater pile, and put it all back inside its manila folder. ‘No. I tried that, and it didn’t turn out so good. He walked. So there’s just me and the fifteen-stone baby now.’ She glanced up at him. ‘I had no idea you were so old-fashioned.’

‘Some things I’m old-fashioned about. Like a kid having two parents.’

‘Well, this one will just have to make do with me.’

Eamonn stared at her in silence for a long, long time. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he lowered his voice and asked, ‘What happened?’

The question was an innocent one, she knew, and he meant well. Under normal circumstances she’d have been touched that he wanted to know. But he had no way of knowing how loaded a question it was—of the repercussions the answer would have on his own life. Or what those repercussions had meant for his father.

Colleen would never, ever forgive herself for the mistake she’d made. Because, thanks to her, Eamonn’s father was dead. How exactly did she go about telling him something like that?

Looking into the hazel eyes that for most of her teenage years she had wanted to look at her with the kind of warmth they now held for a brief second, she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Yes, she would have to at some stage. But just not yet. Not today.

‘It ended badly.’ Which barely began to explain what had happened.

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Not half as sorry as Colleen was.

Chapter Two

EAMONN didn’t know what he’d expected when he’d come back to Killyduff, the tiny village he’d once called home. But if he’d had a list of things he wouldn’t have expected…

Colleen McKenna being so grown-up had to be expected, he supposed. But she’d grown up pretty damn well. In his memory she’d been this scrawny little slip of a thing who had followed him around the farm like a puppy. She’d been a tomboy back then—sometimes in jeans, sometimes in riding jodhpurs, always in muddy boots. Wherever she’d been there had been a fat, hairy pony of some shape or other, and a dog with a permanently wagging tail. On the very odd occasion when she’d entered his thoughts that was how he’d thought of her. The little kid whose fair hair he had always ruffled.

She wasn’t that now.

When he’d driven back through the narrow lanes and looked at the open scenery around him his mind had been filled with memories. So many of them bad ones—or happy ones tinged with a bittersweet after-taste. And when he’d walked into the office he had even been prepared for a moment to see his father behind the desk. Even though he’d known that wouldn’t happen ever again.

Even though part of him had wanted the older man to be there. Just one last time. A ghost to lay to rest his own ghosts, or rather his demons.

The sight, then, of a fully grown, sparkling-eyed woman behind the desk his father had occupied for so long had caught him off guard. It had even taken him a few seconds to realise who she was. And then her direct way of speaking had amused him. The way her eyes would flicker away from him and then back had fascinated him.

But the sight of her so full and rounded with a baby? Looking as feminine as a woman could, lush and glowing. That had knocked him sideways.

Then to find out some jerk had walked off and left her like that…

Well, he wasn’t sure why the thought of that annoyed him so much. Maybe simply because out of all the bad memories he had from this place he’d once called home it would have been nice to be left with one happy one. That the Colleen he remembered was happy and settled.

It would have been nice if one of them had figured out how to be happy.

If she’d been better settled he wouldn’t have felt quite so bad about what he’d decided to do. He had hoped she’d be in a position to keep the place if she wanted to. But that wasn’t looking likely, was it? It made him think somewhat more deeply about his plans.

What would she do when her baby came? How would she cope alone? How would she make her living? The questions shouldn’t have been on his mind as much as they suddenly were. It wasn’t really his concern, after all. But the questions were there regardless. And what had been planned as a flying visit—literally—wasn’t looking so likely.

He took a deep breath. Damn it. It was a complication he didn’t need. And it wasn’t as if Colleen McKenna was his responsibility.

After a wander around the large old farmhouse, he threw some things out of his bag, showered, and searched through the cupboards for something to eat that might wake him up. Sleeping might be what his body craved, but he knew jet-lag well enough to know the sooner he adjusted to the time zone he was in the better.

Then, with the light fading outside, he wandered to the back of the house and looked out over the empty yard.

To catch sight of Colleen, pushing a huge wheelbarrow.

What the—?

He was in front of the stable she was in in less than two minutes. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Colleen’s head jerked up at the sound of his sharp voice, and the huge grey horse beside her baulked. Immediately her hand came out, smoothing along the horse’s wide neck to reassure it. ‘Evening stables. What does it look like I’m doing? Belly dancing?’

Eamonn scowled as she smiled at her own joke. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this. Isn’t there someone else?’

‘The two girls we have left do most of it before they go home, but I do a wee skip round and check the rugs before I go to bed.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes, on my own.’ His astonishment seemed to surprise her. ‘I’m pregnant, Eamonn. I’m not in a wheelchair. And keeping moving is good for me.’

‘Wheeling a bloody great wheelbarrow about isn’t.’

‘Are you a gynaecologist now?’

‘No, I don’t need to be. It’s common sense.’ His eyes narrowed as the large horse stepped towards him to investigate. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and spread his feet wider, as if preparing himself for an attack, which made Colleen laugh aloud.

‘I’d tell you Bob doesn’t bite, but I’d be lying. And if you keep your hands in your pockets like that he’ll think you have food.’

Eamonn removed his hands, held his palms out for the horse to nuzzle in evidence of his lack of food, and tilted his head to see past to what Colleen was doing.

She was lifting droppings onto a shavings fork. While he opened his mouth to give out to her again, she spoke in a softly firm voice. ‘Bob, back.’

Bob dutifully stepped back from the door.

‘And another one. Back.’

He stepped back again, leaving enough room for Colleen to deposit what she was carrying into the wheelbarrow she had placed across the open doorway. She looked around the stable floor again. ‘I’ll be done in a minute anyway. I’ve just this row to do.’

‘I’m not happy with you pushing that wheelbarrow around in your condition.’

‘Thoughtful as that is, I’ve survived without your help this far. I can make it to the end.’

‘Are you always this stubborn?’

Her head turned as she fluffed the wood shavings into place, one eyebrow quirking. ‘I’ve always been this stubborn. Don’t you remember that much?’

‘I remember you frequently being a pain in the—’

She laughed. ‘Oh, I was that too.’

He wheeled the barrow out of the way as she came out of the stable, pausing to pat the horse’s neck again before she closed the stable door, bolted the top bolt and kicked the bottom into place.

She then turned to retrieve the barrow. But Eamonn jerked his head towards the next stable. Stubborn only went so far with him. ‘If I can’t stop you then I’m wheeling the barrow. So hurry up.’

‘I can do this just fine without your help.’

The rise of her chin and the glint in her eyes amused him, gave him a small sense of pride at her fierce independence that almost made him smile. Almost. If he smiled she’d think she’d won. And she hadn’t. ‘I believe you. But I’m here now, so learn to live with it. Now, hurry up. It’s bloody freezing out here.’

‘Warmer in Borneo, was it?’

‘Peru. And, yes it was.’He jerked his head again, ‘Go on, then.’

After a moment of hesitation, she sighed, and then moved to the next stable, where a finer darker head was over the door. ‘Get back, Meg.’

Eamonn watched with less surprise as the animal did as it was bid. ‘Do they all jump when you ask them to?’

‘They know who’s boss.’

He wheeled the barrow into place the same way she had at the previous stable, before leaning against the doorframe, watching her movements, and that of the horse, with cautious eyes. ‘You’re still taking a chance going in there, though. You know that.’

‘Everyone who works with horses is taking a chance. It comes with the territory.’

Oh, he knew. Knew better than most people on the street. But then he’d seen first-hand what could go wrong, and that kind of memory tended to stick with a person. The day his mother had taken her bad fall he’d been ten. It had been the last time she had ever sat on a horse, and less than five years later she’d quit trying to like horses for her husband’s sake. And left.

As the old memory seared across his mind and his heart, leaving a dull ache in its wake, he glanced around the empty yard. ‘Don’t any of the stable girls live in any more?’

‘Not since the last foreign groom we had, no. They tend to live in the town. There’s more going on there. The shops are closer—and, more importantly, the pubs.’

Eamonn put the pieces together. ‘So you’re out here doing this on your own with no one even within shouting distance?’

‘Uh-huh.’ She set her fingertips against the horse’s side. ‘Meg, over. Good girl.’

He was scowling by the time she dumped into the barrow again. ‘So you’re telling me you could get hurt and there would be no one here to help you ’til morning?’

‘Pretty much.’ She stopped, leaning on the handle of the shavings fork as she studied his scowling face in the dim light outside the stable. Then she shook her head and smiled. ‘Jeez.’ She fumbled in her jacket pocket and produced a small mobile phone, which she wiggled back and forth in front of her. ‘I can call for help. See? Prepared for every emergency, that’s me. So you can quit fussing over me like an old mother hen. I’m grand.’

‘Well, while I’m here you don’t do this stuff alone.’

‘What are you, now? My guardian angel?’

A brief nod in reply and, ‘For now.’

The firmly spoken words made her eyes widen for a split second, and Eamonn felt a smile build on the corners of his mouth again. The kind of smile that made it all the way down inside his chest. When was the last time he’d smiled like that?

But then it was the first time since he’d come home that he’d felt vaguely in control. More like his usual self. And it was an even longer time since he’d had so capable a sparring partner. A victory was a victory, no matter how small.

Her blue eyes swept to a point above his head.

After a second he tilted his chin and looked upwards. Then he looked back at the deadpan expression on her face. ‘What?’

‘I think your halo’s a little crooked.’

And just like that the victory was taken away from him. A burst of deep, resonating laughter escaped his lips. It had been one hell of a long time since anyone had spoken to him like she did. It was refreshing as be damned.

Colleen rewarded him with a glorious smile in return, ‘Make yourself useful, then, and move the barrow. Back, Meg.’

The smile remained on his face as they made their way down the line of stables. Watching each horse from the corner of his eye, he observed how Colleen efficiently manoeuvred the animals, and did what she had to do with an ease of movement that spoke of confidence and physical ability, even with her ungainly size.

He allowed himself to study her closer.

She was very different from the women he’d known for most of his adult life. When he dated he dated in NewYork—his base for his travels. In New York he had the job that supported his many meanderings around the world in search of something he’d never found. In New York he filled in time between work and trips with the kind of women who dated professionally, who knew what face to present to the kind of guy they were trying to get. They dressed in clothes that accentuated their figures, had manicured nails, and hair that was tamed in such a way it was supposed to look natural. But Colleen…

Colleen was what Colleen was; there was no carefully constructed outer appearance. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, and from the exertion involved in her task; her blonde hair was already escaping in long curling strands from the soft band that held it in a single ponytail at the nape of her neck. The long lashes that framed her startling blue eyes were free from mascara—as free as her full lips were from lipstick. In fact the redness of her lips was only due to how she would chew on them with the edge of her even white teeth as she concentrated on what she was doing.

And the rumour about pregnant women seeming to glow was apparently true too. All in all, she was the most naturally gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. And for the first time in his life Eamonn was finding a pregnant woman highly attractive.

What would be the point in that, though? It wasn’t as if anything could come of it. His life was in New York, and the other places he journeyed to, and hers was in this tiny corner of Ireland he’d walked away from. With her horses. And it wasn’t as if he spent a whole heap of time around kids—well, not every day anyway. A purely physical relationship was out of the question too. Because, apart from the most obvious restrictions, she was Colleen. She was practically family.

He was obviously a lot more tired than he’d thought. And he hadn’t had a recent partner to distract him in a while. Something he would have to remedy when he got home.

Eamonn mulled it over as he pulled the barrow back from the door and moved to the next one.

Colleen was obviously a very capable woman. So what had him wheeling a barrow for her and offering to be her guardian angel? Being an angel wasn’t something he was famous for, after all.

Maybe it was simply the age-old gene that demanded that the male of the species protect the female while she carried a child? A genetic thing in Colleen’s make-up that made her attractive to him, so that he felt the need to be protective towards her?

He smiled at the thought. Nah. If that was all it was then he’d be chasing around after every vaguely pregnant woman, opening doors and offering to carry shopping. Though he guessed if he ever took a bus or a train anywhere he would give up his seat. But then he didn’t need to take a bus or a train, he had a driver, and all it really proved was that he still had good manners.

It was more likely to be some kind of guilt.

And that thought made him frown. How could he hope to fix past wrongs by helping push a wheelbarrow around the yard now?

But, back amongst all the memories he had chosen not to remember about home, there had always been the hope that things would be better than he’d left them. That somewhere a simple form of happiness existed. Maybe by helping Colleen a little he could build that for her. Some.

At least before he pulled the rug out from under her feet. It certainly might make him feel better when he did.

‘You’ll give yourself a headache, y’know.’

He blinked as she stepped towards the door. ‘I’ll what?’