A Baby for the Bachelor

“It’s OK.” Marti assured.

He smiled. “Great date, huh?”

“You do know how to show a girl a good time.”

Noah tilted her face ever so slightly upward as he leaned in and met her mouth with his. Her arms went around him. His hand moved from her face to cradle the back of her head as his mouth opened even wider over hers. His tongue plundered and claimed and made her his, kissing her until nothing existed but the two of them and that kiss that drew her in, absorbed her and breathed new life into her all at once.

Available in July 2010

from Mills & Boon® Special Moments™

From Friends to Forever by Karen Templeton & The Family He Wanted by Karen Sandler

Baby By Surprise by Karen Rose Smith & Daddy by Surprise by Debra Salonen

A Kid to the Rescue by Susan Gable & Then Comes Baby by Helen Brenna

The Sheikh and the Bought Bride by Susan Mallery

A Cold Creek Homecoming by RaeAnne Thayne

A Baby for the Bachelor by Victoria Pade

The Baby Album by Roz Denny Fox

Victoria Pade is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion – besides writing – is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies – the more lighthearted the better – but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.

Chapter One

“Wake up, Marti. I think we’re close and I need guidance.”

Marti Grayson opened her eyes at the sound of her brother’s voice and sat up from her slump against the inside of his car door.

“Sorry. I wasn’t much company, was I?”

“None,” Ry said good-naturedly. “You fell asleep two miles from Missoula and you’ve been out ever since.”

“That’s been happening a lot lately. I’m told it comes with the territory—pregnancy hormones or something,” she said before focusing her attention outside of the vehicle. “Northbridge?” she asked.

“That’s what the sign said. But you tell me, you’re the one who’s been here before.”

“For one night, three weeks ago. I got in late that Monday afternoon and left Tuesday morning.”

Still, as Ry drove down Main Street in the small Montana town she recognized it as the street she’d driven in—and out—on.

“Take a right when you get to South Street,” she instructed. “Gram’s house is the last one before South Street goes out into farm- and ranchland. The driveway veers up a steep hill to the house.”

In mid-April their elderly grandmother had escaped her nurse and surprised everyone by making her way to Northbridge. Theresa Hobbs Grayson had been born and raised there. The three grandchildren who made sure she was cared for in her mentally and emotionally unstable state hadn’t known about the town or the house before that. But because Theresa was determined to remain there now, her grandchildren—Marti, Ry and the third triplet, Wyatt—were accommodating her.

Wyatt had been the first to come to Northbridge after Theresa was discovered in the old abandoned house. The plan had been for Marti, Ry and Wyatt to rotate spending time there with Theresa. But when Marti had arrived to relieve Wyatt, Wyatt had suddenly decided he wasn’t leaving. He was going to relocate permanently in order to marry the local social worker who had been Theresa’s case manager with Human Services.

Marti had needed to do a fast turnaround to get back to Missoula and the headquarters of Home-Max—the chain of large home-improvement stores owned by the Gray sons. She’d had to take over for Wyatt there and so had not seen anything of Northbridge except what she’d driven through.

Now Wyatt was about to marry Neily Pratt and so both Marti and Ry were making the trip.

Ry had followed her directions and the house came into view in the distance. “Is that it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Marti confirmed.

“It’s a lot bigger than I thought,” he said of the stately stone house that stood a tall two stories.

“I told you it was,” Marti said. “The inside is goodsized, too, but barely livable.”

“Who’s that?” Ry interjected as they got closer. “Not Wyatt.”

The house had a wide covered porch that ran the entire front and wrapped around one side to stretch all the way to the rear. Near the corner of the wraparound there was a man hanging a wooden bench seat that hung from chains.

His back was to them but Marti couldn’t help noticing that it was quite a back—he was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt so tight it might as well have been painted on his V-shaped torso and shoulders that were a mile wide and extremely well muscled.

“That must be the contractor Wyatt hired to work on the place,” Marti said, taking in what was undeniably an impressive view—especially when she factored in the narrow waist, tight rear end and long, thick legs.

“Noah Perry—isn’t that his name?” she went on. “I never got a chance to meet him. The remodel and update is no small job, though, and now with the wedding this weekend Wyatt said they’re in a crunch to have at least enough of the downstairs finished to be presentable. He said this Perry guy is putting in a lot of hours.”

“Looks okay from out here.”

Looks better than okay, Marti thought before she realized Ry was talking about the house while she was thinking about the contractor’s butt.

And she shouldn’t be thinking—or looking—at the contractor’s butt. She pulled her gaze away.

“I still can’t believe he’s getting married again,” Ry said.

Apparently not looking at the contractor wasn’t enough to erase him from Marti’s mind because for a split second she thought Ry was talking about him. Then she yanked her thoughts back in line and realized her brother was referring to Wyatt.

“How hard is this wedding gonna be on you?” Ry asked with a sidelong glance at her.

“It’s okay,” Marti assured him, appreciating his concern. “I’ve made this huge decision in my life in order to move on and that’s what I’m going to keep reminding myself. Wyatt is having a new beginning, I’m having a new beginning.”

“Huh, and I thought you were having a baby,” Ry joked as he pulled into the driveway.

He turned off the engine and Marti stretched. It had been a long drive and she’d been sitting in one position the whole way. The stretch made her head spin slightly, though, and she stopped to take a deep breath. So far pregnancy was making itself known in extreme fatigue, more trips to the bathroom, some nausea and sudden bouts of dizziness.

Her head settled down after the third deep breath and she reached for the door handle as Ry got out of the driver’s side and headed around the front of his newest toy.

The sports car was so low to the ground Marti had to duck a little to get out before she could stand and wave to Wyatt, who had come out of the house to greet them. And on came the whirlies again. Much worse than in the car.

Everything started to spin and tilt. Her gorge rose, and she felt herself sway uncontrollably. Her knees buckled and down she went like a helium balloon that had just lost all its oomph.

She heard both Ry and Wyatt call her name in a panic and come running. She wanted to reassure them that it was nothing, but beyond shaking her head she didn’t have the wherewithal for more.

Deep breaths…Deep breaths…It’ll pass…

Her brothers were on either side of her by then, asking if she was all right, but it was as if their voices were coming from far away, and all she could do was sit there, bracing herself with one arm to keep upright while her head was in some sort of internal spin.

Another man chimed in, in a voice that was vaguely familiar although Marti couldn’t place it. He was suggesting they call for an ambulance.

“No!” she managed as she struggled not to lose her lunch.

“Mary Pat!”

That was Wyatt’s voice, yelling for her grandmother’s caregiver. Mary Pat must have already been on her way because a moment later the nurse was kneeling beside her, taking her pulse.

“It’s just…dizziness…” Marti whispered as the wave finally began to subside. Then she said, “I’m okay. Really.”

Embarrassment inched in behind the dizzy spell when she heard Ry say, “Maybe this artificial insemination thing wasn’t such a great idea. I’m not so sure pregnancy agrees with you.”

“Ry…” Wyatt chided. “Filter it, will you?”

“I’m just saying—”

“It doesn’t need to be said. Especially not out here on the lawn.”

With some stranger standing there, Marti thought as she put all her efforts into regaining herself.

She swallowed hard, closed her eyes for a minute and took a few more deep breaths before she repeated, “I’m really okay. I just keep getting this wicked dizziness thing.”

Then she opened her eyes and looked to her other brother, appreciating that he had the sense to curb Ry’s lack of discretion, and smiled feebly.

“Hi, Wyatt,” she said as if nothing had separated his greeting and that moment.

“Hi, Marti,” Wyatt said, alarm in his expression but his tone calm and understanding.

Marti looked to her grandmother’s caregiver. “Hi, Mary Pat. Could you tell these guys there’s nothing to this?”

“I think she’s fine,” the nurse confirmed. Then, to Marti she said, “Do you want to try to stand or shall we sit here a few minutes?”

“Why don’t we see if I can’t actually make it to the house.” Truthfully she would have preferred to stay put, if only everyone—including the handsome stranger—would stop staring.

“Here, let us get you up,” Wyatt insisted as he took one arm and Ry took the other.

That just made Marti feel like more of a spectacle. “I’m not an invalid, you know, guys.”

Neither of them commented, they just helped her to her feet.

And that was when her gaze went to the other onlooker—the man who had been hanging the chair swing on the porch and had obviously rushed down to her rescue along with her brothers.

“This is Noah Perry,” Wyatt said. “Noah, this is my brother Ry and our sister Marti.”

And that was when Marti swallowed hard a second time.

“Actually,” Noah said in a deep, rich voice she suddenly remembered all too well, “Marti and I have already met. At the Hardware Expo at the end of March.”

So she wasn’t hallucinating.

She’d almost hoped she might be.

“That’s right,” she confirmed weakly, not knowing what to do or say as her head started to spin for an entirely different reason.

While she hadn’t recognized the man from the back, now that she was face-to-face with him, she didn’t need an introduction. She knew that wavy chestnut hair, that slightly hawkish nose, those lush lips, those rich brown eyes. They’d been haunting her thoughts for the last six weeks.

“You better get inside, your color is draining again,” Mary Pat said, hooking her arm into Marti’s. “Come with me. I’ll get you some water and maybe a little sugar pick-me-up.”

Marti still hadn’t found any other words to say and Mary Pat was urging her to move so she just went, her thoughts on the man she’d thought she’d never see again.

The man who was the real father of her baby.

An hour after the late-afternoon excitement with the Gray sons, Noah Perry went home to a Friday night full of plans to pry off baseboards in his living room and possibly start to paint the walls.

Before he did either of those things he took some carrots and a cold longneck beer out of the refrigerator and went to his back porch to enjoy the warm mid-May evening and say hello to Dilly.

The three-year-old female donkey came over to the porch railing the minute Noah stepped outside.

“Yeah, you know what I have for you, don’t you?” Noah said to the animal as he gave Dilly one of the carrots.

He had two more but rather than give them to the burro right away, he put them in his pocket and leaned a shoulder against the post that braced the porch roof. Then he sipped his beer and did what he’d been doing for the last hour—he marveled at the fact that he’d just met up with Marti again. That she was Marti Grayson…

Last names hadn’t come up at the Expo. Sure, he’d known she worked for Home-Max—he’d seen her manning their booths and in their hospitality suite. But there had been Home-Max employees all over the place, and he’d just figured she was in their ranks. She hadn’t said she was one of the owners of the chain.

And in the three weeks he’d been working for the Graysons, there hadn’t been any mention of Marti by name or he might have put two and two together. On the occasions when he ’d talked to Wyatt—or on the fewer occasions when he’d talked to Theresa—there had only been occasional mentions of “my sister” or “my granddaughter,” never a name. So he honestly hadn’t had a clue.

He had been weighing whether or not to ask Wyatt about the Marti who worked for Home-Max, though. He just hadn’t made up his mind if he should.

Sure, he’d had trouble not thinking about her in the last six weeks. Who wouldn’t have? She was just damn gorgeous. She had long blond hair, shot through with lighter streaks of pure sunshine, falling to the middle of her back. She had the softest, smoothest, most flawless skin he’d ever seen—or touched. Her eyes were the dark silver-blue of his first car and her lips were the reddest, fullest, sweetest he’d ever kissed. And her body was just round enough, just full enough in the right spots, just lean enough in the rest. And it was all atop surprisingly long legs for someone who didn’t stand more than five feet four inches tall.

So yeah, he’d had trouble not thinking about her and even dreaming about her a time or two.

But he hadn’t inquired about a Home-Max employee named Marti because he’d been asking himself where it would go even if he did find out her full name or how to reach her. She’d told him she worked and lived in Missoula. He worked and lived in Northbridge—Missoula was on the other side of the state. And a one-night hook-up at a hardware convention was hardly enough to work from. For all he knew, an almost anonymous, one-night fling was all she’d wanted. Certainly the fact that she’d left the next morning without waking him to say goodbye or so much as scribbling him a note seemed to indicate that.

But damn, what a night it had been!

The Hardware Expo had been a chance for him to get away for a weekend and keep himself updated on the latest products and all things construction related that might make his job as a contractor easier. But that was the extent of what he’d been looking for. It wasn’t as if he’d been cruising for women.

Still, he’d noticed Marti more than once—how could he not have when she was such a knockout? They’d exchanged a little work talk in passing at the Home-Max displays. They’d spoken slightly more when he’d gone to the hospitality suite, and yes, his interest had been piqued by something other than the latest cupboards and countertops. But she’d been busy, he’d been interested in a lot of things at the convention and nothing had come of any of it.

Then, late on the last night of the Expo, they’d both happened to be in the nearly deserted coffee shop in the hotel where the convention had been held.

He’d nodded at her.

She’d nodded back.

He’d said hello.

She’d said hello back.

And there they’d been—Marti alone at one table, Noah alone at another table, only waitstaff and a single group of other customers in the entire rest of the place.

So Noah had invited Marti to eat with him.

And she’d accepted.

More small talk about hardware had accompanied two club sandwiches and despite the fact that the conversation was work related, there had been a few flirtatious undertones from them both. And when the check had come Noah hadn’t been eager to see her go.

So he’d asked her if she might like to have a nightcap with him at the hotel bar.

She’d hesitated long enough for him to have figured she was trying to find a way to let him down easy. But just when he’d been sure he was about to get the rebuff, she’d said a nightcap sounded good.

The bar had had live—and loud—music that had prohibited talking. So they had ended up dancing. And drinking. A lot. Enough so that when the bar had closed neither of them had been feeling any pain and not actually knowing each other just hadn’t seemed to matter. He’d felt comfortable with her. He’d sure as hell liked looking at her. The evening had become one of the best he’d ever had, and a playful kiss in the elevator had somehow led her to walk him to his door when they reached his floor.

A good-night kiss there had turned into a whole lot of good-night kisses. Good-night kisses that had moved from the hallway to the inside of his room, then to the bed.

Where a lot more than kissing had gone on…

Noah fed Dilly another carrot. “To tell you the truth,” he confessed to the donkey as if the animal had been privy to his thoughts. “I wish I remembered it better than I do. The details of things, you know? But I was really drunk…”

They both were.

So drunk that when things between them had gone pretty far and he’d told her he didn’t have any condoms, they’d stupidly decided to risk it…

Noah had forgotten that detail completely.

Now that it occurred to him—struck him, actually—everything seemed to stop cold.

He hadn’t used protection…

And now here she was, six weeks later, pregnant…

“Oh my God!” he said, loudly enough for Dilly’s ears to twitch.

No protection and now Marti was pregnant—it went through his mind again, sinking in enough for his mouth to go dry, for him to break into a sweat.

Her brother had said it was by artificial insemination, he reminded himself. Until that moment that’s what he’d assumed was true, and maybe it was.

But as much as he wanted to believe it, it didn’t seem likely. Had she spent the night with him, had unprotected sex that hadn’t gotten her pregnant and then decided to try artificial insemination? Somehow that was hard to buy.

But what if she’d already been pregnant at the Expo? What if knowing she was already pregnant had contributed to her willingness to forego the condom?

Okay, that did seem possible.

Possible enough to give him a little hope and let him at least breathe again.

“It might not be mine,” he said out loud even though Dilly was keeping her distance.

But it might be—he couldn’t help coming back to that. Especially when he factored in that Marti had been every bit as drunk—maybe more drunk—than he’d been. And if she’d been pregnant before that night, she probably wouldn’t have touched alcohol…

“Oh my God,” he said again. Marti Grayson wasn’t just a beautiful, hazy memory of a faraway night in a rustic hotel room at a hardware convention, but a flesh-and-blood person with brothers and a grandmother and who-knew-who-else to contend with and save face with by saying she’d gone to a sperm bank rather than admitting she’d had a one-night stand with a stranger and gotten pregnant.

But if he was the father of her baby, why hadn’t she come looking for him to let him know?

“Did I tell her I was from Northbridge?” he asked Dilly as if the donkey might know.

Truthfully he couldn’t remember. And if all he’d said was that he was from a small town in southern Montana and she hadn’t known his last name, she probably wouldn’t have been able to find him. Maybe it was only by some greater design or coincidence that they’d been brought back together after she’d done everything she could to locate him.

Or maybe the baby was his and she didn’t want him in on it so she hadn’t bothered to even look for him…

But thinking that just made things worse.

Was she another woman who wasn’t going to give him a say or any options as a father? Because if she was, that just wasn’t going to fly.

Sensing the anger that flooded through him then, the donkey backed up a few steps.

“It’s okay, Dilly. It’s not you,” he comforted the animal, offering the third carrot to make amends.

The burro came cautiously forward, keeping her big black eyes on Noah and getting only close enough to reach the carrot.

“It might not be mine,” Noah said once more in an attempt to calm the emotions that had him reeling. “But I’ll have to find out one way or another.”

Because if the baby was his, he was going to have to do something about it.

Something that could keep the past from repeating itself—again.

Chapter Two

Later that night, after Marti heard Theresa’s bedroom door close, she said to Wyatt, “How is she doing?”

“Gram?” Wyatt shrugged. “No better. No worse. She had a bad night last night. The nightmares have been happening on a regular basis and usually with that same theme—she says it’s crying for her, it won’t stop crying, she has to get it back.”

“Which is why we’re thinking it is not the land she wants back,” Ry contributed.

Since Theresa’s escape to Northbridge, Wyatt had been looking into their grandmother’s past there. What he’d learned so far was that Theresa’s parents had died when she was a young girl, and that Theresa had inherited the house and many acres of prime property in the heart of Northbridge. Because her only other relative—an aunt—had been ill and unable to take her in at the time, Theresa had spent eleven months after the deaths of her parents as the houseguest of local lumberyard owner Hector Tyson and his wife Gloria.

During those eleven months she’d had virtually no contact with any of her friends, and at the end of them—three months before her eighteenth birthday—she’d finally left Northbridge to live with her aunt in Missoula. Before she left she sold Hector Tyson her land for a quarter of its value. Hector Tyson had subsequently become wealthy dividing the land into lots, selling those lots, then selling all the building materials to erect the houses that now stood on them.

When Theresa had been discovered three weeks ago in the house where she’d grown up, she’d been demanding that what had been taken from her be returned. Originally Wyatt had believed she’d been talking about the land. But since the nightmares had begun—and since Theresa had dismissed the notion that this had anything to do with the land—her grandchildren had started to wonder what else she might be referring to. If it might even have been a baby she’d had by Hector.

“Which is why we’re not thinking it’s the land that she wants back, right,” Wyatt repeated what Ry had said.

“And why it seems like it might be a baby,” Marti said, summing up what they’d all touched on through recent phone calls. “But you still haven’t asked her straight-out if that’s what was taken from her?”

Wyatt shook his head. “It hasn’t seemed like a good idea. She’s been in one of her really bad funks—she’s weepy, withdrawn, disoriented. Her memory has been worse than usual—she even forgot who Mary Pat was last week. Today—knowing you two were coming—is the first really good day she’s had since that first nightmare.”