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The question sounded so incredibly stupid to his own ears. Of course Samantha was pregnant. If the breeze hadn’t been billowing her loose dress around her before, he would have noticed that fact right away.
She let out a deep sigh and nodded. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Samantha stared out at the horizon, the stinging in her eyes uncomfortable, but nothing compared to having Nick this close. She’d been in turmoil over how to tell him about the child.
“Nick, I’m having your baby.” That sounded direct and right, but something inside her wouldn’t let her say the words.
She’d practiced telling him enough, long into the empty nights. She’d rehearsed what to say, what not to say, what to do. But none of that mattered now. Her heart was pounding and her stomach was in knots. Nothing was ever simple with Nick.
Dear Reader,
May is the perfect month to stop and smell the roses, and while you’re at it, take some time for yourself and indulge your romantic fantasies! Here at Harlequin American Romance, we’ve got four brand-new stories, picked specially for your reading pleasure.
Sparks fly once more as Charlotte Maclay continues her wild and wonderful CAUGHT WITH A COWBOY! duo this month with In a Cowboy’s Embrace. Join the fun as Tasha Reynolds falls asleep in the wrong bed and wakes with Cliff Swain, the very right cowboy!
This May, flowers aren’t the only things blossoming—we’ve got two very special mothers-to-be! When estranged lovers share one last night of passion, they soon learn they’ll never forget That Night We Made Baby, Mary Anne Wilson’s heartwarming addition to our WITH CHILD…promotion. And as Emily Kingston discovers in Elizabeth Sinclair’s charming tale, The Pregnancy Clause, where there’s a will, there’s a baby on the way!
There’s something fascinating about a sexy, charismatic man who seems to have it all, and Ingrid Weaver’s hero in Big-City Bachelor is no exception. Alexander Whitmore has two wonderful children, money, a successful company…. What could he possibly be missing…?
With Harlequin American Romance, you’ll always know the exhilarating feeling of falling in love.
Happy reading!
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
That Night We Made Baby
Mary Anne Wilson
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Anne Wilson is a Canadian transplanted to Southern California where she lives with her husband, three children and an assortment of animals. She knew she wanted to write romances when she found herself “rewriting” the great stories in Literature, such as A Tale of Two Cities, to give them “happy endings.” Over a ten-year career, she’s published thirty romance novels, had her books on bestseller lists, been nominated for Reviewer’s Choice Awards and received a Career Achievement Award in Romantic Suspense. She’s looking forward to her next thirty books.
Books by Mary Anne Wilson
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
495—HART’S OBSESSION
523—COULD IT BE YOU?
543—HER BODYGUARD
570—THE BRIDE WORE BLUE
589—HART’S DREAM
609—THE CHRISTMAS HUSBAND
637—NINE MONTHS LATER…
652—MISMATCHED MOMMY?
670—JUST ONE TOUCH
700—MR. WRONG!
714—VALENTINE FOR AN ANGEL
760—RICH, SINGLE & SEXY
778—COWBOY IN A TUX
826—THAT NIGHT WE MADE BABY
Dear Reader,
As a mother of three, I have always been struck by the power of babies to change their parents’ lives forever. Whether they are planned or a surprise, as tiny and helpless as they are, from the moment they exist, they profoundly alter the world around them.
In That Night We Made Baby, Samantha Wells is shocked, then thrilled to find herself pregnant with the child of her ex-husband, a man she will always love but knows she will never see again. Nicholas Viera believes he has the life he wants and needs. He knows where he’s going, what he wants, and is certain Samantha is his past, and children will never be a part of his future.
Little do both people know, but the “best-laid plans” of expectant parents are far from “set in stone.” What they think they want is no match for the tiny life that is a part of both of them, a life that comes with the ability to change or erase every plan they’ve made.
So, I invite you to share in the story of Samantha and Nicholas and a very unexpected baby who rearranges the future for all of them in That Night We Made Baby.
Contents
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Prologue
The Past—September
Los Angeles, California
“Reckless driving, an illegal lane change and failure to obey an officer of the law.”
Nicholas Viera had lived thirty-eight years without believing in luck. But that all changed the first moment he saw the pretty traffic-court defendant.
He never went into that part of the county courthouse; he didn’t deal with that area of the law. But he’d been so intent on something else that he made a wrong turn, pushed open the wrong door and stepped into the wrong chamber.
On that early-summer day, when he heard those charges being read, he looked up to see the defendant—a slender blond woman with her back to him. And Nick knew that luck was very real.
“Your Honor,” the blonde said in a quick, breathy voice, “I was just in the wrong lane and I tried to move over, then this other car wouldn’t get out of my way. I tried to get around it, but I couldn’t, then I thought if I turned and cut through the parking lot, I’d be able to pull ahead of that car, get in the right lane and go where I was trying to go all along.”
From his position at the chamber door, Nick was struck by the earnestness in the woman’s voice and by a riot of shoulder-length, sun-bleached blond curls. As he took a step forward, his eyes skimmed over beige slacks that clung to the gentle swell of her hips and showed off incredibly long legs. A clingy white blouse defined slender shoulders that shrugged repeatedly while the woman spoke. Wedge sandals added a couple of inches to her five-foot-five-or-six-inch height, and her hands moved constantly, adding expression to her words.
“I tried, but I didn’t realize that the curb cut out like that.” Her hands swept out away from her in a grand gesture as her words sped up. “If I had, do you think I would have tried to make that turn? I just never saw it and I thought I could make it, and bam, I hit it.”
“Miss Wells, please,” the judge said quickly to get a word in edgewise. “According to the officer, you crossed a double yellow line, almost ran into an oncoming car, then hit the curb. When he got there, you wouldn’t get out of your vehicle. You were not cooperative. Meanwhile, your car was blocking Wilshire Boulevard at four in the afternoon during rush hour.”
“I told you, I was trying to get into the parking lot and didn’t see the curb, then, the tire hit it and just blew up. I thought I might still be able to drive it, but the officer was yelling at me and I got confused.”
Nick found himself smiling as he made his way past the rows of wooden chairs toward the front of the room. He wanted a better look at the woman who wasn’t giving up despite the fact that she’d obviously wreaked havoc on the city of Los Angeles with her driving.
“But you were driving the car,” the judge pointed out with admirable patience. “You blew the tire, and it’s your responsibility.”
“Well, sure, of course, but if the other driver had let me over, I wouldn’t have had to do any of those things and the traffic wouldn’t have been stopped like that. And the policeman just yelled and yelled.”
“Yes, I guess he would,” the judge murmured. “But you could have gone around the block.”
Nick moved closer to the bailiff, and when he finally saw the profile of the formidable Miss Wells, he realized why the judge was being so indulgent with her, or at least why he wasn’t simply throwing her in jail and tossing away the key.
The woman was dead serious and absolutely beautiful—seductively appealing with a tiny nose, her chin elevated just a bit with challenge to show the beguiling sweep of her throat. He couldn’t help noticing the way the material of her blouse clung to high breasts that strained against the fine fabric with each breath she took. The only sign of nervousness was the way she started fiddling with a locket she wore around her neck.
He’d been so intent on looking at her that he’d almost stopped listening to her. Gradually, her voice filtered in again—a husky, earnest voice. “I had this really important appointment and I was already going to be late and I just had to get there.”
“Did you make your appointment?”
She shook her head, making her curls dance softly on her shoulders. “No, Your Honor. I didn’t.”
He sat back and looked down at her. “That’s a shame. Now, are you ready to enter your plea or are you going to want a jury trial?”
“Do I have to have a lawyer for a jury trial?” she asked.
“No, you don’t have to have an attorney, but if I were you and this was my record, I’d consider it.”
Nick wasn’t looking for more work and he never went into any court thinking about getting a client. Besides, his specialty was criminal law. This woman was just a crazy driver who was far too sexy for her own good. Despite all of that, he saw the way she hesitated, her hand stilling on the locket at her throat, and he found himself stepping in where he knew he probably shouldn’t.
“Your Honor, may I approach?”
At that moment, Miss Wells turned, and Nick finally got a good look at her face. She was maybe twenty-five or so, wearing little or no makeup, her incredibly green eyes shadowed by improbably long, dark lashes. There was a faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Her pale pink mouth was softly parted in surprise.
“Excuse me, sir?” the judge was saying.
“Nicholas Viera,” he said, taking a card out of his pocket and approaching the bench to lay it in front of the judge. “I was wondering if I might be of some help to…” He glanced back at the woman. “Miss Wells.”
“I don’t understand,” the woman said, obviously confused.
“Mr. Viera is apparently an attorney,” the judge said as he glanced at the business card.
“And I’m offering to represent the defendant on charges of reckless driving, an illegal lane change and failure to obey an officer of the law.” Being improbably desirable certainly wasn’t a criminal offense, but if it had been, as good as he was at what he did, he knew he’d never be able to get her off. “And anything else you allege that she did.”
“I told the judge that I was just trying to—”
Nick held up a hand to quiet her before she started off on another rambling explanation. “We’ll talk,” he said, then looked at the judge. “Can we reschedule?”
“If Miss Wells wishes to have counsel, we can put this on the calendar for…” He glanced at his clerk. “How does it look, Rhonda?”
A middle-aged woman at a low desk checked something in front of her, then looked at the judge. “A week today, Your Honor. Ten o’clock.”
He looked back at Nick. “How about that?”
Nick looked at Miss Wells. “Is that okay with you?”
Color was creeping into her cheeks, either from embarrassment or self-consciousness or possibly even anger at his high-handed behavior. But she was obviously as intelligent as she was a poor driver. She just nodded and said, “Fine.”
The judge said, “See you then, Miss Wells.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Nick said.
The judge reached for another file and looked over at his clerk. “What’s next, Rhonda?” he asked, dismissing Nick and his new client.
Nick headed out of the courtroom, and she followed him. When he paused to open the door, he stood aside to let her step out into the corridor. The air stirred as she went by, touched by a hint of freshness mingling with her delicate floral scent. Then she stopped and turned to look at him as he let the door swing shut behind him.
Nick stared into those green eyes, and although his world wasn’t given to flights of fantasy he could feel his world start to shake. The impact of her gaze almost made him flinch. The strength of his attraction to her was beyond anything he’d felt before. An unsettling experience for him and an intriguing one.
She brushed at her hair, exposing a palm stained with green paint, then her tongue touched her full bottom lip. The action stirred something in him, and he realized that this woman had made him want her before he even knew her first name.
SAMANTHA WELLS NEVER EVEN knew there was a Nicholas Viera in the world until the striking man in a well-tailored gray suit had suddenly spoken and started toward the bench. Frustration and fear about the possibility of losing her driver’s license had been making her slightly crazy at that moment. Then he was there, a man who filled the whole room with his presence, who moved as if he owned the world. Nicholas Viera.
The moment she met the intensity of his gaze, everything had started to blur, to run together in a rush of reactions. Sexy, definitely very male, and disturbing. But also so controlled and at ease in his surroundings that she envied him. She’d tried to concentrate, to figure out what he was doing there, and then he’d said something about representing her.
She didn’t understand at first and the only thing she could think of was the fact that his mouth was wide and hinted at a hidden smile. And that his eyes were neither green nor brown, but a rich hazel color that was set off by tanned skin and dark brown hair flecked with gray.
She’d felt herself flush when he turned those intense eyes on her again, asking her if that was okay with her. She’d realized that the judge had been rescheduling her court date—as if she could afford to have this man come back with her in a week. She knew how far-fetched that was, but she’d just nodded and said softly, “Fine.”
Now she was standing in the courthouse corridor with Nicholas Viera. He held out a business card to her.
“‘Viera, Combs and O’Neill. Nicholas Viera,”’ she read, along with an office address in Bel Air. An elegantly simple, obviously expensive card, done in heavy ivory stock, it had probably cost more to print them up than she had in her bank account all last year.
She studied the owner of the card, a six-foot-tall man in a suit that defined his whipcord-lean build. An expensive suit. She looked up into his face, at features that were as untraditionally handsome as they were attractive. He had a strong, clean-shaven jaw, dark brows and a nose that was slightly crooked. It all came together with the rest of the man to make a disturbingly sexy package.
Very upscale, probably all Ivy League. And no matter how attracted she was to him, he was totally out of the league of a struggling artist who could barely pay for her share of an apartment she occupied with three other young women. “Thanks for getting me out of there,” she said. “Have a nice day.”
“What?”
“Thanks. I appreciate what you did in there. Now I’ve got time to figure out what to do.” She lifted the card. “Do you want it back, Mr. Viera?”
“No, keep it,” he said. “Call me Nick, and your name is…?”
“Samantha Wells.”
“Miss Wells.”
“Sam, please.”
“You looked as if you needed a little help in there.”
She barely contained a smile at the observation. “A little help? I could use a whole law firm right about now, but I can’t even afford a paralegal, let alone a real, honest-to-goodness lawyer.” She pushed his card into her purse, then held out her hand to him as she prepared to break whatever connection was forming between herself and this man. “But thanks again.”
He took her hand in his, and she was very aware of how large and strong his hand was. It surprised her when he didn’t shake her hand but turned it over, palm up. Then he looked at her and that hint of a smile became a reality, an explosive reality for her. “So it’s not just crazy driving you’re here for, is it?”
“What?” she asked, her voice verging on breathless. “Of course it is. I mean, I’m not crazy, but it’s this ticket thing and—”
The smile deepened. “Shhh, let me figure this out. I get paid big bucks to be insightful about my clients. Between you and me, I figure that you’re in here for counterfeiting, but you’re having trouble with the ink.”
She felt heat rush into her face again and cursed the fact that she blushed so easily. She was always a bit self-conscious about her hands and the stains that never seemed to come out. How could she feel as if this man’s presence totally surrounded her? Or that she’d missed him all her life, yet had never known he existed until right then?
“Green. The color of money,” he said, and traced the faint stain on her palm with his forefinger. “Not regulation green, but close.”
She drew back, closing her hand into a fist behind her back. “That particular green is the color of the trees in the mist on an island in Puget Sound, and I worked hard to create it before I had to come to court.”
“Oh, you’re a housepainter?”
That smile was there again, and she could feel herself being seduced by a simple expression. It had never happened to her before with any man. Men who were a blur to her now, men who hadn’t been important enough in her life to even remember now. “No, an artist, or at least I’m trying to be. You know, landscapes, seascapes, portraits? That’s why I was in such a hurry when I…I had my problem with the car. I was seeing a gallery owner about a showing and I didn’t want to be late.” She grimaced at the memory of her call to the owner and finding out he was gone and wouldn’t be back for two weeks. “I was too late.”
“I know some art gallery owners. What’s your medium—black velvet?”
That made her laugh out loud, and she had to cover her mouth with her hand to control the sound that echoed in the corridor. The next thing she knew, Nick was touching her hand, easing it down, but not letting her go. She felt his fingers close around hers and she didn’t fight the contact, not when it seemed to be anchoring her in some way. “I…I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly having trouble taking her next breath.
“Don’t be. Let’s go where we can laugh,” he said.
“Mr. Viera, listen to me. I’m broke. I’m the proverbial struggling artist, and if I get an attorney, it’s going to have to be a public defender, but I thank you for everything you’ve done.”
He leaned a bit closer to her. “Did I mention money?”
She was confused again. She didn’t know what to deal with first—his offering to help her or that sensation of his being her anchor. “I assumed—”
“Never assume anything with an attorney,” he said with a half smile. “This is called pro bono work. Free. A way for an attorney to atone for those clients he wishes he’d never represented, but clients who pay the big bucks. To be honest with you, I’m good. Unless you’re a serial killer, I can get you off.” Another smile played on his lips. “And even if you are a serial killer, I can probably get you off for that, too. Now, can we go someplace and talk about this?”
He was a stranger, yet Sam knew she was going to go with him. She knew that he could help her and she knew something else. Whatever was happening to her at that moment, Nicholas Viera was going to change her life.
Chapter One
Nine months later
Malibu, California
Nick was sicker than he could ever remember being since he was a kid at boarding school. He’d canceled his last appointment for the day, gone home, taken medication the doctor had given him, then crawled into bed just after seven. In his house overlooking the ocean, he’d sunk rapidly into sleep that, at first, had been peaceful and a break from the aches and pains caused by the flu.
But sometime during the night, that all changed. A dream came, a dream about Sam and him. There had been dreams since she’d left, vague, unformed dreams that left him frustrated and restless the next day. But he wasn’t prepared for this dream. Maybe it came from the medication, but whatever it was, the dream was vivid and clear.
Sam had exploded into his life months ago, tipping his world with her presence. Then she was gone and he’d tried to forget her and go on with his life. But at that moment, her image was burned into his mind and soul. It was so clear he wondered if the dream was reality and his life was the dream.
Sam with the golden curls, slender beauty, those green eyes. The vision was so real his whole being ached. The fascination and attraction he’d experienced from his first glimpse of her in the courtroom were still there—a basic, disturbing reality in the dream. He could see himself going to her, wild need filling him, surrounding him, threatening to smother him.
The dream was filled with a hunger that had a life of its own. He saw himself reach out for her, his hands touching silky skin. He could feel heat consume his world that had been filled with only coldness until then—a coldness that reappeared when she’d left him.
He felt the heaviness of her breasts in his hands, her hips pressing against his hardness. When his lips covered hers, he felt himself melting into her. He became so infused with her that there was no division between them. Just one person. One need. One hunger.
In a single jarring moment, all that dissolved. She was ripped away from him and Nick’s only reality was solitude. There was no contact, no heat, no satisfaction, no losing himself. Then he realized a phone was ringing.
He woke with a sickening jolt. His ragged breathing was punctuated by the ringing of the phone. The sheets tangled around his naked body, he pushed himself upright in the mussed bed. The room was bathed in the cold light of morning, and a sudden sense of loss all but choked him. Emptiness echoed around him and his skin was filmed with moisture.
The phone on the nightstand rang again, and with one swipe at his damp face, he reached for the receiver.
His hand shook as it closed over the cold plastic, and he passed the unsteadiness off as part of his illness and the medication he was taking. That’s why he had such a dream. God knew what the combination of being sick and taking medication could do to a man’s mind, let alone his body. Crazy, insane visions of the past were banished. He never dwelled on mistakes in his life and he didn’t intend to start now.