The Sheriff's Nine-Month Surprise
Brenda Harlen
A shotgun wedding…or a match made in Haven?Attorney Katelyn Gilmore has her entire life mapped out, well that’s until a spontaneous night of passion with the new sheriff in town – Reid Davidson. Now she’s going to have a baby! With Katelyn’s well-ordered universe upended, is true love on the cards?
A shotgun wedding...
or a Match Made in Haven?
By-the-book attorney Katelyn Gilmore has her entire life mapped out. But a spontaneous weekend of passion with Reid Davidson upends that well-ordered universe. She’s going to have a baby! And what’s more, her hunky fling’s now the new sheriff in town...literally. Reid’s taking his dad-to-be duties seriously and won’t rest until Katelyn has a ring on her finger. Sure, the baby’s the most important thing, but what about true love?
BRENDA HARLEN is a former attorney who once had the privilege of appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada. The practice of law taught her a lot about the world and reinforced her determination to become a writer—because in iction, she could promise a happy ending! Now she is an award-winning, RITA® Award–nominated national bestselling author of more than thirty titles for Mills & Boon. You can keep up-to-date with Brenda on Facebook and Twitter or through her website, www.brendaharlen.com (http://www.brendaharlen.com).
Also by Brenda Harlen
The Last Single GarrettBaby Talk & Wedding BellsBuilding the Perfect DaddyTwo Doctors & a BabyThe Bachelor Takes a BrideA Forever Kind of FamilyThe Daddy WishA Wife for One YearThe Single Dad’s Second ChanceA Very Special Delivery
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The Sheriff’s Nine-Month Surprise
Brenda Harlen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07737-8
THE SHERIFF’S NINE-MONTH SURPRISE
© 2018 Brenda Harlen
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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With sincere appreciation.
Contents
Cover (#u6a4aa5af-c6af-5ad5-9411-41f0eba31c35)
Back Cover Text (#ubd59821a-7dd4-5798-a753-947ef4326ec4)
About the Author (#ufb0e76a9-271e-5d50-8b32-e0db69d57889)
Booklist (#ulink_ab8e9b21-e133-5f52-a2d2-071eef5c68ff)
Title Page (#u39d2ad90-bc66-5223-8df7-f44d7ec01b40)
Copyright (#u51a69525-08a0-539c-be79-84bd97252efa)
Dedication (#u24f3d541-44c1-5a3c-b3ac-803aa66030c7)
Chapter One (#ue5d82f86-2542-5b1c-b394-8aa62b76fdeb)
Chapter Two (#u0a6f84e6-63d7-53da-b20d-ce0f16f1b235)
Chapter Three (#uce8aec4b-d305-5960-8bcd-09e4853ca860)
Chapter Four (#u958c6075-b40b-5060-8ed3-abb942313905)
Chapter Five (#u069c0c82-abb0-501c-8b9e-01f7ffa41a96)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#udc6d5391-96d8-5b5e-8fca-0348804637a7)
Twenty-eight months
Katelyn Gilmore fell back onto the king-size mattress and drew in a long, deep breath as she stared up at the textured ceiling of the Courtland Hotel-Boulder City.
Twenty-eight months devoted exclusively to the establishment of her law practice, working long hours every day, including evenings and weekends, to prove herself to her clients and colleagues. Now, after twenty-eight months, she’d finally allowed herself to venture away from the office for a few days.
Okay, a conference wasn’t actually a vacation, but the opportunity to hone her legal skills and enjoy a change of scenery was one that she couldn’t refuse. And she was determined to enjoy the weekend—to get out of the hotel when the workshops had ended and breathe in some fresh air. Maybe she’d even take the time to see some sights, have a drink or two at a local bar, maybe flirt with a handsome cowboy—if she remembered how.
She enjoyed the company of men, and her sexual experiences—though limited—had been pleasant enough. Maybe not earth-shattering, but she didn’t really believe that earth-shattering sex existed outside of books and movies. The truth was, she felt more anticipation when she was prepping for a trial than thinking about getting naked with a man.
“Which only proves you’re getting naked with the wrong men,” her sister had told her as she tucked a box of condoms in the suitcase Kate had packed for her trip.
Though Skylar was younger by five years, she had a much better understanding of the way a man’s brain worked—and a lot more experience with other parts of the male anatomy.
Kate had removed the box and given it back to her sister. “I’m going to a legal conference at a five-star hotel, not an open house at a brothel.”
“Still, you might luck out and meet a guy who is something more than a stuffed shirt,” Sky had said, and returned the box to the niche she’d created between Kate’s makeup bag and her underwear. “And even if you don’t, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Because she agreed with her sister’s last point, she’d left the condoms in her suitcase.
She also believed in careful planning and deliberation and wasn’t the type of woman to act on impulse. Hooking up with a guy she met at a conference would be exactly that—and a little tawdry, too.
So when she hung up her suits and unpacked her other essentials, she left the condoms in her luggage, certain she’d have no need for them.
Certain...and maybe just a little disappointed.
* * *
Reid Davidson was sitting with his back to the wall and his eyes on the door when she walked into the conference room.
From a young age, he’d learned to be aware of his surroundings and the people around him—it was easier to dodge a backhand if he saw it coming—and the habit had served him well as the Sheriff of Echo Ridge, Texas.
But even if he hadn’t seen her arrive, even if his head had momentarily been turned away, Reid would have been aware of her presence. She was the type of woman who snagged a man’s full and complete attention and didn’t let go.
She had bold blue eyes and sharp cheekbones in a heart-shaped face that was saved from looking prim by a lushly shaped mouth that promised the fulfillment of his wickedest fantasies. Her dark hair, shining with hints of gold and copper, was caught up in some kind of fancy twist that made him want to take out the pins and slide his fingers through it.
After pausing for a brief moment in the doorway, her gaze searching for an empty chair, she moved to the other side of the room with a brisk, confident stride that suggested she was a woman with important places to go and people to see.
Her body—long and lean with curves in all the right places—was buttoned up in a slim-fitting blue suit. The color was both lighter and brighter than navy and brought to mind the fancy glass his grandmother had collected. The skirt hugged her hips, and the matching jacket was fastened below her breasts with a single square button, above which peeked a hint of black silk.
He’d resigned himself to spending the weekend surrounded by lawyers and judges and other legal types. It wouldn’t have been his first choice on how to spend three days, but the Echo Ridge town council strongly advocated continuing education for all its employees and, since that council was footing the bill for the weekend, he hadn’t balked at the request.
He’d chosen to attend Sentencing Considerations in the Criminal Courts, believing it would be held in Boulder, Colorado, less than a two-hour flight from Echo Ridge. It turned out the conference was in Boulder City, which was in Nevada, adding another hour and another time zone to his travel. Although a potentially fortuitous error on his part, as he’d recently decided to move away from Echo Ridge and had, in fact, already applied to fill a vacancy in the Sheriff’s Office in Haven, Nevada.
So he’d flown in a day early and made a quick trip to the northern part of the state to meet with the hiring committee before the conference. He’d been advised that a decision would be made before 4:00 p.m. Monday, and he figured the conference would distract him from counting the hours until then. As he watched the stunning brunette settle into her chair, almost directly across from him, he couldn’t help but think that she would be an even better distraction.
She unzipped the top of her briefcase and removed a bottle of water, her cell phone and her iPad. If he’d been a betting man, he would have put money on her having been a straight-A student in school—the type who willingly sat at the front of the class to ensure she didn’t miss a single word the teacher said.
The good girl had never been his type, and if he really wanted the distraction of a willing female to help get him through the weekend, he’d be better off hitting a club or the hotel bar when five o’clock rolled around. But his gaze lingered on the brunette, because it was a shame that a good girl should have a mouth that suggested it was capable of doing wonderfully bad things.
Now that she was set up, she turned to the balding man in the ill-fitting brown suit who was seated on her left. Making friends with her neighbors, he realized, when she said something, smiled and shook the man’s hand. Then she turned to the woman on her other side, a skinny redhead with sharp eyes, and repeated the process.
Having finished with the introductions, she sat back in her chair. As more stragglers found their way to the room and filled the last few seats, she let her gaze move around the table. Then her eyes locked on his, and his stomach clenched as it absorbed the punch of sexual awareness.
He hadn’t experienced anything like that in a long while, and he knew then that he wasn’t going to walk away from her so quickly when the hour-long session was over.
* * *
Most of the seats were taken by the time Kate found the conference room where tables were set up around the perimeter to facilitate discussion. But she found a space between Lyle, a victims’ rights advocate from Carson City, and Marcia, a former prosecutor-turned-defense-attorney from Fresno, California.
When she was settled in her chair, she let her gaze scan the room as last-minute arrivals squeezed into vacant seats. Her lazy perusal came to an abrupt halt when she saw him.
He was wearing a light gray micro-check shirt that stretched across mouthwateringly broad shoulders with a loosely knotted plum-colored tie at his throat. His hair was brown, a few shades lighter than her own, and cut short. His forehead was high, his brows thick, his eyes—green? Brown? She couldn’t quite tell from across the distance that separated them, but they were focused and intense. The bronze skin suggested that he spent a lot of time working or playing outdoors. The strong jaw, square and dark with stubble, gave him a slightly dangerous and yet somehow appealing edge.
There was no ring on the third finger of his left hand, resting casually on top of the table, but she knew that wasn’t always proof of unmarried status. Then he caught her eye and winked boldly, and she felt heat spread up her neck and across her cheeks as she tore her gaze away. She was embarrassed to have been caught staring. She was also—unexpectedly and undeniably—aware of him on a purely visceral level.
It had been a long time since she’d been attracted to a man and even longer since she’d shared any kind of physical intimacy with one. She didn’t know precisely how long, but it had been at least twenty-eight months because she hadn’t been away from Haven in that period of time—and she definitely hadn’t hooked up with anyone in her hometown. Heck, she couldn’t even have coffee with a male colleague during morning recess from court without her sister texting to ask for details before her cup was empty.
So maybe it was the extended duration of her most recent dating hiatus that was responsible for her reaction to him. Or maybe it was his shoulders. Apparently she had a weakness for guys with great shoulders and strong jawlines and—
And somehow her errant gaze had drifted back to him again. Chiding herself for her reaction, she folded back the cover of her tablet and swiped to unlock the screen.
The moderator closed the door, effectively silencing the quiet murmur of conversation and focusing attention in his direction. After a brief introduction, he handed out some case studies for the participants to review and discuss.
As the debate evolved, Kate found herself arguing against the position taken by the broad-shouldered stranger who’d caught her eye. He insisted that adult crimes deserved adult punishment; she maintained that children didn’t have experience making decisions or controlling their impulses and shouldn’t be held to the same standards as their adult counterparts.
When the moderator finally called time on the session, neither of them had given an inch. And yet Kate found herself invigorated rather than frustrated, because while she didn’t agree with her opponent’s position, she had to admit that he’d made some good points and he presented his arguments in a rational and respectful manner.
As most of the other attendees funneled toward the door, he moved the other way—toward her. She took her time putting her materials away, pleased to note that her hands were steady despite the pounding of her heart. She uncapped her water bottle and tipped it to her lips to moisten her suddenly dry throat.
He wore jeans with his shirt and tie, and well-worn cowboy boots on his feet. Six feet two inches, she decided when she had to tip her head back to meet his gaze. And his eyes weren’t green or brown but an intriguing combination of both. Hazel, she decided, though the word failed to describe the magnetism of his gaze. Tiny lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes and bracketed his mouth, and a thin scar slashed through his right eyebrow.
“Reid Davidson,” he said.
She took the proffered hand—wide-palmed and strong—and felt a tingle of something dangerously tempting shoot up her arm and arrow toward her center. “Katelyn Gilmore.”
“Defense attorney?” he guessed.
She nodded. “Among other things.”
“Six months out of law school?”
She narrowed her gaze, not sure if his question was a legitimate guess or a subtle insult. “Four years.”
He seemed surprised by that revelation. “Four years and you’re not completely disillusioned yet?”
“My determination to fight for justice doesn’t blind me to the flaws in our system.”
“That’s...admirable,” he decided.
She slid the strap of her briefcase onto her shoulder. “You’re a prosecutor,” she guessed.
“No,” he said quickly. Vehemently. “I’m not a lawyer.”
“So what do you do, Not-a-Lawyer Reid Davidson?”
“I’m a sheriff.”
She nodded, easily able to picture a shiny badge pinned to that wide chest. “And you throw the book at anyone who doesn’t toe the line in your jurisdiction.”
He didn’t deny it. “It’s my job to uphold the law.”
“The law doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” she argued. “It requires context.”
“Apparently you have some strong opinions on the subject,” he noted. “Why don’t we continue this discussion elsewhere, and you can enlighten me?”
She absolutely wanted to continue this discussion—or any discussion—if it meant spending more time with the broad-shouldered sheriff with the mesmerizing eyes and sexy smile.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked, determined to play it cool despite the anticipation racing through her veins.
“I could buy you a drink,” he suggested.
She considered herself a smart woman—too smart to hook up with a stranger. But while she didn’t know even the first page of Reid’s life story, she knew that he set her blood humming in a way that it hadn’t done in a very long time. And after more than two years without a man even registering a blip in her pulse, she was too curious to walk away without determining if the attraction she felt was reciprocated.
She wasn’t looking for love. She wasn’t even looking for sex. But she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed looking at Sheriff Reid Davidson.
Sometimes you don’t know what you want until it’s right in front of you.
With the echo of her sister’s voice in her ears, she made her decision. “A drink sounds good.”
* * *
Reid had never been afraid to admit when he was wrong, and he’d realized—less than halfway through the workshop discussion—that he’d been wrong about her.
Katelyn.
The name struck him as a unique combination of the classic and contemporary, and as intriguing as the woman herself. Because while she might look prim and cool, there was a lot of heat beneath the surface. She argued not just eloquently but passionately, making him suspect that a woman who was so animated in her discussion of a hypothetical situation would be even more interesting up close and personal. Now he was about to find out.
There were two bars in the hotel—the first was an open lounge area that saw a lot of traffic as guests made their way around the hotel; the second, adjacent to the restaurant, was more remote and private. He opted for the second, where patrons could be seated at pub-style tables with high-back leather stools or narrow booths that afforded a degree of intimacy.
He guided her to a vacant booth. When the waitress came to take their drink order, Katelyn requested a Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon and he opted for a locally brewed IPA, signing the check to his room when the drinks were delivered.
After the server had gone, he raised his glass. “To stimulating discourse.”
Though she lifted her brows at his deliberately suggestive word choice, she tapped the rim of her glass against the neck of his bottle.
“Where are you from, Sheriff Reid Davidson?” she asked, after sipping her wine.
“Echo Ridge, Texas.”
“You’re a long way from home,” she noted.
“So it would seem,” he agreed. “How about you?”
“Northern Nevada, so not quite such a long way.”
“Humboldt, Haven or Elko County?”
“You must have aced geography in school,” she remarked.
“I didn’t ace anything in school,” he confessed. “But I recently visited the town of Haven.”
“Why were you there?” she asked, then held up a hand before he could respond. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Why don’t you want to know?”
“Because almost everyone in Haven knows everyone else—or at least knows someone who knows that someone else, and if it turns out that you hooked up with someone I know, this—” she gestured from her own chest to his and back again “—isn’t going to happen.”
“Is this—” he copied her gesture “—going to happen?”
She sipped her wine. “I’m thinking about it.”
“While you’re thinking, let me reassure you that I’ve never hooked up with anyone from Haven.” His lips curved as he lifted his bottle. “Yet.”
She set her glass on the table, her fingers trailing slowly down the stem. “You’re pretty confident, aren’t you?”
“Optimistic,” he told her. “But I do need to ask you something.”
“What’s that?”
“Is there anyone waiting for you at home in Haven?”
“Aside from my father, grandparents, sister, two brothers, several aunts, uncles and cousins, you mean?”
“Aside from them,” he confirmed.
“No, there’s no one waiting for me.” She traced the base of her wineglass with a neatly shaped but unpainted fingernail. “What about you, Sheriff Davidson—are you married?”
He shook his head. “Divorced.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No,” he said again. “Any more questions?”
“Just one,” she said.
He held her gaze, waiting, hoping.
“Do you want to take these drinks back to my room?”
Chapter Two (#udc6d5391-96d8-5b5e-8fca-0348804637a7)
Five weeks later
“I can’t believe you’re leaving.” Trish Stilton pouted as she rubbed a hand over the curve of her hugely pregnant belly. “Especially now, only a few weeks before the baby’s due to be born.”
Reid dumped the entire contents of his cutlery drawer into a box. Though he didn’t dare say it aloud, considering the imminent delivery of his ex-wife’s baby, he’d decided that his timing was almost perfect.
“Just last week, I told Jonah that we should ask you to be the godfather, but now that you’re moving to Nevada, that’s out of the question.”
Which further convinced Reid that he’d made the right choice in accepting the offer to take over the sheriff’s position in Haven. Though he and Trish had been divorced for more than four years and she’d been remarried for almost three, they’d remained close. Maybe too close.
When she’d walked down the aisle to exchange vows with her current husband, Reid had been the man to give her away. Yeah, it had seemed an odd request to him, but he didn’t see how he could refuse. When she’d found out that she was pregnant, she’d stopped at the Sheriff’s Office to share the news with Reid even before she’d told her husband. And when she’d cried—tears of joy, because she was going to be a mother, mingled with grief, because her child would never know his grandfather—he’d held her and comforted her.
If she’d asked him to be her baby’s godfather—as Jonah Stilton had warned him she intended to do—Reid wouldn’t have been able to refuse. How could he refuse any request from the daughter of the man who’d saved his life?
Reid had been an orphaned teenager running with a bad crowd when the local sheriff took him under his wing. He didn’t just turn Reid’s life around, he saved it, and Reid knew there was no way he could ever repay the man who had been his mentor, father figure and friend. So when Hank realized he wasn’t going to beat the cancer that had invaded his body and he’d confided to Reid that he was worried about his daughter, Reid had promised to take care of her. The news of their engagement had been a balm to the older man’s battered spirits, and he’d managed to hold on long enough to see Reid and Trish exchange their vows.
“I’m honored that you thought of me,” he said to his ex-wife now. “But I’m sure your baby’s father would prefer to have his brother fill that role.”
“Jonah understands how important you are to me,” she said, without denying his claim.
“You’re important to me, too, but I think this move is going to be the best thing for all of us.”
“But why do you have to go so far away?” she demanded.
“Nevada’s not all that far,” he said soothingly.
“But Haven?” she pressed. “I looked it up—it might as well be called Nowhere, Nevada, because that’s where it is.”
“Then I won’t expect you to visit,” he said mildly.
“Of course, I’ll visit,” she promised. “Because you don’t have any friends or family in that town.”
“Actually, I do have a...friend...in Haven.”
“A female friend?” she guessed.
He nodded.
“I knew there had to be another reason that you suddenly decided to leave Echo Ridge—something more than a temporary job.”
“She’s not the reason I’m leaving,” he said truthfully. “But I am looking forward to seeing her again.”
“What’s her name?”
Reid shook his head. “None of your business.”
Trish smiled. “Afraid I’ll track her down and ask about her intentions?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
Not that he was really worried. He had no doubt that Katelyn Gilmore could handle his ex-wife. But the attorney had no idea that he was moving to Haven, because they hadn’t exchanged any contact information before they went their separate ways after the conference. And with the perspective that came with time and distance, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made the weekend they’d spent together into more than it really was.
“Well, it would only be fair,” Trish said now. “You wouldn’t let me go out on a second date with Jonah until you’d done a complete background check on him.”
“Because your father asked me to take care of you,” he reminded her.
“He wanted us to take care of each other,” she said.
And for a while, they’d done just that. But Trish had wanted more than he’d been willing or able to give her—an irreconcilable difference that led to the end of their marriage. When that happened, he felt as if he’d let down Hank as much as Trish, but he knew his old friend would be pleased to see his daughter in a committed relationship with a man who could give her everything Reid couldn’t.
He was sincerely happy for her, because she was happy. For himself, he’d decided a long time ago that he wasn’t cut out to be a dad. A kid who’d been knocked around by his mother’s various boyfriends for the first six years of his life, then raised by his widowed grandmother for the next eight before being kicked into and around the system didn’t know anything about being a father. He’d lucked out when he’d met Hank. Trish’s father had given him an idea of the type of man a dad should be, but Reid suspected it was too little too late, that the scars from his earlier years were too numerous and deep to ever truly heal.
“Now you’ve got Jonah,” he reminded her.
“Yes, I do,” Trish said, smiling through the tears that filled her eyes again.
“Jeez, will you stop with the waterworks?” he demanded, passing her a box of tissues.
She plucked one out and dabbed at her eyes. “I can’t help it—it’s pregnancy hormones.”
“Well, let your husband deal with your blubbering—he’s the one who knocked you up.”
“Yes, he did,” she said proudly, rubbing a hand over the enormous swell of her belly. “And those hormones have also led to doing a lot more of what got me into this condition.”
He lifted his hands to cover his ears. “Way too much information, Trish.”
She laughed through her tears. Then she reached out a hand to touch his arm. “Can I give you one piece of advice?”
“Can I stop you?” he countered drily.
She ignored his question. “Before you get involved with this woman—before she gets involved with you—be honest about what you want and don’t want from a relationship.”
“I never meant to be dishonest with you,” he said quietly.
“I know,” she admitted. “The problem was, we rushed into marriage without ever talking about all the things we should have talked about.”
He nodded. “But now you have everything you wanted.”
“Soon,” she amended, rubbing a hand over her baby bump again. Then with her other hand, she grabbed his and drew it to the curve of her belly. “Do you feel that? He’s kicking.”
He did feel it, little nudges against his palm. He wondered if it hurt her, to have a tiny human being moving around inside of her, but that seemed like too personal a question to ask. Not that his ex-wife seemed to care about boundaries, which was why Reid was moving out of state in an effort to establish some. Instead he asked, “He?”
Trish smiled and nodded. “It’s a boy. We’re going name him Henry—for my dad.”
Reid had to clear the tightness from his own throat before he could respond. “That’s a great name.”
She watched him tape the flaps of the box shut. “I really wish you weren’t going.”
He hadn’t expected that his ex-wife would make this easy for him, but he hadn’t expected that it would be so hard, either. But he didn’t—couldn’t—waver. He needed to move on with his life, and as long as he was living a stone’s throw away from her, he knew that wouldn’t happen.
“You’re going to be okay, Trish. You don’t need me anymore.”
She sniffed and knuckled away a tear that spilled onto her cheeks. “But what if you still need me?”
She’d been his family—his only family—for seven years now. But it didn’t matter if he still needed her—it was time for him to move on.
* * *
Kate thanked the clerk as she slid the judge’s signed order into her client’s file, tucked the file into her briefcase and turned away from the desk. She exited the courthouse, pausing outside the doors to perch her sunglasses on her nose in defense against the bright afternoon sun, then continued on her way. She’d been told that she moved purposefully, like a woman on a mission, and she usually was.
Today her mission was to get away from the courthouse before she threw up. She crossed the street and ducked into the shade of the trees that lined the perimeter of Shearing Park. The greenspace was usually quiet at this time of day, offering the privacy she needed. She lowered herself onto the wooden slats of a bench and reached into her briefcase for the sleeve of saltine crackers she’d been carrying for the past few days.
She inhaled, taking three long deep breaths. Then she nibbled on a cracker and sipped some water. When she felt a little steadier, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed her office.
“I’ve got the custody order for Debby Hansen,” she said when her assistant answered the phone. “If you want to print up the cover letter and final account so everything’s ready to go, that would be great. I’m heading to a settlement conference in Winnemucca this afternoon, but I’ll be back in the office in the morning.”
She could picture Beth frowning at Kate’s schedule on her computer screen. “I don’t have anything about a settlement conference.”
“I set it up myself—a favor for a friend,” she explained.
Lied.
If she was looking in a mirror, she would see flags of color on her cheeks. Thankfully, Beth wasn’t able to see the telltale proof of her deception.
“Okay,” the other woman said agreeably. “I’ll leave your docket and the files for tomorrow morning on your desk before I lock up.”
“Thanks, Beth.”
She disconnected the call and nibbled on another cracker. She’d never felt good about lying, but lately she’d been doing a lot of it.
Lying to her assistant, to explain her absences from the office. To her dad, when he said she looked peaked. To her sister, when Sky asked what was wrong. To her grandmother, when she hinted that Kate was working too hard.
To herself, when she suggested that the first home pregnancy test was faulty and there was no reason to panic.
It was only when a second, and then a third, test showed the same obviously inaccurate result that she’d decided to see an ob-gyn.
She tucked her crackers back into her briefcase, walked to her car and headed toward Battle Mountain. Because she would rather drive thirty-five miles out of town than risk the inevitable speculation that would follow a visit to a local doctor.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Gilmore—I’m Camila Amaro.”
Kate accepted the proffered hand of the woman who entered the exam room. “Thank you for squeezing me in.”
“You sounded a little panicked on the phone.”
“I’m feeling a little panicked,” she admitted.
The doctor didn’t go behind her desk to sit down but leaned back against it, facing her patient. “Is this your first pregnancy?”
She managed a weak smile. “So much for thinking the results of three home pregnancy tests might be wrong.”
“False results do happen,” the doctor acknowledged. “But a false positive is extremely rare, and the test we ran here confirms the presence of hCG—the pregnancy hormone—in your system.”
“I’m really pregnant? I’m going to have a baby?”
“You’re really pregnant,” the doctor confirmed.
She’d dreaded receiving this confirmation. How could she possibly juggle her professional responsibilities with the demands of a baby? And yet, something surprising happened when the doctor said those three words. She felt a loosening of the knots in her stomach and unexpected joy in her heart.
A baby.
And she knew then that it didn’t matter that she hadn’t planned for this—she would figure out a way to make it work.
“Do you want to set up a sonogram so we can establish how far along you are and discuss the options that are available to you?” Dr. Amaro asked.
“Five weeks and six days,” Kate told her.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “Broken condom.”
The doctor opened the folder she carried and made a note in the file. “Are you in an exclusive relationship with the father?”
The question was matter-of-fact and without any hint of censure, but Kate felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment that she’d been so foolish and careless. A weekend fling had seemed like a good idea at the time—some harmless fun to break the monotony of her everyday life. She’d never anticipated that a few unforgettable nights would give her a lasting reminder of those nights with the handsome sheriff from Texas.
“No,” she admitted. “In fact...I haven’t seen him since the weekend that we were...together.”
“Then maybe we should run some other tests?” the doctor suggested gently.
She wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but her already burning cheeks flamed even hotter. She’d been so off-kilter about the possibility of a pregnancy that she hadn’t given a thought to any other potential consequences of unprotected sex.
Of course, when the condom broke, she and Reid had talked about their respective sexual histories to reassure one another that there was no cause for alarm. But she nodded her assent to the doctor now. “Yes, please. Whatever you need to do—I want to know that my baby’s going to be okay.”
“Then you do want to have the baby?” Dr. Amaro asked in the same neutral tone.
Kate nodded again. While she appreciated the woman’s professional manner and obvious determination not to influence her decision, there had never been any question in Kate’s mind. Even when she’d still been firmly in denial about the possibility of a pregnancy, she’d known that—if she was pregnant—there was no other choice for her but to have the baby.
She’d always wanted to have a family...someday. Of course, she’d expected to be more established in her career—and preferably married—before that dream became a reality, but she was going to play the hand that had been dealt and be the best mother she could be to her baby.
She had no intention of making any claims on Sheriff Reid Davidson of Echo Ridge, Texas. She’d gone to bed with him not just willingly but eagerly, and even if the possibility of a pregnancy had never entered her mind, she alone had chosen to have this baby and she alone would be the responsible for that choice.
And while she had no idea how he would respond to the news that he was going to be a father, she knew that she had to tell him.
Soon.
Chapter Three (#udc6d5391-96d8-5b5e-8fca-0348804637a7)
Reid stared at the modest pile of boxes in the middle of his new kitchen. He suspected that most people, by thirty-four years of age, had acquired more stuff, but when he and Trish had separated, he’d moved into a fully furnished apartment and let her keep the house and almost everything in it.
While looking at the housing options in Haven, he’d found an in-law suite available to rent only a few blocks from the Sheriff’s Office—furnishings available—and decided that was again the easy option. Glancing around his new home, he acknowledged that he should have asked for photos.
Whether or not his decision to move to Haven, Nevada, would prove to be the right one had yet to be determined. But he’d needed a fresh start, he’d liked what he’d seen of the town on his first visit and he’d been assured by Jed Traynor, the former sheriff who had been forced into early retirement by some health concerns—and his wife—that Haven was populated by mostly good people.
And then, of course, there was the Katelyn factor.
He wasn’t foolish enough to let his career decisions be influenced by a weekend fling, no matter how spectacular and unforgettable the sex had been. But he’d been thinking about her a lot and he was looking forward to the opportunity to see her again.
Seeing her naked again would be even better.
She was a woman of intriguing contrasts. When she’d walked into the conference room, she’d been the picture of cool professionalism, but it hadn’t taken long for him to realize how much heat simmered beneath the surface. The passion she’d displayed in advocating her position in the conference room was just as evident in the bedroom.
She’d made the first move—not just when she’d invited him back to her room, but when she’d kissed him. There had been nothing tentative about that first kiss. No questions or doubts about what either of them wanted. Their mouths had come together eagerly, almost desperately.
They’d both been enthusiastic participants in their lovemaking. Tearing at their own clothes while simultaneously trying to undress each other, laughing when limbs got tangled in uncooperative fabric.
When she’d been stripped down to a tiny pair of black bikini panties and a low-cut bra, he’d stopped laughing.
Hell, his heart had almost stopped beating.
She was so incredibly hot.
So wonderfully agile.
So totally willing.
And even six weeks after only two nights together, he hadn’t forgotten any of the details of the time he’d spent in her bed. Not the way her eyes went dark when she was aroused or the soft, sexy sounds that emanated from deep in her throat. Not the rosy pink buds of her nipples or the tiny brown mole beside her belly button. Not the way her hair looked fanned out on the soft pillow behind her head, or the erotic brush of those long tresses as her lips leisurely explored his body. Not the way her thighs quivered when he stroked deep inside her or the way her inner muscles clenched around him when she finally succumbed to her climax.
Yeah, he was definitely looking forward to seeing her again.
With that thought in mind, he decided to abandon his unpacking for a while and wander the neighborhood—to get his bearings. At least that would be the justification if anyone asked. The truth was, he’d already located the most important places: Sheriff’s Office; courthouse; Diggers’, the neighborhood bar and grill; Jo’s, a local pizza place; The Trading Post, the general store; and, a few blocks down from the courthouse, The Law Office of Katelyn T. Gilmore.
Her practice was set up in a beautiful old building with a cornerstone that established the date of its erection as 1885. Maybe the old library, he speculated, since Jed had pointed out the new community center, which included a swimming pool, gymnasium, “the new library,” several multipurpose rooms and administrative offices.
“Are you in need of legal counsel?”
Reid turned to face a woman who appeared to be in her mid-to late-sixties, about five-four with shoulder-length dark hair liberally streaked with gray, wearing a plaid shirt with faded jeans and well-worn boots.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “Just admiring the building.”
“The old library,” she said, confirming his supposition. “It was built in 1885, as were most of the buildings on this stretch of Main Street, but the doors didn’t open until 1887. It’s rumored that sixteen-year-old Elena Sanchez hid out in the basement of this very building for three weeks in the fall of 1904 to avoid being forced to marry.”
“Did she succeed?”
The woman nodded. “With the help of the librarian, Edward Jurczyk, who sneaked in blankets and food for her. Two years later, they were married. Nine years after that, Edward was killed fighting in The Great War in Europe.”
“Haven has quite an interesting history,” he mused, his gaze returning to the wide front window where Katelyn T. Gilmore was painted in bold black letters outlined in gold and Attorney at Law was spelled out below in slightly smaller letters.
“Katie opened her office here almost two-and-a-half years ago,” the woman continued. “If you’re ever in need of an attorney, you couldn’t do better. She sometimes has office hours on weekends, but she’s out of town right now.”
“You seem to know a lot about Ms. Gilmore’s schedule,” he noted.
And sharing more information than you should with a stranger, he wanted to caution. Of course, he kept that admonition to himself, as he was eager to hear anything about Katelyn that she was willing to tell him.
“Of course, I do,” she replied. “Katie’s my granddaughter.”
“I’m beginning to believe that everyone in town knows—or is—a Gilmore.” He offered his hand. “I’m Reid Davidson, the—”
“The new sheriff,” she finished for him, as she gripped his hand in a surprisingly firm shake. “I know who you are. And I’m Evelyn Gilmore, not some dotty old woman who would spill personal information about my family to a stranger on the street.”
Then her gaze narrowed speculatively. “So you apparently know that Haven was founded by the Gilmore family,” she acknowledged, “but what do you know about the Blakes?”
He forced his expression to remain blank. “Who?”
She laughed. “It might turn out that you’re exactly what this town needs, Sheriff Reid Davidson. You plan on staying beyond the completion of your current term?”
“Maybe you should table that question until after I’ve actually started my job,” he suggested.
“Maybe I will,” she decided. “Until then, if you’ve got time for a cup of coffee, I can introduce you to Donna Bradley. She’s been working the counter at The Daily Grind for longer than it’s been The Daily Grind.
“Cal’s Coffee Shop, it used to be called,” she continued. “But Cal died nearly a dozen years ago now and when his granddaughter took it over, she gave it a face-lift and a new name. She was smart enough to keep Donna, though, and if there’s any news in town, she’s usually the first to know it.”
“I’ve always got time for a cup of coffee,” Reid said, looking forward to her commentary on the community and its residents—and hopeful that she’d share more information about Katelyn.
* * *
Though Kate had been feeling tired for a couple of weeks, having the doctor explain that fatigue was normal in the first trimester, because her body was expending lots of energy helping to grow a baby, seemed to exacerbate the situation. By the end of the following week, she was really dragging.
Thankfully, she didn’t have court Friday morning, but she did have an appointment at the community center in the afternoon to talk to a group of seniors about wills and estate planning. After the session was finished, she decided to call it a day.
Her cell phone rang just as she pulled into the parking lot behind the old library, which housed not only her law office but her apartment above it. Shifting her vehicle into Park, she glanced longingly at the second-floor windows. If she ignored the ringing, she could have her shoes off and her feet up in less than three minutes.
She answered the call, anyway.
“Hey, Kate—it’s Liam,” her brother said, as if she wouldn’t recognize his voice or the number on the display.
“What’s up?” It was unusual for him to contact her in the middle of the day, so she knew his call had a specific purpose.
“Do you remember my friend, Chase, from school?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Well, I just got off the phone with his brother, Gage, who called me because Chase told him that my sister is an attorney.”
“Are you getting to a point anytime soon?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Gage’s son, Aiden, has been arrested.”
Now that was a surprise.
Aiden wasn’t just a good kid, he was unfailingly honest. The type of kid who wouldn’t swipe a pack of chewing gum from The Trading Post. In fact, Kate remembered a time when he’d paid a dollar for ten gummy worms but Samantha Allen, who was working behind the counter, miscounted. When Aiden realized he’d been given eleven candies, he tried to give one back.
“What did he allegedly do?”
“I don’t know,” Liam admitted. “I didn’t think to ask, but Gage is panicking because he’s still half an hour out of town and he wanted to know if there was anything you could do to help.”
“Okay,” Kate decided. “Tell him to bring Aiden in to see me tomorrow morning. I have a couple of later appointments but I should be able to squeeze them in around eleven.”
“This can’t wait until tomorrow. Aiden’s being held for a bail hearing—that’s why Gage is so frantic.”
“He’s a juvenile with no prior record,” Kate said, thinking aloud.
“Can you find out what’s going on?” Liam asked.
“I’m on my way to the Sheriff’s Office right now,” she promised.
She parked her vehicle then walked the few blocks to the Sheriff’s Office. Judy Talon, the administrative assistant, was seated behind the front desk.
“Hey, Katie—are you here about Aiden Hampton?”
She nodded. “But I don’t have any of the details,” she admitted. “Can you fill me in?”
Judy glanced at the sheriff’s closed door but still dropped her voice when she said, “He was arrested with Trent Marshall.”
Under normal circumstances, they both knew that Aiden Hampton didn’t keep company with kids like Trent Marshall—and he definitely didn’t get in trouble with the law. Unfortunately, nothing had been normal for Aiden since his grandmother had died a few weeks earlier.
“What did they do?”
“Found a car with the keys in the ignition and decided to take it for a spin.”
“Joyriding,” she realized.
“Some would say,” Judy agreed. “The new sheriff is saying grand larceny of a motor vehicle.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
The other woman shook her head. “I wish I was.”
“Grand larceny is a felony.”
“Which is why he’s being held over for a bail hearing,” Judy explained.
“Obviously, Jed didn’t tell his replacement how things work around here.” Kate glanced at her watch. “What time is the hearing?”
“Ten a.m. Monday morning.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I’m not letting Aiden spend the weekend in lockup.”
“I hope he doesn’t have to,” the other woman agreed, though her tone was skeptical.
Kate looked toward the office. When Jed had run the department, the door was almost always open. Now it was closed, and she hoped that status wasn’t a reflection of the sheriff’s mind. “Can you let the new sheriff know that I need a few minutes of his time?”
Judy picked up the phone to connect with the sheriff, but first whispered, “Good luck.”
She didn’t let the woman’s words unnerve her. After giving a perfunctory knock on the door, she turned the knob.
Be confident. Be convincing. Don’t back down.
She repeated the refrain inside her head as she stepped into the office.
Be confident. Be convincing. Don’t—
The rest of the words slipped from her mind as familiar hazel eyes lifted to meet her gaze.
And she found herself face-to-face with her baby’s daddy.
* * *
Reid had been looking forward to the day when he would see Katelyn Gilmore again. He didn’t anticipate that it would happen as soon as his third day behind the desk in the Sheriff’s Office.
He’d been writing a report when she walked in, and he automatically glanced up—and was immediately sucker punched by her presence.
If the sudden widening of her eyes and the sharp intake of her breath were any indication, Katelyn was just as surprised to see him. Maybe even more so, because while he’d known their paths would cross and had eagerly anticipated that eventuality, it appeared that she’d been unaware of the identity of Haven’s new sheriff.
“Reid?”
“Hello, Katelyn.” He thought he’d remembered how beautiful she was, but seeing her again proved his memories inadequate.
She was wearing another one of those lawyer suits, this one a deep purple color with a pale pink shell under the jacket, which made him wonder what color lace she might be wearing beneath that. Her hair was pinned up as it had been the day of their first meeting, but he knew now how it felt when he slid his fingers through it as he kissed her. And maybe that wasn’t a memory he should linger on while he was wearing his official sheriff’s uniform, because the mental image was causing his body to stir in a very unprofessional way.
She opened her delectably shaped and incredibly talented mouth, then closed it again without saying another word.
“You’re Aiden Hampton’s attorney?” he prompted.
She nodded. “And you’re the new sheriff.”
“I am,” he confirmed.
“But...I thought you lived in Texas. I even—” Now she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
She ignored his question to ask her own. “Why are you here?”
“I applied for the job before I met you,” he said, wanting to dispel any concern she might have about his motivation. “In fact, I interviewed with the hiring committee the day before the conference in Boulder City.”
Her cheeks flushed as she cast a quick glance at his open office door.
He nodded to the phone on his desk, indicating the light that revealed his assistant was occupied with a call.
“When I told you that I was from Haven, why didn’t you mention that you’d applied for a job here?”
“Because you didn’t want to know,” he reminded her.
Her brows drew together as she recalled that earlier conversation and finally admitted, “I guess I did.”
“And when I got the call offering me the job, well, I figured our paths would cross soon enough.”
“They’re going to cross frequently if you insist on locking up juveniles who should be released on their own recognizances.”
He leaned back in his chair. Though he was disappointed that she’d so quickly refocused on her client, he could appreciate that she had a job to do. Any personal business could wait until after-hours. “Grand larceny of a motor vehicle is a felony.”
“Grand larceny of a motor vehicle is a ridiculously trumped-up charge.”
“Tell that to Rebecca Blake—it was her brand-new S-Class Mercedes, worth close to two hundred thousand dollars.”
That revelation gave her pause, but just for a second. “Was the vehicle damaged?”
“Thankfully, no,” he acknowledged.
She nodded, and he could almost see her switching mental gears from confrontation to persuasion. “He’s a good kid, Reid—a straight-A student grieving for his grandmother.”
He wouldn’t—couldn’t—let sympathy for the kid interfere with his responsibilities. “There are lots of kids who lose family members and don’t act out by stealing a car.”
“Elsie Hampton helped raise Aiden from birth, after his mother walked out of the hospital without her baby, leaving him in the custody of his seventeen-year-old father. But of course, you didn’t know that, did you?”
“How could I?” he countered.
“You could have asked someone,” she told him. “Everyone in Haven knows his family and his history. In fact, his dad works with Jed’s son at Blake Mining.”
He gave a short nod. “Point taken.”
“So I can take my client home now?”
“No,” he said.
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Because I’ve already gone on the record stating that he’s to be held over for a bail hearing.”
She sighed. “Then you’re going to have to call Judge Calvert and ADA Dustin Perry and tell them you want to have a bail hearing.”
“While I appreciate your passionate advocacy, Katelyn, you don’t make the rules around here—I do.”
“I get that you’re new,” she said. “Not just new to this office but new in town, and you might think I’m trying to manipulate you for the sake of my client, but I’m not.”
“Well, okay, then,” he said, making no effort to disguise his sarcasm. “I’m sure the judge and the prosecutor will both be thrilled to be called out to a bail hearing at four thirty on a Friday afternoon.”
“I’m sure they won’t be,” she countered. “But they’d be even less happy to find out, on Monday morning, that you made Aiden Hampton spend the weekend in a cell.”
“If I agree to do this, it will look like your client got preferential treatment,” he warned.
“No, it will look like the new sheriff finally took his head out of his butt for a few minutes.”
Though her blatant disrespect irked him, Reid couldn’t help but admire her passion and conviction.
“Your client was processed by the book,” he told her.
“Maybe,” she allowed. “If he’d actually committed grand larceny of a motor vehicle, but the reality is that he went for a joyride—and joyriding is a misdemeanor offense.”
“A gross misdemeanor,” he clarified.
“Are you going to make those calls or should I, Sheriff?”
“Are you really trying to put my badge between us now, Katelyn?”
“Seems like you were the one who did that,” she said. “And it’s Kate. Everyone here calls me Kate.”
“Or Katie,” he noted.
She frowned. “Only my family calls me Katie.”
“I like Katelyn better, anyway.”
She huffed out a breath. “The judge and ADA?” she prompted.
He picked up the phone.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, all parties were assembled at the courthouse. Less than half that time had passed again before Aiden Hampton was released into the care of his grateful and relieved father.
The assistant district attorney didn’t stick around any longer than was necessary to sign the papers. The judge didn’t even wait that long. After enumerating the usual conditions for release, he gave the new sheriff a brief but pointed speech about the value of the court’s time and suggested that he familiarize himself with the way things were done in Haven, because apparently it was different than what he was used to.
Kate didn’t let herself feel sorry for Reid. But she did appreciate that he’d called the hearing, albeit reluctantly, and she said so as they walked side by side out of the courthouse. “Thank you.”
“The next time I put your client in a cell, he’s going to stay there a lot longer,” Reid warned.
“There won’t be a next time,” she said. “Aiden really is a good kid who chose the wrong way to work through some stuff.”
“By hanging out with a friend already on probation?”
“I don’t know what he was doing with Trent Marshall,” she admitted. “They don’t usually run in the same circles.”
“I’m guessing you represent the Marshall kid, too?”
She nodded. “And I’m curious as to how the kid already on probation walked away with a summons to court and the kid who’s never been cited for jaywalking ends up locked in a cell.”
“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you—over dinner.”
Chapter Four (#udc6d5391-96d8-5b5e-8fca-0348804637a7)
Kate’s mind was reeling. Not just because she was once again in close proximity to the sheriff, with whom she’d had the Best. Sex. Ever. a few weeks earlier, but because she now had to accept that the father of her baby wasn’t fifteen hundred miles away but living in the same town.
“Dinner?” she echoed, and realized it could be the perfect opportunity to share her big—and growing—news.
“Traditionally the third and biggest meal of the day,” he explained, amusement dancing in those hazel eyes.
“I understand the term,” she assured him. “I was just...surprised...by your invitation.”
“Surprised is okay,” he decided. “But are you hungry?”
She realized that she was. The queasiness that left her feeling unsettled through most of the morning usually disappeared by lunch, and lunch had been a long time ago.
“I could eat,” she finally responded to his question, determined not to allow the sexy sheriff’s nearness stir other appetites.
“Good,” he said. “I’d like to buy you dinner, but I’m going to ask you to decide where since I’m still finding my way around town.”
“There are only three places in this town where you can get a decent meal,” she told him. “The Sunnyside Diner, which does a great all-day breakfast but isn’t so great with other menu options, Jo’s Pizza, which makes the best thin crust pizza I’ve ever had—and their wings are pretty good, too—but eating in means nabbing one of only half a dozen tables crammed into a tiny space and no hope of a private conversation, and Diggers’.”
“I’ve been to Diggers’,” he told her. “The food was great.”
“It is,” she confirmed. “But we can’t go there.”
“Why not?”
“Because Diggers’ is second only to The Daily Grind for gossip in Haven.”
“You’re worried people will talk about us sharing a meal?”
“I don’t want to have to answer questions about how I’m acquainted with the new sheriff,” she admitted.
“What’s wrong with the truth?”
She shook her head. Now more than ever, she didn’t want anyone to know that she’d met Reid in Boulder City, because when her pregnancy became apparent and people started counting backward, they’d suspect the baby had been conceived while she was out of town and she’d rather they didn’t know that Haven’s new sheriff had been there, too.
“Actually, I was referring to the other truth,” he said. “That our paths crossed when you came to my office.”
Which was a perfectly reasonable explanation. As an attorney, it made sense that she’d want to cultivate a good relationship with the new sheriff. But she also knew that if she was seen in public with him, it would be all the excuse anyone else wanted or needed to interrupt their conversation to wrangle their own introductions.
“Except that it’s Friday.”
“And?” he prompted, obviously seeking clarification.
“And my sister, Skylar, works at Diggers’ on the weekend,” she admitted.
“We could pick up pizza and take it back to my place,” he suggested as an alternative.
She hesitated. “Look, Sheriff, despite what happened between us in Boulder City, I’m really not that kind of girl.”
“You’re not the kind of girl who likes pizza?”
She managed a smile. “I’m not the kind of girl who goes back to a guy’s place—or invites him back to hers.”
“I wasn’t expecting to share anything more than pizza,” he said, then shrugged. “Hoping, maybe, but not expecting.”
The honest response undermined her resolve. “Why don’t I make something for dinner instead?” she impulsively offered.
“I’d never say no to a home-cooked meal.”
“I’m not promising anything fancy,” she warned. “But you’ll be able to eat and we’ll be able to talk without a thousand interruptions.”
“That works for me,” he agreed.
She glanced at her watch, then mentally calculated the time she needed to make a quick trip to The Trading Post before she could start cooking. “Seven o’clock?”
“Sure,” he agreed.
“Okay, I’ll see you then.”
He caught her arm as she started to turn away. “Only if you give me your address.”
“Do you know where my office is?”
“You live at your office?”
“Above the office. Apartment 2B.”
“I’ll see you at seven.”
* * *
Inviting Reid to have dinner at her place seemed like a good idea at the time—or, if not a good idea, at least a necessary compromise. They needed to talk and she didn’t want to have the conversation where anyone might overhear it. But now that he was here, Kate realized she’d made a tactical error.
She loved her apartment—the ultramodern kitchen and open-concept living area with tall windows looking down on Main Street, two spacious bedrooms and a luxurious bathroom. Certainly, it had never seemed small—until Reid Davidson stepped inside. He wasn’t a man whose presence was in any way, shape or form subtle, and it was as if he filled every square inch of space with his potent masculinity.
Being near him had her hormones clamoring so loudly she could barely hear herself think. And while her mind was desperately trying to focus on certain facts that needed to be discussed, her body was stirring, aching, wanting.
She took the bottle of wine he offered, and as her fingertips brushed against his, she was suddenly reminded of the way those fingers had touched her—the bold confidence of his hands as they stroked over her body, taking her to heights of pleasure she’d never even imagined.
He’d changed out of his sheriff’s uniform and into a navy polo shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders. The hem of the shirt was tucked into a pair of softly faded jeans that hugged his lean hips and strong thighs, as her legs had hugged those hips and thighs, their naked limbs tangled and their bodies moving together.
She set the bottle of wine on the counter and turned to dump the pasta in the pot of boiling water on the stove, hoping the steam would explain the sudden flush in her cheeks.
“Did you want wine or beer or something else?”
“I’d love a beer if you’ve got one handy,” he said.
She stirred the pasta, then moved to the refrigerator to retrieve a bottle of Icky IPA. “Bottle or glass?” she asked as she pried off the cap.
“Bottle’s fine.”
Instead of taking the bottle she offered, he wrapped his hand around hers.
“What are you doing?” she asked warily.
“Trying to figure out why you invited me to dinner but haven’t made eye contact since I walked through the door.”
She lifted her gaze to meet his. “I’m just trying to get dinner finished up.”
“Tell me what I can do to help,” he suggested.
Go back to Echo Ridge.
The response immediately sprang to mind, but of course, she couldn’t say the words aloud without then explaining why his sudden and unexpected appearance in Haven complicated her life.
Instead, she only said, “For starters, you could give me back my hand.”
He loosened his grip so that she could pull her hand away without dropping the bottle. “What else?”
She gestured to the living area. “Go sit down.”
“You don’t trust me to help?”
“There’s really nothing you can do,” she told him.
“Do you want me to open the wine?”
She shook her head. “I’m going to stick with water—I’ve got work to do tonight.” Which was true, if not the whole truth.
He took his beer and moved around to the other side of the island. But instead of retreating to the living area and relaxing on the sofa, he chose one of the stools at the counter.
“So what do you think of Haven so far?” she asked, resigned to making small talk for eight minutes while the pasta cooked.
“I like it,” he said. “It’s a little smaller than Echo Ridge, but there’s a strong sense of community here.”
“There is,” she confirmed, lowering the heat on the burner beneath the sauce. “Even when I was away at school, I knew I’d come back here after graduation.”
“Summa cum laude from UCLA Law.”
She frowned. “How’d you know that?”
“I met your grandmother,” he confided.
“How? When?”
“Last weekend. I was walking down Main Street, trying to get a feel for the town, and our paths crossed. We had coffee together.”
“You had coffee with my grandmother?”
He nodded. “She introduced me to Donna Bradley at The Daily Grind.”
“You had coffee with my grandmother,” she said again.
He studied her as he tipped his bottle to his lips, swallowed. “Why does that bother you?”
“It doesn’t bother me,” she denied. “But it’s a little weird.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s my grandmother and you’re...”
“The guy you had lots of naked sweaty sex with?”
“Okay, yes,” she allowed.
“I didn’t tell her about the naked sweaty sex,” he promised.
“Thank you for that,” she said drily.
He just grinned.
And that smile did strange things to her pulse...or maybe it was the heat from standing so close to the stove.
“But I haven’t stopped thinking about it—or you,” he continued. “I applied for the job before I met you, but you were definitely a factor in my decision to accept it.”
“We weren’t ever supposed to see one another again,” she reminded him of the agreement they’d made in Boulder City.
“And yet, you went to Echo Ridge last weekend.” The surprise must have shown on her face because he explained, “You left a message with Deputy Ryker.”
She nodded. “A friend of mine from law school lives in Texas. Since I was there, I thought I’d stop by to say hi.”
“Texas is a pretty big state.”
“Chloe lives just outside of Dallas, so a side-trip to Echo Ridge wasn’t really out of my way.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “I was kind of hoping you’d made the trip to see me.”
The timer on the stove buzzed, granting her a temporary reprieve from the increasingly awkward conversation.
“Dinner’s ready.”
* * *
There was something on her mind.
Something more than concern about the client who’d brought her into his office a few hours earlier. When Luke Ryker told him that she’d shown up at the Sheriff’s Office, he’d hoped it was memories of the nights they’d spent together that inspired Katelyn to track him down. But she certainly wasn’t giving the impression of a woman motivated by carnal desires.
And though she kept up her end of the conversation while they ate, her thoughts were obviously elsewhere.
“Is it convenient or tiresome to live above your office?” he asked, attempting to engage her attention.
Katelyn twirled her fork in her pasta. “It’s convenient,” she said. “Certainly a lot more convenient than driving twenty miles into town from the Circle G Ranch every day.”
He’d heard of the Circle G—reputedly the biggest and most prosperous cattle ranch in all of Haven County. It was also, if he remembered the story correctly, half of the property that was the original source of friction between the Gilmore and Blake families when they settled in the area more than one hundred and fifty years before.
According to local folklore, back in the spring of 1855, a developer sold a 100,000-acre parcel of land in Nevada to Everett Gilmore, a struggling farmer from Plattsmouth, Nebraska. The same developer also sold 100,000 acres to Samuel Blake, a down-on-his-luck businessman from Omaha. Both men subsequently packed up their families and their worldly possessions and headed west for a fresh start.
Everett Gilmore arrived first, and it was only when Samuel Blake showed up with his deed in hand that the two men realized they’d been sold the exact same parcel of land. Since both title deeds were stamped with the same date, there was no way of knowing who was the legitimate owner of the land. Distrustful of the local magistrate’s ability to resolve the situation to anyone’s satisfaction—and not wanting to publicly admit that they’d been duped—the two men agreed to share the property between them, using the natural divide of Eighteen-Mile Creek as the boundary between their lands.
Because the Gilmores had already started to build their home in the valley—on the west side of the creek—the Blakes were relegated to the higher elevation on the east, where the land was mostly comprised of rocky hills and ridges. The Gilmores’ cattle immediately benefitted from grazing on more hospitable terrain, while the Blakes struggled for a lot of years to keep their herd viable—until silver and gold were found in the hills on their side of the creek and they gave up ranching in favor of mining.
“Is there any truth to that story about the ancestors of the Gilmore and Blake families coming to Nevada to settle the same piece of land?” he asked her now.
“It’s all true,” she assured him. “The Gilmores still own the fifty thousand acres on the west side of the creek and the Blakes own the fifty thousand acres, including all the gold and silver, on the east.”
She put her fork down and picked up her glass of water. “You were going to tell me why Trent was given a court date and Aiden was locked up,” she reminded him.
“Because Trent was a passenger in the car that Aiden was driving.”
“Where’d they find the car?” she asked.
“Parked, with the key in the cup holder, in the driveway of the owner’s house on Mountainview Road.”
Katelyn shook her head. “Anyone who leaves, in plain view, the key to a fancy car deserves to have it stolen.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you say that.”
“How mad was Rebecca Blake when she realized her car had been taken?”
“Beyond mad,” he admitted. “And more than a little embarrassed, because she knew that she’d left the key in it.”
“She was at Elsie Hampton’s funeral—and she’s known Aiden since he was in diapers,” Katelyn told him. “As mad and embarrassed as she was, I’m a little surprised that she wanted to press charges.”
“It wasn’t her choice,” he said.
“You do know you’ll never get a conviction on grand larceny, don’t you? It would be a waste of time and resources to even take it to trial.”
“That’s an argument better saved for your discussions with the prosecutor,” he suggested.
“Maybe it’s different in Echo Ridge, but here the prosecutor doesn’t usually make decisions about the disposition of charges without first consulting the Sheriff’s Office.”
“I investigated the complaint of a stolen vehicle and made the appropriate arrests,” he said. “Now it’s up to your pal in the ADA’s office to decide what to do with the defendants.”
“Dustin Perry’s not my pal,” she told him.
“I saw the two of you chatting while waiting for the judge. He seemed...favorably inclined toward you.”
“You know, for a guy who was quick to point out that he’s not a lawyer, you sound an awful lot like one at times.”
He frowned. “Are you trying to spoil my appetite?”
She looked at his almost empty plate. “Not much chance of that.”
“What can I say? This is great pasta,” he said.
And it was. The red sauce had chunks of tomato, pepper and onion and was just a little bit spicy. But while he’d been mopping up sauce with a second slice of crusty bread, he noticed that she’d hardly touched her meal. She had her fork in hand and was pushing the pasta around on her plate, but she’d rarely lifted the utensil to her mouth.
“I didn’t make anything for dessert, but I do have ice cream,” she told him.
“What kind?”
She pushed her chair away from the table and went to open the freezer drawer below the refrigerator. Her appliances were all top of the line—as was everything else that he could see. Whoever had renovated the building had spared no expense in the dark walnut cupboards, natural granite countertops, marble tile and hardwood floors.
“Chocolate, chocolate ’n’ peanut butter or chocolate chip cookie dough,” she offered.
“Nothing with chocolate?” he asked drily.
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Do you have cones?”
“No, but I have waffle bowls,” she told him.
“Even better,” he decided.
“What kind do you want?”
“Cookie dough.”
She took the container out of the freezer and set it on the counter, then opened the cupboard and stood on her toes. “If they were more easily accessible, I’d indulge all the time,” she explained, as she stretched toward the top shelf.
“If you didn’t want to indulge, you wouldn’t buy them,” he commented, easily reaching over her head for the box.
She pulled open a drawer to retrieve an ice-cream scoop. “That’s just the kind of logic I’d expect from a man.”
He set the box on the corner, then lifted his hand to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertip slowly tracing the outer shell.
The scoop slipped from her grasp, bounced on the counter.
“I don’t remember you being skittish,” he said.
She swallowed. “I’m not usually.”
“So what has you strung so tight now?” he wondered aloud. “Are you worried that I’m going to make a move?” He stepped closer, so that she was trapped between the counter at her back and him at her front. “Or that I’m not?”
The pulse at the base of her jaw was racing, and her slightly parted lips—so tempting and soft—were mere inches from his own. Her gaze went to his mouth, lingered, as if she wanted his kiss as much as he wanted to kiss her.
Then she turned her head away and shifted to the left, sidestepping both him and his question.
“What’s going on, Katelyn?” he pressed, because it was obvious that something was.
She nibbled on her bottom lip as she pried the lid off the ice-cream container.
“Katelyn?” he prompted, ignoring the caution lights that were flashing in his head.
Finally, she looked at him, her big blue eyes filled with wariness and worry. “I’m pregnant.”
Chapter Five (#udc6d5391-96d8-5b5e-8fca-0348804637a7)
She hadn’t intended to blurt it out like that, but now that the words had been spoken, Kate actually felt relieved. It was no longer this big secret that she was keeping bottled up inside; she’d done the right thing and told Reid about the baby.
Now she just had to deal with his reaction, whatever that might be.
He reached behind him, his hands curling over the edge of the island countertop, as if he needed the support to remain standing. She understood how he felt—she was more than a little unsteady herself.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, waiting for him to say something, anything.
“You’re sure?” he asked, after a long minute had passed.
She nodded. “I took one of those over-the-counter tests. Actually, I took three,” she admitted. “And I got official confirmation from the doctor last week.”
He went back to the table for his beer, tipped the bottle to his lips. “That’s why you were in Echo Ridge,” he realized. “Because you think it’s mine.”
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, but she couldn’t fault him for asking. She’d jumped into bed with him only a few hours after their first meeting—why wouldn’t he assume that was normal behavior for her?
“I know it’s yours,” she told him. “You’re the only man I’ve been with in...a long time. But considering how quickly everything happened between us, I can understand why you’d ask, why you’d want proof.”
He fell silent again, and she found herself babbling in an effort to fill the silence.
“We can have a DNA test as soon as the baby’s born. It’s possible to do paternity testing before birth, through amniocentesis, but it also increases the risk of miscarriage and I’d rather not take the chance when there are no other factors that warrant it.”
He nodded, but whether it was in agreement or understanding, she had no idea.
“I’m not asking anything of you,” she hastened to reassure him. “I made the decision to have this baby on my own, and I intend to raise the baby on my own.”
That, finally, got a response from him.
“You didn’t make the baby on your own,” he pointed out.
“Well, no,” she agreed, her body humming in remembrance of the pleasures she’d experienced in his arms.
“And I don’t shirk my responsibilities,” he said with grim resolve.
“I appreciate that, Reid, but—”
He shook his head. “No buts, Katelyn.”
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