A Very Special Delivery
Brenda Harlen
Lukas Garrett didn’t know how much he wanted to be a father – or a husband! – until he helped bring Julie Marlowe’s little boy into the world.Now mother and child have grabbed hold of his once-guarded heart. But what the sexy vet doesn’t realise is that Julie is keeping a secret… a secret that could derail all their hope of a future together.
Can a snowbound mom-to-be find love with the sexy stranger who delivers her baby? Find out in the newest installment of Those Engaging Garretts, the sizzling series by award-winning author Brenda Harlen!
Being trapped in a strange town in a freak blizzard is scary enough, but Julie Marlowe went into labor in someone’s driveway! Lucky for her, a handsome stranger came to her rescue. Several hours later, Julie was the proud mother of an infant son …and in danger of falling for the sexy vet who delivered her baby!
Lukas Garrett didn’t know how much he wanted to be a father—or a husband!—until he helped bring Julie’s little boy into the world. Now mother and child have grabbed hold of his once-guarded heart. But Julie’s past could derail her future with Luke, unless she’s willing to trust her heart to this man for the chance to have the family of her dreams….
There was something about the way Luke was looking at her, the intensity in his eyes that started Julie’s heart pounding just a little bit faster again.
“You’re always beautiful,” he said. “Even the first time I saw you—through the foggy window of your car—you took my breath away.”
“Of course, that was before I got out from behind the wheel and you saw me waddle like a penguin behind the belly of a whale,” she teased.
“You never waddled,” he denied.
“I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant,” she reminded him.
“And beautiful.”
He brushed his knuckles down her cheek, but it was her knees that went weak.
“And I’ve been thinking about kissing you since that first day.” His words were as seductive as his touch, and the heat in his gaze held her mesmerized as he lowered his head, inching closer and closer until his lips hovered above hers.
Dear Reader,
I’ve always loved stories in which ordinary people learn that they’re capable of extraordinary things. In A Very Special Delivery, Lukas Garrett is an ordinary man (well, he’s a tall, dark and handsome romantic hero, so maybe he’s not completely ordinary) and Julie Marlowe is an ordinary woman (albeit a young and beautiful—and very pregnant—romantic heroine).
On his way home from work one day, Lukas discovers a car in the ditch beside his house. Julie is behind the wheel of that vehicle—and in serious denial about the fact that she’s in labor.
It’s been a lot of years since my kids were babies, but I haven’t forgotten the experience of childbirth, or how much it meant to have my husband by my side. It’s the type of experience that would create a special bond between any two people, even virtual strangers.
For Lukas and Julie, that bond just might be the beginning of a family.…
I hope you enjoy their story.
Happy reading,
Brenda Harlen
A Very Special Delivery
Brenda Harlen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BRENDA HARLEN is a former family law attorney turned work-at-home mum and national bestselling author who has written more than twenty books for Mills & Boon
. Her work has been validated by industry awards (including an RWA Golden Heart Award and the RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award) and by the fact that her kids think it’s cool that she’s “a real author.”
Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her husband and two sons. When she isn’t at the computer working on her next book, she can probably be found at the arena, watching a hockey game. Keep up-to-date with Brenda on Facebook or send her an email at brendaharlen@yahoo. com.
This book is dedicated to my husband, Neill, an only child who gained two brothers (in-law) when we married.
Thanks for being a wonderful husband and the best father our boys could possibly have. XO
Contents
Chapter One (#uc8452792-0472-5471-a034-c18bc472b244)
Chapter Two (#ucad9af72-2002-5350-80d4-1e524596e5eb)
Chapter Three (#u3e5340f2-906f-5736-bb47-ac9e7564e8ed)
Chapter Four (#u0a59340e-2b59-527a-ad75-1390bde59fa0)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
When she woke up the morning of November first staring at water stains on a stippled ceiling, Julie Marlowe wondered if she was having a bad dream. Then she remembered that uncomfortable twinges in her lower back had forced her to take a break on her journey home the day before, and the closest available accommodations had been at the Sleep Tite Motor Inn.
She managed to roll her pregnant body off the sagging mattress and swing her feet over the edge. The bathroom’s tile floor was cold beneath her feet, and the trickle of spray that came out of the shower head wasn’t much warmer. She washed quickly, then dried herself with the threadbare but clean towels on the rack. She had another long day of travel ahead of her, so she dressed comfortably in a pair of chocolate-colored leggings and a loose tunic-style top. Then she slipped her feet into the cowboy boots she’d bought “just because” when she’d been in Texas.
Seven months earlier, she’d had a lot of reasons for wanting to leave Springfield. But after traveling eight thousand miles through twenty-seven states and sleeping in countless hotel rooms, she was more than ready to go home.
She missed her family, her friends and the comfortable and predictable routines of her life. She even missed her father, despite the fact that he could be more than a little stubborn and overbearing on occasion. The only person she could honestly say that she didn’t miss was Elliott Davis Winchester the Third—her former fiancé.
Julie had told her parents that she needed some time and some space to think about her future after ending her engagement. Lucinda and Reginald hadn’t understood why she needed to go—and how could she expect that they would when there was so much she hadn’t told them?—but they’d been supportive. They’d always been unflinching in their support and unwavering in their love, even when she screwed up.
When she left Springfield, Julie was determined to ensure that she didn’t screw up again.
She felt a nudge beneath her rib, and smiled as she rubbed a hand over her belly. “You weren’t a mistake, baby,” she soothed. “Maybe I didn’t plan for you at this point in my life, but I know that you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and I promise to be the best mommy that I can.”
The baby kicked again, clearly unconvinced.
Julie couldn’t blame her for being skeptical. Truthfully, she had more than a few doubts of her own. She and Elliott had talked about having children and neither wanted to wait too long after the wedding before starting a family, but she hadn’t known she was pregnant when she gave him back his ring and left town.
After a quick visit to the doctor confirmed that she was going to have a baby, she wasn’t even tempted to change her course. Though she’d known Elliott for two years—and had been engaged to him for six months—she’d suddenly realized that she didn’t really know him at all. What she did know was that he wasn’t the kind of a man she wanted to marry, and he certainly wasn’t the kind of man that she wanted as a father for her baby.
Of course, that didn’t change the fact that he was the father of her baby, but she hadn’t been ready to deal with that reality in the moment. Maybe she’d been running away, but over the past few months she’d accepted that she couldn’t run forever. In fact, in her current condition, she couldn’t run at all anymore. The best she could manage was a waddle.
And she was ready to waddle home.
* * *
Lukas Garrett snagged a tiny box of candy from the orange bowl on the front desk—the remnants of the pile of Halloween candy from the day before—and emptied the contents into his mouth.
Karen, the veterinarian clinic receptionist and office manager, shook her head as he chewed the crunchy candy. “Please tell me that’s not your lunch.”
He swallowed before dutifully answering, “That’s not my lunch.”
“Lukas,” she chided.
“Really,” he assured her. “This is just the appetizer. I’ve got a sandwich in the fridge.”
“PB & J?”
“Just PB today.” He reached for another box of candy and had his hand slapped away.
“You need a good woman to take care of you.”
It was a familiar refrain and he responded as he usually did. “You’re a good woman and you take care of me.”
“You need a wife,” she clarified.
“Just say the word.”
Karen, accustomed to his flirtatious teasing, shook her head.
“Go eat your sandwich,” she directed. “As pathetic as it is, I’m sure it has slightly more nutritional value than candy.”
“I’m waiting to have lunch after I finish with the morning appointments.” He glanced at the clock on the wall, frowned. “I thought for sure Mrs. Cammalleri would be here with Snowball by now.”
“She called to reschedule,” Karen told him. “She didn’t want to leave the house in this weather.”
“What weather?” Luke turned to the window, then blinked in surprise at the swirling white flakes that were all that was visible through the glass. “When did it start snowing?”
“About an hour ago,” Karen told him. “While you were ensuring that Raphael would never again be controlled by his most basic animal urges.”
He moved closer to the window. “Did the forecast call for this?”
She nodded. “Twelve to fifteen inches.”
He frowned. “How does global warming result in early season snowstorms?”
“We live in a Snowbelt,” she reminded him. “And the current catchphrase is ‘climate change.’”
“I’d prefer a climate change that included warm sun and sandy beaches.”
“So book a vacation.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” he admitted. And while an island getaway held a certain appeal, he had no desire to go on a holiday alone. Nor was he interested in venturing out solo with the goal of finding an anonymous female someone to share a few days of sun, sand and sex. That kind of thing had lost its appeal for Luke before he’d graduated college.
“Well, another thing you should think about is closing up early,” Karen suggested. “Mrs. Cammalleri was your last scheduled appointment and the way the snow’s already falling hard and fast, if we don’t get out of here soon, we might not get out of here at all.”
“The clinic’s open until three on Fridays,” he reminded her. “So I’ll stay until then, but you go ahead.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“Of course not. There’s no need for both of us to stay, and you’ve got a longer drive home than I do.”
Karen was already tidying up her desk, straightening a pile of files, aligning the stapler with the edge of her desk calendar, putting the pens in the cup.
Luke took advantage of her distraction to snag another box of candy. “If this keeps up, the kids will be building snowmen tomorrow.”
“Hard to believe they were trick-or-treating just last night, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t help but smile as he thought about his almost five-year-old nephews, Quinn and Shane, who had dressed up as SpongeBob and Patrick. Their baby sister, Pippa, was too young to go door-to-door, but even she’d been decked out in a pumpkin costume with a smiling jack-o’-lantern face on the front and a hat with stem and leaves.
His eldest niece—his brother Jackson’s twelve-year-old daughter, Ava—had skipped the candy-grabbing ritual in favor of a Halloween party with some friends at the community center. And Jack had chaperoned. Luke wasn’t at all surprised that his brother, who had earned quite the reputation as a heartbreaker in his youth, was a slightly overprotective father. The surprising part had been finding out that he was a father at all—especially to the daughter of the woman who had been Luke’s best friend since fifth grade.
He was still surprised, and a little annoyed, that Kelly Cooper had managed to keep her weekend rendezvous with Jack a secret for more than twelve years. It was only when she’d moved back to Pinehurst with her daughter at the end of the summer that Luke had learned that his brother was Ava’s father and that his designation as “Uncle Luke” was more than an honorary title. He still wasn’t sure that he’d completely forgiven her for keeping that secret for so long, but he was genuinely thrilled that Kelly and Jack were together now and making plans for an early December wedding.
“From carving pumpkins to throwing snowballs in the blink of an eye,” Karen noted as she turned to retrieve her coat and purse from the cabinet behind her desk—then muttered a curse under her breath as she nearly tripped over Einstein, Luke’s seven-month-old beagle puppy.
He’d been one of a litter of eight born to a severely malnourished and exhausted female who had been abandoned on the side of the road. A passerby had found the animal and taken her to the veterinarian clinic. The mother hadn’t survived the birth, and Luke had been determined to ensure that her efforts to give life to her pups weren’t in vain.
Thankfully, Karen had stepped up to help, and between the two of them, they’d made sure that the puppies were fed and nurtured and loved—and then they’d given them to good homes. But Luke had always known that he would keep one, and Einstein was the one he’d chosen. And he loved the crazy animal, even if he wasn’t exactly the genius of his namesake.
When the puppies were first born and required almost constant care, it made sense for them to be at the clinic. Luke also believed it would help with their socialization, getting them accustomed to being around people and other animals, and so he’d continued the practice with Einstein long after his brothers and sisters had gone to other homes. Unfortunately, one of Einstein’s favorite places in the clinic was wherever he could find Karen’s feet.
“I swear that animal is trying to kill me.” But despite the annoyance in her tone, she bent to rub his head, giving him an extra scratch behind his left ear because she knew that was his favorite spot.
“Only if he could love you to death,” Luke assured her.
She shook her head as she made her way to the door. “You should go home, too,” she said again. “No one’s going to come out in this weather.”
As it turned out, she was right. Aside from Raphael’s owner who came to pick him up, the front door didn’t open and the phone didn’t ring. So promptly at three o’clock, Luke locked up the clinic and headed out to his truck with Einstein.
Of course, this was the puppy’s first exposure to snow, and when he stepped out onto the deck and found himself buried up to his chest in the cold, white fluff, he was not very happy. He whined and jumped, trying desperately to get away from it. And when he couldn’t escape it, he decided to attack it. He barked and pranced around, clearly under the impression that he was winning the battle.
Luke couldn’t help but chuckle at his antics. The animal would probably play in the snow for hours if he let him, so he finally picked up the pup and carried him to the truck. He sat him on the floor of the passenger side and let the heater blow warm air on him while Luke cleared the thick layer of snow off of his windows.
Luckily he’d found an old hat and a pair of gloves in his office, and he was grateful for both. The unexpected snowfall might have been fun for Einstein, but driving through it was a completely different story, even with all-wheel drive. The snow had been falling steadily and quickly and the plows hadn’t yet been around, so he knew the roads would probably be slick—a fact that was proven when he fishtailed a little as he pulled out of the clinic’s driveway and onto the street.
Warm and dry once again, Einstein hopped up onto the passenger seat and pressed his nose against the window, his breath fogging up the glass. When Luke finally turned onto Terrace Drive, the pup barked excitedly, three quick little yips. The snow was still falling with no indication that it would let up anytime soon, and he was as happy as Einstein to know that they were almost home.
The cold had come after the snow, so the first layer of flakes had melted on the road, then frozen. Now there was a dangerous layer of ice beneath everything else, and Luke suspected the tow trucks would be working late into the night. It would be too easy to slide off the road and into a ditch in these conditions—as someone had apparently done right in front of his house.
* * *
Julie clenched the steering wheel with both hands and bit down on her bottom lip to hold back the scream of frustration that threatened to burst from her throat. A quick detour through Pinehurst to meet with a friend of her brother’s from law school had seemed like a great idea when she’d called and made the appointment a few hours earlier, but that was before the snow started.
Still, she’d no intention of being dissuaded by some light flurries. Except that those light flurries had quickly escalated into an actual blizzard. Weather reports on the radio had warned people to avoid unnecessary travel. Since Julie had been on the highway between Syracuse and Pinehurst at the time and pulling off to the side of the road in order to be buried in snow didn’t seem like a particularly appealing option, she decided her travel was necessary.
And she’d almost made it. According to her GPS, she was less than three miles from Jackson Garrett’s office—but it might as well have been thirty. There was no way she could walk, not in her condition and not in this weather.
Tears of frustration filled her eyes, blurred her vision. She let her head fall forward, then jolted back again when the horn sounded. Great—not only had she driven into a ditch, she’d just drawn attention to the fact by alerting anyone who happened to be passing by. She didn’t know if she was more relieved or apprehensive when she realized that no one seemed to be anywhere in the vicinity.
She was sure she’d seen houses not too far back. In fact, she specifically remembered a sprawling ranch-style with a trio of grinning jack-o’-lanterns on the wide front porch, because she’d noted that it wouldn’t be too long before those pumpkins were completely blanketed by snow.
She closed her eyes and silently cursed Mother Nature. Okay, maybe she had to accept responsibility for the fact that she’d been driving through a blizzard with no snow tires—but who the heck would have thought that she’d need snow tires on the first day of November?
She felt a spasm in her lower back in conjunction with a ripple of pain that tightened her whole belly. Julie splayed a hand over her tummy, silently trying to reassure her baby that everything was okay. But as the first tears spilled onto her cheeks, she had to admit—if only to herself—that she didn’t know if it was. She didn’t know how being stuck in a ditch in the middle of nowhere during a freak snowstorm could possibly be “okay.”
She drew in a deep breath and tried to get the tears under control. She didn’t usually blubber, but the pregnancy hormones running rampant through her system had been seriously messing with her emotional equilibrium. Wiping the trails of moisture from her cheeks, she tried to look on the bright side.
She knew she wasn’t lost. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was, but she’d followed the directions of her GPS so she wasn’t actually in the middle of nowhere. She was in Pinehurst, New York. An even brighter side was found when she pulled her cell phone out of her purse and confirmed that her battery was charged and she had a signal. Further proof that she wasn’t in the middle of nowhere.
Confident that she would be able to get some roadside assistance, Julie leaned over to open the glove box to get the number and gasped as pain ripped across her back. Gritting her teeth, she blew out a slow, unsteady breath and prayed that it was just a spasm. That the jolt of sliding into the ditch had pulled a muscle in her back.
On the other hand, it could be a sign that she was in labor. And right now, that was not a scenario she wanted to consider.
“Please, baby—” she rubbed a hand over her belly “—don’t do this now. You’ve got a couple more weeks to hang out right where you are, and I’m not even close to being ready for you yet.”
Moving more carefully this time, she reached for the folio that contained her vehicle ownership and warranty information and—most important—her automobile association card. Hopefully there wasn’t any damage to her car and as soon as it was pulled out of the ditch, she could be on her way again.
Except that when she dialed the toll-free number on the card, she got a recorded message informing her that all of the operators were currently busy assisting other customers and to please hold the line if she wanted to maintain her call priority. She disconnected. It would probably be easier—and quicker—for her to find the number of a local company and make a direct call. Or maybe, if she was really lucky, a Good Samaritan with a big truck conveniently equipped with tow cables would drive down this road and stop to help.
A flash of color caught the corner of her eye and she turned her head to see a truck drive past, then pull into a driveway she hadn’t even noticed was less than ten feet from where she was stranded. The vehicle stopped, the driver’s side door opened and then a gust of wind swirled the thick snow around, obliterating her view.
She thought she heard something that sounded like a dog barking, but the sound quickly faded away.
Then there was a knock on her window, and her heart leaped into her throat. Not thirty seconds earlier, she’d been praying that a Good Samaritan would come to her rescue, and now someone was at her door. But how was she supposed to know if he had stopped to offer help—or if his intentions were less honorable?
Her breath was coming faster now, and the windows were fogging up, making it even harder to see. All she could tell was that he was tall, broad-shouldered and wearing a dark cap on his head. He was big. The road was mostly deserted. She was helpless.
No, she wasn’t. She had her cell phone. She held it up, to show him that she was in contact with the outside world, then rolled down her window a few inches. A gust of cold air blasted through the scant opening, making her gasp.
“Are you okay, ma’am?”
Ma’am? The unexpectedness of the formal address in combination with the evident concern in his tone reassured her, at least a little. She lifted her gaze to his face, and her heart jolted again. But this time she knew the physiological response had nothing to do with fear—it was a sign of purely female appreciation for a truly spectacular male.
The knit cap was tugged low on his forehead so she couldn’t see what color his hair was, but below dark brows, his eyes were the exact same shade of blue-green as the aquamarine gemstone ring her parents had given to her for her twenty-first birthday. His nose was just a little off-center, his cheekbones sharp, his jaw square. He had a strong face, undeniably masculine and incredibly handsome. His voice was low and soothing, and when he spoke again, she found her gaze riveted on the movement of his lips.
“Ma’am?” he said again.
“I’m okay. I’m just waiting for a tow truck.”
He frowned. “I’m not sure how long you’ll have to wait. I managed to squeeze through just as the police were putting up barriers to restrict access to Main Street.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the primary road through town is shut down.”
She sighed. “Any chance you have tow cables in your truck?”
He shook his head. “Sorry.”
She gasped as another stab of pain slashed through her.
“You are hurt,” he decided. “Let me call an ambulance.”
She shook her head. “I’m not hurt. I think...I’m in labor.”
Chapter Two
“Labor? As in having a baby?” Luke couldn’t quite get his head around what she was saying. Not until he noticed that her hand was splayed on her belly.
Her very round belly.
How had he not noticed that she was pregnant?
Probably because his most immediate concern, when he’d spotted the vehicle in the ditch, was that the driver might be injured, maybe even unconscious. He hadn’t given a passing thought to the driver’s gender. And then, when she’d rolled down the window, he’d been absolutely spellbound by her wide and wary blue-gray eyes.
But now, with his attention focused on the bump beneath her shirt, the words that had seemed undecipherable suddenly made sense. “You’re pregnant.”
Her brows lifted in response to his not-so-astute observation. “Yes, I’m pregnant,” she confirmed.
She was also a pretty young thing—emphasis on the young. Early twenties, he guessed, with clear, flawless skin, high cheekbones, a patrician nose and lips that were surprisingly full and temptingly shaped.
He felt the subtle buzz through his veins, acknowledged it. He’d experienced the stir of attraction often enough in the past to recognize it for what it was—and to know that, under the circumstances, it was completely inappropriate.
Young, beautiful and pregnant, he reminded himself.
“Actually, I don’t think it is labor,” she said now. “I’m probably just overreacting to the situation.”
But he wasn’t quite ready to disregard the possibility. “When are you due?”
“November fifteenth.”
Only two weeks ahead of schedule. He remembered his sister-in-law, Georgia, telling him that she’d been two weeks early with Pippa, so the timing didn’t seem to be any real cause for concern. Of course, Georgia had also been in the hospital. The fact that this woman was stuck in a ditch and nowhere near a medical facility might be a bit of an issue.
He took a moment to clear his head and organize his thoughts, and saw her wince again.
“Are you having contractions?”
“No,” she said quickly, and just a little desperately. “Just...twinges.”
Apparently she didn’t want to be in labor any more than he wanted her to be in labor, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t.
“I think I should call 911 to try to get an ambulance out here and get you to the hospital.”
“It’s probably just false labor.”
“Have you been through this before?”
“No,” she admitted. “This is my first. But I’ve read a ton of books on pregnancy and childbirth, and I’m pretty sure what I’m experiencing are just Braxton Hicks contractions.”
He wasn’t convinced, but he also wasn’t going to waste any more time arguing with her. Not with the snow blowing around the way it was and the condition of the roads rapidly getting worse. He pulled out his phone and dialed.
“911. Please state the nature of your emergency.”
He recognized the dispatcher’s voice immediately, and his lips instinctively curved as he recalled a long-ago summer when he and the emergency operator had been, at least for a little while, more than friends. “Hey, Yolanda, it’s Luke Garrett. I was wondering if you could send an ambulance out to my place.”
“What happened?” The clinical detachment in her tone gave way to concern. “Are you hurt?”
“No, it’s not me. I’m with a young woman—”
He glanced at her, his brows raised in silent question.
“Julie Marlowe,” she told him.
“—whose car went into the ditch beside my house.”
“Is she injured?”
“She says no, but she’s pregnant, two weeks from her due date and experiencing what might be contractions.”
“Twinges,” the expectant mother reminded him through the window.
“She insists that they’re twinges,” Luke said, if only to reassure her that he was listening. “But they’re sharp enough that she gasps for breath when they come.”
“Can I talk to her?”
He tapped on the window, and Julie lowered the glass a few more inches to take the device from him. Because she was inside the car with the window still mostly closed, he could only decipher snippets of their conversation, but he got the impression that Yolanda was asking more detailed questions about the progress of her pregnancy, possible complications and if there were any other indications of labor.
A few minutes later, Julie passed the phone back to him.
“If I thought I could get an ambulance through to you, I’d be sending one,” Yolanda told Luke. “But the police have completely shut down Main Street in both directions.”
“But emergency vehicles should be able to get through.”
“If they weren’t all out on other calls,” she agreed. “And the reality is that an expectant mother with no injuries in the early stages of labor, as Julie seems to think she might be, is not an emergency.”
“What if the situation changes?”
“If the situation changes, call me back. Maybe by then the roads will be plowed and reopened and we can get her to the hospital.”
“You don’t sound too optimistic,” he noted.
“The storm dumped a lot of snow fast and there’s no sign that it’s going to stop any time soon. The roads are a mess and emergency crews are tapped.”
He bit back a sigh of frustration. “What if the baby doesn’t want to wait that long?”
“Then you’ll handle it,” she said, and quickly gave him some basic instructions. “And don’t worry—I reassured the expectant mom that Doctor Garrett has done this countless times before.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not.” There was no hint of apology in her tone. “The woman needed reassurance, and I gave it to her.”
And although her statement was technically true, she’d neglected to mention that the majority of the births he’d been involved with had been canine or feline in nature. He had absolutely no experience bringing human babies into the world.
Luke stared at Julie, who gasped as another contraction hit her. “You better get an ambulance here as soon as possible.”
* * *
Julie was still mulling over the information the dispatcher had given her when she saw her Good Samaritan—who was apparently also a doctor—tuck his phone back into the pocket of his jacket.
“Let’s get you up to the house where it’s warm and dry.”
She wished that staying in the car was a viable option. She was more than a little uneasy about going into a stranger’s home, but her feet and her hands were already numb and she had to clench her teeth together to keep them from chattering. She took some comfort from the fact that the emergency operator knew her name and location.
She rolled up the window—no point in letting the inside of the car fill up with snow—and unlocked the door.
As soon as she did, he opened it for her, then offered his other hand to help her out. He must have noticed the iciness of her fingers even through his gloves, because before she’d stepped onto the ground, he’d taken them off his hands and put them on hers. They were toasty warm inside, and she nearly whimpered with gratitude.
He walked sideways up the side of the ditch, holding on to both of her hands to help her do the same. Unfortunately the boots that she’d so happily put on her feet when she set out that morning had smooth leather soles, not exactly conducive to gaining traction on a snowy incline. She slipped a few times and no doubt would have fallen if not for his support. When she finally made it to level ground, he picked her up—scooping her off her feet as if she weighed nothing—and carried her to the passenger side of his truck. She was too startled to protest, and all too conscious of the extra twenty-nine pounds that she was carrying—and now he was carrying. But when he settled her gently on the seat, he didn’t even seem winded.
He drove up the laneway, parked beside the house. When he inserted his key into the lock, she heard a cacophony of excited barking from the other side of the door.
“You have dogs?”
“Just one.” Her rescuer shook his head as the frantic yips continued. “We just got home. I let him out of the truck at the end of the driveway when I saw your vehicle, and he raced ahead to the house to come in through the doggy door, as he always does. And every day when I put my key in the lock, he acts as if it’s been days rather than minutes since he last saw me.”
“They don’t have much of a concept of time, do they?”
“Except for dinnertime,” he noted dryly. “He never forgets that one.”
He opened the door and gestured for her to enter. But before Julie could take a step forward, there was a tri-colored whirlwind of fur and energy weaving between her feet.
“Einstein, sit.”
The dog immediately plopped his butt on the snow-covered porch right beside her boots and looked up with shiny, dark eyes, and his master scooped him up to give her a clear path through the door.
“Oh, he’s just a little guy. And absolutely the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“He’s cute,” the doctor agreed. “And he hasn’t met anyone he doesn’t immediately love, but sometimes he’s too stubborn for his own good.”
She slipped her boots off inside the door, and when he put the puppy down again, it immediately attacked her toes with an enthusiastic tongue and gentle nips of his little teeth.
“Einstein, no!”
The pup dropped his head and looked up, his eyes filled with so much hurt and remorse, Julie couldn’t help but laugh.
The doctor looked at her with a slightly embarrassed shrug. “He’s got some kind of foot fetish. I’m not having a lot of luck in trying to curb it.”
“No worries, my feet are too numb to feel much, anyway.”
“Come on.” He took her arm and guided her down the hall and into what she guessed was a family room. The floor was a dark glossy hardwood and the walls were painted a rich hunter-green, set off by the wide white trim and cove moldings. There was a chocolate leather sectional and a matching armchair facing a gorgeous stone fireplace flanked by tall, narrow windows. The lamps on the mission-style side tables were already illuminated, but as he stepped through the wide, arched doorway, he hit another switch on the wall and flames came to life in the firebox.
“You should warm up quickly in here,” he told her. “I converted to gas a few years ago. As much as I love the smell of a real wood fire, I prefer the convenience of having heat and flame at the flick of a switch.”
“You have a beautiful home,” Julie told him. And, it seemed to her, a big home, making her wonder if he had a wife and kids to help fill it. She hadn’t seen a ring on his finger, but she knew that didn’t prove anything.
“I like it,” he said easily.
She moved closer to the fireplace, drawn by the flickering flames and the tempting warmth. “Do you live here alone?”
“Me and Daphne and Einstein,” he clarified.
She was reassured by this revelation that she wouldn’t actually be alone with a stranger. “Daphne’s your...wife?”
“No.”
He responded quickly—so quickly she couldn’t help but smile. The immediate and predictable denial was that of a perennial bachelor with absolutely no desire to change his status.
“Daphne’s a three-year-old blue Burmese, and not very sociable. Unlike Einstein, you’ll only see her if she decides you’re worthy of her presence.”
Which meant that they were alone—except for a cat and a dog. But he was a doctor, and the emergency operator had vouched for him, and she had to stop being wary of everyone just because her experience with Elliott had caused her to doubt her own judgment. “It’s a big house for one man and two pets,” she noted.
“Believe me, it felt a lot smaller when I had to share it with two brothers.”
“You grew up here?”
He nodded. “Born and raised and lived my whole life in Pinehurst, in this house. Well, I wasn’t actually born in this house—my mother wanted to do things more traditionally and give birth in the hospital.”
“That was my plan, too,” she admitted.
“Sliding into a ditch and going into labor during an unexpected snowstorm was a spur-of-the-moment decision?” he teased.
“I’m not in labor,” she said again. “My baby isn’t due for another two weeks and first babies are almost never early.”
“Almost isn’t the same as never,” he told her, and pushed the oversize leather chair closer to the fire so that she could sit down.
When she lowered herself into the seat, he sat cross-legged on the floor facing her and lifted her feet into his lap. “Your feet are like ice,” he noted.
She was startled by the boldness of the move and felt as if she should protest—but only until he started to rub her toes between his hands, then she closed her eyes and nearly moaned with pleasure.
In fact, she probably did make some kind of noise, because Einstein bounded over, eager to play with her feet, too. But one sharp look from his master had him curling up on the rug in front of the fire.
“Don’t you own winter boots or a proper coat?” the doctor asked her.
“Of course I do, but it wasn’t snowing when I started out this morning.”
“Started out from where?”
“Cleveland,” she admitted.
“Then you obviously did a lot of driving today.”
“About seven hours.”
“Heading back to Boston?”
She eyed him warily. “What makes you think I’m going to Boston?”
“I saw the Massachusetts plates on your car, and there’s just a hint of a Boston accent in your voice.”
“I wasn’t planning on going any further than Pinehurst today,” she said, deliberately not confirming nor denying his assumption. Then, because she’d rather be asking questions than answering them, she said, “Is Luke short for Lukas?”
“It is.” He set down the first foot and picked up the second one.
“I’ve been researching baby names,” Julie told him. “Lukas means bringer of light.”
And she thought the name suited him, not just because he’d rescued her—bringing her hope if not necessarily light—but because it was strong and masculine.
“Have you narrowed down your choices?”
She nodded.
“Any hints?”
She shook her head, then gasped when the pain ripped through her again.
Luke released her foot and laid his hands on the curve of her belly. She tried to remember everything she’d read about Braxton Hicks and how to distinguish those false contractions from real labor, but in the moment, she was lucky she remembered to breathe through the pain.
After what seemed like forever, the tightness across her belly finally eased.
“Twinge?” Though his tone was deliberately light, she saw the concern in his eyes.
“Yeah.” She drew in a deep breath, released it slowly.
“I’m going to put the puppy in the laundry room, just so that he’s out of the way in case things start to happen.” Then he took the dog away, returning a few minutes later with an armful of blankets and towels and a plastic bin filled with medical supplies. He covered the leather chaise with a thick flannel sheet, then folded a blanket over the foot of it.
“Is there anyone you should call?” the doctor asked. “Anyone who’s going to worry about where you are?”
She shook her head. Her parents wouldn’t know that she’d been caught in this storm because they hadn’t known about her intention to detour through the Snowbelt on her way home.
“Husband? Boyfriend?” he prompted.
“No.” She could see the direction he was going with his questions, and she was almost grateful when her body spasmed with pain again. It was easier to focus on the contraction—whether false or real—than on the reasons why her relationship with her baby’s father had fallen apart.
She was gripping the armrests of the chair, but noticed that he was looking at his watch, counting the seconds. She panted softly and tried to think of something—anything—but the pain that ripped through her. The books she’d read talked about focal points, how to use a picture or some other item to evoke pleasant memories and a feeling of peace. Right now, all she had was Luke Garrett, but his warm gaze and steady tone—proof of his presence and reassurance that she wasn’t entirely alone—somehow made the pain bearable.
“Ninety seconds,” he said. “And I’d guess less than five minutes since the last one.”
“It doesn’t look like my baby’s going to wait for a hospital, does it?”
“I’d say not,” he agreed. “Did you take prenatal classes?”
“No.”
“Your doctor didn’t recommend it?”
“I’ve been traveling a lot over the past few months, so I didn’t have a chance.”
“Traveling where?”
“Pretty much everywhere.”
“Work or pleasure?”
“Both.”
She knew it sounded as if she was being evasive, and maybe she was, but it wasn’t in her nature to share personal information with someone she didn’t know and whom she probably wouldn’t ever see again when the roads were finally cleared and her car was pulled out of the ditch.
“I’m just making conversation,” he told her. “I thought it might take your mind off of the contractions.”
“I was counting on an epidural to do that,” she admitted.
His lips curved. “Well, it’s good that you have a sense of humor, because an epidural isn’t really an option right now.”
She liked his smile. It was warm and genuine, and it made her think that everything was going to be okay. “I knew it was too much to hope that you rented a spare bedroom to a local anesthesiologist.”
He took her hand, linked their fingers together and gave hers a reassuring squeeze.
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“You’re doing great.”
“I don’t just mean about giving birth,” she told him. “I mean about being a parent.”
“Let’s concentrate on the giving birth part for now,” he suggested.
She sucked in another breath and gritted her teeth so that she didn’t embarrass herself by whimpering. Or screaming. The pain was unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and she knew it would continue to worsen before it got better.
“Breathe,” Luke said, and she realized that she wasn’t doing so. She released the air she was holding in her lungs in short, shallow pants. “That’s it.”
“Okay,” she said when the contraction had finally eased.
“Two minutes,” he announced, not very happily.
She could understand his concern. Her contractions—and she knew now that they were definitely contractions—were coming harder and faster. The idea of giving birth outside of a hospital was absolutely terrifying, but somehow, with Luke beside her, she felt confident that she would get through it. More importantly, she felt that her baby would get through it.
“Should I get undressed now?”
* * *
It wasn’t the first time he’d had a woman say those words to him, but it was the first time they’d come at Luke completely out of the blue.
And apparently Julie realized that her casual statement might be misinterpreted, because her cheeks flooded with color. “So that you can examine me,” she clarified.
Examine her. Right. She was an expectant mother and he was the doctor who was helping to deliver her baby. Of course she would expect him to examine her.
He mentally recalled the brief instructions he’d been given by the 911 operator. Thankfully the human birthing process wasn’t very different from that of other mammals, but Luke felt more than a little guilty that Julie was offering to strip down for him because she thought he was an MD.
It should have been simple enough to think like a doctor. But he couldn’t forget the quick punch of desire he’d felt when his eyes had first locked with hers. Before he’d realized that she was eight and a half months pregnant. Still, the fact that she was about to give birth didn’t make her any less attractive, although he would have hoped that this tangible evidence of her involvement with another man should have cooled his ardor.
But the combination of her beauty and spirit appealed to something in him. She’d found herself in a tough situation, but she was dealing with it. Sure, she was scared. Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be? But she’d demonstrated a willingness to face that fear head-on, and he had to respect that courage and determination. And when he looked into those blue-gray eyes, he wanted to take up his sword to fight all of her battles for her. Not that she would appreciate his efforts—most women preferred to fight their own battles nowadays, but the desire to honor and protect was deeply ingrained in his DNA.
He wasn’t interested in anything beyond that, though. Sure, he liked women and enjoyed their company, but he wasn’t looking to tie himself to any one woman for the long term. His brothers had both lucked out and found partners with whom they wanted to share the rest of their lives, and he was happy for them, but he didn’t see himself as the marrying kind. Certainly he’d never met a woman who made him think in terms of forever.
Which was just one more reason that he had no business thinking about Julie Marlowe at all. She might be beautiful and sexy but she was also on the verge of becoming a mother—no way would she be interested in a fling, and no way was he interested in anything else.
So he gave her privacy to strip down—and his plush robe to wrap around herself. He was trying to think about this situation as a doctor would—clinically and impartially. But how was he supposed to be impartial when she had those beautiful winter-sky eyes and those sweetly curved lips, sexy shoulders and sexy feet? And despite the baby bump, she had some very appealing curves, too.
When he returned to the family room, he was relieved to see that she was wearing the robe he’d left for her so she wasn’t entirely naked beneath the thin sheet she’d pulled up over herself. But she still looked vulnerable and scared, and every last shred of objectivity flew out the window.
She was panting—blowing out short puffs of air that warned him he’d missed another contraction. “I thought I had a pretty good threshold for pain,” she told him. “I was wrong.”
He knelt at the end of the chaise, and felt perspiration beginning to bead on his brow. She was the one trying to push a baby out of her body, and he was sweating at the thought of watching her do it. But when he folded back the sheet and saw the top of the baby’s head, everything else was forgotten.
“The baby’s already crowning,” he told her.
“Does that mean I can start to push?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
He talked her through the contractions, telling her when to push and when to pant, trying to ensure that her body was able to adjust to each stage and rest when possible.
Of course, it was called labor for a reason, and although it was progressing quickly, he knew it wasn’t painless. Her hands were fisted in the sheet, and he covered one with his own, gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It won’t be too much longer now.”
“Promise?”
He looked up and saw that her stormy eyes were filled with tears and worry. “I promise.”
As she pushed through the next contraction, the head slowly emerged. The soft, indignant cry that accompanied the baby’s emergence from the birth canal confirmed that its lungs were working just fine.
“You’re doing great,” he told Julie. “Just—”
He didn’t even have a chance to finish his sentence before the baby slid completely out and into his hands.
Chapter Three
Luke stared in awe at the wet, wrinkled infant that was somehow the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. And when the baby looked at him with big blue eyes wide with innocence and wonder, he fell just a little bit in love with the little guy.
He wiped the baby’s face carefully with a clean, soft towel to ensure that his nose and mouth were clear of fluid. Then he wrapped him, still attached by the cord, in a blanket and laid him on his mother’s chest.
“And there he is,” he told her.
Julie blinked, as if startled by this statement. “He?”
“You have a beautiful, healthy baby boy,” he confirmed. “Born at 4:58 pm on November first.”
“A boy,” she echoed softly, her lips curving just a little. “My baby boy.”
Tears filled her eyes, then spilled onto her cheeks. She wiped at them impatiently with the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually so emotional.”
“It’s been an emotional day,” Luke said, feeling a little choked up himself.
It took her a few minutes to get her tears under control before she spoke again, and when she did, she surprised him by saying, “I thought he’d be a girl. I wanted a girl.” After a moment she continued. “I don’t even feel guilty admitting it now. Because looking down at him, I know that I couldn’t possibly love him any more if he had been a she. All that matters is that he’s mine.”
“Why did you want a girl?” he asked curiously.
“I guess I thought it would be easier to raise a girl, since I was once one myself. I don’t know anything about little boys. Or big boys.” She glanced up at him and offered a wry smile. “And personal experience has proven that I don’t understand the male gender at all.”
“Are you disappointed that he’s a he?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m not disappointed at all. He’s...perfect.”
“That he is.”
“I never expected to feel so much. I look at him, and my heart practically overflows with love.” But she managed to lift her gaze from the baby to look at Luke now. “Thank you, Dr. Garrett.”
He didn’t know how to respond to her gratitude, especially when he felt as if he should be thanking her. Because in his entire life, he had honestly never experienced anything more incredible than helping to bring Julie’s beautiful baby boy into the world.
What he’d told her earlier was true—the hard part was all hers. And he couldn’t help but be awed by the strength and determination and courage she’d shown in face of the challenge. He felt honored and privileged to have been a part of the experience, to have been the very first person to hold the brand-new life in his hands.
By the time he’d cut the cord and delivered the placenta, Julie had put the baby to her breast and was already nursing. And Luke finally let himself exhale a silent sigh of relief.
He tidied up, gathering the used sheets and towels, then left mother and child alone while he stepped away to call Yolanda to let her know that an ambulance was no longer a priority. She offered hearty congratulations and a smug “I knew you could handle one little baby” then signed off to deal with other matters.
After putting a load of laundry in the washing machine, Luke fed Einstein, then realized that his stomach was growling, too. And if he was hungry, he imagined that Julie was even more so. He put some soup on the stove to heat, then peeked into the family room again.
“How are you feeling now?”
“Exhausted,” she admitted. “And ecstatic. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for everything you’ve done.”
“I’m just glad I was here to help.”
She smiled at that. “And if an ambulance could have got through the storm, you would have shipped me off to the hospital in a heartbeat.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed without hesitation.
“Since I am still here, there is something I wanted to ask you.”
“Sure.”
“What do you think of the name Caden?” She looked at him expectantly, trying to gauge his reaction.
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“Fighter or battle.”
He nodded. “I like it.”
She smiled down at the baby before lifting her eyes to meet his again. “Then let me formally introduce you to Caden Lukas Marlowe.”
She saw surprise flicker in his eyes, then pleasure. He offered his finger to the baby, and Caden wrapped his tiny fist around it, holding on tight. “That’s a lot of name for such a little guy,” he noted.
“You don’t mind the ‘Lukas’ part?”
“Why would I mind?”
She shrugged. “I wanted him to have a small part of the man who helped bring him into the world. I know we probably won’t ever see you again after we leave Pinehurst, but I don’t want to forget—and I don’t want Caden to forget—everything you’ve done.”
“You’re not planning to go anywhere just yet, are you?”
“Not just yet,” she assured him. “But I figured you’d want to get us out of here as soon as the roads are clear.”
Of course, she couldn’t go anywhere until her car was pulled out of the ditch and any necessary repairs were made, but she didn’t expect her Good Samaritan to put them up for the duration.
He shrugged. “As you noted, it’s a big house for one person and two pets.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what he was suggesting. Was he really offering to let them stay with him? And even if he was, she could hardly stay in the home of a man she’d just met. No matter that she already felt more comfortable with him than with the man she’d planned to marry.
Before she could ask, she heard the sound of footsteps stomping on the porch. Despite the fact that the roads were still closed, Lukas didn’t seem at all surprised to have a visitor—or that the visitor, after a brisk knock, proceeded to open the door and walk right into the house.
Einstein had been released from the laundry room and cautiously introduced to the baby. Since then, he hadn’t left Julie’s side. But he obviously heard the stomping, too, because he raced across the room and down the hall to the foyer, barking and dancing the whole way.
The sharp barks startled the baby, and Caden responded with an indignant wail of his own. Julie murmured reassuringly and snuggled him closer to her chest, and by the time the visitor had made his way down the hall to the family room, he was settled again.
“This is a friend of mine,” Lukas told her, gesturing to the tall, dark-haired man beside him. “Cameron Turcotte.” Then to Cameron he said, “This is Julie Marlowe and Caden.”
“Are the roads clear now?” Julie asked him. She assumed that they must be if he was able to get through, although she couldn’t begin to fathom why he would have chosen to visit a friend in the middle of a snowstorm.
“The plows are out in full force, but it’s going to take a while,” he told her. “Main Street is technically still shut down, but I knew the officer posted at the barricade and told him that I had to get through to deal with a medical emergency.”
“Are you a doctor, too?” Julie asked him.
Cameron’s brows lifted. “Too?”
“Yolanda wanted to reassure Julie that she was in capable hands with Doctor Garrett,” Lukas told his friend.
The other man chuckled.
“Why do I feel as if I’m missing something?” Julie asked warily.
“The only thing that matters is that you and your baby are okay,” Cameron said. “And since I was on my way home from the hospital, Luke asked if I could stop by to check on both of you. With your permission, of course.”
She looked questioningly at Lukas. “I don’t understand. You said everything was okay. Is something—”
“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, answering her question before she could finish asking it. “But you may have misunderstood my qualifications.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m a DVM, not an MD,” he told her.
It only took her a few seconds to decipher the acronym, and when she did, her jaw dropped.
“My baby was delivered by a vet?”
Lukas nodded.
Julie was stunned.
And mortified.
Dr. Garrett wasn’t a qualified medical doctor—he was an animal doctor.
She drew in a deep breath and tried to accept the reality of the situation. And the truth was, neither of them had had any other choice. She’d been stranded in his house in a blizzard with no one else around to help. Her options had been simple: accept his assistance or try to deliver her baby on her own. And, in his defense, he hadn’t claimed to be a doctor—it was the 911 operator who had offered that information.
And she’d grasped at it with both hands. It wasn’t how she’d wanted to deliver her baby but knowing that she had no chance of getting to a hospital, she’d considered herself lucky that her car had gone into the ditch by a doctor’s house. Proving once again that she had a tendency to see what she wanted to see.
“I didn’t intend to deceive you,” Lukas said to her now. “But you seemed to find comfort in believing that I was a medical doctor, and I didn’t want to cause you undue stress by correcting that impression.”
And she’d willingly stripped out of her clothes because a doctor—especially an obstetrician—was accustomed to his patients doing that. Glancing at the veterinarian who had delivered her baby, she didn’t doubt that he was accustomed to women stripping for him, too, although probably not in a clinical setting.
“So.” She cleared her throat. “How many babies have you delivered?”
“One,” he admitted.
“And it looks to me like he did a pretty good job for a first-timer,” Cameron—Doctor Turcotte—commented.
“But I think we’d both feel better if Cameron checked Caden over, just to make sure I didn’t miscount his toes or something.”
She could smile at that, because she’d already counted his fingers and toes herself.
“And you might want some numbers—weight and length, for example—to put in his baby book,” Cameron said.
“I guess ‘tiny’ is somewhat vague,” she admitted, relinquishing the swaddled infant to the doctor.
He measured Caden’s length and the circumference of his head, then he used a kitchen scale to weigh the baby.
“Not as tiny as I thought,” he said, handing the infant back to his mother. “Just about seven and a half pounds and twenty inches. A pretty good size for thirty-eight weeks. You obviously took good care of yourself throughout your pregnancy.”
“I tried to exercise regularly and eat healthy,” she said, then felt compelled to confess, “but I sometimes gave in to insatiable cravings for French fries and gravy.”
“Well, I don’t think those French fries and gravy did any harm to you or your baby,” Cameron assured her.
He opened a backpack she hadn’t seen him carry in. “Newborn diapers and wipes,” he said, pulling out a bunch of sample packs. “Some receiving blankets and baby gowns.”
“Thank you,” Julie said. “I’ve got a few outfits and sleepers in the trunk of my car, just because I wandered through a baby store the other day, but I didn’t think I’d be needing diapers just yet.”
“Well, there should be enough here to hold you for a couple of days, until you can get out—or send Luke out—to stock up on supplies.” Then he said to his friend, “You did a good job—for someone who doesn’t specialize in obstetrics.”
Lukas narrowed his gaze in response to Cameron’s grin, but he only said, “Julie did all the work.”
“Knowing you, I don’t doubt that’s true,” the doctor teased. “Now I’m going to get home to my wife and kids, while I still can. If the storm doesn’t blow over, you might be snowed in for the whole weekend,” he warned Julie. “But if you have any questions or concerns, please call.”
* * *
“I’m sorry.”
They were Luke’s first words to Julie when he returned to the family room after seeing Cameron to the door.
“I’m not,” she told him. “I’m grateful.”
He sat down across from her. “You’re not even a little bit mad?”
She shook her head. “I’m a little embarrassed. Okay, more than a little,” she admitted. “But the truth is, I couldn’t have done it without out you.”
“It was an incredible experience for me, too.”
“Could you do one more thing for me, though?”
“What’s that?”
“Not tell anyone that you got me naked within an hour of meeting me.”
“Not even my brothers?”
“No one,” she said firmly.
He chuckled. “Okay, I won’t tell anyone. But speaking of telling—was there anyone you wanted to call? Or have you already posted newborn photos from your phone on Facebook or Twitter?”
She shook her head. “I don’t do the social media thing.”
His brows lifted. “Do you do the telephone thing?”
“Of course, but I don’t think any of my friends or family is expecting to hear any news about a baby just yet.”
“He’s only a couple weeks ahead of his due date,” Lukas reminded her.
Which was true. It was also true that no one was expecting any birth announcement because no one had known that she was pregnant. Not even her parents, because it wasn’t the type of news Julie wanted to tell them over the phone. She’d wanted to talk to her mother in person, to share her joy—and her fears—with the one person she was sure would understand everything she was feeling. But she’d been traveling for work for the past seven months and hadn’t had a chance to go home. In fact, no one aside from her boss at The Grayson Gallery knew, and it wasn’t Evangeline’s voice that Julie wanted to hear right now—it was her mother’s.
But more than she wanted to hear Lucinda’s voice, she wanted to see her, to feel the warmth of her arms around her. Julie wondered at the irony of the realization that never had she more craved the comfort of her own mother than after becoming a mother herself.
“I guess I need to figure out a way to get home.”
“You’re not going anywhere until this storm passes,” Lukas pointed out to her.
Watching the snow swirl outside the window, she couldn’t dispute the point.
She’d hoped to be home before the weekend. She’d only taken this detour through Pinehurst to discuss some issues with the lawyer her brother had recommended. Of course, she hadn’t admitted to Daniel that she was the one in need of legal advice, because he would have demanded to know what the issues were and insisted that he could handle whatever needed to be handled.
Instead, she’d told him that she had a friend in New York State—because she hadn’t been too far away at the time and heading in that direction, suddenly aware that she couldn’t go home until she had answers to some of the questions that had plagued her over the past several months—who was looking for a family law attorney and wondered if he had any contacts in the area.
“I guess you’re stuck with us for a little bit longer, then,” Julie finally said to Lukas.
“It’s a big enough house that we won’t be tripping over one another,” he assured her.
“When the snow stops, I’ll have my car towed and make arrangements for someone to come and get me.”
“I already called Bruce Conacher—he owns the local garage and offers roadside assistance—to tell him that your car was in the ditch. He’s put you on the list but warned me that there are at least a dozen vehicles ahead of yours.”
“I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse—knowing that I wasn’t the only one who slid off the road in that storm.”
“You definitely weren’t the only one,” he assured her. “And I’m sure there will be more before the night is over. But on the bright side, the storm hasn’t knocked out the power lines.”
She shuddered at the thought.
“It’s past dinnertime,” he pointed out. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” she admitted.
“How does soup and a grilled cheese sandwich sound?”
“It sounds wonderful,” she said.
Luke headed back to the kitchen where he’d left the soup simmering. He ladled it into bowls, then flipped the grilled cheese out of the frying pan and onto the cutting board. He sliced each sandwich neatly in half, then transferred them to the plates he had ready. He carried the soup and sandwiches to the table, then went to the drawer for cutlery.
“It smells delicious,” Julie said, coming into the room with Caden carefully tucked in the crook of one arm.
“Of course it does—you’re starving,” he reminded her.
She smiled at that, drawing his attention to the sweet curve of her lips.
He felt his blood pulse in his veins and silently cursed his body for suddenly waking up at the most inappropriate time. Because yes, he was in the company of a beautiful woman, but that beautiful woman had just given birth. Not to mention the fact that she was in his home only because there was a blizzard raging outside. There were a lot of reasons his libido should be in deep hibernation, a lot of reasons that feeling any hint of attraction to Julie Marlowe was wrong.
But after six months of self-imposed celibacy, his hormones apparently didn’t care to be reasoned with. Not that he’d made a conscious decision to give up sex—he just hadn’t met anyone that he wanted to be with. At least not longer than one night, and he was tired of that scene. He was looking for more than a casual hookup.
He could blame his brothers for that. Until recently, he hadn’t wanted anything more than the casual relationships he’d always enjoyed with amiable members of the opposite sex. And then he’d started spending time with Matt and Georgia, and Jack and Kelly, and he’d realized that he envied what each of them had found. He’d even had moments when he found himself thinking that he’d like to share his life with someone who mattered, someone who would be there through the trials and tribulations.
But he figured those moments were just a phase. And the unexpected feelings stirred up by Julie Marlowe had to be another anomaly.
She was simply a stranger who had been stranded in a snowstorm. He’d opened up his home to her because it was what anyone would have done. And he’d helped deliver her baby because circumstances had given him no choice. The fact that his body was suddenly noticing that the new mom was, in fact, a very hot mama, only proved to Luke that no good deed went unpunished.
She moved toward the closest chair, and he pulled it away from the table for her. As she lowered herself onto the seat, he caught just a glimpse of shadowy cleavage in the deep V of the robe she wore before the lights flickered. Once. Twice.
Then everything went dark.
* * *
He heard Julie suck in a breath. Einstein, who had positioned himself at his master’s feet as he was in the habit of doing whenever there was food in the vicinity, whimpered. Beyond that, there was no sound.
No hum of the refrigerator, no low rumbling drone of the furnace. Nothing.
And the silence was almost as unnerving as the darkness.
“So much for the power holding out,” he commented, deliberately keeping his tone casual.
Thankfully, he had an emergency flashlight plugged into one of the outlets in the hall. It ran on rechargeable batteries and automatically turned on when the power went out, so the house wasn’t completely pitch black. But it was pretty close.
While he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he reached for Julie’s free hand, found it curled into a fist on top of the table. He covered it with his own, squeezed gently.
He heard the distant howl of the wind outside, a sound even more ominous than the silence. Julie heard it, too, and shivered.
“I’ve got some candles by the stove,” he told her. “I’m just going to get them so we can find our food.”
He found half a dozen utility candles in the drawer, set a couple of them in their metal cups on the counter and lit the wicks. The scratch of the head against the rough paper was loud in a room suddenly void of all other sound. He lit a couple more and carried them to the table.
They were purely functional—a little bit of illumination so that they could see what they were eating. And yet, there was something about dining over candlelight—even if the meal was nothing more than soup and sandwiches and the lighting was necessity rather than mood—that infused the scene with a romantic ambiance he did not want to be feeling. But somehow the simple dishes and everyday glassware looked elegant in candlelight. And when he glanced across the table, he couldn’t help but notice that Julie looked even more beautiful.
“Dig in before it gets cold,” he advised.
She dipped her spoon into the bowl, and brought it up to her mouth. Before her lips parted to sample the soup, they curved upward and her gaze shifted to him. “Chicken and Stars?”
“So?” he said, just a little defensively.
“So it’s an unusual choice for a grown man,” she said.
“It’s my niece’s favorite.”
“How old is your niece?”
“I have two nieces,” he told her. “Two nieces and two nephews. Matt’s daughter, Pippa, is only a baby. Jack’s daughter, Ava, is twelve going on twenty.”
Her brows drew together, creating a slight furrow between them. “Is Jack short for Jackson?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Why?”
“Your brother is Jackson Garrett?”
Now it was his turn to frown. “You know Jack?”
“Actually, he’s the reason I came to Pinehurst,” she admitted.
Luke carefully set his spoon down in his bowl, the few mouthfuls he’d consumed settling like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach. “Please tell me that he isn’t the father of your baby.”
Chapter Four
“What?” Julie lifted her head to look at him, her blue-gray eyes wide. “No. Oh, my God, no! I’ve never even met the man.”
Luke exhaled a long, slow breath. “Okay,” he finally said. “So why were you coming to Pinehurst for a man you’ve never met?”
“Because my brother, Daniel, knows him. They went to law school together.” She picked up half of her sandwich, nibbled on the corner. “Why would you ask if your brother was the father of my baby?”
“Because it was only a few months ago that I found out Ava—the niece who likes Chicken and Stars soup—was Jack’s daughter.”
“She’s twelve and you only met her a few months ago?”
“No—I’ve actually known her since she was a baby,” he clarified. “But I didn’t know that my brother was her father.”
“I’m having a little trouble following,” she admitted.
“Ava’s mother, Kelly, was one of my best friends growing up. When she was in college, she had a fling with some guy and got pregnant, but she never told me who that guy was.”
Julie’s gaze dropped to her bowl again. “She must have had her reasons.”
“She had reasons,” he acknowledged. “But I’m not sure anything can justify that kind of deception.”
“Is your brother still as upset about it as you are?”
His smile was wry. “Is it that obvious?”
“There was a bit of an edge to your tone.”
“I was—maybe still am—upset,” he admitted. “I was the first person she told when she found out she was pregnant, because I was her best friend. When Ava was born, Kelly asked me to be the godfather, but she never told me that her baby was actually my niece.”
“And you didn’t even suspect the connection?”
“No, I didn’t suspect anything. Because I didn’t know that Jack and Kelly had been involved, however briefly.”
“So why didn’t your brother guess that the child she was carrying might be his?”
“Because he didn’t know she was pregnant. Kelly made me promise not to tell anyone,” he confided. “I thought she’d met someone when she was away to school, fallen for the wrong guy and ended up pregnant. So I promised, because I never suspected that her baby was my brother’s baby.”
“Why didn’t she tell him that she was pregnant?” Julie asked curiously.
“I guess she was planning to tell him, but by the time she knew about the baby, he was engaged to someone else.”
She winced. “That would hurt.”
“Yeah.” He could acknowledge that fact without accepting it as justification.
“How did his wife react to the news that he had a child with someone else?”
“She never knew. They were divorced more than five years ago,” he told her. “And now Jack and Kelly are engaged.”
“Apparently your brother has forgiven her for keeping their child a secret.”
“It took him a while, but he did. And Ava is thrilled that she’s finally going to have a mother and a father.”
“In a perfect world, every child would have two parents who loved him or her and one another,” she said.
Which told him absolutely nothing about her situation. Where was Caden’s father? Was he part of their lives? Luke didn’t think so, considering that she hadn’t wanted to contact anyone to let them know that she was in labor, or even later to share the news that she’d had her baby.
“I feel fortunate that I grew up in that kind of home,” he said, in the hope that offering information to Julie would encourage her to reciprocate.
But all she said was, “That is lucky.”
And then, in what seemed an obvious attempt to change the topic of conversation, “How long do you think the power will be out?”
Or maybe she was genuinely worried. He heard the concern in her voice and wished he could reassure her, but he didn’t want to give her false hope. “I don’t know. I think it depends on what caused the outage.”
“So it could be a while,” she acknowledged.
“It could,” he agreed. “But we’ve got the fireplace and lots of blankets, candles and flashlights, and a pantry full of canned goods. I promise—you might be bored, but you won’t freeze, get lost in the halls or starve.”
Her lips curved. “If nothing else, today has proven to me that there’s no point in worrying about things I can’t control.”
He could tell that she was trying to stay upbeat, but he didn’t blame her for being concerned. She was a first-time mother with a brand-new baby, trapped in a stranger’s house without any power in the middle of a snowstorm.
“Speaking of starving,” she said. “I think this little guy’s getting hungry.”
By the flickering light of the candles, he could see that the baby was opening and closing his mouth and starting to squirm a little despite being snugly swaddled in one of the receiving blankets Cameron had brought from the hospital.
“Just hold on a second,” Luke said, and went down the hall to retrieve the emergency flashlight.
He came back with the light and guided Julie the short distance back to the family room.
“While you’re taking care of Caden, I’ll get some blankets and pillows,” he told her.
“Okay.”
It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to gather what they would need, but he took some time to putter around upstairs, giving the new mom time to finish feeding her baby. He didn’t know a lot about the nursing process. Matt’s wife, Georgia, had only recently weaned Pippa, and while she’d been pretty casual about the whole thing, Lukas had always averted his gaze if he was around when she was breastfeeding the baby. Not that he was uncomfortable with the act of a mother nursing her child—he just didn’t think he should be looking at his brother’s wife’s breasts.
Of course, the whole train of thought was one that should definitely—and quickly—be derailed. Because now he was thinking about Julie’s breasts. And since there was no family connection between them, and therefore no intrinsic moral conflict, he couldn’t seem to shift his thoughts in a different direction.
He changed out of his jeans and shirt and into a pair of pajama pants and a long-sleeved thermal shirt. Bedtime usually meant just stripping down to his boxers and crawling beneath the sheets of his king-size bed, but he didn’t want to be too far away from Julie and Caden in case either of them needed anything through the night. Not to mention that it would probably get a little chilly in his bedroom if the power stayed out through the night.
He remembered that Julie was still wearing the robe he’d given to her earlier, and while it had served the purpose of providing some cover during the childbirth process, he didn’t think she would be very comfortable sleeping in it. He rummaged through his drawers until he found a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring waist and a flannel shirt with buttons that ran all the way down the front so that it would be easier for her to—
Trying not to think about that, he reminded himself sternly.
Instead, he turned his attention to the storm. He could hear the wind howling outside and the brush of icy snowflakes battering against the windows. If it didn’t stop snowing soon, it would take him forever to clear his driveway. And if the power stayed out, it would take even longer because his snowblower required an electric start.
The starter on the gas fireplace was electric, too, so he was grateful he’d turned it on when they’d first come in from the storm. The fire would keep the family room toasty warm, which wouldn’t just make it more comfortable to sleep through the night but was absolutely essential for the newborn.
He gathered up the clothes for Julie—adding a thick pair of socks to the pile—and the blankets and pillows and carted everything down the stairs. Having lived in this house his whole life, he wasn’t worried about missing a step or bumping into a wall, but he was worried about Einstein getting tangled up in his feet. However, the dog was conspicuously absent as Luke made his way down the stairs, causing him to wonder where the pint-size canine had disappeared to and what mischief he might be getting into.
He found the puppy curled up beside the sofa, close to Julie and Caden.
She was obviously exhausted after her busy—and traumatic—day, and she’d fallen asleep with the baby still nursing. The sight caused an unmistakable stirring in his groin, and Luke chastised himself for the inappropriate reaction. She was a stranger, in his home and at his mercy because of the storm. She’d just given birth to a baby, and he was ogling her as if she was a centerfold.
Except that he had never seen anything as beautiful as the sight of the baby’s tiny mouth suckling at his mother’s breast. The tiny knitted cap that Cameron had brought from the hospital had fallen off Caden’s head, revealing the wisps of soft dark hair that covered his scalp. His tiny little hand was curled into a fist and resting against his mother’s pale, smooth skin.
Luke tiptoed closer to set the bundle of clothes beside her on the couch. As he neared, Einstein lifted his head, his tail thumping quietly against the floor.
“Good boy,” he whispered, patting the dog’s head.
Then he unfolded one of the blankets and gently laid it over the lower half of her body, careful not to cover the baby. The little guy looked up at him, those big blue eyes wide and completely unconcerned. His mother didn’t even stir.
Luke took another blanket and a pillow for himself and settled into a chair nearby, prepared for a very long night.
* * *
When Julie awoke in the morning, she found the bundle of clothes Lukas had left for her on the sofa. Though she had more than a few changes of clothes in the suitcases in the trunk of her car, she didn’t want to trudge through the snow to retrieve them while wearing nothing more than her host’s robe, so she gratefully donned the borrowed shirt and sweats. He’d also put a few toiletries out on the counter of the powder room: hairbrush, new toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, all of which she put to good use.
Her first clue that the power had been restored was that the light in the powder room came on when she automatically hit the switch. Her second was the tantalizing aroma of bacon that wafted from the kitchen as she made her way down the hall. Though her grumbling stomach urged her to follow the scent, she knew she needed to take care of her baby’s hunger first. Because she had no doubt that Caden would be hungry, too.
She’d lost count of how many times he’d woken her in the night, his avid little mouth instinctively seeking her breast and the sustenance it provided. And while he never seemed to nurse for extended periods of time, he nursed frequently. The books she’d read offered reassurance that this was normal, but reading about it and living it were two entirely different scenarios. She understood now why new mothers were always exhausted—feeding a newborn was pretty much a full-time job.
Of course, she also realized that she wasn’t really feeding him yet, and that the frequent nursing sessions were necessary to help her milk come in. Throughout her pregnancy, she’d gone back and forth on the breast versus bottle issue but, in the end, she was persuaded by all the benefits found in breast milk—not to mention the simplicity of the method.
“Something smells delicious,” she told Lukas when she finally made her way into the kitchen.
“Hopefully better than the bread and jam you would have got if the power had still been out,” he told her.
“Right now, even that sounds good,” she told him.
“How do bacon, eggs and toast sound?”
“Even better.”
“How are you doing this morning?”
“I’m a little sore,” she admitted. “And tired.”
“I don’t imagine you got much sleep with Caden waking you up every couple of hours.”
She winced at that. “Obviously he woke you up, too.”
He shrugged. “I’m a light sleeper. Thankfully, I don’t need a lot of sleep, so I feel pretty good. Of course, being able to make my morning pot of coffee helped a little.”
“I gave up coffee six months ago,” she admitted, just a little wistfully.
“So what can I get for you?” Lukas asked. “Juice? Milk?”
“Juice is great,” she said, noting that there were already two glasses poured and at the table.
He gestured for her to help herself, then pointed to the carton of eggs on the counter. “Scrambled or fried?”
“Whichever is easier.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“I like both,” she assured him.
He shook his head as he cracked eggs into a bowl. “You’re a pleaser, aren’t you? The type of person who says yes even when she wants to say no, who goes out of her way to avoid conflicts or disagreements.”
She laughed. “No one’s ever accused me of that before,” she told him. “But I do try not to be difficult—at least not until I’ve known someone more than twenty-four hours.”
“So how do you like your eggs?” he prompted.
“Benedict,” she told him.
He chuckled. “Okay. But since I don’t have hollandaise sauce, what’s your second choice?”
“Scrambled,” she decided.
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” He added a splash of milk to the bowl, then a sprinkle of salt and pepper and began to whisk the eggs.
“I’ll let you know after I’ve tried the eggs.”
He grinned as he poured the mixture into the frying pan. “My brother and sister-in-law are going to stop by later today, as soon as Matt finishes clearing his driveway.”
She moved closer to the window. “I can’t believe it’s still snowing out there.”
“It’s just light flurries now,” he noted. “Nothing like what we had yesterday.”
“Everything looks so pretty, covered in a pristine blanket of snow.”
“Take a look out the back,” he suggested. “It’s not quite so pristine out there.”
She carried Caden to the window at the back of the room, noted that the snow there had been thoroughly—almost desperately—trampled. And then she spotted the culprit. Einstein, Lukas’s puppy, was racing around as if being chased by the hounds of hell. He had his nose down and was using it like a shovel to tunnel through the cold white stuff and then, when he’d pushed enough to form a mound, he’d attack it.
She chuckled. “What is he doing?”
“I have no idea,” Lukas admitted. “He has no idea.”
“It’s his first snow,” she guessed.
“Yeah. He’s been out there for half an hour and every few minutes, he spins in a circle and barks at it.”
“Pets are a lot like kids, aren’t they?” she mused. “They give you a fresh perspective on things we so often take for granted.”
“Some of them,” he agreed. “Daphne’s perspective is neither sociable nor very sunny.”
She laughed again. “Considering I haven’t seen more of her than a flick of her tail, I can’t disagree with that.”
“She ventured downstairs last night to sleep by the fire, but I’m sure it wasn’t for company but only warmth.”
“It was warm,” Julie agreed. “I even threw the blanket off a couple of times in the night.”
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