Kate Fortune’s Journal Entry Letter to Reader Title Page Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Teaser chapter Copyright

Kate Fortune’s Journal Entry

I couldn’t be happier about Kelly and Mac’s wedding! Thank goodness Mac knows the meaning of family honor and doing the right thing, especially since Kelly Sinclair had always been more like a daughter to me than an employee. Mac knows how worried I’ve been about Kelly once I learned how his brother Chad took advantage of her trusting innocence and ran off, leaving her pregnant and unwed! I’m just so proud of the way Mac’s taken charge of this awful situation, and I know he’s going to make Kelly a wonderful husband.

It’s been such fun helping these two dears plan their wedding. Oh, I know they’re not in love now! But I think Kelly’s about to show Mac exactly what’s missing in his life.... And I can hardly wait to see what this new year holds for them and the rest of my precious family!

Dear Reader,

Welcome to a new year with Silhouette Desire! We begin the year in celebration—it’s the 10th Anniversary of MAN OF THE MONTH! And kicking off the festivities is the incomparable Diana Palmer, with January’s irresistible hero, Simon Hart, in Beloved.

Also launching this month is Desire’s series FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE BRIDES. So many of you wrote to us that you loved Silhouette’s series FORTUNE’S CHILDREN—now here’s a whole new branch of the family! Awardwinning author Jennifer Greene inaugurates this series with The Honor Bound Groom.

Popular Anne Marie Winston begins BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES, a new miniseries about three small-town friends who find true love, with The Baby Consultant. Sara Orwig offers us a marriage of convenience in The Cowboy’s Seductive Propasal. Next, experience love on a ranch in Hart’s Baby by Christy Lockhart. And opposites attract in The Scandalous Heiress by Kathryn Taylor.

So, indulge yourself in 1999 with Silhouette Desire—powerful, provocative and passionate love stories that speak to today’s multifaceted woman. Each month we offer you six compelling romances to meet your many moods, with heroines you’ll care about and heroes to die for. Silhouette Desire is everything you desire in a romance novel.

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Honor Bound Groom

Jennifer Greene

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to

Jennifer Greene for her contribution to the

Fortune’s Children miniseries.

JENNIFER GREENE

lives near Lake Michigan with her husband and two children. Before writing full-time, she worked as a teacher and a personnel manager. Michigan State University honored her as an “outstanding woman graduate” for her work with women on campus.

Ms. Greene has written more than fifty category romances, for which she has won numerous awards, including three RITA Awards from the Romance Writers of America in the Best Short Contemporary Books category, and she entered RWA’s Hall of Fame in 1998. She is also the recipient of a Career Achievement award from Romantic Times Magazine.

Meet the Fortunes—three generations of a family with a legacy of wealth, influence and power As they gather for a host of weddings, shocking family secrets are revealed...and passionate new romances are ignited

KELLY SINCLAIR: This sweet, single woman trusted the wrong man, but she’s determined to do anything to protect the littlest Fortune—even if it means marrying the baby’s uncle!

MAC FORTUNE: The brooding CEO thought he knew all about being responsible and acting honorably when he proposed a marriage-in-name-only to pregnant Kelly Sinclair. Until she and precious Annie moved into his home, and suddenly, keeping them at arm’s length became physically—and emotionally—impossible....

ANNIE FORTUNE: This adorable baby may be the youngest Fortune, but she’s a heartbreaker-in-waiting for the next generation.

KATE FORTUNE: She’s just celebrated her eightieth birthday, but the family matriarch is still going strong, rejuvenated by all the lovely newcomers to the Fortune family!

One

The wedding was a mistake. Getting married had seemed an outstanding idea to Kelly Sinclair two weeks ago, last week and even when she’d woken up this morning. But that was then and this was now. At this precise moment, Kelly realized—with a flash of brilliant clarity—that she’d have to be bonkers to go through with this.

The creamy gardenias clutched in her hands started trembling and wouldn’t quit. Anxiety sloshed in her stomach in sick, dread-filled waves. Maybe most brides suffered some nerves on their wedding day, but the average, normal bride wasn’t seven months pregnant. She not only felt scared, but she also felt ugly, fat and scared—a lethal combination. To add insult to injury, her pregnant condition made a swift escape an especially challenging problem. Her fastest speed was a waddle. A duck could probably beat her in a sprint.

She tested her memory for any time in her life when she might have been this petrified—but no. There was nothing to compare to this level of terror. At twenty-seven, Kelly had certainly been hurt before. She’d been frightened before. But she’d never been in a situation where she felt this hopelessly, helplessly trapped. Panic was swimming in her pulse.

The door to the bathroom whooshed open. Kate Fortune, the seventy-year-old matriarch of the Fortune Cosmetics empire, poked her head in and then marched straight toward the bride. With slim, competent hands, she gently tugged the pearl-seed veil resting on Kelly’s blond curls a little down to the left. “Everyone’s seated. I told them to start the wedding march in two minutes. And I thought you might need some last-minute help, but I can see you’re all ready. And you look absolutely breathtaking, sweetheart.”

Kelly met the older woman’s eyes in the vanity mirror. “I look like a watermelon stuck on a toothpick.”

“You sure do—and I’m so jealous. There’s nothing like a pregnancy to give a woman a special radiance, and you’ve got it in spades.” Just as Kate stepped back to give her one last critical look-over, the door whooshed open again.

Mollie Shaw charged in with a brilliant smile, her long red hair swinging halfway down her back. “There’s our bride! I figured you’d be having some last-minute jitters and wanted to tell you that everything’s ready, nothing to worry about Hi, Ms. Fortune—man, do I love that smoky blue dress. It’s so elegant, looks wonderful on you. And, Kel, you couldn’t possibly be more gorgeous....”

Mollie gently tugged Kelly’s veil just a little down on the right. “...and now you’re perfect. The music’s going to start in just a minute or so. Remember what I told you about taking three deep breaths?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’m going back out—but you know I’ll be around to help during the reception. Everything’s going to be fine, sweetie. Trust me.”

Nothing was going to be fine. But Mollie had already charged back out the door before Kelly could get a word in—much less find the courage to announce her escape plans and that the whole deal was off.

“That girl’s face is so familiar,” Kate said absently.

The comment confused Kelly enough to distract her—at least for a second. “Well, sure she’s familiar—you know Mollie, Kate—”

“Yes, and she’s been a godsend. Lucky for all of us that your friend was already in the wedding planner business. As young as she is, she’s really a dynamo. I don’t know how we could have put all this together in two short weeks without her. It’s not that. It’s just that her red hair and green eyes are so distinctive, and every time I see her face I think I should recognize her from somewhere else, but I just can’t place it. Well...it certainly doesn’t matter now. Especially when we’ve only got a few more seconds, and there’s something I really want to tell you.”

Kate fixed the veil one more time. Her way. If she noticed the bride’s crepe white pallor or the frantic alarm in her eyes, she never let on. “Kelly...I’m so honored that you’re letting me be the one to give you away. I’m sorry your mom isn’t still alive to be part of this—she’d be so proud. But I want you to know, I couldn’t care more if you were my own daughter.”

Well, spit. Her conscience was already suffering from muck-deep guilt, and Kate’s words only made her feel worse. She had to tell Kate that her mind was made up; the wedding was off—there was no way she could possibly go through with it. But somehow she couldn’t get the words said.

Kate had done so much for her. Four years ago when Kate had plucked her from the pool of clerks and given her the job as her personal social secretary, Kelly’s whole life had irrevocably changed. Most people found her boss to be irascible and ruthless and domineering. She was all those things—even to her family—but never to Kelly. Their working relationship had long turned personal. Kate was the one who had picked out the cream satin wedding dress with the pearl-studded collar and cuffs. The simple style with the subtly draping pleats almost hid her beachedwhale-size tummy, and heaven knew it was the most glamorous, gorgeous dress she’d ever owned. And it wasn’t just the blasted dress. Kate had paid for the wedding, the clothes, everything, even made all the arrangements to have the ceremony at the Fortune company headquarters—probably the one place on earth where they could control security and be completely protected from the media.

Kate had private reasons for wanting this wedding to happen. Kelly realized that, but it didn’t make her debt of gratitude any less. She’d still been treated like a daughter. “Kate, I had no idea that you were going to go to so much trouble and expense—”

“Nonsense. Your friend Mollie did all the legwork. I just helped with a bit of the organizing. It was a joy to arrange, no trouble at all.”

Kelly knew better. She’d never asked for any of it, but every detail from the out-of-season gardenias to the designer dress to the champagne reception was a measure of how much trouble her boss had gone to. She also hadn’t realized how much Mollie and Kate had conspired behind her back until everything was already done. Another layer of guilt troweled on her conscience. They’d both been so wonderful to her. She really didn’t want to show her ingratitude by hightailing it for the front door at a wallowing gallop, but there was only one word screaming in her mind. Escape.

Abruptly she heard the first strains of the wedding march. Adrenaline bolted through her bloodstream, and a lump clogged her throat bigger than the Rock of Gibraltar. She couldn’t go through with this. She just couldn’t.

“There now.” Kate also heard the music and firmly, securely, tucked her arm in hers. “Here we go...just think calm and put a smile on, and don’t worry about a thing. Everything’s going to work out.”

Nothing was going to work out, but it seemed like only a millisecond passed before Kate had effectively herded her the few steps across the hall to the long, tall set of double mahogany doors. She could see Sterling, Kate’s husband, waiting just inside. And Renee Riley, her maid of honor, shot her a wink, before starting her walk-down-the-aisle thing. Kate’s grip never loosened when Kelly cast a swift, frantic glance over her shoulder.

The exit wasn’t visible from here, but she glimpsed the lobby windows. Outside, holiday decorations still wreathed the streetlights and snow was clearly pelting down in a stinging fury. Not untypical of a New Year’s Eve in Minnesota, the winter wind was howling like a banshee. The snowstorm had been building momentum since midafternoon, as if the weather gods had figured out her state of mind and were sending an omen. This was a bad idea. A disastrous idea.

In fact, she made a prompt New Year’s resolution to never again get married for as long as she lived.

But in those teensy milliseconds, Kate had propelled her to the middle of those open doors, in full view of the guests. The place wasn’t recognizable as a conference room. In one sweeping glance, Kelly saw the red velvet carpet, the satin ribbons draping the chairs, the dais at the front of the room transformed with pots and sprays of fragrant gardenias and baby’s breath and heart-red roses. She also saw the guests all rising in traditional respect for the bride and thought: they weren’t gonna like it when she cut and run.

The minister smiled reassuringly at her from the front of the room. She thought: his smile was gonna disappear fast when the bride hiked up her skirts and took a fast powder.

The gathering only seemed crowded because every chair was filled, the room stuffed with people, yet the guests couldn’t number much over thirty. She knew every face. They were either Fortunes or related kin—none of her own family, because she had none...not anymore—but God knew the Fortunes had taken her in as if she were part of their clan. Everyone knew when and how she’d gotten into trouble. Everyone had gone out of their way to stand by her, and their choosing to attend the wedding was another measure of that support.

An already catastrophic situation just kept getting worse. Undoubtedly they were expecting to attend the usual nice, peaceful, happy ceremony. Instead all they were going to get was a mortified bride running helter-skelter into a snowstorm. In cream satin shoes and no coat.

Kate gripped her arm more securely, urging her forward, yet her hold was never really that tight. Kelly knew she could shake free. It was just a matter of picking her moment. This marriage wasn’t just a mistake. It was a mistake the size of an earthquake. Maybe she’d have to leave the country under an assumed name to live this down, but she simply couldn’t go through with it.

But then this strange thing happened.

It wasn’t as if the minister or Kate’s grip or the whole sea of faces instantly disappeared...but her gaze suddenly locked on the groom.

Mackenzie Fortune.

Mac.

His shoulders looked beam-broad in the black tux, his height towering, his thick hair darker than charcoal and shot with silver at the sideburns. Black suited him, the same way it would suit a pirate. His angular face was set with strong bones and an elegant mouth and a no-nonsense square chin.

Nobody messed with Mac. The lean, mean build had nothing to do with it. He was a business man, not a pirate dependent on brawn to get his way. She’d never heard him raise his voice, never seen him angry, but he had a way of silencing a whole room when he strode in. Those shrewd, deep-set green eyes could cut through chatter faster than a blade. The life lines bracketing his eyes and mouth reflected an uncompromising nature, a man who loved a challenge and never backed down from a fight. Mac was a hunk, but he was also one intimidatingly scary dude—at least for a woman who was uncomfortable around powerful men.

A year before, Kelly had been wildly, blindly, exuberantly in love. The father of her baby had been an incredibly exciting man. A man she believed in heart and soul. A man she would have done anything for, anytime, anywhere, no questions asked—and unfortunately, had.

Mac wasn’t the man she’d been in love with.

He wasn’t the father of her baby.

He was just the groom.

But his gaze met hers with the directness of a sharp, clear laser beam as if no one else were in that room but the two of them. He didn’t smile—but that look of his immediately affected the panicked beat of her pulse. She was unsure what the dark, fathomless expression in his eyes meant, but that wasn’t news. She was unsure of nearly everything about Mac, but she promptly forgave herself for the wild panic attack. Surely it was understandable. Normally a woman would have to be crazy to marry a relative stranger, but nothing about Kelly’s life right now was normal. For a few moments there, she’d just selfishly forgotten what mattered—and it wasn’t her.

If there was a man on the planet who could protect her baby, it was Mac Fortune.

Nothing else mattered to her or even came close.

She took a breath for courage, plastered on a smile and walked up the aisle to her groom.

At thirty-eight, Mac had no belief in magic, but he’d always felt a certain kinship with Houdini. He understood how much hard work it took to become an accomplished escape artist. For Mac, it had taken ceaseless determination and unfaltering resolve and downright dedication to escape marriage all these years—particularly when the family never stopped hounding him to tie the knot. More than a few women had chased him—most were more interested in a key to the Fortune money than in him personally, but that hadn’t bothered Mac. He had always respected both greed and ambition. He’d enjoyed being chased. Hell, he enjoyed women. He just happened to have a violent allergy to marriage.

Kelly had almost reached the edge of the red velvet carpet when Mac saw her stumble. She didn’t trip, but he could see the stress swimming in her eyes. Without hesitation, he swiftly stepped forward and grabbed her hand. The minister’s brow furrowed in a repressive little frown, silently letting Mac know that he’d broken with protocol in this shindig. Apparently the groom wasn’t supposed to put his mitts on the bride at this point in the proceedings. Reaching out to grab her wasn’t in the program.

Tough. Kelly looked fragile enough to keel over. Ghosts had more color. And judging from the sweat dampening his bride’s shaky palm, she was even less thrilled by this marriage than he was. The humorous thought crossed his mind that at least they had a couple of things in common. Neither wanted this wedding.

And neither had seen any way out of it.

“Dearly beloved,” the minister began in a sonorous drone.

Mac tuned out. Keeping his fingers curled in hers, he mentally calculated how soon they could escape this circus. The ceremony couldn’t take more than fifteen minutes? And then they were on the hook to stick around for the champagne feast Kate had put together. But the blizzard forecast would surely cut this short for everyone. In less than two hours, with any luck, they could be driving home—long before the clock struck midnight and brought in the new year.

He felt eyes on his back. Watching him, studying him. At any wedding, the groom and bride were obviously the focus of attention, but Mac was well aware these circumstances were different. As vice president of Finance for the Fortune Corporation for almost a decade, his job had often been to bail the business—or the family—out of trouble. The clan was long on love and loyalty, but big money still made for big problems and big disagreements as well. If there was a problem that could cause embarrassment, someone had to make the boo-boo disappear. When everyone else was freaked out and wringing their hands, Mac had a long history for taking charge and doing what had to be done.

This time, though, they weren’t so sure of him.

He’d announced two weeks ago that he was going to marry her. It was the first time he’d ever seen the family stunned to silence. Part of that silence was relief—the problem of Kelly was no secret, but no one could agree on solutions. Even for a family who would he, cheat and steal for each other—and sometimes, unfortunately, took loyalty just that far—nobody had considered that marriage was an optional solution for this crisis, much less for Mac. They knew about his allergy. They couldn’t believe he meant it. They still weren’t dead positive he’d go through with it.

Kelly’s hand suddenly squeezed his. He glanced down. For an instant he caught the tiniest hint of humor in her eyes. “The ring,” the minister prompted. From the highpitched crack in Reverend Lowry’s voice, Mac suspected he’d missed his cue at least once.

His cousin Garrett Fortune, thankfully, was prepared to do the best-man job, and quickly palmed him the ring. Mac reached for Kelly’s left hand. The slim gold band was almost microscopic—hardly appropriate for a Fortune bride. But he’d offered Kelly any size carat rock she wanted, and she’d balked. She wanted no jewels and particularly no stones with a Fortune heritage—probably because it was Fortune money that had heaped this whole mess on her head.

Yet as he struggled to fit on the ring, he was suddenly aware of her. Distractingly aware. He’d clasped her hand to offer support, but there was nothing intimate in that simple act of kindness. She was so nervous that her slim white hand was trembling like a leaf in a high wind. But her dress rustled against his thigh. And her scent drifted to his nostrils, some perfume that vaguely reminded him of spring daffodils, illusive and sweet. And he saw a silvery pale curl sneaking down behind the veil, escaping a hairpin, coiling on the pale white column of her neck. Mac wasn’t sure why his pulse suddenly bucked—possibly because it hit him with the slam of a freight train that he didn’t know her. At all.

But the ring stuck on her knuckle, and then he pushed it past.

“With this ring...” The minister said, and then waited.

Kelly nudged him with her foot. “With this ring,” Mac repeated loudly and clearly.

“I thee wed...”

She didn’t have to nudge him this time. “I thee wed.”

“I promise to love, honor and cherish...”

Normally telling lies would have bothered him. But not for this. The integrity of a man was measured in honor—an antiquated value that Mac happened to believe was the judge of a man’s life. But the truth of this moment was between him and Kelly, and a bunch of words said in public had nothing to do with that.

Still, the fibs obviously didn’t come so easily for her. When it was her turn to put a ring on his finger, she fumbled and flustered and almost dropped it. “With this ring,” she started reciting.

Her voice barely managed the volume of a whisper. She had trouble pushing the ring onto his finger, and Mac could sense how uneasy she was about touching him. She couldn’t or wouldn’t meet his eyes when it was done, but again they were close. He could see the sweep of velvet-soft eyelashes shading her cheeks, the faint spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

God, she was young. It wasn’t the age difference between thirty-eight and twenty-seven that separated them half so much as the light-years of experience. In spite of her protruding tummy being obvious proof to the contrary, she still had a look of innocence. There were those freckles. And those shy, sky-soft blue eyes. And that silky fine hair that normally bounced on her shoulders and never looked brushed. She was a half foot shorter than him—squirt size—and her oval face was set with delicate, fine features, but there was nothing elegant or delicate about the way she ran around the company. Hell, he’d heard her giggling in Kate’s office more than once, and she chased around with this radiant, exuberance zest for life that made the sun seem low-voltage by comparison. She was a grown-up, intelligent woman, and she handled a bundle of responsibilities for Kate, but nothing had ever sobered that so-young cheeky smile of hers. Until Chad took off and left her.

Mac mentally damned his younger brother—not for the first time in the last few months. Chad could charm a woman into bed faster than a bee could smell honey. He also had a gift for disappearing from sight whenever there was music to face. Truth to tell, Chad hadn’t known about the pregnancy when he disappeared this time, but he’d paid his way out of a paternity suit before. Maybe if Mac had listened earlier to gossip, he’d have heard about Chad giving Kelly a rush and done something about it—but maybe not. Over the years, he’d tried counseling, tried yelling, tried bailing Chad out of countless scrapes, but nothing seemed to root a sense of responsibility or honor in his younger brother. Initially Mad had tried to locate him when the situation took a serious nose dive, but Chad had cut and run for parts unknown—par for his course. Eventually, he was findable. With enough money, anyone was findable. But the problem of Kelly required immediate action, and Mac had lost all faith that his brother would step up to the plate even if he were in the ball park.

Kelly suddenly raised her eyes and looked at him. She was obviously trying to communicate something, but damned if he could read the message in her eyes. Hell, for a minute he couldn’t even think.

His mind spun back two weeks ago—to the night when she’d been attacked in the parking lot on the way to her car. He’d known she was pregnant long before then. He’d known she was wildly in love with his brother, and that Chad was unquestionably responsible for the pregnancy. And those factors added up to a problem that involved family—but not a problem that directly affected him until that night.

She’d stayed late, finishing up something for Kate—so late the parking lot had been pitch-dark and deserted, so late there were only a handful of people in the whole building when she’d escaped her attacker and raced inside looking for help.

Mac just happened to be the first body she saw, and those moments were still carved in his memory with indelible black ink. He’d known Kelly for years, but their contact had only been peripheral; she was either running around, doing something for Kate or with Kate. They had few reasons to directly cross paths. Recently he’d tried to catch a closer look at her because the family was having such a royal cow about Chad and the pregnancy, but that was tough to do—invariably she skittered around him or ducked from sight. Mac couldn’t do his job, not well, and fuss whether he was winning popularity contests. He was so used to people being uncomfortable around him that Kelly’s response didn’t bother him one way or the other. That night, though, Mac doubted that Kelly knew or cared who he was. He could have been saint or sinner, God or the janitor—it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference to Kelly.

She came chasing through the glass doors of the lobby, running hell-bent for leather. There was a receptionist/ guard at the front desk, but she didn’t even seem to see him. Her hair was all tumbled, no coat even though it was subzero outside; her cheek was scraped, a stocking ripped and her right knee bloody. She was crying and hiccuping and damn near hysterical and she hurled straight for the nearest body with the ballast of a missile. She’d almost knocked him over—and Mac was no powder puff.

Her missing coat was how she’d escaped the son of a bitch. There had been some point in the struggle when the SOB had grabbed her and only got a handful of coat, which enabled her to shimmy loose from the garment and run. Right then, it was tough to get even that much out of her, because she had no interest whatsoever in talking about her attacker. She’d fallen, and was petrified something had happened to her baby.

Faster than ten minutes, Mac had both the cops and a doctor there. He’d left her with a woman employee and the doctor, but the whole time he was with the police, Mac could feel the tension coiling in his stomach. As he could have guessed, the cops could find no clues to the identity or motivation of her assailant. It could have been a gardenvariety purse snatcher; it could have been some nut-case psychopath. But Kelly’s involvement with Chad had been spread in the press early on in their relationship, simply because anything the Fortunes did was news. And that meant, unfortunately, that it was public knowledge that she was carrying a Fortune child.

There had been kidnappings in the family before. Kidnappings, threats, blackmail attempts; thieves—hell, there was no limit to the criminal element hot to prey on a family with money like his.

Later that evening, he’d taken Kelly to her home, sat with her until she calmed down, poured her a glass of milk and himself a bourbon—it was the only alcohol drink she had in her apartment—and proposed marriage. It was the first time he’d heard her even try to laugh that evening. And when she realized he was serious, she got another case of hiccups.

Marrying a woman because she was pregnant would never necessarily have aroused Mac’s sense of honor. Hell, you couldn’t solve one disaster by compounding it with another. But that happened to be his nephew growing in her womb. A Fortune child. And whether she’d volunteered for the problems that came with being a Fortune when she fell for his scoundrel of a brother, there was no escaping them now. The baby had the best chance of being protected from within the family circle—the Fortune name, the Fortune power, the Fortune protection. She had the chance to give the baby his birthright as well as insure the child’s future. Mac wasn’t closing any doors to choices down the pike—for her, or for him. Hell, he knew she was in love with his brother—but love had nothing to do with this problem and couldn’t solve it. Right then the only choice he saw to effectively protect the child was a legal alliance between them.

She’d said yes that night—Mac knew—because she’d been scared. Not just scared from the attack itself, but stunned-scared from realizing that attack could be just the tip of an iceberg. Maybe she’d just fallen in love with a man, but her making love with a Fortune had volunteered her for a ton of repercussions she’d never expected.

And belatedly, Mac suddenly recognized that Kelly looked scared right now. Not terrorized or anything that traumatic, but one of the few things—in fact, damn near the only thing—Mac knew about his bride was how she responded when she was shook up. Her face was tilted up to his, so it wasn’t as if she was trying to hide her expression from him. Two dots of fire-engine red dotted her cheeks. The pulse in her throat was beating like a manic clock. Her soft blue eyes were shooting him an increasingly urgent message. Hell, she was probably going to start hiccuping any second.

With a frown, he glanced at the minister. Reverend Lowry was as red-faced as Kelly. The instant he caught the groom’s eyes, he repeated loudly, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride. Now, Mac.”

Sheesh. Mac could have kicked himself. This was no time to be woolgathering, and more to the point, one short buss for his bride and the two of them were done with this blasted ordeal and closer to being out of there.

He pushed up the fragile, lacy veil to get the nuisance thing out of the way and bent down. For some Godunknown reason, Kelly’s eyes flashed an even more frantic message than before. He couldn’t imagine what she was worried about. This was just a kiss. A traditional gesture. It wasn’t going to take a quarter of a second. Surely she knew she had nothing to fear from him.

And then he kissed her.

The kiss was fast. Faster than a man could suck in a lungful of oxygen—hell, his bride had been a stronger brick through the ceremony than he had. Mac owed her a thankyou. He owed her a promise that she had nothing to fear from him, ever. And when his lips touched down, there was nothing on his mind but a quick, impersonal kiss that shared a mutual desire to get this over with.

But in that blink of time, something went haywire. He couldn’t explain it. It was just...her lips were warmer than a summer sun, and soft. Soft like spring, like the stroke of a restless silky breeze. She tasted young and sweet and vibrant, and it seemed like a thousand years since Mac had felt that way. He was a grown man. He’d put aside his boyhood idealism a century ago, but he suddenly remembered that time in his life when he’d been young, so stupid—young, back when love was everything and life of fered a nonstop excitement of possibilities. Until that second, he hadn’t remembered that huge, yearning, alluring hunger to love in years. He couldn’t fathom why a quartersecond kiss from Kelly could possibly have invoked it.

But when he swiftly lifted his head, two dots of color heated his cheeks. And the pulse in his throat was beating like an out-of-control battery.

Two

“How much farther?”

“About five miles.” Mac scratched his chin. “About a quarter mile less than the last time you asked me. Is there a problem?”

Now there was a hysterically funny question, Kelly thought dryly. She was freshly married to a stranger. The kiss that sealed their vows had shaken her socks off. The snowstorm had escalated to a mean-cold, wind-howling blizzard, with snow slooshing down so hard that even Mac’s elegant Mercedes’s windshield wipers could barely keep up. They’d turned off the highway a while back, and she hadn’t seen a single car on the road since, much less buildings or lights or any sign of civilized rescue potential if they got stranded—assuming they found anything open this late on a New Year’s Eve.

Offhand, yeah, she thought they had a few problems. Yet all those details seemed itsy bitsy compared to the serious problem troubling Kelly at the moment. “How long does it usually take you to drive home from the Fortune headquarters?”

“Fifteen minutes, twenty max. But it’s pretty hard to move faster than a crawl pace with this snow.”

“I know, Mac. I didn’t mean to sound impatient.”

“You’re not cold, are you? Because I could turn up the heat—”

“No, I’m fine.” He’d already cranked up the heater and defroster to full blast. She couldn’t be warmer if she were curled up in front of an oven.

“If you’re tired, you can put the seat back—”

His concern touched her, but the subject of exhaustion again teased her sense of irony. If anything in life were normal, she’d be snoozing right now. From the beginning of the pregnancy, she’d been prone to nap at the drop of a hat. And after all the stress of the wedding and reception, technically she should be as comatose as a zombie. But that kiss from Mac had shaken her whole equilibrium.

She knew he’d meant nothing by it. She knew she was imagining a potent, sizzling connection that had never happened. It was just hormones again. Kelly had had seven months to discover that pregnancy made a woman emotionally goofy. Impatiently she twisted in her seat. “I’m fine, not the least tired. And the car couldn’t be more comfortable,” she assured him.

Mac glanced at her again as if unconvinced, but of necessity his gaze zipped swiftly back to the road. She could barely see his face in the pitch-dark car—just a glimpse of his patrician profile and a flash of his dark eyes now and then. There simply wasn’t enough light to judge from his expression what he might be thinking—about the wedding or the weather or anything else. From the tone of his voice, though, Kelly understood he was deliberately trying to sound calm and quietly reassuring. “If you’re worried about the weather, try to take it easy. I’ve lived here all my life, which means I’ve driven in a hundred blizzards. This one has the makings of a doozy—I think we could be socked in for a couple of days—but we’ll be under cover before the worst of it hits. The roads are rough, but the problem is snow, not ice. Trust me, we’re not going to have any trouble making it home.”

“That’s good to hear.”

But when Mac caught her shifting in her seat again, he seemed to think his previous reassurances hadn’t been enough. “Kelly... this whole day’s been a pressure cooker, and I know you have to be worried about things. All kinds of things. But we were both honest with each other going into this, and we both want the same thing—to make this work out. I think if we just take it slow and easy, we’ll find answers for whatever we need to, one problem at a time. Try and believe it’s going to be okay, all right?”

Kelly clipped back a sigh. Mac was not only trying to be considerate and reassuring—he was doing a damn fine job of it. He’d been downright wonderful at the wedding reception, sticking to her side, anticipating problems before they developed. Something had upset her maid of honor, because Renee had turned stark white after a conversation with her father and disappeared almost immediately after. That wouldn’t have mattered except that Kelly had counted on Mollie to stay close during the reception, and her closest friend had suddenly left early, too. Both had left without a word, which was so unlike either woman that Kelly had worried...but at the time of the reception, she’d really had her hands full.

Mac’s family was unquestionably supportive for this wedding, but there wasn’t a shy Fortune in the bunch. Their nosiness came from caring, but she’d felt painfully stranded with the now-you’re-family-you-can-tell-me questions. What kind of relationship did she and Mac actually have? How well did she really know Mac? Had either of them heard from Chad? Did Chad even know about this marriage?

Kelly had been heart and soul in love with Chad, but it took sleeping with him to understand that his interest in her was purely seduction, the new conquest. Since then she’d heard rumors that he had taken off with another woman—also some scandal about a paternity suit with another girl. But she’d figured out the measure of Chad long before the first pregnancy test—and her own naiveté in the relationship as well. She’d never have married him, but neither did she want to air the personal details of a painful mistake to anyone, much less publicly. And every time one of those awkward, prying questions surfaced, Mac had shown up like a magician. He never cut anyone off. He was always nice. But no one even tried to misbehave when Mac was around—cripes, even Kate seemed to instinctively defer to him.

Kelly had the humorous impression of a wolf watching out for his lamb—and that rare feeling of being protected had been welcomed. Then. But not now. Now that they were totally alone together, she remembered how much he intimidated her, too. His being a sexy hunk only made her feel more awkward. That velvet-soft baritone of his was curling her toes—but not because of some hormonal response. She just couldn’t face bringing up an indelicate problem with the formal, elegant, dauntingly sexy and formidable Financial V.P. for the whole darned Fortune empire. Kelly squirmed in her seat again.

“With road conditions this rough, I really think the seat belt’s essential, but they can’t have made those things for a pregnant woman. If you’re uncomfortable—”

Well, spit. Apparently Mac had perceived there was something wrong and he wasn’t going to let it go until she confessed the reason. And it wasn’t as if she had a choice about staying silent more than another two seconds, anyway. “Mac, I am uncomfortable. But the problem isn’t the seat belt or being married or the heat or the weather. It’s that I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Oh. Um—right now? We really should be home within twenty minutes—”

“I realize this is hard to believe if you’ve never been seven months pregnant. But twenty minutes from now, I’ll be desperate to go all over again. So that won’t exactly solve the immediate problem.”

“Okay. No reason to be embarrassed. Everything’s fine. It just may take me a few minutes to find a gas station. There isn’t much open on New Year’s Eve, and I’m afraid we’re a little removed from—”

“Mac.”

“What?”

“Pull over.”

“Pull over? Honey, we’re in the middle of a blizzard in subzero temperatures—”

She heard the “honey” and felt a wave of sympathy for her poor groom. She’d never seen MacKenzie/Mac Fortune flustered before—even by the threat of a company takeover. “Yeah, well, I should have told you before I got desperate. But I didn’t. And I won’t survive, Mac. If I had an accident on these incredibly luxurious leather seats, I’d be so mortified I’d never be able to face you again as long as I lived. You’d have my death-by-mortification on your conscience. And we’d have gone through the whole marriage for nothing. We can solve all this if you just pull over, okay? Like...pronto.”

Mac pulled over. Pronto. “Do you need, um—”

Before he was reduced to using any more wild endearments, she filled him in. “I’ve been carrying toilet paper since I was four months pregnant. Believe me, I figured out a while ago that I needed to be prepared.”

The winds were gale force, the snow biting like icy teeth, and Kelly thought glumly that this was a hell of an auspicious way to start a marriage. But when she climbed back into the car with wet feet and wet hair and snow sticking to her nose and eyelashes, she caught the hint of a quicksilver grin from Mac.

“I don’t think we’d better take you out in too many blizzards for the next couple months,” he said dryly.

A startled chuckle escaped Kelly. Holy kamoly. Mac had actually teased her. Who’d a thunk it? And it seemed a crazy thing to be just discovering that her groom had a sense of humor... but she suddenly realized how many things she’d been judging about Mac on limited evidence. She’d assumed he was formal and serious by nature because that’s all she’d been exposed to. But their personal conversations over the last couple of weeks had been dead serious because they needed to be. And no, she’d never seen him casually joking around with staff at work before that, but really, how could he? His job was tough and required toughness. If someone had to make an unpopular decision, it always fell on his shoulders.

Maybe authority and toughness came naturally to him, Kelly mused, but the point was that she’d had no opportunity to know any other side of Mac... what he wanted, what he dreamed of, what he was like when the suit and tie came off. Who was there for him when he needed to vent that chestload of endless responsibilities? Heaven knew, she could imagine all kinds of women in his life. But by the farthest stretch of her considerable imagination—none of them remotely resembled the bride he was stuck taking home tonight.

And it seemed only moments later they were there. She barely caught sight of the tall, wrought-iron fence, before Mac was pushing a button that made the double gates electronically swing open. “There are a ton of things I need to show you—like how the security system works. But there’s time enough to talk about all that in the morning. I suspect you just want to get settled in and get your feet up. I want you to know, though, that the security system’s state of the art. You’re safe here, Kel.”

“I know.” It was the one thing she hadn’t worried about in the last two weeks. Since the night she’d been attacked in the parking lot, Kate and the family had cosseted her nonstop, but the security she felt with him was a world apart. She’d feel safe with a lion if Mac were around. It’s just the way he was. At this precise moment, though, she suddenly discovered that feeling safe from criminals and feeling safe with her new groom were two entirely different things.

Her pulse started skittering. Once the gates closed behind them, the look of anything civilized disappeared, and the drive seemed to go on forever. Even with the blinding, slashing snow, she could make out certain things. The private road twisted around a creek bed. Pines nestled around one turn, their branches bowed with heavy skirts of snow; a stand of virgin hardwoods stretched in another direction, then a field that rolled and curved and looked as if it was blanketed with whipped cream—there were no footprints in the snow, no sign of man. But up and around a sloping knoll, the house came into view.

The baby suddenly kicked, and Kelly’s hand instinctively covered her abdomen. Even with the dim visibility, she recognized the property and house.

Mac had brought her here once, a few days before. Two weeks was an incredibly short time to upend your whole life. He’d insisted she see it to decide if she could live here. Possibly he really meant to give her one last-ditch chance to say no to the whole marriage idea, but truthfully, Kelly never felt as if she had a chance or a choice. The attack had petrified her. She had to protect her baby. Nothing else mattered, but the last two weeks had still felt like a fastmoving train. There hadn’t been time to catch her breath, much less figure out what all these monumental changes and decisions really meant.

She still hadn’t had that time. But her first look at the house had touched something inside her. And it did now, even more.

The place was lit up. Snow spiraled in the outside porch lights, and inside lamps shone in the windows like welcoming beacons. Kelly remembered the first time she’d seen Kate Fortune’s house. She’d grown up on a struggling single mom’s budget, and the opulence of the home base Fortune mansion had her bug-eyed. It just went on and on—the landscaped grounds, objets d’art, priceless rugs, loot and luxuries she’d never seen outside of movies. Kelly remembered thinking God, how easy it would be to develop a lust attack for material possessions. But working with Kate had somehow sabotaged her developing that vice. She’d seen firsthand what a life of privilege was about, and she’d choose a mortgage anytime over having to live in a museum.

But Mac’s place was no museum. The house was stone. Two sturdy stories, with gleaming casement windows and gables and arched doorways. Compared to her three-room apartment, it was monster-size—and she hadn’t seen all of it—but the place had so much character and personality that it looked like... well, it looked like a home. Smoke chugged out of the chimneys and snow cuddled in the windowsills. Whoever had cleared the walk had left the shovel in the porch overhang. Maybe an ordinary person could live here. Like the kind of person who would forget to put away the shovel. Like her.

She only glimpsed the front for a second, then Mac punched a button and the garage doors opened. A Jeep already took up one parking place—not a fancy Jeep, but one with mud-crusted tires and a little dent in its fanny. It wouldn’t particularly have startled her, except that Kelly had never seen Mac dressed less normally than a suit, formally ready for a shot in GQ. “The Jeep is yours?”

“Yeah.” Mac was already climbing out, the Jeep obviously the last thing on his mind. If he hadn’t suddenly rolled his shoulders, she wouldn’t have realized that he was whip-tired from the challenging drive—not counting everything else that had happened that day. “Just head inside, Kelly. No one’s here—I can’t remember if you met Benz and Martha the other day. They live on the far side of the property, do some housekeeping and chores for me, and I’ve lined them up to come in more often. While I’m at work, I don’t want you here alone, especially when you’re this far pregnant. But for a few days, I thought you might want to explore the place on your own and not feel like strangers were hovering over you. If you don’t remember the layout, that door leads to the kitchen—just settle in wherever you want. I’ll follow you in two seconds—I just want to check a few things out here first. The house has a generator if we lose power, and the way this storm’s building we could be holed up for a couple of days—oops.”

“Oops?” Somehow Kelly didn’t think that expression got much of a workout in Mac’s normal vocabulary, and suddenly there was that potent quicksilver smile again.

“Yeah, I don’t know where my head was. Here I’m rambling on about silly subjects like blizzards, when I should have remembered there are bigger priorities. The bathroom is the first door on the left,” he informed her.

She chuckled, and for the craziest moment they shared a smile. A real smile. For an instant she forgot he was a sexy hunk, forgot he was the formidably powerful Mac Fortune, forgot he’d been sucked into protecting the woman his brother got pregnant. For that instant, Mac was just...a man. A man with rumpled dark hair and the shadow of whiskers on his chin and a smile that warmed up those cool green eyes. A man she wanted to know. Not had to get to know.

But he had that generator thing he wanted to look at, so she hustled inside. After shedding her coat on a kitchen chair, she kicked off her shoes and peeled promptly for the teal-and-white bathroom she saw off the kitchen.

When she washed her hands, she caught sight of herself in the vanity mirror and immediately considered hiding out in the bathroom—like for the next two weeks. She’d looked worse. She just couldn’t remember when. Her fine blond hair was tumbling down, her makeup long gone and the elegant cream satin dress just looked silly over her basketball-size tummy. The bride of Frankenstein surely looked more put-together than this... but objectively Kelly knew that vanity was a pretty silly thing to worry about. Mac had no reason to care what she looked like.

It was just that this was the part of the day she’d dreaded a hundred times more than the ceremony. Facing her new husband. Alone. There was no question or worry about intimacy—even if she weren’t seven months pregnant, she couldn’t imagine being the kind of woman who would remotely attract Mac. Besides, he’d already broached that lion in its den, and so had she. They had reasons to marry. They had no reason to sleep together—or to feel awkward about that. But the average new bride would undoubtedly be flying into her lover’s arms by now...and Kelly didn’t know what to do, what to say, or even how to start the whole business of living together.

Well, postponing it wasn’t getting the job done—or making it any easier. After running a quick brush through her hair, she charged out. Immediately she noticed that the back door was bolted and the outside lights shut off—and Mac must have hung up her coat because it had disappeared—so he was obviously in the house somewhere.

She padded through the kitchen, trying to remember the downstairs layout. The east side of the house held the kitchen, a long dining room with cushioned window seats and then a library/study kind of room with a fireplace and ceiling-tall bookshelves and a fat, plush, Oriental carpet in a million colors. She half hoped to find Mac there—she’d already identified that room as a great private haven—but no dice.

Across the hall was a polished staircase leading up, and although she didn’t remember much about the west side of the house—she didn’t have to. She promptly found Mac in the giant living room. And one look from the doorway was enough to make restless nerves prowl through her pulse again.

The room was ... stupendous. The ceiling and walls had all been paneled in heart-of-redwood. A stone fireplace arched to the beamed ceiling and was big enough to roast a boar. None of the furnishings were exactly fancy. They were just ultracool guy stuff—a ten-million-button entertainment center, throne-size chairs, two long couches, sturdy antiques with a western flavor, fabrics in a forest green that complemented the rich redwood. The whole darn room was perfect—at least for a guy—except for the pile of battered suitcases and boxes all over the place.

Mac had shed his tux coat and unlatched the buttons at the top of his shirt. Until he saw her, he was hunkered down by the hearth, getting a fire going. Flames were already dancing, licking the kindling, warming the whole room with the tangy scent of pine—but all she could see were her waiflike suitcases cluttering up his elegant room.

He stood up with a smile. “I was wondering if you got lost.”

“I’d probably better tell you now—I’ve got the geographical sense of a deaf bat. I can get lost in a room with one door. You’ve got a beautiful home, Mac.”

“Your home now, too.” He motioned to the piled suitcases. “I had your things moved this afternoon so you wouldn’t have to be carrying anything on your own—but I couldn’t guess on the bigger items like furniture. I thought we could go over to your apartment in a few days? And then you could choose whatever you wanted to bring here—”

“Um, most of my stuff is pretty much early-attic. I don’t think anything is exactly going to fit in here too well.”

“We’ll find room. Or just move some of my things out. For that matter, if you want to redecorate or change something, all you have to do is say. And in the meantime, I didn’t mean to dump everything here—or leave it for you to carry. But without asking you first, I didn’t know where you wanted to sleep. Do you remember the upstairs?”

“To be honest, no.” Actually she remembered the master bedroom—Mac’s bedroom—with embarrassing clarity. But she’d been too nervous that day to pay much attention to anything specific about the house.

“Well...upstairs there are five spare bedrooms. I figured you’d want to choose two—one to fix up for the baby and one for you? But I didn’t know which ones would suit you without asking. I also thought, you must be exhausted after this long day—maybe you’d just like to pick a bed to sleep in tonight, and save any other decisions until tomorrow or when you feel up to it.”

“That sounds fine. I really don’t care where I lay my head tonight.” Kelly thought this was going like a dream—only too much so. He didn’t seem to notice that her suitcases looked like Little Orphan Annie had come to visit. A small tray on the coffee table held two glasses—the one with milk was obviously considerately meant for her. He’d eased into discussing the sleeping arrangements the same way he’d handled the wedding, the drive, everything—Kelly didn’t know what she expected, but it was never this level of perception and thoughtfulness. He was taking care of her as if she was precious china, for Pete’s sake, when he’d been stuck with this marriage no different than she had.

“We can either go upstairs now and get you settled in...or maybe you’d like to just put your feet up in front of the fire and unwind for a while—”

“Mac.” She reached for the glass of milk and gulped down a slug. “Don’t you dare say one more kind thing. You’re just making me miserable.”

“Miserable?” Instantly he quit messing with the fire and surged to his feet. “Hell, why didn’t you say something? It is the baby? Are you sick—?”

“No, no, it’s not that kind of miserable. I just feel...look, I’m disrupting your whole life. It’s one thing to believe we had good reasons for doing this, and another to figure out how to be comfortable together. Everywhere I look you’ve got this great house all set up for a bachelor, and suddenly you’re stuck with a woman who goes in for lace curtains and a pink couch. Somehow we’ve got to figure out how to talk the same language.”

Mac looked confused. “There’s no problem, Kelly. If you want lace curtains in here—”

“No. Holy kamoly. No. They’d look awful.” The mental picture of frothy curtains against the rich, dark heart-of-redwood almost made her laugh. “I didn’t mean I cared about anything like that. I just...would you mind if I asked you some blunt, nosy questions?”

“Of course not. Shoot.” He settled in one of the massive forest green chairs and motioned her to take the other.

She considered a straight chair—knowing how hard it was to get in and out of anything these days—but the only straight chair in the room was a mile from Mac. So she sank into the luxuriously fat cushions of the chair across from him and started in. “There are so many things we talked about before. I know you realized how frightened I was the night I was attacked—”

“I know. And I just wish I could change things, Kelly, but I’m afraid criminals tend to prey on a family like the Fortunes.”

“I understand that now. But when I fell in love with your brother, I’m afraid I never even thought about his being a Fortune—or how that could affect me or my child.” She chugged another gulp of milk. “What I’m trying to say, though, is that your asking me to marry you solved so many things. Just from the angle of protection alone, I’ve got you behind me, and the Fortune family and those nice big, tall gates.”

“And your baby will have a name.”

She nodded. “Yes. He—or she—will have the last nam he’s entitled to, and the family relationships that go with that. Securing a future for my baby—Mac, that’s everything to me. But we’ve been through all that, too. All those pa pers you had me sign. They were all a benefit to me. To my child. You even built an easy out for me into all those legalese papers—”

Mac cocked a black-stockinged foot on the coffee table From his quizzical expression, he still didn’t understand where she was leading this conversation. “The trust we se up for the baby was to secure his future no matter what we choose to do down the road. And we talked about this Kelly. You’re especially vulnerable now, this late in a preg nancy—and right after the baby’s born, too. But those cir cumstances aren’t going to be the same, down the pike, and that means you could want to make different choices. We both agreed there’s no reason this marriage has to last if i stops working at some point.”

Kelly again made a gesture of frustration. “Yes. Al that’s great. I know all the advantages for me and the baby But that’s just it. It’s so one-sided. What on earth is in this arrangement for you?”

Mac’s eyebrows arched as if the answer to that question should have been obvious to her. “It was because of my brother that you were put in danger. We may never know if that jerk meant to kidnap you, but there’ve been kidnap pings in the family before. Con artists, thieves, blackmai schemes tried on us. And your relationship with Chad mad the society columns often enough to make the public awar that you’re pregnant with a Fortune child.”

“But it was Chad who put me in that situation. Not you None of it was your fault, Mac.”

“Fault, no. But responsibility is a different thing. We had a problem on the table that had to be solved—keeping you and the child safe. If fixing that were as simple as hiring security for you, anyone in the family could have done it. It wasn’t that simple. You weren’t raised in this kind of family. There were risks you had no possible experience to know how to cope with. And money alone was no way to do right for the baby, either.” Mac hesitated, and then reached for the glass of scotch from the tray. “Did Chad ever tell you much about our family?”

“Some. Not much. I know your mother died when you were around ten—which had to be terribly hard for you. And I know you’re the oldest, that there’s a big age gap between you and the twins. I’ve met Chloe, because she and Chad were so close—”

“Thick as thieves,” Mac concurred. “And much as I love them, both of them are hell on wheels—my father just seemed to lose heart after Mom died, let them run wild. But Chad has had the hardest time finding his way. I know his good qualities, and I know you do, too. But growing up, I was so much older that I really felt to blame for not being a stronger influence.”

She shook her head. “I understand what you’re saying. You felt extra responsible because the baby was Chad’s. But this was still your brother’s mistake. And mine. Not yours.”

“That’s my nephew or niece you’re carrying. Blood kin. And it could be the closest to a child I’ll ever have. Making sure that relationship was a legal tie—”

“Would give you the right to interfere in his upbringing?”

Mac hadn’t ducked any blunt questions she’d asked him before, and he didn’t evade this one. “To a point. Yes. I wanted a vote in all those million things that come up when you’re raising a child—schools, health care, security, the chance to give the kid some coaching and time from the male gender side of the fence—”

“Mac, for heaven’s sake, I’d have let you have those things, anyway. And down the road, if we don’t agree on issues like that, I assume we’ll fight—but no silly legal piece of paper would stop me from telling you if I thought you were overinterfering. But back to what you said a moment ago...why on earth would you think this is your only chance at a child? Why haven’t you married?”

She caught a flash of humor in his eyes. “Um...is this where the nosy part of those questions kicks in?”

“Mac, I’m not just asking to be nosy.” She struggled to find the right words to explain. “I’m trying to figure out how to make this work for you, not just me. I look around this place and it’s a bachelor’s paradise. Suddenly you’re stuck with a woman who likes clutter and lace and flowers. For that matter, the house I grew up in would probably fit in this living room. I don’t know how two people could be more different. And if you never really wanted to be married—”

“All right, I can see where you’re headed with this now. And the truth is—I never did plan to marry.” Mac scratched his chin. “The whole family’s pushed hard for me to tie the knot. I’m not sure I can explain why I haven’t. Maybe a wariness just built up over time. Although there are plenty of happy marriages in the family, those aren’t the ones I see. If someone’s coming to me, it’s because there’s trouble. Everyone always starts out talking about how much they’re in love, but I see what happens when the chips go down, how lives are torn up in the name of love, how the kids are ripped apart when things don’t go right. To be honest—”

A log tumbled to the hearth, sending sparks shooting up the chimney. Mac leaned forward as if he were going to promptly go over and tend the fire, but Kelly was afraid she’d never get him talking this way again. “Please. Finish saying whatever was on your mind.”

“Well, you might find this hard to believe, but this marriage you and I put together is the first one that ever appealed to me.”

“You have to be kidding. Why?”

“Because I think we’ve got freedom in this relationship that other couples never have. We can make our own rules. We don’t have to do one thing that doesn’t work for the two of us. You want to do the whole house in pink—be—lieve me, Kelly, I don’t care, go for it. If you don’t like anything, all you have to do is say. I’m sure we’ll have to compromise on all kinds of things—but neither of us have love or emotions tangled up in this. We can be honest with each other.”

Kelly fell silent, studying her new husband. She could have guessed Mac would value honesty and freedom in a relationship. With his heavy responsibilities, he’d go nuts with a high-maintenance mate—or even a friend—who demanded constant attention. And as always, his expression was self-contained, those wonderful dark eyes of his unreadable. He didn’t seem lonely. Yet his settling for so little sounded terribly lonely to her. “You don’t believe in love, Mac?” she asked softly.

“Sure. I believe in all kinds of love. Love, loyalty, family, taking care of your own—”

“But not the other kind of love? Between a man and a woman?”

Mac finished the last of his scotch in a gulp, and met her eyes squarely. “I believe the power of hormones can be a hell of a lot of fun—but if one of the things you’re worried about is whether I’ll be faithful to you, rest your mind. I can’t say I’m fond of a celibate lifestyle, but right now...hell, it seems to me we both have our hands full and will for some time. It’d go against my grain to cheat while I was wearing a wedding ring—and whether we’re sleeping together doesn’t change that. However...”

“However...?”

“However... Chad could come back. Or you could find someone. So could I. That’s why we worked out all those prenuptial legal papers, to protect you and the baby no matter what happens to us. There’s no such thing as an overnight divorce, Kelly, but we’ve made it as easy as possible to sever the tie if either of us wants to. As long as we’re careful to build this right, we won’t have the hurt and ange and emotional baggage that usually goes with a split up Either we make this work or we’ve lost nothing. We’ve still done the right thing for the child. We’ve still done the right thing to protect you at this moment in time.”

And doing the right thing was obviously a critical thing to her husband, Kelly mused, but there was still a gaping hole in this discussion. He’d asked for nothing from her—except honesty. Maybe Mac didn’t want her to have any real place in his life, but she was living here now. There had to be needs she could fill, things she could do for him to at least balance all the things he was doing for her.

But before she could say anything else, she heard a clock chiming in the front hall. One, two, three...abruptly she realized that the clock was going all the way to twelve. In seconds it was going to be the new year.

Mac was diverted by the clock chimes, too, and suddenly stood up with a chuckle. “It looks like we’re both running on empty, but do you have enough milk there to toast the New Year?”

“You bet.” She leaned forward to grab her milk glass.

“We made it through one incredibly unusual day—thanks to the bride’s willingness to kick the groom in the shins when he forgot his lines. Did I remember to say thank you for that?”

“No, but, um...you could pay me back now with a little help.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What?”

She rolled her eyes with an embarrassed laugh. “I was trying to stand up for this toast. Only I think I’m stuck. should have known better than to sit in this chair—the cushions are so deep, and the only thing I can get gracefully out of these days is a straight chair. I feel like an ungainly elephant—”

Before she could even try to scooch forward again, Mac swiftly hooked both her hands and pulled her up. The serious mood was obviously broken, Kelly thought, and they could talk another time. Right now she just figured on toasting the New Year with him and then packing it in. But for just that instant when he helped her up, her protruding tummy grazed against his flat abdomen. And her hands...for some reason he didn’t release her hands for another whole millisecond. His grip was warm and strong, his touch sparking an electric rush in her pulse.

She’d felt the same sizzle when he’d kissed her at the wedding. She was positive, then and now, that she was imagining it. He was being kind. He’d frankly brought up sex with her, several times now, with the same ease he’d mentioned having macaroni and cheese for dinner. He thought she was in love with his brother. There wasn’t a single rational reason in the universe to think he felt an ounce of attraction for her.

And she didn’t. She really didn’t.

But for that miniscule second, the muscle in his jaw tightened and some kind of emotion flashed in his eyes. Something bleak and stark. Loneliness. Aloneness. As if he realized—as she did—that a normal bride and groom would never be ending their wedding night this way.

It was just an impulse, while he was already standing as close as a heartbeat, to wrap her arms around him. She didn’t want to give her new groom a stroke, and hugs weren’t part of their deal. Maybe a hug was presumptuous, but she didn’t care. That look of stark loneliness got to her. Everyone needed a plain old affectionate hug sometimes, the warmth of a connection to someone else. If he had a heart attack, then he’d just have to have a heart attack.

He stiffened like a poker when her arms curled around him.

But then he unbent.

Holy cow, did he unbend...

Three

Mac poured another mug of coffee—his fourth that morning—and carried it to the window. The sun hadn’t even thought about waking up until past eight. The horizon still had the pink-pearl luster of dawn, making the snowy landscape look as pretty and innocent as a Christmas card—but there’d sure been nothing innocent about the blizzard winds last night. He estimated there were two fresh feet of snow on a level, which wouldn’t be that hard to plow out, except that nothing was on a level. Some of the swirling, eddying drifts were taller than him.

With Kel pregnant, he got antsy at the thought of her being cut off from doctors and civilization, even if the city was as shut down as they were. Still, he had a pickup with a blade. He could have their country driveway cleared in a few hours, but for damn sure no one was going anywhere this morning.

Hearing the thump of a distant footfall from upstairs, Mac immediately spun around. The kitchen was lit up brighter than a hospital surgery. Granted, the teal blue counters and Italian-tile floor were a tad littered, but he’d been working like a dog. Four pans jostled for space on the stove, one for eggs, one for bacon, one for muffins and the last for pancakes. The table was crowded with lined-up boxes of cereal and bowls heaped with apples and oranges and melons—he’d been challenged to find space for silverware, particularly after he’d added pitchers of both orange and cranberry juice.

Mac scratched his chin. Possibly he’d overdone it just a little. Hell, somehow he seemed to have enough food for a battalion of marines, but pregnant women were a completely alien species. He didn’t know what Kelly was supposed to eat or what appealed to her, either.

Mac hated being unprepared.

When he heard another footfall, his heart started banging in his chest. Swiftly he shoveled a hand through his hair, checked his jeans zipper, then glanced at his black sweatshirt to make sure there wasn’t as much pancake batter on him as there seemed to be on the floor. The sound of footfalls moved to the stairs. He braced as if he were imminently facing a firing squad of Uzi’s.

That’s exactly what went wrong the night before, Mac figured. He hadn’t been braced. He hadn’t been prepared. Technically there was nothing wrong with a hug, but he’d just never expected Kelly to suddenly wrap her arms around him. He still had no clue why she’d done it. Maybe every pregnant woman got a wild hair. Maybe she was tired and not thinking. Maybe she needed reassurance. Maybe she’d forgotten she was in love with his brother.

Mac hadn’t. Even if he’d tried, the family must have asked him forty times what would happen if Chad came home. They didn’t get it. Of course Chad was going to show up sometime—he always did after one of his playboy disappearing acts. Mac knew that perfectly well when he’d asked her to marry him, known she’d loved his brother, too. Those sticky complications didn’t erase the reasons for the marriage, but the opposite. Kelly had been in danger. Cut-and-dried. And Mac loved his brother, but he knew him. Painfully well. Whether Chad was snoozing on a beach in Jamaica or right here made no difference. Mac couldn’t trust his brother to protect Kelly or to do right by the child. Keeping her safe was up to him.

And that was precisely why his response to that damn hug was so inexcusable. Mac shoveled a hand through his hair. He remembered folding his arms around her, because he couldn’t just stand there like a lump, and hell, he didn’t want her feeling rejected or scared. Returning the hug seemed an okay thing to do, but after that it all got hazy. Sensations had bombarded him like bullets. Soft bullets... like her hair tickling his nose, and the feel of her tummy pressing against him, and the way her skin glowed so vulnerably in the firelight. She smelled like peach shampoo and soap and that teasing, illusive perfume she wore. It bugged him, those self-deprecating comments she made about being graceless and as big as an elephant. She wasn’t. She’d felt so small in his arms, so warm, so real. He remembered closing his eyes, remembered feeling gutpunched with a stupid, alien, childish wave of longing...he also remembered, too well, being aroused faster than a trigger-hot teenage boy.

He’d jerked back faster than a whiplash, hoping she hadn’t noticed. But all night long he’d seen the bathroom light go on and off. He’d worried about her pregnant kidneys, worried she was sick. But mostly he’d worried that she couldn’t sleep because she was in a strange house with her whole life turned upside down, and now he’d become a new kind of unknown worry in that picture for her, too.

He was just going to have to fix it, that was all. Hell, he’d handled multimillion dollar mergers, European stock crashes, hiring and firing staff in four countries. How much trouble could one pip-squeak-size pregnant woman be?

And then suddenly she was in the doorway. “Morning, Mac. You’re up so early. Whew, can you believe all this snow?”

“Good morning back and yeah, some of those drifts outside are really something.” Oh, God, one look and he could feel a sinking. Give him a stock crash anytime. He knew what to do about that kind of thing.

No matter how glaringly lit the kitchen was, she was still a brighter shock of color. She smiled at him through a sleepy yawn. Her hair was brushed—he was pretty sure—but it still fell around her shoulders in tumbled swirls. An oversize red sweatshirt burgeoned over her tummy, the color matching the two dots of color on her cheeks and her pants both. Unless he was mistaken, she was wearing fat fluffy hound dogs on her feet. It occurred to him that they must be slippers. And that five-hundred-watt sleepy smile suddenly disappeared—hell, had he already done something wrong?

She motioned around the kitchen. “Oh, Mac. You’ve gone to so much trouble—”

“No trouble at all,” he said swiftly. “I just figured you might be hungry for breakfast—”

“I’m always hungry, but I’m afraid I get a queasy stomach first thing in the morning. The most I can handle is a little juice and toast—”

“Toast.” The one thing, naturally, that he hadn’t thought of. “No problem, I know we’ve got bread around here somewhere—”

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