Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday Babies\The Texan's Christmas\Cowboy for Hire\The Cowboy's Christmas Gift (8 page)

Too good, in fact, as testified by the matchmaking ledger she kept in her office.

“Cosette, Jade's hair is caught in my coat,” he reminded her. “Can you help her? Because I can't see it, obviously.” Not with the way Jade was crushed up against his chest. He was afraid to move her lest he pull her hair and hurt her.

“I feel like we need a photo of this moment,” Cosette said, pulling out her phone and snapping a quick picture. “There,” she said, pleased. “We'll have something for the memory books. We do love our memory books in Bridesmaids Creek.”

His jaw dropped, and yet he shouldn't be the least bit surprised by anything the inhabitants of BC did. “Cosette, a little help, please? Jade is hurt and I want to get her to the sofa.”

“Yes, please,” Jade said, sounding very tired suddenly.

It scared the hell out of him. She was always so perky. He began to worry about a concussion, which was stupid, because he was pretty certain she hadn't hit her head. But maybe he hadn't noticed. His heart started that uncertain hammering again, reminding him that this woman meant so much to him he couldn't bear for anything to happen to her. He should have protected her. How could a man feel like a competent protector when he let her fall down a staircase?

“Have you had the stairs polished recently?” he asked Cosette, as she peered at the hank of Jade's hair snagged on his button.

“No,” she murmured. “They're in fine condition. Your father made those stairs with his own hands, remember. We're going to have to cut this, I'm afraid, Jade. Your hair got caught in the buckle.”

“I guess it's my just deserts for cutting Daisy's hair,” Jade said.

“No. It's not any dessert.” Ty wished he could shrug out of his jacket so he could see how to help, but if anybody could figure out how to disentangle them, it was Cosette.

“Where are your scissors?” she asked. “Never mind. They're in a kitchen drawer.”

He was happy to hear it, because he hadn't lived here in so many years that he didn't even know if a pair of scissors remained. Cosette beetled off, and Ty wrapped his arms tight around Jade.

“Let me get you over to the sofa.”

“I'm fine. I just tried to knock myself silly, is all.”

“That would be a very hard thing to do, since you're one of the smartest women I've ever met.” He helped her to the sofa, and they sat down together.

“This is so awkward,” Jade whispered. “Cosette is going to tell everyone about this.”

“Hell, yes, she is. She has the photo to show. Luckily for us, it's pretty tame stuff.” If she'd opened the door and found him kissing the daylights out of Jade, as he wanted to be doing—now that would have been awkward.

He wished he had been kissing Jade. Ty felt that a golden opportunity had slipped away from him.

Cosette returned, peering at him, her big eyes illuminated by her pink-cast hair. “Don't look.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't want you being a big baby about it,” she said. “It's just hair. It'll grow back. By the time you make it back to BC the next time, you'll never be able to tell the difference.”

“Very funny,” he said, noting her dig about his frequent absences. “Just do it, already.” If she didn't get Jade away from him, get the sweet scent of her shampoo and body away from him immediately, he wasn't going to be able to think straight for a month. He was already pretty much lost in the fantasy of kissing her—and that wasn't going anywhere very fast.

“There!” Cosette exclaimed, examining her handiwork as Jade pulled away, rubbing her head. “Free as a bird!”

“Thank you, Cosette,” Jade said.

“Ah, well, curly red hair has its dangers. And now I must be off!” The older woman wound her scarf tighter around her neck, beamed at the two of them. “Lock up tight, Ty.”

“I will.”

She went to the front door, hesitating as she watched him settle Jade on the sofa.

“It's good to see you back here in the old place, Ty,” Cosette said. “Good night, you two.”

She went out, locking the door behind her.

Jade looked up at him. “Sorry about that.”

“Sorry for what?” He couldn't imagine what she had to be sorry about.

“For—I don't know. Making an ass of myself.”

He couldn't imagine any woman ever being less of an ass than Jade. “You'll be happy to know that you won't miss this little bit of hair.”

“Right. Because it's right in the front.” Jade sighed. “It's karma for what I did to Daisy.”

“Nonsense. And you look totally hot with short hair. That angled look is really wickedly hot.” He wanted desperately to kiss her, so desperately that he decided to busy himself inspecting the staircase—anything to stay away from her until she felt steady enough to leave.

The stairs had been barely used in all the years he'd been gone. Cosette hadn't had them polished. Possibly Jade had simply had a clumsy moment, but she wasn't a clumsy woman. He peered at the spot where she'd slipped, realizing there was a crack in the stairs. A slight crack only an eighth of an inch wide, separating the stair board from the box underneath.

That would have to be repaired. Clearly, she'd somehow caught her heel on the uneven step and slipped. He moved his fingers along the edges to see if he could push them back together until it could be properly repaired. It wouldn't do to have Cosette taking a tumble.

The stair glided back into place as easy as a jigsaw puzzle piece locking into its correct match. He tugged at it to test the stability, and the wood moved toward him again. “This is definitely not secure,” he told Jade.

She came to stand beside him. “Maybe the house has shifted, loosening the boards.”

“Maybe.” Anything could happen, but his father had been a fine carpenter. He'd even built the balustrade and carved the stair rail, a beautiful, polished mahogany work of art that had stood the test of time. Ty tugged at the board once more, determined now to pull it apart so that Cosette wouldn't step on it until it could be fixed.

The wood piece completely separated from the stair, and though he expected to find nothing at all underneath, a metal box came into view.

“Yikes,” Jade said. “This place
is
like a time capsule.”

A strange sensation came over Ty, a sense that something wasn't right. Nobody hid gray metal boxes in stairwells unless they didn't want them found.

No one could have put this here but his father.

“Are you going to open it?” Jade asked.

“I don't think so,” Ty said softly. “I think I'm going to close up this house and get the hell out of Dodge.” While he still could. Before the tendrils of BC could pull him any deeper.

She put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe that's a good idea.”

“You think so?” Nothing good came of opening hidden boxes and releasing another person's ghosts.

“Yeah. Navy SEAL advice, remember? Get your affairs in order, and leave everything—”

“Yeah. You're right.” He pushed the wood piece back over the box, shoving it into place again. The hole disappeared like magic.

Before he left town, he was going to buy some serious, ass-binding wood glue to seal this off. Whatever it took, that box wasn't going to see the light of day again.

“I guess it could always be gold,” Jade said. “Buried treasure.”

“I'm not much for believing in fairy tales.” Besides which, his father had been an assiduous businessman. Everything had been noted down to the penny; the records and accounts had been easy to find and settle after his death. If he'd left gold, money or valuables in a safe somewhere, he would have marked that in his business records. There'd only been one safe deposit box, and then an old iron safe in the basement that would take a crane to move. Ty had known about those. But his father had built the stairs, and whatever he'd secured away there he hadn't wanted to ever be found.

Which meant nothing good was in this box. “Let's get out of here.”

Jade kissed Ty when he stood up.

“What was that for?”

“Because I think you're brave.”

He wasn't brave. Not at all.

But he wasn't about to admit it. He pulled her into his arms instead, reigniting the passion they'd shared earlier, taking the gentle kiss she'd just given him into the inferno he wanted—needed—right now.

The one thing he had in his life that was secure and sane was this crazy redhead who drove him out of his mind. He'd taken too long to admit it to himself, but he was going to miss the hell out of her.

His affairs were not in order, not by a long shot.

“Either we leave now or I'm going to lose the battle between my conscience and my—”

She stopped his words with a kiss. “Lose it, already. I've waited way too long for you to get over that schoolboy conscience of yours.”

Well, hellfire. There it was, the invitation a man could not pass up. He couldn't, not when kissing Jade was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. He wanted to spend hours losing himself in her, thinking about nothing but her beautiful body and her sassy mouth and the way she made him grin.

He carried her up the stairs to his old room, laid her gently on the bed, turned on a lamp.

She stared up at him, her eyes huge in her pale face, the slight freckles standing out. He had never seen anything more beautiful, never desired anyone the way he did her. She pulled off the red sweater, revealing a white lacy bra with a tiny pink bow in the center, and something about that trusting, inviting gesture was so sexy that Ty knew in that moment that Jade Harper had completely, irrevocably stolen his heart, in spite of his best efforts to keep his heart selfishly to himself.

“You know what we're doing here,” Jade said, and Ty halted in the act of diving in and ripping her clothes six ways from Sunday.

“Making love?”

“Avoiding the buried box.”

He nodded, his full-on erection urging him to get on with the diving in he so desperately wanted to do. Still, if Jade was having a change of heart, he'd tell his poor, tortured body and soul that there'd be no diving of any kind today, unless it wanted to go for a really long, cold swim in Bridesmaids Creek. “Probably. Are you okay with that?”

“I'm
so
okay with that.” Jade undid his belt buckle and looked up at him. “Whatever excuse works is fine by me.”

There was sweet satin and lace waiting for him, and a redhead who wanted him. There might never be this much willing paradise in his life again.

He dived in.

Chapter Nine

The hours of holding Jade in his arms could never be replaced by anything better—never. Ty felt as if he'd died and gone to heaven, on rocket propulsion and faster than angels flew. As she lay on his chest, he stroked her skin, trying to figure out what he was going to do now.

He had to do something.

“I'd better go,” Jade said. “It's almost morning.”

He didn't want her to go. They'd spent hours making mind-blowing love, hardly speaking, letting their bodies do the talking. “I can't let you.”

She laughed softly. “I never thought I'd hear those words from the mouth of such a rolling stone.”

“I'm not kidding.” He wasn't. His life had changed in ways he couldn't have imagined. You just didn't make love to a woman and then go off as if it hadn't mattered—at least not if you'd finally caught the woman of your dreams and something very, very close to love had smacked you right upside the head, bringing you to a very clear realization of how wonderful your future could be if you could keep that woman of your wild and crazy dreams.

She rolled up on his chest to gaze down at him. “It's not like I haven't always been here in BC. You know where to find me.”

“Yeah. So does Sam.”

She smiled sexily at Ty. “You brought those fine hunks to town.”

He hadn't meant for one of them to make Jade fall in love with him. And as Jade appeared to be on something of a baby-making mission, it was a concern that weighed on Ty. “Hunks, huh?”

She raised a brow, kissed him. “Just a little.”

He could tell she was teasing him and enjoying it, but the thing was, he had this really strong urge to put a name on whatever it was they had between them. “I don't like Sam,” he said with a growl.

Jade laughed. “You think the world of Sam. Anyway,” she said, kissing him again, making him think about the fact that he should be kissing her, and in the most strategic places possible. “Sam isn't a stayer.”

“A stayer?”

“Mmm-hmm. Haven't you noticed? Sam isn't going to be your success story. You're far more likely to settle down than Sam. And Frog and Toad are guaranteed.”

Frog and Toad? Ty might have laughed if he wasn't so worried. “Frog and Squint are good guys. Sam is, too,” he admitted grudgingly. “How do you know he isn't going to settle?”

“He's just along for the ride.”

“You spent enough time with him to figure that out?” Ty asked, unable to help himself from sounding like a jealous schmuck.

“He just doesn't have any desire to stay in one place, Ty. Sort of like you.”

She pressed gentle kisses on his chest, tantalizing him.

“So what if we made a baby?” he asked.

The kisses stopped. “You're good, handsome, but I really don't think you're so good that a couple of nights—”

“I'm trying really hard. And I have a confession to make.”

“Do confess.” She cocked her head, waiting.

“I'd like to spend the rest of time before I leave dedicating myself to that goal.”

She looked at him for a long time. “I have a confession to make myself.”

His heart hitched. He hoped like hell she wasn't going to tell him that this was a one-shot deal. “Your turn.”

“I'm on the same drug that Mackenzie was on when she got pregnant. It's to help women conceive when it's been difficult for them to do so.”

“Why were you already on it?” He refused to think she might have been playing up to Sam for the very purpose of getting that baby she wanted.

“The day you came home, I went and talked to the doctor.”

His jaw literally sagged. “You never once let on that you wanted to date me. Or even be more than friends.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It's not the kind of thing a woman just blurts out to a man. Although I did mention to you tonight that—”

He sat up. “Yeah, you mentioned it tonight, a handful of days before I'm leaving, and simply to keep me from jumping into a fight!”

She shrugged, which made her very tempting breasts jiggle a little. He was utterly fascinated—but forced himself back to the conversation. “It took me a while to get my courage up. The fight sort of pushed me to the moment.”

“I'm glad something did,” he groused. He hated to think he might have gone off and never known that this woman had sexy plans for him. “Holy crap.”

“Yeah.”

“So there's really a chance we could make a baby, since you're on this turbo-ovary-booster stuff.”

She smiled. “It worked for Mackenzie.”

He could be a dad. Holy, holy crap.

“But I'm pretty sure it's not the right time of the month,” Jade said.

His world crashed. “How do you know? Doesn't the medicine override all that?”

She laughed. “I'm afraid not.”

“Hell.”

“It's okay.”

No, it really wasn't. He didn't have enough time to give this his best shot. And something inside him really, really wanted to do just that. “So you wanna get married?”

“No.” She laughed again and got out of the bed. “You're going to do your SEAL thing. Don't try to use me to get out of it.”

Use her, hellfire. He wanted to have her for the rest of his time here. He wanted everything she wanted to give him and then some. “But if I did hit the target, you'd marry me, right?”

She reached for her panties, clearly getting ready to bolt. “You're going into the navy. That's all you ever talked about. Let's focus on that goal.”

“I just don't want to come home to find you married,” he grumbled, knowing he was being totally unreasonable. He didn't like the way she'd skirted the issue of marriage, either. It hadn't been much of a proposal, as proposals went—more something that had flown unbidden out of his mouth. But she hadn't so much as blinked or smiled when he'd said it, and from that alone he discerned a decided lack of enthusiasm on her part.

He supposed she didn't have much to get excited about, since he really had nothing to offer her. She was right. He was leaving, and there was absolutely no knowing when he'd be back.

“I'm not done with you.” He grabbed her, tugging her back into bed with him, encircling her with his arms and holding her against his chest. Anything to keep her with him just a little while longer.

“I have to leave.”

She didn't sound all that convinced. Ty figured he knew what a woman sounded like when she was ready to hit the door, and Jade made no move to leave his arms, either. He nuzzled her neck, sighed against the soft skin. Felt himself get hard, and stroked a hand across her nipples, which perked up instantly. She was fitted against him in such a nice, comfortable spoon fashion, and he moved into place easily behind her, finding the soft sweetness he craved, sliding inside her as if they'd never been apart. Didn't belong apart. She moaned with pleasure, tucking herself closer against him, and Ty's every muscle tightened with desire he couldn't control. Something about her drove him completely out of his mind. Jade was the only woman who made him this insanely hungry. He teased her nipples, and when she gasped, rocking against him urgently, he slid a hand between her legs, stroking her, letting his fingers glide against her softness, taking his time bringing her to pleasure until she was gasping his name, begging him for release.

Still he gently kissed her neck, taking his time before sweeping her over the edge, enjoying her heat and her desire for him.

“Ty,”
she said, her voice an urgent plea.

He knew what she wanted. He could give it to her—he would. But he wanted her hovering with him at the edge of pleasure as long as possible, wanted her in his arms feeling this magic as long as he could keep her.

She tightened up on him, and he steeled himself, but between her soft words asking him to release her, and the wild tension of her rocking against him, Ty knew he couldn't last much longer. Taking a gentle bite of her shoulder, keeping her as close to him as he possibly could, he thrust into her as he teased her with his fingers until he could feel the soft, slick folds all around him tense, waiting. He tweaked her gently, burying himself deep inside her, and was rewarded by his name on her lips again as she gasped and cried out.

Then he allowed himself his own release into her welcoming body, his every muscle shuddering, his arms holding her for all he was worth.

This was what he wanted.

This was his new plan.

He didn't know how it could work out. It seemed impossible.

But if there was any way on God's green earth he could keep Jade for his own, he intended to do it.

* * *

J
ADE
HAD
T
Y
take her home just before the sun came up. After the excitement last night with the fighting, and then somehow them ending up in bed together, everything had changed. Jade barely knew what to think. She slipped quickly from his truck before the moment could get awkward between them. If it never happened again, she wanted to remember last night just the way it had been—spontaneous and somehow magical.

She went inside her house, headed upstairs for a hot shower and a change of clothes before she went to find Betty.

Her mother looked up, smiling brightly, as she made it into the kitchen. “Good morning! There's coffee and I have a cake fresh out of the oven.”

“It smells fabulous.” Jade realized she was ravenous as she got a cup of coffee and slid onto a bar stool. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Busy day ahead.” Betty pulled out some eggs. “Thanks for all the help last night.”

“Mom, I don't want you to do everything yourself. You can't run the ice-cream shop and do the treat stand at the Haunted H.” Jade sighed with appreciation as her mother put a fresh-baked slice of cinnamon cake in front of her. “I can run the stand at night myself.”

“I look at this two ways,” Betty said, whipping the eggs in a bowl with some milk and other ingredients. “One, we're lucky to have the extra income the Haunted H is bringing in, and with the Donovans being totally against it, we have to make hay while the sun shines, because who knows how long it'll last. Two, I have help at the ice-cream shop. It's not that much work to run the stand, too.”

Jade barely realized she'd wolfed down the entire piece of cake. “I was starving.”

“You were out late,” Betty observed mildly. “Probably didn't have dinner.”

Jade sipped her coffee. “I don't know what I'm doing, Mom.”

Betty didn't stop stirring, didn't glance up. “Does it matter?”

And that was her mother's subtle way of saying that she shouldn't overthink the situation with Ty, which had just taken a major complication turn. “You're right.”

“Anyway,” Betty said, “Cosette called me last night.”

Jade looked at her mother. “I'm fine. I just fell down a couple of stairs.”

Betty glanced up. “You fell down stairs?”

“Cosette didn't tell you?”

“My word, no. She called to tell me that Robert Donovan is continuing to put the squeeze on Phillipe. I don't think Mssr. Unmatchmaker's going to be able to hold out. And I think the divorce is going ahead, unfortunately. Too many financial issues, with Donovan pulling the strings.” She looked puzzled. “How would Cosette have known you fell down some stairs?”

“Never mind. Long story.” Maybe Cosette hadn't gone into full gossip mode as soon as she'd left Ty's place. Anyway, it didn't matter. Jade supposed she didn't care if people knew she'd gone out to Ty's place—even if folks would be a little surprised that he'd finally darkened that door after so many years. She certainly had been.

Strangely, it had felt so much like he'd come home. She'd felt him relaxing, unbending.

Until they'd unearthed the metal box. He hadn't said another word about that during the night, and she didn't figure he would. “I don't understand why Phillipe and Cosette's little matchmaking business is the immediate target of Mr. Donovan's evil plans.”

“They're in the center of the block in town. If he can take that, he'll have more leverage with the other businesses.” Betty put steaming eggs on a pretty blue plate in front of her. “Cosette is just devastated.”

Jade's phone buzzed in the back pocket of her jeans. “This is delicious, Mom. I should be making you breakfast, though.”

“Nonsense.”

Jade pulled out her phone, smiling when she saw the message from Ty:
Come back tonight—I have plans for you.

She texted back
Plans?

Just dinner, beautiful. Don't be greedy.

She laughed. He did have high opinions of himself.

“Ah, young love,” Betty said with a happy sigh.

Jade blinked. “I'm not in love, Mom. We're not in love.”

“Ty and you, you mean.”

Jade realized she had no secrets from her mother. “Yes.” She texted back
I'll bring dessert. Going to the Haunted H tonight?

Wouldn't miss it.

She put her phone away, her body already glowing with the secret knowledge of what she knew would happen tonight. “What do you think it would take to get Robert Donovan off our necks forever?”

“If I knew that,” Betty said, sitting down with her own piece of cake and a cup of hot coffee, “I'd be blabbing it all over town.”

“I feel sorry for Cosette and Phillipe.” Jade lost her appetite. Cosette was just about the nicest person in Bridesmaids Creek. In fact, there was no better place to have grown up than BC. Everybody helped look out for each other. Jade had never been tempted to leave—not like Ty had wanted so badly to do.

She completely understood his reasons. “I think I'm going to spend some time with Ty until he has to go.”

“That's nice, dear.” Betty had her head buried in the Bridesmaids Creek newspaper now, looking for gossip items. “Try to keep him out of any more fighting until he leaves, is my advice. He needs all his strength for BUD/S.”