Having Gabriel′s Baby
Having Gabriel's Baby
Kristin Morgan
Bundles of JoyPARDON ME, BUT THERE'S A NAKED MAN IN MY BED…Joelle Ames had planned her vacation meticulously, but waking up with sexy tourist Gabriel Lafleur–and no memory of the night before–wasn't on the itinerary! Why, she hardly knew him, even though he produced a very questionable "marriage certificate"!What on earth had possessed Gabriel to get himself hitched on his first vacation in years? Surely the union wasn't legal. He and Joelle could just go their separate ways and forget the whole thing.But their actions had consequences, and theirs was due in nine months, just enough time for them to get used to being called "Mom" and "Dad"–as well as "Mr." and "Mrs."!Bundles of Joy. Sometimes small packages can lead to the biggest surprises!
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u328ce5a3-1c0a-5e09-bf6c-d32d422414ef)
Excerpt (#u1c397f8d-d328-5a22-8de4-44aaec4bc19c)
Dear Reader (#u633a0b96-cfbd-59b2-993a-88237698d4d9)
Title Page (#u771524ba-e68f-5d33-8de9-cb520c6cb4eb)
About the Author (#ue4daa6ab-03e0-565e-b96f-28673aab7015)
Chapter One (#u624bcfac-ae0b-5e1b-8dbe-8b1657d7502b)
Chapter Two (#u85b37cbd-fd9a-50ab-9059-cc8fc4634cec)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Pregnant!
Joelle supposed that she should have considered the possibility that she had been pregnant all along. She’d had her suspicions, but she hadn’t wanted to believe them. But now she had no choice. She was four weeks pregnant with Gabriel Lafleur’s child.
She considered calling Gabriel, and then tossed the idea aside. What good would it do? She knew for a fact that he didn’t want a wife any more than she wanted a husband. She had absolutely no reason in the world to think that Gabriel Lafleur wanted to hear from her.
Still, several nights later, Joelle found herself dialing his telephone number. Of course, she had no intention of telling him about the baby. She simply wanted to hear his voice, make small talk for a while and then hang up.
His telephone rang once…twice…three times.
“Hello…?”
Dear Reader,
This month Silhouette Romance has six irresistible novels for you, starting with our FABULOUS FATHERS selection, Madfor the Dad by Terry Essig. When a sexy single man becomes an instant dad to a toddler, the independent divorcée next door offers parenthood lessons—only to dream of marriage and motherhood all over again!
In Having Gabriel’s Baby by Kristin Morgan, our BUNDLES OF JOY book, a fleeting night of passion with a handsome, brooding rancher leaves Joelle in the family way—and the dad-to-be insisting on a marriage of convenience for the sake of the baby….
Years ago Julie had been too young for the dashing man of her dreams. Now he’s back in town, and Julie’s still hoping he’ll make her his bride in New Year’s Wife by Linda Varner, part of her miniseries HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
What’s a man to do when he has no interest in marriage but is having trouble resisting the lovely, warm and wonderful woman in his life? Get those cold feet to the nearest wedding chapel in Family Addition by Rebecca Daniels.
In About That Kiss by Jayne Addison, Joy Mackey, sister of the bride, is sure her sis’s ex-fiancé has returned to sabotage the wedding. But his intention is to walk down the aisle with Joy!
And finally, when a woman shows up on a bachelor doctor’s doorstep with a baby that looks just like him, everyone in town mistakenly thinks the tiny tot is his in Christine Scott’s Groom on the Loose.
Enjoy!
Melissa Senate, Senior Editor
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
Having Gabriel’s Baby
Kristin Morgan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
KRISTIN MORGAN
lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, the best heart of Acadiana, where the French language of her ancestors is still spoken fluently by her parents and grandparents. Happily married to her high school sweetheart, she has three children. She and her husband have traveled all over the South, as well as other areas of the United States and Mexico, and they both count themselves lucky that their favorite city, New Orleans, is only two hours away from Lafayette.
In addition to her writing, she enjoys cooking and preparing authentic Cajun food for her family with recipes passed on to her through generations. Her hobbies include reading—of course!—flower gardening and fishing. She loves walking in the rain, newborn babies, all kinds of music, chocolate desserts and love stories with happy endings. A true romantic at heart, she believes all things are possible with love.
Chapter One (#ulink_edc2ea8e-530c-5a21-97ce-b532ffd357d4)
As the bright morning sunlight poured in through the two-inch opening in the drapes of her hotel room window, Joelle Ames turned over in bed and groaned when a sharp, excruciating pain shot across her forehead from temple to temple.
What she wouldn’t have given in that moment for a couple of aspirin. In fact, after moving her head again, ever so slightly, she quickly decided that maybe she needed three of the painkillers, instead. Not to mention, a cold ice pack placed right at a certain spot on her forehead.
Obviously this, her last day of vacation in Acapulco, wasn’t going to be one of her better days. She had come here from her hometown of San Diego five days ago for a badly-needed rest and, since her arrival, had purposefully kept a low profile. In fact, she couldn’t understand what she could’ve possibly done last night that would warrant her having such a terrible headache first thing this morning. After all, since it was her last night of vacation, she’d simply gone to dinner with Gabriel Lafleur, the farmer from Louisiana who had somehow become her touring partner over the past few days. Sure, he was one sexy-looking man, and she had let herself relax for the first time in—What?—Years?—and enjoy his company. But that’s all it was. One night of fun. Now it was over with. She just wished her headache was, too.
If only she could’ve found the courage to pry open her eyelids, climb out of bed and walk over to where her luggage was to see if she had brought along any painkillers with her.
If only she could collect her thoughts.
But the truth of the matter was, it hurt too much for her to try to think straight right now. In fact, losing consciousness would’ve been a blessing at this point. Unfortunately, though, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to be given that luxury.
Suddenly a brief flash of memory from her actions last night crossed Joelle’s mind and she recalled herself dancing in a little, quaint, out-of-the-way cantina. And there was laughter. Lots and lots of laughter. And she and Gabriel Lafleur having a couple of shots of tequila at the crowded bar. At least, a couple. My goodness, she’d never drunk that much before in her life. Hadn’t the plan been to stop in for just one nightcap? Then what in the world had gotten into her to make her get so sidetracked?
Actually her recollection of last night was shaky, at best. It was as though the bitter pain in her head was deliberately blocking out her memory. What, she wondered, had she done between the time she and Gabriel had left the cantina and now? Maybe if she rang Gabriel’s room, which was two floors above her, he could fill in the missing pieces.
She groaned, again, this time after turning over and lying flat on her back. She’d never hurt this bad in her life. A second later she realized that she was completely naked under the sheet covering her—and an immediate alarm went off in her head. Uh-oh. She never slept nude. And she never drank too much, either. Something definitely wasn’t right.
Headache, or not, Joelle decided that it was time she faced the world and made sense of her surroundings. Rubbing her eyelids with the tips of her fingers, she finally found the will to force them open and stare at the ceiling in her hotel room. After a moment, she darted her eyes around the room. Exactly what she expected to find, she wasn’t sure. Then, just as her gaze fell upon a pair of men’s pants tossed across the back of a chair near her bed, the door to her bathroom swung open, and none other than Gabriel Lafleur, her dinner date from last night, stepped through it. His dark brown hair was wet and tousled, and he was naked except for the white towel that was wrapped around his waist. Joelle’s stomach did a flat-out bellybust dive for the floor.
As he strolled forward, his eyes lifted and met hers. Halting as though a steel wall had suddenly dropped down in front of him, he paused a moment before saying in a deep voice, “Well, good morning. I see you’ve finally awakened.”
Shocked speechless—not to mention, mindless— Joelle could only gape at him as her stomach tightened into knots. For a brief moment she thought the sudden wave of heat that swarmed over her and made her sick to her stomach would send her running right past him for the bathroom. As it was, the entire room seemed to fade momentarily before her eyes. She heard her own raspy intake of breath.
“Hey, come on, now. You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?” she heard him saying. It was enough to make her inhale deeply and, somehow, the room came back into focus.
By this time Gabriel Lafleur had already walked up to the foot of her bed and was now frowning down as if he halfway expected her to fall apart at the seams. She knew that look well. Her father always used it when he wanted to let her know that she’d somehow failed him, again. And, of course, according to her father, she was always failing him. In fact, if her father had had his wish when she was born thirty-one years ago, he would’ve been given a son to follow in his footsteps, not a daughter who seemed to falter every time she tried.
Joelle’s glare wavered momentarily. She felt vulnerable… naked…and mortified to the bone to have this man she hardly knew staring down at her and probably making snap judgments of her character— or, rather, her lack of it. Certainly he had no right to do that. After all, he hardly knew anything at all about her, other than the fact that she’d obviously made a huge mistake last night in thinking that he was a decent enough guy to have dinner with. Nonetheless, if he thought she was going to fall to pieces right there in front of him as if she was some weak little woman with no backbone, he was in for a big disappointment. She no longer gave her father the benefit of seeing her tears. Therefore, humiliated, or not, she wasn’t about to let this man see them, either. Instead she conjured up her best poker face and glared at him.
But, regardless of what she hoped was an Oscar winning performance on her part, the following moments grew increasingly difficult for Joelle. She stared in surprised defiance at Gabriel Lafleur…at his bare, lean, muscled chest, and at the way the dark curly hair at its center lay damp and matted against his tanned skin. Finally, having a will of their own, her eyes began following a drop of water as it slid downward, only to have it eventually soaked up by the hotel guest towel wrapped tightly around his slim waistline. Her throat felt suddenly dry…parched, and swallowing in that moment became difficult. Her eyes lifted to his and what she saw there made her realize that he was aware of her every thought. Finally, unable to deal with this reality for a second longer, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that when she opened them, again, he would be gone.
Obviously her father had been right about her all along. Obviously there was a part of her that was too soft…too womanly, to hold up under the pressure of a man’s world. Surely, if she had any strength of character at all, she wouldn’t be in such a humiliating situation.
Joelle knew her prayers weren’t going to be answered when she felt him touch her arm and say, “Hey, are you going to be all right?” The feel of his warm fingers on her flesh startled her. Her eyes sprang wide open, and they stared at each other as if they were two cat burglars who were suddenly surprised to discover themselves on the same rooftop.
Eventually Joelle found her voice. “Of course, I’m going to be all right,” she snapped.
“Thank goodness for that,” he replied. “About all I need this morning is to find myself at the mercy of a woman in tears.”
“What are you doing in my room?” Joelle demanded, although, in truth, she feared she already knew the answer to that one. She was just hoping like everything that her gut instincts were wrong. But, one thing she knew for sure. He wasn’t going to find this woman in tears.
“Well…” Gabriel Lafleur said, now grinning down at her with white, even teeth and the most clear brown eyes she’d ever seen. He had wide, full lips that, even in the stark brightness of morning reality, beckoned to be kissed. He had high prominent cheekbones and a squared-off jawline, and a nose that flared slightly wider at the end. In essence, he was six feet of pure, unadulterated male. “I was…uh…just making myself at home,” he said, politely. He acted as though being in her hotel room was seemingly of no consequence to him. At least, not like it was to her. “Look, I hope you don’t mind that I used your shower,” he continued. “But under the circumstances, I didn’t think that you would.”
Joelle swallowed. “Uh…And what circumstances might that be?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes flicking back up to his handsome face after lingering far too long on a lower, more private part of his anatomy. Thank goodness he still had that towel on. As much as some wanton part of her liked looking at every follicle inch of him, she wished that she could’ve just snapped her fingers and have him disappear from her hotel room.
His grin widened. “Don’t you remember?”
Joelle blinked. Twice. “Remember what?”
“What we did?”
Joelle’s heart hammered against her breastbone. “What did we do?”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember, do you?”
Joelle gripped the ends of the sheet covering her breasts and pulled it up to the base of her throat. “O-of course, I do. W-we had dinner together.”
“And…”
“And…uh…we stopped in at some lively little cantina for a nightcap.” Joelle felt quite pleased with herself for having been able to recall that much. At least he wasn’t going to think her a complete idiot.
“And then…” he said.
She stared at him blankly.
He stared back. A moment later he said, “See, it’s like I thought. You don’t remember, do you?”
Hesitating with her answer, Joelle continued to hold the ends of the sheet in a death grip while trying to force her memory from last night to come forward. But the only result was some additional pounding in her already throbbing head. “No, I don’t.”
“Well, don’t feel so bad. ’Cause I don’t, either.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“Well…I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious that we came back here and spent the night together.” He paused then, long enough to give the impression that he was waiting on her to make a comment.
But Joelle had no comment at this point. As it was, having her mistake said out loud made her feel sick to her stomach, all over again.
Staring down at her, Gabriel Lafleur used his fingers to comb back his damp hair from his forehead. “Look, to be perfectly frank with you,” he continued, “my memory of what we did from the time we left the cantina until I awakened this morning in your bed is a bit hazy. I can only assume that neither of us recognized the numbing effect of the tequila we were drinking, and it just slipped up on us.”
“In other words, you’re saying we both got drunk.”
“Yeah,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “That pretty much sums it up.”
Once again, Joelle squeezed her eyes closed. “Oh, God, how could I have done something so foolish?”
“Look,” Gabriel said, “I just need to know one thing.”
Opening her eyes, Joelle exhaled deeply. “Like I just said, Lafleur, I don’t remember anything. And, quite frankly, I’d prefer to leave it that way.”
His gaze was challenging. “Yeah, well, that’s fine with me, Ames, except for one thing.”
Once more, Joelle exhaled deeply. Leave it to a man, she thought, to want to recall every nitty-gritty detail of their night spent in bed together. “What’s that?”
“Did we get married first?”
Clutching the sheet against her breasts, Joelle sat straight up in bed. “What?”
He looked her square in the face. “Did we get married last night before coming back to the hotel?”
“Are you crazy? Why on earth would we have done something like that?”
Gabriel Lafleur scratched the side of his head. “Hell if I know. But we’re both wearing dime-store wedding rings this morning. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t wearing one yesterday.” Stunned, Joelle stared at him in awe as he suddenly tried to pull something from around his finger, but he seemed to be having a bit of difficulty getting it over his knuckle. “And,” he said, as he continued his efforts, “if I remember correctly, at some point last night you said that you wouldn’t sleep with a guy unless you were ready to have some kind of a permanent commitment with him.”
Dazed, Joelle lifted her left hand in midair and gazed at her ring finger as if it was a lighted firecracker ready to explode. But a moment later, she regained her equilibrium and simply slipped off the cheap-looking ring that she knew was sold by any street vendor in any vacation hot spot in the world. She placed it on the bedside table next to her as if it was no big deal. Which it wasn’t, of course. Still, her heart raced ahead like mad. As if she had just discovered herself running in a marathon and knew her life depended on her winning it.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Joelle looked back at him and tilted her chin a fraction higher. “Yeah— well, I can tell you right now, if you had the nerve last night to suggest that we sleep together, you can bet I said something like that to you. Look, I know what you must be thinking of me right now, but the truth is, I don’t happen to get drunk with men I hardly know. Nor do I sleep around.”
“Hey, you don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said. “But, regardless of what you say, it doesn’t change the fact that I remember us leaving the cantina together last night with the dumb idea in mind of finding someone to marry us. Hell, I just want to know if we succeeded.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Joelle grimaced. She, too, now vaguely recalled having done something of similar nature last night. But in the cold light of day, it was simply too farfetched an idea for her to actually believe it possible. Her memory was undoubtedly playing tricks on her. Or…or, maybe, Gabriel Lafleur had somehow set her up to make her believe what he wanted.
With renewed determination, she opened her eyes and glared at him.
“That’s ridiculous. I would never do such an inconceivable thing,” Joelle replied, stubbornly, butin spite of her efforts to convince herself otherwise— her heart was beginning to palpitate uncontrollably, because somewhere deep, down inside, the memory was growing stronger. “You’re making that part up.”
“’Fraid not.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you trying to tell me that we might’ve gotten married last night for the sole purpose of sleeping together?”
“’Fraid so. Or—so it would seem.”
“No way.”
“Lady, if I remember correctly, you were the one setting up the rules, not me.”
“Hey, now, look here. I can assure you, I didn’t coerce you into anything,” Joelle stammered.
“Well, neither did I,” he replied.
“I certainly didn’t come to Acapulco to find a husband.”
Gabriel’s hands went to his hips. “Well, I certainly didn’t come here to find myself a wife, that’s for sure, and I don’t like having to deal with this any more than you do. I’m only praying that we couldn’t find anyone to do the job and ended up just crawling into the sack together. It certainly would make things a whole lot less complicated this morning.”
Indeed, it would, Joelle thought. But, in spite of her initial reaction, a moment later she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach at the distinct thought of her having just crawled into bed with him. She had morals that she lived by, after all. Morals that had been pounded into her head since she was a child by a strict, disciplinarian father. But she didn’t owe this man a quick briefing of her character upbringing. Besides, what good would it do at this point?
Therefore, in order to hide her growing anxiety, Joelle continued to glare at him and said, “How can you not remember what we did last night?”
He shrugged. “The same as you, I guess. Too much tequila.”
“Oh, God,” Joelle said, making sure that the sheet she held against her continued to cover her nakedness as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and planted her feet on the floor. She hung her pounding head in the palm of one hand. After all that had gone wrong in her life lately, she couldn’t believe that this, too, was happening to her. “This is awful,” she groaned.
Gabriel Lafleur placed his hands on his hips and sighed heavily. “Yeah—well—believe me, I know exactly what you mean.”
Then, in almost the same breath, he said, “Listen up. It seems to me that if we got married last night, then we ought to have some kind of proof—right? I mean, like a marriage certificate—or—or, something.” He turned away from her suddenly, stepped up to the dresser where a few of her personal belongings were on the top and began rummaging through them, searching, no doubt, for some kind of proof. Coming up empty-handed, he turned once again and targeted Joelle with those clear brown eyes of his. “Well, don’t just sit there. Get up and help me look, for heaven’s sake. You said that you didn’t want this to be happening any more than I did.”
The frustration in his voice was enough to spark Joelle into action. “I don’t,” she replied, haughtily. She stood immediately and began searching her hotel room on her own, scanning tabletops…the floor… under the bed. She found her panty and bra, and Gabriel’s tie and Jockey shorts. All four items were hiding beneath the quilted bedspread on the floor at the foot of the bed. She found her white poet’s blouse and the navy blue straight skirt she’d worn to dinner last night thrown on the seat of the chair where his slacks were. With each piece of clothing she found, it became clear to her that both of them had apparently been more than eager to shed their clothes and climb into bed together—with or without the benefit of marriage—and, as a result, her face grew redder and redder with embarrassment. And right along with her renewed embarrassment came a whole new set of memories from last night. Distinct, clear images of her and Gabriel kissing in the elevator as it had taken them up to her floor. And there was another jarring memory of him carrying her across the threshold. Like they were married. And, of course, there was the one of them making love on her bed…
In fact, her memories were now so tantalizingly frank in their recollection of what she and Gabriel had done together, Joelle found herself breaking into a cold sweat as she reached for her shoulder-strap purse that hung on a door knob. She began searching its contents. In truth, she didn’t want to recall the sensuous details of having been in his arms any more than she really wanted to find a marriage certificate declaring them as husband and wife. After all, she’d already made one mistake by getting drunk and sleeping with him. Why compound the problem this morning by hoping to find proof of a marriage that neither of them wanted?
“Find anything?” he asked, coming up right behind her. Her stomach bottomed out.
“Uh…not yet,” she replied, curtly. She could smell the clean freshness of the soap he’d used while showering. Suddenly feeling the need to place added distance between them, she stepped to one side and turned. “How about you?”
“Not yet,” he replied. Joelle noticed that his eyes dropped momentarily to where her hands held the sheet over her breasts and, once again, her stomach quivered.
Joelle gave him a scathing look. Considering that he was wrapped in only a towel, he really had some nerve to look at her as if she was the only one undressed.
Clearing his throat, he ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s probably a good thing. Look, maybe it means that we decided not to get married, after all. Or, maybe we just gave up on the idea because we couldn’t find anyone qualified to perform the ceremony.”
“Maybe,” Joelle grumbled. “But, unfortunately, I don’t think my luck these days is running that high. Considering our inebriated state, we could’ve gotten married and then simply lost the document on our way back here.”
Gabriel frowned, and Joelle could tell from the expression on his face that her theory wasn’t at all to his liking. Well, it certainly wasn’t to hers, either.
Still, she wasn’t quite ready to give up all hope of finding a simple resolution that would allow them to part company without worry or fanfare. Surely one of them would find something to jar their memory and, hopefully, give them both some badly needed peace of mind. With that in mind, Joelle proceeded to check the zipper compartments of her purse, but she found nothing. “Did you look through all your pockets?” she asked.
“I checked my pants. I haven’t found my shirt, yet.”
“Here it is,” Joelle stated, using her middle finger to pick up his wrinkled white dress shirt off the floor by its collar. She turned in his direction and offered it to him. As he reached for it, his eyes met hers, and he smiled.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Look, Joelle, about last night…”
“Forget it. It was as much my fault as it was yours.”
“Yeah…well, that’s not exactly what I was going to say.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I…uh…about the sex…I mean, it was great you know.”
Joelle thought her insides would turn inside-out. Yes, she knew, but she didn’t want to know. “Uh, look, I don’t really remember any of it, okay?” Liar. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Hey, whatever you say,” he replied, shrugging lightly.
Joelle glanced up and their gazes locked. Within moments, though, she realized her mistake in thinking she could handle such a battle of wills with him and she shook herself. What, in heaven’s name, she wondered, did she think she was doing, gazing up at him that way? Here the two of them were, alone and practically strangers, with one of them wrapped in a bath towel, and the other in a bed sheet. Was she completely crazy, or just a glutton for punishment?
She took several steps away from him. He gave her a haunted look as he reached into his shirt pocket and came out a second later with a white folded piece of paper held tightly between his two fingers. Joelle’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s that?” she asked, breathlessly. She was at his side in a flash.
“I don’t know,” he said, releasing an anxious breath. He started to carefully unfold the piece of paper, only to discover that it was just a regular sheet of white, lined, loose-leaf paper. But written on it in a sprawling, amateurish handwriting were yesterday’s date and the words: Gabriel and Joelle, I now pronounce you man and wife. Signed, José Cuervo.
José Cuervo was the brand name of the tequila they had drunk last night.
Dazed for several moments, neither of them spoke. Finally, Joelle couldn’t take the deafening silence another moment. “What does that paper mean?” she asked in a whispered voice. It was as though if she spoke too loudly, the entire world would know her most recent sin.
Still staring down at the piece of paper in his hands, Gabriel Lafleur didn’t answer her. Finally she nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “Lafleur, I need you to answer me. What does the note mean?”
“Hell, if I know,” he grumbled, suddenly crumpling up the piece of paper in one hand and tossing it like a basketball toward a nearby trash can. It fell inside like a dead ringer, and he said, “Bingo. See, now we’re off the hook. It’s in the trash.”
“Are you sure?” Joelle asked, still somewhat stunned from just awakening and finding Gabriel Lafleur in her hotel room, much less the rest of it. She sat down on the edge of the bed in the hopes of giving herself a moment to pull herself back together.
“Look,” he said, turning toward her and placing his hands on his hips. Joelle found herself following his every move. He had such wide, sensuous-looking hands.
Those hands had made love to her body last night.
Over and over, again.
She was breathless at the thought of it.
Swallowing hard, Joelle flicked her eyes back up to his. “What were you saying?” she asked.
“I was saying, surely you saw for yourself that piece of paper wasn’t anything legal. No minister or government official would’ve given us a handwritten note like that.”
“I know that. So, what’s your point, Lafleur?” Joelle stated.
“My point is, that piece of paper doesn’t prove anything. Certainly it doesn’t prove that we’re married.”
“I understand perfectly. But who could’ve written it?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he replied. “Any person on the street, for all I know.”
“Then, it wasn’t you.”
“Me,” he said, sounding surprised. “No, of course not.”
Then he narrowed his eyes. “Was it you?”
“Dream on,” she replied, and for the first time since awakening that morning, she actually considered laughing.
“Well, was it?” he asked, skeptically, and suddenly Joelle realized that the man was actually serious.
“No,” she answered.
“Well, in that case, we’re back to square one. We still don’t know what we did last night.”
Suddenly, recalling something very critical in her plans for that day, Joelle gasped. “Oh, my God! What time is it?”
Gabriel glanced over to where his wristwatch lay on a bedside table. “Almost eleven-thirty.”
“Oh—my goodness. How could I be so dense? I must be losing it. My flight back home to San Diego leaves in less than an hour—and I’m not even dressed, yet.”
She raced to where her luggage sat, all packed up and ready to go—thank goodness—and picked up the outfit folded on top that she planned to wear today. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Call a cab and have them waiting for me at the entrance to the hotel in ten minutes.” Within seconds of saying that, she was closing the bathroom door behind her.
Minutes later she emerged, showered, dressed and ready to go. At first she thought that Gabriel Lafleur had skipped out on her and the whole messy ordeal— which she quickly decided would’ve probably been the best way to end this nightmare. But, unfortunately, though the weakening in her knees proved she actually felt otherwise, she saw him a second later, standing at the window with his back to her. He was now wearing the same dark gray pants he’d worn last night.
Without comment, Joelle quickly gathered her personal effects that were still on top of the dresser and dumped them into her cosmetic bag. Then picking up a piece of her luggage in each hand, she cleared her throat in the hopes of getting his attention. Like he hadn’t already heard her rummaging around in the room. He turned around to face her with his hands in his pockets. “I’m leaving now,” she said.
She saw him take in a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say at this point.”
“Then don’t say anything,” she replied. Her heart was galloping around in her chest as if it were a wild, caged stallion.
A lopsided, sheepish grin slid up one side of his face. “But I feel like I should say something. I feel like I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Lafleur. I’m a big girl.”
“Somehow I feel that this is all my fault. I’m sorry.”
“Look, it just happened, okay? So let’s be modern thinking adults about this and just get on with our lives.”
“Hey, if you can live with it, then I sure can,” he replied. “It’s just you seemed to be upset earlier, so I was trying to make you feel better.”
Joelle sighed deeply. Truthfully she didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to live with herself, again, but, at the moment, she saw that she had no other choice than to try. “Look, for my own peace of mind, once I get back home I plan to have my attorney look into this matter and see if he can come up with anything. If he does, then I’ll give him the okay to resolve whatever problem we may have created for ourselves.”
Gabriel nodded his head. “That’s probably a good idea.” He walked to the bedside table where his wristwatch was, picked up a notepad and pencil and jotted something down. “Here,” he said a moment later, tearing off a sheet. “This is my telephone number just in case your attorney needs to get in touch with me.” He shrugged. “You can never tell.”
Joelle hesitated only a second before taking the piece of paper from him and stuffing it inside a pocket of her purse. Then, pulling out one of her business cards, she gave it to him. “Just in case,” she said.
“You never know,” Gabriel replied.
“True,” she said, and for some reason she felt breathless. “I guess we just as soon make this as easy as possible on ourselves.”
“I agree.”
Joelle turned for the door.
“Hey—Ames,” he said in a softer tone of voice. “Wait a minute.”
Pivoting around to face him, she lifted her eyebrows in question.
“What do you think? Did we actually get married?”
The question startled her and, for a brief moment, Joelle had no idea how to answer it. But, at the same time, it immediately brought a few things into focus for her. For one thing, she wasn’t going to part from this man and have him worry that perhaps she would show up at his doorstep one day, saying they were husband and wife and that he owed her something. He didn’t owe her anything.
Gabriel Lafleur didn’t know it, of course, but in her everyday life, she was a fully dedicated career woman and was quite capable of taking care of herself under any circumstances. “I—uh—no, I honestly don’t think we did.”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment of hesitation, “that’s what I think, too.”
“Goodbye, Lafleur,” Joelle said. “Have a nice life.”
“Goodbye, Ames. Take care.”
Then, in spite of a sudden heaviness at the center of her chest, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, turned and hurried out the door.
She knew it would be the last time she would ever see Gabriel Lafleur again.
And though she hated to admit it, a small part of her regretted it.
It was so silly of her, she knew. Nonetheless, it was true.
Chapter Two (#ulink_68a708a0-3257-5ded-8d9b-2b34f7918fe0)
Arriving home that evening, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, unlocked the door to her high-rise condo and stepped inside. Her telephone was ringing and she thought she knew who it was. If there was anything she could say about her father, it was that he was persistent. Well, she wasn’t anywhere near being ready to talk to him just yet. First she needed a couple of aspirin and some sleep, then maybe she’d be ready to confront the world, again. But, for tonight, she had enough on her mind. She stood nearby while allowing her answering machine to pick up the call and listened to see if her initial suspicions were accurate.
And, sure enough, they were. Within a moment she was hearing her father’s condescending tone of voice as he demanded that she answer her telephone and talk to him. From the number of messages she saw flashing on her machine, he’d obviously been trying to reach her for days.
Yeah, well, he could try reaching her all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to listen to his tirades anymore. Not after the way he’d humiliated her in front of all his employees. After all, it wasn’t every day that a daughter, who was always faithful to her father’s wishes, found out that he was having another employee within his company spy on her work performance and report those findings back to him. This time she was through allowing him to manipulate her. He might be her father, but he didn’t have any right to dictate her life.
This time, though, he’d really hurt her. In fact, he hadn’t gone into retirement and turned over his company to her at all. He’d only made her believe that she’d finally won his respect for him to do that, when all the time he was still calling the shots from behind the scenes. Damn him, anyway. He’d made her look like a fool. Well, this was one time she wasn’t going to forgive him for it. Nor was she ever going to trust him again to be on her side. But, more importantly, now, more than ever, she was determined to show him that he was wrong about her, and that even without his so-called help, she had the intelligence and tenacity to become highly successful. As much, in fact, as any son of his would have.
She was never going to forgive him.
Never. But, enough of her father for now. At the moment she had other, more urgent things to worry about. Things like Gabriel Lafleur.
No…actually, she really didn’t want to think about him, either. The problem was, if only she could stop herself. Wasn’t it enough that first thing tomorrow morning she was going to have to contact her attorney and have him look into the matter of her last night in Acapulco? My goodness, couldn’t something, somewhere give her a simple break?
It didn’t look that way. Because, already images of Gabriel were lurking at the corners of her mind, just waiting to jump forward. One in particular, the one where he was kissing her on the elevator while going up to her room was especially haunting.
It made her stomach quiver.
Her breasts tingle.
It made her feel breathless.
She still wanted him, for heaven’s sake. Just as much as she had last night.
How could she recall every little detail of their lovemaking and yet be unable to recall leaving the cantina with him to go get married? And, yet, something in the back of her mind told her that was exactly what she had done. The question was, had they succeeded?
The tension in her neck was so great that she couldn’t take it anymore.
Slipping out of her shoes, she turned on the water in her shower and then began unbuttoning her blouse. Moments later she slipped under the warm spray and began shampooing her hair. After stepping out and blowing dry her short shag hairstyle, she dressed in a pale green soft cotton robe. She plodded her way barefoot to the beige sofa in the den, and curled up on one corner with a blanket and pillow and fell sound asleep.
At some point, the doorbell finally woke her, and it became immediately clear that her caller had already grown impatient with her and as a result had his or her finger currently glued to the chime button. Throwing back the light blanket, Joelle groaned and somehow got to her feet. Without a doubt, she knew who it was.
Still, as a security measure, she peeked through the peephole first and then opened the door. The moment she did, her father came barreling across the threshold as if he were a tyrant on a rampage—which was normal behavior for him. “Where have you been, Joelle?” he demanded, his ruddy complexion reddened with anger. “I’ve been calling for days. Didn’t you get any of my messages?”
If there was ever the slightest chance of Joelle getting rid of her headache anytime soon, it had just quickly skedaddled out of her reach. “I’ve been out of town, Father,” she said, dryly, dropping back down on the sofa and laying her pounding head back against the soft cushion. At any minute, she felt certain that her head was going to explode into a million pieces.
“That’s no excuse,” her father declared, standing over her and glaring down as if he was a mighty eagle and she, an insignificant little sparrow. His voice seemed to vibrate through her aching head like the strumming of a high-pitched guitar. “I was worried sick about you,” he continued as his hands came to rest on his hips. But, actually, from Joelle’s point of view, his arrogant pose said otherwise.
“I wish I could believe that,” she replied, listlessly, without bothering to lift her head and look at him. Instead she placed her fingertips against her temples and began massaging them.
She was still angry at her father. And hurt, too. And she had every right to be. It was time that Sylvan Ames realized that she was a real person with feelings and not just someone put on this earth for him to ridicule when the mood struck.
“Joelle, have you any idea of how embarrassed I’ve been by your sudden absence from the marketing firm? Everyone has been asking about you and I’ve had to lie to them about your whereabouts.”
Opening her eyes, Joelle lifted her head and met his stare. “Really? Well, why didn’t you just tell them the truth, that I’d resigned on the spot the day I walked out and that I’m no longer an employee of your company?”
“What kind of an idiot do you take me for, Joelle? I’m not about to tell my employees something like that. Now we both know that you just overreacted that day. I’m sure now that you’ve had time to think about how foolish you looked storming out of the office like that, you’re as anxious as I am to put the whole ugly incident behind us and get on with business as usual.” Walking briskly toward the door, her father turned just before reaching it. “In fact, be in your office by eight sharp tomorrow morning. We have a new account that needs your attention.”
“I’m sorry, Father, but that isn’t possible,” Joelle replied.
Coming to a sudden halt, her father turned and pinned her to the spot with his glare. “Joelle, I’ve had about enough of this. I want you to stop behaving like a spoiled child.”
“Don’t you mean like a silly female?”
“Yes. That, too.”
“Well, for your information, Father, I’m not behaving like either. And to prove it, I’m declining your offer of reinstatement. You see, I’ve decided that it’s time that I make it in this world on my own—without your help.”
“That’s absurd. You’ll never do it,” Sylvan Ames remarked bitterly.
Joelle sighed. “Yeah—well, neither one of us will ever know that for sure unless I try. And tha’s what I’m going to do, Father. Surely you can understand my reasons.”
Her father narrowed his eyes. “You’ll never make it without my help.”
“Maybe not. But it’s a chance I have to take.”
Smirking, her father pointed his finger at her. “You’re going to fall flat on your face. But, when you do, don’t you dare come crawling back to me. You’ve had your chance. I’ll not be sympathetic to your pleas.” Then, pivoting on his heels, he rushed out her door, slamming it behind him.
Hot tears sprang to Joelle’s eyes. “You needn’t worry, Father. I won’t come crawling,” she whispered into the extreme silence that immediately followed his departure. “Not for any reason.”
Later that night, Joelle opened herself a can of chicken soup for supper. After eating, she went to bed early with an ice pack for her throbbing head. At some point, she began dreaming of Acapulco and Gabriel and woke up the following morning halfway expecting to find her vacation lover asleep in bed beside her. But he wasn’t there, and Joelle soon found herself wishing that he was. Eventually she began to realize what she was doing to herself and vowed to put him from her thoughts, once and for all.
But, unfortunately, over the next three weeks Joelle was incapable of pulling herself so completely together that she was able to block out all thoughts of Gabriel. He crept into her mind at the weirdest times, at some of the most inappropriate moments. Sometimes she found him in her thoughts even when she was making plans for her future…plans that, truthfully, here lately, she seemed to have so little energy in trying to accomplish. It wasn’t that she was depressed, or sickly, because she wasn’t either. The drive was there. It was her get-up-and-go that wasn’t.
She was just tired all the time. And sleepy. In fact, no matter how early she went to bed at night, she couldn’t seem to get enough sleep. Lately she required an afternoon nap, just to keep going. Finally, after realizing that her condition wasn’t improving, she decided that she needed to see a doctor for a good physical and promised to make herself an appointment soon.
But by the time she did, she was quite certain that there was really something seriously wrong with her. She was beginning to wonder if maybe she had picked up some kind of intestinal virus while on vacation.
Gabriel Lafleur stood on the veranda of his large Cajun-styled plantation home, built by his ancestors over a hundred and fifty years ago. It wasn’t quite sunup yet, but he knew he should’ve already been in the cane fields out back. His hired help was already hard at work. But, instead of hurrying to join them, here he was sitting around, sipping on his last cup of coffee and acting like some lovesick fool who had all the time in the world to be thinking about her. Hell, it was planting season and he didn’t have time to be thinking about anything other than work. Acapulco was weeks ago. It was time he forgot about the woman he’d made love to while there. Heaven help him, it was what he wanted to do more than anything else in the whole world. Only there was a dumb, stubborn part of him that wasn’t cooperating with his common sense.
And that’s what ate at his gut…constantly… steadily. He didn’t even want to think about her. Or, any woman, for that matter. His ex-wife’s betrayal had cured him of that. No way would he ever trust another woman enough to make her his wife. Even he wasn’t that big a fool.
And, yet, here he was acting just like one. Joelle Ames was, without a doubt, from start to finish, from head to toe, all wrong for him. In fact, that’s what made him an even bigger fool than most. He knew she was all wrong for him.
He was an idiot. No doubt about it.
Actually, instead of standing around like some lovesick schoolboy, he should’ve been counting his lucky stars that Joelle Ames was obviously the kind of woman who had been able to put their one-night stand into its proper perspective, just as he had. Some women he knew would’ve had trouble being that open-minded.
He was surprised that he hadn’t heard something— anything—by now from her or her attorney. Under the circumstances, he had felt certain that he would have, if for no other reason than to touch base and clear the air between them one final time. In some ways, maybe he’d been wanting to hear from her.
In fact, one day last week, he’d got to thinking about her—about their night together—and almost picked up the telephone to call. But then he’d decided that maybe it was for the best if he didn’t. Certainly he didn’t want to stir up any unnecessary trouble for himself. Besides, if she wasn’t worrying about any legal problems that might result from their time spent together, then why should he?
Well, in all reality, he did have his family inheritance to worry about. The last thing he needed was for some woman he hardly knew thinking she had some legal claim to it.
But he didn’t think that Joelle Ames was that stupid.
Still and all, right now his inheritance wasn’t the biggest problem concerning him. She was his biggest problem—period.
Damn her, anyway. Why couldn’t he simply forget about her?
Suddenly renewing his strong determination to put an end to his thoughts of her—Gabriel set his cup down on the railing that surrounded the porch and headed down the steps toward the fertile fields behind his house. This was the land of his ancestors, the land his father had left him. Located on the western edge of the Atchafalaya Basin in south Louisiana, it was rich, prime soil for toiling sugar cane. But even with all the modern technology and equipment, farming was still a hard way of life. It still took his total commitment, and then some.
But he wasn’t complaining. Not really. This was his way of life; it was all he’d ever known, and it was more important to him than anything in the whole world. And it always would be.
Forever.
Therefore, his memories of Ms. Joelle Ames, citywoman personified, could just back off.
Pregnant! Joelle closed the door to her doctor’s office as she walked out and stepped into the bright light of another typical California day. She didn’t smile, or breathe deeply of the crisp, clean breeze as she normally would have. Instead she got into her car and drove straight home. Once inside, she wandered aimlessly from room to room, her nerves too fidgety for her to think of sitting down for even a moment.
Oh, God, how could something like this be happening to her? She, of all people, who as a dutiful daughter had never once forgotten her moral upbringing when dealing with the opposite sex. It wasn’t fair that she was going to have to pay such a high price for her one failure in doing so.
She was suffering from a form of shock, she knew. Her doctor’s unexpected diagnosis for her malaise had come as a real blow. Actually she supposed that she should’ve considered the possibility that she was pregnant all along. But, the truth of the matter was, she hadn’t. Or, rather, she’d had her suspicions deep, down inside but she hadn’t wanted to believe them. But now she had no choice. According to her doctor, she was four weeks pregnant with Gabriel Lafleur’s child.
It was just so difficult for her to believe.
A real life shocker.
She was absolutely terrified.
How could she, of all people, be carrying a child, when, in fact, she was the last woman on earth meant for motherhood?
Maybe her doctor had made a mistake.
No—actually, she thought a moment later, the mistake was all her doing. No one had forced her into sleeping with Gabriel Lafleur. Therefore, it was up to her to deal with the crisis that had resulted. And, needless to say, she would do it alone. Without help from anyone. Not even her father.
Especially, not her judgmental father.
Still, Joelle knew her own limitations and was terrified at the prospect of being a single mother. How would she manage to juggle her time between her career and a baby? The fact was, right now, she didn’t even have a job. But even if that wasn’t a part of the problem, her lack of knowledge about kids and motherhood was. She didn’t know an iota about what it took to be a good parent. Her mother had died soon after giving birth to her, and her strict, disciplinarian father had raised her without ever remarrying. Therefore, she’d never had a female role model in her life. Not only that, but her continuous efforts to achieve leadership in a competitive business world had long ago forced her to program out that part of her feminine nature. She had never allowed herself to feel as though she needed a husband and children to be fulfilled as a woman. All she’d ever felt she needed was to have her father’s undying respect and had known instinctively that the only way to gain it was by being totally committed to her career.
But now all that was changing.
Now she was going to have a baby.
Dear God, what in the world was she going to do with a baby?
That night, Joelle went to bed and worried herself to sleep. She dreamed of Gabriel and Acapulco and woke up feeling worse than ever.
For the next several days, Joelle thought of little else. But in the end she knew that there was only one option for her and that was to have her baby, and that’s all there was to it. Later on, in the coming months, she would deal with what was the best solution for raising her child while still maintaining a fulltime career. But for now, her mental plate was overflowing. Though her decision to have her baby had settled her emotions down somewhat, they still weren’t anywhere near normal. The truth was, she still had several immediate problems facing her. San Diego was her hometown. She knew lots of people here. Her father was the social climber of the century and worried continuously about his spotless reputation, as if he were an old mother hen. Her pregnancy was going to be an embarrassment for him—and for her, too, no doubt about it. Somehow, she was going to have to find a way to keep her delicate condition a secret from him and everyone else in San Diego, although, deep down inside, she knew that it was going to be virtually impossible. Worse, not only was her father going to be shocked and embarrassed by her pregnancy, but undoubtedly he was going to ridicule her judgment in wanting to keep her baby and she simply couldn’t deal with that kind of criticism from him right now.
Which was exactly why, she supposed, that she had automatically tossed aside any thought of telephoning Gabriel Lafleur to tell him about the baby. Like her father, she didn’t want him to think that she was needy—clinging—and expecting him to assume responsibility for her problem. After all, she still had her goal of proving to her father—and to the entire world—that she was quite capable of taking care of herself.
Besides, what good would it have done her to call Gabriel? She knew for a fact that he didn’t want a wife any more than she wanted a husband. At least, he’d said as much in Mexico, several times, in fact. And according to her attorney, Smith Jamison, thus far, he hadn’t been able to find any documented proof that she and Gabriel had gotten married on her last night in Acapulco. She had absolutely no reason in the world to think that Gabriel Lafleur wanted to hear from her, again, under any circumstances. Therefore, it was ridiculous of her to want to call him simply to appease some deep down need in her to hear his voice, again. Absolutely ridiculous.
Still and all, several nights later, in a moment of extreme weakness, when a sudden loneliness swooped down on her and the thought of carrying her child for nine long months without having anyone on her side became unbearable, Joelle found herself dialing his telephone number. Of course, she had no intention of telling him about the baby. She simply wanted to hear his voice, make small talk for a while and then hang up. That would be enough to fill the sudden emptiness in her. She was sure of it.
His telephone rang once…twice…three times.
By now, Joelle was having second thoughts about what she was doing. Maybe it would only make things worse.
Suddenly someone lifted the receiver, and Joelle stopped breathing.
“Hello,” a woman said, her distinct Cajun accent being very similar to what Joelle remembered of Gabriel’s. Only hers was more pronounced, and she sounded much older than Gabriel. Old enough, in fact, for Joelle to wonder if it was his mother. It was the only thing that kept her stomach from bottoming out at the sound of a female voice answering his telephone. After all, she was only assuming that he’d been telling her the truth in Acapulco when he’d said he was single and unattached.
Suddenly Joelle realized that there was always the possibility that the information that Gabriel Lafleur had told her about himself in Mexico was, in fact, a lie. Maybe he was married. Maybe he even had kids. The thought nearly paralyzed her and her mouth went dry.
“Who is this?” the woman asked, indignantly. “Is this some kind of a prank call? ’Cause if it is…”
Joelle swallowed. “No—this is not a prank call,” she finally said after finding her voice. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
“Then, who’s this?”
“I—I’m Joelle Ames.”
“Are you selling somethin’? ‘Cause if you are, I ain’t buyin’.”
“Uh—no. I’m not with a telemarketing service.”
“Hmm…Is that so? Then, who do you want to speak to?”
“W-well, actually…” Joelle said, stammering her words. The woman was certainly intimidating her. “I think I may have dialed the wrong number.”
“What number did you want?” the woman asked, briskly.
“Uh…” Shaken Joelle glanced down at the telephone number Gabriel had given her. With trembling fingers, she lifted the piece of paper and read off the ten-digit number, area code included.
“Well, you got the right number,” the older woman said. “So, if it ain’t me you want, then I guess it’s Gabe.”
Gabe? Short for Gabriel. Well, at least he’d given her his correct name and telephone number. Her stomach settled down—somewhat. Hopefully everything else he’d said about himself was true, too. Otherwise, she was going to hate herself even more for what she’d done with him.
Joelle cleared her throat. “As a matter of fact, I did call to speak to Gabriel,” Joelle replied.
“Well, he ain’t come in from the fields just yet. I’m Big Sadie, his housekeeper. I’ll tell him you called.”
Joelle already knew she’d made a mistake in phoning him and decided that this was her last chance to pull out.
“That’s quite all right. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t even tell him anything. Please, just forget that I called. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Goodbye.”
“Now wait a minute, cher. I think I know who you are.”
“I doubt that,” Joelle replied.
“Well, let me see, now…I bet you, you’re that woman he met on vacation.”
Joelle’s grip on the receiver tightened. “He told you about me?” she asked, in truth, awed down to her toes that Gabriel would even do such a thing.
His housekeeper smirked. “Well, that ain’t exactly how it was. See, I saw them pictures he took of you, and he said that you were his tour partner—or somethin’ like that. Anyways, I ain’t never seen Gabe take so many pictures of anyone.”
Joelle frowned to herself. Funny, but she didn’t recall Gabriel taking any snapshots of her in Acapulco. Oh—well, yeah, maybe one or two that she’d noticed. Mostly she’d seen him taking pictures of the scenery. Sometimes that scenery may have been located behind her. Therefore, if by chance she ended up in any of those snapshots, then it was purely by accident.
“Oh—look—don’t hang up,” the housekeeper said. “I think I hear Gabe comin’ in now.” A fraction of a moment later and much too soon for Joelle to have stopped her, Joelle heard when the older woman laid the receiver down and said, “It’s for you, Gabe.”
Joelle’s insides froze.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“That woman?”
“What woman?” Joelle heard Gabriel ask.
“The one in the pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“The ones from your vacation.”
“Oh—those pictures.” There was a long pause and then finally Gabriel said, “I’ll take it in my study.”
Joelle’s heart began to pound once again.
She certainly had plenty of time to hang up and even thought of doing so. But then she realized it would only make her look like an even bigger fool, so she took a couple of deep breaths and waited anxiously for him to answer. Finally she heard him say, “Hello.”
Air rushed from her lungs. “Gabriel?”
There was a momentary pause. “Yes.”
“This is Joelle. Joelle Ames…” Actually there was always the chance that he wouldn’t remember her. Or, at least, her name. The sudden thought that he might not caused something in her to shrivel up like plastic wrapping in a hot oven.
“Hello, Joelle,” he said, his tone of voice even and unemotional. “I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to hear from you, again.”
She tried swallowing down the lump in her throat.
“Look, maybe my calling you like this wasn’t such a good idea, after all,” Joelle replied. “I probably should’ve let my attorney do this.”
“But you called instead,” he said.
“Well-yes-but-”
“But, what?”
“Nothing,” Joelle replied, suddenly realizing that she was getting paranoid for nothing. Sure, if she were to tell him about the baby, he would probably freak out. But she wasn’t going to do that. She’d just called to talk to him…to hear his voice one more time. She didn’t plan to ever call him, again.
“Look,” he drawled, “I’ve been meaning to phone you. In fact, I was wondering if your attorney had turned up anything about—well, you know—about that night.”
Joelle took a deep, steadying breath. “Well, actually, that’s why I called.” Liar. “I wanted to let you know that he hasn’t been able to find anything, no documentation that we got married. No nothing. Lately he’s been saying that we might not ever know what really happened that night.”
“I see,” Gabriel replied, hesitantly. “In that case, what do you suggest we do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Well, it’s been well over a month now. If there is still no documentation to be found, I don’t see the point in either of us pursuing the matter. It looks to me like we obviously backed out of what we had planned when we left the cantina.”
Yeah, they’d just ended up in bed together, instead. And she had the proof of what they’d done growing inside of her.
“I think you’re probably right. I sure hope so,” Joelle said, coolly. But, in spite of her indifferent answer, her stomach sank to the floor.
“I hope so, too,” he replied. “Look, I think it’s time we just consider the whole incident dropped.”
“Sounds good to me,” Joelle said, forcing herself to sound as elated as he. “Besides, if a problem should result, I’ll have my attorney take care of it right away.”
For a long moment, Gabriel was silent. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Listen, now that I’ve had a moment to think about it, just to put both of our minds at ease, maybe we should sign some kind of an agreement, naming each other blameless for that night.”
Joelle stiffened. It wasn’t that she wanted anything from him, because she didn’t. It was the fact that he was suddenly so suspicious of her. As if he thought that she had some underlying motive in all of this. In truth, she could’ve been thinking the very same thing of him, but she wasn’t. “Look, Lafleur, let’s get one thing straight. I’m not one to cause you any problems, okay?”
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Kristin Morgan
Bundles of JoyPARDON ME, BUT THERE'S A NAKED MAN IN MY BED…Joelle Ames had planned her vacation meticulously, but waking up with sexy tourist Gabriel Lafleur–and no memory of the night before–wasn't on the itinerary! Why, she hardly knew him, even though he produced a very questionable "marriage certificate"!What on earth had possessed Gabriel to get himself hitched on his first vacation in years? Surely the union wasn't legal. He and Joelle could just go their separate ways and forget the whole thing.But their actions had consequences, and theirs was due in nine months, just enough time for them to get used to being called "Mom" and "Dad"–as well as "Mr." and "Mrs."!Bundles of Joy. Sometimes small packages can lead to the biggest surprises!
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u328ce5a3-1c0a-5e09-bf6c-d32d422414ef)
Excerpt (#u1c397f8d-d328-5a22-8de4-44aaec4bc19c)
Dear Reader (#u633a0b96-cfbd-59b2-993a-88237698d4d9)
Title Page (#u771524ba-e68f-5d33-8de9-cb520c6cb4eb)
About the Author (#ue4daa6ab-03e0-565e-b96f-28673aab7015)
Chapter One (#u624bcfac-ae0b-5e1b-8dbe-8b1657d7502b)
Chapter Two (#u85b37cbd-fd9a-50ab-9059-cc8fc4634cec)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Pregnant!
Joelle supposed that she should have considered the possibility that she had been pregnant all along. She’d had her suspicions, but she hadn’t wanted to believe them. But now she had no choice. She was four weeks pregnant with Gabriel Lafleur’s child.
She considered calling Gabriel, and then tossed the idea aside. What good would it do? She knew for a fact that he didn’t want a wife any more than she wanted a husband. She had absolutely no reason in the world to think that Gabriel Lafleur wanted to hear from her.
Still, several nights later, Joelle found herself dialing his telephone number. Of course, she had no intention of telling him about the baby. She simply wanted to hear his voice, make small talk for a while and then hang up.
His telephone rang once…twice…three times.
“Hello…?”
Dear Reader,
This month Silhouette Romance has six irresistible novels for you, starting with our FABULOUS FATHERS selection, Madfor the Dad by Terry Essig. When a sexy single man becomes an instant dad to a toddler, the independent divorcée next door offers parenthood lessons—only to dream of marriage and motherhood all over again!
In Having Gabriel’s Baby by Kristin Morgan, our BUNDLES OF JOY book, a fleeting night of passion with a handsome, brooding rancher leaves Joelle in the family way—and the dad-to-be insisting on a marriage of convenience for the sake of the baby….
Years ago Julie had been too young for the dashing man of her dreams. Now he’s back in town, and Julie’s still hoping he’ll make her his bride in New Year’s Wife by Linda Varner, part of her miniseries HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
What’s a man to do when he has no interest in marriage but is having trouble resisting the lovely, warm and wonderful woman in his life? Get those cold feet to the nearest wedding chapel in Family Addition by Rebecca Daniels.
In About That Kiss by Jayne Addison, Joy Mackey, sister of the bride, is sure her sis’s ex-fiancé has returned to sabotage the wedding. But his intention is to walk down the aisle with Joy!
And finally, when a woman shows up on a bachelor doctor’s doorstep with a baby that looks just like him, everyone in town mistakenly thinks the tiny tot is his in Christine Scott’s Groom on the Loose.
Enjoy!
Melissa Senate, Senior Editor
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
Having Gabriel’s Baby
Kristin Morgan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
KRISTIN MORGAN
lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, the best heart of Acadiana, where the French language of her ancestors is still spoken fluently by her parents and grandparents. Happily married to her high school sweetheart, she has three children. She and her husband have traveled all over the South, as well as other areas of the United States and Mexico, and they both count themselves lucky that their favorite city, New Orleans, is only two hours away from Lafayette.
In addition to her writing, she enjoys cooking and preparing authentic Cajun food for her family with recipes passed on to her through generations. Her hobbies include reading—of course!—flower gardening and fishing. She loves walking in the rain, newborn babies, all kinds of music, chocolate desserts and love stories with happy endings. A true romantic at heart, she believes all things are possible with love.
Chapter One (#ulink_edc2ea8e-530c-5a21-97ce-b532ffd357d4)
As the bright morning sunlight poured in through the two-inch opening in the drapes of her hotel room window, Joelle Ames turned over in bed and groaned when a sharp, excruciating pain shot across her forehead from temple to temple.
What she wouldn’t have given in that moment for a couple of aspirin. In fact, after moving her head again, ever so slightly, she quickly decided that maybe she needed three of the painkillers, instead. Not to mention, a cold ice pack placed right at a certain spot on her forehead.
Obviously this, her last day of vacation in Acapulco, wasn’t going to be one of her better days. She had come here from her hometown of San Diego five days ago for a badly-needed rest and, since her arrival, had purposefully kept a low profile. In fact, she couldn’t understand what she could’ve possibly done last night that would warrant her having such a terrible headache first thing this morning. After all, since it was her last night of vacation, she’d simply gone to dinner with Gabriel Lafleur, the farmer from Louisiana who had somehow become her touring partner over the past few days. Sure, he was one sexy-looking man, and she had let herself relax for the first time in—What?—Years?—and enjoy his company. But that’s all it was. One night of fun. Now it was over with. She just wished her headache was, too.
If only she could’ve found the courage to pry open her eyelids, climb out of bed and walk over to where her luggage was to see if she had brought along any painkillers with her.
If only she could collect her thoughts.
But the truth of the matter was, it hurt too much for her to try to think straight right now. In fact, losing consciousness would’ve been a blessing at this point. Unfortunately, though, it was obvious that she wasn’t going to be given that luxury.
Suddenly a brief flash of memory from her actions last night crossed Joelle’s mind and she recalled herself dancing in a little, quaint, out-of-the-way cantina. And there was laughter. Lots and lots of laughter. And she and Gabriel Lafleur having a couple of shots of tequila at the crowded bar. At least, a couple. My goodness, she’d never drunk that much before in her life. Hadn’t the plan been to stop in for just one nightcap? Then what in the world had gotten into her to make her get so sidetracked?
Actually her recollection of last night was shaky, at best. It was as though the bitter pain in her head was deliberately blocking out her memory. What, she wondered, had she done between the time she and Gabriel had left the cantina and now? Maybe if she rang Gabriel’s room, which was two floors above her, he could fill in the missing pieces.
She groaned, again, this time after turning over and lying flat on her back. She’d never hurt this bad in her life. A second later she realized that she was completely naked under the sheet covering her—and an immediate alarm went off in her head. Uh-oh. She never slept nude. And she never drank too much, either. Something definitely wasn’t right.
Headache, or not, Joelle decided that it was time she faced the world and made sense of her surroundings. Rubbing her eyelids with the tips of her fingers, she finally found the will to force them open and stare at the ceiling in her hotel room. After a moment, she darted her eyes around the room. Exactly what she expected to find, she wasn’t sure. Then, just as her gaze fell upon a pair of men’s pants tossed across the back of a chair near her bed, the door to her bathroom swung open, and none other than Gabriel Lafleur, her dinner date from last night, stepped through it. His dark brown hair was wet and tousled, and he was naked except for the white towel that was wrapped around his waist. Joelle’s stomach did a flat-out bellybust dive for the floor.
As he strolled forward, his eyes lifted and met hers. Halting as though a steel wall had suddenly dropped down in front of him, he paused a moment before saying in a deep voice, “Well, good morning. I see you’ve finally awakened.”
Shocked speechless—not to mention, mindless— Joelle could only gape at him as her stomach tightened into knots. For a brief moment she thought the sudden wave of heat that swarmed over her and made her sick to her stomach would send her running right past him for the bathroom. As it was, the entire room seemed to fade momentarily before her eyes. She heard her own raspy intake of breath.
“Hey, come on, now. You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?” she heard him saying. It was enough to make her inhale deeply and, somehow, the room came back into focus.
By this time Gabriel Lafleur had already walked up to the foot of her bed and was now frowning down as if he halfway expected her to fall apart at the seams. She knew that look well. Her father always used it when he wanted to let her know that she’d somehow failed him, again. And, of course, according to her father, she was always failing him. In fact, if her father had had his wish when she was born thirty-one years ago, he would’ve been given a son to follow in his footsteps, not a daughter who seemed to falter every time she tried.
Joelle’s glare wavered momentarily. She felt vulnerable… naked…and mortified to the bone to have this man she hardly knew staring down at her and probably making snap judgments of her character— or, rather, her lack of it. Certainly he had no right to do that. After all, he hardly knew anything at all about her, other than the fact that she’d obviously made a huge mistake last night in thinking that he was a decent enough guy to have dinner with. Nonetheless, if he thought she was going to fall to pieces right there in front of him as if she was some weak little woman with no backbone, he was in for a big disappointment. She no longer gave her father the benefit of seeing her tears. Therefore, humiliated, or not, she wasn’t about to let this man see them, either. Instead she conjured up her best poker face and glared at him.
But, regardless of what she hoped was an Oscar winning performance on her part, the following moments grew increasingly difficult for Joelle. She stared in surprised defiance at Gabriel Lafleur…at his bare, lean, muscled chest, and at the way the dark curly hair at its center lay damp and matted against his tanned skin. Finally, having a will of their own, her eyes began following a drop of water as it slid downward, only to have it eventually soaked up by the hotel guest towel wrapped tightly around his slim waistline. Her throat felt suddenly dry…parched, and swallowing in that moment became difficult. Her eyes lifted to his and what she saw there made her realize that he was aware of her every thought. Finally, unable to deal with this reality for a second longer, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that when she opened them, again, he would be gone.
Obviously her father had been right about her all along. Obviously there was a part of her that was too soft…too womanly, to hold up under the pressure of a man’s world. Surely, if she had any strength of character at all, she wouldn’t be in such a humiliating situation.
Joelle knew her prayers weren’t going to be answered when she felt him touch her arm and say, “Hey, are you going to be all right?” The feel of his warm fingers on her flesh startled her. Her eyes sprang wide open, and they stared at each other as if they were two cat burglars who were suddenly surprised to discover themselves on the same rooftop.
Eventually Joelle found her voice. “Of course, I’m going to be all right,” she snapped.
“Thank goodness for that,” he replied. “About all I need this morning is to find myself at the mercy of a woman in tears.”
“What are you doing in my room?” Joelle demanded, although, in truth, she feared she already knew the answer to that one. She was just hoping like everything that her gut instincts were wrong. But, one thing she knew for sure. He wasn’t going to find this woman in tears.
“Well…” Gabriel Lafleur said, now grinning down at her with white, even teeth and the most clear brown eyes she’d ever seen. He had wide, full lips that, even in the stark brightness of morning reality, beckoned to be kissed. He had high prominent cheekbones and a squared-off jawline, and a nose that flared slightly wider at the end. In essence, he was six feet of pure, unadulterated male. “I was…uh…just making myself at home,” he said, politely. He acted as though being in her hotel room was seemingly of no consequence to him. At least, not like it was to her. “Look, I hope you don’t mind that I used your shower,” he continued. “But under the circumstances, I didn’t think that you would.”
Joelle swallowed. “Uh…And what circumstances might that be?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes flicking back up to his handsome face after lingering far too long on a lower, more private part of his anatomy. Thank goodness he still had that towel on. As much as some wanton part of her liked looking at every follicle inch of him, she wished that she could’ve just snapped her fingers and have him disappear from her hotel room.
His grin widened. “Don’t you remember?”
Joelle blinked. Twice. “Remember what?”
“What we did?”
Joelle’s heart hammered against her breastbone. “What did we do?”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember, do you?”
Joelle gripped the ends of the sheet covering her breasts and pulled it up to the base of her throat. “O-of course, I do. W-we had dinner together.”
“And…”
“And…uh…we stopped in at some lively little cantina for a nightcap.” Joelle felt quite pleased with herself for having been able to recall that much. At least he wasn’t going to think her a complete idiot.
“And then…” he said.
She stared at him blankly.
He stared back. A moment later he said, “See, it’s like I thought. You don’t remember, do you?”
Hesitating with her answer, Joelle continued to hold the ends of the sheet in a death grip while trying to force her memory from last night to come forward. But the only result was some additional pounding in her already throbbing head. “No, I don’t.”
“Well, don’t feel so bad. ’Cause I don’t, either.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“Well…I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious that we came back here and spent the night together.” He paused then, long enough to give the impression that he was waiting on her to make a comment.
But Joelle had no comment at this point. As it was, having her mistake said out loud made her feel sick to her stomach, all over again.
Staring down at her, Gabriel Lafleur used his fingers to comb back his damp hair from his forehead. “Look, to be perfectly frank with you,” he continued, “my memory of what we did from the time we left the cantina until I awakened this morning in your bed is a bit hazy. I can only assume that neither of us recognized the numbing effect of the tequila we were drinking, and it just slipped up on us.”
“In other words, you’re saying we both got drunk.”
“Yeah,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “That pretty much sums it up.”
Once again, Joelle squeezed her eyes closed. “Oh, God, how could I have done something so foolish?”
“Look,” Gabriel said, “I just need to know one thing.”
Opening her eyes, Joelle exhaled deeply. “Like I just said, Lafleur, I don’t remember anything. And, quite frankly, I’d prefer to leave it that way.”
His gaze was challenging. “Yeah, well, that’s fine with me, Ames, except for one thing.”
Once more, Joelle exhaled deeply. Leave it to a man, she thought, to want to recall every nitty-gritty detail of their night spent in bed together. “What’s that?”
“Did we get married first?”
Clutching the sheet against her breasts, Joelle sat straight up in bed. “What?”
He looked her square in the face. “Did we get married last night before coming back to the hotel?”
“Are you crazy? Why on earth would we have done something like that?”
Gabriel Lafleur scratched the side of his head. “Hell if I know. But we’re both wearing dime-store wedding rings this morning. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t wearing one yesterday.” Stunned, Joelle stared at him in awe as he suddenly tried to pull something from around his finger, but he seemed to be having a bit of difficulty getting it over his knuckle. “And,” he said, as he continued his efforts, “if I remember correctly, at some point last night you said that you wouldn’t sleep with a guy unless you were ready to have some kind of a permanent commitment with him.”
Dazed, Joelle lifted her left hand in midair and gazed at her ring finger as if it was a lighted firecracker ready to explode. But a moment later, she regained her equilibrium and simply slipped off the cheap-looking ring that she knew was sold by any street vendor in any vacation hot spot in the world. She placed it on the bedside table next to her as if it was no big deal. Which it wasn’t, of course. Still, her heart raced ahead like mad. As if she had just discovered herself running in a marathon and knew her life depended on her winning it.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Joelle looked back at him and tilted her chin a fraction higher. “Yeah— well, I can tell you right now, if you had the nerve last night to suggest that we sleep together, you can bet I said something like that to you. Look, I know what you must be thinking of me right now, but the truth is, I don’t happen to get drunk with men I hardly know. Nor do I sleep around.”
“Hey, you don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said. “But, regardless of what you say, it doesn’t change the fact that I remember us leaving the cantina together last night with the dumb idea in mind of finding someone to marry us. Hell, I just want to know if we succeeded.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Joelle grimaced. She, too, now vaguely recalled having done something of similar nature last night. But in the cold light of day, it was simply too farfetched an idea for her to actually believe it possible. Her memory was undoubtedly playing tricks on her. Or…or, maybe, Gabriel Lafleur had somehow set her up to make her believe what he wanted.
With renewed determination, she opened her eyes and glared at him.
“That’s ridiculous. I would never do such an inconceivable thing,” Joelle replied, stubbornly, butin spite of her efforts to convince herself otherwise— her heart was beginning to palpitate uncontrollably, because somewhere deep, down inside, the memory was growing stronger. “You’re making that part up.”
“’Fraid not.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you trying to tell me that we might’ve gotten married last night for the sole purpose of sleeping together?”
“’Fraid so. Or—so it would seem.”
“No way.”
“Lady, if I remember correctly, you were the one setting up the rules, not me.”
“Hey, now, look here. I can assure you, I didn’t coerce you into anything,” Joelle stammered.
“Well, neither did I,” he replied.
“I certainly didn’t come to Acapulco to find a husband.”
Gabriel’s hands went to his hips. “Well, I certainly didn’t come here to find myself a wife, that’s for sure, and I don’t like having to deal with this any more than you do. I’m only praying that we couldn’t find anyone to do the job and ended up just crawling into the sack together. It certainly would make things a whole lot less complicated this morning.”
Indeed, it would, Joelle thought. But, in spite of her initial reaction, a moment later she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach at the distinct thought of her having just crawled into bed with him. She had morals that she lived by, after all. Morals that had been pounded into her head since she was a child by a strict, disciplinarian father. But she didn’t owe this man a quick briefing of her character upbringing. Besides, what good would it do at this point?
Therefore, in order to hide her growing anxiety, Joelle continued to glare at him and said, “How can you not remember what we did last night?”
He shrugged. “The same as you, I guess. Too much tequila.”
“Oh, God,” Joelle said, making sure that the sheet she held against her continued to cover her nakedness as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and planted her feet on the floor. She hung her pounding head in the palm of one hand. After all that had gone wrong in her life lately, she couldn’t believe that this, too, was happening to her. “This is awful,” she groaned.
Gabriel Lafleur placed his hands on his hips and sighed heavily. “Yeah—well—believe me, I know exactly what you mean.”
Then, in almost the same breath, he said, “Listen up. It seems to me that if we got married last night, then we ought to have some kind of proof—right? I mean, like a marriage certificate—or—or, something.” He turned away from her suddenly, stepped up to the dresser where a few of her personal belongings were on the top and began rummaging through them, searching, no doubt, for some kind of proof. Coming up empty-handed, he turned once again and targeted Joelle with those clear brown eyes of his. “Well, don’t just sit there. Get up and help me look, for heaven’s sake. You said that you didn’t want this to be happening any more than I did.”
The frustration in his voice was enough to spark Joelle into action. “I don’t,” she replied, haughtily. She stood immediately and began searching her hotel room on her own, scanning tabletops…the floor… under the bed. She found her panty and bra, and Gabriel’s tie and Jockey shorts. All four items were hiding beneath the quilted bedspread on the floor at the foot of the bed. She found her white poet’s blouse and the navy blue straight skirt she’d worn to dinner last night thrown on the seat of the chair where his slacks were. With each piece of clothing she found, it became clear to her that both of them had apparently been more than eager to shed their clothes and climb into bed together—with or without the benefit of marriage—and, as a result, her face grew redder and redder with embarrassment. And right along with her renewed embarrassment came a whole new set of memories from last night. Distinct, clear images of her and Gabriel kissing in the elevator as it had taken them up to her floor. And there was another jarring memory of him carrying her across the threshold. Like they were married. And, of course, there was the one of them making love on her bed…
In fact, her memories were now so tantalizingly frank in their recollection of what she and Gabriel had done together, Joelle found herself breaking into a cold sweat as she reached for her shoulder-strap purse that hung on a door knob. She began searching its contents. In truth, she didn’t want to recall the sensuous details of having been in his arms any more than she really wanted to find a marriage certificate declaring them as husband and wife. After all, she’d already made one mistake by getting drunk and sleeping with him. Why compound the problem this morning by hoping to find proof of a marriage that neither of them wanted?
“Find anything?” he asked, coming up right behind her. Her stomach bottomed out.
“Uh…not yet,” she replied, curtly. She could smell the clean freshness of the soap he’d used while showering. Suddenly feeling the need to place added distance between them, she stepped to one side and turned. “How about you?”
“Not yet,” he replied. Joelle noticed that his eyes dropped momentarily to where her hands held the sheet over her breasts and, once again, her stomach quivered.
Joelle gave him a scathing look. Considering that he was wrapped in only a towel, he really had some nerve to look at her as if she was the only one undressed.
Clearing his throat, he ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s probably a good thing. Look, maybe it means that we decided not to get married, after all. Or, maybe we just gave up on the idea because we couldn’t find anyone qualified to perform the ceremony.”
“Maybe,” Joelle grumbled. “But, unfortunately, I don’t think my luck these days is running that high. Considering our inebriated state, we could’ve gotten married and then simply lost the document on our way back here.”
Gabriel frowned, and Joelle could tell from the expression on his face that her theory wasn’t at all to his liking. Well, it certainly wasn’t to hers, either.
Still, she wasn’t quite ready to give up all hope of finding a simple resolution that would allow them to part company without worry or fanfare. Surely one of them would find something to jar their memory and, hopefully, give them both some badly needed peace of mind. With that in mind, Joelle proceeded to check the zipper compartments of her purse, but she found nothing. “Did you look through all your pockets?” she asked.
“I checked my pants. I haven’t found my shirt, yet.”
“Here it is,” Joelle stated, using her middle finger to pick up his wrinkled white dress shirt off the floor by its collar. She turned in his direction and offered it to him. As he reached for it, his eyes met hers, and he smiled.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Look, Joelle, about last night…”
“Forget it. It was as much my fault as it was yours.”
“Yeah…well, that’s not exactly what I was going to say.”
“Oh.”
“Look, I…uh…about the sex…I mean, it was great you know.”
Joelle thought her insides would turn inside-out. Yes, she knew, but she didn’t want to know. “Uh, look, I don’t really remember any of it, okay?” Liar. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Hey, whatever you say,” he replied, shrugging lightly.
Joelle glanced up and their gazes locked. Within moments, though, she realized her mistake in thinking she could handle such a battle of wills with him and she shook herself. What, in heaven’s name, she wondered, did she think she was doing, gazing up at him that way? Here the two of them were, alone and practically strangers, with one of them wrapped in a bath towel, and the other in a bed sheet. Was she completely crazy, or just a glutton for punishment?
She took several steps away from him. He gave her a haunted look as he reached into his shirt pocket and came out a second later with a white folded piece of paper held tightly between his two fingers. Joelle’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s that?” she asked, breathlessly. She was at his side in a flash.
“I don’t know,” he said, releasing an anxious breath. He started to carefully unfold the piece of paper, only to discover that it was just a regular sheet of white, lined, loose-leaf paper. But written on it in a sprawling, amateurish handwriting were yesterday’s date and the words: Gabriel and Joelle, I now pronounce you man and wife. Signed, José Cuervo.
José Cuervo was the brand name of the tequila they had drunk last night.
Dazed for several moments, neither of them spoke. Finally, Joelle couldn’t take the deafening silence another moment. “What does that paper mean?” she asked in a whispered voice. It was as though if she spoke too loudly, the entire world would know her most recent sin.
Still staring down at the piece of paper in his hands, Gabriel Lafleur didn’t answer her. Finally she nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “Lafleur, I need you to answer me. What does the note mean?”
“Hell, if I know,” he grumbled, suddenly crumpling up the piece of paper in one hand and tossing it like a basketball toward a nearby trash can. It fell inside like a dead ringer, and he said, “Bingo. See, now we’re off the hook. It’s in the trash.”
“Are you sure?” Joelle asked, still somewhat stunned from just awakening and finding Gabriel Lafleur in her hotel room, much less the rest of it. She sat down on the edge of the bed in the hopes of giving herself a moment to pull herself back together.
“Look,” he said, turning toward her and placing his hands on his hips. Joelle found herself following his every move. He had such wide, sensuous-looking hands.
Those hands had made love to her body last night.
Over and over, again.
She was breathless at the thought of it.
Swallowing hard, Joelle flicked her eyes back up to his. “What were you saying?” she asked.
“I was saying, surely you saw for yourself that piece of paper wasn’t anything legal. No minister or government official would’ve given us a handwritten note like that.”
“I know that. So, what’s your point, Lafleur?” Joelle stated.
“My point is, that piece of paper doesn’t prove anything. Certainly it doesn’t prove that we’re married.”
“I understand perfectly. But who could’ve written it?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he replied. “Any person on the street, for all I know.”
“Then, it wasn’t you.”
“Me,” he said, sounding surprised. “No, of course not.”
Then he narrowed his eyes. “Was it you?”
“Dream on,” she replied, and for the first time since awakening that morning, she actually considered laughing.
“Well, was it?” he asked, skeptically, and suddenly Joelle realized that the man was actually serious.
“No,” she answered.
“Well, in that case, we’re back to square one. We still don’t know what we did last night.”
Suddenly, recalling something very critical in her plans for that day, Joelle gasped. “Oh, my God! What time is it?”
Gabriel glanced over to where his wristwatch lay on a bedside table. “Almost eleven-thirty.”
“Oh—my goodness. How could I be so dense? I must be losing it. My flight back home to San Diego leaves in less than an hour—and I’m not even dressed, yet.”
She raced to where her luggage sat, all packed up and ready to go—thank goodness—and picked up the outfit folded on top that she planned to wear today. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Call a cab and have them waiting for me at the entrance to the hotel in ten minutes.” Within seconds of saying that, she was closing the bathroom door behind her.
Minutes later she emerged, showered, dressed and ready to go. At first she thought that Gabriel Lafleur had skipped out on her and the whole messy ordeal— which she quickly decided would’ve probably been the best way to end this nightmare. But, unfortunately, though the weakening in her knees proved she actually felt otherwise, she saw him a second later, standing at the window with his back to her. He was now wearing the same dark gray pants he’d worn last night.
Without comment, Joelle quickly gathered her personal effects that were still on top of the dresser and dumped them into her cosmetic bag. Then picking up a piece of her luggage in each hand, she cleared her throat in the hopes of getting his attention. Like he hadn’t already heard her rummaging around in the room. He turned around to face her with his hands in his pockets. “I’m leaving now,” she said.
She saw him take in a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say at this point.”
“Then don’t say anything,” she replied. Her heart was galloping around in her chest as if it were a wild, caged stallion.
A lopsided, sheepish grin slid up one side of his face. “But I feel like I should say something. I feel like I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Lafleur. I’m a big girl.”
“Somehow I feel that this is all my fault. I’m sorry.”
“Look, it just happened, okay? So let’s be modern thinking adults about this and just get on with our lives.”
“Hey, if you can live with it, then I sure can,” he replied. “It’s just you seemed to be upset earlier, so I was trying to make you feel better.”
Joelle sighed deeply. Truthfully she didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to live with herself, again, but, at the moment, she saw that she had no other choice than to try. “Look, for my own peace of mind, once I get back home I plan to have my attorney look into this matter and see if he can come up with anything. If he does, then I’ll give him the okay to resolve whatever problem we may have created for ourselves.”
Gabriel nodded his head. “That’s probably a good idea.” He walked to the bedside table where his wristwatch was, picked up a notepad and pencil and jotted something down. “Here,” he said a moment later, tearing off a sheet. “This is my telephone number just in case your attorney needs to get in touch with me.” He shrugged. “You can never tell.”
Joelle hesitated only a second before taking the piece of paper from him and stuffing it inside a pocket of her purse. Then, pulling out one of her business cards, she gave it to him. “Just in case,” she said.
“You never know,” Gabriel replied.
“True,” she said, and for some reason she felt breathless. “I guess we just as soon make this as easy as possible on ourselves.”
“I agree.”
Joelle turned for the door.
“Hey—Ames,” he said in a softer tone of voice. “Wait a minute.”
Pivoting around to face him, she lifted her eyebrows in question.
“What do you think? Did we actually get married?”
The question startled her and, for a brief moment, Joelle had no idea how to answer it. But, at the same time, it immediately brought a few things into focus for her. For one thing, she wasn’t going to part from this man and have him worry that perhaps she would show up at his doorstep one day, saying they were husband and wife and that he owed her something. He didn’t owe her anything.
Gabriel Lafleur didn’t know it, of course, but in her everyday life, she was a fully dedicated career woman and was quite capable of taking care of herself under any circumstances. “I—uh—no, I honestly don’t think we did.”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment of hesitation, “that’s what I think, too.”
“Goodbye, Lafleur,” Joelle said. “Have a nice life.”
“Goodbye, Ames. Take care.”
Then, in spite of a sudden heaviness at the center of her chest, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, turned and hurried out the door.
She knew it would be the last time she would ever see Gabriel Lafleur again.
And though she hated to admit it, a small part of her regretted it.
It was so silly of her, she knew. Nonetheless, it was true.
Chapter Two (#ulink_68a708a0-3257-5ded-8d9b-2b34f7918fe0)
Arriving home that evening, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, unlocked the door to her high-rise condo and stepped inside. Her telephone was ringing and she thought she knew who it was. If there was anything she could say about her father, it was that he was persistent. Well, she wasn’t anywhere near being ready to talk to him just yet. First she needed a couple of aspirin and some sleep, then maybe she’d be ready to confront the world, again. But, for tonight, she had enough on her mind. She stood nearby while allowing her answering machine to pick up the call and listened to see if her initial suspicions were accurate.
And, sure enough, they were. Within a moment she was hearing her father’s condescending tone of voice as he demanded that she answer her telephone and talk to him. From the number of messages she saw flashing on her machine, he’d obviously been trying to reach her for days.
Yeah, well, he could try reaching her all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to listen to his tirades anymore. Not after the way he’d humiliated her in front of all his employees. After all, it wasn’t every day that a daughter, who was always faithful to her father’s wishes, found out that he was having another employee within his company spy on her work performance and report those findings back to him. This time she was through allowing him to manipulate her. He might be her father, but he didn’t have any right to dictate her life.
This time, though, he’d really hurt her. In fact, he hadn’t gone into retirement and turned over his company to her at all. He’d only made her believe that she’d finally won his respect for him to do that, when all the time he was still calling the shots from behind the scenes. Damn him, anyway. He’d made her look like a fool. Well, this was one time she wasn’t going to forgive him for it. Nor was she ever going to trust him again to be on her side. But, more importantly, now, more than ever, she was determined to show him that he was wrong about her, and that even without his so-called help, she had the intelligence and tenacity to become highly successful. As much, in fact, as any son of his would have.
She was never going to forgive him.
Never. But, enough of her father for now. At the moment she had other, more urgent things to worry about. Things like Gabriel Lafleur.
No…actually, she really didn’t want to think about him, either. The problem was, if only she could stop herself. Wasn’t it enough that first thing tomorrow morning she was going to have to contact her attorney and have him look into the matter of her last night in Acapulco? My goodness, couldn’t something, somewhere give her a simple break?
It didn’t look that way. Because, already images of Gabriel were lurking at the corners of her mind, just waiting to jump forward. One in particular, the one where he was kissing her on the elevator while going up to her room was especially haunting.
It made her stomach quiver.
Her breasts tingle.
It made her feel breathless.
She still wanted him, for heaven’s sake. Just as much as she had last night.
How could she recall every little detail of their lovemaking and yet be unable to recall leaving the cantina with him to go get married? And, yet, something in the back of her mind told her that was exactly what she had done. The question was, had they succeeded?
The tension in her neck was so great that she couldn’t take it anymore.
Slipping out of her shoes, she turned on the water in her shower and then began unbuttoning her blouse. Moments later she slipped under the warm spray and began shampooing her hair. After stepping out and blowing dry her short shag hairstyle, she dressed in a pale green soft cotton robe. She plodded her way barefoot to the beige sofa in the den, and curled up on one corner with a blanket and pillow and fell sound asleep.
At some point, the doorbell finally woke her, and it became immediately clear that her caller had already grown impatient with her and as a result had his or her finger currently glued to the chime button. Throwing back the light blanket, Joelle groaned and somehow got to her feet. Without a doubt, she knew who it was.
Still, as a security measure, she peeked through the peephole first and then opened the door. The moment she did, her father came barreling across the threshold as if he were a tyrant on a rampage—which was normal behavior for him. “Where have you been, Joelle?” he demanded, his ruddy complexion reddened with anger. “I’ve been calling for days. Didn’t you get any of my messages?”
If there was ever the slightest chance of Joelle getting rid of her headache anytime soon, it had just quickly skedaddled out of her reach. “I’ve been out of town, Father,” she said, dryly, dropping back down on the sofa and laying her pounding head back against the soft cushion. At any minute, she felt certain that her head was going to explode into a million pieces.
“That’s no excuse,” her father declared, standing over her and glaring down as if he was a mighty eagle and she, an insignificant little sparrow. His voice seemed to vibrate through her aching head like the strumming of a high-pitched guitar. “I was worried sick about you,” he continued as his hands came to rest on his hips. But, actually, from Joelle’s point of view, his arrogant pose said otherwise.
“I wish I could believe that,” she replied, listlessly, without bothering to lift her head and look at him. Instead she placed her fingertips against her temples and began massaging them.
She was still angry at her father. And hurt, too. And she had every right to be. It was time that Sylvan Ames realized that she was a real person with feelings and not just someone put on this earth for him to ridicule when the mood struck.
“Joelle, have you any idea of how embarrassed I’ve been by your sudden absence from the marketing firm? Everyone has been asking about you and I’ve had to lie to them about your whereabouts.”
Opening her eyes, Joelle lifted her head and met his stare. “Really? Well, why didn’t you just tell them the truth, that I’d resigned on the spot the day I walked out and that I’m no longer an employee of your company?”
“What kind of an idiot do you take me for, Joelle? I’m not about to tell my employees something like that. Now we both know that you just overreacted that day. I’m sure now that you’ve had time to think about how foolish you looked storming out of the office like that, you’re as anxious as I am to put the whole ugly incident behind us and get on with business as usual.” Walking briskly toward the door, her father turned just before reaching it. “In fact, be in your office by eight sharp tomorrow morning. We have a new account that needs your attention.”
“I’m sorry, Father, but that isn’t possible,” Joelle replied.
Coming to a sudden halt, her father turned and pinned her to the spot with his glare. “Joelle, I’ve had about enough of this. I want you to stop behaving like a spoiled child.”
“Don’t you mean like a silly female?”
“Yes. That, too.”
“Well, for your information, Father, I’m not behaving like either. And to prove it, I’m declining your offer of reinstatement. You see, I’ve decided that it’s time that I make it in this world on my own—without your help.”
“That’s absurd. You’ll never do it,” Sylvan Ames remarked bitterly.
Joelle sighed. “Yeah—well, neither one of us will ever know that for sure unless I try. And tha’s what I’m going to do, Father. Surely you can understand my reasons.”
Her father narrowed his eyes. “You’ll never make it without my help.”
“Maybe not. But it’s a chance I have to take.”
Smirking, her father pointed his finger at her. “You’re going to fall flat on your face. But, when you do, don’t you dare come crawling back to me. You’ve had your chance. I’ll not be sympathetic to your pleas.” Then, pivoting on his heels, he rushed out her door, slamming it behind him.
Hot tears sprang to Joelle’s eyes. “You needn’t worry, Father. I won’t come crawling,” she whispered into the extreme silence that immediately followed his departure. “Not for any reason.”
Later that night, Joelle opened herself a can of chicken soup for supper. After eating, she went to bed early with an ice pack for her throbbing head. At some point, she began dreaming of Acapulco and Gabriel and woke up the following morning halfway expecting to find her vacation lover asleep in bed beside her. But he wasn’t there, and Joelle soon found herself wishing that he was. Eventually she began to realize what she was doing to herself and vowed to put him from her thoughts, once and for all.
But, unfortunately, over the next three weeks Joelle was incapable of pulling herself so completely together that she was able to block out all thoughts of Gabriel. He crept into her mind at the weirdest times, at some of the most inappropriate moments. Sometimes she found him in her thoughts even when she was making plans for her future…plans that, truthfully, here lately, she seemed to have so little energy in trying to accomplish. It wasn’t that she was depressed, or sickly, because she wasn’t either. The drive was there. It was her get-up-and-go that wasn’t.
She was just tired all the time. And sleepy. In fact, no matter how early she went to bed at night, she couldn’t seem to get enough sleep. Lately she required an afternoon nap, just to keep going. Finally, after realizing that her condition wasn’t improving, she decided that she needed to see a doctor for a good physical and promised to make herself an appointment soon.
But by the time she did, she was quite certain that there was really something seriously wrong with her. She was beginning to wonder if maybe she had picked up some kind of intestinal virus while on vacation.
Gabriel Lafleur stood on the veranda of his large Cajun-styled plantation home, built by his ancestors over a hundred and fifty years ago. It wasn’t quite sunup yet, but he knew he should’ve already been in the cane fields out back. His hired help was already hard at work. But, instead of hurrying to join them, here he was sitting around, sipping on his last cup of coffee and acting like some lovesick fool who had all the time in the world to be thinking about her. Hell, it was planting season and he didn’t have time to be thinking about anything other than work. Acapulco was weeks ago. It was time he forgot about the woman he’d made love to while there. Heaven help him, it was what he wanted to do more than anything else in the whole world. Only there was a dumb, stubborn part of him that wasn’t cooperating with his common sense.
And that’s what ate at his gut…constantly… steadily. He didn’t even want to think about her. Or, any woman, for that matter. His ex-wife’s betrayal had cured him of that. No way would he ever trust another woman enough to make her his wife. Even he wasn’t that big a fool.
And, yet, here he was acting just like one. Joelle Ames was, without a doubt, from start to finish, from head to toe, all wrong for him. In fact, that’s what made him an even bigger fool than most. He knew she was all wrong for him.
He was an idiot. No doubt about it.
Actually, instead of standing around like some lovesick schoolboy, he should’ve been counting his lucky stars that Joelle Ames was obviously the kind of woman who had been able to put their one-night stand into its proper perspective, just as he had. Some women he knew would’ve had trouble being that open-minded.
He was surprised that he hadn’t heard something— anything—by now from her or her attorney. Under the circumstances, he had felt certain that he would have, if for no other reason than to touch base and clear the air between them one final time. In some ways, maybe he’d been wanting to hear from her.
In fact, one day last week, he’d got to thinking about her—about their night together—and almost picked up the telephone to call. But then he’d decided that maybe it was for the best if he didn’t. Certainly he didn’t want to stir up any unnecessary trouble for himself. Besides, if she wasn’t worrying about any legal problems that might result from their time spent together, then why should he?
Well, in all reality, he did have his family inheritance to worry about. The last thing he needed was for some woman he hardly knew thinking she had some legal claim to it.
But he didn’t think that Joelle Ames was that stupid.
Still and all, right now his inheritance wasn’t the biggest problem concerning him. She was his biggest problem—period.
Damn her, anyway. Why couldn’t he simply forget about her?
Suddenly renewing his strong determination to put an end to his thoughts of her—Gabriel set his cup down on the railing that surrounded the porch and headed down the steps toward the fertile fields behind his house. This was the land of his ancestors, the land his father had left him. Located on the western edge of the Atchafalaya Basin in south Louisiana, it was rich, prime soil for toiling sugar cane. But even with all the modern technology and equipment, farming was still a hard way of life. It still took his total commitment, and then some.
But he wasn’t complaining. Not really. This was his way of life; it was all he’d ever known, and it was more important to him than anything in the whole world. And it always would be.
Forever.
Therefore, his memories of Ms. Joelle Ames, citywoman personified, could just back off.
Pregnant! Joelle closed the door to her doctor’s office as she walked out and stepped into the bright light of another typical California day. She didn’t smile, or breathe deeply of the crisp, clean breeze as she normally would have. Instead she got into her car and drove straight home. Once inside, she wandered aimlessly from room to room, her nerves too fidgety for her to think of sitting down for even a moment.
Oh, God, how could something like this be happening to her? She, of all people, who as a dutiful daughter had never once forgotten her moral upbringing when dealing with the opposite sex. It wasn’t fair that she was going to have to pay such a high price for her one failure in doing so.
She was suffering from a form of shock, she knew. Her doctor’s unexpected diagnosis for her malaise had come as a real blow. Actually she supposed that she should’ve considered the possibility that she was pregnant all along. But, the truth of the matter was, she hadn’t. Or, rather, she’d had her suspicions deep, down inside but she hadn’t wanted to believe them. But now she had no choice. According to her doctor, she was four weeks pregnant with Gabriel Lafleur’s child.
It was just so difficult for her to believe.
A real life shocker.
She was absolutely terrified.
How could she, of all people, be carrying a child, when, in fact, she was the last woman on earth meant for motherhood?
Maybe her doctor had made a mistake.
No—actually, she thought a moment later, the mistake was all her doing. No one had forced her into sleeping with Gabriel Lafleur. Therefore, it was up to her to deal with the crisis that had resulted. And, needless to say, she would do it alone. Without help from anyone. Not even her father.
Especially, not her judgmental father.
Still, Joelle knew her own limitations and was terrified at the prospect of being a single mother. How would she manage to juggle her time between her career and a baby? The fact was, right now, she didn’t even have a job. But even if that wasn’t a part of the problem, her lack of knowledge about kids and motherhood was. She didn’t know an iota about what it took to be a good parent. Her mother had died soon after giving birth to her, and her strict, disciplinarian father had raised her without ever remarrying. Therefore, she’d never had a female role model in her life. Not only that, but her continuous efforts to achieve leadership in a competitive business world had long ago forced her to program out that part of her feminine nature. She had never allowed herself to feel as though she needed a husband and children to be fulfilled as a woman. All she’d ever felt she needed was to have her father’s undying respect and had known instinctively that the only way to gain it was by being totally committed to her career.
But now all that was changing.
Now she was going to have a baby.
Dear God, what in the world was she going to do with a baby?
That night, Joelle went to bed and worried herself to sleep. She dreamed of Gabriel and Acapulco and woke up feeling worse than ever.
For the next several days, Joelle thought of little else. But in the end she knew that there was only one option for her and that was to have her baby, and that’s all there was to it. Later on, in the coming months, she would deal with what was the best solution for raising her child while still maintaining a fulltime career. But for now, her mental plate was overflowing. Though her decision to have her baby had settled her emotions down somewhat, they still weren’t anywhere near normal. The truth was, she still had several immediate problems facing her. San Diego was her hometown. She knew lots of people here. Her father was the social climber of the century and worried continuously about his spotless reputation, as if he were an old mother hen. Her pregnancy was going to be an embarrassment for him—and for her, too, no doubt about it. Somehow, she was going to have to find a way to keep her delicate condition a secret from him and everyone else in San Diego, although, deep down inside, she knew that it was going to be virtually impossible. Worse, not only was her father going to be shocked and embarrassed by her pregnancy, but undoubtedly he was going to ridicule her judgment in wanting to keep her baby and she simply couldn’t deal with that kind of criticism from him right now.
Which was exactly why, she supposed, that she had automatically tossed aside any thought of telephoning Gabriel Lafleur to tell him about the baby. Like her father, she didn’t want him to think that she was needy—clinging—and expecting him to assume responsibility for her problem. After all, she still had her goal of proving to her father—and to the entire world—that she was quite capable of taking care of herself.
Besides, what good would it have done her to call Gabriel? She knew for a fact that he didn’t want a wife any more than she wanted a husband. At least, he’d said as much in Mexico, several times, in fact. And according to her attorney, Smith Jamison, thus far, he hadn’t been able to find any documented proof that she and Gabriel had gotten married on her last night in Acapulco. She had absolutely no reason in the world to think that Gabriel Lafleur wanted to hear from her, again, under any circumstances. Therefore, it was ridiculous of her to want to call him simply to appease some deep down need in her to hear his voice, again. Absolutely ridiculous.
Still and all, several nights later, in a moment of extreme weakness, when a sudden loneliness swooped down on her and the thought of carrying her child for nine long months without having anyone on her side became unbearable, Joelle found herself dialing his telephone number. Of course, she had no intention of telling him about the baby. She simply wanted to hear his voice, make small talk for a while and then hang up. That would be enough to fill the sudden emptiness in her. She was sure of it.
His telephone rang once…twice…three times.
By now, Joelle was having second thoughts about what she was doing. Maybe it would only make things worse.
Suddenly someone lifted the receiver, and Joelle stopped breathing.
“Hello,” a woman said, her distinct Cajun accent being very similar to what Joelle remembered of Gabriel’s. Only hers was more pronounced, and she sounded much older than Gabriel. Old enough, in fact, for Joelle to wonder if it was his mother. It was the only thing that kept her stomach from bottoming out at the sound of a female voice answering his telephone. After all, she was only assuming that he’d been telling her the truth in Acapulco when he’d said he was single and unattached.
Suddenly Joelle realized that there was always the possibility that the information that Gabriel Lafleur had told her about himself in Mexico was, in fact, a lie. Maybe he was married. Maybe he even had kids. The thought nearly paralyzed her and her mouth went dry.
“Who is this?” the woman asked, indignantly. “Is this some kind of a prank call? ’Cause if it is…”
Joelle swallowed. “No—this is not a prank call,” she finally said after finding her voice. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
“Then, who’s this?”
“I—I’m Joelle Ames.”
“Are you selling somethin’? ‘Cause if you are, I ain’t buyin’.”
“Uh—no. I’m not with a telemarketing service.”
“Hmm…Is that so? Then, who do you want to speak to?”
“W-well, actually…” Joelle said, stammering her words. The woman was certainly intimidating her. “I think I may have dialed the wrong number.”
“What number did you want?” the woman asked, briskly.
“Uh…” Shaken Joelle glanced down at the telephone number Gabriel had given her. With trembling fingers, she lifted the piece of paper and read off the ten-digit number, area code included.
“Well, you got the right number,” the older woman said. “So, if it ain’t me you want, then I guess it’s Gabe.”
Gabe? Short for Gabriel. Well, at least he’d given her his correct name and telephone number. Her stomach settled down—somewhat. Hopefully everything else he’d said about himself was true, too. Otherwise, she was going to hate herself even more for what she’d done with him.
Joelle cleared her throat. “As a matter of fact, I did call to speak to Gabriel,” Joelle replied.
“Well, he ain’t come in from the fields just yet. I’m Big Sadie, his housekeeper. I’ll tell him you called.”
Joelle already knew she’d made a mistake in phoning him and decided that this was her last chance to pull out.
“That’s quite all right. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t even tell him anything. Please, just forget that I called. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Goodbye.”
“Now wait a minute, cher. I think I know who you are.”
“I doubt that,” Joelle replied.
“Well, let me see, now…I bet you, you’re that woman he met on vacation.”
Joelle’s grip on the receiver tightened. “He told you about me?” she asked, in truth, awed down to her toes that Gabriel would even do such a thing.
His housekeeper smirked. “Well, that ain’t exactly how it was. See, I saw them pictures he took of you, and he said that you were his tour partner—or somethin’ like that. Anyways, I ain’t never seen Gabe take so many pictures of anyone.”
Joelle frowned to herself. Funny, but she didn’t recall Gabriel taking any snapshots of her in Acapulco. Oh—well, yeah, maybe one or two that she’d noticed. Mostly she’d seen him taking pictures of the scenery. Sometimes that scenery may have been located behind her. Therefore, if by chance she ended up in any of those snapshots, then it was purely by accident.
“Oh—look—don’t hang up,” the housekeeper said. “I think I hear Gabe comin’ in now.” A fraction of a moment later and much too soon for Joelle to have stopped her, Joelle heard when the older woman laid the receiver down and said, “It’s for you, Gabe.”
Joelle’s insides froze.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“That woman?”
“What woman?” Joelle heard Gabriel ask.
“The one in the pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“The ones from your vacation.”
“Oh—those pictures.” There was a long pause and then finally Gabriel said, “I’ll take it in my study.”
Joelle’s heart began to pound once again.
She certainly had plenty of time to hang up and even thought of doing so. But then she realized it would only make her look like an even bigger fool, so she took a couple of deep breaths and waited anxiously for him to answer. Finally she heard him say, “Hello.”
Air rushed from her lungs. “Gabriel?”
There was a momentary pause. “Yes.”
“This is Joelle. Joelle Ames…” Actually there was always the chance that he wouldn’t remember her. Or, at least, her name. The sudden thought that he might not caused something in her to shrivel up like plastic wrapping in a hot oven.
“Hello, Joelle,” he said, his tone of voice even and unemotional. “I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to hear from you, again.”
She tried swallowing down the lump in her throat.
“Look, maybe my calling you like this wasn’t such a good idea, after all,” Joelle replied. “I probably should’ve let my attorney do this.”
“But you called instead,” he said.
“Well-yes-but-”
“But, what?”
“Nothing,” Joelle replied, suddenly realizing that she was getting paranoid for nothing. Sure, if she were to tell him about the baby, he would probably freak out. But she wasn’t going to do that. She’d just called to talk to him…to hear his voice one more time. She didn’t plan to ever call him, again.
“Look,” he drawled, “I’ve been meaning to phone you. In fact, I was wondering if your attorney had turned up anything about—well, you know—about that night.”
Joelle took a deep, steadying breath. “Well, actually, that’s why I called.” Liar. “I wanted to let you know that he hasn’t been able to find anything, no documentation that we got married. No nothing. Lately he’s been saying that we might not ever know what really happened that night.”
“I see,” Gabriel replied, hesitantly. “In that case, what do you suggest we do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Well, it’s been well over a month now. If there is still no documentation to be found, I don’t see the point in either of us pursuing the matter. It looks to me like we obviously backed out of what we had planned when we left the cantina.”
Yeah, they’d just ended up in bed together, instead. And she had the proof of what they’d done growing inside of her.
“I think you’re probably right. I sure hope so,” Joelle said, coolly. But, in spite of her indifferent answer, her stomach sank to the floor.
“I hope so, too,” he replied. “Look, I think it’s time we just consider the whole incident dropped.”
“Sounds good to me,” Joelle said, forcing herself to sound as elated as he. “Besides, if a problem should result, I’ll have my attorney take care of it right away.”
For a long moment, Gabriel was silent. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Listen, now that I’ve had a moment to think about it, just to put both of our minds at ease, maybe we should sign some kind of an agreement, naming each other blameless for that night.”
Joelle stiffened. It wasn’t that she wanted anything from him, because she didn’t. It was the fact that he was suddenly so suspicious of her. As if he thought that she had some underlying motive in all of this. In truth, she could’ve been thinking the very same thing of him, but she wasn’t. “Look, Lafleur, let’s get one thing straight. I’m not one to cause you any problems, okay?”
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Kristin Morgan
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Bundles of JoyPARDON ME, BUT THERE′S A NAKED MAN IN MY BED…Joelle Ames had planned her vacation meticulously, but waking up with sexy tourist Gabriel Lafleur–and no memory of the night before–wasn′t on the itinerary! Why, she hardly knew him, even though he produced a very questionable «marriage certificate»!What on earth had possessed Gabriel to get himself hitched on his first vacation in years? Surely the union wasn′t legal. He and Joelle could just go their separate ways and forget the whole thing.But their actions had consequences, and theirs was due in nine months, just enough time for them to get used to being called «Mom» and «Dad»–as well as «Mr.» and «Mrs.»!Bundles of Joy. Sometimes small packages can lead to the biggest surprises!