Bachelor Mom Read online

  “I Think It’s A Rule—No Birthday Should Pass Without A Birthday Kiss.”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Jennifer Greene

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright

  “I Think It’s A Rule—No Birthday Should Pass Without A Birthday Kiss.”

  He was teasing, she thought. Only, in the next second, he buried his long, strong fingers in her curis, holding her head tilted up to his.

  His lips touched hers, softer than honey. He was just teasing, she mentally repeated to herself. A neighborly kiss. A gesture of affection. If she just stood still for a second, it’d be over.

  But for some strange reason, he seemed in no hurry.

  No one had ever kissed her like this. He hadn’t even touched her body, yet every nerve ending in her body seemed electrified. Yearning swept through her like a storm, so heady and wild that her knees wanted to buckle. She felt young and reckless. She felt brand-new, back in that time when she really believed in fairy tales and in the unconquerable power of love....

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to a wonderful new year at Silhouette Desire! Let’s start with a delightfully humorous MAN OF THE MONTH by Lass Small—The Coffeepot Inn. Here, a sinfully sexy hero is tempted by a virtuous woman. He’s determined to protect her from becoming the prey of the local men—and he’s determined to win her for himself!

  The HOLIDAY HONEYMOONS miniseries continues this month with Resolved To (Re)Marry by Carole Buck. Don’t miss this latest installment of this delightful continuity series!

  And the always wonderful Jennifer Greene continues her STANFORD SISTERS series with Bachelor Mom. As many of you know, Jennifer is an award winner, and this book shows why she is so popular with readers and critics alike!

  Completing the month are a new love story from the sizzling pen of Beverly Barton, The Tender Trap; a delightful Western from Pamela Macaluso, The Loneliest Cowboy; and something a little bit different from Ashley Summers, On Wings of love.

  Enjoy!

  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

  JENNIFER GREENE

  BACHELOR MOM

  Books by Jennifer Greene

  Silhouette Desire

  Body and Soul #263

  Foolish Pleasure #293

  Modam’s Room #326

  Dear Reader #350

  Minx #366

  Lady Be Good #385

  Love Potion #421

  The Castle Keep #439

  Lady of the Island #463

  Night of the Hunter #481

  Dancing in the Dark #498

  Heat Wave #553

  Slow Dance #600

  Night Light #619

  Falconer #671

  Just Like Old Times #728

  It Had To Be You #756

  Quicksand #786

  *Bewitched #847

  *Bothered #855

  “Bewildered #861

  A Groom for Red Riding Hood #893

  Single Dad #931

  Arizona Heat #966

  †The Unwilling Bride #998

  †Bachelor Mom #1046

  *Jock’s Boys

  †The Stanford Sisters

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Secrets #221

  Devil’s Night #305

  Broken Blossom #345

  Pink Topaz #418

  Silhouette Books

  Birds, Bees and Babies 1990

  “Riley’s Baby”

  Santa’s Little Helper 1995

  “Twelfth Night”

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

  Ms. Greene has written more that forty category romances, for which she has won numerous awards, including the RITA for Best Short Contemporary Book, and both a Best Series Author and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times.

  Demo version limitation

  Two

  An hour later, Gwen had locked up, picked up and switched off all the lights. She dialed the telephone in her bedroom to call Vermont. Her sister should still be up, and she wanted to thank Paige for the cameo.

  As the telephone rang at the other end, her gaze pounced from the lemon yellow print comforter to the wicker love seat in the corner. She’d redecorated the bedroom right after the divorce. Ron favored dark, rich expensive woods. Actually, his taste pretty predictably ran to anything that cost the moon. She’d sold the oppressive stuff, painted and redid everything in sunny yellows and white wicker. It was her private haven now. Walking into her bedroom was like walking into her own sanctuary.

  Not tonight. Listening to the phone ring, she squeezed her eyes closed. If her sister wasn’t home, heaven knew what she was going to do—maybe take a marathon jog around St. Augustine. She was not only feeling climb-the-walls wide awake, but sober as a judge.

  That kiss from Spence could sober anyone up... although she was trying her her damnedest to work up a good case of denial. Surely it never really happened. Surely it was her imagination that he’d knocked her knickers off with that kiss. Surely it was her rum-clouded memory that made her think she’d responded to him like a wild cat.

  She couldn’t conceivably have responded to Spence with abandon. He was her neighbor. A good neighbor. He was also an experienced, sophisticated hunk. She was tuna noodle casserole and he was lobster. There was nothing wrong with being tuna noodle casserole, but man, to have him think she was sexually attracted to him was beyond mortifying. She’d never doubted that Spence ran across his share of female movers and shakers in his business life. He was probably dying of embarrassment that she’d responded to him like...well, like some sad stereotype of a sex-starved divorcee.

  She hoped he’d forget it.

  If he couldn’t forget it, she hoped she’d explained enough times about her inexperience with rum.

  Actually, she desperately hoped that if she just kept mentally denying it, maybe she could convince herself it never happened.

  “Gwen! I tried to call you earlier, but you were out—I hope partying big-time. How’d the big three-oh birthday go?”

  There. Her sister finally answered, and Paige’s familiar alto soothed her nerves like balm for a sore. “The day’s been fine, and oh, Paige, the cameo is just breathtaking. I couldn’t love it more. Thank you so much!”

  Paige let out a breathy sigh. “Whew. So glad you liked it. I wanted it right ... not just some pretty piece of artwork, but something personal between you and me.”

  Sitting Indian-style on the bed, the phone cupped to her ear, Gwen touched the cameo pendant with soft fingers. “It was personal. More than personal. The look of the woman in the profile almost gave me the shivers... she almost seemed to look like me”

  “I thought so, too. But I’ve told you before how sculpting works—any similarity like that is accidental. There’s a kind of truth in any piece of raw material. The artist’s job is to carve away what isn’t the truth, but she can’t build in a picture that isn’t there. I had no way to know ahead of time that the
woman was going to end up looking like you.” Paige hesitated, then added deliberately, “But I wanted her to be beautiful. You’re beautiful, sis. And you seem to be the only one in the entire world who isn’t aware of it.”

  “Talk about bias.” Gwen’s voice was purposefully light. Maybe her sister never saw what she did. It was the shadow woman in the cameo that put a lump in her throat, not the beautiful lady who was so exuberantly embracing life. Carefully she snapped the lid closed on the velvet box. “I’ll be beautiful the same day cats fly. You’ve just got blinders on because you’re my sister.”

  “Hey, you’re talking to the brat who put shaving cream in your bra. Short-sheeted your bed. Froze all your underpants next to Mom’s jam in the freezer. Sisters don’t have to do or say nice things.”

  Gwen chuckled. “Come to think of it, I’d forgotten what a brat you were. Abby was the nice sister.”

  “And what’d Abby send you for your birthday?”

  “A silk dress. Ivory. Kind of swirly and soft and sexy.” Maybe it was studying that cameo that made her suddenly feel restless and uneasy again, but she bounced off the bed and started pacing the room with the phone cradled against her ear. “Maybe in the year 2010, I’ll find a place to wear it.”

  “Abby keeps trying to reform my taste in clothes, too. She should know by now it’s hopeless. And how come she got all the good taste in the family?”

  “I dunno. You want to short-sheet her bed the next time we see her?”

  They both chuckled and wasted a few minutes creating diabolical plans for Abby and recalling all the sick practical jokes they’d pulled on each other as kids. Then Paige filled in her own family news—she’d never felt healthier in her whole life, but her new husband Stefan was miserable, suffering morning sickness big-time. As Paige embellished the details, both sisters’ chuckles spilled into laughter...until Paige suddenly paused and turned serious. “Boy, I haven’t heard a good belly laugh from you in forever, kiddo. I’ve really worried how you were doing these past few months. And you haven’t said one word about the bastard.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call him that. He’s really not, Paige. Ron’s a good dad to the boys. And he didn’t suddenly turn into a creep just because the marriage failed.”

  “I think we’ve had this exact same conversation before—you know I have a different opinion on that—but okay, okay. I’ll try to remember not to call him a manipulative, arrogant son of a seadog in your presence, sweets. But I wish you’d try to believe it. He’s well out of your life. You seeing anyone?”

  “You have to be kidding. I’m not sure I’ve even caught sight of an adult man in six months, between being chained to the computer most of the day and den-mothering a passel of boys in my free time,” Owen said wryly. From nowhere, though, a mental picture of Spence suddenly embedded itself in her mind as if glued there.

  “You’ve got to quit hiding in that house.”

  “This is my youngest sister talking? The one who hid in the art studio for years and was never going to get married as long as she lived?”

  “That was before I met Stefan. Now I know what I was missing. And you, too. Just listen to me-now that I know everything,” Paige teased, but again, her voice turned serious. “I know it’s got to be scary to get your feet wet in the dating pool again, but everyone isn’t like Ron, sis. You just have to steer clear of those high-powered, steamroller types.”

  “I know, I know. Believe me.” Again, Spence’s face flashed in her brain. He was ten times more dynamite than Ron had ever been, a clear study of a man motivated by drive and ambition and overloaded with dynamic, virile male energy. Lord, how could she have kissed him like that? Being a concentrated dynamo was no crime, but for her, Spence might as well have a Danger sign tattooed on his forehead. Abruptly, though, that whole thought train disappeared from her mind. “Oops...Paige, I have to go. A pint-size interruption just showed up in the doorway.”

  Paige chuckled just before hanging up. “Give my favorite hellion nephews a giant hug from Aunt Paige, okay?”

  As it happened, only one of her hellions was standing in the door. Jacob. Tousled and barefoot and wearing his favorite cartoon pj’s. He was the spitting image of his dad with his white-blond hair and woman-killer blue eyes and beyond-adorable grin. “He’s back, Mom,” Jacob said.

  Gwen heard the quaver in his voice, and there was sure no grin on his face now. Jacob could manage to get dirty in a bathtub; he had more energy than an entire football team, and there were times he could test her patience like nobody’s business. But not when he was scared. Never when he was scared.

  Swiftly she reached out her arms. “Shoot. Don’t tell me that blasted monster showed up again?”

  “Yup. The green one. With the big bulging eyes and the claws like scissors.”

  “Darn. I thought we got rid of him permanently the last time.”

  “Nope.” Another quaver, as he shot across the room and burrowed his face into her stomach. “I just came in to protect you. I wasn’t scared or anything, but you’re a girl and all. I figured I better sleep with you.”

  “Well, when one of us is afraid, I think it’s a good idea to protect each other,” Gwen said gravely. “But let’s take care of this monster together first, okay?”

  She took his hand and together they walked down the hall to his room. “Where’d he come from this time?”

  “The bathroom. And then he slinked in. And then he hid by the desk.”

  “Ah.” She switched on the big overhead light and then slowly took her time, studiously searching around the desk, bending down to look under the bed, then poking in the corners of the closet. “You see anything?” she asked her son.

  “Nope.”

  “Any other place you think he could be hiding?”

  “Aw, Mom. You don’t have to keep doing this. I know it’s just a dream. It’s just such a real dream that I can’t always make it go away.”

  “Honest, I understand. When I was six, I had pink and orange alligators under my bed. Just for the record, though...they all went away by the time I was seven. Never came back.”

  “Boy, were you silly. Everybody knows that alligators don’t come in orange.”

  She made him giggle, but he still wasn’t sure about leaving her alone—“unprotected”—so she curled up on the twin bed with him. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep, never did. But he didn’t let her cuddle him too often, now that he was a big grown-up six-year-old, and it felt good, the warm body, the scent of her son, the cowlick tufts of his blond hair tickling her chin.

  This was her life, she thought. Loving her kids. Being there for them when the monsters came.

  She simply had to shake this strange, lost, dissatisfied feeling that had haunted her lately. And she simply had to put that wild, dangerous kiss from Spence out of her mind.

  Before she fell asleep, she hoped fiercely that he’d just done her a kindness and forgotten all about it.

  “Maybe I should sleep with you tonight.”

  “You think so?” Spence bent down to kiss the blue-eyed blond beauty. The love of his life had the long eyelashes of a seductress and the cajoling ways of a Lorelei. He knew—and she knew even better—that he could be had. He’d been suckered by a single milk-breath kiss before.

  “There aren’t any monsters in your bed, Dad. And just in case one comes, then I won’t have to walk all the way down the hall to your room. It’s dark and scary in the hall.”

  He gave April another kiss and then tucked the stuffed two-foot-high yellow rabbit under the covers with her. “There’s a night light in the hall now, remember? It’s not dark anymore. And I’m pretty sure we killed off all the monsters a couple nights ago. Haven’t seen one since.”

  “But what if one comes?”

  “Then you yell at the top of your lungs for Dad.” He illustrated, mimicking her child’s soprano in such a campy fashion that she started giggling. “I’ll come running lickety-split and we’ll save each other. But right
now I want you to close your eyes and think about marshmallows.”

  “Marshmallows?”

  “Yup. Close your eyes, lovebug, and concentrate real, real hard on marshmallows.” It was the newest theory he was trying. So far he hadn’t found a sure cure for night terrors, no matter how many child-rearing books he’d read. Instead of picturing monsters just before she went to sleep, he was trying to get her to think about something safe and soft and fun.

  So far, it worked some of the time. The chances were about “even-steven” he’d wake up in the morning with a six-year-old hogging the covers. Early in the night, though, April’s sleep patterns were as predictable as the sunrise. If he could just get her to close her eyes, she’d be snoozing deep and heavy twenty minutes from now.

  For the next twenty minutes he stood in the kitchen, sipping an iced tea, staring out the west window at the sweep of lawn that bordered his place and Gwen’s.

  Mary Margaret, his housekeeper, made fine iced tea. She was addicted to Pine Sol, though. Seemed there was no limit to the gallons she could go through, and the smell pervaded the kitchen. So did the chicken cacciatore she’d made for dinner. Mary Margaret was chunky, built like a barrel, with long, wiry gray hair always pulled back in the same merciless bun. She broke something once a week, covered up any experimental cooking with an overdose of cayenne, and she looked tougher than old nails ... but she’d about die for his daughter. Spence never cared about the rest.

  He’d been a little uneasy about dads and daughters and whether it was okay for April to climb in bed with him in the middle of the night. Mary Margaret, in typical tactful fashion, told him he was being stupid. When a child was scared, you did whatever you had to do to help them get unscared. She also told him to burn all the silly child-rearing books and listen to her. She’d raised five children. She knew everything.