Making Room for Baby
Autor
Cathy Gillen Thacker
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HarlequinChapter 1
Moonlight bathed the luxurious hotel room in iridescent light as Tad McFarlane made one last thorough tour of Abby Kildaire’s lips. When finally the kiss came to an end, he lifted his head. Still feeling as if he never wanted to let her go, he shook his head in heartfelt regret. “I can’t believe we both have to leave here tomorrow.”
“Neither can I.” Abby sighed. As the spring breeze draped them in flower-scented warmth, the last thing Abby wanted was to return to her normal life.
Tad kissed her brow and traced his fingertip across her lips. His arms encircled her once again. He pulled her closer to his sinewy six-foot frame. “It’s been the best weekend of my entire life,” he whispered huskily in her ear.
And the most unexpected, Abby thought as she ran her hands across his broad shoulders. Who would’ve thought when she emptied her savings account to splurge on a trip to Paris that she—who never did anything on the spur of the moment—would also meet a handsome globe-trotting reporter and have a weekend fling that would change her life irrevocably? Because Tad had changed her life. He’d taught her that she could feel earth-shattering passion. He’d taught her that she could love a man in the most fundamental romantic way.
“It’s been the best weekend of mine, too,” Abby admitted wistfully, wishing their impetuous love affair could continue forever.
Tad framed her face with his hands and met her eyes. “I meant what I said before we made love, Abby. About having you with me—not just now, this weekend—but for the rest of my life.”
How she wanted that, Abby thought as she inhaled the brisk citrus scent of his cologne. But like it or not, they had to be practical. They had to consider their responsibilities. “I have a job...” A good one. And so did he.
“We can work around that,” Tad told her with the utter confidence she would’ve expected from one of the most respected reporters on the international beat. “I would never ask you to give up your profession just to be with me, any more than I would give up my life as a journalist.”
Abby began to relax. Her career as the Home and Garden editor for Trend magazine was very important to her. She’d worked ten hard years to land such a coveted position. More important still, her work had sustained her through many a challenging time. Tad knew that. He accepted that. Just as he accepted that she lived in New York City and had for the past ten years.
Abby let her gaze drift over the arresting contours of his face and the perpetually rumpled state of his naturally curly black hair. At thirty-six, he was five years older than she was. And undoubtedly the sexiest, most easygoing man she had ever met Everything about him—from his cleft chin, dimpled smile and deep blue bedroom eyes—appealed to her.
“What about your work?” she asked curiously, aware that at the moment he had no regular home, just a post-office box. Home for Tad was whatever city he happened to be in, whatever hotel he happened to stay in. To him, they were all one and the same. A hotel room was not a home to Abby. Her apartment in New York City was home.
Tad shrugged. “The constant traveling is beginning to wear on me. I’ve been thinking about moving back to the States for some time. Now that I’ve met you—” he paused, his expression both thoughtful and content “—it seems like the time is right for everything. Like the two of us—this—is preordained somehow.”
Abby knew exactly what he meant. She had never believed in love at first sight, either, but the moment she’d encountered Tad in the Paris airport, she’d known he was someone very special. “You’d do that for me?” she asked softly, realizing she had never met a man more generous or tender. Her heart filling with happiness, she studied him. “You’d give up the international beat?”
Tad nodded, his lips taking on a serious slant. “And so much more,” he confirmed with a sincerity that went soul-deep, “if it means I could be with you.” Abruptly his eyes darkened with a combination of affection and mischief. “Not that I don’t have dreams of my own. I do. The difference is that now I know I want you with me when they all come true.” He paused before adding, “I want to share my life with you, Abby. I want to share everything.”
Hope for the future filled her. “Oh, Tad...”
“Say you want that, too, Abby,” Tad demanded gruffly, drawing her close.
“I do,” Abby said on a halting breath. So much.
“Then marry me, Abby.” Tad sifted his hands through her hair. “As soon as we get back to the States.”
Abby shut her eyes, the desire she felt for Tad warring with her common sense. How she wished they could keep the problems of their real lives at bay and stay locked in this moment in time until she’d had her fill of him and he of her. But she knew better. Didn’t she? “It’s not that easy,” she murmured, distraught. She looked deep into his beautiful eyes. “I have to be at work on Monday morning.” So do you.
“Then we’ll do it Sunday night. In Tennessee,” Tad told her confidently. “There’s no waiting period there.”
Abby grinned. Somehow she wasn’t surprised Tad had gone to the trouble to find that out. He was a very thorough determined man. Never more so than when he wanted something. “You have done your homework,” she teased.
Tad grinned. “I always do my homework.” Many kisses and a long bout of leisurely lovemaking later, he asked her again.
Abby knew he deserved an answer. She also knew she shouldn’t be naked, her heart pounding at his nearness, when she gave it. She knew what she wanted, but she had to think about this.
“I don’t know. It’s so impulsive.” Abby threw off the covers and sprang from the bed. Her body still tingling from their lovemaking, she snatched up the satin-and-lace robe she’d left on the chaise. Pushing her trembling arms into the sleeves, she turned and walked toward the window. Outside the moonlight blanketed the city in sparkling silver. April in Paris. Was there anyplace more beautiful or more romantic in spring? she wondered as she belted the robe around her.
“I’m not impulsive, Tad,” she told him as he moved to stand beside her. And yet she was here, with him. Didn’t that tell her something? About the magic of the situation and the special something they shared?
Tad put both hands on her shoulders. He turned her to face him and flashed her a sexy grin. “I know you’re not impulsive. Neither am I.”
“Tad...” The breath soughed from her lips as he unbelted her robe, slipped his hands inside the silky fabric and tucked them around her waist.
“What?” he said, caressing her gently.
“I can’t think when you do that,” Abby protested as his hands moved lower toward her thighs, then swept upward across her ribs.
“I don’t want you to think,” Tad told her gruffly, dipping his head to hers. “I want you to kiss me.”
And heaven help her, she did.
By Sunday morning he had her on a jet to Memphis. By noon Eastern time they’d located a justice of the peace who had everything they needed right down to the witnesses, bouquet and wedding rings. An hour later they were in their hotel, making love again.
If only things could always stay this simple, Abby thought as she melted in his arms.
But of course, as luck would have it, they didn’t.
Three weeks later
TAD MCFARLANE strode into the offices of Trend magazine, knowing the moment of reckoning had finally come. He found his runaway wife right where he expected to find her—seated behind her desk, her silky golden-brown hair spilling to her shoulders, her long-lashed golden-brown eyes focused on the magazine layout in front of her.
She turned as he approached her desk.
Tad resisted the urge to take her into his arms and kiss some sense into her. Succumbing to passion, in lieu of talking, was what had gotten them into this mess.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Making no effort to hide his unhappiness with her actions, Tad handed Abby the sheaf of legal papers that had finally reached him via registered mail.
Abby arched a delicately shaped brow at him and handed the documents right back. “I would think that would be glaringly apparent.”
Tad refused to take them. He cleared a space and sat down on the corner of her desk. “Well, it’s not.”
Abby let the papers drop. She kept her pretty oval face level with his. “I want an annulment.”
No, Tad thought, you don’t. You’re just angry with me right now. And considering the giant misunderstanding we had, that’s understandable.
Determined to take whatever time they needed to work this out and salvage the marriage that had lasted barely a day, Tad folded his arms in front of him. “On what grounds?” he demanded, searching her wide-set eyes. “As I recall we consummated the marriage quite thoroughly.”
Abby flushed, unable to argue that, and with good reason, Tad thought. They had made love repeatedly that entire weekend, both before and after the ceremony.
“That’s just it, Tad,” Abby snapped irritably as she stood and began to pace. Her willowy body was accentuated by a buttercup yellow jersey dress. Bone-colored stockings and matching shoes showed off her spectacular legs. Just watching her made Tad’s blood run hot and quick. “We were driven by hormones. We weren’t thinking clearly.”
Speak for yourself, Tad thought irascibly. He’d been thinking very clearly, then and now. He’d known the minute he’d laid eyes on her that he had to have her. And that desire—to make her his and his alone—had only increased over the past two weeks.
“You’re still ticked off at me for buying the newspaper,” Tad guessed as he tried not to think how good and right her soft mobile lips had felt beneath his.
Abby tossed her head, her hot-tempered movement filling the small elegant office with the intoxicating vanilla scent of her perfume. “You could have told me your plans before we married!”
“I did!” Tad replied, aware they’d covered this ground the morning after they’d gotten married—the morning she’d walked out on him and their new marriage.
“Funny, I don’t recall you saying one darn word about the two of us moving to North Carolina.”
Tad scowled. “I told you I spent summers there as a kid.”
“Visiting your aunt Sadie, yes, I know,” Abby said impatiently, obviously exasperated at having to go through this again.
“I also told you I wanted to own my own newspaper,” Tad continued patiently.
“Right!” Abby aimed an accusing finger at him. “Someday!”
Tad cocked a brow, the hint of a smile playing around his mouth, even as he noticed Abby was still wearing the fourteen-carat-gold-and-jade ring that she’d selected to serve as both her wedding and engagement ring. That could only mean one thing—their impetuous union wasn’t nearly as over as she wanted him to believe it was. “You didn’t believe I was serious?” he chided, refusing to let her off the hook even for a second.
Abby rolled her eyes. “Of course I did. Your plan to buy and revamp an ailing small-town paper sounded exactly like one of those irrational cockeyed retirement dreams that every man I know has. I figured you’d get around to it when you were sixty or something. And I’d happily go along with you at that point, twenty-five years from now, when I was ready to retire from the business, too!”
Abby’d never dreamed a journalist of Tad’s caliber and fame would attempt to drop out of the mainstream at age thirty-six! Never mind literally the day after he’d married her. But that was exactly what had happened.
Unable to talk him out of it, unable to put the brakes on her formerly sedate but work-laden life that was fast spinning out of control, she’d promptly put a hold on everything and curtailed any plans to actually move in together, saying they needed time—at least three weeks!—to cool off and rethink what they’d done.
At first Tad had been adamantly opposed to such an arrangement. When she hadn’t backed down, he’d eventually agreed to her request, but only because she’d given him no choice. Besides, he had some stories to finish and loose ends of his own to tie up before concentrating once again on her and their marriage.
Abby tried hard not to think what his nearness was doing to her or notice how fast her heart beat whenever he was near her. “Look, I’m sure what you are doing in Blossom is laudable,” she said politely.
“But?” Tad said, sensing there was more.
Abby swallowed around the unaccustomed dryness in her throat. “If you’d told me you had already put a bid in on the Blossom Weekly News beforehand and were planning to move to North Carolina as soon as said bid was accepted—”
“If said bid was accepted,” Tad corrected, letting her know that at that point it had been far from a done deal.
“—then I never would’ve married you,” Abby concluded. Because that would have meant giving up her job at Trend, and she never would have done that.
Tad lounged against her desk. “So now it’s over—just like that?”
“It has to be.”
“No,” Tad said heavily, looking very sexy in jeans that clung like a second skin, a white oxford shirt worn open at the throat, tweed sport coat and hand-tooled leather boots. “It doesn’t.”
Damn it all, anyway, Abby thought as she returned to her desk. She should have known a man like Tad, who was used to getting damn near anything and everything he wanted in life, would be difficult about this! She sat back in her chair, her forearms lying flat against the armrests. Hiking the skirt of her dress slightly, she crossed her legs at the knee.
“You’re saying...what—that you’re going to fight the annulment?” she asked tensely, wishing she wasn’t still so attracted to him. Wishing she didn’t recall in such exquisite detail what it had been like to make slow wonderful love with him.
He leaned across her desk. “I’m saying I want you to see what you’re giving up before you actually give it up.” He took two airline tickets out of his pocket and placed them in front of her.
“I can’t go to North Carolina!” Abby exclaimed.
“Why not?” Abby’s best friend, Yvonne Kirschner prodded, walking in unannounced. “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
A weekend with Tad is what had gotten her into trouble in the first place, Abby thought darkly.
Sensing something out of the ordinary was up, Yvonne looked Tad over before returning her glance to Abby. “Who’s the hunk?” she asked with a curious smile.
Unsure how to answer that, Abby looked at the forty-one-year-old Features editor for Trend. In her power suit and heels, her short red hair impeccably coiffed, Yvonne was not just the epitome of the New York City career woman, she was Abby’s role model and mentor in the publishing world. The person Abby most frequently turned to for advice. But what could she say to Yvonne about this? Yvonne was—and always would be—married to her career. Yvonne would never have eloped on a whim the way Abby had.
Tad stepped forward. He stretched out his hand. “Hi. I’m Tad McFarlane. Abby’s husband.”
Yvonne did a double take.
“We got married in Paris at the end of April,” Tad continued.
Yvonne’s glance cut to Abby’s left hand, lingering on the jade-and-gold ring she’d been wearing since her trip abroad. She looked back at Tad, who was wearing a plain gold wedding band. “You got married for the first and only time in your life and you didn’t mention it?” Yvonne asked, aghast.
Abby lifted her hands. “Everyone was so upset about the magazine, the financial problems we’ve been having, that I...” Abby was blushing furiously.
“I still think I would have mentioned it,” Yvonne retorted.
Not if you were getting an annulment, you wouldn’t Abby thought. “Look, don’t tell anyone else,” Abby insisted quickly, wanting her embarrassment to end here and now.
“Okay,” Yvonne agreed, like the devout friend she was. “But, uh...” Yvonne’s glance returned to Tad, then focused on the sparks flying between Tad and Abby. “Maybe you should go ahead and go. It won’t do any good to sit here wondering—”
“Good point,” Abby interrupted, not about to let Tad know she—and everyone else at the magazine she had lovingly labored over for the past year and a half—was currently in jeopardy of losing her job, thanks to a recent takeover of the parent company by a huge conglomerate. “I do need a vacation,” Abby said bluntly, vaulting to her feet. Even more urgently she needed to get Tad out of there. She snatched up the airline tickets he’d left on her desk, then grabbed his arm and her briefcase simultaneously. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t be a stranger,” Yvonne called to Tad as Abby hurried him down the hall.
Tad glanced at Abby. “Don’t worry,” he promised softly, letting her know he wasn’t giving up on them no matter how difficult she proved to be. “I don’t intend to be.”
“WELL, WHAT DO YOU think?” Tad asked Abby early the next afternoon after they’d completed the whirlwind tour of the brick building that housed the Blossom Weekly News.
“About what—western North Carolina?” Which was incredibly beautiful and heavily wooded. “Or Blossom?” Which was a charming little town of around ten thousand people in the Great Smoky Mountains, about sixty miles from the Tennessee border.
“About the newspaper,” Tad said, gesturing around them.
Abby had the feeling he was talking about a lot more than that; he was talking about the prospects for renewing their marriage. Stubbornly she focused only on what she was prepared to discuss at that moment—the business he had just purchased. “It’s a fine building. Well constructed. I’m not sure I like the bullpen atmosphere. I sort of like working in individual offices myself—find it easier to concentrate.”
He picked up a copy of the newspaper. “What about this?”
Abby searched for something nice to say. “It’s, um, compact.”
“And poorly written and designed and limited in scope,” Tad agreed.
Almost hopelessly so. “And yet you bought it,” Abby observed, thinking Tad was more an enigma to her than ever.
“Precisely because it does need so much work,” Tad confirmed. He gazed around them happily, taking in the four desks that had been scrunched together in the big uncarpeted room. “Can’t you see the potential here, Abby?”
What she saw made her think he was nuts. A journalist of Tad’s caliber and renown would never be happy here in the long haul. But he was going to have to figure that out for himself, Abby told herself firmly. It was not up to her to educate him.
“There are no computers,” Abby remarked absently as beads of perspiration sprang up along her neck and chest. Was it hot in here, she wondered as she tugged at the jewel collar of her cotton sweater, or was it just her imagination?
“That’s easily fixed,” Tad assured her with youthful enthusiasm. He picked up a paperweight and tossed it from hand to hand. “I’ll have some in by next week.”
Abby continued to pace the office restlessly, noticing that her knees felt a little wobbly, too. Why, she didn’t know.
Nonplussed by her sudden wooziness, she rubbed at the back of her neck. “And there’s only one section of the paper,” she continued wearily.
Tad grinned confidently as he placed the paperweight on a desk and looked around. “I’m planning to expand. In fact, I’m looking for a Lifestyle editor for the new Lifestyle section as we speak.”
Abby moved away from Tad. She drew a deep breath to see if that would help. “I’ll let you know if I think of anyone,” she said dryly.
Tad paused, his eyes on her face. “Actually I already had someone in mind.”
Thinking maybe she’d feel better if she sat down, Abby eased herself onto the corner of the desk. “Really.” She crossed her legs at the knee. “Who?”
Tad smiled. “You.”
“Very funny, Tad,” Abby drawled, trying hard not to let him know just how woozy she was feeling.
She’d been trying to ignore it, but the truth was she’d been feeling funny, sort of weak-kneed and dizzy, ever since he picked her up at her apartment in New York City to take her to the airport for the flight to North Carolina.
“You think I’m kidding?” Tad asked in a low sexy tone.
Abby’s heart skipped a beat as she looked up into his eyes. Saved by the bell, she thought as the phone rang on the desk behind her. His eyes still on hers, Tad reached around her waist to answer it. “Blossom Weekly News. Yeah. Just a minute, Yvonne.” Tad handed the phone to Abby. “It’s for you.”
Knowing something had to have happened for Yvonne to call her here, Abby pressed the receiver to her ear. “What’s up?” she asked.
“You picked the wrong time to go out of town, kiddo,” Yvonne told her in a discouraged voice.
Anxiety hit Abby like a Mack truck. Aware her hands were suddenly trembling, too, Abby gulped. “What do you mean?” she asked with trepidation.
Yvonne continued grimly, “Trend has just been purchased by The Hindemythe Group in Great Britain. They’re moving the magazine overseas, pronto.”
“What about us?” Abby asked Yvonne as her heart began to pound. “And the rest of the staff?”
“We’ve all been fired.”
“WHAT IS IT?” Tad asked as soon as Abby thanked Yvonne for the information, told her they’d talk soon and hung up.
Abby wet her lips and tried to make sense of her increasingly fuzzy view of Tad’s handsome face. Sweat was gathering between her breasts and there was a roaring in her ears. What was wrong with her? Was it the altitude? The fact Blossom, North Carolina, was five thousand feet above sea level? Or was it just being around Tad, knowing he wanted to continue their hasty marriage, that left her feeling so dizzy and disoriented? Whatever was causing it, Abby decided firmly, she had to get a grip.
“I just lost my job, as did everyone else at Trend,” Abby told Tad calmly.
“I’m sorry.” Tad took her hands in his. He rubbed his thumbs across the insides of her wrists. “But maybe it’s not such a bad thing, after all.”
Abby blinked, stunned Tad did not see the development as the calamity it was. Her career was the one thing—the only thing—she had counted on through thick and thin. She’d put her heart and soul into her job at Trend.
“If it gives us a chance to be together,” he soothed, wrapping a comforting arm about her shoulders, “maybe it’s even a good thing.”
His analysis was so hopelessly optimistic, so far off the mark, Abby didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She only knew, with the room taking on an increasingly precarious tilt, and her whole world crashing down around her, that she couldn’t hold it together any longer.
She stopped trying to fight it, pitched forward into Tad’s waiting arms and let the swirling dizziness overwhelm her.
