The Marriage Solution

He placed a finger under her chin, forced her to look at him. “Do you actually believe that?”

Uh-oh. This was dangerous. The simple touch set every nerve ending in her body on full alert and the way he was looking at her now had her hormones rocketing.

She’d often thought a woman would have to be blind not to notice his obvious good looks, and Tess’s almost perfect vision allowed her to fully appreciate the sun- kissed golden highlights in his dark blond hair, the deep brown eyes fringed with gloriously long lashes, the wide, full mouth that quirked easily into a grin, and the strong, square chin that held just the hint of a dimple. Then there was the body: six feet four inches of lean, solid and dangerously sexy male.

She’d known Craig since she was in junior high— he’d been in high school, an assistant coach of her baseball team and a basketball player himself. His wiry body had filled out since then. His shoulders were broader now, his muscles firmer.

But Craig Richmond was a lot more than a terrific face and gorgeous body. There was an aura about him, a confidence bordering on arrogance and the sheer force of his personality drew her even as her common sense warned her to stay far away. And now, just the touch of his hand on her chin was enough to send her pulse racing.

She knew he was waiting for an answer, but she couldn’t even remember the question. God help her, he’d simply touched her and her mind had gone blank.

“Do you really think I made love to you out of pity?” he asked.

She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “Didn’t you?”

He smiled, a slow, sexy curving of his lips that caused her heart to trip over itself. “No.”

The single word skimmed over her like a caress— teasing, tempting. She forced herself to pull away from him. She couldn’t afford to let her hormones overrule her common sense, not again.

“We made love that night because it was what we both wanted,” he reminded her.

She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the all too vivid memories. She didn’t want to remember how incredible it had been, the way she’d responded to Craig’s kisses, his touch. The way their bodies had come together, naturally, instinctively, as if they’d been made for each other. Even as she’d moved beneath him, she’d been painfully aware that no one had ever made her feel the way he did, and she knew that no one else ever would. Because no one else knew her like Craig did, no one understood her as he did. And the realization terrified her.

“I threw myself at you,” Tess said miserably. “I was feeling rejected and alone. I needed someone that night and you were there.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t pretend it wasn’t personal, because I don’t believe that for a minute. The attraction has been building for a long time—since the kiss we shared under the mistletoe last Christmas, if not longer.”

“That kiss didn’t mean anything,” she lied.

He propped a hip against the counter and quirked a brow. “Wanna try it now—so I can prove you wrong?”

“No,” she responded quickly.

His lips curved.

She crossed the room, needing to put some distance between them. This trek down memory lane wasn’t doing any good and it certainly wasn’t helping to solve her current dilemma.

“Friendship and chemistry are both solid foundations for a relationship,” he said. “And if we got married, our baby would have a real family.”

He almost sounded like he meant it—as if he wanted to marry her and be a father to their child. And though she wished, more than anything, that she could give her baby a family, she couldn’t do it like this. Marrying Craig for all the wrong reasons wouldn’t be right for any of them.

“It’s the twenty-first century,” she reminded him. “Our child won’t be ostracized by society because his parents never married.”

She couldn’t believe they were even having this conversation. All this talk about marriage and family from a man who wouldn’t date any woman for more than a month in case she got ideas about commitment, was making her head spin. Obviously her pregnancy had shaken both of them.

“Can we both just take a step back?” she suggested. “Let the reality sink in before we make any definite plans for the future?”

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse, but then he asked, “How far back?”

“I don’t know. I know there are a lot of decisions to be made, but I need time.” She looked up at him, silently pleading with him to understand. “I don’t want to screw this up. I don’t want to ruin our baby’s life by making bad choices.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?” she asked, her words less of a challenge than a plea for reassurance. “How am I supposed to know what’s the right thing to do?”

“We’ll figure it out together.”

“I wasn’t sure—after that night…”

“What?” he prompted gently.

She just shook her head.

“Why are you so determined to forget how spectacular we were together that night?”

She looked away from the heat in his eyes and tried to ignore the answering warmth that spread through her body. Spectacular didn’t begin to describe the night she’d spent in his arms. “Because remembering won’t do us any good.”

“Don’t you think physical compatibility is important in a marriage?”

“I think you should have your head examined.”

“Why won’t you at least consider it?” he challenged.

“Because I still have a dress hanging in my closet as a memento of the last man who promised to love me forever.”

She saw the shadows pass over his face, like clouds blocking out the sun. “I won’t make you any promises I can’t keep,” he said. “But I will take care of you and our baby and I will be faithful.”

She felt as if her heart was breaking—not just because she wanted more than he was offering, but because he believed he wasn’t capable of giving more. She had faith in the healing power of love, but Craig’s statement proved that the scars left by his mother’s abandonment still hadn’t healed and she had to wonder if they ever would. And she refused to set herself up for heartbreak by marrying someone who couldn’t love her.

“We made this baby together,” he continued when she didn’t respond. “And we should share that responsibility. Not just for the next eight months, but forever.”

Then he kissed her lightly on the cheek and walked out.

Chapter Two

Two weeks later, after the shock had worn off and he’d had time to think, Craig kept circling back to the same place. Maybe marriage and a baby weren’t a lifelong dream of his, but he owed it to Tess—and their baby—to do the right thing. And as much as he racked his brain for another solution, he’d started to believe that marriage was the best one.

He wanted his baby to have a father and he wanted to help Tess, and marrying her would accomplish both of those objectives.

Which is exactly what he told her when he stopped by her office Friday afternoon.

“We should get married.”

Tess turned around so quickly when he spoke that she knocked her coffee mug, spilling its contents all over the papers spread out on her desk. She swore under her breath as she moved her equipment out of the way of the spreading puddle.

As Craig hurried to the small kitchen to find a roll of paper towels, he realized he probably shouldn’t have blurted it out the way he had.

His mother often teased that he had a way with words and a natural charm that could persuade anyone to do what he wanted. He’d thought Tess would appreciate a straightforward approach. The silence that stretched between them as they worked to clean up her desk caused him to question that assumption.

She didn’t say anything at all until her wastebasket was filled with wet towels and illegible pages and the remaining papers had been spread out to dry.

“In the future, you might want to open a conversation with ‘hello’,” she suggested.

“Sorry,” he said. Then he smiled. “Hello, Tess.”

“Hello, Craig,” she responded politely.

He dropped into the chair beside her desk. “Now that we’ve dealt with the social niceties, can we get to the reason I’m here?”

“Please,” she agreed. “I’d like to know what’s behind the sudden change in your attitude about marriage.”

“The baby,” he admitted. “Our baby needs a father.”

She was quiet for a moment, considering his statement, then she nodded. “I don’t disagree,” she said. “But do you really want to be the baby’s father—or do you just want to do what you’ve convinced yourself is the right thing?”

“I want to be a father.” Parenthood wasn’t something he’d ever looked forward to in the abstract sense, but now, knowing his best friend was pregnant with his child, he found it was true.

“I’m a little surprised,” she admitted. “But I’m also relieved. I think our child will benefit from having both of his parents involved in his life.”

“His?” he wondered aloud.

She shrugged. “I don’t know yet, of course. But it doesn’t seem right to refer to the baby as ‘it’.”

He could see her point and while he hadn’t given much thought to the gender of their child, he found he liked the idea of having a son. A little boy who might grow up to take his place in the business Craig’s grandfather had founded. Of course, a girl could do the same thing. And when he thought about it, he found himself intrigued by the idea of a daughter—a little angel who looked just like her mother.

“Whether the baby’s a boy or a girl,” he said. “I don’t just want to be involved, I want to be there for him, or her, every day. I’ve been thinking about this since you took that test—I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else— and I really believe marriage is the perfect solution.”

“I didn’t ask you for a solution,” she said.

He took a deep breath, tried to figure out what he’d said or done to put her back up. Because it was obvious to him now that her back was up about something.

“I’m only trying to help,” he said.

“Just like you were helping when you took me home that night?”

She winced, and he knew she regretted the words as soon as she’d spoken, but that couldn’t erase them. Nor could it alter the truth in them. She blamed him, as he blamed himself.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was out of line.”

“No,” he denied. “You have every right to be mad at me. If I’d been thinking about what you needed instead of what I wanted, I would have just been your friend that night.”

She managed a weak smile. “I think I was pretty clear on what I needed.”

Yeah, she had been. But he should have looked beyond the invitation in her eyes, beyond the softness of her lips and the yield of her warm curves. Except that having Tess in his arms had been a dream come true and he hadn’t wanted to let her go.

Her smile faded as she folded her hands on her desk and faced him solemnly. “I’m not angry with you,” she said. “But maybe you should be angry with me.”

“Why?”

“Because—” she hesitated, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “Because I’m not sure I didn’t get pregnant on purpose.”

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

She looked down at the fingers laced together in front of her and took a deep breath. “You know how much I’ve always wanted a family of my own,” she began. “Especially since my mom died. When I broke off my engagement to Roger, that dream seemed to slip away from me and that hurt more than anything else.”

She swallowed. “I didn’t set out to get pregnant. At least, I don’t think I did. But I wonder if, subconsciously—”

“Tess,” he interrupted gently. “The condom broke. It had nothing to do with your conscious or subconscious desire for a family.”

She dropped her gaze again. “The condom broke because it was more than a year past its expiration date.”

He stared at her, stunned, as the events of that night replayed in his mind.

He mentally fast-forwarded through all the hot, sweaty stuff to the relevant moment when he’d realized they were in the guest room and his condoms were across the hall in his bedroom. He’d intended to go to his room to get them, but Tess had surprised him by admitting there were some in her purse. Since her purse was on the dresser beside the bed—a helluva lot closer than the night table in his bedroom, which was at least thirty feet away—they’d used the ones in her purse.

The out-of-date condoms.

“I didn’t know it at the time,” she said quickly. “I didn’t know until I checked the box when I got home.”

“Why didn’t you check the box before you bought them?”

Her cheeks colored. “I did. But I bought them a couple of years ago—when Roger and I first started dating. But he always took care of protection and I never really thought about it afterward.”

“You’ve been carrying those condoms in your purse for two years?” he asked incredulously.

She shook her head. “I only opened the box a couple of months ago when I decided that I was going to prove to myself that I was over Roger. But I didn’t have any need for them…until that night.”

“Not until that night, huh?” He couldn’t fight the smile that tugged at his lips.

Tess eyed him warily. “You’re not mad?”

Maybe he should be angry, at least annoyed. But he knew Tess, and he knew, despite her own concerns to the contrary, that she would never have gotten pregnant on purpose.

“Do you believe in fate?” he asked.

Her expression grew more wary. “I’m not sure.”

“I’m not sure, either,” he admitted. “But I can’t help thinking that fate has been sticking her nose into things since you broke mine.”

“That wasn’t fate,” she scoffed. “That was you staring at Barb MacIntyre instead of paying attention to the baseball game.”

His smile widened. “I was fifteen and Barb MacIntyre had breasts.”

Tess shook her head, but she was smiling now, too. “You should have been paying attention to the skinny kid with the bat.”

“I’d never known a girl who could smack a line drive like that,” he told her, wincing a little at the memory. But he’d sure as hell paid attention after that. Not just because he’d been impressed by Tess’s athletic abilities, but because something in her wide blue eyes had tugged at him when she stood over him—as he’d lain bleeding all over the dirt at third base—and asked if he was going to die, too.

Several weeks later, he’d learned that was the same day she’d buried her mother—and been taken directly from the funeral to her new foster home. She was a fourteen-year-old orphan with more guts and attitude than he’d ever seen, but he recognized that the stubborn tilt of her chin and the angry glint in her eyes only masked the pain she carried inside. And he knew— even then—that she would wreak havoc on his life. What he didn’t know and couldn’t have guessed, was that she’d also become the best friend he’d ever had.

He rubbed a finger over the bump on the bridge of his nose.

Tess’s eyes followed the motion and the corners of her mouth twitched as she tried, not entirely successfully, to hold back a smile.

“You’re not still mad about that, are you?” she teased.

He shook his head. “That broken nose was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I didn’t think so at the time, of course,” he confessed. “But in retrospect, I can appreciate that it’s the reason we became friends.”

“What does any of that have to do with now?”

“I think in another fifteen years we’ll look back on this and realize your pregnancy was the best thing that could have happened.”

“I already know it is,” she confessed softly.

“Then why is it so hard for you to imagine that us getting married could be another one of those things?”

He didn’t quite manage to disguise the impatience in his voice, and Tess sighed.

“It’s not that I can’t imagine it,” she admitted.

In fact, it was almost too easy to picture herself married to Craig, sharing the joys and responsibilities of parenthood with him, building the family she’d always wanted with him.

But although her heart yearned for the whole fairy¬ tale package, she knew it could never exist outside of her dreams. Because he wasn’t her Prince Charming and her pregnancy wasn’t something they’d planned for or dreamed about together. As far as she knew, Craig didn’t even want kids—it was just his deeply-ingrained sense of responsibility that refused to let him walk away from their baby.

“Then what is it?” he demanded.

She didn’t know what to say, how to explain the battle that had been waging inside her since she’d seen those two lines on the stick. She could do what was easy—or she could do what was right. And she really wanted to do what was right.

The buzz of the intercom saved her from answering, at least for now.

“Carl’s on line three,” Elaine, the receptionist, announced.

Carl Bloom was one of the owners of SB Graphics and, therefore, one of Tess’s bosses. Which meant she needed to get Craig out of her office and her mind back on the job.

“Thanks,” Tess replied. Then to Craig, she said, “I have to take this call.”

“I can wait,” he said.

“I’d rather you didn’t. This is probably going to take a while and I have a meeting with Owen Sanderson—” Carl’s business partner and her other boss “—later this afternoon that I still need to prepare for.”

“We need to finish this conversation,” he said.

“I know,” she agreed. “But not now.”

“Then come to my place tonight for dinner.”

She stared at the blinking light on her phone as she considered his invitation, the light flashing like a neon “danger” sign inside her head. But what was the danger in sharing a meal with a friend?

“Okay,” she agreed. “I’ll see you later for dinner.”

“Seven o’clock,” Craig said as he rose from his chair. “I’ve got steaks we can barbecue—red meat has lots of iron, it’ll be good for both you and the baby.”

She shook her head as he walked out the door.

When she’d first suspected she might be pregnant, she’d worried about telling Craig. She’d tried to anticipate his reaction and had guessed that he would either balk at the idea of being a father and slowly but inexorably distance himself from her and the child she carried, or he would resign himself to the consequences of their actions and fulfill his responsibilities with respect to child support and weekly visitation. She hadn’t expected him to embrace the idea of parenthood.

Then again, the idea might be easier for him to embrace than the reality. Once their child was born, he might change his mind about what he wanted.

Or he might not, she admitted on a sigh. And that was an even greater concern for Tess, because she’d never known Craig to give up on something he really wanted.

She pushed these disquieting thoughts aside and reached for the phone to talk to her boss.

The software program Tess was revising was being especially stubborn, and the last couple hours of fighting with it had caused her hands to cramp from too much keyboarding. She raised her arms over her head to stretch out the tight muscles and glanced at the clock above her desk, surprised to note that it was already quarter to seven. She was supposed to be at Craig’s for dinner in fifteen minutes.

She saved the program, then shut down her computer and called to let him know she’d be there soon.

Making a quick trip to the ladies room, she wasn’t surprised to find that all her coworkers had gone and the outer office was empty and dark. When she’d first graduated from DeVry University, she’d accepted a position at a huge software company in Arizona. She’d enjoyed her work there, but the hours had been long, her bosses demanding. She’d come back to Pinehurst even knowing that her chances of landing a job as a programmer were less than slim because she’d wanted to have a life outside of her work and because she’d wanted to be closer to her stepsister’s family and Craig. She’d been thrilled—and very lucky—to find SB Graphics.

SBG was a digital animation software company which had been started almost twenty years earlier by Owen Sanderson and Carl Bloom, both MIT graduates. Although the partners had talked about moving the business to Los Angeles, they’d come to realize they could compete with the big corporations on the west coast from their location in Pinehurst.

They were both family men who not only appreciated that their employees had lives outside of the job but insisted upon it. In fact, when Deanna, one of the team leaders, had given birth to her first child last year, the bosses had encouraged her to take whatever time she needed at home with her baby. Then, when she’d made the decision to come back, they’d let her work from home or bring the baby into the office as required when day care was a problem.

Tess hadn’t thought about it much at the time, but now that she was expecting a child of her own, it was a huge relief to know that her employers understood and were sympathetic to the demands of parenthood. She could only hope that the father-to-be would be as considerate and accommodating of her needs.

We should get married.

As if the words hadn’t been surprising enough, the conviction with which he’d spoken them had completely unsettled her. She knew, probably better than anyone, how unyielding Craig could be once he’d made up his mind about something. For some reason, he’d decided marriage was what he wanted. Now she was going to have to convince him there were other alternatives.

She ran a brush through her hair then slipped into her blazer. Maybe if she looked like a together, professional woman she would feel like a together, professional woman when she and Craig discussed their baby’s future. Maybe he would actually listen to her when she offered a more suitable—more reasonable—solution.

She sighed as she zipped her purse. Yeah, and maybe she’d go to bed tonight and wake up to find it was the day after her canceled wedding and she was alone in Craig’s guest room because nothing had happened between them the night before. Except that she wouldn’t really wish that night away even if she could. She might not be looking forward to doing battle with Craig about what was best for their baby, but she wanted this baby. More than anything, she wanted this baby because it meant she would never be alone again.

Her stomach growled, loudly protesting that it had been ignored since it rejected the chicken salad sandwich she’d had for lunch several hours earlier. As she made her way down the hall, her mouth watering in anticipation of the juicy steak Craig had promised her, she noticed the light on in Owen’s office.

She knocked before peeking around the partially open door. “I was just on my—Oh,” she halted her explanation when she realized Owen wasn’t behind his desk and another man was in his office. “I’m sorry. I thought you were Mr. Sanderson.”

“Jared McCabe,” he said, rising to his feet and offering his hand.

“Tess Lucas,” she told him, moving forward to take it and wondering, as she did so, why his name sounded familiar to her.

His gaze narrowed speculatively. “You were the team leader on version four of DirectorPlus.”

DP4 was an easy-to-use software interface utilized by animation directors to control background characters in movies and video games. She nodded in response to his statement even as she wondered how he knew she’d worked on the project—and why she couldn’t make such an easy connection with his name.

“It’s a terrific program,” he said.

“Are you a customer of SB Graphics?”

He smiled. “Potentially.”

“Then you’ll be interested to know that version five is going to be even better,” she promised him.

“I’m counting on it.”

His comment struck her as strange but before she could ask what he meant, Owen stepped into the room.

“Jared, I found—” He stopped in mid-sentence, obviously surprised to see her. “Tess, I didn’t realize you were still here.”

“I was just on my way out and saw your light on,” she said, suddenly feeling uneasy.