Marrying Molly

“Well, well. Look who’s here.”

Tate squinted into the darkness, still not believing that Molly O’Dare, big as life and twice as exasperating, sat in his leather-seated rocker. Without saying anything, he held back the covers so she could climb into bed with him where she belonged.

“Fat chance,” she muttered.

“Then, if you don’t mind me asking, what the hell are you doing in my bedroom at—” he paused to peer at the bedside clock “—two in the morning?”

Molly crossed her beautiful legs and folded her hands. “I’ve got…news, I guess you could say.”

Tate felt the cold kiss of dread at his cheek and a kind of creepy hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. If Molly had news for him, it probably wouldn’t be good…. “Spit it out.”

And that was just what she did. “I’m pregnant, Tate Bravo. Sometime next January, you’re going to be a dad….”

And that was it. Before Tate could collect his wits and stop her, she turned, threw a slim leg up over the sill and slipped out the window the way she had come.

Christine Rimmer

Marrying Molly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For those of you who follow the Bravos, here they are, Texas-style!

CHRISTINE RIMMER

came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything from an actress to a phone sales representative to a playwright. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma. Visit Christine at her new home on the Web at www.christinerimmer.com.

THE BRAVOS: HEROES, HEROINES AND THEIR STORIES

THE NINE-MONTH MARRIAGE (SSE #1148)

—Cash Bravo and Abby Heller

MARRIAGE BY NECESSITY (SSE #1161)

—Nate Bravo and Megan Kane

PRACTICALLY MARRIED (SSE #1174)

—Zach Bravo and Tess DeMarley

MARRIED BY ACCIDENT (SSE #1250)

—Melinda Bravo and Cole Yuma

THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED (SSE #1322)

—Jenna Bravo and Mack McGarrity

THE M.D. SHE HAD TO MARRY (SSE #1345)

—Lacey Bravo and Logan Severance

THE MARRIAGE AGREEMENT (SSE #1412)

—Marsh Bravo and Tory Winningham

THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE (Single Title)

—Jonas Bravo and Emma Hewitt

MARRIAGE: OVERBOARD

—Gwen Bravo McMillan and Rafe McMillan

(Weekly Serial at www.eHarlequin.com)

THE MARRIAGE CONSPIRACY (SSE #1423)

—Dekker (Smith) Bravo and Joleen Tilly

HIS EXECUTIVE SWEETHEART (SSE #1485)

—Aaron Bravo and Celia Tuttle

MERCURY RISING (SSE #1496)

—Cade Bravo and Jane Elliott

SCROOGE AND THE SINGLE GIRL (SSE #1509)

—Will Bravo and Jillian Diamond

FIFTY WAYS TO SAY…I’M PREGNANT (SSE #1615)

—Starr Bravo and Beau Tisdale

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

“T ate. Wake up, Tate.”

Sound asleep, Tate Bravo heard the taunting whisper. He knew the voice. Molly. Damn her. What right did she have to come creeping into his dreams?

And why so often? Seemed like not a night went by that she didn’t appear to torment him.

“Hey. Pssst. Tate…”

With a groan, Tate pulled a pillow over his head. “Go ’way, Molly,” he muttered, still half-asleep. “Get outta my dreams…”

“Tate Bravo, wake up.”

Tate opened his eyes under the pillow. He blinked. “Molly?” He tossed the pillow away and sat up. The window opposite the foot of the bed was open, letting in the warm wind from outside. And Molly O’Dare sat in the leather-seated rocker in the corner, not far from that open window.

“Huh?” Tate squinted into the darkness, still not quite believing it could really be her. But it was. Molly O’Dare, big as life and twice as exasperating. Even through the shadows, with all her clothes on, he knew the shape of her and couldn’t mistake the wheat-gold gleam to her hair or the velvety curve of her baby-soft cheek. Her perfume came to him on the night breeze; flowers and musk all mingled together in a scent that seemed specifically created to drive a man wild.

Tate indulged in a slow, knowing smile. “Well, well. Look who’s here.” He thought a few things he had the good sense not to say. Things like, Couldn’t stay away, could you? and I knew you’d be back.

But no. He wasn’t going to gloat, at least not out loud. He’d missed having her warm, soft body beside him in bed. Missed it a lot—much more than he ever intended to let her know. Now that she was finally here, he wasn’t doing anything to send her off in a snit.

Keeping his mouth firmly shut, he helpfully held back the covers so she could climb in bed with him where she belonged.

“Fat chance,” she muttered. Her tone was not the least bit lustful.

Irritation borne of frustrated desire sizzled beneath his skin. But he didn’t let her rile him. Not this time. Calm as you please, he gave her a shrug and tucked the blanket back in place. “Then if you don’t mind my asking, what the hell are you doing in my bedroom at—” he paused to peer at the bedside clock “—two in the morning?”

Molly, in a short skirt and a tight-fitting white top that seemed to gleam in the darkness, rocked back in the chair. She crossed those beautiful legs and folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve got…news, I guess you could say.”

Though he was known to be tougher than a basket of snakes, at that moment, Tate Bravo felt the cold kiss of dread at his cheek and a kind of creepy hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. If Molly had news for him, it probably wouldn’t be good.

Tate speared his fingers through his sleep-scrambled hair and let out a low growl of pure suspicion. Why the hell was she here? His best guess, being as how a little hot sex seemed ruled out, was that she must have come up with some new way to rescue the needy—at great expense to the town coffers, of course.

As he had a million times in the past six months, Tate cursed the day Molly managed to get herself elected mayor of his town. It was the women who’d done it. They all hung out at Molly’s beauty shop. When she’d decided to run for mayor, they rallied around her, making it possible for her to claim fifty-four percent of the vote.

If you asked Tate, Molly’s mayorship had been a disaster from the get-go. To Tate’s mind—and to the minds of every other red-blooded businessman and responsible citizen in town—Molly O’Dare had been the worst thing to happen to Tate’s Junction, Texas, since a disgruntled contingent of Comanche warriors on the run from the Oklahoma reservation took over the place for three days back in 1886.

It was a problem of comprehension, Tate thought. Molly refused to comprehend the way things worked. She insisted on thinking independently. A very bad choice, as everyone knew that the job of mayor required no thinking at all. It was so simple. Tate Bravo, like his grandfather before him, decided what needed doing. Tate informed the mayor and the town council. They voted as per his instructions. And Tate got what he wanted for the town’s betterment.

It had always been done that way.

Until Molly.

From her first town council meeting, Molly refused to do things the way they’d always been done. Molly thought independently and came up with a lot of very bad ideas. When Tate wanted a bond issue, she wanted a sales tax increase. When Tate proposed a plan to improve parking access on Center Street, Molly fought him tooth and nail. Making it easier for the townsfolk to spend money on Center Street could wait, she said, brown eyes flashing, those gorgeous full breasts of hers stuck out high and proud. Oh, no, she’d insisted. Top priority should be putting her plan in place for indigent and shut-in care.

Truth was, Tate had his head screwed on straight when it came to what was best for the Junction—and Molly didn’t. Sure, he was all for helping out the needy. But the priority had to be supporting what kept any town running: business and commerce. Molly, a businesswoman herself, ought to have known that. But as mayor, she’d been all heart and no sense, and that was a plain fact.

Tate had been seething with fury since the day she won that damned election. And since their constant head-butting struck sparks in more ways than one, he’d also burned to get her into bed.

And he did get her into bed—a few months back. For a marvelous and thoroughly stimulating three weeks, that ripe, lush body of hers was his. In bed, he ruled her. However, once on her feet and wearing her clothes, Molly O’Dare continued to be the usual sharp thorn in his side.

Tate leaned forward a little, straining to see her better. No doubt about it. Tonight, those amber-brown eyes had a strange light in them—determined and angry at the same time. Not good.

“I have debated,” she continued bleakly, “debated for a couple of weeks now, whether to tell you this. I don’t want to tell you this. But I can’t see any way around it in the end, being as how this is not something that I plan to hide. And since you’re bound to know eventually, I’ve decided you might just as well know sooner as later. You can start getting used to it. You can start figuring out how you plan to deal with it—because, one way or another, you are going to be dealing with it.”

Tate dragged himself back against the hand-hammered copper inlay of his bed’s massive headboard and reached over to switch on the lamp. In the golden spill of light it provided, he could see the sneer on her soft mouth and the dark circles under those pretty eyes. Something warm and uneasy curled through him. It might have been concern for her. She really didn’t look right.

What the hell was going on? “Spit it out,” he commanded.

And that was just what she did. “I’m pregnant, Tate Bravo. Over two months along. Sometime next January, you’re going to be a dad.” She stood, leaving the rocker pitching back and forth behind her. “Your mouth is hanging open,” she said.

And that was it. Before Tate could collect his scattered wits and stop her, she turned, threw a slim leg up over the sill and slipped out the window the way she had come.

Chapter Two

“M olly, sweetie, don’t you get those scissors near me with your eyes all glazed over like that.”

Molly blinked. She glanced at the scissors in her hand and then into the mirror, where she met the wary eyes of Betty Stoops. Red-haired and stick-skinny, Betty sat caped and shampooed in Molly’s styling chair, ready for her monthly cut. “Sorry, Betty. Just thinking…”

About Tate Bravo, of course. Molly was feeling a tad guilty over the way she’d handled things the night before.

Okay, so maybe sneaking in through his bedroom window, delivering the big news and then jumping back out the window again hadn’t been the most tactful approach to the problem. But she had said what needed saying. Discussion of the whole mess could wait.

Molly began snipping at Betty’s thinning hair. “So now, how has Titus been doing?”

Betty made a low, fretful sound. “Molly, hon, I cannot tell you. I cannot describe…” Betty launched into a blow-by-blow of her husband’s various medical conditions.

I was right to get out when I did last night, Molly silently reassured herself as Betty chattered away. Once Tate got over the shock, there was just no telling what kinds of things he might have said to her—from questioning whether the baby was really his to calling her ugly names to accusing her of trying to trap him into marriage.

Uh-uh. Getting the news out had been about all she could manage for one night. Later for the part with the hollering, the accusations and the recriminations. Later still for working out how much of a role—if any—he would be playing in her baby’s life.

“I was thinking not quite so much off the sides this time,” Betty suggested, eyeing her own reflection appraisingly, turning her head this way and that.

Molly stepped back and assessed the situation. “Sure,” she said after a moment. “We can do that.”

Molly trimmed and shaped and wondered for about the millionth time what could be the matter with her. How in the world could she have slept with Tate Bravo—repeatedly? And beyond that, how could she have liked it so much?

Worst of all, why couldn’t she stop dreaming of sleeping with him some more?

Especially now, when she knew for certain that those secret nights in Tate Bravo’s bed had produced the typical result.

Pregnant, she thought, in utter disgust. Knocked up. In Trouble.

It was the one thing Molly had always sworn was never going to happen to her. And for so long, it hadn’t. The past few years, she’d dared to start letting herself believe that she was safe from ending up like her mom—and her Granny Dusty—before her.

She only had one weakness, after all, and that was the fatheaded, far-too-handsome man’s man, Tate Bravo. She’d had a hopeless secret crush on Tate for most of her life. But her weakness wasn’t supposed to be a problem, as Tate never seemed to know she existed.

But then she got it in her mind to improve a few things in town. She ran for mayor. Once she got elected, Tate knew she existed, all right.

Molly had been sworn in as mayor six months ago, at the first of the year. She and Tate fought tooth and nail through three town council meetings: January, February and March. Then he asked her to dinner—just the two of them, in the massive formal dining room out at the big house on his family’s ranch, the Double T. Tate said they would discuss ways to “work together to get things done for our town.”

There hadn’t been much discussing that night. They barely made it past the appetizer. He was on her like paint, and she didn’t complain. She fell right into his bed. Heck. Fell? She jumped in and dragged him in after her. All the years without anything remotely resembling a sex life, all those years of forbidden fantasies featuring Tate, had caught up with her.

And now she was pregnant.

A woman like Molly knew she had to face facts. She was thirty years old. Until Tate, there’d been no one. She had no reason to assume there would be someone after Tate. This might end up being her only chance to become a mom.

So she was stuck. She refused to throw her one chance at motherhood away, no matter what Tate Bravo might imagine he had to say about it. And she wasn’t leaving her salon, Prime Cut, or the small Texas town that she loved.

So there she was, just like her mom and her Granny before her—pregnant with no husband in the town where she grew up. Once she started showing, tongues would be wagging. Like grandmother, like mother, like daughter, they would all say.

Well, too bad. She would deal with the gossip when the time came. She was keeping her baby and that was that.

“Molly, did you hear a single word I said?” Betty demanded.

Molly met Betty’s eyes again. “I certainly did. That poor Titus. How does he bear up?”

Betty kind of squinted at her. “You know, honey, you don’t look all that well.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Molly replied, faking lightheartedness for all she was worth. “Never felt better…”

Betty wiggled her drawn-on eyebrows and scowled. “You’re not letting that Tate Bravo get you down, are you? Heard he shouted at you last Thursday at the town council meeting…”

Molly’s heart did a forward roll and then slammed into her rib cage. Did Betty know?

As soon as she thought the question, she rejected it. No one knew—not yet, anyway. By mutual agreement, she and Tate had kept their affair strictly secret. He didn’t want the word getting out that he was sleeping with the woman who fought him tooth and nail at every turn. And she didn’t want the people who counted on her to find out she couldn’t keep her hands off the man who stood for everything that needed changing in their town.

Molly put on a totally unconcerned expression as she combed and then smoothed a section of Betty’s hair between two fingers. Neatly, she snipped it even. “Don’t you worry, Betty. I can handle Tate Bravo.” Oh, and hadn’t she just? She’d handled him in ways that would turn Betty’s face as red as her hair.

Betty harrumphed. “Well, of course you can. That’s why we voted you in as our mayor. It’s about time someone stood up to those Tates.”

Though Tate’s last name was Bravo, his mother had been the only child of the last surviving male Tate. So Tate and his younger brother, Tucker, inherited the extensive Tate holdings when their mother passed away. No one ever talked much about the mysterious man named Bravo who had—according to Tate’s mother—married her and sired both her boys. To everyone in town, Tucker and Tate were Tates in the truest sense of the word. And Tates had been running Tate’s Junction since the town was named after the first Tucker Tate, way back in 1884.

“We do admire your gumption, Molly.”

“Why, thank you, Betty.” Molly set down her scissors and grabbed the blow-dryer off the rack where it waited next to a row of curling irons. “Let’s just blow you dry, now, shall we?”

Betty wasn’t the only customer to notice Molly’s distraction. All day long it was, “Molly, you look worried, girl. What’s the matter?” and, “Earth to Molly. Are you in there, doll?” or, “Molly, sweetheart, what is botherin’ you?”

She told each and every one of them that she was fine, perfect, never been better—while the whole time the hard knot in her stomach seemed to promise that any second now Tate would come storming through the shop door and start shouting at her. By six, when she closed up shop, she was a wreck. All she wanted was to crawl into bed with the blinds drawn and a cool cloth over her eyes.

Molly’s little bungalow on Bluebonnet Lane was her pride and joy. Sure, it was small—750 square feet, two tiny bedrooms, simple box floor plan—but it was hers and that was what mattered. It sat back from the street surrounded by sweetgums and oaks. On the south end of town, in an area not very developed yet, all tucked into the trees the way it was, the house almost gave a person the feeling she was out in the country.

Molly put her pickup under the carport east of the house. She strolled across the yard to the porch, feeling the tensions of the day drain away from between her shoulder blades. It wasn’t too hot yet—mid-eighties that afternoon—and the air had a silky feel against her skin. A cheeky squirrel squawked at her from a tree branch, and she paused to grin up at it.

She was just mounting the front steps when the door swung back and there was Granny Dusty standing behind the storm door in Wranglers and rawhide boots and a tight plaid Western shirt. She shoved open the storm door, too. “Wait till I tell you. Baby doll, you are not going to believe this.”

Tate, Molly thought, her stomach knotting and the tension yanking tight between her shoulders again. Oh, God, what had he done? Had he been there, had he had it out with Granny?

Granny Dusty had a reputation, pretty much deserved, as the man-hatingest woman in Throckleford County. She had trusted one man in her life—the wrong one. A rich rancher from Montana, he’d come to town to do business with the Tates. The rancher knocked up Dusty with Molly’s mother, Dixie, and then promptly went back to his wife on his big spread outside of Bozeman. After the rancher from Montana, Dusty O’Dare had no more use for men.

“What happened?” Molly asked weakly.

“That fool mother of yours says she’s marrying Ray, that’s what.”

Not about Tate. Molly’s stomach unknotted and her heart stopped trying to break out of her rib cage.

Granny continued with bitter relish, “She called here an hour ago, that mother of yours, all atwitter with the news. I ask you, sweetness, has she lost what is left of her mind? Ray Deekins is a no-count. He hasn’t had a job since the Reagan years. And your mother is forty-six. You’d think she’d have grown out of all this love foolishness by now. Isn’t it enough that she’s let him move in with her? Can’t she just support his lazy butt and leave it at that? Does she have to go and get herself legally committed to him? What is the matter with—?”

“Granny.”

Granny glared—but at least she stopped talking.

“You think maybe I could get in the house before you start in about Ray?”

Granny Dusty smiled then, the network of wrinkles in her leathery cheeks scoring all the deeper. “Why sure, sugar, you just come on in.” She held the storm door wider. Molly mounted the steps and entered the house. Beyond the door, the savory smell of fried meat filled the air. “Made your favorite,” said Granny. “Chicken-fried steak.”

Though as a rule Molly loved a good chicken-fried steak as much as the next person, that night her stomach clenched tight again at the thought. “Maybe later. I have a sick headache. Think I’d better lie down.”

Now Granny got worried. “Honey pie, you got a fever? Want me to—”

“No. Really. Just a little rest, that’ll do me fine.” Molly headed for the house’s one tiny hallway and her bedroom, the front one that faced the walk.

Granny followed right after her, causing Molly to have to remind herself that most of the time, she actually enjoyed having her grandmother living in her house. “I’ll keep your supper warm for you,” Granny said fondly as Molly sank to the edge of the bed and slipped off her sandals.

“Great.” She forced a wan smile and flopped back onto the pillows, stretching her legs out and settling in, letting her eyes drift shut. “Thanks…”

“Maybe a cool cloth for your poor, tired eyes?” suggested Granny.

Molly’s smile widened and she let out a soft chuckle. “What are you, a mind reader?”

“Be back in a flash.”

Molly heard the water running and a minute later her grandmother’s capable hands smoothed a lovely cool washcloth over her eyes. “Um. Perfect…”

“Oh,” Granny said. “Almost forgot. That Tate Bravo called. Told him you weren’t in. Said I’d give you the message, but he shouldn’t hold his breath waitin’ for you to call back.”

Molly lay very still with the cloth hiding her eyes as Granny cackled in satisfaction at having put the rich and powerful Tate Bravo in his place. Granny reveled in the council-meeting wrangling that went on between Molly and Tate. She loved to go on about all the ways Molly had bested “that Tate.” She thought her granddaughter’s dealings with Tate were strictly about politics and the betterment of the town. As of yet Molly had failed to bring her granny up to speed on the rolling-around-in-bed, ending-up-pregnant part of her and Tate’s relationship.

“Thanks, Granny,” Molly whispered, turning her head toward the wall. At least, she thought, he’d left her alone at the shop.