Texas Bride by Kate Thomas

Author:Kate Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

Dani took a deep breath. After all she’d weathered—Jimmy’s emotional desertion and drinking sprees, his death, her in-laws’ threats to take Michael—she would not blubber over Josh leaving town for a week.

She’d do what she’d always done. While Josh Walker made himself scarcer than a summer snowstorm in Texas, she’d stay busy.

Room and board—that was the deal, she reminded herself as she settled Michael on his stomach in the playpen, gave the soup another stir and set up the ironing board. While Michael worked on holding his head up, she’d iron a few more of the shirts she kept finding in various corners of the house.

Dani filled the iron’s water tank, flipped the tab to steam and set the temperature slide at cotton. You’re playing Cinderella, she chided herself. Living out your childhood dream of a baby, a home, and a wonderful man... trying to forget that midnight’s approaching.

Even if he did look and act the part, she reminded herself sternly, Josh was only an absent stranger, not Prince Charming. And his masterful kisses were just... impulses, not promises.

Get practical. Come up with a career possibility that provides financial security and allows you time to be Michael’s mother.

The baby squirmed mightily—and lifted his head off the playpen pad for almost two seconds.

Dani grabbed a shirt and the spray starch, wishing Josh was here to share the thrill of Michael’s accomplishment. But he wasn’t.

A rueful smile escaped her. The man who stood up to Bubba without flinching had been routed by an infant’s tears.

And by her meddling into his past.

Dani spread the shirt collar on the ironing board. With almost two lonely weeks to think about it, she’d come to the conclusion that she owed Josh Walker an apology. If he wanted to be resentful and unforgiving, that was his right. The only person he was hurting, after all, was himself.

She, on the other hand, would be endangering not only herself, but an innocent child if she lost her heart to Josh Walker.

She had trouble remembering that when he was around. Shoot, when Josh was around, she had trouble remembering anything—except that she was a woman, with a woman’s desires and needs.

And a baby who needed his mother’s full attention.

The collar finished, Dani starched and steamed the yoke, which reminded her of Josh’s broad shoulders. From there—flip the shirt, press a sleeve—she was right back to fantasizing about his hot turquoise eyes, his sexy, lopsided smile. Shoot, she even found his gruff exterior, one of those simplistic male defense mechanisms designed to hide a heart of mush, endearing.

With a sigh, Dani ironed the second sleeve. She’d expected Jimmy to become a man like Josh. But Jimmy hadn’t given himself—or her or his son—the chance.

Thinking about Michael and Josh had Dani wondering again if, for her baby’s sake, she should consider marrying a second time.

She sprayed starch on the body of the shirt. Maybe she would—if she could just stop picturing this future partner with honey-gold hair and turquoise eyes...

Needing a legitimate reason for the sudden heat flooding through her, Dani hit the burst-of-steam button.

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