Do you usually flirt with women you think are pregnant?
Theres no guy to stop me from moving in on you.
This time she had to chucklein spite of herself. I was just thinking you might be a card-carrying good guy. If I were ever going to trust a doctor againwhich Im notit might have been you.
Id ask you out but Im afraid if we had a good time, youd quit disliking me, and then where would we be?
She lifted her head and kissed him.
Her lips. His lips. Like a meeting of whipped cream and chocolate. Not like any kisses, but the damn it, what the hell is happening here? kind.
She pulled back and looked at him.
When he got his breath back, he said, Do we have any idea why you did that?
Ive been known to do some very bad, impulsive things sometimes.
So that was just a bad impulse. He shook his head. Sure came across like a great impulse to me.
Dear Reader,
I had enormous fun writing this story!
For one thing, I rarely take on a heroine with a tempera real temperand Ginger gave me a run for my money when she let loose.
And then theres Ike, whos determined to believe hes a laid-back, easygoing kind of guy when he so isnt.
En route, I had to visit a tea farm for researchthis was really tough, sampling all those wonderful teas, seeing the eagles close up and having the chance to meet the owners of this extraordinarily special place.
Theres also a character named Pansy in the book I have no idea where she came from, but once she showed up on the page, she refused to be ignored.
This is Ikes storythe second book about the MacKinnon familyand I hope you love it as much as I loved writing it. Dont hesitate to write me through my website, www.jennifergreene.com, anytime you want to pop in!
All my best,
Jennifer Greene
About the Author
JENNIFER GREENE lives near Lake Michigan with her husband and an assorted menagerie of pets. Michigan State University has honored her as an outstanding woman graduate for her work with women on campus. Jennifer has written more than seventy love stories, for which she has won numerous awards, including four RITA® Awards from the Romance Writers of America and their Hall of Fame and Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Youre welcome to contact Jennifer through her website at www.jennifergreene.com.
The Baby Bump
Jennifer Greene
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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To my librarians at the Benton Harbor and St. Joseph libraries. From the start, you encouraged me to write and nourished my writing dreams. Youve always gone out of your way to help everyone in the community enrich their worlds through books. Youre the best!
Chapter One
Back when Ginger Gautier was a block-headed, reckless twenty-one-year-old, shed have taken the mountain curves at ninety miles an hour and not thought twice.
Now that she was twenty-eight well, she couldnt swear to have better judgment.
Unfortunately she was eight weeks pregnantby a doctor whod claimed he deeply loved her just a day before he bought an engagement ring for someone else. So. Her judgment in men clearly sucked.
Shed lost a job she loved over the jerk. That said even more about her lack of good judgment.
Some said she had a temper to match her red hair. Friends and coworkers tended to run for cover when she had a good fume on. So possibly her temper might be considered another character flaw.
But she loved.
No one ever said that Ginger Gautier didnt give two hundred percent for anyone she loved.
When she passed the welcome sign for South Carolina, she pushed the gas pedal a wee bit harder. Just to eighty miles an hour.
Gramps was in trouble. And she was almost home.
The eastern sky turned glossy gray, then hemmed the horizon in pink. By the time the sun was full up, Ginger had shed her sweater and hurled it in the backseat on top of her down jacket. When she left Chicago, it had been cold enough to snow. In South Carolina, the air was sweeter, cleaner, warmer and so familiar that her eyes stung with embarrassingly sentimental tears.
She should have gone home more oftenway more oftenafter her grandmother died four years ago. But it never seemed that simple, not once shed gotten the job in hospital administration. Her boss had been a crabby old tyrant, but shed loved the work, and never minded the unpredictable extra hours. Theyd just added up. Shed come for holidays, called Gramps every week, sometimes more often.
Not enough. The guilt in her stomach churned like acid. Calling was fine, but if shed visited more in person, shed have known that Gramps needed her.
The miles kept zipping by. Another hour passed, then two. Maybe if she liked driving, the trip would have been easier, but nine hundred miles in her packed-to-the-gills Civic had been tough. Shed stopped a zillion times, for food and gas and naps and to stretch her legs, but this last stretch was downright grueling.
When she spotted the swinging sign for Gautier Tea Plantation, though, her exhaustion disappeared. She couldnt grow a weed, was never engrossed in the agricultural side of the tea businessbut shed worked in the shop as a teenager, knew all the smells and tastes of their teas, could bake a great scone in her sleep, could give lessons on the seeping and steeping of tea. No place on the planet was remotely like this one, especially the scents.
Past the eastern fields was a curve in the road, then a private drive shaded by giant old oaks and then finally, finally the house. The Gautiersbeing of French-Scottish origininherited more ornery stubbornness than they usually knew what to do with. The word plantation implied a graceful old mansion with gardens and pillars and maybe an ostentatious fountain or two. Not for Gingers family.
The house was a massive sprawler, white, with no claim to fanciness. A generous veranda wrapped around the main floor, shading practical rockers and porch swings with fat cushions. Ginger opened the door to her Civic and sprang out, leaving everything inside, just wanting to see Gramps.
Shed vaulted two steps up before she spotted the body draped in front of the double-screen doors. It was a dogs body. A huge bloodhounds body.
She took another cautious step. Its fur was red-gray, his ears longer than her face, and he had enough wrinkles to star in a commercial for aging cream. He certainly didnt appear vicious but she wasnt positive he was alive, either.
She said, Hey, boy in her gentlest voice. He didnt budge. She cleared her throat and tried, Hey, girl. One eye opened, for all of three seconds. The dog let out an asthmatic snort and immediately returned to her coma.
For years, her grandparents had dogsalways Yorkie mixesGramps invariably carried her and Grandma usually had her groomed and fitted up with a pink bow. The possibility that Gramps had taken on this hound was as likely as his voting Republican. Still, the dog certainly looked content.
Okay, Ginger said briskly, I cant open the door until you move. I can see youre tired. But it doesnt take that much energy to just move about a foot, does it? Come on. Just budge a little for me.
No response. Nothing. Nada. If the dog didnt make occasionally snuffling noises, Ginger might have worried it was dead. As it was, she figured the big hound for a solid hundred pounds which meant she had only a twenty-pound advantage. It took some tussling, but eventually she got a wedge of screen door open, stepped over the hound and turned herself into a pretzel. She made it inside with just a skinned elbow and an extra strip off her already frayed temper.
Gramps! Cornelius! Its me!
No one answered. Cornelius was well, Ginger had never known exactly what Cornelius was. He worked for Gramps, but shed never known his job title. He was the guy shed gone to when a dolls shoe went down to the toilet, when she needed a ride to a party and Grandma couldnt take her. He got plumbers and painters in the house, supervised the lawn people, got prescriptions and picked up people from the airport. Cornelius didnt answer her, though, any more than her grandfather did.
She charged through, only taking seconds to glance around. The house had been built years ago, back when the first room was called a parlor. It faced east, caught all the morning sun, and was bowling alley size, stuffed to the gills with stuff. Grams piano, the maze of furniture and paintings and rugs, were all the same, yet Ginger felt her anxiety antenna raised high. The room was dusty. Nothing new there, but she saw crumbs on tables, half-filled glasses from heaven knows when, enough dust to write her name on surfaces.
A little dirt never hurt anyone, her grandmother had always said. Gram felt a woman who had a perfect house should have been doing things that mattered. Still.
A little disarray was normal. Beyond dusty was another.
She hustled past the wild cherrywood staircase, past the dining roomone glass cabinet there had a museum-quality collection of teapots. A second glass cabinet held the whole historic history of Gautier tea tins, some older than a century. Past the dining salon, which was what Gramps called the sun roommeaning that hed puttered in there as long as shed known him, trying samples of tea plants, mixing and mating and seeing what new offspring he could come up with.
The house had always been fragrant with the smell of tea, comforting with the familiar whir of big ceiling fans, a little dust, open books, blueher grandma had had some shade of blue in every room in the house; it was her favorite color and always had been. Longing for Gram almost made her eyes well with tears again. Shed even loved Grams flaws. Even when they had a little feudinvariably over Ginger getting into some kind of impulsive troubletheir fights invariably led to some tears, some cookies and a big hug before longbecause no one in the Gautier family believed in going to bed mad.
The good memories were all there. The things she remembered were all there. But the whole downstairs had never had a look of neglect before. She called her grandfathers name again, moving down the hall, past the dining room and the butlers keep. Just outside the kitchen she heardfinally!voices.
The kitchen was warehouse size, with windows facing north and westwhich meant in the heat of a summer afternoon sun poured in, hotter than lava, on the old tile table. A kettle sat directly on the table, infusing the room with the scents of Darjeeling and peppermint. A fat, orange cat snoozed on the windowsill. Dishes and glasses and what all crowded the tile counter. The sink faucet was dripping. Dust and crumbs and various spills had long dried on the fancy parquet floor.
Ginger noticed it all in a blink. She took in the stranger, as wellbut for that first second, all her attention focused on her grandfather.
He spotted her, pushed away from the table. A smile wreathed his face, bigger than sunshine. What a sight for sore eyes, you. Youre so late. I was getting worried. But you look beautiful, you do. The drive must have done you wonders. Come here and get your hug.
The comment about being late startled hershed made amazing time, he couldnt possibly have expected her earlier. But whatever. What mattered was swooping her arms around him, feeling the love, seeing the shine in his eyes that matched her own.
What is this? Arent you eating? Youre skinny! she accused him.
Am not. Eating all the time. Broke the scales this morning, Im getting so fat.
Well, if that isnt the biggest whopper Ive heard since I left home.
Youre accusing your grandfather of fibbing?
I am. The bantering was precious, how theyd always talked, teasing and laughing until theyd inevitably catch a scold from her grandmother. But something was wrong. Gramps had never been heavy, never tall, but she could feel his bones under his shirt, and his pants were hanging. His eyes, a gorgeous blue, seemed oddly vague. His smile was real. The hug wonderfully real. But his face seemed wizened, wrinkled and cracked like an old walnut shell, white whiskers on his chin as if he hadnt shavedwhen Cashner Gautier took pride in shaving every day of his life before the sun came up.
She cast another glance at the stranger and felt her nerves bristle sharper than a porcupines. The man was certainly no crony of her gramps, couldnt be more than a few years older than she was.
The guy was sprawled at the head of the old tile table, had scruffy dirty-blond hair, wore sandals and chinos with frayed cuffs and a clay-colored shirt-shirt. Either he was too lazy to shave or was growing a halfhearted beard. And yeah, there was more to the picture. The intruder had tough, wide shouldersas if he could lift a couple of tree logs in his spare time. The tan was stunning, especially for a guy with eyes that certain bluewicked blue, light blue, blue like you couldnt forget, not if you were a woman. The height, the breadth, the way he stood up slow, showing off his quiet, lanky frameoh, yeah, he was a looker.
Men that cute were destined to break a womans heart.
That wasnt a problem for her, of course. Her heart was already in Humpty Dumpty shape. There wasnt a man in the universe who could wrestle a pinch of sexual interest from her. She was just judiciously assessing and recognizing trouble.
You have to be Ginger, he said in a voice that made her think of dark sugar and bourbon.
Aw, darlin, I should have said right off this is Ike. Come to see me this afternoon. Hes
I saw right off who he was, Gramps. He had to be the man her grandfather told her about on the phone. The one who was trying to get Gramps to sign papers. The one who was trying to take the land away from him. Gramps had implied that his doctor had started it all, was behind the whole conspiracy, to take away everything that ever mattered to him.