Fifty Ways To Say I'm Pregnant

Fifty Ways To Say I'm Pregnant
Christine Rimmer

There must be fifty ways to say I'm pregnant!So why couldn't Starr Bravo think of at least one? Maybe because though she'd been in love with rancher Beau Tisdale since she was sixteen, they'd agreed that this "summer of love" was just that. That when September rolled around, they'd go their separate ways–she to her glamorous job in New York City, he back to ranch life.But now–too late–she knew that the life she wanted was right here, with Beau and their unborn child. And she needed to get the words out–Beau, I'm pregnant–before their baby did it for her! So why couldn't she just tell him?Maybe because there were three words she was longing to hear from him first?

“That day all those years ago, those horrible things you said to me…did you mean them?”

“No,” Beau said softly. “I didn’t mean them.”

Starr let out a long sigh. “I knew it. But…why?”

All these years he’d nursed a hopeless yearning that someday they’d talk about this. And here they were, and it was happening just the way he’d always dreamed it….

He said, “I only knew then that I was headed for a bad place and I had to make sure you didn’t try to follow me there.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “Well, it worked. Because it made me see that I had to make some changes or I could end up…” She didn’t seem to know how to finish.

So Beau did it for her. “…Following the wrong guy down the road to nowhere?”

Tears welled in Starr’s eyes as she turned to him again. “Yes, I guess that’s it. But look…I didn’t go down that road. And you…well, Beau. You have done it. You’ve found your way back.”

Fifty Ways To Say I’m Pregnant

Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For all those wonderful readers who wouldn’t quit asking, “But what about Beau and Starr…?”

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.

Contents

Prologue

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 Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Prologue

Starr Bravo, home for the summer after her first year of college, stood at the kitchen sink peeling carrots for the stew already simmering on the stove.

“Stah light, stah bwight,” chanted a small voice not far from her feet. Starr had tried teaching her half brother, Ethan, the children’s rhyme just last night. The toddler remembered the first part and seemed to think it referred to his big sister, personally. “Stah light, stah bwight…” Something with wheels rolled up the back of her bare leg.

“Hey!” She paused with a carrot half-peeled to glance over her shoulder and fake a scowl at him.

He beamed up at her as he rolled his tiny toy truck back down the side of her calf. “Vrrooom, vroom…”

“Stop that.” The words were firm, but she couldn’t keep an adoring grin from pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“Vroom, vroom…” Ethan rolled the little truck off across the floor, fat legs working at a speedy crawl.

Starr’s stepmother, Tess, was sitting at the long pine table snapping beans, Edna Heller at her side. Years ago, Edna had been the Rising Sun Ranch’s housekeeper, but now the slim woman in her late fifties was just plain family—and Ethan, vrooming with enthusiasm, had his toy truck rolling straight for her left foot.

Edna crossed her ankles and scooted them under her chair. “Don’t you even try it, young man.”

“Vroom, vroom, vroom…”

Starr turned back to her carrot, peeled it swiftly clean and set it on the counter, smiling to herself, thinking how good it was to be home.

Out the window, past the flattened patches of still-green grass and the slanting roofs of the barn and the sheds, she could see the snowy crests of the Bighorn Mountains in the distance, swathed in a few white wisps of cloud. The green slopes of rolling prairie land, dotted here and there with stands of cottonwoods, lay spread below the mountains in overlapping swells of sun and shadow. Closer still, in the pasture behind the barn, a windmill whirled in the afternoon breeze, the sun catching in its vanes, making a golden blur.

As she reached for the next carrot in the pile, a pickup truck—dark green and caked with mud—rolled into the rear yard. Starr spotted the driver and forgot all about that next carrot.