To Have And To Hold: Made for Marriage / To Wed a Rancher / The Mummy Proposal

There was no chance that was going to happen. “I don’t think it’s up to Lily.”

“Made you mad, did he?”

Callie took a step forward and shook her hand. “You could say that.”

Evie, whose face was an amazing mix of vivid color—green eyes and bright cherry lips—stared at her with a thoughtful expression that said she was being thoroughly summed up. “So, about the brass bed?” she asked and smiled. “Would you like to see it?”

Brass bed? Callie shook her head. Hadn’t she already said she wasn’t interested? “I don’t think—”

“You’ll love it,” Evie insisted. “I can take you to look at it now if you like. Help me pack up and we can get going.”

Callie began to protest and then stopped. She was pretty sure they weren’t really talking about a bed. This was Noah Preston’s sister. And because he had quickly become enemy number one, if she had a lick of sense she’d find out everything she could about him and use it to her advantage. If Noah thought she would simply sit back and allow him to ruin her reputation, he could certainly think again. Sandhills Farm was her life. If he wanted a war, she’d give him one.

Chapter Two (#u418be5ea-a9d5-52b7-a196-c52cb9116728)

Noah didn’t know how to reach out to his angry daughter. He hurt for her. A deep, soul-wrenching hurt that transcended right through to his bones. But what could he do? Her sullen, uncommunicative moods were impossible to read. She skulked around the house with her eyes to the floor, hiding behind her makeup, saying little, determined to disassociate herself from the family he tried so frantically to keep together.

And she pined for the mother who’d abandoned her without a backward glance.

She’d deny it, of course. But Noah knew. It had been more than four years ago. Four and a half long years and they all needed to move on.

Yeah, right … like I’ve moved on?

He liked to think so. Perhaps not the way his parents or sisters thought he should have. But he’d managed to pull together the fractured pieces of the life his ex-wife discarded. He had Preston Marine, the business his grandfather created and which he now ran, his kids, his family and friends. It was enough. More than enough.

Most of the time.

Except for the past twenty-four hours.

Because as much as he tried not to, he couldn’t stop thinking about the extraordinarily beautiful Callie Jones and her glittering blue eyes. And the way she’d planted her hands on her hips. And the sinful way she’d filled out her jeans. For the first time in forever he felt a spark of attraction. More than a spark. It felt like a damned raging inferno, consuming him with its heat.

Noah stacked the dishes he’d washed and dried his hands, then checked his watch. He was due at Evie’s around two o’clock; he’d promised her he’d help shift some furniture. Evie loved rearranging furniture.

Within ten minutes they were on their way. Hayley and Matthew, secured in their booster seats, chatted happily to each other while Jamie sat in the front beside Noah. His one-hundred-and-forty acre farm was only minutes out of Crystal Point and was still considered part of the small town. He’d bought the place a couple of years earlier, for a song of a price, from an elderly couple wanting to retire after farming sugar cane for close to fifty years. The cane was all but gone now, and Noah leased the land to a local farmer who ran cattle.

He dropped speed along The Parade, the long road separating the houses from the shore, and pulled up outside his sister’s home. There was a truck parked across the road, a beat-up blue Ford that looked familiar. He hauled Hayley into his arms, grabbed Matty’s hand and allowed Jamie to seize the knapsack from the backseat and then race on ahead. The kids loved Evie’s garden, with its pond and stone paved walkways, which wound in tracks to a stone wishing well. And Noah kind of liked it, too.

“Look, Daddy … it’s that dog,” Jamie said excitedly, running toward a happy-looking pup tied to a railing near the front veranda.

The dog looked as familiar to him as the truck parked outside. His stomach did a stupid leap.

She’s here? What connection did Callie Jones have to Evie? Before he could protest, Jamie was up the steps, opening the front door and calling his aunt’s name.

Noah found them in the kitchen. Evie was cutting up pineapple and she was sitting at the long scrubbed table, cradling a mug in her hands. She looked up when he entered the room and smiled. A killer smile. A smile with enough kick to knock the breath from his chest. He wondered if she knew she had it, if she were aware how flawless her skin looked or how red and perfectly bowed her lips were. The hat was gone and her brown hair hung over one shoulder in a long braid.

Discomfort raced through him. Noah shifted Hayley on his hip and hung on tightly to Matty’s hand. She looked him over, he looked her over. Something stirred, rumbling through his blood, taunting him a little.

Evie cleared her throat and broke the silence. “Well,” she said. “How about I take the kids outside and you two can … talk?”

Noah didn’t want to talk with her. He also knew he wouldn’t be able to drag himself away.

Callie Jones had walked into his life. And he was screwed.

Callie couldn’t speak. They were twins. Twins. Who looked to be about … four years old?

The same age as Ryan would have been …

She smiled—she wasn’t sure how—and watched him hold the twins with delightful affection. He looked like Father of the Year. And he was, according to his sister. A single dad raising four children. A good man. The best.

A heavy feeling grew in her chest, filling her blood, sharpening her breath.

The children disappeared with Evie, and once they were alone she stood and flicked her braid down her back. He watched every movement, studying her with such open regard she couldn’t stop a flush from rising over her skin.

I shouldn’t want him to look at me like that.

Not this man who had quickly become the enemy.

“I didn’t expect to see you …” he said, then paused. “So soon.”

She inhaled deeply. “I guess you didn’t. Frankly, I didn’t want to see you.”

His green eyes held her captive. “And yet you’re here in my sister’s house?”

Callie tilted her chin. “I’m looking at a bed.”

The word bed quickly stirred up a whole lot of awareness between them. It was bad enough she thought the man was gorgeous—her blasted body had to keep reminding her of the fact!

“A bed?”

“Yes.” Callie took another breath. Longer this time because she needed it. “You know, one of those things to sleep on.”

That got him thinking. “I know what a bed is,” he said quietly. “And what it’s used for.”

I’ll just bet you do!

Callie turned red from her braid to her boots. “But now that I am here, perhaps you’d like to apologize?”

“For what?” He looked stunned.

For being a gorgeous jerk. “For being rude yesterday.”

“Wait just a—”

“And for telling people my school should be closed down.”

“What?”

“Are you denying it? I mean, you threatened me,” she said, and as soon as the words left her mouth she felt ridiculous.