Adding Up to Marriage

Adding Up to Marriage
Karen Templeton

A simple equation for love Silas Garrett has done the maths.This widowed father knows that his two wonderful young sons deserve all of his hardworking heart. Still, the handsome accountant can’t help but notice the carefree new nanny…But for Jewel Jasper, family equals trouble. She is not going to follow in her mother’s footsteps, chasing romance no matter the risk. The pretty nanny has her own career to consider and her tall, dark employer is not part of her plan. The heart has its own logic, though, and with two adorable tykes to bind them, their connection just may add up to love.

“You yanked the rug out from under me, Jewel, and I didn’t take it well.”

“I—I know. And I’m sorry—”

“Not your problem. And I mean that.”

“Oh.” She bit off another chunk of her burger, although her insides were shaking so much—and not only from the cold, despite the fire—she doubted she could get it down.

“So,” Silas said, sitting again. “You find someplace to stay yet?”

He would bring that up. “‘Fraid not.”

“When you’re ready to move in, then, let me know.”

Jewel stared at his profile for what seemed like forever before saying, very quietly, “You sure?”

“Not a bit.”

She understood completely.

Dear Reader,

“I guess I’m ready now.”

That’s how, more than thirty years ago, my husband proposed to me. Because, y’know, “Will you marry me?” would have been such a cliché. Of course, I’d been ready practically from the moment we met more than five years before, when I was (gulp!) twenty … but, bless him, he knew I needed more time to ripen before taking that big step. Considering the challenges that came with raising the five sons who showed up over the next fifteen years … he was right!

Although sometimes, as Jewel Jasper and Silas Garrett (Eli’s brother from A Marriage-Minded Man) discover in Adding Up to Marriage, not being “ready” is another way of saying, “I’m scared … of being hurt, of being abandoned, of making a mistake. Of not being who I need you to be.” Especially in Jewel’s case, whose life hasn’t exactly given her a lot of examples of how to keep a relationship going. Girlfriend’s convinced she’ll never be “ready” … until Silas rocks her preconceived notions all to heck and makes her reassess a thing or three. Because the right person will do that.

Enjoy.

Karen Templeton

About the Author

Since 1998, RITA

Award winner and Waldenbooks bestseller KAREN TEMPLETON has written more than thirty books. A transplanted Easterner, she now lives in New Mexico with two hideously spoiled cats and whichever of her five sons happens to be in residence.

Adding Up to Marriage

Karen Templeton

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

Dedication

To Vista Care Hospice in Albuquerque without whose

above-and-beyond support during the most stressful

months of my life this book would not have happened.

To Mama

1912–2010

Here’s hoping there’s ham, chocolate

and dogs in Heaven!

And

to my beloved husband Jack

1942–2010

whose above-and-beyond support

for everything I did

and everything I was

is sorely missed.

Love you.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Jules Johnstun CPM, LM, LDEM, PES who

enthusiastically answered my questions about being a

home-birth midwife in northern New Mexico.

The plastic pelvis? Totally her idea.

Chapter One

Seated behind the computer in the woodworking shop’s cramped, cluttered office, Silas Garrett caught the blur of color zip past the open door. Then back. Then finally light in the doorway.

“Oh! Hi!” a breathless, bubbly Jewel Jasper called over the whine of saws ripping lumber, a booming “… mañana en Santa Fe y Taos …” from the Spanish talk radio station. “Noah around?”

Silas couldn’t help it—every time he saw her the image of a cute little bunny popped into his head. And not, alas, the sort clad in skimpy satin, bow ties and high heels.

Even more unfortunately, if Jewel—with her shiny brown ponytail and her big, blue-gray eyes behind her delicate oval glasses and her skimpy, ruffly sweater buttoned over her even skimpier breasts—was a bunny, his brother, Noah, was definitely the Big Bad Wolf. Fine, so Silas was mixing his fairy tales, but he doubted it was much of a stretch to suppose the Big Bad Wolf occasionally dined on bunny.