Not Quite Married by Christine Rimmer Page A

explain himself a little. He said, “My marriage had failed. My divorce was barely final. I’d decided I was just not cut out for...I don’t know, romance, whatever you want to call it. I’d told myself I wasn’t ever going there again. And then, there you were, on the island, with your big smile and your beautiful, honest eyes, offering me something I thought maybe I could handle. Just a couple of weeks, magic time, an escape. Away from everything that makes me who I am. With you, for those two weeks, I gave myself permission to be...what I never am. It wasn’t meant to last and when you wanted to take it further... Look. I blew it. That’s all. And when I went looking for you, I thought you were taken.”
    Okay, he was kind of getting to her. She was weakening, softening toward him. How could she help it when he said she had beautiful, honest eyes, when he told her how it had been for him, and said it all so simply and directly?
    She could kind of see his side of it now.
    Damn it.
    The baby kicked. She put her hand to the spot and rubbed at it absently as she tried to get him to see how it was for her. “It’s a scary time for me, okay? There’s been so much stress and confusion. I don’t know what I want or what to do, anymore. I’m just trying to get through this, you know?”
    He gazed at her, unwavering, so sure of himself and his plans. “I want to help you get through this. You only need to let me do that.”
    “But...to have you living in my house with me. Dalton, I just don’t think it’s a very good idea.”
    “Why not?” Patient. Reasonable. But so very determined, too.
    “Because you confuse me and I feel sometimes that I know you. But I don’t, not really. We had a two-week affair. That’s all it was. I can’t let myself start to count on you. It wouldn’t be right.”
    “Of course it would be right. You’re having my baby.”
    “Yes, I am. And I’m willing, to work through this whole coparenting thing with you, over time.”
    “Over time? What does that mean?”
    “It means we need to take it slowly, to figure out gradually how it’s going to work for us as two single parents.”
    Something flared in his eyes. “There’s nothing to figure out. I will be there for my daughter.” His voice left no room for argument.
    And the thing was, she liked it. A lot. Liked how sure he was, how he seemed to know what he wanted—and that was to take care of her and the baby they’d made.
    What woman wouldn’t want exactly what he was offering? To have the father of her child absolutely determined to do everything in his considerable power to make sure that she and her child were safe and well and taken care of?
    It was programmed in the DNA, for a woman to want a man who could stand up for her, stand beside her when she needed him—when their children needed him.
    It was too tempting, what he offered.
    This was dangerous ground.
    She said so—gently, “And that’s good. It’s as it should be, that you know what you want—and what you want is to be here for the baby. But I keep trying to make you see. I’m not so sure. I just don’t know if I could have you living in my house.” She paused. “Dalton, I can see how hard you’re trying. But I’m still not over what happened on the island. I’m just not. I...gave you up. Completely. I accepted that it was all just a fantasy, you and me. But now you’re here and you’re definitely real and, well, it has my head spinning. I can’t just snap my fingers and say it’s all worked out now, that of course you can help me and thank you so much.”
    “I don’t expect it to be suddenly all worked out.”
    “And yet, two days after I finally got up the courage to face you and tell you about the baby, you showed up on my doorstep with a big diamond ring. Like all you had to do was put a ring on it and everything would be all better. What was that about?”
    He leaned forward, elbows on his spread knees, and said in that take-no-prisoners,