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Just One Kiss
Carla Cassidy
“I don’t believe it. You’re actually afraid that somehow I’ll fall for you.”
Marissa threw back her head and laughed.
“I don’t see what’s so damned funny,” Jack answered indignantly.
She stepped close to him and placed a hand on his arm. “Trust me, Jack. You have nothing to worry about. You are nothing like the man I intend to marry. At this point, I’m not even sure I like you very much.” Still laughing, she picked up her son and left the balcony.
Jack stared after her, wondering why it irritated him that a woman he hadn’t even known before two days ago was so certain she could never, ever fall for him….
Dear Reader,
Although the anniversary is over, Silhouette Romance is still celebrating our coming of age—we’ll soon be twenty-one! Be sure to join us each and every month for six emotional stories about the romantic journey from first time to forever.
And this month we’ve got a special Valentine’s treat for you! Three stories deal with the special holiday for true lovers. Karen Rose Smith gives us a man who asks an old friend to Be My Bride? Teresa Southwick’s latest title, Secret Ingredient: Love, brings back the delightful Marchetti family. And Carla Cassidy’s Just One Kiss shows how a confirmed bachelor is brought to his knees by a special woman.
Amusing, emotional and oh-so-captivating Carolyn Zane is at it again! Her latest BRUBAKER BRIDES story, Tex’s Exasperating Heiress, features a determined groom, a captivating heiress and the pig that brought them together. And popular author Arlene James tells of The Mesmerizing Mr. Carlyle, part of our AN OLDER MAN thematic miniseries. Readers will love the overwhelming attraction between this couple! Finally, The Runaway Princess marks Patricia Forsythe’s debut in the Romance line. But Patricia is no stranger to love stories, having written many as Patricia Knoll!
Next month, look for appealing stories by Raye Morgan, Susan Meier, Valerie Parv and other exciting authors. And be sure to return in March for a new installment of the popular ROYALLY WED tales!
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
Just One Kiss
Carla Cassidy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CARLA CASSIDY
is an award-winning author who has written over thirty-five books for Silhouette. In 1995 she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times Magazine for Anything for Danny. In 1998 she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from Romantic Times Magazine. Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Prologue
“Aren’t they cute?” Samantha Curell pointed to the three toddlers playing in the day-care sandbox.
Samantha’s assistant, Marie, nodded. “They always play well together. And the way they chatter, it’s as if their gibberish is their very own language and they’re solving the world’s problems.”
Actually the three toddlers were not solving the world’s problems. Instead, the two little girls were bragging to the little boy.
“My daddy took me to the movies last night,” eighteen-month-old Claire boasted in the toddler language only other toddlers understood.
“So what?” Twenty-month-old Julie looked bored. “My daddy bought me a new doll and it hugs me when I squeeze its tummy.”
Both girls looked at two-year-old Nathaniel. He frowned. Sometimes he didn’t like girls at all, especially girls who had daddies and liked to brag.
He shoved a toy truck along the floor, trying to pretend he didn’t care about the fact that he didn’t have a father.
“My daddy is so strong, sometimes he lifts me up to touch the ceiling,” Claire continued.
“Well, my daddy is a policeman and he arrests bad people, so he’s really strong,” Julie said, refusing to be outdone.
Unable to resist, Nathaniel abandoned the toy truck. “I’m gonna get me a daddy and he’ll be the best daddy in the whole wide world.”
Claire laughed, her blue eyes disbelieving. At that moment Nathaniel decided that when he got married, he’d marry a woman with brown eyes. “Where are you going to get a daddy?” she asked.
“On vacation. My mom is taking me on a trip tomorrow. A vacation trip. When I get back, I’m gonna have a dad.”
“How are you gonna do that?” Julie asked.
Nathaniel frowned. “I’m not sure, but I’ll think of something.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Claire replied, her little nose in the air.
“You wait and see, I’m going to get me a great daddy,” Nathaniel vowed. He turned at the sound of his mother’s voice.
Marissa Criswell stood talking to Miss Samantha. They were talking grown-up talk and Nathaniel didn’t understand all the words. Just as the grown-ups didn’t understand when he talked to his friends.
“I gotta go,” Nathaniel said to the girls. He carefully climbed out of the sandbox. “I’ll see you when I get back and then you’ll see the daddy I bring home.”
Nathaniel ran to his mom, who opened her arms to welcome him. “Hi, sweetheart,” Marissa said as she picked him up and kissed his cheek. “Were you a good boy today?” Nathaniel snuggled against his mother, who always smelled so nice.
Marissa smiled at Miss Samantha. “Okay, then we’ll see you when we get back.”
“Have a wonderful time,” Miss Samantha replied. “Bye-bye, Nathaniel.” She wiggled her fingers and Nathaniel waved back.
As Marissa carried Nathaniel to their car parked in front of the Hickory Dickory Day Care, Nathaniel gave her neck an extra squeeze.
He knew she had no idea what he had planned. But a boy shouldn’t grow up without a dad. One way or another he was going to get one. And if he got himself a dad, that meant he’d be getting his mom a man—whether she liked it or not!
Excitement made him wiggle impatiently as his mom buckled him into his car seat. Oh, yes, he had a mission…and that mission was to get a daddy.
Chapter One
Sinful.
Decadent.
These words fluttered through Marissa Criswell’s mind as she stretched languidly against the sun-warmed towel. Mason Bridge Beach, Florida, in late June. Three glorious weeks of sun and sand. Three glorious weeks of no work and all play.
She cracked open one eye and raised her head to check on her son. He sat at her feet, shoveling sand across her toes. His blond hair glistened in the sunlight, and his little features were somber with concentration.
Love swelled in her heart and she sent a small prayer heavenward, a prayer of thanks that her grandmother had gifted her with this vacation. Three
weeks of quality time with her son—that was the best thing of all. No hospital for her, no day care for him.
In the distance she could see the ocean waves, see the growing crowd setting up umbrellas and blankets between the water and her and Nathaniel’s spot. It was still early, but before long the beach would be filled with people seeking relief from the heat with a day at the waterfront.
She rested her head back down and sighed with pleasure. This was the first vacation she’d had in years. Even when she’d been pregnant, she’d worked until the day before delivery, then had gone back to work two weeks after Nathaniel was born.
Her grandmother had made all the arrangements. She’d arranged for Marissa to have the time off from the hospital, gotten the plane tickets and the motel room, then had presented Marissa with a fait accompli. It was the absolute best present Marissa had ever received in her entire life.
Realizing she no longer felt Nathaniel spooning sand across her feet, she once again opened her eyes and lifted her head. “Nathaniel,” she called to the little boy, who now sat about fifty feet away from her. “Come back here, sweetie,” she said.
Nathaniel didn’t acknowledge her, but rather stood and walked several more feet away, then plopped down in the sand once again.
“Nathaniel!” Reluctantly Marissa pulled herself up and off the blanket, pausing a moment to swipe sand from her body.
When she looked back at her son, a cry choked in her throat. In a single instant she saw the runner, a man clad only in a pair of jogging pants, racing hell-bent for leather and apparently not seeing the fair-haired child in his path.
Marissa’s scream ripped from her throat, piercing the calm of the morning. At the same moment the jogger apparently saw Nathaniel. He attempted to veer, but the maneuver went awry when Nathaniel stood and appeared to grab at the man’s legs.
As if in slow motion, the man fell and Marissa heard the sickening snap of a bone breaking, then the hard whack of his hand connecting with a piece of driftwood. He yelled, the hoarse roar of agonizing pain.
Nathaniel pointed to the prone man and grinned.
“Oh, dear God.” Marissa raced to where the man lay, his right leg at an awkward angle that could only mean a break. “Somebody call 911,” she cried to the crowd, then crouched next to the man, who was attempting to sit up. “Lie still,” she said. “Help is on the way.”
His eyes were a startling blue against his dark tan. Ebony whiskers covered his cheeks and chin and, coupled with his wild, thick hair, gave him the fierce look of a man on the edge. She couldn’t be sure if it was pain or anger that glittered in his eyes, made the blue look icy cold and hard as nails.
“That kid tried to kill me,” he said between clenched teeth.
Anger, Marissa decided. Definitely anger. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” As she looked at the hand that had hit the driftwood, she suspected he had a couple of broken fingers as well as the broken leg.
Guilt tore through her. It was her fault. All her fault. She should have been watching Nathaniel more closely. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” she exclaimed.
“What are you sorry for?” he asked, his forehead wrinkled into a grimace of pain.
“It was my kid…my son.”
“What do you call him? The terminator?” he growled.
Marissa flushed, and knelt down. He roared again and she realized her knee was planted on his good hand. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She moved her knee off his hand and accidentally hit him in the ribs.
“Jeez, lady, just move back before you kill me,” he snarled.
Any further conversation was cut short as paramedics arrived on the scene. They loaded the man onto a stretcher and headed back toward the waiting ambulance.
Marissa grabbed her things, picked up Nathaniel and hurried after them. Moments later, in her rental car, she followed the ambulance to the local hospital.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she muttered to herself as she tailed the big white vehicle. How had the morning that had started off so wonderful suddenly gone so wrong? At least they weren’t using a siren, which meant his injuries weren’t life threatening.
Nathaniel seemed completely unconcerned about the chaos he’d created. He jabbered to himself, smiling as if amused by the entire scene.
Marissa wasn’t amused. She was scared. What if it was worse than a broken leg? Although a broken leg was certainly bad enough! What if he decided to sue her? If push came to shove, he could probably take her for everything she was worth.
She smiled ruefully at this thought. Everything she owned wouldn’t add up to a hill of beans. She had a little over two hundred dollars in a Christmas fund account and maybe a hundred dollars in coins in Nathaniel’s piggy bank. She didn’t own a house and would be lucky if her old clunker car lasted another thousand miles.
Her rueful smile faded as she thought of his injuries. What if the man was a marathon runner training for the Olympics? It would be impossible for him to continue his training with a cast on his leg.
Or maybe he was a bouncer at one of the many local nightclubs in the area, she speculated as she thought of his broad shoulders. How would he tell people that he’d been annihilated by a two-year-old?
With a broken leg and broken fingers, no matter what he did for a living, he’d be more than inconvenienced by his injuries. He’d be incapacitated.
Guilt once again ripped through her. If only she’d been watching Nathaniel more carefully. If only she hadn’t closed her eyes, even for a brief moment.
The ambulance pulled into the emergency entrance of the hospital and Marissa quickly parked in the visitors’ lot. She paused only long enough to put on her bathing suit cover-up, then she grabbed Nathaniel and hurried into the hospital.
She was just in time to see the man being wheeled through the double doors and into what she assumed was an examination room.
Surprisingly, the waiting room was empty. She held Nathaniel in her lap and sank onto one of the plastic chairs. She wasn’t sure what she intended to do, but she had to make sure the man was okay, had to extend her apologies once again for the freak accident that had occurred.
She knew she should offer to pay his medical bills, and her heart sank at the very thought. She knew how expensive the bill would probably be. Emergency-room treatment never came cheap.
She’d have to somehow borrow the money. She hated to have to go to her grandmother, who had already been more than generous in giving her this vacation.
Rubbing a hand across her forehead, she tried not to think of what another bill would do to her financial status. As a single parent, she found finances were always a source of mild panic.
