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A Bride, A Barn, And A Baby
Nancy Robards Thompson
And the prince wore spurs! A bourbon-tinged evening turns into a night of spur-jangling passion. And wrapped in the arms of hunky cowboy Zane Phillips, Lucy Campbell feels like her dreams have come true all at once! But she knows Zane needs a chance to let their move from friends to lovers sink in. That is, until reality knocks…and Lucy discovers she's pregnant.This wasn't how Zane imagined daddy-hood would happen. And with pretty Lucy…his best friend's little sister! He wants to do right by her and the baby, but Lucy wants the fairy tale, not a marriage of obligation. And while this simple cowboy isn't sure he can measure up as her Prince Charming, the real magic is that he's had her heart all along…
And the prince wore spurs
A bourbon-tinged evening turns into a night of spur-jangling passion. And wrapped in the arms of hunky cowboy Zane Phillips, Lucy Campbell feels like her dreams have come true all at once! But she knows Zane needs a chance to let their move from friends to lovers sink in. That is, until reality knocks...and Lucy discovers she’s pregnant.
This wasn’t how Zane imagined daddyhood would happen. And with pretty Lucy...his best friend’s little sister! He wants to do right by her and the baby, but Lucy wants the fairy tale, not a marriage of obligation. And while this simple cowboy isn’t sure he can measure up as her Prince Charming, the real magic is that he’s had her heart all along...
“Do you like bourbon? It’s all I have right now. Bourbon or water. Or bourbon and water.”
“It’s fine,” she said. When Zane picked up the bottle and poured them each about two fingers’ worth of the amber liquid, she accepted the glass.
“I didn’t know you were a bourbon drinker.”
She wasn’t. She didn’t drink much, and the strong taste of bourbon wasn’t her favorite, but tonight it would do.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
This time his right brow arched. A challenge. He didn’t quite smile, but his eyes lingered on hers long enough to be suggestive. He made a harrumph noise that seemed as if he was considering the possibility of them or sizing her up. It was thrilling and frightening, electric and grounding.
Flirting with Zane was like a wild roller-coaster ride that twisted her every which way. Sometimes it made her feel as if she was about to tumble out of herself, or shoot straight off the edge of the universe. But when the car that was his attention finally delivered her to the station with a buzzing rush, she was always well aware she’d never been in any real danger of falling. Scratch that—she’d fallen a long time ago...
* * *
Celebration, Tx: Love is just a celebration away...
A Bride, a Barn, and a Baby
Nancy Robards Thompson
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
National bestselling author NANCY ROBARDS THOMPSON holds a degree in journalism. She worked as a newspaper reporter until she realized reporting “just the facts” bored her silly. Now that she has much more content to report to her muse, Nancy loves writing women’s fiction and romance full-time. Critics have deemed her work “funny, smart and observant.” She resides in Florida with her husband and daughter. You can reach her at www.nancyrobardsthompson.com (http://www.nancyrobardsthompson.com) and Facebook.com/nancyrobardsthompsonbooks (http://www.Facebook.com/nancyrobardsthompsonbooks).
This book is dedicated to Kathleen O’Brien for your friendship and spot-on plotting advice.
Contents
Cover (#ue9af6f0e-646d-5285-afb9-7cea342e1fd8)
Back Cover Text (#u0c12a1d9-5258-504d-8b08-ed4855dd7b13)
Introduction (#u37f1e4f7-c5f5-5ee3-87d0-4719cb39bd87)
Title Page (#ued1e4132-c492-55ec-a614-daced96e9184)
About the Author (#ue1dd693c-d263-593c-967e-f4101b338931)
Dedication (#u23e76902-25e5-5f34-aca5-3bcb729750f4)
Chapter One (#u8fad1bda-fa78-508d-9e47-a62abcdf4dcb)
Chapter Two (#ue1e4250a-95b3-5b0a-9927-711a237b389f)
Chapter Three (#u743108e5-43df-59c6-a09f-02af56b13aee)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u6b54f48a-87c0-5181-bc61-872622c22349)
May 2017
“I know I should’ve called first,” Lucy Campbell said when Zane Phillips opened his front door, “but I come bearing gifts.”
Standing in the doorway, looking cranky, his big frame taking up a lot of space, Zane silently eyed her offerings.
“I brought The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo’s Fire and Say Anything... and a few others.” She handed the DVDs to him one by one as she read off each title. He frowned as he looked at them, and then he held up the one on top.
“This is a problem,” he said, looking at the movie as if he didn’t know what to do with it. “I’m not in the mood to say anything.”
“That’s why I brought over a selection.” Lucy reached into his personal space and tapped the DVD case. “If you’re not in the mood for that movie, you can choose another one.”
He shook his head. “No. Luce, you’re not understanding me. I’m not in the mood for talking. Period. I don’t feel like company tonight.”
“I understand you better than you think I do. Hence the movies.” And the reason she hadn’t called before showing up. “You don’t have to talk. All you have to do is watch. And eat Chinese food.”
She held up a brown paper sack.
“Are you going to let me in? The kung pao beef is getting cold.”
Storm clouds were rolling in and the fragrance of rain hung in the humid air.
“You brought kung pao?” His tone was lighter.
She nodded. “And General Tso’s chicken, fried rice and egg rolls.”
She’d known it wouldn’t be easy getting past his front door. That was why she’d brought the food. She thrust the large brown sack at him, and he almost dropped the stack of movies. He shifted the DVDs into one hand and accepted the bag. Pushing past him, Lucy stepped onto the beige carpet into the living room of Zane’s Bridgemont Farms house and squinted into the dim light. The curtains were drawn. The only light on was the one in the kitchen. It cast enough of a golden glow to illuminate the mess in the front room. An empty pizza box, spent beer cans, a couple pairs of socks, some wadded-up jeans and a pair of mud-caked boots lying askew on the carpet. It all looked as if he had left it where he had dropped it, amid the stacks of cardboard boxes and piles of things he’d been sorting.
“Sorry about the mess,” he mumbled as he grabbed up the jeans and socks and kicked the boots into a corner. A guy’s way of cleaning. Her brother Ethan had similar tactics before Chelsea came into his life. Now, thanks to his future wife, Ethan was not only in love, but his house was also spotless.
“I’m still trying to figure out what to do with Mom’s things. I’ve been bringing over a few boxes at a time. There’s still so much stuff in her house—er, your family’s house.”
“You know there’s no hurry to move her things out,” Lucy said. “We don’t have renters. You can take as long as you need. You don’t have to bring everything over here to sort it if you don’t have room for it. Just leave it at the house.”
“Bossy.” He scowled. “I’ve got a system. It’s working fine.”
For decades, his mom, Dorothy, had rented the small bungalow on the lower edge of the Campbells’ property. Zane and his brother, Ian, had grown up there with their mother, who’d stayed in the house long after her boys had moved out and moved on with their lives. Lucy thought she and her brothers had made it clear that Zane could take all the time he needed to get Dorothy’s things in order before he turned over the keys. That was how people treated each other in Celebration—they compromised and met each other halfway, especially in the wake of a family crisis. And Dorothy Phillips’s surrender to an aggressive form of lymphoma that had ended her life nearly as fast as the disease had appeared hadn’t been just a family crisis—it was a loss felt by the entire town. Many friends and neighbors, including Lucy, had reached out and offered to help Zane with the move out, but true to his lone-wolf ways, Zane had politely turned down the gestures of goodwill in favor of going it alone. He said he needed time to think, time to figure out what to do with the remnants of his mother’s life. Everyone had respected his wishes and left him alone. Well, everyone except for Lucy. She knew him well enough to understand that sometimes Zane’s pride kept him from asking for or accepting help. Sometimes Zane needed to be shown that his way wasn’t always the best way. Tonight was a case in point.
“Why don’t you take your system into the kitchen and get us some plates?” Lucy said. “I’ll get the first DVD queued up and ready to play.”
“The first one? You’re not planning on watching all of them, are you?”
“Of course we are, that’s why I brought them.”
“You’ll be here all night.”
Lucy smiled and cocked a brow in the most suggestive way possible.
He shook his head. “Don’t start with me, Campbell.” He handed her the movies and grabbed a trio of beer cans off the coffee table to clear a spot for the sack of food. She watched him disappear around the corner into the kitchen, where he rattled around for a few minutes. It sounded like he was tidying up in there, too.
Lucy turned on a table lamp. In the light’s golden glow, she could see that the place wasn’t dirty as much as it was cluttered boxes of Dorothy’s things. What with juggling the funeral arrangements, moving his mom’s possessions to his house and his job as general manager of Bridgemont Farms, his living room looked rougher around the edges than usual. Then again, it didn’t take much to make such a small house look messy.
A stack of boxes lined the far wall. Several small piles consisting of various household appliances and articles of clothing, shoes and accessories sat waiting on the floor. A couple of garbage bags sagged in the corner, probably filled with items that hadn’t made the cut.
Ian had come back to Celebration for the funeral. He’d done what he could to help clear out the house while he was here, but Zane had mentioned that sifting through more than a quarter century’s worth of their mother’s life had proved too arduous a task in the days immediately after the funeral. They hadn’t even made a dent before Ian had had to leave and get back to his job in Colorado. That left Zane to finish the job and tie up all the loose ends.
As Lucy picked up the empty pizza box and started to put it in one of the garbage bags, she spied Dorothy’s sketchbook in the trash. She set aside the box and took out the book, running her hand over its tattered and faded no-frills cover before she leafed through the pages of hand-drawn fashion illustrations.
Lucy’s heart clenched. In her mind’s eye she could see Dorothy sitting on the house’s back porch at the patio table with a cigarette and a cup of coffee, drawing in this book. Lucy used to love to watch her. Dorothy had patiently answered Lucy’s never-ending stream of little-girl questions as the woman’s deft hands brought to life the magical vignettes. After Dorothy had made Lucy’s prom dress, Lucy had always thought of her as her very own fairy godmother.
Why would Zane throw this away? Lucy started to call to him in the kitchen, but it dawned on her that if he’d tossed such a personal item, it had to mean that in this moment it was too painful for him to keep it. She turned a few more pages, marveling at the delicate lines and brilliant color choices, at the fabric swatches Dorothy had pinned to the pages. It might be too painful for him to hang on to the sketchbook right now, but she was sure that someday, he would be sorry he’d thrown it away.
She’d slipped the book into her purse and had resumed her mission of tidying up the living room when Zane returned with a bottle of bourbon and two crystal highball glasses that looked out of place in his rugged bachelor digs. He balanced a ceramic cereal bowl full of ice atop the glasses. The makeshift ice bucket looked much more Zane-indigenous than the crystal barware.
“Those are fancy,” she said, indicating the glasses.
“They were my mom’s.”
Even more than being her fairy godmother, Dorothy had been like a second mom to Lucy after her own mother passed when Lucy was just fourteen. Being here for Zane—looking in on him and making sure he ate something more than take-out pizza—was the least she could do to honor Dorothy’s memory. Zane was big and strong and stoic. He wouldn’t let on that he was hurting over his mom’s passing, even though undoubtedly he was. That was why Lucy hadn’t listened to him when he’d said he wasn’t in the mood for company. That was why she’d shown up uninvited and pushed her way into his house.
“This wasn’t hers.” The ice clinked in the cereal bowl as he set it down on the table.
“Clearly. That ice bucket has Zane Phillips written all over it.”
“Do you like bourbon? It’s all I have right now. Bourbon or water. Or bourbon and water.”
“Whatever you have is fine,” she said. Zane picked up the bottle and poured them each about two fingers’ worth of the amber liquid and she accepted the glass.
“I didn’t know you were a bourbon drinker.”
She wasn’t. She didn’t drink much and the strong taste of the liquor wasn’t her favorite, but tonight it would do.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
This time his right brow arched. A challenge. He didn’t quite smile, but his eyes lingered on hers long enough to be suggestive. He made a harrumphing noise that seemed as if he was considering possibilities, or, at the very least, sizing her up. The thought of him thinking of her like that was thrilling and frightening, and she loved it.
Flirting with Zane was like a wild roller-coaster ride that twisted her every which way. Sometimes it made her feel as if she was about to tumble out of herself, or shoot straight off the edge of the universe. But when the car that was his attention finally delivered her to the station with a buzzing rush, she was always well aware she’d never been in any real danger of falling. Scratch that—she’d fallen a long time ago, but with Zane she knew she was never at risk of getting hurt. Because he didn’t think of her like that.
“Want some ice?” he asked.
“Straight up is fine.”
He touched his glass to hers. She followed his lead and tossed back the shot. It burned her throat as it went down. She fought the urge to cough. Finally, the fire settled into a gentle warmth that bloomed in her chest and then in her belly.
“Another?” Zane asked.
She nodded, even though she knew she needed to pace herself. She had no illusions of trying to hold her own with Zane, who had been drinking a bit too much since Dorothy died.
After he refilled her glass, she spooned three ice cubes into the bourbon. With ice, he wouldn’t expect her to throw it back in one gulp again. Of course, she could’ve just told him she wanted to sip it straight up. For that matter, she could’ve just told him she’d had enough. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would force her to do anything she didn’t want to do. But she didn’t want to make an issue out of it. Honestly, since Zane had been so closed-off lately, she wanted a little liquid courage—just enough to take the edge off and lubricate the hinges—so that she could open up and draw him out. Icing the bourbon would make it a sipping drink, a prop she could nurse for hours.
Obviously, Zane had no need for a prop. He tossed back another shot the same way he had the first one and went to pour one more.
“Whoa there, Bucky.” She put her hand on his. “We don’t have to polish off the entire bottle in the first five minutes. Why don’t we eat something?”
“All I’ve done the past two weeks is eat,” he said as he finished pouring himself a third drink. “People brought over so much food, I had to start freezing it.”
“Ahh, which explains the pizza box,” she said. “Makes sense. People bring food, you order pizza.”
The right side of his mouth quirked. “Smart-ass.”
Lucy shrugged.
The ladies of Celebration had seized the opportunity to cook for Zane. He was the most deliciously eligible bachelor in town. Every woman in town, young and old, loved Zane. Dorothy’s passing, as sad as it was, was an excuse for them to bring him food and flirt. Lucy wondered if any of them had offered more personal means of comfort. Then she blinked away the thought. But not before pondering the possibility of him accepting said comfort.
No!
“I can only eat so much of Mrs. Radley’s tuna-noodle surprise.”
That’s better. Let’s talk about Mrs. Radley. She’d attended enough church potlucks and picnics to understand what he meant. Mrs. Radley’s tuna-noodle surprise was infamous. The older the woman got, the more suspicious the congregation grew about the surprise mixed in with the tuna and noodles. Popular speculation wondered if she inadvertently used her cat’s food in place of canned tuna. Only the bravest souls dared to try to figure it out.
“Did you actually eat it?”
