The Bride Said, 'I Did?'

Dani’s shoulders stiffened. Insensitive cretin. He would have to bring that up! She lifted her chin, drew a deep breath. “I was also alone.”

“Only because I left to find out what the devil had been going on,” he pointed out.

The way he’d looked at her then—as if he’d known what it was like to make love with her—sent shivers of awareness sliding willy-nilly down her spine. “What do you mean?” Dani demanded, hanging on to her composure by a thread.

Beau angled a telltale thumb at his chest. “I woke up with one helluva headache, too. I also wondered what in the heck had been going on that would have landed us both in bed and naked as jaybirds, to boot.”

Dani winced at the potent fantasy his words evoked. Beau’s beautifully muscled body, covered with light whorls of hair, stretched alongside her own. Everywhere she was soft, he’d be hard. Everywhere he was male, she’d be female. And surely no good could come of that! “Must you be so graphic in your descriptions?” Dani said, frowning all the more. She did not want to think about making love with him! Because that was never going to happen. It never had happened, no matter what things looked like. If it had, she certainly would remember it. Wouldn’t she?

“As I had no memory of having gotten there with you, not to mention having shucked our clothes,” he said softly, his low sexy voice doing strange things to her insides, “I decided to get up to investigate.”

“Of course.” Determined to irritate him as much as he was irritating her, Dani blinked her eyes at him coquettishly. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Steadfastly ignoring her goading manner, Beau continued with daunting seriousness. “Only, there was a marriage certificate on the bedside table. It had both our names on it.”

If he was pulling her leg, he was doing a damn-fine job of it, Dani thought. “Let me guess. And you didn’t remember getting married, either.”

Beau exhaled. “Not initially, no,” he told her grimly.

Despite her desire to stay cool, calm and collected, Dani’s heart took on a quicker beat. She rolled her eyes, not believing a word of it. “But you do now, of course.”

Beau nodded and eyed her seriously. “The more I looked at the marriage certificate that morning, the more I had a fuzzy memory—sort of a single freeze-frame image of the two of us standing in front of a priest, with candles all around us and guitar music playing softly in the background. At first I thought it was a dream, but then when I checked out the church where the marriage had supposedly taken place and spoke to the village priest, who confirmed he had indeed married us the night before, I knew it was true. Why or how I remember that and nothing else leading up to it, or following it, I don’t know,” he said. “But I do remember that. Just a millisecond of it, anyway.”

Dani had to admit, he spun a convincing yarn. He looked sincere, too. But that was also his stock-in-trade as an actor, making the unbelievable believable, she schooled herself firmly. “You need a better script.” She gave him an arch look and started to turn away. “So tell the writers you hired to come up with this preposterously lame joke to go back to their computers and write you a better exit scene.”

With maddening nonchalance, Beau clamped a hand on her shoulder and turned her back to face him. His strong capable fingers radiating warmth through her blouse to her skin, he reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a folded piece of parchment paper. “Perhaps this will refresh your memory,” he said, pushing it into her resisting fingers.

Dani stared up at him, her throat dry. She had to hand it to him. He was playing out this prank to the end. The only way she could end it was by playing out her part, too. “Fine,” she said tartly. She unfolded the finely crafted sheet with stiff fingers, determined to get this farce over with once and for all. She stared down at the certificate of marriage. It was a convincing fake, she had to give him that. Even the signature of the bride—her signature—looked suspiciously real.

Her fingers began to tremble.

“Now do you remember?” Beau prodded impatiently. Sweeping off his hat, he raked his fingers through his hair.

Dani pushed the memory of a hauntingly beautiful Spanish love song from her head. “No,” she retorted more stubbornly than ever, handing him the certificate right back. Her pulse picking up for no good reason, she angled her head at him. “I don’t remember that,” she said just as firmly. “So it can’t be valid.”

“That’s what you’d like to think, sweetheart, but I’m here to tell you it just ain’t so. I checked it out, both in Mexico and with my attorney in Los Angeles. Like it or not, legally we are as married as two people can be.”

Panic surged deep inside Dani, instantly giving way to incredibly warm and sexy and totally out-of-the-question romantic fantasies. “Then we’ll have it annulled,” she insisted, stepping back and away, telling herself she was not going to get roped into any wildly exciting or potentially devastating romantic drama with him.

“With the possibility of a baby on the way?” Beau advanced on her, becoming once again the same kick-butt take-charge cowboy America had fallen in love with on-screen. He looked down at her and shook his head. “Forget it. There is not going to be—now or ever—an annulment.”

“JUST TELL ME it’s not true,” Dani said half an hour later as she sat on the examining table in the Laramie Community Hospital family clinic, nervously awaiting the verdict from her physician friend, Lacey Buchanon McCabe, who’d been drafted to do her this enormous favor right away. Dani had only agreed to this test to quickly and efficiently and as scientifically as possible put an end to Beau’s claims of possible parenthood once and for all. As far as she was concerned, Dani thought, the sooner Beau Chamberlain was out of her life the better. She knew they couldn’t possibly have made love, no matter how married—or naked—they had been. The sooner Beau knew it, too, the better.

Lacey pulled up a stool and scooted closer. A newlywed herself, she had never been happier, now that she was married to staff surgeon Jackson McCabe, and she looked it. “Can’t,” Lacey said gently. She regarded Dani solemnly. “You are.”

Dani gulped as her heart began to gallop. Pleating the soft linen hospital gown between her fingers, she protested emotionally, “But—”

“The test I just ran is very accurate,” Lacey interrupted in a firm tone. “If it says you are, you are.”

Lacey paused. In full physician mode, she studied Dani’s face, then eventually patted her knee. “Do you want me to call in Beau?” she asked gently.

Normally, Dani knew, that was the next step. “No. Yes.” Dani ran her hands through her hair, shoving it off her face. “I don’t know.” This had to be a dream. It couldn’t possibly be real, could it? But if it was a dream, why couldn’t she wake up? And why couldn’t she shake the sudden sharp image of herself holding Beau Chamberlain’s baby in her arms, with Beau standing right beside her? Why couldn’t she shake the image of her and Beau and their baby becoming an incredibly happy and contented family?

What was happening to her? She wasn’t romantic! She was anything but. Their public feuding had shown her that Beau was not the man for her. From the first moment they’d met at a party two years ago, he had tried to tell her that real life could be every bit as good as in the movies. While she had tried to tell him that real life was rarely as fair or kind or predictable over the long haul, as he made it out to be. Worse, he was doing the moviegoing public a disservice by making films that led people to believe that right always prevailed over wrong, because bitter experience had taught Dani that just wasn’t so. Sometimes the worst happened for no reason at all.

“Maybe you need a minute?” Lacey asked as Dani put a hand to her tummy and let it hover there, contemplating the unexpected miracle within. She didn’t feel any different. She didn’t look any different. And yet, deep inside her was a tiny baby that was part Beau and part her, growing, thriving and in need of a tremendous amount of tender loving care from both of them. If that wasn’t a miracle of life and love, what was?

“I definitely need a minute,” Dani said firmly as she pushed the happiness and wonder from her heart. She had always wanted a baby. But not like this. And definitely not with the man who had never even been her friend!

“Jackson and I are both going to be here at the hospital all evening. We’re heading up the search committee for the new family practitioner to take his dad’s place as chief of Family Medicine. And we’ve got a hundred résumés to read through. So if you want to talk or you think of any questions, just call me or come by. In the meantime, you need to set up an appointment with an obstetrician on staff. And start taking these prenatal vitamins.” Lacey sifted through the supply cupboard, pulling out samples of vitamins and several pamphlets. “Also, read these. They cover the basic dos and don’ts of pregnancy. Okay?”

“Okay.” Still in shock, Dani stared at everything Lacey put in her hands.

Lacey touched her shoulder gently. “Are you going to be okay?”

Dani drew a deep breath and tried not to think about how irked Beau had been with her because she had never seen things his way and probably never would. “Sure,” she fibbed. “It’s just a lot to take in.”

“I know, but like I said, Jackson and I are here for you, so don’t hesitate to call.”

Lacey slipped out. Seconds later the door opened. His expression both hopeful and wary, Beau stepped in. He looked at her. “Guess I don’t need to ask the results.”

Dani slid off the end of the examining table. Her legs were trembling as she put the pamphlets and prenatal vitamins aside and reached for her clothing. “I do not understand how this could have happened,” Dani muttered. Under the cover of her hospital gown, she slipped on her panties, and then her white linen slacks. Her fingers were shaking so badly she could barely manage the zipper and button clasp.

Arms folded in front of him, Beau leaned against the corner of the examining table. “Make that two of us,” he muttered, for a moment looking as taken aback as she felt.

Silence fell as she pulled on her bra beneath her gown.

“Well, it could be worse,” he said eventually as she turned her back, removed her gown and slipped on her blouse.

“How?” Dani demanded, distressed. Turning back to him, she found her sandals. She hated that he was now trying to make the best of this! She wanted him to be as upset—as simultaneously ecstatic and upset about her unexpected pregnancy—as she was. But now that his shock had faded, Beau Chamberlain was looking downright happy about it all! As if it was yet another example of life always working out for the best, instead of the unmitigated disaster it could very well turn out to be.

Beau grinned and shrugged. “You could be pregnant and unmarried.”

Straightening, Dani glared at him. She did not appreciate his quip and she let him know it with a look. “That’s not funny.” She pushed the words through tightly clenched teeth.

He sighed, then grimaced. “Okay.” He shoved a hand through his hair again. “Obviously this has caught us both off guard and we have a lot to figure out.”

“You’re not kidding there.” Dani grabbed a brush from her purse and, stepping over to the mirror, ran it through her hair. Tucking the curving ends behind her ears, she looked steadily at Beau, who was standing just left and behind her, in the mirror. “Like when, where and how we are going to get an annulment without anyone—other than my sisters, thanks to your blurting it out the way you did—ever finding out we were married.”

Instead of agreeing with her, as Dani had hoped and expected he would, Beau Chamberlain merely shook his head. He gave her a look stony with resolve. “I meant what I said, Dani. No annulment. And no divorce. I don’t know exactly how or why we entered into this marriage, but I’m not about to let us look any more foolish than we already do,” he warned flatly. “The two of us are staying married.”

Dani whirled to face him. A pulse pounding in her throat, she tipped her head up to his. “But we don’t love each other!” And as far as Dani was concerned, love was the only reason to get—or stay—married.

Beau clamped his hands on her arms, his expression no less confident. “Then maybe we’ll grow to love each other,” he suggested with customary optimism. His glance narrowing, he continued to hold her gently but firmly, “Meanwhile, you’re having our baby. And our baby is not going to be born illegitimate.”

Beau waited for Dani’s reaction. It wasn’t long in coming.

“This is ridiculous,” she stormed, pulling herself free of him yet again. She stomped away, her slender hips swaying provocatively beneath her tailored linen slacks. “We don’t even like each other!”