Brides, Babies And Billionaires. Rebecca Winters
skirt had hiked up over her calves, and her legs were going to be cold by the time they got out of the hills, but there was no way he could risk having her fall off if she was riding sidesaddle. Maybe if she pressed herself against him, his body could take the worst of the wind. He’d be a Popsicle by the time they made town, but he’d take it for her.
But even that noble sentiment was almost completely overridden by the image of her arms around his waist, her chest pressed to his back, her legs tucked behind his. Of that lacy little thong and the corset.
Of a wedding night that ended differently.
He pulled at the collar of his shirt. Yeah, maybe he wouldn’t freeze.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I can’t thank you enough, Seth,” she said, her voice soft. “I’m having a really bad day, but you’re making it better.”
If she were anyone else, he’d cup her cheek and stroke her skin with his thumb. He’d tilt her head back and brush his lips over hers. He’d offer comfort in a completely different way.
But she wasn’t anyone else. She was Roger’s pregnant runaway bride. So instead of kissing her, he settled the helmet over her hair. It didn’t work. He pulled it off. “Let me see what I can do here.” She tilted her head so he could get at the elaborate updo—it probably had some sort of name, but he didn’t have any idea about women’s hair. He could see the pins and clips—sparkly stuff in her hair. And hairspray. Lots of hairspray. He began pulling them out and shoving them into his pants pocket. What would her hair feel like without all this crap in it? Soft and silky—the kind of hair he could bury his hands in.
He really had to get a grip. The whole mass of hair sagged and then fell. It looked awkward and painful, but he was sure he could fit the helmet on now. “There.”
She looked back at him as he settled the helmet on her head and strapped it under her chin. She looked worried. “This will be fun,” he promised. Cold, but fun. “Just hold on to me, okay?”
She nodded. Seth took his seat and fired up the engine. It rumbled beneath him. He loved this part of riding. Bringing the machine to life and knowing that a journey was ahead of him.
After a moment’s hesitation, Kate’s arms came around his waist. His brain chose that exact moment to wonder—when was the last time he’d had a woman on the back of a motorcycle?
Of course he’d ridden with women before. That was one of the reasons to ride a bike—women loved a bad boy, and Seth was more than happy to help them act out their fantasies. Motorcycles were good seduction and he was a red-blooded American man. He wasn’t above doing a little seducing.
But there was something different about this—about Kate. This wasn’t a seduction, leaving aside the fact that he knew what her thong looked like. This was something else, and he couldn’t put a name to it.
Then he felt more than heard her sigh against the back of his neck as the helmet banged his shoulder. He winced but didn’t flinch as she settled her cheek against his back, her arms tightening around him even more. Her body relaxed into his. Which was good. Great. Wonderful. The tighter she held on, the safer this ride would be.
Except his body was anything but relaxed. He was rock hard and she’d know it if her grip slipped south in any way.
He needed to get her to a hotel and then he needed to get on his way. He had a future as a partner of Crazy Horse Choppers. He had plans for the business. He had motorcycles to sell.
None of those things involved a pregnant runaway bride.
He rolled away from the scenic overlook and hit the road back to Rapid City.
Kate Burroughs wasn’t in his plans. After today, he wasn’t going to see her or her stockings ever again.
That was final.
“Good morning, Katie,” Harold Zanger said, strolling into Zanger Realty with a smile on his face and a bow tie around his neck. “It’s a zinger of a day at Zanger, isn’t it?”
As cheesy as the line was—and it had been cheesy every single day for the last month and a half—Kate still smiled. She smiled every day now. “It is indeed, Harold,” she said.
Harold Zanger was one of her father’s oldest friends. They’d been playing poker together for a good forty years—longer than Kate had been alive. Harold was almost an uncle to her.
Kate had not gone back to Burroughs and Caputo Realty. She just couldn’t—especially when her parents had made it clear that splitting Roger off from the business was going to be quite complicated, which was one way to say that her father wasn’t going to do it because he was beyond furious with her.
So it had been Kate to decide that, rather than grovel before her father and Roger, she’d start over. She was the one who put distance between them.
It had hurt more than she wanted it to, to be honest. Although she’d known it wasn’t likely, she’d wanted her parents to put her first. She’d wanted them to take her side and tell her it’d all work out. She’d wanted her mom to get excited about the pregnancy.
She’d wanted the impossible. Oh, Mom was excited—to the extent that she’d underlined the word excited three times in the congratulations card she’d sent. Other than that, there’d been no discussion of pregnancies, no trips down memory lane, no planning for the baby’s room.
There hadn’t been anything, really, since Kate had walked out of their house and driven back to the hotel where she’d been staying since Seth had dropped her off and paid for three nights.
And the hell of it was, it wasn’t like they had put Roger first. No, Joe and Kathleen Burroughs had done what they always did—they’d put their business first. Burroughs Realty—Burroughs and Caputo Realty now—had always been the most important thing. Her father hadn’t disowned her outright, but it was clear that, for the time being, there was no point in pursuing a family relationship. Joe Burroughs was a workaholic and Kathleen refused to go against her husband’s wishes.
No, the business came first, and Roger was now part owner of the business, which meant that Roger came first. So Kate had left because she hadn’t wanted to make things difficult for her mother.
Harold Zanger, gregarious and happy, had offered her a job. Kate strongly suspected it had put a strain on his friendship with Joe Burroughs, but Harold insisted everything was fine. Of course, he was an eternal optimist, so perhaps everything was. Harold had given her a desk and a blazer and some business cards and told her to “get out there and sell some houses, sweetheart.”
If anyone else had called Kate sweetheart, she would’ve walked, but Harold had been calling her sweetheart since she was old enough to crawl—probably even before that.
So here she was. Ready to get out there and sell some houses for Zanger Realty.
“Today’s the day,” Harold said, snapping the suspenders underneath his Zanger Realty blazer, which was a delightful shade of goldenrod. “Something big is going to happen today, Katie my girl. I can feel it.”
There was comfort in familiarity and Harold said this to her every morning. She hadn’t believed it at first—she still didn’t really believe it—but Harold’s optimism was infectious.
“Today’s the day,” she agreed.
“Your big sale,” Harold all but crowed, “is going to walk through that door. I just know it.”
“I’m sure it will,” she said with an indulgent smile. Really, it was sweet that Harold believed what he said, because that was just the kind of man he was and had always been. If opposites attract, then that held true for friendships, too. Joe Burroughs had been a pessimist, convinced that tomorrow the bottom would fall out and the world would end and so he’d better sell a house today so