Free Mason's Marriage by Tina Leonard Page A

me. Your proposal has convinced me that the best thing for all of us…me, you, Nanette…is for me to move back to my town house.” Her hand slipped from his. “If for no other reason than so we can remain friends and maintain some dignity between us, I’m filing for legal joint custody of Nanette.”

Chapter Eight
    Mason was shocked. His world bottomed out. Too many people had left him, and he wasn’t about to give up the new little family who had come into his life. He told himself to be rational; he’d pushed Mimi too hard. Take a deep breath, talk it out …but before he could think of being more rational than he was, he grabbed Mimi to him and kissed her as if there was no tomorrow.
    There was no tomorrow, based on what she’d just said. He kissed her until both he and she were breathless, and then when she stared at him, he kissed her again, desperate to hold her to him as long as she’d allow it.
    God in heaven, don’t leave me. I’ve just found you.
    Mimi pulled away. “Mason!”
    He commanded himself to calm down. “That’s me. Somewhere under this hat.”
    “Have you totally lost your mind?” she demanded.
    “I think so. If so, I probably should have lost it sooner. I feel great about it.” She blinked at him, dumbfounded or maybe just as shocked as he was by the new him, so he picked her up in his arms.
    “Put me down!”
    “We have a choice. We can do this dry or wet. But we are getting into that canoe parked beside the dock, and I’m rowing you to the center of the pond until the sun comes up.”
    She shook her head. “Nanette.”
    “Will be fine with Aunt Olivia. Helga. Aunt Valentine. Aunt Kelly. In the boat you go, Miss Joint Custody.”
    “Mason, we could really talk about this on dry land,” Mimi said, moving out of his arms and ungraciously into the canoe. “You’ve become as dramatic as all your brothers.”
    “That’s probably a good sign,” he said. “They’ve all changed for the better.” He pushed off with a paddle and rowed smoothly toward the center of the pond, where he’d have her trapped under the velvet sky and diamond stars. He could be Mr. Romance as easily as any of his brothers!
    “You’re fine the way you are,” Mimi said, a stubborn tone in her voice. “You shouldn’t change.”
    “Becoming a father will do that to a man.”
    “You even kiss differently. I don’t think that has anything to do with fatherhood,” Mimi said, sounding annoyed.
    “Mimi, I’m glad you’re the mother of my child,” he said magnanimously. He was about to say that she was a fabulous mother, and sexy as hell, but she splashed water on him with her paddle. Wiping his face, he contemplated the little woman across from him, all riled up with an opinion of some kind or another. Clearly he was hung for a sheep as much as a wolf, and there was nothing a man could do about that but be the wolf.
    He rocked the canoe and dumped it, sending himself and a shrieking Mimi into the water.
    “Mason!” Mimi squealed.
    “Yes, my love,” he said, sending her paddle spinning away through the water with his paddle. “Let me rescue you.”
    She began swimming away from him, calling him what might have been an impolite term for a donkey, so he caught her foot and dragged her toward him. He closed her mouth with his lips and silenced all those words she didn’t mean.
    To his surprise, she locked her legs around his waist. He dog-paddled for all he was worth, not about to give up the Mimi-lock. Damn, she felt good!
    “We should have done this before,” he murmured. “Too bad you’re such an ornery lass.”
    “Smart aleck.”
    She tried to kick away from him, but he pulled her back with a laugh. “I like catching you,” he said. “I only wish I’d known how much fun it was. I would have done this much sooner.”
    “Mason, this new you is…a stranger. I don’t feel that I know you at all.”
    He kissed her lips tenderly, claiming them the way he’d always wanted to. “I’m