Free Not Quite Married by Christine Rimmer Page A

his tone mild. “Please.”
    She pointed at the easy chair by the window. It had a nice, soft-looking ottoman. “I’ll sit in that while I make the call.”
    “That’ll work.” He waited.
    “Oh, fine.” With a huff and an eye roll, she went over and lowered herself carefully into the chair, cupping her big stomach in a spread hand as she did it. “There. Happy now?” She leaned back against the cushions. But she still had her sandals on and her feet on the floor.
    He dared to approach. Slowly.
    She watched him coming, narrow-eyed. “What?” He dropped to a knee beside her chair. She blinked down at him. “What in the...?” She looked pretty worried.
    He figured it out. She feared he might be about to propose again.
    No way. He might be overbearing. But he wasn’t stupid. It hadn’t worked the first time, to whip out that big ring out of the blue. Next time he asked her, it wouldn’t be on the fly.
    Gently, he picked up one of her feet—the one nearest the ottoman—and slid off the sandal. “Just helping you get comfortable.” He eased that foot onto the ottoman and reached for the other one. She allowed him to remove that sandal, too, but she swung it over to the ottoman on her own.
    She rotated her right foot, wiggled her pink-painted toes. “Ugh. Cankles.”
    “Cank...?”
    “Cankles. I have cankles.” She leaned forward to smooth the hem of her blue dress over her knees. “You’ve never heard of cankles?”
    “Never.”
    “That’s when your calf hooks to your foot with no discernible thinning of the leg where the ankle should be. Calf-ankle. Cankle.”
    He had no idea what she was babbling about, and he supposed that fact must have shown on his face, because she finally explained in plain English, “My ankles are swollen.”
    Which provided him an opportunity to pleasantly remind her, “Another reason to stay off your feet.”
    She groaned and flopped back against the cushions again. “You’ve been great, Dalton, and I really appreciate all you’ve done—and shouldn’t you be going?”
    No, I shouldn’t . “Later. After you get settled in.”
    “But I am settled in.”
    Pretending she hadn’t spoken, he stood. “I’ll leave you alone to make your call.” And then he turned and got the hell out of there before she could tell him again to go. Behind him, she made an exasperated sound—but she didn’t call him back to insist that he leave.
    He slipped out the door and shut it silently behind him.
    And then, shamelessly, he went about checking out the house.
    It was charming, really. Well laid out, furnished in a simple, inviting style, and well maintained. She was young to have both a nice place like this and that successful café. She’d either worked her sweet ass off all her adult life, or she had an inheritance, or some combination of the two. Judging by all the loyal relatives who’d shown up at the hospital yesterday, she did have people to look after her.
    So. Comfortably self-supporting, with a family who cared. Good for her.
    Not so good for him, however. It would be much better if she needed—really needed—the father of her unborn child.
    But a man had to play with the hand he was dealt.
    He made a quick circuit of the downstairs, moving through the great room, past the breakfast nook, into the kitchen and through the archway to the dining room. Another wide arch took him into the foyer. He went up the stairs and came out on a balcony with a carved rail that was open to the great room below and a nice view of the handsome fireplace flanked by half-bow windows.
    He kept going, making another circuit of the upper floor, which had three bedrooms and one large bath.
    The baby’s room, all done up in pink, green, yellow and white, with a mural of butterflies and cartoon animals on one wall, overlooked the backyard. Baby clothes and tiny blankets, all neatly folded and stacked, filled the white shelves. In the corner on the floor, he found a pile of books on pregnancy,