The Manning Brides: Marriage of Inconvenience / Stand-In Wife. Debbie Macomber

I can accept your decision. I’m going to have a baby. I’d just rather it was yours than some stranger’s.” With that, she was out the door.

      After she’d left, Rich resumed pacing, unable to stand still. His thoughts were a tangle of confused reactions, and part of him was laughing at the absurdity of Jamie’s proposition.

      Their baby! Their baby?

      They’d never even kissed, and she was proposing they create a child together.

      She’d told him she expected nothing from him, other than the pregnancy. Although he was sure she hadn’t meant to sound so cold and calculating, that was exactly what Rich felt. She’d made it seem so … impersonal. Even that parting shot about having a beautiful child got to him. With those hazel-green eyes of hers and his height … He forcefully pushed the idea from his head.

      Although he’d asked for time to make his decision, Rich already knew what his answer would be.

      He wanted no part of this craziness.

      Jamie made a genuine effort not to think about Rich for the next few days. She’d stated her case, explained what needed to be explained without resorting to emotions.

      A hundred times since their talk, she’d thought of all the things she might’ve said to get him to agree….

      Her mind was muddled with regrets. Rich was a good friend. Too good to risk ruining their relationship because she was determined to have a child.

      She’d insulted him. She’d known, from his stunned look, that his immediate instinct had been to say no. Good grief, who wouldn’t? It was only because of their friendship that he’d been courteous enough to consider her proposal.

      Not for the first time, Jamie repressed the urge to call him and withdraw the suggestion. With everything in her, she wished she hadn’t said a word. And in the same instant she prayed with all her heart, with all her being, that he’d say yes.

      If only she’d approached him differently.

      If only she’d told him how much his child would mean to her, how she’d love that child her whole life.

      If only she’d assured him what a good mother she was going to be.

      If only …

      Rich had made plans to go to his brother Jason’s apartment on Sunday afternoon to watch the Seahawks football game. Since Rich had given Bill Hastings their fifty-yard-line tickets, the least Rich thought he could do was bring the beer.

      Close to one, nearly an hour late, Rich arrived at his brother’s with a six-pack of Jason’s favorite beer in one hand and a sack full of junk food in the other.

      “About time you got here,” Jason muttered when he opened the front door. “The kick-off’s in less than five minutes.”

      “I brought a peace offering,” Rich announced, holding up the six-pack. It wasn’t like him to be late, and he half expected an interrogation from his brother. He was grateful when it looked as though he was going to escape that. If Jason did grill him, Rich didn’t know what he’d say. Certainly not the truth. That he’d been so consumed with indecision over Jamie’s proposal, he’d lost track of the time.

      “It’s going to take a whole lot more than a few beers to make up for the loss of those tickets, little brother,” Jason complained as he led Rich to the sofa. “Last I heard, scalpers were getting three hundred bucks for this game, and my brother gave ours away.” There was more than a touch of sarcasm in Jason’s voice. “I still don’t understand how Bill Hastings ended up getting our tickets.”

      Rich had been purposely vague about the exchange. “He did me a favor.”

      “You couldn’t have bought him dinner?”

      “No.” It wouldn’t help to tell Jason that the big favor Bill was supposed to have done him had fallen through.

      Damn, Jamie was stubborn. Stubborn enough to go ahead and have her baby without him.

      That stopped him in his tracks. It was her decision. What bothered Rich, what caught him so completely by surprise, was the rush of resentment he felt at the thought of her having another man’s child.

      “Hey, you all right?” Jason asked, claiming the seat next to him on the overstuffed sofa.

      “Of course I’m all right. Why shouldn’t I be?”

      “I don’t know, but you got this funny look all of a sudden.”

      Rich dropped his gaze to the can of beer he clutched in his hand. He offered his brother a weak smile and then relaxed on the sofa. It was a few minutes before his heart rate returned to normal. But he kept thinking about Jamie. She’d have a stranger’s child. Yes, she would. She’d do it in a second. More than once Rich had collided with that pride of hers, and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind.

      She’d do it!

      “You ever thought about being a father?” Rich found himself asking his older brother. He attempted to make the question sound casual but didn’t know if he’d succeeded or not.

      “Who, me?” Jason teased. “I’m not even married, and frankly I don’t ever plan to be.”

      “Why not?” This was news to Rich. Jason dated as often as Rich did—although, come to think of it, Rich might have implied that his social life was more active than it really was. Jason never seemed to lack for gorgeous women. The only time he’d gotten serious, the relationship had turned out badly, but that was years ago.

      “I’m not the marrying kind,” Jason said, tearing open a bag of potato chips with his teeth. “All women think about is reforming me. Hell, if I want to kick off my shoes and watch a football game on a Sunday afternoon, I don’t want to feel guilty about it. Most married men are henpecked. I prefer my freedom.”

      “So do I,” Rich agreed. Marriage wasn’t for him, either. Or for Jamie. He valued his independence. So did she. Jason apparently felt the same way—marriage was too much trouble.

      “If I want to dry my socks in the microwave, there’s no one around to yell at me,” Jason added, then took a deep swallow of his beer.

      “You dried your socks in the microwave?”

      Jason shrugged. “I forgot to put the load from the washer into the dryer the night before. I needed a pair for work. So it was either that or pop them in the toaster.”

      Rich chuckled. That sounded exactly like something his brother would do. Jason was right: A woman would’ve been horrified had she known about his method of drying socks.

      For the next ten minutes they were both engrossed in the game. At the commercial break, Jason propped his ankle on his knee and turned to Rich.

      “Why’d you bring up this marriage thing?”

      “No reason. I was just wondering.”

      “What about you?” Jason asked. “Isn’t it time you thought about settling down and fathering a houseful of kids?”

      “Me?” Rich asked.

      “Yes, you. Mom knows any future Mannings will have to come from you and Paul. She’s thrown up her hands in disgust at me.”

      “I don’t think I’ll get married, either.”

      Jason’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Why not?”

      “Don’t look so surprised.”

      “I am. You, Richard Manning, are definitely the marrying kind. Women flock to you.”

      Plainly his older brother had an inflated view of Rich’s sexual prowess, and Rich couldn’t see any reason to disillusion him. “True, but not one of them, in all these years, has appealed to me enough to want to marry her.”

      “What about Pamela?”

      “That