The Billionaire's Bride. Jackie Braun

meet.

      “Why don’t you bring Noah down to see us over Easter break?” her mother suggested. “The change of scenery would do you both good.”

      “It’s not a good time, Mom.”

      Marnie switched the telephone receiver to her other shoulder and continued to fold laundry. It seemed like one endless, thankless chore to her. From the corner of her eye, she watched the source of much of that laundry streak by, peanut butter and jelly smeared on his shirt as well as his face. Noah was on his second outfit of the day and it wasn’t quite one o’clock.

      “Nonsense. It’s the perfect time for you to come. Mason will be back in town over the holidays. The Legislature is out of session.”

      “I’m sorry, Mom. But I really can’t afford a vacation right now.”

      But her mother persisted. “Dad and I want to see our grandson. And you, too, dear. Come out to Arizona. It’s our treat.”

      “I can’t let you pay our airfare.”

      Indignation turned her voice crisp. She earned a living, enough to pay her bills on time if she was frugal. She had yet to touch a penny of Hal’s life insurance policy, which she’d invested for Noah, to be used to finance his college education. And she would be damned if she’d accept a handout now simply because her mother thought she needed to put her feet up.

      But her indignation was short lived.

      “We’re your parents, Marnie Elizabeth, so don’t you dare think of it as charity,” her mother said sternly.

      The tone she used had Marnie cringing. She was thousands of miles away and yet her mother could always make Marnie feel just as she had when she was a twelve and had been caught smoking dried corn silk out behind the woodshed. She’d been grounded for two weeks—the fact that she’d turned green and thrown up apparently not punishment enough in Edith Striker’s estimation.

      “We either pay your airfare to come here or we pay our airfare to come there. Same amount either way, so which will it be?”

      Before she could respond, her mother threw down the trump card.

      “Of course, with Dad’s arthritis, Michigan’s cold weather will be hell on his joints, but I’ll leave the choice up to you.”

      Some choice.

      But after hanging up, Marnie resigned herself to the visit, deciding there were worse things than having to spend time in a warm climate during the last leg of northern Michigan’s harsh winter. Besides, it would be good for Noah. He deserved a little fun and adventure now and then.

      She began mentally making plans for a two-week stay at her parents’ home just outside Yuma. She’d have to get someone to pick up her mail, water the houseplants and feed Noah’s goldfish—assuming the poor thing survived until then. Glancing at the piles of folded laundry, she realized she’d also have to sort through her son’s summer clothes to see what still fit.

      Maybe she could pick up a few things for him down in Arizona. Maybe she could pick up a few things for herself. Getting more in the spirit of things, she decided the trip might be good for her, an unexpected detour of sorts before she returned to her life’s monotony.

      CHAPTER ONE

      “HOLA! UM…UH…HMM.

      “Donde esta…? Donde esta…? What’s the word?” she muttered. Glancing up at the clearly baffled cafe owner, she asked hopefully, “Bathroom? Um. Toileto? El johno?”

      Okay, so it wasn’t actual Spanish, but Marnie really had to use the facilities and it couldn’t wait until after she’d rewound the Berlitz tape she’d listened to in the car on the trip south from Arizona and figured out the word for rest room.

      Some detour, Marnie thought, as she thumbed through her Spanish/English dictionary in desperation. She hadn’t planned this side trip to Mexico, but she’d felt so crowded at her parents’ Yuma, Arizona, home. She was a grown woman of thirty-two, a mother herself to a precocious preschooler. But for four days they had hovered over her as if she were a wounded chick in need of nurturing. Finally she ‘d decided to leave Noah in their care—he would appreciate the doting, after all. She’d borrowed their car and driven south with no destination in mind.

      Now, here she was a couple of hours or so beyond the United States border on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. And she really needed to relieve herself.

      From behind her, she heard the deep rumble of masculine laughter. When she turned, Marnie wondered how she could have missed the man. He sat at one of the small round tables near the door, his hulking frame in silhouette thanks to the light streaming in from the window behind him. And yet she knew without clearly seeing his features that his expression was one of amusement.

      At her expense.

      “Do you speak English?” she demanded, squelching the urge to cross her legs and hop in place.

      “Si, yo hablo ingles, muchacha,” he replied smoothly.

      His pronunciation was so flawless it took her a moment to realize that while he’d said so in Spanish, he could indeed communicate with her.

      She pasted on a smile—one that would have had her brother Mason wisely moving well out of her range. This man merely crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned back until the front legs of his chair left the ground.

      “Clever, Mr.—?”

      Where her lethal glare hadn’t fazed him, her simple question apparently did. The chair bounced back to the ground with a thud. He hesitated a moment, as if he was reluctant to identify himself.

      “Friends call me J.T,” he said at last.

      “J.T. Wow, that’s funny.”

      He angled his head to one side, again seeming suspicious of her. “What’s funny?”

      “Just that we’re barely acquaintances and I already have a pet name for you, too.”

      But she bit her tongue on the expletive that came to mind and asked sweetly, “So, J.T., could you tell me where the rest room is?” Her smile was really more a baring of teeth when she added, “Por favor.”

      “Donde esta el baño?”

      “Yes, yes.” She waved her hand impatiently. “I think we’ve already established that you’re bilingual. And isn’t that a wonderful trait? I know I now deeply regret taking Home Ec as an elective rather than a foreign language while I was in high school. Be that as it may, I’d really appreciate it right now if you could just answer the question. In English. Or maybe French. I did take two semesters of French in middle school.”

      He rattled off something that had her exhaling slowly. The man would have to be multilingual.

      “Okay, not French. English. Eng-lish!”

      “Well, then, by all means.”

      He stood and took a few steps toward her, bringing him close enough that she could now fully make out his features. Where she and Hal had been on eye level, this man had several inches on her, despite the thick wedge of her heel. He was blond to her dark hair, with eyes the same shade of blue as the flower of the wild chicory that grew alongside the highway back home. Every inch of him was tanned and toned, and impressively coated with some serious muscle.

      Not her type at all, she thought, even as her pulse rate spiked and almost made her forget the fact that her bladder felt as if it were being stretched by the entire contents of the Great Lakes.

      It had been a long time since she’d felt this way around a member of the opposite sex. The sensation was unwanted now, and, to Marnie’s way of thinking, its presence was just another reason to dislike the handsome stranger.

      “Down that hallway and to the right.”

      “Thank you.”