Expecting a Miracle. Jackie Braun

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      “I’m scared of what the future holds.”

      Lauren reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. That made it twice this morning that she’d touched him. Twice that such benign contact had zapped Gavin with all the force of a lightning bolt.

      “If it were just me,” she said, “I wouldn’t worry so much. But with the baby?” She shook her head and her eyes turned bright.

      “You’re going to be fine. Both of you are going to be fine.” He turned his hand over so that he could hold hers. She looked radiant. Sitting across from him, wearing a pair of shorts that showed off her trim legs, she looked lovely and…sexy.

      Gavin swallowed. Was it okay to think of a pregnant woman as sexy?

      Especially this pregnant woman?

      Dear Reader,

      I firmly believe that good things can come out of bad situations. Lauren discovers this when she decides to leave a loveless marriage to make a better life for herself and her unborn child.

      I loved watching Lauren Seville develop her backbone page after page. Of course, Gavin O’Donnell recognizes her strength long before she does. In fact, it’s one of the reasons he falls in love with her.

      I hope you enjoy Lauren and Gavin’s story. And may you, too, find a silver lining in all your dark clouds.

      Best wishes,

      Jackie Braun

      Jackie Braun

      Expecting a Miracle

      Jackie Braun is a three-time RITA^® Award finalist, a three-time National Readers’ Choice Award finalist and a past winner of the Rising Star Award. She worked as a copy editor and editorial writer for a daily newspaper before quitting her day job in 2004 to write fiction full-time. She lives in Michigan with her family. She loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her Web site at www.jackiebraun.com.

      “There’s something inordinately sexy about a man who is as good with his hands as he is quick with his mind.”

      —Jackie Braun, Expecting a Miracle.

      For Will, our unexpected miracle

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER TEN

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      CHAPTER TWELVE

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      LAUREN Seville pulled her car to the side of the road and stepped out. The summer day was gorgeous, the sky impossibly blue and bright with sunshine. Standing in front of a picturesque pasture in rural Connecticut, she breathed in the mingled scents of wildflowers and listened as the birds chirped and chattered overhead. Then she bent at the waist and retched into the weeds.

      The day might be gorgeous, but her life was as unsettled as her stomach at the moment. She was pregnant.

      Long ago—long before she’d met and married investment broker Holden Seville and had embarked on a career as the Wife of a Very Important Man—doctors had informed Lauren that she would never conceive. Now, four years into a marriage that had proved as sterile as she’d believed herself to be, she had.

      She straightened and stroked her still-flat stomach through the lightweight fabric of her sundress. The news, received just two weeks earlier, still filled her with elation, awe and a sense of anticipation. She was nearly three months into what she considered a miracle.

      Her husband did not share her joy about the baby. In fact, quite the opposite.

      “I don’t want children.”

      She could still hear the cold dismissal in his tone, but his words were hardly a news flash. He’d made that fact perfectly clear when he’d proposed marriage one year to the day after their first date. Children were disruptive, messy and, most of all, needy, he’d said. They were an improper fit for the career-and-cocktails lifestyle Holden enjoyed and planned to continue enjoying.

      Lauren didn’t share his view, but she hadn’t argued it at the time. Why bother when the point was moot? Or it had been.

      A fresh wave of nausea had her bending over a second time.

      “Oh, God,” she moaned afterward, staggering back a few steps to lean against the passenger side of her car.

      How foolish she’d been to hope that her husband’s rigid opinion would soften now that the deed was done. It still came as a painful shock to discover that he wanted it undone.

      “End your pregnancy,” he’d told her. Your pregnancy. As if Lauren was solely responsible for her state. As if he had no tie—by blood or otherwise—to the new life growing inside of her.

      He’d finished his ultimatum with: “If you don’t, I’ll end our marriage.”

      So, a mere twenty-four hours after refusing, Lauren found herself standing alone on the side of a country road gazing at a pasture, feeling queasy, exhausted and longing for the comfort of the king-size bed in their Manhattan apartment. She would go back eventually. She’d left with nothing but her purse and painful disillusionment. But she wasn’t going to return until she had formulated a plan. When she faced Holden again she would do so with dignity, with her hormone-fueled emotions under check. This time she would offer him a few terms and conditions of her own.

      “Hey, are you all right?”

      The deep voice startled Lauren. She swung around in time to see a man jogging toward her from the farmhouse just down the road. Good Lord. Had he seen…everything? Embarrassment turned her cheeks hot and she couldn’t quite meet his gaze.

      “I’m fine,” Lauren called.

      She pasted on a smile and headed around the car’s hood, all the while hoping he wouldn’t come any closer. But he continued down the road in a long-legged stride that brought them face-to-face before she could open the driver’s-side door of her Mercedes and get inside.

      Doing so now would be rude. Lauren was never rude. So she remained standing, lips crooked up in the same polite smile that had gotten her through many a tedious dinner party with her husband’s work associates.

      “Are you sure?” the man asked. “You still look a little pale. Maybe you should sit down.”

      Lauren pegged him to be in his midthirties and physically fit, if the nice sculpting of his tanned arms was any indication. He was average height with tousled, mocha-colored hair that the breeze teased into further disarray.

      “I’ve been sitting. Well, driving.” She waved a hand down the road in the direction she’d come. “I just stopped to…to…to stretch my legs.”

      “Right.” Kind eyes studied her a moment. “Are you sure I can’t get you a glass of water or something?”

      “Oh, no. But thank you for offering.”

      It was a programmed response and so it slipped easily from her lips. She was used to lying about her feelings, subjugating her needs and putting a positive spin on everything. She’d done that growing up so as not to upset her workaholic parents’ hectic timetables. She’d done that as a wife, putting Holden and his demanding career first. But she’d been driving for more than two hours