The Cowboy's Pregnant Bride. Crystal Green

      

       Hay and musk … Cowboy and all man.

      She inhaled the scent of him, not stopping to think how crazy it was being a heartbeat away from kissing Jared Colton, the town cipher.

      When his lips brushed hers, she groaned at the burst of electricity that sizzled in her veins. She dropped her hot-chocolate mug to the ground, and heard Jared do the same with his, just before he made a low sound in his throat, then cupped her face in his palms, deepening the kiss.

      It was everything a first kiss should be, and a wave of yearning swept over Annette. Good and bad, because she didn’t want this to stop, even though she knew it should.

      There was something about Jared that made her throw caution to the wind, to forget about how she’d gotten to St. Valentine and why. To forget that she barely knew a thing about him.

      All she knew was that she could stay there all night, in his arms …

      The Cowboy’s

      Pregnant Bride

      Crystal Green

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      CRYSTAL GREEN lives near Las Vegas, where she writes for the Mills & Boon^® Cherish^™ and Blaze^® lines. She loves to read, over-analyze movies and TV programs, practice yoga and travel when she can. You can read more about her at www.crystal-green.com, where she has a blog and contests. Also, you can follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Marie-Green/1051327765 and Twitter at www.twitter.com/ChrisMarieGreen.

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      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

       Excerpt

      Chapter One

      When Annette Olsen saw the dark cowboy walk into the Orbit Diner, her heart rate nearly spiked through the roof.

      And it wasn’t only because he was a tall drink of water, dressed all in black from his worn boots to his jeans, to the belt with the shiny rodeo championship buckle, to his Western shirt and hat that tilted over his brow.

      No, even though the enigmatic Jared Colton was enough to put steam into any woman’s steps, Annette had been waiting for the man to stop by for his frequent early lunch because, oddly enough, she had come across something she was sure he was going to want.

      She smiled at her only customers as she finished checking on them. “Just let me know when you’re ready to pay up.” Then she headed for the counter and ultimately the back room before Jared could sit in his usual stool by the glass-domed pies.

      “Fancy seeing you here,” she said lightly, passing right by him.

      When his dark-eyed gaze lit on her, her pulse gave a brutal jerk. But she stilled it, as she always did.

      It wasn’t like she had much of a choice, not if she wanted to keep a sense of privacy and stay as far under the radar as she’d been doing these past months.

      He gave her one of those lopsided grins of his, a boon that not many others in St. Valentine ever saw, probably because Annette never got into the quiet cowboy’s business or asked him too many questions about why he had stayed around St. Valentine for so long.

      She could appreciate a person with secrets, she thought. After all, she had more than enough herself.

      “I thought I’d surprise everyone by varying my lunch routine,” he said. “I’m impulsive that way.”

      She laughed at his facetiousness, and he did, too. His hat still rode low, giving a slight shadow to the rest of his face, but she could tell that he was running a look over her. The slow brush of tingles down her body didn’t lie.

      Before she could stop herself, she rested a hand over her belly, which she’d been trying to hide with a baggier waitress uniform.

      She was seven months along, her belly just now popping, and she was trying so hard to keep anyone from knowing. Not yet, at least, because that was when people would start asking about the father.

      Had Jared been looking hard enough at her to notice a weight gain? Was he about to ask a million questions that she’d been avoiding ever since she’d come to this town months ago, dirt flying out from under her tires, her wedding dress crumpled in a heap in the trunk of her Pontiac?

      If her pulse had been jogging before, it was definitely racing now as she kept waiting for Jared to say something.

      Anything.

      Somewhere in the back of her mind, Annette heard the fifties-flavored Valentine’s-inspired music playing low over the ceiling speakers, heard her only other customers telling her that they’d left cash for their bill and her tip on the table, then the dinging bell as they exited the diner.

      Absently, she lifted a hand in goodbye to them, then turned her attention back to Jared.

      But all he did was reach for the nearby heart-decorated tin bucket that held all the napkin-wrapped silverware.

      If there was anyone