My Best Friend's Baby (2 page)

Historical Romances
The Honor-Bound Gambler
(2012)
Weddings
Under a Western Sky (2012)
(anthology w/Elizabeth Lane
and Kate Welsh)
The Bride Raffle
(2011)
Wanton
in the West (2011)
Mail-Order
Groom (2010)
Hallowe'en Husbands
(2008)
(anthology w/Denise Lynn and Christine
Merrill)
The Rascal
(2006)
The
Scoundrel (2006)
The
Matchmaker (2003)
The Drifter
(2002)
Lawman
(1999)
Outlaw
(1999)

Paranormal
Romance
My Favorite Witch
(2009)

Time-Travel
Romances
Timeless Winter
(1999)
(anthology w/Sandra Davidson and Kathryn
Hockett)
Timeless Spring
(1999)
(anthology w/Sandra Davidson and Cynthia
Thomason)

MY BEST FRIEND'S BABY

by

Lisa Plumley

Chapter One

Saturday morning, Chloe Carmichal woke up
with a naked man in her bed.

Of course, she was naked too, but that
wasn't the point. The important thing was, this wasn't just any old
sunstruck, Arizona spring morning, and the man asleep beside her
wasn't just any old golden-haired, buffed-up guy. This was the
morning after the night she'd never forget, and the fella snoring
with his legs tangled around hers and his arm slung around her
waist was Nick.

Her best friend in the whole world.

Maybe now he'd realize how perfect they were
for each other. Three years she'd spent living next door to him,
three companionable, let's-be-pals, excruciatingly platonic years.
Last night everything had changed.

Oh, boy, how it had changed. Feeling giddy,
Chloe snuggled closer to Nick's warmth and fought the urge to wake
him up just to tell him how happy she was. That wouldn't be fair,
not after the late night they'd spent together. He deserved at
least another ten minutes' sleep.

Maybe five.

Nick snuffled and turned over. His arm
whipped from her waist and sailed toward her head like a sleepy
stealth missile. Chloe ducked just as it smacked into her pillow.
Whew. She never knew sleeping with a guy could be so dangerous.

Too excited to sleep anymore, she used his
movement for cover and slipped out of bed to go freshen up. Maybe
she'd even put together a little breakfast
à deux
. After
last night, they could both do with a recharge.

Her feet hit the floor. Behind her the
covers rustled and Nick gave a soft muffled moan before going back
to sleep, and Chloe's heart skipped a little higher. Nick was in
her bed!

Nick was with her.

Oh, sure, she and Nick had never shared more
than a hug before last night. And yeah, he did happen to be just
slightly on the rebound from what'shername, the mean,
commitment-hungry brunette he'd been dating until yesterday. But,
Chloe told herself as she emerged from the bathroom and pattered
down the hall, that was all in the past. From now on things would
be different. Way different. Last night he'd seen another side to
her, and things could never go back to the way they were
before.

Never go back
. In the kitchen, the
thought of losing all the closeness she and Nick had shared over
the years made her pause. Could their friendship survive becoming
lovers? What if they'd ruined everything? What if they broke
up?

What if she was jumping to conclusions?
We can do this
, she told herself.
We'll be a match made
in heaven
. So what if they were sort of an unlikely
combination? So were her clothes most of the time, and they still
managed to work okay.

Chloe glanced down at herself, taking in the
purple polka-dotted boxer shorts she usually slept in, the bright
orange bra she'd substituted for her T-shirt in the name of maximum
sexiness, and the way her fingers were shaking, and tried to gather
her courage. It was just Nick, for Pete's sake.
Her Nick
.
There was nothing to worry about.

Right. Before she could angst any further,
she got busy putting together breakfast—a pot of coffee, a box of
chocolate donuts, and a bowl of dried banana chips. Okay, so it
wasn't exactly health food, but it would have to do for now.
Juggling the wicker basket she'd put everything into, Chloe stopped
at the threshold of her bedroom and warily looked in.

Sunlight rushed in between the slats of her
bedroom's white window shutters and brightened the midnight blue
walls, streaking glimmers of gold across plants and pictures and
the man sprawled across her bed. Discarded clothes—his and
hers—trailed across the snowy carpet, making a path to the arched
foot of her big wooden sleigh bed. Chloe tiptoed to it and set the
breakfast basket on the bureau beside it, unable to wait any
longer. It was time for Nick to wake up ... and she was just the
woman to make sure he did it in the nicest possible way.

A plaintive meow came from beside the bed.
Moe, her fat orange tabby, arched against the footboard and meowed
louder, the sound filled with feline reproach at not being first as
usual on Chloe's morning agenda. "Shhh," she told the cat, giving
him a fond rub between the ears. "Just give me this one morning,
and it's Fancy Feast for a week. I swear."

Praying for cooperation, Chloe lifted the
bed covers and slid beneath them. Warmth surrounded her. Geez,
Nick's body heat could power a whole city if they could find a way
to harness it. She ought to ask him about that for his next
invention. Smiling in the dark, Chloe took her own turn at
inventiveness, sliding her palm over his hairy shin, his knee, his
hard, muscular thigh ... a game of blind man's bluff for grownups.
He stirred and moaned, encouraging her without words to roam
higher. She did.

Nick's fingers wandered to the nape of her
neck, stroking and teasing, and the feel of his hand against her
skin called forth a million memories from last night. With a sigh,
Chloe crawled higher. Morning breath be damned. She wanted to kiss
the man she loved.

She raised the covers and poked her head
out. Nick's linebacker-sized shoulders, tousled honey-streaked
hair, and adorably rumpled face filled her vision. Slowly,
groggily, he opened his eyes and blinked his baby-blues in her
direction.

Her heart softened. Some part of her was
obviously a sucker for the little-boy-lost look. If possible, she
felt even more in love with him than before. Nick blinked again,
and Chloe realized it wasn't tenderness that made him look like
that—it was poor eyesight. His natty wire rims were still lying on
the bedside table where he'd left them last night.

"Nick?" she whispered, smoothing her hand
across his chest. "Good morning."

His mouth opened. He blinked harder.
"Chloe?"

The raspy, intimate sound of his voice
thrilled her. "Mmmm hmmm, it's Chloe." She twirled her fingertips
in a heated whorl of his chest hair and smiled in a way she hoped
looked worldly and sophisticated. "Good morning ... darling."

"Aaack!" Nick shot upward, his eyes
widening. His head cracked into her sleigh bed.

"Oh!" She reached for him, crooning whatever
comforting things came to mind as she tried to examine him for
headboard-induced injuries. Yanking his head out of reach,
grimacing at the movement, he scrambled higher onto the pillows.
Obviously, Nick wasn't an early riser.

Or at least his
whole
body wasn't.
She wouldn't have guessed that about him.

"Are you all right?" How could she have
known he'd wake up so grumpy?
She'd
never slept with him
before.

Frowning, he pushed himself up on his
elbows, and her gaze drifted to his bare chest and stomach. Grumpy
or not, Nick did keep a surprisingly attention-getting body hidden
beneath that stupid white lab coat he was always wearing. Who'd
have guessed?

He saw her ogling and jerked the sheets
higher. What was the matter with him? Why, a person would think he
hadn't ... that they hadn't ...

Oh, God.

His expression matched her thoughts.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Nick
blinked harder. His mouth straightened, then gaped open again as
Chloe crawled all the way out of the covers and sat up. His gaze
went straight to her sheer orange bra. "You—you—you're not even
dressed!"

He glanced around him, looking increasingly
incredulous. "Is this your bedroom?"

Chloe handed him his eyeglasses.

"It
is
your bedroom!"

She wouldn't have thought things could get
worse—until they did. Shock made her nipples perk tight against her
wispy bra, drawing his attention in the only way she had absolutely
no control over. Feeling her face heat, Chloe drew up her knees and
wrapped her arms around them.

Nick's gaze dropped to her snug
purple-dotted silk boxers, and something akin to pain flashed
across his face. "Aww, hell."

This time she recognized that gruffness in
his tone for what it was—the remnants of a massive hangover from
the Kahlúa, coffee, and sympathy she'd served him last night.

"Tell me this isn't what it looks like,
Chloe."

Hurt stole her breath. His pleading glance
finished her off.
He didn't remember
.

"Tell me I didn't take advantage of you last
night," Nick went on. His hand fisted in the sheets, but she
imagined it caressing her cheek instead, pretended he'd smile and
tell her he'd been kidding. Just a little morning-after humor, ha
ha.

"I—" Her voice cracked and faltered. She
frowned briefly and tried again. "Well, I, uhh—"

He must've sensed something was wrong,
because he stopped her with a touch and curled his fingers beneath
her chin. He tilted her face upward, looking at her carefully with
that analytical scientist's expression of his. It wasn't a cheek
caress, but it was near enough to tenderness that Chloe closed her
eyes to savor it.

"I couldn't stand it if I thought I'd hurt
you," Nick said. "I know how it feels to be used, remember?"

She remembered, all right. He meant
what'shername. The one who'd decided her ticking biological clock
couldn't handle Nick Steadman standard time any longer. The one
who'd broken his heart and sent him straight to Chloe's door for
solace.

"Chloe?"

There was nothing else to do. She loved him
too much to tell him a truth he so obviously didn't want to hear.
So she opened her eyes and gave him a choked little laugh.

"Who, me? And you?" She rolled her eyes at
the notion. "Nah, don't flatter yourself, genius. Nothing happened
here last night except too much Kahlúa, too much talking, and way
too much sympathy." She put her hand to his forehead and tried out
a wobbly-feeling smile. "I think it's gone to your head."

"But—"

"Your virtue's safe with me." Chloe levered
herself off the mattress and inadvertently treated him to a full-on
cleavage shot. Geez. Maybe he'd think she always dressed this way
to sleep.

"Your virtue's safe, but your body," she
added to distract him, "... well, that's another story."

She bounced off the bed and shrugged into
the lab coat he'd left on her bedroom doorknob last night, giving
herself double bonus points for hiding the tears in her eyes and
getting herself covered up all at the same time.

"My body?"

"Yeah—your hangover. Sorry about that."

The bed creaked. Chloe, busy swabbing
surreptitiously at her burning eyelids, didn't dare look to see
what Nick was doing.

"It's not your fault." His voice was muted,
hoarse with hangover mouth and leftover sleepiness. "I brought it
all on myself. I knew me and—"

"What'shername?"

"—weren't headed in the same direction. I
wanted hot sex—"

"I'm not listening," she sang out, putting
her hands over her ears.

"Yes, you are. I see your pinkies lifting.
And anyway, you must've heard worse last night."

"You don't remember?" Her voice sounded as
hoarse as his—but for different reasons. Funny that grief and
Kahlúa would have the same disastrous side effects.

"After the fourth cup of your demon Kahlúa
and coffee, it's all kind of a blur," Nick admitted.

The admission made her heart twist. The most
life-changing night of her life, and he couldn't remember a minute
of it.

She heard the sheets rustle, and pretended
to button the lab jacket she had on as an excuse not to face him.
Why torture herself with ogling what she couldn't have?

He mumbled something about missing
underwear, then, "... What was I saying?"

"Hot sex."

"Oh, yeah." The bed creaked again. "I wanted
hot sex, and she wanted two-point-four kids and a dog. It just
wasn't meant to be."

Not that he seemed too broken-up over it
this morning. Chloe guessed the worst had passed.

Maybe he was getting used to it. Eventually,
every relationship he had smashed to smithereens over the same
issues: setting down, getting married, having kids. With Nick, his
inventions and the work that subsidized them came first. To his
credit, he was always perfectly up-front about it.

Unfortunately, most women he dated didn't
believe him. They took one look at that smile, those shoulders, and
the wit behind those baby blues ... and decided they'd be the one
to reform him.

Ha.

"Good thing I have you to pick up the pieces
of my mangled love life, Chloe."

"What are friends for?" she choked out,
giving him an offhanded wave.

"Drinking beer, watching football, and
cruising for chicks," Nick said.

The mattress groaned, the bedcovers rustled,
then came the sound of denim being dragged across the carpet. She
pictured him naked, stepping into his jeans and snugging them up
over