Read My Best Friend's Baby for Free Online Page B

figured."
    Sheesh! What had she been thinking? This
pregnancy thing was turning her mind to mush. Her face burning,
Chloe threw the earrings in her jewelry box and slammed the lid
shut, then snatched up her suit and clutched it, hanger and all, in
front of her.
    "But, uh, that's really a nice pair of umm,
umm ..." His arm churned, trying to crank something smart to his
brain. "I mean, the rest of you is really—dammit, Chloe! Put some
clothes on, will you?"
    "You're blushing, Nick."
    "Like hell."
    "Your face is redder than my suit."
    "Nothing's redder than that suit."
    He ducked his head and chanced a look from
beneath his elbow. She could almost pinpoint the exact moment he
realized she'd safely covered her ‘nice pair' from view, because
his grin returned.
    "But you might get faster action on your
loan if you tried the earring trick on Mr. Griggs."
    "Har, har."
    He came closer. She must have imagined that
blush on his face, because now Nick looked as composed as ever. Not
to mention as miserably unaffected by her—as a woman—as he ever
had.
    "Anyway," she continued with a teasing
smile, "I already tried that."
    "And?"
    "And the man has no taste when it comes to
earrings. He actually picked a rhinestone pair."
    She laughed at the look on his face, then
met him halfway around the side of the bed, tucking her chin into
her chest to secure the suit and hanger while she moved. "I'm
kidding, you Neanderthal! What kind of woman do you think I
am?"
    "I think you're a big old softie," Nick
said, "worrying over Red and Jerry like you do."
    He reached to help her hold up the curved
metal hanger top, and his knuckle brushed warm against her chin. At
the feel of his skin touching hers, Chloe's knees went weak. The
hanger wobbled in her hand, making her suit flutter in front of
her.
    "I think you're going to get that loan of
yours, or die trying," Nick went on. "And I think—" He smiled and
touched one shoulder-pad-bolstered edge of her suit jacket.
"—you're going to be late if you don't hurry up and shimmy into
this thing."
    "Shimmy?"
    He headed for the door, tapping a beat along
the footboard of her sleigh bed.
    "You think I ‘shimmy'?"
    Nick shrugged and stepped into the
hallway.
    He thought she shimmied!
    Officially, of course, she was incredibly
offended. But—he thought she shimmied! Chloe grinned, just as Nick
stuck his head around the doorjamb again.
    "And one more thing," he said.
    She put on a straight face.
    "If things don't work out with the bank
today, you can always count on me."
    "I can't ask you for help, Nick."
    "Sure, you can. The rest of us deserve a
chance to play hero sometimes, too, you know."
    Sure. Chloe sighed and sank onto her bed as
he closed the door, leaving her alone. Would Nick really see
instant unplanned fatherhood as an opportunity to be heroic? Or
were those just so many words, words that were easy to say but hard
to live up to?
    There was only one way to find out.
    She got dressed and ducked into the bathroom
for one quick look at her destiny before leaving.

     
    The blonde emerged from Saguaro Vista
Cattleman's Bank just as Nick glanced up from his hydroponics
research notes. Her long legs flashed beneath her thigh-high red
business suit as she clicked toward him with the kind of
hip-swaying, high-heeled strides that destroyed brain cells in men
everywhere. Halfway across the city center's saltillo -tiled
courtyard, she shrugged out of her matching suit jacket and flipped
it over her shoulder, trailing it by her fingertips over her
back.
    Her naked back . Her pert, perfect
breasts bounced in the sunlight as she strolled through the mist
given off by the tinkling courtyard fountain and came toward him. Whaaa ... ? his brain asked, but his body already had the
upper hand. Come on down , it said.
    He blinked, and the vision in red
transformed itself into Chloe. Fully-clothed, jacket-wearing , non-bouncing, just-pals Chloe.
    This had to stop. Chloe was his friend, his best friend, not a