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To Melissa Jeglinski—a gifted editor, a wonderful person and a treasured friend. Thank you for everything!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About the Author

Coming Next Month

Prologue

“Ah, hell, it broke. ”

The second the stunned words fell out of Vic Jansen’s mouth he wanted to recall them for something more composed. But what was the mannerly way to tell the naked woman straddling his lap that their birth control had suffered a catastrophic failure?

This wasn’t supposed to happen to two over-thirty adults.

“What do you mean, it broke?” Claire’s horrified whisper steamed over his chest as they sat tangled together. The steamy gust stirred a fire down south when he should have been long past recovery after their weekend of marathon sex.

Lifting her off and to the side, Vic squinted in the darkness to see his friend of six months and lover of three days. Years of veterinary practice had prepped him for hostile horses and spitting-mad cats, but at the moment he felt damned unprepared to cope with Claire McDermott and a possible pregnancy.

Coping with memories of the daughter he’d lost proved even tougher. He shoved aside images of pigtails, Barbie dolls—funeral wreaths.

“Exactly what I said. ” He swiped a wrist across his forehead, flinging aside sweat in spite of the forty-degree weather of a southern January evening. “The condom tore. ”

“There’s absolutely no way it should have broken. ” Panic pitching her voice higher, breathier, Claire snatched her dress from beside her feet and clutched it to her bare breasts he wanted to unveil and kiss all over again.

“Well, lady, tonight we two idiots just blew those stats right out of the water—as it were. ” Vic gripped the steel rim of the bass boat, the plastic fishing chair chilling his skin. “Be still, will ya? You’re going to tip us over. ”

Claire puffed a breath of air upward, blowing away a lank lock dangling in her face, puffed again, then finally combed shaking fingers through her tousled caramel-colored hair. He couldn’t let himself think about threading his hands through her silky strands as he held her curvy body against his or he would lose his focus.

She untangled a gelatinous lure and flicked it onto the tackle box. “Are you sure you didn’t catch the condom on a hook or something?”

“Jeez, Claire. ” Vic clasped her shoulders, her soft scented skin sending a fresh jolt of heat through him. “Don’t you think I would know if I had a hook in it?”

“Good point. ” She dodged the cooler, leaning over the seat, which displayed a flash of tempting flesh before she straightened, her lacy bra and panties in hand. “That’s the last time you get to supply birth control. ”

“I feel compelled to point out that it’s one I snagged from your bedside table—” he tugged on his jeans “—since we’d used up mine. ”