A Convenient Proposal

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lynnette Kent lives on a farm in southeastern North Carolina with her five horses and five dogs. When she isn’t busy riding, driving or feeding animals, she loves to tend her gardens and read and write books. This is her twenty-fourth story for Harlequin Books.

Chapter One

Cool sand beneath his feet. A salty breeze off the ocean. Midnight stars overhead and cold champagne to drink. What better way to celebrate New Year’s Eve?

Not that Griff Campbell was looking forward to the new year. Or even the new week, since tomorrow morning— New Year’s Day—would see him returning to his Georgia hometown after a six-month exile. Self-imposed exile, actually.

Some people might call it running away.

For tonight, however, he’d tied his rented speedboat to an abandoned pier on the most deserted beach he could find—a little chunk of sand and live oak trees just a few miles off the Miami coastline, where nobody could find him and he could, he hoped, dredge up the enthusiasm to go home.

Two bottles of champagne down, and all he’d dredged up so far were the seashells rattling in the pockets of his shorts. Griff took a swig of Taittingers, then swiped his shirtsleeve across his chin to catch a dribble. Champagne was almost too easy to drink, sometimes. He’d popped this cork only a few minutes ago and now it was…how far gone?

Lifting the bottle as he walked along, he peered into the dark glass, trying to judge the level of liquid within. The moonless night offered no contrast to see by, but the light weight told its own tale. He’d better slow down, or he wouldn’t have a toast left at the stroke of twelve.

When he let his arm fall back to his side, however, the curvy shape lingered in front of him, like a white shadow of the bottle he’d been staring at.

It was a woman, he realized. She stood about a hundred yards farther along, facing away from him. Her light-colored dress contrasted starkly with the indigo water and sky. She didn’t turn around as he advanced, or seem to take any notice of his approach. He might as well be invisible.

Her obliviousness—her very presence on this deserted island—intrigued him. Griff walked up until he stood just a breath away, then tapped her on the shoulder as he said, “Happy New Year.”

The woman jumped about six feet off the sand and spun to face him. “What—? Wh-who are you?” Her face was as beautiful as her slender figure and as pale as her white dress. “What do you want?”

Now he felt like a rat for shocking her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“This is a private island,” she told him fiercely. “You’re trespassing.”

“I must have missed the sign. I just wanted someplace quiet tonight.” He backed away several steps, holding up his hands, and thus the champagne, in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not dangerous. I swear.”

She looked at the bottle and then back to his face. “Are you going to hit me with that?”

“God, no. I could offer you a drink—” he glanced at his watch “—in about ten minutes. I would never hit a woman.” If ever he’d been tempted, it was six months ago. But the past was just that. Past.

Without warning, a glowing rocket streaked across the sky beyond the woman’s right shoulder, bursting into a flower of white sparks overhead. An instant later, a loud boom shook the leaves on the nearby live oak trees.

“So much for quiet,” Griff said.

“That’s the fireworks in Miami.” She turned away again, facing north. “They start at eleven-fifty.”

But Griff’s gaze lingered on the graceful length of her spine, the supple muscles in her shoulders revealed by the low-backed dress and the sweet curve of her hips.

“Nice,” he murmured. If she heard, she didn’t respond.

Then a series of red, green and blue explosions jerked his attention back to the horizon. Every second sent new bombs streaking skyward, splashing brilliant colors into the air and across the water. The night became filled with noise, from bass booms to whirling squeals and everything in between, as the old year received a hearty send-off and the new one arrived with rambunctious glory.

A thunderous finale concluded the program. Only trails of smoke remained, a crowd of gray ghosts drifting over the sea.

Griff’s companion blew out a deep breath. “Fantastic.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “I gather you’re not planning to assault me, after all.”

Griff shook his head. “The thought never crossed my mind. Although…”

She turned to face him. “Yes?”

He’d consumed enough champagne to say what he was thinking. “We’d better keep up the old tradition if we expect to have a good new year.”

“What tradition is that?”

Griff let the champagne bottle fall to the sand at his feet, then took the two steps separating him from the woman in white. Curving one hand around her upper arm, he used the other to bracket her chin with his fingers and tilt her head to the perfect angle.

“This,” he said, and bent to kiss her.

She stiffened, but didn’t jerk away. Encouraged, he increased his pressure, molding their mouths more firmly together. She tasted cool and sweet, like ripe melon. After a moment, her generous lips softened, inviting him to explore their curves and the way his angles fit against them. Her hand fluttered to his shoulder and he slipped his arm around her waist. A heartbeat later, the tip of her tongue touched the edge of his upper lip.

The fireworks started up again, inside Griff this time. Desire exploded in his belly, flashed through his veins. He was breathless and light-headed and pumped up all at the same time. He could have kissed this woman forever.

And he didn’t even know her name.

The thought steadied him, allowed him to slow the kisses and return both of them to ground level. There were a couple of things they needed to get straight before taking off for wonderland…paradise…wherever she wanted to go.

“Who are you?” he murmured, loosening his arms and using one hand to brush her hair back from her face.

“Arden.” Her voice was as hushed as his. “Arden Burke.”

“I’m Griff Campbell.” He smiled at her. “Will you marry me?”



RENDERED SPEECHLESS, Arden stared into the shadowed face of the stranger she’d just kissed. Her mind reeled in delighted response to the feelings he’d stirred up, and in amazement at the fact she’d allowed him to touch her at all.

Finally, she found her voice. “Oh, of course. Right away.”

His eyes crinkled as he laughed. “Excellent. Let’s toast to our wedding.” He surveyed the sandy beach around their feet, then danced both of them sideways two steps to pick up the champagne he’d dropped. After polishing the mouth of the bottle with the hem of his gold-and-blue shirt, he extended it to her. “You first.”

Why not? Arden tilted back her head and poured a long stream of the wine down her throat. “Wonderful,” she said, handing back the bottle. “Your turn.”

He—Griff—tipped it in her direction. “To us.” Then he took his own drink, upending the bottle. She noticed he didn’t wipe off the mouth this time. “And a happier New Year.”

She walked beside him as he trudged toward a trash can at the top of the beach. “Amen.”

He might be drunk, but he was listening. “Has your year been unhappy?”

Arden expelled a short breath through her nose. “Some parts. Has yours?”

“I can’t remember a worse one.” He tossed the bottle into the can.

Neither could she, as a matter of fact. “What happened?”

Without answering, he headed back to the water’s edge. He’d linked his right hand with her left, so they walked side by side like a pair of lovers. His palm was surprisingly warm, dry and comfortable.

“I was supposed to get married six months ago—June fourth, to be exact. On June first, my fiancée and my best buddy since second grade informed me they were in love and she couldn’t go through with our wedding.”

“That would make for a bad year.” Arden glanced at him, but he was staring up, telling his story to a star. “What an awful thing to do to you.”

Griff nodded. “I thought so. We’d been engaged for two years. You’d think she could have figured it out before the week of the wedding.” Beneath the surface of his calm tone, pain roiled like an undertow.

Arden squeezed his hand. “Surely you didn’t wait six months to take a vacation.”

“Nope. I left that night and caught a fishing boat out of Tampa a few days later. I’ve been working my way through the islands ever since.”

“The new year is supposed to be a chance for a fresh start. Are you planning one?”

“Well, I’m going home tomorrow. Does that count?”

“And home is…?”

“Sheridan, Georgia, where they like to pretend the Civil War—hell, the whole second half of the nineteenth century—never happened.”

“You don’t sound exactly nostalgic.”

He shrugged. “It’s a nice place. Just…suffocating.”

“Why go back?”

“My boss, who also happens to be my dad, says he’ll replace me if I don’t show up this week.”

“So you have family who would like to see you home again.”

“Parents and three sisters, to begin with. But…” He drew a deep breath. “Zelda and Al are getting married on Valentine’s Day.”

“You still love her?”

“No. No, I’m over her. I think.”

Arden let the indecision pass. “But being there when everyone is celebrating will be hard.”

“You have a gift for understatement.” His grin flashed in her direction. “There will be a slew of parties. Half the town belongs to the country club, and everybody wants to host the happy couple, even if they’re only inviting the same people they saw at last weekend’s barbecue and last night’s open house.”

He stared into the distance, as if he could see all the way to Georgia. Darkness hid the color of his eyes, but she could appreciate the strong bone structure of his face, the cleft in his chin and the curls in the hair he obviously hadn’t cut for six months. He looked like a romantic poet. Arden found it hard to believe a woman would leave him for someone else.

Especially after he’d kissed her.

“Maybe you need some camouflage,” she said, trying to be helpful. “Another girlfriend to prove you’re over being left at the altar.”

Griff halted suddenly, as if he’d run into a brick wall. He wore a bemused, amazed expression. “A beautiful woman,” he said, in a wondering voice, “who I’m obviously in love with.”

Arden nodded, going along with the joke she’d started. “Definitely a plus. Do you have one of those?”

He ignored the question. “And who is obviously passionately in love with me.”

“That would certainly show them, wouldn’t it?”

Turning toward her, he drew her close, holding her hands against his chest. His eyes, black in the night, fixed on her face. “Would you be that woman? Could you be obviously, passionately, devotedly in love with me?” He kissed one set of her knuckles, and then the other.

The touch of his mouth set off thrills inside her—a fact both enticing and embarrassing. She was desperately tempted to do exactly what he asked.

But the idea was crazy, and she shouldn’t be so easy to sway. “I don’t think so, Griff. Sorry.”

His hands loosened and she pulled free, then began to walk south, away from him.

“But you said you’d marry me.” Having him behind her muffled the words.

Looking over her shoulder, she scowled at him. “How much champagne have you had tonight?”

“Two bottles, before the last one.” He came closer. “But that’s irrev-irrelevant.”

“It’s perfectly relevant. You’re too drunk to know what you’re saying.”

“Not true. And you said yes. ‘Right away,’ you said.”

“I didn’t mean it. You didn’t mean it, either.”

“I do now.”

She whirled to look at him. “You want me to marry you?”

“Well, actually, I’d like you to pretend to want to marry me. And I’ll pretend to want to marry you. We don’t have to do anything permanent.” His smile vanished. “I’m not planning on going through that hell again.”

Arden knew exactly how he felt. “But won’t people in your hometown want to throw all those same parties? Won’t they be expecting a wedding?”

“We won’t let it get that far. All we have to do is stay happy through Zelda and Al’s wedding. Then we’ll have a big fight, break up and never see each other again. It’s a brilliant plan.”

“It’s a ridiculous idea. I can’t pretend to be in love.” Though some people could, she’d discovered in the recent past.

“Am I so repulsive?”

He stood about ten feet away, swaying as if a stiff breeze might knock him down. Hearing the despair in his voice, Arden could barely keep from going over and demonstrating exactly how far from repulsive he was.

“You’re a very attractive man, Griff.” She wouldn’t do this. She couldn’t. “I just—”

Immediately, he stepped closer. “You don’t have time for an all-expenses-paid vacation in sunny Georgia?”

She had nothing but time. “That’s not the problem.”

“You’re already involved?”

“No.” She gave the word more emphasis than it deserved. “I have no demands on my time or…or my affections.”

“But you won’t do me this favor? I know it’ll take a couple months. Well, six weeks, anyway. Maybe seven. And then you’ll be free to come home. Would it be so bad to spend a little time on the mainland, eating good Southern food?”

“Of course not.” Trying to explain why this was a bad idea would expose too many scars she didn’t like to think about, let alone reveal to a stranger. “I simply…I don’t think…”

Once more he came close, laying his warm hands on her bare shoulders. Until that moment, Arden hadn’t realized how chilly she’d gotten in the late night breeze.

“Is there something you want or need, Arden? Something I can give you? I’m not filthy rich, but I could probably grant most reasonable requests. Jewelry?” He looked her up and down, then shook his head, because she wasn’t even wearing earrings. “Clothes? A car? Land? My family owns some nice property on the Georgia coast and in the mountains, up near Lake Lanier. Tell me what you want. Let’s see if somehow I can make it happen.”

Instead of looking at his all too tempting face, Arden stared down at the sand between her bare feet and his. An idea popped into her mind, burrowing up from somewhere deep in her subconscious, a suggestion so outrageous that he would no doubt turn her down immediately and walk out of her life without a glance backward.

And that was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it?

Lifting her head, Arden kept her face stern. “There is something I want, Griff. Something I think you could give me.”

His hands tightened on her upper arms. “Great. Just spare me two months of your life and I’ll do whatever it takes to make your dream come true.”

She hesitated again, then looked him in the eye. “What I want from you, Griff, is simple.

“I want a child.”



GRIFF’S BRAIN WOBBLED inside his skull. “What did you say?”

Arden’s gaze didn’t falter. “A child. I want you to make me pregnant.”

The champagne he’d been drinking nonstop kicked in at that moment, driving his mental wobble into a full-blown, three-hundred-sixty-degree tilt. With the world spinning, Griff stepped away, dropped heavily onto the sand, then collapsed backward to lie spread-eagle on the beach.

“Oh, man,” he groaned. “I drank too much. I’m having hallucinations.”

“You heard me correctly,” the serene voice said from high above him. “But if you’re not interested, I understand. Happy New Year.”

He opened his eyes and saw that she had turned to leave. “Wait.” Flailing a hand sideways, he managed to snag the hem of her dress between two fingers. “Don’t go.”

She could’ve pulled free with one step, but she didn’t.

So Griff tugged at the dress. “Sit down. I can’t talk to you way up there.”

To his surprise, she folded her lithe body into a compact package just out of his reach.

“Thanks.” He let his head drop back, and put an arm over his eyes. The whirling in his brain didn’t stop. “Let me see if I understand. You want me to marry you and make you pregnant?”

“No.”

“I thought—”

“I want a child. I don’t want a husband.”

That stopped him cold, and the gyrations in his head slowed down a little. “So…we’d be lovers?”

“Briefly. Until I got pregnant.” After a pause, she said, “I would, of course, stay until the, um, favor I’d be doing for you was completed.”

“Right.” His mind drifted back to the New Year’s kiss they’d shared. Powerful incentive, that kiss. He turned his head on the sand to look at her. “Then what?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Then I would come back here, to my home. And you would do whatever you plan to do after the wedding.”

There was a problem with that scenario, but he was having trouble chasing down the specifics. A man would have to be made of stone if he failed to react to the sight of Arden Burke on the beach beside him, with hair like a fringe of black silk along her jawline, her skin as smooth and creamy as magnolia blossoms and her lips the color of a rosy dawn. She was slender but not shapeless, as revealed by the low neck of her dress and the curves of her calves and ankles.

Griff was not made of stone. In fact, at this moment his blood surged through him like waves of liquid metal—iron, maybe, heated to its boiling point, burning from the inside out.

And he was getting dizzier by the minute, sleepier by the second. “It’s a deal,” he said with a yawn. “We’ll leave in the morning.” With the decision made, he rolled onto his side, pillowed his head on his arm and gave in to sleep.



ARDEN GOT TO HER FEET and stood surveying the man snoring in the sand. It would serve him right if she left him there to spend the rest of the night. He’d be miserable enough. And that was before the crabs started to nibble.

She actually walked away, getting as far as the sea grass on the primary dunes. There, she stopped to look back.

He could hardly be seen in the darkness, just a long shape that might be a piece of driftwood or a mass of seaweed. He’d get five hours of sleep before the sun rose. As drunk as he was, he wouldn’t even remember what he’d offered, what she’d said…what they’d agreed to do. And that was for the best.

So why was she going back to him? Why should she care what happened to this stranger on the shore?

He’d turned onto his back again. Kneeling beside him, she studied the strong face and neck, the muscled shoulders and chest, the narrow waist and hips and really, really great calves. Not many men had such slim, straight legs. His tan testified to six months in the Caribbean sun and his hair, probably a light brown in Georgia, was a tangle of gold and silver waves. He would make beautiful babies.

Or maybe not. Arden shook her head at her own foolishness. Maybe he was sterile. She should have him take a fertility test, not to mention other important examinations, before she committed to sex with a man about whom she knew nothing at all.

A sudden ache constricted her chest and throat. Her own ability to conceive wasn’t in question. She knew she could make a baby. But could she carry it full term this time?

Shaking her head again, she got to her feet. Whatever she decided tomorrow, whatever Griff did or didn’t remember, she couldn’t let him spend the night on the beach.

Too bad she didn’t have the violin handy. She could make some pretty awful noises, enough to wake the dead, let alone the drunk. Her music was yet another loss she’d dealt with during this last year.

So she kicked him. With the side of her bare foot, again, and again. Not hard enough to hurt, just enough to irritate him thoroughly. After an amazing amount of abuse, Griff woke up, swearing and yelling even after he recognized her. He fell when she tried to help him up, and during their climb across the beach toward the dunes.

“How far?” he panted, as they stepped onto the path leading inland. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Not far. No.” She barely found the breath to speak. He was leaning on her, his arm over her shoulders, and she felt as if she was bearing at least half his weight. “Just put one foot in front of the other.” That was the most she could manage at this point.

As live oak trees started closing in overhead, the darkness became complete. All she could see was a swath of white sand leading into the jungle. Had she gotten them lost?

No. With relief, she saw the side trail branching off to the left and the signpost for the cottage.

“A few more minutes,” she told Griff. “And we’ll be home.”

Home was a small stucco bungalow in a clearing within the dense grove of trees—one bedroom and one bath under a red tile roof. She’d left the porch light on during her walk to watch the fireworks. The yellow glimmer guided her back.

Griff straightened up as he saw it, and blew out a deep breath. “I was beginning to wonder if you were planning to maroon me in the wilderness.”

She slipped out from under his arm and stepped up to open the door to the screened porch. “I will, if you don’t behave.”

He followed her inside. “I hear you.” Then he swayed and yawned at the same time. “At this point, I’m too incapacitated to make trouble for anybody.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Arden pushed open the door into the house, then gasped as a furry shadow raced past her.

In the next instant, Igor pinned Griff Campbell against the wall.