The Marine's Baby Blues Read online

  Only Tanner’s quick reaction kept Addie from falling all the way in when he grabbed her with both hands.

  Both big hands that pulled her up and set her back on her feet.

  And then stayed around her waist.

  Great big hands that she could feel the strength of.

  Great big hands that for some odd reason caused goose bumps to erupt on the surface of her arms.

  And made her miss them when he finally took them away...

  “Okay, it’s probably better if we don’t talk about any of this stuff so I can concentrate on what I’m doing,” she said, looking up at that handsome face just above her.

  Tanner nodded again, his extraordinary blue eyes peering into hers with what looked to be understanding.

  And something else that she couldn’t decipher.

  It wasn’t pity. Not at all.

  In fact, it was kind of...a man-woman thing...

  * * *

  THE CAMDENS OF MONTANA: Four military brothers falling in love in Big Sky Country!

  Dear Reader,

  We’re back in Merritt, Montana, where Addie Markham has had a rough year and a half. She’s lost her mother, father and sister, become the guardian to her newborn niece, Poppy, and now she’s been left at the altar. When marine Tanner Camden shows up claiming he may be Poppy’s father, it’s the last blow.

  Tough marine Tanner has discovered the one thing that terrifies him—the possibility that he’s a father. But, determined to do the right thing if he is, he makes a deal with Addie to trade his handyman skills for caregiving lessons. In the process, the two—who begin at odds—find common ground that leads to an overwhelming attraction to each other.

  But if Tanner proves to be Poppy’s dad, that means he’ll take away the only family Addie has now—the baby she loves.

  Is Tanner tough enough to do that to her? Or are his feelings for her stronger? We’ll see...

  Happy reading,

  Victoria Pade

  The Marine’s Baby Blues

  Victoria Pade

  Victoria Pade is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe.

  For information about her latest and upcoming releases, visit Victoria Pade on Facebook—she would love to hear from you.

  Books by Victoria Pade

  Harlequin Special Edition

  The Camdens of Montana

  The Marine Makes Amends

  Camden Family Secrets

  The Marine Makes His Match

  AWOL Bride

  Special Forces Father

  The Marine’s Family Mission

  The Camdens of Colorado

  A Camden’s Baby Secret

  Abby, Get Your Groom

  A Sweetheart for the Single Dad

  Her Baby and Her Beau

  To Catch a Camden

  A Camden Family Wedding

  Montana Mavericks: Rust Creek Cowboys

  The Maverick’s Christmas Baby

  Montana Mavericks: Striking It Rich

  A Family for the Holidays

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Excerpt from Country Proud by Linda Lael Miller

  Excerpt from The Rancher’s Forever Family by Sasha Summers

  Chapter One

  “Please, please, please stop apologizing, Gloria. It was not your fault!” Addie Markham said to her late mother’s best friend, one please added for each of Gloria’s so-sorrys today alone.

  “But it was me who recommended Stephanie—”

  “Because at the time you were doing a good deed for her and for me. And I appreciated it, and that does not make you responsible for the way things turned out. What’s done is done. Let’s put it behind us,” Addie begged of the woman she’d always liked and thought highly of.

  Putting this latest bombshell behind her was something Addie was eager to do.

  It had been six days since she’d been left at the altar. The original plan had been for Addie and fiancé Sean Barkley to have a Sunday afternoon ceremony and reception in the lovely backyard garden that Gloria had offered as the wedding site.

  From there they were to spend their wedding night at the bed-and-breakfast in their small Montana hometown of Merritt. Monday and Tuesday they planned to return wedding paraphernalia and clean up Gloria’s yard so it would be in the same shape they’d found it, and leave on Wednesday for their honeymoon.

  Best-laid plans. Instead, here Addie was on the following Saturday afternoon, unmarried and on her own.

  Sean had taken off on “their” honeymoon without her. And since Addie felt strongly that it wasn’t fair to make Gloria suffer any more inconveniences, all post-wedding duties had landed on Addie alone. Along with the task of packing up her infant niece Poppy’s things and hers to move out of Sean’s apartment and into her late grandmother’s house before Sean returned tomorrow.

  With Addie’s closest friend, Kelly, signed on to babysit Poppy until Addie could get her head above water, she’d spent the first post-wedding day returning rental chairs and tables that she would otherwise have been charged a late fee for, and dealing with all the uneaten reception food.

  But after that she’d needed to accept Gloria’s patience so she could switch her attention to her grandmother’s old house that was sorely in need of a complete overhaul.

  Since Tuesday Addie had been working at clearing cobwebs and cleaning. She’d gotten one of the house’s two bathrooms in operating order, either repaired or replaced kitchen appliances and the water heater, and begun to deal with the lead paint that needed to be encapsulated in order to make the house safe for the two-and-a-half month old she was now guardian of.

  So far she hadn’t been able to repaint more than the room she’d designated as the nursery, and wanting to make the nursery less dismal than the rest of the house, she’d also put a little time into decorating it.

  Now Addie was concentrating on the wedding gifts. They would all have to be returned, but until she found the time for that, she was transferring them from Gloria’s place to the house.

  Gloria’s arthritis had forced her to agree not to do any of the post-wedding work herself and she was being very understanding of Addie’s inability to do everything immediately, but Addie knew it was an imposition to have the presents piled in the older woman’s living room. It was bad enough that she hadn’t yet been able to put the yard completely back in order; she wanted her mother’s friend to at least have things out of the way inside.

  What Gloria was insisting on helping with today, though, was to load Addie’s small sedan, stringing one apology after another along the way and prompting Addie to beg her to stop.

  They returned to the house where Addie picked up as many gift boxes as she could carry and Gloria took a large unwrapped silver tray as they retraced their steps outside.

  “This is just a minor setback for you,” the older woman said along the way. “You’ll find someone even better than Sean, just wait and see.”

  Oh no, on to the pity part, Addie thought, hating that. Sympathy was one thing—there had been a lot of that during the last year, first over the death of her dad, then her mom, then Della. For the most part that had been comforting, supportive, helpful.

  But pity was something else altogether. It made her seem pathetically weak and helpless. And she wasn’t weak or helpless, and she certainly didn’t want to be considered pathetic.

  So she didn’t say anything in response to Gloria’s assurance, merely continuing to load the boxes into her back seat.

  Once she had, she turned to take the tray from Gloria. But rather than handing it over and stepping back, Gloria held it up like a mirror and said, “Just look at you—new men will be clamoring after you.”

  Cornered in the L of the car’s open door by the older woman, Addie couldn’t escape her own reflection.

  And the image that stared back at her was evidence enough that Gloria was just being kind. Addie could see for herself that she looked the worse for wear.

  She’d been too swamped to put any effort into her auburn hair since the wedding that wasn’t. Beyond shampooing it and brushing out the below-her-shoulders mass, she’d merely caught it all straight back into a serviceable ponytail.

  There was almost no color in her face and since she’d eaten very little this week, her cheeks had taken a slight dip.

  The brown eyes that had been voted Best Eyes by her high school senior class seemed unspectacular to her without liner or mascara, and while her lips were a natural mauve, she judged them blah now, too. Especially adorned with nothing but colorless lip balm.

  Adding to it the fact that she’d always wished she was taller than her five-foot-three-inch height, and did not have what anyone would consider a voluptuous chest, she was all the more convinced that Gloria was
merely trying to boost her morale with exaggeration. Her mother’s friend was still at it. “You’ve grown up to be the prettiest of all the Markhams. If I’d looked like you do at your age...the fun I would have had... A natural beauty, that’s what you are. And other men will take notice. Just be prepared!”

  “I don’t really want them to,” Addie said honestly. “I was with Sean before Poppy came along, but now that he’s out of the picture I need to focus on her, on being her mom, on the little family she and I are now. The only family I have. It’s going to be a long time before I let anyone else into that—for her sake and for mine.”

  Addie was wearing an old pair of torn jeans and a white tank top that she’d covered with a striped shirt until the heat of the June day and all the moving had made her too hot. Now the shirt was tied around her waist and, as if to give her statement more oomph, she pulled on the ends of the knot to tighten it.

  “I know that’s how you feel because you’ve been so horribly hurt,” Gloria said with more of that commiseration Addie hated so much. “But you’ll change your mind. I promise you will. When the right man comes along—”

  Right or wrong, a man did come along just as those words left Gloria’s mouth.

  Or at least a man in a big white pickup truck pulled into the curb behind Addie’s car and directly in front of Gloria’s house.

  The attention of both women was drawn in that direction by his arrival.

  “Someone to see you?” Addie asked Gloria because she didn’t immediately recognize the man behind the wheel. But he’d pulled up so close to her rear bumper that he seemed to be joining them, and anything or anyone who could put an end to this conversation was welcome as far as she was concerned.

  “I don’t know who that is...” Gloria said, sounding as clueless as Addie was.

  The truck door opened then and out climbed the driver.

  Who was one heck of a man...

  He was well over six feet tall—probably four inches over—and dressed in military boots, camo pants and a tan crewneck T-shirt that also looked military-issue but fitted him like a second skin.

  It crossed Addie’s mind that maybe T-shirts weren’t made large enough to be any looser on him, because his shoulders were a mile wide, his chest was as broad and muscular as they came, and his biceps were enormous works of art.

  His remarkable torso did shrink down to a narrow waist and hips, only to show more muscles in thick thighs.

  “Hubba-hubba,” she heard Gloria whisper, making Addie realize that she’d taken in the body before the face. She adjusted her view upward.

  Only to agree with the older woman’s dated assessment.

  Because the man’s face was enough to make her eyes widen.

  Precision-cut short dark-brown-almost-black hair framed a square-ish forehead with full eyebrows arched over eyes that were a unique blue.

  A piercing, penetrating cobalt blue that gave Addie her first inkling of who the man was, because the only eyes she’d ever seen like that belonged to the Camdens.

  But which Camden was he?

  Not the oldest, Micah, who had returned to Merritt several months ago to start a small batch brewery. Addie had run into him in town numerous times. So this had to be one of the triplets.

  One of the triplets who—like his older brother only better—had grown into a staggeringly handsome man with a somewhat narrow, very straight nose; a not-too-full, not-too-thin mouth that gave nothing of his emotions away; and an all-round bone structure that chiseled his cheekbones and his cleanly-shaven jawline into starkly masculine and undeniably gorgeous angles.

  “Are you Addie Markham?” he asked, his focus steadfastly on her, his voice as deep and commanding as his body was impressive.

  What now? was her first thought because so much had been thrown at her in the last year that she’d begun to instinctively expect the worst.

  But denying who she was wouldn’t help, so she said, “I am.”

  And then logical reasoning kicked in. If this guy was one of the Camden triplets stopping to talk to her, it was likely Della’s old high school sweetheart looking to give condolences.

  She relaxed.

  “Tanner Camden?” she guessed as he strode purposefully from the side of his truck toward Addie and Gloria—who had stepped far enough away to free Addie from being cornered and was also facing their new arrival.

  He nodded just once to confirm his identity.

  “Oh, that’s right, I heard you were home for a visit,” Gloria said then.

  In all the turmoil of her wedding that wasn’t, Addie hadn’t heard that.

  Gloria’s comment drew his glance to the other woman, though. “Miss Gloria,” he greeted. “How’ve you been?”

  Gloria giggled like a girl and skipped the list of health problems she usually told everyone about, to say in a vaguely coquettish voice, “I’m just dandy.”

  “Happy to hear that,” he said politely before putting on just a little charm to say, “Could I ask a favor of you? Do you think I might talk to Addie alone?”

  “Oh, of course!” the older woman said, partly as if she was eager to please him, and partly with more of the compassionate tone that made Addie think Gloria had come to the same conclusion—that Tanner was there to express his sympathies for Della’s death.

  Then, to Addie, she said, “I’ll just be inside, honey.”

  Addie nodded and slid her gaze back onto Tanner, whom she hadn’t seen since she was eleven—when he’d still just been a reedy seventeen-going-on-eighteen-year-old whose skin hadn’t yet cleared and who hadn’t been any sort of preview at all of the man he’d turned into.

  Despite Addie’s attention being on him again, he continued to watch Gloria until she reached her front door and went inside. Which seemed odd to Addie, because in all of the condolences for her father, her mother and Della, no one had needed privacy to convey them.

  But only when he knew the older woman was well out of earshot did he refocus on Addie.

  “You’ve been two steps ahead of me for a couple of days.”

  “I have?” she said, surprised that he might have been so actively looking for her. She’d been thinking that he must have just driven by Gloria’s house on his way to somewhere else, spotted her and decided to stop.

  “I’ve needed to talk to you, but for some reason no one is too sure where you’re living. I was told you’d been living with some guy, that I could check there, but every time I went to the apartment there was no answer. Then someone said you might be in an old house that I think used to belong to your grandmother. But that place doesn’t look livable, so I wasn’t surprised when you weren’t there—”

  “It’s been a busy week,” Addie said without explanation.

  “Somebody finally told me you might be staying with a friend, so I went there today, and she told me you’d either be at the apartment I’ve been going to or the old house or here. So I went back to the other two places, and finally, here you are.”

  Apparently he hadn’t wanted to contact her by phone?

  And had he been so diligently searching for her just to give condolences? Or was there more to it?

  Maybe he was looking for some memento of Della to remember her by?

  But with the way things between them had ended, Addie thought that seemed a little far-fetched. Unless he wanted something of his that Della had kept, something that Addie hadn’t realized was his when she’d gone through the stuff her sister had left behind. Which might be a problem if Addie had thrown it away...

  “Well, you’ve found me,” she said, hoping he would get to whatever he was after so she could finish all she still needed to do.

  “I understand Della...passed away,” he said more solemnly then, searching for the least disturbing euphemism like so many had before him.

  “Two and a half months ago,” Addie answered quietly. Even anticipating this didn’t make it easy for her to talk about her late sister.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard.”

  “It was unexpected...a shock all the way around...” Because while Della might have been almost six and a half years older than Addie’s twenty-seven, she’d still been young and healthy and at no risk in having Poppy. Until her blood pressure had spiked during delivery and a previously undiagnosed aneurysm in her heart had taken her life.