First Comes Baby...: The Loner's Guarded Heart by Michelle Douglas

dropped back and her lips parted and her eyes glazed with desire.
    His mouth dried as he imagined slipping the buttons free and easing that blouse from her shoulders, gazing at those magnificent breasts in the sun and dipping his head to—
    He snapped away. Oh, hell! That was Meg he was staring at, lusting after.
    He raked both hands back through his hair and paced, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the ground in front of him. Jet lag—that had to be it. Plus his brain was addled and emotions were running high after the conversation they’d had.
    And she was pregnant with his child. Surely it was only natural he’d see her differently? He swallowed and kept pacing. Once he’d sorted it all out in his head, worked out what he was going to do, things would return to normal again. His hands unclenched, his breathing eased. Of course it would.
    He came back to himself to find her shaking his arm. ‘You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you? What’s wrong?’
    Her lips looked plump and full and oh-so-kissable. He swallowed. ‘I...uh...’ They were measuring the back yard. That was right. ‘Where are we going to find enough people to fill this tent of yours?’
    ‘Marquee,’ she corrected. ‘And I’m going to need your help on that one.’
    His help. Focus on that—not on the way her bottom lip curves or the neckline of her shirt or —
    Keep your eyes above her neck !
    ‘Help?’ he croaked, suddenly parched.
    ‘I want you to get the names of ten people Elsie would like to invite to the wedding.’
    That snapped him to. ‘Me?’
    ‘I’ll do the same for my father. I mean to invite some of my friends, along with the entire street. Let me know if there’s anyone you’d like to invite too.’
    ‘Dave Clements,’ he said automatically. Dave had thrown Ben a lifeline when he’d most needed one. It would be great to catch up with him.
    But then he focused on Meg’s order again. Ten names from Elsie? She had to be joking right? ‘Does she even know ten people?’
    ‘She must do. She goes to Housie one afternoon a week.’
    She did?
    ‘Who knows? She might like to invite her chiropodist.’
    Elsie had a chiropodist?
    ‘But how am I going to get her to give me two names let alone ten?’ He and his grandmother could barely manage a conversation about the weather, let alone anything more personal.
    ‘That’s your problem. You’re supposed to be resourceful, aren’t you? What do you do if wild hyenas invade your camp in Africa? Or if your rope starts to unravel when you’re rock-climbing? Or your canoe overturns when you’re white-water rafting? This should be a piece of cake in comparison.’
    Piece of cake, his—
    ‘Besides, I’m kicking you out of my spare room, so I expect you’ll have plenty of time to work on her.’
    He gaped at her. ‘You’re not going to let me stay?’
    ‘Your place is over there.’ She pointed across the fence. ‘For heaven’s sake, Ben, she’s giving that house to you.’
    ‘I don’t want it.’
    ‘Then you’d better find a more gracious way of refusing it than that.’
    She stood there with hands on hips, eyes flashing, magnificent in the sunlight, and it suddenly occurred to him that moving out of her spare bedroom might be a very good plan. At least until his body clock adjusted.
    She must have read the capitulation in his face because her shoulders lost their combativeness. She clasped her hands together and her gaze slid away. He wondered what she was up to now.
    ‘I...um...’ She glanced up at him again and swallowed. ‘I want to ask you something, but I’m afraid it might offend you—which isn’t my intention at all.’
    He shrugged. ‘Ask away, Meg.’
    She bent down and pretended to study a nearby rosebush. He knew it was a pretence because he knew Meg. She glanced at him and then back at the rosebush. ‘We’re friends, right? Best friends. So that means it’s okay to ask each other personal questions, don’t you think?’
    His curiosity