A Proposal for the Officer Read online

  She was used to flying solo...

  But that was before Kaleb came on board!

  Temporarily grounded combat pilot Molly Markham didn’t come to Sugar Falls to get serious about a man she barely knows! But when Kaleb Chatterson becomes her unexpected hero, she agrees to date the billionaire software developer to keep their secret from getting out. Except the sexy brainiac—and her pretend boyfriend—is fast turning into the man of her dreams...

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Now, now. Is that any way to greet the man you’re dating?”

  Molly’s reflexes shot to life and she whispered, “Get in here,” before snatching the front of his T-shirt and yanking him inside.

  The problem came when she didn’t sidestep quickly enough and the solid, muscular wall of Kaleb’s chest crashed into her, forcing him to wrap an arm around her to steady them both. The cotton of his shirt was soft and worn under her fingers, and when she took a steadying breath, she inhaled the lemon-and-cedar scent of his soap.

  He wiggled his eyebrows and said, “This greeting’s more like it.”

  “Huh?” His hand slid lower until it cupped the rounding curve just below her waistband, and her palms instinctively moved up over his pecs toward his wide shoulders.

  “I said, this greeting is more like one I would expect from my girlfriend.”

  * * *

  AMERICAN HEROES:

  They’re coming home—and finding love!

  Dear Reader,

  I have a close friend who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a juvenile. When I first met her, I was in college and had heard of the condition before, but hadn’t actually known anyone who dealt with it on a daily basis. While I was fascinated with the concept of finger pricks and blood sugar readings and insulin shots, I never fully processed the impact it had on a person’s life until I began writing A Proposal for the Officer.

  In this book, air force captain Molly Markham doesn’t get diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic until she’s an adult, which throws her military career as a pilot and her lifestyle completely off course. Meeting know-it-all billionaire Kaleb Chatterson doesn’t help things go any smoother.

  Doing the research for this book, I realized how much this condition can take a toll on one’s physical and mental health. While I understand that each person’s journey with diabetes is different, I hope that my portrayal of it in this book is reflected accurately. Any mistakes I made in conveying my research are mine alone.

  For more information on my other books in the Sugar Falls, Idaho series, visit my website at christyjeffries.com, or chat with me on Twitter, @ChristyJeffries. You can also find me on Facebook, Facebook.com/authorchristyjeffries, and Instagram, Instagram.com/christy_jeffries. I’d love to hear from you!

  Enjoy,

  Christy Jeffries

  A Proposal for the Officer

  Christy Jeffries

  Christy Jeffries graduated from the University of California, Irvine, with a degree in criminology, and received her Juris Doctor from California Western School of Law. But drafting court documents and working in law enforcement was merely an apprenticeship for her current career in the dynamic field of mommyhood and romance writing. She lives in Southern California with her patient husband, two energetic sons and one sassy grandmother. Follow her online at christyjeffries.com.

  Books by Christy Jeffries

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Sugar Falls, Idaho

  A Family Under the Stars

  The Makeover Prescription

  The Matchmaking Twins

  From Dare to Due Date

  Waking Up Wed

  A Marine for His Mom

  Visit the Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com.

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  To Brooklyn Bender, one of my best friends and a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Boston, Top Gun, hockey, New Kids On The Block and type 1 diabetes. Thank you for answering my endless questions. You’re never stingy when it comes to giving me feedback, constructive or otherwise. IAJS.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Best Man Takes a Bride by Stacy Connelly

  Chapter One

  Leaning against a stack of cases of bottled water, Captain Molly Markham put a hand to her head as nausea overwhelmed her. Closing her eyes for a second, she debated whether or not she was at risk of passing out right there in the middle of Duncan’s Market. She grabbed a liter of water off the shelf, unscrewed the cap and took a big swig. Her mouth was dry and suddenly her body felt weighted down.

  Oh, no. It was happening again.

  She’d sworn to the Bureau of Personnel reviewing her medical board that she could keep these episodes under control, but apparently they’d been right to doubt her.

  Molly heaved herself off the tower of water and put one foot in front of the other, needing to get as far away from the curious glances of the shoppers who were sure to know her sister, Maxine, and would be only too eager to ask Maxine about her little sister’s “incident” out in public.

  She needed space and she needed to think. Maybe somewhere to lie down, too. Like her rental car. She grabbed another bottle and made it to the exit before she realized she’d left her purse back in the grocery basket. Damn. She also hadn’t paid for the water.

  When she did a one-eighty, her hip banged into a giant bag of ice. Or was it a bag of limes? A man dropped both as he reached out a hand to steady her.

  That was gonna leave a bruise. The ice, not the guy’s hand. His grip was actually gentle and balanced her. His black framed glasses made him look smart, serious. Maybe he was a doctor. Or a reporter.

  He kind of had a Clark Kent vibe going for him. At least from the neck up. She took in his blue hooded sweatshirt and checkered canvas sneakers. Maybe The Daily Planet had sent him to do an undercover exposé of a nearby skate park.

  “Are you okay?” He enunciated like a record player on a low speed. Or was it her hearing that was set to slow motion? It felt like someone had replaced her brain with hot, heavy sand. She licked her lips.

  “Of course I’m okay. At least, I think I am.” Molly lowered her own voice when she noticed the cashier staring in their direction. “By any chance, do you know how many carbs are in a fruit smoothie?”

  His straight white teeth were visible beneath his smirk. “Probably a lot more than the ones in that peach muffin you gobbled down back by the juice bar thirty minutes ago.”

  “Oh, crap.” It was good thing he was holding on to her arm because trying to mentally calculate how much sugar she’d recently ingested made her want to sink to her knees. “The teenager behind the counter said they were organic.”

  “You mean the kid who also told you the baked goods on display were half price since they’d been sitting out since this morning and it was now late afternoon?”

>   Wait. How did this guy know what she’d talked about with the store employee? “Have you been following me?”

  “No. I was sitting at that wrought iron table in the back of the store, trying to answer some work emails, but a bunch of clanging drew my attention to the display of soup cans at the end of an aisle. You were stocking up on the minestrone as though a blizzard had just been predicted.” He tapped something on his watch and showed her the sunshine icon on the tiny display screen. “It hasn’t, by the way. But then I saw you again when you were slouching against your shopping cart in the freezer section where you almost took out a display of ice-cream cones. Are you going to be sick or something?”

  She didn’t feel any less confused after that description of her sluggish attempts to make her way through the store. Or dizzy. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on,” he said, and moved his hand to the small of her back. “There’s a bench right outside and you can sit down.”

  “I need my purse,” she said. You also needed to use the restroom, her bladder said.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  The guy looked familiar, but his non-military-regulation hairstyle eliminated him as someone she’d served with. Molly had only been in Sugar Falls a few hours, yet her gut told her this man wasn’t a local, either. Of course, she’d also been pretty convinced that anything with fruit in it was healthy so perhaps she shouldn’t be so quick to listen to her instincts.

  Who are you? she wanted to know. But she didn’t exactly have time for formal introductions. Instead, she replied, “Back by the bottled water.”

  “Okay, stay here,” he ordered as he sprinted away. Yeah, right. Molly wasn’t about to stand around and wait. She weaved toward the parking lot, her only plan to get to the safe privacy of her rental car.

  Her feet had barely hit the pavement when the Good Samaritan jogged up beside her, her very feminine tote bag swinging from his very masculine shoulder. “Should I call someone?”

  “No,” Molly said, her eyelids widening in frustration despite the fact that she wanted to close them and take a nap. “I don’t want anyone to know.”

  “To know what?”

  She clamped her teeth together, wishing she would’ve done so sooner to keep those telling words from slipping out.

  “Never mind.” She pulled the key fob out of her pocket. “The little white Toyota over there is mine.”

  “I seriously doubt you should be driving right now.”

  “I’ve got it,” she ground out, despite the fact that she was practically leaning against him as he steered her toward the passenger side of her rental car. She collapsed down on the seat as soon as he got the door open, then she began digging in her purse.

  Another wave of nausea tumbled through her as she unzipped a small black case. Ignoring the man’s raised brows, she turned on the little machine, inserted a fresh test strip and pricked her finger. It took all of her focus to press the droplet of blood to the litmus paper. There was a series of beeps before the dinging alarm signaled that her glucose level was way too high. Stupid smoothie. And muffin. She should’ve known better. And she would have, if she hadn’t been so starving after dropping her nephew off at baseball practice. She’d thought she’d been so smart, swinging by the market to pick up real groceries instead of grabbing a Snickers at the Little League snack bar while she waited.

  It seemed to take hours for her to dial the correct dose on her insulin pen.

  “What are you doing?” The panic in his voice probably matched the horror in his eyes. But Molly didn’t have the energy to explain. She pulled up the hem of her shirt, not caring that she was exposing herself to the poor man. She could administer the shot in her arms or thighs, but the doctor said it would get into her system a lot quicker if she injected it into her stomach. She didn’t even feel the sting of the needle and could only hope she’d landed it into the right spot before depressing the plunger.

  “Lady, I really think we need to call an ambulance,” he said, his once-calm voice now sounding about as shaky as her nerve endings felt.

  “I’ll be good as new in a second.” She made a circle with her finger and her thumb in the universal signal for A-OK. “The insulin will help even everything out.”

  He kneeled on the pavement next to her, and she heard the hearty exhale of breath leaving his mouth. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

  “I’m feeling better already.” And it was true. She was. But Molly knew from the last time her blood sugar had spiked like this, it would take a little while to return to normal. She looked at the pulse jumping inside his neck and felt a wave of guilt wash over her. If this was how a complete stranger reacted to her hyperglycemia attack, how would her sister react? Or the rest of her family?

  “Sorry for scaring you,” she added, more resolved than ever to keep her recent diagnosis a secret. “I would’ve been fine on my own.”

  “You sure didn’t look fine.” His head slumped back against the open car door behind him, then he scrubbed a hand over his lower face. A handsome face actually. The trendy glasses made him look scholarly, but the square jawline made him look determined. Like he wasn’t willing to leave her alone until he knew all the answers. “Does that happen often?”

  Molly wished she knew. It wasn’t like the time she got chicken pox, the itchy red scabs on her torso a constant reminder that she was sick. Curbing her sugar intake was tough enough, but remembering to stay on top of her glucose levels was even trickier since most of the time she felt perfectly fine. As a pilot, Molly had to be “combat ready” at all times. Sometimes she was on duty for twenty-four to forty-eight hours straight, which meant there was no way to ensure that she could eat on a certain schedule to maintain her insulin coverage. The military wasn’t going risk both a multi-million-dollar plane and the flight crew because the pilot had hypoglycemia. Everything was still so unpredictable when it came to the disease she’d officially been diagnosed with over a month ago. According to the specialists, that unpredictability meant she could no longer do the only thing she loved.

  She drew in a ragged breath and shrugged. “I’m still new to the wonderful world of diabetes.”

  “Wait. Why would you eat that much sugar if you’re diabetic?” His expression looked the same as if he’d just asked, Why in the world would you pull the pin out of that perfectly good grenade?

  “Because the guy behind the counter said it was healthy.”

  “And you take nutritional advice from a kid who isn’t even old enough to shave?”

  Kid! The realization made her scalp tingle and she felt her eyelids stretching wide-open. She was officially the worst babysitter in the world.

  “I need to get to the ballpark. Now.”

  * * *

  “Lady, you’re in no shape to be driving right now, let alone playing ball.” Kaleb Chatterson adjusted his glasses while slipping the car key he still held into the front pocket of his hoodie. Normally, he had an army of assistants and interns he could’ve sent to the local grocery store to pick up the ingredients for his dad’s margaritas. But he’d needed a break from his parents’ nosy questions about his social life and his brothers’ incessant teasing about the lack of one.

  Coming to the aid of some strange woman in the middle of a medical crisis wasn’t exactly what he’d anticipated when he’d volunteered for the errand.

  “I’m not the one playing.” She rolled her eyes, which were a deep shade of blue. “My nephew is. I’m supposed to pick him up from baseball practice at 1630.”

  Kaleb noted her use of military time and filed that nugget of information in the back of his mind. “How long does it usually take for you to recover from one of these, um, episodes?”

  “Well, last time it took a couple of hours, but I got the insulin dose sooner this time so half that, maybe?”

  Kaleb’s stomach balled into a knot. He’
d once had a crate of antibacterial hand sanitizer delivered to the office when several employees came down with a minor cold. He didn’t do sickness or injuries or anything that might hint at the human body’s susceptibility to disease. He most assuredly was not the person to go to in a medical crisis. And while it seemed as though the lady now had a decent handle on her situation, he would feel a lot more at ease if they had a second opinion. “Listen, my brother’s fiancée is a doctor. Let me call her and she can drive over and check you out.”

  Or check him out. Luckily, his adrenaline was pumping his blood around so hard he wasn’t likely to faint. Hopefully. He stayed squatted down, close to the ground. Just in case.

  “No way. Especially not here where everyone in town would see me.”

  He eyed the barcode sticker on the rear window of her car, a sure sign that it was a rental. “Are you a local?”

  “God, no. I’m just in town visiting my sister and her family. What about you?”

  “I’m from Seattle. So if you’re not from here, what does it matter if someone sees you?”

  “Long story and I’m about to be late.” She pulled up her blousy sleeve and looked at the sturdy chronograph watch. Her hand and forearm were equally tan, but a thin line of skin around her ring finger was strikingly white.

  Telling himself that he wasn’t one of his comic-book heroes and the lady beside him probably wouldn’t like being considered a damsel in distress, Kaleb did what he always did when he was out of his league. He pulled out his phone, tapped on the voice to text feature and spoke into the speaker. “Angela, find out how to recover from low blood sugar.”

  “High blood sugar,” the woman corrected him. Yeah, that made more sense considering how much she ate at once.

  “Make that high blood sugar,” he said into the phone, then nodded toward her lap. “Would you mind putting that thing away?”

  “What, this?” She lifted up the object and Kaleb felt the color drain out of his face. “It’s just a needle. You’re not afraid of it, are you?”