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Right by Her Side
Christie Ridgway
The news that he was going to be a dad shocked the heck out of sexy executive Trent Crosby! Having had enough of deceptive women in his lifetime, he had his doubts about Rebecca Holley, the "mother" of his child.But when the beautiful nurse who'd accidentally received his sperm refused to negotiate a deal, Trent found himself proposing a marriage of convenience.Before long, the love-weary businessman was rushing home to be by Rebecca's side…and to hold her in his arms. Then tragedy struck and Trent knew just what it would take to make his life complete–Rebecca as his truly lawfully wedded wife. Before it was too late, he had to convince her that his days of doubting were over!
“I have to be honest and up front about this pregnancy, Trent. You need to understand that I will never, ever give up my baby. I want you to give me sole custody.”
While he’d known that was what Rebecca was after, it made him almost angry to hear her say it. “Am I such a bad guy?”
Her gaze dropped. “You’re not a bad guy, no.” Color stained her cheeks and she pressed her lips together.
It made him think of the kiss they’d shared earlier. That surprising burst of heat. Maybe he would be better off distancing himself permanently from her. From the baby.
But he couldn’t! Memories slammed into him from all sides. Chubby cheeks, little fingers, hero worship. He couldn’t lose another child. He couldn’t.
“I have to be honest, too,” he said. “I can’t just walk away, Rebecca. Besides, our baby should have a mother and a father in its life. Full-time.”
Rebecca shrugged. “That’s ideal, but not a necessity.”
“Well, maybe we should get married.”
CHRISTIE RIDGWAY
A native Californian, Christie started reading and writing romances in middle school. It wasn’t until she was the wife of her college sweetheart and the mother of two small sons that she submitted her work for publication. Many contemporary romances later, she is happiest when telling her stories despite the splash of kids in the pool, the mass of cups and plates in the kitchen and the many commitments she makes in the world beyond her desk.
Besides loving the men in her life and her dream-come-true job, she continues her longtime love affair with reading and is never without a stack of books. You can find out more about Christie at her Web site, www.christieridgway.com.
Usa Today Bestselling Author
Right by Her Side
Christie Ridgway
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Be a part of
Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.
She is pregnant with his baby, and when he learns of his impending fatherhood, he proposes a marriage of convenience.
Will love enter the bargain?
Trent Crosby: He conducted his personal life as he would a business meeting. So when he heard Rebecca’s news, he made her an offer she couldn’t refuse…until she did. Suddenly he had to raise the stakes and risk everything!
Rebecca Holley: She wanted her baby to have it all, so when Trent proposed a marriage of convenience, she was definitely tempted. He was charming and a good provider, but did he feel the same stirring of attraction that she felt? And did this have the potential to be more than just a business arrangement?
Baby recovered! After a frantic search, Lisa Sanders’s adorable baby was recovered unharmed and in good health. The tight community of Portland rejoiced! But one more mystery was still unsolved….
Because birthright has its privileges and family ties run deep.
AVAILABLE JUNE 2010
1.) To Love and Protect by Susan Mallery
2.) Secrets & Seductions by Pamela Toth
3.) Royal Affair by Laurie Paige
4.) For Love and Family by Victoria Pade
AVAILABLE JULY 2010
5.) The Bachelor by Marie Ferrarella
6.) A Precious Gift by Karen Rose Smith
7.) Child of Her Heart by Cheryl St. John
8.) Intimate Surrender by RaeAnne Thayne
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2010
9.) The Secret Heir by Gina Wilkins
10.) The Newlyweds by Elizabeth Bevarly
11.) Right by Her Side by Christie Ridgway
12.) The Homecoming by Anne Marie Winston
AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2010
13.) The Greatest Risk by Cara Colter
14.) What a Man Needs by Patricia Thayer
15.) Undercover Passion by Raye Morgan
16.) Royal Seduction by Donna Clayton
Contents
Prologue
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
Prologue
T he man across the heavy, gleaming desk cleared his throat. “Rebecca, I know who fathered your child.”
Rebecca Holley blinked. When she’d been called away from her shift as an OR pediatric nurse to meet with Morgan Davis at the Children’s Connection facility adjacent to Portland General, she hadn’t known what to expect. Certainly not a statement of the obvious.
“Well, of course you know, Morgan.” Though the sperm donor had been anonymous to her, as director of the fertility clinic where she’d been inseminated, the man sitting opposite her had access to the complete records. Her palm slid across the lavender smock of her Minnie Mouse-printed scrubs to rest over her still-flat stomach. At seven weeks pregnant she’d yet to experience morning sickness, but the odd expression on Morgan’s face was beginning to make her queasy.
She cleared her throat. “What’s going on?”
“Rebecca…” His gaze dropped to the open folder on his desk and then moved back up to meet her eyes. “There’s no easy way to say this.”
Now her stomach mimicked a dying fish—flop, flop, flop. “The pregnancy test wasn’t wrong, was it?”
“No, no! You’re pregnant.” Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. “But we recently discovered a mix-up of some donor vials, so we went back and checked our recent insemination cases.”
A mix-up? Rebecca swallowed, trying to stay calm. He was telling her there had been a mix-up of donor sperm. As a nurse, she could see why the clinic would be concerned about an error, but how could such a thing affect her? She’d looked over the profiles of the donors and selected one with a working-class background—he’d spent time as an enlisted navy man like her dad—who was dark-haired and dark-eyed like herself.
But she wasn’t picky.
She let out a little laugh to cover her nervousness. “As long as the baby’s healthy, Morgan, it won’t matter to me—even if it’s as blond-haired as…Blondie.”
Morgan glanced down at the folder again and grimaced. “Your baby may very well look as you describe, Rebecca. We inseminated you with the sperm of a blond-haired man. A very wealthy, respected man…and one who didn’t provide his sperm for this purpose.”
“But that doesn’t matter, right?” Rebecca pressed her palm against her stomach. Don’t worry, Eisenhower. The nickname tumbled into her mind, and she almost smiled at the old family joke. It was the name Rebecca’s folks had used when referring to each of her four younger brothers and sisters before they were born. Apparently she was going to carry on the tradition.
Eisenhower, it’s going to be okay.
“Everything’s still anonymous, Morgan,” Rebecca continued. “I don’t know the man. I don’t know who the father is.”
Morgan shook his head. “But this man has a right to know he is going to be a father, Rebecca. Children’s Connection can’t keep this a secret from him.”
She found herself rising to her feet, her voice rising, too. “What? Why not?” Her protective instincts were quivering like antennae, though it was hard to wrap her mind around all the ramifications this “mix-up” might mean to her and her baby.
“It’s the ethical thing to do, Rebecca. You can see that.”
What she could see was her hopes and her dreams turning from something joyful to something dreadful. No, no! She couldn’t think like that. She wouldn’t. Her baby was still her baby. “Who is this man, Morgan? You let me talk to him and I’ll…I’ll straighten it out.” She’d explain what had happened and then assure him that she and Eisenhower expected nothing from him whatsoever.
Morgan frowned. “Rebecca—”
“You owe me, too, Morgan,” she said, her voice sounding thin and breathless. “You owe me the chance to talk to this man first.”
His frown deepened. “Rebecca—”
“Tell me who he is, Morgan.”
Morgan and his wife were in the process of adopting a baby and it must have given him sympathy for Rebecca’s fierce desperation because he glanced down at the file once more, then sighed. “The father of your baby is Trent Crosby, Rebecca. Trent Crosby, the Crosby Systems CEO.”
One
I t was past six o’clock when Rebecca steered her hatchback into a spot in the far corner of the Crosby Systems near-empty parking lot and turned off the ignition. Her fingers unclipped her Portland General Hospital name badge from her scrubs to stuff it into the purse on the passenger seat beside her.
Then she looked up at the rearview mirror, gazing at the reflection of the Crosby building’s gleaming glass front doors. “Okay, Eisenhower,” she said in a brisk voice. “It’s time for us to get this over with.”
Rebecca discovered that her legs didn’t share her can-do attitude, however, and that her behind was determined to remain glued to the vinyl driver’s seat. When she tried again to leave her car, again nothing happened.
“Eisenhower,” Rebecca muttered, “your mom’s no wimp. Honest.” But she was acting like one. She snuck another glance at the rearview mirror. It was the Crosby name that was spooking her. She knew about the family: they were powerful and they were rich. It didn’t help that she’d caught a glimpse of Trent himself at a charity auction last December, because beyond being powerful and rich he had something else intimidating going for him, too.
“You’re getting some seriously good-looking genes, Eisenhower,” she whispered. “No doubt about it.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have insisted on breaking the news herself, she thought. Maybe she should let Morgan tell him, man-to-man, and then she could wait for Mr. Rich, Powerful and Good-Looking to approach her.
But no! The last thing she wanted was to be at the emotional mercy of some man, right? Been there, done that, got the painful divorce.
So she forced her feet from the car, slammed shut the door, then reminded herself of the number of new situations she’d faced as a navy brat. Those eight moves in seventeen years had made her an expert at assessing new people and new surroundings and then finding a way to fit in—or at least fade into the woodwork. It was why she’d insisted on talking to Trent herself. She was practiced in making herself appear agreeable and non-threatening, certainly a big plus at a moment like this.
So there was absolutely no reason to hesitate. Squaring her shoulders, she faced the company entrance and…
…let her gaze wander to the freshly painted Dumpsters off to her right. She told herself she wasn’t putting off the inevitable. She told herself it was because her attention was snagged by several appliance-size, empty cardboard boxes sitting beside them. Boxes of the ideal size and condition for that playhouse she’d been promising to make for her favorite pediatric patient.
Rebecca glanced up at the cloud-filled sky. It had rained that morning and now it looked as if it might rain again. She could take the few moments necessary to flatten the boxes and stow them safely away in her car.
It wasn’t stalling!
It wasn’t as simple as it should have been, either. First, her slick-soled white nurse’s shoes slid on a patch of squishy mud in the Dumpster area, sending her down on one knee and sprouting a dirty stain on her pants leg. Second, the boxes had stubborn, reinforced corners that resisted her efforts to collapse them. Third, when she indulged in a foot-stamp of frustration, she sent a spray of mud droplets into the air, to land who knew where.
Fourth, when she crawled beneath the open end of the largest box to see if she could find a way to flatten the thing from the inside, she heard a man’s voice float through the air. “Can I help you?”
She froze. Whoever belonged to that deep voice, perhaps he wasn’t talking to her. Perhaps he was talking to someone else in the lot, someone having an innocuous, employee-going-home problem such as too much to carry or a recalcitrant car door lock. Some run-of-the-mill, easy-to-resolve problem.
Happening to someone else. Please.
“You there in the box,” the man spoke again, squashing her hopes. “Can I help you?”
Rebecca cleared her throat. “Are you, um, talking to me?”
“Believe it or not, you’re the only one wearing cardboard in my entire parking lot.” There wasn’t a whiff of humor in the voice.
His parking lot? Was this Trent Crosby? This was as bad as it could be.
In the evening light coming through the open top flaps above her head, Rebecca glanced at the muddy knee of her scrubs, then the fine sprinkling of drying dirt on her forearms, then the corrugated camouflage surrounding her. Oh, Eisenhower, this isn’t the meeting I planned for us.
“I was just, uh, driving by and spotted the boxes,” she said.
“Just driving by, huh?”
She swallowed her groan. The company was located at the farthest corner of a business and industrial complex that could only be reached by a dead-end parkway. It was impossible to “drive by” the place. Instead of answering, she edged toward her car—she hoped she was heading in that direction, anyway—taking her disguise along with her. The scurrying box had to look ridiculous to him, she knew that, but not half as ridiculous as she would feel if she had to introduce herself to Mr. Rich, Powerful and Good-Looking when she was dirty, disheveled and not yet ready to meet him.
Her box bumped into something. She halted, uncertain of what that something might be.
“Come on, now. Exactly what are you doing in our garbage?”
The close proximity of the voice made it clear she’d bumped into him. She chanced a peek upward. The giant-size box was taller than the man, so she couldn’t see his face and he couldn’t see hers.
“Stop playing games, damn it. What the hell are you doing with our garbage?”
But she didn’t need to see him to understand he was more than suspicious. “It’s not garbage,” she replied, hoping to placate him. “It’s a box.” Moving like a hermit crab, she set off in the general direction of her car once more. “For a playhouse.”
There was a moment of silence.
She bumped into something again.
Him. He’d moved to block her way, she realized, as the box was whisked over her head, leaving her blinking in the now-brighter light. Though she resisted the urge to cover herself, she had to look up—it was instinctive—and then she jumped back and looked away. That was instinctive, too. Like the sun, blond-haired, brown-eyed Trent Crosby was dazzling.
There was no chance she was carrying his child, she decided, his lean features and rangy body already forever etched in her mind. He had a confident, very male brand of beauty that oozed power and wealth. He couldn’t be the father of her baby, absolutely not, because such a thing went against the laws of the universe. They were from two different worlds. The last time she’d tried bridging such a gap, she’d found herself taking a shortcut to humiliation and heartache.
“A playhouse, you say.” He repeated her words in a flat, cool voice.
Rebecca could only nod, hyperconscious of everything that was wrong with her, from her muddy scrubs to the way her brown hair frizzed when there was rain in the air. She reached up both palms to slick back the inevitable, messy tendrils that were surely springing at her temples, smoothing them toward the efficient twist she wore during work hours.
“You’ll have to come up with something better than that. You get a playhouse at a toy store, not a Dumpster, sweetheart. I can guess what you’re really after.”
Her head jerked up. “Huh?”
In a light charcoal suit, white shirt and true-blue tie, Trent Crosby was staring down at her through narrowed eyes. “Our history—both past and very recent—has made us careful, honey. And ruthless. You won’t find our company secrets in these garbage bins, but regardless, we prosecute wanna-be corporate spies, even little cuddly ones like you.”
“What?”
He smiled at her, a cold display of perfect white teeth that sent shivers running for cover down her back. “And if you’re not off my property in thirty seconds, I’ll be happy to haul you into the security office for an after-hours strip search.”
She didn’t need ten seconds to be back in her car and accelerating out of the parking lot. A glance in her rearview mirror confirmed what she could feel in the second flurry of shivers rolling down her spine. He was watching her leave, his crossed arms shouting out his satisfaction.
“Believe me, Eisenhower,” she whispered. “He can’t be your daddy.” Because the heat of humiliation on her cheeks told her Trent Crosby was from a different world, all right. The Planet of the Jerks.
At 4:00 p.m. the next day, Trent Crosby departed the executive conference room of Crosby Systems, his mind teeming with the details of the new contract he’d sewn up that afternoon. He decided to draft a memo on it to the Research and Development Department before leaving for the day. Between the memo and the reports stacked up on his desk for review, he’d be in his chair well past midnight. The thought made him almost cheerful.
He was more comfortable at Crosby Systems than in the morgue he called home.
Half a hall-length from his office, his assistant waylaid him, snatching the coffee mug out of his hand and tsking. “Nuh-uh-uh. Remember how even bossier and more bad-tempered we get on too much caffeine? We can’t have another five-pot day.”
Ah. An impending skirmish with the battle-ax who ruled the top floor. Damn, Trent thought, things kept getting better. He drew in a deep, threatening breath and glowered down at her. “We aren’t having a five-pot day. I am. You drink that disgusting green tea.”
“I’m going to live forever on that green tea,” Claudine retorted.
“Then I’m praying for my own early grave.” He made a grab for his cup, but she whisked it behind her back. Strong-arming her was tempting, but Trent was wary of that determined glitter in her eye, even if she was on the upside of sixty.
Even after ten years of her working for him, she could still scare the hell out of him.
“I said no more coffee,” Claudine declared again. “We don’t want you polishing that nasty mean streak of yours on the pretty young woman who just arrived.”
“Nasty mean streak? Don’t blame that on the coffee, you old biddy. It comes from putting up with you.” Then he frowned. “Wait a minute. What pretty young woman?”
“The one in your office. And don’t ask me what she wants. She said her business is personal.” Claudine reached up to straighten his tie.
He batted her hand away, wondering who had personal business with him. He, as a rule, didn’t get personal with people.
His assistant stretched toward his tie again, and again he evaded her fussing. “Leave me be, you old bag. Which reminds me, aren’t you past our mandatory retirement age yet?”
She snorted. “I’ll be here, still cleaning up your messes when you retire. Now get into your office and find out why a nice woman would have personal dealings with a temperamental dictator like you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Harridan.”
She mimicked his glare. “Tyrant.”
“Fishwife.”
“Martinet.”
Then they smiled at each other and set off in opposite directions.
Trent was still smiling when he pushed open the door to his office. But the smile died as the “nice” and “pretty” woman in one of his visitors’ chairs jumped to her feet and swung around to face him. It was the box lady.
“You,” he said.
The first thing out of her mouth was something he already knew. “I’m not a corporate spy.”
Of course she wasn’t, he acknowledged, letting out an inward sigh. But he’d been grinding his teeth through a brutal headache yesterday when he’d glimpsed someone skulking around the Dumpsters and he’d flashed on the ugly explanation. Claudine accused him of cynicism.
The way he figured it, expecting the worst of people ensured he was never disappointed.
“I know you’re not a spy,” Trent admitted to the young woman. “As you were scuttling to your car, I realized you couldn’t be.”
She blinked. “What cleared it up for you?”
The little thing had big brown eyes, the long-lashed kind that made him think of Disney characters or his sisters’ baby dolls. “The scrubs. Maybe if they were that sick, surgical green, but ones like yours…” He gestured, indicating the loose-fitting pants and smock that enveloped her. Today they were lemon-yellow and printed with cross-eyed clown fish. “Not spy wear.”
She didn’t respond, only continued standing there, staring at him with…anticipation? Expectation? Trent stared back, cursing Claudine for denying him his jolt of caffeine. He needed something to pop out the apology Big Brown Eyes obviously awaited.
“Look—”
“Look—”
They spoke the word at the same time and when she broke off, she flushed. It took his attention off those Bambi eyes and onto her fair, fine-pored complexion. For a second he wondered what her skin would feel like beneath his stroking thumb.
Damn, he needed that coffee.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Is that what you’re after?”
“No!” Her head shook back and forth. “I don’t want anything from you. That’s, uh, that’s why I’m here.”
Okay. Stumped by that puzzling remark, he watched her suck in her bottom lip, worry it a moment, then let it pop free. Inside his pockets, his fingers curled as he found himself with a sudden fascination for her mouth. Her little suck-worry-pop had flushed it rosier. The lips looked soft and pillowy.
He hadn’t had a good nap in a long, long while.
Forcing himself to look away, he crossed to his desk and sat down. Get your mind back on business, Trent. Think of the memo. The reports. The satisfying hours of work ahead.
He didn’t have the time or inclination for romance, and this woman, with her baby-fine skin and her wavy hair, had a face that resembled a sentimentalized Victorian valentine. The face alone shouted she wasn’t his type, but then there were those figure-shrouding scrubs. Trent liked women who wore tight minis and flashy Manolos, women who liked their encounters as brief as their skirts and their men as blunt and to the point as their high heels.
This woman didn’t come close to that description.
Determined to get her out of his office and get on with the rest of his workday, he focused on her Portland General Hospital name tag. “Well, Rebecca Holley, R.N., I’m a busy man. Why, exactly, did you stop by?”
She sank into the chair across from his desk, doing that distracting suck-worry-pop with her lower lip again. “This is a little difficult to say….”
But to his shock, she managed to get it out, anyway, in a few brief sentences. A mix-up at Children’s Connection. His sperm. Her pregnancy. Throughout her explanation, Trent could only stare at her again, numb.
Disbelieving.
Disbelieving and numb.
When she wound down, he realized she expected a response from him. “My sisters put you up to this,” he tried. “It’s a little late for April Fools’, but—”
“I wouldn’t joke about something like this,” she snapped, her spine straightening and her voice sharpening. “I wouldn’t joke about my baby.”
Baby. Baby.
Memories rushed into his mind. His sisters as chubby, chortling infants. The hero worship in his little brother’s eyes. The hair rising on the back of his nine-year-old neck the day Robbie Logan had gone missing while playing at their house. Twenty-plus years later, the choking sensation in his lungs when he’d learned his baby nephew had been kidnapped.
Then that sickening, bat-to-the-gut blow when his wife had stood in an examining room at Children’s Connection and finally admitted that the only fertility problem she suffered from was him. That she’d lied about going off the pill because she didn’t want to bear his child—or even be married to him any longer.
Yesterday’s headache slammed into the base of his skull and lingered there, pulsing pain. “It’s a joke,” he said aloud, his voice harsh. “It’s got to be someone’s idea of a joke.”
His gaze lasered on the pretty little Victorian valentine who might not be a spy, but who was playing some criminal game all the same. He pointed his finger at her, but kept the volume of his voice under strict control. “And I won’t be laughing if you’re still sitting here when I get back.”
With that, he rose to his feet and stalked toward the door. He pulled it open.
“Wait—”
But he didn’t pay attention to the woman. Instead he marched unseeing into the hall, almost knocking his assistant over. His hands shot out and he steadied her. “Sorry, Claudine. I’m sorry.”
She stared up at him. “Trent? What’s the matter?”
Nothing. Everything. It couldn’t be true. He swung his head around, trying to find something else to focus on. Proposals. Reports. Spreadsheets. The business details that had always filled his life.
But he couldn’t turn off thoughts of chortling babies, missing children, kidnapped toddlers. Hopes that had never been born.
Then he sensed movement behind him, and knew he couldn’t stay a moment longer. He couldn’t face her, the woman who’d dredged up all this in his mind. Already heading for the stairs, he called back to Claudine, “Take the rest of the afternoon off. You deserve it.”
“No! The company bully is giving me time off? And going home early himself?”
He didn’t have the heart to come up with a matching insult. But that was good, wasn’t it?
After all, hearts were a damn inconvenience.
Two
A fter a long, less-than-uplifting day at the hospital, Rebecca was halfway up the walk to her small duplex when she halted, arrested by the sight of a pair of men’s leather loafers resting on her welcome mat. She was still blinking at them when they moved, and the body they were attached to shifted from its position against her shadowed front door and into the evening light.
Trent Crosby. He’d strode out of his office the day before, his face expressionless, and she hadn’t heard from him since. She’d dared to hope it would stay that way.
“What do you want?” she called out, not getting any closer to him. She had reason to be wary. He’d accused her of being a spy one day and a prankster the next. Who knew what would come out of the man’s mouth now?
“We need to talk,” he said, his voice quiet. His steady gaze met hers. “You need to give me a chance.”
She’d already given him a chance. Yesterday. Though she’d been embarrassed by their encounter in the parking lot the day before that, by the time she’d driven home she’d rethought the situation. In good conscience she couldn’t blame the confusion on him, not when she hadn’t stuck around long enough to clear things up. So she’d tried again, with no better results.
As she continued to study him in silence, he took a step closer.
She took a step back.
He stilled. “I’ll make it worth your while.” His watchful expression eased into a coaxing smile. “I’ve brought you a present.”
Oh, no. That charming smile scared the heck out of her, because it slid over his mouth with so little effort and then without any more it was already affecting her, warming her icy misgivings of him.
So she scowled. “Present?”
She reminded herself that rich men found it easy to hand out gifts. Her ex had been big on giving them, too. The ones he’d charged to their credit cards had tipped her off that he was cheating on her, because the glittering baubles and sexy little nothings hadn’t come her way. “What kind of present?”
Trent half turned and dragged something over that she hadn’t noticed in the shadows of her porch. “Boxes,” he said. “There was a pile by the Dumpsters as I was leaving the office today and I thought of you.”
He’d brought her boxes.
Of course, the only reason why that knowledge was melting the ice inside her was because she’d spent an hour after her shift with Merry, the asthmatic child to whom she’d promised a playhouse. Those boxes meant she could tell the little girl tomorrow that she was making progress on the project.
With that in mind, she hurried toward Trent. He’d brought boxes all right. Six flattened boxes of the ideal, extra-large size that would provide the main construction materials for the kid-size cottage she had in mind. “Thank you,” she said, thinking of Merry again. Rebecca’s fingers tightened on her keys as she took a breath. “I suppose…I suppose you can come in.”
But she’d keep her guard up. That wouldn’t be hard. Her navy-brat years, while they had given her good skills in getting along with people, had also trained her to maintain a safe distance from them as well. Not only wasn’t it smart to trust others on short acquaintance, but if you got too close, it hurt too much when the next base posting came along. And then there were the lessons her ex had taught her…
Trent followed her through the front door into her small living room. As she hung her purse on the bentwood coatrack that stood beside the door, from the corner of her eye she saw him taking in the surroundings. A tissue-thin Oriental carpet over clean but scratched hardwood. A love seat “slipcovered” with an old quilt she’d found at a yard sale and then tucked around the torn cushions. The simple curtains that had started life as sheets until she and her sewing machine had spent some time with them. The cinder-block-and-plywood shelves that were the staple of college students and women who were restarting their lives after a failed marriage.
As she turned to face him, she felt herself bristling. He couldn’t think much of her modest home.
His gaze moved from the entry that led to her never-remodeled kitchen and onto her face. “Nice,” he said. “Homey.”
Hah. Homely was more like it. But there wasn’t a note of snideness to his voice or any derision in his eyes.
The crack in the ice inside her widened more. “Well, you might as well come into the kitchen,” she said. It wasn’t any fancier than the rest of the place. “Would you like some cold tea?”
He would, and she poured it as he took a seat at the tiny table. When she slid the glass in front of him, he stared into its depths.
“Green tea?”
“Yes, it’s decaffeinated. Is that all right?”
He nodded without looking up. “It’s perfect. Just perfect.”
She pulled out the other chair and dropped into it. As her bottom settled onto the seat, the past few sleepless nights and her long shift at the hospital seemed to settle onto her shoulders. Lifting her own glass of tea, she tried to hide her sigh of fatigue.
But his hearing must be excellent. “Is something the matter?” he asked.
She tried to smile. “Nothing more than a long day, pregnancy and a strange man in my kitchen.” Tiredness soaked into her bones.
His gaze sharpened on her. “Have you eaten?”
“Sometime today.” Her hand waved. “Lunch.”
He was out of his chair and rummaging through her cupboards before she could blink. “You need food.”
“Wait, no—”
“Stay,” he ordered, as she started to push her chair back. “I’m a bachelor. I can scrounge together the semblance of a meal when I have to.”
Surprise kept her glued to her seat. In silence, she watched as he made up a plate of crackers accompanied by slices of cheese and apple.
Then he set it in front of her with a no-nonsense clack. “Now eat. Are you taking prenatal vitamins?”
Her jaw dropped. “Um, yes. How did you—”
“Sisters. Two of ’em. One a new mother, the other one pregnant.” His head swung around and he swooped down on a plastic bottle near the sink, then placed it in front of her. “In the early days, the vitamins made Ivy queasy unless she ate them with crackers. For Katie, it was cold, buttered spaghetti.”
“They don’t bother me,” Rebecca murmured. In spite of herself, she was…intrigued. Oh, fine. She was almost charmed. Who would have thought that this big bad businessman knew the details of his sisters’ pregnancies? “You’re, uh, well-educated.”
He shrugged, then sat down and nudged the plate of food closer to her. “Well-informed is more like it. I’m the oldest in the family. I grew up wiping noses and doling out kiddie aspirin. I guess the younger ones still tell me when they don’t feel well.”
“I’m the oldest, too.” But while her siblings had looked up to her as the big sister, they’d gone to Mom or Pop when they were sick.
Instead of responding to that, he reached over to slap a piece of cheese on a cracker, then he lifted her hand and dropped the cracker on the flat of her palm. “Eat,” he commanded.
“All right, all right.” Her first bite tasted heavenly, but then that fatigue turned into full-blown exhaustion. Each subsequent chew seemed to take more and more energy.
“I spoke with Morgan Davis,” Trent said.
Rebecca swallowed, a shot of adrenaline making her more alert. “And?”
“And he explained there had indeed been a mix-up. They’re trying to track down the exact problem. He told me he’s concerned about the clinic’s reputation and potential legal problems. But Children’s Connection has done so much good that I’ve assured him I won’t sue. He said you told him the same.” Trent ran his hands through his hair. “So, I’m, uh, sorry about the way I reacted yesterday afternoon when you told me. I wasn’t expecting…”
“That I was, and thanks to you?”
He blinked, then laughed. “Yes. Exactly.”
Rebecca smiled back at him; she couldn’t help herself. With the light of humor in his eyes, with that easy grin on his face, it was hard to think of him as the rich, powerful Trent Crosby who might threaten the happy future she’d planned for herself and Eisenhower.
He was just a man, a caring man, who had brought her boxes and knew something about pregnancy. It was going to be all right, she thought, and then said it out loud. “It’s going to be all right.”
Trent’s gaze swept over her, then around the kitchen. “Yes, I agree. I think it’s going to be fine.”
Rebecca managed another sip of her tea, but her head felt so very, very heavy. Her pregnancy book said that tiredness in the first trimester was common, and she was tired. Very, very tired.
“Rebecca?”
At her name, her lashes lifted. Had she dozed off? Her face flushed. It wasn’t like her to fall asleep at the table, not to mention in the company of a man she didn’t know, a man she couldn’t afford to trust so soon—if ever. “Yes?”
He was pulling her out of her chair. “Let me help you. You look beat.”
Her feet must have been moving, because she was leaving the kitchen. Trent had his arm around her and she could smell the scent of him. It was spicy, good, and if she wasn’t so very sleepy, she might like to bury her nose against the tan column of his throat.
“Let’s get you to your bedroom, Rebecca.”
Her feet stopped moving. “What?”
He chuckled. “Don’t rouse yourself. I just want to help you to bed before you start snoring on your kitchen table.”
“I don’t snore,” she protested. But he wanted to help her. That sounded nice. And she thought maybe she could trust him to do it, because he was an older brother and knew about prenatal vitamins. “This way to my bed.” She managed to point with a limp finger, and then her hand fell.
He laughed again, then directed her down the short hallway to her small room. Rebecca didn’t think about how shabby it must look in his eyes. She only thought about the bed and her pillow and how good she’d feel under the light weight of the last blanket her mother had ever crocheted.
In moments it was just as she imagined. Trent must have taken off her shoes—she knew she didn’t have the energy for it—because her toes wiggled freely as he stood beside the bed, looking down at her.
“Good night, Rebecca Holley, R.N.”
“Good night, Trent Crosby.” Big bad businessman—not. “Sorry we didn’t get to talk more.”
But they would, because he was a nice man. A trustworthy man who would stay out of her and her baby’s life when she asked him to. Which she would. A yawn nearly cracked her jaw in two.
He lingered.
“Is there something you wanted to say?” she asked, the words slurring as her eyes drifted closed. “Sorry, but I worked a long shift and I’m so, so tired.”
“I can see that. And I have a solution to our problem that I’d like you to think about.”
“Mmmmm.” She wasn’t even sure he was still nearby, or that she was still awake. Tomorrow she’d think about how she could relax with a stranger in her room. Oh, but that answer was easy, because he was trustworthy, after all. She knew that now.
So she let herself slide into slumber. His last words drifted into her ears and then drifted out before they could trigger a nightmare.
“Once you have the baby,” Trent’s voice said, “if you give custody to me, I’ll give you half a million dollars.”
Sitting at his desk, Trent doodled on a pad, then caught himself and threw down his pen in disgust. He didn’t doodle!
He refocused his attention on the report opened in front of him. It wasn’t any more interesting than it had been five minutes before, but he made himself read every damn word. Then he checked the time again.
Two-thirty. Forty-two hours. He hadn’t seen or heard from Rebecca Holley in forty-two hours. Well-practiced in negotiation, he knew the next move was hers, but the waiting was driving him nuts. Admitting his concentration was shot, he pushed up from his chair and headed out of his office.
Claudine looked up from her desk, situated a few steps from his door. “Have we finished going over the departmental reports?”
He gave her his best malevolent glare, all the while blessing her for offering the distraction. “Again? How many times do I have to tell you not to refer to me as �we’?”
“It’s the royal �we,’” she replied. “Because you’re a royal pain in the patoot.”
He would have laughed, but he didn’t like giving her the satisfaction. Instead, he stalked past her.
“Where are you going, your majesty?” she called out.
“Human Resources. To get the necessary forms to have you fired.”
“Without me, you couldn’t find Human Resources, let alone fill out one of their forms.”
“Shrew.” He strode into the hall.
“Despot.”
Still moving, he raised his voice, determined to get in the last word. “Nag.”
Her response reached his ears, anyway. “Oligarch.”
That one stopped him. He retraced his steps and poked his head into her sanctum. “Oligarch? That’s good. That’s very good.”
Claudine’s smile was smug. “Of course I am.”
He snorted, then started to move off again.
“Trent?” Claudine again.
But this time her tone lacked its usual caustic edge, causing him to backtrack once more to meet her gaze. “Is something the matter?”
“That was my question.” Her eyes were serious, her expression kind. “Is there a problem I can help you with? All of us in Admin talked over lunch and we realize something’s bothering you. We’d…well, we’d like to help if we can.”
Oh, hell. If Admin was talking about him… Next thing he knew, his competitors would get wind of his lack of focus and use it against the company. When he found himself distracted, then doodling, then drawing the concern of his domineering assistant and her henchmen, it was time to take a new tack in the negotiations.
He sighed. “Cover for me, will you, Claudine? I might be out a couple of hours.”
It was time to confront Rebecca Holley and demand—in concise, clear terms—what he wanted from her.
Problem was, Trent thought a short car ride later, it was going to be hard to make any kind of demand to a woman sitting on the floor with a baby in her lap and a bigger kid hanging around her neck. Peering around a large poster announcing a children’s health fair in the hospital parking lot the following weekend, he watched her through the glass door leading into the crowded playroom on the Pediatrics floor. After another minute, though, he pushed open the door and walked in, because she was laughing and…and the happy expression on her face made him feel as if he hadn’t laughed since he was nine years old and Robbie Logan had gone missing while Trent was playing basketball in the rear yard.
She glanced up as he strode into the room, the smile on her face dying. “Oh!”
The last time he’d seen her, her face had been pale with fatigue and her eyes heavy with sleep, but now she looked flushed and alert. “Rebecca.” He nodded a greeting.
She rose to her feet, cradling the baby in her arms. Trent noticed the little guy had two full leg casts and three teeth.
“Gawaa!” Three-Teeth said, waving a fat arm.
Rebecca’s cheek touched the top of the baby’s head, a caress so natural he wondered if she was even aware of it. “This is Vince, one of my pediatric OR patients,” she said, then looked down at the other child she’d been playing with. “And Merry.”
“Nice to meet you,” Trent said, nodding again.
Merry wiggled the fingers of her thin hand.
Baby Vince made another wild gesture, a right hook that almost connected with Rebecca’s nose. “Gawaa! Gawaa!”
“Right back at ya,” Trent murmured, coming close enough to capture the contender’s little fist. The baby grinned at him, then took Trent’s hand to his mouth to gnaw on it like a bone.
“Oh, sorry.” Rebecca tried to step back, but Trent halted her movement by capturing one of her shoulders in his other hand. Beneath his palm, the small curve felt feminine, delicate, reminding him of how fragile she’d seemed when he’d helped her to her bedroom.
“Have you been eating?” His voice sounded abrupt, he knew it, but thinking about her body beneath those dumpy scrubs was doing something to him…. Arousing him. Making him worried, because getting hot over a woman covered in pale pink with raspberry flamingos had to be the first symptom of some weird sexual perversion.
“I’ve been eating fine,” Rebecca assured him. “And getting more rest, too.” Her face flushed as bright as those long-legged birds she was wearing and she glanced around at the kids and their parents who were involved with toys or puzzles or who were watching some kids’ show on the TV in the corner of the room. “I want you to know I’m sorry about dozing off on you the other night. I’ve never done that before.”
“It’s all right.”
“Well, thank you.” Her forehead wrinkled. “Is there…something you wanted?”
He frowned. He wanted her response to his proposition, of course. Then he jumped, startled by the sharp nip Vince gave his knuckle. “Yowch!”
The little guy grinned without an ounce of repentance. “Ga—”
“—waa. I know, kid. And a gawaa to you, too.”
Rebecca tried shifting the baby away, but Vince wasn’t having it. With another “gawaa,” he held his arms out to Trent, smiling so widely that a big dollop of drool oozed over his bottom lip.
In one smooth move, Trent pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, dabbed off the kid’s chin, and then took him in his own arms.
Rebecca blinked, then looked down at Merry, who looked back with the same surprise mirrored on her face. “So much for the big, bad businessman, eh, Merry?”
The little girl hid her answering smile behind her hand.
“Huh?” Trent lifted a brow. “Big bad businessman?”
“Inside joke,” Rebecca said, not meeting his eyes. Then she glanced down at Merry again. “This is the man I told you about. The one who brought me those boxes for your playhouse.”
“Oh.” The little girl darted a less-shy look in his direction. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Then Trent frowned, irritated that they’d strayed so far from his purpose.
Determined to get to it, he pinned Rebecca with an implacable stare. “Can we talk?”
She blinked a couple of times. “Oh, um, sure. But I have to stay in the playroom. I told my friend Janet I’d cover for her—we have a nurse in here at all times.” She looked down and suggested to Merry that she serve herself a glass of juice and then watch TV. The little girl moved off and Rebecca reached for Vince.
He huddled back against Trent’s chest. “Gawaa gawaa gawaa.”
“Don’t worry about it. He just needs a little guy time.” Trent reassured the baby by hitching him closer.
“Are you sure?” Rebecca frowned.
“I’m used to babies.”
“I can see that.” She shook her head as if it surprised her.
But if she’d known his mother the way Trent did, it wouldn’t. Not that he’d been the perfect parental figure, either, but he’d done his best with the younger ones when he was growing up, when his father had spent all his time at work and his mother had spent all of hers doing as little as possible for her children. Trent would do his best with the child Rebecca was carrying, too.
He followed her to a deserted corner of the playroom and waited until they’d both settled into facing, cushioned chairs. Then he broached the subject that had been weighing on him for the last forty-two, almost forty-three, hours. “What are your thoughts on my offer?”
She froze. “Your offer?”
“From the other night?”
“From the other night?”
There was either an echo in the room or she was stalling. “Rebecca—”
“Why was your sperm at Children’s Connection?”
The question caught him by surprise. “Morgan Davis didn’t tell you?” He’d figured the clinic’s director had spilled the whole story.
She shook her head. “Only that it wasn’t donated for artificial insemination purposes.”
Which led him to another question of his own. “Why did you go that route, by the way? You’re what—twenty-five?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Why didn’t you wait until you found the right guy? Do it the old-fashioned way?”
“The old-fashioned way was out of the question. The �right guy’ divorced me two years ago.”
From the cool expression on her face, Mr. Right Guy had put her right off romance. Well, it wasn’t as if Trent held any faith about matches being made in heaven, either. His parents’ marriage and his own had both ended with unhappiness. He ran a hand through his hair, then stared down at the blue casts binding Vince’s short legs. “You sound as if you’re as soured on the whole love and marriage thing as I am.”
“Are you soured?”
He shrugged, then released a dry laugh. “Yeah. You asked why my sperm was at the clinic. My ex—my wife at the time, of course—was going to be inseminated. We thought it would increase the chances of her becoming pregnant. But when the big day came, she did the big back-out. Of my entire life.”
Rebecca released a little sigh. “I’ve come to the conclusion that while there are some good marriages built on real love, those are the exception. I’m not holding out hope that a fluke will happen to me.”
“Okay, so you’re not looking for a man. But why a baby? Haven’t you got plenty of them to occupy your time at the hospital?”
As if to emphasize his remark, Vince chose that moment to launch himself toward Rebecca. Trent passed the child over, again struck by the sweet, automatic caress she gave the baby as he settled against her. He could watch her stroke her cheek against a baby’s downy head a dozen times, he thought, and never grow tired of it.
“I’m very good at my job, you know,” Rebecca said.
A non sequitur? Something about the way she said the words made it clear it was not. He tilted his head. “Okay. So you’re good at your job…?”
Her gaze on the baby’s face, she rocked him side-to-side as he snuggled against her shoulder. “There’s a need for people who can do what I do.”
“I’m certain you’re right, but—”
“It takes a lot out of me.” Her gaze came up to meet his, and it was both direct and vulnerable. “Sick children, all day, every day.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Sick children, hurt children, suffering children. Dying children, Trent.”
His eyes jumped to Vince, now sound asleep against Rebecca’s flamingo smock. He couldn’t ask what was wrong with the baby. He didn’t want to know.
He couldn’t imagine how Rebecca could come to work every day.
“Why?” he asked.
She seemed to understand his question. “Because I can help many, many of them get well. Because I can comfort all of them. Because…because I can.”
For a second he felt ashamed that all he did was run a multimillion-dollar company. Then he cleared his throat. “But another child, Rebecca?”
Her gaze dropped from his. She lifted Vince’s tiny hand and set it on top of hers, then stroked the baby’s soft skin with her forefinger. “I need my own child, my own family to fill my well, Trent. To be my light, to be the strength I need to do a job that can tear me up inside. I need my own child to come home to, someone to repair the heart that gets broken a little bit every day. I need someone of my own to love.”
He tried to tell himself she’d made the speech with calculation, for maximum effect. With the sound of violins playing in her imagination.
“That brings us to my offer, I suppose,” he finally said.
“Your offer.” She blinked at him a couple of times, her face paling. “I thought…I was so tired, I thought I dreamed it. I couldn’t believe—”
“That I’d make such a proposition?” Trent heard the flat tone in his voice. “But I did. Half a million for the baby you’re carrying. And after what you just said, I’m ready to up the ante to a full seven figures.”
Three
R ebecca stared at the man across from her. He didn’t look like a nightmare—no, he looked like a dream—but she should be screaming all the same. “You’d give me a million dollars for my baby?”
“Our baby. And yes, I would give you a million, but you wouldn’t accept it, would you?”
In relief, her heart tripped up, tangling her tongue, too. “I— You…” She sagged against the back of the chair, swallowed.
One of the kids at the other end of the room let out a screech, drawing Trent’s attention. When he turned back to her, he said, “We need to schedule another talk. More private.”
“All right.” She croaked out the words, her voice still rough from surprise.
“I have something this evening I can’t get out of.” He rose, towering over her. “But how about tomorrow night?”
She rose, too, with Vince cradled against her in one arm. “Okay.” Her mind was catching up to events. Trent had come here perfectly serious about wanting to buy her baby! But he was leaving now, and seemingly convinced that he couldn’t, that she wouldn’t agree. But did that mean he was going to relinquish his rights? That was what she wanted. That’s what she needed him to agree upon.
Her free hand crept over her belly. What should I do, Eisenhower?
As she walked Trent toward the playroom’s exit, her gaze landed on the poster taped to both sides of the glass door. “The fair,” she said aloud.
“What?” He paused and looked at her.
If he saw her with kids again, if he got to know her a little better, he would see she’d make a good mother and that she didn’t need or want anything from him. He continued to look down at her, waiting.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” she said. “If you don’t have something else going on, would you…like to come help me out at the children’s fair? I’m sort of half in charge and we could use an extra set of hands.”
“A children’s fair?” He said the words as if he’d never heard of such a thing.
Probably because the big, bad businessman usually concerned himself with big, bad business and not something as mundane as hot dogs and pony rides. She smiled at him, anyway. “You said you were good with babies.”
“I did, didn’t I?” Then he turned and strode for the door.
“Ten o’clock!” she called out after him. “I hope to see you there!”
By the time 9:45 a.m. rolled around, Rebecca realized she’d organized herself right out of anything major to do. Weeks ago she’d canvassed the hospital staff for volunteers and they’d stepped up without arm-twisting. The proceeds were going to benefit Camp I Can, a summer camp dear to the heart of Meredith Malone Weber, a pediatrics physical therapist. Thanks to that good cause, artistic nursing assistants were in place to paint little faces. Interns were using their rotating breaks to grill hot dogs or hand out sunscreen samples. Other volunteers were lined up to do everything from selling tickets to supervising the line for the ponies.
The flagged-off area for the fair was already starting to fill even before the official opening. Rebecca waved at a few faces she recognized, then went back to the last-minute run-through of her list. With the excited chatter and squeals of children rising around her, the hand that touched her shoulder came out of the blue at the same time that a male voice spoke in her ear. “Reporting for duty, Nurse Holley.”
Trent. It was Trent. Her face heated despite herself as she glanced up and took in his damp, dark golden hair, white T-shirt and worn jeans. He wore running shoes, the expensive kind that she always thought should do the running on their own at that price tag.
“Is there something wrong with what I’m wearing?” His hand slid from her shoulder and he held both arms out.
She shook her head, thinking, I was right about those good-looking genes, Eisenhower. “No, you’re perfect.” Her face burned. “I mean, what you’re wearing is perfect.”
“You look nice, too.”
Right. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her jeans, tennies and man-size Property of Portland General T-shirt was probably as unfamiliar to him as woman’s wear as the scrubs he’d seen her in before. But she wasn’t hoping to impress him as a female. Today was about showing him her maternal, responsible side.
A toddler bumped into her knees and she automatically reached down to steady the child. See? Today was about moments like this, when she could prove to him she was the right person to retain sole custody of the baby he’d unwittingly half created.
“So, what can I do?” he asked.
She ran her finger down the list on her clipboard, then grimaced. Before finalizing the assignments, maybe she should have considered what kind of job Trent Crosby, CEO, would find appropriate. “How do you feel about cotton candy?” It was the single booth not yet manned.
“The sweet, sticky stuff?”
Grimacing again, she nodded. “Sorry, but it’s the only job left.”
He chucked her under the chin, then leaned close, as if preparing to share a deep, dark secret. “Don’t apologize.” His warm breath tickled the side of her neck. “There’s nothing I like better than sweet and sticky.”
Rebecca’s muscles froze solid as his words, his teasing tone, the closeness of him sent a wave of contrasting heat over her skin. Beneath her T-shirt, her nipples contracted into hard points, pressing against the cups of her bra. Drawing in a breath, she sucked in that delicious, spicy scent that she’d smelled on Trent’s skin the night he’d half carried her to bed.
She inhaled it again, and something deep inside her, something long-dormant, stirred.
Desire, she realized. It stretched, warming up and loosening her insides.
“You okay?”
No. She hadn’t wanted a man since discovering the $988.72 Victoria’s Secret charge on her husband’s credit card. She hadn’t thought about her body in sexual terms since deciding upon becoming a mother.
“I’m fine.” She would be. Some new pregnancy hormone had probably kicked in and was coursing through her bloodstream, causing this odd heaviness in her breasts and belly. It wasn’t Trent who was responsible for the sudden tautness of her skin and her enhanced sense of smell.
“Let’s go, then.” He looked down at her, his eyebrows raised. Maybe puzzled by her strange behavior, but certainly not under the sexual spell that had paralyzed her.
“Yes, let’s go.” She forced herself to move. In a few minutes her hormone levels would rebalance and she would see him as the rich, unreachable guy he was. She wouldn’t smell him, be aware of him, want to touch him and have him touch her with such a painful ache.
Today was supposed to be about showing him she was responsible and maternal, not needy and sexual.
The cotton-candy machine was set up at the end of the aisle of food booths. The outfit they’d rented it from had provided the cartons of pink floss sugar to fill the machine as well as the paper cones to wind the candy threads around. It had looked easy during the demonstration.
“Once the machine’s warmed up and spinning,” she explained to Trent, as she started following her own instructions, “you just twirl the cone as you move it around the edge, picking up the cotton as you go along.”
But despite the simple instructions, her effort wasn’t going well. What was supposed to be a full, puffy ball of cotton candy was wispy and drooping. More of the floss coated her fingers than covered the cone. Frustrated, she stopped and studied the result. “It looks terrible.”
“You better let me taste it,” Trent said.
“Huh?” Frowning, she held it up for his inspection. “I don’t know what’s—”
His hand wrapped around her wrist.
At the contact, her arm jerked.
His mouth, which had been leaning in for that taste, sampled the sticky back of her hand instead. Warm and wet, his tongue swiped across her skin.
That new hormone flooded her again. Her gaze flew to his, and her eyes widened as her skin prickled and her nipples tingled, then tightened, in one unstoppable, sexual rush. Could he tell?
Oh yeah, he could. His nostrils flared, as if scenting the desire oozing out of her pores.
Her voice came out a broken whisper. “I don’t…I don’t know…”
“You don’t know what?” His voice was lower, raspier.
“I don’t know what to say.” But she had to say something, right? “I’m, uh, sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Trent’s eyes flicked to her mouth, and then back up. “I told you I like it sweet and sticky.”
His one hand still holding on to her wrist, he lifted the other to pinch a bit of candy off the cone and held it toward her lips. “See what you think.” He sounded like seduction, his voice liquid and coaxing.
Which made her feel liquid, sweet and sticky, and she was afraid she wasn’t hiding it very well. It wasn’t a maternal, responsible response. It wasn’t a smart thing for him to see. It wasn’t safe or smart for her to let him, of all people, make her feel that way.
“Come on, don’t be afraid. Open up that pretty mouth and taste.”
Oh, he sounded like seduction, all right. Her mouth was halfway open, her tongue halfway out.
A child’s voice pierced the heated air around them. “Mama! Mama! Cotton candy! Please! Buy me cotton candy.”
Rebecca lurched back. Trent’s fingers released her and she spun toward the child and parent. “Can I help you?” she asked, trying to sound normal.
She must have looked normal, because the mother handed over the two tickets required instead of running in the other direction to protect her son from the X-rated thoughts rattling around in Rebecca’s brain. The little boy bobbed up and down on his heels while Trent started on the candy. His first effort came out perfectly, wouldn’t you know? But she didn’t have a chance to commend him on it because by the time he handed it over, they had a five-deep line.
It stayed five-deep for the next couple of hours, so she didn’t have time to think, let alone worry over her uncontrollable response to Trent. At his insistence, she took one quick break from the booth to eat a hot dog and drink a bottle of water—she brought the same back to him—and then, as quickly as the line had formed, it evaporated. The fair was nearly over and, from the looks of things, had been an unqualified success.
However, the dearth of customers meant Rebecca had to face Trent without anything but the cotton-candy machine between them. She had to face up to those brief, but charged moments of sexual awareness. In their booth’s new silence, the whirring noise of the mechanism sounded loud, but not as loud as her beating heart. He switched off the machine, but, unwilling to meet his eyes, she kept her head down and pretended an interest in the coffee can of tickets she’d collected.
What’s he going to think about me now, Eisenhower? What kind of responsible mom goes wild with desire over a man she barely knows? Maybe he wouldn’t bring it up. And even if he did, maybe she could pretend he’d mistaken what had happened.
Yeah, right. And then he’d happen to brush against her once more and she’d melt into a puddle at his feet.
What kind of impression would that make?
“Rebecca.”
Trent’s voice, close by, startled her. Worried that he might touch her again, she stumbled back, knocking into the cotton-candy machine. To save herself, she reached behind, her steadying hands plunging into the remnants of gooey candy floss.
Still unbalanced, she staggered backward some more, her foot knocking over an open carton of cotton-candy mix that was still half full. As she whirled to grab the container, the powder spilled all over her tennies.
“Oh, no!” She groaned and, looking down at the mess, ran her hands over her hair—where they stuck like gum.
With another groan, she yanked them free. Aware of her appearance, and that as impressions went, she’d left an indelible one of incredible awkwardness, she raised her gaze to meet Trent’s. “I can’t believe this.”
His lips twitched. “Maybe it’s my fault. But when I said I liked sticky and sweet, I didn’t mean—”
“Ooooh!”
“Don’t stamp your foot when you’re standing in all that powder, because then you’ll have more than a mustard stain on your shirt.”
Her gaze dropped. Sure enough, there was a big ol’ swathe of bright yellow across the front of her T-shirt. A nice contrast to the pink cast to her sticky hands. “I’m usually a very neat person,” she muttered, annoyed at his teasing and embarrassed all over again. “Seriously. Ask anyone.”
He laughed. “And I’ll give you the chance to prove it. Let me see if I can find a bucket of water and a broom.”
“Would you?” At least that would give her a few moments alone to mourn her dignity. “Go to the ticket booth and ask for Eddie. He’ll help.”
“Eddie.” Trent nodded, then grinned at her. “Now, don’t go anywhere.”
As if she could, she thought, looking at the remains of the cotton-candy booth that needed to be cleaned up. Not to mention herself. Could the day get any worse? Could she appear any worse in Trent’s eyes?
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice said. “If it isn’t my ex. And looking her usual best.”
Humiliation skittered like a cockroach down Rebecca’s spine. Determined not to let her former husband see her reaction, though, she lifted her chin and coolly met his gaze.
He was looking like a million and one bucks, in expensive khakis and a starched dress shirt, his initials embroidered on the pocket. His white doctor’s coat was thrown over one arm and his fingers were twined with those of the woman he’d left her for—Constance Blake. In a pastel suit, Constance looked like two million and one bucks, plus all the alimony payments that Rebecca deserved but that her ex-husband had managed to weasel out of.
“Hello, Ray.” He hated when she called him that. His given name was Rayburn and it was his preference. He’d always said Ray was a guy who sprawled on the couch and drank beer.
Well, better a stay-at-home beer-drinker than a cheating swiller of chardonnay who spent all his spare time sharing someone else’s bed.
“Is everything okay, Rebecca?” At the new voice, they all looked over. There was Trent, lugging a bucket of water and an old straw broom.
Oh, no. Rebecca gave an inward moan. The last thing she wanted was for Eisenhower’s daddy to meet Ray. That would only clinch the bad impression she’d made on Trent today. What kind of woman would ever have married such a jerk?
As if he had to confirm that fact, Ray opened his mouth. “Is this your new boyfriend, Becca?” His gaze focused on the bucket and the broom, and he smiled, except on Ray it looked like a sneer. “You dating the janitor now?”
Trent had been taking himself to task all the way to Eddie and back. Thinking with the brain below his belt instead of the one between his ears had led him to teasing and flirting with Rebecca. But she didn’t need that. She’d said she didn’t need or want anything from him.
He certainly didn’t need to wind their accidental entanglement any tighter.
But those thoughts evaporated when he took in the man and woman talking with Rebecca. Trent didn’t like that stiff expression on her face, an expression that turned even stiffer when the other man said something Trent didn’t catch. Something about “the janitor.”
He strode closer, then stepped over the short front wall of their booth. “Excuse me?” he said, meeting the other man’s gaze. “Were you talking to me?”
The guy’s eyes slid toward Rebecca. “I was asking about Becca’s love life.” A faint smile looked nasty on his too-pretty face.
“My love life’s none of your business, Ray,” Rebecca replied. She glanced over at Trent, then released a tiny sigh. “This is my ex-husband, Rayburn Holley, and his friend, Constance Blake. Ray, Constance, this is Trent Crosby.”
“Doctor Rayburn Holley,” the man said. His gaze traveled to the bucket and broom Trent carried. “I’d shake hands but I’m on duty in a few minutes. So you’re making time with my little Becca, huh?”
Aaah. Now if he put love life and janitor together, it was clear that Dr. Ray had been trying to put his ex-wife down. Trent smiled. “We’re making something, all right, Ray.” He turned to the man’s companion. “Hey there, Constance. Did your brother tell you I kicked his ass on the tennis court last week?”
If smiles could kill, Constance’s would have flash-frozen him on the spot. His mother and his ex-wife had been expert at that kind of smile and he was expert at deflecting it.
He grinned back. “What’s the matter, Con? Toothache?”
“There’s not a thing wrong with me, Trent.”
“Nothing that a little warm blood wouldn’t help,” he murmured for Rebecca’s ears only and was gratified to hear her little snort of choked-off laughter. Then he raised his voice. “My mistake. I thought maybe that’s why you had an appointment with Dr. Ray here.”
“I’m a dermatologist, not a dentist.” The doctor shot a glance at his companion. “You know this man, Constance?”
She gave him a nudge with her elbow. “He’s Trent Crosby, Rayburn. Of Crosby Systems?”
Dr. Ray blinked. The he looked from Rebecca to Trent. From Trent to Rebecca. “Well.” He shook his head. “Well, well.”
Rebecca crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, well, let’s not keep you, Ray. I’m sure your patients need you more than we do.”
“I don’t—” Ray blinked again. “So there is a �we,’ Rebecca? You and Trent Crosby?”
The embarrassed flush on Rebecca’s face was all the impetus Trent needed. He pasted on his best man-to-man smile. “What else would get me out of the office or off the golf course on a Saturday morning but a beautiful woman, right, Ray? A beautiful, desirable woman.” His arm looped around Rebecca’s neck to draw her close. He pressed his mouth against hers in a casual kiss.
At the light contact, a fire flared. Trent jerked away from it, staring into Rebecca’s equally startled eyes. It took an effort to break her gaze and meet Dr. Ray’s. “And, uh, thanks, by the way.”
“For what?” The other man didn’t look happy.
Trent hugged Rebecca closer. He didn’t dare kiss her again. “For this woman, of course. Your loss is my gain.”
It sent the supercilious bastard on his way, trailed by the Ice Queen who deserved him. Trent kept his arm around Rebecca until the other couple was out of sight.
That was when her shoulders slumped and she slid away from his embrace. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“What?” He couldn’t help smiling at Rebecca, because Dr. SOB was out of her life and because she looked so damn cute with cotton candy in her hair.
“Pretend for Ray.”
Trent shrugged. “He was trying to do a number on you.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I know, and I still can’t help falling for it. After I caught him cheating, it was as if he blamed me for his own failings.”
“Spouses are pigs.”
She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. Then she sobered. “Sometimes I feel bad about being so pessimistic about love. Then again, sometimes I feel smug.”
“I only feel smart.”
She laughed again. “At least you’re honest. Ray wasn’t.”
“Neither was my ex-wife.”
“I suppose that means we have more in common than I would ever have suspected,” Rebecca replied.
“Yeah. Cheating spouses and a lousy attitude toward love.”
“There’s the pregnancy, too.” Rebecca’s eyes bored straight into his. “And I have to be honest and up-front about it, Trent. I need to make sure you understand that I will never, ever give up my baby. I want you to give me sole custody.”
While he’d known that was what she was after, it made him almost angry to hear her say it. “Am I such a bad guy?”
Her gaze dropped. “You’re not a bad guy, no.” Color stained her cheeks and she pressed her lips together.
It made him think of the kiss. That surprising burst of heat. Maybe he would be better off distancing himself permanently from her. From the baby.
But he couldn’t! Memories slammed him from all sides. Chubby cheeks, little fingers, hero worship. He thought of his nephew and Robbie Logan. He couldn’t lose another child. He couldn’t.
“I have to be honest, too,” he said. “I can’t just walk away, Rebecca.”
She nodded, as if he’d confirmed her worst fears. “We’ll have to come up with another plan, then.”
Yes, another plan. He thought they could, because, despite their initial misfires, they got along well enough. Very well, as a matter of fact. They could laugh together, enjoy each other’s company, enjoy a kiss. Hell, that was more than his own parents had found in their marriage.
“Our baby should have a mother and a father in its life,” he said. “Full-time.”
Rebecca shrugged. “That’s ideal, but not a necessity.”
Trent thought of his parents’ marriage again. They’d lived separate lives, for all intents and purposes, but in the same house. They’d had the children between them, along with a boatload of animosity, but what if the animosity hadn’t been there? What if they could have gotten along, two separate beings who shared living space and their progeny? That could have worked.
It could work.
“Maybe we should get married,” he said aloud, trying out the sound of it. “What do you think?”
Four
D ressed in his disguise of tattered jeans, plaid flannel shirt over a sweatshirt and Seattle Mariners baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, Everett Baker stood concealed on the other side of the flimsy, plywood back wall of the cotton-candy booth, listening to the couple inside. He knew Rebecca Holley by sight from his job as an accountant at the Children’s Center. Trent Crosby he’d never met. At least not since they were children. Perhaps he should feel bad for eavesdropping on them, but eavesdropping was the least of his crimes.
The two in the booth would have other reasons to despise him.
Just as he’d begun to despise himself since he’d been on the run from the FBI.
But Nancy loves me.
He had to hold on to that. He’d already told Portland General Hospital’s nurse Nancy Allen about the things he’d done, yet miraculously, she still loved him. She still believed in him.
He had to prove to her that her faith in him wasn’t groundless. That there was a reason to love him. So leaving town was no longer an option. He had to own up to his crimes.
Though confident that no one would recognize the well-pressed bean-counter he’d been in his new grunge-guise, Everett walked behind the facades of the booths set up for the fair, where no one could see him. Even before the FBI had begun looking for him, that was how he’d lived most of his life—behind a facade, and distant from other people. Most of the time he blamed himself for that distance, it was his fault he was so shy, his fault he couldn’t reach out and let people see who he really was.
Other times he realized that his childhood had forced that role and those ways upon him.
“Daddy!” Through the plywood barriers he could hear a young boy’s voice. “Can we go to the park now? You promised we’d play ball today.”
Play ball.
A familiar scene fluttered through his mind. He used to think it was a fantasy, or something from an old movie or television program that he couldn’t remember watching. But now he knew it for what it was—a memory. A box with crinkly silver paper. More paper inside. And inside that, smelling almost as good as his mother’s flowery perfume, a beautiful leather baseball mitt, just his size.
Can we play ball now, Dad? Can we? Can we?
He’d loved that mitt. He’d loved baseball.
But his father had changed. His father had gone from fun and loving to foul-mouthed and stinking of booze. His mother had changed, too. And his home had never been the same.
He had never been the same. Not anything about him.
Now he found himself standing next to a payphone tucked beside one of the seldom-used side exits of Portland General. Digging through his pockets, he found some change, and without giving himself time to think about it, dialed the number. He’d memorized it from the card the detective had given him when he’d accompanied Nancy to the police station a few weeks before. Then, he’d tried to deflect her warnings about the possibility of a kidnapping ring by telling Detective Levine that the nurse was tired and overworked. He’d tried to give the police officer the impression that she was imagining things.
Now he was determined to confirm the truth of what Nancy had said. With the ringleader of their group, Charlie Prescott, found by the FBI and shot dead, Everett thought it was finally safe to do so.
“Detective Levine,” a voice said over the phone.
He thought of all the people he’d hurt. He thought of all he had to regret.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” The detective sounded impatient.
He thought of Nancy. Nancy and his mother and father—the way they’d been at first. “Hello, Detective,” he said. “We’ve spoken before. About a possible kidnapping ring.”
“Who is this?” the detective barked out.
“This is—” He hesitated, then forced out the words. “This is Everett Baker. I know you and the FBI have been looking for me and I’d like to come in. I have information that you need to hear.”
The evening of the children’s fair, when Rebecca opened her front door to Trent, she knew he must have been kidding when he’d said “Maybe we should get married.” Despite the three large, but otherwise very ordinary bags of Chinese takeout in his arms, he was too…too for a woman such as herself. Too rich, too good-looking, too attractive to settle for a marriage of convenience based upon unforeseen circumstances.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked.
“Oh! Oh, yes.” Oh, God. She’d been standing in the doorway just staring at him. After making such a fool of herself at the fair, the last thing she wanted was to look ridiculous in his eyes again. She stepped aside and gestured him inside. “Let me take the food. I’ll put it on plates and we can eat in the living room, okay?”
“Sure.” He leaned down to transfer the bags.
She circled her arms to take them from him. It should have been simple. But in the middle of the process, they both hesitated, and Rebecca felt paralyzed by the complexity of the task. Should she grab them, or should he drop them? It was like a first kiss, she thought, all those awkward questions. Where to put the noses? Which way to turn your head?
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