Читать книгу Her Baby's Hero - Karen Sandler - Страница 10

Would Ashley call his bluff?

She had to know he wouldn’t take no for an answer, that he wasn’t going anywhere without her. If she believed he’d stay right here, take up residence on her turf, would that be enough to bring her to her senses? Convince her to pack up her things, climb in his Mercedes and return to San José with him?

It sure as hell had better. Because staying here in Small Town, USA, was most certainly not on his agenda. With Kerrigan Technology still struggling out of its financial doldrums, his father’s estate still in a mess, he didn’t have time to play country boy.

He focused on Ashley, on her delicate face, the lines softened by pregnancy, her belly large with child. His child. His responsibility. He had a duty to protect her and the child she carried, whether she liked it or not. The moment she had stepped from her house, pregnant with his baby, his obligations had extended beyond just his brother, Steven, and his stepmother, Maureen, to encompass Ashley and the life inside her. He couldn’t—would never—turn his back on that obligation.

Her gaze narrowed on him. “I’m not leaving.”

“I’m not, either.”

She tipped up her chin. “Then stay.”

Okay, this might take a little time. He made a quick mental assessment of his weekend and decided he might have a day or two of wiggle room in which to work on Ashley. She’d always been a sensible woman, surely she would see reason if he made a clear case to her.

He motioned toward the sofa. “Sit down.” He took a breath. “Please.”

She eyed him warily, edging around him to the far end of the sofa. When she groped behind her for the sofa arm, he couldn’t just stand there and let her flop back onto the cushions. He took her hand to help her down.

The warmth of her skin against his was a shock. Her wide brown eyes locked with his, stirring up memories he’d buried away six months ago. He forced himself to release her, then eased himself into the adjacent armchair.

She rubbed her palms together. “Don’t you have a business to run?”

What waited for him at home pressed down on him, but he shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “What did you expect, Ashley? That I’d take one look at you and run?”

Color rose in her cheeks. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

Obviously, she wasn’t thinking now, considering her adamant insistence on staying. He’d have her convinced by tomorrow.

“How long?” She smoothed her skirt over her rounded belly. A maternity dress shouldn’t look so sexy, but there was something about the swirl of colors, her slender hands, that stirred heat inside him.

Heat that hazed his thoughts. “What?”

“For the weekend?”

“We need time to work out the particulars.”

Her lips compressed. She didn’t like that answer. “You’re not staying here.”

He looked around at the tiny space, imagined sharing it with Ashley. They’d be shoulder to shoulder, brushing up against each other at every turn, in each other’s space. Touching, breathing each other’s air.

“No. Of course not.” He suppressed his body’s reaction. “Where do you suggest?”

“The Hart Valley Inn.” As she hooked a strand of silky hair behind her ear, her hand shook. “Pretty much the only place to stay unless you want to go down to Marbleville.”

Better to stay as close to her as possible. All the better to keep the pressure on. He needed to tie things up as quickly as he could, get back to San José.

Fate had just wrenched his life into a sharp U-turn, not toward disaster as it had twenty years ago, but toward…something new. Unexpected. He didn’t like surprises.

He just needed time to wrap his mind around it, to understand how his world had lurched into unpredictability. He’d learned twenty years ago that if he didn’t want the rug pulled out from under him, he’d better keep himself in line, have every detail worked out completely. Otherwise, chaos would sit on his doorstep.

Ashley’s brown eyes drew him, tugged at something inside him. Without a mother for so long, he never learned the knack for giving comfort, had never considered it something expected of him. That was a woman’s purview. But Ashley’s troubled gaze drove him to reach for her.

He folded her hand in his, intending to give her a pat, a smile to ease her. But the moment he touched her, his world shifted again, lust and a baffling longing wrestling inside him.

With the chair and sofa sitting at right angles, his knees nearly brushed hers. The lightweight fabric of her flowery dress shaped her legs, tempting him to run a hand along her still-slender thigh. It might have only been one night, a cataclysmic hour of lovemaking, but he remembered distinctly the feel of her taut skin as he trailed his fingers up to that sweet mystery shrouded in rose-gold curls.

His heart pounded in his ears as he leaned closer, fitting his knee between hers. Balancing on the edge of the chair, he lifted his hand to curl around the back of her neck, threading his fingers into her hair. Her wide brown eyes fixed on him, the heat in them unmistakable. Her lips parted, inviting him in, begging him to brush his mouth against them.

He was near enough to hear her breathing, to catch a trace of her scent. Her inner thigh felt impossibly hot against his leg and an urgency to press her back against the sofa, to cover her body with his exploded inside him.

He let go of her hand, intent on exploring her body. But the terrain had changed, and with the first light contact against her rounded belly, he froze. She’s pregnant! What the hell are you doing?

He pushed back, jumping to his feet. “God, I’m sorry.”

She just stared at him, looking as stunned as he felt. Color had risen in her cheeks, whether from embarrassment or arousal he didn’t want to consider.

“I had no right to touch you.”

Her chest rose as she took in a breath. “No, you didn’t.”

“But my intentions here…” He struggled to frame what he wanted to say. “My only purpose here is to fulfill my obligations. There won’t be any other relationship between us.”

She tipped up her chin. “Of course not.”

Feeling like a complete idiot, he edged toward the door. “I should go. Get myself set up at the inn.”

When she started to push to her feet, he motioned her back down. “I’ll call you.” He shoved open the door and let himself out into the afternoon sunshine.

He didn’t let himself think until he’d pulled the Mercedes back onto the road. He had a to-do list a mile long in his PDA, most of which he could take care of with his laptop and a data line. He’d have to call his stepmother, Maureen, and his brother’s caretaker, Harold. He’d only brought one change of clothes, so a trip down to that big box store in Marbleville would be in order. Shopping somewhere that didn’t stock Gucci and Armani would horrify his stepmother, but he doubted anyone in Hart Valley would notice the lack of designer labels.

Could he reach his attorney this late in the day? He needed a trust fund set up for the baby. Another one for Ashley. Maureen would squawk about that, too.

Should he call his stepmother’s butler, have him set up a suite of rooms for Ashley in the mansion? He’d want a place ready for her when he brought her back with him. Preferably in the east wing, opposite his own rooms at the other end of the sprawling Tudor. As far from his as possible.

Like the sweetest fragment of a dream, Ashley’s face drifted into his mind. He ought to blot it immediately from his consciousness, but he let it linger as he slowed at the town limits. He hadn’t allowed himself to feel even the least anticipation at the prospect of seeing her again. Now something very akin to pleasure threatened to blossom inside him.

Even though she meant nothing to him. She’d been a casual friend at Berkeley, someone he knew wouldn’t fit into the life that waited for him outside the university. Their one frantic night of passion hadn’t changed that fact.

But the baby did. The baby changed everything. It meant he would have to make a place for Ashley, even if she was nothing more to him than the mother of his child. He could never let her go, not completely. She would always be that one small puzzle piece whose edges never quite matched, whose brilliant colors flamed in the otherwise drab tapestry of his life.

Not five minutes after Jason left, Ashley’s cell phone rang. Deep in the sofa’s cushions, her body still tingling in the aftermath of what had nearly happened between her and Jason, she stared at the device burbling away on the breakfast counter across the room and considered ignoring its summons.

But it was most likely Sara, and if Ashley didn’t answer, Sara would be on her way back here, lickety-split. Ashley had enough on her hands coping with Jason’s overbearing presence without Sara complicating matters. Her counselor sister would have her under the microscope, analyzing Ashley’s every emotion toward Jason. She’d never believe the short-lived passion of six months ago had burned itself out completely that night.

The phone stopped ringing, but Ashley knew better than to expect Sara would leave it at that. She’d better call her sister back before Sara grabbed her car keys.

With a heave, Ashley pushed up from the sofa and hurried to pick up the phone. It rang again almost immediately. Sara’s number flashed on the display.

“Hey, are you psychic?” Ashley smiled as she answered, hoping it would mask the edginess in her voice. “He just left.”

“He’s the father, isn’t he?” Sara rarely minced words.

“Yes.” Twenty-three years old and Ashley still felt like a baby sister. “Guilty as charged.”

“Why now?” Sara pressed. “All these months since you found out, you’d think he would have turned up before now.”

Ashley took a breath. “Until today, he didn’t know.”

Several seconds of silence ticked away before Sara asked, “And now that he’s heard the happy news?”

“He’s staying for a couple days. To work things out.”

“Staying where? Not with you?”

“Of course not. At the inn.”

She could imagine Sara’s scowl. “Does he know about—”

“No.”

“You have to tell him.”

Ashley tried to rub away the tension building between her eyes. “One bombshell at a time.”

“What do you know about this man?”

What did she know, other than his connection with Kerrigan Technology? He’d offered so little of himself during their time at Berkeley. Even that night in his arms, when they’d been as physically close as a man and woman could be, he’d kept his deepest secrets secured behind an emotional wall.

“I’m pregnant, Sara. He’s the father. I have no choice but to let him be involved.”

“Are you going to marry him?”

“What?” The thought twisted her stomach. “Good God, no.”

“Because if you barely know him—”

“Marriage is absolutely not an option.”

Sara released a long sigh. “You keep me informed. If he takes one wrong step—”

“You’ll be the first to know.” Ashley said her goodbyes and hung up the phone. She couldn’t deal with Sara’s mothering right then, not when she needed to work out for herself what to do next.

Sara had protected her for years, first from their abusive father, and later while they lived on their own, a seventeen-year-old and a twelve-year-old fighting to eke out a life for themselves. It was a hard habit for her sister to break and even harder for Sara to accept that Ashley could take care of herself.

The phone still in her hand, she nearly dropped it when it rang again. The caller ID displayed “Kerrigan Technology” on the screen. Her heart rate picked up its pace, but she squelched her reaction as she pressed the answer button. “Hello.”

“Do you know how to store a number on your phone?”

The brusque, off-the-wall question was pure Jason. “I can figure it out.”

“Save my number. I want to know you can get hold of me if you need me.”

But she didn’t need him, didn’t even want him there. It was very well to tell Sara that Jason deserved to be part of his baby’s life, quite another to accept him into hers. The dance they’d engaged in at the university, the steps a mix of respect, mutual interest and occasional awkwardness, had never quite matured into actual friendship. Their night of intimacy had destroyed even that possibility.

“I’ll save it. Thanks.” She couldn’t hold back the most obvious question. “What are we doing, Jason? What comes next?”

“How about dinner?”

“I have work to do. As I’m sure you do.”

“Afterward—”

“I go to bed early.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Then let me take you to breakfast. There’s some kind of coffee shop across the street from here.”

“Nina’s Café. But I can’t do breakfast. I’m still getting my classroom set up.”

“I’ll come with you. We’ll talk.”

The last thing she wanted was him in her classroom, entangled even further in her life. He didn’t belong there. But what choice did she have?

Tiredness swept over her and she realized she simply didn’t have the energy to resist him. “Pick me up at nine.”

“I’ll bring breakfast.” A beep sounded in the background. “I’ve got a message coming in I’ve been waiting for.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“I have to take it.”

“Okay.”

Still he hung on; she could hear him breathing into the phone. “We’ll work it out, Ashley.” Finally he disconnected.

She stared at the phone, stunned. He’d actually sounded halfway human. Of course, Jason’s idea of working things out would doubtless involve him demanding and her acquiescing.

Setting aside the cell, she returned to the sofa to lie down. Exhaustion had been one constant during her pregnancy, made even worse by the extra burden on her body. As she lifted her feet onto the sofa arm and tucked pillows under her head, she considered how she would deliver the rest of the news to Jason. What if that was the tipping point that sent him running? Would that be better than having to grapple with the discomfort his presence stirred up inside her?

She’d prepared herself to do this on her own. How would she fit Jason into the picture? Her father had shown her the ugliness of men, the horror they could inflict on women. Jason would never raise a hand to her, but he was so reserved, so cold, she couldn’t imagine him letting her get very close. And what kind of father would such an aloof man be to his children?

He’d been anything but icy that night. She still wasn’t sure how it had happened. If not for the life growing inside her, she could almost believe the fire and passion six months ago had been a dream.

She couldn’t think about it now. The exhaustion had seeped even deeper, driving thought from her mind. The faintest rustling in her belly a comfort, she surrendered to sleep.

Jason stabbed the disconnect button on his cell and resisted the urge to slam the device on his desk. He’d expected the conversation with his stepmother, Maureen, to be difficult; he hadn’t anticipated such a nasty confrontation.

Usually, he just ignored his stepmother’s diatribes. But when she started in on Ashley, it was all he could do to keep his temper in check, to keep from roaring out at the injustice as he had as a child. All those years of careful self-control nearly went out the window. So he’d held his tongue as Maureen played every card in her deck of accusation and condemnation, calling him an idiot for falling prey to Ashley six months ago, and his decision to accept her child as complete insanity. She accused Ashley of using the baby as a ploy to force him to marry her so she could get her hands on the Kerrigan money. His repeated assurance that marriage most definitely wasn’t in the cards barely appeased his stepmother.

She’d insisted he demand a DNA test the moment the baby was born. Ranted that by acknowledging the child without any empirical proof was further confirmation of his father’s error in placing Kerrigan Technology into his son’s hands. He would drive the company into the ground, destroy his father’s life’s work.

His father had nearly done that on his own with a few bad decisions not long before the heart attack that killed him. His acquisitions of a struggling digital media company and a moribund Internet-based data storage firm had nearly broken the company’s back.

He ran his fingers lightly over the keyboard of his laptop. A half-dozen high-priority e-mails awaited his immediate response. A security report required his input, as did a stack of résumés from applicants for a VP of marketing position. He had plenty to occupy himself with tonight.

But with Ashley so close, he couldn’t seem to think straight. It made no sense, when he’d barely given her a second thought since he’d left Berkeley.

That wasn’t entirely honest. Sometimes, during strategy sessions with Kerrigan’s Marketing Department or the interminable discussions with his father’s estate lawyer, she’d drift into the periphery of his consciousness. Sometimes it would just be her face in his mind’s eye, sometimes that one incredible night of pleasure would unroll like a movie, obliterating any other thought.

Those images invaded now, drumming through him, scents and sensations as real as if she sat beside him. He grabbed the bottled water on the table beside his laptop and gulped down half of it. Dumping it on his head would have been more effective.

He felt so antsy in the small, overdecorated room, the prospect of waiting until tomorrow morning to see her again seemed unbearable. Especially with the specter of his interaction with Maureen still fresh in his mind. He wanted to stand in the same space as Ashley, breathe in the scent of her skin, let the silk of her hair stroke his palm.

He was half out of his chair, hand on his car keys before he stopped himself. Dropping the keys on the small table he’d made into his desk, he forced himself to sit, to focus on his computer.

He tapped at the keyboard until his hands were stiff and his neck ached. Ashley’s face kept floating up like a screensaver on the laptop, her sweet smile, her soft brown gaze fixed on him. Likely, whatever he’d typed in those e-mails he’d sent over the last few hours would be unreadable garble and he’d end up sending them all over again tomorrow.

When his stomach rumbled, he was shocked to see it was nearly eight o’clock. He rose, tried to stretch out the kinks in his back. As small as it was, the room was the largest the inn had to offer, with a queen-size bed wedged between two side tables, an armoire and the worktable squeezed in at the other end. It wasn’t a business suite by any stretch of the imagination, although some might call its frilly touches homey.

Not like any home he’d ever lived in, though. The Kerrigan mansion had been furnished by a professional interior designer, each piece chosen to suit Maureen’s taste. Every room seemed staged, with just the right painting on the wall precisely placed above outrageously priced antiques. The house might as well be a museum.

And yet…there was a memory, buried away, of a different place, a tiny cottage north of San Francisco, its rooms packed with mismatched furniture, its walls crammed with pictures. He’d been five when Kerrigan Technology had taken off, when they’d moved to the mansion. In the three years before his mother died, she’d never quite put her touch on that expansive Tudor in San José.

He pushed up the window fronting Main Street to let in the cool evening air. Hart Valley had just about rolled up its sidewalks for the night, nearly every storefront dark. Only Nina’s Café across the street was still open, but the last car parked out front pulled away as he watched.

Thank God he was only staying a day or two. He was used to the vibrancy of San José and San Francisco. This sleepy little town unsettled him, gave him too much quiet space. The high tension of the Bay Area suited him better, kept his mind active, distracted him from the darkness that always edged his life.

Headlights approaching from the other direction caught his attention. The car, an old-style VW bug, slipped into the parking slot next to his. A woman stepped from the car, the dim light from the Hart Valley Inn sign revealing the gold-red color of her hair. Ashley. She was here.

His heart thundered at breakneck speed, and he gripped the windowsill as she lifted her gaze to the inn’s second floor. She found his window, although it wasn’t the only one lit. The VW’s door still open, she stood there, frozen. She looked ready to climb back into the car.

Don’t go! The sound of his own voice rang in his ears, and he realized he’d said it out loud. In the preternatural silence of Main Street, she had to have heard. Still she clung to the car as if planning her escape.

Finally she slammed the door shut and started for the inn’s front door. Relief surged through him. It alarmed him that her arrival meant so much to him, and he clamped down on the emotions that threatened to bubble up.

Backing from the window, he looked around the room and realized how hazardous it would be to have her here, especially after their close call in her living room. He’d catch her downstairs before she came up. They could meet down in the parlor where the inn hosts set up coffee in the morning.

By the time he stepped out onto the landing, Ashley had already reached the bottom of the stairs. Her beauty stunned him momentarily, so she’d climbed several steps before he could speak.

“I’ll come down,” he told her, starting toward her.

Gripping the rail, she hesitated. “I have to talk to you.”

He stopped on the step above hers. “You’d better not be here to tell me to leave.”

“I’m not,” she said, tension edging her tone.

“We can’t go to my room.”

Heat flared in her eyes. “No. We can’t.”

He edged past her, putting out a hand. “We’ll sit downstairs.”

He might as well have been offering her a snake instead of his hand, but she took it. The way she leaned on him as they descended the last few steps told him she needed his help more than she would likely admit.

She let go the moment they reached the bottom, but he held on long enough to guide her toward the parlor. “Is that normal?”

Hands lightly on her belly, she glanced at him sidelong. “What?”

“You’re exhausted.” He took her hand again to help her down onto the sofa in the parlor.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She leaned her head against the unforgiving high back of the Queen Anne sofa. “It’s late.”

“It’s eight-thirty.” He sat beside her, keeping a decorous two feet between them. “At Berkeley we’d stay up all night arguing economic theories.”

She smiled, looking his way. “You argued economic theories. I lectured you on Shakespeare.”

Her eyes were half-lidded from tiredness, he realized, but he could so easily picture that red-gold head on a soft pillow, bedroom eyes beckoning him. “What did you want?”

Her gaze slid away. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

His heart pounded as irrational fear surged through him. “There’s something wrong with the baby.”

Startled, she turned back to him. “No. The babies are fine.”

His thought processes ground to a halt. Babies? He struggled to put two and two together, to come up with—

“Twins, Jason,” she said, her expression serious. “I’m having twins.”