Читать книгу For Love and Family - Victoria Pade - Страница 8

“I don’t have the time to explain it to you, mister. Eve Warwick—that’s who I need. And come hell or high water, I’m going to see her and I’m going to see her now.”

After a full ten minutes of going round and round with the Warwick butler, who was blocking the doorway of the sprawling Warwick family mansion, Hunter Coltrane had reached the limits of his patience. He had the man by the shirtfront, his face no more than an inch from the butler’s nose.

Hunter could see that the much smaller man’s features were tightened into a mask of abject fear. But at that moment the butler’s fear was nothing compared to the fear Hunter felt, and he was too desperate to care that he was scaring the man. If scaring him was what it took, he’d terrify the guy.

“She’s about to leave for an appointment and she’ll fire me if I let you or anyone else delay her,” the butler informed him in a strained whisper.

“Then how about if you don’t let me delay her? How about if you just tell me where in this damn mausoleum she is and I go find her for myself?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” a grating female voice demanded from inside the house just then.

Without breaking eye contact with the butler, Hunter recognized the speaker. That voice belonged to Eve Warwick. He ungently moved the other man out of his way, stepped across the threshold and went into the foyer of the imposing residence that he and his late wife had visited on only one occasion a little over four years ago.

Eve Warwick was standing at the top of a grand staircase that curved in a full half-circle sweep to the second level of the three-story structure. She looked as outraged as she sounded, but Hunter would suffer that outrage and anything else she wanted to dish out to get what he’d come for.

He consciously tried to calm the unusual flare of temper that frustration had raised and forced himself to speak civilly.

“I don’t know if you remember me or not. I’m Hunter Coltrane,” he said. “My wife and I adopted your baby—”

“I know who you are and you have no business here,” Eve Warwick decreed imperiously.

“It isn’t ‘business’ I’m here for. I’m here for Johnny. He’s—”

“I don’t care what you’re here for. You just need to leave. Now,” she ordered.

Hunter ignored it. “Johnny—that’s what we named him—needs your blood,” he informed her.

But not even blurting that out had an impact on the perfectly coiffed woman in the haute couture pink suit. Her only response was to transfer her gaze to the butler and say, “Pixley, call security.”

“Just hear me out,” Hunter implored. “Johnny is in the Portland General Hospital emergency room and he needs blood. Your blood. You know he has AB negative—your rare type. There was a bus accident yesterday and a whole family with that blood was hurt. They depleted all the blood bank had stored. But Johnny needs a transfusion in a hurry, so you have to come with me to the hospital. Right now!”

Hunter realized that his voice rang with his own worry for his son, but he didn’t care.

“I did the open adoption through the Children’s Connection to be sure the child went to the right people,” Eve said. “Not so that I could be bothered by those people at any time afterward. If you’ll recall, you signed an agreement to that effect. I’m sorry your son is ill, but it has nothing to do with me. So please leave.”

She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded cold, aloof and absolutely unconcerned.

“Did you not understand?” Hunter said, his voice raising an octave all on its own. “I’m not here to bother you and under any other circumstances I would have abided by that agreement and we wouldn’t have ever seen each other again. But my son is in danger if he doesn’t get the blood he needs. Immediately!”

Eve Warwick again turned a hard, demanding eye to the butler who was still standing where Hunter had left him. “Pixley?” she said snidely, “You can’t call security as you were told to do if you’re standing there eavesdropping.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the butler answered, pivoting on his heels and hurrying out of the foyer.

“Look,” Hunter said, trying to reason with the woman. “I’m no happier to be here than you are to have me here. I guarantee that it was as much my goal as yours for us never to have contact again. But my son is in trouble and he needs your help. All you have to do is come with me to the hospital and give blood.”

“I don’t like needles,” she said, raising her nose in the air. “And I have an appointment with my manicurist that I cannot miss. I’m sure you or the hospital will find someone else who can help. Portland, Oregon, is not the end of the earth, after all. There’s bound to be someone else with AB negative blood.”

“There isn’t time to find someone else!” Hunter shouted, his frustration once again rearing its ugly head.

“There will have to be, because I’m not doing it, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That is not all there is to it,” Hunter shouted so loudly his voice echoed in the marble-lined space and made the crystal chandelier overhead tinkle like a wind chime. “Whether you gave Johnny up or not, we’re talking about your own flesh and blood! That has to mean something to you!”

“It means you’re making me late for my appointment. That’s the only thing it means to me. The child is yours. He’s not my concern.”

Hunter and his late wife had not thought highly of Eve Warwick when they’d met her for the interview after applying to adopt the infant she was to deliver three months later. She’d given the impression that the baby was just some sort of debris to be disposed of somehow. But he still couldn’t believe what he was faced with at that moment. No matter how much money she and her entire family had, no matter how much social standing, no matter how glamorous the life she led, how could she possibly be denying blood to any child, let alone the child she’d given birth to?

“Please, just come with me to the hospital,” Hunter said, thinking that if she wanted him to beg, he’d do it. He’d do anything for his son.

But it didn’t matter. Still sounding like a spoiled child vetoing her nanny’s suggestion of a bath, she said, “No.”

“No is not an option,” Hunter countered, heading for that oversized staircase, thinking that if he had to throw the woman over his shoulder and physically take her to the hospital, he’d do it, regardless of the consequences he might have to face later.

But he hadn’t even made it to the first step when two security guards rushed him. He got in a punch, but before he could do more than that, one of the guards yanked his arms behind his back to subdue him.

“Eve? What’s going on?”

The female voice came from behind Hunter, at the front door, which had been left open after his unceremonious entrance.

He didn’t recognize this voice, though. It was much more lilting and pleasant-sounding, in spite of the alarm it held.

“It’s nothing, Terese,” Eve Warwick said, as if the life crisis Hunter had just laid at her feet really wasn’t worth the annoyance it was causing. “Nothing is going on.”

“Something is going on,” the other woman insisted as the butler returned to the foyer, and the security guard Hunter had hit shared the burden of restraining him.

The other woman came around Hunter then and he got a glimpse of her that confused him.

Unlike Eve Warwick, she wasn’t wearing designer clothes. Instead she was dressed in a pair of jeans and a plain blouse with the sleeves of a sweater tied around her shoulders. Her burnished red hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and if she wore any makeup, it wasn’t noticeable—all of which led Hunter to wonder if she was an employee, despite the fact that even the butler was more dressed up in his three-piece suit.

Yet the woman didn’t show any signs of subservience as she stood in the center of the foyer surveying the situation and using a tone with Eve Warwick that was anything but obsequious or servile.

Her presence did prompt Eve to finally come down the stairs, however. As she did, she began to explain her version of what was going on. “This…person shoved Pixley out of the way and barged in. And I’m having him removed.”

“How can you do this?” Hunter demanded through teeth clenched with rage.

“I can do anything I please,” the haughty woman answered, barely sparing him a glance as if even that was beneath her.

The other woman paid him more attention, looking him straight in the eye when she said, “How can she do what?”

But before Hunter could answer her, the butler seemed to take some delight in doing that himself. “This man wants Miss Eve to go with him to the hospital to give blood for his son.”

“The son she gave birth to,” Hunter added pointedly, glaring at the heiress, who merely rolled her eyes in annoyance at that announcement.

But the jeans-clad woman didn’t take that news in stride. “Eve’s baby?” she said, as if everything had suddenly changed.

“He isn’t a baby anymore. He’s four and he’s in trouble and he needs her blood,” Hunter said, recapping once again for the benefit of the newcomer.

The fresh-faced woman stared at Eve. “Eve! You refused?”

“Oh, please, Terese, spare me. The man is overwrought and—”

“Overwrought?” Hunter said sarcastically. “You bet I’m overwrought. My kid is lying in the emergency room and I’m here jumping through hoops for something that a phone call should have accomplished—if you had taken one of the six I made to you before I came over here!”

The woman Eve had referred to as Terese turned back to Hunter. Or, more precisely, to the security guards who held him captive.

“Let this man go,” she ordered them.

“He was coming after me,” Eve said petulantly.

“Well, he won’t come after you now because I’m going to take care of this,” the woman named Terese said. Then, to the security guards who were still holding Hunter, she said more firmly, “I mean it. Let him go.”

Hunter was released after the second command, though the guards stayed within arm’s reach.

“I’m Terese Warwick, Eve’s twin sister,” the woman introduced herself.

For a moment Hunter stared at her in surprise. There was a resemblance between the women, but not enough that he would have guessed they were twins.

“I know we don’t look alike. We’re fraternal twins,” Terese Warwick said as if she knew what he was thinking.

“I’m Hunter Coltrane,” he said, recovering from his shock. “My wife and I adopted your sister’s baby.”

“And he’s in need of blood?”

“It’s a freak thing. He took a little fall, nothing out of the ordinary. He was standing on a stool and it tipped over. But he hit his nose when he fell and it started to bleed. I did everything I could think of to stop it but when I couldn’t, I took him to the emergency room. The doctors there couldn’t get the bleeding to stop either. Now they’re talking about hemophilia. But in the meantime, he’s lost a lot of blood and he needs a transfusion, and your sister is the quickest hope for that.”

“But you know how I am about needles, Terese,” Eve said defensively, as if that were more an issue than a child’s health.

“Sometimes, Eve, you amaze me,” Terese said.

“Oh, I know, you’re so much better, aren’t you?” Eve countered contemptuously. “Why don’t you just go do it then, Terese? If I looked like you do maybe I’d be a do-gooder, too. It is all you have going for you.”

Terese didn’t respond to that cutting comment. She returned her focus to Hunter as if it had never been said.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I have the same blood type. I’ll go with you to the hospital and do whatever you need.”

“Come in,” Terese called in answer to the knock on the hospital room door at nine o’clock that night.

After having given two pints of blood and staying long enough for the doctors to make certain that her blood sugar level was back to normal and that she was able to stand without getting dizzy, she’d finally received the go-ahead to be released. So she was sitting in a chair, expecting her visitor to be a nurse with forms for her to sign.

But it wasn’t a nurse whose head poked through the door. It was Hunter Coltrane.

“Are you decent?” he asked in the deepest, richest male voice she thought she’d ever heard.

“I never had to do anything but roll up my sleeve,” she informed him with a laugh. A laugh that was almost giddy for no reason at all except that she’d spent the entire time since she’d met the man thinking about him. Wondering about him.

“Come in,” she repeated, trying not to sound as eager as she felt. She told herself she wasn’t necessarily eager to see Hunter Coltrane in particular, just that after so many hours in that room she was eager to see anyone.

Hunter accepted a second invitation, stepping inside and letting the door close behind him.

The room was small but none of the many doctors and nurses who’d come in and out of it had seemed to fill the space the way this man did. He was a commanding presence—over six feet tall, with broad, muscular shoulders and long, thick-thighed legs.

A nurse knocked and came in right behind him to tell Terese the release papers were being processed. Apparently the nurse had also had contact with Hunter and Johnny because she was telling Hunter something about a milkshake that his son had liked.

The conversation didn’t include Terese and while it went on she used the time to take a closer look at Hunter Coltrane.

She didn’t know much about him except that he owned and ran a ranch outside of Portland—Eve had made a point of saying a ranch was a good place for a child to grow up. Now, looking at the man who had adopted her nephew, Terese couldn’t help thinking that hard, outdoor work had served him well because he looked in robust health.

He was dressed for the part of a rancher, too. He had on cowboy boots, a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and jeans that were aged to a faded blue and fit him like an old friend. But it all worked for him better than the three-thousand-dollar suits her father had specially made in London. In fact, the rustic attire only contributed to the rugged good looks of a face that nature seemed to have taken pains to carve.

A face that was no longer as tense as it had been earlier.

A face that Terese studied now that he was standing there in front of her and she had the perfect opportunity.

He had a sharp, square jaw shadowed with a day’s growth of dark beard that looked more sexy than unkempt, and a mouth that was not too full, not too thin. His eyes were the color of the topaz stone in a ring Terese had inherited from her grandmother—brown eyes shot through with brilliant specks of gold. His brow was square and unlined, and he wore his sun-streaked dark blond hair just a little full and disarrayed—not messy, but as if he’d run his hands through it more than once today and let it all fall naturally into slight waves. Certainly it was nothing at all like the no-hair-out-of-place men she encountered in the social circles she was accustomed to.

The nurse left them alone then and Hunter’s attention returned to Terese. “How are you doing?” he asked, barely penetrating her preoccupation.

She consciously pulled herself out of that preoccupation and said, “I’m fine. I felt a little weak and light-headed for a while but they gave me juice and cookies and I’m okay now. They’re letting me go home.”

He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the door the nurse had just gone through. “She’d told me before that you were getting out. That’s why I’m here.”

That sounded like it might evolve into a fast goodbye and Terese didn’t want it to. Not before she knew how her nephew was. So she said, “More importantly, how is Johnny?”

If Hunter had been about to make a quick exit, it didn’t show because he swung a leg over the wheeled stool the doctor had used and sat down across from her. “Johnny’s okay,” he announced with relief in his voice. “The nosebleed stopped. Finally. And the transfusion made him feel better. They’re keeping him for forty-eight hours—something about checking his hemoglobin to make sure it stabilizes. But as long as he isn’t bleeding, we’re doing well.”

“And during the forty-eight hours will they know if he has hemophilia or not?” The drive to the hospital had only taken about twenty minutes, but Hunter had filled her in on a few things along the way.

“Yeah, those results should be in before they let him go. They’re pretty sure that’s what we’re dealing with, though. They said we’ll have to be cautious but there’s no reason to panic. It isn’t a progressive disease or a debilitating one. Which is good.”

“In other words, it’s not something you’d want him to have, but it could be worse,” Terese summarized.

“Right. I’m sorry you couldn’t come in and see him. The nurses told me you wanted to, but between the nosebleed and the transfusion the poor kid was overwhelmed and not up for company.”

“That’s okay. I understand.” But that didn’t mean she hadn’t been disappointed. She’d been hoping this would be an opportunity to meet her nephew. The nephew she probably wouldn’t have any other chance to meet, even though it was something she’d always wanted.

“Once the bleeding stopped,” Hunter was saying, “and the transfusion was over, Johnny was exhausted. He fell right to sleep.”

Terese nodded. “I’m just glad he’s okay.”

“I’ll be staying here with him but since he’s out like a light now I thought I could run you home without him missing me.”

“Your wife isn’t here?” Terese asked, knowing that a married couple had adopted Eve’s baby.

Hunter handsome features tensed again. “We lost her two years ago,” he said quietly.

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t offer any more information on his wife’s death and although Terese was curious, she didn’t feel free to question him.

He continued with what he’d been saying before that. “I don’t want you to have to take a cab home or bother anyone to pick you up.”

“It’s okay. I called the house when they told me I’d be able to leave and had a car sent to get me.”

Did that sound pretentious? Terese hoped not. But just in case it did, she added, “I don’t usually use the Town Cars or the drivers. I like driving myself. I have a small sedan. But since I rode here with you…”

It occurred to her that Hunter Coltrane was probably not interested in that many details of her means of transportation, so she stopped what she was saying and finished with, “But thanks for thinking of me.”

The rancher’s expression had relaxed once more and he laughed a wry laugh. “It’s me who needs to be thanking you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you came here and did this. I’m in your debt. If there’s anything I can ever do to repay you…”

Terese didn’t respond immediately to that. Ordinarily she would have merely waved away his appreciation and certainly she wouldn’t have sought any kind of compensation.

But this wasn’t an ordinary situation. And it struck her suddenly that even though she hadn’t been allowed to meet her nephew today, his father’s gratitude might be her chance—her only chance—to meet Johnny in the future.

“There is one thing I’d like,” she said tentatively, nervous about doing what she was about to do, but afraid she’d regret it if she didn’t.

“Anything,” he said.

Terese felt sort of small for putting him on the spot, so before she told him what she wanted, she prefaced it. “Let me say up front that if it makes you uncomfortable you’re free to refuse—absolutely free.”

Terese could tell he was already slightly uncomfortable because he’d been sitting with his elbows on his wide-spread knees, leaning towards her, and now he sat up straight. But this was important to her so she soldiered on, although she couldn’t keep herself from talking very fast.

“Here’s the thing. For the three days after Johnny was born—and before you and your wife took custody—Eve didn’t want anything to do with him. But I hated the thought that he was only being looked after by nurses so I spent a lot of time with him. I fed him and changed him and…” She was getting teary-eyed just remembering it. Remembering how much it had broken her heart when she’d had to accept that her sister really wasn’t going to keep him.

“Anyway,” she said, “I fell in love with him and then he was gone and… Well, I’ve always wished I’d been able to keep in touch with him. To know him and how he’s doing. To watch him grow up, even from a distance…”

Hunter Coltrane’s posture seemed more stiff than it had before and Terese rushed to ease whatever tension she might be raising in him. “There’s no question in my mind that you’re his parent, that you’re his family. Please don’t think I’d ever—ever—forget that. But I really would like to meet him. Totally on your terms,” she was quick to add. “And he wouldn’t have to know there’s a connection if you don’t want him to. You could just say I’m a friend, or the person who gave him blood, and leave it at that.”

Now it was Hunter who didn’t respond readily. Instead he seemed to be thinking it over. Or maybe he was just trying to come up with an excuse.

Worrying that she was out of line, she didn’t wait for an answer and instead spoke again. “Honestly, don’t feel obligated. I give blood regularly so if the blood bank’s supplies hadn’t been depleted Johnny might have gotten my blood, anyway, and I would never have known the difference. So if you want to keep everything the way it’s been for the last four years, it’s okay. It isn’t as if I’ll take the blood back or anything.”

The joke was lame but she was trying to lighten the tone, to keep him from feeling pressured.

“Maybe it wouldn’t even be what’s best for Johnny,” Terese continued, the words spilling out on their own at a breakneck pace before Hunter could respond even if he was ready to. “And I wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t good for him.”

“It’s okay,” the rancher said then, holding up one hand, palm outward, to stop more of the verbal avalanche. “If you’d give me a minute I’d tell you that I don’t see anything wrong with Johnny meeting you.”

Despite the fact that she’d been hoping he would agree, she was shocked that he had.

“Really?” she said.

“Really.”

“And you aren’t saying that just because you feel as if you owe me anything? Because you don’t. I wouldn’t want to do anything that disturbs you. I know that sometimes an adoptive parent’s security can be—”

“I’m not insecure about being Johnny’s dad,” Hunter assured her with a hint of a smile that let her know how true that was. “Adopted or not, he’s my son and nothing is ever going to change that. I don’t think I want him going over to your house or anything like that, but just to have you meet him? I don’t see any problem with that.”

Terese didn’t want to tell him that her twin sister wouldn’t want Johnny at the house any more than he did, so she merely agreed with his qualification. “No, I don’t think it would be good for Johnny to be at the house either. I’d come to you. I could even do it here, while he’s in the hospital, if you don’t want me to know where you live or—”

“I’m not sure if seeing him in the hospital is a good idea. There are so many strangers and he’s already pretty intimidated just by being here. But where we live isn’t a secret.”

“I’m willing to do it any way you want to do it,” Terese said.

The rancher paused another moment, and she worried he might be having second thoughts. In fact, he paused for so long and seemed to be watching her so intently, that she began to think he was going to say no after all.

But then, as if he’d made some sort of decision, he said, “You know, I have a guest cabin at the ranch. Nothing fancy, but if you wanted to come out and spend a few days with us, you could meet Johnny and get to know him a little on his own territory. What would you say to that?”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that, because she was so stunned that not only was he willing to let her meet her nephew, he was actually offering her a way to get to know the little boy. It was more than Terese had ever hoped for.

“That would be wonderful,” she finally said.

“Can you take some time off work— Do you work?”

“I do. I teach psychology at Portland State University. But I’m on sabbatical right now so my time is my own.”

“Great.”

Another nurse knocked and opened the door just then, coming in with papers for Terese to sign.

Hunter stood to give the stool over to her. “I’ll get out of the way so you can go home. But I’ll call you as soon as I get Johnny out of here and we can set up a time for you to come to the ranch.”

“I can’t wait,” Terese answered.

Hunter gave her a little wave then and left her to the nurse who showed her where to sign the release forms and then told her she was free to go.

“You’ll probably want to put on that sweater,” the nurse said as she left. “It’s feeling very Octoberish out there tonight.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that.”

Terese slipped the sweater over her head and then went to the small mirror on the wall to pull her shirt collar up and make sure she was presentable.

But as she smoothed her hair into place something else flashed through her mind—the image of Hunter Coltrane. The image of Hunter Coltrane with her.

“Now that’s a pipe dream,” she muttered to herself.

And no one knew it better than Terese.

Because Hunter Coltrane was handsome enough to stop traffic and she, as proven by the reflection in the mirror, was hardly the kind of woman who would so much as turn his head.

Her stepmother had always said it. So had Eve. Eve had alluded to it today. And it was an irrefutable fact—Terese Warwick was a Plain Jane.

The kind of Plain Jane who didn’t attract even moderately attractive men on her own merits, let alone men like Hunter.

“And don’t you forget it!” she commanded her reflection as if it were another person.

Then she left the hospital room, telling herself just to be glad she was going to get to meet her nephew.

She worked hard to erase the lingering mental image of her nephew’s father, a mental image that had things inside her sitting up and taking notice.

Just the way the man himself had….