Substitute Daddy
Substitute Daddy
Kate Welsh
BABY BEQUESTWealthy playboy Brett Costain met virginal Melissa Abell at their siblings' wedding…but their one stolen kiss led to disaster and humiliation. Now, years later, a tragedy reunited them, forcing Brett to find the woman he'd coldly spurned, a woman with a secret only the two of them shared.She was pregnant with the Costain heir.Being a surrogate for her sister had been a selfless act, and Brett was determined that Melissa not be alone. So he traded his courtly estate for a quaint farm and quickly discovered that he wanted to be much more than his brother's substitute….
Brett’s eyes lit with amazement as the baby kicked exactly where he pressed his hand.
The look on his face was one she knew she’d never forget. Wonder. Joy.
Brett’s eyes rose to meet Melissa’s, and there was something else written there. It was hot and needy and had nothing whatsoever to do with the baby. Slowly, as if forcing himself, he pulled his hand away.
The feel of his fingertips just before they broke contact sent a spiraling shaft of desire through her. The pull between them was stronger. She could feel it. She knew he could, too. And though they both fought it and never spoke of it, it grew. But she was as wrong for Brett and his lifestyle as he was for hers. Besides, Brett was never going to be more to the baby than an uncle, and Melissa knew she had to stop hoping things could be different. They couldn’t.
Could they?
Dear Reader,
Not only does Special Edition bring you the joys of life, love and family—but we also capitalize on our authors’ many talents in storytelling. In our spotlight, Christine Rimmer’s exciting new miniseries, VIKING BRIDES, is the epitome of innovative reading. The first book, The Reluctant Princess, details the transformation of an everyday woman to glorious royal—with a Viking lover to match! Christine tells us, “For several years, I’ve dreamed of creating a modern-day country where the ways of the legendary Norsemen would still hold sway. I imagined what fun it would be to match up the most macho of men, the Vikings, with contemporary American heroines. Oh, the culture clash—oh, the lovely potential for lots of romantic fireworks! This dream became VIKING BRIDES.” Don’t miss this fabulous series!
Our Readers’ Ring selection is Judy Duarte’s Almost Perfect, a darling tale of how good friends fall in love as they join forces to raise two orphaned kids. This one will get you talking! Next, Gina Wilkins delights us with Faith, Hope and Family, in which a tormented heroine returns to save her family and faces the man she’s always loved. You’ll love Elizabeth Harbison’s Midnight Cravings, in which a sassy publicist and a small-town police chief fall hard for each other and give in to a sizzling attraction.
The Unexpected Wedding Guest, by Patricia McLinn, brings together an unlikely couple who share an unexpected kiss. Newcomer to Special Edition Kate Welsh is no stranger to fresh plot twists, in Substitute Daddy, in which a heroine carries her deceased twin’s baby and has feelings for the last man on earth she should love—her snooty brother-in-law.
As you can see, we have a story for every reader’s taste. Stay tuned next month for six more top picks from Special Edition!
Sincerely,
Karen Taylor Richman
Senior Editor
Substitute Daddy
Kate Welsh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my daughter, Heather.
May you and your hero live happily ever after. Happy first anniversary.
Mom
KATE WELSH,
a lover of all things romantic, has been writing romance for nearly twenty years. She is a three-time finalist and two-time winner of Romance Writers of America’s coveted Golden Heart and was a RITA
Award finalist in 2000. Substitute Daddy is her first Silhouette Special Edition novel but her tenth published novel.
Kate lives just outside Philadelphia in Havertown, Pennsylvania, with her husband of over thirty years, her daughter and her Chesapeake Bay retriever, Ecko. And Kali the family cat, who didn’t want a playmate when the puppy moved in two years ago and still doesn’t!
Dear Reader,
Every once in a while a scene comes into my head, and if I am lucky a book evolves. The prologue of this book was just such a moment for me and Substitute Daddy was just such a book. I’m so excited to have had such a magical experience evolve into my first book for Silhouette Special Edition.
As a writer I do a lot of “what if” thinking. I don’t think there is a better way to enrich a story than to insert a few dire “what ifs” to an interesting scene. So I set about upping the heroine’s conflict and added a hero from the other side of the fence. I made him a man in transition and gave him a lot to lose and learn and a lot of love to give.
And Substitute Daddy was born. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Prologue
The sky was crying, Melissa Abell thought looking out the window of the funeral parlor. As far as she was concerned, that was the only explanation for the constant downpour of the past few days. A light had gone out of the world and it was in mourning. That light was her vibrant twin sister Leigh and the love Leigh had shared with her husband Gary. Gone. Both gone.
Melissa’s gaze was drawn once again to the closed oak caskets that held all that was left of Leigh and Gary. She was grateful for those closed coffins. This way she’d remember both of them the way they’d looked when she’d last seen them, happily planning a nursery. She put her hand on her still-flat stomach—a nursery for the baby she still carried for them.
Melissa looked around at the tasteful room and its profusion of flowers. She should thank Gary’s brother when he arrived for the thoughtfulness of the arrangements.
And she would.
Even if it killed her.
Gary’s immediate family were conspicuous by their absence. She had already stood alone by the caskets for two hours, greeting and accepting condolences from other Costain family members and Gary and Leigh’s friends and acquaintances. As she checked her watch, Melissa heard a commotion at the door. Gary’s brother and parents had finally arrived—just short of the time the service was set to begin. In at least this, she knew his brother, Brett, was innocent. No two brothers had ever been closer.
Melissa waited until they’d gotten their raincoats off and were ready to parade into the room, then she walked to her seat and signaled the minister to begin the service. If that left the Costains scrambling into the first row, so be it.
What kind of people were late for their own son’s funeral?
The minister, a kindly man who’d been Melissa’s support these last two difficult hours, stood at her cue. He clearly understood her feelings. If the Costains had wanted to honor their son, they’d have been on time. They could accept condolences later.
The minister prayed for Gary and Leigh, then called on the mourners to celebrate their short lives rather than spend time dwelling on their tragic passing. He mentioned Brett’s loss of his best friend and brother and the Costains’ loss of a son. He spoke of Melissa’s own tearing loss of a twin and urged her to cherish the special bond she’d shared with Leigh and Gary. It was unnecessary to tell her to remember that bond, considering she carried Gary’s child, but Melissa appreciated the sentiment just the same.
Before she realized it, the kindly man was leading them in the Lord’s Prayer and the service had ended. Since Leigh and Gary were to be cremated and the ashes interred in the Costain family vault at a later time, they were all spared a rainy scene at the cemetery.
The funeral director stepped to the minister’s side and invited everyone to a luncheon at Bellfield. He didn’t even find it necessary to say it was the Costains’ estate or to give directions. They were just all expected to know what he meant and where it was. She supposed anyone who didn’t know wasn’t welcome.
Melissa dismissed her annoyance with a shake of her head. Whether or not she was welcome didn’t matter anyway because she had no intention of attending. Or inhabiting their rarefied world one second longer than necessary.
By the time they all sat down to soup, she would probably be in Delaware—well on the road toward home. Back where she came from. Back to where she belonged.
Melissa had just stooped down to pick up her purse when two highly-polished, black, Italian loafers stepped into view. Brett. Steeling herself and fighting for calm with every fiber of her being, she stood to confront Gary’s brother. Still handsome as the devil she knew him to be, his black hair was combed off his face and still wet from the downpour. His pale gray eyes as carefully blanked as they’d been the last time she saw him at Leigh and Gary’s wedding.
His face was a mask of decorum, so different from the oh-so-sexy charmer he’d been the night before Leigh and Gary were married.
“The service turned out well,” he said, as if searching for a neutral topic.
“Yes. It did. Thank you for arranging everything so nicely. It was lovely.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry we were so late. My parents’ plane was held up. They decided not to fly home until this morning.”
Was his annoyance directed at his parents, the airline or her for signaling the start of the service the way she had? Melissa realized she really didn’t care.
“It was a lovely service anyway. I’m sure everyone will have time to express their condolences to your family at the luncheon,” Melissa said, wishing he would just go away.
“Would you like to ride to the estate with us?”
“I have my car,” she answered. It wasn’t a lie. She did have her car. It just happened to be parked around the corner, packed with her clothes and the few personal things she’d wanted as remembrances of Leigh and Gary. The bank and Gary’s family could divvy up what little was left. Since Gary had recently gone out on his own to start a management consulting business, he hadn’t built up much equity in his company yet. And she certainly didn’t want to prolong her association with the Costains by demanding anything for the baby. As far as she was concerned, she was ready to hit the road and leave Pennsylvania behind.
“I wanted to get together with you about your plans for the baby,” Brett said. “I thought after the luncheon we would be able to speak privately. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Of course,” she said in a noncommittal tone. Her plans? Considering the kind of people the Costains were, she hadn’t thought any of them would care. But it didn’t matter. She had no obligation to the parents who had made Gary’s life so miserable. What she’d heard of his childhood appalled her. There was no way she would expose her precious child to people who were as cold and self-centered as the Costains.
Brett stepped back and gave her a sharp nod. “Fine. We’ll talk later at Bellfield then.”
We’ll talk later all right. Much later. Like when hell freezes over, Melissa thought as Brett turned away and went to stand with his mother. Moments later, as they filed out of the room, she said a mental goodbye to the entire Costain clan. Frightening as it was, she was on her own.
Her baby was an Abell now.
Chapter One
Brett turned left on Route 5 in Hughesville, Maryland. Tired from the long drive after several exhausting and frustrating weeks, he glanced at his directions then back to the road, ready now for the next turn. It had taken two months to track Melissa Abell, but the detective he’d hired through his law firm, Joe Brennan, had finally succeeded. Brennan had determined her address through notice of an inheritance left to her by her uncle. In a few more minutes Brett would, at long last, get the opportunity to confront her and to find out why she’d disappeared.
She’d clearly had plans that hadn’t included attending the funeral luncheon. Why not just say so? He’d wanted to offer help with the baby. A baby who was all that was left of his brother—the only person he had ever loved. Why go to so much trouble to deprive him of doing the one thing he could do? Be of financial help.
It made no sense. Melissa wasn’t prepared for single parenthood. She was only pregnant because she’d generously agreed to have Gary’s baby through artificial insemination after Leigh learned she was sterile because of an infection.
He fought the excess emotion he always felt whenever he thought of Melissa. They’d met at Bellfield the night before Gary and Leigh’s wedding. In town for the nuptials, Melissa had appeared to be every bit as sophisticated and cosmopolitan as her twin sister—a facade he hadn’t seen through in time.
By the time he’d held her in his arms on the dance floor, his fate had been sealed, and by the time the music changed beats, he’d wanted a lot more than dancing. Like her under him and them holding each other as close as two people can get.
Dancing soon led to a midnight walk in the gardens and a hot and heavy interlude in the pool house. If she hadn’t made a frustratingly naive comment, he would have taken her virginity then and there. But trepidation and near panic had flooded him, making him pause. Forcing him to think.
That moment had been the low point of his life because in a blinding flash he’d come face-to-face with the truth about himself. There in the pool house, on what had been the most magical night of his life, he’d come crashing back to reality. Virginity inherently meant some kind of deep commitment and he was lousy at deep and commitment. Too much like his father they all said. He’d been told so by enough women, his mother included, and it had finally sunk in.
He’d calmed things down quickly then, and he and Melissa returned to the party, which by that time had been breaking up. Troubled, he’d slept little that night. No woman had ever made him feel the way she had, and he’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to resist her again. Since Brett knew he’d eventually hurt Melissa terribly once she understood the kind of man he was, it was a given that their inevitable breakup would harm his relationship with Gary or at the very least, complicate Gary’s life.
So Brett had decided to be charming and friendly to Melissa at the wedding but to make himself scarce around her. That plan had gone by the boards when she’d walked down the aisle ahead of her sister. He’d nearly been knocked flat by the uncontrollable yearning to hold her again.
Still hurting over his epiphany the night before and the vision of the lonely future it had given him, he’d doubted his self-control around Melissa even more. Determined to thwart his own runaway emotions, Brett decided to enlist the help of an old family friend to use as a buffer between him and Melissa. He hadn’t counted on Melissa being hurt and angry so early in their non-relationship when she’d seen him with someone else, but he’d decided the damage was done and had let things stand—not trusting himself to go to her and explain.
Now, five years later, because she’d practically fled the city two months ago after the funeral service, he had to meet with her in private without the protection of fellow mourners as he’d planned. The prospect had his heart pounding as he drew closer to her home.
He was afraid—very much afraid—he was just as attracted to the pretty, sweet look of her now as he had been to her glamorous alter ego five long years ago. And he didn’t like it.
Not one bit.
Brett spotted his next turn and was soon flying along a winding road into the middle of nowhere. He passed one Amish farm after another, and several other properties in much poorer condition than their non-electrified Amish neighbors.
He had to go around several slow-moving horse-drawn buggies driven by bearded men in flat-crowned hats. For some odd reason the children peering out of the back windows took great pleasure in waving to him. It was just too hard to ignore their shining faces. He didn’t have a great deal of experience where children were concerned, but it felt wrong not to smile just as broadly and wave back.
Several miles farther along, when his frustration level reached a new high and his annoyance at his own trepidation over this meeting was right up there with it, he saw a listing, rusted mailbox. He brought the car to a screeching halt, kicking up a storm of dust in the gravel at the end of a long crushed-stone drive. Ancient, faded letters on the side of the box spelled out Abell.
He looked up the drive through the dark tunnel of trees and saw nothing but shadows. But she was there. He knew it. His search was over. He’d found her. And his brother’s child.
Trying to bury his feelings and hang on to the anger over all the trouble she’d put him through, Brett headed his sturdy little sports car into the rutted stone drive. After a sharp bend in the road, the tunnel of trees surrounding the vehicle abruptly ended.
Several smallish, broken-down barns and a clapboard farmhouse that had seen better days sat in the middle of the clearing. In the background were acres of grass and weeds bisected with weathered whitewashed fencing. The house and farm buildings were screened from the road by the thick trees and scrub that had been flying by his window minutes before.
He turned his attention back to the house and frowned. More than half of the white paint had peeled to bare, weathered wood and several of its forest-green shutters were missing. On the front porch, two wicker chairs rocked languidly in the warm early-summer breeze. A rainbow of flowers blooming along the foundation of the porch brightened the dismal setting, but only a little.
Brett pushed open his door and climbed to his feet. He looked around, unable to connect this place with the woman he’d been tracking. Or at least his image of her. Had everything she said been a lie? This did not look like the house of a decorator.
Now that he thought about it, if, indeed, she’d been an interior designer with a business of her own and plans for an antique shop, as she’d said at the wedding, how could she have left all that behind five years later to stay with Gary and Leigh in their spare room until the baby was born? That kind of absence would be death to a business.
And if all that was a lie too, how did she expect to support a child? The detective’s report had said the place was run-down, but that it would be worth good money to a developer. It also said she had made no move to sell so that clearly wasn’t part of her plan. What the report or his detective hadn’t warned him of was that she was impoverished.
Brett stood there appalled, his anger growing. This was where Melissa planned to raise Gary’s baby? He pictured a barefoot child who looked like Gary, wearing tattered clothes, crouched by the side of the road watching the world go by without him. And shuddered.
What advantage would the child have living in poverty in the back of beyond? Even having him as a guardian would be better than this! He could hire a nanny to provide the everyday security a child needed and he’d make sure to be there for the big moments whenever possible.
Straightening his shoulders, Brett walked forward, prepared to do battle for his brother’s son. He’d just put his foot on the bottom step when Melissa spoke through the sagging screen door. “What do you want?” she demanded, her tone hostile.
He took a deep breath. “You skipped lunch,” he quipped, striving to keep this meeting as friendly as possible. He was a man on a mission with a child’s well-being at stake and alienating the child’s mother wouldn’t help matters. And he couldn’t let his brother’s child be brought up this way.
“I had nothing more to say to you or your family,” she answered. Her expression was calm. Almost serene. “‘Doing lunch’ would have been overkill.”
Brett arched an eyebrow. “Is that why you ran? Because you had nothing to say?”
“I didn’t run. I drove home. It’s a free country,” she said, still annoyingly composed though no less unfriendly.
He took another calming breath. “We need to talk,” he reiterated.
“Oh? What could we possibly have to talk about?” She pushed open the rickety screen door and stepped onto the porch.
She was still delicate and thin, the pregnancy not showing at all. Her blue-green eyes flashed with anger. He fought a smile that tugged at his lips. She might be angry and sound tough, but with her blond hair curling loosely about her lovely heart-shaped face and the soft material of her light-blue dress fluttering around her calves she looked sweet and innocent. And seductive as hell.
What the hell’s the matter with you?
“Look, what I have to say won’t take long,” he said, forcing his thoughts back on track. “Gary’s baby is all I have left of my brother. I have a proposition. Come back to Pennsylvania and live in the carriage house on the estate. It’s an attractive little place. Warm. Clean. After the baby’s born, if you sign over custody, I’ll set you up in business in any city of your choice. You could even have standard visitation rights. It’s your smartest way out of the jam Gary and Leigh’s deaths have left you in.”
Melissa blinked, her mouth a silent O, then suddenly her blue eyes shot sparks and the words came out in a torrent. “And I thought my first encounter with you left a lingering bad taste.” She took a step forward. “You will never get my baby, Brett Costain. Do you understand?”
“We’re talking about a lot of money. And a lot of responsibility off your shoulders.”
“A baby is not a responsibility. It is not a jam. A baby is a cherished gift.”
Brett felt the heat of his emotions rise as words tumbled out of his mouth. “I’ll go as high as $100,000. That’s the best deal you’ll get and you know it.”
“Deal? Money? That’s all your family cares about, isn’t it? I’d heard the tales from Leigh and Gary all these years but I had no idea how—” She broke off and shook her head looking terribly, terribly sad. Her teeth clamped on her bottom lip, and she turned her head to stare out over the barren fields. “Your family hurt Gary for years. And Leigh…” Her sister’s name was a broken sigh on the summer breeze. “Go away!”
“Look, Melissa—”
“No. You look. I want you to leave. Now! I went to high school with Sheriff Long. He’s a good friend. I think he’d take my word that you’re trespassing. This is my baby now and no Costain is getting their mercenary hands on my child.”
“Not if a judge decides otherwise,” he countered, all thought of equitable settlements blasted away by fear for Gary’s child.
Melissa’s eyes widened then narrowed. Her voice now held no sadness, only rage. “If you aren’t off this property in two minutes, I’m calling Hunter Long. That would give you about twenty minutes to get out of this county with him hot on your tail. The clock’s ticking. If you tangle with Hunter Long, your name and money won’t help you a bit. Have a nice day.”
She turned regally, her skirt swishing seductively, walked inside and slammed the heavy front door, rattling every window in the dilapidated house. Brett stalked back to his BMW roadster and threw himself behind the wheel. He wasn’t in the mood to tangle with a county mountie on the warpath so he turned his car around and drove out to the main road. Once there, he pulled to a stop, needing a moment to collect his thoughts.
He’d come here to ask for the occasional visit with the child. But after seeing the way she lived, there was no way he could have left it at that. The only thing that was clear was that he wasn’t going to get Gary’s baby without a fight.
Brett blinked. Get the baby? A fight? What the hell had he said? What the hell had he done?
Chapter Two
About an hour after Brett left, Melissa heard the jingle of a horse’s harness and the rattle of Izaak Abramson’s wagon. She put down the old coffee grinder she’d just brought up from the cellar and walked out on the porch, promising herself time to clean it up and admire it later.
She waved a greeting.
“Good day to you, Miss Missy,” Izaak called. “I have some time today to look at your barn.”
What good news! Smiling at Izaak’s childhood nickname for her, Melissa skipped down the steps toward the man wearing the same kind of plain black pants and gray shirt he always wore. With Izaak there were rarely surprises.
“Then it’s okay?” she sighed, hardly believing at least one of her worries was over.
Izaak nodded. “Margaret spoke to the elders and explained about the baby. We are all still allowed to be friends and we may still work with you on your shop. They don’t like English science but understand that you are not immoral. Just misguided.”
Melissa ignored her annoyance at his last statement and breathed a sigh of relief. It was going to work out. Only now could she admit to herself that she’d been terribly worried. There was no telling how Izaak and Margaret’s elders might have reacted to Melissa’s impending single motherhood—no matter how impersonally it had come about.
“I’m hoping there’s a way to have the barn ready by the time the baby’s born. It would be so much better to be able to open the shop close to home and not have it actually in the house.”
Izaak sighed and shook his head. “You should not need to support yourself. It is the English way to have a child with no father to guide him.”
His disapproval hurt but she straightened her spine. “Now, Izaak, I know Margaret explained to you that this was supposed to be Leigh and Gary’s baby and that I was supposed to act as its aunt.”
Melissa had known Izaak Abramson her whole life. His parents’ farm bordered her uncle’s, and when she was young, he’d been the object of her dreams. Back then he’d been a handsome, smiling young man who gave her rides on his horse. When he’d married, Melissa had been crushed. He’d promised to wait for her, after all. But her five-year-old heart had healed quickly with a few hugs and attention from Margaret, the love of his life.
Izaak sighed. “Yes and I know the baby is of English science. But it will be Leigh’s baby no longer and the father is not here to help you raise him either.”
His concern touched her and Melissa felt tears once again well up in her eyes. “No. Neither of them are here, are they?”
Izaak shook his head and clumsily patted her shoulder. “I’ve made you sad again. So suppose we look at this barn you have decided to make into a store. Now what is this name we will have on this barn that is no longer to be just a barn?”
She smiled. Izaak had always made her smile. “Stony Hollow Country and Classics and you know it. It’ll be a great partnership. You, me and Margaret.”
And it would be. She had the knowledge of antiques and had been collecting them for the day when her dream came true. She also had the wood. Two falling-down barns’ worth! Izaak Abramson had the know-how to turn that weathered wood into furniture. The country movement in decorating had turned old-barn-wood furniture into a valuable commodity and Melissa and Izaak were going to cash in on it. And Margaret’s quilting was simply gorgeous. Melissa would feature beautifully displayed Amish quilts—another sought-after product. And there was the quarter-sawn oak furniture Izaak and his brother Od painstakingly built too. They wouldn’t get wealthy, but that wasn’t the purpose. A good life was.
And she was going to give her child just that. She wouldn’t let Brett Costain and his threats make her believe anything else. She’d nearly collapsed when she’d seen him on her porch, but she’d reached inside herself and had faced down one of the supreme Costains. She would do the same in court if it came to that. She would have to.
Melissa could hardly believe she’d stood on her porch, looking down her nose at him, and ordered him off her land. It gave her a little thrill that it had worked so easily. And so well. He was gone—tail tucked between his legs, driving hell-bent-for-leather toward Philadelphia. He was gone.
Gone but not forgotten, a small voice inside her protested.
Okay. He’d hurt her once. She could admit that. She’d seen him as her irreverent, charming knight on a white charger. She’d gotten all caught up in Leigh’s fairy-tale wishes for her. And she’d been a fool. They both had.
Leigh had been waxing poetic about Gary’s perfect younger brother for weeks. He was funny, kind, handsome as sin and twice as wealthy. He was supposed to have been perfect for Melissa. And she had actually gotten her hopes up when she’d seen the way Brett looked at Leigh and Gary. She could have sworn she saw a deep yearning in his eyes for what they’d found together. Then he’d been all smiles and loving hugs for his aunts and cousins while making Melissa feel like part of the family. Handsome had been so great an understatement that Melissa had planned to tease Leigh over it later.
She and Leigh were dressed alike for the first time since their parents died. Leigh had bought the dresses, done Melissa’s hair and makeup so they could have fooled even Gary himself. But, of course, it had been Gary’s plan. He’d wanted to mislead his parents, who believed Leigh had been raised in the lap of luxury, not on a beaten-down farm in southern Maryland. He’d assured Melissa that proper breeding would matter to them.
Melissa had thought she’d feel self-conscious all dressed up in a sophisticated costume. But it had been worse than that. Leigh and Gary had been wrong to hide the truth and so had Melissa. Wrong to think she could pretend to be someone and something she wasn’t. Wrong to get so caught up in the excitement of the game that she forgot some games come with penalties and consequences.
Melissa shook herself from her reverie. What was she doing, thinking about that whole humiliating episode? It had been a long time ago and she was older now and much, much wiser. It was time to think of the future. And as she and Izaak planned the renovations, the future began to look bright again. She refused to think about the shadow on the horizon called Brett Costain.
The old swing creaked as Melissa rocked in the shade of the big “Johnny Smoker” tree off to the left of the house. She smiled at the Philadelphia nickname and reminded herself for the umpteenth time to find out the real name for her favorite tree on the property. She looked up into the boughs as the evening breeze ruffled the big leaves, creating the sound Aunt Dora had always called the song of summer.
Melissa’s stomach growled, reminding her that it was dinnertime and of the astounding sensation that had awakened her that morning. Her baby had moved, and for the first time she’d felt a little flutter of life. Her first reaction had been to call Leigh—but then she’d remembered.
She was alone. Completely alone, with all the responsibility that bringing a precious life into the world entailed. She had to secure the baby’s future and guard its present.
She was alone. Alone to face the unknown in the form of pregnancy and labor and delivery.
She was alone. Alone to see first smiles, hear first laughter and worry and thrill over first steps.
She’d been close—so close—to calling Hunter and telling him she’d changed her mind. That marriage to a friend was better than going forward alone. But she hadn’t called. A good and generous man like Hunter Long deserved a wife who not only loved him but who was in love with him and who desired him as well. She’d caught a brief glimpse of those feelings one magical night and even though the object of her affection hadn’t returned her feelings she knew what was missing with and from her old friend.
It was ironic that only hours later Brett—the man who’d inadvertently taught her so much—had swept back into her life to teach her another truth. In threatening to take her baby away just as it had become real and not a little frightening to her, he had revealed to her just how precious this baby was.
She sighed and sank a little deeper into the swing. Today had been a very long day.
It had started early with the joy of new life. Fear had come upon her, and then Brett had arrived and drawn anger bursting from the depth of her being. But then Izaak had come by, full of good news and support.
Because his elders had approved their venture, Izaak and his brothers and cousins would be allowed to convert the barn nearest the road and dismantle the others. He had carefully inspected the building and had declared it strong and sound. They had paced off and marked an office and rest room in the loft area, deciding to leave an open-floor plan on the ground floor because it would be more flexible in the future. They decided to add a staircase and a balcony railing at the front of the loft for the display of Margaret Abramson’s quilts.
Izaak was so proud of his wife’s skilled artistry that Melissa had felt a little surge of the old childhood jealousy. And she’d teased him about it. But he had patted her hand, his mood serious, and told her that God would send a man for her and her baby.
This time he didn’t mention Hunter, for which she was grateful. He understood that while she and Hunter could build a family for the baby, they could not build a life on friendship alone.
She sighed again, regretful but resigned. At least this way she’d have the home and child she’d always dreamed of to soften the loss of Leigh.
She closed her eyes, reaching inside herself for the memory of Leigh’s bright laughter and her wide smile. She relived the wonderful scene the day Melissa’s pregnancy had been confirmed. She and Leigh had both been waiting in the couple’s living room when Gary got home. Leigh had given him a silly T-shirt about fatherhood. Gary had stared down at it for a long moment then let out a joy-filled whoop before lifting Leigh in the air and spinning her around. When he’d put Leigh down, he rushed to Melissa and engulfed her in a bear hug, thanking her with grateful tears in his eyes.
The sound of an engine and the crunch of gravel disrupted summer’s song and Leigh and Gary slipped silently back into Melissa’s memory. She wiped away her tears and stood, then walked around the side of the porch and froze. It appeared the day would end the way it had begun—with the annoyance of Brett Costain.
Melissa stalked forward to meet him, studiously ignoring the way the sun glinted off his blue-black hair. “Did you think I was kidding about calling Hunter Long?”
“No. But I thought talking to you again and settling things more amicably would be worth the risk.”
“And I told you we have nothing to talk about.”
“Which is my fault. I shot my mouth off. My only excuse is that all of this threw me more than just a little.” He gestured to the house and surrounding buildings. “You have to admit this is pretty far removed from the world I was raised in.”
Melissa looked around and tried to see the scene from his point of view. Gary and Leigh’s four-bedroom colonial had been far removed from his upbringing. She supposed her house, scraped and not yet painted, with its broken shutters not back from being repaired, looked rather shabby. Add two barns whose only virtue could be found in their salvage value, and she could guess what he thought. But that was no excuse for the way he’d acted or the things he’d threatened.
“This is my home. It will be my child’s home. This isn’t Philadelphia. It isn’t Devon. This is St. Marys County, Maryland, where a lot of people are poor. No judge is going to take away my baby because my house needs painting and repairs.”
“And neither would I,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry about the threat. I wasn’t out of your driveway before I realized what I’d said. I didn’t come here this morning to upset you or threaten you. I came for answers. And to offer help. Now that I see your situation I can see you need it.”
She’d meant what she said about the judge and the courts but his reappearance was still upsetting. No mother took his kind of threat lightly, especially considering the things she knew about his family. But that wasn’t why her legs were shaking and her heart was pounding in her chest.
It was him.
Melissa didn’t know why his nearness always affected her like this. It was the same now when she was angry with him as it had been five years ago when all she’d wanted was to feel his lips on hers.
Knowing it would be stupid to antagonize him by again asking him to leave, and needing desperately to sit, Melissa gestured toward the porch. “I don’t want your help but I’ll see what I can do about those answers you mentioned.” She turned and walked up the steps, sinking gratefully into one of the big wicker rockers, the one Uncle Ed used to sit in for hours. She could almost feel his comforting presence surround her.
Brett followed and pulled the mate to her chair so it faced hers more directly. He leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees and laced the long fingers of his beautiful hands. He was such an incredibly handsome man. No wonder women nearly swooned at his feet—the rat.
“I needed to know why you lied to me,” the rat asked.
Melissa sat back in the chair and crossed her arms, pinning him with a hostile glare. “I told you, I didn’t lie. I left. My stay with Gary and Leigh was temporary. I was under no obligation to walk in the front door of Bellfield again or to remain in Pennsylvania. But you know all that.”
“No. That isn’t what I mean. I’m talking about the lie five years ago when you almost destroyed my relationship with my brother.”
She could feel and hear his suppressed anger. The fingers which had looked graceful and relaxed only moments ago were now clenched tightly. Had she nearly come between the brothers? It had never been her intention. Had Leigh not felt her pain and anger at the wedding reception, Melissa would never have told her sister what had happened with Brett.
Melissa told Brett all of that now, adding, “But I don’t understand how you think I lied to you.”
“You aren’t the same person. This you is the real you. The person I met shouldn’t have been so upset when one night was all I could offer. She wouldn’t have been hurt because our stolen moments in the pool house weren’t about happily ever after. The person I met lived in the real world, not the back of beyond with rocking chairs and porches and barns. She was a designer. She had plans to open an antique store. She was glamorous and worldly and cosmopolitan. She wasn’t you.”
Melissa nodded, seeing for the first time that Brett hadn’t been unaffected by that night or the masquerade. “Oh what a tangled web we weave…” she thought.
“The way I was dressed was the facade. One Leigh and Gary created. It shouldn’t have been necessary, but, because all your family cares about are appearances and bank accounts, it was necessary for Gary. He was sure they’d use Leigh’s upbringing after our parents died as a new source of ridicule. He didn’t want the love of his life used as a weapon against him. He knew it would hurt her. Leigh and I knew it would hurt him. And Gary had been hurt enough.”
Brett sat back in his chair slowly, taking the words in, thinking about them solemnly. “I agree and I understand what and who prompted it. They’re my parents too. But Gary lied to me. Then he was furious with me for treating you like the person you pretended to be without bothering to tell me you’d been playing dress up.”
She could see beyond his anger to the hurt in his light-gray eyes. They were filled with pain.
“What I don’t understand—” he continued “—is why he kept it from me. We didn’t keep secrets from each other. Why do you think I’m the only one who knows for sure that there’s a baby on the way?”
Melissa leaned back in her chair also, letting her face rest in the shadows as she spoke. “He said the two of you were always having to keep secrets from your parents. He wanted to let you off the hook with this one. That’s all it was, Brett. His commitment to Leigh was a lifetime one. If Gary had told you, he felt he would be forcing you to keep his secret for just as long. We’d originally come up with a scenario in which I would pretend to move to the farm I’d inherited from a distant relative. I was going to say I enjoyed the area and had decided to stay. Since it turned out that I preferred not to visit when you’d be around, he decided updating you and your parents with the story no longer mattered.”
Brett pursed his lips and nodded, then looked off, staring at the barn closest to the house. “I would never have touched you if I’d known the truth. I wish to God he’d told me.”
“Well, you aren’t the only one,” she snapped. She still smarted from his incredulous look when she’d found him in the arms of another woman not twenty-four hours after he’d held her, kissing her in the same way. He’d so dazzled her that she’d almost compromised her principles for him. And that had hurt.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said quietly.
Melissa hated that he saw the truth. “Don’t flatter yourself. You infuriated me. That’s all there was to it,” she lied.
“I didn’t mean to do that either,” Brett said, his voice solemn. “But I know I hurt you. I saw your tears before you turned away. Plus Gary had a lot to say on the subject.” He grimaced. “And I’m sorry, but I was misinformed.”
“Only about my clothing. I’m not a country bump-kin just because intimacy means something to me.”
He nodded. “Fine. I think, considering present circumstances, it’s time we bury the hatchet somewhere other than in each other’s backs.”
She hoped she would never see him again so what did it matter? Forgiving him wouldn’t change anything but there was something to be said for a lack of enemies. Melissa nodded.
Brett sighed, clearly relieved. “Now, about help.”
Melissa stood. “I don’t want your money. Money comes with strings and I don’t want anything tying us to your family.”
She realized her error when he looked up at her, his hair stirring in the breeze. Standing had put her in closer proximity to him. He was too damn handsome by half. She sat back down, hating that his nearness could still affect her.
“I didn’t say anything about strings or conditions,” he said softly. “I offered help.”
“Charity always has conditions, Brett. And there’s another thing about money you don’t seem to understand. Money doesn’t fix your threat. Money doesn’t buy trust. I accepted your apology for the way you treated me at the wedding because I think it was sincerely given, but I haven’t forgiven your threat to me or my child’s happiness. And I won’t, because money also doesn’t buy forgiveness.”
Chapter Three
Stung by the truth of what Melissa had said, Brett nodded, ready to leave for the time being, but determined to find some other way to reach her. He refused to do it with legal threats or by scaring her with the very real worry that his mother could turn out to be a threat all her own.
Still he had to do something. He couldn’t let it go at this. Maybe he’d been a lawyer too long. Maybe, as Melissa said, he’d been a Costain too long. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I frightened you. I only came here to offer help. There should be a little left in Gary’s estate, and his child is entitled to it. I’ll be in touch.” He sighed and stood, grappling to say the right thing. Instead he settled for neutrality. “In the meantime, take care of yourself until I see you again.”
He turned away and left her there on the porch. He looked back at her before climbing into his car. She looked like the heroine of an old movie. Sitting in a rocker on the porch of the dilapidated farmhouse with the breeze ruffling her fine golden hair so it shimmered in the dying sunlight, she was too beautiful for words.
Hesitating, Brett fingered his keys before starting his car, forcing his mind into numbness. It was only when he turned onto Route 5 again, that he remembered passing a shopping center with a rather large grocery store. Food was something everyone needed. And what was the old saying? She was eating for two now. If he bought her groceries, he’d help the baby in the only way he could right then, and he’d help Melissa because she could spend what little money she had on other things.
So he found a motel out on the highway, and the next morning at 6:00 a.m., Brett entered a supermarket for the first time in years. It was his housekeeper’s job to keep his cupboards stocked and he hadn’t remembered how much fun food shopping could be. He went up and down the aisles filling the cart to overflowing with everything that looked healthy or useful. Soon it was full, but he’d saved the most important aisle for last. It was the one aimed exclusively toward the needs and wants of babies and small children.
He went down there to remind himself why he was there in the first place. Then the cutest brown bear caught his eye. He picked it up and decided it must be too early in the morning for rational thought. He could have sworn the look in the little guy’s soft golden eyes begged for a home. He put it back on the shelf, but its soft fur caressed his fingertips as he drew them away and its head sort of flopped sadly to the side.
He might have managed to walk away but he remembered Gary buying several toys in the two weeks he’d known about the baby. Gary wouldn’t have put the bear back, so Brett added it to the cart then hustled back to the card aisle. He picked out a gift bag and a matching note card, then headed for the checkout.
Once he returned to the car with sacks and sacks of food and other essentials, Brett wrote a note saying he would be back for a brief visit. He longed to say something else, anything else, but what could he say that would fix the muddle he’d caused with his runaway emotions and tongue the previous day?
Not wanting to spark another confrontation with Melissa, he coasted the last several yards of the drive with the engine off. Then he quietly began transferring the bags from his trunk to her porch. Once done, he returned to his car, turned it on, and got the hell out of Dodge before she sicced her friend the sheriff on him.
The farther he got from Melissa, though, the more thoughts of her haunted him. It didn’t feel right leaving her destitute to face bringing a child into the world. Especially when it was his brother’s child, and being kindhearted had gotten her into this fix. He had to find a way to get her to accept financial help.
She didn’t want strings to his family. He could understand that. His parents, aunts, uncles and cousins had continually treated Gary and Leigh with disdain. And Leigh, who had been hungry for family after losing her own, had been hurt almost as much as his brother by their contempt. No wonder Melissa wanted so desperately to protect the baby she carried from his family.
He had to admit he did as well, or he’d have told his parents that Melissa had conceived Gary’s baby in the procedure performed a month before his death. His mother hadn’t asked. She had merely wondered aloud if she’d have to do something drastic to assure the possible grandchild was brought up properly.
Brett had kept his mouth shut and hadn’t questioned what she’d meant before she’d resumed her trip following the funeral. In his heart, though, he knew the answer. His mother would sue for custody in a New York minute if she saw the way Melissa lived.
Melissa opened her front door on her way to get her Sunday Washington Post and couldn’t believe her eyes. No less than twenty grocery bags and one small gift bag sat at the edge of the porch all lined up like toy soldiers. She walked onto the porch bewildered and stood staring down at the bounty. There were three bags half-full of fresh produce alone!
But then the bewilderment started dissolving like dew on a summer morning. Half-full? They were all half-full. As if they’d purposely been loaded lightly. As if someone hadn’t wanted her carrying anything too heavy. Which meant they were from someone who knew about the baby. It wouldn’t be Izaak or Margaret or anyone from the Amish community. They brought meals in baskets and would never just leave them. Hunter thought the drive-in at the new fast-food franchise was the modern way to food shop.
It had to be Brett!
Brett.
Of the people she knew, he was the only one extravagant enough to leave all of this just sitting on someone’s porch in the hope that it would be accepted. Hadn’t he listened to a thing she said? He was still trying to buy his way into her baby’s life. She had a mind to let it sit there to rot in the hot sun!
Then she saw a patch of curly brown fur peeking out of the cloud-and-rainbow gift bag and couldn’t resist the temptation. Stuffed animals were her one weakness in life—she refused to count the light-headed effect Brett had on her.
Melissa reluctantly bent down and pulled out a soft, floppy brown bear. She might have been able to ignore a beseeching expression in Brett’s striking gray eyes but not in the bear’s golden ones.
She tried all day to tell herself she’d been nothing but practical to bring the groceries into the kitchen and put them away. After all, she couldn’t really leave all that food to rot on her porch. It would draw every bit of wildlife on the property to her front door and create a mess she’d have to clean up later, she rationalized. And grocery shopping was such a chore. Her days were busy with rebuilding her business and hunting down stock for the shop. It would have been foolish to let the food go to waste.
Ultimately, sitting down at the kitchen table, staring at the teddy bear in her hands, Melissa admitted to herself that something in Brett’s gesture touched her…once her initial annoyance wore off. And that softening attitude toward him bothered her. Every time she looked up from the decorating sample book she was putting together, the teddy bear’s sweet face snagged her attention. Annoyed, she finally smacked her hand on the table and jumped up.
“A leopard doesn’t change its spots in a matter of hours. You are not going to fool me, Brett Costain,” she declared, and stalked to the bear, intending to put him back in the bag. But something inside the bag tangled with the bear’s legs when she tried. That’s when she found the envelope she’d overlooked earlier. Frowning, Melissa tore it open.
“‘Dear Melissa,’” she read aloud. “‘I apologize again for the things I said. I don’t wish to intrude on your life but as you’re carrying my brother’s child there’s no way I can withdraw completely. I’ll be back next weekend to continue the talk we started. Please take care of yourself. BJC.’”
“BJC. What’s the J stand for? Jerk? You show up here again and I’ll have Hunter toss you out of the county on your ear,” she muttered through clenched teeth, blessedly annoyed at him once again.
Brett pulled into Melissa’s long drive the following Saturday at a little after noon. He’d put in a long week of rescheduled meetings and late-night dinners with clients trying to cram six days’ worth of work into five. He hoped this visit with Melissa would make it all worthwhile.
He wasn’t the least bit surprised when she barreled out the front door before he reached the top step of the porch. “I thought I’d made myself clear,” she said, standing with her arms crossed belligerently.
She wore her hostility like a shield, but the effect was destroyed by the flowing, calf-length, white cotton dress she also wore. Her golden hair, a tumble of loose curls glinting in the sunlight, absolutely begged for a man’s hands to muss it even more. Her blue eyes practically sparked with indignation, making him long to see them once again hot with arousal instead of irritation.
Will you give it a rest! She can’t stand the sight of you, you pathetic jerk.
He sighed and reminded himself that, though she looked good enough to eat, his attraction to her was also illogical and irrelevant. It had to be. He was there to discuss the trust fund he’d set up. Anything else would get in the way. Eyes on the prize, he lectured himself, but his self-control around Melissa was practically nonexistent. He’d proven that to himself and Gary five years ago.
“You made yourself perfectly clear,” he told her, closing the car door slowly. “You don’t like me. You don’t trust me. And you don’t forgive me. I have to earn all three. Did I miss anything?” Folding his arms before him, Brett leaned against his car.
“Yes.” Melissa rushed toward him, then stopped abruptly, halfway down the weed-laden path. She eyed him cautiously. “Actually you failed to tell me what it is you’re up to with these little impromptu visits.”
“How can I earn your forgiveness, your trust or your goodwill if we never see each other? I owe it to Gary’s child to try.”
She huffed out a quick breath. “You are so infuriating. I can’t imagine you’re interested in a baby, even Gary’s baby. They’re noisy, demanding, often smelly and they’re always there. You can’t buy them off with expensive jewelry when they become inconvenient.”
Brett felt his cheeks heat. So Leigh had told her that too. “I never thought I could. Nor would I want to. And once again, I’m not trying to maneuver a way to take your baby. Please believe I was speaking from anger and surprise when I said that. I’m not asking for access to the baby for my parents or any other family members. I’m the only one who even knows you are pregnant. I’m asking you to accept a check each month from a trust fund I’ve set up for Gary’s child. I loved my brother and I want his child to have everything he needs to build a successful future. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Well, no.” Pensively, Melissa turned and walked back to the porch to sit in the rocker where he’d left her last weekend. He followed.
“I guess that’s a step in the right direction. But I have to wonder if your definition of a successful life and mine bear any resemblance to each other. What’s your definition?”
The answer was so obvious he didn’t know why she’d bothered to ask. Brett stared at her. She was serious. He frowned. Maybe his answer was a little too obvious. Why did he suddenly feel as if he’d walked into a minefield? How could so simple a question suddenly take on all the features of a riddle?
He knew his silence screamed indecision, but still he hesitated to give his answer. He just couldn’t imagine another possible response than the one that had leapt to his tongue, but he was sure she must be seeking a different sort of reply.
Leaning against the porch railing, Brett tried to look relaxed, while feeling anything but. “Ideally, I think children should get a good education at the best school that can be provided for them. Then they should finish their education at an Ivy League university or one of the Seven Sisters colleges, again, if at all possible. By then they should be ready to move into a career that will eventually net somewhere in the six-figure range.”
“Education is important. I agree.” Melissa looked up at him as if to emphasize her point. “But who’s to say what makes one school better than another for a particular child?”
“That’s the job of a parent to decide. From what I’ve seen, it’s often decided while the child is an infant.”
“Really? Leigh and I went to public school because my aunt and uncle chose to save the money from our parents’ estate for college and maybe graduate school.”
“That was a wise decision.”
“After high school Leigh wanted an urban setting and a big school, so she left here to go to the Philadelphia area and went to the University of Pennsylvania. My aunt and uncle advised us and they steered Leigh away from a lesser school in Baltimore.”
“Another good choice. See. Our values aren’t all that different.”
She held up her hand. “I said Leigh. I stayed here and went to Saint Mary’s College. Ever hear of it?”
He shook his head.
“Not many people have. It’s a good school. Small. Quiet. Perfect for me. We reached these decisions together. Leigh and I headed in completely opposite directions and to diametrically opposed environments. And we were identical twins.”
But they’d been alike in so many ways. Their feelings toward marriage and family for instance. Yet Brett knew Leigh had loved the hustle and bustle of city life and Melissa was clearly a country girl. Country woman, he amended with slightly clenched jaw. He was still so affected by her that it hurt to look at her knowing if he had been a different sort of man she could have been his. He didn’t want it to bother him but he was honest enough with himself to admit that it did.
“You two weren’t the same at all, were you?” Brett said, trying to cast aside old regrets.
Melissa shook her head.
“So you’re saying that if you couldn’t handle attending the same university as your identical twin, a parent would be wrong to unilaterally decide where their child goes based on the school’s reputation alone.”
“Exactly. And it goes further than that. I know you think money’s a deciding factor to a choice of a career, but it isn’t the only factor to consider either. In public relations, Leigh would easily have been able to pull down the kind of salary you mentioned.” She fingered the soft-looking cotton of her dress, a wistful expression settling on her pretty features. “But she met Gary and he and a life together became more important to her. Leigh cut back on her workload by moving to a smaller, less-prestigious firm. And Gary’s whole reason for starting his own business was so he could set his own hours. They were happy.
“I’m in the middle of getting my decorating business up and running again.” She pointed to the barn that sat toward the front of the property. “I’m also about to convert that barn over there into the antique shop I once told you I wanted to open. And I’m going to stay right here where I’m happy and raise my baby. I might not set the world on fire financially or the shop and business might blossom beyond my wildest dreams. But whatever happens, I’ll consider myself successful if my child has everything it needs, and if I look forward to my days at work when I put my feet on the floor each morning.”
Melissa was staring at him when he looked back from a quick glance at the barn. He’d never seen her look more impassioned. Explaining this to him really mattered to her.
She continued, “I always considered Gary extremely successful because he liked what he was doing, and he and Leigh were deliriously happy. That’s success, Brett, but your family called him a failure and a fool. By the standards you set a few minutes ago, that’s your opinion of him as well.”
Brett shook his head and sank into the chair across from hers. Gary hadn’t been a failure or a fool. But had Brett treated him like one? He honestly didn’t think he had but… Could that be the reason Gary had kept the secret about Leigh’s upbringing from him? Brett was a lawyer for God’s sake. He kept secrets all the time. Secrets that were a lot more complicated than where and how someone had grown up. Had Gary thought Brett would ridicule Leigh and him?
“Brett? Are you happy?” Melissa asked, calling him back to the issue at hand. “Do you even know what it is to be happy?”
Happy? Brett stared at her, his mind this time devoid of an answer. Apparently, happiness was a concept he wasn’t at all familiar with. He wasn’t unhappy. Was he?
Brett shrugged. “I suppose happiness is one measure of success,” he allowed, however uncertainly.
Melissa shook her head. “No. For me, it’s the measure. And that’s my problem with accepting any money from you. If I take one penny, you’ll think you have the right to influence or dictate how I raise my child. I know Gary spent a miserable childhood. I don’t know how you felt about it, but he resented the hell out of it.”
Brett just couldn’t expose his feelings to her. She unsettled him too much already. Held too much power over him, though she didn’t seem to know it. It was difficult to even think straight in her presence. She made him uncomfortable in ways he hadn’t felt since discovering R-rated movies in his early teens.
He’d always contended that if he’d known how inexperienced Melissa was the night he’d nearly seduced her, he never would’ve touched her. He’d consoled himself for years with that claim. But now he wasn’t sure. And that was a very scary conclusion because it meant he didn’t know himself very well.
He was about to assure Melissa that all he wanted was for her to accept the trust fund, but all at once he knew that would never be enough. Though he was certainly not father material, he couldn’t stand the thought of just staying on the fringes of this child’s life.
Melissa sat across from him trying to look stern and tough and all the while he could see incredible love for her child shining in her eyes and peeking out of her careful defense of her way of life. He didn’t have a clue why he felt all the needs today that had exploded in him five years ago but there was little sense in denying that those feelings raged through him once again. He was drawn to every aspect of her personality he’d been taught to disdain, and he knew he should stay away from her.
But he couldn’t be a part of her child’s life without her cooperation. And she hated him. Which meant he had to find a way to change her mind. Charm her. Make her need him. See him as indispensable. That was it! He never failed at that.
His parents needed his help in maintaining Bellfield. The firm needed his growing reputation. Women were never the ones to leave even with all their complaints about his workload and tendency to remain aloof. And that was because he gave them anything they wanted but his heart.
He’d have to control himself where Melissa was concerned while being so helpful and charming she wouldn’t be able to imagine her life without him. There was no reason to think he couldn’t do both even though at that moment Melissa looked about as pliable as a steel girder.
He needed to develop a strategy, but at least now he had the germ of a plan. He stood to leave and moved the chair back to where he’d found it. “Will you at least think about the advantages the trust fund could give the baby? I promise not to interfere with any value structure you set for your child,” he promised.
“I’m not a fool, Brett. I know money isn’t necessarily the root of all evil and that it’s also a handy tool in the right hands. It isn’t the money, but who it comes from that worries me. I don’t know if I can trust you to keep your opinions to yourself. I don’t want to spend the next eighteen or twenty years policing your influence.”
Chapter Four
Someone pounded on Melissa’s front door the following Saturday, waking her from a perfectly wonderful dream that Brett starred in. She couldn’t help being annoyed at whoever had snatched her from his arms. Then she realized what she was thinking and aimed that stupid anger straight at herself. What was with her and all these ridiculous dreams she’d been having lately? She’d positively gone around the bend!
In her half-awake state, she tossed on her robe and made her way down the steps. When she pulled open the door, she found Brett, but he wasn’t pounding on her door. He was standing on the ground at the skirt of the porch pounding on the porch floor from below with a hand sledge, loosening the deteriorating floorboards.
To further befuddle her already disordered brain, he was dressed as she’d never seen him—in worn jeans and a faded T-shirt. And there was more. The muscles of his arms stood out in stark definition beneath his tanned skin. She had never thought of Brett as a particularly physical man but that’s the way he looked in the early-morning light.
“What are you doing?” she asked for some reason, even though the answer was obvious. Anything to keep from acknowledging the heat she felt when she looked at him dressed like a man instead of a GQ mannequin.
This isn’t good, Melissa had enough sense to tell herself. She tried in vain to find that nice liberal dose of anger she’d been feeling only minutes ago. But then Brett looked up and smiled.
“I…” he started to reply, then stopped and just stared. It was as if his powers of speech had abruptly deserted him.
Melissa’s heart flipped in her chest when his burning gaze traced her body from her toes to her face. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. What she saw in his eyes was more dangerous than all the strings to all the trust funds in the world. She clutched her robe closed with a tighter grip and felt her face heat.
But then his smile mutated into that lady-killer grin of his. Fury flooded her brain. And she was free. Gloriously free.
Melissa didn’t say a word but turned and slammed the door behind her. Oh, no. He was not going to charm her the way he did his legion of women. He probably thought that was a way into her life with the baby. How could she have forgotten for even one millisecond the kind of man he was?
Again she asked herself, what on earth was the matter with her? First she dreamed of the man, then for a few seconds there she’d actually believed he was looking at her with desire and she’d liked it. She knew all about the swinging door on his bedroom and all the kiss-off gifts he’d given to those women. She herself had already felt the pain of his fickle-hearted rejection.
Her doctor had warned her that her hormones would go haywire, but she hadn’t thought he meant she’d lose all reason! She’d dreamed of Brett this week and, instead of waking annoyed, she woke feeling needy. It had to stop! Where women were concerned, Brett Costain was poison.
Trying to be completely honest with herself, Melissa admitted that her attraction to Brett was part of her reluctance to accept the trust fund. And there was something else bothering her too. Did she have the right to deprive Gary’s daughter of a relationship with her father’s best friend and brother?
Melissa would have no problem doing just that if she were convinced Brett’s influence would be a poor one. The problem came from a very real sense that her opinion of him was colored by what had happened between them the night they’d met and his rejection the next day.
The truth was she didn’t really know him. The only things she’d heard about him concerned his relationships with women. Other than that subject, Leigh had rarely spoken of Brett at all. To judge him entirely on the merits of his family was unfair. Gary, who was raised by the same parents, had turned out to be a wonderful man. It was altogether possible there was a lot of good in Brett that her sister had assumed Melissa wouldn’t want to hear. Leigh certainly hadn’t intended to keep Brett from sharing her and Gary’s life with the baby.
So what was Melissa to do?
She decided to step back from the problem and avoid him, putting off any decisions until she could look at him with a clear head.
She got down to work after making her decision and managed to catalog and tag every piece of furniture she intended to put in Country and Classics. As she finished scheduling a consultation with the daughter of an old client for early the following week, she glanced at her watch. It was five o’clock and Brett was still hard at work. She had studiously ignored him all day, which wasn’t easy with the sound of power tools buzzing in the background.
She fanned herself idly and realized how very hot it had gotten. Guilt crept in. She hadn’t even offered Brett as much as a glass of water all day. Ashamed and with Aunt Dora’s admonishment always to treat others as you want to be treated echoing in her head, Melissa poured him a glass of sweet tea and carried it to the porch.
Brett stopped pounding the second her shadow fell over him. He looked up and this time he didn’t smile. He didn’t grin. He just wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and nodded a greeting.
“Is that for me?” he asked.
“I was working and I hadn’t realized it was so hot out here. Where did you learn to fix a porch?”
Brett walked to a pile of tools and pulled a book from under them. He handed her the thick how-to volume. “There’s very little we can’t learn from books.”
Melissa glanced down at the hardback and thought of all the life lessons she and Leigh had learned from their parents and later Aunt Dora and Uncle Ed. Thinking of their conversation about life and happiness she thought Brett had a lot to learn and she didn’t see him learning those lessons from books. But it wasn’t her place to tell him so.
Casting about for something to fill the silence, she glanced toward a silver Range Rover he’d parked in the drive. “You traded in your sports car?”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind—a mixture of horror and disbelief. “Give up my Beemer? No way. I only rented that for the weekend because I needed to haul the wood.”
Melissa couldn’t help it. She laughed. Uncle Ed’s pickup was still rusting away in the barn over yonder and Izaak still used his father’s old wagon to haul wood. Only a Costain and people of their ilk would rent a Range Rover to haul lumber.
“You going to let me in on the joke?” he asked.
Melissa shook her head. It wasn’t her job to teach him about the real world even if the hair that fell across his forehead lent him an air of innocence rivaling even the most naive babe in the woods. “I doubt you’d understand,” she told him.
“Try me,” he dared her, his beard-shadowed chin raised in a challenge. At least this way he didn’t looked like a guileless ten-year-old.
What is wrong with your thinking, woman? This is a mover and shaker. A powerful international attorney. He works for heads of multinational, billion-dollar companies. He does not have a slingshot in his back pocket or posies hidden behind his back!
Melissa forced her thoughts to the subject at hand. “How many Beemers and Range Rovers have you seen on these back roads? And how many plain old pickup trucks have you seen?” she challenged.
“Rovers are sturdy,” he argued.
The man was completely dense! “At fifty or sixty thousand dollars a pop, they’d better be.”
He squinted in the glare of the late-afternoon sunlight and looked up at her, scrubbing back his dripping hair. She could almost see him struggling to understand her point. “Come on. Are you trying to say if I show up with a high-end car when the baby is old enough to understand the difference between a BMW and Chevy it could do some sort of damage to his psyche?”
She sighed. “No, I’m trying to say you don’t have a clue how the other ninety percent live. And it’s that attitude that could cause a problem for me later. Do you think Gary would ever have spent his hard-earned money on that kind of luxury?”
Brett glanced at the Rover then back at her and smiled. “Next time I’ll rent a Chevy but I’m not selling my Beemer.”
Melissa nodded, staggered by the smile and a sudden realization. When Brett didn’t try to be charming his charm was all the more dangerous. She’d never expected that. The man was positively lethal. All little-boy inquisitive one minute and sexy as all get-out the next.
How was she supposed to talk to him and guard her heart? There had to be some safe subject for them! She looked down at the work he’d done. “It looks nice. Thank you. I admit every once in a while the boards would moan and I’d begin to wonder if they were going to hold my weight. You got a lot done. I’d like to pay for the wood.”
Brett shook his head and his hair fell across his forehead again. “Consider it a baby gift. I’ve actually enjoyed the physical work. I don’t get a lot of time in the fresh air.”
After all his work, Melissa knew she couldn’t send him off without at least feeding him. Aunt Dora would haunt her sleep more than Brett already did if she even tried it. In the interest of a good night’s rest, she asked, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“That’d be great.” He smiled and for the second time in less than a minute there was no hidden agenda lurking in his eyes. And for the second time in as many minutes Melissa had to hold on to her heart and soul for dear life.
Before today he’d always been angling for something. A concession. Sex. Something. But when he smiled for real, it lit his pale-gray eyes and told of a greater depth to him than she’d thought possible. Maybe he was more like Gary than she’d thought.
“You’re welcome to use the shower,” she told him, trying not to attach too much meaning to what she thought she saw. His fixing her porch might still have a hidden agenda. Mightn’t it?
“A shower sounds terrific just about now,” Brett said. “I have a change of clothes in the Rover. I didn’t stop at the motel this morning. I drove straight to the lumberyard when I got down here. I wanted to get an early start since there was so much to do. Sorry I woke you.”
Melissa banged around the kitchen minutes later, thinking he hadn’t looked the least bit sorry when he’d been ogling her at practically dawn. She threw a slap-dash dinner together and half an hour later Brett joined her in the kitchen. As she finished putting the meal on the table, Melissa ordered her pounding heart to behave. It didn’t listen.
“This looks wonderful,” he said, sitting where she indicated.
So do you, Melissa thought before taking one last glance at the table. There was leftover roast beef, oven-browned potatoes, a colorful bowl of mixed vegetables and Margaret Abramson’s home-baked bread and fresh-churned butter. Most of it was courtesy of his little shopping excursion, but still, she somehow doubted he ever ate this way at the gourmet restaurants he probably frequented.
Deciding she didn’t care if he felt the dinner lacked sophistication, she sat across from him and tried not to stare. He was so handsome and self-assured. And he was once again the picture of his aristocratic upbringing in designer clothes and Italian shoes.
So why couldn’t her more-than-adequate brain manage to make her unruly heart behave? “I never thanked you for the food you left,” she said, knowing nothing separated them so much as the disparity of the classes they belonged to.
“No thanks necessary,” he said.
His refusal of her gratitude made him seem superior and arrogant. She hated that he thought he was better than her. If only she hadn’t offered him a simple dinner in her simple kitchen.
“Brett, I’m really not as bad off financially as you seem to think. I’d been putting money aside for some time to convert the barn and I have a lot of inventory lined up for the shop already. In fact, it’s all around us. I had to put my plans for the shop on hold when Uncle Ed started failing. When he died and Leigh and Gary came down for the funeral, they asked me about the baby. The timing couldn’t have been better since I’d pretty much suspended my business so I could take care of Uncle Ed in those final months.”
“That’s why he left the farm to you alone, isn’t it? Because you gave up everything you’d built for him. I’d wondered about that. Do you ever stop giving? The timing when Leigh and Gary asked you about the baby might have been good, but it must’ve been a difficult decision. You were going to be giving away your first-born child. They asked too much.”
Melissa felt her cheeks heat. “Leigh would have done the same for me. I know she would. And I’m not pretending it would have been easy to watch them raising her but—”
“Her?” Brett arched one dark raven’s wing of an eyebrow. “Is that a guess? Wishful thinking?”
Still excited over the ultrasound picture that had been done yesterday, Melissa jumped up. She was eager to change the subject and even more anxious to share the first picture of her child, even if it was only a shadowy black-and-white image that a technician had needed to explain.
She handed Brett the picture. “They do these routinely now. And I got lucky. At sixteen weeks they can tell the sex if the baby’s in the right position and she was. That’s my baby girl.” Melissa’s voice broke and tears she tried to blink back welled up in her eyes.
Leigh had so wanted a little girl.
Not wanting to cry in front of Brett, Melissa quickly excused herself and fled the room. On the way to her grandparents’ bath just outside the downstairs bedroom, she caught sight of Leigh staring back at her from the hall mirror and froze in place. The incredible loss of her twin slammed into her once again with a two-ton force.
It was a bittersweet pain that would have taken her to her knees were she not held in place by the sight before her. Leigh but not Leigh. Gone but never farther away than a mirror. Leigh would never age and yet she would. Her own reflection would forever remind Melissa of the incredible bond she and Leigh had shared and the void her loss left.
Melissa didn’t know how long she stood there with her fingertips touching the flat cold face on the other side of the glass. She and that other part of her cried silently for both of them. The one lost and the one left behind. Only half of who she was but two people as well.
Was she forever doomed to lose those she loved and relied upon?
Chapter Five
Brett wished Melissa would come back so she could explain what he was supposed to be seeing in the ultrasound print. He stared down at the confusing black-and-white photo trying to see a tiny human form. He felt ignorant and out of touch, sure there was some well-known trick to deciphering the picture.
When several minutes had gone by and Melissa didn’t return, he began wondering where she’d gone so suddenly. And why. She’d looked a little upset, he acknowledged. Worried, but feeling like an intruder, Brett cautiously followed and found her in a darkened hall staring at herself in a mirror and crying silent tears. He stepped behind her, very much aware that she didn’t realize he was there.
“Melissa? Hey, Melissa,” he whispered.
Her eyes shifted a bit and she focused on his reflection. “It’s like looking at a pastel version of her, isn’t it?” she asked, tears choking her voice. “She was so alive and vivid. How can she be gone?” Her eyes slid back to her image again. “And yet never gone. Always staring back at me, taunting me because it isn’t her I see.
“She wanted a girl,” Melissa whispered, her voice as broken as her heart apparently was. Her lower lip quivered and her face started to crumple. “She wanted that so badly. And now—Oh, God. Leigh!”
To Brett there was nothing scarier in the world than a crying woman, except maybe a crying baby. He had no clue what to do. What was he even doing here? He desperately wanted to run from the intimacy of Melissa’s tears and grief. But then he glanced down at the picture he still held.
This scrap of humanity he couldn’t even correctly discern had been his brother’s fondest wish, as well as Leigh’s. Gary had wanted a daughter to cuddle and protect and love just the way he did her mother. And now he would never get to hold her, hear her first cry or later her childish laughter.
“Think of how happy you made the last two weeks of their lives,” Brett told her, then found himself biting his lip and fighting tears as well.
He hadn’t allowed himself to cry for Gary, not even once. He didn’t know why for sure. Maybe because there was no one in his life to hold him while he did. Or maybe because he’d been afraid that if he gave in and let himself cry, he’d never stop. Suddenly sharing this crushing grief with the only person in the world who actually shared it and fully understood it was all that mattered to him.
He turned her away from the mirror and into his arms, holding her close. Brett didn’t know how long they stood that way just clutching each other and crying silently. But after a while she wrapped her arms around his waist and something shifted in him.
The feel of her in his arms suddenly registered. He felt as if he’d taken a one-hundred-fifty-volt charge to his heart. And he felt like a heel for noticing how perfectly she fitted against him. But, dammit, he wasn’t made of stone and had never claimed to be a saint. When he’d had her in his arms that night they’d met, her body had promised ecstasy. She was an unfulfilled promise that he’d never quite gotten out of his system.
Brett swallowed. This was dangerous. She wasn’t the kind of woman he got involved with. Ever. And this woman above all others had to stay off-limits.
“Come on,” he whispered against her hair. “Let’s go sit on that nice safe porch I almost finished for you today.” In the shelter of his arms he guided her the few feet down the hall to the dimly lit living room.
Melissa looked up then and the tears in her eyes seemed to be magnifying their clear blue-green color and gave them all the sparkle of precious gems. Her gaze caught his and one of them turned toward the other. He didn’t know which one. It didn’t seem to matter once their lips met in a charged union he’d always sworn could not have felt the way it had. But once again it did.
Brett cupped her face, his fingers threading in her soft hair, and deepened the kiss. He tasted her tears and probably his. Then Melissa moaned in the back of her throat and Brett broke the kiss, afraid it was a protest—terrified it wasn’t.
“We have to stop this. Forget it too. You were right earlier when you pointed out that we come from different worlds.” He took her hand and put the ultrasound photo into it, but not before the image before him exploded to life in his mind. Fighting to maintain his resolve, he continued, “But our worlds have crossed into each other’s because of her and there’s no way to change that.”
Her expression changed from dreamy to one he’d have to analyze later. Then she raised her chin and he knew she meant to challenge him. “You could just go back to your world and leave me alone to raise her in mine.”
He lifted the hand holding the photo and kissed her fingers, shaking his head. “I’ll be back,” he said, and melted back into the deeply shadowed hall.
His whispered promise barely stirred the air.
As he drove north, Brett came to the conclusion that he’d never get the picture of Melissa’s face when he’d turned away from her out of his head. The hurt and the fear he’d seen written on her lovely features had nearly brought him to his knees.
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Kate Welsh
BABY BEQUESTWealthy playboy Brett Costain met virginal Melissa Abell at their siblings' wedding…but their one stolen kiss led to disaster and humiliation. Now, years later, a tragedy reunited them, forcing Brett to find the woman he'd coldly spurned, a woman with a secret only the two of them shared.She was pregnant with the Costain heir.Being a surrogate for her sister had been a selfless act, and Brett was determined that Melissa not be alone. So he traded his courtly estate for a quaint farm and quickly discovered that he wanted to be much more than his brother's substitute….
Brett’s eyes lit with amazement as the baby kicked exactly where he pressed his hand.
The look on his face was one she knew she’d never forget. Wonder. Joy.
Brett’s eyes rose to meet Melissa’s, and there was something else written there. It was hot and needy and had nothing whatsoever to do with the baby. Slowly, as if forcing himself, he pulled his hand away.
The feel of his fingertips just before they broke contact sent a spiraling shaft of desire through her. The pull between them was stronger. She could feel it. She knew he could, too. And though they both fought it and never spoke of it, it grew. But she was as wrong for Brett and his lifestyle as he was for hers. Besides, Brett was never going to be more to the baby than an uncle, and Melissa knew she had to stop hoping things could be different. They couldn’t.
Could they?
Dear Reader,
Not only does Special Edition bring you the joys of life, love and family—but we also capitalize on our authors’ many talents in storytelling. In our spotlight, Christine Rimmer’s exciting new miniseries, VIKING BRIDES, is the epitome of innovative reading. The first book, The Reluctant Princess, details the transformation of an everyday woman to glorious royal—with a Viking lover to match! Christine tells us, “For several years, I’ve dreamed of creating a modern-day country where the ways of the legendary Norsemen would still hold sway. I imagined what fun it would be to match up the most macho of men, the Vikings, with contemporary American heroines. Oh, the culture clash—oh, the lovely potential for lots of romantic fireworks! This dream became VIKING BRIDES.” Don’t miss this fabulous series!
Our Readers’ Ring selection is Judy Duarte’s Almost Perfect, a darling tale of how good friends fall in love as they join forces to raise two orphaned kids. This one will get you talking! Next, Gina Wilkins delights us with Faith, Hope and Family, in which a tormented heroine returns to save her family and faces the man she’s always loved. You’ll love Elizabeth Harbison’s Midnight Cravings, in which a sassy publicist and a small-town police chief fall hard for each other and give in to a sizzling attraction.
The Unexpected Wedding Guest, by Patricia McLinn, brings together an unlikely couple who share an unexpected kiss. Newcomer to Special Edition Kate Welsh is no stranger to fresh plot twists, in Substitute Daddy, in which a heroine carries her deceased twin’s baby and has feelings for the last man on earth she should love—her snooty brother-in-law.
As you can see, we have a story for every reader’s taste. Stay tuned next month for six more top picks from Special Edition!
Sincerely,
Karen Taylor Richman
Senior Editor
Substitute Daddy
Kate Welsh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my daughter, Heather.
May you and your hero live happily ever after. Happy first anniversary.
Mom
KATE WELSH,
a lover of all things romantic, has been writing romance for nearly twenty years. She is a three-time finalist and two-time winner of Romance Writers of America’s coveted Golden Heart and was a RITA
Award finalist in 2000. Substitute Daddy is her first Silhouette Special Edition novel but her tenth published novel.
Kate lives just outside Philadelphia in Havertown, Pennsylvania, with her husband of over thirty years, her daughter and her Chesapeake Bay retriever, Ecko. And Kali the family cat, who didn’t want a playmate when the puppy moved in two years ago and still doesn’t!
Dear Reader,
Every once in a while a scene comes into my head, and if I am lucky a book evolves. The prologue of this book was just such a moment for me and Substitute Daddy was just such a book. I’m so excited to have had such a magical experience evolve into my first book for Silhouette Special Edition.
As a writer I do a lot of “what if” thinking. I don’t think there is a better way to enrich a story than to insert a few dire “what ifs” to an interesting scene. So I set about upping the heroine’s conflict and added a hero from the other side of the fence. I made him a man in transition and gave him a lot to lose and learn and a lot of love to give.
And Substitute Daddy was born. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Prologue
The sky was crying, Melissa Abell thought looking out the window of the funeral parlor. As far as she was concerned, that was the only explanation for the constant downpour of the past few days. A light had gone out of the world and it was in mourning. That light was her vibrant twin sister Leigh and the love Leigh had shared with her husband Gary. Gone. Both gone.
Melissa’s gaze was drawn once again to the closed oak caskets that held all that was left of Leigh and Gary. She was grateful for those closed coffins. This way she’d remember both of them the way they’d looked when she’d last seen them, happily planning a nursery. She put her hand on her still-flat stomach—a nursery for the baby she still carried for them.
Melissa looked around at the tasteful room and its profusion of flowers. She should thank Gary’s brother when he arrived for the thoughtfulness of the arrangements.
And she would.
Even if it killed her.
Gary’s immediate family were conspicuous by their absence. She had already stood alone by the caskets for two hours, greeting and accepting condolences from other Costain family members and Gary and Leigh’s friends and acquaintances. As she checked her watch, Melissa heard a commotion at the door. Gary’s brother and parents had finally arrived—just short of the time the service was set to begin. In at least this, she knew his brother, Brett, was innocent. No two brothers had ever been closer.
Melissa waited until they’d gotten their raincoats off and were ready to parade into the room, then she walked to her seat and signaled the minister to begin the service. If that left the Costains scrambling into the first row, so be it.
What kind of people were late for their own son’s funeral?
The minister, a kindly man who’d been Melissa’s support these last two difficult hours, stood at her cue. He clearly understood her feelings. If the Costains had wanted to honor their son, they’d have been on time. They could accept condolences later.
The minister prayed for Gary and Leigh, then called on the mourners to celebrate their short lives rather than spend time dwelling on their tragic passing. He mentioned Brett’s loss of his best friend and brother and the Costains’ loss of a son. He spoke of Melissa’s own tearing loss of a twin and urged her to cherish the special bond she’d shared with Leigh and Gary. It was unnecessary to tell her to remember that bond, considering she carried Gary’s child, but Melissa appreciated the sentiment just the same.
Before she realized it, the kindly man was leading them in the Lord’s Prayer and the service had ended. Since Leigh and Gary were to be cremated and the ashes interred in the Costain family vault at a later time, they were all spared a rainy scene at the cemetery.
The funeral director stepped to the minister’s side and invited everyone to a luncheon at Bellfield. He didn’t even find it necessary to say it was the Costains’ estate or to give directions. They were just all expected to know what he meant and where it was. She supposed anyone who didn’t know wasn’t welcome.
Melissa dismissed her annoyance with a shake of her head. Whether or not she was welcome didn’t matter anyway because she had no intention of attending. Or inhabiting their rarefied world one second longer than necessary.
By the time they all sat down to soup, she would probably be in Delaware—well on the road toward home. Back where she came from. Back to where she belonged.
Melissa had just stooped down to pick up her purse when two highly-polished, black, Italian loafers stepped into view. Brett. Steeling herself and fighting for calm with every fiber of her being, she stood to confront Gary’s brother. Still handsome as the devil she knew him to be, his black hair was combed off his face and still wet from the downpour. His pale gray eyes as carefully blanked as they’d been the last time she saw him at Leigh and Gary’s wedding.
His face was a mask of decorum, so different from the oh-so-sexy charmer he’d been the night before Leigh and Gary were married.
“The service turned out well,” he said, as if searching for a neutral topic.
“Yes. It did. Thank you for arranging everything so nicely. It was lovely.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry we were so late. My parents’ plane was held up. They decided not to fly home until this morning.”
Was his annoyance directed at his parents, the airline or her for signaling the start of the service the way she had? Melissa realized she really didn’t care.
“It was a lovely service anyway. I’m sure everyone will have time to express their condolences to your family at the luncheon,” Melissa said, wishing he would just go away.
“Would you like to ride to the estate with us?”
“I have my car,” she answered. It wasn’t a lie. She did have her car. It just happened to be parked around the corner, packed with her clothes and the few personal things she’d wanted as remembrances of Leigh and Gary. The bank and Gary’s family could divvy up what little was left. Since Gary had recently gone out on his own to start a management consulting business, he hadn’t built up much equity in his company yet. And she certainly didn’t want to prolong her association with the Costains by demanding anything for the baby. As far as she was concerned, she was ready to hit the road and leave Pennsylvania behind.
“I wanted to get together with you about your plans for the baby,” Brett said. “I thought after the luncheon we would be able to speak privately. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Of course,” she said in a noncommittal tone. Her plans? Considering the kind of people the Costains were, she hadn’t thought any of them would care. But it didn’t matter. She had no obligation to the parents who had made Gary’s life so miserable. What she’d heard of his childhood appalled her. There was no way she would expose her precious child to people who were as cold and self-centered as the Costains.
Brett stepped back and gave her a sharp nod. “Fine. We’ll talk later at Bellfield then.”
We’ll talk later all right. Much later. Like when hell freezes over, Melissa thought as Brett turned away and went to stand with his mother. Moments later, as they filed out of the room, she said a mental goodbye to the entire Costain clan. Frightening as it was, she was on her own.
Her baby was an Abell now.
Chapter One
Brett turned left on Route 5 in Hughesville, Maryland. Tired from the long drive after several exhausting and frustrating weeks, he glanced at his directions then back to the road, ready now for the next turn. It had taken two months to track Melissa Abell, but the detective he’d hired through his law firm, Joe Brennan, had finally succeeded. Brennan had determined her address through notice of an inheritance left to her by her uncle. In a few more minutes Brett would, at long last, get the opportunity to confront her and to find out why she’d disappeared.
She’d clearly had plans that hadn’t included attending the funeral luncheon. Why not just say so? He’d wanted to offer help with the baby. A baby who was all that was left of his brother—the only person he had ever loved. Why go to so much trouble to deprive him of doing the one thing he could do? Be of financial help.
It made no sense. Melissa wasn’t prepared for single parenthood. She was only pregnant because she’d generously agreed to have Gary’s baby through artificial insemination after Leigh learned she was sterile because of an infection.
He fought the excess emotion he always felt whenever he thought of Melissa. They’d met at Bellfield the night before Gary and Leigh’s wedding. In town for the nuptials, Melissa had appeared to be every bit as sophisticated and cosmopolitan as her twin sister—a facade he hadn’t seen through in time.
By the time he’d held her in his arms on the dance floor, his fate had been sealed, and by the time the music changed beats, he’d wanted a lot more than dancing. Like her under him and them holding each other as close as two people can get.
Dancing soon led to a midnight walk in the gardens and a hot and heavy interlude in the pool house. If she hadn’t made a frustratingly naive comment, he would have taken her virginity then and there. But trepidation and near panic had flooded him, making him pause. Forcing him to think.
That moment had been the low point of his life because in a blinding flash he’d come face-to-face with the truth about himself. There in the pool house, on what had been the most magical night of his life, he’d come crashing back to reality. Virginity inherently meant some kind of deep commitment and he was lousy at deep and commitment. Too much like his father they all said. He’d been told so by enough women, his mother included, and it had finally sunk in.
He’d calmed things down quickly then, and he and Melissa returned to the party, which by that time had been breaking up. Troubled, he’d slept little that night. No woman had ever made him feel the way she had, and he’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to resist her again. Since Brett knew he’d eventually hurt Melissa terribly once she understood the kind of man he was, it was a given that their inevitable breakup would harm his relationship with Gary or at the very least, complicate Gary’s life.
So Brett had decided to be charming and friendly to Melissa at the wedding but to make himself scarce around her. That plan had gone by the boards when she’d walked down the aisle ahead of her sister. He’d nearly been knocked flat by the uncontrollable yearning to hold her again.
Still hurting over his epiphany the night before and the vision of the lonely future it had given him, he’d doubted his self-control around Melissa even more. Determined to thwart his own runaway emotions, Brett decided to enlist the help of an old family friend to use as a buffer between him and Melissa. He hadn’t counted on Melissa being hurt and angry so early in their non-relationship when she’d seen him with someone else, but he’d decided the damage was done and had let things stand—not trusting himself to go to her and explain.
Now, five years later, because she’d practically fled the city two months ago after the funeral service, he had to meet with her in private without the protection of fellow mourners as he’d planned. The prospect had his heart pounding as he drew closer to her home.
He was afraid—very much afraid—he was just as attracted to the pretty, sweet look of her now as he had been to her glamorous alter ego five long years ago. And he didn’t like it.
Not one bit.
Brett spotted his next turn and was soon flying along a winding road into the middle of nowhere. He passed one Amish farm after another, and several other properties in much poorer condition than their non-electrified Amish neighbors.
He had to go around several slow-moving horse-drawn buggies driven by bearded men in flat-crowned hats. For some odd reason the children peering out of the back windows took great pleasure in waving to him. It was just too hard to ignore their shining faces. He didn’t have a great deal of experience where children were concerned, but it felt wrong not to smile just as broadly and wave back.
Several miles farther along, when his frustration level reached a new high and his annoyance at his own trepidation over this meeting was right up there with it, he saw a listing, rusted mailbox. He brought the car to a screeching halt, kicking up a storm of dust in the gravel at the end of a long crushed-stone drive. Ancient, faded letters on the side of the box spelled out Abell.
He looked up the drive through the dark tunnel of trees and saw nothing but shadows. But she was there. He knew it. His search was over. He’d found her. And his brother’s child.
Trying to bury his feelings and hang on to the anger over all the trouble she’d put him through, Brett headed his sturdy little sports car into the rutted stone drive. After a sharp bend in the road, the tunnel of trees surrounding the vehicle abruptly ended.
Several smallish, broken-down barns and a clapboard farmhouse that had seen better days sat in the middle of the clearing. In the background were acres of grass and weeds bisected with weathered whitewashed fencing. The house and farm buildings were screened from the road by the thick trees and scrub that had been flying by his window minutes before.
He turned his attention back to the house and frowned. More than half of the white paint had peeled to bare, weathered wood and several of its forest-green shutters were missing. On the front porch, two wicker chairs rocked languidly in the warm early-summer breeze. A rainbow of flowers blooming along the foundation of the porch brightened the dismal setting, but only a little.
Brett pushed open his door and climbed to his feet. He looked around, unable to connect this place with the woman he’d been tracking. Or at least his image of her. Had everything she said been a lie? This did not look like the house of a decorator.
Now that he thought about it, if, indeed, she’d been an interior designer with a business of her own and plans for an antique shop, as she’d said at the wedding, how could she have left all that behind five years later to stay with Gary and Leigh in their spare room until the baby was born? That kind of absence would be death to a business.
And if all that was a lie too, how did she expect to support a child? The detective’s report had said the place was run-down, but that it would be worth good money to a developer. It also said she had made no move to sell so that clearly wasn’t part of her plan. What the report or his detective hadn’t warned him of was that she was impoverished.
Brett stood there appalled, his anger growing. This was where Melissa planned to raise Gary’s baby? He pictured a barefoot child who looked like Gary, wearing tattered clothes, crouched by the side of the road watching the world go by without him. And shuddered.
What advantage would the child have living in poverty in the back of beyond? Even having him as a guardian would be better than this! He could hire a nanny to provide the everyday security a child needed and he’d make sure to be there for the big moments whenever possible.
Straightening his shoulders, Brett walked forward, prepared to do battle for his brother’s son. He’d just put his foot on the bottom step when Melissa spoke through the sagging screen door. “What do you want?” she demanded, her tone hostile.
He took a deep breath. “You skipped lunch,” he quipped, striving to keep this meeting as friendly as possible. He was a man on a mission with a child’s well-being at stake and alienating the child’s mother wouldn’t help matters. And he couldn’t let his brother’s child be brought up this way.
“I had nothing more to say to you or your family,” she answered. Her expression was calm. Almost serene. “‘Doing lunch’ would have been overkill.”
Brett arched an eyebrow. “Is that why you ran? Because you had nothing to say?”
“I didn’t run. I drove home. It’s a free country,” she said, still annoyingly composed though no less unfriendly.
He took another calming breath. “We need to talk,” he reiterated.
“Oh? What could we possibly have to talk about?” She pushed open the rickety screen door and stepped onto the porch.
She was still delicate and thin, the pregnancy not showing at all. Her blue-green eyes flashed with anger. He fought a smile that tugged at his lips. She might be angry and sound tough, but with her blond hair curling loosely about her lovely heart-shaped face and the soft material of her light-blue dress fluttering around her calves she looked sweet and innocent. And seductive as hell.
What the hell’s the matter with you?
“Look, what I have to say won’t take long,” he said, forcing his thoughts back on track. “Gary’s baby is all I have left of my brother. I have a proposition. Come back to Pennsylvania and live in the carriage house on the estate. It’s an attractive little place. Warm. Clean. After the baby’s born, if you sign over custody, I’ll set you up in business in any city of your choice. You could even have standard visitation rights. It’s your smartest way out of the jam Gary and Leigh’s deaths have left you in.”
Melissa blinked, her mouth a silent O, then suddenly her blue eyes shot sparks and the words came out in a torrent. “And I thought my first encounter with you left a lingering bad taste.” She took a step forward. “You will never get my baby, Brett Costain. Do you understand?”
“We’re talking about a lot of money. And a lot of responsibility off your shoulders.”
“A baby is not a responsibility. It is not a jam. A baby is a cherished gift.”
Brett felt the heat of his emotions rise as words tumbled out of his mouth. “I’ll go as high as $100,000. That’s the best deal you’ll get and you know it.”
“Deal? Money? That’s all your family cares about, isn’t it? I’d heard the tales from Leigh and Gary all these years but I had no idea how—” She broke off and shook her head looking terribly, terribly sad. Her teeth clamped on her bottom lip, and she turned her head to stare out over the barren fields. “Your family hurt Gary for years. And Leigh…” Her sister’s name was a broken sigh on the summer breeze. “Go away!”
“Look, Melissa—”
“No. You look. I want you to leave. Now! I went to high school with Sheriff Long. He’s a good friend. I think he’d take my word that you’re trespassing. This is my baby now and no Costain is getting their mercenary hands on my child.”
“Not if a judge decides otherwise,” he countered, all thought of equitable settlements blasted away by fear for Gary’s child.
Melissa’s eyes widened then narrowed. Her voice now held no sadness, only rage. “If you aren’t off this property in two minutes, I’m calling Hunter Long. That would give you about twenty minutes to get out of this county with him hot on your tail. The clock’s ticking. If you tangle with Hunter Long, your name and money won’t help you a bit. Have a nice day.”
She turned regally, her skirt swishing seductively, walked inside and slammed the heavy front door, rattling every window in the dilapidated house. Brett stalked back to his BMW roadster and threw himself behind the wheel. He wasn’t in the mood to tangle with a county mountie on the warpath so he turned his car around and drove out to the main road. Once there, he pulled to a stop, needing a moment to collect his thoughts.
He’d come here to ask for the occasional visit with the child. But after seeing the way she lived, there was no way he could have left it at that. The only thing that was clear was that he wasn’t going to get Gary’s baby without a fight.
Brett blinked. Get the baby? A fight? What the hell had he said? What the hell had he done?
Chapter Two
About an hour after Brett left, Melissa heard the jingle of a horse’s harness and the rattle of Izaak Abramson’s wagon. She put down the old coffee grinder she’d just brought up from the cellar and walked out on the porch, promising herself time to clean it up and admire it later.
She waved a greeting.
“Good day to you, Miss Missy,” Izaak called. “I have some time today to look at your barn.”
What good news! Smiling at Izaak’s childhood nickname for her, Melissa skipped down the steps toward the man wearing the same kind of plain black pants and gray shirt he always wore. With Izaak there were rarely surprises.
“Then it’s okay?” she sighed, hardly believing at least one of her worries was over.
Izaak nodded. “Margaret spoke to the elders and explained about the baby. We are all still allowed to be friends and we may still work with you on your shop. They don’t like English science but understand that you are not immoral. Just misguided.”
Melissa ignored her annoyance at his last statement and breathed a sigh of relief. It was going to work out. Only now could she admit to herself that she’d been terribly worried. There was no telling how Izaak and Margaret’s elders might have reacted to Melissa’s impending single motherhood—no matter how impersonally it had come about.
“I’m hoping there’s a way to have the barn ready by the time the baby’s born. It would be so much better to be able to open the shop close to home and not have it actually in the house.”
Izaak sighed and shook his head. “You should not need to support yourself. It is the English way to have a child with no father to guide him.”
His disapproval hurt but she straightened her spine. “Now, Izaak, I know Margaret explained to you that this was supposed to be Leigh and Gary’s baby and that I was supposed to act as its aunt.”
Melissa had known Izaak Abramson her whole life. His parents’ farm bordered her uncle’s, and when she was young, he’d been the object of her dreams. Back then he’d been a handsome, smiling young man who gave her rides on his horse. When he’d married, Melissa had been crushed. He’d promised to wait for her, after all. But her five-year-old heart had healed quickly with a few hugs and attention from Margaret, the love of his life.
Izaak sighed. “Yes and I know the baby is of English science. But it will be Leigh’s baby no longer and the father is not here to help you raise him either.”
His concern touched her and Melissa felt tears once again well up in her eyes. “No. Neither of them are here, are they?”
Izaak shook his head and clumsily patted her shoulder. “I’ve made you sad again. So suppose we look at this barn you have decided to make into a store. Now what is this name we will have on this barn that is no longer to be just a barn?”
She smiled. Izaak had always made her smile. “Stony Hollow Country and Classics and you know it. It’ll be a great partnership. You, me and Margaret.”
And it would be. She had the knowledge of antiques and had been collecting them for the day when her dream came true. She also had the wood. Two falling-down barns’ worth! Izaak Abramson had the know-how to turn that weathered wood into furniture. The country movement in decorating had turned old-barn-wood furniture into a valuable commodity and Melissa and Izaak were going to cash in on it. And Margaret’s quilting was simply gorgeous. Melissa would feature beautifully displayed Amish quilts—another sought-after product. And there was the quarter-sawn oak furniture Izaak and his brother Od painstakingly built too. They wouldn’t get wealthy, but that wasn’t the purpose. A good life was.
And she was going to give her child just that. She wouldn’t let Brett Costain and his threats make her believe anything else. She’d nearly collapsed when she’d seen him on her porch, but she’d reached inside herself and had faced down one of the supreme Costains. She would do the same in court if it came to that. She would have to.
Melissa could hardly believe she’d stood on her porch, looking down her nose at him, and ordered him off her land. It gave her a little thrill that it had worked so easily. And so well. He was gone—tail tucked between his legs, driving hell-bent-for-leather toward Philadelphia. He was gone.
Gone but not forgotten, a small voice inside her protested.
Okay. He’d hurt her once. She could admit that. She’d seen him as her irreverent, charming knight on a white charger. She’d gotten all caught up in Leigh’s fairy-tale wishes for her. And she’d been a fool. They both had.
Leigh had been waxing poetic about Gary’s perfect younger brother for weeks. He was funny, kind, handsome as sin and twice as wealthy. He was supposed to have been perfect for Melissa. And she had actually gotten her hopes up when she’d seen the way Brett looked at Leigh and Gary. She could have sworn she saw a deep yearning in his eyes for what they’d found together. Then he’d been all smiles and loving hugs for his aunts and cousins while making Melissa feel like part of the family. Handsome had been so great an understatement that Melissa had planned to tease Leigh over it later.
She and Leigh were dressed alike for the first time since their parents died. Leigh had bought the dresses, done Melissa’s hair and makeup so they could have fooled even Gary himself. But, of course, it had been Gary’s plan. He’d wanted to mislead his parents, who believed Leigh had been raised in the lap of luxury, not on a beaten-down farm in southern Maryland. He’d assured Melissa that proper breeding would matter to them.
Melissa had thought she’d feel self-conscious all dressed up in a sophisticated costume. But it had been worse than that. Leigh and Gary had been wrong to hide the truth and so had Melissa. Wrong to think she could pretend to be someone and something she wasn’t. Wrong to get so caught up in the excitement of the game that she forgot some games come with penalties and consequences.
Melissa shook herself from her reverie. What was she doing, thinking about that whole humiliating episode? It had been a long time ago and she was older now and much, much wiser. It was time to think of the future. And as she and Izaak planned the renovations, the future began to look bright again. She refused to think about the shadow on the horizon called Brett Costain.
The old swing creaked as Melissa rocked in the shade of the big “Johnny Smoker” tree off to the left of the house. She smiled at the Philadelphia nickname and reminded herself for the umpteenth time to find out the real name for her favorite tree on the property. She looked up into the boughs as the evening breeze ruffled the big leaves, creating the sound Aunt Dora had always called the song of summer.
Melissa’s stomach growled, reminding her that it was dinnertime and of the astounding sensation that had awakened her that morning. Her baby had moved, and for the first time she’d felt a little flutter of life. Her first reaction had been to call Leigh—but then she’d remembered.
She was alone. Completely alone, with all the responsibility that bringing a precious life into the world entailed. She had to secure the baby’s future and guard its present.
She was alone. Alone to face the unknown in the form of pregnancy and labor and delivery.
She was alone. Alone to see first smiles, hear first laughter and worry and thrill over first steps.
She’d been close—so close—to calling Hunter and telling him she’d changed her mind. That marriage to a friend was better than going forward alone. But she hadn’t called. A good and generous man like Hunter Long deserved a wife who not only loved him but who was in love with him and who desired him as well. She’d caught a brief glimpse of those feelings one magical night and even though the object of her affection hadn’t returned her feelings she knew what was missing with and from her old friend.
It was ironic that only hours later Brett—the man who’d inadvertently taught her so much—had swept back into her life to teach her another truth. In threatening to take her baby away just as it had become real and not a little frightening to her, he had revealed to her just how precious this baby was.
She sighed and sank a little deeper into the swing. Today had been a very long day.
It had started early with the joy of new life. Fear had come upon her, and then Brett had arrived and drawn anger bursting from the depth of her being. But then Izaak had come by, full of good news and support.
Because his elders had approved their venture, Izaak and his brothers and cousins would be allowed to convert the barn nearest the road and dismantle the others. He had carefully inspected the building and had declared it strong and sound. They had paced off and marked an office and rest room in the loft area, deciding to leave an open-floor plan on the ground floor because it would be more flexible in the future. They decided to add a staircase and a balcony railing at the front of the loft for the display of Margaret Abramson’s quilts.
Izaak was so proud of his wife’s skilled artistry that Melissa had felt a little surge of the old childhood jealousy. And she’d teased him about it. But he had patted her hand, his mood serious, and told her that God would send a man for her and her baby.
This time he didn’t mention Hunter, for which she was grateful. He understood that while she and Hunter could build a family for the baby, they could not build a life on friendship alone.
She sighed again, regretful but resigned. At least this way she’d have the home and child she’d always dreamed of to soften the loss of Leigh.
She closed her eyes, reaching inside herself for the memory of Leigh’s bright laughter and her wide smile. She relived the wonderful scene the day Melissa’s pregnancy had been confirmed. She and Leigh had both been waiting in the couple’s living room when Gary got home. Leigh had given him a silly T-shirt about fatherhood. Gary had stared down at it for a long moment then let out a joy-filled whoop before lifting Leigh in the air and spinning her around. When he’d put Leigh down, he rushed to Melissa and engulfed her in a bear hug, thanking her with grateful tears in his eyes.
The sound of an engine and the crunch of gravel disrupted summer’s song and Leigh and Gary slipped silently back into Melissa’s memory. She wiped away her tears and stood, then walked around the side of the porch and froze. It appeared the day would end the way it had begun—with the annoyance of Brett Costain.
Melissa stalked forward to meet him, studiously ignoring the way the sun glinted off his blue-black hair. “Did you think I was kidding about calling Hunter Long?”
“No. But I thought talking to you again and settling things more amicably would be worth the risk.”
“And I told you we have nothing to talk about.”
“Which is my fault. I shot my mouth off. My only excuse is that all of this threw me more than just a little.” He gestured to the house and surrounding buildings. “You have to admit this is pretty far removed from the world I was raised in.”
Melissa looked around and tried to see the scene from his point of view. Gary and Leigh’s four-bedroom colonial had been far removed from his upbringing. She supposed her house, scraped and not yet painted, with its broken shutters not back from being repaired, looked rather shabby. Add two barns whose only virtue could be found in their salvage value, and she could guess what he thought. But that was no excuse for the way he’d acted or the things he’d threatened.
“This is my home. It will be my child’s home. This isn’t Philadelphia. It isn’t Devon. This is St. Marys County, Maryland, where a lot of people are poor. No judge is going to take away my baby because my house needs painting and repairs.”
“And neither would I,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry about the threat. I wasn’t out of your driveway before I realized what I’d said. I didn’t come here this morning to upset you or threaten you. I came for answers. And to offer help. Now that I see your situation I can see you need it.”
She’d meant what she said about the judge and the courts but his reappearance was still upsetting. No mother took his kind of threat lightly, especially considering the things she knew about his family. But that wasn’t why her legs were shaking and her heart was pounding in her chest.
It was him.
Melissa didn’t know why his nearness always affected her like this. It was the same now when she was angry with him as it had been five years ago when all she’d wanted was to feel his lips on hers.
Knowing it would be stupid to antagonize him by again asking him to leave, and needing desperately to sit, Melissa gestured toward the porch. “I don’t want your help but I’ll see what I can do about those answers you mentioned.” She turned and walked up the steps, sinking gratefully into one of the big wicker rockers, the one Uncle Ed used to sit in for hours. She could almost feel his comforting presence surround her.
Brett followed and pulled the mate to her chair so it faced hers more directly. He leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees and laced the long fingers of his beautiful hands. He was such an incredibly handsome man. No wonder women nearly swooned at his feet—the rat.
“I needed to know why you lied to me,” the rat asked.
Melissa sat back in the chair and crossed her arms, pinning him with a hostile glare. “I told you, I didn’t lie. I left. My stay with Gary and Leigh was temporary. I was under no obligation to walk in the front door of Bellfield again or to remain in Pennsylvania. But you know all that.”
“No. That isn’t what I mean. I’m talking about the lie five years ago when you almost destroyed my relationship with my brother.”
She could feel and hear his suppressed anger. The fingers which had looked graceful and relaxed only moments ago were now clenched tightly. Had she nearly come between the brothers? It had never been her intention. Had Leigh not felt her pain and anger at the wedding reception, Melissa would never have told her sister what had happened with Brett.
Melissa told Brett all of that now, adding, “But I don’t understand how you think I lied to you.”
“You aren’t the same person. This you is the real you. The person I met shouldn’t have been so upset when one night was all I could offer. She wouldn’t have been hurt because our stolen moments in the pool house weren’t about happily ever after. The person I met lived in the real world, not the back of beyond with rocking chairs and porches and barns. She was a designer. She had plans to open an antique store. She was glamorous and worldly and cosmopolitan. She wasn’t you.”
Melissa nodded, seeing for the first time that Brett hadn’t been unaffected by that night or the masquerade. “Oh what a tangled web we weave…” she thought.
“The way I was dressed was the facade. One Leigh and Gary created. It shouldn’t have been necessary, but, because all your family cares about are appearances and bank accounts, it was necessary for Gary. He was sure they’d use Leigh’s upbringing after our parents died as a new source of ridicule. He didn’t want the love of his life used as a weapon against him. He knew it would hurt her. Leigh and I knew it would hurt him. And Gary had been hurt enough.”
Brett sat back in his chair slowly, taking the words in, thinking about them solemnly. “I agree and I understand what and who prompted it. They’re my parents too. But Gary lied to me. Then he was furious with me for treating you like the person you pretended to be without bothering to tell me you’d been playing dress up.”
She could see beyond his anger to the hurt in his light-gray eyes. They were filled with pain.
“What I don’t understand—” he continued “—is why he kept it from me. We didn’t keep secrets from each other. Why do you think I’m the only one who knows for sure that there’s a baby on the way?”
Melissa leaned back in her chair also, letting her face rest in the shadows as she spoke. “He said the two of you were always having to keep secrets from your parents. He wanted to let you off the hook with this one. That’s all it was, Brett. His commitment to Leigh was a lifetime one. If Gary had told you, he felt he would be forcing you to keep his secret for just as long. We’d originally come up with a scenario in which I would pretend to move to the farm I’d inherited from a distant relative. I was going to say I enjoyed the area and had decided to stay. Since it turned out that I preferred not to visit when you’d be around, he decided updating you and your parents with the story no longer mattered.”
Brett pursed his lips and nodded, then looked off, staring at the barn closest to the house. “I would never have touched you if I’d known the truth. I wish to God he’d told me.”
“Well, you aren’t the only one,” she snapped. She still smarted from his incredulous look when she’d found him in the arms of another woman not twenty-four hours after he’d held her, kissing her in the same way. He’d so dazzled her that she’d almost compromised her principles for him. And that had hurt.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said quietly.
Melissa hated that he saw the truth. “Don’t flatter yourself. You infuriated me. That’s all there was to it,” she lied.
“I didn’t mean to do that either,” Brett said, his voice solemn. “But I know I hurt you. I saw your tears before you turned away. Plus Gary had a lot to say on the subject.” He grimaced. “And I’m sorry, but I was misinformed.”
“Only about my clothing. I’m not a country bump-kin just because intimacy means something to me.”
He nodded. “Fine. I think, considering present circumstances, it’s time we bury the hatchet somewhere other than in each other’s backs.”
She hoped she would never see him again so what did it matter? Forgiving him wouldn’t change anything but there was something to be said for a lack of enemies. Melissa nodded.
Brett sighed, clearly relieved. “Now, about help.”
Melissa stood. “I don’t want your money. Money comes with strings and I don’t want anything tying us to your family.”
She realized her error when he looked up at her, his hair stirring in the breeze. Standing had put her in closer proximity to him. He was too damn handsome by half. She sat back down, hating that his nearness could still affect her.
“I didn’t say anything about strings or conditions,” he said softly. “I offered help.”
“Charity always has conditions, Brett. And there’s another thing about money you don’t seem to understand. Money doesn’t fix your threat. Money doesn’t buy trust. I accepted your apology for the way you treated me at the wedding because I think it was sincerely given, but I haven’t forgiven your threat to me or my child’s happiness. And I won’t, because money also doesn’t buy forgiveness.”
Chapter Three
Stung by the truth of what Melissa had said, Brett nodded, ready to leave for the time being, but determined to find some other way to reach her. He refused to do it with legal threats or by scaring her with the very real worry that his mother could turn out to be a threat all her own.
Still he had to do something. He couldn’t let it go at this. Maybe he’d been a lawyer too long. Maybe, as Melissa said, he’d been a Costain too long. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I frightened you. I only came here to offer help. There should be a little left in Gary’s estate, and his child is entitled to it. I’ll be in touch.” He sighed and stood, grappling to say the right thing. Instead he settled for neutrality. “In the meantime, take care of yourself until I see you again.”
He turned away and left her there on the porch. He looked back at her before climbing into his car. She looked like the heroine of an old movie. Sitting in a rocker on the porch of the dilapidated farmhouse with the breeze ruffling her fine golden hair so it shimmered in the dying sunlight, she was too beautiful for words.
Hesitating, Brett fingered his keys before starting his car, forcing his mind into numbness. It was only when he turned onto Route 5 again, that he remembered passing a shopping center with a rather large grocery store. Food was something everyone needed. And what was the old saying? She was eating for two now. If he bought her groceries, he’d help the baby in the only way he could right then, and he’d help Melissa because she could spend what little money she had on other things.
So he found a motel out on the highway, and the next morning at 6:00 a.m., Brett entered a supermarket for the first time in years. It was his housekeeper’s job to keep his cupboards stocked and he hadn’t remembered how much fun food shopping could be. He went up and down the aisles filling the cart to overflowing with everything that looked healthy or useful. Soon it was full, but he’d saved the most important aisle for last. It was the one aimed exclusively toward the needs and wants of babies and small children.
He went down there to remind himself why he was there in the first place. Then the cutest brown bear caught his eye. He picked it up and decided it must be too early in the morning for rational thought. He could have sworn the look in the little guy’s soft golden eyes begged for a home. He put it back on the shelf, but its soft fur caressed his fingertips as he drew them away and its head sort of flopped sadly to the side.
He might have managed to walk away but he remembered Gary buying several toys in the two weeks he’d known about the baby. Gary wouldn’t have put the bear back, so Brett added it to the cart then hustled back to the card aisle. He picked out a gift bag and a matching note card, then headed for the checkout.
Once he returned to the car with sacks and sacks of food and other essentials, Brett wrote a note saying he would be back for a brief visit. He longed to say something else, anything else, but what could he say that would fix the muddle he’d caused with his runaway emotions and tongue the previous day?
Not wanting to spark another confrontation with Melissa, he coasted the last several yards of the drive with the engine off. Then he quietly began transferring the bags from his trunk to her porch. Once done, he returned to his car, turned it on, and got the hell out of Dodge before she sicced her friend the sheriff on him.
The farther he got from Melissa, though, the more thoughts of her haunted him. It didn’t feel right leaving her destitute to face bringing a child into the world. Especially when it was his brother’s child, and being kindhearted had gotten her into this fix. He had to find a way to get her to accept financial help.
She didn’t want strings to his family. He could understand that. His parents, aunts, uncles and cousins had continually treated Gary and Leigh with disdain. And Leigh, who had been hungry for family after losing her own, had been hurt almost as much as his brother by their contempt. No wonder Melissa wanted so desperately to protect the baby she carried from his family.
He had to admit he did as well, or he’d have told his parents that Melissa had conceived Gary’s baby in the procedure performed a month before his death. His mother hadn’t asked. She had merely wondered aloud if she’d have to do something drastic to assure the possible grandchild was brought up properly.
Brett had kept his mouth shut and hadn’t questioned what she’d meant before she’d resumed her trip following the funeral. In his heart, though, he knew the answer. His mother would sue for custody in a New York minute if she saw the way Melissa lived.
Melissa opened her front door on her way to get her Sunday Washington Post and couldn’t believe her eyes. No less than twenty grocery bags and one small gift bag sat at the edge of the porch all lined up like toy soldiers. She walked onto the porch bewildered and stood staring down at the bounty. There were three bags half-full of fresh produce alone!
But then the bewilderment started dissolving like dew on a summer morning. Half-full? They were all half-full. As if they’d purposely been loaded lightly. As if someone hadn’t wanted her carrying anything too heavy. Which meant they were from someone who knew about the baby. It wouldn’t be Izaak or Margaret or anyone from the Amish community. They brought meals in baskets and would never just leave them. Hunter thought the drive-in at the new fast-food franchise was the modern way to food shop.
It had to be Brett!
Brett.
Of the people she knew, he was the only one extravagant enough to leave all of this just sitting on someone’s porch in the hope that it would be accepted. Hadn’t he listened to a thing she said? He was still trying to buy his way into her baby’s life. She had a mind to let it sit there to rot in the hot sun!
Then she saw a patch of curly brown fur peeking out of the cloud-and-rainbow gift bag and couldn’t resist the temptation. Stuffed animals were her one weakness in life—she refused to count the light-headed effect Brett had on her.
Melissa reluctantly bent down and pulled out a soft, floppy brown bear. She might have been able to ignore a beseeching expression in Brett’s striking gray eyes but not in the bear’s golden ones.
She tried all day to tell herself she’d been nothing but practical to bring the groceries into the kitchen and put them away. After all, she couldn’t really leave all that food to rot on her porch. It would draw every bit of wildlife on the property to her front door and create a mess she’d have to clean up later, she rationalized. And grocery shopping was such a chore. Her days were busy with rebuilding her business and hunting down stock for the shop. It would have been foolish to let the food go to waste.
Ultimately, sitting down at the kitchen table, staring at the teddy bear in her hands, Melissa admitted to herself that something in Brett’s gesture touched her…once her initial annoyance wore off. And that softening attitude toward him bothered her. Every time she looked up from the decorating sample book she was putting together, the teddy bear’s sweet face snagged her attention. Annoyed, she finally smacked her hand on the table and jumped up.
“A leopard doesn’t change its spots in a matter of hours. You are not going to fool me, Brett Costain,” she declared, and stalked to the bear, intending to put him back in the bag. But something inside the bag tangled with the bear’s legs when she tried. That’s when she found the envelope she’d overlooked earlier. Frowning, Melissa tore it open.
“‘Dear Melissa,’” she read aloud. “‘I apologize again for the things I said. I don’t wish to intrude on your life but as you’re carrying my brother’s child there’s no way I can withdraw completely. I’ll be back next weekend to continue the talk we started. Please take care of yourself. BJC.’”
“BJC. What’s the J stand for? Jerk? You show up here again and I’ll have Hunter toss you out of the county on your ear,” she muttered through clenched teeth, blessedly annoyed at him once again.
Brett pulled into Melissa’s long drive the following Saturday at a little after noon. He’d put in a long week of rescheduled meetings and late-night dinners with clients trying to cram six days’ worth of work into five. He hoped this visit with Melissa would make it all worthwhile.
He wasn’t the least bit surprised when she barreled out the front door before he reached the top step of the porch. “I thought I’d made myself clear,” she said, standing with her arms crossed belligerently.
She wore her hostility like a shield, but the effect was destroyed by the flowing, calf-length, white cotton dress she also wore. Her golden hair, a tumble of loose curls glinting in the sunlight, absolutely begged for a man’s hands to muss it even more. Her blue eyes practically sparked with indignation, making him long to see them once again hot with arousal instead of irritation.
Will you give it a rest! She can’t stand the sight of you, you pathetic jerk.
He sighed and reminded himself that, though she looked good enough to eat, his attraction to her was also illogical and irrelevant. It had to be. He was there to discuss the trust fund he’d set up. Anything else would get in the way. Eyes on the prize, he lectured himself, but his self-control around Melissa was practically nonexistent. He’d proven that to himself and Gary five years ago.
“You made yourself perfectly clear,” he told her, closing the car door slowly. “You don’t like me. You don’t trust me. And you don’t forgive me. I have to earn all three. Did I miss anything?” Folding his arms before him, Brett leaned against his car.
“Yes.” Melissa rushed toward him, then stopped abruptly, halfway down the weed-laden path. She eyed him cautiously. “Actually you failed to tell me what it is you’re up to with these little impromptu visits.”
“How can I earn your forgiveness, your trust or your goodwill if we never see each other? I owe it to Gary’s child to try.”
She huffed out a quick breath. “You are so infuriating. I can’t imagine you’re interested in a baby, even Gary’s baby. They’re noisy, demanding, often smelly and they’re always there. You can’t buy them off with expensive jewelry when they become inconvenient.”
Brett felt his cheeks heat. So Leigh had told her that too. “I never thought I could. Nor would I want to. And once again, I’m not trying to maneuver a way to take your baby. Please believe I was speaking from anger and surprise when I said that. I’m not asking for access to the baby for my parents or any other family members. I’m the only one who even knows you are pregnant. I’m asking you to accept a check each month from a trust fund I’ve set up for Gary’s child. I loved my brother and I want his child to have everything he needs to build a successful future. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Well, no.” Pensively, Melissa turned and walked back to the porch to sit in the rocker where he’d left her last weekend. He followed.
“I guess that’s a step in the right direction. But I have to wonder if your definition of a successful life and mine bear any resemblance to each other. What’s your definition?”
The answer was so obvious he didn’t know why she’d bothered to ask. Brett stared at her. She was serious. He frowned. Maybe his answer was a little too obvious. Why did he suddenly feel as if he’d walked into a minefield? How could so simple a question suddenly take on all the features of a riddle?
He knew his silence screamed indecision, but still he hesitated to give his answer. He just couldn’t imagine another possible response than the one that had leapt to his tongue, but he was sure she must be seeking a different sort of reply.
Leaning against the porch railing, Brett tried to look relaxed, while feeling anything but. “Ideally, I think children should get a good education at the best school that can be provided for them. Then they should finish their education at an Ivy League university or one of the Seven Sisters colleges, again, if at all possible. By then they should be ready to move into a career that will eventually net somewhere in the six-figure range.”
“Education is important. I agree.” Melissa looked up at him as if to emphasize her point. “But who’s to say what makes one school better than another for a particular child?”
“That’s the job of a parent to decide. From what I’ve seen, it’s often decided while the child is an infant.”
“Really? Leigh and I went to public school because my aunt and uncle chose to save the money from our parents’ estate for college and maybe graduate school.”
“That was a wise decision.”
“After high school Leigh wanted an urban setting and a big school, so she left here to go to the Philadelphia area and went to the University of Pennsylvania. My aunt and uncle advised us and they steered Leigh away from a lesser school in Baltimore.”
“Another good choice. See. Our values aren’t all that different.”
She held up her hand. “I said Leigh. I stayed here and went to Saint Mary’s College. Ever hear of it?”
He shook his head.
“Not many people have. It’s a good school. Small. Quiet. Perfect for me. We reached these decisions together. Leigh and I headed in completely opposite directions and to diametrically opposed environments. And we were identical twins.”
But they’d been alike in so many ways. Their feelings toward marriage and family for instance. Yet Brett knew Leigh had loved the hustle and bustle of city life and Melissa was clearly a country girl. Country woman, he amended with slightly clenched jaw. He was still so affected by her that it hurt to look at her knowing if he had been a different sort of man she could have been his. He didn’t want it to bother him but he was honest enough with himself to admit that it did.
“You two weren’t the same at all, were you?” Brett said, trying to cast aside old regrets.
Melissa shook her head.
“So you’re saying that if you couldn’t handle attending the same university as your identical twin, a parent would be wrong to unilaterally decide where their child goes based on the school’s reputation alone.”
“Exactly. And it goes further than that. I know you think money’s a deciding factor to a choice of a career, but it isn’t the only factor to consider either. In public relations, Leigh would easily have been able to pull down the kind of salary you mentioned.” She fingered the soft-looking cotton of her dress, a wistful expression settling on her pretty features. “But she met Gary and he and a life together became more important to her. Leigh cut back on her workload by moving to a smaller, less-prestigious firm. And Gary’s whole reason for starting his own business was so he could set his own hours. They were happy.
“I’m in the middle of getting my decorating business up and running again.” She pointed to the barn that sat toward the front of the property. “I’m also about to convert that barn over there into the antique shop I once told you I wanted to open. And I’m going to stay right here where I’m happy and raise my baby. I might not set the world on fire financially or the shop and business might blossom beyond my wildest dreams. But whatever happens, I’ll consider myself successful if my child has everything it needs, and if I look forward to my days at work when I put my feet on the floor each morning.”
Melissa was staring at him when he looked back from a quick glance at the barn. He’d never seen her look more impassioned. Explaining this to him really mattered to her.
She continued, “I always considered Gary extremely successful because he liked what he was doing, and he and Leigh were deliriously happy. That’s success, Brett, but your family called him a failure and a fool. By the standards you set a few minutes ago, that’s your opinion of him as well.”
Brett shook his head and sank into the chair across from hers. Gary hadn’t been a failure or a fool. But had Brett treated him like one? He honestly didn’t think he had but… Could that be the reason Gary had kept the secret about Leigh’s upbringing from him? Brett was a lawyer for God’s sake. He kept secrets all the time. Secrets that were a lot more complicated than where and how someone had grown up. Had Gary thought Brett would ridicule Leigh and him?
“Brett? Are you happy?” Melissa asked, calling him back to the issue at hand. “Do you even know what it is to be happy?”
Happy? Brett stared at her, his mind this time devoid of an answer. Apparently, happiness was a concept he wasn’t at all familiar with. He wasn’t unhappy. Was he?
Brett shrugged. “I suppose happiness is one measure of success,” he allowed, however uncertainly.
Melissa shook her head. “No. For me, it’s the measure. And that’s my problem with accepting any money from you. If I take one penny, you’ll think you have the right to influence or dictate how I raise my child. I know Gary spent a miserable childhood. I don’t know how you felt about it, but he resented the hell out of it.”
Brett just couldn’t expose his feelings to her. She unsettled him too much already. Held too much power over him, though she didn’t seem to know it. It was difficult to even think straight in her presence. She made him uncomfortable in ways he hadn’t felt since discovering R-rated movies in his early teens.
He’d always contended that if he’d known how inexperienced Melissa was the night he’d nearly seduced her, he never would’ve touched her. He’d consoled himself for years with that claim. But now he wasn’t sure. And that was a very scary conclusion because it meant he didn’t know himself very well.
He was about to assure Melissa that all he wanted was for her to accept the trust fund, but all at once he knew that would never be enough. Though he was certainly not father material, he couldn’t stand the thought of just staying on the fringes of this child’s life.
Melissa sat across from him trying to look stern and tough and all the while he could see incredible love for her child shining in her eyes and peeking out of her careful defense of her way of life. He didn’t have a clue why he felt all the needs today that had exploded in him five years ago but there was little sense in denying that those feelings raged through him once again. He was drawn to every aspect of her personality he’d been taught to disdain, and he knew he should stay away from her.
But he couldn’t be a part of her child’s life without her cooperation. And she hated him. Which meant he had to find a way to change her mind. Charm her. Make her need him. See him as indispensable. That was it! He never failed at that.
His parents needed his help in maintaining Bellfield. The firm needed his growing reputation. Women were never the ones to leave even with all their complaints about his workload and tendency to remain aloof. And that was because he gave them anything they wanted but his heart.
He’d have to control himself where Melissa was concerned while being so helpful and charming she wouldn’t be able to imagine her life without him. There was no reason to think he couldn’t do both even though at that moment Melissa looked about as pliable as a steel girder.
He needed to develop a strategy, but at least now he had the germ of a plan. He stood to leave and moved the chair back to where he’d found it. “Will you at least think about the advantages the trust fund could give the baby? I promise not to interfere with any value structure you set for your child,” he promised.
“I’m not a fool, Brett. I know money isn’t necessarily the root of all evil and that it’s also a handy tool in the right hands. It isn’t the money, but who it comes from that worries me. I don’t know if I can trust you to keep your opinions to yourself. I don’t want to spend the next eighteen or twenty years policing your influence.”
Chapter Four
Someone pounded on Melissa’s front door the following Saturday, waking her from a perfectly wonderful dream that Brett starred in. She couldn’t help being annoyed at whoever had snatched her from his arms. Then she realized what she was thinking and aimed that stupid anger straight at herself. What was with her and all these ridiculous dreams she’d been having lately? She’d positively gone around the bend!
In her half-awake state, she tossed on her robe and made her way down the steps. When she pulled open the door, she found Brett, but he wasn’t pounding on her door. He was standing on the ground at the skirt of the porch pounding on the porch floor from below with a hand sledge, loosening the deteriorating floorboards.
To further befuddle her already disordered brain, he was dressed as she’d never seen him—in worn jeans and a faded T-shirt. And there was more. The muscles of his arms stood out in stark definition beneath his tanned skin. She had never thought of Brett as a particularly physical man but that’s the way he looked in the early-morning light.
“What are you doing?” she asked for some reason, even though the answer was obvious. Anything to keep from acknowledging the heat she felt when she looked at him dressed like a man instead of a GQ mannequin.
This isn’t good, Melissa had enough sense to tell herself. She tried in vain to find that nice liberal dose of anger she’d been feeling only minutes ago. But then Brett looked up and smiled.
“I…” he started to reply, then stopped and just stared. It was as if his powers of speech had abruptly deserted him.
Melissa’s heart flipped in her chest when his burning gaze traced her body from her toes to her face. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. What she saw in his eyes was more dangerous than all the strings to all the trust funds in the world. She clutched her robe closed with a tighter grip and felt her face heat.
But then his smile mutated into that lady-killer grin of his. Fury flooded her brain. And she was free. Gloriously free.
Melissa didn’t say a word but turned and slammed the door behind her. Oh, no. He was not going to charm her the way he did his legion of women. He probably thought that was a way into her life with the baby. How could she have forgotten for even one millisecond the kind of man he was?
Again she asked herself, what on earth was the matter with her? First she dreamed of the man, then for a few seconds there she’d actually believed he was looking at her with desire and she’d liked it. She knew all about the swinging door on his bedroom and all the kiss-off gifts he’d given to those women. She herself had already felt the pain of his fickle-hearted rejection.
Her doctor had warned her that her hormones would go haywire, but she hadn’t thought he meant she’d lose all reason! She’d dreamed of Brett this week and, instead of waking annoyed, she woke feeling needy. It had to stop! Where women were concerned, Brett Costain was poison.
Trying to be completely honest with herself, Melissa admitted that her attraction to Brett was part of her reluctance to accept the trust fund. And there was something else bothering her too. Did she have the right to deprive Gary’s daughter of a relationship with her father’s best friend and brother?
Melissa would have no problem doing just that if she were convinced Brett’s influence would be a poor one. The problem came from a very real sense that her opinion of him was colored by what had happened between them the night they’d met and his rejection the next day.
The truth was she didn’t really know him. The only things she’d heard about him concerned his relationships with women. Other than that subject, Leigh had rarely spoken of Brett at all. To judge him entirely on the merits of his family was unfair. Gary, who was raised by the same parents, had turned out to be a wonderful man. It was altogether possible there was a lot of good in Brett that her sister had assumed Melissa wouldn’t want to hear. Leigh certainly hadn’t intended to keep Brett from sharing her and Gary’s life with the baby.
So what was Melissa to do?
She decided to step back from the problem and avoid him, putting off any decisions until she could look at him with a clear head.
She got down to work after making her decision and managed to catalog and tag every piece of furniture she intended to put in Country and Classics. As she finished scheduling a consultation with the daughter of an old client for early the following week, she glanced at her watch. It was five o’clock and Brett was still hard at work. She had studiously ignored him all day, which wasn’t easy with the sound of power tools buzzing in the background.
She fanned herself idly and realized how very hot it had gotten. Guilt crept in. She hadn’t even offered Brett as much as a glass of water all day. Ashamed and with Aunt Dora’s admonishment always to treat others as you want to be treated echoing in her head, Melissa poured him a glass of sweet tea and carried it to the porch.
Brett stopped pounding the second her shadow fell over him. He looked up and this time he didn’t smile. He didn’t grin. He just wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and nodded a greeting.
“Is that for me?” he asked.
“I was working and I hadn’t realized it was so hot out here. Where did you learn to fix a porch?”
Brett walked to a pile of tools and pulled a book from under them. He handed her the thick how-to volume. “There’s very little we can’t learn from books.”
Melissa glanced down at the hardback and thought of all the life lessons she and Leigh had learned from their parents and later Aunt Dora and Uncle Ed. Thinking of their conversation about life and happiness she thought Brett had a lot to learn and she didn’t see him learning those lessons from books. But it wasn’t her place to tell him so.
Casting about for something to fill the silence, she glanced toward a silver Range Rover he’d parked in the drive. “You traded in your sports car?”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind—a mixture of horror and disbelief. “Give up my Beemer? No way. I only rented that for the weekend because I needed to haul the wood.”
Melissa couldn’t help it. She laughed. Uncle Ed’s pickup was still rusting away in the barn over yonder and Izaak still used his father’s old wagon to haul wood. Only a Costain and people of their ilk would rent a Range Rover to haul lumber.
“You going to let me in on the joke?” he asked.
Melissa shook her head. It wasn’t her job to teach him about the real world even if the hair that fell across his forehead lent him an air of innocence rivaling even the most naive babe in the woods. “I doubt you’d understand,” she told him.
“Try me,” he dared her, his beard-shadowed chin raised in a challenge. At least this way he didn’t looked like a guileless ten-year-old.
What is wrong with your thinking, woman? This is a mover and shaker. A powerful international attorney. He works for heads of multinational, billion-dollar companies. He does not have a slingshot in his back pocket or posies hidden behind his back!
Melissa forced her thoughts to the subject at hand. “How many Beemers and Range Rovers have you seen on these back roads? And how many plain old pickup trucks have you seen?” she challenged.
“Rovers are sturdy,” he argued.
The man was completely dense! “At fifty or sixty thousand dollars a pop, they’d better be.”
He squinted in the glare of the late-afternoon sunlight and looked up at her, scrubbing back his dripping hair. She could almost see him struggling to understand her point. “Come on. Are you trying to say if I show up with a high-end car when the baby is old enough to understand the difference between a BMW and Chevy it could do some sort of damage to his psyche?”
She sighed. “No, I’m trying to say you don’t have a clue how the other ninety percent live. And it’s that attitude that could cause a problem for me later. Do you think Gary would ever have spent his hard-earned money on that kind of luxury?”
Brett glanced at the Rover then back at her and smiled. “Next time I’ll rent a Chevy but I’m not selling my Beemer.”
Melissa nodded, staggered by the smile and a sudden realization. When Brett didn’t try to be charming his charm was all the more dangerous. She’d never expected that. The man was positively lethal. All little-boy inquisitive one minute and sexy as all get-out the next.
How was she supposed to talk to him and guard her heart? There had to be some safe subject for them! She looked down at the work he’d done. “It looks nice. Thank you. I admit every once in a while the boards would moan and I’d begin to wonder if they were going to hold my weight. You got a lot done. I’d like to pay for the wood.”
Brett shook his head and his hair fell across his forehead again. “Consider it a baby gift. I’ve actually enjoyed the physical work. I don’t get a lot of time in the fresh air.”
After all his work, Melissa knew she couldn’t send him off without at least feeding him. Aunt Dora would haunt her sleep more than Brett already did if she even tried it. In the interest of a good night’s rest, she asked, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“That’d be great.” He smiled and for the second time in less than a minute there was no hidden agenda lurking in his eyes. And for the second time in as many minutes Melissa had to hold on to her heart and soul for dear life.
Before today he’d always been angling for something. A concession. Sex. Something. But when he smiled for real, it lit his pale-gray eyes and told of a greater depth to him than she’d thought possible. Maybe he was more like Gary than she’d thought.
“You’re welcome to use the shower,” she told him, trying not to attach too much meaning to what she thought she saw. His fixing her porch might still have a hidden agenda. Mightn’t it?
“A shower sounds terrific just about now,” Brett said. “I have a change of clothes in the Rover. I didn’t stop at the motel this morning. I drove straight to the lumberyard when I got down here. I wanted to get an early start since there was so much to do. Sorry I woke you.”
Melissa banged around the kitchen minutes later, thinking he hadn’t looked the least bit sorry when he’d been ogling her at practically dawn. She threw a slap-dash dinner together and half an hour later Brett joined her in the kitchen. As she finished putting the meal on the table, Melissa ordered her pounding heart to behave. It didn’t listen.
“This looks wonderful,” he said, sitting where she indicated.
So do you, Melissa thought before taking one last glance at the table. There was leftover roast beef, oven-browned potatoes, a colorful bowl of mixed vegetables and Margaret Abramson’s home-baked bread and fresh-churned butter. Most of it was courtesy of his little shopping excursion, but still, she somehow doubted he ever ate this way at the gourmet restaurants he probably frequented.
Deciding she didn’t care if he felt the dinner lacked sophistication, she sat across from him and tried not to stare. He was so handsome and self-assured. And he was once again the picture of his aristocratic upbringing in designer clothes and Italian shoes.
So why couldn’t her more-than-adequate brain manage to make her unruly heart behave? “I never thanked you for the food you left,” she said, knowing nothing separated them so much as the disparity of the classes they belonged to.
“No thanks necessary,” he said.
His refusal of her gratitude made him seem superior and arrogant. She hated that he thought he was better than her. If only she hadn’t offered him a simple dinner in her simple kitchen.
“Brett, I’m really not as bad off financially as you seem to think. I’d been putting money aside for some time to convert the barn and I have a lot of inventory lined up for the shop already. In fact, it’s all around us. I had to put my plans for the shop on hold when Uncle Ed started failing. When he died and Leigh and Gary came down for the funeral, they asked me about the baby. The timing couldn’t have been better since I’d pretty much suspended my business so I could take care of Uncle Ed in those final months.”
“That’s why he left the farm to you alone, isn’t it? Because you gave up everything you’d built for him. I’d wondered about that. Do you ever stop giving? The timing when Leigh and Gary asked you about the baby might have been good, but it must’ve been a difficult decision. You were going to be giving away your first-born child. They asked too much.”
Melissa felt her cheeks heat. “Leigh would have done the same for me. I know she would. And I’m not pretending it would have been easy to watch them raising her but—”
“Her?” Brett arched one dark raven’s wing of an eyebrow. “Is that a guess? Wishful thinking?”
Still excited over the ultrasound picture that had been done yesterday, Melissa jumped up. She was eager to change the subject and even more anxious to share the first picture of her child, even if it was only a shadowy black-and-white image that a technician had needed to explain.
She handed Brett the picture. “They do these routinely now. And I got lucky. At sixteen weeks they can tell the sex if the baby’s in the right position and she was. That’s my baby girl.” Melissa’s voice broke and tears she tried to blink back welled up in her eyes.
Leigh had so wanted a little girl.
Not wanting to cry in front of Brett, Melissa quickly excused herself and fled the room. On the way to her grandparents’ bath just outside the downstairs bedroom, she caught sight of Leigh staring back at her from the hall mirror and froze in place. The incredible loss of her twin slammed into her once again with a two-ton force.
It was a bittersweet pain that would have taken her to her knees were she not held in place by the sight before her. Leigh but not Leigh. Gone but never farther away than a mirror. Leigh would never age and yet she would. Her own reflection would forever remind Melissa of the incredible bond she and Leigh had shared and the void her loss left.
Melissa didn’t know how long she stood there with her fingertips touching the flat cold face on the other side of the glass. She and that other part of her cried silently for both of them. The one lost and the one left behind. Only half of who she was but two people as well.
Was she forever doomed to lose those she loved and relied upon?
Chapter Five
Brett wished Melissa would come back so she could explain what he was supposed to be seeing in the ultrasound print. He stared down at the confusing black-and-white photo trying to see a tiny human form. He felt ignorant and out of touch, sure there was some well-known trick to deciphering the picture.
When several minutes had gone by and Melissa didn’t return, he began wondering where she’d gone so suddenly. And why. She’d looked a little upset, he acknowledged. Worried, but feeling like an intruder, Brett cautiously followed and found her in a darkened hall staring at herself in a mirror and crying silent tears. He stepped behind her, very much aware that she didn’t realize he was there.
“Melissa? Hey, Melissa,” he whispered.
Her eyes shifted a bit and she focused on his reflection. “It’s like looking at a pastel version of her, isn’t it?” she asked, tears choking her voice. “She was so alive and vivid. How can she be gone?” Her eyes slid back to her image again. “And yet never gone. Always staring back at me, taunting me because it isn’t her I see.
“She wanted a girl,” Melissa whispered, her voice as broken as her heart apparently was. Her lower lip quivered and her face started to crumple. “She wanted that so badly. And now—Oh, God. Leigh!”
To Brett there was nothing scarier in the world than a crying woman, except maybe a crying baby. He had no clue what to do. What was he even doing here? He desperately wanted to run from the intimacy of Melissa’s tears and grief. But then he glanced down at the picture he still held.
This scrap of humanity he couldn’t even correctly discern had been his brother’s fondest wish, as well as Leigh’s. Gary had wanted a daughter to cuddle and protect and love just the way he did her mother. And now he would never get to hold her, hear her first cry or later her childish laughter.
“Think of how happy you made the last two weeks of their lives,” Brett told her, then found himself biting his lip and fighting tears as well.
He hadn’t allowed himself to cry for Gary, not even once. He didn’t know why for sure. Maybe because there was no one in his life to hold him while he did. Or maybe because he’d been afraid that if he gave in and let himself cry, he’d never stop. Suddenly sharing this crushing grief with the only person in the world who actually shared it and fully understood it was all that mattered to him.
He turned her away from the mirror and into his arms, holding her close. Brett didn’t know how long they stood that way just clutching each other and crying silently. But after a while she wrapped her arms around his waist and something shifted in him.
The feel of her in his arms suddenly registered. He felt as if he’d taken a one-hundred-fifty-volt charge to his heart. And he felt like a heel for noticing how perfectly she fitted against him. But, dammit, he wasn’t made of stone and had never claimed to be a saint. When he’d had her in his arms that night they’d met, her body had promised ecstasy. She was an unfulfilled promise that he’d never quite gotten out of his system.
Brett swallowed. This was dangerous. She wasn’t the kind of woman he got involved with. Ever. And this woman above all others had to stay off-limits.
“Come on,” he whispered against her hair. “Let’s go sit on that nice safe porch I almost finished for you today.” In the shelter of his arms he guided her the few feet down the hall to the dimly lit living room.
Melissa looked up then and the tears in her eyes seemed to be magnifying their clear blue-green color and gave them all the sparkle of precious gems. Her gaze caught his and one of them turned toward the other. He didn’t know which one. It didn’t seem to matter once their lips met in a charged union he’d always sworn could not have felt the way it had. But once again it did.
Brett cupped her face, his fingers threading in her soft hair, and deepened the kiss. He tasted her tears and probably his. Then Melissa moaned in the back of her throat and Brett broke the kiss, afraid it was a protest—terrified it wasn’t.
“We have to stop this. Forget it too. You were right earlier when you pointed out that we come from different worlds.” He took her hand and put the ultrasound photo into it, but not before the image before him exploded to life in his mind. Fighting to maintain his resolve, he continued, “But our worlds have crossed into each other’s because of her and there’s no way to change that.”
Her expression changed from dreamy to one he’d have to analyze later. Then she raised her chin and he knew she meant to challenge him. “You could just go back to your world and leave me alone to raise her in mine.”
He lifted the hand holding the photo and kissed her fingers, shaking his head. “I’ll be back,” he said, and melted back into the deeply shadowed hall.
His whispered promise barely stirred the air.
As he drove north, Brett came to the conclusion that he’d never get the picture of Melissa’s face when he’d turned away from her out of his head. The hurt and the fear he’d seen written on her lovely features had nearly brought him to his knees.
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Kate Welsh
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: BABY BEQUESTWealthy playboy Brett Costain met virginal Melissa Abell at their siblings′ wedding…but their one stolen kiss led to disaster and humiliation. Now, years later, a tragedy reunited them, forcing Brett to find the woman he′d coldly spurned, a woman with a secret only the two of them shared.She was pregnant with the Costain heir.Being a surrogate for her sister had been a selfless act, and Brett was determined that Melissa not be alone. So he traded his courtly estate for a quaint farm and quickly discovered that he wanted to be much more than his brother′s substitute….