Buch lesen: «Secret Baby Santos»

One

Nick Santos was the boy whom mothers in Wolf River, Texas, warned their daughters about His smile alone could charm fire from the devil, but his eyes, Lord Almighty, those eyes. Dark, mysterious eyes that all but consumed. Stay away from the likes of that boy, mothers would say with a shake of a finger. Nick Santos was trouble with a capital T.

He was fast, he was bad, and after twelve long, lucrative years on the motorcycle racing circuit, he was back.

No one was more surprised than Nick at his return. He thought he’d only come back to Wolf River to see his best friend, Lucas Blackhawk, get married. There certainly hadn’t been any plans to stick around. Nick Santos never stuck around. Never called any place home.

But now Nick realized that even before he’d returned to Wolf River to be Lucas’s best man, something had been quietly prodding him back here. Nothing he could name, just some invisible nudge, some unexplainable force that wouldn’t let him be. He’d figured that once he came back, the feeling would pass faster than a Ferrari around a ten-wheeler on the open highway.

That was six months ago. He’d not only stuck around, but at the ripe old age of thirty-three, he’d quit the racing circuit and opened up his own business: Santos Custom Cycles. Not for money—he had more of that than he knew what to do with. He didn’t give two whits about the bottom line on his earnings statement. He simply enjoyed making things work, taking them apart, putting them back together again better than before. Machines fascinated him, and his ability to master them gave him a rush that racing once had before he’d burned out.

He might not race anymore, but he still had a way with motorcycles that bordered on the supernatural. There was nothing that Nick couldn’t make a bike do. He had “the touch,” as the old-timers would say with reverence.

Of course, women said that about Nick, too.

With reverence.

He’d had little time for female companionship these past six months. His business had taken off the minute word had gotten out to the motorcycle community that four-time National Championship winner Nick Santos had opened up his own shop. Customers were lining up from all across the country to have Nick customize a bike for them. He barely had time to ride himself, let alone free time for...extracurricular activities.

Standing in front of the frozen food section at Bud and Joe’s Market, Nick sighed at the pathetic state of his romantic life. He considered the invitation for dinner that Sue Ann Finley had extended a few hours ago: red wine, juicy steak, Texas-size baked potato. And dessert, she’d murmured with a throaty whisper, was a surprise. As if he couldn’t guess. He thought about the attractive brunette’s lush body, her big brown eyes. On a whimper, he opened the freezer door and let the blast of cold slither through his jeans and flannel shirt.

But tempting as Sue Ann’s offer was, he had a carburetor to rebuild and four cylinders to bore by nine o’clock tonight if he didn’t want to deal with a screaming customer tomorrow. He hadn’t been able to face one more takeout hamburger or pizza, so he’d decided that a frozen dinner was as close to a home-cooked meal as he was going to get.

And what choices he had. He frowned at the freezer case. Manly Man’s Fried Chicken and Mashed Potatoes. Gideon’s Gourmet Cheesy Chicken Pot Pie. Chef Richard’s Macho Macaroni and Cheese. Frozen was quick and easy, and within his limited realm of cooking abilities, but it was also a far cry from that juicy steak and big steaming baked potato he’d been fantasizing about.

And speaking of fantasies...

He only caught a glimpse of hair the color of fall leaves as she turned the corner, but it was enough to tempt him away from the freezer aisle for a quick peek. He snatched a bag of chocolate chip cookies from the end display, then sauntered casually around the corner.

He’d been right about the hair. Deep red, it glittered with browns and golds and tumbled loosely around the shoulders of her cream silk blouse. Her waist would fit a man’s hands perfectly, but then, so would her slender hips and rounded bottom. The snug coffee-brown slacks she wore more than suggested long, curvy legs.

She stood no more than four feet away, in front of a six-foot-tall, circular display of canned green beans, a bright blue hand basket in the crook of her arm, her back to him as she studied a list in her hands.

Who was she? he wondered, moving closer as he feigned interest in a shelf of dried fruit. She couldn’t live in Wolf River, he definitely would have spotted this woman before if she did.

He grabbed a bag of dried noodles from the end of the shelf so he could move closer, and that’s when he caught her scent. Feminine. Seductive. Incredibly enticing. He reached for a bag of elbow macaroni and inched closer still.

Turn around, he prayed silently, anxious to see if the face matched the body.

And then she did turn around.

He forgot to breathe as he stared at her. The heartshaped face absolutely went with the body. Porcelain skin, upturned rosy lips, large expressive moss-green eyes that slowly lifted and looked at him.

When their eyes met, she went still. Her skin paled as she stared back.

She recognizes me, he thought with smug confidence, then flashed the smile that had graced more than a few celebrity sports pages and conquered even the most resistant female.

“Hi,” he said with smooth charm. She seemed immobilized, and he took that as a positive sign. “I’m Nick Santos.”

Her eyes widened at his introduction, then her lips moved, but no sound came out. Without warning, she whirled and ran smack dab into the tower of green beans.

The tower crumbled with a loud clatter. The woman went down with it; cans spilled over her, then rolled across the aisle in every direction.

Geez, he’d had all kinds of reactions from women, but never one quite like this.

Dismayed, Nick set his groceries down and knelt beside her. “Are you all right?’

She nodded, but refused to look at him, just waved him off. When he took hold of her shoulders to pull her up, she jumped in his hands as if he’d burned her.

“Maggie! Are you all right?”

George Kromby, the store manager and former high school classmate of Nick’s, came running down the aisle, his white apron flapping like wings around his short, round body.

She glanced up sharply, and the look on her flushed face, one of utter despair and complete terror, baffled Nick. Certainly she wasn’t afraid of him, was she? He didn’t even know the woman.

Or did he?

Maggie...Maggie...

There suddenly seemed something vaguely familiar about her, though he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. The scent of her perfume and the feel of warm silk under his hands was making it difficult to concentrate.

“Maggie, are you hurt?” George knelt beside them.

“Fine. I’m fine.” Her words were strained, but there was a soft, husky tone to her voice that seeped into his already heated blood. He realized that he didn’t want to let her go, but she twisted away from him and stood on her own. “I’m sorry, George. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“I told Rickie that display was too high.” George fussed over her, gathering up her purse and basket as he criticized the clerk who’d built the skyscraper of green beans. Nick realized that the manager was just as captivated with the redhead as he was. Nick frowned at George, sending mental warnings that he’d seen her first.

“It was my fault completely. Please forgive my clumsiness.” Maggie smoothed the front of her slacks, then flashed George a smile that made him blush to the roots of his thinning brown hair. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get home.”

Without so much as a glance at Nick, she turned and disappeared down the soup aisle.

“Tell Mrs. Smith I said hello,” George called after her.

Mrs. Smith?

Maggie Smith?

That woman, Maggie, was skinny little Margaret Smith, with the ragtop red hair and big glasses?

The last time he’d seen her was twelve years ago, just before he’d left Wolf River. He’d been working at the machine shop, and she’d come in with her father who’d needed the pistons of his 1956 Chevy bored. Nick had been twenty-one at the time, so she must have been about sixteen or seventeen. Margaret was the shyest girl he’d ever met. He’d always said hello to her, and she’d always mumbled a hello back, but never once did she actually look at him.

Obviously she was as shy now as she’d been growing up. She still wouldn’t look at him, he thought to his annoyance, but he’d certainly looked at her. He just couldn’t believe what he’d seen. Little Margaret Smith, with a killer body and gorgeous face. If that didn’t beat all.

Her perfume lingered in the air, and it suddenly dawned on Nick that both he and George were still staring in the direction of the aisle she’d vanished down.

Nick gave the other man a friendly slap on the back. “Hey, George, let me give you a hand here with these cans.”

“What?” George blinked, then looked at Nick. “Oh, ah, that’s all right, Nick. I’ll take care of it.”

“No problem.” Nick bent and reached for a can. “So, how are Mr. and Mrs. Smith?” he asked casually. “They still living over on Belview Avenue?”

Nodding, George scooped up several cans and began to stack them. “Mr. Smith went in for knee surgery last week. Maggie flew in from New York yesterday to give her mom a hand.”

So that’s why he hadn’t seen her before, Nick realized. She’d just got into town. Bad for Mr. Smith’s knee, but good for him, Nick thought. “New York, huh? She work there?”

“Mrs. Smith says she’s a journalist with some big newspaper.” George took pride in his job and meticulously straightened the cans to line up the labels. “Has her own column and everything.”

Nick spotted a credit card lying under a pile of cans and picked it up. “Margaret Hamilton.” Damn. She was married. “That must be her husband I saw waiting out front. Big guy with blond hair?”

“Maggie’s divorced.” George glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “You fishin’, Nick?”

Nick resisted the urge to grin at the good news, then slipped the credit card in his shirt pocket. “Nah, not me, pal. Too busy for females right now.” Nick winked at George. “But you know how that is.”

“Yeah, right.” George rolled his puppy-dog eyes. “Just last night I had to tell Cindy Crawford I’d have to get back to her.”

“Iris Sweeney will be disappointed to hear that,” Nick said, deciding that a little matchmaking for George would not only boost the man’s ego, but keep him from looking in other directions.

“Iris Sweeney?”

Nick nodded. “Just last week I heard her say you have the best-looking produce section she’s ever seen.”

“No kidding?” George said with a quick grin, then cleared his throat and gave a reserved shrug of his shoulders. “I am rather proud of the organic vegetable display.”

“As you should be.” Nick hadn’t seen a vegetable in weeks. Unless you counted tomatoes on pizza or lettuce on hamburgers. He doubted they were organic, though. On an impulse he snatched up two cans of green beans. “Gotta run, George. See you around.”

“Try a can of mushroom soup and cheese with those beans,” George called after him. “They make a great casserole.”

Five minutes later, his shopping done, carburetor and pistons forgotten, Nick roared out of Bud and Joe’s parking lot and headed for Belview Avenue.

Nick Santos was back.

Still in a daze, Maggie had driven back to her parents’ house and squeezed her compact rental into the garage beside her father’s yacht-size 1977 Buick. The radio blasted a loud, heavy-metal song that she never would have listened to under ordinary circumstances, but she’d been too shaken to even notice the earpiercing noise. She shut off the engine, but a loud roar still pounded in her head.

Nick Santos was back.

She wouldn’t have believed it, except for the fact that he’d spoken to her and touched her. My God, she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. He’d actually touched her.

She was still too much in shock to even be embarrassed that she’d dived head first into a display of green beans and landed on her bottom. So much for conquering her childhood awkwardness, she thought dismally. So much for her five years as a confident, assertive journalist. One look at Nick Santos and it all went out the window.

If there was one person Maggie never expected to see again—one person she never wanted to see again—it was Nick Santos.

What was he doing here? She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel and let the wave of panic wash over her. Nick had left Wolf River twelve years ago, two years before she’d gone off to Boston for college. He’d become an overnight success with his racing. The media loved him, not only for his good looks and charm, but for his involvement with charities. She even remembered that several years ago he’d done a magazine spread for a blue jeans company and donated his endorsement to a children’s charity.

Nick Santos, with his heart-stopping smile and his take-your-breath-away eyes. He’d been in countless magazine articles, photographed at celebrity parties, hounded by the tabloids in search of dirt outside the motorcycle racing track.

But there was one article she remembered above all the rest. The paternity suit he’d been involved in five years ago. There’d been pictures of him beside a beautiful blonde and a caption that read: Santos Soon to Be a Daddy? The Courts Will Decide.

He’d eventually won that case, his lawyer proving that the woman had lied and was simply looking for some easy money. But the battle had been nasty, as well as highly publicized, and no stone in Nick’s life had been left unturned: his alcoholic mother who’d abandoned him when he was ten, an abusive stepfather, his year at Wolf River’s County Home for Boys when he was fourteen, and his close, lifelong friendship with Lucas Blackhawk and Killian Shawnessy. Nick’s life had been an open book to the world.

And still he’d smiled through it all, refusing to talk about his past or the court case with reporters, but dazzling them nonetheless with his wit and charm. He was smooth, but rough enough around the edges to make women sigh with pleasure and men grunt with approval.

And he was back. God help her, he was back.

She drew in another long, slow breath and stepped out of the car. Her knees still felt shaky, but she was determined not to let her parents see that anything was wrong. When she let herself in the front door, the smell of roast beef filled the house. If there was one thing her mother loved to do besides talk it was cook.

“Margaret, you’re back so soon.” Her mother came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishrag. In spite of her compulsive need to feed everybody who entered the house, Angela Smith was trim herself, a pretty brunette with warm brown eyes and a flashing smile. “Did you find everything all right? That new stock boy George hired has moved everything around so that my head spins just looking for a loaf of bread. Last week it took me ten minutes to find the prune juice. Which reminds me—” she turned toward the living room “—Boyd, have you had your glass today?”

Maggie’s father grunted from behind the newspaper he was reading. Bandages circled the knee of one swollen white leg, which he’d propped up on the ottoman of his easy chair, but his blue-plaid bathrobe sufficiently covered the rest of him.

Maggie realized she hadn’t bought one thing. How could she have gone grocery shopping after seeing Nick? “I...lost the list you gave me. I’ll have to go back.”

“Never you mind, honey. There’s nothing that won’t keep till tomorrow. Dinner’s almost ready.” Her mother frowned. “You look a little pale, dear. Is anything wrong?”

“No, nothing. Of course not. I’m fine, just fine.”

Not wanting her mother to see the lie, Maggie turned away quickly and set her purse on the entry table. Angela Smith knew everything that went on in Wolf River. Hadn’t her mother told her, in detail, about Helen Burnette’s divorce? About Susan Meyers’s argument with Phyllis White over her poodle’s constant barking? About Ralph Hennesy’s fender bender with Walt Johnson?

How could she tell her all those things and never once mention that Nick Santos was living here again? The man was a celebrity, for God’s sake.

Maybe Nick wasn’t really living here, Maggie reasoned. Maybe he was just visiting Lucas Blackhawk. Maggie knew that Lucas had married Julianna Hadley a few months back and that Nick had been the best man. Her parents had been invited to the wedding reception, almost everyone in town had been. Her mother had talked endlessly about Lucas and Julianna and what a wonderful couple they made. But when she’d made a fuss over how handsome Nick had looked in his suit, how charming he’d been when he’d asked her to dance, Maggie had quickly made an excuse and hung up the phone. She couldn’t talk to her mother about Nick. She couldn’t.

She couldn’t talk to anyone about Nick. Ever.

“Sweetheart, are you sure you’re all right?”

Maggie realized that she’d been staring blankly into the mirror over the entry table, and that her mother was watching her now, her eyes narrowed with concern.

“Just a little jet lag, Mom.” She turned and gave her mother a hug. “I’ll go check on Drew, then put the potatoes on.”

“Drew hasn’t budged from the video you put on before you left, and the potatoes are already boiling. Oh, and that reminds me. Miss Perry, the preschool director from the elementary school called. They have an opening if you’d like to take Drew in on Monday.”

Thank goodness for that, Maggie thought. A fouryear-old with too much time on his hands was like a tornado waiting to touch down. He’d be much happier playing with other children, and she’d be more sane. At least, she’d thought she would be, until she’d run into Nick. Keeping her sanity now was going to be much more difficult.

“You go rest up.” Her mother was already scooting her toward her old bedroom. “I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

Maybe she would rest a little, Maggie thought. A few minutes alone would give her enough time to pull herself together again. Seeing Nick had been a fluke, an unfortunate coincidence. He was probably just passing through town and stopped to say hello to Lucas. And even if he did stick around for a few days, Wolf River wasn’t all that small. The odds of running into him again were practically non-existent.

That thought eased the tightness in her shoulders. She could only imagine what he must think of her after her insane behavior in the market. No doubt he thought she was a crazy lady escaped from the funny farm.

Fine. Let him think she was crazy. As long as she didn’t have to see him again, he could think whatever he wanted.

On her way to the bedroom, Maggie leaned over and brushed her father’s whisker-rough cheek with her lips. He’d retired only six months ago from his foreman construction job and he’d had way too much time on his hands. Even after thirty-six years of marriage, her mother, who had the patience of a saint, was ready to murder the man. And if he’d been a pain-in-the-behind before, since his surgery, he’d been twice as gruff. As far as patients went, he was somewhere between Oscar the Grouch and Attila the Hun. “Can I get you anything, Daddy?”

“Sneak me a shot of whisky and a cigar,” he said in his deep gravelly voice without looking up from his paper. “There’s cash in it for you.”

“Money won’t do me any good if I’m dead. Mom says no alcohol or tobacco while you’re recuperating, and if she so much as catches a whiff of either on your breath, she’ll bruise both our behinds.”

His response was something between a growl and a grunt. He simply snapped his paper and mumbled something about overbearing wives and ungrateful children.

At the sound of the doorbell, she straightened.

“Would you get that for me, Maggie?” her mother called from the kitchen. “Jim Becker’s stopping by with a set of crutches for your father. He’s supposed to be up walking by the end of the week.”

Maggie smiled when her father only buried his head deeper into his paper. Getting a six-foot, two-hundredpound, stubborn man walking was no stroll in the park, but if anyone could do it, Maggie knew her mother could.

Other than running into Nick at the market, it felt good to be home. The scent of a roast baking, the sound of her mother’s humming from the kitchen, even her father with his nose in the paper. She missed all that. Life had gotten too crazy these past few years. She hadn’t even realized it until this minute just how crazy.

She was going to enjoy her time here, she resolved. Enjoy her time with Drew and her parents. She’d put the past behind her a long time ago; it no longer existed. There was only here and now.

The doorbell rang again and when she opened the door the past she’d put behind her stood on her parents’ doorstep, staring back at her with eyes as black and deep as a forest at midnight.