Buch lesen: «The Rich Man's Baby»

Chapter One

Over Two Years Later…

It was her.

Surprise brought Harrison Rivers to a halt in the little store’s doorway so fast the rickety screen hit his backside.

Before he could stop himself, he blurted, “You’re here.”

He hadn’t really expected her to still be here. Especially when he’d failed to see the soles of two sexy bare feet propped on the balcony’s sorry railing when he’d arrived.

Her beautiful, brown-and-gold eyes wide, she opened and closed her mouth twice before breathily answering, “I’m always here.”

“I didn’t think you would be.”

If anyone had asked him why he was there on this sunny, September afternoon he would have claimed to have stopped for gum, but he had really made the thirty minute drive up to the little, nameless store on a backwoods Oregon highway for the first time in two years, two months, and 28 days to banish her from his thoughts. He’d hoped to find closure, even in her absence, before returning to his family estate in the nearest town of Plainview.

She ran a hand up and down her jeans-clad hip, drawing his gaze to her sexy, lean curves. “Why did you think that?”

Since he’d come back to forget her, getting turned on by her was the last thing he wanted. He forced his gaze to her face, though on his way up he couldn’t keep from noticing that her breasts under her plain white T-shirt looked fuller than he remembered.

He cleared his throat. “I just assumed you’d headed off for Eugene and college. Maybe even got married.” A treasure like her didn’t stay buried long.

Yet here he was, staring into the same beautiful brown-and-gold eyes. They still reminded him of sunflowers lying on rich, moist earth. And he remembered too well how he’d thought at the time: Now, maybe that’s all I really want out of life—a beautiful, barefoot girl in cutoff jeans, the summer sun glinting off her honey-brown hair as she sips a beer and meditates life, the river her mantra.

That day when she’d invited him to share her drink and her peace, he’d found himself taking more. God, how he’d needed the comfort she’d unwittingly given him. That had been so unlike him, so irresponsible, yet so right.

The wildness that had made him sample her full, luscious lips more than two years ago erupted within him like a long-dormant volcano. She was still as desirable. More so, with time adding fullness to her figure and maturity to her finely shaped face. And she was still barefoot.

Her earthy sensuality ratcheted his temperature up a few degrees.

She stepped toward him. “I didn’t do any of those things. I’ve been here—” She stopped herself, but the word waiting hung between them.

Harrison met her hopeful gaze.

Damn it. He was no Prince Charming come to rescue the beautiful girl from the cinders or the glass coffin or whatever. Far from it. There was no place in his life for fairy tales.

He lowered his chin and willed her with his gaze to understand that he was doing the best thing for both of them. “I’d really hoped you had gone off to college or gotten married.”

The glow in her eyes faded and the small smile curving her full lips fell. He’d made his point.

He suddenly became very aware of his Italian loafers. The reminder of how different his existence was from her barefooted freedom hit him like a bucket of ice. Before he’d said goodbye to her over two years ago, the realities of his world had forced him to acknowledge that their day together could be no more than his favorite memory.

He’d told himself it was because they were too different, having come from very opposite worlds. And he’d since vowed to never care about someone so much he lost control of his emotions.

This trip up here had been to remind him of that so he could stop thinking about her. He was determined to focus entirely on the multimillion-dollar corporation he was about to take over from his father. The company Harrison’s grandfather had started and bequeathed to him as his legacy. The legacy Harrison had worked so hard to earn.

Enough eyebrows were raising on the company’s board of directors as it was. His father’s decision to make Harrison CEO at the ripe age of thirty-two hadn’t gone over well. Even if he could control his emotions around her, Harrison wouldn’t allow his judgment to be questioned by becoming involved with a woman from such a different background as his. As it was, pulling teeth was easier than getting the board to see reason and agree to his plan to purchase, shut down, then overhaul the Dover Creek Mill.

Harrison had no choice but to snuff out the shining hope in her expression.

Sometimes he really hated reality.

But he had to face the truth. With his father’s retirement less than a month away, Two Rivers Industries required Harrison’s undivided attention. He needed to be in total control of himself to have total control of the company. And he wasn’t in control, with memories of that one time with this woman plaguing him, distracting him from what he’d been born to do—run Two Rivers Industries.

It had been a mistake to come back. The way she still pulled at him confirmed it wasn’t just their differences that should have kept him away. He should leave. Nothing, after all, had changed. As he pushed open the screen door, strange regret flooded him and he hesitated. How did one say goodbye to a memory?

Before he could decide, he caught the flash of something coming at him from the side the second before it hit him in the knees. “Whoa.” He looked down and saw an overalls-clad, towheaded toddler wedged between his legs. He smiled and put his big hand lightly on the little head, flattening down the riot of crazy baby hair. “Well, hello, there.”

The face that tilted to look at him made his breath stick in his throat. The dark-green eyes warily regarding him made his heart skip a beat. The child’s face seemed vaguely familiar.

The little boy stepped back, intent on making a break for the still-open door, but the sight of his red licorice rope firmly stuck to the knee of Harrison’s olive-colored slacks stopped him cold and made Harrison laugh out loud.

The sound brought those solemn green eyes back up to his, and he was treated to the most cherubic smile he’d ever seen. He bent and removed the sticky candy from his pant leg, then crouched down and offered the rope to the equally sticky baby.

The little fellow snatched his candy and ran for the safety of the legs belonging to the woman Harrison had been haunted by since he’d found that moment of peace in her arms.

His heart slammed to a stop and his gaze met and held hers as she hoisted the little boy onto her hip. She hugged the child to her like a mother.

Harrison pulled in a sharp breath when he realized where he’d seen that baby’s face before. Every morning he walked by a framed photo of a shockingly similar face that sat on top of his grandmother’s piano.

The picture of himself as a baby.

NOT A BIT OF AIR remained in Juliet’s lungs. Now she knew how a trout felt in the bottom of a boat. All that was missing was her flopping around, and if he kept staring at her like he was, that’s just what she’d do.

It was him.

And here she’d thought enough time had passed that she wouldn’t know him in a crowd. But the second he had walked in, she’d realized she had stored away the memory of every line on his heart-stopping, handsome face down to the tiny scar beneath his chin, every gesture he had made, and every way he had touched her.

It all came rushing back along with buckets of air. Her body clenched, then throbbed with remembered desire, and her vision swam. She squeezed Nat tight against her until he squawked and squirmed to get down.

Not wanting to let him go, but having no choice since she was about to drop him, she let the baby slide down her leg to the floor and he was off and running. Straight back to his father.

The man who had just made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

Oh, sweet Lord.

He squatted down again to get nose to nose with Nat and then they both looked toward her with the same eyes—the color of the river at its deepest—the same gently flared nose, the same cleft chin, the same everything. Juliet felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

The look he gave her now nearly sent her down for the count.

He knew.

Heat rushed to her face and she could no longer meet his gaze. She glanced to the windows, looking for his motorcycle, but all she could see through the filmy glass was a sleek, black Porsche.

Her gaze flew back to his clothes. The fabric and style of his slacks and white dress shirt reeked of designer wear the way a trash bin reeked of garbage. His classy clothes perfectly set off his golden tan—the sort a guy would get out on a golf course, not digging ditches. His thick, blond hair was shorter and had been styled into submission by stylists who obviously knew what they were doing. And the gold-and-silver watch on his wrist looked exactly like the kind they gave away as a grand prize on game shows. In other words, he looked like money.

That early summer day, more than two years ago, he’d only looked like a dream on a bike.

Juliet clamped her back teeth together and straightened to her full height. He hadn’t come back for her like she’d fantasized. He’d flat out said he’d wished she’d gotten married and left town. But she hadn’t because of her promise to her grandfather to tend the store and because she’d never been able to forget the father of her child.

She met his gaze again, and the message she sent him said, He’s not yours.

He glanced at Nathan, who was busily inspecting his father’s legs for any other sign of licorice, then slowly looked back at her. His message read, Like hell.

Her heart raced and she couldn’t breathe again. “Nathan, come here to Mama.”

Not used to such a tone, her baby simply stared at her. They both stared at her.

She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. What was she getting so worked up for? This man wasn’t going to give a darn about her baby. Actually, she was surprised the door wasn’t hitting his butt as he hauled it out of there. But in reality, he didn’t look like he wanted to leave at all, now that he’d seen Nathan.

He returned his attention to Nathan with deliberate casualness and started a game of “got your nose” with him, and her heart pounded harder. What if he took a liking to her angel? He was rich, she was poor. She didn’t have to be Einstein to realize how things would go if he decided he wanted her baby.

Dear Lord. Nathan was all she had.

“Hey, Natter, Big Bird’s on!” her brother hollered from in the house. “Nat!” Willie continued as he came through the door that had once led to a storeroom, but was now her family’s living room, or more accurately, TV room. “Where are you, ya li’l booger?”

Juliet turned her back on the man she had dreamed of being with again and growled at her brother, “You were supposed to be watching him, William.”

Her use of his proper name stopped him as if she’d yanked his chain, and his hazel gaze jumped to her. As usual, her big, lazy, older brother’s short brown hair stuck flat to his head on one side and stood straight up on the other, and he had his red-and-black flannel shirt misbuttoned.

“What’d he do?” Willie quickly scanned the store till he spotted the toddler. “You botherin’ the customers again, booger?”

“Don’t call him that,” she ground out. “I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Nat’s father said, “He’s not bothering anyone.” He rumpled Nat’s too-long hair.

Ohh, how she remembered his deep, rumbly voice that had turned her to mush in a heartbeat. And the sweet words of flattery and destiny he’d whispered in her ear. And how she had allowed herself, just that once, to believe. To believe in knights in shining armor and princesses who lived happily ever after.

“But I bet you like to bother ants, don’tcha?” he asked her baby and stood. “Just like your daddy.”

“Who knows?” Willie said as he went toward them. “Natter’s daddy was just some guy on a sweet bike who stopped only long enough to disappear in the back shed with my little sister.”

“William!”

“It’s not like it’s any big secret.” Willie scooped up his nephew and tossed the little boy on his broad shoulder. She thought Nat’s daddy was about to protest until he appeared to realize that the squeals the child made were ones of pleasure.

“So you thought that bike was sweet, eh?” he asked Willie.

“Yeah, I did.”

“So did I,” he said with a wistful smile that sent a jolt of longing through Juliet.

She closed her eyes and fisted her hands at her sides. Maybe if she concentrated real hard this would all go away.

Willie was halfway to the back of the store before what the guy had said registered. “Say what?”

Nat’s father let out a soft breath. “Boy, that thing could move. But what do you expect from a Beemer? I could have done without the fluorescent green, though.” He said it all so offhandedly, like her brother already knew that he was the guy on the bike.

Juliet’s eyes snapped open. Clearly he wanted him to know. No, no, no. He’d already made his feelings toward her clear. He would only want Nathan.

“You knew that bike?” Willie asked as he started back toward the handsome man by the door.

“Of course.” With his hands buried casually in his pockets, he looked for all the world as if they were chatting about the weather.

Her brother frowned fiercely. “How?”

Willie was so dumb. He had been the only other person around that day, though he had been too interested in the green-and-white BMW racing motorcycle to notice his little sister falling head-over-heels for the guy who had climbed off the thing. But she’d just turned twenty-one at the time, so she doubted his notice would have mattered much anyhow.

Her one and only mistake’s expression grew serious. “Because it was mine.”

“What?” Willie exclaimed.

Extending a hand toward her brother, he said, “The name’s Harrison Rivers.”

Harrison. His name was Harrison Rivers, of all things. She would have remembered a name like that. So he really hadn’t told her. Her fantasies were unraveling more and more by the second.

His gaze locked on hers as he said to her brother, “I was the guy in the back shed with your sister.”

“NO!” Harrison’s brown-eyed girl practically shouted the denial. She swiftly moved forward and reached for his child.

My God. He had a child. His chest felt ready to explode with emotions he couldn’t name or begin to control.

He watched her perch the baby on her slim hip and tuck his little head under her chin. “This isn’t the guy.” She stared him in the eye, daring him to argue.

“Are you sure?” her brother asked, eyeing Harrison from head to foot.

“Of course I’m sure. Don’t you think I’d know?” she said sharply.

“You heard what I said.” Harrison stated quietly what his heart wanted to shout, “That baby is mine.” Then his throat closed up. They’d made a baby that day. All this time he’d thought they’d only made a little magic, a little bit of heaven that wasn’t meant to last.

His baby’s mother gulped like she was swallowing something distasteful. “No. No he is not,” she clearly lied, her face growing paler by the second.

Harrison captured her gaze again. Why was she denying this? He would have thought a woman in her circumstances would be pointing a finger at him and screeching, This is the guy who knocked me up!

“Then how did he know about the bike?” her brother asked, still unconvinced.

Her breath started coming so hard Harrison could hear it from where he stood. “Ah, lucky guess?” she fumbled, refusing to meet his eyes.

Harrison’s heart went out to her for what she must have gone through, pregnant and alone, but he wasn’t going to let her deny him. That child was part of him.

“Why would he be claiming to be the guy if he’s not the guy?” her brother argued. Maybe he wasn’t as mentally challenged as he looked.

“Why?” she parroted. She started shifting her weight from one bare foot to the other.

Man, she still had sexy feet. His body responded instantly with all sorts of throbbing and hardening. Just as it had over two years ago. Only, now he couldn’t blame his reaction to her on his grief and the way it had made him so out of control. So why did she still push all his hot buttons just standing there with bare feet?

He gave himself a shake and promised not to find out. He had never reacted to any woman the way he did to her, and instant fatherhood was complication enough.

“Why?” she repeated. “How the heck should I know? Maybe he’s some kind of pervert who wants to get his hands on Nat.” Her desperation became glaringly obvious in the way she struggled for an argument.

Again he found himself wondering why she wanted to negate his responsibility. Could she be so selfless as to want to spare him? But why would she think he wanted to be spared?

He asserted, “I am not a pervert. I’m a man who takes responsibility for his mistakes.”

Her eyes flared, and he instantly regretted his choice of words.

“My child is not a mistake,” she hissed.

He raised his hands in supplication. “I’m sorry. You know what I meant.”

“You’re right, I do. Just like I know what you meant when you said earlier that you’d hoped I’d gotten married and left town. So why don’t you head on back down the highway like you’d planned.”

“I can’t. Not now.”

“Wow.” Her brother laughed in disbelief.

“No, no, no,” she whispered, and slowly backed away.

Harrison pointed at the child. “Just look at him. He looks exactly like me. There are pictures of me as a baby on my grandmother’s piano. That’s what I looked like at…what? About eighteen months?” he asked the brother and received a nod in answer. “He looks just like me because I’m his father. I came through here the beginning of June over two years ago and saw the most beaut—I saw you, sitting up on that balcony, and, well, I lost my head.”

“And got something else,” her brother mumbled crudely.

Harrison glared into William’s hazel eyes, nowhere near the deep color of his sister’s, and thought if he had been her brother, he would have flattened the man who’d left his sister pregnant by now. But this idiot looked downright amused.

She didn’t. She looked…scared? What did she have to be afraid of? The only thing he was sure of at that moment was that he intended to accept his responsibilities, as he’d been raised to do, for this child. His child.

Holy smoke.

The spark back in her mesmerizing brown-and-gold eyes, she said challengingly, “What makes you think you weren’t just one of a ton of guys who’ve…who’ve ridden through here?”

“Nobody’s gonna buy that, Julie,” her brother said, butting in. He turned to Harrison. “She’s not like that. As far as anyone knows that’s the only time she’s even let a guy get close,” he said, defending her with an odd sort of pride.

Harrison blanched, vividly remembering his shock when he’d discovered she had been a virgin—after she no longer was one. She had been adamant that it had been her choice, that she had wanted him to be the one. A distinction that even now stirred something vaguely possessive within him. He’d never felt possessive about any woman before, which was why he’d known even then that he shouldn’t see her again. But now things were different. He had a son.

William gave his sister a fond look. “Fellas ‘round here don’t call Julie the ice princess for nothing.”

She gave him a virulent glare in return and growled, “You are such dead meat, Willie. I already said, He’s not the guy.”

Harrison willed her to look at him again, but she buried her face in the sleepy toddler’s soft hair. “Your name’s not Julie,” he half whispered, racking his brain for the name that floated just beyond his reach. It was more lyrical than Julie.

His inability to remember her name bothered him. But names hadn’t been important then. They had stepped to a different plane where such things didn’t matter. The only thing that had mattered was the connection he had felt to her the second their gazes had met. The connection that tugged at him still.

Finally she looked up into his eyes, and it hit him. “Juliet. Your name is Juliet.”

Her eyes welled and a single tear spilled down her cheek. His throat closed up again. She turned and ran with the child through the door to the back. Apparently, for her the connection had broken. For some inexplicable reason his pride felt pricked.