Corporate Daddy (16 page)

Leaning down, he brushed his mouth across hers, inhaling the perfume of her, the clean, womanly aroma of Emily. “I’m home, Em,” he whispered. “I missed you.”

“Miss you,” she mumbled. Then her lips quirked beneath his, and she pulled back into her pillow. “Logan?”

“Yes.” He moved his hand up to cup her breast. “I couldn’t wait to make love to you.”

She pushed a hand over her face, asking faintly, “Did I dream you?”

He chuckled silently. “I don’t know. Did you? It would only be fair. I’ve been dreaming about you.”

“What time is it?” she asked more cogently.

“Around three in the morning.”

She looked at him in surprise, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight that spilled through the window. “You aren’t supposed to be here until ten.”

He smiled and tightened his hand. “I told you, I couldn’t wait.” He didn’t give her a chance to say anything else, just bowed his head and kissed her deeply. Her arms drifted up lazily and settled around his shoulders. Easing his weight down, he shifted until he lay partly atop her, upper body braced on one forearm. He kissed the corner of her mouth, then licked his way inside, drinking of her nectar.

Spreading her pajama shirt wide, he slid his hand downward beneath the covers until he encountered the soft elastic waistband of her pants. “Em,” he whispered against her mouth, “Emily, my Emily.” He laid his forehead against hers. She was warm and pliant everywhere he touched. He wanted her on fire for him. “Let me in,” he pleaded. “Please let me in.”

She caught a gasping breath that sounded almost like a sob. “I don’t think I can keep you out!”

Elated, he rose above her on his knees and shoved down his boxers, stripping them off before sweeping back the covers and inserting his fingers beneath the waistband of her
cotton pajamas. He gently eased them down, spreading kisses in their wake and smiling against her skin at the small gasps and trembling sighs he elicited. Remembering how she had come apart in his arms the last time he’d had her beneath him, he longed to bring her to climax again, but he had promised himself that he would be inside her the next time, that she would be tied to him in that much at least.

Dropping her pajama bottoms on the floor, he kissed the arch of her foot and nibbled an appetizing ankle before covering her body with his. The feel of all that skin was exquisite. Emily put her head back and cried out softly as he rubbed his chest against hers, his hips finding the cradle of hers, their legs tangling. He sank his teeth into the delicate flesh beneath her chin, and she undulated beneath him like a wave upon a crystal blue ocean.

“Let me in, sweetheart,” he repeated against her mouth. “Let me in.” She turned her face away, but he nuzzled her ear, kissing and tasting. After a moment she opened her legs. He settled between them, her silken nakedness screwing his eyes shut in breathless ecstasy. Clamping down on the sensation, he gritted his teeth and brought himself back to the moment, aware for the first time that she had gone rigid. Bracing his upper body weight on his elbows, he used his hands to coax her face back to his.

“I need you, Em,” he whispered, and her bottom lip trembled. He kissed it, nibbled it, licked the sensitive flesh inside until her arms came around him again. He kissed her fully, making it last a long, long time, sliding his tongue in and out, biting gently, sucking, licking. When she began to writhe sinuously beneath him, he slid a hand down to one knee and pulled it upward, intending to ease down between her legs so that he could push upward again and finally join them. It was exactly then that Amanda Sue screamed.

“Aaaaaah! Da-a-a-dy-y-y-y!”

At once exasperated and concerned, Logan turned his head in the direction of the door, the sobs and wails tearing at him even as he wanted to ignore them.

“Daddy! Da-ha-ha-dyyy!”

“I’ll go,” Emily muttered, as if waking from a drugged sleep and pushing against him.

Logan bit back a sigh. “No, I’ll do it.” He kissed her quickly and pushed back off the bed. He let his gaze sweep over her sleek body as he yanked on his slacks. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “Perfect. I won’t be long.” Then he turned away and was out the door. “I’m coming, Amanda Sue.”

At the sound of his voice her cries took on an eager tone, and he knew with a pang of delight that his little girl had, indeed, missed him. Despite his frustration, he couldn’t help smiling as wide as the moon as she came into his arms, sobbing out his name. Goody quickly disappeared now that reinforcements had arrived. “Coward,” Logan teased, his irritation having disappeared in the wealth of the moment. What did he have to be irritated about when his soft, warm little girl clung to him with undisguised affection and the love of his life waited for him to return to her bed?

He changed a very wet diaper and then spent some time talking to his daughter, telling her how much he’d missed her and how glad he was to be home. “I love you, angel, love you so much.” It struck him how often he used those words now and how seldom he had used them in the past.

“Oan bobble,” she demanded, putting him firmly in his place. He chuckled. Had Emily been giving her a bottle again? He thought they’d just about broken the habit before he’d left. Maybe his absence had been more traumatic than he’d realized.

“Let’s see what Emily has to say about that.”

He carried Amanda Sue to the guest room, knocked on the door frame and stepped inside, “Honey, she wants—” He stopped, staring at an empty bed. Turning around, he looked to the bathroom. The door stood open, the room dark. A feeling of unease gripped him. “Emily?” he called, hurrying toward the stairs. He had taken three of the steps when he heard the front door close. The hollow, muted sound was
a knife in the chest. “Emily?” he said again, but he knew that he was talking to an empty house. He stood there on the staircase, one hand on the banister, the other holding his daughter to his chest, and felt his heart cracking in two.

It was after ten later that morning before she showed up again. Logan sat in one corner of the sofa, angry, hurt and exhausted, while Amanda Sue played in his lap with a set of interconnecting plastic rings he’d brought her from New York, the cat spread out beside them. He had left the bottle of expensive perfume he’d bought for Emily on the dresser in its cellophane-sealed box, wondering if she would ever wear it. He’d come very near to pouring it down the toilet.

She tucked her keys into her pocketbook and dropped it onto the chair seat. “I thought you might want to sleep late,” she said, her gaze failing to meet his.

“How kind,” he drawled sarcastically. “Of course, that’s assuming that I actually managed
to
sleep.”

She winced slightly at that, but made no direct comment. “Have you had breakfast? Want some coffee?”

“Yes and no.”

She nodded and cast a longing glance toward the kitchen, but he was beyond pity.

“Well, aren’t you going to say how Amanda Sue and I needed some time alone together after my absence?” He waited but she didn’t say anything. “Maybe there was a fire somewhere that demanded your immediate attention?” he prodded. When she didn’t reply to that, he quirked a brow into an angry arch. “Oh, I know. Ciara Wilde forgot her lines and telegraphed you a mental message for help.”

Taking a deep breath, she faced him finally. “You took me by surprise,” she explained tonelessly. “When I had a moment to think rationally, I realized what a mistake we were making.”

“A mistake,” he echoed. “Because I’m your boss. The job is
that
important to you?”

“Yours isn’t?” she shot back.

“No.”

She scoffed, her expression clearly skeptical. “You’re telling me you’d give up your job with the family company for a night of sex!”

He wanted to throw something, hit something. Fortunately Amanda Sue was sitting in his lap. Hands coiled into fists, he strove for some semblance of calm. “I never said that. You know perfectly well I never said that. What I want from you is—”

“It’s a bad idea, Logan!” she interrupted sharply. “And it isn’t going to happen again.” She folded her arms protectively, her gaze trained on the floor at her feet. He stared at her for a long time. She was as closed to him as ever, perhaps more so. She didn’t care about him. It was a job to her, nothing more.

“All right,” he said finally, struggling to keep the hurt out of his voice. He gathered his daughter into his arms and got to his feet. “In that case, you’re late for work, and because you’re late, so am I. I suggest you watch Amanda Sue while I get dressed.”

Emily nodded without looking at him. He set Amanda Sue on her feet. Emily crouched down and held open her arms. Amanda Sue ran to her, and he turned away. For the first time in his life, he knew what it meant to really lose, and he wondered how he could possibly endure it.

When the telephone rang, she knew that she had been waiting for it. Nowhere near sleep, she rolled over in her slightly squeaky bed and switched on the lamp before sitting up, knees drawn to her chest, and reaching for the telephone receiver. She missed Goody, even though the silly cat would only have hopped down from the bed and stalked away, indignant at having his slumber interrupted.

“Hello?”

She could hear the screams in the background. “Can you talk to her?” Logan said without preamble.

“Yes, of course.” She heard him explaining to Amanda Sue that Emily was on the telephone, and wanted to talk to her, but Amanda Sue was having none of it. Emily sighed.

For three nights in a row now, Amanda Sue had awakened demanding to see her. The first night Logan had not called. He’d simply endured, and it had taken its toll on him and Amanda Sue both the next morning. Emily had never seen him looking so tired and beaten. For her part, Amanda Sue had hung around Emily’s neck and wept as if her heart was broken. She’d stayed glued to Emily’s side throughout the day and demanded her father several times, which they’d accomplished via telephone. He’d come home early from work, only to call later that evening to ask her to speak to Amanda Sue. That had seemed to calm her, but yesterday had been a difficult day with Amanda Sue pitching a fit when her father had left for work and again when Emily had left for home. Now she was refusing to speak to Emily on the telephone, demanding instead that Emily come to her.

“Maybe she’s sick,” Logan ventured, coming back to the phone defeated.

“Have you taken her temperature?”

“I tried to, but she screamed, ‘No. Mimly.’ I guess that means she wants you to do it. In fact, she seems to want you to do everything.”

“Just when I’m not there apparently,” Emily told him. “She was the same way about you today. She wouldn’t eat her lunch, just kept demanding, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”’

“I should never have taken that trip,” he said, and his voice sounded muffled, as if he were rubbing a hand over his face.

“You didn’t have any choice in the matter, as I recall,” Emily told him briskly. “Anyway, the question is, what do we do now?”

Logan sighed, Amanda Sue sobbing in the background. “I was hoping you’d tell me. You’re the expert.”

She ignored that, knowing the acerbic tone was due more to exhaustion than anything else. Mentally, she went through
their options. It didn’t take long. They didn’t have many. “I think I should call the pediatrician tomorrow and make an appointment. Tonight, I suggest a mild analgesic and a bottle of warm milk.”

“I’ve tried that,” he said with great frustration. “She threw it at me and demanded that you do it.”

“All right,” Emily said, resignedly making a decision she’d rather have avoided. “I’ll be right over.”

“Emily’s coming,” she heard him tell Amanda Sue as he hung up the phone.

As she pulled on her clothes, she couldn’t help musing sadly that he’d offered no words of gratitude or praise this time. But then why should he? It was a job, nothing more. She was quite sure that she’d find overtime compensation included in her next paycheck, and that was the way it should be, the way she wanted it.

So why did it hurt so badly?

T
he next morning, Logan and Emily took Amanda Sue to the doctor. Her examination complete, Dr. Costas sat down at the minuscule desk built into one wall and gave them her diagnosis. “Her ears, throat and nose are a little red, but that’s to be expected with all this crying. Also, her gums are a little swollen. She’s probably cutting teeth. Otherwise she seems in excellent condition. I’d say the problem is emotional, and that’s understandable—no?—with all she’s been through.”

“How do you mean that exactly?” Logan asked, and Dr. Costas shrugged.

“Children grieve as we do, Mr. Fortune. She lost her mother. Strangers took over her care. She made that adjustment, and now she has her father and— I’m sure you see the logic in this—also a mother in you, Emily. I suspect that she was just truly growing secure again when you had to go out of town. Emily was there all the time, of course, but there was anxiety. Then, as soon as her father returned, Emily began disappearing again for long periods. She has to be confused. What child would not be, eh? She is afraid, Mr. Fortune, and it’s quite natural. We call it separation anxiety. I think she will adjust in time, but the fewer changes the better for a while.”

Logan glanced at Emily, then down at his daughter who contentedly played in Emily’s lap, and his jaw hardened. He turned back to the doctor. “Would it help if Emily stayed the night with her? If she moved in for a while?”

Dr. Costas nodded. “That would be ideal, actually, but it
might take some weeks for Amanda Sue to grow secure enough to begin weaning her away with occasional absences, but if it’s done gradually, I’m sure she will come to accept Emily’s absence without fear. Is that possible, Emily?”

Emily knew she had to do it, even though she felt most unfairly trapped by the situation. She nodded resignedly. “Yes, I can move in temporarily.”

Dr. Costas seemed pleased, but had a final caution. “I would suggest that you avoid going out of town again anytime soon, Mr. Fortune, if at all possible.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, stroking Amanda Sue’s head. “I’m not going anywhere until she understands that I’ll return to her.”

“I’ll write a prescription for an analgesic,” the doctor said, doing just that, “something to reduce inflammation. But I’d rather not give her an antibiotic at this time. If she should start to run a fever, though, please call the office at once.” She tore off the prescription and handed it to Logan, who folded it and put it in his pocket. “Now,” she said with a smile, “can I do anything else for you?”

Logan shook his head. “No. Thank you for seeing us so quickly, though, Dr. Costas.”

“My pleasure,” she said, getting to her feet. She shook Amanda Sue’s small hand, saying, “Goodbye, Amanda Sue Fortune. Be well.” With that, she smiled and left the room.

Emily hung the last of her meager temporary wardrobe in the guest room closet and closed the bifold door. She was unpacked. She had moved into the house with Logan Fortune and his troubled daughter. The psych ward couldn’t be far away. How was she going to endure living side by side with the one man she wanted but could not have? She turned toward the door, only to find Logan standing there, arms folded, watching her.

“All settled in?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He stepped into
the room, his hands going to his hips and his gaze to the bed where they had come so near to making love. The expression with which he faced her again was shuttered.

“I, um, hope you know how much I appreciate this,” he began. “You’ll be suitably compensated, I promise.”

That stung—unfairly, she thought. “Stop it!” she snapped. “You know very well that I’m not doing this to earn money.”

He bowed his head. “Of course. You care about Amanda Sue. I didn’t mean to imply that you don’t. I guess I just have a hard time accepting that you don’t care about me.”

She had to stiffen her arms to keep from throwing them around him. Swallowing, she turned away. “That isn’t so. I care about you very much, but that doesn’t have to lead to sex, you know. It’s the sex I consider inappropriate.”

“You didn’t seem to find it inappropriate the last time we were in this room together.”

She whirled around, surprised that he’d say it—especially since he was right. “You took me by surprise,” she murmured. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Who was the last man who could do that to you, Emily?” he asked quietly. “Has there been…is there someone else?”

She stared at him, dismayed beyond words. Of course there was no one else. She hadn’t even had a coffee date in…nearly two years now.
Oh, God
, she thought.
Oh, God, please show me that I haven’t been waiting for this, that I haven’t been secretly comparing every other man to him, loving him from afar, cutting myself off from everyone else. We aren’t right for one another. He’ll never love me like I need him to!
She wanted to cry. How could she fight him and herself? Especially now. Here. She couldn’t know that pleading and hopelessness spilled from her eyes.

“I’d better start dinner,” she mumbled and, brushing past him, she hurried away, safe for another moment. Safe and alone.

“Two gentlemen to see you, sir. Mr. Matthew Fortune and a Sheriff Grayhawk.”

Logan stared at Hal’s combative stance and wondered two things. One, what on earth were Matt and Grayhawk doing here in his office? And two, was the efficient and muscular Hal about to add physical defense to the job description of temporary executive assistant? He almost smiled at the thought but couldn’t quite muster the energy.

Amanda Sue continued to wake repeatedly throughout the night demanding both Emily and himself. He wondered how much longer he could go on like this, bumping into Emily in those damnable pajamas all night long, worrying about his precious daughter, reining in his unruly desires. It was torture, having Emily living in the house, wondering if he would ever be enough for his confused little girl and why he couldn’t be enough for Emily.

How ironic was that? For years he’d fended off the would-be wives with dollar signs in their eyes and Fortune in their sights, only to fall in love with the one female who wouldn’t have him on a silver platter. They would both be here soon, Emily and his Amanda Sue, to interview a nanny applicant. With his little girl having problems, now was not the best time to be interviewing for the position, but it was getting harder and harder to find applicants, and he hadn’t wanted to cancel the appointment.

Hal cleared his throat, calling Logan back to the matter at hand. “Send them in, Hal, and thanks,” he said mildly. Hal neither questioned nor delayed.

“This way, gentlemen. Mr. Fortune will see you now.”

Logan got up and came around his desk to properly greet his cousin. “Matt,” he said, smiling and extending his hand, “to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

Matthew made a sheepish nod toward Grayhawk. “You know Wyatt.”

“Sheriff,” Logan said, offering his hand a second time. Wyatt Grayhawk shifted his cowboy hat to his left hand and gripped Logan’s with his right.

“What happened to Wyatt?” he asked, grinning. “A lawman can get suspicious when his friends start calling him by his title, even if they haven’t seen each other in too long.”

Logan chuckled. “It has been a while. How’s it going, Wyatt?”

“So-so. How about yourself?”

Logan sighed. “You wouldn’t know because you don’t have children,” he said, “but it’s damned exhausting work.”

“What about the marvelous Emily?” Matt asked, eyes twinkling knowingly.

Logan disciplined himself to make a sedate reply. “The marvelous Emily is as exhausted as I am. Amanda Sue’s having a difficult time right now, abandonment issues, according to the doctor.”

“I’d say that’s understandable,” Matthew told him, reverting to his competent physician mode. “Her mother’s death must have confused her terribly, but it’ll work out. She obviously adores you, and vice versa.”

Logan smiled. “True, but you didn’t come here to talk about my amazing daughter.” He leaned back against the desk and crossed his ankles. “Have a seat, boys, and tell me what this is about.”

While lowering himself into one of the chairs in front of the desk, Matt cast a look over his shoulder at Hal, who remained in the open doorway.

Logan smiled at his overly protective assistant and said, “Hal, now might be a good time for you to run down and get those figures we requested from Dan Talbot in accounting.” He knew perfectly well, of course, as did Hal, that Dan would phone with the figures the moment he had them, but true to form, Hal hurried away to do just as he was told. Logan turned back to his cousin. “What’s up, Matt? Does this have to do with the kidnapping?”

Matthew nodded and cleared his throat, seeming uncomfortable with what he had to say. “In a way, yes. As you
know, when Devin recovered the baby thought to be our precious Bryan, we discovered he wasn’t ours. But since Taylor had the hereditary crown-shaped birthmark and rare blood type we knew he was a Fortune.”

“Right. The whole family’s talking about it, and you must admit it’s a fascinating mystery,” Logan said. “How did the kidnappers get this other baby instead of Bryan? And whose child is Taylor?”

“That’s the problem exactly,” Wyatt said, shifting forward in his chair, his hat balanced lightly between his hands.

Matt hastened to explain. “Frankly, Logan, we’re baffled, and Wyatt thinks that it would help to know just exactly who Taylor belongs to.”

Logan lifted a hand to pinch his chin, considering. Could Taylor somehow be his? Before Amanda Sue he would have scoffed at the idea, but no longer. It was possible. He couldn’t believe that Taylor was his, but he couldn’t deny the possibility, either.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

Matthew glanced at Grayhawk with apparent relief. “It’s a simple test,” he said. “I’m taking it myself and we’re hoping all the other Fortune men will, too. Since we would’ve known if a Fortune woman had been pregnant, it makes more sense to test the men. All you have to do is get down to the lab and have some blood drawn. Wyatt will give you a card with the address and hours on it.”

Wyatt fished the card out of his shirt pocket and handed it over. Logan glanced at it and placed it in his own pocket. “All right. I’ll try to do it today.”

“Excellent,” Grayhawk said, getting to his feet. “The sooner, the better. These things can take weeks as it is. I hope the others are as cooperative.”

“If it’ll help get baby Bryan home,” Logan said, looking at Matt, “I’m glad to do it.”

Smiling Matt rose and reached out to clap Logan on the arm. “Thanks. I knew you’d understand, being a father and all.”

Logan could only shake his head. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? How it changes everything?” He looked at the sheriff. “What about you, Wyatt? Any chance you’ll be setting up a nursery anytime soon?’

Wyatt shook his dark head adamantly. “Not me. Being sheriff keeps me up plenty of nights as it is.”

The others chuckled lightly, but then Matt said, “Being a doctor does that, too, but it’s not the same.” For the first time, Logan really heard the agony in his voice, heard it and identified with it. He put his arm around Matt’s shoulders, a true comrade. He couldn’t imagine losing Amanda Sue now that they’d finally found each other?

“We’ll get him home,” he said. “Somehow he’ll come home.”

Matt nodded, head bowed. “I keep telling his mom that, and I try to believe it myself. Otherwise—” He didn’t say more; he didn’t have to.

“I think you know this, but I’m going to say it, anyway,” Logan told him. “If there’s anything else I can do, you just have to let me know.”

Matthew smiled. “You bet.”

“Thanks, Logan,” Wyatt said, clapping him on the shoulder as he moved toward the door. “We’d better move. Still have lots to do. I really appreciate your cooperation, though.” He stopped in the hallway and looked over one shoulder, adding carefully, “You know, your father wouldn’t have been as understanding.”

That knocked Logan back momentarily. “You’re absolutely right,” he said thoughtfully, but then he smiled. “One thing I’ve definitely learned, though, is that I’m not my father.”

“Funny how long it takes us to learn some things, isn’t it?” Matthew said, following the sheriff at a slower pace.

“And sad sometimes what it takes to teach us,” Logan added, right behind him. “I’ll get down to the lab as soon as I’m free this afternoon. You’ll let me know what the test turns up, won’t you, who Taylor belongs to?”

“Absolutely,” Matthew said. “I just pray that somehow it leads us to Bryan.”

“Hold that thought,” Logan told him, opening the outer door for them and watching them walk through. “Nice to see you both. So long now.”

He stepped back and let the heavy glass door swing closed. Poor Matt and Claudia. To have a child, an infant, taken from you. Everyone said that having Taylor with them helped them deal with the loss, but Logan knew that no child could be replaced by another. If he lost Amanda Sue, finding out that Taylor was his wouldn’t fill that hole in his heart at all, not that it wouldn’t be nice to have a son, too.

A son. He shook his head, wondering at himself. He really wasn’t like his father. Smiling wanly, he turned toward the office once more, and that’s when he saw Emily and Amanda Sue sitting quietly at Hal’s, no,
her
desk. She didn’t have to tell him that she’d heard it all. The look on her face was telling enough.

Emily knew that he was taking a test to determine if he had fathered yet another unknown child, and it was just one more obstacle between them. One more reason she couldn’t bring herself to love him.

Emily sat crosswise in the chair, her legs hanging over one arm, and stared with desultory concentration at the television screen, where a late-night talk show played out in goofy gags and goofier discussion. Suddenly, without warning, the picture changed, images flickering past at lightning speed. Irritation got the better of her. She sat up straight.

“Hey, I was watching that!”

Logan, who was stretched out on the couch, simultaneously turned his head and lifted his finger off the button on the remote control. “Sorry,” he mumbled. Aiming the remote at the television, he punched in the appropriate numbers, bringing up the proper channel, only to display the credits rolling past the host’s face. Sighing, he sat up and
braced his elbows on his knees. “Sorry,” he said again. “I—I wasn’t thinking.”