Found: One Secret Baby (13 page)

“It was a long time ago.”

She raised one eyebrow and nodded at the hand still clutching his arm. He lowered the hand to his lap and took a long drink of coffee.

“So,” she said after a long pause. “If you had good news, why didn’t you call and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to drop by?’”

“Because I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.” Her wary expression pushed his tension up another notch. “I wasn’t even sure you’d answer your cell once you saw my number.”

“So you just show up, knowing it would be harder for me to throw you out if you took me by surprise. You can add tonight to your arrogant-jerk power plays.”

“I’m sorry.” He hesitated. “Do you want to throw me out?” His heart froze, but he kept his face neutral.

“I’m not sure.” She turned away to touch the rose again. “What did you say the rose meant?”

“Please believe me.”

She nodded, eyes still on the rose. “Believe you about what? It was obvious the moment we got to Lillian’s hotel room that night that you weren’t in on her little plot.”

He shook his head. “I want you to believe I’m sorry I got angry when you thought I’d helped her. I understand now I hadn’t given you any reason to think otherwise. I should at least have let you apologize, although you really didn’t need to. But I couldn’t get past the feeling that if you believed, even for a moment, I’d want to take Joey away from you after what we’d shared, we didn’t have any future together.”

“Do we have a future together?”

That was the real question here. Rosalie had thought her heart couldn’t hurt anymore after she’d sat through Morgan’s heartbreaking story, but she’d been wrong. It pounded wildly in her chest in protest as the silence between them grew longer, thicker.

In the end, she was the one to break it. “Or did you come by for some hot, easy sex?”

He swore.

“I asked you to marry me,” he reminded her.

“So Lillian could be near her grandchild.”

“So I could spend the rest of my life with you.”

Her heart in her throat, she fought to stay angry. To stay safe. “Okay, a lifetime of hot, easy sex.”

“Nothing is easy with you.” He stood and paced the length of the kitchen and back. “Why do you have to be so dumb now when you’re so damn smart the rest of the time?”

“Dumb about what?”

“The rose, for starters. I thought you’d understand flowers.”

“It’s gorgeous. Thank you. But … well, I have a garden full of roses.”

“Planted by your mother.” The edge of exasperation in his voice surprised her.

“Roses, flowers, were part of nature for my mother. Colorful, graceful shapes she shared with others in her paintings. She didn’t care what meanings people associated with them.”

“Ah.” He paused in the kitchen door and stared into the dining room full of canvases.

A new suspicion drifted into her mind. “Is your friend who owns the gallery really interested in more of Mother’s work, or did he say he was to help you?”

“No, he says he can sell whatever you have. I’m supposed to bring the whole lot over to the gallery tomorrow.”

“I’ve put the money away for Joey’s college, but I realize now he may not need it.”

Too much information. Her worry over how Joey would handle his future wealth had taken advantage of having someone to share it with and slipped out before she could stop it. She didn’t want Morgan to think she cared about Lillian’s money. Or his.

But all he said was,
“It depends on how much you let Lillian be part of Joey’s life.”

“I don’t plan to shut her out completely, if she behaves herself.”

“That’s kind of you.”

A silence fell. He didn’t make any effort to fill it, and neither did Rosalie. She was too focused on the need to fight the almost physical pleasure at having Morgan standing in her kitchen as if he belonged there, the tingle of sexual excitement from his nearness.

When the refrigerator cycled on they both jumped.

“Is any room in this house not full of paintings?” he asked.

“Just the bedrooms.”

Definitely too much information. A wolfish smile spread across his face.

But he shook his head. “We cannot have this conversation in a bedroom. Talk first, sex later. I’ve learned that much.”

She stiffened, as much a defense against the lure of surrender as a response to his words. “I don’t remember mentioning sex.”

“You accused me of coming here for hot, easy sex.”

Heat crept up her face. “I can’t see any other reason for you to come all the way to Los Angeles. You could have told me about these,” she tapped the papers, “in an email.”

He paused. Her heart paused too, and her breath froze.

“I came here to grovel. And to ask for a second—or is it a third?—chance.”

She kept her face calm, but her body roared back to life. Flutters of hope, need, desire flowed from her head to her heart to her core and back again.

“You give good grovel,” she admitted. “I’ve lost track of how many chances it is, so one more probably won’t hurt.”

His face remained calm, but some of the tension flowed out of his body.

“What do you intend to do with another chance?” she asked him.

“I could call and say ‘Hey, I’d like to drop by,’ except I’m already here.”

He came to her and reached out his hand. Hers went into it naturally. The contact was sweet, solemn, with an undertow of need that silenced them both.

She cleared her throat. “We could move the paintings to your car.”

“And then …?”

“We could go into the living room and you could grovel in comfort.”

His mouth tilted up in a smile that crinkled his eyes. His oh-so-sexy mouth. His sex-on-the-beach eyes.

Before she gave into an impulse she’d probably regret, the cats wandered in and sat at Morgan’s feet, furry reminders of real life. She pulled her hand free.

“You put the paintings in the car. I’ll go get Joey. Mrs. Peterson only agreed to keep him for an hour or so. She’s got a TV show on tonight she refuses to miss.”

Morgan wasn’t sure whether Joey’s presence would help his cause or hurt it, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter. He moved the larger paintings to the back seat of the BMW sedan he’d rented and arranged the smaller ones in the trunk. Rosalie threw on a

jacket and disappeared across the street. She came back with Joey and waited while Morgan closed the trunk with a solid, but almost silent, thunk.

The moment Joey saw Morgan, he lifted his arms toward him and cried, “Mawg!”

Helpless in the face of the boy’s grin, Morgan took him from Rosalie and let the boy wrap grubby hands around his neck to lay sticky kisses on his cheek.

A wave of some fierce emotion washed over Morgan when he held the boy’s warm weight against him. No one and nothing could ever be allowed to hurt this child.

“I’m surprised he remembers you,” Rosalie commented as they walked up the front path.

“Hey, don’t underestimate the step-uncle/step-nephew bond.”

“Yeah, sure.”

She opened the door and took Joey from him. The kid muttered a drowsy protest.

“You want to watch me get him ready for bed?”

The simple ritual of bath, diaper change, pajamas brought Morgan a rush of new emotions for both mother and child—soft, sweet, and infinitely tender.

He’d never expected to love Charlie’s child.

He’d never expected the far more passionate love he felt for Rosalie.

Joey fell asleep as soon as she tucked him in. Morgan gave the child’s tummy one last pat before he pulled himself away from the serenity of the moment.

Rosalie took her mug to the living room, unsure what to say or do. Morgan’s gentleness with Joey had revealed a side of the man she loved that she hadn’t let herself believe existed.

“Wait there.” He disappeared into the breakfast room and reappeared with the strings to the balloons and his mug in one hand, the rose in the other.

Delight rippled through her, just as it had when she first saw him at her door.

He tied the balloons to the arm of the broken chair to keep them away from the cats, and set the vase and mug on the coffee table while she settled on the sofa. He sat next to her and took her hand, fueling all the little fires inside her she fought so hard to keep under control.

Maybe she didn’t need to fight anymore. Maybe she didn’t need to be alone anymore.

She moved her hand against his and the little fires became ribbons of hot hunger woven through her body and knotted at her core.

“What comes next?” she asked, to hide her reaction. “More groveling?”

He touched his fingers to each other as if counting something.

“Do I have anything left to apologize for?”

“I think a good grovel should include a pledge to do better in the future.”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “‘Arrogant jerk’ isn’t strong enough for what an ass I’ve been. You’ll need to help me be a better man. You’ll have to teach me honesty.”

He took her other hand and lifted both to his lips for a quick kiss. Her heart drummed madly at the adoration in his eyes.

“The balloons mean I love you.”

Her heart stopped. Time stopped.

She closed her eyes to hold the words closer.

“I love you, too.”

He gave a start. “Sometimes—lots of times, I didn’t think you even liked me.”

Not quite the response she’d hoped for, but his honesty demanded her own. The honesty she’d always prided herself on, but had somehow lost since she met him.

“I don’t go to bed with men I don’t like.”

“Ahh. So I should have known all along?”

“You should have known what kind of woman I am.”

“You’re hard to know. Too many layers. I feel I could spend my whole life with you and never know everything about you.”

She let herself smile. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Maybe it is.”

She would never be sure who moved first, but the next instant they were in each other’s arms. His kiss was tentative at first, but she licked his lips and, with a moan, he claimed her mouth with an unmistakable passion. She sank deeper and deeper into the warmth and strength of his body, the fiery desire of his kiss, while her heart and soul soared with joy.

She could have spent the rest of her life right where they were, but he finally pulled away with obvious reluctance.

“Rosalie?” His voice was rough and a hint of red colored his face. “Will you marry me?”

The explosion of joy left her mind blank, but she heard herself say, “Yes.”

“Just yes? No ‘where will we live, where will I work’? Are you sure you understood the question?”

“No.” His confused expression made her smile. “I mean, yes, I understood the question, but I know you well enough now to trust you’ve come up with a plan that will make us both happy. You’re good with plans.”

“You don’t you want me to swear I want to spend the rest of my life with you?”

Her heart bounced with joy, like the bouquet of golden balloons he’d bought her.

“You don’t want to hear how I’ve arranged to move the headquarters of Danby Holding Company to Los Angeles to make a place for you and Joey in my life? At the center of my life.”

She swallowed tears of happiness as he pulled a small box out of his pocket and opened it. The large, round-cut diamond was set in a circle of small emeralds.

She’d never seen anything so perfect. She held out a trembling hand and he slipped it on her finger. “It’s beautiful.”

“You like it?”

“You sound surprised.“

“It belonged to my grandmother. My mother and Lillian considered it too old-fashioned and wanted new ones specially designed for them.”

“I love it. But the ring isn’t important. What matters is that we’ll be a family now. Forever.”

Forever. A word she’d never let herself think before. But it was the right word, the only word for how she felt about this man. And how he felt about her.

Morgan didn’t say anything, but stood to sweep her up in his arms and carry her to her bedroom. The magic of the moment silenced any possible protest. She rested her head against his shoulder and let the joy wash over her.

When they reached her room, he slid her slowly down his body. Once her feet were on the floor, he kissed her, then pulled back.

“I’ve never done this with a kid around before.”

“Neither have I. But he’s asleep.”

“What if he wakes up? What if he gets out of the crib?”

She gave him a smile, crossed the room, and locked the door with a loud lick before she returned to his arms, eager to celebrate their love with the pleasure only this man could bring her.

First of all, I’d like to thank my critique group – Ellen Lindseth, Lizbeth Selvig, and Laramie Sasseville/Naomi Stone – for their keen insight and endless support.

Thanks, too, to my agent, Scott Eagan, who always helps me write a better story, and my editor, Charlotte Ledger, the one who took a chance on me.

I’d also like to express my appreciation to the Romance Writers of America and my local chapter, Midwest Fiction Writers, for providing the community of writers that keeps me going.

Thank you to my two grown children, who don’t understand why I do this, but get excited about my successes anyway.

Finally, a thank-you to my hometown, Los Angeles, for inspiring this book.

Owed: One Wedding Night