Keeping Her Baby's Secret

Complications from being a rotten drunk was what she could have said, he thought bitterly. She was better off without him. But that being said, you didn’t get to choose your relatives and he was her father.

“Sorry,” he muttered, looking away.

“Thanks,” she said shortly. “For all the grief he gave me, he did manage to hang onto this little piece of property, so it’s mine now. All five acres of it.”

He nodded, then smiled, happy to think of her having something like this for her own. Whenever he’d thought of her over the years, he’d pictured her here, at the lake. It was so much a part of her.

“I had a funeral for him,” she went on. “At the little chapel on Main. I thought it would just be me and him.” She shook her head, remembering. “Do you know, most of the town came? I couldn’t believe it.” She grinned. “I even had a cousin I’d never met before show up, Ben Lanker. He’s an attorney in Sacramento and he wanted to go over the will for me, to see if all was okay.” She laughed shortly. “I think he was hoping to find a flaw, to see if there was some way he could get his hands on this property. But I’d had everything nailed down clear and legal when I was dating a lawyer in San Francisco, so he was out of luck.”

He laughed along with her, pleased to know she was taking care of herself these days. Looking at her, he couldn’t imagine her being a victim in any way.

“So tell me, Cam,” she said. “The truth this time. I’m still waiting to hear the answer to my question. What brings you back to your ancestral home?”

He sighed. “It’s a fairly easy answer. I’m just embarrassed to tell you.”

That made her laugh again. “Oh, now I have to hear it. Come on. The raw, unvarnished truth. Give it up.” She smiled at him. “What did you come home for?”

Giving her a sheepish look, he grimaced.

“Okay. You asked for it.”

She waited expectantly. He took a deep breath, as though this was really tough to admit.

“I came home to get married.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE smile froze on Diana’s face. She blinked a few times, but she didn’t say anything. Still, it felt as though Cam had shot an arrow through her heart.

It shouldn’t have. She had no right to feel that way. But rights didn’t wait on feelings. She stared at him, numb.

“Married!” she finally managed to say in a voice that was almost normal. “You?”

He coughed discreetly. “Well, that’s not actually technically true.”

She blinked. “Cam!”

One dark eyebrow rose provocatively. “Take it as a metaphor.”

“A metaphor!”

He was driving her crazy. She shook her head. It was too early in the morning for mind games.

“Will you tell me what is really going on?”

He sighed. “Let’s just say my mother has plans. She thinks it’s time I settled down.”

“Really.” Diana took a deep breath. So…was he getting married or wasn’t he? She was completely confused and beginning to get annoyed. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

He looked at her blearily. “What girl?”

She wanted to throw something at him and it took all her strength not to snap back through clenched teeth. “The girl your mother wants you to marry.”

“Oh.” He frowned as though he didn’t see how this mattered. “There’s no specific girl. More like a category of women.” He shrugged and raked fingers through his tousled hair, adding to his slightly bewildered look. “She has a whole roster picked out. She’s ready to toss them at me, one at a time, and I’m supposed to catch one of them in the end.”

Diana took a deep breath. This had been the most maddening conversation she’d had in a long time. The strongest impulse she had right now was to push him into the lake. How dare he come back here this way, raising old emotions, raising old hopeless dreams, and then slapping her back down with vague news of pending nuptials? Was this a joke? Or was he just trying to torture her?

But she knew that wasn’t really it. He didn’t have a clue how she had always felt about him, did he? Well, despite the position it put her in, that was probably a good thing.

Holding all that in as best she could, she looked out at the moonlight on the lake. Funny. Cam had come home and within minutes she had reverted back to being the little raggedy urchin who saw him as her white knight. For years she’d clung to his protection, dreaming that one day, when she was older, he would notice that she wasn’t a little girl anymore, that she’d grown into a woman.

She sighed softly. It had always been a stupid goal, and still was. He was from a different world and only visited hers when it suited him. He wasn’t available, in other words. And even if he were, what she’d done to her own situation alone would rule out any hopes she might have. She should know better by now. A little toughness of her own was in order. No more shabby girl with her nose pressed to the windowpane.

She tilted her head to the side, a bemused look on her face as she worked on developing a bit of inner strength.

“Let me get this straight,” she challenged. “You came back because your mother wanted you to?”

He blinked at her groggily. “Sort of,” he admitted.

She shook her head, eyes flashing. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Cam Van Kirk?” she demanded.

“You don’t buy it, huh?” He looked at her, trying to be earnest but too groggy to manage it well. The swath of dark hair that had fallen down over his eyes wasn’t helping. He was looking more vulnerable than she’d ever imagined he could look.

“Actually,” he murmured, “neither do I.”

“What does that mean?”

“Come on, Di, you know how it is. You grow up. You begin to realize what is really important in life. And you do things you never thought you would.”

Sure, she knew how it was. But she couldn’t quite believe it. Not Cam. Not the young rebel she’d idolized for so many years.

“What happened to you, Cam?” she asked softly, searching his face.

He moved toward her, his hand reaching in to slide along her chin and cup her cheek. She pulled back, looking surprised at his touch and pushing his hand away.

And as she did so, she forgot to hold her robe closed and it fell open. Her rounded belly was obvious.

“Whoa,” he said, jerking back and staring at it, then looking up at her face. He shook his head as though trying to clear it so that he could deal with this new development. “What happened to you?”

“It’s not that big a mystery,” she said quickly, pulling the robe back. “It happens a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He stared at her for a moment, his brow furled, and moved a bit further away, purposefully keeping his eyes averted from her midsection.

“Did you go and get married or something?” he muttered uncomfortably.

She looked away and he frowned. The downside of that possibility was suddenly clear to him. He didn’t want her to be married. Given a choice, he would rather she wasn’t pregnant, either. But that was clearly settled and he could have no influence on it. But the married part—no, if she were married he was going to have to leave pretty quickly and probably not come back.

Why hadn’t he considered this possibility? Somehow it had seemed natural to find her here, just where he’d left her. But of course things had changed. It had been ten years, after all.

“No, Cam,” she said calmly. She pulled the robe in closer and looked out at the lake. “I’m not married.”

Was he supposed to feel relief at that? Probably not. It was pretty selfish of him. But he couldn’t help it. Still, it left a few problems behind. There had to be a man involved in this situation. Cam blinked hard and tried to act sober.

“Who’s the daddy? Anyone I know?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

He shrugged. “Your call. So I guess you’re doing this on your own, huh? Are you ready for that?”

She gave him a quick, fleeting smile. “I’m fine, Cam. I can handle this.”

Something stirred inside him. Was it admiration? Or regret? He was a bit too groggy to tell. But the Diana he’d left behind had seemed to need him in so many ways. This one, not so much. That was probably a good thing. Wasn’t it? If only he could think clearly, he might even be able to tell.

“Well, you know, if you need any help…” he began.

She turned on him, ready to be defensively self-reliant, and that was when she saw what looked like blood. It was trickling down out of his dark hair, making a rivulet in front of his ear. She gasped, then looked more closely, detecting a lot more that had started to dry against the collar of his shirt.

“Cam! What’s this?” She touched it and showed him.

“Oh, just a little blood.” He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at it.

“Blood!”

He gave her a melancholy smile. “I had a little accident. Just a little one.”

She stared. “With your car?”

He nodded. “The car wouldn’t go where I tried to get it to go. I kept pulling on the wheel and saying, ‘Come on, car, we’ve got to get to the Van Kirk mansion,’ and the stupid car kept saying, ‘You know you’d rather go see Diana.’” He looked at her with mock earnestness. “So we crashed.” He waved toward the woods. “We smashed right into a tree.”

“Cam!”

“Just a little one. But I hit my head pretty hard. Didn’t you hear it?”

She stared at him, shaking her head. “Oh, Cam.”

“It wasn’t very far away.” He frowned. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear it.”

“I was asleep.”

“Oh.” He sighed and stretched out his arms, yawning. “Sleep, huh? I used to do that.”

She noticed the dark circles under his eyes. For all his handsome features, he did look tired. “Maybe you shouldn’t drink when you drive,” she pointed out sharply.

“I didn’t.” He shook his head. “The drinking came later.”

“Oh.”

He shrugged. “Just a bottle I found in the trunk after the crash. I brought it along to tide me over while I waited on your pier for the sun to come up.” He looked forlorn. “I was planning to invite myself for breakfast.”

How did he manage to look so darn lovable in this ridiculous state?

“It’s still a little early for breakfast.” She sighed, then reached out and took his hand. “Come on.”

“Okay,” he said, and started off with her. “Where are we going?”

“Where else would the prodigal son go? I’m going to take you home.”

The drive up to the Van Kirk mansion was steep and winding. Diana had made it often over the last few years in her little business van. Alice Van Kirk, Cam’s mother, had been one of the first people to hire her fledgling floral styling company to provide fresh arrangements for the house once a week back when she’d originally started it.

The sky had begun to lighten, but true dawn lurked at least a half hour away. Still, there was enough light to let her see the turrets and spirals of the Van Kirk mansion ahead, reaching up over the tops of the eucalyptus trees, shrouded in the wisps of morning fog. As a child, she’d thought of the house as an enchanted castle where royalty lived high above the mundane lives of the valley people, and it looked very much like that now.

“Are they expecting you today?” she asked.

When she didn’t get an answer, she glanced at Cam in the passenger’s seat. He was drifting off to sleep.

“Hey!” She poked at him with her elbow. “I don’t think you should let yourself sleep until you see a doctor. You might have a concussion or something.”

“Hmm?” he responded, looking at her through mere slits where alert eyes should be.

“Cam, don’t fall asleep,” she ordered.

“Okay,” he said, and his eyes immediately closed all the way.

“Oh!” she said, exasperated and poking him with her elbow again. “Here we are. Which door do you want?” She grimaced. “I don’t suppose you have a key, though, do you?”

He didn’t answer and his body looked as relaxed as a rag doll. With a sigh, she pulled into the back entrance, using the route she was used to. The servants’ entrance she supposed they probably called it. The tradesmen’s gate? Whatever, it was just off the kitchen and gave handy access to the parts of the house where she brought flower arrangements once a week. She rarely ran into any of the Van Kirks when she came. She usually dealt with Rosa Munez, the housekeeper. Rosa was a conscientious employee, but she doubted the woman would be up this early.

“How am I going to get you in there?” she asked, shaking her head as she gazed at the dark house. Turning, she reached out and pushed his dark hair back off his forehead. His face was so handsome, his features so classically perfect. For just a moment, she ached, longing to find a place in his arms. But she couldn’t do that. She had to be tough.

“Cam,” she said firmly, shaking his shoulder. “Come on, wake up.”

“Okay,” he murmured, but his eyes didn’t open.

This made things a bit awkward.

Slipping out of the car, she went to the door and looked at the brass handle, loath to try it. She knew it would be locked, and she assumed there was a security system on the house. Everyone was obviously still asleep. What the heck was she going to do?

Stepping back, she looked up at the windows, wondering if she could climb up and get in that way, then picturing the embarrassment as she hung from a drainpipe, nightgown billowing in the breeze, while alarm bells went off all through the house. Not a good bet.

Turning, she went back to the car and slid into the driver’s seat.

“Cam, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she said.

He was sound asleep and didn’t even bother to twitch. She sighed with resignation. She was going to have to wake up the whole house, wasn’t she? Now she regretted having come without changing into day clothes. But she hadn’t been sure she could keep Cam in one place if she left him to go change, and she’d thought she would just drop him at his doorway and make a run for home. She should have known nothing was ever that easy.

“Okay. If I’ve got to do it, I might as well get it over with,” she said, leaving the car again and going back to the door. Her finger was hovering half an inch from the doorbell and she was bracing for the sound explosion she was about to unleash on the unsuspecting occupants, when the door suddenly opened and she found herself face-to-face with Cam’s sister, Janey.

“Diana? What in the world are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Janey!” Diana was immediately aware of how odd she must look standing on the Van Kirk doorstep in her filmy nightgown and fluffy white robe. The shabby slippers didn’t help, either.

Janey, on the other hand, looked trendy and stylish in high end jogging togs. A tall, pretty woman about a year younger than Diana, she was evidently up for an early morning run and determined to look chic about it. Diana couldn’t help but have a quick catty thought wondering which of the local squirrels and chipmunks she might be trying to impress. But she pushed that aside and felt nothing but relief to have a member of the family appear at the door.

She and Cam’s sister had known each other forever but had never been friends. Janey had been aware of the close ties between Diana and her brother, and she’d made it very clear in very public ways that she didn’t approve. But that was years ago. When they saw each other now, they weren’t exactly warm, but they were perfectly civil.

“Janey,” Diana said, sighing with relief. “I’ve got Cam in the car. He was in an accident.”

“What?”

“Not too bad,” she reassured her quickly. “He seems to be basically okay, but I think a doctor ought to look him over. And…well…” She winced. “He’s been drinking so…”

“You’re kidding.” Janey followed her to the car and then they were both fussing over her brother.

“Cam, you blockhead, wake up,” Janey ordered, shaking his shoulder. “We haven’t seen you in years and this is the way you arrive?”

He opened one eye. “Janey? I thought I recognized your dulcet tones.”

She shook her head. “Come on. I’ll help you up to your room. I’m sure Mother will want to call Dr. Timmer.”

“I don’t need Dr. Timmer,” he grumbled, though he did begin to leverage himself out of the car. “If Diana can take care of herself, I can take care of myself.” He tried to pound his own chest and missed. “We’re a pair of independents, Diana and I.”

Janey gave him her arm and a quizzical look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said crisply. “Come on. We’ll let your friend get back to her…whatever.”

“Diana is my best friend,” he murmured, sounding almost melancholy. “My favorite person in this valley. Always has been.”

Janey chose that moment to notice Diana’s baby bulge. Stopping short, she gasped. “Cam! Oh, no!”

Despite his condition, he immediately recognized the way her mind was trending and he groaned. “Listen, Janey, I just got into town at about 2:00 a.m. Not even I could get a lady with child that fast.”

“Humph,” she harrumphed, throwing Diana a look that took in everything about her pregnancy and the fact that she was running around the countryside in her nightgown, delivering a rather inebriated Cam to his old homestead. It was obvious all this looked pretty darn fishy to her.

Diana almost laughed aloud. If Janey only knew the irony involved here. “Can you handle him without me?” she asked the other woman. “I’d like to get home and try to get some sleep. I do have an appointment back here with your mother at eleven.”

“Go, go,” Janey said, waving a hand dismissively and turning away.

But Cam didn’t turn with her. He stayed where he was, looking back at Diana. “I was just getting used to having you around again, Di,” he said. “A little later, when I’ve had some sleep…”

“You’ll be busy getting caught up on all the family news,” Janey said quickly. “And learning to give up living like a drifter.”

“Like a drifter?” Cam looked up as though that reminded him of something and Diana laughed.

“Watch out, or he’ll break out into song on you,” she warned his sister as she turned for her car. As she walked away, she heard the Cam’s voice warbling, “‘Here I go again…’” She grinned.

Cam was back. What did this mean? Right now, it meant she was full of sadness and happiness at the same time.

“The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” she murmured nonsensically as she began the drive down the hill. A moment later, tears were streaming down her face and she had no idea why.

But Cam was back. Good or bad, things were going to change. She could feel it in the air.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.