Rags To Riches: A Desire To Serve

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Molly’s mother was really your cousin?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have proof of that soon enough. Damned lab is making a fortune off all these rush DNA tests we’ve ordered lately.”

She pooched her lips and moved them from side to side before coming to an abrupt decision.

“I’ve watched you with Molly. I don’t believe you’re some schemer looking to extort big bucks from us. You’ll have to work to convince Blake of that, though.”

“I can’t tell him any more than I have.”

“You don’t know him like I do. He has his ways of getting what he wants. So do I,” she added as she pushed out of the chair and adjusted the sling. “So do I. C’mon, Mol, let’s go see your daddy.”

Without thinking Grace moved to help. Swooping the baby up, she planted wet, sloppy kisses on her cheeks before slipping the infant’s feet through the sling’s leg openings. While Delilah tightened the straps, Grace folded the jungle blanket back into the diaper bag and handed it to the older woman.

“I’m sorry Blake doesn’t want me to help with Molly.”

“We’ll manage until this mess gets sorted out.”

* * *

If it got sorted out. Grace grew more antsy as one day stretched into two, then three.

Blake had her things packed and delivered along with her purse. She tried to take that as a good sign. Apparently he wasn’t afraid she would pull a disappearing act like her cousin had.

He didn’t contact her personally, though, and that worried Grace. It also caused an annoyingly persistent ache. Only now that she’d been banished from their lives did she realize how attached she’d become to the Daltons, mother and son. And to Molly! Grace missed cooing to the baby and watching her count her toes and shampooing her soft, downy blond hair.

She’d known the time would come when she would have to drop out of Molly’s life. The longer she stayed here, the greater the risk Jack Petrie might trace her to Oklahoma City and wonder what she was doing here. Yet she felt a sharp pang of dismay when Blake finally condescended to call a little past 6:00 p.m. with a curt announcement.

“I need to talk to you.”

“All right.”

“I’m downstairs,” he informed her. “I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

At least she was a little better prepared for this face-to-face than she’d been for their last. Her hair was caught up in a smooth knot and she’d swiped on some lip gloss earlier. She debated whether to change her jeans and faded San Antonio SeaWorld T-shirt but decided to use the time to take deep, calming breaths.

Not that they did much good. The Blake Dalton she opened the door to wasn’t one she’d seen before. He’d always appeared at his mother’s house in suits or neatly pressed shirts and slacks sporting creases sharp enough to shave fuzz from a peach. Then, of course, there was the tux he’d donned for the wedding. Armani should wish for male models with builds like either of the Dalton twins.

This Blake was considerably less refined. Faded jeans rode low on his hips. A black T-shirt stretched across his taut shoulders. Bristles the same shade of amber as his hair shadowed his cheeks and chin. He looked tough and uncompromising, but the expression in his laser blues wasn’t as cold as the one he’d worn at their last meeting, thank God.

“We got the lab report back.”

Wordlessly she led the way into the living room. Electric screens shielded the wall of windows from the sun that hadn’t yet slipped down behind the skyscrapers. Without the endless view, the room seemed smaller, more intimate. Too intimate, she decided when she turned and found Blake had stopped mere inches away.

“Aren’t you going to ask the results?”

“I don’t need to,” she said with a shrug. “Unless the lab screwed up the samples, their report confirms Molly and I descend from the same family tree.”

“They didn’t screw up the samples.”

“Okay.” She crossed her arms. “Now what?”

Surprise flickered across his face.

“What’d you expect?” Grace asked, her chin angling. “That I would throw myself into your arms for finally acknowledging the truth?”

The surprise was still there, but then his gaze dropped to her mouth and it took on a different quality. Darker. More intense. As though the idea of Grace throwing herself at him was less of a shock than something to be considered, evaluated, assessed.

Now that the idea was out there, it didn’t particularly shock her, either. Just the opposite. In fact, the urge grew stronger with each second it floated around in the realm of possibility. All she had to do was step forward. Slide her palms over his shoulders. Lean into his strength.

As her cousin had.

Guilt sent Grace back a pace, not forward. He’d been Anne’s lover, she reminded herself fiercely. The father of her baby. At best, Grace was a problem he was being forced to solve.

“Now you know,” she said with a shrug that disguised her true feelings. “You’re Molly’s father. And I know you’ll be good with her. So it’s time for me to pack and head back to San Antonio. I’ll stop by to say goodbye to her on my way out of town.”

“That’s it?” His frown deepened. “You’re just going to drop out of her life?”

“I’ll see her when I can.”

After she was certain Jack Petrie hadn’t learned about her stay in Oklahoma City.

“There are legalities that have to be attended to,” Blake protested. “I’ll need Molly’s birth certificate. Her mother’s death certificate.”

Both contained the false name and SSN her cousin had used in California. Grace could only pray the documents would be sufficient for Blake’s needs. They should. With his legal connections and his family’s political clout here in Oklahoma, he ought to be able to push whatever he wanted through the courts.

“I’ll send you copies,” she promised.

“Right.” He paused, his jaw working. “I hope you know that whatever trouble Anne was in, I would have helped her.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I know.”

His eyes searched hers. “Anne couldn’t bring herself to trust me, but you can, Grace.”

She wanted to. God, how she wanted to! Somehow she managed to swallow the hard lump in her throat.

“I trust you to cherish Molly.”

* * *

Saying goodbye to the baby was every bit as hard as it had been to say goodbye to Blake. Molly broke into delighted coos when she saw her nanny and lifted both arms, demanding to be cuddled.

Grace refused to cry until her rental car was on I-35 and heading south. Tears blurred the rolling Oklahoma countryside for the next fifty miles. By the time she crossed the Red River into Texas, her throat was raw and her eyes so puffy that she had to stop at the welcome center to douse them with cold water. Six hours later she hit the outskirts of San Antonio, still mourning her severed ties to Molly and the woman who’d been both cousin and best friend to her since earliest childhood.

Her tiny condo in one of the city’s older suburbs felt stale and stuffy when she let herself in. With a gulp, she glanced from the living room she’d painted a warm terra-cotta to the closet-size kitchen. She loved her place, but the entire two-bedroom unit could fit in the foyer of Delilah Dalton’s palatial mansion.

As soon as she’d unpacked and powered up her computer, Grace scanned the certificates she’d promised to send Blake. That done, she skimmed through the hundreds of emails that had piled up in her absence and tried to pick up the pieces of her life.

* * *

The next two weeks dragged interminably. School didn’t start until the end of month. Unfortunately, the open-ended leave of absence Grace had requested had forced her principal to shuffle teachers to cover the fall semester. The best he could promise was hopefully steady work as a substitute until after Christmas.

At loose ends until school started, Grace had to cut as many corners as possible to make up for her depleted bank account. Even worse, she missed Molly more than she would have believed possible. The baby had taken up permanent residence in her heart.

Only at odd moments would she admit she missed Molly’s father almost as much as she did the baby. Like everyone else swept up in the Daltons’ orbit, she’d been overwhelmed by Delilah’s forceful personality and dazzled by Alex’s wicked grin and audacious charm. Now that she viewed the Dalton clan from a distance, however, Grace recognized Blake as the brick and mortar keeping the family together. Always there when his mother needed him to pull together the financing on yet another of her charitable ventures. Holding the reins at Dalton International’s corporate headquarters while Alex jetted halfway around the world to consult with suppliers or customers. Grace missed seeing his tall form across the table at his mother’s house, missed hearing his delighted chuckle when he tickled Molly’s tummy and got her giggling.

The only bright spot in those last, endless days of summer was that she heard nothing from Jack Petrie. She began to breathe easy again, convinced she’d covered her tracks. That false sense of security lasted right up until she answered the doorbell on a rainy afternoon.

When she peered though the peephole, the shock of seeing who stood on the other side dropped her jaw. A second later, fear exploded in her chest. Her fingers scrabbled for the dead bolt. She got it unlocked and threw the door almost back on its hinges.

“Blake!”

He had to step back to keep from getting slammed by the glass storm door. Grace barely registered the neat black slacks, the white button-down shirt with the open collar and sleeves rolled up, the hair burnished to dark, gleaming gold by rain.

“Is…?” Her heart hammered. Her voice shook. “Is Molly okay?”

“No.”

“Oh, God!” A dozen horrific scenarios spun through her head. “What happened?”

“She misses you.”

Grace gaped at him stupidly. “What?”

“She misses you. She’s been fretting since you left. Mother says she’s teething.”

The disaster scenes faded. Molly wasn’t injured. She hadn’t been kidnapped. Almost reeling with relief, Grace sagged against the doorjamb.

“That’s what you came down to San Antonio to tell me?” she asked incredulously. “Molly’s teething?”

“That, and the fact that she said her first word.”

And Grace had missed both events! The loss hit like a blow as Blake’s glance went past her and swept the comfortable living room.

“May I come in?”

“Huh? Oh. Yes, of course.”

She moved inside, all too conscious now of her bare feet and the T-shirt hacked off to her midriff. The shirt topped a pair of ragged cutoffs that skimmed her butt cheeks.

The cutoffs were comfortable in the cozy privacy of her home but nothing she would have ever considered wearing while she’d worked for Delilah—or around her son. She caught Blake’s gaze tracking to her legs, moving upward. Disconcerted by the sudden heat that slow once-over generated, she gulped and snatched at his reason for being there.

“What did Molly say?”

“We thought it was just a ga-ga,” he said with a small, almost reluctant smile. “Mother insisted she was trying to say ga-ma, but it came out on a hiss.”

She sounded it out in her head, and felt her stomach go hard and tight.

“Gace? Molly said Gace?”

“Several times now.”

“I…uh…”

He waited a beat, but she couldn’t pull it together enough for coherence. She was too lost in the stinging regret of missing those first words.

“We want you to come back, Grace.”

Startled, she looked up to find Blake regarding her intently.

“Who’s we?” she stammered.

“All of us. Mother, me, Julie and Alex.”

“They’re back from their honeymoon?”

“They flew in last night.”

“And you…” She had to stop and suck in a shaky breath. “And you want me to come back and pick up where I left off as Molly’s nanny?”

“Not as her nanny. As my wife.”

Four

Blake could certainly understand Grace’s slack-jawed astonishment. He’d spent the entire flight to San Antonio telling himself it was insane to propose marriage to a woman who refused to trust him with the truth.

It was even more insane for him to miss her the way he had. She’d wormed her way into his mother’s house and Molly’s heart. She’d lied to him—to all of them—by omission if nothing else. Yet the hole she’d left behind had grown deeper with each hour she was gone.

Molly’s unexpected arrival had already turned his calm, comfortable routine upside down. This doe-eyed blonde had kicked it all to hell. So he felt a savage satisfaction to see his own chaotic feelings mirrored in her face.

“You’re crazy! I can’t marry you!”

“Why not?”

She was sputtering, almost incoherent. “Because… Because…”

He thought she might break down and tell him then. Trust him with the truth. When she didn’t, he swallowed a bitter pill of disappointment.

“Why don’t we sit down?” he suggested with a calm he was far from feeling. “Talk this through.”

“Talk it through?” She gave a bubble of hysterical laughter and swept a hand toward the living room. “My first marriage proposal, and he wants to talk it though. By all means, counselor, have a seat.”

She regrouped during the few moments it took him to move to a sofa upholstered in a nubby plaid that complemented the earth-toned walls and framed prints of Roman antiquities. As she dropped into a chair facing him, Blake could see her astonishment giving way to anger. The first hints of it fired her eyes and stiffened her shoulders under her cottony T-shirt. He had to work to keep his gaze from drifting to the expanse of creamy skin exposed by the shirt’s hem. And those legs. Christ!

He’d better remember what he’d come for. He had to approach this challenge the same way he did all others. Coolly and logically.

“I’ve had time to think since you left, Grace. You’re good with Molly. So good both she and my mother have had difficulty adjusting to your absence.”

So had he, dammit. It irritated Blake to no end that he hadn’t been able to shut this woman out of his head. She’d lied to him and stubbornly refused to trust him. Yet he’d found himself making excuses for the lies and growing more determined by the hour to convince her to open up.

“You’re also Molly’s closest blood relative on her mother’s side,” he continued.

As far as he could determine at this point, anyway. He fully intended to keep digging. Whatever it took, however he got it, he wanted the truth.

“That’s right,” she confirmed with obvious reluctance. “Anne’s parents are dead, and she was their only child.”

He waited, willing her to share another scrap of information about her cousin. It hit Blake then that he could barely remember what Anne had looked like. They’d been together such a short time—if those few, furtive meetings outside their work environment could be termed togetherness.

Jaw locked, he tried to summon her image. She’d been an inch or two shorter than Grace. That much he remembered. And her eyes were several shades darker than her cousin’s warm, caramel-brown. Beyond that, she was a faint memory when compared with the vibrant female now facing him.

Torn between guilt and regret, Blake presented his next argument. “I know you’re facing monetary problems right now.”

She bolted upright in her chair. “What’d you do? Have Jamison check my financials?”

“Yes.” He offered no apology. “I’m guessing you drained your resources to help Anne and Molly. I owe you for that, Grace.”

“Enough to marry me?” she bit out.

“That’s part of the equation.” He hesitated, aware he was about to enter treacherous territory. “There’s another consideration, of course. Something frightened Anne enough to send her into hiding. It has to frighten you, too, or you wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to protect her.”

He’d struck a nerve. He could tell by the way she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Regret that he hadn’t been able to shield Anne from whoever or whatever had threatened her knifed into him. With it came an implacable determination to protect Grace. Battling the fierce urge to shake the truth out of her, he offered her not just his name but every powerful resource at his disposal.

“I’ll take care of you,” he promised, his steady gaze holding hers. “You and Molly.”

She wanted to yield. He could see it in her eyes. He congratulated himself, reveling in the potent mix of satisfaction at winning her confidence and a primal need to protect his chosen mate.

His fierce exultation didn’t last long. Only until she shook her head.

“I appreciate the offer, Blake. You don’t know how much. But I can take care of myself.”

He hadn’t realized until that moment how determined he was to put his ring on her finger. His expression hardening, he played his trump card.

“There’s another aspect to consider. Right now, you can’t—or won’t—claim any degree of kinship to Molly. That could impact your access to her.”

Her back went rigid. “What are you saying? That you wouldn’t let me see her if I don’t marry you?”

“No. I’m simply pointing out that you have no legal rights where she’s concerned. Mother’s not getting any younger,” he reminded her coolly. “And if something should happen to me or Alex…”

He was too good an attorney to overstate his case. Shrugging, he let her mull over the possibilities.

Grace did, with ever increasing indignation. She couldn’t believe it! He’d trapped her in her own web of lies and half-truths. If she wanted to see Molly—which she did, desperately!—she would have to play the game by his rules.

But marriage? Could she tie her future to his for the sake of the baby? The prospect dismayed her enough to produce a sharp round of questions.

“What about love, Blake? And sex? And everything else that goes into a marriage? Don’t you want that?”

With a smooth move, he pushed off the sofa. Grace rose hastily as well and was almost prepared when he stopped mere inches away.

“Do you?” he asked.

“Of course I do!”

For the first time she saw a glint of humor in his eyes. “Then I don’t see a problem. The sex is certainly doable. We can work on the love.”

Dammit! She couldn’t form a coherent thought with him standing so close. Between that and the blood pounding in her ears, she was forced to fight for every breath. It had to be oxygen deprivation that made her agree to his outrageous proposal.

“All right, counselor. You’ve made your case. I want to be part of Molly’s life. I’ll marry you.”

She thought that would elicit a positive response. At least a nod. Wasn’t that what he wanted? What he’d flown down here for? So why the hell did his brows snap together and he looked as though he seriously regretted his offer?

Let them snap! They’d both gone too far to back down now. But there was one final gauntlet she had to throw down.

“I just have one condition.”

“And that is?”

“We play this marriage very low-key. No formal announcement. No fancy ceremony. No big, expensive reception with pictures splashed across the society page.”

She paced the room, thinking furiously. She’d covered her tracks in Oklahoma City. She was sure of it. Still, it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible.

“If anyone asks, we met several months ago. Fell in love, but needed time to be sure. Decided it was for real when you flew down here to see me this weekend, so we found a justice of the peace and did the deed. Period. End of story.”

She turned, hands on hips, and waited for his response. It was slow coming. Extremely slow.

“Well?” she demanded, refusing to let his stony silence unnerve her. “Do we have a deal or don’t we?”

He held out a hand. To shake on their bargain, she realized as the full ramifications of what she’d just agreed to sank in. If her cousin’s horrific experience hadn’t killed most of Grace’s girlish fantasies about marriage, this coolly negotiated business arrangement would have done the trick.

Except Blake didn’t take the hand she extended. To her surprise, he elbowed her arm aside, hooked her waist and brought her up against his chest.

“If we’re going to project a pretense of being in love, we’d better practice for the cameras.”

“No! No cameras, remember? No splashy… Mmmmph!”

She ended on a strangled note as his mouth came down on hers. The kiss was harder than it needed to be. It was also everything that she’d imagined it might be! Her blood leaping, she gloried in the press of his body against hers for a moment or two or ten.

Then reality hit. This was payback for the secrets she still refused to reveal. A taste of the sex he’d so generously offered to provide. She bristled, fully intending to jerk out of his hold, but he moved first.

Dropping his arm, he put a few inches between them. He’d lost that granite look, but she wasn’t sure she liked the self-disgust much better.

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” she threw back. “Manhandling me isn’t part of our deal.”

“You’re right. That was uncalled for.”

It certainly was. Yet for some perverse reason, the apology irritated her more than the kiss.

“Do we need to negotiate an addendum?” she asked acidly. “Something to the effect that physical contact must be mutually agreed to?”

Red singed his cheeks. “Amendment accepted. If you still want to go through with the contract, that is.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I do, too.”

“Fine.” His glance swept over her, lingering again momentarily on her legs. “You’d better get changed.”

“Excuse me?”

“You scripted the scenario. I flew down to see you. We decided it was for real. We hunted down a justice of the peace. Period. End of story.”

She threw an incredulous glance at the window. Rain still banged against the panes. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“You want to get married today?”

“Why not?”

She could think of a hundred reasons, not least of which was the fact that she had yet to completely recover from that kiss.

“What about blood tests?” she protested. “The seventy-two-hour mandatory waiting period?”

“Texas doesn’t require blood tests. I’ve checked.”

Of course he had.

“And the seventy-two-hour waiting period can be waived if you know the right people.”

Which he did. Grace should have known he would cover every contingency with his usual attention to detail.

“We’ll get the marriage license at the Bexar County Courthouse. One of my father’s old cronies is a circuit judge. I’ll call and see if he’s available to perform the ceremony.” He pulled out his cell phone. “Pack what you need to take back to Oklahoma with you. We’ll arrange for a moving company to take care of the rest.”

The speed of it, the meticulous preplanning and swift execution, left her breathless.

“You were that sure of me?” she asked, feeling dazed and off balance.

He paused in the act of scrolling through the phone’s address book. “I was that sure of how much you love Molly.”

* * *

They left for the county courthouse a little more than three hours later. Blake was driving the Lincoln town car his efficient staff had arranged for him. As Grace stared through the Lincoln’s rain-streaked window, she grappled with a growing sense of unreality.

Like all young girls, she and her cousin had spent hours with an old lace tablecloth wrapped around their shoulders, playing bride. During giggly sleepovers, they’d imagined numerous iterations of her wedding day. Grace’s favorite consisted of a church fragrant with flowers and perfumed candles, a radiant bride in filmy white and friends packed into the pews.

After that came the smaller, more intimate version. Just her, her cousin as her attendant, a handsome groom and the pastor in a shingle-roofed gazebo while her family beamed from white plastic folding chairs. She’d even toyed occasionally with the idea of Elvis walking her down the aisle in one of Vegas’s wedding chapels. This hurried, unromantic version had never figured in her imagination, however.