Claiming His Baby

She heard him take a deep breath. “Maybe to find out if you were merely a figment of my fertile imagination.”

Feeling light-headed, Heather didn’t know where to look. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“You’re right.” His voice grated. “But for once in my life I did something totally against my better judgment.”

She moistened her lips in a nervous gesture. “Th-this is too soon after Salt Lake.”

Her honesty was as disarming now as it was the night they met. Raul bit out an epithet before raking an unsteady hand through his hair. He straightened to his full, intimidating height.

“Shall I let you get back to your practicing?”

“No—” she blurted, absolutely frantic he would walk away and leave her more desolate than ever.

His black eyes narrowed on her mouth. “Where can we go and be alone, Heather?”

Though they weren’t touching, he could feel her tremble.

“Right here.”

She’d finally whispered the words he’d been desperate to hear. Raul knew that if he went into that room, his whole life was going to change. He had the gut feeling she knew it, too. It was as if they could read each other’s minds.

He hesitated, giving her a chance. For what, he didn’t know exactly. She simply stood there, waiting…

Unable to help himself, he moved inside, taking the irreversible step. As he closed the door behind him, he noted the stunned expression on the young man’s face.

Raul fastened the lock, then turned to her. “You know what I want to do.”

“Yes,” came the aching reply. “It’s all I’ve been able to think about.”

“Then come here to me, muchacha,” Raul begged.

She stepped slowly into his arms, raising her mouth blindly for his kiss. He lifted her off the floor to mold her beautiful body to his, but nothing in his imagination had prepared him for the experience of touching and tasting Heather Sanders.

Her overwhelming response swept away all barriers, leaving Raul the one who was trembling from the passion she’d aroused. He’d heard it in her music, had spent sleepless nights dreaming of unleashing it in his arms. The reality was beyond his comprehension.

Together they began to move and breathe as one flesh.

He wanted to know all there was to know about her, and could no more stop what was happening than she could.

Heather had never experienced this kind of ecstasy before. The few kisses she’d exchanged with the boys she’d dated had nothing to do with this mindless rapture. Raul had awakened an insatiable hunger in her. She never wanted this giving and taking to end.

She moaned aloud when he tore his lips from hers and buried his face in the silken sheen of her hair. His breathing had grown shallow.

“Madre de Dios. I want you, Heather. I want you so badly I could swallow you alive.” He crushed her closer. “How am I going to walk away from you, amorada?”

Still caught up in a state of sensual euphoria, his question didn’t register all at once. But when it did, it might as well have been a dagger plunged to the very core of her being. Through sheer strength of will she stopped raining kisses on his face and pulled completely out of his arms.

Shaking like a leaf in the wind she cried, “How can you tell me you want me, and then ask me that question in the same breath?”

His features hardened, making him look older. “How can I not? We have no future. I had no right to touch you. If your father had any idea I had come here—”

Heather grasped the corner of the piano for support. “I—I think you’d better go now.” She forced the words from lips swollen by his kisses. “You’ll miss your plane.”

He felt as if he’d been running for miles and couldn’t catch his breath. “I made a grave mistake in coming.”

Her proud chin lifted. “If you’re worried on my account, please don’t be. We’ve both satisfied a craving. Th-that’s all it was.”

Raul shook his head. “That’s the first dishonest thing you’ve said since I met you.” His face darkened with lines. “I wish to God it were the truth.”

Heather held her ground. “In time we’ll work each other out of our systems. Living on different continents will help.”

His black eyes glittered dangerously. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“I won’t have an affair with you.”

There was a long pause. “You have a lot to learn about me, Heather. The only way I’d take you is in holy wedlock and that possibility is out of the question.”

Another stab wound.

Naturally a thirty-seven-year old doctor who’d lived in the bush without a wife all this time had no plans to acquire one at this late date. Heather didn’t want to hear anymore.

“Please go, Raul.”

“You know you don’t want me to.”

“Now what are you saying?” she cried out in abject frustration.

His hands balled into fists. “So help me, I wish I knew. My life is not a conventional one. Your career on the concert stage is just beginning. You’ve a glorious future ahead of you. A normal courtship is out of the question for reasons too obvious to bother discussing.

“An affair with a weekend here or there every couple of months couldn’t possibly satisfy either one of us. The only solution to our problem would be to get married at some point, or never see each other again.

“If I asked you to be my wife, you would have to walk away from the concert stage and never look back. After certain things Evan shared with me, I don’t even want to think about what it would do to your father.

“I’ll tell you right now, I’m a possessive man. I couldn’t share you with anything or anyone. If you and I were to marry, I’d want you with me every night.”

At this juncture Heather couldn’t take it all in, and sank down on the piano bench.

“My life’s work is in the bush. You would have to come to my world. There could be no compromise. In other words, Heather, I’d be doing all the taking, and you’d end up hating me.

“The environment is so hostile, it’s difficult to find health workers from my own country willing to work in the bush hospital. Someone like you would never survive there.”

She jumped up from the bench. “You don’t know that!”

“The hell I don’t!” His chest heaved. “Much as I might want you for my wife, I couldn’t risk robbing you of the life you were meant to live. You have a unique gift to give to the world. I would never ask you to make such a sacrifice.”

Before she could comprehend it, he’d undone the lock and turned the handle of the door.

“Forgive the intrusion. It will never happen again.”

He meant what he said. In about one second he was going to walk away from her and she really would have seen the last of him. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Don’t go, Raul!”

He wheeled around, grim-faced.

“Stay until tomorrow,” she begged. “If this is all we can ever have of each other, then let’s at least spend this one night together.”

His powerful body tautened. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then you don’t have any idea what you’re inviting. I know in my gut you’ve never been with a man before.”

“Are you going to use the fact that I’m a virgin against me?” came her angry cry. “A few minutes ago you told me you wanted me.”

She felt his smoldering gaze.

“More than you could possibly imagine.”

“I want you, too,” she declared from her soul. “Please, Raul. Make love to me tonight. I’ve been aching for you.”

He seemed to pale beneath his tan. “You’ll regret it tomorrow.”

“If I can’t be with you tonight, then the rest of my tomorrows will never have the same meaning for me again.”

“Don’t say that,” he ground out.

“Why?” she fired at him. “Because you know it’s true?”

She could sense the battle going on inside of him.

“You’re an innocent, Heather.”

“Give me some credit, Dr. Cardenas. I’ll be twenty-six next month. Every close friend of mine is already married. In some cases they’ve started families. Since marriage doesn’t seem to be in my future any more than yours, I guess in your eyes that’s supposed to preclude my having a personal life at all.”

She turned sharply away from him, fearing he would see her tears. “Just go—”

Miraculously she felt his arms slide around her hips from behind. His touch dissolved her bones.

“You want this night together?” he murmured against the side of her neck. “So do I, amorada. Let’s not waste another second of it destroying each other. I know a place an hour from here where I can love you in total comfort and privacy.”

Raul— Her heart leaped for joy as she twisted around to meet his descending mouth.

CHAPTER THREE

WHILE Dr. Sanders and Franz sat talking in the suite her father had booked for them, Heather looked out the hotel window. The rain in Brussels hadn’t let up for three days.

Apparently this was typical for mid-September, but she hated the dark sky. Inclement weather made everything so somber. It all went to deepen the depression she’d been in throughout her concert tour of Europe. Franz hadn’t said a word, but she was her own harshest critic and hadn’t been pleased with her playing.

Since the unforgettable night she’d spent in Raul’s arms, she’d waited for a phone call or a letter asking her to meet him somewhere. Anything to let her know he couldn’t live without her and wanted her to join him in the bush. Secretly she’d been preparing for that eventuality.

But after three months of quiet on his end, she feared that no matter how much pleasure they’d given each other, he’d stuck to his original decision to never see her again.

The silence was killing her. She couldn’t fathom a future without him. Now that she’d performed her last concert for the season, she was fast reaching a crisis state because nothing sounded good to her anymore. If she couldn’t be with Raul, she didn’t want anything else.

No longer associated with Juilliard, if she chose to use New York as a base between tours her agent was in the midst of planning for her, that meant finding an apartment. Her father was eager to help her. But New York had never felt like home to her. It never would.

Once again Franz and his wife, who lived in Linz, had offered their summer house in Vienna as a semipermanent residence. She was welcome to stay there for the next year or two while she was on the concert circuit.

Neither option appealed. She would prefer to return to Salt Lake and live with her father. More than anything she wanted to stop playing concerts altogether and give music lessons while she took care of him. But he would never understand, which was why she was afraid to broach the subject.

“Honey? Come finish your breakfast and tell us what you’ve decided to do. The limousine will be taking me to the airport before long.”

She returned to the sitting area and reached for a cup of tea, the only thing she felt wouldn’t make her sick right now. Ten weeks ago the doctor had started her immunization shots including yellow fever, and she’d begun taking antimalaria pills. Throughout that time she’d had periods of nausea, which had robbed her of an appetite.

“If it’s all right with you, Franz, I’d like to stay in Vienna, at least for the time being.”

He slapped his hands on his knees before jumping to his feet. “Excellent! I have dozens of invitations for you to perform recitals around Salzburg and Innsbruck. They will boost your career much faster if you stay in Europe as I had hoped. We’ll talk everything over at the end of the week when I’m in Vienna.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have more business to take care of. John? A safe flight home.” He shook her father’s hand, then turned to Heather.

“As for you, young lady, you’ve already been given a key to the apartment. The housekeeper will be expecting you and have your room ready.”

“Thank you, Franz.” They hugged each other before he left the suite.

“I’m glad that’s settled,” her father murmured after Heather’s teacher had disappeared. “I’ll sleep better knowing he and his wife will be keeping an eye on you.”

He went into the other room for his suitcase. She followed him. “Daddy?”

“Yes, honey?”

“You were with mother constantly toward the end. What did she say exactly a-about my future?”

“That she hated leaving you at such a vulnerable time in your life. I promised her I would see to it every dream was fulfilled. Somewhere in heaven she’s smiling down at her beautiful daughter who is bringing pleasure to so many thousands of people. Last night’s performance of the Beethoven was a case in point.”

He shrugged into his top coat. “There. I’m ready. Come on and walk me downstairs to the limo.” They left the hotel room arm in arm.

“You never did tell me why Phyllis and Evan didn’t join you for this last concert. I thought they were going to come.”

“They would have, but the young boy Evan had operated on at the bush hospital several months ago developed complications. He had to fly down there a few weeks back to do another operation, so he couldn’t take any more time off.”

Evan had been with Raul again? Why hadn’t her father mentioned a word of it to her?

Her heart began to hammer. “H-how is Dr. Cardenas?”

“I’m sure I have no idea. Why do you ask?”

Heat swamped her cheeks. “Evan’s very fond of him.”

“Phyllis and Evan should have adopted a child as soon as they were married. I don’t know of another couple who would have made finer parents. Age wouldn’t have mattered. Look how they’ve doted on you.”

He was deliberately avoiding any talk of Raul.

“I know. They’re wonderful.”

“Thank goodness your mother and I had you. I’m going to miss you, honey. Keep in close touch. You’re flying home for Thanksgiving?”

“Of course.” A wave of tenderness for her father swept over her. “Please take good care of yourself, Daddy. Don’t work too hard. I love you.”

“Forget about me. It’s the piano that’s the important thing.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks because it was so impossible to talk to him.

They hugged one more time before he walked out to the limo with his suitcase. After she’d waved him off, she dashed back to the room realizing she couldn’t go on this way any longer.

The last time she and Raul had been together, it was because he’d made a surprise visit. Now that she’d taken the necessary health precautions and had received her visa, she could venture into his world.

Surely the bush wasn’t as inhospitable as he’d made it out to be. He needed to know she would follow him to the ends of the earth. She had to see him again.

Reaching for the phone, she called the travel agency that scheduled her itineraries and booked a night flight to New York, followed by two more flights to Buenos Aires, then Formosa in the northeast region of Argentina. From there she would charter a bush plane to take her to Zocheetl.

That gave her about eight hours to prepare. First of all she needed to inform Franz’s housekeeper that she’d decided to take a small vacation before arriving in Vienna.

It was after midnight. Since Raul’s interlude with Heather three months ago, he’d developed a serious case of insomnia. Lately he dreaded going to bed unless he knew he would fall asleep from exhaustion the second his head hit the pillow.

Tonight he realized that wasn’t going to happen. The alternative was to stay in his office and tackle the ever-present mass of paperwork and correspondence.

He opened the last of the day’s mail and read the path report on the Toba tribesman sent from Formosa Province Hospital. Another death due to arsenic poisoning from the river!

Furious over a deplorable, ongoing situation, he left his office to find Dr. Avilar, one of two other resident doctors who rotated shifts with him. She was about to go off duty and be relieved by Marcos.

“Elana, could I see you in my office, please?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Raul nodded to Juan, the efficient nurse who flew in from Formosa three days a week to help staff the tiny government hospital. The rotation system Raul had worked out with several dozen nurses, lab technicians, and kitchen help from Formosa had been working well.

Daily cargo flights brought the mail and much needed blood plasma. Money from private donors who were family friends in Buenos Aires continued to roll in, making it possible for him to have new huts built for the staff, and to replace old equipment the government couldn’t or wouldn’t cover. All in all, he couldn’t complain about the world under his immediate control.

It was a group of men who held themselves above the law Raul wanted to strangle with his bare hands. The criminals owned a mine that dumped hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic pollutants into the Yana Machi river, which fed the Pilcomayo river bordering the chaco of Argentina. Not only fish, but the local tribespeople themselves were becoming victims!

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