Adopt-A-Dad

“According to them, not until Monday.” He frowned. “It’s unlike our Immigration Department to check on people before they’ve overstayed.”

“I told you, Gloria will have sent them.”

“Who’s Gloria?”

“My…my mother-in-law.”

“Your mother-in-law.” He considered that a moment, but no, he couldn’t figure this one out at all. Jenny was British, he knew, but he’d never heard any talk of a husband. Come to think of it, he’d never heard any talk at all. Jenny was bright and bubbly and talkative—about everyone but herself. But she did wear a wedding ring.

“Jenny, you’re not going anywhere unless you tell me what’s going on,” Michael said mildly. “Ellie and I have just perjured ourselves—or almost perjured ourselves—to protect you. We have the right—”

“I’m not a criminal,” she said, and a flash of anger behind her eyes showed Michael that she was recovering. The woman had spirit. Her spirit was the one thing he’d noticed right from the start. It was why she still had a job.

Michael had gone through about six secretaries before Jenny arrived. He was professionally demanding and he expected his staff to work as hard as he did. One by one, secretaries had left, and mostly they’d left with a litany of complaints.

Mr. Lord didn’t appreciate them, they said. Mr. Lord expected them to work overtime without complaining and he didn’t care about their social lives.

But Jenny had arrived, set herself efficiently to work and hadn’t looked back. She’d come on a temporary basis when his need had been urgent—the last of his line of secretaries had left without warning in the middle of a work crisis—and she’d stayed for as long as he could keep her. Sure, Michael had snapped at her, and usually she took it without a murmur. Occasionally, though, she’d stood up to him, and when she had, she’d done it with spunk.

“No, Mr. Lord, I can’t stay tonight. I have an appointment after work.”

“I don’t care about your appointment. I have work that needs doing now.”

She’d smiled and gone on with her typing. “So what did your last slave die of? Sorry, Mr. Lord, I can’t do it. I do have the civility to care about your work, even if you don’t care about my appointment, but it doesn’t make one bit of difference. I can’t change my appointment. If you don’t like it, then phone the agency and hope they’ll send you someone more amenable. Or, alternatively, I’ll come in early and see what I can do then.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“That’s the best I can do, Mr. Lord. Like it or lump it.” And she’d smile sweetly and take herself off to her appointment, with him staring after her, baffled.

Then he’d come in the next morning to find his work done, as promised, and Jenny acting just as if she hadn’t refused him at all, but he knew she would again. Finally he’d learned to ask rather than demand, and the last few months had been tension free.

But she was leaving tomorrow, he thought. He frowned. Jenny’s baby had to come sometime, and secretaries came and went. They weren’t something he bothered about.

He was bothering about Jenny now.

“So tell me,” he growled, and the spark of challenge flared in Jenny’s eyes. She really was recovering.

“Or you’ll sack me? Nice try, but I’m leaving tomorrow, anyway. In fact…” She sighed. “I guess now I’m leaving tonight. I’m sorry, Mr. Lord, but I’m being forced to quit early. Can you say goodbye to everyone for me?”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t think you want to know that,” she said gently, looking longingly at the door. “You’ve helped me enough. I don’t want you to lie on my behalf.”

“I can act stupid,” he assured her. “I don’t need to lie.”

“You, act stupid? Ha! And you don’t need to know.”

Silence. There was no answer to that.

This was the end, then, he thought. She was asking no more. Michael could open his door, let her leave and never see her again. That should suit him fine. He didn’t get involved with anyone, much less a hugely pregnant, mal-nourished illegal immigrant of a secretary with the worries of the world on her shoulders.

So he could say goodbye and leave it at that—but for the life of him he couldn’t.

“Are you going back to England?” he asked, and watched as the color washed from her face again.

“No, but…”

“Do you have somewhere to go?”

“Mexico,” she said softly, only a tiny tremor in her voice spoiling the bravado of her words.

“You have friends in Mexico?”

“No, but…”

He sighed. “You know, you can’t go back to your apartment. They’ll expect you there.”

“I know that.”

“So you’re heading for Mexico without baggage, without friends. And how do you expect to get over the border? They’ll have immigration checks there, as well.”

“I’ll manage.” Her words were an angry, defensive snap, but there was fear behind them. “The border’s hardly heavily policed. I can do it.”

“What, by hiking through the desert in the dead of night? Very clever.”

Silence.

He shouldn’t get involved. No way! But how could he not? Michael sighed, took a deep breath and jumped right in. He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and opened the door.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“But…”

“But what?”

“You don’t need to come.” She glared. “I’m on my own.”

“I can see you’re on your own. That’s what I don’t like.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You know, if you said it was my business, then I’d fight you every inch of the way,” he said sourly. “But damn it, woman, I have enough moral fiber to think I can’t allow you to sneak over the border with nothing except the clothes you’re wearing. And no friends to meet you.”

She glowered again, trapped. She didn’t want his help. She didn’t want anyone’s help. “I don’t need your morals.”

“Neither do I,” he said dryly. “I don’t need ’em at all. Unfortunately I have ’em, and so does Ellie. She’ll want to know what the heck I’ve done with you, and if I tell her what you intend doing and that I’ve allowed it, she’ll be after me with a horsewhip. So you can say I’m doing this because the Maitlands are head of this place and I work for the Maitlands. Good enough for you?”

She glowered again. “No.”

“It’d better be.” He took her arm. “Because that’s the way it is. Like it or lump it, lady. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER TWO

HE TOOK HER to her apartment first.

“We have maybe twenty minutes,” he told her. “Ellie will hold them that long. So we move fast.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Just shut up,” he told her kindly. “Like it or not, I’m embroiled in this mess, so I might as well be embroiled all the way.”

Which wasn’t exactly true, he decided as he drove fast through Austin’s afternoon traffic. He wasn’t really embroiled in this mess—yet. At this stage he could put her out of the car and walk away.

But there was no way he could do that, and it wasn’t the thought of Ellie’s anger that was keeping him in here. It was the set look on Jenny’s face, the look of despair combined with that stubborn look of pride. She’d go to the wall alone, he thought as he watched her. She had sheer, raw courage. Whatever mess she was in…

She wasn’t facing it alone, he decided. Not while Michael Lord was around to help her. But why he felt that way, he didn’t have a clue. He didn’t get involved with women. Not ever.

A very pregnant secretary didn’t really count as a woman, he told himself. Did she?

He couldn’t answer that question. Instead, he concentrated on driving fast and outmaneuvering the Suits.

Some questions were just too hard to answer.

THE PLACE she lived in was the pits. Michael stopped in front of a run-down apartment block in the poorest part of town and grimaced, then steered his Corvette around the corner and out of sight. The neighborhood was no better around the corner. It wasn’t the sort of place to leave a Corvette, much less a pregnant woman.

“You’ve been living here all the time you’ve worked for me?” he demanded.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Jenny’s voice was defensive. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s a dump.”

“Can we spare the thoughts on my taste in housing for some other time?” she asked with asperity, worry replaced by indignation. “Anyway, I like it. It’s friendly. You try being a poverty-stricken single mom in a rich neighborhood and see how many friends you make. So if you really are going to help me…”

“Yeah, right.” He sighed. The place he’d put the car was deserted and well out of sight. Jenny would have to stay in the car. He didn’t like leaving her, but there was hardly a choice. He had to move fast, and if there was one thing Jenny’s bulk didn’t let her do, it was that. “Tell me which is your apartment and give me the keys.”

“I’m coming.” She was still crabby.

“No, Jenny, you’re not.” He put his hands on her shoulders and propelled her onto her seat. “I’m going in fast. I’m staying out of sight, which is something I’ve been trained to be good at. I’m getting out of there even faster, and if there’s a knock on the door while I’m in there, then I’ll be out the back window like a rat down the drainpipe. Assuming there’s a back window.”

“There’s a back window, but—”

“No buts. Can you shinny down a drainpipe?”

That brought a grin. She glanced at her pregnant bulge, and her eyes twinkled with sudden laughter. She looked better that way, Michael thought. “Maybe not, but—”

“Then leave the shinnying to me.” He hesitated. “I can’t bring everything. I’ll just grab what I can. I may only have a few minutes.”

“I don’t have much. There’s a bag under the bed. You’ll hardly fill it.”

Funny—why had he known she’d say something like that?

THE LADY WAS RIGHT. There sure wasn’t much. Michael stared around her dreary apartment in stunned silence.

He had two sisters, and Lana and Shelby nested. In fact, when they’d lived together, his sisters had nested all over the house. He was used to masses of clothes, bathrooms cluttered with toiletries, bedrooms with bright fabrics and huge cushions—the sort of place where a girl could come home and relax with style.

There was no way Jenny could come home and relax in any comfort at all, he thought, much less with style. The one-room apartment had a narrow iron bed in one corner, which was made up with essential bedclothes. There was a shabby wardrobe. A card table had one chair beside it, another chair acted as a bedside table, and there was nothing more.

He had no time for investigation, though. A leather suitcase was under her bed. He grabbed it and discovered it was already half packed. With little furniture, she was obviously using it for storage. That made things easy. There were a couple of dresses in the wardrobe—shapeless things like the one she was wearing now. It took him two minutes to collect her meager toiletries from the bathroom. There was nothing else except for a small clock and a picture frame on her bedside chair.

They all went quickly into the case, though he paused a moment to glance at the photo. A young man stared at him, fair and good-looking, laughing at the camera as if he was laughing at life in general. He looked as if he didn’t have a worry in the world.

Was this the son of the fearful mother-in-law who was haunting her? Michael wondered briefly. He didn’t look as if he’d haunt anyone.

There was no time to think of that now. He shoved the lid closed, noticing with a mind trained to notice that the suitcase was good quality leather, with the initial M burned into it. At some time in the past, Jenny hadn’t been as broke as she was at the present.

She shouldn’t be broke now, he thought, frowning. He paid her good money. Nothing made sense, but now wasn’t the time to sort it out. He grabbed the case and crossed to the door.

There were footsteps on the landing. Uh-oh. Ellie hadn’t delayed them as long as he’d hoped.

“She’s not here.” It was a garrulous female voice, and the speaker sounded annoyed. The landlady? “So why do you want her? What’s so urgent?”

“We’re from Immigration.” Silence followed, and Michael imagined them flashing their ID cards. “We need to ask her a few questions.”

“No, you don’t.” Yep, the landlady was definitely annoyed. Authority wouldn’t be all that welcome around here. “You leave her alone, poor kid. She’s done nothing to no one, and she’s the nicest kid.”

“We just need to ask her—”

“She’s not here.” The voice rose belligerently, and Michael blessed the woman. “I see everyone as they go in and out. She went to work this morning and she hasn’t been back since. No one has.”

That was because Michael had taken great care not to be seen, he thought, moving fast. If they knew he was inside packing her baggage…

He crossed to the window. The apartment was three floors up, but an outside ledge led to a fire escape. It was a piece of cake—as long as they didn’t suspect anything.

He was out of there with lightning speed, and even if he wasn’t forced to shinny down the drainpipe, he would have done it if he’d needed to.

HE THOUGHT he’d left trouble behind him, but Jenny had company—and trouble of her own.

When he’d left her she was sitting alone in his gorgeous car. Now she was surrounded by five or six youths, and one look told him they meant no good. Michael rounded the corner and froze, melting swiftly against the brickwork. As a cop, he was trained to stop and assess before moving, and he didn’t like the scene before him one bit.

It had been stupid to bring the Corvette here. If he’d known…

“Get out of the car, lady.” The youths had been drinking, he figured. They were loud and aggressive, egging each other on. Could he handle five of them if they turned nasty?

There wasn’t much choice, he decided, thinking longing thoughts of his gun, which was safely and uselessly locked in his office at the hospital. He’d hardly been planning to turn it on immigration officials, so he’d left it behind.

He couldn’t leave Jenny on her own while he went for backup. He had to move. But as he made to emerge from the shadows, Jenny’s voice stopped him short.

“Why on earth would I want to get out of the car, Jason Hemming?”

“What?” It was the tallest of the youths—a kid of about nineteen—and his bravado sounded a bit shaky. “How do you know who I am?”

“We want your car, lady,” another youth butted in, his voice threatening. “Get out or we’ll take you—”

“Me?” There was laughter in Jenny’s voice. She didn’t sound one inch afraid. “Come on, Tommy. That’s not your speed. Driving with pregnant women.”

“I’m not—”

She didn’t let him finish. “Tommy, I’ve seen you with ten different ladies since I moved in here, and every one is a heap more attractive than me. I don’t want to ruin your reputation.”

“You live here?” It was the same voice, raised in incredulity.

“I sure do. I know your mom, Jason—and yours, too, Tommy. In fact, I helped your kid sister with her homework last night. Adele’s your sister, isn’t she, Tommy? She’s a real cutie. I live up in number thirty-seven.”

“Hey, I think I’ve seen her around,” one of the boys said, his voice nervous. “She’s not lying.”

“So why are you driving this?” Tommy was disbelieving.

“Me? Driving this? You have to be kidding! It belongs to my boss,” Jenny said cheerfully. “He’s loaded. Isn’t it the best?”

“We want it.”

“You and me both, but you want to get me sacked?” Her voice grew reproachful. “Or me to have my baby right here?” A tremor entered her voice, and Michael started forward. Maybe she was afraid. He stopped again as he heard what she was saying. “I’m off to the hospital.” She sounded almost proud. “I’ve got labor pains. My boss offered to drive me. He’s just gone up to get my toothbrush.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Nope.” Michael peered around the corner and saw Jenny open the car door, get out and stand so they could see just how huge she was. She staggered a little and put her hand to her back. “You want to know what a baby on the way feels like? He’s kicking so hard. Heck, it hurts, though.”

“You—you’re having the kid?” It was the first voice— Jason—and all the aggression was gone. “It’s Jenny, isn’t it? I recognize you now. Heck. You want me to get my mom?”

“Thanks, Jason, but I think I need a hospital more than your mom.” Jenny was allowing the tremor in her voice to grow. “If Mr. Lord would only get back…”

That was a cue if ever he heard one. Michael emerged from the shadows, carrying her suitcase.

“Mr. Lord.” Jenny practically fell on his neck. “You took so long.”

“Is it getting worse?” Following her lead, he appeared not to notice the youths.

“Two minutes apart,” she said, clutching her back and grimacing. “I’m having a bad one now. Please…let’s go.”

Michael threw the case in the back and climbed into the car. His face was grim. “Yeah, right.”

“Good luck,” one of the boys said, and Michael looked up as if he’d only just noticed him.

“Thanks.”

“I meant the lady,” the boy said, and as the car started, he added, “hey, don’t spit the kid out onto his leather seats, Jenny. You’ll be sacked for that, no sweat!”

There was good-humored laughter as they headed out of sight.

“THAT,” MICHAEL SAID carefully as they nosed onto the street, “was amazing.” He moved the car forward, not fast enough to draw attention—the Corvette got enough of that as it was—but fast enough to be out of there if anyone had followed him down the fire escape. “I thought there was going to be trouble. That was great acting.”

“Who said I was acting?”

He almost crashed. The car veered toward the wrong side of the road, and Jenny grabbed the wheel and chuckled. “Hey, okay, I was joking. Watch the road.”

His blood pressure lurched and settled, and he glared at the woman by his side. “Thanks for the advice.”

She dimpled. “My pleasure. Honest, though, there was no problem. They’re not bad kids.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. They steal cars, but maybe I would, too, if I was as bored as they are. And they won’t hurt anyone. Besides, it’s stupid to drive a car like this.”

“Yeah, right.” He grimaced. “You sound like a schoolmarm.”

“Well…” She managed another smile. Smiles seemed her specialty, and he realized suddenly why he’d liked having her around the office the past few months. Her smile lit up all sorts of dark places, and some of those dark places were right inside him.

But she hadn’t noticed his reaction. “I guess if you’re rich enough to afford it then you can drive it,” she said, “but you should have an ordinary one so you can pretend to be an ordinary person sometimes.”

“Pretend?”

“I’d never presume to call you an ordinary person,” she said, eyes twinkling. “After all, you’re my boss.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I know which side my bread’s buttered on.” She dimpled nicely, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and then hesitated, her laughter fading. “But I guess you’re not my boss now. If you could take me to the bus station…”

“The bus station?”

“It’s where you go to catch a bus when you don’t have a car like this to drive. Or any car to drive.” Her smile suddenly didn’t reach her eyes. “Michael—Mr. Lord—I’m really grateful—”

“You’re not working for me anymore, so it’s Michael,” he said curtly. “And you’re not going to any bus station. The immigration guys were arriving at your apartment as I left. Your landlady will let them in, they’ll discover your gear is gone, and they’ll think, ‘She knows we’re looking for her. She’s on the run.’ So where do you think they’ll look?”

“The airport?” she asked doubtfully, but he shook his head.

“No. They’ll never let you on board a plane looking this pregnant, and immigration knows that. So where?”

She was silent, sitting in the plush leather seat and trying to make her jumbled mind think. “I guess the bus station’s not such a hot idea, then.”

“No.”

More silence. Michael turned off the main road and headed to the river.

“Where are we going?” she asked. She chewed her lip, stubbornness returning. “I guess if you could drop me at a hotel, somewhere cheap—”

“They’ll think of that, too. It’ll take them twenty minutes to phone every hotel in town, and you’re not exactly easily disguised.”

She closed her eyes.

“Do you have any money?” Michael asked her curiously, and he saw her anger flash again.

“Of course I have money. Why do you think I’ve been living so cheaply for the past six months? I’ve saved everything.”

“So you’re intending to live on what you’ve saved from six months’ salary while you have the baby?” Michael asked incredulously. “No wonder the immigration people want you out. You’re hardly independent.”

“I’m independent.”

“You’re not.” He sighed and steered his car to where the oaks lined the cliff tops overlooking the river. There was a place there he knew. Quiet. Private. It was hardly the sort of place detectives would look for a fugitive.

He pulled to a stop and turned to face the woman beside him, and discovered she had the look of someone who expected to be slapped. Hard. It was a dreadful look. He gazed at her for a long moment and discovered feelings shifting inside him that had never shifted in his life. Feelings he didn’t understand one bit.

It put him off balance. Michael Lord was unemotional, detached, cool as ice, and now he suddenly found himself emotional, attached and hot as fire. Damn, who had done this to her? he thought savagely. He had to know.

“Tell me about this person you’re so afraid of, this Gloria,” he said, and waited.

For a while he didn’t think she’d tell him. She sat staring straight ahead at the deep-running river below. The weather was perfect, Michael thought inconsequentially, autumn perfect. He’d put the top down on the Corvette, and the sun was warm on their faces.

She looked as if she needed its comfort, he thought, and suddenly had to resist the urge to put an arm around those frail shoulders. She was making him feel too proprietary for words.

But he still had to know about Gloria. “Tell me,” he said softly. “You can trust me, Jenny.” He teased her gently. “Have I not shinnied down drainpipes on your behalf?”

That brought an answering smile. “There was a perfectly good fire escape. If you chose the drainpipe…”

“Heroes always choose drainpipes,” he told her, smiling. “It’s far more heroic.”

“But much bumpier.” She managed a chuckle. “Not to say risky—especially if you’re thinking about the future production of little superheroes. Think of what all those sharp edges on the way down could have done to your manhood.”

That took him aback. He stared at her in shock. His quiet, demure secretary making remarks about his manhood! And then slowly, his deep green eyes creased into laughter.

HE CHUCKLED, a low, lazy rumble that Jenny hadn’t heard before. Very few people had. Michael Lord wasn’t much given to laughter.

It transformed him, she thought. Michael was big and solid, with a blaze of burnt-red hair, deep green eyes and strongly boned features that made him classically good-looking. His aloofness had repelled her, though, during the time she’d worked for him. She hadn’t noticed what she was noticing now, that the laughter behind his eyes made him seem not just classically good-looking. Impossibly good-looking!

She had other things on her mind, though, apart from Michael’s good looks. She tore herself away from the laughter in his eyes and forced herself to answer his question. After all, she did owe him the truth.

At least talking bought her time. She didn’t have to get out of this lovely car quite yet and face whatever was before her alone.

“I told you. Gloria is my mother-in-law,” she said in a low, husky voice that Michael had to lean forward to hear. “Or she was my mother-in-law.”

“You’re divorced?”