Adopt-A-Dad

“I don’t know how it feels to lose the person you love,” Michael said. “But I’d guess it must be just about as bad as it can get.”

“It is,” she said forcibly, staring at the river. “One minute I was telling him I was pregnant and watching his face, and he…” She shook her head as if shaking off a nightmare. “No matter. The next thing, the hotel phone’s ringing and they’re telling me Peter’s plane crashed and I’d best get to the hospital because he’s dying.” She flinched, and her eyes looked inward. “Peter died four days later, but in the hospital we talked about the baby… And his mother came from England and he told her…told Gloria…”

“Told Gloria what?”

“That I was pregnant.”

He frowned, still not understanding. “So there’s a problem with that? I’d imagine it might have been the only piece of good news in the whole tragedy.”

“But you don’t know Peter’s mother. She’s Gloria Hepworth-Morrow, eighth Duchess of Epingdale,” Jenny said bitterly. “The title makes a difference.”

“I imagine it might.” Then he shook his head. Maybe he couldn’t imagine. “No. I can’t. Why does it make a difference?”

“Because Gloria wants my baby.”

SHE LOOKED DESOLATE.

It took sheer, Herculean effort for Michael not to lean forward and take her in his arms.

Which was stupid. He didn’t get involved. Not ever.

Did he?

“Why does she want your baby?” he asked, and if his voice ended up sounding half-strangled, she didn’t seem to notice.

“You have no idea what she’s like,” Jenny said bitterly. “She’s so…regal. She swans around chairing her charities and opening fairs and making pronouncements on the state of the world, and people think she’s wonderful. What a matriarch, they say. But she controls everyone. She must. Her husband had no will of his own, and Peter…”

“Peter, your husband?”

“Yes. Peter, my husband, her son. She never let go, even though he could never live up to what was expected of him. She tried to control him every way she knew how, and I saw what it did to him. She used every means in her power to impose her will, and when he married me…”

“She didn’t like the match?”

“My father was a coal miner from Wales,” Jenny said bitterly. “What do you think?”

“I think Peter made a very good choice of wife,” Michael said, and Jenny flushed.

“Do you? It’s nice of you to say so, but I’m not so sure Peter did. In fact, I know he didn’t. After a while…after a while I figured that he’d just married me as one more act of rebellion. He didn’t stop, you see. It wasn’t enough that he’d married someone she hated and was ashamed of. He kept taking risks, doing things she disapproved of—making headlines in his own right.

“He brought us to Texas because there were so many extreme sports over here that he hadn’t tried before, and he was killed doing aerobatics in an aerolite that was sold to him by people only a fool would be crazy enough to trust. We fought about it all the time. I was so frightened. We’d…we’d been thinking of separating, and then I found I was pregnant.”

“Which was a disaster?”

That brought her chin up and the spark into her eyes. “No! There’s no way I regret my baby. He wasn’t planned, but I want him so much.”

“And so does Gloria?”

“Of course. And I have no money to fight her. My parents died a long time ago, I have no family, and Gloria’s moving in for the kill. As far as she’s concerned I’m only the breeder—a very poor-class breeder at that—and I deserve no say whatsoever in the way he’s raised. My baby is the next Earl of Epingdale, and that’s all she’s interested in.”

He thought this over and found a flaw. “Your baby might be a girl.”

“No such luck. I checked.” She grimaced. “It was a strange reason for gender testing, but there it is. I was desperate. So yes, I’m carrying the ninth earl. Gloria doesn’t know it yet, but the minute he’s born she will. She’ll pay to find out, and her spies are everywhere. That’s why the immigration officers arrived today. She’ll have been watching, waiting, and she’ll see her chance to move.

“I was lucky in a way that we were here when Peter was killed, but if she gets me back to England, there’s no way I can immigrate here—or anywhere else—with a tiny baby. She’ll have bribed whoever she had to bribe, or blackmailed them if they can’t be bought.”

“But, Jenny, you’re this baby’s mother,” Michael said gently, still puzzled. “No court in the land will take your baby.”

“No, but…” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. If I stay in England it’ll be easy for Gloria to take control. I saw what she did to Peter. She ruined any chance he had for happiness, and she’s not doing the same for my little one. She’s already told the British press I’m pregnant, so there’ll be no privacy. The minute my baby’s born she’ll be showering him with expensive gifts, pushing me into the lifestyle she dictates.”

“Maybe it’s not such a bad lifestyle. Other people have learned to live with money.” He tried a smile, but she didn’t smile back.

“You don’t know Gloria. She just takes. She’s so strong. Peter tried to fight her, but she destroyed him. She’ll destroy my baby with her corrupt values. The only things that matter to her are publicity, money and power. I won’t let her give my son those values.”

“You don’t have to accept.”

“Ha!” She laughed mirthlessly. “Can you see a child refusing what she offers? Being given a trip to Disneyland with his wonderful grandmother, and his dragon of a mother refusing? Or me refusing to let him go to the most expensive schools? Gloria will make sure the press knows, and the press would have a field day. ‘Mother makes ninth earl live in poverty.’ I can’t afford to do anything but send him to a government school and live in an apartment. Do you think Gloria will let her heir do that?

“She can be charming and she’s absolutely ruthless. She wants this child, and if she has her way he’ll be brought up in a goldfish bowl of publicity with the eyes of the world press on him. But there’s no way. He’s mine!”

And she put her arms around her swollen body and hugged it, as though she was protecting her baby while it was still in the womb.

Michael sat back, stunned.

Things were starting to be clear, but the clearer they became, the less he liked them. If so much money and power were involved…

What would he have done, he thought, if he’d been Gloria and he wanted this child home in England?

Exactly what Gloria had done, he decided. Keep tabs on Jenny while she was pregnant. Watch from afar because there was little he could do to pressure her before the baby was born. Then, as the birth neared and Jenny wasn’t in England, he’d make sure she returned. Warn the immigration officials that she was planning to make a run for it. Even offer…

“How much money does Gloria have?” he asked, and Jenny shuddered.

“Millions. I don’t know, exactly. I’ve never asked, but Peter said it was ridiculous for one person to control so much wealth.”

“So if she wanted you back in England, she could offer immigration a private jet with a doctor on board?”

“I’d imagine so. Yes. Of course.”

“They’d go for that, too,” Michael guessed. “It’d get the problem out of their hair, and you could hardly plead the case that you needed refugee status. Fleeing from money doesn’t meet any refugee criteria I’ve ever seen.” He sighed. “Jenny, why didn’t you leave the U.S. before this and go someplace where there was a chance of you staying permanently? Pregnant, with no family support, you meet no immigration criteria at all.”

“No, but…” She sighed. “Have you any idea how hard it is to get immigrant status anywhere when you’re pregnant? Unless you’re rich. The U.S. isn’t the only country with tight immigration laws.” She flashed him a smile that contained a hint of her usual spunk. “Anywhere’s impossible, really. I wanted to stay away from England—as far as I could. That was all I could think of to start with. I was shocked, bereaved, confused—and Gloria scared me to death with her assumption that the baby would be hers. I’d be paid off and I’d have no say at all. She has so much power… It scared me to death. So I stayed here.”

“And hoped.”

“And hoped. Stupid, really, but desperation makes for stupidity. I guess I hoped I’d be inconspicuous and Gloria would lose track of me. I found the job with you, you were happy with me, I was enjoying working for you, and the Maitlands were great. Then, when I tried to apply for permanent residency, I discovered it was impossible. As my pregnancy advanced, everywhere else seemed to close their doors, too. So I had a choice—stay here illegally or go home to Gloria. There are so many illegal immigrants, and I was desperate. The choice seemed obvious, given what was at stake, but now… I might have known Gloria wouldn’t give up.”

She shrugged. “But hey, I guess there’s still Mexico and a whole bunch of immigration officials who mightn’t be as efficient. And I’m a great secretary. As soon as the baby’s born I’ll be able to work.” She was smiling, reassuring him that she’d be okay, but he was grim. She was trying to make light of it, but…

“Even if you make it into Mexico, she’ll find you,” he said.

“No.”

“Yes. Or you’ll starve. For heaven’s sake, Jenny, you’ll have no health insurance, and as an illegal immigrant you’ll have no status. What if something goes wrong during the birth?”

“It won’t.”

“What if it does?”

“Then I’ll cope,” she said flatly. “Stop scaring me, Michael Lord. I can manage.”

“I don’t think you can.”

“Watch me. Or rather, don’t watch me.”

“I’m not letting you go to Mexico on your own,” he told her. His mind was racing, and it didn’t like a single thing it was coming up with.

“There’s no alternative.” She tilted her chin, and a trace of fear shadowed the courage in her eyes. “Unless you’re planning to put me on Gloria’s plane. Hand me over to the authorities.”

She wasn’t quite sure that he wouldn’t, he realized. She didn’t quite trust him.

She must. There was no other way out of this mess.

“I won’t hand you over to the authorities.” He gave a self-mocking smile. “After all, you’re not illegal until Monday.”

“Yeah, heaps of time.”

“Not enough—but there is an alternative,” he said softly, his voice steady. An idea had flashed into his head. It was a crazy, lunatic idea, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like the only way out of this mess. “It’s the only one.”

“Which is?”

“You’re sure you won’t go home?”

She swallowed, but the look in her eye was one of iron determination. “No way. I’ll lose my baby.”

“For this to work, you’d have to trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone,” she said flatly. “Not where my baby’s concerned.”

“You need help, Jenny.”

“You’re proposing to hide me in the basement until Gloria goes away? She won’t. Now she knows where I am, she’ll be around forever.”

He smiled. “I don’t think hiding in a basement is a sensible solution.”

“No, but…” She shook her head. “Believe me, there’s nothing you can do. There’s no possibility I can stay here legally, and now the immigration officials are aware of me, I have to move on.”

“There is one thing you can do.”

“Which is?”

“You can marry me.”

CHAPTER THREE

AS A conversation stopper it took some beating. Jenny sat with her mouth open for all of two minutes. There was not a single word she could think of to say.

It was Michael who finally broke the silence. Jenny looked as if she’d still be goggling in half an hour. “Aren’t you going to say something?” he asked, half amused.

“I don’t think I can,” she said breathlessly. She sounded as if it took a real effort to make her voice work. “I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face by a wet fish.”

“Gee.” He chuckled again, the second time in one day. Amazing! He smiled at her stunned expression. “As a romantic, maidenly reply to a proposal of marriage, that takes some beating. Slapped in the face by a wet fish. Good grief!”

She smiled, but her face was worried—humoring-a-lunatic worried.

“Michael, this is just plain crazy. You don’t want to marry me.”

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t.”

“Well…”

“But that’s just it,” he continued smoothly. “I don’t want to marry anyone. So it might as well be you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He sighed, and his face tightened. He didn’t discuss his private life with anyone, but there was no getting out of this. Not if she was to take his proposal seriously.

“Jenny, let me tell you something. Like you, I’ve done the love thing.”

“I don’t…”

“Just shut up and hear me out.” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he was no longer seeing her. He was seeing events of two years ago, and he was seeing them as though they’d been yesterday. “You know I’ve been a cop?”

“Yes.” Her frown deepened. What on earth was he talking about?

“And I left the force when my partner was killed?”

“I’ve heard that, too,” she admitted. Gossip among the staff at Maitland Maternity had told her that much about him, though Michael’s private life was very much a closed book. He kept himself to himself—absolutely.

“What people don’t know,” he said heavily, “was that my mind wasn’t on my job the night my partner died.” He hesitated, then went on, but he sounded as if it hurt to say every word. The pain was real and terrible. “I’d gotten myself into a relationship,” he confessed. “My first. I’d never had much time for women. But Barbara… Well, she seemed different—special—and I thought I could get involved.” He shrugged. “Okay, so I got involved, and I was stupid.”

“But what happened?” This wasn’t making any sense.

“Dan and I were on night duty, but we’d just attended a call near Barbara’s place. It was quiet, we were due for a meal break, so Dan went for a hamburger while I dropped in to see Barbara.”

“And?” She didn’t want to ask, but she knew he had to tell. The words were being torn out of him.

“She was with another guy. In bed. Stupid, sordid, the sort of thing that happens every day—but to others, not to me. I was so damned angry, so hurt that I slammed out of the house without a word—and then Dan got killed.”

He still wasn’t making any sense. “Would you mind telling me,” Jenny said carefully, “how you getting two-timed by some woman with no taste in men could get your partner killed? I don’t see it.”

Part of his mind registered the compliment, and a weary smile curved the corners of his mouth, but the story was too black for humor. The smile died.

“It was easy,” he said bleakly. “My mind wasn’t where it should have been, and I needed every scrap of attention that night.” His words were savage, and she could tell the night was still nightmare fresh. “We had a call to say there’d been an armed robbery. What they didn’t say was that the owner had shot one of the intruders. So we got to the store and the owner was out on the pavement yelling about a carload of kids that had got away. As I said, I wasn’t on the ball. I radioed in details of the car, and while I did that, Dan went into the store to check damage.”

“Oh, Michael…”

“The kid was lying on the floor, wounded, out of sight of the doorway, and he shot Dan from almost point-blank range,” Michael said bleakly. “And then he died himself. It was a stupid, stupid waste.” He shook his head. “So when backup arrived, I was blubbering like a baby, and I left the force soon after. To this job.” He compressed his lips and squared his shoulders.

“That was the first time in my life I’ve ever tried having a relationship,” he went on bleakly. “My sisters and brother—they’re the emotional hotheads. I’ve always had a sense that I should stand apart. Be alone. Maybe it’s because our birth mother dumped us—who knows? I only know the feeling’s deep-seated and real. And then, the one time I cracked and let Barbara close, the world exploded around me. Stupid, stupid, stupid. So you see, I’m not in the market for any sort of relationship. Ever.”

Jenny shook her head. What on earth…? His birth mother dumped him? There was so much she didn’t understand about this man, but maybe it needed to be put aside for now. He was holding himself responsible for another man’s death, and who could believe that of Michael?

“Michael, Dan’s death couldn’t have been your fault,” she whispered. “Even if your mind was a hundred percent focused, it might have happened anyway. Dan must have assessed the risks, too. You won’t always feel like this.”

“Yes, I will,” he said flatly. “I’ve never felt emotional. I told you—my brother and sisters have enough emotion for the four of us combined. I’ve never seen the sense of this love bit, and when Barbara betrayed me and Dan was killed—well, that was the first and last time I’ll ever feel like that. Giving yourself to someone…”

He shrugged again and gave a self-conscious grin. “Enough. We’re not talking about me. All I’m saying is that I intend to stay a bachelor, which means there’s no reason I shouldn’t marry you to get you immigrant status.”

“A green card marriage.” Her mind switched to her problems, but a part of her stayed with his.

“It’s been done before.”

“It’s not legal.”

“Legal enough.” He gave a bitter smile. “We’ll be married. I have a huge town house.”

She gasped and almost visibly withdrew. “You’re saying you want me to live with you?”

“No, but we’ll need to for a bit.” He gave one of his characteristic self-mocking grins. “Call it self-preservation. This way I’ll get myself a decent secretary again.”

“You’d want me to keep working for you?” Her voice was rising to squeak level.

“Not right away,” he said, considering. He’d gone into the efficient mode she knew so well—the Michael Lord she worked with every day of the week. “I mean, I guess the baby will keep you busy for a while, and if you need me to, then I’m happy to support you while you do that.” He gave a slight shrug. “My adoptive parents were wealthy, and I have a good income. And apart from that…”

“Apart from that?” She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation.

But Michael was totally believable—honest through and through. He gave another wry smile. “Yeah, well, I’m not all that proud of it, but after Dan was killed I took to gambling for a bit. Stupid. The only problem was, I won, and it started getting addictive. Luckily, reality hit home somewhere along the line, or maybe it was my sisters and brother worrying themselves into a white-hot melt, but I was smart enough to get out while I was ahead. It well and truly bankrolled me, so there’s no rush for you to head back to work. When you want to, well, that’s okay, too, and if there’s one thing Maitland Maternity is good at, it’s child care. So there’s your permanent status fixed up.”

“But, Michael…” She was staring at him as if he’d arrived from another planet.

“Yes?”

“There’s no way you’re supporting me,” she said flatly. “No way in the wide world. Thank you for the offer, but no, thanks. I’ve saved. I can support me and my baby until I can go back to work.”

“Okay, then.” He spread his hands as if surrendering. “Fine by me. I’m offering marriage, though, Jenny. If it’ll help.”

She gazed at him for a long, long moment. “Do you have any idea what you’re letting yourself in for?” she asked. “Marrying a pregnant woman, offering to support her, even offering to share your apartment—with a baby?”

“The guest room is on the other side of my living quarters and downstairs from my room,” he told her, still in efficient mode. “I don’t expect I’d hear it. I only use the place to crash at night.”

This was like a business proposition. Calm. Considered. Crazy!

“You think we could run separate lives?”

“I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t offer. I mean…you loved your husband, right?”

“Right.”

“Then you don’t want another relationship yet, either. It could suit us both.” He grinned. “Hey, and it’d get my family off my back. My sisters are always trying to set me up with some woman.”

“But I can’t…” She closed her eyes, and her fingers touched the band of gold on her left hand. “I don’t…” For the life of her she couldn’t stop her fingers trembling.

He reached out and closed his fingers over hers, stopping her shaking. For the first time a hint of tenderness came through the efficiency. “You can. It would work.”

“You don’t want to marry me.”

“I don’t mind. Honest.” He tilted her chin so she was forced to look at him, and the smile in his eyes was infinitely gentle. It gave her a massive jolt.

On one level this Michael was just as calm and in control as the man she worked for—but on another level he was about a zillion miles from the aloof Michael Lord she knew at Maitland Maternity.

“It could work, Jenny,” he told her. “And don’t look too worried. It’s not forever, so let’s not push this too far. In time you’ll be over Peter and want to be free, and maybe…well, maybe I’m wrong and maybe I’ll want a life, too. So then we divorce. But as long as we can stick it for a couple of years and your baby’s born into our marriage, then you’ll have a little U.S. citizen as a baby and you’ll be safe. Meanwhile, tell me what your options are. Run? I don’t think so.”

“I can.”

“You can’t.” He lowered his broad hand to the rising bulge of her pregnancy and placed it there almost unconsciously. It was a gesture of comfort and warmth, nothing more, but it set every fiber in Jenny’s body tingling in response. “You have a baby to think about. I have a stupidly gained fortune I don’t mind supporting you with. It’d take the edge off my guilt a bit. And once you’re married to me, your dreaded Gloria can’t touch you.”

His smile faded, and the look in his eyes was suddenly dangerous. “The worst she could do is give us a bit of unwanted publicity, but it’ll fade. There’s no way she can touch you if you’re my wife,” he repeated. “I’d like to see her try.”

“But…” Jenny’s eyes searched his, troubled. “Michael, I don’t want to be beholden.”

“Can you cook?”

“I…yes.”

“Then there’s our deal,” he said triumphantly. “Let’s leave the beholden bit out of it. I hate eating out, but I do it all the time because I’ve been known to burn baked beans. You cook for me, and we’ll live happily ever after.”

“I’m not living with you.” There was an edge of panic in her voice.

“No?”

“No! No way. Not in a million years.”

“Jenny, this is not for a million years,” he said as he watched the confusion in her eyes mount to panic. “It’s just until we have your immigration legalized, this baby safely born and Gloria off your back. It’s just until you have a breathing space to figure out what you want to do with your life. If you raise this baby in the U.S. there’s not a lot Gloria can do to control you. You can raise him the way you want, and then when he’s old enough, he can make his own decisions about his inheritance. But you’ll be the one who’s influenced him.”

She took a deep breath. She couldn’t think. She was so confused….

The temptation to let this man take charge was irresistible, but to be so indebted… The thought was unbearable.

“Michael, are you sure? I mean…”

“I’m sure.” He wasn’t. He was as confused as she was, but he wasn’t letting on. Somehow he made his voice firm, and he looked down and saw the bulge beneath her dress move all on its own. His eyes widened, and he grinned.

“I’m guessing your son’s in agreement, too,” he said. “Will you look at that?”

Jenny wasn’t looking at her bulge. She was looking straight at Michael. “You realize if we’re married—if people found out that you’ve married me, and they will—then people might assume you’re his father. I mean, why else would you marry me? And the immigration people… I don’t know what we’d tell them. But you’ll have a pregnant wife. Even the person who marries us will assume it’s a shotgun affair. That this is your baby. That’s why he’d be a U.S. citizen. I don’t want you to face that. It isn’t fair.”