Her Baby's Hero

When his stomach rumbled, he was shocked to see it was nearly eight o’clock. He rose, tried to stretch out the kinks in his back. As small as it was, the room was the largest the inn had to offer, with a queen-size bed wedged between two side tables, an armoire and the worktable squeezed in at the other end. It wasn’t a business suite by any stretch of the imagination, although some might call its frilly touches homey.

Not like any home he’d ever lived in, though. The Kerrigan mansion had been furnished by a professional interior designer, each piece chosen to suit Maureen’s taste. Every room seemed staged, with just the right painting on the wall precisely placed above outrageously priced antiques. The house might as well be a museum.

And yet…there was a memory, buried away, of a different place, a tiny cottage north of San Francisco, its rooms packed with mismatched furniture, its walls crammed with pictures. He’d been five when Kerrigan Technology had taken off, when they’d moved to the mansion. In the three years before his mother died, she’d never quite put her touch on that expansive Tudor in San José.

He pushed up the window fronting Main Street to let in the cool evening air. Hart Valley had just about rolled up its sidewalks for the night, nearly every storefront dark. Only Nina’s Café across the street was still open, but the last car parked out front pulled away as he watched.

Thank God he was only staying a day or two. He was used to the vibrancy of San José and San Francisco. This sleepy little town unsettled him, gave him too much quiet space. The high tension of the Bay Area suited him better, kept his mind active, distracted him from the darkness that always edged his life.

Headlights approaching from the other direction caught his attention. The car, an old-style VW bug, slipped into the parking slot next to his. A woman stepped from the car, the dim light from the Hart Valley Inn sign revealing the gold-red color of her hair. Ashley. She was here.

His heart thundered at breakneck speed, and he gripped the windowsill as she lifted her gaze to the inn’s second floor. She found his window, although it wasn’t the only one lit. The VW’s door still open, she stood there, frozen. She looked ready to climb back into the car.

Don’t go! The sound of his own voice rang in his ears, and he realized he’d said it out loud. In the preternatural silence of Main Street, she had to have heard. Still she clung to the car as if planning her escape.

Finally she slammed the door shut and started for the inn’s front door. Relief surged through him. It alarmed him that her arrival meant so much to him, and he clamped down on the emotions that threatened to bubble up.

Backing from the window, he looked around the room and realized how hazardous it would be to have her here, especially after their close call in her living room. He’d catch her downstairs before she came up. They could meet down in the parlor where the inn hosts set up coffee in the morning.

By the time he stepped out onto the landing, Ashley had already reached the bottom of the stairs. Her beauty stunned him momentarily, so she’d climbed several steps before he could speak.

“I’ll come down,” he told her, starting toward her.

Gripping the rail, she hesitated. “I have to talk to you.”

He stopped on the step above hers. “You’d better not be here to tell me to leave.”

“I’m not,” she said, tension edging her tone.

“We can’t go to my room.”

Heat flared in her eyes. “No. We can’t.”

He edged past her, putting out a hand. “We’ll sit downstairs.”

He might as well have been offering her a snake instead of his hand, but she took it. The way she leaned on him as they descended the last few steps told him she needed his help more than she would likely admit.

She let go the moment they reached the bottom, but he held on long enough to guide her toward the parlor. “Is that normal?”

Hands lightly on her belly, she glanced at him sidelong. “What?”

“You’re exhausted.” He took her hand again to help her down onto the sofa in the parlor.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She leaned her head against the unforgiving high back of the Queen Anne sofa. “It’s late.”

“It’s eight-thirty.” He sat beside her, keeping a decorous two feet between them. “At Berkeley we’d stay up all night arguing economic theories.”

She smiled, looking his way. “You argued economic theories. I lectured you on Shakespeare.”

Her eyes were half-lidded from tiredness, he realized, but he could so easily picture that red-gold head on a soft pillow, bedroom eyes beckoning him. “What did you want?”

Her gaze slid away. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

His heart pounded as irrational fear surged through him. “There’s something wrong with the baby.”

Startled, she turned back to him. “No. The babies are fine.”

His thought processes ground to a halt. Babies? He struggled to put two and two together, to come up with—

“Twins, Jason,” she said, her expression serious. “I’m having twins.”

Chapter Three

Jason pushed off the sofa so fast Ashley thought he would run the moment he gained his feet. But he only stood staring at her, the emotions in his face baffling. The shock she understood. But the flicker of sorrow didn’t make sense.

He strode across the inn’s parlor, restless as he’d been at her house. Beth Henley, the inn’s owner, had filled the small room with an eclectic mix of thrif3t shop and antique furniture, so there wasn’t much clearance for pacing. Six feet out, six feet back, Jason threatened to wear out the old-fashioned rag rug.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Of course. The doctor detected the second heartbeat at eight weeks.”

“And they’re both fine?” He flexed his hands as he stood over her.

“They’re perfect.”

“Do you know…”

“From the ultrasound, it looks like a boy and a girl.”

His eyes shut a moment. “Not identical, then.”

“No.” She wondered why that seemed significant to him.

He resumed his trek back and forth across the rug. “That decides it, then. You’re coming to San José.”

If her feet weren’t throbbing and her energy level near zero, she would have jumped up and throttled him. “I’m staying here, Jason. I already told you that.”

“You need to be under a physician’s care.”

“I’ve been seeing Dr. Karpoor right in town.”

“But if anything went wrong—”

“The hospital is twenty minutes away. They can life-flight me to Sacramento if necessary. I’ve got it covered.”

He seemed to stuff away his agitation, his face smoothing to neutrality. “We’ll discuss it later. When you’re not so tired.”

She would have told him there was nothing more to discuss, but her weariness had her at a disadvantage. “I’d better get back.” She pushed against the sofa’s stiff cushions.

He closed his hand around her elbow and eased her up. “I’ll take you home.”

The warmth of his hand drifted up her arm, tempting her to lean into him. “I have my own car.”

“You’re worn out. You shouldn’t be driving.”

She shook off his hand, not liking how vulnerable she was to his touch. “I’ll be fine. It’s only a few miles.”

He was ready to push the issue; she saw him mustering his arguments. He’d been on the debate team as an undergrad at Stanford. She imagined he’d been a ruthless competitor.

“Call me when you get home. Did you save my number?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll do it.”

He put out an imperious hand. She would have walked away, but he’d come after her. Far easier to just hand the cell over to him.

With characteristic focus, he tapped the appropriate keys on the phone, then gave it back to her. “I set up a speed dial. Just press five.”

He walked her out to her car, opening the door for her and taking her hand to help her swing her bulky body inside. He didn’t let go, bending down to eye level.

He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “I can’t let anything happen to them.”

“Of course not.”

“Tell me you’ll be careful.” His gaze drilled into her.

“I will. Of course.”

He stared at her a moment more, then backed away, shutting the car door. He stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of the inn, but he waited while she started the VW and backed it out of the parking slot. She caught a glimpse of him still standing on the sidewalk in her rearview mirror just before she turned off Main Street.

He was a man with so many sharp edges, she didn’t know how she would tolerate him over the next couple of days. She’d been bossed by her sister, Sara, for years, but she’d accepted that because Sara supported them both and had to make the decisions. But Sara had gladly snipped the apron strings years ago and rarely played the big-sister card anymore. Jason’s orders rankled her.

But it was only for the weekend. Then he’d return to San José and likely their contact with each other would be limited. They’d probably have to make some kind of custody arrangement once the babies were born—a prospect that filled her with anxiety—but surely he wouldn’t want the day-to-day responsibility of raising children. It made more sense for the babies to live here. He could visit them whenever he wanted. She doubted that would be often.

As she pulled into the gate of the NJN ranch, her heart ached at the thought. While she was growing up, she would have given anything for a real father—a good man, a kind and decent man who would come watch her soccer games and school plays. Her classmates would moan and groan about their dads, how restrictive they were, how they wouldn’t let them do anything. Those same girls would be dragging their dads around on back-to-school night, showing off their artwork and science projects.

Unlocking the front door, Ashley stepped inside the quiet, empty space. She loved the little house, its tidy efficiency, its quirky lines. She’d felt comfortable here the moment she’d arrived three months ago.

But as she slipped off her sandals and padded toward her bedroom in the back, an aching loneliness washed over her. Before Jason arrived, she’d been happy in her solitary life, willing to accept motherhood on her own with the assistance of her sister and friends she’d made in Hart Valley. But Jason seemed to represent possibilities she’d made an effort to block from her mind—an intact family, a complete home.

She couldn’t let herself think about it even now. Because Jason would be gone soon, back to his own world. He’d likely try to force financial support on her, would no doubt set up trust funds for the twins. He would offer her nothing emotionally. He didn’t seem to have the capacity for it.

Pulling on a short frilly nightgown her sister had given her, Ashley climbed between the pale-pink sheets of her double bed. She’d had to give up the queen-size bed when she gave up the larger room to the babies. She didn’t need the bigger mattress anyway, living alone.

As she lay there, eyes closed, she tried to imagine Jason in the bed beside her. His serious face as he gazed down at her, stroking her cheek, pressing a kiss on her lips. His hand resting on her belly, waiting for the twins to kick. His arms cradling her all night long.

But that man didn’t really exist. Jason was only a few miles away in Hart Valley, but the real core of him might as well be in a different universe. He’d no more hold her to ease her loneliness than he would give away his millions and become a monk.

One night she’d seen more, she’d delved deeper into his soul. As much as she might want to tell herself it was only lust the night they’d made love, there had been a moment, just before passion overwhelmed him, when all the barriers had come down. It had been only an instant, then the walls had slammed into place again.

And that barricade would never fall again.

What the hell was wrong with him?

He’d tossed and turned half the night entertaining entirely inappropriate fantasies of Ashley before falling into restless sleep riddled with X-rated dreams. Now he sat beside her in his Mercedes obsessing over how her bare, freckled shoulders would feel under his fingers. As bad as the distraction of her soft skin was, her scent, like cinnamon-spiced flowers, completely obliterated his focus.

Oblivious to the irrationality inside him, Ashley flipped through a workbook in her lap, her strawberry-blond hair half concealing her face. She’d made it clear from the moment she opened her door to him this morning that physical contact would not be on the agenda today. Not that he would indulge in his ridiculous fantasies.

He’d barely managed to convince her to take his more-spacious Mercedes instead of her cramped little bug. He couldn’t see himself riding beside her in the tiny car, nearly close enough for his shoulder to brush hers. His sedan’s bucket seats at least gave him a fighting chance of resisting the pull between them.

The box of pastries he’d so carefully selected at Archer’s Bakery in town sat on the floor behind his seat. She’d thanked him for bringing them, but said she still felt a little shaky in the mornings and the rich pastries might not go down well. He obviously knew nothing about catering to pregnant women.

He pulled into the parking lot of Hart Valley Elementary. Moving quickly to her side of the car, he helped her out. “I’ll go back into town and pick you up something. What do you want?”

“I have a box of granola bars in the room, and I brought a banana.” She slipped the workbook into the large canvas bag she’d brought. “I don’t need anything else.”

“Some juice? Milk?”

“Thanks, no.” She opened the back door and bent to retrieve the box he’d carried out of the house for her.

He stepped in to take it himself. “I’ll get it.” Arms wrapped around the box, he shut the car door with his hip. When she started to sling the canvas bag over her shoulder, he snagged it, too, and dropped it on top of the box.

She glared at him. “I’m not helpless.”

“Where to?”

With a huff of impatience, she started off across a thick green lawn that fronted the school, past the brick-fronted school office to the asphalt playground beyond. Rows of classrooms bordered three sides of the playground, and bright-white chalk delineated a baseball diamond in a green field beyond. The September-morning coolness still lingered, although low eighties had been forecast.

For a woman six months pregnant with twins, she walked remarkably fast. She held her shoulders stiffly, the small purse she had tucked under her arm squeezed tight against her side.

They reached the farthest row of classrooms, and he followed her up the ramp that led to the door. Diving in her purse for a set of keys, she fumbled with the lock.

He set the box down and reached for the keys. “Give them to me.”

She yanked them away. “I can do it.” She fished through the ring, then jabbed a key in the lock. It wouldn’t turn.

“Ashley—” He put his hand out again for the keys.

“No!” Her fingers wrapped tight around the jangling ring. “I’ll do it!”

But she just stood there, her soft mouth in a tight line, her fingers woven in the metal keys. He’d caused this; he’d made her angry without even knowing why or how. A typical blunder for him. He could suss out the deepest buried intentions of a business opponent, but when it came to women, he was a stumbling bull.

She fished through the keys again. The one she selected fit in the lock and turned. Her hand on the knob, she pushed open the door, but blocked his way into the room. “I don’t want you here, Jason. I know you’re the babies’ father, that you deserve to be involved. But I wish you’d stayed in San José.”

“I’m not leaving,” he told her flatly. “Not without you.”

“I have a life here. A good one. For me and the babies.”

He struggled to hold on to his patience. “Let me inside. I’ll help you with your classroom.”

The sheen of tears in her eyes shocked him. “I can’t have you here.”

“We have to come to some kind of agreement.”

She rubbed her eyes before a tear could fall. “I know. We have to talk.”

She had to know he couldn’t just walk away. “Let me inside.”

She stood frozen a moment more, then she relented, stepping inside the classroom and leaving the door open. Hefting the box again, he entered, shutting the door behind him.

An eclectic selection of posters were already tacked to the wall, of dolphins and tall redwoods and celebrities encouraging the children to read. Tables arranged in a U, two chairs at each, surrounded a carpet filled with cartoon characters.

There was a tear in the carpet, and the tables were stained with ink and paint. The bookcases that lined the walls were riddled with nicks and gouges. Nothing like the private schools where he’d been educated, where everything was bright and new, always in perfect condition.

One phone call and he could get Ashley a job at any of the most exclusive private schools in the Bay Area. How could she pass up such tantalizing bait? He considered making the proposition, but as upset as she was, she might not be as receptive as she could be. He tucked that idea away as he set the box on the table nearest her desk.

“What grade are you teaching?” he asked.

“Second. I have nineteen students.”

“What can I do?” he asked.

He thought she might ask him again to get out of her life. But instead, her gaze narrowed on him. “Leaves.” Her mouth curved in a faint smile. “I need 150 of them.”

Uncomprehending, he shook his head. “Leaves.”

Behind her, construction paper lay in stacks on top of a low bookshelf. She gathered up a sheaf of red, orange and brown paper and dumped it on the table near her desk. Setting a leaf-shaped pattern, a pencil and a pair of scissors beside the construction paper, she pulled out one of the minuscule chairs.

“Leaves. Fifty in each color. There’s plenty more paper if you need it.”

He hadn’t played with paper and scissors since…maybe he never had. All those exclusive private schools stuck to the academic basics, training the next generation of tycoons. There was little room in the curriculum for arts and crafts.

As he wedged himself into the tiny chair and slid a sheet of orange construction paper over, he glanced at Ashley, now unloading the canvas bag and box. Her gaze locked with his, and the faint curve of her mouth widened to a genuine smile. “If you do well with the leaves, I’ll promote you to tree trunks.”

Her smile set off an ache inside him he didn’t understand. Something about her soft brown eyes, the way the sunshine spilling in from the wall of windows turned her silky hair to gold made him feel…lonely.

He pushed aside the useless emotion. “A hundred and fifty leaves,” he said, picking up the scissors, “coming up.”

As she flipped through the workbook she’d brought and wrote out lesson plans at her desk, Ashley indulged in another surreptitious glance over at Jason as he worked. A twinge of guilt started up inside her again that she’d given him such endless, mindless duty to keep him busy.

It hadn’t been revenge so much as self-defense. He’d unsettled her from the moment he’d arrived at her door this morning in his snug red polo and crisp navy slacks. There wasn’t anything suggestive about what he wore; he was the picture of the hard-driving CEO, a bit intimidating, a lot exasperating. It was his dark-blond hair— so impeccably neat it begged to be mussed. Her fingers itched to rearrange it.

Lack of sleep and crazed hormones sent her mind wandering in such dangerous directions. She truly didn’t want to know how that red knit would feel under her hand, what she’d see in his eyes if she touched him. So she used his trick—aloof coolness, putting as high a wall around herself as he did around his emotions.

But watching him with the scissors and construction paper, that blond hair still in desperate need of mussing, she knew she couldn’t hold up barriers against him for very long. She just didn’t have his knack of keeping people at arm’s length.

His angular body might not fit well in the mini-size chair, knees nearly to his chin, broad shoulders towering over the chair back, but he seemed surprisingly at home tracing and cutting out leaves Ashley’s students would be using their first week of class. He focused on the activity as he did everything else—single-mindedly and with precision, as if his company’s bottom line depended on the completion of the task.

Some men might have considered such a trivial chore beneath them. He hadn’t complained, hadn’t argued, had just sat down to do it.

Her stomach rumbled, and she realized she never had gotten around to eating that banana. When she’d refused Jason’s offer of breakfast, she hadn’t been completely honest. While her body didn’t always respond well to rich food, even in her sixth month, she wouldn’t have said no to a pastry from Archer’s Bakery if her sister had bought it for her. It was harder to accept Jason’s generosity.

But her stomach’s call for sustenance trumped her misgivings over the significance of Jason’s gesture. Something buttery and sweet from that pink bakery box would be absolute heaven.

“Jason.”

He looked up at her, setting aside the scissors and flexing his hands. “Ten more to do in brown and orange.”

“I’d be glad to finish them if you’ll go get the pastries.”

The tiny chair tipped over as he rose, and he righted it before straightening. He winced as he stretched his shoulders back.

Ashley pushed to her feet. “I’m sorry. I never should have had you sit in that chair.”

He squeezed the back of his neck with his long fingers. “Just a little stiff.”

“Come sit here.” She gestured to her cushioned desk chair. “I’ll get the kinks out for you.”

Dropping his hand, he took a half step back. “No.”

She should let it go. He was always tense, and the occasional neck rubs she’d given him at Berkeley had never made much of a difference. It was something she’d always done for Sara, to ease some of her sister’s stress. When she’d massaged Jason’s tight muscles at the end of a long day at the university, it had been just as innocent.

Until that fiery night in his arms. Now nothing between them seemed innocent anymore.

Despite her better judgment, she pulled her wheeled chair out and beckoned him. “Come here.”

He moved toward her with slow steps and settled in the chair. Resting her hands on his shoulders, she ran her thumbs along the tense muscles there. His heat radiated through the knit of his shirt.

Her heart rate kicked into high gear as she worked her fingers toward the strong column of his neck. He sucked in a breath when she first touched bare skin. “Are my hands cold?”

He shook his head. Trying to ignore the sensual awareness that sparked deep inside her, she dug deep with her fingertips on either side of his neck. The tautness of his muscles persisted against her ministrations, as if he resisted even the slightest bit of comfort she offered. Back at school she could usually cajole him into a modicum of relaxation with her gentle massages. Today she suspected nothing would persuade him to let go.

Except a kiss. A shock went through her at the thought of pressing her lips to the side of his neck, feeling the warm flesh against her mouth. She wondered at his reaction, whether he’d push her away or turn the chair to pull her into his lap.

She realized her deep massage had changed, that she’d begun stroking his neck instead, grazing his skin in sensual caresses. She could hear his harsh breathing, feel arousal coiling under her hands. It crossed her mind she should pull her hands away, cease touching him. But the sensation of skin against skin had her mesmerized.

His hands fell on hers, stopping her. His shoulders rose and fell, his muscles, if anything, tighter than when she’d started. Then he pulled away, pushing the chair aside, facing her.

His fingers curved around her upper arms, and he held her there, not pulling her closer but not pushing her away, either. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and the expectation that he might kiss her sent a fever through her.