Burke, the Kingpin (The Shamrock Trinity)

by Fayrene Preston

  Cara remained quiet.

  Smiling kindly, Bridget patted Cara’s hand. “You’ll figure it out, won’t you, lass? I know you will.” She stood and bustled off, leaving Cara to ponder their conversation.

  She had never thought of herself as a coward, merely as practical. But in the last few weeks she had come back to Killara, met Burke and become his lover, found the letters her father had never had the courage to mail to her, and seen two very different people, Cougar and Bridget, come together. Too much change, too fast, had left Cara with too many questions. She felt as though her head were spinning.

  * * *

  Burke’s work in Tucson didn’t leave much time for him and Cara to be together. Even though she missed him, she understood. And it gave her a chance to get back to a part of her own life that was very dear to her.

  On Friday morning, the day before York and Rafe were to fly in, Cara tiptoed into Burke’s office.

  Located in one large corner of Delaney Tower on the nineteenth floor, the office was decorated in Southwestern decor, as was his penthouse apartment one floor above. Both were done in colors of the desert and mountains—sand, taupe, rose, and mauve. The sofas and chairs were plush and rounded, with no harsh angles. Plants and cactus abounded among well-lighted pieces of art, many of which seemed sculptured by nature. The office was contemporary and sophisticated, with a touch of the primitive, she thought, like the man sitting behind the desk.

  Cara smiled as she approached the massive desk that was set at an angle against two walls of windows. Burke was deep in thought as he studied some papers in front of him. “Am I disturbing you?”

  Looking up, he saw her, and his frown of concentration disappeared. “Not at all! I thought you’d sleep much later, so I deliberately didn’t wake you.”

  “I can’t imagine why you thought I would need extra sleep.”

  He laughed. “It couldn’t be, could it, that you burn the candle at both ends?”

  “You seem to be awake all the hours I am.” She flashed him a saucy grin and perched on the side of the desk. The calf-length white lace skirt she had put on this morning fanned from her thigh to the floor in an exotic semicircle. Her freshly brushed silver-blond hair flowed over the shoulders of an oversize cream-colored cotton knit sweater. A beige leather belt lay flat across her stomach, and one beige-booted foot rested on the floor, while the other, inches off the floor, swung back and forth.

  Burke pushed back from his desk, got up, and went to her. “That’s because I’m afraid I might miss something.”

  “Ah, well, I suppose that explains it.”

  He pulled her off the desk and into his arms. “Explains what?”

  “Anything you want it to.”

  He bent his head and kissed her, and she responded to him as though she had been doing it all her life.

  “How come,” he asked with a husky catch in his throat, “you look so beautiful in the morning?” His mouth went to the side of her neck. “And at noon?” His lips traveled to the hollow at the center of her throat. “And at night?”

  She swayed into him. “I don’t know.”

  His mouth found the perfumed pulse point behind her ear and began nibbling. “It was very hard for me to concentrate on business this morning, when I could picture you just one floor above me, still in bed, all golden and soft and sweet.”

  She gave a little laugh. “So why didn’t you come and wake me up?”

  “That’s a good question. What do you have on underneath this sweater?”

  “That’s also a good question. Why don’t you find out?”

  “Because if I did, I wouldn’t stop there.” He reluctantly pulled away. “Do you have to be so uninhibited?”

  “I thought men liked their women to be uninhibited.”

  “Only when they don’t have work to do. I have a board meeting to preside over in the morning, and believe me, it’s hard enough to get my brothers into town for a business meeting as it is. I have to have everything ready for them.”

  She smiled. “Oh, well, since you’ve explained it so charmingly, then okay, I’ll leave.”

  “Not so fast.” He hated letting her go. He drew her back to him for another quick hungry kiss. “What are you going to do today?”

  She danced out of his arms. “Lots of things!”

  “Should I be jealous?” He had intended to ask the question teasingly, but somehow it had come out menacingly.

  She burst out laughing. “Absolutely!”

  “Well, will you at least come back and have lunch with me?” he asked on a plaintive note.

  She was already at the door before she turned and waved. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can. Bye.”

  Burke stared at the closed door for a minute, smiling a bit ruefully. Then he shook his head and went back to work.

  * * *

  By late afternoon Burke’s indulgent good humor had vanished. Cara had never been away from him for a whole day before, and he had missed her like hell. He wanted her back with him. Now. Where could she be anyway? His phone rang and he reached for it. “Hello?’

  A female voice asked, “May I speak to Miss Winston please? Miss Cara Winston.”

  Burke frowned at the phone. To his knowledge Cara had received no phone calls and no mail since she had been in Arizona. “She’s not here at the moment. May I ask who’s calling?”

  “This is Dr. Cooper’s office at Tucson Medical Center. Could you ask her to call us as soon as you can?”

  “May I ask what this is in reference to?”

  “Just tell her that it concerns the test results she was anxious to hear about. Thank you.”

  The line went dead. Burke slowly lowered the receiver, and a knot began tightening in his stomach.

  Why was a doctor’s office calling Cara? Was she sick? No, no. He dismissed the idea. He would certainly know it if she had been ill. A picture of her as she had been this morning rose in his mind. She had been radiant and vital, gaily waving good-bye to him and skipping out the door.

  He got up from his desk and strode to the window. The view from his windows encompassed miles, but he saw none of it. Instead his mind was racing busily. The woman had mentioned test results. What test results?

  All of a sudden a pain pierced his heart so fiercely that his hand actually went to his chest. My God! Could she be pregnant?

  He tried to think. It was true that they had been lovers for only two weeks, but it seemed to him that he had heard somewhere that there was a blood test that could detect pregnancy within seventy-two hours of conception.

  Had something happened to make her believe she might be pregnant? Fool! he cursed himself. Why wouldn’t she think she was pregnant? She hadn’t been on the Pill when they had started making love. She had been a virgin, for God’s sake! And they had been isolated on the ranch for most of the time since. There had been no opportunity for her to see a doctor about contraception.

  He, on the other hand, had thought to use protection, but only after that first night. And, he reminded himself grimly, there were a few other times, like the night when they had made love on the lawn, when his desire for her had swept him away and using a contraceptive had dropped to the very bottom on his list of priorities.

  He had been so singleminded about his love for her and his hope that she would come to love him, he had forgotten all about the possibility of Cara’s becoming pregnant.

  Suddenly he grew still, and his spine turned to ice. Was that really the truth? His hands gripped the back of his leather chair. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the truth was he hadn’t overlooked the possibility. After all, before Cara had come into his life, he had always gone to great lengths to make sure that the women he slept with would not become pregnant. He had fallen passionately in love with Cara, but he hadn’t lost all his reason.

  Maybe deep down something had told him that the only way he was ever going to hold Cara was to get her pregnant. He didn’t like to think he would do that, but it was making more and more sense to
him. Why else would he have neglected to be more careful?

  Damn! He picked up a marble paperweight and threw it across the room. It hit the opposite wall with a crash that brought both his secretary and a security guard running in.

  He took a deep, steadying breath and held up his hand. “I’m all right.” To his secretary he said “I’m going up to the apartment, but I don’t want to be disturbed unless it’s an emergency.”

  * * *

  With her arms filled with packages Cara opened the door of the apartment and entered the darkened living room. “Burke,” she called. “Burke, are you here?”

  He reached over and switched on the light beside his chair.

  “Oh, good, you are here. I was afraid you’d still be in the office. Wait until you see what I’ve bought!” She tossed her packages onto a sofa, but retained one.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Can’t you tell?” she asked with a teasing lilt to her voice. “I found some of the greatest shops in the Foothills Mall. I’m sure the sales personnel there will be talking about my shopping trip for years to come.” She pulled out a diaphanous bit of lingerie and looked at it perplexed. “No, that’s not it.” She flung it aside and reached for another bag.

  “That’s not what?” he asked, barely able to restrain his impatience. There was so much he needed to find out from her. The wait for her return had seemed interminable.

  “What I want to show you.” She glanced at the lace blouse in her hand, then tossed it on a chair. “That’s not it either.”

  “It can wait, Cara.”

  “But it’s for you!” She delved into another bag. “I bought you a shirt. The stripe on it is the exact color of your eyes, and I can’t wait to see it on you.”

  “Later!”

  She had never heard him raise his voice, and it brought her head around with a snap. “Good heavens, Burke! What’s wrong?”

  “Where have you been?”

  She stared at him in bewilderment. “I told you. I’ve been shopping. I’m sorry if I’m late, but I deliberately stayed away all day so that you could get some work done.”

  “Where else did you go?”

  She shrugged. “No place special.”

  “Cara!” Her name was shouted with such suppressed violence that she actually took a step away from him. “Why don’t you want me to know that you were at the hospital today?”

  “The hospital.” She paled. “How did you find out?”

  “Someone from Dr. Cooper’s office called and left a message for you.”

  “What was the message?”

  “For you to call.” His words were bitten out. “It seems the test results you were so anxious about are in.”

  “I see.” She sat down and eyed him speculatively.

  “I want an explanation, Cara.”

  “About what?”

  “Dammit! Don’t do this to me! To us.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know why you’re so upset, Burke. You’ve obviously gotten the wrong idea about something, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  The question hit her like a blow. “Pregnant! Is that what all this is about? You’re afraid that I’m pregnant?”

  “Are you?”

  “How should I know?” She jumped up and strode angrily to the other side of the room.

  “Then why did you go to the hospital today?”

  She whirled toward him. “That is my business and no one else’s.”

  “Cara”—he raked his hand through his hair—“you don’t understand. I was so afraid—”

  “Afraid? Afraid that I was trying to trap the great Burke Delaney with a baby? Now that I think about it, I’m surprised you haven’t had me sign some sort of paper, stating that no matter how many times we have made love or will make love, you will not be responsible for any offspring.”

  He grabbed her by the arms. “I would gladly and willingly take the responsibility for any baby of mine. The question is, would you do the same?”

  It felt as though his words had sliced into her flesh. Her voice faltered. “What kind of question is that?”

  “A reasonable one!”

  “There’s not one damn thing reasonable about any part of this conversation, Burke!”

  He suddenly became aware of how tightly his fingers were pressing into the flesh of her upper arms. He released her. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” His grip hadn’t hurt, but she rubbed her arm anyway. A reflex. “I think you owe me an explanation, Burke.”

  “You’re right.” He ran his hand around the back of his neck. “Sit down.” She hesitated. “Please?” She complied. “You deserve to hear this, and maybe after you do, you’ll understand a little bit better why I was”—he shrugged—“afraid. There’s no other word for what I’ve been feeling this afternoon.” His jaw clenched as he pulled his thoughts together. “Have you ever heard anyone mention a girl named Elise?”

  “Yes. Bridget mentioned her name once.”

  He nodded. “We met when we were in college. I was twenty and she was nineteen. We were very young, and as it turned out, very foolish.”

  Now that she had calmed down, she could hear the pain in his voice, and she recognized that right from the start, that same pain had been underneath his anger and his accusations. “Why do you say that?”

  “Elise became pregnant. I was ecstatic and she told me she was too. I wanted to make immediate plans to be married, but she kept stalling, making excuses. What I didn’t know was that she was making plans of her own, plans she couldn’t face me with. She had decided she couldn’t handle the responsibility of a baby—or of marriage to me. One weekend, without telling me, she and one of her girlfriends drove across the border to Nogales. Back then Nogales had brujas—witches—who ran thriving, if unsanitary, abortion clinics.”

  “Oh, no!”

  He flashed her a mirthless grin. “If only she had trusted me enough to tell me what was going through her mind, I would have done everything in my power to talk her out of it, but in the end, I would have helped her. It would have killed me, but somehow, some way, I would have found her someone safe to perform the abortion, even if I had had to fly an American doctor into Mexico to do it. Or at least I would like to think I would have. One thing is for certain, I would never have allowed her to go to a bruja.” He shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t love me after all. I don’t know. But I’ll never forget that weekend. Her girlfriend called from Nogales, hysterical.”

  Cara remained silent, knowing there was more to come and knowing he had to tell her.

  “I arrived in time for Elise to die in my arms. The accusing look on her face will haunt me forever.”

  “But it shouldn’t! What she did wasn’t your fault.”

  He shrugged.

  Suddenly she gasped. “Is that what you were afraid of? That if I found out I was pregnant, I might abort the baby? You don’t just jump to conclusions, do you, Burke? You take a flying leap!”

  “Cara, you’ve created a lifestyle that enables you to remain free from any sort of entanglements.”

  Her eyebrows drew together in bewilderment. “Any sort of— The baby! You thought I would get rid of a baby growing inside of me because it might tie me down?”

  “Cara.” He reached for her, but she drew back.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  He winced at the impact of her cry. “I’m sorry.” He swiveled away and thrust his hands in his pockets. “I had no right to accuse you. No matter what has happened in my past, I shouldn’t have accused you.” His voice was quiet, and his broad shoulders slumped.

  Cara’s throat tightened with pain, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of his pain or hers. Certainly his experience with Elise, and then most recently, the paternity suit, made it understandable that he would be sensitive about the possibility of a woman being pregnant with his baby. And she certainly qualified in that category, she thought without hum
or. Then Dr. Cooper’s office had called and left a message for her concerning test results. The idea of what he must have gone through since the call gradually defused her anger.

  “Burke?” He slowly turned toward her, his body stiff, every muscle drawn taut. “It’s all right,” she said softly, but firmly.

  “No, it isn’t. It was a dumb, stupid thing for me to do, flying off the handle like that, jumping to the conclusion that you were pregnant. I have only one excuse.”

  “I know. Elise, and then with the paternity suit, the issue of a woman being pregnant with your baby was fresh in your mind.”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “Then what?”

  “I love you, Cara, almost to the point of madness, and you might as well know it.”

  She stared at him, not sure she had heard right.

  His mouth twisted into a crooked grin. “You didn’t expect that, did you?”

  She felt as if the floor had just been snatched from under her. “N-no.”

  “Love is always unexpected.” he said gently. “I’m hoping you’ll find out soon.”

  Her hand swept through her hair in agitation, and she could feel herself tensing. It had been her experience that with love came hurt.

  Perhaps Burke could see her thoughts mirrored in her eyes, because he said, “We’re not going to have any big discussion about this tonight. I don’t want to frighten you, and I’m going to give you plenty of time to accept the idea. But, Cara, I want you to know that my love is not going to change. It’s something you’ll be able to count on your whole life. All you have to do is reach out and take it.”

  Cara looked down at her hands and discovered them clasped tightly together. She forced herself to relax them. “I’d like to tell you what I was doing at the hospital today.” she said slowly.

  “You don’t have to. You were right. It’s none of my business.”

  “No. I want you to know. Come sit down with me.” She waited until they both had sat down. “I’ve already told you that my various stepfathers bestowed an awful lot of money on me. An obscene amount really, especially when you consider I did nothing to earn it. At any rate, early on I decided I wanted to do something special with it, something other than just donate to medical research, which I do on a routine basis. So I had my lawyers in London set up a trust to fulfill critically and terminally ill children’s wishes.