There was a pretty redheaded woman on the porch with Nikkie Jean when he pulled in. He climbed out of the truck as the woman started toward her little economy car.
Nikkie Jean watched him warily from the front step.
Her hair was down. Long and honey-streaked and stick straight. Pure silk. If he wanted to be idiotic about her, he would say it was pure silk.
The pajamas had llamas on them. Nikkie Jean apparently got joy out of things designed for children. The simple things in life.
How he envied her that ability.
He’d lain awake all night trying to figure out how to make all of this work so that all four of the children got what they needed, Nikkie Jean got what she needed and wanted—and Caine got what he wanted.
He wanted this woman in his life, in his arms, and in his bed.
It had all boiled down to just that.
He wanted Nikkie Jean. Now he had to convince her that she wanted him, too. “Hey. How did you sleep last night? Are you ill this morning? Have you eaten?”
She just stared at him. “Poorly. A little. Not yet.”
“I brought breakfast. Uncle Henry made omelets for the kids. I had him pack some up for me—and you. And bacon. Do you think they’ll stay down?” Did she even like bacon? What he didn’t know about her was far more prevalent than what he did.
It was an uphill battle he faced.
“I suppose I could eat. Just what are you doing here today? Shouldn’t you be spending today with your kids?”
“They think I’m at work. I want to spend the morning with you.”
“You really think that’s a good idea? I might lure you to your doom.”
“Lure away.” He hopped up on her porch and started into her little house. “I am a willing victim.”
“Sure, you are. You’re just trying to make the most of this new situation. You’re adaptable. Dragons usually are.”
“You know many dragons?”
“More than my fair share.” She eyed the containers in his hand hungrily. “You know, seducing me with food is extremely lame, right?”
“But is it working?” Caine had had one purpose when he’d asked his uncle to make an extra few helpings. Taking care of Nikkie Jean.
April had gotten so pissed whenever he’d even tried to show care and concern for her with the twins. And she’d already left him after she’d told him she was pregnant with Dalton.
He’d never gotten much chance to pamper a pregnant woman.
He had no clue how to do it.
“It’s a good start. A small one…but Jelly Bean is hungry. So hand it over. I’ll decide what to do with you after that.”
“I can think of a few things.”
But now wasn’t the time for that.
She put a white envelope on the table between them, then eyed it like it was a snake. She picked it back up and tossed it on the kitchen counter.
“Bad news?” he asked quietly. She’d drawn into herself and shut him out the instant her focus had shifted to the letter.
“Family drama that I’m not about to get into. Ever. With anyone. So why are you here? I think we can print shared-custody papers off the internet.”
He shot her a look. “There isn’t going to be a need to worry about that. We’ll figure out what to do with the baby in a way that works out for both of us later. Right now…we need to figure out each other first.”
“What is there to figure out. I’m pretty self-explanatory. I eat, I sleep, I work, and I am fully housebroken. I’m rather uncomplicated.”
“Sure, you are. Eat. You need about three hundred more calories than you usually eat for optimal fetal development.”
“Aye-aye, captain. Does anyone ever mutiny there on the SS Barratt County?”
“All the time.”
There was a hot doctor who really knew how to work with his hands fixing her front porch step, while stripped down to the waist in the hot July Texas sun.
Nikkie Jean was having a hard time not drooling like a beagle over an ice cream cone in August.
The man was a Roman god of perfection right there on her porch.
Good thing she hadn’t seen that much skin on him in the full light the night they’d made Jelly Bean—or she would never have ever let the man leave her bed.
Sexual hang-ups or not.
Wow.
If Rafe looked even half as good, no wonder Jillian had captured him as soon as she could.
She definitely needed something to distract herself from him. Before she did something stupid; like go out there and taste him right there in the middle of his chest.
Caine didn’t have a lot of chest hair. He just had a bunch of glistening muscles that she wanted to touch. Again and again.
If fire ants weren’t a problem, she’d just go out there and…
Nikkie Jean reined herself in. Quickly.
It was official. Caine had moved from the category of generic male doctors to be avoided to extremely hot man she wanted.
She didn’t know whether she should be happy to be having healthy lustful thoughts for a man—doctor or not—or appalled because he alone had the power to rock her entire world now.
Still, it was three million degrees outside. The man had to be hot.
She should at least offer him something to drink.
Her hand landed on the white envelope from her father.
Just like that, ever healthy thought she’d been having about one male doctor shifted into stress and pain over another.
What on earth did he possibly think he had to say to her now?
Nikkie Jean ripped open the letter before she let herself be afraid of it any longer.
There are no excuses for what I did, nor for what I did not do when you were a child. Or when you were ill and hurting…
She read the rest of the cryptic note in disbelief.
An apology. That’s all it was. A simple apology and a request to be able to talk with her again.
When he returned to Finley Creek.
He would be staying in Finley Creek for the foreseeable future in order to oversee the purchase of Finley Creek General and Barratt County General hospitals by the corporation he had formed with her brother three years after she’d left.
Her father was going to be the new owner of her hospital. And Caine’s.
And because of the baby and Caine’s right to be a part of that baby’s life, Nikkie Jean couldn’t do the one thing that she most wanted to do.
Run.
Run far from Finley Creek and the nonfather she had never wanted to see again.
But she just couldn’t do that now.
As Caine came back inside and told her he had to be going to take his daughter to a birthday party in town, all she could think about was how she just couldn’t face any of this right now.
Nikkie Jean shut down the instant Caine had left.
She just couldn’t deal with anything other than the baby right now. She just couldn’t.
43
REECE DETERRO WAS the head of pediatrics for Finley Creek County General. He was also well acquainted with the younger of the two men across from his desk. “How can I help you out, Ten?”
“We need information on some of your staff,” Ten Laughlin said. “We’ve come across some inconsistencies in some records at one of the hospitals some of your physicians have been affiliated with. We need to do some comparisons.”
Ten had already shared his new career information with Reece. It hadn’t exactly surprised him.
What Ten had been through had been pretty low on the part of a man Ten had thought he could trust. “Anything. You know my records are an open book—with a warrant. And nothing against HIPAA.”
“We thought you’d say that.” Ten’s older brother Thor whipped out a document and handed it to Reece. “Here’s the warrant. And exactly what we are needing.”
“I’ll have my assistant get this together.”
The three men listed on that warrant would have some serious expl
aining to do.
Billing fraud in this industry was taken very, very seriously.
And with good reason.
Sixty billion dollars a year was estimated to go to fraudulent practices within the medical industry. That wasn’t something to sneeze at.
44
THE MESSAGE FROM Dr. Priario, chief of medicine of Finley Creek County, came at the worst possible time. Wallace wasn’t prepared to respond.
Sweat beaded on his brow as he looked at the memo. Someone wanted to speak with him regarding billing practices for his department—at Finley Creek County Gen.
County was his safe zone.
He had only padded the accounts there a few times. It wasn’t worth it, otherwise. Most of the County patients were there as lower-income patients. Overbilling them wouldn’t result in much of anything. And it would just jeopardize his position. Federal insurance programs paid special attention to charges. They didn’t like to pay out even a penny more than they had to.
He’d always been careful with patients’ records. He’d known carelessness was stupid. If he brought attention his way through HIPAA violations investigations, everything else would come to light. He couldn’t let that happen.
No. The few times he’d overbilled the federal or state programs through County, it had made him so sick with worry for days after he’d finally decided not to do it at all.
The staff room door opened, and Nikkie Jean hobbled in. “What are you doing here, honey? You should still be at home resting.”
“I’ve been resting for two days, Dr. Henedy. I’m not doing anyone any good driving myself crazy. At least here I can go over files for Rafe. He’s asked me to help with the audit for the years before I was here.”
“Can he do that?” Of course he could. He was the COM. He could do just about anything he wanted.
But Nikkie Jean—Nikkie Jean was as sharp as her father had always been. Far smarter than Wallace was; Jordan had put him to shame in every class. If there was something Wallace had missed, Nikkie Jean could very well find it.
“He’s Rafe; do you think anything will stop him?”
“No. Probably not. Dr. Alvaro at Barratt County is the same way.” The girl jolted.
Wallace reached out to right her on the crutches a little better. “How long are you on the crutches?”
“Two more days. I have plans for next Saturday. I will not be wobbling my way around then.” A rush of determination went through her eyes.
Sometimes, it was hard to look at her eyes.
He was lusting after Jordan Carrington’s daughter, after all.
He’d gotten an email from Carrington that morning. Well, it had been a forward from a friend of theirs in Wyoming.
Jordan Carrington’s daughter had been missing for thirteen years. Now she’d been found. In Texas.
Nikkie Jean Netorre was most definitely Dannica Carrington.
“Don’t you have some family you want to visit for a few days? Take it easy? Rest?”
She was such a little thing. Her mother had been, too. Her father wasn’t overly tall, Wallace had about two or three inches on him, but Nikkie Jean’s mother had been small.
They’d had an affair when Nikkie Jean had been two.
Darla had brought Nikkie Jean with her once. She’d slept in Reggie’s bed while her mother and Wallace had…entertained one another. He had never forgotten that day.
She had been the only woman he had ever been involved with who had ever had children. Her body had shown the signs. Not something he’d found attractive. They hadn’t been together again after that day.
He’d wanted excitement—not someone’s mother. He’d told Darla that very bluntly.
Nikkie Jean was most definitely Jordan’s daughter—she favored him more than she did her mother—but Jordan had known how unfaithful his wife had been.
No doubt that had greatly hurt him.
It was one reason Wallace was careful not to let Jennifer know about his own indiscretions.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Jennifer.
“I would rather be working. Even if that means reading over printouts from the last ten years. I really hope Rafe remembers I need the big letters on my homework.”
“That’s right, you do. Well, good luck to you. I’m going to escape before I’m roped into helping with this herculean task he’s assigned you. Have a good evening. And make certain someone escorts you out tonight. It may still be light out there, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe.”
“Have a good night.”
“I…wouldn’t mind staying for coffee, if you want company.” And then he would pick her brain to find out exactly what it was Dr. Holden-Deane had assigned her to find. Because there was a reason she had been asked. There had to be.
“I’m good, but thanks. You’d better escape while you can.”
45
CAINE WOKE THE SATURDAY after he’d fixed Nikkie Jean’s front steps more than determined.
He had plans.
Everett had a traveling baseball game in Finley Creek. Caine arranged for his son to go home with a teammate, and then contacted Keller’s friend’s mother.
It was easy enough to arrange a playdate with Marly Hiller, the mayor’s eight-year-old daughter. Keller did better in one-on-one situations with other girls; playdates were his best solution.
He dropped her off at Marly’s, then drove his sons to the Finley Creek athletic park.
He had intended to leave Dalton with Henry, but Henry had mentioned having a date with the man who ran the local auto repair shop. Caine wasn’t about to impose on his uncle today. Henry so rarely had time to himself any more. Not since school had let out for the summer.
After Everett’s game, Caine was going hunting.
Nikkie Jean was playing elusive now. Running from him before he could hurt her. He was starting to figure out exactly how that woman operated.
Her hurt was going to be his biggest obstacle. Her fear.
Something in that letter she’d read the other day had compounded that hurt and fear to the point where he’d known that anything he said or did would just make her hurt worse—or be missed while she internalized whatever it was she had been feeling.
He’d given her her space, when that had been the absolute last thing he’d ever wanted.
Everett was quiet on the drive until they were halfway there. “What’s the matter, Daddy?”
“Just thinking about daddy things. Why?”
“You keep looking at us, especially Dalton. Like we’ve done something to get in trouble. But he’s too little to get into trouble.”
“Nobody’s in trouble.” And he had been looking at the boys. Wondering what another brother or sister would do to their world. Dalton would probably never remember any difference, but his elder two would. They were old enough to be angry and resentful at such a life change again. That wasn’t something he could just overlook, and hope would resolve itself for the best. “I’m just thinking.”
“About what?” Sometimes his son didn’t understand there were things he didn’t need to know about. And he pushed. Insatiable curiosity, that’s what Henry called it. Said Caine had been the exact same way at that age.
“A friend of mine. She’s going to have a baby. And I’m worried about her.” And just how to get her where he wanted her. A rush of anticipation went through him; Caine was a primitive caveman at heart.
Hunting his female was bound to get him…wired. Ready.
Impatient.
“Is she sick? Like Mommy was? Dalton made her really sick before she went away.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” All he’d get back in return for his morning and afternoon phone-call attempts over the last five days had been the same damned two-word text each day:
Baby’s fine.
That was it.
As if the baby was all he cared about. His fault for giving her that impression.
He had no idea what to do to change it. “Would it bother you if
she brought the baby over sometimes? Well, a lot, actually.” Like every night after she left the hospital. Finley Creek Gen had a day care within the building. Barratt County didn’t.
She could take Dalton and the baby to the day care every day with her, and he’d drop Keller and Everett off at the school on his way in the opposite direction. Henry could pick the twins up at dismissal.
That would give Henry a break during the day, too.
Or they’d hire a full-time nanny to help with the younger two during the day. There was an apartment in the back barn. With some remodeling it would work for a young, college-aged, live-in nanny. Or an older woman who had downsized. But he suspected Nikkie Jean would want the younger two where she could check on them during the day.
“Why would she? Is she your girlfriend? Uncle Henry thinks you need one.”
“Does he?” The man was the only relative he had on his father’s side that he wanted anything to do with. Henry was his father’s younger brother, and had retired from the Houston Children’s Library about the time that April had died. He was about the only one Caine had ever trusted with the children fully. Henry had been a godsend when the baby had been born. “And she’s not my girlfriend; not exactly, at least not yet. She might be soon. I want her to be.”
If he had his way, she would be.
She was the mother of his fourth child. But he wasn’t quite ready to tell the children that yet. It had been five days since she’d basically asked him to leave her home. Told him that she needed time to think about what she wanted now.
He’d vowed after April that he would never be involved with another woman until well after Dalton had graduated high school. He didn’t want his children caught between him and a stepmother. That wouldn’t be fair to them. But he doubted Nikkie Jean would ever do anything to hurt his children. Of that, he was certain. No; she’d adore them. And they’d grow to adore her.
No. It was him she terrified. His world she had the power to destroy. All she had to do was tell him he wasn’t the kind of man she wanted in her arms again.
Lost in the Wind Page 16