The Paternity Proposition

by Merline Lovelace

  “So where does that leave us?” Alex worked off his frustration by pacing the office. “Can we take her to court and force her to provide a sample?”

  “Not without more justification. We would need hospital records, statements from witnesses that she was pregnant, some hard facts to support the petition for a court order.”

  Alex had expected the answer. Blake was precise and deliberate by nature, and the framed law degree hanging on the wall behind his desk had only exacerbated his tendency to examine any and all sides of an issue before jumping on it.

  He’d been that way even as a kid. Alex would hurtle himself head first at every challenge, whether it was a new toy or a kite caught in a tree or a schoolyard bully. His twin would hold back and assess the situation, although Blake would always wade in whenever necessary—usually after Alex’s nose had been bloodied or he’d shimmied up a tree and couldn’t get down. The present situation, he thought grimly, had too many parallels for comfort.

  “I should have just invited her to lunch,” he said in disgust. “I could have picked up her fork or glass or napkin and strolled off with it.”

  “You could have,” Blake agreed mildly. “None of which would have helped us in court. For a paternity suit, or in this case, a maternity suit, the sample has to be taken under controlled conditions.”

  “But at least we would know.”

  “Maybe. I’ve done some digging into DNA testing. There was a case in Virginia a few years ago. The principals battled it out in court for two years despite the fact that the DNA test showed an almost hundred percent probability the defendant was, in fact, the father.”

  “Yeah, we know about those probabilities.”

  “The judge finally ruled against the claimant when it came out that the DNA lab employed a total of five people processing more than a hundred thousand paternity tests a year, with one supervisor certifying the results every four minutes. The margin for error was too wide for absolute certainty.”

  Alex stopped his restless pacing and faced his brother. An outsider probably couldn’t have told them apart. They were both six-two, blue-eyed, and built on exactly the same lines. But the differences were there and readily apparent to anyone who knew them well. Blake’s hair was a darker gold and parted on the left. Alex sported a scar on his chin from a close encounter with a fence post as a kid.

  They had that unique twin ability to almost read each other’s thoughts, though, and Alex didn’t particularly care for the vibe he was receiving at the moment.

  “So you’re saying Molly may not be ours?”

  The possibility carved an unexpected hole in his heart. He’d had two weeks to get used to the idea of being a father. Or uncle. Either way, the idea that neither he nor Blake might have a claim on the baby left a hollow feeling inside him.

  “I’m saying it might not hurt to run another test,” Blake was saying. “Especially considering who arranged for the first.”

  “You’re right.” Alex huffed out an exasperated breath. “I wouldn’t put it past our dear, sweet mother to have sent in baby hair from one of us instead of from Molly.”

  “Me, either.” Laughter lightened Blake’s somber expression. “How many prospective brides has she thrown at you in the past six months?”

  “Eight. You?”

  “Five.”

  Now they had a whole new set of issues to work. With his characteristic decisiveness, Alex wanted the matter of Molly’s parentage settled. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. First, we’ll have another test run to confirm Molly is ours. Second, we convince Ms. Bartlett to submit a DNA sample. If it turns out she’s not Molly’s mother, we go back and…”

  The buzz of the intercom cut him off. Irritated, Alex scowled when his brother reached for the phone.

  “I told your secretary not to interrupt us.”

  “She’s not a secretary,” Blake corrected in his precise way. “She’s my executive assistant.”

  As much as Alex loved his twin, there were times he itched to stick a firecracker down his shirt collar and light the fuse. This was one of them.

  “Just tell her… Oh, crap!”

  He couldn’t suppress a groan as the office door flew open and their mother sailed in. With her megawatt personality, waist-length raven hair showing only a trace of silver, and fingers flashing their usual ten or twelve carats worth of diamonds, Delilah Dalton tended to put a stone-cold finish to conversation whenever she made one of her flamboyant entrances.

  The diamonds were absent today. She’d removed them two weeks ago to avoid scratching the tender skin of the infant now cradled to her chest. Instead, her tall, spare figure was encased in black leggings and a print tunic sprouting a profusion of leafy geraniums in eye-popping pink. The sling snuggling the baby against her chest was made of the same wild print.

  “Well?” she demanded as she swept in. “How did it go with the Bartlett woman?”

  Alex parried her imperious demand with one of his own. “Where did you get that outfit?”

  “An on-line shop called Baby Glam and Mama, Too.” Preening, she patted the baby’s back. “It’s got the most delicious inventory. I’m thinking of ordering matching leopard-skin tights and headbands for Molly and me.”

  Alex and Blake shared a quick glance. They knew their mother. Once she latched on to something, she didn’t let go. If she’d decided Molly was really her granddaughter…

  Aw, hell! Who were they kidding? Alex and Blake had latched on to that same possibility two weeks ago. Even if subsequent tests proved otherwise, the baby was now permanently etched on both their hearts.

  That much was obvious when Blake rounded his desk and approached their mom. Smiling, he gazed down at the sleeping infant. His fatuous expression must have mirrored Alex’s because their mother could hardly conceal her glee as she glanced from one son to the other.

  “Tell me,” she demanded of Alex. “What did the Bartlett woman say?”

  “Her name’s Julie,” he reminded her.

  “Whatever.” She flapped an impatient hand. “Did she admit to being Molly’s mother?”

  “No.”

  “Well, we’ll soon discover the truth of that! When is she going in to supply a DNA sample?”

  “She’s not.”

  “What?”

  Delilah’s small shriek startled the baby. Molly’s head popped up. She blinked and looked right, left, then right again. Driven by an instinct as nervous as it was protective, Alex reached for the child.

  “Here, let me take her.”

  Delilah unhooked the sling and let him extract the baby. When she saw his smile as he cradled Molly in his arms, she had to bite back an exultant whoop.

  She couldn’t have scripted this scenario any better! She was ready. More than ready. All those long, hard years hopping around oil fields and even harder years expanding Dalton International to its present level of operations had taken their toll. Delilah wanted to kick back. Enjoy the wealth those grueling years had generated. Lavish all her loving energy on her tall, handsome, annoyingly independent sons. On the baby Alex now cradled in his arms.

  “Tell me,” she ordered again. “What did Bartlett say? Is she the mother or isn’t she?”

  “I don’t know.” Frowning, he brushed a knuckle over Molly’s cheek. “I would have said no based on her initial reaction. But when I asked for a DNA sample, she got all huffy and hot-tempered.”

  “Ha! There you go! Refusing that simple request proves the woman’s got something to hide. Did you tell her our primary goal is to ascertain Molly’s parentage so we can do a medical history?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  His knuckle made another tender sweep over the baby’s cheek. The sight would have filled Delilah with untrammeled glee if not for his grim expression.

  “I also offered to pay for a sample,” he related. “That seemed to set her back up.”

  “Then you didn’t offer enough.” The hard-headed businesswoman took precedence over Delilah’s rampaging
motherly/grandmotherly instincts. “Everyone’s got a price. You just haven’t found hers yet.”

  Alex knew she was right. He and Blake had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their mother as she’d faced down competitors who made the mistake of thinking they could prey on their father’s amiable good nature to cut into the Daltons’ growing empire. Delilah had taught her sons to move in, take over, and leave no prisoners behind. As a result Dalton International had gobbled up their competition over the years, including any number of small, two-bit ventures like Agro-Air.

  Their mother zoomed in on that like a crow diving on roadkill. “Did you check out this company she works for?”

  “Of course,” Blake answered. “We ran a complete financial analysis before Alex drove out to the Panhandle.”

  “And?”

  “Agro-Air is operating on a shoestring. The old timer who founded it…”

  “Careful!”

  “The, er, individual who founded it is a throwback by the name of Josiah Jones.”

  “Josiah Jones!” Delilah looked as though the floor had just rolled under her feet. “Aka Dusty Jones?”

  Alex settled the baby against his shoulder and shared a look with his twin. He couldn’t remember the last time either of them had seen their mother’s set back on her heels.

  “I think…” Alex said slowly. “No, I’m sure Julie mentioned that was one of her partners.”

  “Oh, Lord!”

  The two brothers locked gazes again. What the heck was this all about?

  “You want to tell us how you know this Dusty character?” Alex asked.

  The question seemed to shake her out of a trance. “We locked horns decades ago. Damned if I can remember why. But I do remember that bowlegged bastard could fly his rickety ole biplane like nobody’s business.”

  “He’s progressed from biplanes to single-wing PA-36’s.” A tight smile stretched Alex’s lips as he recalled the oil dripping from the Pawnee’s engine. “Still pretty rickety, though.”

  A familiar combative light leaped into their mother’s eyes. “And that’s who your one-night stand is partnered with?”

  “Her name is Julie,” he repeated tersely. “Julie Bartlett.”

  Almost purring with pleasure, Delilah eased the baby from his arms. Satisfaction radiated from her in waves as she tucked Molly back into the sling.

  “Unless the Dusty I knew forty years ago has shed his skin and grown a new one, he’s up to his elbows in one kind of trouble or another. Put that PI of yours on him. I’ll bet my new chinchilla coat you’ll find some leverage to hold over him and that tart you slept with.”

  “Julie,” Alex ground out. “Her name is Julie.”

  “Like I care?” With a wave to her sons, she headed for the door. “This is your daughter we’re talking about. Yours or Blake’s. So don’t screw around. Go for the jugular.”

  Alex took the elevator to one of the penthouse apartments on the top floor of the Dalton International building and put the rest of that afternoon and evening to productive use.

  He knew he’d inherited his mother’s killer instinct. More to the point, he itched to show a certain green-eyed, slender-hipped crop duster he was not someone she could eradicate from her life like she would a pesky aphid.

  Okay! All right! It was more than an itch. During the long drive back to Oklahoma City, it had become almost a compulsion. He could chalk it up to his naturally competitive nature but he knew that was only part of the equation. As she had the first time they’d met, Julie Bartlett had spurred a gut-level response in him.

  Once in his sprawling apartment with its panoramic view of the city, he splashed Crown Royal onto ice and settled at his desk. His first task was to turn his PI onto Dusty Jones as Delilah had suggested. It didn’t take long for Jamison to come back with a report on the crop duster’s personal ups and downs. Mostly downs in recent months, he related. Big downs.

  While that was in the works, Alex spent several hours at the computer. He and Blake had already run the stats on Agro-Air’s operations and revenue once. Wouldn’t hurt to dig a little deeper. By the time he called it quits sometime after midnight and hit the sack, Alex suspected he’d gathered more information about the company than its principal owner wanted either of his partners to know.

  Lacing his hands behind his head, he stared up at the moonlight streaming through the skylights. Now that he’d had time to sort through his roller-coaster day, he could admit the truth. It wasn’t his mother’s acerbic comments or his brother’s legalese or the all-consuming question of Molly’s parentage that had spurred all these additional queries. It was Julie Bartlett.

  The prickly, uncooperative, grease-smeared redhead had gotten under his skin this afternoon, even more than the pilot who’d snagged his interest in down in Nuevo Laredo. His bone-deep competitive instincts wouldn’t be satisfied until he knew whether she was or was not the mother of the child that might or might not be his. In the process, he might just finesse the woman into bed again.

  Yeah, right! Like he needed that complication in his life right now.

  On the other hand…

  Images from their night together drifted into his mind, came into focus, sharpened. Alex was damned if he could remember the name of the restaurant they’d eaten at or the motel across from the airport they’d adjourned to. But now that he’d seen Julie Bartlett again, he couldn’t get the vivid, 3-D image of her naked and flushed with desire out of his head. Grunting, he rolled over and punched his pillow.

  Three

  Alex’s first call Wednesday morning was to his mother. Since she’d turned over most of the Dalton International’s operations to her sons, Delilah had taken to sleeping more than the four or five hours a night she’d grabbed while she was raising her boys and building the corporation from the ground up almost single-handedly. Molly had rekindled old habits, however. Delilah was once again up with the sun and crashed as soon as she tucked the baby in for the night.

  She sipped her first cup of coffee while she listened to Alex’s plan. When he hung up, she sat for a long time in the kitchen of her sprawling mansion. She would never admit to either of her sons that she felt more comfortable in this cheerful kitchen with its watermelon striped wallpaper and collection of dented copper tea kettles than in any of the other seventeen rooms, all decorated by outrageously expensive interior designers.

  She’d wanted more for her sons than the shack she’d grown up in. More than the tar-paper shanty their father had called home before hiring out to Conoco-Philips Petroleum when he turned thirteen. Neither she nor Big Jake had finished high school. Yet their sons had not only racked up several advanced degrees, they’d acquired a sophistication that secretly thrilled Delilah almost as much as it frustrated her. Alex and Blake should be married by now, damn it. Should be giving her the grandbabies she craved. Babies like Molly.

  “Ah, Jake,” she murmured as she nested her coffee cup in both hands and looked out onto a multi-terraced and elaborately landscaped garden. “You ought to see the little one. She has your eyes.”

  A familiar ache pierced Delilah’s heart. She could only pray that the shape of her eyes was all Molly had inherited from her irresponsible, incorrigible, irresistible grandfather. Then one of the monitors she’d had installed in every room of the house recorded the sounds of the baby waking to a new day and she catapulted out of her chair.

  Alex’s second call that morning was to Agro-Air. He wanted to make sure the company’s senior partner was present when he made the return drive to the Panhandle and presented his offer.

  Dusty Jones was folded into the desk chair when Alex arrived at the hail-dented hangar that housed the company’s office. Julie Bartlett and the craggy-faced mechanic she’d been working with yesterday were also in the office. The two men eyed Alex with varying degrees of interest when he walked into the hole in the wall that constituted Agro-Air’s office. Julie’s expression was considerably less friendly than her partner’s.

  She wasn’
t wearing coveralls today. What she was wearing almost stopped Alex in his tracks. It took some effort but he managed to keep his gaze from skimming down the long, fluid legs showcased by her cut-offs. He also allowed himself only a brief glance at the scoop-necked tank top, but the image of the high, firm breasts showcased by the stretchy tank stirred the beast within him. Ordering himself to get a grip, he focused instead on the dark red hair looped through the back of her ball cap and the destructive eyes leveled directly at him.

  “I was going to call you,” she stated almost before he was in the door.

  “Were you?”

  He did his best to disguise the sudden spike in his adrenaline. Was she going to admit the truth? That she’d given birth to his child? Or flatly deny it and provide the requested DNA sample as proof?

  In that moment, Alex was damned if he could decide which option he preferred. This woman had eaten a big hole in his sleep last night. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the possibility that a child might link them together for the rest of their lives, but the idea was inching its way into his psyche.

  “You have something you want to tell me?” he asked, his eyes locked with hers.

  “Yes, I…”

  “Hold on there, missy!”

  Alex’s gaze shifted to the white-haired, weather-beaten man who popped to his feet and deposited his dirigible excuse of a cat atop the littered desk. So this was the Dusty Jones who’d locked horns with his mother sometime in the past. Alex sized him up, wondering what caused Delilah and this banty rooster to go toe to toe.

  “Dalton here called us,” Jones reminded his partner. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”

  “I know what he has to say.” The anger Alex had glimpsed yesterday flared in her unusual eyes again. She banked it with a visible effort. “He wants me to provide proof positive that I am or am not the kind of woman who would abandon her own child.”

  Dammit! Julie had promised herself she wouldn’t get all hot under the collar again. Dalton had a legitimate need to know the identity of his child’s mother. Yet she could feel the steam building as his blue eyes sliced into her.