by Carol Devine
She pushed past him. “ ‘Remember’ is the last thing I want to do, especially with my husband barely cold in his grave. He’s Katie’s father. Not you.”
Jack caught her arm. “I’m warning you, Meg. There are plenty of people downstairs. We can do this in private or we can do this in public. It makes no difference to me.”
She wrenched her arm from him. “Get away from me.”
“Not until you hear me out.”
“No.” She ducked to make her voice heard on the level below. “Bram?”
“Yeah?”
“I need you upstairs.”
“I’ll be right there, Meg.”
Triumphant, she turned to find Jack leaning against the wall, hands slung in the trouser pockets of his impeccable suit. “Big brother doesn’t know about us, does he? If he knew, my sister would know, and she would have come straight to me. I wonder how Bram and Amanda will feel when the two of them find out precisely what we were doing on the sacred occasion of their wedding day.”
“Amanda’s your sister. You wouldn’t do that to her.”
“Try me.”
Meg heard Bram’s tread on the stairs. “Meg?”
“Here,” she called, wishing she could rip the smugness off Jack’s face. Or have Bram rip it off.
“Hey, Jack,” he greeted. “I didn’t know you were up here, too.” Bram turned to her. “Meg, what can I do for you?”
Jack’s challenging look of inquiry told Meg he wasn’t about to retrieve the gauntlet he’d thrown down. She checked her brother’s strong, familiar face. All she had to do was tell him the truth. He would forgive her. So would the rest of her family.
The truth shall set you free.
Except where Jack Tarkenton was involved. With his wealth and name, the only thing the truth would set free was a battalion of lawyers. She wasn’t ready to have that happen, not yet. Not unless it was the only way to protect Katie.
“I’m sorry, Bram,” she. said. “Jack heard me call and came up himself.”
“Katie just needed an extra good-night kiss,” Jack explained, straightening, rising to the occasion with impressive ease. “I’m not her uncle like you, Bram, but considering the circumstances, I thought it was a good sign that Katie was willing to accept one from me.”
Chills raced down Meg’s spine. She had forgotten how well he lied. She’d also forgotten how incredibly breathless she got when he flashed that celebrated smile of his.
Bram responded to it, too. “It’s good to see you here, Jack. It meant a lot to Amanda to have you at the burial service. Meg, too, I’m sure. The more a family comes together in times of crisis, the stronger it will be.”
Sickened by the irony in that little speech, Meg plunged down the stairs between them. What family? With Allen dead at the hands of a drunk driver, hers was destroyed. Now she had to deal with Jack Tarkenton. How in the world had he found out the truth? Other than to Allen, she had never breathed her secret to anyone.
Thankfully, the only mourners who lingered downstairs were members of her own family. Gathered on the backyard patio, they were enjoying the warmth of the dying sun while Bram and Amanda’s three-year-old son, J.J., played on the swing set.
Meg decided if she was going to have a showdown with Jack, the kitchen was the place to do it. The heart of her house was cozy and filled with the many small touches that made it her own. Herbs grew on the windowsill and copper-bottomed pots hung from a rack above the stove, matching the warm tones of terra cotta and eggnog. More important to Meg, the kitchen overlooked the backyard, within calling distance of her family.
At the approach of male voices, she hid her serious attack of nerves by starting a new pot of coffee and busily laying out fresh cookies on a plate. She addressed her brother when he and Jack entered. “Bram, would you let everyone know out back there’s more coffee on the way?”
“Sure. I wanted to check on Amanda and J.J., anyway.” Bram pecked her cheek and stole one of the cookies as he headed for the door. “Keep Meg company, will you, Jack?”
“What’s a brother-in-law for?”
The moment the door closed, Meg folded her arms and turned on him. “I want to know why you think you’re Katie’s father.”
“I don’t think—I know. I had you followed.”
“Followed! When?”
“After our passionate weekend,” he replied, helping himself to coffee. “All the women I sleep with have to pass muster, you see. I use the services of a private investigator, an extremely discreet one, I might add. Saves me from some nasty surprises. Like yours, for example.”
“Katie was not a nasty surprise.”
“Your marriage was.” He sipped from his mug, inspecting her with interest as he lounged against the counter, completely relaxed in his thousand dollar suit and hundred dollar tie.
Meg hid the tremor of her hands by wrapping them around her mug. “You must have heard about it. I asked Amanda to tell your side of the family.”
“She did, a week or so after the fact. Amanda also mentioned it wasn’t like you to be so secretive, Meg. All of a sudden you up and eloped, without one word to anybody. It created quite a stir, even in my family.”
“It shouldn’t have. Allen and I had known each other since childhood.”
“Yes, I understand he lived in the same neighborhood when you were kids. My investigator informed me, however, that the two of you lost touch with each other soon after you won that scholarship to the Sorbonne and moved away. Any truth to the rumor that good old Allen showed up on your doorstep at the precise moment you most needed a man to marry?”
“How can you say that? He was my husband. I loved him.”
“The question is, did you love him before you found out you were pregnant or after? My sources tell me he came into the picture after your positive pregnancy test. Several weeks after, in fact.”
He did know everything. Stunned, Meg braced herself against the kitchen counter. Through the window above the sink, she saw the tree Allen had planted in the backyard the day Katie was born. “What do you want?”
“Katie.”
Meg stared at him. “You must be out of your mind.”
“I don’t think a judge will think so, not in this day and age. Not when the rights of both biological parents are considered more or less equally. And since my daughter has been deliberately kept from me by her mother for almost five years, the judge may give my custody petition special consideration. Who knows what might happen?”
“If you wanted Katie so much, you should have come forward long before now.”
“And break up your little family? I’m much too noble for that. But now that Allen is gone...” Jack let the sentence hang, then smiled in cynical fashion. “Everybody in the country knows I lost my father at an early age. How can I allow my own flesh and blood to grow up without a father, too? What do you think, Meg? Will the tabloids buy it?”
“You’re despicable.”
He chuckled. “I think it makes pretty good copy myself. Might even score a special on TV. You know how famous we Tarkentons are.”
“You think this is funny? You think you can come in here and destroy my daughter’s life?”
“I’m not here to destroy anything. I want to be a father to Katie.”
“Over my dead body.”
He eyed her over the rim of his mug, amused. “Meg, I’d forgotten your flair for the dramatic.”
“I am not being dramatic. Unlike you, I mean what I say.”
“Oh, I get it. The woman scorned. You believed me when I said I’d call you.”
Meg pointed at the door. “Get out. Get out of my house.”
He became deadly serious, zeroing in on her with an intensity of purpose she recalled all too well. “You’re right. This is neither the time nor place to make a grieving widow relive her past. Believe it or not, I thought long and hard about whether I should force myself on you today. But there may be another Allen waiting in the wings. You surprised me once, Meg. You wo
n’t surprise me again. I want to know my daughter.”
“Do you have any idea what this will do to her?”
“I’m fully aware I don’t know Katie as well as you do. That’s why I need your help.”
“Oh, please. Do you think I’d actually help you? Do you really think I’d let someone like you anywhere near my daughter?”
“Our daughter, Meg,” he said gently.
“No! She’s mine, mine and Allen’s. He’s the only father she has ever known. I won’t let you take her away from me.”
“I don’t want to take her, not from you. You’re all she’s got. I know it and you know it. That’s your ace in the hole and you can bet it’s a winning card. The last thing I would do to her, or to you, too, is take her away from you.”
“I know you, Jack. Everybody does. You use people. I wouldn’t trust you no matter what you said.”
“That’s the beauty of my plan. You don’t have to trust me.”
“If that’s supposed to ease my mind, you’re sadly mistaken. In fact, I’m not interested in anything you have to say.” She headed for the door.
“You’d better be interested.” He blocked her way.
The quickness of his move flashed a memory of his body, lithe and naked, blocking her way. Except she’d liked it then. It meant he hadn’t wanted her to leave, and she’d allowed him to catch her and kiss her and carry her back to his bed. The memory heated her body as surely as it froze her soul. How could she? How could she have done that with him?
“Katie will be protected at all costs,” he said. “You can’t tell me that doesn’t matter to you.”
She backed away from him. “I will not let you use me to get to my daughter.”
“I’ll sweeten the deal. Out of the goodness of my heart, Allen retains his official title as father. You won’t have to break the news to Katie or anyone else that I’m her real father. It can be our little secret.”
Unable to tear herself away from what she saw in his eyes, half promise and half challenge, Meg felt the solidity of the kitchen counter against her spine. “I’m listening.”
“I can see that. But you know me, Meg. I need complete capitulation. I need to hear you tell me you’re ready and willing to hear me out.”
It was so like him to do this, to force her to bend to his will. Meg couldn’t believe she once let this man get close enough to burn her heart. She jerked a chair out from the kitchen table and, seating herself, wrapped her hands protectively around her coffee mug. “Well?”
He chuckled. “Before we start, how about a refill on the coffee? You look like you could use one.”
He refreshed their mugs, and she couldn’t help but notice his hands, long-fingered and well tanned, and the image rose of how dark they had once looked on her skin. Her most intimate skin.
She gulped the coffee, hoping to sear some sense into herself. The steaming liquid burned her tongue, her throat, burned all the way down, and still the mere sight of his hands caused the warmth to spread, the warmth and wetness that kept her immobile and ashamed. How could this be happening? How could she be physically attracted to this morally bankrupt man?
He took the chair opposite her and reached for her hand. She refused to give it, keeping stubborn hold of her mug.
He peeled her fingers away one by one, and she let him, God help her, she let him, for more memories sprang to life, memories of Allen doing the exact same thing once, the day she was at her most desperate, the day he asked her to marry him.
Except Allen’s hands had been stubby, tentative and damp. And she hadn’t been gripping her mug as much as playing with it, using it as ballast, as a focal point, as she spilled her tale of woe to the boy she once knew as Al-the-pal Betz.
And the overeager and earnest sheen of Allen’s eyes. would have been lost on Jack, lost in the darkness of his soul. For he was after her daughter, claiming to care, claiming to know. As he once claimed her.
Allen had not been able to break that claim, despite his kind and generous heart. The only thing Allen claimed was that he wanted to help her, if only she would let him. He claimed she didn’t have to confess the shame of her pregnancy or name the baby’s father to another living soul. He would be the baby’s father. He would raise it as his own. Say yes to his proposal, he told her, and she would make him the happiest of men. That’s when Allen got down on his knees and begged her to marry him.
Jack Tarkenton wasn’t one to beg, however. He had gone on his knees before her, though, the first time they made love. He’d kissed her and stripped her and knelt at her feet, and she was haunted by needs she never knew she had. Jack satisfied every one of them, leaving her lost to Allen, lost to any other man.
Even now, Jack dared her with his wicked smile, the smile that once enticed her to be wicked, too, and guilt billowed inside her. Guilt chased by a terrible drenching of shame.
For if he proposed what Allen had, if Jack asked her to be his wife, Meg wanted, in her heart of hearts, she wanted, to her great and everlasting shame, to say yes.
Two
The day had taken its toll.
Subtle blue bruised Meg’s skin, especially under the eyes, those ocean blue eyes Jack had worked long and hard to forget. The ebony of her dress brought out the depth of their color, as did the mahogany frame of her hair.
Even in deepest mourning, she radiated an ethereal beauty. It showed in the elegance of her bearing, in the finely wrought bones of her face. Her milky skin heightened the bold contrasts in her coloring, emphasizing the lush rose of her lips set against the cool white of her smile.
Except she wasn’t smiling. And once he got through with her tonight, she wouldn’t be smiling for a long time to come.
Jack crushed the prickling of his conscience, the conscience he thought he’d lost on his first go-round with the lovely Meg Masterson. But her beauty had blossomed in the five years since he had last seen her, when she’d been fresh-faced, and willowy of body, packaged in a style and sophistication that came directly from Paris, France.
Later he learned that she had studied art there, and was as poor as she was proud. But when they first met, all he knew was that he must have her, and he targeted her like a hunter would, swift of speed and hard of heart.
And he did have her, that very night. Despite the family and festivities that surrounded them, she allowed him to woo her and lure her, until he spirited her to his hotel room where she stayed with him until dawn. He seduced her the next night, and the next, breaking his most cardinal of rules to not get too involved with any woman. Nobody on this earth had a right to expect a thing from John B. Tarkenton Jr.
Jack reached inside his jacket and pulled out the black velvet ring box. The sight of it made Meg feel something, that much was certain, but the expressive narrowing of her eyes told him it was anger more than anything else.
He couldn’t blame her. He’d done plenty of underhanded things in his life, but proposing marriage to his intended on the day of her husband’s funeral topped the list. Yet it couldn’t be helped. He’d wasted enough time as it was.
He opened the box, revealing the diamond solitaire ring inside. To her credit, her gaze never faltered, never even dropped to see what he offered.
“A gift,” he said, placing the open box on the table between them.
“No, it’s not. It’s a bribe. You want me to marry you.”
Baldly stated like that, he wanted to throw up his hands and say, Hey babe, you got it all wrong. But she wasn’t wrong. Meg had done more than grow up. “I’m impressed,” he admitted. “You took the words right out of my mouth. Does that mean you approve?”
“I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.”
It stung. Not much, but enough to put him into attack mode. He left the box in the middle of the table and lounged back in his chair. “You do realize what the alternative is.”
“You take me to court and sue for custody of Katie? Given your reputation, that’s a chance I’m willing to take.�
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“Ah, yes. The familiar ground of my reputation.” He gave her his laziest smile. “I’m a Tarkenton, Meg. Do you have any idea what that means?”
“It means you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. It means that despite the best education money can buy, you waste your time on wine, women and song. It means you think so little of your family’s good name, you bring heartache to your mother and your sister, the only two people on earth who could possibly care about someone as selfish as you. That’s what it means.”
He’d learned to shrug off such gibes. He had also acquired the correlated ability to ride roughshod over people. “It means, dear Meg, that when people look at me, they see my father. They want to believe I’m him. They want to believe it so badly, that no matter what I say or what I do, they think I’m the one to lead them to the promised land. You know what being John B. Tarkenton Jr. means? I get away with everything.”
“You won’t get away with Katie. I’ll take her to the ends of the earth to keep her away from you.”
“I’m one of the privileged few who has the resources to follow you there. You won’t be able to hide her, not from me. I have too much money and too many connections. There are Tarkenton interests all over the world. And when I do find her, I’ll use your refusal to acknowledge me as her father against you, not only in a court of law, but in the court of public opinion. Don’t forget, Meg. My name and face are recognized around the world. Which brings me to the most pertinent fact, a fact you seem to have forgotten. My being a Tarkenton means Katie is a Tarkenton, too.”
“You want to ruin her life by making this public? Is that it?”
“I’m her father. It’s a statement of fact. I am not going to go away. I laid out my proposal. You have two weeks to come up with a better one. If you don’t, your choice is simple. You can either turn this into a public custody battle or marry me and keep Katie’s paternity private, just between us. As her mother, I happen to think you are the most qualified person to make this decision. Unlike you, I believe both her parents have Katie’s best interests at heart.”
He shoved the box at her, and then he was gone from her house.