Paternity Unknown

by Barrett, Jean

  “I know what they said. That I had a floundering company, which made me desperate to get my hands on funds. All bull. If I’d wanted the old man’s fortune, I wouldn’t have driven straight to his legal firm to renounce any claim to it.”

  “And did you?”

  “I tried, but his lawyer was in court. With the state I was in, though, I didn’t want to wait. So I wrote up my own renouncement on the spot, had a secretary witness it and place it on file.”

  “Then what?”

  “I went back to my office. The police turned up there a little later to bring me in for questioning. Seems Jonathan Brand’s housekeeper found him in his library bludgeoned to death. I was released, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they arrested me and charged me with his murder.”

  “Why, if he was alive when you left him?”

  Or wasn’t he? That was the real question Lauren was asking. Ethan could see it in her eyes.

  Not you, too, Lauren.

  “Certainly he was alive. What’s more, Hilary Johnson knew it. She was standing there on the staircase when I walked out of the library. She had to have heard the old man shouting after me, must have seen him in the doorway.”

  “So why—”

  “Why did she lie in her deposition and on the stand? Swear she heard nothing but our rage behind the closed door of the library, and that when she went to check on her employer a little while later he was dead? They’re good questions, Lauren. I’ve been asking them myself ever since that day.”

  Lauren went on gazing at him, sober, thoughtful. “I don’t suppose she, herself…”

  Ethan knew what she was suggesting. He gave her all the reasons why Hilary Johnson couldn’t have killed his grandfather. She had no motive, never had a quarrel with Jonathan Brand and was incapable of wielding the murder weapon.

  Ethan had been no stranger to the instrument of his grandfather’s death. A stone replica of a Mayan god. He’d gotten in trouble as a kid when he’d knocked the piece over and damaged the table on which it always stood. It would have required real strength to lift that thing, much less open his grandfather’s skull with it. And Hilary Johnson was a diminutive woman.

  “Wasn’t there any other staff in the house?”

  “There were dailies who came in as they were needed, but none of them were there that day. No visitors, either, other than me. At least that’s what Hilary testified. But someone had to have been there after I left.”

  “And robbery—”

  “Ruled out. Absolutely no evidence of anyone breaking or entering. No prints on the murder weapon, either. It had been wiped clean, except for traces of blood.”

  “So it came back to you.” Lauren was thoughtful again.

  “What about your renouncement of the inheritance? That wasn’t enough to clear you?”

  Ethan shook his head. “It worked for and against me at the trials. My defense claimed it left me without a motive. The prosecution said it was a worthless argument since it was written after I’d allegedly killed my grandfather. That meant I was using it as an alibi while knowing all along I’d still inherit, because the renouncement wouldn’t be legally binding in the absence of the old man’s lawyer.”

  “Was that true?”

  “Questionable.”

  “So you could still inherit?”

  “Uh-uh. Since then, I’ve officially relinquished all claim to any part of Jonathan Brand’s estate. The only money I have now is what my marine salvage operation earns me.”

  “But Sara’s kidnappers may not know that. If they have learned you’re her father, they could think you capable of paying a huge ransom.”

  Then why haven’t they contacted us by now? That’s what Ethan wondered, but he didn’t say it. It would imply his daughter’s abductors had another agenda, one that would alarm Lauren, and she was already scared enough.

  He glanced down at his plate and was surprised to discover that he had finished the sandwich. The glass of milk was also empty. He had drained it without realizing it.

  When he looked up again, Lauren was gazing at him in silent speculation. Why? Hadn’t she believed what he’d told her? Or, like so many others, did she still doubt his innocence? The possibility depressed him. He could have asked her. He didn’t. Maybe because he feared her answer.

  Oh, hell, what good had reliving all of it been, anyway? It hadn’t helped them to make sense out of the whole mess, brought them any closer to understanding just why Sara had been taken. Because if her kidnapping hadn’t been for ransom, and with his gnawing uneasiness arguing it wasn’t, then he couldn’t imagine the explanation.

  Lauren was no longer gazing at him. She had turned her head to stare out the window at a flock of ducks on the lake. The haunted look on her face chewed him up inside.

  “Whenever anything bad happened to me,” she said, her voice wooden and faraway, “I would try to think of it as a useful life experience, something I could store away to equip me for that novel I want to write one day. But this—”

  She shuddered visibly.

  “This,” she went on, “I can only think of as something that should never happen to any mother, for any reason whatever.”

  Or a father, Ethan thought miserably.

  WHAT WAS the point? Lauren asked herself. She had known when she’d undressed, climbed into bed and turned off her bedside lamp that sleep would elude her. Tired though she was, how could sleep be possible when she was so painfully aware of Sara’s silent, empty crib sitting there in the shadows mocking her?

  Could anything be worse than the exhaustion of long, cruel hours waiting for a telephone that never rang? Of fixing an evening meal that neither she nor Ethan wanted? Sitting in front of a television watching a program you didn’t care about just so you could listen to the periodic bulletins that described your missing daughter?

  It was just after midnight when, having heard from neither the kidnappers nor the sheriff’s office, Lauren finally surrendered to that exhaustion and went to bed. Hoping maybe she would sink into a few hours of merciful oblivion. But she hadn’t drifted off and knew now that she wouldn’t. Couldn’t, even though Ethan had insisted she turn in.

  Ethan. She thought about him in the other bedroom, wondered if he was as sleepless as she was. There was a solid wall that separated them, but she could feel his closeness.

  She had mixed emotions about his presence here. He offered a strength she valued, and perhaps without him this vigil would be unbearable.

  But you relied on your own strength that morning when he was arrested and all your illusions about him were shattered. And you survived those months when you carried his baby, bore her and cared for her without him. Whatever you suffered, you managed it alone.

  And now Ethan Brand was back in her life, and Lauren wasn’t sure she wanted him. He was capable of a fierce anger that scared her. He’d demonstrated that anger with Sheriff Howell back at the motel, impatient with the poor man who, in all fairness, had probably been doing his best to help them.

  Ethan had tried to exercise that same take-charge attitude with her. She could see how he and his equally strong-willed grandfather would have clashed. But to suppose…

  What, Lauren? Say it. That the last of those conflicts could have ended in murder? Is that what you think? That Ethan might actually be capable of so savage an act?

  No, certainly not! How could she entertain such a possibility when, from the beginning, she had perceived an innate decency in him? She had trusted her instinct then about Ethan, and she trusted it now.

  All right, so he wasn’t a killer, but she still had other issues of trust where he was concerned. Like his failure to be honest with her. She could understand it now, though if she were honest with herself, she had yet to forgive him for hurting her. Nor did she trust him yet not to try to take Sara away from her. Providing, that is—

  Don’t think it. You will get her back. You have to get her back!

  This was absurd! Why was she lying here like this to
rmenting herself? Fear and grief were always so much more agonizing late at night when you were in bed and wide-awake. Better to get up and occupy yourself somehow. It wouldn’t relieve the heartache, but it would make it more endurable.

  Throwing back the quilt that covered her, Lauren sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The fall weather had been so mild that she had yet to turn on the furnace. But the nights were cool, though there had been no hard frosts. Unusual for Montana in October.

  Shivering without the quilt, she slid her feet into her slippers and groped for her robe on the chair beside the bed. She didn’t bother with the lamp, didn’t need it.

  How many nights had she awakened in the dark and found her way straight to the side of the crib to feed or comfort her daughter? And what she wouldn’t give to be doing that now.

  Besides, the night was clear and the moon was up. The room was far from black. Bundling into her robe, she crossed to the door and eased it open, careful to make no sound that would alert Ethan in the next room.

  The cabin was dim and silent. Wanting to keep it that way, she headed quietly toward the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. She was halfway across the unlighted living room when a movement from the alcove startled her.

  Coming to a stop, she turned in that direction. Someone stood there at the side of her desk! She thought of the kidnappers and for a brief, wild moment she was convinced one of them had broken in, that he was here in the cabin!

  Then the tall figure detached itself from the heavy shadows and stepped into the pool of moonlight that spilled through the windows. It was only Ethan, of course. She should have known.

  Though he was not the sinister manifestation of her imagination, he was no less a riveting sight. Barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of snug jeans riding low on his hips, he was just as he had looked on that morning eleven months ago when he’d emerged from the bathroom to find the two state troopers waiting for him.

  But with a difference. This time, moonlight gleamed on the hard muscles of his arms and chest, carving out the angles and planes of his strong face. A breath-robbing sculpture. Except he wasn’t marble. He was bone and flesh. Dangerous flesh.

  “Sorry if I frightened you,” he said, his voice low and late-night raspy.

  “What were you doing there?” she challenged him.

  “Looking out at the moonlight on the water. It’s quite a sight, isn’t it?”

  Lauren joined him in the alcove where she was able to see the moon’s silver path shimmering on the lake. Yes, it was very beautiful. Something she could have appreciated under other circumstances.

  “You couldn’t sleep, either, huh?” he asked quietly.

  “No.”

  “Why did we think we could?”

  “How long have you been out here?” she asked him, ignoring his question.

  “A while. I just thought I’d feel better…”

  He didn’t finish. He seemed almost embarrassed. It struck her then. He had been keeping watch here in the gloom, guarding her. Doing what he was unable to do with his daughter, making sure she stayed safe.

  Although she was tempted to tell him she didn’t need his protection, that she had been successfully looking out for herself ever since she had turned eighteen, she didn’t. It would have been mean-spirited somehow. Besides, she was touched by his concern.

  There was an awkward silence between them. Lauren was conscious of how close they were standing. So close that she could feel the heat of his solid body. The darkness somehow made their nearness more intimate. And risky.

  Feeling altogether too vulnerable, she moved away from him and reached for the switch on the wall. The lamp hanging over her desk bloomed with light. She felt safer with its glow.

  If Ethan guessed her reason for the light, he didn’t remark on it. Its illumination afforded him a different view of the lake. This one was hanging on the wall above the switch.

  “Been a few changes in the cabin since last winter,” he observed. “Like the bar between the kitchen and the living room. I noticed that before. But the picture here is new, too, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans, he studied the watercolor. It depicted the lake just after sunup, with a layer of mist over its waters.

  “I like it,” he decided. “It’s good.”

  “Thank you. It wasn’t easy getting that light. I struggled with it.”

  He turned his head to stare at her, one of his heavy, dark eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You painted it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you know. She’s both a writer and an artist.”

  “The art is strictly amateur stuff,” Lauren stressed, “and sometimes I’m not sure about the writing.”

  But his compliment pleased her. It also made her uncomfortable. Or was it the sight of his naked chest?

  Needing to put a greater distance between them, she started for the kitchen again. “I was on my way to get a drink of water,” she explained over her shoulder.

  She hoped he would stay behind in the living room, but he followed her into the kitchen.”

  “Want one?” she asked, taking a clean glass out of the cupboard.

  “I’m fine.”

  He was hovering behind her when she opened the refrigerator where she kept bottles of cold water.

  “Is that baby formula in there?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  She helped herself to the water, closed the refrigerator. He watched her as she drank from the glass she’d filled.

  “Then you don’t, uh—”

  She lowered the glass from her mouth. “Breast-feed Sara? No. Insufficient milk. I was heartbroken. I’d been looking forward to nursing her, but now with what’s happened…”

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly, understanding.

  Whoever had taken Sara would be able to easily obtain the formula she was accustomed to. Even if it wasn’t the right one, Sara would accept it. That she was not being adequately fed and cared for was unthinkable.

  In danger of choking, not on the water she’d swallowed, but on her emotions, Lauren hastily set the glass on the counter.

  “I know it’s tough,” Ethan said, “but I’d like to hear about her.”

  Lauren hesitated. She could appreciate his interest in his daughter, and he did have a right to know. Except she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to talk about Sara without losing her self-control.

  “Please,” he added.

  “All right. What would you like to know?”

  “Whatever you can tell me.” He leaned against the bar behind him. “Though I guess at two months old, there isn’t much personality yet.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong about that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s a darling and was from the moment I brought her home. I think she was being patient with a nervous mother, because she hardly ever fussed. New babies aren’t always alert, but almost from the beginning Sara noticed color and movement. The mobile over her crib. Did you notice it?”

  “She liked it, huh?”

  “Loved it. She’d wave her arms and legs and make cooing noises when I swung it for her. And when she smiled for the first time, smiled right up at me, I—”

  Lauren’s voice broke. The loss of self-control she had feared was very close. If she went on, she would end up sobbing raggedly.

  “I’m sorry. I—I just can’t do this.”

  Ethan shoved himself away from the counter, reaching her in one quick stride. Before she could stop him, or even decide if she wanted to stop him, he had hauled her into his arms.

  “It’s okay,” he said, holding her close.

  “Why do I have to be such a mess?”

  “You’re entitled.”

  His big hands slowly stroked her back. She ought to have pulled away from him. She knew that. But the comfort he offered her was too soothing to resist, too necessary.

  All the same, she was afraid of it. Afraid of ho
w secure the solid wall of his chest felt beneath her cheek pressed to his warm flesh. She could hear his heart beating, thundering in her ear. Could smell his skin, a scent that was clean and masculine.

  Danger!

  Dragging her head back, she searched his face looming above hers. His square jaw had tightened, making the cleft in his chin more pronounced. There was an intense expression in his blue-green eyes, something that was raw and demanding. Nothing to do with comfort now. It was pure desire.

  In another moment, his mouth would swoop down over hers. She would more than feel him, hear him, smell him. She would taste him, welcome his lips on hers. And it would be a mistake.

  “We can’t,” she whispered.

  He tried to hang on to her when she made the effort to draw away from him, but then he let her go.

  “Would it be so wrong?” he said.

  “Yes. There’s Sara. I can’t forget Sara.”

  “Damn it, Lauren, do you think I’m not remembering and suffering, too? Okay, so I saw her for only a couple of minutes. But that’s all it took to have her steal a big piece of my heart.”

  His words twisted her insides, making their daughter’s loss worse than it had been, if that were possible. And her recovery even more urgent.

  “What are we going to do, Ethan?” she implored. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

  LAUREN FELT GUILTY when they met over breakfast. Her plea of last night hadn’t been fair to Ethan. How could she expect him to carry the burden of her anguish, even though he had rashly promised her he intended to do all in his power to restore Sara to her safely. But what could he possibly do that the sheriff and his department weren’t already trying to accomplish?

  “You get any sleep when you went back to bed?” he asked her, pouring himself a second mug of coffee. He had declined anything else but that and toast. She had no appetite, either.

  “A little. I was afraid to fall asleep too hard in case the phone rang and I wouldn’t hear it.”

  She needn’t have worried. There had been no call yet from the kidnappers. Nor had the sheriff anything encouraging to report when they’d checked with his office the first thing that morning. Lauren’s car had turned up nothing useful and, though he and his deputies would continue to investigate all possibilities, their efforts had yet to produce a result.