by Robin Wells
Instead of asking if he were choking, she simply smiled. "Oh,, good. You're done." She reached out and took the cup from his hand. "Now—let's talk about you."
Jake cleared his throat. The woman was nuts. It was time to come clean and get the heck out of here. "Look—I'm not who you think."
"No one is. First impressions are usually deceptive."
She wasn't even looking at him. She was staring intently into the teacup.
Jake shifted uneasily on the sofa. "Yeah, well, there's
something I need to tell you." No it's better if you don't give me any clues."
"But I need to. .
She held up a hand. "Shh. I need a few moments of silence."
Hadn't she just said it was time to talk about him? Then why the hell wouldn't she let him get a word in edgewise? He stared at her as she swirled the cup three times, then turned it upside down on the saucer. After a few moments, she turned it over and studied the bottom.
"You've experienced a great loss." She spoke in a low, soft voice. "I see lots of pain and suffering. It's clinging to you, close as skin. But you're on the verge of a new life now." She looked up and flashed him a smile so bright he felt momentarily blinded. It was a relief when she turned her attention back to the cup. "A new person is entering your life. No, wait—two new people."
She was reading tea leaves. This crazy woman was reading tea leaves! She didn't think he was a blind date arranged by his grandmother; she thought he was as flaky as she was. She honestly believed he'd come to have his fortune told.
"'You're going to have a child." She held the mug closer and peered into its depths. "No, wait—the child is already here."
A chill crawled up his spine. How could she know that? He didn't believe in fortune tellers.-He didn't believe in anything but the cold, relentless march of time and the inevitability of pain. Still, there was something about her words that gave him the creeps.
She frowned into the cup. "I see ...`turmoil. Dark, swirling, inner turmoil—for you, and for the people around you. You'll have to make a decision."
The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked loudly in the silence as she studied the inside of the cup. "It will be a difficult decision. Whatever you decide, everything will change. In fact, the change has already begun." She looked up, her eyes somber. "It'll be the most important decision of your life. You can't decide it with your head. You'll have to follow your heart."
Her eyes bored into his in a way that made the hair rise on the back of his neck. She wasn't looking at him like a casual acquaintance or someone she'd just met. She was looking at him intently, almost intimately, and her expression was worried, as if she cared what happened to him.
Which was ridiculous. She didn't even know him. How the hell could she care?
He squirmed uneasily, his gut tightening. It was time to stop this game. "Look. I tried to tell you this a few minutes ago, but you wouldn't let me."
Her delicate auburn brows drew together. "Tell me what?"
"That I'm not Pearl's grandson."
Her lips parted. His gaze fastened on her mouth, and a totally irrelevant thought flew into his mind. Would her lips taste as sweet and ripe as they looked?
"Then who ... Why ... ?"
Appalled at his thoughts, Jake ripped his gaze away from her mouth. "I'm surprised the tea leaves didn't tell you." He yanked a business card out of his jacket pocket and thrust it at her.
Annie stared at the heavy vellum card. Jake E. Chastaine, attorney-at-law, with the firm of Morrison and Chastaine in Tulsa. She gazed at the, emblem of Lady Justice with the scales on the corner of the card, and felt a kinship to the blindfolded image.
An attorney. Oh, dear-attorneys didn't show up on one's doorstep unless some kind of trouble accompanied them. The last time a representative from an attorney's office had come to her home, she'd been served with divorce papers.
She set the dog on the floor, her stomach clenching with cold dread. "I don't understand."
"I'm here because of the child."
The chill in her belly spread up her spine. "The one I mentioned in the reading?"
"The one you gave birth to."
Annie's heart froze. "Madeline?" she whispered. "That's her name?"
His eyes were dark and intent and determined. They were the eyes of a man who would not be deterred, who would not be dissuaded.
Fear stabbed her, cold and sharp as icicles. She fought an impulse to rush into her child's room and snatch her up, to protect her from whatever threat this grim-mouthed stranger posed. She wasn't sure why, but she was suddenly certain he posed a threat.
She somehow found her voice. "I-I don't know what you want, Mr. Chastaine, but I think you'd better leave. My child is none of your business." She rose from the sofa on legs that felt too weak to support her weight.
The man rose as well. His height was intimidating. "Oh, yes, she is."
The words were bitten off and curt, but it wasn't his tone that made the blood drain from her face. It was that look in his eyes, that hard, stubborn, unrelenting look. "I have reason to believe that I'm her father."
The floor seemed to lurch and sway beneath her like a runaway rollercoaster. Annie gripped the back of a red-and-beige-checked wing chair for support. "Wh—what are you talking about?"
"I just came from the Tulsa Fertility Center. I saw their records, and it appears you've had my child."
"No." Annie's fingers tightened on the back of the chair, her thoughts thrashing about like wheat in a windstorm. "No. You couldn't have. Those records are sealed."
The moment she said it, she wished she hadn't. Dear God—she'd just confirmed she'd been a client of the clinic! Why did she always babble so when she was upset?
It was too late to try to deny it. "Donors sign a release," she said rapidly. "They surrender all rights, all claims to their ... their ... their ..."
Children. The word reverberated in the air, even though Annie couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. Saying it would make it sound as if the donors were actually parents.
And they weren't. Not really. The nameless, faceless man who'd contributed his chromosomes to create Madeline wasn't really a father—not in any meaningful way. He was distant, uninvolved, disembodied, unreal.
Or at least he had been. Until now.
Annie stared at the man before her. She tried to swallow, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. "Donors have no parental rights."
"I wasn't a donor." His voice was clipped, the words dry. "My wife and I were undergoing fertility treatment. Our lowlife excuse of a doctor decided to help himself to my specimen when the donor bank ran low."
His wife. He was married. He wanted a child. Madeline was his child. The thoughts swirled in her mind, attaching to each other, growing darker and denser, building in force like a thundercloud.
"No." Annie mouthed the word, but no sound came out. Her vocal chords seemed paralyzed. Her entire body seemed incapable of movement.
"Ma-ma-ma-ma."
The familiar call jerked Annie out of her daze. She turned to see Madeline toddle into the room, rubbing her eyes and dragging her favorite yellow blankie. The child's pink-and-white striped romper with the ruffled bottom was wrinkled from her nap, and her dark hair stuck out in short, Shirley Temple ringlets around her ears. Her four teeth gleamed in a predominantly gummy grin as she started toward Annie. Then the child spotted Jake. She stopped in her tracks, stuck a blanket-covered thumb in her mouth, and stared.
Jake stared back. "My God," he whispered.
It seemed as if time had stopped, as if life had been cryogenically suspended. Madeline slowly turned and looked at Annie, her big, brown eyes round and quizzical.
Annie's heart tumbled like a sock in a clothes dryer. Because she suddenly knew, with horrible certainty, why Jake looked so familiar.
His eyes were the mirror image of her daughter's.
And oh, dear Lord—it was more than just the eyes. Annie's gaze shifted from Jake's face
to Madeline's like an oscillating fan. Her daughter had a miniature version of Jake's mouth, Jake's hairline.
Adrenaline flooded her veins in a hot, hard rush. Every protective maternal instinct roared to red alert. Before she had time to think, she'd dashed across the room and snatched up the child as if rescuing her from a charging bull.
Alarmed, Madeline started to cry. Annie held her tightly against her shoulder.
"You're scaring her," Jake said.
He was right, but the idea of this man criticizing the way she handled her own daughter was intolerable. "Get out."
He glared at her, his eyes challenging. "You're not getting rid of me. She's my child, and I have rights." «No." -
"Look at her! She's the spitting image of me." Annie cradled the child's head against her shoulder. "That doesn't mean anything."
"I've got records from the Tulsa Fertility Center that mean something. But if you still refuse to accept the obvious, I'll be more than happy to pay for blood tests."
"No."
"No?"
"You heard me. Get out."
His chin jutted out at a stubborn angle. "I'm her father, damn it. I'm also an attorney. A damn good one."_
Madeline howled louder. Hot Dog barked. The room' swirled with the dark energy of a tornado. "Get out," Annie ordered again.
He showed no sign of budging. Fear pumped through Annie's veins. Oh, dear heavens—he was tall and muscular and hard as a wall, and he outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds. If he tried to take the child by force, she would have no way of stopping him.
A car door slammed in the driveway.
"That must be your voodoo appointment." Jake strode to the door and flung it open. Over his wide shoulder, Annie saw a portly man with- Pearl's curly hair heading toward the steps of the porch. Her knees weakened in relief. She'd never been so glad to see another human being in her life.
Jake turned and leveled a steely gaze at Annie, ignoring the man who was trying to wave in greeting. "I'll leave for now, but I'll be back. I'm that child's father, and I have rights. If I have to drag you through every court in the land to exercise them, I'll do it."
He strode past the other man as if he were invisible and stalked to his car.
Clutching her sobbing child, Annie watched him drive off, his tires spewing gravel. Her whole world seemed to swirl away in the stream of dust that rose in the wake of the retreating white car.
He'd be back. He'd said he would, and Annie was sure he meant it. With a sickening certainty, she was equally sure that nothing in her life would ever be the same.
Chapter Four
Annie sat in the darkened comer of the nursery later that evening, rocking her sleeping child by the dim glow of a Cinderella nightlight. It was nine o'clock-an hour past Madeline's bedtime—but the baby had just dozed off.
It had been a long afternoon. Madeline had been cranky ever since she'd awakened from her nap and wandered into the living room. She'd fussed during her bath, thrown most of her dinner on the floor, and balked at bedtime.. It had taken four stories and six lullabies to finally lull her to sleep.
No wonder the child was upset, Annie thought, sifting her fingers through the baby's dark, soft hair. Babies picked up on the emotions of the people around them, and Annie had been shaken to the core by Jake Chastaine's visit. Annie had tried not to let her agitation show for the sake of the child, but Maddie's emotional radar hadn't been fooled.
Neither had Pearl's grandson's, Annie thought. The poor man had looked from her to the squawling baby, then suggested it might be better if he came back at another time. Annie had jumped at the suggestion.
"Are you okay?" the man had asked as he turned to leave, his pudgy face creased with concern. His eyes had darted to the cloud of gravel dust still hovering over the driveway from Jake's rapid departure.
Annie was afraid she'd never be completely okay again, but she'd bravely nodded. Whatever she told this man was sure to get back to Pearl. "We, uh, just got some distressing news," she told him.
To put it mildly. Having Jake Chastaine appear on her doorstep and announce he was Madeline's father had turned her world upside down and inside out. She felt as if she'd been hit by a freight train, a steamroller, and a bulldozer, all at once.
Annie gazed down at the child in her arms, her heart filling with a tenderness so strong it hurt. She'd never loved anyone or anything as much as she loved her daughter. She watched the rise and fall of Maddie's chest, listened to the way her breath came out in soft little puffs, felt the sweet weight of the child's head cradled against her breast.
Madeline was so young, so innocent, so trusting. She relied completely on Annie to nurture her, to care for her, to protect her from harm. Annie would rather die than betray the child's faith.
What was it that Jake had said? "I'm that child's father, and I have rights. If I have to drag you through every court in the land to exercise them, I’ll do it."
Fear, cold and numbing, shot through Annie, leaving her thoughts jumbled and confused. What did he want? Custody?
That had to be it. He said there'd been a mix-up at the clinic. He'd said he and his wife had been undergoing fertility treatments. Obviously they wanted a child.
They wanted Madeline.'
Annie's stomach lurched and knotted, and she fought off a wave of nausea. She tightened her grip on the baby.
"I'm an attorney," Jake had said. "A damn good one."
Annie believed him. The man had a presence, an innate sense of self-assurance about him that spoke of success. It was in his eyes, his voice, his bearing. He was used to winning. He was used to getting what he wanted.
And he wanted Madeline.
Annie stopped rocking and stared at the long shadow Madeline's crib cast against the wall. The slats of the side railing looked eerily like prison bars. Maybe she should make a break for it before the law got involved. Maybe she should just pack up the baby, get in the rusty four-door pickup she'd inherited from her grandfather, and go.
But where? The inside of her lip hurt, and she realized she was biting it. The pain was nothing compared to the cold, gripping ache inside.
Think, she told herself. Fight back the fear and think.
She could go to another country, go into hiding. She could leave tonight, before he had a chance to file any papers or have her served or do whatever it was that attorneys did. The thought filled her veins with adrenaline.
But how would she finance such a thing? It would take money—a lot of money, a lot more money than she had—to start a life in another country.
Annie closed her eyes, the man's words reverberating in her head. "I'11 leave for now, but I'll be back." His mouth had been hard, his jaw firm as granite, his eyes filled with steely resolve. She'd never seen a more determined look on a human face.
The memory of those eyes, intent and unyielding, sent a shudder racing through her. He was not the kind of man to give up easily. If she ran, he would try to find her. She'd need to change her identity and cover her tracks. She'd need to keep moving until she was sure it was safe.
But would it ever feel safe? Despair surged through Annie like a wave against a rock, pushing her toward the hard, crushing answer.
"No." Annie whispered the word in the darkened room. If she ran now, she would have to keep running until Madeline was grown. She could never be sure that Jake wasn't just about to find her. She'd have to raise her child on the lam, always looking over her shoulder, never putting down any roots.
And the one thing she'd vowed to give her child was roots. She wanted Madeline to know a sense of belonging, a sense of home. Annie had missed having that from her parents, but at least she'd gotten a taste of it from her grandparents. It was why Annie had come back to the ranch to raise her child.
"Oh, Gran, Grandpa-how I wish you were here!" Annie murmured. "How am I supposed to know what to do?"
She no longer felt sure of anything, except her love for Madeline. No one could ever love the child as much as she
did, she thought fiercely. And as long as she could draw a breath, she would do everything within her power to keep her child with her.
The baby shifted restlessly, and Annie realized she was clutching her as if someone were trying to yank her from her arms. Madeline's eyelids fluttered open. Her small baby mouth pursed as she let out a mewling complaint.
Easing her grip on the child, Annie gently trailed her finger through the baby's curls. "Everything's all right, sweetheart," she murmured.
But it wasn't, and Madeline sensed ` it. The child kicked her pajama-covered feet and whimpered. Setting the chair to rocking, Annie began to croon a lullaby. "Hush, little baby, don't say a word. Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird."
Darn it—the last thing Annie wanted to sing about was Madeline's papa, because she had no doubt it was Jake. The similarity in their physical appearance was too pronounced to be coincidental. She wished she could deny it, wished she could convince herself it was all a mistake, but deep in her soul, she knew it was true.
Annie deliberately revised the lyrics. And if that mockingbird don `t sing, Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring.”
But Annie didn't have the money for diamond rings- much less expensive custody suits. All of her money was invested in the ranch. Jake had certainly looked well-heeled, though. His suit had been expensive, and the watch on his wrist had probably cost as much as Annie's annual disposable income.
Madeline's eyes started to drift closed again. "And if that diamond ring turns to Mass," Annie whispered, "Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass."
The baby's breathing resumed its deep, regular pattern After a few more verses, Annie slowly rose from the chair, the baby limp and heavy in her arms, and carefully placed her in the crib. She tucked the pink baby blanket around the child, then bent and kissed her warm cheek. With a last caress of a ringlet on the child's forehead, she raised the side rail and tiptoed out the door.
The light in the hallway seemed unnaturally bright after the dimness of the baby's room. Annie blinked against the glare, but welcomed it all the same. Bright lights always comforted her when she got jittery or frightened.