A Most Desirable M.D.

by Anne Marie Winston

  He clasped his hands together, and Allison saw that his fingers were shaking. Pity crept in around the edges of her exasperation.

  “So I left,” he said quietly. “I’m not proud of it. I just left. Always meant to go back, though.” His tone was defensive. “But a year sneaked by, and then another, and by the time I got back to my family, Randi was gone. I never even knew if the second one was a girl or boy until I got that letter from Gabrielle.”

  “And that’s when you found out Miranda was one of the Fortunes.”

  He nodded. “Shouldn’t have surprised me like it did. I used to call her my princess because of her manners and the way she talked, like she’d had a real expensive education.”

  “If you wanted to reunite with your children again, why did you blackmail Miranda?” Allison asked quietly. “Surely you realized that Kane and Gabrielle wouldn’t think highly of that.”

  Lloyd shook his head. “That wasn’t my idea,” he said. “Like a dumb cowboy, I told Leeza about Randi’s twin babies a year or so ago, and she got the bright idea to hunt them up.”

  She thought briefly of pointing out that he could have refused, but it would have been an exercise in futility. There just wasn’t that kind of backbone in this man. Even if he’d stayed with Miranda, she couldn’t imagine that the marriage would have lasted. Miranda was vibrant and strong-willed—she would need an equally strong man to balance her.

  “Thank you for telling me this,” she said. “I can’t promise you anything—”

  “But I know you’ll try.” Lloyd’s bright smile was back. He seemed to have an optimistic ability to ignore reality when it didn’t suit him…and apparently always had.

  She rose, glancing at her watch. “I really need to go.”

  “Thanks again for letting me explain it,” he said, rising. “If I could just make Kane understand…”

  She nodded without speaking further, and slipped away from the table. As she left the diner she glanced back through the window. Kane’s father was sitting alone in the corner, staring into his coffee cup. His face looked so sad that she had to fight the urge to turn around and go back inside.

  He only wanted to get home. Kane sighed as he turned into the gated community that included his mother’s house. He might have begged off with some excuse but his mother rarely bothered him at the hospital, and she’d sounded upset when they’d spoken. After being called out before dawn, he hadn’t gotten home again until after Allison had left for work. He’d slept for a few hours and then gone back to the hospital for his regular rounds. He’d had to deal with yet another crisis, and Allison’s shift had ended by the time he’d gotten free.

  He strode into the house without knocking, noting that his uncle Ryan’s car was parked ahead of his in the circle. “Mother? Emma? I’m here.”

  “Kane.” Emma came out of the study, walking toward him with a smile on her face. Her resemblance to his mother startled him a little bit each time they met, but he was getting used to the similarities. There were differences, too. After all, his mother wasn’t expecting a baby.

  Emma positively glowed with good health. In his chosen field, he usually saw post-birth mothers with tear-stained faces and overlarge clothing hovering anxiously, waiting for him to tell them their babies would make it. So his half sister, with her smiling blue eyes and round little tummy, was a welcome sight. What would Allison look like when her belly was swollen with his child?

  The thought pleased him. A lot. Maybe they should stop worrying about contraception and just take their chances.

  He took Emma’s outstretched hands and held them wide before planting a kiss on her cheek. “If every pregnant woman looked like you, women would want to be pregnant,” he said, grinning.

  “Thanks.” Her face lit up even more. “If I had any money, I’d pay you to follow me around and say things like that.” She pointed toward the study. “Miranda and Ryan are in the study. Why don’t you come in?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Emma’s smile faded. “I think I’d better let them explain.”

  She hadn’t gained a lot of weight, he observed with a critical medical eye as he followed her down the hall. The only weight she seemed to have gained was all baby. From the back, he couldn’t even tell she was pregnant.

  He’d gotten to know Emma a bit better each time he’d seen her. She was cheerful and friendly, one of those people whose glass was half-full no matter how difficult her life. And it had been difficult, he suspected. She was quite good at evading questions about herself.

  The study door was ajar, and he followed her into the room. His mother was seated in a wing chair and Ryan was pacing back and forth in front of the small gas fireplace. The atmosphere—tension and shock mingled with a healthy dose of anger—hit him full in the face and instinctively he braced himself for bad news.

  “Mother,” he said cautiously by way of greeting as he bent to kiss her. “Ryan.” He nodded to his uncle. “What’s going on?”

  “You’ll never believe it.” His uncle’s face was as weary as he’d ever seen it.

  Kane ignored the advice, spearing his uncle with a glance. “Tell me.”

  “Your father and his charming wife have been busy little bees.” There was an uncharacteristic note of bitterness in Miranda’s voice. “They hired Flynn Sinclair—remember him?—to check into your uncle Cameron’s background. Don’t ask me how, but they’ve located three people they say are illegitimate offspring of Cam’s.”

  “It’s entirely believable,” Ryan put in. “Cameron was…less than faithful to his wife.”

  Cameron Fortune, Ryan and Miranda’s eldest brother, had died in a scandalous accident in which his young assistant, supposedly his latest lover, had also been killed before Kane had come to San Antonio. According to the papers, Cameron had had a string of extracurricular ladies in his life for years. Ryan was right—it was believable.

  “Let me guess,” he said, anger beginning to boil beneath the surface. “My dear old dad wants a ‘small sum’ of money before he gives you particulars.”

  “We’ve already paid him,” Miranda said tonelessly. “Twenty-five grand. We have the names and addresses of these people, and Flynn is waiting to hear from us. He’ll inform them of their heritage if we want him to, much as he did for Emma and Justin.”

  “If you’re going to pursue it, he’s the man for the job,” Emma offered. “If there’s any way to tell someone that you know who their biological family is, he’s got it down pat.”

  “How do you know Carter isn’t just making this up?” demanded Kane. “These people could be anybody. Only DNA work will prove his claims.”

  “You’re forgetting the birthmark.” Miranda pointed at Emma, Ryan and finally at Kane himself as she spoke. “Every single member of our family that I know of has that crown-shaped birthmark on the hip.” She held up a sheaf of papers that had been lying in her lap. “Flynn’s done a lot of legwork already. I don’t even want to know how he got his hands on some of these hospital records, but they show that each of these three has the mark.”

  “Damn.” Kane sat down abruptly.

  “Yeah,” said Ryan. “Exactly.” He shook his head, trying to smile. “I’ve been cleaning up after Cameron my whole life. I guess it was too much to hope that there weren’t any messes left to be fixed.”

  “Look on the bright side,” said Emma. “You’ll be gaining three new family members.”

  “You’re right.” Miranda stood decisively. “Why wouldn’t we welcome them just as we welcomed you? It doesn’t make any difference how we learned about them.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I’m not finished with Lloyd. If he’s got any more surprises for us, I’m going to know about them.”

  “So we’re agreed that we should send Sinclair to approach these people?” Ryan looked at Kane. “Until we get a response from him, maybe we shouldn’t say anything to the rest of the family.”

  Kane nodded. “Probably wise.”

  “I know.” Miranda sna
pped her fingers. “Let’s plan a family reunion. You can host it at the Double Crown, Ryan. We’ll tell everyone we want to introduce the newest members of the family, meaning Emma and Justin. And Allison also hasn’t met most of them, come to think of it. We can invite these new children of Cam’s and if they agree, we can introduce them then as well.”

  “Yeah,” said Kane, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “And that way we can also invite any more family members my loving father uncovers between now and then.”

  “I doubt there are more,” said Ryan quietly. “I’m frankly stunned that Cameron fathered three children in addition to his own three. Mary Ellen is going to be shattered,” he added, referring to Cameron’s widow, who had since remarried in a ceremony Kane had attended several years ago.

  Privately, Kane doubted Mary Ellen would be “shattered.” The whole family knew of Cameron’s philandering ways; even his own children acknowledged that their father had been flawed.

  A deep, burning rage festered within him, fueled by a healthy dose of humiliation. His father was the one who had created all these problems. Though he could honestly say he was glad to be getting to know Emma, he could never forget or forgive the fact that his mother had been blackmailed by his father. And now the man was spreading his poison again. Helped, no doubt, by that pluperfect bitch of a bleached blonde he called a wife. No, he corrected, probably directed by her.

  “So,” said Emma, “what do you know about these new relations?”

  Miranda looked down over the sheaf of papers. “Two men and a woman,” she reported. “The eldest, Samuel Pearce, is a Marine and he was born…the year that Cam married Mary Ellen!” Her voice was outraged. With a visible effort, she calmed herself and read further. “Jonas Goodfellow is three years younger than Samuel and lives in San Francisco. He’s involved in international imports. The girl—the woman,” she corrected herself, “is a good bit younger. Holly Douglas is Gabrielle’s age. And she’s originally from Texas but now she lives in… Good grief! Alaska. It says she owns and runs a general store in a small town.”

  Ryan picked up the phone on Miranda’s desk. “I’ll try to get hold of Sinclair. He’s going to be logging some serious flying time this week.”

  Nine

  Kane drove home in the filthiest mood he could remember in years. Rage alternately simmered below the surface and erupted repeatedly, and he snarled as he slammed the Explorer to a halt in his own driveway. God, he wished he’d never heard the name Carter, much less used it for over two decades. The man was scum. How could he sell relatives, blood relationships, as if they had a fixed value beyond which they didn’t matter?

  Easily, he realized. After all, his own blood relationships had meant nothing to him in his own life until they’d acquired a monetary value. He’d seen through his father’s pathetic attempt at claiming kinship the very first time he’d laid eyes on the man. He and Gabrielle now were worth cultivating because they were Fortunes.

  It was growing dark as he disarmed the security system and went into the house, resetting it behind him. “Allison?” He needed her.

  His wife came down the hallway. She wore a sheer blue peignoir with a matching short silk robe that showed off long slender legs. “Welcome home.” She carried a glass of wine in her hand and she offered it to him as she reached him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  He took the wine from her without saying a word and set it down on the hall table, pulling her into his arms in the same motion. “I need you,” he muttered, covering her mouth.

  As her eyes drifted closed, he saw the stunned pleasure lighting them and he knew why. He’d never admitted anything like that to her before. “Tell me you love me,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I love you.” It was a husky purr. “I love you.”

  He kissed his way down her throat, frantically devouring her soft white flesh as he gripped her slender body and locked her against him. She smelled fresh and sweet and her skin was damp, as if she’d just come from the shower. “Let’s go upstairs.” He lifted her into his arms; although she always protested, he liked carrying her.

  But tonight she didn’t protest. As she put her arms around his neck, she said, “We don’t have to go upstairs. There are rooms down here we haven’t christened yet.”

  Her words jolted his burgeoning desire and instead of heading for the stairs he turned left into the kitchen. “You’re right.” He set her on the edge of the kitchen counter with her legs on either side of his hips and opened his pants quickly, groaning when she reached between them to free him. Her hands on him made his blood boil and he pushed himself more firmly into her grasp as his big palms stroked up her thighs, pushing high the skimpy fabric of her lingerie. To his delight, he discovered she wasn’t wearing any panties beneath the blue silk.

  Tearing himself away from her, he knelt before her and gently pressed his mouth against the mound of soft blond curls between her legs. She moaned and moved restlessly against him. Slowly, he used his tongue to stroke a light path along her feminine folds, opening her to him a little more with each stroke. She tasted spicy and female; when he glanced up at her, she had propped her weight back on her palms and her head was thrown back. Her hips rose and fell. When he sucked lightly at the small hidden bud he’d found, she gave a strangled scream, and her body arched wildly.

  He wanted to see her climax, but he was selfish, too. He wanted to be inside her when she came. The mere thought was almost too erotic to bear. Quickly he rose and positioned himself at her small opening.

  Then, pausing, he swore. “I’m not using anything.”

  “No,” she agreed, smiling like a satisfied cat, her green eyes mere slits, “you certainly aren’t.” She pushed her hips forward, capturing just the tip of him and he groaned, trying desperately to focus.

  “Shall I stop?”

  “No.” She put her hands at his hips to hold him to her.

  “Would you mind if we made a baby tonight?” It was a rough growl.

  “I wouldn’t mind.” She wrapped her hand around him and began to stroke his hardened flesh. “I want to have your baby.”

  Her small fingers caressing him made him grit his teeth against the wild surge of his body, but he couldn’t bring himself to make her stop. “And I want you to have my babies,” he managed. “Whenever it happens, it happens.”

  He wrapped his hands around her and held her steady for his first deep thrust, then found a fast, furious rhythm, pounding into her as she clung to his body. Her hands drifted down his back and palmed his buttocks and as her climax approached, she held him tightly to her, fingers digging deep into the sensitive crevice.

  They were both panting and winded. He dropped his head to her shoulder for a moment, but his legs were shaking. Giggling, she held his opened pants around his waist as he staggered into the living room and half fell onto the couch, rolling her beneath him. He loved her so much, this small, quiet woman who’d never asked him for anything, who’d been happy to come be his wife and live with him and make his life better than anything he’d ever known.

  Then he realized what he’d just admitted to himself. He loved her! Of course he loved her. He’d been fighting it for a while, losing the battle degree by degree.

  Dropping his forehead to hers, he kissed her gently. They both were still breathing heavily, and he smiled. As soon as he caught his breath, he was going to tell her.

  “Where’s the kitten?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Upstairs, sleeping on my pillow.”

  “Good.” He kissed her again. “It might have done her permanent psychological damage if she’d seen what we just did.”

  The telephone on the end table rang at that moment. They both jumped a little; it was right behind their heads.

  Kane grinned. “You’d better answer that. The way I’m breathing, people will know exactly what we’ve been up to.” Reaching over her head, he punched the button for the speaker.

  “Fortune residence, Allison speaking.”
She smiled up at him as she spoke.

  “Howdy, Allison.” A jovial masculine voice filled the room, and her body stiffened in horror as she recognized it. “I just wanted to say thanks and tell you it was nice to get together with you the other afternoon. I know you’ll do everything you can to make Kane see the truth. It’s Lloyd,” the man added belatedly.

  Allison’s body had gone rigid beneath Kane’s at the very first word. Through the rage that rushed in to fill every corner of his brain like an inexorable tide, Kane realized she’d known who it was right away. He stared down at her with dry, burning eyes and watched her face go dead white, then immediately flush a dark, damning red.

  “I—uh—”

  “I’d like to meet again one of these days. Next time I’ll do the listening.” His father chuckled, then said again, “Well, ah, thanks. You’re the best hope I have of reuniting with my son and—”

  “No, Carter, she’s not.” Kane’s voice was cold and furious as he levered himself off her and stood in one lithe motion. “There is no hope that you and I will ever even occupy the same building again, much less reunite. Now leave my wife the hell alone and don’t ever try to contact either one of us again.”

  “Kane?” Carter’s voice sounded shocked, uncertain. “Kane, I—”

  In one sudden, violent move, he slammed down the receiver and stared at his wife.

  With trembling fingers, Allison drew the blanket from the back of the couch and covered herself with it. Her eyes were huge and her face drained of color again as she stared back.

  “Damn you,” he said hoarsely. “How long have you been going behind my back, meeting him?”

  “Only once.” Her voice was small. She clearly knew she’d been wrong. His rage grew. He’d trusted her. Even when he’d married her, some part of him had known he could trust her implicitly. He’d come to depend on her, to need her, to believe in her ability to make his life happy. He’d been going to tell her he loved her!