Right by Her Side

by Christie Ridgway

  Ah. An impending skirmish with the battle-ax who ruled the top floor. Damn, Trent thought, things kept getting better. He drew in a deep, threatening breath and glowered down at her. “We aren’t having a five-pot day. I am. You drink that disgusting green tea.”

  “I’m going to live forever on that green tea,” Claudine retorted.

  “Then I’m praying for my own early grave.” He made a grab for his cup, but she whisked it behind her back. Strong-arming her was tempting, but Trent was wary of that determined glitter in her eye, even if she was on the upside of sixty.

  Even after ten years of her working for him, she could still scare the hell out of him.

  “I said no more coffee,” Claudine declared again. “We don’t want you polishing that nasty mean streak of yours on the pretty young woman who just arrived.”

  “Nasty mean streak? Don’t blame that on the coffee, you old biddy. It comes from putting up with you.” Then he frowned. “Wait a minute. What pretty young woman?”

  “The one in your office. And don’t ask me what she wants. She said her business is personal.” Claudine reached up to straighten his tie.

  He batted her hand away, wondering who had personal business with him. He, as a rule, didn’t get personal with people.

  His assistant stretched toward his tie again, and again he evaded her fussing. “Leave me be, you old bag. Which reminds me, aren’t you past our mandatory retirement age yet?”

  She snorted. “I’ll be here, still cleaning up your messes when you retire. Now get into your office and find out why a nice woman would have personal dealings with a temperamental dictator like you.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Harridan.”

  She mimicked his glare. “Tyrant.”

  “Fishwife.”

  “Martinet.”

  Then they smiled at each other and set off in opposite directions.

  Trent was still smiling when he pushed open the door to his office. But the smile died as the “nice” and “pretty” woman in one of his visitors’ chairs jumped to her feet and swung around to face him. It was the box lady.

  “You,” he said.

  The first thing out of her mouth was something he already knew. “I’m not a corporate spy.”

  Of course she wasn’t, he acknowledged, letting out an inward sigh. But he’d been grinding his teeth through a brutal headache yesterday when he’d glimpsed someone skulking around the Dumpsters and he’d flashed on the ugly explanation. Claudine accused him of cynicism.

  The way he figured it, expecting the worst of people ensured he was never disappointed.

  “I know you’re not a spy,” Trent admitted to the young woman. “As you were scuttling to your car, I realized you couldn’t be.”

  She blinked. “What cleared it up for you?”

  The little thing had big brown eyes, the long-lashed kind that made him think of Disney characters or his sisters’ baby dolls. “The scrubs. Maybe if they were that sick, surgical green, but ones like yours…” He gestured, indicating the loose-fitting pants and smock that enveloped her. Today they were lemon-yellow and printed with cross-eyed clown fish. “Not spy wear.”

  She didn’t respond, only continued standing there, staring at him with…anticipation? Expectation? Trent stared back, cursing Claudine for denying him his jolt of caffeine. He needed something to pop out the apology Big Brown Eyes obviously awaited.

  “Look—”

  “Look—”

  They spoke the word at the same time and when she broke off, she flushed. It took his attention off those Bambi eyes and onto her fair, fine-pored complexion. For a second he wondered what her skin would feel like beneath his stroking thumb.

  Damn, he needed that coffee.

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay?” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Is that what you’re after?”

  “No!” Her head shook back and forth. “I don’t want anything from you. That’s, uh, that’s why I’m here.”

  Okay. Stumped by that puzzling remark, he watched her suck in her bottom lip, worry it a moment, then let it pop free. Inside his pockets, his fingers curled as he found himself with a sudden fascination for her mouth. Her little suck-worry-pop had flushed it rosier. The lips looked soft and pillowy.

  He hadn’t had a good nap in a long, long while.

  Forcing himself to look away, he crossed to his desk and sat down. Get your mind back on business, Trent. Think of the memo. The reports. The satisfying hours of work ahead.

  He didn’t have the time or inclination for romance, and this woman, with her baby-fine skin and her wavy hair, had a face that resembled a sentimentalized Victorian valentine. The face alone shouted she wasn’t his type, but then there were those figure-shrouding scrubs. Trent liked women who wore tight minis and flashy Manolos, women who liked their encounters as brief as their skirts and their men as blunt and to the point as their high heels.

  This woman didn’t come close to that description.

  Determined to get her out of his office and get on with the rest of his workday, he focused on her Portland General Hospital name tag. “Well, Rebecca Holley, R.N., I’m a busy man. Why, exactly, did you stop by?”

  She sank into the chair across from his desk, doing that distracting suck-worry-pop with her lower lip again. “This is a little difficult to say….”

  But to his shock, she managed to get it out, anyway, in a few brief sentences. A mix-up at Children’s Connection. His sperm. Her pregnancy. Throughout her explanation, Trent could only stare at her again, numb.

  Disbelieving.

  Disbelieving and numb.

  When she wound down, he realized she expected a response from him. “My sisters put you up to this,” he tried. “It’s a little late for April Fools’, but—”

  “I wouldn’t joke about something like this,” she snapped, her spine straightening and her voice sharpening. “I wouldn’t joke about my baby.”

  Baby. Baby.

  Memories rushed into his mind. His sisters as chubby, chortling infants. The hero worship in his little brother’s eyes. The hair rising on the back of his nine-year-old neck the day Robbie Logan had gone missing while playing at their house. Twenty-plus years later, the choking sensation in his lungs when he’d learned his baby nephew had been kidnapped.

  Then that sickening, bat-to-the-gut blow when his wife had stood in an examining room at Children’s Connection and finally admitted that the only fertility problem she suffered from was him. That she’d lied about going off the pill because she didn’t want to bear his child—or even be married to him any longer.

  Yesterday’s headache slammed into the base of his skull and lingered there, pulsing pain. “It’s a joke,” he said aloud, his voice harsh. “It’s got to be someone’s idea of a joke.”

  His gaze lasered on the pretty little Victorian valentine who might not be a spy, but who was playing some criminal game all the same. He pointed his finger at her, but kept the volume of his voice under strict control. “And I won’t be laughing if you’re still sitting here when I get back.”

  With that, he rose to his feet and stalked toward the door. He pulled it open.

  “Wait—”

  But he didn’t pay attention to the woman. Instead he marched unseeing into the hall, almost knocking his assistant over. His hands shot out and he steadied her. “Sorry, Claudine. I’m sorry.”

  She stared up at him. “Trent? What’s the matter?”

  Nothing. Everything. It couldn’t be true. He swung his head around, trying to find something else to focus on. Proposals. Reports. Spreadsheets. The business details that had always filled his life.

  But he couldn’t turn off thoughts of chortling babies, missing children, kidnapped toddlers. Hopes that had never been born.

  Then he sensed movement behind him, and knew he couldn’t stay a moment longer. He couldn’t face her, the woman who’d dredged up all this in his mind. Already heading for the stairs, he called back to Claudine, “Take the rest of th
e afternoon off. You deserve it.”

  “No! The company bully is giving me time off? And going home early himself?”

  He didn’t have the heart to come up with a matching insult. But that was good, wasn’t it?

  After all, hearts were a damn inconvenience.

  Two

  After a long, less-than-uplifting day at the hospital, Rebecca was halfway up the walk to her small duplex when she halted, arrested by the sight of a pair of men’s leather loafers resting on her welcome mat. She was still blinking at them when they moved, and the body they were attached to shifted from its position against her shadowed front door and into the evening light.

  Trent Crosby. He’d strode out of his office the day before, his face expressionless, and she hadn’t heard from him since. She’d dared to hope it would stay that way.

  “What do you want?” she called out, not getting any closer to him. She had reason to be wary. He’d accused her of being a spy one day and a prankster the next. Who knew what would come out of the man’s mouth now?

  “We need to talk,” he said, his voice quiet. His steady gaze met hers. “You need to give me a chance.”

  She’d already given him a chance. Yesterday. Though she’d been embarrassed by their encounter in the parking lot the day before that, by the time she’d driven home she’d rethought the situation. In good conscience she couldn’t blame the confusion on him, not when she hadn’t stuck around long enough to clear things up. So she’d tried again, with no better results.

  As she continued to study him in silence, he took a step closer.

  She took a step back.

  He stilled. “I’ll make it worth your while.” His watchful expression eased into a coaxing smile. “I’ve brought you a present.”

  Oh, no. That charming smile scared the heck out of her, because it slid over his mouth with so little effort and then without any more it was already affecting her, warming her icy misgivings of him.

  So she scowled. “Present?”

  She reminded herself that rich men found it easy to hand out gifts. Her ex had been big on giving them, too. The ones he’d charged to their credit cards had tipped her off that he was cheating on her, because the glittering baubles and sexy little nothings hadn’t come her way. “What kind of present?”

  Trent half turned and dragged something over that she hadn’t noticed in the shadows of her porch. “Boxes,” he said. “There was a pile by the Dumpsters as I was leaving the office today and I thought of you.”

  He’d brought her boxes.

  Of course, the only reason why that knowledge was melting the ice inside her was because she’d spent an hour after her shift with Merry, the asthmatic child to whom she’d promised a playhouse. Those boxes meant she could tell the little girl tomorrow that she was making progress on the project.

  With that in mind, she hurried toward Trent. He’d brought boxes all right. Six flattened boxes of the ideal, extra-large size that would provide the main construction materials for the kid-size cottage she had in mind. “Thank you,” she said, thinking of Merry again. Rebecca’s fingers tightened on her keys as she took a breath. “I suppose…I suppose you can come in.”

  But she’d keep her guard up. That wouldn’t be hard. Her navy-brat years, while they had given her good skills in getting along with people, had also trained her to maintain a safe distance from them as well. Not only wasn’t it smart to trust others on short acquaintance, but if you got too close, it hurt too much when the next base posting came along. And then there were the lessons her ex had taught her…

  Trent followed her through the front door into her small living room. As she hung her purse on the bentwood coatrack that stood beside the door, from the corner of her eye she saw him taking in the surroundings. A tissue-thin Oriental carpet over clean but scratched hardwood. A love seat “slipcovered” with an old quilt she’d found at a yard sale and then tucked around the torn cushions. The simple curtains that had started life as sheets until she and her sewing machine had spent some time with them. The cinder-block-and-plywood shelves that were the staple of college students and women who were restarting their lives after a failed marriage.

  As she turned to face him, she felt herself bristling. He couldn’t think much of her modest home.

  His gaze moved from the entry that led to her never-remodeled kitchen and onto her face. “Nice,” he said. “Homey.”

  Hah. Homely was more like it. But there wasn’t a note of snideness to his voice or any derision in his eyes.

  The crack in the ice inside her widened more. “Well, you might as well come into the kitchen,” she said. It wasn’t any fancier than the rest of the place. “Would you like some cold tea?”

  He would, and she poured it as he took a seat at the tiny table. When she slid the glass in front of him, he stared into its depths.

  “Green tea?”

  “Yes, it’s decaffeinated. Is that all right?”

  He nodded without looking up. “It’s perfect. Just perfect.”

  She pulled out the other chair and dropped into it. As her bottom settled onto the seat, the past few sleepless nights and her long shift at the hospital seemed to settle onto her shoulders. Lifting her own glass of tea, she tried to hide her sigh of fatigue.

  But his hearing must be excellent. “Is something the matter?” he asked.

  She tried to smile. “Nothing more than a long day, pregnancy and a strange man in my kitchen.” Tiredness soaked into her bones.

  His gaze sharpened on her. “Have you eaten?”

  “Sometime today.” Her hand waved. “Lunch.”

  He was out of his chair and rummaging through her cupboards before she could blink. “You need food.”

  “Wait, no—”

  “Stay,” he ordered, as she started to push her chair back. “I’m a bachelor. I can scrounge together the semblance of a meal when I have to.”

  Surprise kept her glued to her seat. In silence, she watched as he made up a plate of crackers accompanied by slices of cheese and apple.

  Then he set it in front of her with a no-nonsense clack. “Now eat. Are you taking prenatal vitamins?”

  Her jaw dropped. “Um, yes. How did you—”

  “Sisters. Two of ’em. One a new mother, the other one pregnant.” His head swung around and he swooped down on a plastic bottle near the sink, then placed it in front of her. “In the early days, the vitamins made Ivy queasy unless she ate them with crackers. For Katie, it was cold, buttered spaghetti.”

  “They don’t bother me,” Rebecca murmured. In spite of herself, she was…intrigued. Oh, fine. She was almost charmed. Who would have thought that this big bad businessman knew the details of his sisters’ pregnancies? “You’re, uh, well-educated.”

  He shrugged, then sat down and nudged the plate of food closer to her. “Well-informed is more like it. I’m the oldest in the family. I grew up wiping noses and doling out kiddie aspirin. I guess the younger ones still tell me when they don’t feel well.”

  “I’m the oldest, too.” But while her siblings had looked up to her as the big sister, they’d gone to Mom or Pop when they were sick.

  Instead of responding to that, he reached over to slap a piece of cheese on a cracker, then he lifted her hand and dropped the cracker on the flat of her palm. “Eat,” he commanded.

  “All right, all right.” Her first bite tasted heavenly, but then that fatigue turned into full-blown exhaustion. Each subsequent chew seemed to take more and more energy.

  “I spoke with Morgan Davis,” Trent said.

  Rebecca swallowed, a shot of adrenaline making her more alert. “And?”

  “And he explained there had indeed been a mix-up. They’re trying to track down the exact problem. He told me he’s concerned about the clinic’s reputation and potential legal problems. But Children’s Connection has done so much good that I’ve assured him I won’t sue. He said you told him the same.” Trent ran his hands through his hair. “So, I’m, uh, sorry about the way
I reacted yesterday afternoon when you told me. I wasn’t expecting…”

  “That I was, and thanks to you?”

  He blinked, then laughed. “Yes. Exactly.”

  Rebecca smiled back at him; she couldn’t help herself. With the light of humor in his eyes, with that easy grin on his face, it was hard to think of him as the rich, powerful Trent Crosby who might threaten the happy future she’d planned for herself and Eisenhower.

  He was just a man, a caring man, who had brought her boxes and knew something about pregnancy. It was going to be all right, she thought, and then said it out loud. “It’s going to be all right.”

  Trent’s gaze swept over her, then around the kitchen. “Yes, I agree. I think it’s going to be fine.”

  Rebecca managed another sip of her tea, but her head felt so very, very heavy. Her pregnancy book said that tiredness in the first trimester was common, and she was tired. Very, very tired.

  “Rebecca?”

  At her name, her lashes lifted. Had she dozed off? Her face flushed. It wasn’t like her to fall asleep at the table, not to mention in the company of a man she didn’t know, a man she couldn’t afford to trust so soon—if ever. “Yes?”

  He was pulling her out of her chair. “Let me help you. You look beat.”

  Her feet must have been moving, because she was leaving the kitchen. Trent had his arm around her and she could smell the scent of him. It was spicy, good, and if she wasn’t so very sleepy, she might like to bury her nose against the tan column of his throat.

  “Let’s get you to your bedroom, Rebecca.”

  Her feet stopped moving. “What?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t rouse yourself. I just want to help you to bed before you start snoring on your kitchen table.”

  “I don’t snore,” she protested. But he wanted to help her. That sounded nice. And she thought maybe she could trust him to do it, because he was an older brother and knew about prenatal vitamins. “This way to my bed.” She managed to point with a limp finger, and then her hand fell.

  He laughed again, then directed her down the short hallway to her small room. Rebecca didn’t think about how shabby it must look in his eyes. She only thought about the bed and her pillow and how good she’d feel under the light weight of the last blanket her mother had ever crocheted.