by Mallory Rush
Just a Little Misgiving
Shades of Deception
Book Three
by
Mallory Rush
Bestselling, Award-winning Author
Previously titled: Behind Closed Doors
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ISBN: 978-1-61417-420-2
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Thank You.
Dedicated with deepest gratitude and admiration to Dr. Frank Deleon—a gifted surgeon who made our own miracle possible.
Chapter 1
"Maybe we won't be sick today, baby," Faith Taylor whispered, smiling down at her belly. Sitting in her kitchen, sipping a cup of tea and nibbling on a cracker, Faith focused on sensations that were still new to her: the feeling of wonder that made her want to laugh and cry all at once; the tingling in her tender, rapidly swelling breasts; the heightening of her sense of smell.
She stared at the snow that wrapped the Colorado mountain in a shroud of winter white. Yet the baby inside her was a warm, sweet companion, a comforting contrast to the cold outside. How fitting it seemed that this new life had begun since another had ended, she thought. Her sister, Gloria, had passed away six weeks earlier, but the baby that had been growing within Faith for over three months still linked them together in a very real way. That she had selfishly kept her pregnancy a secret from the baby's father was something she refused to worry about then.
Suddenly the front-door buzzer shrilled several times in rapid succession, startling Faith. She quickly got to her feet and made her way through her home, sidestepping a drafting table with her graphic designs. Another table stood nearby with a mound of unformed sculpting clay. Beside it was a second mound she kept covered with a dropcloth for personal reasons.
She reached the front door in time to hear a fist bang twice on the other side, and immediately looked through the peephole.
It was a man, but his image was too distorted for her to identify.
"Who is it?" she demanded. An instinct to protect made her press a hand over her belly.
"It's me, Myles," a familiar voice answered. "Open the door. Faith. It's important."
"Myles," she whispered, feeling her stomach sink at the same time her heart rose to her throat.
She braced herself to face him. What in heaven's name could have brought him here? He couldn't possibly know about the baby, no more than he could know the secrets of her heart, of the hidden chamber he occupied there.
"Open up, Faith!"
She took a deep breath and flung the door open. "Myles," she said brightly, hoping her nervous smile passed for calm and the color she could feel bloom in her cheeks would go unnoticed. "What are you doing here? Denver's an awfully long way from Detroit and your dream machines on wheels."
For a moment he just stood there saying nothing, his eyes locking with hers. There was the uneasiness she always felt between them, something that could never be explored. Then, unable to help herself, she let her gaze rove where her hands didn't dare.
His sun-streaked hair was longer than usual, and it suited him, but there were flecks of gray she hadn't seen at the funeral. His tan was fading, and his cheeks were ruddy from the brisk wind. He was leaner now, his cheeks more hollow. Her palms tingled with the forbidden impulse to stroke and soothe away his tension, which was evident by the way he clenched and unclenched his jaw.
That was the first giveaway. Something was very wrong. He looked seductively rumpled, as though he'd just crawled out of bed after one hellacious night. He wasn't clean shaven but sported two days' untrimmed growth. His open leather jacket revealed a wrinkled flannel shirt with a button missing just above the fly on his faded jeans.
Realizing where her gaze had strayed, Faith jerked her attention back to his eyes. Eyes that were expressive yet guarded. His gaze shimmied down her length, warming and chilling her all at once, before locking on her belly. Instinctively, before she could stop herself, she laid her palm protectively over her middle once more.
"I saw the papers, Faith. Not all, I'm sure, but enough to figure out what the hell's going on." He shivered suddenly. "Aren't you going to ask me in so we can discuss this?"
She stared at him, speechless. He can't know, she assured herself frantically, desperately attempting to remain calm. Faith could feel intensity emanating from him. Like the powerful engines of the sleek roadsters he designed, the energy purred, pulling her closer. And here she stood, facing him, more vulnerable than ever before.
He held her gaze in challenge until her own body began to shiver—as much from the shock of his confrontation as from the January wind whipping through the purple sweat suit she wore.
Without warning, before she could utter more than a surprised gasp, he pushed past her and kicked the door shut with the heel of his snow-covered boot. He uttered a short curse, then added something about her catching her death of pneumonia.
"First and foremost, how is your health?" he demanded rather than asked.
"M-my health?" she stammered while she swallowed hard against the knot of anxiety closing her throat. She had to think. Lie through her teeth if she had to, but come up with a convincing story. "My health is fine of course. Really, Myles, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. Why didn't you just call and save yourself the trip? You came here for nothing."
"You're carrying my baby and I made this trip for nothing?" His short laugh was ragged with frayed nerves. "Listen, Faith, I've been up half the night and I'm still practically unhinged from what I stumbled on in Gloria's strongbox. I'm not in the mood for guessing games and I've already got a belly full of subterfuge. I want to hear it from you. Are you or are you not carrying my child?"
Gloria's strongbox! What were the papers doing in there? Hadn't she and Gloria agreed that Martin would keep them, just to be on the safe side? He could be trusted. After all, he wasn't just their attorney, he was their first cousin and had been as close as a brother to Gloria. How...? Why...? Wait, Myles hadn't said which papers he'd seen. Maybe she could convince him he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion.
"Of course I'm not carrying your baby, Myles," she ad-libbed, praying he didn't hear the waver in her voice. "How could that be possible? Gloria told me herself you refused the idea of a surrogate. And let's face it—what you're talking about does require a degree of cooperation on your part."
His brows, which had been knitted in concern, drew together in a terse frown. His lips went tight, and his nostrils flared in angry silence. When his eyes slitted, she forced herself not to squirm.
"Usually. But in this case it appears there was more than a little deceit involved." He pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and held it up in front of her nose. "Take a look at this."
The paper was all too familiar. She recognized it as her agreement to offer the baby for adoption to her sister, since Gloria's ovarian cancer had rendered her sterile. She and Myles had contacted adoption agencies, only to be told that her failing health made them too much of a risk. Desperate for a child, she had then called Faith and outlined her daring plan.
Faith tried to snatch the paper from his hands, but he held it out of her reach. "Where did you get this?" she demanded.
"I told you. I found it, along with some other eye-opening surprises, in Gloria's strongbox yesterday. One of which happens to be a medical bill all the way from Denver. It delineated the charges quite nicely: Intrauterine insemination for Faith Taylor with private donor specimen. I suppose I owe them a thank-you note for being so thorough with their records."
"That proves nothing!" she urgently insisted. "The donor could have been—"
"It's no use trying to lie." He thrust both hands through his hair in agitation. "They listed me as the donor and even took pains to confirm the date the specimen was frozen. I find it very odd that that date coincides with the day Gloria supposedly took one of my specimens to be tested at the clinic. Almost as odd as my having to hand over another one since, she said, the first arrived too late. For some strange reason I get the distinct feeling the first one was never delivered."
Faith opened her mouth to spout something, anything, that would cover up the all-too-obvious deception. No words came.
"I came here to make sure you and the baby were all right and to work out an arrangement. But you seem to have your own ideas about this pregnancy and they apparently don't include me." Myles folded the paper and tucked it back into his pocket. "I'll hang onto this nice little incriminating piece of evidence. Just in case things get nasty and we end up in court."
"Court?" She repeated in shock. "What do you mean, court?"
"Court, as in that's just as much my child as it is yours. Court, as in the reason I was so dead set against Gloria's surrogate idea was the possibility of our ending up in a legal battle over custody of the baby. Court, as in since she went behind my back and did it anyway, I have proof positive you agreed to give the baby up for adoption—to me and Gloria—and I plan to hold you to it. Court, Faith."
Faith shook her head in mute denial. Morning sickness rolled up her stomach with a vengeance. She staggered back several steps, thinking that none of this could be happening, and that surely she wasn't going to be sick.
But she was. She felt sick to her stomach and in her heart. The baby was hers now. Hers to carry and nurture and raise. After Gloria died, she knew she could never relinquish the child to Myles. She couldn't tell him the truth, and guilt over the deception would have made contact painful.
"Excuse me," she whispered. "I think I'm going to throw up." Faith covered her mouth with her hand and half ran, half wove her way to the bathroom, knocking over a vase in her haste.
The sound of shattering glass snapped Myles out of his bitter fury. He shook his head as though getting a grip on his emotional overload, and went after her.
He caught her by the arm.
"Please, Myles," she said weakly, "I don't want you to see me—"
She gagged and lurched for the toilet. Something that sounded like a sob brought him to his knees beside her. He brushed her wheat-colored hair away from her face, feeling its silkiness for the first time. She jerked, as if his touch were fire.
"Don't pull away from me. Faith," he said quietly, firmly. "I'm just trying to help."
"That's not what you—" She gagged once more, then groaned.
"Shhh," he whispered, stroking her hair. "Take it easy."
He went suddenly still and stared at his hand. What are you doing to her hair? he asked himself in disbelief. He'd actually been playing with it between his fingers.
He found it amazingly difficult to pull back his hand. Myles snorted in self-disgust and hoisted himself upright. He caught a glimpse of his face in the bathroom mirror and saw raw need etched in the tautness of his features.
"Where do you keep the washcloths?" he said shortly.
Faith pointed an unsteady finger in the direction of a cabinet. Myles found a washcloth and wet it, feeling bad about his abrupt tone. He'd shaken her up enough with his threats. He hadn't meant to lose control and verbally attack her. That could only defeat his purpose in coming here.
He leaned down and pressed the cold cloth to her temples.
"Thank you," she whispered, and glanced up.
Faith had beautiful, stormy-gray eyes, he thought, framed by sooty lashes that were spiked with tears he knew he was responsible for.
"You don't owe me any thanks," he said gruffly, and looked away. Then he looked back, unable to deny himself something that felt so good when for so long all he'd had was sorrow. "But I do owe you an apology, Faith. I'm not proud of how I behaved in there, barging in the way I did and bullying you around. You don't need that. Especially in your condition. Forgive me?"
She nodded, then smiled tiredly. Myles noticed for the first time how exhausted she appeared, like a rag doll put through a wringer. He'd heard that pregnant women could sleep ten hours and still crave more. Had Faith been getting enough sleep? Was she eating properly? And the baby—his baby—was he... or could it be a she... was the baby well?
Myles's gaze automatically fixed on her belly, and he felt the stirrings of... excitement. Pride. Something good that made him glad to be alive for the first time in ages.
Realizing he was staring, he lifted his gaze only to collide with Faith's. He felt off balance, like the time he fell out of a tree and knocked the breath from his chest.
She touched her hair in an awkward, flustered way, and he couldn't keep himself from remembering how vibrant and soft it had felt as it had spilled through his—
He squelched the thought before he could complete it and cleared his throat, trying to rid himself of the thickness that affected his breathing—and apparently his rational thinking as well.
Impatient with himself, he said, "Better now?"
"Better. It usually comes and goes until about noon."
Myles gave a curt nod and extended his hand. She took it, and while he helped Faith to her feet, he could feel his confusion grow in direct proportion to the sensation the contact elicited.
"I'll go clean up the glass from the vase," he said. "Then I'll put on some coffee and we can talk in the kitchen."
He noticed Faith's hands were shaking as she fumbled with the toothpaste. "I'd prefer the living room, Myles. The smell of coffee doesn't agree with me lately."
"Then we'll forget about the coffee. How about breakfast? Can I make you some eggs and bacon?"
Her complexion went from pallid to green. "No, really, that's all right. I've already had tea and crackers."
"Tea and crackers? What kind of breakfast is that? For heaven's sake, Faith, you're supposed to be eating for two, and that's not half enough for one."
"I'll eat extra tonight. I promise."
"I'll hold you to that."
Myles turned on his heel and strode away, putting much-needed distance between them.
He needed to clear his head and purge his thoughts.
He needed to get food down Faith that she wouldn't throw up.
Most importantly he needed to figure out how in hell he was going to clean up this mess the two women had pulled off behind his back, and keep the baby.
He'd lost everything else. He wasn't about to give up his only child.
Chapter 2
"Why did you do it, Faith?"
She stopped in mid-sip of the warm milk Myles had
insisted she drink and studied the creamy liquid as she swirled it uneasily in her cup.
"You mean why did I agree to the artificial insemination?" she asked, unable to bring herself to look directly at him. He was studying her; she could feel it. He said nothing, and she went on, trying to fill the awkward gap with something impersonal when nothing could be more personal to both.
"You know, they don't call it that too often anymore. It's called intrauterine insemination. Those doctors are ones for abbreviations, aren't they? IUD, D and C, EKG, or in this case, IUI. It's really remarkable. There's about an eighty-five-percent chance of success, what with tests to monitor fertility cycles and—"
"Drop the terminology and level with me, Faith. You made a promise, a very serious promise to a sick woman. It's not like you to take your word back anymore than I can imagine you being willing to give up your own child. I just want to know why you did it, before we consider our options. This is something that affects us both too deeply to be flippant about."
He caught her wrist, stilling her motions.
Faith prayed he wouldn't feel her pulse leap in response to the innocent contact and silently cursed herself for being a traitor to her sister, barely cold in the ground. Had Gloria ever guessed? Could she have possibly known what torture it was to stand up as the maid of honor and wish them every happiness at the same time that she, Faith, repeated the wedding vows in silence, so desperately wishing they were hers to make?
"You're right, Myles," she slowly agreed, thrilling to his touch when she knew she should be pulling back. "I do take my vows... my promises... seriously. Especially something of this magnitude. But it's complicated. Nothing turned out to be exactly perfect. Too many things went wrong."
His grip tightened momentarily before he took the cup and set it aside. She wanted him to touch her again, wrong or not, because she had loved him too long, she was too alone and all too human. She wanted him to touch her the way he had when he'd stroked her hair. She knew he'd only meant to comfort her, but the effect on her was anything but soothing.