The Unexpected Child

The Unexpected Child
Kate Walker

FROM HERE TO PATERNITY He was only after one thing - her baby! Natalie had been in love with Pierce Donellan since she was eleven, and when he came knocking on her door again she just couldn't turn him away. But she hadn't considered the possible consequences. When he learned she was pregnant, Pierce insisted on a wedding.But Natalie's unexpected child was the only part of Pierce's heart she was ever likely to possess. Although Pierce did seem determined to make their marriage a real one… .FROM HERE TO PATERNITY - men who find their way to fatherhood by fair means, by foul, or even by default!

“I want my child, Natalie.” (#u037511bb-f432-59fc-a26d-3fa8ce6eab28)About the Author (#u3216a97a-7b81-591c-86f8-c89b603da57b)Title Page (#u136ab507-e0ef-5541-9e58-d5508d38ada5)CHAPTER ONE (#u9d70483b-9e2c-53b5-b791-11c44a7cc628)CHAPTER TWO (#u0fcf7fbc-9784-5a7f-b54a-47b121d0b81b)CHAPTER THREE (#u671d1f3c-be5c-5d02-a464-361466f8898a)CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I want my child, Natalie.”

Pierce continued, “I want to know it, love it, see it grow up—”

“You want—you want!” Natalie flung at him bitterly. “Tell me, Pierce—what’s in this for me?”

“A husband who would support you—a home....”

No word of love, but then, what had she expected?

His child—that was all that mattered.

FROM HERE TO PATERNITY—romances that feature fantastic men who eventually make fabulous fathers. Some seek paternity, some have it thrust upon them, all will make it—whether they like it or not!

KATE WALKER was born in Nottinghamshire, England, but as she grew up in Yorkshire she has always felt that her roots were there. She met her husband at university and she originally worked as a children’s librarian, but after the birth of her son she returned to her old childhood love of writing. When she’s not working, she divides her time between her family, their three cats, and her interests of embroidery, antiques, film and theater and, of course, reading.

The Unexpected Child

Kate Walker

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

AS NATALIE let herself out of the house, the clock in the dining room struck the half-hour, making her stop dead at the sudden realisation that just twelve hours had passed since she had opened the same door on the previous night. Barely half a day, and yet the impact of that time on her life was immeasurable; it would never be the same again.

If she had stuck to her original impulse to ignore the summons of the doorbell, then this would have been just a normal Monday morning, her thoughts only of the coming weeks, with their lead up to Christmas and its pantomime, nativity play and all the other activities the school would be involved in. But the bell had rung again, more insistently, it seemed, and, realising belatedly that with the lights on and the curtain wide open she could hardly pretend not to be at home, she’d got to her feet reluctantly.

‘What is it?’

Impatience rang in her tone as she pulled the door open, letting in a blast of cold night air that made her shiver in spite of the warmth of the cherry-red tuniclength sweater she wore with black stretch leggings. An icy wind blew a couple of strands of her dark hair into her heart-shaped face.

‘Just what—?’

The words died on her tongue, her brown eyes opening wide, as the light from the hallway spilled out onto the tall, masculine figure standing at the top of the steps.

‘Hi, Nat.’

In spite of the painful familiarity of the voice, Natalie had to blink hard in order to convince herself that she really was seeing clearly.

‘Pierce?’

It was all she could manage, shock numbing her brain so that she found it impossible to think. More than ten years ago, she had been knocked completely off balance the first time she had ever seen Pierce Donellan, and since then she had never been able to recover any degree of mental equilibrium where he was concerned.

He still had the power to deprive her of speech, the impact of his forcefully male attraction positively lethal to any hope of composure. Even casually dressed as he was now, in worn jeans and a navy sweatshirt, under a black leather jacket, with his black hair blown wildly around his head by the wind, and raindrops scattered like diamonds amongst the jet strands, he had a heartstopping male beauty that closed her throat and drove coherent thought from her mind.

‘Nothing to say, Nat?’ That cool voice was threaded through with a note of mockery that she remembered with a sense of discomfort from the past. ‘That isn’t like you. You always seemed to have plenty of opinions, and were only too keen to make sure that I heard every one of them.’

‘You took me by surprise—you were the last person I expected to see.’

And that was the absolute truth. She had long since convinced herself that Pierce Donellan would never again be part of her life, and if some weak, impressionable piece of her heart had still retained the foolish hope that things could be otherwise, then the news that had set the whole village buzzing only the previous month would have put paid to that.

‘To what do I owe the honour of this visit?’

Pierce’s grin in response to her unsettled tartness was disturbingly boyish, even slightly shamefaced, the appeal of that lopsided smile winging its way to her frighteningly vulnerable heart and tugging at it sharply. After believing that she had lost him for ever, she couldn’t suppress the rush of joy that flooded through her to see him like this, and yet stern realism told her that she would only be laying herself open to more hurt if she let him just wander back into her life as he had always done before.

‘Would you believe I was just passing?’

‘No way.’

Still not sure how to take him, she tried to harden her heart against him, knowing with a sense of despair that it was a vain attempt. One more smile like that one and she was done for.

‘Not even you could be “just passing” Holme Road on the way to anywhere. For one thing, it’s a cul-de-sac, and for an—’

‘OK, I confess! I was on my way to hide out at the Manor when I realised that with my mother away at Angela’s there would be no one around. The housekeeper’s on holiday so the place will be deserted, the heating off, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to look up an old friend.’

“‘Old friend?’” Natalie echoed, injecting a note of scepticism into her words and struggling to make herself feel something of the same emotion—an effort that was weakened as Pierce moved more into the light so that she saw with some concern how pale and drawn he looked. Or perhaps that was just the effect of the moonlight draining all the colour from his skin.

‘Don’t you think that’s something of an exaggeration? The truth is simply that my mother was your family’s cook and housekeeper for some years and you occasionally condescended to speak to me.’

Oh, why couldn’t time have given her some degree of objectivity? Why couldn’t absence have put a distance between her and this man so that, if not exactly out of sight, out of mind, then at least she might have had a chance of facing him with some sort of confidence?

With anyone else, she could behave as the mature professional of twenty-four she was. But Pierce seemed to be able to strip away the intervening years with a glance, reducing her once more to the gauche and rather prickly adolescent she had been when they had first met, a situation that was made all the worse by the knowledge that her foolish dreams had been just that—fantasies, without a hope of coming true.

‘And you were never exactly a regular visitor even when you lived in Ellerby. That would be too much like slumming for the Lord of the Manor. I can’t imagine what brings you here—’

‘You know I always hated that nickname!’ Pierce’s words cut in on her, cold and hard as his expression. ‘If I’m not welcome, you only have to say.’

Already he was turning away. He was perfectly capable of leaving without another word, Natalie realised—prepared to walk out of her life as easily as he had strolled back into it, and with no further explanation. Stern common sense said she should let him go, but her heart cried out in protest at the thought. It was almost three years since she had last seen him. If he went now, would she ever see him again?

‘Well, now you’re here, the least I can do is offer you a cup of coffee!’ she said, pushing aside her hesitation as she opened the door wider. ‘Come in before you freeze, and...’

Her voice faded as she turned from closing the door to find him standing so close behind her that her arm brushed against his as she moved. In the dark confines of the hallway, he seemed somehow bigger, much more forceful than ever before, making her feel even less than her average five feet five. The lean, strong frame seemed to fill the small space so completely that she was suddenly gripped by the unnerving feeling of being trapped alongside some powerful jungle cat, with no idea when or even if it planned to pounce on its potential prey.

‘Go into the living room,’ she said hastily, knowing she sounded as disturbed as she felt. She could think of no possible reason why Pierce should seek her out like this after all this time. ‘there a fire in there; it’ll soon warm you up.’

The unexpected tension that had tugged at her nerves also drove her to switch on the main overhead light as she followed him into the room, not feeling at ease with the shadows cast by her small desk lamp. Her first sight of Pierce in the sudden brightness had her taking a step back in surprise.

‘Are you all right?’

He looked dreadful, she acknowledged privately, his skin drawn tight over the strong bones of his face in a way that etched lines around his mouth and eyes, and the pallor she had noted earlier and now saw was not just a trick of the moonlight made him look drained and haggard, an effect that was aggravated by the dark stubble that shadowed his cheeks.

‘Just tired.’