One-Night Love-Child

And despite his kiss—the sweetness, the passion, the promise—and because of his kiss—its ability to undermine her reason, her common sense, her need for self-preservation—she had to remember that.

She’d loved him six years ago, and he had left her.

He’d made no promises, but she’d trusted. She’d given him her heart and her soul and her body. He had known her on a level no one else ever had. She’d believed he loved her, too. She’d believed he’d come back.

He never had.

Not until today. Not until he’d found out about Liam.

He wanted his son. Not her.

Finally she managed to flatten her hands against his chest and give a hard, furious shove.

He stumbled backwards awkwardly and, to her amazement, fell against the nearest chair. “Damn it!”

But it wasn’t her he directed the words at. He muttered them to himself as he staggered, then winced and shifted his weight onto his left leg. Sara didn’t know which stunned her more—the kiss or the fact that he was clearly favoring one leg and moving with none of his customary pantherlike grace.

Still trembling from the kiss, she asked, “What happened?”

“I got shot.” The words were gruff and dismissive.

She felt as if they’d gone straight to her heart. “Shot?” She gaped, then told herself it probably served him right. Maybe he’d played fast and loose, loved and left a woman who got angrier even than she had. “Take advantage of one too many women?” she asked. Given the fast-lane celebrities he wrote about, it seemed all too likely.

“Assassin.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t trying to kill me.” He shrugged. “I was in his way.”

Sara swallowed, then shook her head. “I don’t understand.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to, but it was better to be distracted by assassins than kisses. She shut the door and stepped around him into the room.

“I was in Africa.” He mentioned a small unstable country she’d barely heard of. It made Sara blink because there certainly weren’t any celebrities there. “He was trying for the prime minister. He missed. At least he missed the prime minister. Gave me a little souvenir to remember him by.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile.

None of it made sense to Sara.

The Flynn she’d known went to New York and Hollywood and Cannes, not Africa. And even if he had gone there, prime ministers were hardly the sorts of celebrities he wrote about. He wrote features about starlets and rock stars, actors like her stepdad and, at a stretch, soccer stars and tennis pros.

But she didn’t have a chance to ask anything else.

She hadn’t heard the back door open, hadn’t heard the footsteps pound across the kitchen floor, hadn’t heard anything until the door into the living room and dining room flew open.

And Liam burst into the room.

CHAPTER THREE

DEAR God, the boy was Will all over again.

And the sight of him would have sent Flynn reeling if kissing Sara hadn’t already done so.

She’d given him a shove, of course, and, with his bad leg, that had been enough to send him off balance literally. But emotionally just the sight of her had already rocked him. And the kiss, well…Flynn had kissed his share of women over the years, but none of them had been like kissing Sara.

He wanted to think about his reaction—and hers—analyze it, understand the effect she had on him. But there was no time. Not now.

Now he stood stunned and staring at this vital bouncing ball of energy, this miniature version of his dead brother.

Intellectually Flynn had known that his son would likely resemble his Murray forebears. But actually seeing it was astonishing.

The boy—Lewis, if she’d named him after her father—was the spitting image of his brother. The same black unruly hair, same fair skin, same spattering of freckles, same thin face and pointed chin. Same build, too. Wiry. Slender. There was a coltish boniness even beneath the boy’s winter jacket and jeans.

The boy didn’t spare him a glance. He came hurtling into the room, with no regard for the stranger in the living room. His eyes—as green as Will’s and Flynn’s own—went straight to his mother.

“Look!” He wriggled off his backpack at the same time he was thrusting a white box covered with hearts into his mother’s hands. “I musta got a skillion Valentines! An’ I got a real fancy one from Katie Setsma. She must like me!” He flung his backpack onto a chair, then scrambled up on it to pull off his boots.

Sara shot Flynn a quick glance, as if she were trying to gauge his reaction to this astonishing little person. The words in a crumpled letter and the living breathing bouncing reality were two entirely different things. He wondered if he looked as dazed as he felt.

“Of course she likes you, Liam,” she said to her son.

And that nearly did Flynn in.

“Liam?” he said hoarsely. The Irish shortened form of William? Flynn’s hand groping blindly for the back of a chair to steady himself.

At his voice, the boy stopped jerking off his boots and, for the first time, looked at Flynn curiously.

Instantly wary, Sara stepped between them. “That’s what we call him,” she said firmly. “I told you I named him after my father, Lewis William. But he’s not my father. He’s his own person.” She said this last fiercely as if defying him to argue.

He didn’t. Couldn’t. Could barely find his voice—or words. “I…yeah. I’m just…surprised.” He sucked in a hard breath and tried again. “It was my brother’s name—William. Will. We called him Will.”

Sara caught the operative tense. “Called? Was?”

“He died.” Flynn ran his tongue over suddenly parched lips. “Almost six years ago.”

Their gazes met, locked. Sara looked shocked then, too. And there were a thousand unasked questions in hers. He couldn’t answer them. Not now at least.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. And there was the sound of real regret in her voice. “I didn’t know.”

It made Flynn’s throat tighten. He gave a jerky nod. “I know that. It’s just—” he gave his head a little shake “—one more surprise.”

And then the room went silent. No one moved. No one spoke. Finally he grew aware of the sound of Liam sliding off the chair and coming around by Sara. He stopped and looked up at his mother, as if trying to figure out what was going on, as if hoping she would tell him. But she didn’t speak, didn’t even seem to see him, and her gaze never left Flynn.

The boy’s gaze followed hers. Will’s eyes—Dear God, they really were—fastened on him, then narrowed a little in the same way Will’s always did when he assessed something or someone new.

There was no doubt the boy had picked up on the current of apprehension that pervaded the room. He was like a fox scenting danger, Flynn thought.

And then, apparently deciding what was necessary, he deliberately moved in front of Sara, his back to his mother’s legs as if he would protect her. His chin jutted out as he contemplated Flynn. There was no sparkle now. Just the hard unwavering green gaze that generations of Murrays wore when protecting their own.

“Who’re you?”

It was the question Flynn had been anticipating since he’d made up his mind to come to Montana. It was the question he’d been longing to answer.