Secret Baby Santos

She was still too much in shock to even be embarrassed that she’d dived head first into a display of green beans and landed on her bottom. So much for conquering her childhood awkwardness, she thought dismally. So much for her five years as a confident, assertive journalist. One look at Nick Santos and it all went out the window.

If there was one person Maggie never expected to see again—one person she never wanted to see again—it was Nick Santos.

What was he doing here? She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel and let the wave of panic wash over her. Nick had left Wolf River twelve years ago, two years before she’d gone off to Boston for college. He’d become an overnight success with his racing. The media loved him, not only for his good looks and charm, but for his involvement with charities. She even remembered that several years ago he’d done a magazine spread for a blue jeans company and donated his endorsement to a children’s charity.

Nick Santos, with his heart-stopping smile and his take-your-breath-away eyes. He’d been in countless magazine articles, photographed at celebrity parties, hounded by the tabloids in search of dirt outside the motorcycle racing track.

But there was one article she remembered above all the rest. The paternity suit he’d been involved in five years ago. There’d been pictures of him beside a beautiful blonde and a caption that read: Santos Soon to Be a Daddy? The Courts Will Decide.

He’d eventually won that case, his lawyer proving that the woman had lied and was simply looking for some easy money. But the battle had been nasty, as well as highly publicized, and no stone in Nick’s life had been left unturned: his alcoholic mother who’d abandoned him when he was ten, an abusive stepfather, his year at Wolf River’s County Home for Boys when he was fourteen, and his close, lifelong friendship with Lucas Blackhawk and Killian Shawnessy. Nick’s life had been an open book to the world.

And still he’d smiled through it all, refusing to talk about his past or the court case with reporters, but dazzling them nonetheless with his wit and charm. He was smooth, but rough enough around the edges to make women sigh with pleasure and men grunt with approval.

And he was back. God help her, he was back.

She drew in another long, slow breath and stepped out of the car. Her knees still felt shaky, but she was determined not to let her parents see that anything was wrong. When she let herself in the front door, the smell of roast beef filled the house. If there was one thing her mother loved to do besides talk it was cook.

“Margaret, you’re back so soon.” Her mother came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishrag. In spite of her compulsive need to feed everybody who entered the house, Angela Smith was trim herself, a pretty brunette with warm brown eyes and a flashing smile. “Did you find everything all right? That new stock boy George hired has moved everything around so that my head spins just looking for a loaf of bread. Last week it took me ten minutes to find the prune juice. Which reminds me—” she turned toward the living room “—Boyd, have you had your glass today?”

Maggie’s father grunted from behind the newspaper he was reading. Bandages circled the knee of one swollen white leg, which he’d propped up on the ottoman of his easy chair, but his blue-plaid bathrobe sufficiently covered the rest of him.

Maggie realized she hadn’t bought one thing. How could she have gone grocery shopping after seeing Nick? “I...lost the list you gave me. I’ll have to go back.”

“Never you mind, honey. There’s nothing that won’t keep till tomorrow. Dinner’s almost ready.” Her mother frowned. “You look a little pale, dear. Is anything wrong?”

“No, nothing. Of course not. I’m fine, just fine.”

Not wanting her mother to see the lie, Maggie turned away quickly and set her purse on the entry table. Angela Smith knew everything that went on in Wolf River. Hadn’t her mother told her, in detail, about Helen Burnette’s divorce? About Susan Meyers’s argument with Phyllis White over her poodle’s constant barking? About Ralph Hennesy’s fender bender with Walt Johnson?

How could she tell her all those things and never once mention that Nick Santos was living here again? The man was a celebrity, for God’s sake.

Maybe Nick wasn’t really living here, Maggie reasoned. Maybe he was just visiting Lucas Blackhawk. Maggie knew that Lucas had married Julianna Hadley a few months back and that Nick had been the best man. Her parents had been invited to the wedding reception, almost everyone in town had been. Her mother had talked endlessly about Lucas and Julianna and what a wonderful couple they made. But when she’d made a fuss over how handsome Nick had looked in his suit, how charming he’d been when he’d asked her to dance, Maggie had quickly made an excuse and hung up the phone. She couldn’t talk to her mother about Nick. She couldn’t.

She couldn’t talk to anyone about Nick. Ever.

“Sweetheart, are you sure you’re all right?”

Maggie realized that she’d been staring blankly into the mirror over the entry table, and that her mother was watching her now, her eyes narrowed with concern.

“Just a little jet lag, Mom.” She turned and gave her mother a hug. “I’ll go check on Drew, then put the potatoes on.”

“Drew hasn’t budged from the video you put on before you left, and the potatoes are already boiling. Oh, and that reminds me. Miss Perry, the preschool director from the elementary school called. They have an opening if you’d like to take Drew in on Monday.”

Thank goodness for that, Maggie thought. A fouryear-old with too much time on his hands was like a tornado waiting to touch down. He’d be much happier playing with other children, and she’d be more sane. At least, she’d thought she would be, until she’d run into Nick. Keeping her sanity now was going to be much more difficult.

“You go rest up.” Her mother was already scooting her toward her old bedroom. “I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”

Maybe she would rest a little, Maggie thought. A few minutes alone would give her enough time to pull herself together again. Seeing Nick had been a fluke, an unfortunate coincidence. He was probably just passing through town and stopped to say hello to Lucas. And even if he did stick around for a few days, Wolf River wasn’t all that small. The odds of running into him again were practically non-existent.

That thought eased the tightness in her shoulders. She could only imagine what he must think of her after her insane behavior in the market. No doubt he thought she was a crazy lady escaped from the funny farm.

Fine. Let him think she was crazy. As long as she didn’t have to see him again, he could think whatever he wanted.

On her way to the bedroom, Maggie leaned over and brushed her father’s whisker-rough cheek with her lips. He’d retired only six months ago from his foreman construction job and he’d had way too much time on his hands. Even after thirty-six years of marriage, her mother, who had the patience of a saint, was ready to murder the man. And if he’d been a pain-in-the-behind before, since his surgery, he’d been twice as gruff. As far as patients went, he was somewhere between Oscar the Grouch and Attila the Hun. “Can I get you anything, Daddy?”

“Sneak me a shot of whisky and a cigar,” he said in his deep gravelly voice without looking up from his paper. “There’s cash in it for you.”

“Money won’t do me any good if I’m dead. Mom says no alcohol or tobacco while you’re recuperating, and if she so much as catches a whiff of either on your breath, she’ll bruise both our behinds.”

His response was something between a growl and a grunt. He simply snapped his paper and mumbled something about overbearing wives and ungrateful children.

At the sound of the doorbell, she straightened.

“Would you get that for me, Maggie?” her mother called from the kitchen. “Jim Becker’s stopping by with a set of crutches for your father. He’s supposed to be up walking by the end of the week.”

Maggie smiled when her father only buried his head deeper into his paper. Getting a six-foot, two-hundredpound, stubborn man walking was no stroll in the park, but if anyone could do it, Maggie knew her mother could.

Other than running into Nick at the market, it felt good to be home. The scent of a roast baking, the sound of her mother’s humming from the kitchen, even her father with his nose in the paper. She missed all that. Life had gotten too crazy these past few years. She hadn’t even realized it until this minute just how crazy.

She was going to enjoy her time here, she resolved. Enjoy her time with Drew and her parents. She’d put the past behind her a long time ago; it no longer existed. There was only here and now.

The doorbell rang again and when she opened the door the past she’d put behind her stood on her parents’ doorstep, staring back at her with eyes as black and deep as a forest at midnight.

Two

Nick couldn’t remember when he’d ever seen eyes so deep green before. Eyes so big and wide and... nervous?

So she was still shy, he thought, and realized that he found it charming. Most of the women he knew always seemed so sure of themselves, confident almost to the point of intimidating. He liked a little hesitation in a woman, a little uncertainty. He especially liked the fact that he was the cause of it.

Smiling, he pulled her credit card out of his pocket. “You lost this at the market. I thought you wouldn’t mind, so I booked us a Jamaican cruise. We leave next week.”

She stared at him, then blinked and snatched the card out of his hand. “Thank you.”

Then she slammed the door in his face.

This wasn’t going exactly as he’d planned.

Nick raised his brows and stared at the closed door. The Maggie Smith he remembered might have been shy, but she’d also been sweet.

But then, the Maggie Smith he remembered had also been skinny and drab.

Damn if he wasn’t intrigued.

He noticed Mrs. Potts, the Smiths’ next door neighbor, watering the bushes that separated their properties. She’d been the dean’s secretary the six months he’d spent in Wolf River County Home for Boys, and she’d been old then. When he nodded at her, the frail woman quickly looked away, pretended she hadn’t seen that Maggie had just slammed a door in his face.

Maybe Maggie still thought of him as some kind of convict, even though his “visit” at the county boys’ home had been twenty years ago. His “offense,” a short joy ride with Linda Lansky on her older brother’s new scooter, had been harmless, but Bobby Lansky hadn’t been the understanding type. Neither had the judge, unfortunately.

But he really hadn’t minded going to the home. Lucas and Ian had both been there at the same time, and at least he got fed regularly, and no one ever punched him in the stomach for leaving a jacket on a chair or playing the stereo too loud. Hell, it had been more like a vacation.