His Heir, Her Secret

She knew in her heart that idea was wrong. A man deserved to know he had fathered a child. Besides, wouldn’t Miss Izzy let the cat out of the bag eventually? Cate’s elderly friend was far from stupid or naive. She knew her grandson and her neighbor had spent a great deal of time together back in the autumn.

Even if Isobel hadn’t guessed before now about Cate and Brody’s sexual intimacy, once Cate’s belly began to swell visibly, Isobel would do the math and realize that she was going to have another Stewart in the works.

Tension wrapped Cate’s skull in a headache. She was an intelligent, educated woman. Surely there was a way forward.

Tell him, her gut insisted. Tell him. Postponing the truth would only make things more difficult. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. What would he say? How would he respond? She felt fragile and helpless, and she hated both emotions.

The baby was only now becoming real to Cate herself. How much more unbelievable would conception seem to Brody? Because Cate’s sex life had been nonexistent since moving to Candlewick, she hadn’t been taking birth control pills when she met the handsome Scotsman. Brody had been happy to produce a seemingly never-ending supply of condoms.

But there had been that one time in the middle of the night, that poignant, dreamlike coupling, a series of moments as natural as breathing. They had found each other with hushed sighs and ragged groans in the mystical hours when the world slept. She had spread her legs for him, and he had claimed her as his. For all she knew, Brody might not even remember. He’d made love to her many times. Perhaps they all ran together for a man.

Cate remembered each one in vivid detail.

This was not the time to dwell on the past. Nor was it the moment to wallow in grief. She didn’t know Brody Stewart well enough to let him break her heart. Love didn’t happen so quickly.

She almost believed it.

While she paced, Brody leaned back in his chair, waiting. Judge and jury. He expected Cate to choose his side, to align herself with the grandsons and not Isobel.

If Cate had believed it was the right thing to do, she might have capitulated. Instead, her heart told her she had to fight for the old woman’s happiness...and her own. At last, she stopped. She stood at his knees, her arms wrapped around her waist. “Go home, Brody, you and Duncan both. Give her a chance to settle back into the house. Now that she’s been up there again, I think she’ll quit living over the store.”

“And then?”

She shrugged. “Then nothing. You live your life in Scotland. She lives hers here in Candlewick. I’ll call you when the time comes.”

“When she dies.”

“If you want to be blunt about it, yes.”

He straightened slowly, unfolding his tall, lanky frame and flexing his wrists until they popped. Despite his self-professed temporary vow of celibacy, he put his hands on her shoulders and massaged them.

Cate couldn’t decide if he was attempting to comfort her, or if he was trying to avoid shaking her until her teeth rattled.

Maybe he subconsciously wanted to touch her. She didn’t know.

Brody rested his forehead against hers. “You’re trying to make me lose my temper, Catie lass, but it won’t work. I came here to take care of my grandmother’s affairs, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Your way.”

“It’s the only way, or at least the only way that makes sense.”

His breath was warm on her face. The masculine scent of his skin filled her lungs when she inhaled sharply, imprinting on every cell of her body. Brody was not a man one could easily forget. She leaned into him, blaming her weakness on the late hour and her bone-deep distress. “I won’t help you manipulate her, Brody. I won’t.”

His chest rose and fell in a sigh so deep it made her sad. “I suppose I can understand that. At least promise me you won’t be deliberately obstructive. Duncan and I love Granny. We’ll take care of her, Cate.”

She nodded, her eyes damp. Was it hormones making her weepy or the knowledge that something miraculous had happened? She and Brody had created a baby. People did that every day in every way. But sheer numbers didn’t make the awe she felt any less.

With her breasts brushing the hard planes of Brody’s chest and her barely-there pregnant tummy nestled against him, she felt an incredible surge of hope mixed with despair. What she wanted from him was the stuff of fairy tales. The gallant suitor. The happy ending.

She made herself step away. “I need to go back to bed,” she said. “Please leave.”

Brody cupped her cheeks in his big, calloused hands. Years of handling rope and sails had toughened his body. Even without Isobel’s estate, Brody’s fleet of boats had made him a wealthy man. Isobel had bragged about it often enough. The eventual inheritance would secure his fortune.

His big frame actually shuddered, his arousal impossible to miss. “If it was going to be anybody, it would be you, Cate. But I’ve never been much for home and hearth.”

“Thank you for being honest,” she whispered.

Pressing his lips to hers, he kissed her long and deep. It was a goodbye kiss, bittersweet, painfully bereft of hope. The kind of kiss lovers exchanged on the dock when moviegoers knew the hero was never coming back.

Cate twined her arms around Brody’s neck and clung. If this was all she would ever have of him, she needed a memory to sustain her. She could be a single mother. Lots of women did it every day. She wouldn’t be any man’s obligation.

There was a moment when the tide almost turned. Brody was hard and ready. His hands roved restlessly over her back and settled on her bottom, dragging her close. His hunger made him weak and Cate strong. But she had always been the kind of girl to play by the rules.

Only twice in her life had she broken them, and both times she had paid a high price.

Drawing on a dwindling store of resolve, she released him and eluded his questing hands. “Go,” she said. “Go, Brody.”

And he did.

Four (#ucbbd8857-d206-52ea-9c1d-de08b3efc14a)

Brody spent the following week working himself into a state of physical exhaustion so pervasive and so deep he fell into bed each night and was instantly unconscious. Six months of neglect had left Isobel’s spectacular house with a host of issues and problems to be addressed.

He and Duncan made massive lists and checked them off with painstaking slowness. Damaged roofing shingles from a winter storm. Rotting wood beneath a soffit. Gutters clogged with leaves.

Some of the backlog of general repairs dated back to his grandfather’s illness. The old man had suffered a stroke five months before he died. Virtually nothing had been done to the house, inside or outside, for almost a year.

Isobel was a wealthy woman. Brody and Duncan could easily have hired a crew to come in and do everything. But the two grandsons were silently paying penance for not coming sooner and staying longer.

The very depth of their guilt made Brody realize that returning to Scotland without their grandmother was going to be unacceptable.

No matter what Cate said, Candlewick was not Isobel’s home anymore. Without her beloved American-born husband, she would be far better off to cross the ocean with her two devoted grandsons and settle in amongst the people of her youth.

On the eighth day, Brody and Duncan abandoned the house so a professional cleaning service could descend upon the mountaintop retreat and restore the estate to its previous glory.

While that refreshing and refurbishing was underway, the two men helped Isobel pack up her personal items downtown, everything she had taken with her when she moved into the apartment over her offices.

While Duncan carried a stack of boxes down to the car, Brody sat beside his grandmother and took her hands in his. “You know this is only temporary, Granny...a few nights for you to say goodbye to the house. I contacted a Realtor this morning about preparing the listing.”

Isobel Stewart pursed her lips and straightened her spine. Her dark eyes snapped and sparked with displeasure. “I love you dearly, Brody, but you’re a stubborn ass, exactly like your father and your grandfather before you. I am neither weak nor senile nor in any kind of physical decline. I’m old. I get it. But my age doesn’t give you the right to usurp my decision-making.”

Brody ground his teeth. “Duncan and I have lives we’ve put on hold. We did it gladly, because you’re very important to us.”

Her fierce expression softened. “I appreciate your concern. I truly do, my lad. But you’re making a mistake, and you’re being unfair. I’m moving back into my beautiful home—thanks to you boys—but I’m not returning to Scotland. My dear Geoffrey is buried in Candlewick. Everything we built together is here in the mountains. I can’t leave him behind. I won’t.”

“It’s dangerous for you to live alone,” Brody said, incredulous to realize that he was losing the battle. Isobel would have been far safer to stay here in town where people could keep an eye on her. Now he and Duncan had convinced her to do the very thing they wanted to avoid.

“Life is a dangerous business,” the old woman said, her expression placid. “I make my own choices. You can go home with no regrets.”