The Pregnant Heiress

Desperation or stupidity, he thought, bending to pet the stray cat, which was twining itself madly around his legs. Maybe both.

He heard the door to the kitchen slam and the sound of running feet—soft footfalls, like a skinny, slightly pregnant woman in athletic shoes might make. He abandoned his feline admirer and straightened just as she rounded the side of the oversize pickup.

She saw him, stopped dead and shrieked.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quickly, holding his hands out, palms up, and trying to look harmless. Unfortunately, he wasn’t any better at harmless than he was at sensitivity. “I just need to talk to you for a minute. I was hired to find you—”

“I know,” she said, her voice soft and breathless. “But please, please—tell him you couldn’t find me. He—he’s crazy. You don’t know what he’ll do. Or at least give me time to leave town. You could do that, couldn’t you?”

She knew? His brows drew together. According to Carter, she knew nothing about her family. “I can’t lie to a client.” Not much, anyway. “Anyway, he already knows where you are.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered, and shivered.

He frowned. “Don’t you have a jacket? It’s too cold out here for a little thing like you.”

The back door slammed again. The footfalls Flynn heard this time were heavy, solid. He grimaced.

“Emma?” The voice was heavy, too. Deep and heavy and obviously male. “Are you okay? Where are you?”

“Back here, Henry!”

Harmless, Flynn reminded himself. Think harmless. He smiled harmlessly at her. “I’m not here to make trouble for you. I want to tell you about your mother. Your family.”

For the first time, anger flashed in her eyes. “I don’t have any family. I sure don’t have a mother.”

“No, she—”

“You get away from her!”

Emma’s protector had arrived. Not many men were bigger than Flynn, but this one was. He wore a huge, stained apron wrapped around the middle of his three-hundred plus pounds, and brandished a butcher knife the size of a small sword. His face had been badly scarred by acne thirty or more years ago, a condition that the grizzled stubble on his cheeks didn’t quite cover.

“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” Flynn said, irritated. “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m a private investigator. If you promise not to get excited, I’ll get my license out and prove it.”

The big man took a threatening step forward. The hard desert sunlight gleamed on the steel of his knife. “What d’you mean, excited? You calling me names?”

Flynn sighed. Some days, nothing went right.

“Henry.” His subject put her hand on the man’s arm. “It’s all right.”

“All right? You get so scared you quit, you don’t even give notice, you go tearing out of my place like the devil was on your heels, you say it’s all right? You!” He scowled at Flynn. “I dunno anything about licenses or private investigators. I know you scared Emma. You go away. Now.”

“Listen,” Flynn said to Emma, abandoning the effort to look harmless and settling for determined. He was better at that. “Give me five minutes. If you don’t like what I have to tell you, you can go back to work, or peel out of here in your car—assuming it’s running—or whatever. Five minutes.” He glanced at her mountainous protector. “Alone.”

“No way.” Henry waved his knife.

Emma patted the man on one huge arm. She looked distracted and painfully unsure with those curvy eyebrows of hers trying to frown and managing only to make her look like a perplexed kitten.

She was so damned cute. “Okay, okay,” Flynn said. “This isn’t strictly ethical, but I’ll make you a deal. If, after I talk to you, you’re still worried about my client knowing where you are, I’ll give you eight hours’ head start.” And then he’d find her again.

“What did you say your name was again?”

“Flynn. Flynn Sinclair.”

“That’s Flynn with two n’s?”

“Yeah,” he said, baffled by her interest in spelling.

She chewed on her lip a moment. “That makes your heart number a one—very independent. But your personality number is two, so you’re kind and, ah, reassuring.” She looked at him dubiously, obviously doubting the accuracy of her forecast.

Definitely a flake. A pretty one, but a flake. “That’s me. Kind of reassuring.”

She chewed on that unpainted lip. “I don’t think he would send someone to hurt me. That’s not his style. And you’ve seen this man now, Henry, so you could testify if….” She straightened her shoulders. “All right. Five minutes. But show me that ID of yours first.”

Not a complete flake, he thought as he dug into his pocket again. Checking his ID was a good idea if she thought he might be tempted to conk her on the head as soon as they were alone. And apparently she did. Damn it, his curiosity was getting tangled up with those blasted protective urges.

Flynn flipped his wallet open and held it out, displaying his driver’s license—with the photo that made him look like he belonged on the Ten Most Wanted list—and his investigator’s license. She gave both a careful study, then stepped back so Henry could see them, too.

“You sure this is what you want—to be out here with him?” The mountain glared at Flynn.

“He won’t go away until I listen to him.” She patted a massive arm again. “You’d better get back to the kitchen. Something’s probably burning.”

Henry lumbered off, muttering that he’d leave the door open, just in case, and she’d better not even think about running off in that uniform and with her station in a mess.

When he was gone, Flynn looked into a pair of wary blue eyes. Poor kitten. How best to start? “Thirty-two years ago, a desperate young woman left two babies in front of the sheriff’s office in Dry Creek, Nevada.”

Her brows almost managed a real frown this time. “Wait a minute. Two babies?”

“A boy and girl.”

“You’re not talking about me, then.”

Yes, he was. “The young woman’s name was Miranda Fortune.” He waited, but she didn’t react. Maybe she hadn’t heard of the Fortunes. They were well-known in Texas, but that was one of the few western states Emma hadn’t lived in. “She was only seventeen, dead broke and estranged from her family. Miranda is your mother, Emma. And she wants very badly to meet you.”

He wouldn’t have thought a face like hers could look stony. But it did. “So you say, but your client is a man, not a woman. You said he already knew where I was.”

“My client is Lloyd Carter, Miranda’s ex-husband.”

The rest of her face still wasn’t giving much away, but something uncertain moved behind the blue of her eyes. She blinked once, slowly. “My…father?”

“No.” He spoke as gently as he could. “Miranda didn’t meet Carter until several months after you were born. I don’t know who your father was.”

She swallowed. “This man—this Carter—are you sure he’s who he says he is?”

Flynn had been putting some things together. Emma had gotten pregnant while she was living in San Diego. She’d left town in a big hurry, changed her name and was running scared. Scared of the man who got her pregnant? Afraid of a custody battle—or of the man himself? “I check out all my clients. Carter’s on the slimy side of handsome, but he’s definitely who he claims to be.”

She was stiff all over—her shoulders, her back, her expression. “How old is he? What does he look like?”

“He looks like a two-bit actor—weathered face, lots of smile lines, good cap job on his teeth. Wiry, fairly fit for his age—which is fifty-three, despite what he claims. Dark hair, gray eyes.”