The Father Of Her Child

Did he know intuitively what was important to her? Excitement tingled through a welling of intense pleasure. Lauren wished she knew more of him. Was he married?

“Thank you,” she returned warmly. “I do my best. As you do, by reputation.”

“There are some who would say my best falls short of their expectations. Haven’t you heard that, Ms. Magee?”

His hand slid away from hers. The withdrawal highlighted the unexpected formality of his address to her. Lauren felt confused. Why was he suddenly being off-putting?

“I’m sorry if you’ve been a target of ill will, Mr. Timberlane,” she said with a touch of sympathy. “People’s expectations are sometimes unrealistic.”

“And unreasonable,” he shot back.

She hesitated, uncertain of where he was coming from or leading to. Wayne and his unreasonable expectations flitted through her mind. Maybe Michael Timberlane was still smarting from some personal or professional contretemps. With someone at Global? Was that what had made him look so forbidding earlier?

Lauren fell back on one of Graham Parker’s pithy sayings, offering it with an ironic little smile. “Well, Mr. Timberlane, I guess into each life some rain must fall.”

“You being the rainmaker?”

She laughed and shook her head. “I like to think I spread sunshine.”

“The giver of light.” He nodded, his silvery eyes gleaming satisfaction. “Yes, that would be how you think of yourself.”

“And how do you think of yourself, Mr. Timberlane?”

He smiled, but it was a secretive, private smile, not an open, sharing one. “Oh, I’m the sword of justice, Ms. Magee.”

Definitely on some personal high horse, Lauren thought, wanting to pull him down from it. “Then I hope your balancing scales are in good order. Justice is so often blind,” she said, tilting at him.

“How true!” he agreed. “It’s unfortunate that so many people’s eyes aren’t open to both sides of a situation before making judgments.”

“Are yours?”

“I always look at the big picture, Ms. Magee.”

“Never missing a piece of the jigsaw, Mr. Timberlane?” she queried, niggled by his assumption of having all-seeing eyes. Nobody saweverything.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Evan broke in jocularly. “What’s all this Mr. and Ms.? We’re at a party, not a stuffy reception.”

“One must be careful not to assume too much these days, Evan,” Michael Timberlane answered his friend good-humouredly. “How do I know I’m not meeting a raging feminist who’ll take offence at inappropriate familiarity?”

Evan laughed. “I’d think it’s obvious Lauren isn’t a raging feminist.”

“Appearances can be deceptive.” Michael raised his eyebrows quizzically at Lauren. “Would you be so kind as to shed some light on the matter?”

Why did she have the sense he was playing out some secret agenda, toying with her, waiting to pounce if she didn’t keep on her toes?

“You have my permission to call me Lauren,” she said with a disarming smile, neatly sidestepping any argument about feminism.

“Then I shall not stand upon dignity,” he replied with mock gravity. “Please feel free to call me Michael.”

Lauren laughed at him. There was a certain spice to the game, a challenge. She couldn’t recall any man ever having put her quite so much on her mettle before, certainly not at first meeting.

“I’ve never liked Ms.,” Tasha remarked artlessly. “It sounds like a mosquito.”

“I think that’s spoken from the complacency of being a Mrs., Tasha,” Michael reproved lightly. “Lauren may feel differently.”

Another test, another nudge.

Tasha flushed, her brown eyes shining an apologetic appeal. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I guess it has its place.”

There was a fragile vulnerability, a simple innocence about Tasha Daniel that automatically touched Lauen’s protective instinct. She was not street-wise, and with Evan as her husband had probably never had the need to become so. In a way, Lauren envied that, never having to confront the darker games men and women played.

“It saves making a mistake with Miss or Mrs.,” she gently explained. “Like Mr., it doesn’t carry the label of being single or married.”

“Will you keep Ms. when you do marry?” Tasha asked curiously.

“That’s assuming she wants to marry,” Michael pointed out. “Many career women choose not to take on a commitment that could interfere with their life goals.”

“Oh, dear!” Tasha pulled a rueful grimace. “I’m really putting my foot in it, aren’t I?”

Lauren smiled to set her at ease again. “Being politically correct can be carried too far. I don’t mind your questions, Tasha. I’ve been married, and I was very happy to be a Mrs. then.”

Michael’s face jerked towards her. Surprise. Reappraisal. Lauren had a sense of factors being shifted, energy zapping through him as his inner vision was rearranged.

“Now I’m divorced,” she went on matter-offactly, “the title of Miss is fine by me.”

Tasha looked pained. “Another broken marriage. Michael’s been through it, too. So sad.”

One revelation had bought another.

Michael Timberlane was divorced-single-free! The equation zipped through Lauren’s brain, and she didn’t feel sad at all. She felt as though wonderful fireworks were exploding in fabulous cascades of brilliant colour, lighting up a world that had been empty of dreams.

She was twenty-nine, looking down the barrel of thirty. Unattached, intriguing and attractive men like Michael Timberlane weren’t exactly thick on the ground. Attractive was far too weak a word, she swiftly corrected. He was dynamite. He had both her mind and body shaken to acute awareness of all sorts of exciting possibilities.

Hope was definitely not dead!

“No reason to be sad, Tasha,” Michael said. “It’s a matter of statistics in today’s society. Two out of three marriages end in divorce. You and Evan are the lucky ones. You should let us in on the secrets of your success.”

Tasha smiled and reached out her hand to her husband. “It’s wanting the same things,” she said with moving simplicity. “Isn’t it, Evan?”

“Yes,” he agreed, beaming his love at her as he took her hand and fondled it indulgently.

Lauren fought down an emotional lump in her throat. They were lucky to have found what they wanted in each other. She wondered what had gone wrong with Michael Timberlane’s marriage. Who had left whom, and why?

“I didn’t know you’d been married, Lauren,” Evan commented with a look of puzzlement at her.

She shrugged, inwardly recoiling from that bad time. “Does anyone like talking about their mistakes?”

Evan shook his head. “I can’t imagine why any man wouldn’t fight tooth and nail to keep you with him.”