The Biological Bond

SAM FACED THE WINDOW overlooking the rear parking lot of the hotel, waiting. He glanced at his watch again for the fifth time. She would be arriving any moment now. He scowled.

A sleek, black, foreign sports car pulled into the parking lot, and he watched its slow progress across the asphalt. Instinct told him it was her.

The car slid into the parking slot two floors below. He held his breath, a part of him hoping she wouldn’t come. Seconds later she slipped from the car.

She looked cool, despite the hot August evening, her white linen suit unrumpled even in the sweltering heat. Her rich dark hair was pulled back and fancily secured so it hung halfway down her back. There was no denying where Mel’s beauty came from—her birth mother.

He stepped away from the window when she turned and headed toward the luxury hotel. Rebecca Martinson may be intelligent, a hot-shot lawyer, according to the report the investigator provided him with, and beyond beautiful, but he knew her type all too well. According to the investigator, Mel’s birth mother had a pedigree to rival royalty.

Rebecca Martinson’s father was a State Supreme Court Justice, her grandfather had been a United States Senator, brutally assassinated. As for Mel’s maternal grandmother, she was simply one more cardiologist in a long line of top medical practitioners in the country.

As painful as the subject was, he couldn’t help wondering about Mel’s biological father. The investigator had been evasive in his answers on that score, and had provided nothing by way of solid information. Was Mel’s natural father the son of a servant the mighty Martinson family had been ashamed of? Or was he someone high on the “A” list anxious to avoid scandal? Or was it something as simple as the fact that Rebecca hadn’t been more than a child herself?

A knock on the door interrupted his train of thought. She wanted to talk. His gut said she wanted something. He could feel it just as sure as he could feel the cool breezes from the plains where he grew up, and it filled him with a deep sense of dread.

She knocked again, and he opened the door. Standing in the hallway, she was no longer the self-assured attorney he’d first glimpsed. Now she was nervous, almost as nervous as he was about this meeting.

“Hi,” she said quietly when she stepped into the room.

“I’d offer you a drink, Ms. Martinson, but this isn’t a social call. What do you want?”

He knew he was being hard, but dammit, he didn’t like feeling threatened. And Rebecca Martinson was a threat of the worst possible kind. She didn’t have a legal right to demand squat. Emotionally, well, that was an entirely different situation.

She set her purse on the cream sofa, and he couldn’t help noticing how her hands trembled. She started to remove her lightweight linen blazer, then changed her mind and pulled it back around her, shoving her hands in the side pockets.

She cleared her throat, her gaze darting around the suite. He remained by the closed door and crossed his arms over his chest. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her, whatever the hell it was she wanted from him.

“Mr. Winslow, I would like the chance to get to know my dau—to get to know Melanie.”

Anger, pure and hot, flared through him. He should have expected something like this. His visit had more than likely stirred some dormant maternal instinct. Well, she could forget it. He wasn’t going to risk losing his daughter to appease the woman who’d given her up in the first place.

“I don’t think so, Ms. Martinson.” He swung around and opened the door. “You can leave now.”

“Hear me out. Please.”

The pleading in her voice startled him. God, she even sounded like Mel.

He slammed the door, and she flinched. Good, let her be frightened. Because if she so much as tried to take his daughter away from him, he’d hunt her down and…

“I just want a chance to meet her and get to know her.” Her voice was whisper soft, not at all the forceful personality he’d encountered in his two previous conversations with her.

“No.” Cold and blunt, but the point was the same. No way in hell, lady.

Dark, finely arched brows drew together in a sleek line over bright-green eyes. “What harm can there possibly be in me at least meeting her?”

“What harm?” he roared. “Lady, are you nuts?”

“Obviously,” she muttered, and turned away.

He strode across the room until he was standing directly in front of her, giving her no choice but to look up at him. A small power play, but he wasn’t above using his own physical advantages at a time like this. He simply had too much to lose.

“Do you know what kind of shock it’d give her? What do I say? ‘Mel, this is your birth mother. She wants to get to know you,”’ he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “No!”

Much to his amazement she didn’t back down or cower. Frustration flashed in her eyes and, if he wasn’t fighting for his daughter’s life, he might have found her gumption just a little stimulating.

“You don’t have to tell her who I am. You could tell her I’m an old friend. She doesn’t even have to know I’m the one who’s donated the bone marrow.”

Bracing his hands on his hips, he continued to scowl at her. “And just how long do you plan on ‘visiting’?” he asked against his better judgment.

She pulled in a deep breath and stepped away. “I’ve arranged for a month-long leave of absence.”

“A month?” A few days, maybe, if that’s what it took to get what Mel needed. But a month? No way could he have this woman living under the same roof with his daughter. He shook his head.

“Look Mr. Winslow. A month isn’t all that long to ask for. I’ve lost—”

“Don’t tell me what you’ve lost,” he thundered. “You made the decision to give her up for adoption. And believe me, if Mel didn’t need you for physiological reasons, you would have gone blissfully through life without knowing her.”

“Haven’t you ever done something you’ve regretted?” she asked. “She’s your daughter, I just want—”

“A chance to right some cosmic wrong?” he retorted. “Forget it.”

She let out a stream of breath and closed her eyes momentarily. In that instant she reminded him so much of Mel. The way her long, dark lashes fanned her cheeks, the stream of breath that ruffled bangs and spoke loud and clear of dramatic frustration.

She opened her eyes and gave him a direct stare. “Please, Mr. Winslow. There’s no other way I know how to ask.”

The pleading note in her voice ripped through him, and he felt himself begin to soften. He’d have to be pretty convincing where Mel was concerned. How could he just bring a strange woman into their home and pretend they were old friends?

“All I’m asking for is a month to get to know her. I don’t want to upset her. I’m willing for her to never know who I really am. Won’t you agree? Please, Mr. Winslow.”

Sam strode to the window and stared into the horizon. He wanted to tell her to get out—to leave and forget he’d ever contacted her. But he couldn’t. No matter how much he detested her manipulative tactics, for Mel he couldn’t afford the luxury of telling Rebecca Martinson to go straight to hell.

“One month in exchange for bone marrow?”

Rebecca expelled a rush of breath. She was getting through to him. As cold and heartless as he made it sound, that was exactly what she wanted. “Yes,” she said, not bothering to tell him that even if he’d refused she would have checked into the hospital immediately to begin the extraction process.

“One month,” he repeated and turned to face her. He strode across the room until he was towering over her again. “My daughter knows she’s adopted, Ms. Martinson.” His soft voice belied the fury burning in his dark eyes. “God help us both if she finds out who you really are.”

“FLIGHT 473, nonstop to Denver will commence boarding in five minutes.”

Rebecca checked her watch for the fourth time in as many minutes. She opened her shoulder bag and retrieved the airline ticket delivered to her last night. She double-checked the flight number—473. A few hours to Denver, then a commuter to a place called Minot, North Dakota. From what Sam had told her, he lived in a small town with a population of less than five hundred. Her condo complex was more populous.

She looked at the overhead monitor and bit her lip. Their flight was due for take off in less than thirty minutes, and Sam Winslow still hadn’t shown.

Turning to face the electronic doors, she watched as people flooded into the terminal at LAX. Not one of them was Sam. She sighed. How difficult could it be to spot one taller-than-average, better-looking-than-any-man-had-a-right-to-be guy with a permanent frown creasing his brow?

In this crowd, impossible.

She turned and headed toward the bank of phones intending to call his hotel. Maybe he’d overslept. If he wasn’t familiar with the layout of the airport, he could even have gotten lost. She reached for the pay phone when she spotted him, walking toward her at a brisk pace. Her pulse rate picked up speed.