The Rich Man's Baby

The little fellow snatched his candy and ran for the safety of the legs belonging to the woman Harrison had been haunted by since he’d found that moment of peace in her arms.

His heart slammed to a stop and his gaze met and held hers as she hoisted the little boy onto her hip. She hugged the child to her like a mother.

Harrison pulled in a sharp breath when he realized where he’d seen that baby’s face before. Every morning he walked by a framed photo of a shockingly similar face that sat on top of his grandmother’s piano.

The picture of himself as a baby.

NOT A BIT OF AIR remained in Juliet’s lungs. Now she knew how a trout felt in the bottom of a boat. All that was missing was her flopping around, and if he kept staring at her like he was, that’s just what she’d do.

It was him.

And here she’d thought enough time had passed that she wouldn’t know him in a crowd. But the second he had walked in, she’d realized she had stored away the memory of every line on his heart-stopping, handsome face down to the tiny scar beneath his chin, every gesture he had made, and every way he had touched her.

It all came rushing back along with buckets of air. Her body clenched, then throbbed with remembered desire, and her vision swam. She squeezed Nat tight against her until he squawked and squirmed to get down.

Not wanting to let him go, but having no choice since she was about to drop him, she let the baby slide down her leg to the floor and he was off and running. Straight back to his father.

The man who had just made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.

Oh, sweet Lord.

He squatted down again to get nose to nose with Nat and then they both looked toward her with the same eyes—the color of the river at its deepest—the same gently flared nose, the same cleft chin, the same everything. Juliet felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

The look he gave her now nearly sent her down for the count.

He knew.

Heat rushed to her face and she could no longer meet his gaze. She glanced to the windows, looking for his motorcycle, but all she could see through the filmy glass was a sleek, black Porsche.

Her gaze flew back to his clothes. The fabric and style of his slacks and white dress shirt reeked of designer wear the way a trash bin reeked of garbage. His classy clothes perfectly set off his golden tan—the sort a guy would get out on a golf course, not digging ditches. His thick, blond hair was shorter and had been styled into submission by stylists who obviously knew what they were doing. And the gold-and-silver watch on his wrist looked exactly like the kind they gave away as a grand prize on game shows. In other words, he looked like money.

That early summer day, more than two years ago, he’d only looked like a dream on a bike.

Juliet clamped her back teeth together and straightened to her full height. He hadn’t come back for her like she’d fantasized. He’d flat out said he’d wished she’d gotten married and left town. But she hadn’t because of her promise to her grandfather to tend the store and because she’d never been able to forget the father of her child.

She met his gaze again, and the message she sent him said, He’s not yours.

He glanced at Nathan, who was busily inspecting his father’s legs for any other sign of licorice, then slowly looked back at her. His message read, Like hell.

Her heart raced and she couldn’t breathe again. “Nathan, come here to Mama.”

Not used to such a tone, her baby simply stared at her. They both stared at her.

She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. What was she getting so worked up for? This man wasn’t going to give a darn about her baby. Actually, she was surprised the door wasn’t hitting his butt as he hauled it out of there. But in reality, he didn’t look like he wanted to leave at all, now that he’d seen Nathan.

He returned his attention to Nathan with deliberate casualness and started a game of “got your nose” with him, and her heart pounded harder. What if he took a liking to her angel? He was rich, she was poor. She didn’t have to be Einstein to realize how things would go if he decided he wanted her baby.

Dear Lord. Nathan was all she had.

“Hey, Natter, Big Bird’s on!” her brother hollered from in the house. “Nat!” Willie continued as he came through the door that had once led to a storeroom, but was now her family’s living room, or more accurately, TV room. “Where are you, ya li’l booger?”

Juliet turned her back on the man she had dreamed of being with again and growled at her brother, “You were supposed to be watching him, William.”

Her use of his proper name stopped him as if she’d yanked his chain, and his hazel gaze jumped to her. As usual, her big, lazy, older brother’s short brown hair stuck flat to his head on one side and stood straight up on the other, and he had his red-and-black flannel shirt misbuttoned.

“What’d he do?” Willie quickly scanned the store till he spotted the toddler. “You botherin’ the customers again, booger?”

“Don’t call him that,” she ground out. “I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Nat’s father said, “He’s not bothering anyone.” He rumpled Nat’s too-long hair.

Ohh, how she remembered his deep, rumbly voice that had turned her to mush in a heartbeat. And the sweet words of flattery and destiny he’d whispered in her ear. And how she had allowed herself, just that once, to believe. To believe in knights in shining armor and princesses who lived happily ever after.

“But I bet you like to bother ants, don’tcha?” he asked her baby and stood. “Just like your daddy.”

“Who knows?” Willie said as he went toward them. “Natter’s daddy was just some guy on a sweet bike who stopped only long enough to disappear in the back shed with my little sister.”

“William!”

“It’s not like it’s any big secret.” Willie scooped up his nephew and tossed the little boy on his broad shoulder. She thought Nat’s daddy was about to protest until he appeared to realize that the squeals the child made were ones of pleasure.

“So you thought that bike was sweet, eh?” he asked Willie.

“Yeah, I did.”

“So did I,” he said with a wistful smile that sent a jolt of longing through Juliet.

She closed her eyes and fisted her hands at her sides. Maybe if she concentrated real hard this would all go away.

Willie was halfway to the back of the store before what the guy had said registered. “Say what?”

Nat’s father let out a soft breath. “Boy, that thing could move. But what do you expect from a Beemer? I could have done without the fluorescent green, though.” He said it all so offhandedly, like her brother already knew that he was the guy on the bike.

Juliet’s eyes snapped open. Clearly he wanted him to know. No, no, no. He’d already made his feelings toward her clear. He would only want Nathan.

“You knew that bike?” Willie asked as he started back toward the handsome man by the door.

“Of course.” With his hands buried casually in his pockets, he looked for all the world as if they were chatting about the weather.

Her brother frowned fiercely. “How?”

Willie was so dumb. He had been the only other person around that day, though he had been too interested in the green-and-white BMW racing motorcycle to notice his little sister falling head-over-heels for the guy who had climbed off the thing. But she’d just turned twenty-one at the time, so she doubted his notice would have mattered much anyhow.

Her one and only mistake’s expression grew serious. “Because it was mine.”

“What?” Willie exclaimed.

Extending a hand toward her brother, he said, “The name’s Harrison Rivers.”