The Rich Man's Baby

“How do you know, when you’ve never even applied to any schools or tried to get financial aid?” He found an old wound of hers and poked it.

Juliet clamped her teeth together and fought the tears blinding her and the raging swell of helplessness that threatened to strangle her.

“You don’t know a thing about me,” she choked out, then left the kitchen.

The frustration exploded within her, and she started running—through the living room, through the empty store, and out into the dusk-shadowed gravel parking lot. She mentally winced when the busted screen door hit the wall after she blasted through the door. She prayed the bang didn’t wake her baby. But she didn’t stop running. She knew if Nat cried out her mother or Willie would go to him. At least she could count on them for that.

With barely a glance in either direction at the lights of oncoming traffic, Juliet darted across the two-lane highway and plunged down the embankment. She followed the well-worn trail until it ended at the stone-strewn edge of the McKenzie River.

Taking her usual seat on a smooth boulder, she tried to focus on the dark water slipping by, to let the steadiness of the river seep into her soul and smooth the rough edges of her pain like it had smoothed the rocks around her, but her tears made it impossible. Juliet buried her face in her hands and let loose the body-racking sobs she’d been doing such a lousy job of containing.

She was being pitiful and feeling sorry for herself, but she didn’t care. At this precise moment she didn’t have the strength to care. She’d think of a way to keep her baby out of everyone’s clutches later. Right now she just wanted to cry and curse the day she’d fallen for Harrison Rivers and taken the one and only chance of her miserable life.

Chapter Three

A blur of sun-blond hair and bare limbs dashed through Harrison’s headlights. He shoved his foot down hard on the brake pedal and swore.

Thank heavens he’d already been slowing to turn off into the gravel parking lot of the little store. If he’d been going full speed, he wasn’t sure he could have stopped in time. Twilight was a dangerous time to drive as it was, without crazed females bolting out in front of him.

He didn’t have to look twice to know the woman who’d nearly become his hood ornament had been Juliet, but he did look to see where she entered the underbrush and disappeared over the edge of the road.

Finishing his turn into the parking lot, Harrison brought his Porsche to a stop alongside the rusted gas pump. After leaving his father and grandmother at home, he had jumped in his car and headed back up the river. He’d told himself he was coming to see his child, his boy—but after seeing Juliet blaze across the street without so much as a look-see, he acknowledged he’d come to see her. He needed to make sure she didn’t hold some power over him beyond the comfort she’d unwittingly given him during his time of grief two years ago.

Getting out of his car, Harrison spared a glance at the storefront. While the white-and-red plastic sign read Open, the interior of the building stood dark except for a glow coming from the rear. Somebody better be in there, because his little boy certainly hadn’t been in his momma’s arms when she’d darted in front of Harrison’s car.

But as he started across the parking lot toward the road, the image of Juliet tucking their baby’s head under her chin flitted through his mind again. Somehow he doubted she’d leave Nathan unattended. Obviously she loved the child.

His child.

The knot that had formed in his stomach earlier today tightened. He hoped talking to Juliet about what had happened would loosen it a bit. Though her reaction to his declaration of paternity made him certain this talk wouldn’t be congenial, he had to make her see he wouldn’t settle for less than what was best for their son. And he firmly believed disappearing back down the highway for good wasn’t in Nathan’s best interest.

Taking considerably more care crossing the two-lane highway than Juliet had, Harrison jogged across the street, then started down what seemed to be a trail through the blackberry bushes and other underbrush growing on the embankment. His leather-soled loafers proved slick on the gravel-strewn dirt path, and the waning light made it difficult to pick his way down the trail, so he was forced to catch himself with his hand several times to keep from sliding down the incline on his rear.

The soft murmur of the river confirmed his suspicion of the trail’s destination, right before he emerged from the bank’s growth onto the rocks at the river’s edge. The paleness of the stones reflected what light still hovered in the air, so Harrison had no trouble spotting Juliet. Her slender back to him, she sat huddled atop a thigh-high boulder, her arms folded on her drawn-up knees and her head resting on her forearms.

What he had initially thought was another sound of the river turned out to be Juliet crying. Her soft, soul-wrenching sobs touched him so deeply he clenched his jaw against the sensation. She was crying because of him. He knew it.

Seized with the urge to comfort her, just as he had been compelled to be a part of her two years ago so she could comfort him, Harrison made his way toward her. One of his loafers slipped off a poorly chosen rock and his foot plunged into a small, stagnant pool of orphaned river. The splash sounded like a shotgun blast.

Juliet’s head jerked up and she swiveled on the rock toward him. She stared at him, her posture like a mouse caught in a hawk’s sights. A full minute passed, and he was about to identify himself when she finally spoke.

“You.” That one word held a wealth of recrimination and mistrust. “What do you want?”

Feeling like an invader of sanctuary, Harrison raised a hand, palm up, toward her. “We need to talk.”

With stiff, jerky movements, she turned to face the river again and pulled her knees up tighter to her chest. “We have absolutely nothing to talk about.”

Harrison drew in a fortifying breath of river-moistened air and started toward her once again, only to realize he still had one foot ankle-deep in water. Releasing the breath with a sigh, he extracted his sodden foot from the puddle and gave it a shake. Nothing about this was going to be easy. Absolutely nothing. But he had to make her listen. Not only for Nathan’s sake, but for their sake, too. They had to put to rest what had happened between them so they could move forward as rational adults.

Not caring anymore where he stepped, Harrison moved to her side. This close, he could easily make out the features of her profile. As before, he was struck by her loveliness. Little wonder he’d never completely forgotten her. Seeing her, free from the earlier distractions, Harrison confirmed again that he’d had very good reasons for never contacting her. She was more than a threat to his vow to never care about a woman enough that he lost control of his emotions; she was an all-out assault.

Not even the hardness of her expression diminished her effect on him. Once again he found himself wanting to get lost in her, to forget about the burdens he carried, the frustrations he bore. He wanted to meld with her and not have to manage or dictate or supervise, but just be.

Damn it.

Thank God he wasn’t the same irresponsible man he’d been over two years ago. He couldn’t allow himself to give in to the out-of-control desire he apparently still harbored. He was stronger now. He could risk having her in his life. As the mother of his child. Nothing more.

“Juliet,” he whispered. Her knees dropped away from her chest an inch or two, as if the sound of her name on his lips weakened her defenses. “Juliet, please. It’s just you and me here. You don’t have to pretend. We need to talk about our son.”

She finally looked at him, but in the failing light he couldn’t identify the emotion in her tear-swollen eyes. “He’s my son. Not ours. Not anybody’s but mine.”

He heard what he hadn’t been able to see. The tortured strain of her voice told him what she was feeling, why she’d been crying. He wasn’t surprised when she pulled her knees up tight against her again. She was feeling besieged.

“Look, Juliet, I know how you feel. I know you’re afraid. Of what, I’m not exactly sure, but—”

“Oh, so you know how I feel? How is that? Considering you don’t even know me.”

His empathy beginning to give way to frustration, he leaned in close. “You and I both know how well I know you.”

She jerked away from him like she’d been slapped. Harrison pulled back and let out a noisy breath. He was doing this all wrong. She would never let him help her if she stayed mad at him. He needed to make up for the damage he’d done before he found out about Nathan.

“I’m sorry, Juliet. Today has been a little trying for me, too. It’s not every day a man walks into a store to buy gum and walks out a father. So forgive me if I’m not as patient or as understanding as I should be.”

She turned to look at him again. “Is that the only reason you stopped? For gum?”

Harrison squinted hard at her, trying to cut through the gloom to see what emotion swam in her dark eyes. He wanted to be sure that he had been right earlier, that she had been waiting for him to come back for her. The possibility revived the wildness he’d felt then. He did his damnedest to clamp a lid on it.

Planting his hands on his hips, he shifted his weight to his squishy, wet shoe. “Well, since I’m trying to get you to be honest, I suppose I have to tell you the truth, too.” He shifted his weight back and softened the truth considerably. “No. I didn’t stop to get gum. I came up here because a stupid, silly part of me was hoping to see again the beautiful, barefoot woman I’d never been able to forget.”

He could just make out the narrowing of her eyes. “A stupid, silly part of you?”

So she suffered from a touch of vanity. Good. He was powerless against her stubbornness and strength of will, but vanity he could work with. Despite the fact he would be testing his control to the max, he’d have her agreeing to let him be a part of Nathan’s life yet.

He leaned toward her, ignoring how her fresh, clean smell filled his head and opened the door to all sorts of physical needs. “The stupid, silly part of me who still scans the sky for eight tiny reindeer on Christmas Eve and makes a wish when I blow out my birthday candles.”

Her lips parted slightly, then she tightened them and frowned. “But what about when you said you wished I had left for college and gotten married?”

“I panicked,” he lied. He couldn’t very well tell her he’d meant to squash the hope shining in her eyes. “You were so beautiful standing there, more beautiful than I’d remembered, and I felt like a bastard for not coming back.”

Her hold on her legs went slack and her knees dropped away from her chest again. This time nearly a foot.

He let the silence build for a while before he broke it. “Why didn’t you let me know I’d made you pregnant, Juliet? Why didn’t you tell me I had a child?”

“How could I? I didn’t know who you were,” she whispered, then pulled her knees back up.

Rife with regret, he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” He had to make her understand that he hadn’t used her, that what had happened between them hadn’t been about sex. It had been about trying to focus on life instead of death, about being free of the sorrows and pressures of his existence for a moment or two.

He reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder, the material of her white T-shirt doing a poor job of keeping at bay the memory of the texture of her skin. “I’ve thought about you, and our time together, a lot. It’s not that I didn’t want to come back…but…” He fumbled for an explanation that wasn’t as insulting as the bald truth. “But my responsibilities made it impossible for me to come see you again.”