McKettrick's Heart

She sagged with relief and exhaustion, let herself cry against his strong shoulder. “I should have married you,” she said again.

He held her. “Let’s pretend you did,” he replied gruffly. “I’ll take care of your boy, Psyche—just as if we’d made him together.”

Psyche gave a shuddering sob. “Thank you,” she murmured.

As surely as if she’d had the room wired for sound, Florence appeared. “You’re all done in, Miss Psyche,” she said. “Time you rested for a spell.”

Psyche nodded, her head still resting on Keegan’s shoulder.

He stood, lifted Psyche into his arms again. Carried her—not to the elevator, but up the winding staircase at the front of the house. The one she’d come down, in a prom dress, so long ago. He’d been waiting shyly at the bottom that night, in a tuxedo, with a white peony corsage in his hand.

He mounted the second staircase, too, without so much as breathing hard. Florence followed at a slower pace.

When they reached the third floor Molly was standing in the corridor, watching with sad, enormous eyes.

Psyche felt Keegan tense.

Molly stepped aside.

“This way,” Florence said grimly.

Keegan carried Psyche into her room, laid her gently on the bed. Bent to kiss her forehead.

“Don’t forget your promise,” Psyche told him.

“McKettrick-true,” he reminded her. He curved a little finger, and Psyche hooked it with her own.

Then she smiled, closed her eyes and gave herself up to sleep.

* * *

MOLLY WAITED in the hallway outside Psyche’s room, longing to disappear but too stubborn to run.

After a few minutes Keegan came out. Stopped when he saw her standing there. Narrowed his gaze.

“Is she—is Psyche all right?” she asked.

He hesitated, took a step toward her, stopped again.

Molly stood her ground.

“Bad news for you,” Keegan said in a scathing undertone. “She’s still alive.”

Fury surged through Molly; trembling violently, she clenched her fists at her sides. If it hadn’t been for Lucas, and for poor Psyche, she might have launched herself at him, kicking and slugging.

Psyche’s door was closed from inside with an eloquent little snap.

Molly advanced, looked right up into Keegan’s outraged face. “Of all the reprehensible things to say!” she whispered.

He grasped her elbow and shuffled her down the hall, well away from Psyche’s door—and Lucas’s. “You want to hear ‘reprehensible,’ lady? Reprehensible is sleeping with another woman’s husband, then having the gall to move into her house and take over raising her son!”

He’s my son! Molly wanted to shout. But of course she didn’t. She simply stood there, drawing deep breaths and releasing them slowly until she knew she could address this impossible man without shrieking every word.

Keegan only made matters worse. Jabbing at Molly’s collarbone with the tip of one index finger, he growled, “Get ready for the fight of your life, Ms. Shields. Psyche believes she’s doing the right thing, the honorable thing, letting you adopt Lucas, because you’re his birth mother. But there’s one flaw in her logic—one she’s too sick and too weak and too damn desperate to see. If you’d really wanted that baby, you wouldn’t have signed off on him the way you did.”

Molly couldn’t have been more stunned if Keegan had struck her a physical blow. She felt light-headed, swayed and reached out to press a hand to the wall of the corridor, so she wouldn’t fall.

Keegan was relentless. “I’ll stop you any way I can,” he said. “You may pull off this—adoption—but I’m the executor of Psyche’s estate, and you won’t get a plugged nickel of that kid’s money, so if you’ve got a boyfriend waiting in some tropical hideaway for your ship to come in, honey, you’d better just write this con game off as a loss and get on the next bus out of town!”

That did it. Molly drew back her hand, and she would have slapped him, except that he caught her wrist in a hold that was just short of painful.

Tears of dizzying anger and frustration rushed to her eyes. “You—don’t—understand,” she said, and it was as if someone else had spoken the words, from a distance.

“I understand plenty,” Keegan snapped, flinging her hand free. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it, sugarplum. You’re in way over your head here. Go find another gravy train.”

Molly rallied. “You listen to me, you obnoxious bastard!” she choked out in a whisper that scraped at her throat like a wad of steel wool. “I’m not a crook, and I’m not some airheaded little bimbo you can bully onto a bus, either!”

He glared at her.

She glared back.

Both of them took deep breaths.

“This isn’t over,” he said.

“It sure as hell isn’t,” she replied.

He turned and stormed down the hall to the top of the stairs.

Molly just stood there, leaning against the wall, afraid her legs wouldn’t support her if she tried to walk.

When she felt able, she made her way back into the nursery.

Lucas slept, curled into a plump little ball in the middle of his crib, one thumb in his mouth. The windows were closed and latched, but a breeze ruffled his fine spun-gold hair just the same.

Wild thoughts rushed through Molly’s head, an onslaught, sweeping all logic and reason before them.

She could snatch him up in her arms, make a run for it.

Disappear.

Empty her bank accounts.

Start over somewhere, with a new name. Dye her hair, and Lucas’s, too. Call him Tommy or Johnny…

Stop, she thought.

She couldn’t do that to Lucas, or to Psyche.