The Baby Inheritance

His mouth twitched briefly. “Good point. Though I can say my clients end up very fond of me.”

“I’ll bet,” Lilah muttered. In all of her research, she’d learned just what a shark Reed Hudson was in a courtroom. He was right, his clients did love him, but, oh, his opponents had plenty to say—most of it sour grapes, but still.

Frowning, he gave her a hard, long look and asked, “So is it lawyers you loathe or just me in particular?”

“I don’t know you well enough to loathe you,” she admitted, which wasn’t really answering the question. She gave a sigh, met his gaze and said, “I came here already not liking you much.”

“Yes, that was clear when we met.”

Lilah winced a little. She was never deliberately rude, but her emotions had nearly been choking her. It wasn’t really an excuse, but it was the only one she had. “You’re right. But losing Spring, then having to hand Rosie over to someone I’d never met...”

She watched him think, consider, before he finally nodded. “I can see that,” he acknowledged with another long look into her eyes. “I appreciate loyalty.”

“So do I,” she said and thought they’d finally found some common ground.

“I spoke to our parents,” he said abruptly. “Well,” he amended, “our father, Spring’s mother.”

So strange, Lilah thought, different parents, same family, tangled and twisted threads of connections. Lilah had had no idea that Spring was a member of such a well-known family. Until her death revealed her secrets, Spring had gone by her ex-husband’s last name, Bates. So Lilah hadn’t been at all prepared to face down the powerful Hudson family.

Worry tightened into a coil in the pit of her stomach. What if Spring’s parents wanted Rosie? Would he give the baby over, in spite of Spring’s request that he raise her? And if he wanted to, how could Lilah fight him on it? From what she’d learned about the Hudsons, she had to think their parents were less than interested in their own children. They wouldn’t give Rosie the time or care she needed. Even while a part of her started plotting just what she might do if she had to take on Spring’s parents, Lilah asked, “What did they say?”

He sighed and for the first time he looked more tired than irritated. Or maybe, she thought, resigned was the right word.

“Just what I expected them to say,” he told her with a wry twist to his lips. “My father reminded me that he already has a three-year-old in the house and his wife is about to give birth to another baby.”

She blinked. It sounded strange to hear about siblings born more than thirty years apart.

“And Spring’s mother, Donna, said she’s got no interest in being a grandmother—or in having anyone find out she’s old enough to be a grandmother.”

“Not very maternal, is she?”

“The words alley cat spring to mind,” he admitted. “My father has interesting taste in women. Anyway, I told them both that Spring left her child to me. I was only calling them to give them a heads-up.”

A quiet sigh of relief slid from Lilah’s lungs. He didn’t sound as though he had any interest in handing Rosie over to those people, so one worry down. “So basically,” she said through the quiet sigh of relief, “they’re leaving Rosie with you.”

He looked at her. “I wouldn’t have given Rose to them even if they’d wanted her—which I was certain they wouldn’t.”

Now surprise flickered to life inside her. Lilah would have expected him to want someone to relieve him of the baby. Hearing him say just the opposite made her wonder about him. “Why?”

Frowning, he took a drink, then said, “First and most importantly, Spring asked me to take care of her daughter.”

Lilah nodded. She understood and appreciated that he would take his sister’s request to heart. In everything she’d read about him, he was a cold, merciless attorney. What she hadn’t known about was the loyalty she saw now, etched into his expression.

And even though her heart ached at the thought of going home and leaving Rosie behind...Lilah felt a bit better about going knowing that at least Reed would do what his own sense of duty demanded. It wasn’t enough for a child to grow on. A child needed love before anything else. But it was a start.

Still, she asked, “What else? What aren’t you saying?”

His mouth firmed into a tight line as he shifted his gaze from hers to the ocean, where the dying sun layered brilliant streaks of red and gold across the water. “Your parents,” he asked, “still together?”

A bittersweet pang of old pain shot through her chest. “They were,” she said quietly, watching his profile as he studied the sea as if looking for answers. “Until my father died in an avalanche five years ago.”

He looked at her then, briefly. “I’m sorry.”

“So were we,” she said, remembering that loss and how keenly it had been felt. “A couple of years ago, though, my mother met someone. He’s a very nice man and he makes her happy. They were married a year ago, and now they spend all of their time traveling.”

Stan was retired, having sold his business for millions more than ten years ago. When he met Lilah’s mother on a ski run in Utah, it really had been love at first sight, for both of them. And though it had been hard to accept that her mother could love someone other than Lilah’s father, she couldn’t deny how happy Stan made her mom.

Curiosity sparked in his eyes. “Going where?”

“Everywhere, really,” she said, with a half laugh. “Mom and Stan live on a cruise ship, going from port to port and, according to my mother’s emails, having a wonderful time.”

Now he turned, a small smile curving his mouth, and looked down at her. “You were surprised that I live in a hotel, but your own mother lives on a cruise ship.”

She shrugged. “But a hotel’s on land. Near houses. A cruise ship is something else again.”

“Odd logic.”

Smiling, she said, “It works for me.”

“Yeah.” He turned his face into the wind again and said, “So, my family’s different. They like having children, they just don’t like having them around. Nannies, governesses and boarding schools are the favorite child-rearing tools for the Hudsons.”

Before she could say anything about that, he went on, “Spring hated it. It was a kind of torture for her to be locked away in a school she couldn’t leave.” He swiveled his head and stared at her. “How could I give Rose over to people who would only do the same thing to her that they did to her mother? No.”

Warmth opened up in the center of her chest and Lilah was caught off guard. The cold, hard lawyer seemed to have disappeared and she didn’t know quite what to make of the man he was now.

“You’ve agreed to stay,” he was saying, and Lilah came up out of her thoughts to listen.

“For a while, yes.” For Rosie. For Lilah’s own sake, she would stay until she was sure the baby girl would be safe. Happy. She’d closed her artisanal soap shop temporarily and could run the online business from her laptop, so there was no rush to get home.

Reed had wanted to pay her to stay. What he didn’t realize was he would have had to pay her to leave.

“Then you can help me choose the house.” He finished off his scotch. “And furnish it. I won’t have time for a decorator.”

Stunned, she just looked at him. “You want me to—”

“Don’t all women like shopping?”

She laughed shortly. “That’s completely sexist.”

“Sue me. Am I wrong?”

“No, but that’s not the point,” she said.

“It’s exactly the point. You’ll have free rein,” he tempted her. “You can pick out the furnishings that’ll make the house baby friendly.”

Help choose the kind of house Rosie would grow up in? How could she refuse? Shopping to outfit an entire house on someone else’s dime? What woman wouldn’t accept that offer? Besides, if left to his own devices, Lilah was sure he’d furnish the whole place in black and white, and that thought was just too hideous to contemplate.

“Free rein?” she repeated, wanting his assurances.