That evening, when Heather answered the insistent knocking on her cottage door, she wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Jake standing on the other side. In fact, she’d been expecting him. She’d known that once he saw Mandy it was just a matter of time before he put it all together.
“We need to talk.” Instead of waiting for her to invite him in, he took hold of her elbow and propelled her back into the living room, kicking the door shut behind him. “I want answers and I’m not leaving here until I get them, Heather.”
“It never crossed my mind that you would,” she said calmly. She wasn’t going to allow him to upset or stress her out in any way.
“That baby belongs to me, doesn’t she?” he demanded, cutting right to be heart of the matter.
“That baby has a name—Amanda Grace. I call her Mandy. She’s almost seven months old.” Heather walked across the room to pull the nursery door closed to keep their raised voices from disturbing her daughter. “And if by belong, you mean are you her biological father? The answer is yes.”
“What happened? I used protection.”
Was he actually questioning that he was the father of her child?
“I’m well aware of that. It obviously had a defect.” She raised an eyebrow. “Surely you’re aware that nothing is one hundred percent effective except abstention. And if we’d gone that route—”
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he finished for her.
“Exactly.” She looked him directly in the eye. “But let me assure you, Mandy is your daughter.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t questioning that. She looks just like me.”
Heather watched a muscle work along his lean jaw as Jake stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. She could tell his anger was bordering on outrage, but that was just too bad. As far she was concerned, not knowing he’d fathered a child was his own fault and she wasn’t about to let him turn the blame back on her.
“Did you even think about getting in touch with me when you discovered you were pregnant?” he finally asked, his voice low and menacing.
Heather had told herself that she wasn’t going to let him get to her, but his accusatory tone angered her as little else could. “I really don’t think you want to go there, Jake. Believe me, you won’t like hearing what I have to say.”
“Go ahead. Try me.” He took a step toward her. “I told you I’m here to get answers.”
“Then I would suggest you drop the intimidation tactics as well as the idea of being the wounded party in all of this because you’re not.” When she turned to walk into the kitchen to put a little more distance between them and the nursery, she fully expected him to follow.
He didn’t disappoint her. “Did you or did you not consider letting me know that you were expecting my child?”
Turning on him, she took a deep breath in an effort to calm down. She had a lot to say and she was going to savor every second of it. She’d wanted this conversation for over a year, but never thought she’d have the chance to have her say. She wasn’t going to allow herself to lose momentum by becoming overly emotional. She refused to give Jake that kind of power over her.
“I not only considered letting you know, I spent my first trimester leaving messages that I needed to talk to you urgently.” She met his angry gaze head on. “You never returned my calls, and I wasn’t comfortable leaving that kind of information with your secretary.”
“I—”
Holding up her hand to stop whatever lame excuse he came up with, she went on, “Then I spent the second trimester trying to convince myself that there had to be a reasonable explanation for you ignoring my requests to get back to me. It turns out I was wrong. There wasn’t a good reason, other than you really are an insensitive, self-absorbed jerk who uses women, then casts them aside.”
He opened his mouth to no doubt refute her assessment of his character, but she cut him off again.
“And somewhere during the course of my third trimester, I came to the conclusion that you really didn’t deserve to know about our daughter and that we were both going to be a lot better off without you in our lives.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts. “Any more questions?”
Heather could tell by the stunned look replacing the angry expression on his handsome face that she’d gotten through to him.
Rubbing the back of his neck as if to relieve tension, he shook his head. “I have my secretary—”
“Screen your calls so that you don’t have to deal with uncomfortable situations with the women you’ve bedded,” she interrupted. When he remained silent, she knew that her comment had hit a little too close to home. “And you don’t have to worry, Jake. Mandy and I are just fine on our own.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re going to try to cut me out of her life?”
Heather shook her head. “That’s not what I said. I’m telling you that you’re off the hook. You’re free to go back to Los Angeles and resume your life as if nothing happened. I don’t want or need your help—financially or otherwise. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of and providing for my daughter. I just thought you had the right to know about her.”
“She’s mine, too.”
Having had her say, she suddenly felt drained of energy. “I’m relieving you of that responsibility, Jake.”
“I think we need to get this straight once and for all, Heather.”
He stepped forward to place his hands on her shoulders. The heat from his touch seeping through her T-shirt and the determination she detected in his deep baritone sent tingles zinging straight up her spine. But when he used his thumb and forefinger to lift her chin until their gazes locked, the sensation danced across every nerve in her body.
“I accept that it was my own damned fault I didn’t know about the pregnancy. But it doesn’t mean that now that I’m aware I have a child I don’t intend to be a big part of her life. And that will be much easier for me to do when I move you and Mandy into the mansion with me.”
“That’s not going to happen, Jake. We’re very happy right here in the carriage house.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Before she could protest or step away, his mouth covered hers and the feel of his firm lips once again caressing hers with such care caused her head to spin. She tried with all of her might to remain unaffected, but her traitorous pulse took off and a delicious warmth began to flow through her veins.
Placing her hands on Jake’s wide chest, instead of pushing away from him as she intended, she reveled in the feel of his strength beneath her palms and the steady beat of his heart. This was total insanity. He’d used her, then cast her aside with little or no regard for her feelings. But when he traced the seam of her mouth with his tongue, she parted her lips without so much as a second thought and allowed him to deepen the kiss.
As he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her more fully against his large frame, he teased her with a tenderness that caused every fiber in her being to quiver to life and her stomach to flutter wildly. The excitement she’d experienced in his arms fifteen long months ago began to fill her from head to toe and it scared her as little else could. Losing herself to Jake’s kiss was the very reason they found themselves in their current set of circumstances.
“Please…stop,” she said, leaning away from him.
Jake immediately put a bit of space between them, but continued to hold her loosely in his arms. “All things considered, I probably shouldn’t have done that.” He gave her the same seductive smile that had been her downfall that night in Los Angeles. “But I’ll be damned if I’m sorry I did. You have the sweetest lips I’ve ever tasted.”
She shook her head. “Forget my lips. It’s not going to happen again.”
He stared down at her for endless seconds and just when she thought he was going to argue the point, Nemo chose that moment to come lumbering in through the doggie door. Finding the two humans standing face-to-face, he apparently took it as an open invitation to push his way between them and plop his big, bulky body on top of their feet.
“What’s his deal?” Jake asked, staring down at the dog. “Every time he sees me, he traps my feet beneath him.”
Thankful for the distraction Heather stepped back then knelt down to scratch the big gentle dog behind his floppy ears. “It seems to be a trait of his breed. I think they realize that they’re too big to sit on your lap, so they lay on your feet to be close to you.”
Jake bent down to pet Nemo’s thick, black coat. “So I guess this means he likes me, huh?”
“It looks that way.” Only inches apart, they stared at each other for endless seconds before she straightened to walk back into the living room to peek inside the nursery door.
She should have named the dog Benedict Arnold. Nemo was supposed to be loyal to her, not cozy up to the enemy like they were long lost friends.
“What did the pediatrician say this afternoon?” Jake asked from behind her shoulder. “Is she cutting her first tooth or is something else wrong?”
Unaware that he’d followed her, Heather jumped as much from the unexpected sound of his voice as from his close proximity. “Uh…yes, she’s teething. The doctor said she has two that should be through her lower gum by the end of the week.”
“She’ll start feeling better after that happens, right?”
Heather nodded as she pulled the door to and moved away from him. The concern in his voice touched her and that was something she didn’t like one bit. It was much safer for her to think of him as the shallow, uncaring man who refused to take her phone calls, than a daddy worried about the welfare of his baby girl.
“I think it would be a good idea if you leave now, Jake.” She walked over to open the front door. “I have to be up by five in the morning and I really need to get some sleep.”
Glancing at the gold watch on his left wrist, he nodded. “I have a lot to do tomorrow and need to be up early myself.”
He walked over to her, then cupping her cheeks with both hands lightly pressed a kiss to her lips. As he raised his head, the determination she saw in his incredible blue eyes sent a shock wave all the way to her soul.
“If you and the baby need me before morning, don’t hesitate to give me a call. You have my word that from this day forward, no matter what I’m doing or where I am, I’ll always be available for you and our daughter.”
Once the front door closed behind him, Heather squeezed her eyes shut against the tears of frustration threatening to spill down her cheeks. She’d known the former owner was looking to sell, but why did Jake Garnier have to be the new owner of Hickory Hills? What cruel quirk of fate had caused their paths to cross again? And why, after all that had happened, did she still find him to be the most handsome, irresistible man she’d ever met?
When he’d introduced himself at the annual thoroughbred auction in Los Angeles, he’d not only charmed his way past her defenses and swept her off her feet, he’d stolen her heart, as well. She’d always heard about love at first sight, but she’d never given it a lot of thought, never believed it would happen to her. Not until last year. Not until Jake.
Swallowing hard, she reminded herself of the disillusionment and emotional pain she’d suffered when he refused to return her calls and she’d realized she meant absolutely nothing to him. It had taken her a long time to move past that and no matter how drugging his kisses were or how wonderful it had felt to be in his arms, she wasn’t about to put herself in that position again.
Besides, it wasn’t just her emotions at stake anymore. She had Mandy’s well-being to take into consideration, as well. And Heather wasn’t going to stand back and watch her daughter bond with Jake, then be devastated when he moved on like the playboy he was.
As he walked down the long driveway toward the big wrought-iron entrance gates, Jake still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around everything that had happened. In the span of a few hours, his life had changed in ways he could have never imagined. He had reconnected with the only woman he’d ever regretted not keeping in touch with, learned that by taking over Hickory Hills she’d become his employee and discovered that a little over six months ago she’d given birth to his baby.
Unbelievable.
But as he thought about Heather making several attempts to get in touch with him, his gut burned with anger. He deeply regretted that she’d been forced to go through the pregnancy alone. If his secretary hadn’t become overly zealous about screening his calls, she wouldn’t have. He’d have not only been there for Heather throughout the pregnancy and birth, he wouldn’t have been cheated out of the first six months of his daughter’s life.
His daughter.
Jake’s heart slammed against his ribcage and he took several deep breaths. He had a tiny baby girl who looked just like him.
It blew his mind that he had a child. Fatherhood had been something he’d never expected to experience. And it wasn’t because he didn’t like little kids. He did. He’d just made a conscious decision years ago never to marry and have one of his own.
His own father had twice walked away after impregnating his mother, and even though Jake didn’t think he was capable of doing something like that, he hadn’t wanted to take the chance. What if he carried the same narcissistic gene that had caused his father to shirk his responsibilities to his children in favor of pursuing his next good time?
Jake shook his head. It was all a moot point now. He had a daughter. And even though it scared the living hell out of him to think that he might somehow let her down the way his father had his children, Jake was going to do everything he possibly could to be a good father.
Lost in his disturbing introspection, it took a moment for Jake to notice the shadowy figure climbing over the gates at the end of the drive. “Daily?”
The boy froze halfway over the gate. “Mr. Garnier, I…oh, dude, this probably doesn’t look real good, does it?”
“No. It looks like I just busted you for sneaking out of the house.” Stopping a few feet from where the boy was perched, Jake planted his feet and folded his arms across his chest. “You want to come down from there and tell me why you’re out this late, as well as why you don’t want to alert anyone up at the house that you’re leaving by activating the gates?”
When Daily dropped to his feet in front of Jake, he seemed to take a great interest in the tops of his untied high-top tennis shoes. “It’s kind of personal, Mr. Garnier.”
Jake hid a smile. “Want to tell me what her name is?”
The boy’s head snapped up so fast, Jake wouldn’t have been surprised if Daily had suffered whiplash. “How did you know I was going to meet a girl?”
Jake did his best not to laugh out loud at the astonished look on the kid’s face. “I know it’s probably hard to believe, but I was fourteen once, Daily.”
“I’ll be fifteen in a couple of weeks,” the boy said, straightening his skinny shoulders.
“That’s still too young to be out this late. Not to mention the fact that you don’t have your grandmother’s permission.”
The boy’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, sir.”
“I think you’d better give your girlfriend a call and tell her that you won’t be able to make it this evening,” Jake suggested.
As he watched Daily whip out a cell phone and rapidly punch in a text message, a knot began to form in the pit of Jake’s stomach. In about thirteen years some pubescent boy with more hormones than good sense could very easily try to set up a midnight meeting with his daughter.
He barely managed to suppress a groan. He’d already raised one girl through the teen years when he and his twin brother finished raising their younger sister, Arielle. And just thinking that he was going to have to do it all over again with his own daughter was enough to give him an ulcer. His only consolation was that this time he’d be sharing that responsibility with Heather, instead of his brother who had turned out to be as clueless as he’d been.
When the boy slipped his cell phone back into his jeans pocket, Jake motioned toward the tree-lined drive leading up to the mansion. “Come on, Daily. I think it’s time we both called it a night.”
They remained silent for some time before Daily asked, “Are you going to tell my grandma about me trying to sneak out tonight?”
Jake shook his head. “No, I’m not. But you are.”
“Me?”
“Part of growing up is learning to accept responsibility for your actions,” Jake said, reminding himself as much as Daily.
“I’m gonna be grounded for the rest of my life,” the boy complained when they entered the mansion through the kitchen door.
“I doubt it will be that long,” Jake said, chuckling. “But as long as you’re going to be sticking close to home for the next week or so, there are a few things around here I’m going to need help with. Do you think you’d be interested in the job?”
“A real job? Really? Oh man, that would be awesome,” Daily said, his voice suddenly filled with enthusiasm.
“You’ll have to keep up with your other chores and check with your grandmother first, to make sure she has no objections.” Jake gave the boy a pointed look. “Right after you tell her about what happened this evening and accept whatever punishment she deems necessary.”
Daily nodded. “I will.”
“Then you’d better get some sleep,” Jake warned. “We have a big day ahead of us.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he watched the teenager hurry down the hall to his grandmother’s apartment, Jake headed for the stairs. He’d made Heather a promise and he fully intended to keep it. While she oversaw Stormy Dancer’s morning workout and attended to whatever else her job entailed, he and Daily were going to get her and the baby moved from the carriage house into the mansion. And once he accomplished that, he had every intention of spending the rest of his stay at Hickory Hills getting to know his daughter.
“Jake Garnier, how dare you?” Heather demanded when she found him sitting at the desk in the study. She was angry enough to bite nails in two and it was all his fault.
His unrepentant grin when he looked up made her want to throw something at him. “I assume you’re referring to the moving of the baby’s things and yours from the carriage house to the rooms upstairs?”
“You know good and well that’s what I’m talking about. You had no right to do that.”
He walked around the side of the desk to stand in front of her. “I don’t know why you’re so upset,” he said calmly. “I told you last night that’s what I intended to do.”
She couldn’t believe his arrogance. “And I told you it wasn’t going to happen. Mandy and I are perfectly fine in the carriage house. It’s all she’s ever known.”
“I’m sure you’re happy.” He took another step toward her. “But you’ll be even happier here. There’s a lot more room. And besides, it will be more convenient for all concerned.”
“You’ve got to be joking.” Where did he come up with that idea? “It might be more convenient for you, but it certainly isn’t for me.”
He was a lot closer than she was comfortable with. But there was no way she was going to back away. That would only give him the satisfaction of knowing he still had an effect on her.
“I fully intend to be a big part of my daughter’s life,” he said, sounding so darned reasonable it made her want to punch him.
“We live less than a hundred feet away. How is moving to the big house going to change anything?”
He gave her a smile that caused her heart to skip a beat. Just because he smiled at her it wasn’t going to get him off the hook.
“I want to watch you put her to bed at night and get her up in the morning.”
“You could do that at the carriage house.”
“So you’re telling me that you want me to move in with you and Mandy?” he asked, giving her that same charming smile.
“N-no. That wasn’t what I said at all and you know it.” She should have known he’d twist her objections around to suit his purpose. After all, he was an attorney. “You knew what I meant. You could stop by around those times, then leave.”
He took the last step separating them, then lightly touched her cheek. She suddenly had to remember why she was angry with him.
“If Mandy wakes up in the middle of the night, I want to be able to get up with her.” He shook his head. “If I’m here and the two of you are in the carriage house, I can’t do that.”
“Take my word for it, being awakened from a sound sleep is highly overrated,” she said before she could stop herself.
“I’m sure that taking care of her by yourself and trying to work has been very tiring at times. Wouldn’t it be nice for a change to have someone sharing that responsibility?”
When he looked at her the way he was doing now, Heather was lucky to remember her own name, let alone what he’d asked. “No. I’m fine with the way things are.”
“I could get up with her while you sleep,” he pressed.
The heat from his touch branded her and the scent of his aftershave made her want him to hold her, kiss her and…She swallowed hard. She needed to escape his presence before her traitorous body had her agreeing to go along with what he wanted.
“I—I don’t mind at all being solely responsible for Mandy,” she insisted.
“But you don’t have to be, honey. Not anymore.” He moved his hands down to her waist, then pulled her into his arms. “I’m here now and you don’t have to do everything alone.”
“Please, Jake,” she interrupted. “Don’t.” Pulling from his arms, she somehow found the strength to back away from him. “I won’t try to stop you from being part of Mandy’s life. But I want you to keep a couple of things in mind before you take that step. First and foremost, it’s all or nothing. You’re either her father for life or not at all. I don’t want her becoming attached to you, then you walk away when you get tired of playing daddy. And second, count me out. I’m not part of the package.”
He stared at her for several long moments before he slowly shook his head. “You have my word that I will never do anything that isn’t in her best interest or yours.”
“Good. Because hurt my daughter and you’ll have me to deal with.” She could tell from his expression that he meant what he said—now. The only problem was, whether they intended to or not, people sometimes broke their promises and others ended up getting hurt.
“Now that we have your main concern out in the open and settled, are you and the baby going to stay here in the mansion?” he asked, seating himself back behind the desk.
“Jake, I don’t think—”
“I’ve missed out on a lot with her already, Heather.” His chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath. “All I’m asking is that you give me a chance to get to know my daughter and build a relationship with her.”
She knew if she and the baby did stay in the mansion with him, she would be taking a huge risk for both Mandy and herself. If she hadn’t known that before he kissed her last night, she did now. No matter how much he’d hurt her or how hard she tried to resist his charm, she still found Jake to be six feet two inches of pure temptation. And that could very well prove to be disastrous for her if she didn’t keep her wits about her.
But she’d told him she wouldn’t stop him from trying to bond with Mandy and she couldn’t, in good conscience, deny either of them the right to get acquainted. And while he was getting to know their daughter, she intended to learn more about him, his family and where he grew up. After all, she had the right to know about her daughter’s father.
Heather sighed heavily. Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time to put him through the third degree. Aside from the fact that she’d already put in a grueling day, she was still too angry. She wanted to be calm, rational and in complete control when she talked to him.
“We’ll stay in the mansion as long as you’re here at Hickory Hills. But only on one condition.”
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly before he asked, “And what would that be?”
Walking to the door, she turned back. “I meant what I said about not being part of the equation, Jake. Don’t count on me to be one of your…diversions when you get bored.”