by Kate Thomas
“Could be nothing,” the secretary said slowly as she rearranged her latest red pencil in her hair. “Or it could be trouble.”
Josh waggled his eyebrows to indicate that she go on.
Marletta jerked a thumb backward over her shoulder. “Man just walked in looking for you. I’ve never seen him before.”
Deepening the frown to a scowl, Josh said, “So? If he’s a new client, do a preliminary interview and tell him we’ll get back to him.” Couldn’t she see he was trying to formulate an irresistible proposal here?
“Uh-uh.” Marletta shook her head emphatically. “In fact, he seemed surprised to discover that you’re an attorney. Said his name was Graves.”
That made it Josh’s turn to shake his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell,” he said flatly. “And if he’s not looking for a lawyer, what’s he want to see me about?”
Marietta crossed her arms over her chest. “He wouldn’t say,” she declared. “He said it was personal—” Leaning forward, she continued in a conspiratorial tone that would have made the CIA jealous. “And he’s got a Texas accent!”
Ramifications sprinted through Josh’s brain like tourists running before the bulls in Pamplona. He grinned. “I always said you were more observant than satellite surveillance. Show the gentleman in, Ms. Langtry.”
Marletta looked stunned. “But—”
“If we’ve leaped to the right conclusions, this is bonus, baby.” He smirked at his clever insertion of a new slang term. And at his unexpected good fortune. “Show Mr. Graves in,” he repeated as he stood and buttoned his collar button with one hand while snagging his suit jacket with the other. “So I can show him right back out. Then I’m going home and getting engaged. A.S.A.P.—I hope.”
“Well! It’s about time you wised up,” Marietta said, lips quirking. “Your visitor talks pretty slow with that Texas drawl, though. Think you can send him on his way in less than twenty minutes?”
Josh jerked the knot on his tie tight and smoothed the ends as he came around his desk and herded his secretary toward the outer office. “Time me,” he suggested.
It took seventeen minutes. Just long enough for Graves, a lanky, rawboned man in his early fifties whose cowboy boots, string tie and Stetson declared his origin before he opened his mouth, to show Josh his private investigator’s license and explain that he’d been hired by Pete and Edna Caldwell to locate their daughter-in-law, Danielle.
“I traced her to West Texas ‘bout a month ago,” Graves said with a twang. “Little town name o’ No Lake. I think she saw a doctor there, but nobody at the clinic’ll tell me anything. Motel clerk linked her up with a Joshua Walker from Virginia. B’lieve that’s you.”
The man was slick. Without giving Josh a chance to confirm or deny the connection, Graves laconically asked where Dani was at present.
“No idea,” Josh said blithely. Well, hell, he wasn’t on the witness stand and besides—she might be in the park, might be at the grocery store.... “Sorry. I can’t help you.”
Graves made a few more attempts to weasel information out of him, uttering glib assurances that the Caldwells no longer sought legal custody of their grandbaby but just wanted to contact their daughter-in-law. When Josh continued to stonewall, the Texan finally resettled his cowboy hat, adjusted the gold plate masquerading as his belt buckle, then pulled out a business card and penciled the Caldwells’ phone number on the back before handing it over.
“I wasn’t born yesterday, son,” he drawled as he ambled toward the exit. “I noticed you ain’t denied you know young Ms. Caldwell. So if you recall anythin’ ’bout her whereabouts, I’d ‘preciate it if you’d give me or the Caldwells a call. Day or night. They just want to be sure their grandbaby got here all right and that he—or she—has everythin’ he needs.”
That’s going to be my job, Josh retorted silently. Even if Dani won’t have me as her husband Because I am Michael’s father in every essential way. Parent-child bonds are woven of shared history and heartstrings, not DNA chains.
Graves broke into his reflections. “The Caldwells lost their only son, Mr. Walker. They’re worried sick something mighta gone wrong with the only grandchild they’re ever gonna have. You ken understand their concern, cain’t ya?”
Josh looked down at his hands pressed flat against the desktop. Oh, yeah, he understood. He’d spent the past six years letting the same kind of obsessive thinking run his life, destroying any chance of happiness.
Of course, without Dani, he knew now, he couldn’t have been happy anyway. So maybe that had been the point all along.
Running his hand across his jaw, Josh pondered the delicate chain of events that fate had forged to link him up with the woman he’d been waiting for all those years—without even knowing it.
Timing is definitely everything. Without the flash flood putting his car in the arroyo, without the sheriff coming to the cabin looking for the car’s owner, without that tiny Texas town building a clinic and hiring a doctor of Ravjani’s skill level... Without all those things happening just when and how they did, something could have gone terribly wrong when Dani went into labor.
And it would have been the Caldwells’ fault.
Which made him eternally grateful to them. If they hadn’t fought Dani for custody, she would have never left Lufkin. Saved his life. Healed his scars. Shown him that joy could come from tragedy. Taught him to love again. Freed him from the impossibility of forgiving the unforgivable. And given him the most precious gift he could imagine: real fatherhood, even if it was only temporary.
He owed Delbert Graves, too, he acknowledged with a grin. For handing him the leverage he needed to make him Michael’s permanent father. And Dani’s loving husband.
Well, Josh Walker always paid his debts. “I don’t know where Dani is now,” he repeated, rising from his desk and barely restraining himself from beaming at this unlikely Texas cupid. “But you can tell your clients that Dani had a healthy baby boy a little over four weeks ago.”
Graves tried to worm details out of him, of course, but Josh just smiled again, insisted he wasn’t at liberty to say more—and hustled the private investigator out of the office faster than Congress votes itself a pay raise.
Then he twirled Marletta around until, laughing, she swore, “I’m about to hurl, man. Put me down and get out of here.”
Happy to oblige, Josh obeyed. Headed—at last—in the right direction. Homeward. To Dani. And a beautiful, ecstatically happy future together.
Life was suddenly simple again. New. Crystal-clear and vibrant with hope.
As he drove through Fallsboro, he pondered Graves’s assertion that the Caldwells had come to their senses and dropped their custody battle plans. Maybe it was true. Maybe not.
Didn’t matter.
Josh grinned at the blue-haired lady in the next lane gunning her engine as they waited for the light to change.
He needed Dani. He wanted Michael.
He had his leverage. And he was going to use it. In return, he’d give them everything he could, everything he had. Everything he was or could become. For as long as they wanted, needed, or could tolerate it. And him.
Thank heavens, his practice was already established, so he could concentrate on being a good father. That way, Dani would be free to fulfill her own ambitions, too.
And this time he’d be considerate and responsible, dammit. No jumping the gun—Dani would be his wife before he took her to bed. They’d practice birth control from day one. If she was absolutely sure she didn’t want any more children, he’d even see about having a vasec—Well, no sense getting ahead of himself.
Yeah, first things first, you idiot.
Josh waved as he sped past the guard at the entrance and took the last corner on two wheels.
Please let her be home. Please let her be willing.
“Dani!” he called as he raced into the house. Some wonderful baking smell wafted from the kitchen. Something chocolate that overpowered the faint, lingering odor of smoke.<
br />
“Up here,” she called, and he charged the stairs. Found her standing on a chair in the back bedroom.
He paused in the doorway to gaze adoringly at her. Little wisps of sunlit-brandy hair curling against her silky skin. Huge green eyes sparkling like rain-dampened moss. Full, sensual lips curving in a smile of sweet welcome. “God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed.
“And you’re crazy,” Dani said with a giggle to cover the ache of wishing he meant it. The contrast between his sleek, Virginia sophistication and her rural Lufkin roots was never clearer than right now.
Because some soot and smoke smell lingered—despite the horde of professionals who’d swept through the place yesterday, Dani had covered her hair with a bandanna and donned bright yellow rubber gloves and an old blue maternity shirt. She’d been scrubbing walls for over an hour. The ammonia in the cleaner made her nose itch; she was sure she’d rubbed it a few times, which probably meant black smudges on her face....
Josh, meanwhile, had stepped out of his bandbox again, presenting his usual bone-melting, all-male image that wedged her breath in her throat and sent desire spiraling through her. His pristine white shirt strained across his broad shoulders and muscular chest. Tailored dark slacks accented his narrow hips and hugged his long, powerful legs.
His honey-gold hair fell thick and soft over his forehead. Those turquoise eyes seared her, as always, with sensual fire. Although it was only midaftemoon, a faint dark shadow already covered his firm jaw. Some primitive feminine part of her immediately conjured thoughts of that short stubble abrading her skin in certain sensitive areas. Mmm.
Oh, yes, the man was sinfully gorgeous. And unlike young Jimmy, Josh’s insides, his character, matched his outsides. Dependable, sweet, thoughtful, mature. His only flaw—that inadvertent messiness—was even sort of cute, the way it always surprised him....
Any woman with a pulse would fall in love with Josh Walker. Even before they discovered the tender heart inside the deluxe male package. The way I did.
“Uh...where’s Michael?” he asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Smiling ruefully at the reality check, Dani pointed at the open window. “Down on the patio,” she said. “Napping.” She’d put the playpen in a protected but visible spot, so the baby could breath fresh air and she could keep an eye on him while she worked.
You’re a fool, Dani Caldwell, she told herself, watching Josh stride to the window and look out. She’d known it was time to go, even before his heart-stopping kiss in the hospital—She’d finally heard the applause and broken the embrace, to find herself shamelessly kissing the daylights out of him! But for the first time in her life, Dani had no backbone. Her love for Josh kept coaxing her into finding one more task to do, so she could stay one more day. She didn’t want to ever leave him, she confessed silently.
And so, like a lovestruck kid, she kept hanging around, hoping for a miracle.
“I, ahem, had an unexpected visitor today,” Josh told the window ledge.
When the sill refused comment, Dani reluctantly filled the silence. “Who?”
Josh turned. Emotion simmered in his turquoise eyes, but she couldn’t identify it. Then something shuttered his gaze as he took a deep breath and pushed out a flood of words in a rapid monotone. “Guy named Delbert Graves. He’s a private investigator, hired by your in-laws. He traced you to Virginia through me. Graves said the Caldwells have decided not to seek custody of Michael, but talk is cheap. I feel responsible and I was thinking—”
He shoved his hands deep into his trouser pockets and turned back to address the window. “The only way to be sure you keep Michael is for us to get married, then I can adopt him legally. I’ll take good care of you, Dani. Both of you. And you’ll be safe forever. What do you say?”
For a moment she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
“I—I don’t know what to say,” Dani replied finally, climbing down from the chair just as her legs gave out. She sank onto the seat and closed her eyes.
“Say yes.”
“It’s not that easy,” she retorted, then bit her lip. Not easy at all. She wasn’t even sure why she was hesitating. She loved Josh and he’d just asked her to marry him. It was a dream come true.
That’s why.
Because it was her dream, not his. She loved Josh too much to chance her dream becoming his nightmare. And he didn’t say anything about loving me, she realized. He said he felt responsible.
Well, that made her decision simple. A no-brainer, in fact.
She had to leave. Now, before her dreams and her heart convinced her to ignore reality. She didn’t want, couldn’t afford, another marriage based on fantasy and hope. She knew that was a recipe for heartbreak.
And it wasn’t fair to Josh.
After all the pain he’d suffered, he deserved a chance to find a woman he could love, to have his own family. Tears stung as an image of Josh surrounded by blond-haired, blueeyed children danced behind her eyelids.
“What’s so hard about it?” he asked with a cool shrug.
Giving you up. Saying goodbye to my heart’s dearest dream. Not blurting out that I love you.
She knew Josh by now. He’d do his granite-jaw thing and scowl, then insist of course he loved her, he’d just forgotten to mention it.
And he’d tiptoe around for the next forty or fifty years, treating her with careful respect and courtesy, all the time dying inside, like a plant trying to live without sunlight or water.
She couldn’t allow her gentle warrior to suffer that slow, withering death.... “I can’t do it,” she said quickly before her selfish heart could have its way and say yes, yes, yes.
“Why the hell not?” he stormed—granite jaw glaringly in evidence.
What to say? Anything close to the truth would leave her open for debate and she was already weakening. Even five more minutes of temptation and she’d condemn Josh to a lifetime of the worst kind of pressure. Oh, she’d keep him satisfied in bed—the explosive kisses they’d shared made that clear—and she’d make a home for him and gladly have and raise his children, but... Deep inside, she’d want more from him than he could give.
And he’d sense it.
They’d both end up unhappy. And growing up in that atmosphere would affect the children, too.
So cut the cord quickly.
“Because I’ve got my own life to live, Josh.” She raised her chin and tried to look convincing. “And marriage isn’t in my plans...at least, not...right now....” Wimp.
“Well, right now’s when you need it,” he snapped. “If your in-laws know where I work, they know where I live, so you’d—”
“Better go,” Dani finished, then closed her eyes against the raw pain that sliced through her heart as she uttered the most difficult three words she’d ever said, “I’ll leave today.” It felt fatal, even though she knew she wouldn’t die. She couldn’t
She had a child to raise. Alone. More alone than she’d ever thought possible.
“No! You can’t!” Josh looked around wildly for inspiration. He knew he’d never get her back if he let her go now. He had to stall her till he thought of something. A better argument. More leverage. Something.
“I must.”
Before he could launch a nervous-babble storm designed to hold her until his brain started working again, the phone rang. “Wait here,” he ordered, and ran downstairs to snatch up the receiver.
“What?” he barked.
“Chill, Walker,” Marietta advised. “Sorry to interrupt, but you’re expected in Reinholdt’s court—now,” Marietta announced. “He’s ready to rule.”
“Damned despot!”
“Not engaged yet, eh?” Marletta asked.
“Not even close.”
“Well, the fat lady hasn’t sung yet,” the secretary drawled. “Good luck—but get going. You know Reinholdt. He’ll slap you with contempt faster than a politician can spew a sound bite. You’ll have a heap o’ trouble courting your Dani f
rom jail.”
With a grumble of agreement, Josh hung up. “I’ve got to go. I’m supposed to be in court in ten minutes,” he reported to Dani, who’d followed him downstairs. “Don’t go anywhere until I get back,” he commanded, striding to the door. “Please, I mean. Just—We’ll work something out, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared at a run.
For a moment Dani thought she might die beneath the twin tidal waves of longing and sorrow that crashed over her.
But she heard Michael fussing on the patio, reminding her that she couldn’t crumple to the floor and weep for days because the man she loved had proposed marriage, but...he doesn’t love me.
Her maternal drive kicked in, followed by survival instinct—while she fed Michael, Dani stirred up a little motivating anger.
Did Josh really think she’d just sit here like a bump on a log until he got back and “worked something out”? Big idiot.
You’ll be a bigger one if you do it.
So, after burping her son, Dani packed their personal belongings and called the bus station. Lucky her—a bus left for Little Rock in an hour. From there, she could transfer to a route that would take her to Lufkin. Dani reserved a ticket.
It was time, not only to leave Virginia and Josh Walker, but to go home to Texas. To make what peace she could with Jimmy’s parents. She and the Caldwells had exhibited the same grief and guilt—they’d just done so in different ways. The older couple should share what future they had left with their son’s baby. Because they were Michael’s grandparents.
And she might as well live her hollow life in Texas, among friends.
And she’d better get started.
She had enough money for bus fare, but how long would it take to get a taxi out here to take her to the bus station?
What if it didn’t arrive before Josh got back? She didn’t trust herself to resist him and her heart a second time.
After chewing on her lip for a minute Dani went upstairs and located Senator Perrodeaux’s business card. Quickly, before she chickened out, she dialed the number written on the back.
