Christmas Treats Box Set: Books 1 - 4

by Holly Rayner

  And what had he done? It wasn’t exactly clear. He’d done something illegal with land, something bad enough that his partner had fled to the Caribbean. But how bad could it have been if it was only a land deal?

  She didn’t know what to think.

  “It’s not simple because I don’t know what he’s going to say,” she said. “If he doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby, I’ll have reached a dead end. As long as I haven’t spoken to him yet, there’s still hope, you know? There’s still a chance that we can work it out. But if I talk to him and he doesn’t want to be a father, well, then that’s the end of it.”

  It was true. The legal difficulties were part of what had kept her from following up on her lead for so long, but this was another part of it. She was terrified to find out what he would say.

  “But if you don’t talk to him, that’s the end of it anyway,” Mike said. “You lose every bet you don’t make, right?”

  “I know,” Gwen agreed. “You’re not wrong.”

  “Go today,” he said.

  Gwen blinked. It was seven in the morning. “It’s going to take me all day,” she said. “It’s a twelve-hour drive from here.”

  “Looked that up, did you?” Mike asked, grinning. “Sounds to me like you want to go.”

  She sighed.

  Of course she wanted to go. More than anything, she wanted to see Clay again. To tell him the truth about the baby they were going to have.

  “You’ll be there by this evening if you leave right now,” Finn said. “We’ll cover for you with Sergeant Kepler. We’ll tell him you weren’t feeling well and you needed to go home.”

  “He’s not going to like that,” Gwen said.

  “No,” Mike agreed. “But by the time he gets the chance to be pissed off about it, you’ll be long gone, and what will he be able to do about it? Nothing.”

  “And since tomorrow is Saturday,” Finn said, “you’ll have plenty of time to get back for work on Monday. It’s the perfect time to go, really. You’re not going to get a better opportunity.”

  She was running out of excuses. “I’m six months pregnant,” she pointed out. “It’s not a great time to spend twelve hours in the car.”

  “It’s not going to be better when you’re seven or eight months pregnant,” Mike said.

  “And it’ll be even harder with a newborn,” Finn added. “Gwen, if you don’t do this now, you might not get the chance to do it at all. If you want this man in your child’s life, you have to bite the bullet and go.”

  Chapter 17

  Gwen

  Half an hour later, Gwen found herself taking the exit ramp onto the interstate that would lead her west toward Texas.

  She couldn’t believe she had actually been talked into doing this. But Finn and Mike had made too much sense. There were a million reasons to put it off, but in the end, she wasn’t going to be able to live with herself if she didn’t try to give her child what she herself had never had—a full, intact family.

  “Don’t worry, baby,” she said quietly. Her doctor had told her that there was a chance her child might be able to hear what was going on outside the womb, and ever since then, Gwen had taken to talking to it. “I’m going to find your dad, and we’re going to work everything out. It’s going to be a little complicated at first, but we’ll deal with it. Nothing is more important than you, and nothing is so complex that we can’t figure it out.”

  She hoped Clay would feel the same way.

  She had stopped at home to pick up a suitcase. She’d packed light—no matter how this went, she doubted she would be staying for more than a couple of nights. She had work to return to, after all. The suitcase sat in the back seat of the car, with Clay’s cowboy hat resting on top of it.

  She hadn’t had time to book a hotel room in Amarillo, but she was definitely going to have to stop sometime in the next hour or two. She would make a reservation then. The question was, should she go to Clay’s house tonight or wait until morning, when she would be rested?

  Eager as she was, now that she was on the road, she decided it would be best to wait until morning. Her head would be clear then, and they would both be in a brighter mood. They could discuss the situation over breakfast.

  It relaxed her slightly, knowing that the most important conversation of her life wasn’t going to happen today after all. That she had a bit of a reprieve.

  She drove on, wanting to cover as much ground as she possibly could before her aching back necessitated the first rest stop of the trip.

  After using the restroom, Gwen ordered lunch at the sub sandwich shop that was attached to the gas station. She sat at one of the booths along the wall to eat her meal, gazing out at the window as she did.

  The landscape was already fundamentally different from that of Louisiana. Bogs and bayous had given way to desert as the western land took over. She felt as if she could see for miles, even from this little gas station.

  She was able to reserve a hotel room quickly and without much fuss. She splurged on a nice one, knowing that she would need a comfortable mattress to lie on after this long drive, and that a hot bath wouldn’t go amiss either.

  Then she looked at Clay’s phone number, which had been saved in her phone for the past two months.

  She had looked it up as soon as she’d had his name and address—with that information, it had been a breeze to find. She had programmed him into her phone. There was no photo attached to his contact information. She had thought about putting one of the sonogram pictures there but had decided against it—it had seemed too private, somehow. She hadn’t wanted to put it out there that Clay was the father of her baby before Clay himself knew. And even though nobody would see what she listed on her phone, that thought was enough to hold her back.

  She stared at the number now, wondering whether she should call him. Whether she should tell him she was coming.

  What would he say? Would he be glad? Excited at the prospect of seeing her again?

  Would he wonder why she had bothered to look him up after all this time? He couldn’t possibly have been thinking of her as much as she had been thinking of him. Gwen did not want to tell him the news of her pregnancy over the phone. If she did call him, she would have to give some other reason for her presence in Texas.

  Does he even remember me?

  That was a frightening thought. He must remember her, mustn’t he? The time they’d spent together had been so sweet, so special. It seemed impossible that he could just forget.

  But, of course, Gwen felt that way because she had been carrying his baby for the past six months. He hadn’t had something in his life every day to remind him of her. He had probably moved on.

  What if I knock on his door and he doesn’t recognize me? What if he has no idea who I am?

  It took all the courage she had within her to get back in the car and keep driving west.

  Gwen checked into her hotel at about nine o’clock that evening. She had made good time. She took a bath, got out, dried her hair, and stood in front of the mirror for a moment, thinking.

  Then, almost automatically, she moved toward her suitcase and began to dress in the clothes she had packed for tomorrow instead of the pajamas she’d brought for tonight.

  A flowing cotton dress that wouldn’t cling to her body in the heat. Bike shorts underneath. Ballet flats—her ankles had been a bit swollen lately. She combed out her hair and let it fall loose around her shoulders.

  She examined herself in the mirror. She looked, she thought, quite a bit like she had in the Bahamas. Same flowing clothes. Same loose hairstyle.

  Of course, there’s one major difference.

  She rested her hand on her stomach. She was big enough now that it was impossible not to notice. She had seen the way women, especially mothers, smiled at her when they saw her out and about. She had seen the way children pointed admiringly.

  And if total strangers could see so clearly that she was pregnant, she knew that Clay would realize right
away.

  I won’t have to tell him. He’ll know.

  She had to believe that he would remember who she was. That he would understand why she had come. If he looked at her blankly, if he wondered what some random pregnant woman was doing at his house and she was forced to explain it to him, it was going to break her heart.

  And she found that she couldn’t bring herself to wait until morning to see what the outcome would be.

  It was late. She knew that. And she had promised herself that she wouldn’t do this until tomorrow. But the idea of sitting here in the hotel, trying to distract herself with television, was unthinkable.

  I’ve come so far. I’m so close. I have to see him now.

  She grabbed her purse and went down to the lobby, back out to her car. She punched Clay’s address into the map app on her phone. Twenty minutes away.

  Twenty minutes, and she would be facing him. Talking to him. She would finally have answers to the questions she had been asking herself for months.

  She hesitated. This was her last chance to back out. She still didn’t have to face him. She had come all the way here, but if she went back home without talking to Clay, she was the only one who would ever know.

  As if on cue, her baby turned slowly inside her.

  She nodded. I know. I owe you your father.

  She started the car, backed out of the lot, and drove off in the direction of Clay’s ranch.

  Chapter 18

  Clay

  The knock at the door startled Clay so badly that he dropped the book he had been reading.

  Who would come here at this time of night?

  The same old panic lurked at the back of his mind. It had been two months since the visit from the police, and though he had been living in anticipation of a follow-up questioning, he had finally begun to think that maybe he wasn’t going to hear from them again. Maybe he had actually gotten away with it, and nothing bad was going to happen.

  But there was nothing like a knock on your door in the dead of night to wake up your fear.

  It wouldn’t be Melissa. She usually came by in the afternoons, around sunset. In fact, he had seen her earlier that evening. They’d talked for a bit about the pumpkins she hoped to harvest in a few months, but he hadn’t invited her in.

  He picked up the book and set it on the end table beside his chair. Then, slowly, he got to his feet and looked out the window.

  The car in the driveway was unmarked, but it wasn’t one he recognized.

  Definitely not Melissa.

  At least it wasn’t a police car.

  Unless the cop is undercover.

  He debated hiding in his room and pretending that he wasn’t home, but he decided against it. As usual, there was nothing to be gained by delaying the inevitable. Clay would just have to face up to this and hope that everything would be all right.

  He went to the door and opened it.

  Gwen Carrington was standing on his porch.

  She was as beautiful as he remembered.

  He recognized her instantly, of course. How many times had he looked at that picture of her on the NOPD website? How many times had he revisited his memories of the time they had spent together in the Bahamas? He would have recognized her anywhere.

  But what was she doing in Texas, on his doorstep? He would have been less surprised if he had opened the door to find the Queen of England standing there.

  “Gwen?” he said dumbly.

  Gwen smiled. “You remember me.”

  “Of course I—” He blinked. How had he not noticed it before? How could it not have been the very first thing that registered? The shape of her body—

  “You look amazing!” he managed. “Are you…pregnant?”

  Her face colored, but she nodded. “I am,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “That was a rude question. I shouldn’t have asked you that.” He fell silent knowing that he sounded like a fool. He was so overcome at the fact that Gwen was standing here in front of him that he simply couldn’t think what to say.

  “It’s all right,” she assured him. “It’s fine that you asked, Clay. It’s what I came here to tell you.”

  “You did?”

  “It’s your baby, Clay.”

  Her voice was soft and her eyes were wide, and Clay’s first instinct was to wrap her in an embrace, to protect her from whatever was making her feel worried.

  Then he registered her words. “It’s mine?”

  She nodded. “I thought you deserved to know,” she said. “You’re going to be a father. I didn’t come here to ask you for anything, but—but you deserved to know the truth.”

  Clay swallowed, overwhelmed, feeling strangely as if he was about to break down. “You’d better come inside,” he said.

  He led her into the kitchen, took her coat, and guided her to a chair.

  “So you tracked me down,” he said, going to the fridge and pulling out the lemonade just to have something to do with his hands while he processed what she had told him.

  She nodded. “You didn’t make it easy for me,” she said. “I had to jump through a lot of hoops to find you, Clay. It would have been a lot more convenient if you had just given me your number when I asked you for it.”

  “How did you find me?” he asked as he poured two glasses of lemonade.

  “I found David Fischer.”

  Clay turned his back to her so that she wouldn’t see the horror register on his face.

  She found Dave.

  If she had found Dave, that meant she knew everything. She would know by now that he and Dave had gone into business together. And if she had spoken to him, she no doubt knew exactly why he had fled the country.

  But as despair flooded him, Clay was surprised to realize that he wasn’t upset about the fact that she was a police officer and would likely be thinking of turning him in for the crime he’d committed.

  He was only worried about what she must think of him.

  “You spoke to Dave?” he asked, striving to keep his voice neutral. He placed a glass of lemonade in front of Gwen.

  “Yes.” Gwen’s voice was soft, and Clay could tell that she was thinking along the same lines as he was.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s on Nevis. It’s an island in the Caribbean.”

  Clay went back to the kitchen counter and closed his eyes. “Of course he is.”

  “Clay,” she said quietly.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he said after opening his eyes. He didn’t think he could bear to hear her vilify him. He knew what he had done all too well. “But—just tell me why you still came out here, if you already talked to Dave?”

  She hesitated. “Do you think I shouldn’t have come?”

  He turned to face her. She was frowning, her eyebrows pinched together in confusion, and for a moment, his breath caught. Is it possible she doesn’t know?

  It would almost be worse if she didn’t know. He wouldn’t be able to push her away again. He knew that now. He would have to come clean with her.

  “Clay, what’s wrong?” she asked him.

  “It’s all right.” He didn’t want her to worry unnecessarily. “I just…I thought Dave would have told you. He seemed willing to sell me out the last time he and I spoke.”

  “Oh, he tried to sell you out,” Gwen said, a chuckle following. She took a sip of her lemonade.

  Clay felt his pulse accelerate. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “When I told him I was a cop, he thought I had come to arrest him,” Gwen said. “He was all set to tell me exactly what you’d done, what your part in the real estate deal had been—”

  “So you do know about that?”

  Gwen nodded. “He told me,” she said. “I mean…I still want to hear your side of it. But I think I got the rough outline.”

  “And you came here anyway.” Clay’s mind was racing as he tried to keep up with what he was being told. “Are you going to arrest me?”

  She g
ave him an exasperated look. “Clay, I’m a New Orleans police officer. I can’t arrest you for a crime you committed in Texas.”

  “Oh,” Clay said. “I knew that.”

  “Sure you did.” She shook her head. “I came to tell you about the baby, Clay, like I said. I admit…it took me a while to think through everything David Fischer told me. It took me a while to decide to come. But I had to. I needed you to know.” She rubbed her face with her hand. “I get it, though. We do have…a situation.”

  “A conflict of interest?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because you want to report me to the Texas authorities?”

  She looked up. “No,” she said. “Because I don’t want to do that.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “I went to Nevis two months ago, Clay,” Gwen said. “I’ve had your contact information for ages. But I haven’t come looking for you because I’ve been afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Maybe that I’d get myself into a position where I’d have to decide whether or not to call the police on you.”

  “You kind of are in that position.” He hated to remind her. But the cards were on the table now, and they might as well be honest with each other.

  “But it’s a silly thing to be afraid of,” Gwen said. “Now that I’m here, it’s obvious to me that I was never going to turn you in. Of course I wasn’t. And if I had really wanted to do that, I could have done it from New Orleans. I had your address. I could have sent the cops over here any time, if I’d wanted to, and you would never have needed to know that I was the one responsible for blowing your cover.”

  “I’m not really undercover.” It felt important for her to understand this. “I’m not trying to hide from the law, Gwen. They haven’t caught me, but I haven’t lied about anything. I just…I don’t know. I don’t want to go hand myself over to the cops. I don’t know what Dave told you, but I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know it was illegal for us to buy that land.”