Sweet Surrender, Baby Surprise

by Kate Carlisle

  Of course, she might be a little disappointed that he had no intention of marrying Julia, but she would just have to live with it. Cameron would never marry, that was all there was to it. He would never want to destroy someone else the way his parents had destroyed each other.

  It’s not like he’d been a martyr to his fate. Cameron had tested the waters more than once, in spite of the boyhood pact. But things had never worked out, to put it mildly. There had been plenty of women in his life and a few attempts at serious relationships, but they’d been disastrous. He’d used those as strong reminders that he’d come from bad stock and things would never change. He wasn’t willing to put someone else through that kind of pain, let alone experience it again himself. No, he was meant to go it alone, and that suited him just fine, thanks.

  He stood and checked his wristwatch. The babysitter had taken Jake for a long walk around the hotel grounds so Cameron could have a short meeting with his brothers here in the suite. They were due any minute.

  They would soon find out they were uncles, Cameron thought. So much for sacred pacts. But at least Cameron hadn’t been the first brother to break it. That honor went to Adam when he married Trish James last month.

  The doorbell rang and Cameron greeted his brothers, then led the way to the kitchen. “You guys want beers?”

  “You have to ask?” Brandon said, swinging the refrigerator door open and grabbing three bottles from the shelf.

  “How’s Trish?” Cameron asked Adam, knowing his brother had brought his wife along for a quiet, romantic weekend at Monarch Dunes.

  “She’s great,” Adam said with a smile. “She ran into Mom and her friends downstairs so they’re probably relaxing at the pool by now.”

  “Relaxing?” Brandon laughed. “We’d better get this over with so you can rescue her.”

  “Good idea.” Adam sat at the dining room table and opened a thin binder of notes and spreadsheets.

  Cameron and Brandon joined him at the table where they discussed some last-minute scheduling items that had arisen over the hand-off of priority projects from the Monarch Dunes resort to the Napa Valley property.

  “You’ve done a great job with Monarch Dunes, bro,” Brandon said, tipping his beer bottle in Cameron’s direction.

  “Thanks,” Cameron said. “Napa’s looking good, too.”

  The three men had found out years ago that the best way to run their development company was to put each brother in charge of a particular property from start to finish. The Monarch Dunes property had been Cameron’s baby from day one and he’d run the project much as he ran his life: with military precision.

  The multifaceted, multileveled Craftsman-style resort, located forty miles south of their home town of Dunsmuir Bay, was already completely booked for the next three seasons and on its way to becoming the premier destination spot along California’s Central Coast.

  Cameron had had a hand in every decision along the way, from the expansiveness of the lobby that opened to a spacious terrace overlooking the ocean and cliffs, to the placement of the greens on the state-of-the-art championship golf course that wound around the wide perimeter of the hotel.

  “My staff is more than ready to have me move out of here,” Cameron admitted. “They’ve started saluting me when I ask them to do something.”

  “When you ask them to do something?” Adam said sardonically. “More like barking out orders, I’d say.”

  Brandon shook his head. “Once a marine, always a marine.”

  With a shrug, Cameron said, “Hey, I just prefer to have things done the right way, so let’s get back to business.” He read his notes off a legal pad. “I’ll let my assistant know that the Napa grand opening will be pushed back one week to coincide with the grape harvest and crush. She can coordinate schedules with the Napa staff.”

  The Dukes’ Napa property was being built adjacent to the acres of vineyards and the winery they’d purchased years ago. The white wines were already being marketed all over the country and the reds were on the verge of reaching world-class status.

  “Good,” Brandon said and walked toward the kitchen. “Hey, what’s this?”

  Too late, Cameron realized Brandon had picked up the scrapbook Julia had given him earlier. “It’s nothing. I’ll take it.”

  But Brandon was already thumbing through the pages. “Dude, these are baby pictures. It’s a baby album.”

  “Who’s the baby?” Adam asked, moving around the table to see what Brandon was looking at.

  Hell. Cameron reached for the book. “I’ll take that.”

  “I don’t think so,” Brandon said and whipped the book away.

  Adam pierced Cameron with a look. “Was there something you wanted to share with us?”

  “I’m not playing this game.” Cameron held out his hand and waited calmly until Brandon gave him the thick scrapbook. “Okay, I’ll see you guys later.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Brandon said, both hands fisted on his hips. He turned to Adam. “I saw a shot of a pregnant woman. And an ultrasound photo.”

  “So what?” Cameron said. He wasn’t about to let his brothers see anything else in the book before he’d had a chance to thoroughly view every page.

  “What’s going on, Cam?” Adam asked quietly.

  Feeling cornered but knowing there was no way out, Cameron sat back down at the table. “Fine. I was going to tell you anyway.”

  “Well, let’s hear it.” Brandon pulled out his chair and sat.

  “I have a son.”

  Stunned silence greeted his announcement. Brandon blinked a few times, opened his mouth to speak, but ended up saying nothing.

  Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Mind repeating that?”

  Brandon folded his arms across his chest. “I knew that was an ultrasound.”

  Cameron glared at Brandon. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yeah, I did.” Brandon lifted his shoulders philosophically. “I’m smarter than I look.”

  Adam and Cameron both laughed, easing some of the tension in the room.

  “I think you owe us some explanation after dropping that bomb,” Adam said.

  They’d only torment him until he spilled everything, so he gave them the abbreviated story of Julia and baby Jake.

  “You never read the rest of her email messages?” Brandon said incredulously. “Weren’t you curious? I would be.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve got more control than you,” Cameron said, his tone slightly defensive. “Control issues, you mean,” Brandon replied.

  Adam chuckled. “I think we should check out some of those messages.”

  “I told you I erased them all,” Cameron said, not willing to add that he’d also taken steps to recover them. By now, they were probably waiting in his email inbox.

  Adam grabbed Cameron’s shoulder and said, “Maybe so, but you’ve got the baby book. Let’s check it out.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Dude, we’re your brothers,” Brandon said. “We can add some objectivity to the situation.”

  He had a point. They both did, as much as Cameron hated to admit it. In fact, it seemed fitting that they were there with him, considering that bits of their sacred brotherhood pact were crumbling to dust by the minute.

  Against his better judgment, he opened the book. His brothers pulled their chairs up close to look at the photo on the first page. It was of Jake, taken in the hospital within an hour after he was born.

  “He looks like a grizzled old man,” Brandon said.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Cameron argued.

  Adam sat back. “Babies always look like that. You’ve got to consider where they just came from.”

  “Oh, man,” Brandon said, flinching. “That’s just rude.”

  Cameron chuckled as he turned the page and gazed at a number of early photos of Jake, some with Julia holding him. He wondered who had been operating the camera. He was dismayed to realize that it should’ve been him. But he’d completely ignored Julia. It
grated on him more and more as he turned the pages and saw his good-looking little boy growing bigger and bigger.

  “Oh, man, he’s in heaven,” Brandon said, as they stared at the shot of Jake enjoying his first barbecued chicken. Julia wrote next to the picture that the chicken had been pureed for Jake and he’d eaten it quickly, but then he’d taken his time enjoying the sauce. Cameron had to laugh. Jake’s little face and hair were smeared with red sauce and he flashed the camera a big, toothless grin.

  “Looks just like Cameron when he eats barbecue,” Adam said, and even Cameron had to laugh at that one.

  He turned to another set of pictures. Julia had titled them Jake’s First Immunizations and described how the nurse’s assistant had taken the pictures while Julia held and comforted the baby.

  “Uh-oh, this is gonna hurt,” Brandon said, wincing. Cameron did the same. The first photo showed the nice doctor holding a small syringe. Several more shots documented Jake’s expressive face as it scrunched up in preparation for something bad to happen. The last picture showed the dam bursting. Jake’s face was purple with rage, his eyes were shut tight and his mouth was wide open. He was obviously screaming in terror and pain.

  Cameron could almost hear the screams.

  “Man, that’s just cruel,” Adam said, averting his eyes from the book.

  “I completely feel his pain,” Brandon agreed, rubbing his arm where the needle would’ve gone in.

  The next page showed the look of happy shock on the baby’s face as his mother took him into the ocean for the first time. He stared at Julia frolicking in a brief bikini, looking so lush and sexy he had to stifle the urge to stroke the page.

  With a start, he realized his brothers could see her as well, and immediately turned the page.

  “Hey, wait, not so fast,” Adam complained.

  “Yeah, slow down,” Brandon said. “That photographer is really talented. I want to see more of the ocean.”

  “Yeah, right,” Cameron said, shaking his head. He knew what his brothers wanted to see more of and he wasn’t about to give them what they wanted. Nobody was going to look at Julia in a bikini but him. His brothers would have to learn to live with disappointment.

  “Come on, Cam, go back to that last shot,” Adam said, then added in a reasonable tone, “We really should get to know Jake’s mom better.”

  “You’ve both seen enough,” Cameron said, and closed the book.

  “Fine,” Brandon said, and sat back in his chair. “But I still wonder why you didn’t get in contact with her when you got her messages.”

  Cameron turned and glared at him. “All I saw in that first message was a woman demanding that I call her. Who needs that? So I deleted the ones she sent after that.”

  “Seems a little harsh,” Brandon replied.

  “Oh, come on. You’ve dealt with obsessed women. What would you have done?”

  Brandon frowned but said nothing.

  “He has a point,” Adam said reluctantly.

  Cameron expelled a long, slow breath. “I did what I had to do at the time.”

  “Yeah, been there,” Brandon said with a sigh. He’d spent ten years in the NFL and knew what it was like to be stalked by an obsessed woman or two. Or three. “I guess I can’t blame you. But she looks so normal.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Cameron said. “I liked her a lot. But then the messages started. That first day, she sent four emails. Four. Seriously, she showed all the signs of a desperate woman who’d talked herself into something that wasn’t there. Like, we had sex and suddenly she was in love or something, demanding that I call her. She even sent me a letter, but I threw it away unopened. I wasn’t willing to buy into any of it.”

  “I guess I see your point,” Adam admitted.

  “Thought you might,” Cameron said. “Then all of a sudden, the emails stopped coming and I figured she got the message.”

  “Guess she gave up on you,” Brandon said with a shrug.

  That didn’t sit well with Cameron, but he said nothing.

  Adam gazed at him. “So where do you go from here?”

  “I’m working it out.”

  “Yeah?” Brandon chuckled. “Good luck with that.”

  Cameron’s jaw tightened and he shot his brother a scornful look. “I’m in complete control of the situation.”

  “Ah, the famous Cameron control,” Adam said, nodding sagely. “So now she’s living here with you for the next ten days or so. I have a feeling your legendary control is going to be tested to the max.”

  The way Adam chuckled, Cameron imagined he’d had his own share of control issues. And knowing Trish now, he was pretty sure his brother had already lost that battle. Strangely enough, Adam didn’t look like he minded one bit.

  Cameron was glad his brother had found happiness, but marriage and a family weren’t on Cameron’s agenda.

  Adam stood and slipped his binder into his briefcase. “Trish is going to want to see the baby.”

  “Hey, me, too,” Brandon said. “I want to meet my nephew.”

  “How about if we swing by tonight?”

  “Tonight’s not good,” Cameron said quickly. He needed to prepare Julia for the family onslaught. “I’ll set something up for tomorrow night.”

  Ten minutes after his brothers took off, the babysitter returned with Jake. Cameron watched her carefully as she changed the baby’s diaper and fed him his bottle. He asked a few pertinent questions and had her show him some of her techniques, then he gritted his teeth and told her she could go for the day. He was ready to take over.

  “It’s just you and me now, kid,” he murmured to Jake after the woman left. Cameron lifted the baby into his arms and spent a few minutes walking Jake around the suite. They stood at the window and stared out at the cliffs and the ocean beyond. Cameron pointed out a few landmarks up and down the coast.

  “Can you see that bit of land jutting out into the ocean?” Cameron said, pointing northward. “That’s where we live.”

  A seagull flew high over the ocean and Cameron said, “Can you wave at the bird? Sure, you can. I’ll help you.” He grabbed Jake’s wrist and moved it up and down in a waving gesture.

  “Smart boy,” he murmured, and breathed in the powdery scent of clean baby.

  No, marriage and family hadn’t been on Cameron’s radar, but now that he had Jake to take care of, he was already mentally planning to do everything he could to contribute to the boy’s welfare. Jake would never want for anything as long as Cameron had a breath left in his body.

  He was amazed to realize that he’d already developed strong feelings for the little boy. He wouldn’t call it love. He wasn’t sure he would ever be ready to take that step and say those words. Maybe it would be better for Jake if he never did.

  “Dadadada,” Jake gibbered.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Cameron said, and gave him an affectionate squeeze. “Let’s see about getting you something to munch on.”

  They walked into the kitchen where Cameron found some Cheerios for Jake and crackers for himself. He put Jake in his high chair and watched the baby amuse himself with the little O’s.

  Despite the violence of his early years, Cameron had lucked out when Sally Duke adopted him. Through her strong and loving influence, Cameron learned to trust again. Even though his father had warned him that nobody would ever find him worth a damn, Cameron knew he was capable of giving and accepting love. He’d been with plenty of women all through high school and, even though he couldn’t say he’d loved any of them, he’d certainly felt affection for them and knew the feelings were reciprocated.

  Then, in his senior year, he met Wendy, a beautiful girl who fell for him, hard. One night, she told him she loved him and demanded that Cameron say it, too. In one of the dumbest moves of his life, he told her he loved her. But he didn’t, and soon after that, he tried to break it off as gently as he could. Wendy went wild. She tried everything to force him to take her back, even tried to turn his friends against him. Then she tried
blackmail, threatening to tell his teachers that he cheated on his exams. Cameron ignored her, so she finally went to the police and pressed charges, accusing him of abusing her. That was the final straw.

  Given his early upbringing, Cameron was the last person who would ever physically abuse anyone. Wendy didn’t know that, but Sally Duke did. She circled the wagons and hired a lawyer. In the courtroom, Wendy broke down and admitted she was lying. She recanted the charges, but the damage had been done.

  Cameron could still feel the anger and adrenaline that shot through his system as the judge cleared his name. If things had gone the other way, would he have reacted violently, like his father?

  In a desperate attempt to channel the fury he knew was inside him, he joined the marines. And he vowed that he would never again give anyone the power to destroy him in the name of love.

  But now there was Jake. And there was Julia. What was he supposed to do about them?

  Julia finished her food allergies workshop and stayed over to answer all the questions from the audience. Even after she left the meeting room, several of her attendees followed, peppering her with more. This was the part of the conference she loved-glad to pass on the things she’d learned from her own mentors and teachers over the years. She considered it a tribute to her mentors and teachers that she was now able to share the knowledge they’d generously given.

  She bid her students goodbye and entered the lobby, then stopped abruptly. Sally Duke stood with two other women by the concierge desk, fifty feet away. They were all dressed casually in Bermuda shorts, colorful T-shirts and walking shoes.

  Julia didn’t know whether to avoid Cameron’s mom or confront her. After all, Sally had to have known Cameron was due back last night, yet when they’d run into each other yesterday, the older woman had blithely assured Julia that Cameron would be out of town for the duration. After all her careful planning, Julia couldn’t believe she’d walked right into a trap.

  If Julia had known otherwise, she might’ve thought twice about attending the conference at all. And she definitely would’ve left Jake with their nanny back in Dunsmuir Bay.