Great, Nick thought miserably. The man was not only babbling, he was babbling nonsense. “I’m not following you, Mr. Smith.”
“Babies, Santos. Babies take a long time.”
Babies? What in the world was he talking about? “Excuse me?”
Boyd frowned at him. “What’s the matter with you? You’re not the one having twins. What are you so pale for?”
Twins. Babies.
Babies.
A light flashed through the thick fog in his brain. Julianna and Lucas. They were having their babies. Today. Right now.
There was no accident. Maggie and Drew weren’t hurt. They’d come to the hospital with Julianna.
Thank God, thank God, he repeated over and over, let his head fall into his hands as relief poured through him. When he started to laugh, Boyd leaned over and asked gruffly, “You okay, son?”
Nick felt weak and dizzy and so damn wonderful he almost grabbed Maggie’s father and kissed him. Almost.
He stood quickly. “Where are they? Maggie and Drew?”
“Drew went with his grandmother to look for cookies in the cafeteria. Maggie was waiting with Julianna until Lucas got here, but he’s been here a while now, so I’m not sure where she went to. Hey, you’re not supposed to go—”
Nick pushed through the Keep Out doors and moved down the hallway. He had to find Maggie first, before he saw Drew. He heard the sound of a woman gasping for breath, then yelling at her husband, and hurriedly turned off the corridor. He had no intention of intruding on impending parenthood. He just had to find Maggie. If he waited one more minute, he thought he might explode. When an angry nurse hustled him out of the labor area and through another set of double doors, he started down another corridor.
When he came around the corner, he saw her. Standing in front of glass windows, staring inside. His heart pounded furiously as he moved closer. The nursery, he realized. She was looking at the babies.
His legs nearly folded at the sight of her. Exhaustion lined her pale brow, her shoulders were bowed, as if she carried the weight of the world there. She looked fragile, broken, like a delicate porcelain doll who’d fallen from her shelf.
He watched her, felt the emotions slam into him; the hurt, the anger. The love.
They had a child. The reality of that, the wonder, was just beginning to sink in. Drew was his son. He was a father. The thought truly staggered him, humbled him.
Maggie had lied, stolen something precious from him, but was it so impossible to understand why she’d done what she had? He tried to imagine what she’d felt after he’d made love to her and called her another woman’s name, tried to imagine what she felt when that damn paternity suit was plastered all over the tabloids. Then he tried to imagine what he would have done. The truth was, he didn’t know.
What he did know was that she accepted the responsibility, that she was a loving, caring mother and she’d sacrificed a great deal for her son.
For their son.
She turned, lifted her gaze to his. Panic flashed in her green eyes, then they went empty, cold, and she looked away.
“Maggie.”
Hugging her arms tightly to her, she turned her back to him. He wanted to shake her; he wanted to kiss her. Instead, he shoved his hands into his pockets and moved beside her. They stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes straight ahead. Seconds, minutes passed. A lifetime, it seemed.
The hallway thundered with their silence.
“I was leaving,” she said finally, and the weariness in her voice nearly had him reaching for her. “Taking Drew. I’d packed our bags and was on my way to the airport when I stopped to say goodbye to Julianna. I found her in the guest bedroom, where she’d been sewing when the labor pains hit hard. She was on the bed, doubled over. She’d tried to call Lucas, but his cell phone was busy. I got her in the car, managed to reach Lucas while we were on our way to the hospital.”
Nick swore softly. “Lucas was with me. She must have tried to call when we were cleaning the grease out of his cell phone.”
Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder at him.
“It’s a long story,” he muttered. “How is she now?”
Maggie turned her attention to the nursery again. “They went into the delivery room about twenty minutes ago. She’s a little early, but the doctor said the babies are strong and healthy and he wasn’t expecting any problems.”
Nick closed his eyes on a sigh of relief. When he opened them again, he looked at the babies on the other side of the window and felt a sense of amazement fill him. One towheaded pink bundle was crying softly, one dark-haired blue bundle was wide-eyed. The other babies, two boys and a girl, were all sleeping peacefully. The sight was enough to make a grown man feel weak in the knees and soft in the gut.
“Did Drew look like that?” Nick asked quietly.
Maggie’s shoulders stiffened, then she nodded. “Like that dark-haired baby on the right. His eyes were always wide open, looking, wanting to see everything.”
“Do you have pictures?”
When she turned, there were tears in her eyes. “I have lots of pictures. And videos, too. I’ll send them to you.”
He shook his head slowly. “It’s not good enough.”
“Nick,” she said softly, her voice quavering, “I understand why you hate me. But I’m begging you, don’t take Drew away from me.”
“Drew is my son. He needs a father—” she started to back away from him, so he reached out and grabbed her shoulders “—and a mother.”
She lifted her glistening gaze to his. “What are you saying? Joint custody?”
“Something like that.” Those long, terrifying minutes he’d thought that Maggie and Drew had been hurt, that he might lose them forever, had tightly sealed the decision he’d already made before he’d even driven over to Maggie’s house. “I want you to marry me.” -
“Marry you?” she whispered. “You’d marry me, even feeling the way you do about me, just for Drew?”
He laughed softly. “The way I feel about you is every reason to marry you. I love you, Maggie. I’m still mad as the devil, but you were bound to see my temper sooner or later. You’ll have to learn to live with that, ’cause you’re going to marry me, woman, and nothing, not the past, not the present, is going to stop that. I love you so much it’s killing me, and if I’m not wrong, you love me, too.”
Maggie went weak when Nick dragged her against him and covered her mouth with his—a deep, searing kiss that shot straight to her toes. The room began to spin, and she had to hold tightly to him for fear she would fall.
“You want me to marry you?” She touched his cheek, needed to know that this was real, that he was real, not part of the horrible nightmare she’d been living the past few hours. “Because you love me?”
He grinned at her. “There’s probably a doctor around here we can have check out your hearing if you need it, but first answer me, Maggie. Do you love me?”
She stared at him in astonishment. He didn’t know? He really didn’t know? She cupped his face in her hands, swallowed back the tears gathering in her throat. “We better get that same doctor to check your eyes, Nick Santos. If you can’t see that I love you, that I’ve loved you since the day you saved me from Roger Gerckee, then you must be blind.”
His brow furrowed at Roger’s name. “You mean at Lucas and Julianna’s party?”
Laughing softly, she pressed her lips to his. “No, silly. In high school. The day Roger threw my lunch away and you dumped him in the trash can. I told you that you were my hero that day, but that was also the day I fell hopelessly in love with you.”
Amazement widened his eyes, then he narrowed them again. “And in North Carolina, the night we slept together? Were you in love with me, then?”
She nodded. “I was terrified of that assignment, knowing that I’d have to be close to you, talk to you. I knew I’d make an idiot out of myself.” She closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. “And I did. Because I loved you, I wanted you
to be the first man I was with as much as I wanted to believe that you knew you were sleeping with me. When I realized the mistake I’d made, I couldn’t face you again. Drew was the most wonderful, perfect gift, and though I was certain you’d want nothing to do with us, just having a part of you was more than I could ever have dreamed possible.”
He took her chin in his hand and lifted her face to his. “You’re the damnedest woman,” he said with a sigh. “We still need to fine tune a few facts, but we’ll deal with that later. Right now I need you to do something for me.”
His hand was shaking as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. Maggie felt her breath catch as he slipped the diamond on her finger. “Marry me, Maggie. Stay with me here, in Wolf River, you and Drew. Please.”
The diamond sparkled through the tears in her eyes. Her heart, the same heart that had shattered into thousands of pieces, swelled with the love she felt. “Yes.” She whispered. “Yes, yes—”
He cut her off with his lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and poured all the love inside her into the kiss. He broke away suddenly, scooped her up in his arms and gave a shout. A nurse came around the corner, hands on her ample hips, and shushed them.
Laughing, he spun her, then set her down and grabbed her hand. “We’ve got someone to talk to, Maggie, darlin’, and I don’t plan on wasting one more minute.”
“You move fast, Santos.” Breathless, she let herself be pulled along. “Anybody ever tell you that?”
“All the time, darlin’.” He stopped just long enough for a quick kiss, then hauled her down the corridor. “All the time.”
Epilogue
Spring came early to Wolf River. The air was clear and clean. Tulips, red and yellow and pink, pushed through the sun-warmed soil in Lucas and Julianna’s backyard. Purple pansies and white petunias wrestled for space in the beds, rose bushes heavy with buds promised a spectacular display in the next few weeks.
Just in time for the wedding, Maggie thought dreamily, letting her head rest on the back of Julianna’s wicker chair while she stroked baby Nathaniel’s downsoft hair. At four weeks, he had already outgrown his newborn clothes, unlike his sister, Nicole, who was nearly as dainty as the day she’d been born. They shared the same thick dark hair, but Nicole’s skin was paler than Nathaniel’s, her eyes blue to her brother’s dark brown.
One boy, one girl, not two boys like Lucas and Julianna had thought. Maggie smiled, remembering the pleasure and pride on Lucas’s face as he’d made the announcement at the hospital.
Julianna sat in the chair beside Maggie, gently rocking a sleeping Nicole in her arms. Babies and spring went together perfectly, Maggie decided. With the wedding set in two weeks, she calculated that if she got pregnant within the next two to three months, she and Nick would have their own spring baby.
And considering Nick’s enthusiasm for the project, Maggie thought with a rush of heat, they would no doubt be successful. They’d have a girl this time, she thought with a smile. A little sister for Drew. She was certain of it.
The big wedding had been Nick’s decision, though secretly she’d always dreamed of having one. When she’d married Richard, the ceremony had been simple, no nonsense, much like their marriage itself.
But nothing was simple with Nick. Everything was bigger than life and brightly colored, and their wedding would be no exception. The church. Family and friends. A garden reception here at the Blackhawks’. She still had to pinch herself that it was really happening, that she’d quit her job in New York, that a moving van was already on its way with her things from her apartment there.
That she was really marrying the man she’d loved more than half her life.
She glanced at the ring of her finger and smiled. Mrs. Nick Santos. The sound of it floated like music through her mind.
Another sound caught her attention: Drew’s distant laughter. Her smile widened. It had been a little awkward trying to explain to Drew that Nick was his daddy, his real daddy, but children were more accepting, less interested in details than results. The only thing that mattered to him was that they were staying in Wolf River, that he had a new daddy he loved, and that they’d be moving into a house, a real house with a big yard he could play in and big trees he could climb. Between house hunting and wedding plans, the past four weeks had flown by, and she only hoped the next two would do the same.
Like native warriors returning from the hunt, they emerged from the woods, Drew and Nick and Lucas, proudly sporting their catch of silver trout on a string.
“Mom, look what Daddy and I caught in the creek,” Drew yelled excitedly. “Uncle Lucas says we’re gonna clean ’em out here, so we don’t make you and Aunt Julianna sick at the sight of blood and guts.”
“How considerate of Uncle Lucas.” Julianna shifted a softly whimpering Nicole in her arms, then grinned at Maggie. “Looks like you’re all staying for a fish fry.”
Maggie grinned back. Julianna and Lucas had accepted her and Drew from the beginning, brought them into their family without question, without judgment of the past. Maggie felt that she’d not only found a friend in Julianna, but a sister, as well.
The front doorbell sounded and Julianna groaned. “It’s Mrs. Waters from the Women’s League. She was going to pick up a quilt I made for the bazaar next week, but the woman could talk the ears off a beagle. After that night I had with these two darlin’s, I’m just not in the mood.”
When Julianna started to get up, Maggie waved her back down. “Let me talk to her. If you’re going to feed my men, it’s the least I can do. If I’m not back in an hour, though, send out the rescue party.”
“Bless you.” Julianna rocked an increasingly fussy Nicole. “The quilt’s on the dining room table.”
Maggie was cooing softly against Nathaniel’s soft temple when she opened the front door. But it wasn’t Mrs. Waters standing on the doorstep. Not even close.
Killian Shawnessy.
Eyes wide, all Maggie could do was stare at him. She hadn’t seen him in at least ten years, but it was Ian, all right. His dark hair was shorter, his shoulders wider and chest broader, his handsome, angled face tanned. He wore aviator sunglasses, but she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes when he smiled slowly.
“Ian,” she breathed his name on an exhale.
“Well, if it isn’t little Margaret Smith,” he drawled. “Nick told me you’d changed, but he didn’t quite capture the magnitude of that understatement.”
Maggie blushed, then leaned to the side and looked behind Ian. He glanced over his shoulder and raised his brows. “Looking for someone?”
“Only the trail of swooning women.”
He grinned at her, then nodded at the baby. “I know Nick works fast, but I don’t think even he can speed that process up. I take it this is Lucas and Julianna’s?”
She nodded. “This is Nathaniel. Why don’t you come in and meet his sister?”
He followed her to the back porch, where Julianna stared at him with the same wide-eyed astonishment.
When she was finally able to catch her breath, Julianna jumped up and gave him a hug. “Ian Shawnessy! Is that really you? When in the world did you get here?”
Maggie could have sworn that the sudden rosy color on Ian’s cheeks was a blush, but when he glanced down at the baby in Julianna’s arms, his face seemed to pale.
“Uh, a little while ago.” He stepped back, kept his eyes on the baby as if it might attack. “I’m renting a cabin up on the river.”
“Maggie and I have to go tell Lucas and Nick.” There was a wicked light in Julianna’s eyes as she looked at Maggie, then at her daughter who’d started to cry. “Here, Nicole, sweetie, say hello to your Uncle Ian. Mommy will be right back.”
Before he could protest, Julianna thrust her daughter into Ian’s big arms. Eyes wide, he opened his mouth, but couldn’t quite get the words out. Maggie winked at Julianna, then followed suit by placing Nathaniel into Ian’s other arm. He turned white, and the look in
his eyes was sheer terror.
“Hey...wait...come back....” He sounded as if he were choking.
“You are an evil woman, Julianna,” Maggie said, laughing as they ran to get Lucas and Nick.
“I’m paying him back for not showing up at our wedding.” She glanced over her shoulder and giggled. “Imagine a big, grown man terrified of a couple of little babies.”
“Think there’s any hope for him?”
“There’s always hope.” She grinned. “Look at Lucas and Nick.”
“Look at us what?” Lucas came up from the side of the creek, a bucket of fish in his hand. Nick, with Drew on his heels, was right behind.
“We have company, boys. The last of the bad boys has returned.”
Nick and Lucas looked at each other in bewilderment, then slowly grinned. “Shawnessy,” they said together.
“In the flesh.” Julianna looked toward the back porch. She could hear both babies crying now. “But you better hurry. He might pass out while he’s holding our son and daughter.”
A strangled cry for help drifted from the house. With a whoop, Lucas headed for the house, Julianna right behind him. Nick started to follow, then stopped, scooped up Maggie in one arm and Drew in the other. He swung them around until Maggie was breathless and Drew dizzy with laughter.
The intensity in his gaze as his mouth caught hers, and the fierce, possessive kiss brought a burning moisture to her eyes.
“Damn, it’s good to be home,” he murmured against her lips.
Maggie smiled as they walked back to the house. She couldn’t have agreed with him more.
Mystery man Killian is back! Don’t miss his
story, KILLIAN’S PASSION, available next
month from Silhouette Desire.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-5836-5
SECRET BABY SANTOS
Copyright © 1999 by Barbara Joel
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography. photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
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