Dylan weighed his brother’s words. “You’re probably right,” he said with a sigh. “But until she’s prepared to be open with me, I can’t see us working this thing out. Besides, she’ll probably never forgive me for what I said.”
“What exactly did you say?”
“I asked her if I was her latest mark. I couldn’t help it. It just came out. I was so mad that she’d kept something so important from me. Nothing about her life adds up, Sage. Nothing. Not unless she really was a part of her father’s scheme and has been happily living off those proceeds all this time.”
He didn’t want to believe his own words, but without proof, without Jenna’s own testimony, how could he think anything different?
* * *
Jenna walked on aching legs to her office to tally up the day’s receipts. So much for today’s cashless society, she thought, as she extracted the float to go back into the cash register, and then counted the notes to go to the bank the next morning.
She’d been beyond worried that after the disaster of Lassiter Grill’s opening night, her business would slowly dwindle and die off. Instead, the opposite had been true. She’d barely been able to keep up with demand, and had been forced to increase her orders from the wholesalers. She and Valerie had been swamped working on special orders, and the foot traffic coming in through the front door had doubled over the previous week.
“Why don’t you let me finish that up,” Valerie offered as she entered the office. “You look dead on your feet.”
“No, I’m halfway there already,” Jenna insisted, even as a wave of weariness swept through her.
It wasn’t the first time this week she’d felt weak and slightly disoriented. Considering she’d barely been able to force herself from bed each morning, or to eat or drink properly, it really was no wonder. Logically, she knew she had to look after herself, to look after the baby. But just now everything to do with herself fell into the “too hard” basket. She was glad they were crazy busy. At least at work she could get lost in the oblivion of one order to fill after another.
Valerie sat in the chair opposite Jenna’s desk and studied her. “Have you heard from him yet?”
“What? No, I haven’t. And I don’t expect to, either.”
“Never?” Valerie sounded regretful.
“Never, at least not directly,” Jenna responded. She could hear the flatness in her voice and tried to inject some life back into it. “It’s better that way.”
“I don’t see how. You’re still pregnant with his baby. That takes two.”
“Valerie, please. This week’s hard enough as it is,” Jenna implored her friend. “Can you just let it go?”
Valerie studied her from across the table. “Not when you look the way you do. I’m sorry, but I care about you. In fact, no. I’m not sorry. I care about you, Jenna. I’ve watched you go all the way from sweeping floors to taking this business over from Margaret and getting us to where we are today. You’re bright, you’re clever—but most of all you’re honest. I know people have been saying things about you, and yes, I remember the stories about your dad from back when. It’s shameful what he did to you and it’s shameful that it’s coming back to haunt you. You’re not the person they said you are. The past belongs right there, in the past. I believe in you, Jenna. I just wanted you to know that.”
Jenna gave the other woman a weak smile. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“But it’s not enough, is it? You still love him.”
Jenna felt the all too familiar burn of tears in her eyes. She resolutely blinked them back, again. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is this little person in here.” She patted her tummy and was rewarded with a ripple of movement.
“Honey, trust me, it matters. You’re killing yourself over this.”
Of course it mattered. It mattered enough that barely a minute went by without her thinking of Dylan. Without seeing again and again the pain she’d inflicted on him and the disappointment that had been etched on his face before he’d left her on Saturday night. She drew in a deep breath. It would get better, eventually. She had to hold on to that thought.
Valerie persisted. “I think you should see him. Talk this out some more.”
“He’s gone back to L.A. At least that’s what I heard.”
“So pick up a telephone.”
“No, really. It’s over, Valerie. If I can accept that, I think you should, too. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention it again.”
Never would be too soon, Jenna thought as Valerie reluctantly agreed to her request.
“At least come to my house tonight for dinner. You can put up your feet. I’ll make sure the kids wait on you and I’ll cook you up one of my famous chicken casseroles.”
“It sounds lovely, but to be honest, I’m beat. I just want to go home and go to bed.”
“And have something to eat,” Valerie added.
“Yes, yes, and have something to eat.” Jenna gathered up the cash and checks and handed Valerie the float to put back in the cash register. “I’ll do the banking on my way in tomorrow. Will you be okay to open up?”
“Sure. With my eldest and her best friend happy to mind the younger kids for a few extra dollars while they’re on summer vacation, life’s a whole lot less chaotic for me in the mornings. Don’t rush in.”
“I’ll be here just after nine, I hope. We have another big day ahead.”
“Which is exactly why I don’t think you should be rushing around,” Valerie teased with a laugh.
“Okay, okay. Don’t you have enough mothering to do with your kids?”
“Hey, once a mother, always a mother.”
Valerie went to put the spare cash in the register and then walked out the back with Jenna. “You take care tonight,” her friend said, then got in her car and drove away with a cheerful wave.
Jenna watched her go with a wistful smile on her face. She’d never stopped to think all that much about Valerie’s life beyond what she saw on the surface—married for sixteen years, with four great kids. Jenna was hit with a near overwhelming sense of envy for the simplicity of Valerie’s world. For the security within it. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and breathed in deep. She could do this. She’d been on her own for a long time now and she didn’t need anyone else.
But even as she thought it, Dylan’s face swam into her thoughts and with it a feeling of loss so devastating it made her head swim. She leaned back on the headrest and dragged in one breath after another until the woozy sensation left her. Then she turned on the ignition and put her car into gear, easing it out of the parking lot and onto the street, heading home.
She’d get through this. She just had to.
Fifteen
She was dragging her feet from the moment she got up the next morning. It was as if no matter how much time she spent in bed, or resting, it was never quite enough. Jenna surveyed the miserable offerings of food she had left in her fridge. Nothing worth eating for breakfast, she realized. She’d pick something up at a drive-through on the way to the store. She filled her traveling cup with drinking water, picked up her bag and went through to her garage.
Just as she pressed the garage door opener a wave of vertigo hit, and she put out a hand to the doorjamb to steady herself. It took about a full minute to pass.
“Pull yourself together,” Jenna chastised herself out loud, adjusting her bag on her shoulder and stepping toward her car. “You ate a decentish meal last night. You can survive until after the bank.”
She took a sip of her water, then another. There, she was feeling better already, she told herself, and walked the short distance to her car.
Driving to the bank, she felt fine. She found a parking spot close by and then went inside to wait for a free teller. Despite the early hour, it was busy for a Thursday. She hadn’t been
waiting terribly long before she felt the earth tilt beneath her feet once more.
“Not again,” she muttered under her breath.
“What’s that, miss?” said the older man in the line ahead of her.
“Oh, nothing, sorry.”
“Are you sure? You look a bit—”
That was all Jenna heard before the blackness came out of nowhere to swallow her whole. She never even felt it when she hit the floor, nor did she hear the concerned cries from the people around her.
* * *
“You look like crap, man,” Dylan’s second in charge, Noel, said as he came into his office on Friday morning.
“Why, thank you,” he replied in a voice loaded with sarcasm.
Truth was, he knew he looked like crap. Felt it, too. Since leaving Cheyenne he’d felt as if something—or more precisely, someone—was calling him back. He’d tried to tell himself he’d done all he could, that he’d overseen the opening to the best of his ability and that he’d left things in his executive chef’s and restaurant manager’s capable hands. Hell, he wouldn’t have hired them if they weren’t up to the job in the first place. It was time to pour himself back into what his job called for here in L.A.
Even so, his mind kept turning over that last conversation with Jenna, and with it, all the questions that remained unanswered between them. He’d done some more research and discovered that her father, James, had quite the reputation with the ladies. Exactly when he’d started fleecing them for every penny had been unclear, but when a couple of widows had begun comparing notes about their new beau over a game of bridge at their country club one afternoon, they’d seen and heard enough from one another to realize they were dating the same man.
After pressure from their families, they’d been the ones to bring the original complaints to the police, instigating the investigation into James Montgomery’s habits. An inquiry that had unearthed a string of similarly swindled lovers in his past. Women who’d been too embarrassed to bring their situation to the attention of their families, let alone the authorities.
It made Dylan furious to think of so many innocents being duped by the charmer. A man whose first priority should have been the care and raising of his daughter. Dylan didn’t understand how anyone could be so remiss in his duty to his own flesh and blood.
Speaking of his flesh and blood, he wondered how Jenna was doing. She’d be sixteen weeks along by now. When had she been due next for a scan? He huffed out a sigh and forced himself to relax his hand around the Montblanc pen he was strangling to death over the papers he was supposed to sign, and which Noel was waiting so patiently for.
“Your EA asked me to bring these in to you,” Noel said, putting some pink message slips on Dylan’s desk.
His eye scanned the papers, but it wasn’t until he picked up the Cheyenne area code on one that he sat up and took notice. It wasn’t like Chance to call him here at the office; his cousin usually called him direct on his cell phone, Dylan thought as he flourished his pen across the necessary pages and then passed the stack of documents over the desk to Noel.
“Was there anything else you needed from me today?” he asked the younger guy.
“No, I’m pretty sure we’re up to date with these,” he said, flicking through the pages. “I’ll call you if anything arises from them.”
“Thanks.” Dylan nodded absently. He checked his cell phone as he picked up the office handset to dial home. Two missed calls from Chance—yesterday. Whatever it was, it had to be urgent. His cousin picked up on the second ring, his voice gruff.
“Chance Lassiter.”
“Hey, just the man I wanted to speak to. How come you’re not working?”
“I wish I wasn’t working. I’m going through the ranch accounts before handing them over to the accountant. But that’s beside the point. Where have you been, man? I’ve been trying to get hold of you since yesterday.”
“I had my phone on Do Not Disturb and forgot to change it back. What’s up?”
“Have you heard about Jenna?”
Dylan stiffened in his chair. “Heard about her? Why? What’s happened?”
“She collapsed in the bank yesterday morning. They had to rush her to the hospital.”
“She collapsed? Do you know why?”
Dammit, he shouldn’t have left Cheyenne. He shouldn’t have walked away from his responsibilities to his unborn baby or to its mother.
“Mom called the hospital as soon as she heard, but they wouldn’t give her any information other than to say Jenna was stable.”
Stable was good, wasn’t it, he consoled himself. At least she wasn’t in serious or critical condition. “Has anyone tried to contact Jenna directly?”
“Sure. But her cell must be turned off. A woman called Valerie answered at the store, but she was about as forthcoming as a clam when Mom asked after Jenna.”
Dylan mentally calculated what he had to complete today to be able to get back home to Cheyenne. Home. When had L.A. stopped being home for him? he wondered briefly, and then realized it never really had been. Sure, it was where he lived, but it wasn’t where he belonged. Right now he belonged back in Cheyenne.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thanks for the heads-up, Chance.”
“I knew you’d want to know. Hey, man. You’re going to sort this out, aren’t you? The rest of us don’t care what happened to her in the past, or what she was involved in. We do care about who she is now, and she’s going to be the mother of one of a new generation of Lassiters. She’s one of us, whether she wants to be or not.”
“Yeah, I’m going to sort this out,” Dylan said, ending the call. Somehow.
But it was as if the world conspired to prevent him from getting to Cheyenne, from getting to Jenna and finding out what was wrong with her. He was as gnarly as a wildcat with a thorn in its paw by the time he dumped his remaining work onto Noel and instructed him that if anything else urgent came up, he’d have to handle it himself. To the younger guy’s credit, he didn’t so much as blink.
Dylan’s executive assistant filled him in on the booking details for the flight she’d just managed to squeeze him onto at short notice. It would mean a stop in Denver, but at least he’d arrive in Cheyenne before midnight tonight. He cursed the fact that the company jet was down for routine maintenance. While he waited at the airport, he called the hospital and asked to be put through to Jenna, but was surprised to be told she’d already been discharged. That meant she had to be home, right?
In the departure lounge he tried her home phone number, but there was no reply. He tried her cell—again, no reply. He looked at his watch; her store would just about be closing. He dialed the number, only to hear the final boarding call for his flight. A security guard gave him a strange look as Dylan muttered a string of curses before grabbing his briefcase and heading to the gate. He’d have to stow his impatience and his concerns until he got to Wyoming and could see her for himself.
A delay in Denver saw his flight into Cheyenne land well after midnight. Dylan was chafing at the bit to drive straight to Jenna’s house, but logic and reason told him that would be stupid. If she was home, she’d be sound asleep by now. The morning would have to suffice.
Once he arrived at his house Dylan shrugged out of his suit jacket and tore off his tie. He poured himself a generous measure of aged Scotch and threw himself into one of the large chairs in the living room. Sleep was the furthest thing from his mind right now. From the moment he’d received the news about Jenna, his primary focus had been on getting here. He hadn’t really stopped to think about what he’d do when he arrived. Sure, he wanted to see for himself that she and the baby were okay, and he most definitely wanted to know what had caused the collapse that had sent her to the hospital in the first place. But what then? What came after that?
He still had questions to which sh
e was the only one who held the answers. It had hurt him deeply when he learned she’d been holding back and made him say things he never would have under normal circumstances. But then again, their circumstances had never been normal, exactly, had they? That said, he’d been upfront about his desire to want to take care of her from the beginning. To build a future for her and their baby. Seeing her again, after their first encounter, had proved to him that their attraction was definitely not the kind of thing that crossed a person’s path more than once in a lifetime. In fact, for many people, it never entered their life at all. He’d believed, down deep in his soul, that she was the one for him. Had that changed?
Aside from his natural concern for her, how did he feel now? Had knowing what lay in her past changed his emotions when it came to Jenna Montgomery? He took a sip of his whiskey and rolled the liquid around on his tongue before swallowing it. The answer to his question took a long time coming. No, he didn’t love her any less. Sure, he was stung that she hadn’t told him, but it didn’t change how he felt about her at his core. He’d accused her of not trusting him with the full story about her past, but wasn’t he just as bad not trusting her when she had told him she hadn’t been knowingly involved in the cancer scam? Had he been so hurt by her withholding the truth that he hadn’t even wanted to listen—had somehow wanted to punish her for that secret and therefore hadn’t been prepared to believe her?
This past week had been hell without her. Without hearing the sound of her voice, the husky timbre of her laughter, the delicious hitch in her breathing when he kissed her intimately.
Could he imagine life without her? Hell, no, he couldn’t. Every night since the opening he’d tried to see how his future would evolve without Jenna being an intrinsic part of it, and it had been a dark and harrowing place. He wanted her. More than that, he loved her with a passion so great he knew he could never settle for anyone else but her. Ever.
Which left him in a difficult position. He’d known from the start that their relationship was fragile, that it needed careful tending to bring it to its fullest and most exciting best. Had he crushed that tender seedling when he’d asked her if she’d thought him to be an easy mark? Could they revive the bond between them? She’d looked so battered, so bruised. He’d been so locked in his own anger and disbelief at what he’d perceived as disloyalty, not to mention dishonesty. He still wanted to know the truth, the full truth this time. They couldn’t move forward until everything had been laid bare between them.
EXPECTING THE CEO'S CHILD Page 14
