"What do you want from me, Mr. Rollins?" she asked.
He stared into her eyes and then shook his head. "Ms. Hammond, I regret to tell you that we have a problem, a big one, and it doesn't involve paintings or auctions, either. The fact is that it has just come to my attention that you are the mother of my baby," he said. "We need to do something about that."
Jackie's eyes widened. Her breathing stopped. She slipped one hand over her throat.
"What?" she finally managed in a whisper.
He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "I probably should have led up to that a bit more slowly, but…you donated eggs at one time?"
Her eyes widened. She gripped the arms of her chair as if squeezing something hard could turn back time. "Yes, once, but only to my cousin," she said weakly. Her cousin, Trish, had given birth to a girl, and Jackie's four-year-old niece, Chloe, was a sweetheart. And she was the only result of Jackie's donation. "You're not trying to tell me that you and Trish…I wouldn't believe that, no matter how good looking you are. She's madly in love with her husband."
The man's left brow had raised slightly when she told him he was good looking. "Never had the honor of meeting the lady," was all he said. "And it was my late wife who gave birth to my little girl."
Jackie felt suddenly sick. "I don't understand."
"That makes two of us, Ms. Hammond."
"There must be some mistake."
"There was. Apparently your donor eggs were implanted in my wife without your permission. I'm terribly sorry about that."
A baby. There was another baby with her DNA, another child she would never get to hold as her own. Chloe had been one thing, she had been voluntary, but this…
Jackie pushed her chin up, her hair falling back as she gazed up at the man with the unreadable eyes. "Why should I believe you, Mr. Rollins?"
"Why should I lie to you?"
"I don't know, but I…there might be a reason that hasn't occurred to me yet."
"I assure you that I'm telling the truth, even though I wish it weren't so. I do, of course, have proof."
He reached into the pocket of his navy sport coat, the movement making the muscles bunch beneath his white shirt.
Jackie blanched. How could she even notice such a thing at a moment like this? She turned her attention to the paper Steven Rollins was holding out.
"What is that?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
"It's the paperwork showing which eggs were used to bring about my wife's pregnancy. And this other paper matches those very eggs to you."
Jackie's hand shook as she took the crisp white pieces of paper. She read the words, which blurred before her eyes.
"How could this have happened?" she asked herself out loud.
"I've asked myself that, but there just aren't any good answers."
Biting her lip, Jackie nodded and dared to glance up into the dark eyes of the tall man beside her. He didn't look happy.
"It's very…very generous of you to come to me with this news. You didn't have to. I would never have known."
"Possibly."
She could tell by his expression that he had considered not coming to her.
"Why did you come?"
"Believe me, my reasons for being here today are anything but altruistic, Ms. Hammond. Suzy isn't a lost puppy that I was willing to return to the original owners if they showed up when I placed a sign in a store window. I would have liked nothing better than to leave you in the dark. But other people knew. At least a few at the hospital did. These kinds of things have a way of leaking out."
"So here you are."
"Yes." The word seemed to have been forced out of him. He leveled a long, dark stare at her. She noticed that his jaw was hard and square, the skin taut over the bone. He had the look of a man's man about him, the kind of man many women would have paid to have stare at them. But she wasn't like most women, and being studied this closely by Steven Rollins made her breath kick up hard in her chest. Her heart was doing sprints. She wanted to squirm.
"What exactly do you want from me, Mr. Rollins?" She managed to keep her voice reasonably firm, even though she knew her knuckles were clenched on the chair so hard that they were undoubtedly white.
He pushed off the desk and rose to his feet, intimidatingly tall. "I want your name on a different piece of paper, Ms. Hammond, stating that you relinquish all rights to my daughter," he said quietly, in a voice that brooked no arguments. "And I want your word that you will never try to see her or contact her. And you, in return, will have my word and my name on a legal document stating that I will never darken your door again. That's why I'm here. That's exactly what I want from you. Now, do we have a deal, ma'am?"
Jackie had never been a person who argued. She had spent her life being accommodating. She had spent her girlhood trying to please a man who could not be pleased and jumping to do his will in the rare moments when he even noticed her. She had never had anything or anyone who truly belonged to her in any real sense. So yes, she had donated her eggs to Trish and been happy to do so. Chloe was worth the hurt of knowing she could never call the little girl her own. But now here was this man, trying to stare her down, trying to force her yet again to give in and be good, to do the easy thing as she had always done.
Somewhere there was a child, a baby, who through accident had come from her body, Jackie thought. A child she would never even have the chance to see the way she saw Chloe.
She stared up at Steven Rollins.
"You think you have the right to do this."
For a moment his eyelids flickered. Then it was as if his whole body turned to steel. "I know I have the right. Suzy is mine. You didn't even know about her. I didn't have to come here."
Jackie studied the rigid line of his jaw. "But you would have had to live with the fear that someday I might find out."
"Yes." He bit the word off, and she understood that it was hard for him to admit as much to her. It was obvious that his child meant a great deal to him.
"How old?"
"What?" A muscle twitched in his jaw. He shook his head.
"How old is…is Suzy?"
He hesitated, as if even sharing that much was too much. "She's one."
"A baby. Still a baby." With all the things that came with a baby—smiles and giggles and soft skin and a baby powder scent. Unconditional love and acceptance of those who cared for her. Sweetness. Innocence. A child who wouldn't exist if not for those eggs she had donated. A. part of herself. Jackie almost closed her eyes, the longing was so overwhelming.
"You'll sign?" Steven Rollins's strong voice broke into her thoughts and she looked at him. For a moment she thought she saw a flash of fear and pain in his eyes.
He had lived with his baby for a whole year. She was precious to him. She was, in fact, his and his alone. Suzy Rollins was out of reach for the woman who had unwittingly helped to give her life. Suzy would never know Jackie, and that was the way it had to be.
An unexpected pain sliced through Jackie. She knew she had to sign the papers. And she would.
"Have you come far? Where do you live?"
"I don't see how that has anything to do with anything."
"Please." Her voice caught, and she hated that sign of weakness. She'd spent so much time learning to disguise her weaknesses.
But Steven Rollins seemed to soften at her tone. "I live on a ranch. Around Claxton."
"Not that far."
"No."
A tiny hope filled Jackie's soul. "I understand why you want me to sign, Mr. Rollins. I would do the same." To have to share a loved one could be horrible and very difficult. "I don't expect you to share your daughter with a stranger, especially one who didn't even know of her existence before today."
The man relaxed even more. A small smile turned his face heartbreakingly handsome, making Jackie's breathing kick up a notch. No doubt he'd had a beautiful wife.
"Thank you, Ms. Hammond. You'll sign then?" He held out his hand, a conciliatory gesture.<
br />
"Yes, but I have a condition."
Immediately his hand stilled. He pulled back. "What kind of a condition?"
"I want to meet her."
"What do you mean, you want to meet her?"
His tone was thunderous. Jackie should have been shaking in her shoes. Under other circumstances, she would have been, but for some reason she wasn't as scared of Steven Rollins as she should have been. Maybe because he seemed to genuinely care for his daughter.
And the truth was that she wasn't completely sure what she had meant by her words. She just knew that she did mean them. She had given up one child, and it had been much more difficult than she could ever have believed possible. Never once had she gotten to hold that baby as if it were her own. But fate and happenstance had combined to give her one more chance.
Jackie wanted that chance desperately.
"I meant what I said, Mr. Rollins. You just told me that your daughter was conceived from eggs that came from my body. There's a part of me in her. That's something I don't take lightly. I'm not asking to be a lasting part of her life, you understand. I know there's no possibility of that, but I…I just can't sign a paper and never once have a glimpse of her. I want the chance to see her."
"Impossible. You can't do it."
Oh, she had heard those words so many times in her life. And she had often believed them.
But this time a child was involved.
"I can do it, Mr. Rollins."
He studied her carefully, slowly, maddeningly. Jackie almost held her breath as his gaze drifted over her, as if looking for flaws, missing nothing. She felt suddenly awkward and naked in her boxy gray suit. In that moment he was a man looking over a woman. And she was a woman reacting in the most physical way, her body and skin prickling with heightened awareness. Jackie was horrified to realize. No doubt the man was merely trying to intimidate her. And so, with great difficulty, she managed to sidestep her body's reaction.
"We'll see about your demands," he finally said. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
Jackie was pretty sure that he was going to come back armed with plenty of legal advice. And he would look her over again.
The legal advice didn't scare her ..too much. The look—she didn't want to think about that look—was too intimate.
"I'll let you know my terms then," she agreed, "I'll have them in writing."
He gave her a curt nod. She almost missed the look that lurked in the back of his eyes, but just before he turned, she saw it. Fear?
She held out her hand to his retreating back. She should just leave it alone.
"Mr. Rollins?"
He turned on one heel.
"I'm assuming it will take a certain amount of money to make you go away," he told her with an unmistakable trace of derision.
Slowly she shook her head. "I'm not interested in money. And I don't mean to be difficult, but I can't just leave this alone. We're talking about a child. A baby."
"I know," he said. His voice was tight, the emotion leashed, but not completely.
That got to her—the fact that he was trying to hide how badly he cared about his child, but couldn't. The fact that he could affect her that way made him dangerous.
She wished she never had to see him again.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she said.
Chapter Two
"Damn woman," Steven bit off the words as he pulled off his boots and dropped them on the opulent cream-colored carpeting of the room he had booked at La Torchere. What was her game? Why was she pushing this issue when she had only just discovered Suzy's existence?
And how come she had to be so…so…
"Fascinating." He reluctantly admitted what he had refused to allow himself to think thus far. Jacqueline Hammond was no beauty by a long shot. In truth, she was rather plain, but she had a pair of fine blue eyes and pretty pink lips that trembled ever so slightly at moments of high emotion. In another lifetime, had he been another man, he would have wanted to pursue her and take a good long taste of those lips. As it was…
"I want her out of my life completely. To hell with those vulnerable blue eyes." He pounded out the words.
He meant them, too. It was going to be hard raising Suzy alone, especially once she reached an age when she needed the kinds of things that a woman could best provide. But he was through with relationships and especially with marriage and dreams. Too many of his dreams had been wrenched away from him.
All he wanted right now was to get himself out of this tangled mess with Jacqueline Hammond and get back to his daughter and his ranch. Then everything would be fine.
He had thought this would be easy. He had assumed Jacqueline Hammond was most likely a woman who had once done a good deed but wasn't interested in children herself.
But that look in her eyes when she'd said the word baby…
"Dammit all!" How could he have thought anything would be easy with a woman like that?
What he needed right now was to stop thinking about how she had looked and start thinking about how to get her to sign away any rights she had to him and his child.
He picked up the phone and began to dial.
The next morning, Jackie entered the forest-green, cream and golden oak lobby of La Torchere with both dread and anticipation. She had gone upstairs last night still reeling from the shock of the news that she had helped produce a child, and still shaking from her encounter with Steven Rollins. She had had few close relationships with men over the years, and had never had a good one. She no longer even wanted to try, so coming into close contact with a man who sent her senses spinning out of control and who, of all men, had reason to dislike her, was more than disconcerting.
She really didn't want to see him again. But there was no way she was giving up this opportunity.
Jackie wondered what Steven Rollins would think of the simple plan she had formulated in the wee hours of the night as she lay tossing and turning.
Whatever he thought, it wouldn't be something positive. Ducking into a deserted alcove, she pulled out a small mirror from her purse to make sure she looked composed. She did. Her dark hair was in place, her eyes gave nothing away.
A changeling child, her blond gorgeous mother had once called Jackie with disgust. Plain, nondescript, unnoticeable, her looks had simply emphasized how she had never fit in. But today she hoped that her unremarkable, restrained exterior would stand her in good stead. She needed to be firm, to appear unshakeable.
She would be, Jackie decided, and satisfied that she had managed to erase her emotions from her expression, she took a deep breath and headed for her office to wait for another disturbing encounter.
This time she would not let him get to her. She wouldn't even think of him as a man, but only as the doorway to an opportunity to make a few memories with a sweet little child.
"Jackie." Merry's imperious voice stopped Jackie in her tracks. She turned and looked at the elegant but fading woman.
"Did you need me, Merry?"
"Not exactly, but you might need me if you're looking for Mr. Rollins. I've set him and his papers up at a shaded table in view of the beach. I thought the atmosphere might make your business more pleasant." The woman tried a smile, but it was clear that she wasn't usually the cheerful type. That was okay. Merry had been more than accommodating to Hammond Events. Perhaps too accommodating, Jackie suddenly thought.
The last thing she wanted was to sit with .Steven Rollins in a secluded, romantic setting. But she wanted to get this over with quickly, to get past it so she could see the baby she had helped bring into the world.
"'Thank you, Merry." She nodded.
Merry tilted her head. "I'll lead you to him."
There was nothing to do but follow and hope that she could retain her cool and calm.
But when Jackie came to the end of the path, she nearly balked when she realized that Merry had led her to one of the bowers at the edge of the beach. Surrounded by palm trees, exotic foliage and blossoms, the bower enclosed a small
shelter complete with a linen-covered table for two and a convenient double hammock. The scent of flowers drifted in, setting the stage for those who were looking for romance. A waiter appeared with a golden tray of cold drinks in sparkling crystal.
Jackie blinked.
"A person can't conduct business on a hot day without something to slake her thirst can she?" Merry mused as the waiter approached the table.
But Jackie had moved on to other thoughts. Steven Rollins had risen to his feet at their approach. He nodded to the waiter and to Merry, who withdrew. He was wearing an open-necked white shirt tucked into jeans that molded to his thighs. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing strong tanned arms.
"Ms. Hammond," he said with a slight nod of his head as he held out his hand.
She hesitated, noting that his fingers were long and brown, his palm callused. He was a rancher, wasn't he? And though he had every reason to hate her his manners would never show that.
Old fashioned, she thought, and then she resisted the urge to close her eyes as she slid her hand into his, feeling the warmth and strength of his grip for one short second before he released her.
"Mr. Rollins." She sat, and he followed suit.
"I was wondering if you were going to actually go through with this," he began.
"Hoping I wouldn't, I think you mean," she countered.
He shrugged and kept his direct gaze on her. "I'd like to keep this simple."
A small bit of hope crept in. "Then we agree on something. I want to keep things as simple and easy as possible, too."
"You said you wanted to meet my daughter. I won't pretend to like that, but I've decided that I'll agree to it. I suppose I can bring her here next week, arrange for a few hours together."
Their Little Cowgirl Page 2
