Jared's Love-Child

by Sandra Field

  The muscles knotted between his shoulders, Jared steered her round two other couples. According to Devon—and it wasn’t the first time she’d said this—he’d made love to her that night. Made love? Oh, no, he thought, he hadn’t made love. He’d bedded her. Making love wasn’t on his agenda. Never had been.

  She said coldly, still gazing at his tie, “You apologized just now with as much feeling in your voice as if you were ordering a salad from the waiter. Why should I believe you? It’s probably step one in whatever campaign you’re waging next. Because you hate to lose, don’t you? You can’t stand to have a woman who’s not falling all over you.” Suddenly her shoulders slumped, and she swayed on her feet, her cheeks paper-white. “Don’t you understand?” she cried. “You manipulated me like a piece of ticker tape, Jared! Cheapened me. And yourself, too, of course. Not that you’d care about that.”

  Jared put his arms hard around her. “I’m going to take you home. Right now.”

  She longed to be home, lying in her own bed. Alone. “You are not. I’m not spoiling this evening for my mother just because of you. And if anyone takes me home, Patrick will.”

  The emotion Jared felt now was full-fledged jealousy. “You and I aren’t through with each other,” he grated, and felt a shudder run through her body.

  She hated him, he thought, his shoulder muscles tightening another notch. Couldn’t wait to be rid of him. No amount of apologizing was going to fix that. For once, he wasn’t going to get what he wanted. Because what he wanted—on any terms at all—was Devon.

  Which, he decided grimly, had damn well better be his final insight of the evening.

  The pasta, blessedly, seemed to settle Devon’s stomach. She danced with Benson, listened to the saga of the varicose veins, and had an entirely civil conversation with Lise. She also danced several times with Patrick. Patrick, in his usual state of dishabille, trundled her around the floor with the enthusiasm and idiosyncratic sense of rhythm his mother exhibited at the organ. They discussed molybdenum mining, the contenders for the Grey Cup, and their travels in the north. Patrick was a nice man, Devon thought, gazing at the splotch of soup on his tie. But not in a million years would she ever fall in love with him. Would this interminable evening never be over?

  The only bright spot was that Jared hadn’t asked her to dance again.

  Trying to keep her toes out of reach of Patrick’s overly large feet, she let her thoughts circle once again around her dilemma. The only plan she’d come up with was to watch Benson and Alicia all evening, and see if she could scout out any cracks in their marriage. If Alicia divorced again, then Devon wouldn’t be bound to her child’s father or grandfather. She’d have, minimally, a little more freedom. She hated herself for thinking this way, but it was her only option.

  However, Benson and Alicia were completely at ease with each other in a way that at any other time would have fascinated her. Alicia had been swept off her feet by the romantic Italian, overawed by the earl, and overpowered by the Texas oil baron, who’d had a very loud voice. Alicia and Benson’s mutual pleasure in each other was both new and touching. Alicia and Benson, unless Devon was much mistaken, were going to be around for quite a while.

  It was ironic that just when Devon wanted a convenient divorce she wasn’t going to get it. Which left her thoughts fruitlessly circling the paths she’d worn bare the last few days. Abortion, adoption, marriage…abortion, adoption, marriage.

  All of them equally impossible.

  She glanced over at Jared and Lise, who were dancing only a few feet away, Lise clinging to Jared like glue. The neckline of Lise’s suit needed to make acquaintance with a sewing machine, Devon thought shrewishly. Not that she cared. Jared and Lise deserved each other.

  Her mind made a quick leap. What if Jared married Lise? Wouldn’t that leave her, Devon, less frightened of the future? Less threatened by Jared? Of course it would.

  The thought of telling Jared she was going to bear his child petrified her. But the thought of Lise in Jared’s bed, night after night, roused a tumult of emotion in her breast that was almost more than she could bear. As Patrick led her back to the table, Devon saw the waiter approach Alicia and present her with the bill. Thank goodness. She could go home. Stop pretending that there was nothing wrong with her that rest and chicken soup wouldn’t cure.

  “Ready to leave, Devon?” Patrick asked.

  She smiled at him in immense relief. For a few moments in the cab on their way over here, she’d been tempted to tell Patrick about her pregnancy. But Patrick was leaving at the end of the week to spend three weeks on northern Ellesmere. Why tell him? What good would it do?

  Maybe she could go to the Arctic with him. That would put several thousand miles between her and Jared.

  Quickly Devon embarked on a round of goodbyes, kissing her mother and Benson, exchanging pleasantries with the rest. Jared said, an undertone of savagery in his voice, “Goodbye, Devon. I’ll see you at ‘The Oaks’ at Thanksgiving.”

  Thanksgiving was the last weekend of her vacation. She flew to Calgary the following week. Short of outright rudeness, there was no way Devon could get out of a weekend at “The Oaks.”

  She said with blatant insincerity, “I’ll look forward to it,” and watched his mouth tighten.

  She was going to have to tell him. Sooner or later. The inevitable changes in her body would look after that.

  Never in her life had she dreaded anything so much.

  “The Oaks” in mid-October was breathtakingly beautiful. The grass was still a glossy green. The leaves on the oak trees were burnished like leather, the maples flaunted scarlet banners, and the birches showered thin gold medallions through their silvered branches. Even the light seemed saturated with gold, the air smelling deliciously of colder nights and crisp, fallen leaves.

  Jared wasn’t arriving until Sunday morning, so Alicia informed Devon. Which meant, in theory, that Devon had two days to enjoy herself before he came. She was now two and a half months pregnant. Her so-called morning sickness was almost gone, and the disconcerting fits of dizziness had passed altogether. She had a little color back in her cheeks; Alicia was patently relieved, although still determined to coddle her daughter.

  On Friday afternoon Benson took her on a long tour of the barns and meadows; having seen her ride in the ring, he told her she could take any horse in the stables whenever she wanted. Since Devon kept to a rigorous daily exercise schedule no matter where she was in the world, and since she knew without vanity that she was an expert horse-woman, she wasn’t worried that riding would in any way endanger her pregnancy. Late Friday afternoon and twice on Saturday Devon rode along the woodland trails that surrounded the fenced fields, and galloped across the unfenced meadows, getting her bearings and as always finding comfort in the unspoken rapport that existed between her and her mount.

  The exercise did her good. She went to bed at ten on Saturday evening, and fell asleep right away. But at twenty after one in the morning she was wide awake, staring into the darkness. Jared would arrive today. She’d have to tell him she was pregnant.

  Panic curled its way round her heart. Her life, arranged to keep intimacy and emotion at bay, was falling apart around her. All because of her own carelessness.

  Because, too, of a man’s fierce kisses and fiercer desire.

  Oh, God, what was she going to do?

  She could emigrate to Australia. Have the baby and pray it wouldn’t look like Jared. But Alicia and Benson would be sure to come and visit her. Besides, she was ninety-nine percent sure Jared’s genes would predominate, that her child, boy or girl, would have midnight-blue eyes and a crop of black hair.

  Scratch Australia.

  She could lie to Jared. Tell him the child was another man’s, not his. That it had been conceived in Borneo or Timbuktu. Deceive him as grievously as he’d deceived her in New York. That whole night she’d spent in his arms had been a lie.

  But if she were to lie to him now, wouldn’t that make her just
like him? Manipulative and untrustworthy? She wasn’t going to do that. She’d tell the truth. Not because she owed him anything; rather because she owed it to herself. No matter what the consequences.

  The only other option was to wait until Christmas. By then she’d be five months pregnant and wouldn’t have to say a word: just by looking at her everyone would know.

  No, it had to be this weekend. Offense, so she’d learned in her years of negotiations, was almost always the best defense.

  In a flurry of sheets, Devon got out of bed. She’d made one decision, at least: she wasn’t going to toss and turn half the night, getting into a state. She’d go to the kitchen and make herself a sandwich. Her appetite seemed to be making up for lost time now that the nausea had abated.

  A peanut butter and Cheese Whiz sandwich. With black olives.

  And a glass of milk for calcium.

  She padded downstairs into the kitchen. Impossible not to remember her and Jared munching on hamburgers the night of the wedding. Impossible to forget how wantonly she’d made love with him. Biting her lip, she opened the huge refrigerator, and five minutes later was perched on a stool chewing on an olive.

  She had all the classic symptoms of pregnancy, she thought, including cravings for things like black olives and gingerbread slathered with whipped cream. Maybe if she spoke to the cook, they could have gingerbread for dessert tomorrow night.

  When Jared was here.

  The door creaked. As Devon stifled a cry of alarm, it swung open and Jared stepped into the kitchen. As if she’d conjured him up, thought Devon, her sandwich poised halfway to her mouth. Not until she saw him did she realize how strongly she’d been hoping he’d be delayed. Or change his mind and not come at all.

  He said, “I rather thought it might be you.”

  He was wearing a white shirt and tie, the jacket of his business suit slung over his arm. His big body seemed to fill the doorway. Devon mumbled, “You’re not supposed to get here until tomorrow.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” he answered curtly.

  She yanked at the hem of her oversize T-shirt, which when she was standing reached almost to her knees but which right now was baring her thighs. “Party Animal,” it announced in neon pink letters across her chest.

  Jared stepped closer. She scrambled awkwardly to her feet, plunking her sandwich on the plate beside the bottle of olives; her breasts bounced under her shirt. He said, “You turn your nose up at Italian cuisine and now you’re eating peanut butter?”

  She hated the mockery in his voice. “I was hungry,” Devon said stonily.

  He reached out and took a strand of her hair, rubbing it between his fingers. She flinched back. “Don’t, Jared! Please…”

  His hand dropped to his side and his face hardened. “You can’t stand the sight of me, can you?”

  What she couldn’t stand was for him to touch her. Because the odds were she’d melt in his arms and kiss him as though there was no tomorrow, and how could she maintain any self-respect that way? She said steadily, “You’re catching on.”

  He hauled on the knot of his tie, loosening it with vicious strength. “Then why don’t you vamoose?” he said unpleasantly. “Because I’m hungry, too, and I don’t want to share the kitchen with a woman who treats me like a potential rapist.”

  Devon grabbed her plate and glass of milk. “Any more than I want to share it with a man who thinks women are the lowest form of life.”

  “I apologized about the money!”

  “Words come cheap, Jared.”

  Cheap. He didn’t like that word being applied to him, especially not by Devon. He grated, “New York—what I said to you that morning, the way I behaved—I shouldn’t have done it. It was shortsighted of me.”

  She raised her brows. “Shortsighted? That’s one way of looking at it.” Then she headed for the door, her bare feet slapping the cold tiles.

  His voice followed her. “At least try and behave as though I’m a human being in front of your mother and my father, will you? Otherwise it’s going to be the longest Thanksgiving on record.”

  “Oh, by all means let’s keep up appearances.”

  “Don’t push me too far, Devon,” he said softly.

  “Don’t try and intimidate me,” she flashed.

  As Jared took two steps toward her, his face like a mask of steel, Devon shoved at the door and scurried up the back stairs. By the time she’d reached the hallway her anger had deserted her; slow tears were seeping down her cheeks. She felt utterly alone. Alone and defenceless.

  Jared the enemy, and nowhere to hide.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SUNDAY Devon woke late, from a sleep riddled with nightmares. The sun was shining through the curtains. Suddenly she longed for the wind in her face, the thud of hooves beneath her: anything to take her mind off Jared. She’d ride Rajah, the big bay gelding whose dark eyes radiated both intelligence and a fiery spirit.

  Rajah lived up to his name. The first five minutes Devon spent establishing that she, not Rajah, was the boss. After that, she settled down to enjoy herself, guiding him across the jumps in the ring, ending in a wild gallop across the north meadow. Crouched forward in the stirrups, she urged the horse over a wide ditch. He landed as smoothly as any show jumper, and raced toward the trees. For Devon everything was forgotten but the present moment. The wind in her face, the thud of hooves beneath her…

  Regretfully, she collected Rajah into a more sedate canter; then, as the maples brushed her head with their low branches, to a trot. Rajah pricked his ears. Whinnying, he pranced a little, his mane tossing.

  Another horse was galloping toward them: the magnificent black stallion named Starlight for the white blaze on his forehead. Jared was riding him. Could she never escape Jared? she thought in despair.

  “Easy, boy, easy,” she murmured, leaning forward to rub Rajah’s ears. Rajah sidled restlessly under her calming hands; Rajah liked to gallop just as much as Devon did.

  As Jared eased back on the reins, Starlight dropped to a canter. Then Jared brought him to a walk, knowing he should be reining in his own temper at the same time. But when he’d watched Devon take Rajah over the ditch, bent low over the gelding’s neck, his heart had been in his mouth. Rajah, of all the horses in his father’s stables next to Starlight, was the most spirited and difficult to control. Was Devon clean crazy? Or just reckless?

  He pulled up alongside her. Her cheeks were flushed from the wind and her eyes were the brilliant blue he remembered so well. He said tightly, “Who gave you permission to ride that horse?”

  “Your father. Who happens to own him.”

  “My father didn’t give you permission to take Rajah over ditches at forty miles an hour. This isn’t Texas—Rajah’s a thoroughbred, not some cow pony. You could have broken your neck!”

  As her hands tightened on the reins, Rajah skittered nervously beneath her. She snapped, “We aren’t going to have a row on top of two highly volatile horses. Go away, Jared. I was enjoying myself until you came along.”

  Then she took her feet from the stirrups and swung to the ground. Ignoring Jared, she led Rajah toward the stream that meandered through the trees, looping the reins round her wrist while the horse drank.

  Jared dismounted, tied Starlight to the nearest tree with a long enough rein that the stallion could crop the grass, and headed after Devon. And with each step he took, he fought for control. He was famous for his control. Hated and feared for it. Often he used it as a weapon. So why did it desert him whenever he was anywhere near Devon? She was only a woman, after all.

  Only? Devon? Who was he kidding?

  She saw him coming; she was glaring at him. “You can’t take a hint, can you?” she said bitterly.

  “You look a lot better,” he heard himself say; it was not how he’d planned to begin.

  “Until you came along, I was feeling better.”

  Jared gave a reluctant laugh. “We can trade insults like a couple of kids in the playground, Devon.
Or we could try behaving like adults—in all honesty, it scared the hell out of me seeing you ride Rajah so recklessly.”

  She tied the reins round the nearest branch. “There was nothing reckless in the way I was riding.”

  “That horse is hard to handle!”

  “That horse is peacefully cropping the grass by the stream and I, as you see, am in one piece.”

  “You don’t give an inch, do you?” he grated.

  “Not where you’re concerned.”

  Stirring uneasily in the breeze, the maple leaves, blood-red, flame-orange, swirled behind her. She was wearing a pale yellow shirt tucked into skin-tight jodhpurs; her leather boots were well worn, clinging to her slender calves. Wanting nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her until neither one of them could breathe, Jared said roughly, “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” He hadn’t planned to say that, either.

  Devon stood very still. The stream burbled gently behind her; Jared was framed in the russet leaves of a beech, his jet-black hair disordered from his gallop. She had to tell him she was pregnant, Devon thought in desperation. She had to. So why not here, in this beautiful place where no one else would interrupt them?

  She took a deep breath. Once she’d told him, there’d be no going back. The truth would be out in the open, as irretrievable, as irreversible as her own condition. She said, rattling off the words as if they meant nothing, were of no more significance than a grocery list or an airline booking, “The reason I’m feeling better is because I’m over the worst of the morning sickness.”

  There was a small, deadly silence. “Morning sickness?”

  She’d never heard that note in Jared’s voice before. Knowing she had to finish what she’d started, Devon said, “Yes. I’m pregnant.”

  For a few seconds he said nothing, seconds that stretched like hours for Devon. Her knees felt as undependable as the water in the brook; she was shivering with nerves. Then he said, each word falling like a stone, “Who’s the father?”