Slow Burn

by Janice Maynard

  Joshua halted suddenly, beneath the soft illumination of a streetlight. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  “What? Am I dying?”

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “How am I supposed to know that? You haven’t said anything yet.”

  Josh leaned against the light pole, his features betraying tension and exhaustion. For a man in love, he didn’t look all that carefree.

  He shrugged. “When that article came out back in the spring, the story omitted one very big bombshell.”

  “Oh?” Jake shoved his hands in his pockets, trying not to react to the gravity in his brother’s voice.

  “Sophie had DNA evidence proving that I had fathered a child.”

  “Hell, Joshua. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “At first, she wouldn’t reveal her source, but when she and I got closer, she finally admitted that Zane Patterson had given her the DNA analysis.”

  Jake was more than shocked—he was suspicious. “Zane Patterson from prep school? He was a year behind Oliver, right? What would he have to do with any of this?”

  “Zane received the report from an anonymous source. He was still angry about everything his family lost when Dad disappeared with the money. So Zane saw this as a chance to stick it to me and Black Crescent. Only Sophie decided not to include Zane’s info in the article.”

  “But surely, you’ve had time to prove it’s a hoax. That’s been, what? Six months ago? It’s bogus, right?”

  Joshua shook his head slowly, his jaw tight. “The report wasn’t fabricated. It was the real deal. Somewhere out there is a four-year-old girl who shares my DNA. So I discreetly began investigating any woman from my past who might have matched the timing of this pregnancy. The list wasn’t that big. I came up with nothing.”

  “So it is a fake report then.” Jake was starting to feel as if he had walked into an alternate universe. Joshua wasn’t making sense.

  His twin straightened, giving Jake a look that made his stomach clench and his skin crawl with an atavistic recognition of danger.

  Joshua’s expression finally softened, revealing the oddest mix of sympathy and determination. “The report is legit, Jake. But I’m not the kid’s father. You are.”

  Nikki Reardon glanced at her watch. In half an hour she would have to pick up her daughter, Emma, from Mom’s Day Out at a local church in their tiny town of Poplar Ridge, New Jersey. Emma loved her twice-a-week preschool and had made several sweet friends.

  The classes had also given Nikki some valuable alone time. Between her job as assistant manager at the diner four days a week, caring for her daughter and dealing with her mother’s needs, it was hard not to feel stretched thin. When Nikki worked the overnight shift, her mother came and stayed.

  It wasn’t the best arrangement in the world, but it sufficed for now. Sometimes Nikki felt guilty about using her mother for a babysitter so much of the time, but she also believed that being with Emma gave her mom a healthy focus in a life that was empty.

  Nikki’s attention returned to her iPad, where she was reading a story that brought up too many bad memories. A few days ago she’d discovered that Vernon Lowell wasn’t dead. Today’s front-page article claimed he’d been found hiding out in the Bahamas. After a speedy extradition, Vernon now waited in federal custody for his trial.

  She wanted to talk to him. He was the only person who knew the truth. Vernon and her father, Everett, had been best friends and business partners. But her father was dead. She had seen the body, suffered through the funeral. The world thought Vernon was dead, as well. But now he was back.

  Thinking about the Black Crescent scandal inevitably made her think of Jake. Beautiful, stubborn, wandering Jake. Her first boyfriend. She understood why he left. Reporters had made his life miserable. She had only seen him once in the intervening years.

  It had been both the best and worst night of her life.

  A loud knock at the door demanded her attention. Sometimes the UPS guy did that. But this knock sounded more peremptory than a package delivery.

  Cautiously, she peered through a crack in the inexpensive drapes. Dear God. It was Jake. In the flesh. Why was he here? His family still lived in Falling Brook, but that was over an hour away. Why had he come? Her secret threatened to choke her with anxiety.

  She opened the door slowly, trying to project mild curiosity even though her heart nearly beat out of her chest. “Jake,” she said. “What a surprise.”

  His greenish-hazel eyes bored into her. “Is it true?”

  Her brain processed a million reasons why he might be on her doorstep. “Is what true? Why don’t you come in and have something to drink?”

  As she stepped back and opened the door wider, Jake entered her small living room and paced, his furious gaze cataloging and dismissing the contents of her modest home. “I want to know why you sent Zane Patterson anonymous information claiming Joshua was the father of your baby.”

  All the blood drained from her head, and she forgot about offering Jake a cup of coffee. She sat down hard on the sofa. “My baby?” She hated the quavering tone in her voice. She had done nothing wrong.

  “Don’t give me that.” Jake shook his head, scowling. “I know it’s true. What did you hope to gain by blackmailing my brother?”

  Nikki straightened her spine and glared. “If you want to sit down and discuss this civilly, I’ll listen. But you’re way off base. I’ve never had any contact with your brother or Zane, not since we were teenagers. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  At last, Jake plopped down in a chair and drummed his fingers on the arms. His whole body radiated strong emotion. As she tried to catch her breath, she absorbed the look of him. He was a beautiful man. Always had been. Today he wore a scuffed leather bomber jacket and jeans so old and faded they molded to his legs, and other parts, as if they had been made just for him. His soft cotton button-down shirt was pale green, the color of vintage glass bottles. Deck shoes with no socks exposed his tanned ankles.

  He was tanned all over, in fact. The man had spent his life outdoors. Or much of it. His streaky blond hair needed a cut. In the summers when they were kids, the sun would bleach Jake’s hair gold. Now it was more subdued.

  She glanced at her watch, trying not to panic. Did he know the truth about Emma, or was he fishing? She wouldn’t lie about her daughter, but she wasn’t going to volunteer any unnecessary information at this point. “I have an errand to run,” she said calmly. “This will have to wait.”

  His jaw tightened. “Then I’m coming with you.”

  Her stomach clenched. Having him close made her senses go haywire. Why was it so hard to be sensible when Jake Lowell was around? “It won’t take me long. I could meet you for dinner later.”

  “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Nikki Reardon.” His gaze was grim. Implacable. As if he was the hunter, and she was the prey.

  “Fine,” she said. She stood and retrieved her purse and keys. She had no idea what he would think when he saw Emma, but she would put one foot in front of the other until she figured it out. Her mother had pressed her to contact Jake and ask for child support, but Nikki had been too proud to beg. When Jake walked away from her five years ago without a word, she had known he was still running from his past. And that he was never going to be the man she needed him to be.

  Outside, she grimaced when she saw his fancy black sports car, a rental no doubt, parked at the curb. The sleek vehicle looked wildly out of place on this middle-class street. Her own mode of transportation was a fifteen-year-old compact model with a car seat in the back.

  She unlocked her car and watched as Jake folded his body into the passenger seat. He was a couple of inches over six feet, so he was not going to be entirely comfortable.

  Good.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “I have to p
ick up Emma from preschool.”

  “Emma?” The word sounded strangled.

  She shot him a sideways glance, noting his sudden pallor.

  “Yes. Emma. My daughter.”

  Two

  Jake watched through the windshield as the gorgeous redhead and the bouncy little girl walked toward the car. He felt queasy. A host of other emotions swirled in his chest.

  The brief ride from Nikki’s house to this pleasantly ordinary brick building had been silent. Nikki’s knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel.

  Now he tried to study her dispassionately. In the midst of his clinical visual survey, the memories hit him hard and fast. Nikki naked. Sprawled across his hotel bed. Smiling. Warm and sated from their lovemaking. Her pale, pale skin like porcelain.

  It had been one night. One extraordinary night almost five years ago. And now he was a father? Why hadn’t Nikki told him? Or was this all just a misunderstanding? Even as he tried to rationalize her behavior, he couldn’t get past the anonymous emails that were eventually passed on to his brother.

  Despite Joshua’s insistence that a baby existed with Lowell blood, Jake was by nature a suspicious man. Being betrayed by his father had taught him not to trust easily.

  The rear car door opened, and Nikki helped the child into her car seat. Though Emma had been chattering excitedly, she fell silent when she spotted the stranger up front. Her eyes were green. That meant nothing. The color could have been from her mother as easily as from Jake’s DNA. But the girl’s blond hair was nothing like her mother’s.

  Jake wanted to say hello. The word stuck in his throat. Instead, he gave the kid a quick nod and turned back toward the front. He wanted to stare at Emma. To examine her from head to toe. To see if there was anything of him in her. But he didn’t want to make the child uncomfortable. No point in both of them feeling weird.

  Back at Nikki’s house, Nikki lowered her voice as she parked the car. “I usually give her a snack, and then she’ll go play in her room for half an hour or so. You and I can talk then.”

  Jake nodded brusquely, not entirely sure what he wanted to say. Crazy revelations were popping up in his life like rodents in an upsetting game of whack-a-mole. His father was alive. Nikki had a kid. The child was Jake’s? It was too much to process.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets as the unlikely threesome walked across the lawn into the house. Once inside, Jake escaped into the small living room with a muttered excuse. Even at this distance, he could hear mother and daughter in the kitchen debriefing Emma’s day at school. When Nikki finally returned, she looked tired, but resigned.

  She took a chair across from him and gracefully curled her legs beneath her. Her steady green-eyed gaze and long, wavy red hair made him clench his fists as an unwelcome wave of desire swept through him. He remembered burying his face in that hair. Inhaling the scent of her shampoo. Feeling for a brief moment in time as if everything in his world had finally popped into sharp focus.

  In his early twenties, he had loved her with a ferocity that was equal parts lust and devotion. He’d been waiting for her to grow up. His nightly fantasies had featured Nikki, and no one else. But just when his desire had almost come to fruition, both of their worlds had been torn apart.

  Running into each other in Atlantic City a decade later had been a shock to his system. The very best kind of shock. Even now, his hands tingled with the need to touch her. But, in the end, he had been wary of the new Nikki, unable to handle how together she was, how grown up. She hadn’t been a frightened teenager anymore. She had moved on. And she knew exactly who she was.

  The new Nikki had been even more appealing than the girl he remembered. But the changes spooked him, as did the depth of his feelings, so he ran. The same way he had so many times before.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ll ask you again. Is it true? Is Emma my daughter?”

  Nikki paled, making her skin almost translucent. “You weren’t making sense earlier. I don’t know why you’re here. What does your brother have to do with this?”

  “Don’t be coy, Nikki. You sent Zane DNA results and notes that threatened Joshua. But Josh eventually concluded that he couldn’t possibly have fathered a four-year-old child. So that left me. His twin. Why did you try to blackmail my brother and not me?”

  As he watched, Nikki’s lower lip trembled, and her eyes glistened with tears. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, and I don’t appreciate your accusations. If that’s all you have to say, Jake Lowell, you can get the hell out of my house.”

  A tiny voice intruded. “You told me not to say that word, Mommy.”

  Both adults jumped. Emma stood in the doorway, visibly distressed.

  Nikki swiped a hand across her face, drying her eyes. “You’re right, baby. Mommy goofed. I’m sorry.”

  Jake left his seat and crouched beside Nikki’s daughter. “Hi, Emma. I’m Jake...a friend of your mother’s.”

  Emma stared at him solemnly, her gaze filled with suspicion. “Then why did she tell you to leave?”

  The irony didn’t escape Jake. Were all four-year-old kids this aware of social cues? He cleared his throat. “We were having an argu—”

  Nikki stood abruptly, halting his explanation with a chopping motion of her hand. She ruffled her daughter’s hair. “Em, would you like to watch a Peppa Pig episode on my phone?” Nikki gave him an exasperated look. “I don’t allow her much screen time, but it would give us a chance to finish this conversation.”

  Emma’s face lit up. She smiled at Jake, distracted by the promised treat. “They’re called ‘Peppasodes.’ Get it?”

  Jake grinned for the first time, his mood lifting despite the situation. The child’s charm and obvious intelligence delighted him. “I get it, munchkin.”

  He stood and gave Nikki a measured glance, trying not to notice the way her soft, fuzzy sweater delineated her breasts. He wanted to hold her, to relearn the contours of her body. The sexual awareness threatened his focus. “I have another idea. If you can get a babysitter on such short notice, I’ll take you to dinner.”

  Now Nikki’s face showed no emotion at all. Her gaze was level, and her arms wrapped around her waist in a defensive posture. After a couple of heartbeats, she took her phone from her pocket, tapped a few icons and handed it to Emma. “You may take it to your room, sweetheart. Fifteen minutes. No more. I set the timer.”

  When Emma was gone, Nikki sighed. “The truth is, Jake, I can’t afford a babysitter right now. The holidays are coming, and I’m saving every penny for Emma’s gifts from me and from Santa. Can’t we just wrap this up? I honestly have no clue what you’re talking about. I’ve never been in contact with your brother about anything.”

  Jake pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. Earlier, Joshua had printed out one of the incriminating emails. “So you deny sending this?”

  Their fingers brushed when Nikki took the note. She glanced down, read the contents and moaned. If she had been pale before, she was ashen now. “Oh, my God.”

  Her obvious distress convinced Jake she was telling the truth. But that only deepened the mystery. “Let me pay for a sitter,” he said urgently. “We need to clear the air.” He pulled a business card from his wallet and gave it to her. “This is my cell number. I’ll grab coffee somewhere and return a few phone calls. Let me know when you work it out. I can pick you up at seven.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No. If we do this, I want to be back home to do the bed-and-bath routine with Emma. We would have to eat early. Five thirty.”

  He blinked. “Ah. Okay. Call me.”

  That beautiful bottom lip trembled again. “I’ll see what I can do,” she whispered.

  He was incredulous to realize that he was aroused, hard and ready. It had been five years since he had made love to her, but it might as well have been yesterday. It was difficult to cast Nikki as the v
illain when he wanted her even now. Was he so besotted that he could ignore her lies?

  Her anguish touched him despite the turmoil she had caused his family. He brushed her soft cheek with a single fingertip. “It’s not the end of the world, Nik. But I do want answers. Don’t try an end run. I’m not leaving town until you and I get a few things straight.”

  Once Jake said goodbye, Nikki made the necessary phone call and fretted. She knew a threat when she heard one. Even if it was couched in seeming cordiality. Jake was not a man who bluffed.

  She remembered watching him play poker with other guys in high school—after class mostly, but whenever they could elude faculty detection. All the parties involved had been highly privileged teenagers with virtually unlimited resources.

  Jake had taken bragging rights as top dog, and he loved it. People thought he bluffed...and would bet against him time and again. But his lazy, chilled attitude concealed an amazing skill with numbers.

  Was that why he had been in Atlantic City? To gamble? If so, he would have won. She knew that much.

  But gambling had been the last thing on his mind the night the two of them had gone up to his hotel room. When a hot shiver worked its way down her spine, she knew she was in trouble.

  Reluctantly, she dragged her attention back to the present. Emma was bouncing with glee that her favorite babysitter was coming over. Nella was a college-aged woman who lived just down the street. She had five brothers and sisters and was no stranger to caring for little ones. Nella adored Emma and the feeling was mutual, so Nikki was free to have dinner with Jake.

  Despite the gravity of the situation, she couldn’t squelch a little flutter of anticipation. As she showered and changed, she vacillated between fear and excitement.

  She had known this day would come eventually. But not like this.

  Since giving birth four years ago, her social life had been mostly nonexistent. The only remotely suitable outfit she owned for having dinner with Jake Lowell was a sophisticated black pantsuit that she paired with an emerald silk chemise and spiky black heels. She left her hair down and added a spritz of her favorite perfume. She probably shouldn’t be dressing up at all, but maybe deep down inside she wanted Jake to see what he was missing.