Millionaire's Instant Baby

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Emma looked at Baxter. “I really can unpack myself,” she said in the awkward wake of Kyle’s abrupt departure.

  “It’s no trouble, miss. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Emma.” She moistened her lips. “Please. Call me Emma.”

  Baxter tilted his white head. “I once knew an Emma,” he recalled. “Lovely woman.” His eyes twinkled. “I’ll let you have some rest with the little one there. I’m sure you need it more than you’ll admit. I’ll be in the kitchen if you want anything.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled once again and turned away, walking sedately across the white ocean of carpet toward the kitchen. “Baxter?”

  He turned. “Yes, Miss Emma?”

  “You know why I’m here, don’t you?” It seemed important suddenly that there be some honesty, at least.

  “Yes. I know.”

  She rocked Chandler, taking comfort from his warm weight. “You don’t approve.”

  Baxter’s aging eyes studied her for a long moment. “Of you, Miss Emma, I approve wholeheartedly. Kyle, now…well, that’s another story. He works too hard, that boy. Always putting off the things that are really important. Reminds me of myself actually. I’d like to see him avoid my mistakes.” He smiled and Emma marveled at the way it softened his austere demeanor. “And he wouldn’t appreciate my discussing it with you. So I believe I’ll enjoy telling him all about it.” He tilted his head again in that formal way he had and excused himself on Emma’s unexpected choked laugh.

  Then Chandler started crying again, and Emma hurried up the stairs with him as quickly as her sore body allowed.

  She really did look forward to wallowing in that decadently luxurious square tub. “There are some perks to this crazy arrangement,” she told the baby as she settled on the bed to nurse him. “That tub is one of them.” Then she closed her eyes, leaning her head against the headboard.

  And carefully removed Kyle’s presence from the daydream she had of wallowing in that lovely big tub.

  Chapter Five

  Emma slept for a little while with Chandler, then insisted on unpacking her suitcases herself when Baxter clearly expected to do it for her. She ended up settling Chandler in the old man’s arms as a consolation, since he seemed genuinely disappointed that she didn’t need his help with her clothing.

  He was thoroughly happy with the consolation, however, and once the two males left her room, Emma began to suspect that Baxter had gotten exactly what he’d intended to get all along.

  She freshened up in the luxurious bathroom, sat on the bed that Baxter had not been dissuaded from making with fresh linens, and started dialing the white-and-gold princess-style telephone that sat on the end table.

  Penny assured her that she would keep an eye on Emma’s belongings at the apartment. And Emma hung up, feeling hideously guilty for letting her friend gush over how wonderfully romantic the whole thing was with Kyle sweeping her off her feet and all. It was obvious that Penny didn’t believe Emma’s assertion that she’d be back in her apartment after the month was up.

  The call to Millie at the diner was no easier. All Emma could do was tell Millie that she would take the six weeks that Millie had said she should have, after all. And in the meantime she was spending some time with a friend.

  She called her mother and left a message on the answering machine she’d given Hattie two years ago for Christmas. That was much easier, because all she had to do was leave the phone number at Kyle’s home with no explanation at all.

  Then she called Megan, who assured Emma that she wouldn’t broadcast the real reason Emma was at Kyle’s. “You’re doing the right thing, Emma,” her friend said.

  Emma wished she could believe that. As far as she was concerned, however, the “right thing” was not accomplished by telling such a whopper of a lie. She was doing the expedient thing. The financially advantageous thing.

  She’d sold a chunk of her honesty for the sake of a hospital bill.

  “Miss Emma?”

  She set aside the phone and looked up to see Baxter in the doorway.

  “Kyle just phoned from his car. He’ll be here in a few minutes to take you shopping. I’ve taken the liberty of making sure the little lad’s diaper bag is ready for you.”

  Emma pushed off the bed and slipped her feet into her sandals, then followed Baxter down the stairs. She nearly looked back to see if they’d left any footprints on that pristine white carpet. “Where is Chandler?”

  “In the kitchen. I believe he likes to be right in the center of things.” Baxter pointed and sure enough, in the center of the enormous island, Chandler was lying in his springy canvas seat, his eyes wide and alert as he sucked on his fist.

  Emma had barely scooped him out of the seat when Kyle arrived. Within minutes they were flying down the road again, this time in the Land Rover Kyle had spoken of.

  “We’ll drive into Durango,” he said. “Okay?”

  “Aren’t you afraid of running into Mr. Cummings or someone he knows?”

  “Durango’s not that small.” He shot her a quick look, then returned his attention to the road. “But you’ve got a point. We should clear up a few things, just in case.”

  “Shall we synchronize our watches, too?”

  “Geneva time,” he said, deadpan.

  Despite herself, Emma laughed.

  “You’ve got a nice laugh. You ought to use it more often.”

  Outside her window the landscape flashed by. “My mama told me I’d never find a husband if I couldn’t laugh more ladylike.” Her lips quirked with irony. “Guess that doesn’t count for pretend husbands.”

  “Your mother lives in Tennessee, you said.”

  “Dooley. Population 110.”

  “Small.”

  “Well, maybe I exaggerated a little. Dooley’s about half the size of Buttonwood. But whereas Buttonwood is a lovely town, Dooley is just…Dooley. A handful of run-down stores, at least a dozen churches and a wealth of people who find nothing more interesting than telling a person that life outside of Dooley simply didn’t exist.”

  “And you thought otherwise. How did your music fit into that?”

  She felt his gaze on her hands as if he’d touched her physically, and she realized she’d been absently tapping out the notes of the melody softly crooning from the sound system. And again, his unexpected intuitiveness unsettled her. She moistened her lips and folded her hands. “The only work for a pianist in Dooley is in the bars on Saturday night and the churches on Sunday morning.”

  “Sinners or saints?”

  “Well, the only time one of those jobs opened up was when someone died of old age.”

  “So you ended up in Colorado on the great hunt for musical fulfillment.”

  She wanted to smile. It would be so easy to like this man. And so very very foolish. Wealthy men whose solution to the challenges of life was to throw money at them. “More or less.”

  “How many siblings do you have?”

  “Five sisters. Two older, three younger.”

  “Any of them married?”

  “All married. What about you? I know you have one sister. The one who had a baby.”

  “That’s Sabrina. She’s about your age. Then there’s Trevor and Bolt and—”

  “Bolt? As in lightning bolt?”

  “As in bolting for the door whenever he had to take a bath. If there was a little kid running down the block naked as a jaybird, it was my brother Bolt. His real name is Eugene. Draw your own conclusions.”

  “I hope he’s gotten over that habit,” Emma said dryly.

  “He says he has.” The corners of Kyle’s mouth twitched. “But I have my suspicions. The youngest are Felicia and Gillian.”

  “Are you the oldest?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Why?”

  “Just seems to fit.” He spoke and people did what he said. Including her.

  “I’ve had a lot of practice at it,” he murmured. Then he reache
d out and with the press of a button, turned up the music. Not enough to disturb Chandler, but definitely enough to signal the end of that particular conversation.

  It took her a moment, but then she realized with dismay that she was peculiarly disappointed. She looped her fingers together and looked out the window. Foolish, so foolish. When would she learn her lesson?

  She glanced behind her to check on Chandler. He was awake, his eyes wide and inquisitive, and for the moment perfectly content to stare out at the new world around him, even if that new world was the interior of a very well-appointed sport utility vehicle.

  “He doing all right back there?”

  Emma nodded and faced forward again. Chandler’s baby-fresh scent and Kyle’s seductive masculine scent combined were heady and unfamiliar, and she rested her head against the seat and silently let out a long breath.

  “What about you? Are you feeling all right? Stupid of me not to think you might be uncomfortable riding in the car for any length of time.”

  The tips of her ears heated. “I’m fine. Lots of extra-strength acetaminophen,” she added awkwardly when his gaze rested on her. “Does wonders.”

  “Mmm.”

  The silence was broken only by the soft strains of Debussy and the muted rush of wind as they sped along the highway. She drew in the scent of Kyle with every breath she took. “Baxter seems nice,” she said somewhat desperately.

  “Nice? I guess that might apply on one of his better days,” Kyle said dryly. “When he’s not being a thorn in my side.”

  “How long has he been with you?”

  “A long time.”

  Emma thought it was all he planned to divulge. But after a moment he continued. “Bax was a mechanic at the airfield where I learned how to fly when I was fifteen.”

  Goodness. “I don’t know what surprises me more,” she admitted after a moment. “The fact that Baxter was a mechanic or the fact that you were learning to fly at such a young age. I just can’t picture your Baxter with grease under his nails.”

  “Trust me. Not only did he get grease under his nails, he was one of the best in the business.”

  “So how did he end up as your housekeeper?”

  “That’s a tale you need to ask him about.” Kyle smiled. “Bribe him with the offer of holding Chandler. He’ll cave in for that, I suspect.”

  “And you? Did you really learn to fly at just fifteen?”

  “Yeah. Chandler, my dad, had me in a cockpit long before he let me behind the wheel of a car.”

  She could see him in her mind. Young, tall for his age, a little gangly perhaps. But still confident. Probably with a healthy dose of cockiness thrown in. Yet he’d spoken so easily of his father, when earlier he’d seemed to fully understand her unwillingness to discuss hers. She must have misunderstood. For why would he name his business after a man he disliked? “Chandler. Do you actually call him that?”

  “Yeah. Lydia is my mom.” His jaw hardened, then just as abruptly relaxed. “I went to live with them when I was fifteen. They adopted me when I was seventeen.”

  She swallowed her curiosity, even though she desperately wanted to ask him about his first fifteen years. But he’d imparted the information in a flat tone that didn’t invite questions.

  She angled herself slightly in the seat so that she faced him. “I suppose you were flying one of those itty-bitty puddle-jumper kind of planes.” Flying was obviously a safe subject.

  “A Cessna. We went up the first time and…”

  “And…?”

  He shrugged. “I liked it better in the air than on the ground,” he said smoothly. “And here we are today.”

  The words definitely weren’t the ones he’d been about to say, Emma was certain of it. “What is it like? Flying? I can’t imagine being a teenager and having that control in your hands. Overcoming gravity.”

  “It’s a love affair,” he murmured.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Flying. It’s addictive, obsessive, compulsive.”

  “Sounds rather negative, if you ask me.”

  “It’s also liberating. Exhilarating and profoundly humbling.”

  He could have been describing the way Emma felt when she sat at a piano and let the music flow from her soul to the keys and back again. Rather than comforting her, though, the striking similarity unsettled her.

  She faced forward. “I’ve only flown once,” she said clearly. “It was an enormous airline-jet thing, every seat taken, and the child behind me continually kicked my seat.”

  “Not an experience you care to repeat.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll have to take you up myself. You’d feel differently about it.”

  She imagined sitting in a tiny plane with him and shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  Of flying? “No.” Of strapping herself into the close confines of a small airplane, with him beside her, starkly masculine, smelling like every female fantasy. “Not interested.”

  He just smiled faintly.

  Emma decided then and there that she really didn’t like the way he seemed to read her mind. Was she so transparent? So obvious?

  Just like Jeremy’s parents had said?

  She looked over at Chandler. Keep your mind on what’s important, Emma Valentine.

  Kyle saw a tangle of emotions flit over Emma’s face. He knew how she felt. This wasn’t exactly how he spent a lot of time, either, shopping for furniture for a baby’s room. His baby, as far as appearances went. He took the next exit and parked in the lot outside an upscale furniture store.

  “Here?” Emma looked from the long lines of the building to Kyle and back again. “You want to pick out a crib from someplace like this? It’ll cost a fortune.”

  Kyle wasn’t sure if he was amused or annoyed. “Are you going to argue your way through every single thing we pick out today?”

  Her lips pressed together. Firmly, he supposed. Unfortunately, when she did so, it drew his attention yet again to their soft rosy fullness. And since his curiosity had no business wondering if her lips really were as soft as they looked, he removed himself from temptation.

  He got out of the vehicle and went around to the back where he pulled out a spanking-new state-of-the-art stroller. Baxter had arranged it, and now Kyle stared at the contraption and wondered how the hell it worked.

  According to Bax, one had only to flip a latch and the whole thing would open up practically on its own. So where was the damn latch?

  Emma joined him, touched something near the wheel, and damned if the gray-and-blue monster didn’t unfold as easy as you please.

  “Now you know how I felt the other day with the car seat.” Emma’s tone was sweet as sun-warmed honey. She returned to the passenger side and lifted Chandler out of his seat. Then she tucked him in the stroller with a soft blanket, stowed the diaper bag in the area beneath the carrier portion and wrapped her hands around the padded handle. She looked up at Kyle, waiting.

  An intermittent breeze lifted a strand of her hair, and the sunshine turned her rich chocolate-brown eyes a paler coffee color. No less absorbing, no less mysterious.

  Focus on the goal. Kyle didn’t need to actually form the words. They’d been a part of his life for so long they were a part of him.

  Focus on the goal.

  It had gotten him where he was. It would get him where he wanted to go. Ultimately into Cummings Courier Service, where he could dismantle, disentangle and destroy. And put the past to rest once and for all.

  Right now, however, the goal was the furniture dealer and the plan to fill an empty nursery. So he pocketed his wafer-thin cell phone, locked the vehicle and nodded toward the entrance. “Let’s do it, then.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. Color stained her cheeks. He knew, at that moment, that her mind had been following the same path as his.

  And it most definitely hadn’t been toward the purchase of baby furniture. It had been traveling the darkly seductiv
e path of doing it. Which was so far outside the boundaries of their agreement it was nearly criminal.

  Emma didn’t look at him when they entered the store. A soft-spoken salesperson immediately approached and led them through the store to the infant displays.

  Kyle looked quickly, uninterestedly, over the offerings. He’d have been content to let the salesperson write up an order for any one of the room displays. But Emma made her way from one thing to the next, peering at the discreet price tags, running her fingers over spindled cribs, gently setting rocking chairs into motion.

  He saw the way she kept looking back at one crib in particular. It wasn’t anything like the canopied frilly affair his sister had chosen. In fact, it was nearly austere. The beauty of the crib was in the wood. Rich warm mahogany that reminded him of family heirlooms.

  Stuff he really knew nothing about.

  He had family, sure. Chandler and Lydia Montgomery had been his parents since the day they’d taken in an angry fifteen-year-old and loved him back to life, even though they’d been busy with the family they already had. Their home had been built for function and simplicity and certainly hadn’t run to heirlooms that would be passed down through the generations. No, what the Montgomerys had passed on to their kids had been belief in themselves and one another.

  And the home before that? There had been plenty of heirlooms there, but one by one they’d been sold. And the lessons learned in that house were ones that Kyle still struggled against. Despite Chandler and Lydia.

  He caught the salesperson’s eye. “That crib there.”

  Her eyes lit up and he could practically see the woman calculating her commission. “Excellent choice, sir.”

  “Kyle…”

  He turned his attention to Emma. “You like it, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, it’s beautiful. But—”

  “The matching bureau and that thing there with the pad on top of it, too.” He looped his fingers around Emma’s wrist, and the protests he could see forming remained unsaid. “What about the rocking chair?” He looked at Emma.