Children of Destiny Books 1-3 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 9)

by Ann Major

  “Hello,” he managed at last, the low tones of his own voice oddly strained. “It’s me. Nick.”

  Her swift intake of breath was like a gasp of pain. She expelled his name in a rush of hostility. “Nick! How dare you—” She caught herself. It was her custom to treat him with no show of emotion.

  A long, hushed silence followed. It was taking her longer than usual to gain control of herself.

  “We made a bargain,” she said in her coolest, most businesslike tone. “You leave us alone eleven months of the year.”

  “You made the bargain,” he ground out, fighting to hold on to his temper. “I have a right to talk to my son.”

  “Not by the terms of our agreement.”

  “Your agreement,” he corrected.

  “Nick, this is the best possible solution.”

  “For whom?” His brittle laugh was forced. “Just get Triple on the phone,” he snapped.

  Nick expected her to hang up on him. To his surprise she didn’t.

  “He’s not here right now. Dad took him Christmas shopping a while ago.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Because—” She broke off. “Because I don’t want you calling here. Ever.”

  “It’s Christmas. Triple sent me a card and told me he wanted to see me. I thought maybe I could stop off in L.A. tomorrow on my way to Sydney. I could see Triple for an hour or so while you’re at work.”

  “No!”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe it would be good for Triple if I saw him more often?

  “No, Nick.” Her voice was losing that prim, no-nonsense quality. She sounded vulnerable, frightened. “I won’t have Triple torn between us.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing by forcing me to stay away from him?”

  “I don’t want you in my life!”

  “We’re talking about Triple’s life. I’m his father.”

  “Nick. Please... No.”

  “Triple needs me whether you believe it or not. In his card he made it clear he wants to see me, so I’ll be there tomorrow. If you don’t want to see me, make sure you’re not around tomorrow afternoon. That shouldn’t be too hard. We all know how dedicated you are to your career and making money.”

  He realized how harsh he sounded. When Amy tried to boss him around, no matter how he strained to hold on to his patience, his temper always got the better of him. But he didn’t want to end their conversation on a hostile note. He softened his voice. “Of course, I’d rather see you, too. We haven’t seen each other since the night after Jack’s funeral.”

  If Amy hadn’t come to him then and restored his faith in the sweetness of loving, he might never have made it through the darkest hour of his life, Nick thought. His own family had stayed in Texas where the real funeral and burial services had been held.

  “That night...” Her soft voice faded away. “That night…shouldn’t have happened.”

  He imagined her brows drawing together as an unwanted blush suffused her cheeks. She would be biting her bottom lip, too. Prim and proper Amy wouldn’t like remembering the long, wanton night they’d shared.

  “Are you afraid to see me?” he accused huskily. “Afraid we might end up in bed again?”

  She had regained control of herself. “Why, you conceited, low-down...” She searched for a suitable insult. “Sex maniac!” she hissed.

  “Thank you,” he murmured, some inner demon driving him to goad her. “It was wonderful, wasn’t it?”

  “You are the most insufferable egotist I’ve ever known. That night meant nothing.” Her voice had an odd, choked sound.

  “Oh, but you’re wrong.” His low voice was as smooth and rich as velvet. “It meant a great deal to me. Admit it. You were as starved for me as I was for you. And…we have Triple.”

  She made a low sputtering sound that had no translation in polite English.

  “I don’t think I would have made it, if you hadn’t been there. I really would like to see you tomorrow,” he said. “Will Sam and Lorrie be there? I’d like to see—”

  “Leave Lorrie alone,” Amy replied icily. “I know it never mattered much to you which one of us you dated, but—”

  “You know that’s not true,” he said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Amy, you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.” His low voice was intense and sincere.

  “Don’t!” She sounded vulnerable, lost, not her usual composed self at all. “Don’t lie to me. I can’t bear it. You’ve had lots and lots of women. And all of them were more suitable to your nature than I was. You’ll never make me believe I was special.”

  “You were special. You still are.”

  “No...” The single word was a cry of pain.

  “Damn it, Amy. Would you please tell me what Lorrie’s got to do with us?”

  A deep chasm of emotion-charged silence seemed to separate them. Some sixth sense told him he’d hit a nerve and Amy was terrified.

  “N-nothing! Forget I said it!” she blurted out. “I didn’t mean anything.”

  But he knew she did.

  The line went dead. She had hung up on him.

  Nick set the receiver down slowly. He felt far from good about their conversation. He didn’t like pushing himself on people who didn’t want him. Not even his wife.

  Why the hell had she been so upset when he mentioned Lorrie?

  Suddenly he was furious at the unfairness of it all. Most of all, he was furious at Amy. From the first, she had refused to give him or their marriage a chance.

  Nick’s gaze strayed to Triple’s note again. In a burst of anger and frustration, he wadded it up and threw it toward the trash can, but his aim was off, and it fell soundlessly onto the plush red carpet.

  A cord inside of him was beginning to unravel. He couldn’t live like this much longer. It was either fight for Amy and Triple and his place in their lives or lose them forever.

  If ever a man was born to fight, it was Nick Browning. Long ago he’d been hurt so deeply and so thoroughly by both his parents that it had arrested the growth of tenderness and softness in his nature, bringing into sharp focus all those other qualities he possessed—intelligence, determination, and ruthlessness.

  The one thing he was good at was fighting. And this time, with Amy, he was determined to win.

  Two months later

  Two

  How could her little boy, who’d been so healthy two days ago, have gotten sick so quickly?

  The hospital waiting room, with its rows of gray vinyl chairs and couches, its little Formica-topped tables, was nearly deserted. There was only a solitary rumpled figure hunched hopelessly in a darkened corner. Beside her was a briefcase she hadn’t opened and a messy pile of magazines she’d skimmed and then tossed aside. She couldn’t concentrate on either the words or the pictures.

  Amy Browning’s long black hair was lank and uncombed. Half of it was still pinned in its neat little knot; the other half streamed down her back, a mass of tangles and pins. Her young-looking face was thin and drained of color. Circles of exhaustion ringed her haunted eyes.

  No one would have recognized this frightened woman as the driven businesswoman she was. She’d climbed to the top by sheer force of will. When it came to money she could be as hard as nails. But when it came to her family, she was soft.

  Amy’s fingers were folded together tightly in her lap over her wrinkled wool skirt. Her eyes squeezed shut as she said a desperate, silent prayer.

  Dear God, Please don’t let my baby die!

  It was February. Outside the thick walls of the hospital, a fierce storm howled down from the Gulf of Alaska and battered the city of Los Angeles and its environs. Waves tore gaping holes in the beaches and undermined the foundations of seawalls and expensive beach houses so that they tumbled into the sea. In the hills, where there had been fires the summer before, there were floods and mudslides. Gale-force winds swept across the city, shattering windows in high rises and littering the streets wit
h shards of glass, flattening palms along the wide boulevards, blowing Mexican tiles off the roofs, crumpling highway signs and downing power lines. In the Santa Monica Mountains, a blizzard raged.

  It was the storm of the century, newsmen said, but Amy was scarcely aware of it.

  Behind the closed doors of the intensive care unit her son, Triple, was fighting for his life.

  Viral encephalitis, the doctor had said.

  Amy was alone. Utterly alone.

  Dear God, where was Lorrie? Why hadn’t she come as she had promised? How could anything be more important to her than Triple’s life?

  As always, Amy, who’d spoiled Lorrie worse than their own mother would have, had she lived, tried to rationalize her younger sister’s failure to be of support when it was Amy who was in trouble. Not once in the past two days had her sister dropped by. Although Lorrie had given other excuses, Amy guessed it was because she was too involved with her acting career.

  Lorrie had never been strong enough to cope with her own problems, much less with anyone else’s. She was a gentle, quiet, some might think ineffectual woman. Amy was the person everyone in the family leaned on. None of them probably had any idea how close she was to a total collapse. Amy, who was always in control, was the rock, the foundation of their lives.

  A shudder swept through her body.

  But not now. Oh, not now!

  Sam Holland, Amy’s father, was at home, his own health too precarious to endure the arduous wait at the hospital. While Lorrie hadn’t bothered to call, Sam had phoned faithfully every hour on the first day. Later he’d stopped. It was as though he’d sensed that his calls merely added to Amy’s tension. They’d emphasized the grim fact that Triple was not getting well.

  Amy glanced at the sensible watch she always wore. It was still an hour until visiting hours started. Then she would have only fifteen minutes with him.

  She remembered how thin Triple had been when she’d seen him last. He’d been unconscious, his little face as white and bloodless as his pillowcase, so different from the vital six-year-old of two days before.

  Triple had inherited Nick’s lusty temperament and untamable spirit and was a constant whirlwind of precocious curiosity and adventure. He’d gotten into more scrapes than most children twice his age. She’d given up chasing him, or worrying about him when he got himself into trouble; she’d stopped attempting to answer his endless battery of questions.

  He was all boy, and no matter how much she nagged, his shoelaces remained untied; the knees were always worn out of his jeans; and an assortment of skateboards, bikes, or footballs littered the driveway. In his room he kept a treasured hoard of fearsome pets in jars and clumsily made cages. Usually Triple was impish and happy, but when he squared his jaw and scowled at whomever displeased him, he could throw a tantrum that his bullheaded father would have been proud of.

  In Amy’s eyes, even so terribly ill, Triple was the most beautiful little boy on earth. His dark lashes lay in little curled fringes against the bright flush of his feverish cheeks. His baby-fine, golden-brown hair fell across his forehead in wispy ringlets. Although his blue eyes were closed and not twinkling with their usual mischief, no one could have helped but admire the even perfection of his features and the baby-smooth texture of his skin. He had an adorable upturned nose, a heart-shaped mouth and a square jaw, too much like his father’s for comfort.

  Unconscious, Triple seemed angelic. Awake, he was a diminutive human volcano.

  Ignoring the tubes and monitors, Amy had touched her darling boy’s forehead on that last visit, and his skin had been burning hot beneath her fingertips.

  She wasn’t used to worrying about him. When he was a baby she’d worried herself sick over him every time he’d gotten into trouble, until finally she’d been drained of every dram of anxiety in her soul, and she’d stopped. He was so fiercely independent, he seemed able to get himself out of every jam.

  Only this was different. This illness was beyond even his extraordinary powers of self-preservation.

  A spasm of fear gripped her. “Triple, you have to get better,” she whispered. “Grandpa and Mommy...and Aunt Lorrie need you. And who will catch bugs and guppies for your snake, Geronimo?”

  Amy’s body curled into a ball in the vinyl chair. Oh, how she longed to see Triple chasing around the house breaking things, letting lizards loose.

  “Mrs. Browning...”

  She looked up to see Dr. Alsop’s elderly, seamed face and wondered vaguely how long he’d been standing there.

  “I’m sorry,” Startled, she attempted to rise. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Don’t get up, my dear. I just dropped by to let you know that I’ll be in the record room for a while. But I’ll be back to check on Triple before I go home.”

  Dr. Alsop was Triple’s pediatrician, and he’d hardly left the hospital since Triple had been brought in.

  “Is Triple...” Her voice broke.

  He shook his head grimly. “There’s no change. Mrs. Browning, isn’t there someone who could be with you?”

  “No. My sister...”

  “I was thinking of Triple’s father.”

  Amy’s golden eyes came alive and flashed against the chalk-white pallor of her face.

  “We’re separated,” she managed to say in a tight voice. Involuntarily, she twisted the gold band of her wedding ring until it cut into her flesh like a knife.

  “I know. Still...”

  She was aware of Dr. Alsop’s troubled gaze studying her.

  “He’s the last person I’d share something like this with,” she said icily. “The very last.”

  “Is he really so terrible?”

  She dug her nails into her palms. “Some people might not think so.”

  “But you do?”

  Her thin-lipped silence was that of a person who had a bitter distaste for the subject at hand.

  “Nevertheless, he is the boy’s father.”

  “A mere accident of birth, doctor. He doesn’t deserve Triple.”

  “He did marry you, I remember, when Triple was a year old.”

  “That was no favor, I assure you.” Her heart was thudding violently at that hateful memory. “Please, Dr. Alsop, I have enough to cope with, just worrying about Triple.”

  Dr. Alsop said no more, but after he left, she felt lonelier and more miserable than before. Not that her loneliness was the doctor’s fault. Nor did it have anything to do with where she was or what she was doing with her life.

  Nick alone had brought her that kind of pain. She loathed him for the things he’d done in the past, but for Triple’s sake she endured his occasional phone calls and gifts to his son. For her son’s sake she concealed her bitter contempt and endured the one-month separation from Triple every July, when her son went to San Francisco and Texas to visit his father.

  With an effort she pushed Nick from her mind, and her thoughts returned to Triple. She buried her face in her hands.

  If Triple died...

  Outside there was the confident tread of hard-soled shoes striding briskly down the length of the glossily waxed hall floor. The door to the waiting room opened softly, and then closed behind the man who barged inside. Amy was only vaguely aware of these sounds, but instinctively, as if even in that first abrupt moment she had sensed new danger, her spine stiffened to some semblance of its usual ramrod tightness. She glanced up, her eyes dazed and unfocused.

  A tall, broad giant of a man silently stood across the room from her. Even in her shattered state, Amy was aware of his commanding masculine aura.

  Beneath the raincoat the man wore flame-red slacks and a white shirt open at the neck. His blond hair, brown skin, and the flamboyance of his dress struck an unpleasantly familiar note, but before she had time to realize who he was, his low, huskily pitched voice sent shock waves of dread through her body.

  “Hello.”

  Although the raspy voice sounded different—deep and frighteningly cold—she recognized it instantly.


  She sucked in her breath.

  It couldn’t be. Not him! Not here! Not now! Her nerves clamored as she desperately fought to deny Nicholas Browning’s presence. Let me be wrong!

  Her heart had begun to race. She felt both hot and cold at once as she glanced toward the bronzed giant in the dripping raincoat who was striding purposefully toward her.

  But she wasn’t wrong. It was Nick. Nick with that velvet-smooth, husky voice that could make every nerve ending in her body quiver. Nick, the brashly arrogant egotist she’d once loved so intensely she’d forgotten he was the very type of man she’d always heartily disapproved of—a man who was all show and no substance. Nick with his unruly, damp gold hair falling over his brow; Nick with his sharply chiseled features and aquiline nose, his attractively sun-bronzed skin. Nick with his large, well-muscled body and that intimidating self-confidence that gave him the dashingly reckless air of a buccaneer.

  Nick, the very last person she wanted to see—especially now, when she felt so exposed, so vulnerable.

  Amy lifted her chin defiantly and dared to meet his gaze. His narrowed eyes were very blue, darker than usual with some deep emotion. She felt them burning across her face.

  Hastily she ran her hands through her hair and tried to compose her features into a cold, unfeeling mask.

  She probably only succeeded in looking young and frightened.

  “Nicholas.” His name escaped her lips, not in greeting but on a faint note of whispered fear. Emotion rushed into her throat, swelling, pushing, choking off speech and breath.

  She wanted him to leave, to go away at once. “I don’t have the energy to fight you,” she was able to murmur.

  His lips parted and she could see the tips of his even white teeth, but the smile never reached his eyes.

  “Good. Maybe we’ll get along for a change.”

  There was nothing like his sarcasm to make Amy bristle. “Just go,” she whispered.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Darling, I’ve flown halfway across the world to get here. I’ll be damned if I’m leaving before I find out what’s going on.”