“Doctor.” She sat up, her eyes bright with anticipation. “I want to see my daughter.”
“Yes,” he said, and grinned, “so they tell me. Just give me five minutes to check you over, and I’ll tell them to bring her to you.”
“Five minutes,” Carin said, and smiled back at him, “not a second more.”
“You have my word. Okay, let’s take a look. Lie back a little…That’s the girl. You’re coming along just fine, Carin. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Good. I’m sure you know that when you leave here, you’ll need time to recover.”
“I’ll take a couple of weeks off.”
“Well, you’ll want more than a couple of weeks. You’ll be tired, for a while. You’ll need somebody to relieve you with the baby, give you the chance to rest.”
“I’m strong as an ox, Doctor. I’ll be on my feet in no time.”
“Yeah, you will, but if you push things, you’re liable to regret it. And you won’t want to have that happen, for the baby’s sake. Now, let’s just check that belly…”
“I’ll work something out,” she said, as the doctor gently poked and prodded. “Tell me about my baby. My sister says she’s fine. Is she?”
“Better than fine. Got the best pair of lungs in the nursery, all the requisite fingers and toes. A regular little beauty. Does it hurt when I press here?”
“No.” Carin winced. “Well, just a little.”
“That’s okay. You’re doing great.” The doctor straightened up and smiled at her as he tucked his stethoscope back into his pocket. “Remember how panicked you were when you first came to see me, and how I said everything would work out? And it has. You’ve learned that your family is thrilled about your baby, and that her father wants to be part of her life and yours. I think that’s all pretty remarkable.”
“Yes, I suppose it…” Carin froze. “What?”
“I said, I think it’s remark—”
“You must be confusing me with another patient. My baby’s father didn’t know about my pregnancy. He doesn’t know about my daughter. And he never will.”
The doctor cleared his throat. “Well, of course, that’s all up to you. Meanwhile, suppose I tell the nurse to arrange for a visit with your little girl?”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Fine.” The doctor took her hand. “One last thing…”
“Yes?”
“Things change, Carin. It’s possible to be sure you’re on the right path in life and then, all of a sudden, you discover you were meant to take another.”
“I’ve already learned that,” she said softly.
“Yes, well, sometimes we learn the same lesson in more than one—ah.” He swung towards the door as it opened. “Here’s your baby now.”
Carin sat up. The doctor patted her shoulder again, then made his way to the door. His bulky figure blocked her view and she shifted on the bed, trying for her first glimpse of her child.
“My little girl,” she said softly.
“And mine,” a voice said coldly. “At least, that’s the story I’ve been told.”
Her eyes flew from her daughter to the face of the man holding the child in his arms.
It was Raphael Alvares.
CHAPTER FOUR
HE WAS here.
The dream had been real. Rafe had come for her…
But he hadn’t. Another look at his face, and Carin knew that. He wasn’t here for her. She couldn’t think of a reason he would be…unless one of her stepbrothers had done something incredibly stupid.
“Querida,” he said.
The tone of his voice, the little half smile on his lips, turned the endearment into a mockery.
“Rafe.” She cleared her throat. Fear danced along her spine but that was silly. What was there to be afraid of? Slade, or another of the Barons, had sent for him. All she had to do was tell him they’d been wrong to do that…
“You seem surprised to see me, Carin.”
“Yes. I—I am. What—what are you doing here?”
He gave her a twisted smile and walked towards the bed. “Why, querida, I am here to see you, of course.” He glanced at the sleeping infant in his arms. “And to see your daughter.”
Carin’s gaze flew to the baby, then to him. “What are you doing with my baby?”
“Don’t you mean, what am I doing with our baby? That seems to be the consensus, querida, that this child is mine.” His lips curved in another tight smile. “One of the nurses thought a father should become acquainted with his offspring. I decided to indulge her in her little fantasy.”
Carin’s color heightened. “Give me my daughter.”
“Certainly,” he said politely. “But first, perhaps, you’d be good enough to tell me why you’ve claimed I am her father?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice sharpened. “Give her to me, Rafe.”
He did as she’d asked. She cradled the tiny bundle against her breasts, crooned to the child and pressed a kiss to the dark hair. He watched, dispassionately, as she carefully undid the pink blanket, touched each little toe, then each finger with what surely seemed to be solemnity. Tears glistened on her lashes, then trickled down her cheeks.
“My little girl,” she said softly, and kissed the baby again.
Madonna and child, Rafe thought coldly, watching as she gently wrapped the child in the blanket, but a Madonna didn’t have sex with a stranger, or deny a man the right to know he’d fathered a child—if he had fathered it.
He could accept that some women might treat sex with all the casualness of a man. The world had changed, especially in North America. Apparently, Carin Brewster was one of the new breed of female. She could tumble into bed with a stranger, enjoy the pleasure he brought her and think no more of it than if she’d shared a cup of coffee with him instead of her body.
Rafe reached for a chair, turned it around, straddled it and folded his arms along its top.
What he couldn’t comprehend was why her licentiousness should bother him, or why she had decided to name him as her daughter’s father.
The baby uttered a soft cry. “Hush, sweetheart,” Carin murmured, and pressed another kiss to the silky curls.
If—if—this child were his, he would be troubled to think of a woman with such lax morals raising it. Of course, to watch her, a man would think she had all the right maternal instincts.
Rafe’s mouth thinned. Was this all a performance for his benefit?
He was wealthy. Other women found that fascinating. Why wouldn’t this one? She had a rich stepfather but obviously the old man didn’t support her or she wouldn’t have to work. She was an investment advisor, he’d learned from her sister.
“She works long, hard hours,” Amanda had told him.
A child—his child, if he were foolish enough to take her word for it—could change all that.
But if that were her plan, why had she kept her pregnancy a secret?
The answer might be that she knew he’d have laughed in her face if she’d tried to trap him into a declaration of fatherhood, but fate had played into her hands. A man might be easier to convince if the woman claiming to bear his child was at the point of death.
Deus, he was exhausted, weary from two days of caffeine, anger and confusion. He’d caught only moments of sleep in the hospital waiting room. Mostly, he’d marched up and down the corridors. A hundred times, perhaps more, he’d told himself to turn around, walk out the door and never look back.
What was he doing here? he’d kept asking himself. Why had he responded to that frantic phone call from Amanda, telling him that her sister was in childbirth?
“Senhora,” he’d said, his voice frigid, “this is not of interest to me. Tell it to her lover. To the man who put the child inside her.”
“You are that man, senhor.”
“That is…” Impossible, he’d started to say, but it wasn’t. He hadn’t used a condom; he hadn’t asked Carin if she had her own protection. Everything
had happened so quickly, the shocking need to possess her, the swift rush of desire that had driven logic aside…
“My sister refused to tell us who’d made her pregnant,” Amanda had said, her voice breaking.
“And now,” he’d answered, while he’d tried to process the information, “now, suddenly and conveniently, she has decided to share her secret?”
Amanda had started to cry. Rafe had told himself the sobs of Carin’s sister meant nothing but the sound had torn at him until, finally, he’d closed his eyes and taken a deep breath.
“Tell me,” he’d said sharply.
She told him everything, that Carin had spent long hours in labor and that, at the end, something had gone wrong.
“She’s hemorrhaging,” she’d whispered. “And—and, I don’t know, maybe she knows she might not—might not make it, because when they let me see her, she was only half conscious…but she clutched my hand and called for you.”
Rafe stirred uneasily in his chair.
That was when he’d dropped the phone and set out on a journey that he’d known might well change his life. If the child coming into the world were his, what else could he do? He was going to Carin because of the child. Only the child. It had nothing to do with her.
Could a man who had never known his own father do less?
He’d made his plans during the long flight to New York. He would ask for tests to prove his paternity: he was not a fool. But if the child were his…
What then?
Rafe got to his feet, tucked his hands into his pockets and looked at the woman with whom he’d spent the most passionate hour of his life. She was not the exquisitely groomed, expensively dressed beauty he had met that night. Her face was pale and free of makeup. There were shadows under her eyes, shadows that only emphasized her fragility. Her hair was tangled, and the plain white neckline of her hospital gown showed just above the blanket.
It didn’t matter.
She would always be a woman for whom a man would abandon common sense, as he had done. Sex without protection. He’d never done such a stupid thing before, and now he was paying the price…
If she were telling the truth, and the child was his.
Rafe looked at the baby. She was beautiful. She had her mother’s mop of dark hair, her widely spaced eyes, her small, straight nose but then, perhaps babies all looked like this. He had little knowledge of children. His own childhood was a dark blur, and he had been careful not to leave behind small images of himself in any of his liaisons, far more careful than his own father had been…
He dragged air into his lungs, then expelled it, told himself he had to stop thinking such things. For all he knew, the lover who’d been a ghostly presence between them that night had fathered this child.
The door swung open. A nurse he hadn’t seen before flashed him the kind of professional smile he’d seen bestowed on all the new fathers on this floor.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said briskly.
Rafe started to reply, thought better of it, and nodded.
“And Mommy.” The woman paused at Carin’s bedside. “How are we feeling?”
“Fine,” Carin said, but she didn’t sound fine. Her voice was shaky, and it suddenly struck him that the color in her face was too high.
The nurse seemed to think so, too.
“Uh-huh.” She took the baby from Carin’s arms and turned to Rafe. “Would you hold your daughter for a moment, please, sir?”
“No,” Carin said quickly, “I’d rather—”
Rafe’s arms closed around the baby as the nurse’s hand closed around Carin’s wrist.
“Let’s just check your pulse. Good. Now let me just get a reading on your temp…”
“Is she ill?” Rafe asked brusquely.
“No, no, I’m sure your wife is fine.”
“She is not…” He cleared his throat. It was nobody’s business what their relationship was. “Perhaps she’s exerted herself more than she should have.”
“Mmm.” The nurse read the thermometer, shot another brightly artificial smile and drew the blanket to Carin’s chin. “We need to get plenty of rest, if we’re going to leave here in a few days.”
“A few days?” Carin ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip. “Must I stay so long? I’d like to go home as soon as possible.”
“You just make the most of this time, dear. Once you’re home, you’ll be up half the night with your baby.”
Carin smiled. “Only half?” she said, and yawned.
“Of course.” The nurse turned to Rafe and took the baby from his arms. “I’m sure this handsome hubby of yours will be happy to take his turn, won’t you, Dad?”
“Certainly,” Rafe said stiffly, and wondered just how long it would take to do the paternity test and analyze the results.
* * *
No time at all, as it turned out.
“A couple of days,” the doctor told him briskly, as if new fathers asked him such questions all the time. “Less than that, I suspect, if you’re willing to pay extra fees to the lab.”
Rafe was willing. So was the laboratory. All that remained was for Carin to agree. He waited until her family was at dinner. Then he knocked at the door to her room.
“Yes?” she called out in a soft voice.
He opened the door, went briskly towards the bed. “We have to talk,” he began…and the rest of what he’d intended to tell her caught in his throat. The baby was nursing, lying nestled in Carin’s arms. Rafe caught a glimpse of her flushed face, her ivory breast, rounded and full, and swung sharply away.
“I apologize.” His voice sounded rusty. He cleared his throat, spoke to the wall, told himself there was nothing in what he’d seen that should make him feel as if he’d run a hard five miles through the scrub at Rio de Ouro. “I will come back, when you are—I will come back.”
He stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall, trying not to think of anything at all, but it was impossible. Images of things he’d tried so hard to forget formed in his mind. Carin, in his arms that night. Her body, moving beneath his. Her half-stifled cries, her whispers. And now the child—perhaps, their child—at her breast, the breast he had once caressed and kissed…
He dragged his hands through his hair. He wanted a cigarette, so desperately that he could almost feel the taste of tobacco in his mouth, which was insane because he had not smoked in years.
Finally, a nurse bustled past him, went into the room and came out with the baby in her arms. Rafe stepped away from the wall, straightened his shoulders and went back inside.
Carin was sitting up in the bed, the blanket tucked around her. He decided to waste no time in telling her why he’d come.
“I’ve arranged for tests to be done first thing in the morning.”
“Tests?”
“Sim. To prove the child’s paternity.”
Her eyes flashed. “No tests are necessary.”
“They are necessary. Surely, you don’t expect me to simply accept responsibility for your child without proof.”
Why did his words hurt? She didn’t want anything from him, hadn’t expected anything from him.
“You’re right,” she said politely. “I don’t expect you to accept responsibility.”
“If you are afraid of the procedure, it is painless. Just a little blood, that’s all.”
“Dammit! Do you think that’s why I…?” She took a breath, folded her hands tightly in her lap. “I’m not afraid of the test.”
“Good. I will tell the laboratory—”
“But I’m not going to take it. There isn’t any reason to do paternity testing.”
“There is, if you expect me to acknowledge this child as my own.”
“I don’t expect it. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“You sent for me, Carin.”
“I didn’t. Amanda seems to think I—I said your name while I was…Whatever I said, I didn’t ‘send’ for you.”
Deus, she was so calm, so sel
f-contained. She sounded as if she deserved praise for such a thing but if the baby were his, why hadn’t she sent for him? What kind of woman would want to keep a father from his child?
If she could keep her self-control, so could he.
“Nevertheless,” he said, “I am here. And I intend to find out if what you claim about this child is the truth.”
“I haven’t claimed anything.”
“Are you telling me the child is not mine?”
Carin stared at him. It would be so easy to lie…but someday her daughter would want to know the details of her birth, and she’d be entitled to the truth.
“She’s my daughter,” she said quietly. “I carried her in my womb. I gave birth to her.”
“That’s a charming speech. Unfortunately, you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Would you believe me if I did?” She sank back against the pillows. “Just go away,” she said wearily. “I don’t want anything from you.”
He folded his arms, eyed her narrowly. “Not even a check each month, for child support?”
“Have I asked you for a penny?”
“How could you? You were not even going to tell me you were pregnant.” His mouth twisted. “Or did you think I would be more impressed if you presented me with a child instead of a swollen belly?”
Carin flung back the blanket. He reached out a hand to stop her but she slapped it away.
“Don’t touch me!” There was a white cotton robe on the chair. She reached for it, put it on, and got to her feet. “I don’t need your help with anything, senhor. I am perfectly capable of doing things for myself. I can get out of bed. I can walk. I can do anything I damn well want, and what I want now is for you to get the hell out of my sight!”
“You can want what you like. I will do as I must. If this baby proves to be mine, I will do the right thing.”
“If she proves to…?” Carin laughed, folded her arms, and faced him with her chin lifted in defiance. “Why don’t I simplify things for us both, Rafe? You don’t think my daughter is yours? All right. She’s not.”
He had waited for those words, but what meaning did they have if they were tossed at him like stones?
“Your story changes from minute to minute,” he said, folding his arms as she had folded hers. “I haven’t come all this distance to be toyed with, Carin. I am entitled to have the proper tests done.”
The Alvares Bride Page 5
