“So that means the detective agency is right,” Wyatt presumed, big hands gripping the mug in front of him. “Adelaide and I are still legally married?”
He looked about as happy as Adelaide felt.
Claire and Gannon nodded.
Adelaide did her best to quell her racing pulse. Even bad situations had solutions. “What will it take to get an annulment?” she asked casually.
More typing on the computers followed as both attorneys researched Nevada law.
“Were you underage?” Gannon asked.
Adelaide admitted reluctantly, “We were both eighteen. No parental permission was required.”
“Incapacitated in some way?” Claire queried. “Mentally, emotionally? Either of you intoxicated or high?”
Wyatt and Adelaide shook their heads. “We knew what we were doing,” he said.
In that sense, maybe, Adelaide thought, recalling how immature they had been. They hadn’t had any idea what it really meant to be married. Since both of them had remained single, they probably still didn’t know.
Gannon exhaled roughly. “Then you’re going to have to claim fraud.”
“I’m not doing that,” Adelaide cut in. Not with her family’s reputation.
“Well, don’t look at me. I’m not the one who changed my mind and backed out,” Wyatt said.
Claire lifted a hand and intervened gently. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
Adelaide flushed. Reluctant to discuss how foolishly romantic she had been, when they had set out for Vegas, after both had fought with their parents about the too-serious nature of their relationship. How determined they were to do something to show everyone, only to find out how scary it was to truly be in over their heads.
Adelaide drew a deep breath. “We eloped without thinking everything through.”
Wyatt sat back in his chair, the implacable look she hated in his smoky blue eyes. “What she’s trying to say is that she got cold feet.”
“Came to my senses,” Adelaide corrected him archly, irritated to find he still hadn’t a compassionate bone in him. When he merely lifted a brow, she continued emotionally, “You did wild and reckless things all the time, growing up, Wyatt. I didn’t.”
He scoffed, hurt flashing across his handsome face. “Well, we sure found that out the hard way, didn’t we?”
She knew she had disappointed him. She had disappointed herself. Though for entirely different reasons. Adelaide turned to their attorneys, explaining, “I was fine all through dinner, but when it came time to check into the hotel and consummate our union, I...” Choking up, Adelaide found herself unable to go on.
All eyes turned to Wyatt, who recounted dryly, “She panicked. Said she loved me, she just didn’t want to be married to me, not yet.” Accusation—and resentment—rang in his low tone.
Adelaide forced herself to ignore it, lest she too become caught up in an out-of-control emotional maelstrom. “I wanted to go home to Texas, finish our senior year of high school. And I wanted everything we had done, undone, without our families or anyone else finding out.”
Wyatt, bless his heart, had agreed to let her have her way.
Unlike now.
Exhaling, he continued, “We went back to the wedding chapel and asked the justice of the peace who married us if he could pretend we had never been there. He refused. But he gave us the name of someone who could help us.”
Adelaide remembered the relief she had felt. “So we went to the attorney’s office the next day and asked him to file an annulment.”
“I had a rodeo to compete in that evening, in Tahoe, so I signed what the attorney told me to sign and took off, leaving Adelaide behind to wrap things up.”
“Which I did,” Adelaide said hotly.
Wyatt lifted a brow. “You have a canceled check to prove it?”
His attitude was as contentious as his low, clipped tone, but she refused to take the bait. “No. I paid his fee in cash.”
Wyatt rocked back in his chair, ran the flat of his palm beneath his jaw. Finally, he shook his head and said, “Brilliant move.”
Resisting the urge to leap across the table and take him by the collar, Adelaide folded her arms in front of her. “I was trying not to leave more of a paper trail than we already had.”
Wyatt narrowed his gaze at her in mute superiority. “Learned from the best, there, didn’t you?” he mocked.
Adelaide sucked in a startled breath. “Do not compare me with my father!” she snapped, her temper getting the better of her, despite her desire to appear cool, calm and collected. “If not for me, and all the forensic accounting work I did, people still might not know where all the money from the Lockhart Foundation went!”
An angry silence ticked out between them. Broken only by his taut reminder, “If not for your father, the foundation money might still all be there. My mother would not have been put through hell the last year.”
Their gazes locked in an emotional battle of wills that had been years in the making. Refusing to give him a pass, even if he had been hurt and humiliated, too, she sent him a mildly rebuking look, even as the temperature between them rose to an unbearable degree. “Your mother knows I had nothing to do with any of that. So does the rest of your family.” Ignoring the perspiration gathering between her breasts, she paused to let her words sink in. Dropped her voice another compelling notch. “Why can’t you accept that, too?”
* * *
The hell of it was, Wyatt secretly wished he could believe Adelaide Smythe was as innocent as everyone else did. He’d started to come close. And then this had happened.
He had seen Adelaide taking advantage of his mother’s kindness and generosity, decided to investigate, just to reassure himself, and found even more corruption.
Claire and Gannon exchanged lawyerly looks. “Let’s all calm down, shall we?” Gannon said.
Claire nodded. “Nothing will be gained from fighting.”
Adelaide pushed her fingers through the dark strands of her hair. It spilled over her shoulders in sexy disarray. “You’re right. Let’s just focus on getting the annulment, which should be easy—” she paused to glare at Wyatt “—since we never consummated the marriage.”
Once again, she was a little shady on the details. “Not then,” Wyatt pointed out.
Adelaide paled, as if suddenly realizing what he already had.
Claire’s brow furrowed. “You’ve been together intimately in the ten years since?”
Wyatt nodded, as another memory that had been hopelessly sexy and romantic took on a nefarious quality. “Last spring. After a destination wedding we both attended in Aspen.”
A flush started in her chest and moved up her neck into her face. In a low, quavering voice, Adelaide admitted, “We have a penchant for making terrible mistakes whenever we’re alone together. But since we didn’t know we were married at the time, that can’t count as consummating the marriage.” She gulped. “Can it?”
Stepping in, Gannon stated, “Actually, whether or not you slept together really doesn’t affect the marriage’s legality in the state of Texas. Hasn’t for some time.”
Wyatt and Adelaide both blinked in surprise.
“Emotionally, it might have ramifications,” Claire interjected.
No kidding, Wyatt thought. Their one and only night together had sure left him feeling as if he had been rocketed to the moon, his every wish come true, and then...as soon as Adelaide had come to her senses...sucker punched in the gut by her. Again.
“Unless, of course, one of you is impotent and concealed it, which is clearly not the case,” Gannon continued.
No kidding, Wyatt thought, remembering the sparks that had been generated during his and Adelaide’s one and only night together.
“You’re saying we can’t get an annulment?” Adelaide asked.
“Too
much time has elapsed—nearly ten years—for you to request one from the court,” Gannon said.
Claire soothed, “You can, however, get a divorce.”
Wyatt knew what Adelaide was thinking. An annulment was a mistake, quickly remedied. A divorce meant being part of a marriage that had failed. That didn’t sit well with her. He hated failing at anything, too.
“But we went to a lawyer at the time!” Adelaide protested.
Claire looked up from her computer. “Who, according to public record, has apparently not been a practicing member of the Nevada bar for nearly a decade.”
Wyatt nodded. “The private detective agency said Mr. Randowsky had quit his practice and left the state shortly after we saw him. His practice dissolved accordingly.”
Adelaide looked both shocked and crestfallen. “So there’s no record of us ever being in his office? No real proof we ever tried to get an annulment?”
“None,” Wyatt confirmed irritably. He had already been down that avenue with the private investigators. “I couldn’t even locate anyone who worked in his office at the time.”
Adelaide buried her head in her hands. “Which means that getting Mr. Randowsky or his former staff to testify on our behalf is a lost cause.”
“Plus, there are children involved now,” Claire pointed out.
Adelaide sat up abruptly, her pretty face a mask of maternal ferocity. “My children,” she stated tightly. “I went to a fertility clinic and was artificially inseminated two weeks before I saw Wyatt in Aspen.”
Gannon looked at Wyatt. “You knew about this when you were together?”
Even as Wyatt shook his head, he knew it wouldn’t have made any difference if he had. When he had seen her again that night, so happy and glowing and carefree, he had wanted her. She had wanted him, too. Recklessly. Wantonly.
And the rest was history.
“Adelaide didn’t tell me she was starting a family until after I slept with her in Aspen.” “Nice as this was, and it was nice, nothing else can happen, Wyatt. I’ve got other plans...”
She tossed her mane of glossy dark hair and gave him a defensive look. “It was a one-night stand, Wyatt. A kind of whimsical ‘what if’ for both of us ten years too late. I didn’t think my pregnancy was relevant.”
He hated her habit of downplaying what they had once meant to each other. Even if she hadn’t had the guts to follow through. He looked her up and down, refusing to let her pretend any longer. “Oh, it was as relevant as the protection I wore.”
Adelaide’s mouth opened in a round O of surprise. “Wyatt!”
“Don’t mind us,” Gannon said dryly. “We’re lawyers.”
Claire added, “We’ve heard it all.”
“Anyway,” Wyatt stated, “I know what you’re thinking.” What he’d thought before reality and statistical probability crept in, given the fact that she’d already been inseminated and he’d worn a condom every time. “But the twins are not mine.”
And he was glad of that. Wasn’t he? Given the fact he still felt he couldn’t quite trust her?
Adelaide’s slender shoulders slumped slightly. “Thank heavens for small miracles!” she muttered with a beleaguered sigh.
She turned her glance away, but not before he saw the look of defeat in her eyes.
Wyatt felt a pang of remorse. So, the situation had ended up hurting her, too—despite her initial declarations to the contrary. Maybe he should try to go a little easier on her.
Certainly, they had enough strife ahead of them...
Oblivious to the ambivalence within him, Claire went back to taking notes. “So this... Adelaide’s decision to have children via artificial insemination and sperm bank...is why you parted acrimoniously. Again.”
Wyatt only wished it had been that simple. “I wouldn’t have cared about that,” he said honestly, ignoring Adelaide’s embarrassment and looking her square in the eye.
Adelaide returned his level look. “Over time, you might have.” She glanced at the baby monitor, as if hoping it would radiate young voices. It was silent. She cleared her throat, turned to regard their lawyers. “In any case, the insemination at the clinic took place before Wyatt and I ever saw each other again and were...reckless.”
Reckless was one way to describe it, Wyatt mused. There was also passionate. Tender. Mind-blowing...
“And I was already sure I was pregnant...from the way I was feeling...”
Which was why, Wyatt thought, she’d been so happy. In retrospect, he could see that it’d had little to do with seeing him again.
And for reasons he couldn’t explain, and didn’t want to examine, that stung, too.
More lawyerly looks were exchanged between the two attorneys.
Clearly, Wyatt noted, there was another problem.
Claire’s brow furrowed. “Is the donor’s name on the birth certificate?”
Adelaide shook her head. “No. Just mine. But I know exactly who the biological father is. Donor #19867 from the Metroplex Fertility Clinic’s sperm bank, where I was inseminated.”
More glances between attorneys.
“This is a problem,” Claire said.
Gannon agreed. “Under Texas law, any children born during a marriage are legally the offspring of the husband, unless and until proved otherwise. Meaning court-ordered DNA tests are going to be necessary.”
“Why court-ordered?” Wyatt asked, his impatience matching Adelaide’s. “Can’t we just have them done on our own?”
“Not if you want them to be part of any legal record,” Gannon said. “When DNA tests are court-ordered, a strict chain-of-custody procedure is followed, ensuring the integrity of the samples. Everyone who has contact with them has to sign. This protects against tampering, or ill-use.”
Made sense.
“Then court-ordered it is,” Adelaide said grimly, as Wyatt nodded.
“Luckily, we can formally request this online.” Gannon was already typing. “I’ll follow it up with a call to the judge to make sure it goes through immediately.”
“While you do that, I’ll call my cousin Jackson McCabe, who is chief of staff at Laramie Community Hospital, and ask him to write the medical orders for the blood tests.” Claire rose, cell phone to her ear. “And arrange to have them done as soon as possible.”
Not that it would matter, Wyatt thought, as Claire stepped into the next room and Gannon, when finished, walked out onto the front porch. They all knew what the tests were going to reveal. Once that happened, he and Adelaide would go their separate ways.
Forever.
* * *
Unable to sit still a moment longer, Adelaide rose, gathered the mugs and took them to the kitchen sink. “I wasn’t finished with that,” Wyatt called after her.
No one had been, Adelaide knew. But she needed something to do before she exploded with tension. “Hold your horses,” she said over her shoulder. “You’ll get a fresh mug in a minute, and more hot coffee to go with it. Unless you’d prefer something more dainty.” She turned his way to give him a too-sweet look. “Like tea?”
He shot her a deadpan look.
They both knew he hated tea. All kinds.
He didn’t like iced coffee, either.
Or at least he hadn’t.
What if he had changed?
Then again... Doubtful.
Gannon walked back in, just as she sat four fresh mugs and a platter of cookies on the table. “We’ve got the court order.”
Claire returned, too. “Jackson expedited everything on the hospital’s end. The hospital lab will be open until eight this evening, so you can both go over now if you like.” She paused. “If you want to write this down...?”
Adelaide plucked a notepad and pen from the charging station, then returned to the table, carafe in hand. She slid the former across the table to Wyatt.
He ignored her helpful gesture. “I’ll just type it in.” He pulled out his smartphone, gaze trained on the oversize screen, paused again, then brought up the appropriate menu.
Just scribbling the info on paper would have been faster. Then again... “It’s probably best,” Adelaide quipped, in an effort to lighten the mounting exasperation. “No one can read his chicken scratches anyway.”
Wyatt squinted at her, his expression partly annoyed and the rest inscrutable.
“Unless something’s changed?” she continued, determined to be just as provoking and ornery as he was being.
It hadn’t just been the love notes he’d passed to her in class she hadn’t been able to decipher. It had been anything and everything he wrote. Worse, he had seemed to take perverse delight in everyone else’s frustration. Just as he was enjoying her impatience now. She didn’t know why he had to be such a pain sometimes.
“You’ve taken a class in penmanship...?” she taunted lightly, aware they had temporarily reverted to their worst selves from their teenage years.
“You wish.” Smugly, Wyatt looked at Claire, his fingers poised over the keyboard on his man-size smartphone. “Ready when you are.”
Barely suppressing her own exasperation, Claire returned to her own handwritten notes. “The tech who’s going to be doing the test is Martie Bowman. The outpatient lab is on the first floor of the main building of the hospital, in the east wing. Suite 111.”
Wyatt quickly typed in the information. “Do you want to email that to me, too?” Adelaide asked.
“Not necessary,” Wyatt said. “I’ve got it.”
He was also as impossibly chauvinistic as ever. Adelaide sighed. “How long until we have the results?”
“They’re going to put a rush on it. So three or four days at most.”
“What about the rest of it?” Adelaide asked.
“It would be advisable to proceed with the divorce only when the DNA results are back,” Gannon said.
Adelaide decided to give it one last try. “Are you sure it has to be divorce? Can’t we remedy this mistake—” and it had been a big one, the biggest of her life “—some other way? Maybe just invalidate the marriage on some technicality, or... I don’t know...” She was grasping at straws, and she knew it.
Claiming the Texan's Heart Page 2
