The Baby Bond. Lilian Darcy

her into his arms. It didn’t seem odd. On Tuesday, also, at Loretta’s sparsely attended funeral, Julie had found herself being hugged by strangers.

      “Julie,” he said eventually. His voice sounded deeper and huskier than it had on the phone yesterday.

      “Tom,” she managed to say.

      He was strong, athletic. She could feel it in the hard, warm knots of muscle that filled out his upper arms and in the squared pectorals of his chest. She hadn’t expected such a powerfully physical man. It helped a little. Physically, right now, she simply needed the support.

      As well, she had begun to realize just how strongly every detail, every attribute of this man would live on in her future. Distractedly, she had already registered that he was one of the best looking men she’d ever met. Now, detail added to detail.

      His eyes were as dark and glowing as polished teak. His thick hair was the color of molasses shafted by sunlight. Just a tad untidy and too long on top, it was hair that could make a woman want to reach out and smooth it into place with a caress.

      In his arms, she closed her eyes, drew a waft of his mellow male scent into her nostrils and felt the shaking in her limbs, in contrast to his quiet steadiness. He must have felt it also. His arms tightened and he said her name again, with his lips against her hair. She felt the warmth of his breath and heard the thud of his heartbeat.

      “It was good of you to come up.” His voice resonated deep in his chest.

      “I needed to,” she told him.

      It was truer than he could yet know. He would know by the end of their meeting today. On the journey by plane and car from Philadelphia, she’d thought of little else. Tom Callahan’s part-time maintenance man, Don Jarvis, had brought her here from the Albany airport, and she’d barely managed to pass the time of day with the man. Fortunately, having given her his careful condolences about Loretta’s death, Don probably hadn’t expected much in the way of conversation.

      Tom let her go at last, slowly, as if to make sure she had the strength to stand up. They stood facing each other, not touching any more but still standing close.

      “This is hard,” he said. She could see in the twist of his face how much he meant it.

      “It has to be, doesn’t it?” she agreed, her throat tight

      “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport myself.”

      “No, please! I asked you on the phone not to disrupt your schedule.”

      “You see, when you called yesterday, I—” He broke off and shook his head, unable to find words, then reached back to wipe a lean hand around the inside of his open collar. “Look,” he began again after a moment, “I’m going to give my assistant, Marcia, the rest of the day off, then we’ll talk. We need to give this some time, and we don’t need interruptions from anyone. I’m so sorry you couldn’t track me down before the funeral.”

      “Yes. So am I. I did try.”

      “I was on the west coast for a couple of days.”

      “And Loretta didn’t seem to have this address and phone number written down anywhere obvious. I looked through her papers a little, but there was a lot of other stuff to do, and—”

      “I know you did,” Tom was saying. “And I appreciate it. This must have been a horrific few days for you. Just excuse me for a moment.”

      He went to the outer office, and Julie heard the low vibration of his voice as he gave his assistant some instructions.

      It gave her time to think, and to feel once more the growing unease that had begun five days ago, just hours after she had learned of Loretta’s death. Why had it taken her nearly four days to find any reference to Tom Callahan’s summer address amongst Loretta’s papers? He was her husband! Yet Tom himself had not seemed surprised that Julie couldn’t track him down.

      Something was very wrong. Something didn’t gel.

      Tired to the bone after five nights of shredded sleep, she sank into one of the two rust-brown leather armchairs facing the floor-length windows that overlooked Diamond Lake. The cool leather was as soft as cream. At once, the peace and beauty of the place started its healing work. Tom Callahan’s summer retreat stood on its own private island, surrounded by a bright mirror of limpid water, with the folded, forested Adirondack mountains beyond. She understood exactly why he had chosen this place. What she didn’t understand was—

      He was back. He set a tray on the small table then pulled up the second armchair and sat down, his long thighs jutting from the leather seat

      He’d brought coffee. Two steaming mugs of it. Her stomach rebelled, but she craved something to do with her hands and something to fill her mouth, so she answered his questioning look with, “Yes, thanks. Lots of cream. And some sugar, too, please.” Maybe the sweetness would keep back the nausea that had been rising in her all morning.

      “Not watching your weight?” Tom teased carefully, adding a large dollop of cream to her mug.

      “Not at the moment.”

      He was, though, Tom realized. Not watching her weight, but watching her body. She was beautiful, even handicapped by the fatigue and stress that had put slate-blue shadows beneath her blue eyes and tightened her long, graceful limbs.

      Her wheat-blond hair was looped on her head so that a few tendrils fell in long, bouncy curves. He wanted to wind his fingers through them. Her skin was as smooth and warm-hued as ripe apricots, with just the airbrushed hint of dappled gold freckles across her nose. And she had the most incredibly warm, generous mouth he’d ever seen.

      Tom shifted and sent a spoonful of sugar fanning across the tray. It didn’t matter. The mess was nothing. It was all contained on the tray. He dug into the sugar bowl and got another, but the clumsy action disturbed him all the same.

      He hadn’t thought at all about what Loretta’s cousin would be like. He definitely hadn’t considered the possibility that he might find her in any way attractive. Perhaps the low, emotion-filled music of her voice on the phone yesterday, during their painfully clumsy conversation, should have told him something.

      He didn’t want to be attracted to her. He was a free man emotionally, and no one who knew him would question his right to that freedom, but he didn’t want this difficult meeting to get any more complex than it had to be. For both of them, this was about endings, not beginnings. After today, it was doubtful they’d ever need to meet again.

      He pushed his physical awareness of her aside, stirred the sugar into her coffee and handed it to her.

      Determined to get to the painful heart of this as quickly as possible, he said, “You told me it was a car accident. Was it quick? Was she at the wheel?”

      “It was instantaneous, the police told me. For both of them. The car was traveling at over ninety miles an hour.”

      “Both of them?” Tom queried automatically, though he wasn’t really surprised. Not if he recalled all those times in the past when he’d thought Loretta was alone and she hadn’t been.

      Julie fisted a hand in front of her mouth and cleared her throat. She had no choice but to tell the truth. “There was someone else at the wheel,” she said huskily. “A man.”

      The words tasted like cardboard. She had wanted to get all this over quickly, yes, but had expected a little more opportunity to prepare him...and herself. Small talk meant nothing at a time like this, but it had its uses. Tom Callahan, on the other hand, clearly preferred to look things in the face.

      Her stomach twisted. A gulp of coffee didn’t help. Made things worse, in fact.

      This was Tom’s wife they were talking about. Sure, the marriage had had problems. Loretta herself had admitted that. She’d talked about it in exhaustive, passionate detail. Their separation. Their attempts at reconciliation. The baby they’d both wanted—the baby that hadn’t come, even after infertility treatment.