Texas Baby. Kathleen O'Brien

before she got to the ranch. And now she had a bandage on her forehead and a black eye that made her resemble an off-kilter raccoon.

      Chase had turned his back on her two months ago, when she’d been pink-cheeked and bright-eyed with first love. His lust wasn’t likely to be reawakened by her “beauty” today.

      She’d have to appeal to his honor, or nothing at all.

      Which was why her hands started to tremble again as the footsteps drew closer. This was a man who hadn’t even bothered to leave a goodbye note. Honor probably wasn’t his strong point.

      She forced herself to watch the door steadily. She squared her shoulders, trying to look as dignified as possible. She didn’t need to cower before him. She hadn’t created this baby alone. They had done it together, with laughter and tenderness and passion, however short-lived it had been.

      She might be a poor waitress, and he might be a rich rancher. But this was the twenty-first century, and she had no intention of slinking away to starve nobly on the streets for her sins. She wasn’t a martyr or a fool.

      They’d made the baby together, and they would face the consequences together. She lifted her chin and waited for him to show up in the doorway.

      But the man who appeared there wasn’t Chase. He was older, for one thing. Short and neat, brunette and sober-faced.

      “Hello, Ms. Whitford,” he said. “I’m Chase Clayton’s lawyer. May I come in?”

      “His lawyer?” She felt some of the bravado whoosh out of her, as if a hole had been torn in her sail. So far she’d seen Chase’s doctor, his maid, and now his lawyer. Apparently he had an army of people he could send ahead, like the military’s front lines, to wear the enemy down.

      “Yes. Jim Stilling. May I come in?”

      She nodded. “Of course, Mr. Stilling. It isn’t my room. I’m not in a position to deny anyone access to it.”

      He smiled, waving that idea away and entered the room. He sat on one of the soft chairs, which were covered in butter-colored silk. He looked at home there, even though the decor was so feminine, with powder-blue and butter-yellow-flowered wallpaper, a white lace canopy on the bed and a huge window overlooking rolling green hills.

      She’d never slept in a room this beautiful, much less owned one. She’d been trying not to let that intimidate her.

      “And please,” he said, still smiling softly. “Call me Jim. So. Are you feeling better?”

      Josie knew a lot of lawyers. The Not Guilty Café was full of them. Her stepfather was a lawyer, too. But she’d never met one with such warm eyes and gentle smile.

      All the better to fool you with, my dear.

      “Yes,” she said politely. “Much better.”

      “Good. I’d like to talk to you a minute, if you don’t mind. Dr. Marchant has told me about your condition. Apparently you gave him permission to discuss it?”

      She flushed slightly, remembering. She’d told the doctor he could shout the news to the whole world if he wanted. She had been angry, embarrassed that she’d caused such a ruckus, ashamed of her scrawny, scraped-up body, which she’d been required to lay bare for his inspection, so that she could prove she wasn’t lying about the baby.

      “Yes,” she said. “He has my permission. The pregnancy isn’t something I’ll be able to keep secret very long, anyhow.”

      The lawyer steepled his fingers. “And is it your contention that Chase Clayton IV is the father of this child?”

      Her eyes narrowed. That sounded like something on a subpoena.

      “Maybe we should dispense with this prologue, Mr. Stilling, and get to the point.” She drew herself up even straighter in the bed. She put her hands under the blanket, to hide the tremor that hadn’t quite disappeared. She didn’t want to appear weak. She was tired of being weak. Now that she knew why she had been feeling so sick and exhausted lately, she wasn’t afraid anymore.

      And she was all through with cringing and enduring. She was going to be a mother, and that was a job that called for courage. It was time to find out if she had some.

      “Yes,” she said. “It is officially, legally, my contention that Chase Clayton IV is the father of my baby. Is it his contention that he is not?”

      “I didn’t say that,” the man said, shaking his head as if alarmed by her sudden adamance. “I haven’t spoken to Chase about this yet. I assume Dr. Marchant is filling him in on the situation at this very moment. He doesn’t know I’m here. In fact, I probably shouldn’t be here. It’s just that, I’m very fond of Chase, and I thought perhaps I might—”

      “Make me go away? Make me change my story? That isn’t going to happen, Mr. Stilling. Back in January, Chase and I spent a month as lovers. He may regret that now. In fact, given that he’s planning to marry someone else, I’m fairly sure he does. But regret doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It also doesn’t change the fact that I’m carrying his child.”

      “There’s no need to upset yourself, Miss Whitford. I’m not trying to make you do anything. It’s just that…” Stilling looked sincerely uncomfortable. “You see, I’ve known Chase a long time, and it’s hard for me to believe that—”

      “Chase is the father,” she said firmly. “I understand that you know nothing about me, about my character. Maybe you think that…I don’t know, that I have dozens of lovers, and I just picked the richest one to pin it on.”

      The lawyer shook his head. “No. Really. I’m not implying anything of the sort.”

      But he was thinking it. Of course he was. It would be the perfect out for Chase, if he could prove she was a tramp. This Stilling guy was a lawyer, and he represented a rich man accustomed to taking what he wanted and throwing it away when he was through.

      Like her stepfather. Funny, how that seemed to be her pattern. Her mother’s husband had forced her out of the house at eighteen. For her own good, he said. So that she’d learn to stand on her own two feet. A year later, in a moment of weakness, she’d asked him if she could move back home for a while, just until she got her AA. He was drunk, of course, but his answer was unequivocal. Hell, no. Having her show up again was the equivalent of having the trash guy bring back his garbage.

      As if the insult had happened yesterday, she felt tears pressing at the back of her eyes, and she fought them away. They were part of the old weakness, and she was done with them.

      “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But it simply isn’t true. I have had only one lover. It was Chase. I met him at the restaurant where I work, and he was—”

      Somehow she stopped herself. She didn’t need to justify herself to this man. She wasn’t on trial for immorality here. She didn’t have to tell him how lonely she’d been, and how the handsome cowboy had swept her off her feet, which were aching like fire from twelve-hour shifts. She didn’t have to admit how easily he’d romanced her with a fancy car, expensive meals and whispers about the stars in her eyes and the honey in her hair.

      That story wouldn’t make her look one bit better. It would make her look gullible and pathetic, which was worse than trashy any day.

      And anyway, how could she ever describe how sweet Chase had seemed, at the beginning? The first night, after they’d made love, they had stayed up for hours, eating the chocolates he’d brought her and telling each other stories about their childhoods.

      The sex had been nice, but it was those stories that had made her fall in love with him. She’d been able to picture him as a little boy of eight, fishing in the creek that bore his name and throwing everything back. And at nine, killing a rattlesnake with a golf club and shaking for an hour afterward.

      She’d never known a man so willing to admit he had a tender heart.

      “Anyhow,