A Dad At Last. Marie Ferrarella

pulled a chair around, straddling it so that he faced her. She wasn’t making any sense. “Yet you left the baby on the steps of the hospital because you couldn’t take care of him.”

      She flinched at the accusation in his voice. It was something she’d berated herself for a hundred times over.

      “I’ll never forgive myself for that.” Her voice was solemn, hollow. “But it was one unpardonable moment of weakness, because Janelle was after me and I was afraid she’d hurt the baby.” She bit her lip. She’d been desperate, with nowhere to turn, her back to the wall. “Still, there was no excuse for doing it that way.”

      Frustrated, he dragged his hand through his hair. That wasn’t the point. The torment in her eyes sparked his guilt. Damn it, it wasn’t his intention to make her blame herself. “I didn’t mean—God knows you paid for that.”

      “Not enough.” Lacy blinked back tears that had suddenly risen to her eyes. She could have lost Chase forever. She looked at the face of her son. The wide, happy grin was smeared with custard-colored cereal. With the edge of his bib, she wiped the stains away. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to him—if I can.”

      Damn it, why wasn’t this coming out right? He wasn’t trying to accuse her of anything, just trying to get to the bottom of her reasoning, or what passed for it. “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?”

      But she shook her head, refusing to accept absolution. “If something had happened to him, I couldn’t be hard enough to make up for that—”

      He sighed. They were veering off track. “Lacy— I had a right to know.”

      Her eyes met his for a moment before she began feeding Chase again.

      “Yes, you did,” she replied quietly. “I know that now and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But I didn’t want to spring a baby on you, not after what you’d told me. If you recall, at the time you said things like we weren’t right for each other and that I deserved someone who could give me a family. Something you made quite clear you weren’t willing to do. That’s why I believed that letter Janelle gave me, claiming you wrote it. The one that gave me the brush-off.”

      “This isn’t about Janelle. She duped both of us, not to mention the family and she’s going to be made to pay for everything she’s done. I wouldn’t have left you a note, but in a way…”

      “In a way?” She prodded him, feeling the heat of anger rising within her.

      This wasn’t coming out right. Talking wasn’t his long suit. He was just thinking of Lacy. “Forty-five’s a little old to start all over again.”

      Age was just a number to her. Other factors meant so much more. “Only if you want it to be. Twenty-five’s old if the circumstances arrange themselves that way.”

      She was trying not to let her temper get the best of her, but it was becoming very hard not to give in. Connor had deliberately turned his back on something wonderful because of a number.

      “The trick is not to let it be. The real trick is to want something so much that age or any other obstacle has nothing to do with it and isn’t allowed to get in your way.” She shrugged, telling herself it didn’t matter. Knowing she was lying. “You didn’t want any of this.”

      What he’d professed he’d wanted had no bearing on what was now a reality. “Still, it—he,” Connor amended, annoyed with himself at the slip, “is here and I have a responsibility—”

      Responsibility. It took everything she had not to scream. “God, you couldn’t have come up with a colder word if you tried, do you know that?”

      Women were creatures Connor knew he just couldn’t begin to fathom. He was better off with horses. At least there were manuals about dealing with horses. “What cold word? What are you talking about? The father of a child has certain responsibilities to that child—”

      Lacy fought tears. He didn’t have the vaguest idea what it took to be a father. What hurt was that he didn’t realize it. There was no point in getting angry, she thought. What was involved was beyond his comprehension.

      “Not any you’d understand,” she said dully.

      She was rambling again. He caught her hand as she was about to give Chase the last bit of the cereal. “What?”

      Her eyes on his, she waited him out. He released her hand. “You’re talking money, aren’t you?”

      Exasperation threatened to undo the calm exterior he was trying to maintain for the sake of the baby. “Yes, I’m talking money.”

      She started to say something, then thought better of it. It was like trying to explain the nuances of a piano keyboard to a man who was utterly tone-deaf. “No, thank you.”

      She was a little too quick to turn her back on his offer. It galled him.

      “And just how do you intend to pay for his food? His clothing? His education when the time comes?” Connor demanded, his voice rising. “The tooth fairy isn’t going to magically make it happen. Only money takes care of things like that—and I have money.”

      And apparently nothing else, Lacy thought. She looked at him, sorrow deep in her eyes.

      He didn’t know whether to be insulted or not. He settled for annoyed. “What?”

      Lacy pressed her lips together, shaking her head slightly. “Nothing. It’s just that for a little while back there, when I saw you walking from the car with our son in your arms, I thought you had something else to offer.”

      More fool she was for thinking so, she upbraided herself. When was she going to learn that she’d had a happier outcome than most? Her baby was alive and well and so was she. That was the most she could hope for. Happy endings only existed in fairy tales, and Connor had made it very clear what he thought of things like that.

      He blew out an angry breath. “Can’t barter with ‘something else.’” Connor wanted her to see reason. Was that too much to ask? “Money is what counts in this world.”

      An iciness slipped over her heart. Had she been so blind? So wrong about the man Connor O’Hara really was? “Do you really believe that?”

      “Yes.” He wasn’t a slave to money and it wasn’t his god, but he knew what the world was like, what happened to people who couldn’t pay. They did without and grew bitter in the end. Look what the desire for money had driven Janelle to do.

      If he only knew how much it hurt to hear him say things like that, Lacy thought. She’d been right to leave his ranch when she found out she was pregnant. There was no love in Connor’s heart, no compassion. And those values she wanted passed on to her son.

      Very quietly, she slipped the spoon into the bowl, then wiped the last of his breakfast from Chase’s face. “Then I guess there’s not much difference between you and Janelle, is there?”

      Now what was she talking about? He swore silently, feeling he couldn’t follow the conversation without a road map. Here he was, trying to make sure that Chase and she were provided for, and she was behaving as if he was trying to have her stoned in the town square as an undesirable. “I wouldn’t try to steal it.”

      “No, you wouldn’t. You’re much too honorable for that.” And that was just the problem. She didn’t want him being honorable, she wanted him being passionate, being moved that he had living, flesh-and-blood proof that he existed, that he could love.

      She supposed she was being naive again. Just like the last time.

      Connor resented the way she twisted what he was trying to say and do. “Why do you make honorable sound as if it’s a dirty word?”

      Megan picked that moment to sweep into the kitchen, curtailing the conversation.

      Drawn by the sound of Connor’s and Lacy’s raised voices, she’d