The Cowboy's Son. Delores Fossen

dispute that. He’d loved Adam, too, from the moment that he learned Adam was his. Dylan hadn’t had to see him to know just how deep that love was. Still, that didn’t mean this woman had a claim to Adam.

      “Neither of us wants to lose him,” Collena added as if that would change his mind. It wouldn’t.

      “And you think the solution is for us to get married, even though we’re perfect strangers?”

      She nodded.

      He didn’t agree with her. It was an insane proposition. He couldn’t do it. Could he?

      Oh, man. He hated to even consider it, but Dylan went through a mental list of reasons why he shouldn’t. He had no idea who this woman really was. And even if she proved everything she’d said, it would still mean a marriage to a stranger so that he could keep his child.

      Dylan wasn’t sure he could go that far, nor was he sure he had to. There was rarely just one solution to a problem, even when that problem was as massive as this one appeared to be.

      “And what if I say no to your marriage proposal?” Dylan asked.

      She took a deep breath. “Then I’ll petition the courts to return Adam to me. In my car, I have all the documentation to prove that he’s mine and that the adoption was illegal. I’ve already retained an attorney. He could file my petition as early as tomorrow morning. In nearly all the Brighton cases, the illegally adopted children have been returned to the birth parents. And in those cases where they weren’t, it’s because both birth parents were dead.”

      Dylan felt the knot in his stomach tighten. Collena had obviously given this plenty of thought, but then, according to what she had said earlier, she’d had three days to absorb it. He was still trying to come to terms with it, and for him, it was a nightmare.

      The adoption attorney he’d used had sworn to him that there were no birth parents in the picture, that they were both deceased. Well, it seemed that either the adoption attorney had been wrong or he was a criminal.

      Or maybe this was simply a case of someone on the Brighton staff lying to his attorney.

      “In other words, if I don’t jump at the chance to marry you, you’ll try to cut me out of Adam’s life,” Dylan mumbled. “This is blackmail, pure and simple. If it’s money, you’re after—”

      “I’m not after your money. In fact, I’ll sign a prenup agreement and won’t use any of your income or resources for my own expenses. What I’m after is far more important than money. I want a decent life for my child. A life that includes me. You were born and raised here. You don’t know what it’s like to be considered trash.”

      That set off some alarms. Dylan stared at her. “And you do?”

      “I do.” She glanced away for a moment. “I had the misfortune of not being born in the right family. My son has the chance I didn’t, and I don’t want that chance taken away from him.”

      Neither did he. Nor did he want to consider what his own life would be like without Adam. Some way, somehow, he would keep him.

      “I trust that you don’t need an answer right now,” Dylan said.

      “Of course not.” She stood as if prepared to go.

      Dylan heard the slight static sound then, and he groaned. Someone was listening on the intercom. He’d forgotten to turn it off earlier when he’d rushed out to find the intruder.

      “This is private conversation,” he called out. He pointed to the intercom speaker so that his guest would know why he’d said that. No one confessed to the eavesdropping, but Dylan added, “Ask Jonah to come to my office. He’ll need to escort Ms. Drake to her car.”

      Dylan turned back to face her. “I need some time to think this through.”

      She nodded. “What you mean, is you need to consult your attorney.”

      “That, too.”

      “Go ahead. Talk to your attorney. I’m sure he or she will tell you what I’ve already told you—that I have a legal right to claim the child that was stolen from me.” She glanced at the picture that he’d turned facedown on his desk. “May I see Adam?”

      Dylan didn’t even have to think about it. “No.” He wasn’t ready to share Adam with this woman.

      Heck, he might never be ready to do that.

      She stared at him, as if she might challenge his decision, but she didn’t. “When we were by the stables, you said something about a killer. Is there some kind of threat to Adam?”

      Oh, hell.

      Dylan didn’t want to go there, because this was exactly the kind of fodder she could use if she challenged him for custody. “I’m a cautious man,” he said. “Adam is safe.”

      “But you said your fiancée and sister were murdered,” she reminded him.

      “I believe they were. But they have nothing to do with Adam.”

      “You’re certain?”

      “Absolutely,” he lied.

      But the only thing that was absolute was that the two people he loved the most—his sister and fiancée—had been murdered.

      Another girl, his high school girlfriend, had been viciously assaulted after Dylan had taken her to the prom. The incident had so traumatized her that she’d moved away from Greer. Dylan, too, had moved away for a while. To San Antonio, right after he graduated from college.

      For all the good it’d done.

      A woman he’d dated there had also been assaulted one night when putting her recycling bin on the curb. The police hadn’t been able to find the person responsible. Ditto for his prom date—no suspects and no arrests. And the local sheriff had ruled his sister’s and fiancée’s deaths accidental.

      But Dylan knew better.

      Those two car crashes had not been accidents. And neither had the other assaults. They were connected to him. He was the only common denominator.

      Since he was aware of that, he’d learned to take precautions, and he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to Adam—accidental or otherwise. In fact, that’s the reason he hadn’t been seriously involved with any woman since his fiancée’s death five years earlier. For whatever reason, it seemed as if someone didn’t want him to be happy in love.

      “If there’s a threat to Adam,” he heard Collena say, “then I need to know about it.”

      And Dylan decided to turn the tables on her. “You said someone tried to kill you after you gave birth.”

      She nodded. And swallowed hard.

      “Then maybe whoever it was will try to come after you again and finish what he started,” he pointed out.

      “No. The Brighton criminals were arrested. Some are dead and some are in jail.”

      Because he thought there might be doubt in the depths of her brown eyes, he pushed harder. “You’re absolutely positive that the police rounded up all of them?”

      “I’m as certain of it as you are of the fact that your sister and fiancée’s killer has nothing to do with Adam.”

      Touché. Under different circumstances, Dylan might have liked her.

      “So, why suggest marriage?” Dylan asked.

      “On paper, it’s the best solution. Adam will have two parents who love him. He’ll want for nothing. No shared custody. No one weekend with you, the other weekend with me. And if we’re married, if you legally adopted him, then there’ll be no way that anyone can cut either of us out of his life.”

      That last part sounded reasonable, but the whole picture had flaws the size of Texas. “And what about a loveless marriage? Do you really want that?”