Beauty and the Baby. Marie Ferrarella

trouble keeping his own counsel around her. “Does her mother know?”

      She shook her head. “I think Angela’s afraid of her mother.”

      “I’d be afraid of my mother if I was pregnant at fifteen.”

      She laughed. “If you were pregnant at fifteen, it would have made all the scientific journals.” Her grin broadened and she was relieved to be able to have something to laugh at. “If you were pregnant at any age, it would have made the scientific journals.”

      Carson gave her a dry look. “Very funny.” Maybe it would do Angela some good to talk to Lori, he reasoned. Girls in trouble tended to do drastic things. Minimizing his current program, Carson typed in something on his keyboard and brought up a directory. He scrolled down the screen. “Here it is, Angela Coleman.” Taking an index card, he jotted down the phone number for Lori, then handed it to her.

      She looked at the single line, then held the card out to him. “How about the address?”

      “Oh no, I don’t want you driving there in your condition.” When she turned to look at the screen, he shut the program.

      She frowned at his screensaver. “The DMV have a ban on pregnant women?”

      She was going to fight him on this, he just knew it. The woman didn’t have the sense of a flea. “Lori, it’s not the safest neighborhood.” He shouldn’t have to tell her that.

      “Angela lives there.”

      There were times he just wanted to take Lori by the shoulders and shake her. Because there were times that her Pollyanna attitude could put her in serious jeopardy. It was bad enough that she traveled here to work. He didn’t want her taking unnecessary chances by pressing her luck. “There’s nothing I can do about that. There is something I can do about you, though.”

      She knew he meant well, but good intentions still didn’t give him the right to order her around. “Slavery went out a hundred and thirty-seven years ago, Carson. You don’t own me.”

      He rose from his chair and looked down at her. “No, but I’m bigger.”

      Lori wiggled off the desk. And met him toe to toe, raising her chin defiantly. “Plan to stuff me into a box?”

      Damn but her chin did present a tempting target. So did her lips. The thought shook him and he blocked it almost immediately. But not soon enough to erase it or its effect on him.

      “If I have to.”

      And then her expression softened. He couldn’t tell if she’d been putting him on or not. Or was doing so now. “In your own twisted little way, you care about me, don’t you?”

      “Don’t overanalyze everything.” He didn’t want this going any further. “You’re carrying around my niece or nephew in there, that gives me the right to tell you not to be an idiot.”

      “You do have a way with words.” Lori looked at him for a long moment. Others might buy into his gruff routine, but she didn’t. She’d seen something else in his eyes. A man who didn’t know how to connect. Even though he sorely needed to. “You miss her a lot, don’t you?”

      Now what the hell was she talking about? It was getting late and he was in no mood for this. “Who?” he snapped.

      “Sandy.”

      The mention of his now five-year-old daughter took some of the fire out of him. He let his guard down an inch. There was no shame in admitting his feelings about the little girl. “Don’t get to see her nearly enough.”

      That was because he spent nearly every waking minute here, she thought. “Why don’t you take tomorrow off? I’ll cover for you. Go see your daughter.”

      It wasn’t nearly that simple. “I’ve got limited visitation rights,” he ground out.

      She’d forgotten about that. He’d told her about it during the only time she had ever seen him intoxicated. The terms of the divorce had just been worked out. Jaclyn in her wrath had hit him where she knew it would hurt the most. She’d used their daughter as a tool to get back at him.