His Very Own Baby. Rebecca Winters

see nothing of a personal nature to tell her about the man who inhabited these claustrophobic premises. After moving a pile of notebooks from a chair, she sat down to wait.

      Much as she would have liked to explore his bedroom, she didn’t have the right. In fact by entering his abode uninvited, he could accuse her of trespassing.

      Blaire had no idea how he would react when he saw the liberty she’d taken. But with the rain falling harder now, surely she could be forgiven for seeking shelter.

      After a few minutes she got up to stretch her legs and discovered a huge map of the U.S. spread out on the built-in table next to the tiny kitchen. Curious, she made her way through the obstacle course to look at it.

      He’d drawn a pencil line from New York City to San Francisco. Over the line he’d applied various colors of magic marker like a continuous patchwork between the cities he’d circled in black: Warwick, New York; Laramie, Wyoming; Tooele, Utah; San Francisco, California. There was no color beyond Tooele, just the line. Above each color he’d made scientific notations she didn’t understand.

      Intrigued, she wasn’t aware of anything until the door was flung wide and she felt footsteps shake the floor. Suddenly Alik’s six-foot-two-physique dwarfed the interior of the trailer. The door closed behind him.

      Blaire didn’t know who was more surprised, but where she let out a quiet gasp before straightening, his bronzed, whipcord-lean body stilled in place. The incandescent blaze in those forest-green eyes was the only part of him that let her know he wasn’t an inanimate block of quarry marble.

      Through lashes as black as his overly long hair dampened by the rain, his gaze scorched its way up her silken-clad legs. Swallowing hard, she felt it skim the flare of womanly hips beneath her skirt. After a breathless pause, it wandered over the generous curves filling out her cotton sweater. When their eyes met again, she was quivering like a heavy dewdrop on a fragile petal.

      “I couldn’t begin to guess why you’re here,” his voice rasped, “but you know the way out.” After opening the door, he stood there with his arms folded across his chest.

      She’d imagined this meeting in her mind a thousand times at least, but nothing could have prepared her to deal with the extent of his deep-seated rancor.

      He despised her.

      “Alik—” His stance was so intimidating, she smoothed a lock of auburn hair behind her ear nervously. As she did so, his eye must have caught the glint of the diamond on her ring finger. The skin around his compelling male mouth seemed to whiten.

      “I—I can understand how angry you must be finding me here like this,” she began in a shaky voice. “But it was raining, and I was afraid I might miss you if I stayed in the car, so I—”

      “Get out of here, Blaire.” He didn’t shout the words. They were muttered beneath his breath like a curse.

      She reeled from the raw brutality of his demand. The man she would always love had changed into someone she didn’t know.

      No matter that she’d broken off their engagement for reasons he must never learn about, she couldn’t have imagined him treating her, or anyone else, with such exquisite cruelty. His capacity to inflict pain was a revelation.

      “I’ll go,” she whispered, “just as soon as I tell you there were consequences the night we slept together.”

      A palpable tension filled the devastating silence of the trailer. He shut the door, then leaned against it.

      Gathering her courage she said, “We have a son who was born on August 19th. He’s six weeks old, and was christened Nicholas Regan Jarman.”

      Next to telling him she couldn’t marry him, this was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do in her life. But now that she’d started, she had to see it through.

      “You have every right to know you’re a father, especially since I’m being married in two months and another man will be raising him.”

      It was a lie. There was no other man. There never could be another man. But it was imperative Alik believe she was engaged to someone else. Blaire’s aunt had let her borrow the ring she was wearing. She was on a precarious mission and needed it to authenticate her untruth.

      The white around his mouth spread to his face. The look of shock.

      “I happen to believe this kind of news should be delivered in person,” she continued. “Certainly you deserve that. But until Nicky and I both had our checkups yesterday, I wasn’t able to travel.”

      The sardonic slash of his black brows told her exactly what he thought of her fabrication. He moved away from the door and took a threatening step toward her.

      The motion drew her attention to the white T-shirt covering his well-defined chest, the powerful thigh muscles visible beneath his jeans. His utter maleness overwhelmed her. It had been so long since she’d lain against him while they’d kissed each other senseless.

      “If you had wanted me to believe this fantastic story, you would have brought the proof with you surely.”

      His biting mockery cut her like a knife. She sucked in her breath. “I would have, but he’s your mirror image. Since I’m positive no one around here knows about me or our past relationship, I tried to respect your privacy by leaving him with the hotel sitter. That way I wouldn’t embarrass you. Not even the two male students who pointed out your trailer to me know who I am.”

      His withering look sent her to the door.

      So far she hadn’t broken down, but if she remained another few seconds, the tears would gush and there wouldn’t be any way to stop them.

      “What you do with the information is up to you, Alik. I’m staying at the Bluebird Inn in Warwick until checkout time at eleven tomorrow morning. I—If you want to see your little boy,” she stammered, “I’ll wait for you that long.”

      After shutting the door quietly, she dashed to her rental car, but couldn’t escape a good soaking by the rain. She didn’t expect Alik to come after her, but some habits died hard as she watched for him through the rearview mirror until the trailer disappeared from her sight.

      Fear had warred with excitement over seeing him again. The tension had made her body so twitchy, her foot wouldn’t stay on the pedal. She took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down.

      You did it, Blaire. You told him the truth. No matter if you were taking an enormous risk, it was the honorable thing to do. Now it’s done.

      By the time she reached the outskirts of Warwick, the rain had turned to drizzle. She lowered the speed of the windshield wipers. At least she could see better than before.

      Yesterday she’d left San Diego under sunny skies. Only a mission as vital as this could have forced her to fly a second time to New York where she’d experienced the greatest pain of her life.

      She hated it here, and couldn’t wait to get back to California with her darling baby. As soon as she reached the hotel, she would confirm her reservation for the return trip home tomorrow afternoon.

      Finally the Bluebird Inn came into view. Anxious to hold Nicky and make sure he was all right, she pulled around the back and entered through a door located close to her hotel room on the second floor.

      It hadn’t been easy to leave him with a complete stranger, but the manager of the Inn had assured her the baby-sitter was a retired registered nurse with impeccable credentials. There’d never been one complaint about her in the three years she’d worked for them.

      Though it had frightened her, Blaire had been forced to trust the older woman with her most priceless possession. The visit to the site had only required that Blaire be gone two hours at the most, but it had still been a hard thing to do when she’d never been separated from Nicky before.

      For several reasons, she realized it wouldn’t have been fair to spring the baby on Alik from out of the blue.

      Certainly