The Paternity Promise. Merline Lovelace

also started the wheels turning in Delilah’s fertile mind. His mother had begun dropping unsubtle hints in recent days about how sweet Grace was. How well she interacted with Molly. And just tonight, how good Blake had looked standing beside her at the altar. The fact that he’d begun to think along those same lines only added to the fury simmering hot and heavy.

      “Tell Grace I’ll be in the library.”

      For once Delilah was too tired to pry. She merely waved her shoes and continued up the stairs. “Will do. Just don’t keep her too long. She has to feel as whipped as I do.”

      She was about to feel a whole lot more whipped. Yanking on the ends of his black bow tie, Blake stalked down the hall to the oak-paneled library. The soft glow from the recessed lighting contrasted starkly with his black mood as he retrieved the report he’d stuffed into his pocket more than an hour ago. The facts were no less shattering now than they had been then. He was still trying to absorb their impact when Grace Templeton entered the library.

      “Hey, Blake. Delilah said you wanted to talk to me.”

      His eyes narrowed on the slender blonde, seeing her in a wholly different light. She’d changed from the lilac, off-the-shoulder tea gown she’d worn for the wedding. She’d also released her pale, almost silvery hair from its sophisticated upsweep. The ends now brushed the shoulders of a sleeveless white blouse sporting several large splotches.

      “’Scuze the wet spots,” she said, brushing a hand down her front with a rueful laugh in her warm brown eyes. “Molly got a little lively during her bath.”

      Blake didn’t respond. He merely stood with his shoulders rigid under his tux as she hitched a hip on the wide, rolled arm of the library’s sofa.

      “What did you want to talk about?”

      Only then did she pick up on his silence. Or maybe it was his stance. Her head tilting, she gave him a puzzled half smile.

      “Something wrong?”

      He countered her question with one of his own. “Did you happen to notice the man who arrived at the reception just before Alex and Julie left?”

      “The guy in the brown suit?” She nodded slowly, still trying to gauge his odd mood. “I saw him, and couldn’t help wondering who he was. He looked so out of place among the other guests.”

      “His name’s Del Jamison.”

      Her brow creased. Blake guessed she was mentally sorting through the host of people she’d met during her stint as Molly’s temporary nanny. When she drew a blank, he supplied the details.

      “Jamison’s a private investigator. The one Alex and I hired to help search for Molly’s mother.”

      She was good, he thought savagely. Very good. Her cinnamon eyes transmitted only a flicker of wariness, quickly suppressed, but she couldn’t keep the color from leaching out of her cheeks. The sudden pallor gave him a vicious satisfaction.

      “Oh, right.” The shrug was an obvious attempt at nonchalance. “He was down in South America, wasn’t he? Checking the places where Julie worked last year?”

      “He was, but after Julie made it clear she wasn’t Molly’s mother, Jamison decided to check another lead. In California.”

      She couldn’t hide her fear now. It was there in the quick hitch in her breath, the sudden stillness.

      “California?”

      “I’ll summarize his report for you.” Blake used his courtroom voice. The one he employed when he wanted to drive home a point. Cool, flat, utterly devoid of emotion. “Jamison discovered the woman I was told had died in a fiery bus crash was not, in fact, even on that bus. She didn’t die until almost a year later.”

      The same woman he’d had a brief affair with. The woman who’d disappeared from his life with no goodbye, no note, no explanation of any kind. Aided and abetted, he now knew, by this brown-eyed, soft-spoken schemer who’d wormed her way into his mother’s home.

      And into Blake’s consciousness, dammit. Every level of it. As disgusted by her duplicity as by the hunger she’d begun to stir in him, he stalked across the room. She sprang to her feet at his approach and tried to brazen it out.

      “I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

      Still he didn’t lose control. But his muscles quivered with the effort of keeping his hands off her.

      “According to Jamison, this woman gave birth to a baby girl just weeks before she died.”

      His baby! His Molly!

      “She also had a friend who showed up at the hospital mere hours before her death.” He planted his fists on the sofa arm, boxing her in, forcing her to lean back. “A friend with pale blond hair.”

      “Blake!” The gold-flecked brown eyes he’d begun to imagine turning liquid with desire widened in alarm. “Listen to me!”

      “No, Grace—if that’s really your name.” His temper slipped through, adding a whiplash to his voice. “You listen, and listen good. I don’t know how much you figured you could extort from our family, but the game ends now.”

      “It’s not a game,” she gasped, bent at an awkward angle.

      “No?”

      “No! I don’t want your money!”

      “What do you want?”

      “Just… Just…!” She slapped her palms against his shirtfront. “Oh, for Pete’s sake! Get off me.”

      He didn’t budge. “Just what?”

      “Dammit!” Goaded, she bunched a fist and pounded his chest. Her fear was gone. Fury now burned in her cheeks. “All I wanted, all I cared about, was making sure Molly had a good home!”

      Slowly, Blake straightened. Just as slowly, he moved back a step and allowed her only enough space to push upright. Slapping a rigid lid on his anger, he folded his arms and locked his gaze on her face. Assessing. Considering. Evaluating.

      “Let’s start at the beginning. Who the hell are you?”

      Grace balanced precariously on the sofa arm, her thoughts chaotic. After all she’d been through! So much fear and heartache. Now this? Just when she’d started to breathe easy for the first time in months. Just when she’d thought she and this man might…

      “Who are you?”

      He repeated the question in what she’d come to think of as his counselor’s voice. She’d known Blake Dalton for almost two months now. In that time she’d learned to appreciate his even temperament. She admired even more his ability to smoothly, calmly arbitrate between his more outspoken twin and their equally strong-willed mother.

      Oh, God! Delilah!

      Grace cringed inside at the idea of divulging even part of the sordid truth to the woman who’d become as much of a friend as an employer. Sick at the thought, she lifted her chin and met Blake’s cold, unwavering stare.

      “I’m exactly who I claim to be. My name is Grace Templeton. I teach… I taught,” she corrected, her throat tight, “junior high social studies in San Antonio until a few months ago.”

      She paused, trying not to think of the life she’d put on hold, forcing herself to blank out the image of the young teens she took such joy in teaching.

      “Until a few months ago,” Blake repeated in the heavy silence, “when you asked for an extended leave of absence to take care of a sick relative. That’s the story you gave us, isn’t it? And the principal of your school?”

      She knew they’d checked her out. Neither Delilah nor her sons would allow a stranger near the baby unless they’d vetted her. But Grace had become so adept these past years at weaving just enough truth in with the lies that she’d passed their screening.