The Paternity Proposition. Merline Lovelace

She flapped an impatient hand. “Did she admit to being Molly’s mother?”

      “No.”

      “Well, we’ll soon discover the truth of that! When is she going in to supply a DNA sample?”

      “She’s not.”

       “What?”

      Delilah’s small shriek startled the baby. Molly’s head popped up. She blinked and looked right, left, then right again. Driven by an instinct as nervous as it was protective, Alex reached for the child.

      “Here, let me take her.”

      Delilah unhooked the sling and let him extract the baby. When she saw his smile as he cradled Molly in his arms, she had to bite back an exultant whoop.

      She couldn’t have scripted this scenario any better! She was ready. More than ready. All those long, hard years hopping around oil fields and even harder years expanding Dalton International to its present level of operations had taken their toll. Delilah wanted to kick back. Enjoy the wealth those grueling years had generated. Lavish all her loving energy on her tall, handsome, annoyingly independent sons. On the baby Alex now cradled in his arms.

      “Tell me,” she ordered again. “What did Bartlett say? Is she the mother or isn’t she?”

      “I don’t know.” Frowning, he brushed a knuckle over Molly’s cheek. “I would have said no based on her initial reaction. But when I asked for a DNA sample, she got all huffy and hot-tempered.”

      “Ha! There you go! Refusing that simple request proves the woman’s got something to hide. Did you tell her our primary goal is to ascertain Molly’s parentage so we can do a medical history?”

      “Yeah, I did.”

      His knuckle made another tender sweep over the baby’s cheek. The sight would have filled Delilah with untrammeled glee if not for his grim expression.

      “I also offered to pay for a sample,” he related. “That seemed to set her back up.”

      “Then you didn’t offer enough.” The hard-headed businesswoman took precedence over Delilah’s rampaging motherly/grandmotherly instincts. “Everyone’s got a price. You just haven’t found hers yet.”

      Alex knew she was right. He and Blake had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their mother as she’d faced down competitors who made the mistake of thinking they could prey on their father’s amiable good nature to cut into the Daltons’ growing empire. Delilah had taught her sons to move in, take over, and leave no prisoners behind. As a result Dalton International had gobbled up their competition over the years, including any number of small, two-bit ventures like Agro-Air.

      Their mother zoomed in on that like a crow diving on roadkill. “Did you check out this company she works for?”

      “Of course,” Blake answered. “We ran a complete financial analysis before Alex drove out to the Panhandle.”

      “And?”

      “Agro-Air is operating on a shoestring. The old timer who founded it …”

      “Careful!”

      “The, er, individual who founded it is a throwback by the name of Josiah Jones.”

      “Josiah Jones!” Delilah looked as though the floor had just rolled under her feet. “Aka Dusty Jones?”

      Alex settled the baby against his shoulder and shared a look with his twin. He couldn’t remember the last time either of them had seen their mother’s set back on her heels.

      “I think …” Alex said slowly. “No, I’m sure Julie mentioned that was one of her partners.”

      “Oh, Lord!”

      The two brothers locked gazes again. What the heck was this all about?

      “You want to tell us how you know this Dusty character?” Alex asked.

      The question seemed to shake her out of a trance. “We locked horns decades ago. Damned if I can remember why. But I do remember that bowlegged bastard could fly his rickety ole biplane like nobody’s business.”

      “He’s progressed from biplanes to single-wing PA-36’s.” A tight smile stretched Alex’s lips as he recalled the oil dripping from the Pawnee’s engine. “Still pretty rickety, though.”

      A familiar combative light leaped into their mother’s eyes. “And that’s who your one-night stand is partnered with?”

      “Her name is Julie,” he repeated tersely. “Julie Bartlett.”

      Almost purring with pleasure, Delilah eased the baby from his arms. Satisfaction radiated from her in waves as she tucked Molly back into the sling.

      “Unless the Dusty I knew forty years ago has shed his skin and grown a new one, he’s up to his elbows in one kind of trouble or another. Put that PI of yours on him. I’ll bet my new chinchilla coat you’ll find some leverage to hold over him and that tart you slept with.”

      “Julie,” Alex ground out. “Her name is Julie.”

      “Like I care?” With a wave to her sons, she headed for the door. “This is your daughter we’re talking about. Yours or Blake’s. So don’t screw around. Go for the jugular.”

      Alex took the elevator to one of the penthouse apartments on the top floor of the Dalton International building and put the rest of that afternoon and evening to productive use.

      He knew he’d inherited his mother’s killer instinct. More to the point, he itched to show a certain green-eyed, slender-hipped crop duster he was not someone she could eradicate from her life like she would a pesky aphid.

      Okay! All right! It was more than an itch. During the long drive back to Oklahoma City, it had become almost a compulsion. He could chalk it up to his naturally competitive nature but he knew that was only part of the equation. As she had the first time they’d met, Julie Bartlett had spurred a gut-level response in him.

      Once in his sprawling apartment with its panoramic view of the city, he splashed Crown Royal onto ice and settled at his desk. His first task was to turn his PI onto Dusty Jones as Delilah had suggested. It didn’t take long for Jamison to come back with a report on the crop duster’s personal ups and downs. Mostly downs in recent months, he related. Big downs.

      While that was in the works, Alex spent several hours at the computer. He and Blake had already run the stats on Agro-Air’s operations and revenue once. Wouldn’t hurt to dig a little deeper. By the time he called it quits sometime after midnight and hit the sack, Alex suspected he’d gathered more information about the company than its principal owner wanted either of his partners to know.

      Lacing his hands behind his head, he stared up at the moonlight streaming through the skylights. Now that he’d had time to sort through his roller-coaster day, he could admit the truth. It wasn’t his mother’s acerbic comments or his brother’s legalese or the all-consuming question of Molly’s parentage that had spurred all these additional queries. It was Julie Bartlett.

      The prickly, uncooperative, grease-smeared redhead had gotten under his skin this afternoon, even more than the pilot who’d snagged his interest in down in Nuevo Laredo. His bone-deep competitive instincts wouldn’t be satisfied until he knew whether she was or was not the mother of the child that might or might not be his. In the process, he might just finesse the woman into bed again.

      Yeah, right! Like he needed that complication in his life right now.

      On the other hand …

      Images from their night together drifted into his mind, came into focus, sharpened. Alex was damned if he could remember the name of the restaurant they’d eaten at or the motel across from the airport they’d adjourned to. But now that he’d seen Julie Bartlett again, he couldn’t get the vivid, 3-D image of her naked and flushed with desire out of his head.