His Child. Delores Fossen

myself from being kidnapped. I can’t stop them from violating me and using me as some pawn in their sick game.”

      The burst of emotion left as quickly as it came. She sagged against the wall. “Will you please just go?”

      “Not yet.” He roughly cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Give me one good reason why I should believe anything you’ve said. I know who you are, remember? I know you worked at some sleazy joint where you probably turned tricks on the side or danced naked on tables for money.”

      Her mouth dropped open. “I was a cocktail waitress. Look at me, for heaven’s sake. Do I look like a hooker or exotic dancer?” Jake did look at her. She was still sickly pale, and it seemed as if she’d cut her hair with a dull weed whacker. Far from sexy. Still, there was something appealing about her. The mouth, he figured. It was full and sensuous. That mouth would attract some men. And her eyes. When she wasn’t ready to spit bullets at him, her eyes mellowed to a soft platinum color.

      His gaze traveled downward. Voluptuous, she wasn’t. Not by anybody’s standards. Her breasts were small, well-shaped, and because she obviously wasn’t wearing a bra, he could see her nipples pressed against the stretchy fabric of her top. After feeling his body clench, he decided it wasn’t good to look at her breasts. Jessie Barrett might be a natural-born liar, and pregnant, but for reasons he didn’t want to explore, his body seemed to respond to her.

      Her waist was small, as well. A flat stomach that made him wonder just how many weeks’ pregnant she really was. The jeans she wore gapped at the waist and barely skimmed over her hips. Her legs, like the rest of her, were slender. And long. She was easily five feet eight inches tall. He was just over six feet and didn’t have to drop his gaze too much to look her in the eye.

      Not that he especially wanted to look into her eyes.

      “Well?” she demanded.

      Jake realized she was still waiting for an answer. Somehow, he’d forgotten the question. “Well what?”

      She pushed out a frustrated breath. “Do I look like I could earn a living with this body?”

      Maybe not earn a living, but she could do a fair job of stirring him up. Best to keep that to himself. It’d been a long time since he’d felt a physical attraction for a woman. Any woman. He wasn’t about to let his libido stir him in her direction.

      She shook her head. “Don’t bother answering. I know what I look like, especially now. Trust me, you wouldn’t look much better if you’d been through what I have.” She gave a tired, cynical laugh. “You actually thought I was a hooker. What a joke. I don’t even like sex, and I haven’t been with a man in years.”

      It didn’t seem a subject he wanted to explore. With her, anyway. He liked sex. And missed having it. She reminded him of that.

      “Besides,” she continued, “my job and lifestyle have nothing to do with what went on at that warehouse.”

      Maybe. But he wasn’t about to discount it yet. “So you’re sticking to the story that this kidnapping really happened?”

      She squeezed her hands into fists, groaned in frustration and stormed out of the room. Jake followed her because he didn’t want her to try to escape again. He was still looking for answers, and she was his best bet. Maybe his only bet.

      He caught her wrist and whirled her around to face him. Not the best idea he’d ever had. It caused a major problem. Because of the way he turned her, Jessie really faced him. Right up close. Barely inches away. And her warm, rapid breath hit against his throat.

      Jake took in her scent, then. Not the smell of the cheap motel room, or even odors from the sweltering Texas heat outside. Her scent. A mingle of everything that was female. And something else. Something deeper, that he thought he might recognize but didn’t want to.

      Great. He was obviously letting this fast-breathing, skinny liar get to him. He couldn’t possibly recognize her scent because there was nothing about it to recognize. Nothing. He didn’t know her, and she only knew him in the confines of her warped imagination.

      Still, he felt the uncomfortable shiver go down his spine. It seemed a primitive signal that tried to override his common sense. Well, Jake had news for primitive signals—nothing overrode his common sense.

      Nothing.

      “How long are you going to hang around here and harass me?” Jessie demanded. She looked resolute enough. Her back was stiff, her chin up. Her eyes were focused and narrowed. But then he heard her swallow. She gulped. As if all of this closeness had some kind of weird effect on her, too.

      Jake shook his head to clear it. If there was some kind of odd feeling between them, he didn’t want to explore it. Not with this woman. “I’ll hang around and harass you, as you call it, until I get the truth.”

      “I’ve told you the truth, but you’ve chosen not to believe it. Well, you know what? That’s fine, as long as you get out of here and leave me alone. I think I’d like to have a nervous breakdown now and I can’t do that with you calling me a liar every few minutes.”

      “Your nervous breakdown will have to wait.” Jake glanced at the blue circle in the vial again, and then at her. He had some things to work out and there was only one place to start. With her. “Come on. I think I know of a way we can settle all of this right now.” He caught her by the arm, but she shook off his grip just as quickly.

      “What do you mean by come on? Do you honestly think I’d go anywhere with you?”

      “I don’t think you have a choice. I can still call the cops, remember?”

      She threw up her hands. “Then, why don’t you? Go ahead. I want you to do it. Since I don’t have a phone, that means you’ll have to go elsewhere to make that call, and elsewhere is exactly where I want you to be.”

      “I will be elsewhere. Soon. All I want is to get some facts straight, and we can do that with a visit to Cryogen Labs. If I remember correctly, it’s open until eight. We’ll have plenty of time to get there before they close.”

      “And just what would that accomplish?”

      “They can tell you to your lying face that my vials were destroyed four months ago.”

      Again, she gave him one of those gritty looks. “And? Why would I believe them, when I saw proof that one existed?”

      Jake tried to put a choke hold on what was left of his self-control. Somehow, he had to get her to confess that she’d lied, and yelling at her didn’t seem to work. Nor did intimidation. Actually, so far nothing had worked.

      “Look, this visit isn’t just for me,” he explained, forcing himself to calm down. “It could give you some peace of mind, too.”

      Her hands went to her hips. “How, pray tell?”

      “If you really believe this asinine theory of kidnapping and insemination, then it stands to reason that someone at Cryogen was in on this. Only a handful of people work there. You could see if you recognize them.”

      “I didn’t see their faces. They wore surgical masks.”

      Of course. What else had he expected her to say? “Maybe you could recognize their voices?”

      She rearranged her expression, apparently giving that some thought. “Maybe.” But then she shook her head. “I can’t go walking into Cryogen Labs. Someone wants to kill me, remember? It could be the people who work there.”

      “Oh, yes. That.” He didn’t intend to let her get away that easily, not when he was this close to the truth. “Well, I can’t imagine anyone trying to kill you with a witness around, and I make one heck of a witness. Don’t worry. Nothing bad will happen while you’re with me.”

      JESSIE DIDN’T HAVE a good feeling about this little trip at all, and Jake McClendon’s assurance was probably worth a thimble full of spit. Nothing bad will happen while you’re