Dreams & Desires. Kat Cantrell

you’re telling me that you’re ready to settle down?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe. There was a time when I never would have considered a wife and kids. Now it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.”

      He would make an excellent husband and father, and she envied the woman who snagged him. And she wished that it could be her. Even though she knew it was impossible.

      “As much as you love kids, I’m surprised you don’t have any,” he told her. “Just haven’t found the right man?”

      She hadn’t even been looking. “My patients are my children,” she said. “Besides, I’m only thirty-three. I still have a few good childbearing years ahead of me. Or maybe I’ll follow in my aunt Kay’s footsteps and never have any. God knows there are enough of us already. Another baby in the family would be like white noise. Especially a child of mine.”

       Eleven

      “Why is that?” Parker asked Clare.

      “Forget it,” she said with a shake of her head, as if she were clearing away an unpleasant memory. “It’s a long story.”

      Something told him not to push the issue of her family, but eventually they were going to talk about it, and he was going to get to the root of the problem. Even if he had to take drastic measures. The key to her heart was in there somewhere under all the baggage, and he was going to find it.

      But for now he would let it slide.

      “By the way, I noticed last night that the toilet in your bathroom was running like crazy,” he said.

      “I know. I have to call a plumber.”

      “You want me to take a look at it?”

      “You know how to fix a toilet?”

      “Yup.”

      “What kind of millionaire are you?”

      He laughed. “Not a very good one, I guess.”

      “You sure don’t act like a rich guy.”

      “Are you forgetting? I drive a luxury import.”

      “That you put a Santa hat and antlers on for Christmas.”

      He grinned. “I like Christmas.”

      “And you are the least pretentious person I know. There’s a rumor going around that you give a lot of your money to charity.”

      “My dad’s money,” he said. “And my reasons are not as philanthropic as you might think. I give his money away to charity because I know that’s the last thing he would want me to do with it.”

      “Not the charitable type?”

      “For him it was all about making more money. It was never enough. He died a very wealthy man, but his money never did anyone much good. Not even him.”

      “And now it does.”

      “Exactly. I may have to live with the millionaire label, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

      “So, when did you learn to fix a toilet?”

      “My father believed I should know everything about running his business, from the ground up. Including building maintenance. So instead of letting me volunteer for Greenpeace during summer break—which is what I really wanted to do—I was forced to follow George the maintenance guy around for three months. I thought it was all a total waste of time. As a doctor I wouldn’t need to know how to fix a toilet or unclog a drain.”

      “Unless your home toilet breaks and the plumber can’t make it over for a week.”

      “Exactly. Looking back, I’m thankful for everything I learned. I really have used a lot of that knowledge in my adult life. Not everything he taught me was a total waste of time. His tyrannical way of running his business taught me the best way not to talk to my staff. He thought that he was better than anyone who had less money than him. I was supposed to take over his business. Instead, I sold it all off before the body was cold.”

      Her brows rose.

      “I know that sounds crass, and probably a little selfish, but the offer was made and I took it. I never wanted his business. From the time I was small I was into nature and conservation. There was a time when I seriously considered becoming a veterinarian.”

      “No way.”

      “I loved animals, and it got me into trouble sometimes.”

      “How so?”

      “When I was a kid, maybe thirteen or fourteen, I got wind of a project my dad and his company would be working on. They were trying to buy land and develop on a nature preserve. I went on a campaign to stop them.”

      “You must have been a really confident kid to take on not only a huge company but also your own father.”

      “I’m not sure if it was confidence, stupidity or just a glaring lack of common sense, but when he figured out what I was up to he grounded me for a month.”

      “And you said that your mother wasn’t around?”

      “It was a pretty strange situation actually. My father hired my mother as a surrogate. He wanted an heir, a mini me, if you will. Long story short, they fell in love.”

      “Wow, it sounds like the plot of a romance novel or movie. What could be more romantic?”

      “Shortly after my birth she left us both for the limo driver.”

      Clare cringed. “Okay, so not that romantic,” she said. “How sad that must have been for your father, especially with a newborn baby.”

      “I think he was more angry than sad. For pretty much my entire childhood he drilled into me that women were all liars and cheaters and were not to be trusted. He considered them playthings.”

      “And you believed him?”

      “You hear something enough times, you can’t help but believe it. He more or less had me brainwashed.”

      One bad experience and Parker’s father felt the need to judge all women? “What a horrible thing to do to you,” she said.

      “I had money to burn, a career I loved and women champing at the bit, willing to do pretty much anything to land me. And I let them, knowing damn well I would never settle down. In my eyes, life should have been perfect. In reality I felt empty, and disgusted with myself. At that point I knew things had to change. I can’t really blame my mother for leaving,” Parker said. “If you knew my father you would understand why. To put it in simple terms, he was a bully. It was his way or the highway.”

      “So you’ve never even met her?”

      He shook his head. “I haven’t even seen a picture. I thought I might find some when he died, but he probably burned them.”

      “If she thought your father was that terrible, why did she leave you there with him?”

      “I’ve asked myself that same thing a million times.”

      “I just... I don’t understand. I’ll never understand how a woman could leave her own child.”

      “I’ll probably never know why she did it, but I’d like to think she left out of her love for me. That I was somehow better off without her. I guess I’ll never know for sure.”

      “You’ve never tried to find her? It probably wouldn’t be that difficult.”

      “I’m not difficult to find either.”

      There was so much buried pain and bitterness in those words it hurt her heart.

      “Why don’t we talk about something else?” he said, stretching out across the bed and pulling her