The Vicar's Daughter. Betty Neels

to be furious. And he had every right to be. His son had been kept from him, and someone was trying to kill him.

      But he wasn’t the only one someone was trying to kill.

      * * *

      HOURS BEFORE, the explosion had knocked Parker on his ass, literally. Sharon Wells’s announcement, that the baby was his son, had knocked him on his ass, as well, although he would have rather blamed it on the concussion. But he’d recovered quickly.

      Sharon was the one trembling now, as he held her arms. A diaper bag hung heavily from one of her thin shoulders, bumping against her side. She stepped back and jerked free of his grasp; apparently she was stronger than she looked.

      “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “This was a mistake....”

      “Trying to pass that kid off as mine?” he asked. “That was a mistake.”

      And why had she done it? What had she hoped to gain? If she had been hoping to force someone to marry her, Cooper or Logan would have been the better bet; they cared more about honor than he did. But, damn his short-term memory, they were already married.

      “He is yours,” she insisted. She held his gaze, her strange light brown eyes direct and sincere. “You can get a paternity test to prove it. Since we’re at the hospital, maybe they can rush the results.”

      He dropped his hands from her arms and stepped back. “You’re serious....”

      “It’s just a cheek swab,” she said. “It won’t hurt him or else I wouldn’t have suggested it.”

      Because she loved her son...

      Their son?

      He scrutinized her face. The women he usually dated wore makeup and dressed in clothes that flattered their figures. But with her enormous, unusual eyes and delicate features, she didn’t really need makeup. She was actually quite beautiful. And his pulse quickened as attraction kicked in, tempting him to see just what her figure was like beneath her baggy suit.

      Because of those eyes and that face and his sudden attraction to her, he knew he’d never met her before—much less been with her.

      “There is no way that I am the father of your baby,” he insisted. “I would not have forgotten you if we’d ever been intimate.”

      He wasn’t the careless playboy everyone thought he was. He didn’t have a slew of conquests whose faces he couldn’t remember.

      Her gaze dropped from his, and her face flushed. “But—but you have a concussion....”

      He shook his head, and pain from making the motion overwhelmed him. But he kept his legs under him this time and remained conscious. And finally the confusion from the concussion receded, leaving him angry.

      “There is no way that your child is mine.”

      “Take the paternity test,” she urged him. “Ethan is your son.”

      Like everyone else, she must have believed that he was such a playboy that he wouldn’t remember every woman he’d ever slept with, but his reputation was grossly exaggerated and mostly undeserved. Even with the women with whom he was involved, he always used protection. He couldn’t have gotten anyone pregnant. So she had to be playing some angle with him, running some scheme.

      Why? That paternity test she was urging him to get would only prove him right. So was she just buying some time? Was she just trying to distract him? What did she hope to gain? Did she want to collect the payout for his murder? From what Garek Kozminski had said, it sounded like a substantial amount.

      Maybe he needed to search that diaper bag and make certain that she didn’t have a weapon concealed. Or maybe a bomb. He reached for the strap of the bag, but his hand grazed her breast instead.

      Her already enormous eyes widened with shock.

      She wasn’t the only one surprised. Her baggy suit hid some curves. Parker was as intrigued as he was suspicious of her.

      “What—what are you doing?” she asked, her voice all breathy and anxious.

      “You’re trying to convince me that I made a baby with you and the concussion made me forget.” No wonder she had taken the opportunity to show up now after hearing the news reports about his condition. “The effects of this concussion aren’t going to last,” he continued.

      She nodded, either in agreement or because she was humoring him.

      How far would she go to humor him? And to further whatever her agenda really was? He wanted to find out. “My memory can be jogged,” he told her.

      “I—I still don’t understand,” she stammered.

      “Jog my memory,” he challenged her, as he cupped her shoulders and pulled her closer.

      Her eyes widened even more as she stared up at him. “Me? You want me to jog your memory?” she asked. “How?”

      “Kiss me.” But he didn’t wait for her to take his bait; he reeled her in first. He tipped up her chin and lowered his mouth to hers.

      Instead of jogging his memory, the kiss proved to him that he had never kissed her before—because it was all new. The silkiness of her lips, the warmth and sweetness of her breath as she gasped. He took advantage of that gasp to deepen the kiss, to slide his tongue inside her mouth.

      His pulse raced and his head grew light again, but he didn’t blame the concussion for that reaction. He blamed her. Because now she was kissing him back, her tongue sliding over his, her lips pressing against his. If her goal was just to distract him, she was doing a damn good job.

      He skimmed his hands up her face to that frustrating knot on top of her head. And he tugged her hair free so that it tumbled down around her shoulders. When he had first seen her, he must have still been half-blind from the concussion. Because there was no other explanation for how he hadn’t realized how beautiful she was....

      She was every bit as beautiful—maybe even more beautiful—than any other woman he had ever dated. But he’d never dated her before.

      It wasn’t just the first kiss with her—it felt bigger than that. More monumental. It was as if the earth was shaking beneath his feet.

      Or at least the building. The structure rumbled, and the windows rattled. There were no earthquakes in Michigan—so it had to be another explosion.

      Someone had set a bomb inside the hospital? Someone was so desperate to kill him that they were willing to risk the lives of more innocent people?

      Of this woman? And her baby?

      Smoke alarms blared, but the warning was too late. The bomb had already gone off. How many people had been hurt? And would more people be harmed trying to escape the hospital?

      The commotion in the hall was so loud that it affected his throbbing head. Voices rose in fear and confusion. Footsteps pounded as if people stampeded in their panic. He glanced toward the window that had rattled. Flames reflected back from the glass. Was it too late to escape?

      Or were they already trapped?

       Chapter Three

      The flames rose from the burning scraps of metal...of what used to be Sharon’s car. She remembered where she’d parked it—between the Mini Cooper that had rolled over from the force of the blast and the SUV that was already blackened from the heat of the explosion.

      She gasped as she peered out the window around Parker’s broad shoulder. Her heart pounded erratically. Well, even more erratically than it had when he’d kissed her. She couldn’t think about that kiss right now.

      She could think only about what could have happened to Ethan and her if they had been in that car. She pressed her hand over her mouth to hold back a scream of terror. The little boy was so smart and so sweet and affectionate. His life had barely begun;