The Baby They Both Loved. Nikki Benjamin

walked out.

      Kit wasn’t sure how she had expected Simon to respond to her revelations. Listening to the echo of the door slamming shut, she knew only that the pain shadowing his gaze in those last moments before he’d left hadn’t been feigned. In fact, the honesty of his anguish had taken her totally and completely by surprise.

      She had already acknowledged the possibility that he hadn’t heard about Lucy’s death. And considering his past history with her, Kit had assumed the news would cause him at least a small measure of dismay. But the look on his face had revealed a much deeper torment.

      How could that possibly be when he had abandoned Lucy almost three years ago, then hadn’t shown the least bit of interest in her welfare or that of his child any time since?

      In fact, Simon’s reaction had been more in line with that of a man who had not only just discovered that he had a son, but also that the love of his life had died. That level of devastation didn’t make the least bit of sense to Kit. She knew that Lucy had told Simon she was pregnant. Lucy had said as much to Kit three years ago. And instead of providing for Lucy and the baby, Simon had left her to cope alone.

      How could he now act like the injured party? It just didn’t make any sense.

      And, of course, he would walk away without a single word of explanation. Although that particular response wasn’t quite as surprising to Kit as it could have been. He had walked away from his responsibilities once already, and he had stayed away three long years.

      Only this time Kit had a feeling Simon Gilmore wasn’t going to disappear completely. There had been something about the look in his eyes before he’d finally left the diner that had warned her he would be back again. He would want to think before he acted, but when he acted—

      “So the prodigal son has come back to town, and about time, too,” Winifred Averill said as she stepped up to the counter. “Can’t say I’m surprised. ’Course, he didn’t stick around here very long once he caught sight of the youngster, did he?”

      “Not very long at all,” Kit agreed.

      Drawn from her reverie, she tossed the damp cloth into the sink under the counter and crossed to the cash register to ring up the elderly woman’s bill.

      “Sorry I never got back to your table with the coffeepot.”

      “I didn’t really need any more caffeine. I’m jittery enough as it is. Anyway, you had your hands full.” Mrs. Averill chuckled as she dug her coin purse from the pocket of her denim jacket.

      “Yes, actually I did.”

      “I expect he’ll be back soon enough. Best you be prepared,” the elderly woman advised with a knowing look, as she paid her bill.

      The ding of the bell over the diner’s front door as Winifred turned away from the counter had Kit looking up with apprehension. She knew she would have to face Simon again eventually, but she had hoped it wouldn’t be quite so soon.

      To her relief, it was Bonnie Lennox, her friend and part-time waitress, who sailed into the diner, her blond curls bouncing on her shoulders, her brown eyes bright and cheerful.

      “Hello, all,” Bonnie called out.

      The few remaining customers sent out a chorus of greetings, while Mrs. Averill gave her a friendly pat on the arm as she passed by on her way out. Kit shot her friend a grateful smile, then crossed to the playpen, scooped Nathan into her arms and gave him a hug.

      “Busy morning?” Bonnie asked as she grabbed a red apron from the hook just inside the kitchen doorway and tied it over her denim skirt and navy T-shirt.

      “Not too bad. How was Allison’s graduation?”

      “She looked so cute in her little cap and gown, and she won an award for best artwork.” Bonnie’s grin couldn’t have been any prouder, but then a worried frown creased her forehead as her expression turned serious. “I thought I saw Simon Gilmore sitting in a black SUV parked at the curb half a block down the street. Were my eyes deceiving me, or has he dared to show his handsome face in town again?”

      “Oh, he’s definitely back in town. In fact, he was just in the Dinner Belle a few minutes ago,” Kit said.

      “And?” Bonnie prompted, eyeing Kit with obvious dismay.

      “He didn’t know about Lucy.”

      “Did he see Nathan?”

      “Yes, he saw Nathan, but he seemed really…shocked. Like he didn’t know his own son existed.”

      “How could that possibly be?”

      “I don’t honestly know. But the way he acted today didn’t jibe at all with the way Lucy said he acted three years ago.”

      “What did he say?” Bonnie asked.

      “Not a lot,” Kit replied. “Mostly he just asked questions. He seemed surprised by my answers, too. Very surprised. But he didn’t offer an explanation of any kind. He just got up and left without a word.”

      “Do you think he’ll cause a problem with Nathan’s adoption?”

      “I don’t know,” Kit answered, averting her gaze as she headed back to the kitchen, Bonnie trailing after her in sympathetic silence.

      Only she had a feeling—a bad feeling—that she did know, and what she knew had her holding on to Nathan just a little tighter and with a lot more anxiety than she ever had before.

       Chapter Two

       S everal realizations spun out one after another in Simon Gilmore’s mind, rolling and tumbling into a stunning confusion of incredibly unbelievable information. Time ticked away slowly, one minute to the next, but he couldn’t stir himself to do anything more than sit at the steering wheel of his shiny new SUV and stare out the windshield, his gaze unfocused.

      With a few devastatingly simple statements, Kit Davenport had turned his blissful little world upside down. Seeing her in the diner had triggered a youthful exuberance in him, and kissing her had seemed only natural. But then she’d brought him up to date quickly and concisely. Each of her revelations had been upsetting individually—taken altogether, the intensity of them had numbed him, heart and soul.

      To hear that lovely, lively Lucy Kane had died suddenly, tragically, in an automobile accident saddened Simon deeply. Though she cut him to the quick three years ago, they had shared a lot of good times together. And lately the pain of their last parting had tempered so that the mere thought of her no longer caused his gut to twist in anguish.

      He had actually been looking forward to seeing her again during his unexpected and hastily arranged trip home. Finally ready to move past her betrayal of his trust, he had hoped to gain the closure he needed to the relationship they’d once shared.

      But he was never going to see Lucy Kane again, and there would be no closure for him now. Instead he found himself standing on the edge of a precipice with unforeseen and truly incredible possibilities opening out before him.

      Simon had seen enough photographs of himself at an early age to know that the little boy he’d seen in the Dinner Belle Diner was his spitting image. He was also living proof that Lucy’s betrayal had been so much more deliberate and so much more despicable than he’d ever imagined.

      Nathan Kane had to be the child Lucy had carried during her pregnancy three years ago. But Lucy had looked him in the eye that long-ago August night and insisted the baby wasn’t his. She had urged him—oh-so-blithely—to accept the job he’d been offered as a photojournalist for the Seattle Post following his graduation from graduate school. She had even said that he shouldn’t give her or the baby another thought because there was someone else in her life she had come to love more than him.

      Had Lucy been telling him the truth as she thought she knew it? Simon wondered now. Had she really been having sex with another man that summer? She’d been so sure he wasn’t the one to get her pregnant, and