The Baby They Both Loved. Nikki Benjamin

present situation easy for him. He hadn’t earned easy from her, and as far as she was concerned, he never would, no matter how her body betrayed her with girlish longing.

      The young man she’d secretly desired years ago had proven to have feet of clay. He had used Lucy, then abandoned her, and he would probably do the same to her if she gave him half a chance.

      “Looks like the soup is ready,” he said. “Do you want me to spoon some of it into the bowl?”

      “Yes, please.”

      Kit stood by in silence as Simon carefully filled the bowl halfway. Then she picked it up off the counter and carried to the table. She sipped a spoonful, testing to make sure it wasn’t too hot, then offered some to Nathan. Sitting with her back to Simon, she tried to pretend he wasn’t there. Finally he moved to the chair across from her and sat down with an audible sigh.

      “I didn’t know Lucy was pregnant with my child,” he said, his voice low but steady, commanding her attention with his simply spoken, and utterly unbelievable, statement.

      Kit’s first instinct was to lash out at him in anger. He had a lot of nerve saying such a thing to her. He couldn’t honestly think he’d gain ground with her by spouting such a ridiculous lie. She wasn’t stupid, after all, and she’d been Lucy’s best friend. There had been no secrets between them—not where Simon Gilmore was concerned.

      Remembering how upset Nathan had been the few times Lucy raised her voice in front of him, Kit managed to keep her emotions in check, however. There was no need to throw a tempter tantrum and cause the child to cry. Not when she could make her point just as forcefully in a calm, quiet manner.

      “Give me a break, Simon,” she said, her voice low, as well, but heavily laced with sarcasm. “You knew Lucy was pregnant when you left Belle three years ago. She told you about the baby the last time you were together, and you took off like a shot the very next day. You abandoned her and you abandoned your child and you didn’t give either of them a second thought. Don’t come around here now, trying to change history. It’s not going to work—at least not with me.”

      “I’m not trying to change history, Kit,” Simon insisted.

      Sitting forward in his chair, his hands gripping the edge of the oak table, he seemed unwilling to let the matter drop. Kit bit back another caustic comment with a grim twist of her lips, and glanced at him with exasperation, her look all but shouting “Oh, please.”

      “I’m not,” he said again, his voice suddenly turning hard and cold as steel. “It’s true Lucy told me she was pregnant the last time I saw her, and I did leave town the next day. But there’s something Lucy also told me that she evidently didn’t bother to share with you. It’s the real reason why I left town the way I did, and the main reason I haven’t really wanted to return.”

      “Lucy and I didn’t keep secrets from each other,” Kit insisted, making no effort to hide her continued distrust of him. “We were best friends…always.”

      “I didn’t think Lucy kept secrets from me, either, and we were a hell of a lot more than best friends. But I know now that she did.”

      “That doesn’t mean she kept secrets from me, too,” Kit shot back defensively.

      “Just hear me out, okay?” Simon pleaded, his frustration evident though his voice was still low. “Then you can decide how honest Lucy Kane really was with us.”

      “Okay, fine. Say whatever it is you have to say. Just don’t expect me to believe you,” Kit advised.

      With a negligent shrug of her shoulders, she turned her attention to feeding Nathan.

      “The night Lucy told me she was pregnant she also told me the baby wasn’t mine,” Simon began, only the slightest bit hesitant. “She said she’d been seeing someone else over the summer, someone she said that she loved more than me. She also told me he was the one who had fathered her baby.”

      Kit stared at Simon then, unable to hide her surprise. Lucy—seeing someone else? Impossible—

      “I didn’t want to believe her, Kit,” Simon continued insistently. “In fact, I refused to believe her until she looked me straight in the eye and said it all again, just as calm as you please. She told me to have a nice life in Seattle, then she gave me a little kiss on the cheek by way of goodbye. Talk about a kick in the teeth.”

      Simon’s version of how he and Lucy had parted company was too outrageous to even be considered. Yet the look of anguish Kit saw in his eyes before he glanced away was so genuine that she couldn’t dismiss what he’d told her. The thought came to her that he might just be telling her the truth, and with that thought came a cold rush of fear.

      Lucy hadn’t really wanted to go with Simon to Seattle. She had admitted as much to Kit more than once that summer. But would she have lied to him about her pregnancy so she wouldn’t have to? Though Kit didn’t want to think her friend could have been so cruel or so deceptive, Simon’s revelation had set off a tremor of uncertainty that was already beginning to shake her faith in her friend.

      “Yeah, I left Belle, Montana, in a rush, all right,” Simon added in a musing tone when Kit made no comment. Sitting back in his chair, he crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “I couldn’t get away from here fast enough. I wouldn’t have come back now except my parents called and told me I had some family business that needed tending. They didn’t give me any details, but I’m guessing they’ve been thinking what you and half the town must have been thinking of me lately. Only it’s not true, Kit. I didn’t intentionally abandon Lucy or my child. That’s not the kind of man I am, and you, of all people, should know it.”

      Mechanically, Kit finished feeding Nathan his soup, saying nothing though her thoughts whirled a mile a minute.

      She was no longer convinced that Simon was lying to her. He’d told his side of the story with too much sincerity for her to dismiss it as a fabrication. There was also no reason for him to go to so much trouble offering excuses. No one had asked him to take responsibility for Nathan’s welfare.

      Well, she hadn’t, and she wouldn’t in the future, but maybe his parents would. Only it wasn’t going to be necessary. Once the adoption was final, Nathan would be her child, legally, and she was more than capable of caring for him all on her own.

      Finally Kit glanced at Simon again as she helped Nathan take another drink from his cup. He eyed her stubbornly in return, still waiting for her to respond. She wasn’t sure what to say to him. The truth Lucy had told her was so different from his truth. Maybe it warranted repeating.

      “Lucy told me that you knew the baby was yours. She told me that’s why you left town. She said you didn’t want to be tied down to a wife and family. She bawled like a baby when she told me you’d gone, and she was miserable for a long time after you left.” Pausing, Kit frowned and looked away again. “It’s unlikely she was seeing someone else—highly unlikely. She was either with you or me or both of us that summer, and she was working at the diner, too. She wouldn’t have had time to fit in a secret lover, and if she had, I’m sure she would have told me. We were so close….”

      “I thought we were close, too, Lucy and I, but obviously I was wrong,” Simon said. “She lied to me, Kit, and she lied to you, too. You can either admit it to yourself, or not, but that’s the one basic truth in the whole damned mess she created.”

      “But why?” Kit demanded fiercely, suddenly more afraid than ever. “Why did she lie to us? She must have had some good reason.”

      If Simon was right about Lucy—if she intentionally kept him from his son—then he might actually have a legitimate claim to Nathan. He had already said he wanted his son. But he couldn’t just take him away from her. She was already his legal guardian and the adoption was very near to being finalized—

      “I don’t know why,” Simon admitted. “I’ve been trying to figure it out since I first saw Nathan standing in his playpen. She knew I loved her and she knew I wanted her to live with me in