Книга - Have Baby, Need Billionaire / The Boss’s Baby Affair: Have Baby, Need Billionaire / The Boss’s Baby Affair

Have Baby, Need Billionaire / The Boss's Baby Affair: Have Baby, Need Billionaire / The Boss's Baby Affair
Maureen Child

Tessa Radley


Have Baby, Need BillionaireBusinessman Simon Bradley agreed to let Tula Barrons and her infant cousin – a baby she claimed was his – stay in his mansion until he had proof of the little boy’s paternity. But having Tula under his roof revealed something unexpected – her father had nearly destroyed Simon’s business. The billionaire could have his revenge by seducing Tula and taking away the child she loved… but if he did, he’d lose all he’d come to care for. The Boss’s Baby Affair Nanny Candace Morrison knew billionaire Nick Valentine had been deceived – but not by her. So when Candace revealed her hidden intentions for his baby daughter, she was stunned by her boss’s fierce response to the truth – and to their undeniable chemistry. She would stop at nothing to prove her shocking claims about the little Valentine heiress, but would it make them a family…or tear them apart?










Have Baby, Need Billionaire



Maureen Child







The Boss’s Baby Affair



Tessa Radley
















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Have Baby, Need Billionaire



Maureen Child


“If you can’t be nice and at leastpretendto smile, you’ll just have to go away.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Simon had had enough of this. He wasn’t going to be chastised by anybody, least of all the short, curvy woman giving him a disgusted look.

He stalked across the small kitchen, plucked the baby from Tula’s grasp and held Nathan up to eye level. The baby’s pout disappeared as if it had never been and the two of them simply stared at each other.

In that instant Simon was lost. He knew even as he stood there, beneath Tula Barrons’s less than approving stare, that this was his son and he would do whatever he had to in order to keep him. If this woman stood in his way, he’d roll right over her without a moment’s pause. Something in his gaze must have given away his thoughts, because the small blonde lifted her chin, met his eyes in a bold stare and told him silently that she wouldn’t give an inch. Fine. She’d learn soon enough that when Simon Bradley entered a contest—he never lost.


Dear Reader,

All writers are different. But for me, when I’ve finished writing a book, I’m satisfied with the way my characters’ story has played out and I’m ready to move on.

Usually. But Tula Barrons was different. Tula first showed up in my story The Wrong Brother. Tula was my heroine Annie’s best friend. And I loved her so much, I couldn’t let her go until she had a story of her own.

So in Have Baby, Need Billionaire, Tallulah “Tula” Barrons gets her hero. Tula didn’t have a great childhood, but she does have the best attitude ever. She’s made her own life and she’s happy with it. Until she inherits a baby and falls in love with that little boy’s father. Simon Bradley doesn’t know what hit him. Finding a son he didn’t know about is a surprise, but the baby’s guardian is the one who knocks him for a loop.

Simon is a rules guy. Tula has never met a rule she didn’t break. Simon likes order and Tula thrives on chaos. Bringing these two very opposite people together was a lot of fun for me. And this time, when the book was finished, I was happy with Tula’s story. I hope you are, too!

Follow me on Facebook, visit my website at www.maureenchild.com or write to me at PO Box 1883, Westminster, CA 92684-1883, USA.

Happy reading!

Maureen




About the Author


MAUREEN CHILD is a California native who loves to travel. Every chance they get, she and her husband are taking off on another research trip. The author of more than sixty books, Maureen loves a happy ending and still swears that she has the best job in the world. She lives in southern California with her husband, two children and a golden retriever with delusions of grandeur. Visit Maureen’s website at www.maureenchild.com.


For Carter

He’s never met the Lonely Bunny

But he loves the Little Critters




One


Simon Bradley didn’t like surprises.

In his experience, any time a man let himself be taken unawares, disaster happened.

Order. Rules. He was a man of discipline. Which is why it only took one look at the woman standing in his office to know that she wasn’t his kind of female.

Pretty though, he told himself, his gaze sweeping her up and down in a brisk, detailed look. She stood about five foot four and looked even shorter because she was so delicately made. She was tiny, really, with short blond hair that clung to her head in chunky layers that framed her face. Big silver hoops dangled from her ears and her wide blue eyes were fixed on him thoughtfully. Her mouth was curved in what appeared to be a permanent half smile and a single dimple winked at him from her right cheek. She wore black jeans, black boots and a bright red sweater that molded itself to her slight but curvy body.

He ignored the flash of purely male interest as he met her gaze and stood up behind his desk. “Ms. Barrons, is it? My assistant tells me you insisted on seeing me about something ‘urgent’?”

“Yes, hi. And please, call me Tula,” she said, her words tumbling from her delectable-looking mouth in a rush. She walked toward him, right hand extended.

His fingers folded over hers and he felt a sudden, intense surge of heat. Before he could really question it, she shook his hand briskly, then stepped back. Looking past him at the wide window behind him, she said, “Wow, that’s quite a view. You can see all of San Francisco from here.”

He didn’t turn around to share the view. He watched her instead. His fingers were still buzzing and he rubbed them together to dissipate the sensation. No, she wasn’t his type at all, but damned if he wasn’t enjoying looking at her. “Not all, but a good part of it.”

“Why don’t you have your desk facing the window?”

“If I did that, I’d have my back to the door, wouldn’t I?”

“Right.” She nodded then shrugged. “Still, I think it’d be worth it.”

Pretty, but disorganized, he thought. He glanced at his wristwatch. “Ms. Barrons—”

“Tula.”

“Ms. Barrons,” he said deliberately, “if you’ve come to talk about the view, I don’t really have time for this. I’ve got a board meeting in fifteen minutes and—”

“Right. You’re a busy man. I get that. And no, I didn’t come to talk about the view, I got a little distracted, that’s all.”

Distractions, he thought wryly, are probably how this woman lives her life. She was already letting her gaze slide around his office rather than getting to the point of her visit. He watched her as she took in the streamlined office furniture, the framed awards from the city and the professionally done photos of the other Bradley department stores across the country.

Pride rose up inside him as he, too, took a moment to admire those photos. Simon had worked hard for the last ten years to rebuild a family dynasty that his father had brought to the brink of ruin. In one short decade, Simon had not only regained ground lost, thanks to his father’s sloppy business sense, he’d taken the Bradley family chain of upscale shopping centers further than anyone else ever had.

And he hadn’t accomplished all of that by being distracted. Not even by a pretty woman.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, coming around his desk to escort her personally to the door, “I am rather busy today….”

She flashed him a full smile and Simon felt his heart take an odd, hard lurch in his chest. Her eyes lit up and that dimple in her cheek deepened and she was suddenly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Shaken, Simon brushed that thought aside and told himself to get a grip.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tula said, waving both hands in the air as if to erase her own tendency to get sidetracked. “I really am here to talk to you about something very important.”

“All right then, what is it that’s so urgent you vowed to spend a week in my waiting area if you weren’t allowed to speak to me immediately?”

She opened her mouth, shut it again, then suggested, “Maybe you should sit down.”

“Ms. Barrons …”

“Fine,” she said with a shake of her head. “Your call. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Pointedly, he glanced at his watch.

“I get it,” she told him. “Busy man. You want it and you want it now. Okay then, here it is. Congratulations, Simon Bradley. You’re a father.”

He stiffened and any sense of courtesy went out the window along with his sense of bemused tolerance. “Your five minutes are up, Ms. Barrons.” He took her elbow in a firm grip and steered her toward the door.

Her much shorter legs were moving fast, trying to either keep up or slow him down, he wasn’t sure which. Either way, it didn’t make a difference to him. Beautiful or not, whatever game she was playing, it wasn’t going to work. Simon was no one’s father and he damn well knew it.

“Hey!” She finally dug the heels of her boots into the lush carpet and slowed his progress a bit. “Wait a second! Geez, overreact much?”

“I’m not a father,” he ground out tightly. “And trust me when I say that if I had ever slept with you, I would remember.”

“I didn’t say I was the baby’s mother.”

He didn’t listen. Just kept moving toward the door at a relentless pace.

“I would have worked up to that little declaration slower, you know,” she was babbling. “You’re the one who wanted it direct and fast.”

“I see. This was for my benefit.”

“No, it’s for your son’s benefit, you boob.”

He staggered a little in spite of knowing that she had to be lying. A son? Impossible.

She took advantage of the momentary pause in his forced march toward the door to break free of his grip and step back just out of reach. He was unsettled enough to let her go. He didn’t know what she was trying to pull, but at the moment, her eyes looked soft but determined as she met his gaze.

“I realize this is coming as a complete shock to you. Heck, it would be for anybody.”

Simon shook his head and narrowed his eyes on her. Enough of this. He didn’t have a son and he wasn’t going to fall for whatever moneygrubbing scheme she’d come up with in her delusional fantasies. Best to lay that on the line right from the start.

“I’ve never even seen you before, Ms. Barrons, so obviously, we don’t have a child together. Next time you want to convince someone to pay for a child that doesn’t exist, you might want to try it on someone you’ve actually slept with.”

She blinked up at him in confusion, then a moment later she laughed. “No, no. I told you, I’m not the baby’s mother. I’m the baby’s aunt. But you’re definitely his father. Nathan has your eyes and even that stubborn chin of yours. Which does not bode well, I suppose. But stubbornness can often be a good quality, don’t you think?”

Nathan.

The imaginary baby had a name.

But that didn’t make any of this situation real.

“This is insane,” he told her. “You’re obviously after something, so why not just spill it and get it over with.”

She was muttering to herself as she walked back to his desk and Simon was forced to follow her. “I had a speech all prepared, you know. You rushed me and everything’s confused now.”

“I think you’re the only thing confused here,” Simon told her, moving to pick up his phone and call security. They could escort her out and he’d be done with this and back to work.

“I’m not confused,” she said. She read his expression and added, “I’m not crazy, either. Look, give me five minutes, okay?”

He hung up. Wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the gleam in her blue eyes. Maybe it was that tantalizing dimple that continued to show itself and disappear again. But if there was the slightest chance that what she was saying was true, then he owed it to himself to find out.

“All right,” he said, checking his watch. “Five minutes.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath and said, “Here we go. Do you remember dating a woman named Sherry Taylor about a year and a half ago?”

A thin thread of apprehension slithered through Simon as he searched his memory. “Yes,” he said warily.

“Well … I’m Sherry’s cousin, Tula Barrons. Actually, Tallulah, named after my grandmother, but that’s such a hideous name that I go by Tula….”

He was hardly listening to her now. Instead his mind was focused on those nebulous memories of a woman in his past. Was it possible?

She took another steadying breath and said, “I know this is hard to take in, but while you two were together, Sherry got pregnant. She gave birth to your son six months ago, in Long Beach.”

“She what?”

“I know, I know. She should have told you,” the woman said, lifting both hands as if to say it wasn’t her fault. “I actually tried to convince her to tell you, but she said she didn’t want to intrude on your life or anything, so …”

Intrude on his life.

That was an understatement. God, he could barely remember what the woman looked like. Simon rubbed at the spot between his eyes as if somehow that might clear up the foggy memories. But all he came up with was a vague image of a woman who had been in and out of his life in about two weeks’ time.

And while he’d gone on his way without a backward glance, she’d been pregnant? With his child? And didn’t even bother to tell him?

“What? Why? How?”

“All very good questions,” she said, smiling at him again, this time in a sympathetic fashion. “I’m really sorry this is such a shock, but—”

Simon wasn’t interested in her sympathy. He wanted answers. If he really did have a son, then he needed to know everything.

“Why now?” he demanded. “Why did your cousin wait until now to tell me, and why isn’t she here herself?”

Her eyes filmed over and he had the horrifying thought that she was going to cry. Damn it. He hated when women cried. Made a man feel completely helpless. Not something he enjoyed at all. But a moment later, the woman had gotten control of her emotions and managed to stem the tide of those tears. Her eyes still glittered with them, but she refused to let them fall and Simon found, unexpectedly, that he admired her for it.

“Sherry died a couple of weeks ago,” she said softly.

Another quick jolt of surprise in a morning that felt full of them. “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing it sounded lame and clichéd, but what else was there to say?

“Thanks,” she said. “It was a car accident. She died instantly.”

“Look, Ms. Barrons …”

She sighed. “If I beg, will you please call me Tula?”

“Fine. Tula,” he amended, thinking it really was the least he could do, considering. For the first time in a very long time, Simon had been caught completely off guard.

He wasn’t sure how to react. His instinct, of course, was to find this baby and if it was his son, to claim him. But all he had was this stranger’s word, along with memories that were too obscure to trust. Why in the hell would a woman get pregnant and not tell the baby’s father? Why wouldn’t she have come to him if that child really was his?

He scrubbed one hand across his jaw. “Look, I’m sorry to say, I don’t really remember much about your cousin. We weren’t together long. I don’t see why you’re so sure this baby is mine.”

“Because Sherry named you on the baby’s birth certificate.”

“She gave the baby my name and didn’t bother to tell me?” He didn’t even know what to say to that.

“I know,” she said, her tone soothing.

He didn’t want to be soothed. Or understood. “She could have put anyone’s name down,” he pointed out.

“Sherry didn’t lie.”

Simon laughed at the ridiculousness of that statement. “Is that right?”

Tula winced. “All right, fine. She lied to you, but she wouldn’t have lied to her son. She wouldn’t have lied about Nathan’s name.”

“Why should I believe that the boy is mine?”

“You did have sex with her?”

Scowling, Simon admitted, “Well, yes, I did, but—”

“And you do know how babies are made, right?”

“That’s very amusing.”

“I’m not trying to be funny,” she told him. “Just honest. Look, you can do a paternity test, but I can tell you that Sherry would never have named you as Nathan’s father in her will if she wasn’t sure.”

“Her will?” The silent clang of a warning bell went off in his mind.

“Didn’t I already tell you that part?”

“No.”

She shook her head and dropped into one of the chairs angled in front of his desk. “Sorry. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, what with Sherry’s accident and arranging the funeral and closing up her house and moving the baby up here to my house in Crystal Bay.”

Sensing that this was going to go on far longer than the original five minutes he’d allowed her, Simon walked around the edge of his desk and took a seat. At the very least, he was now in the position of power. He watched the pretty blonde and asked, “What about the will?”

Tula reached into the oversize black leather bag she had slung over her shoulder. She pulled out a large manila envelope and dropped it onto his desk. “That’s a copy of Sherry’s will. If you look, you’ll see that I’ve been named temporary guardian of Nathan. Until I’m sure that you’re ready to be the baby’s father.”

Her voice, her words, were no more than a buzz of sound in his head. He read through the will quickly, scanning until he found the provisions for the child Sherry had named as his. Custody of minor, Nathan Taylor, goes to the child’s father, Simon Bradley.

He sat back in his chair and kept rereading those words until he was fairly certain they’d been burned into his brain. Was this true? Was he a father?

Lifting his gaze to hers, Simon found Tula Barrons studying him through those wide, brilliant blue eyes. She was waiting for him to say something.

Damned if he knew what it should be.

He’d been careful, always, in his relationships with women. He’d had no desire to be a father. And yet he had a vague memory of being with Sherry Taylor. The woman herself was hardly more than a smudge in his memories—but he did remember the night the condom had broken. A man didn’t forget things like that. But she’d never said anything about a baby, so he’d forgotten about the incident.

It was possible.

He might really have a son.

Tula watched as Simon Bradley came to terms with a whole new reality.

She gave him points. Sure, he’d been a little edgy, temperamental … all right, rude, at first. But she supposed that was to be expected. After all, it wasn’t every day you found out you were a father, for heaven’s sake.

Her gaze moved over him while he was reading the will and Tula had to admit that he wasn’t at all what she’d been expecting. She and her cousin Sherry hadn’t been close, by any means, but Tula would have bet that she would at least know Sherry’s taste in men.

And tall, dark, gorgeous and crabby wasn’t it. Normally, Sherry had gone for the quiet, sweet, geeky type. Simon was about as far from that description as a man could get. He practically radiated power, strength. Ever since she had walked into the room, Tula had felt a sizzle of attraction for him that she was still battling. She so didn’t need yet one more complication at the moment.

“What exactly is it you want from me?”

His voice shattered her thoughts and she met his gaze. “I should think that would be obvious.”

He dropped the sheaf of papers to his desktop. “Well, you would be wrong.”

“Okay, how about this? Why don’t you come out to my place in Crystal Bay? Meet your son. Then we can talk and figure out our next move together.”

He scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck. She’d dumped a lot of information on him all at once, Tula told herself. Of course he was going to need a little time to acclimate.

“Fine,” he said at last. “What’s your address?”

She told him, then watched as he stood up behind his desk in a clear signal of dismissal. Well, that was all right with her. She had things to do anyway and what more was there to say at the moment? Tula stood up, too, and held her right hand out toward him.

A moment’s pause, then his hand engulfed hers. Again, just as it had happened earlier, the instant their palms met a bolt of heat shot up her arm and ricocheted around her chest like a manic Ping-Pong ball. He must have felt the same thing because he dropped her hand and shoved his own into his pocket.

She took a breath, blew it out and forced a smile that felt wobbly. “I’ll see you tonight then.”

As she left, Tula felt his gaze on her and the heat engendered by his stare stayed with her on the long ride home.




Two


“How’d it go?”

Tula smiled at the sound of her best friend’s voice. Anna Cameron Hale was the one human being on the face of the planet that Tula could count on being on her side. So, naturally, the moment she’d returned from San Francisco and facing down Simon Bradley, she dialed Anna’s number.

“About as you’d expect.”

“Ouch,” Anna said. “So he had no idea about the baby?”

“Nope.” Tula turned to look at Nathan, sitting in his bouncy seat. The babysitter, Mrs. Klein, had said that the baby was “good as gold” the whole time she was gone. Now, as he bounced and pushed off with his toes, the springs squeaked into motion, jolting him up and down in the small kitchen.

Tula’s heart gave a little Nathan-caused twinge that she was starting to get used to. How was it possible to love someone so much in the span of a couple of short weeks?

“In his defense, it must have been a shock for him to be faced with this out of the blue,” Anna said.

“True. I mean I knew about Nathan and it was still a stunner when Sherry died and suddenly I’m responsible for him.” Although, she thought, it hadn’t taken more than five minutes for her to adjust. “But when I told Simon, he looked like he’d been hit with a two-by-four.”

“God, honey, I’m sorry it didn’t go well. So what do you do now?”

“He’s coming here tonight to meet Nathan and then we’re going to talk.” Tula thought briefly about the little buzz of sensation she’d received when he shook her hand and then pushed that thought right out of her mind. There was already plenty going on at the moment. She so didn’t need anything else to think about.

But her mind couldn’t quite keep from remembering him as he stood over her, all fierce and furious.

“He’s going to your house?” Anna asked.

Tula shook her head and paid attention. “Yeah, why?”

“Nothing. But maybe I could come over and help you get ready.”

She knew exactly what Anna was thinking and Tula couldn’t help laughing. “You are not coming over to clean my house. He’s not visiting royalty or something.”

Anna laughed, too. “Fine. Just warn him when he walks in to watch where he steps.”

Tula stepped away from the kitchen counter and shot a look into her tiny living room. Toys littered the floor, her laptop was sitting open on the coffee table and her latest manuscript was beside it. She was doing revisions for her editor and when she was working, other things—like picking up clutter—tended to go by the wayside.

Shrugging, she silently admitted that though her house was clean, it did tend to get a little messy. Especially now that she had Nathan living with her. She hadn’t had any idea just how much stuff came along with a baby.

“Why did I call you again?” Tula asked.

“Because I’m your best friend and you know you need me.”

“Right, that was it.” Tula smiled and reached out one hand to smooth the wispy hairs on the top of Nathan’s head as he scooted past, babbling happily. “It was weird, Anna. Simon was crabby and rude and dismissive and yet …”

“Yet what?” Anna prompted.

There was a buzz of interest, Tula thought but didn’t say. She hadn’t expected it, hadn’t wanted it, but hadn’t been able to ignore it, either. The suit-and-tie kind of guy was so not what she was interested in. And for heaven’s sake, the last thing she needed was to be attracted to Nathan’s father. This situation was hard enough. Yet she couldn’t deny the flash of heat that had flooded her system the moment her hand had met his.

Didn’t mean she had to do anything about it though, she assured herself firmly.

“Hello?” Anna said. “Finish what you were saying! What comes after the ‘yet’?”

“Nothing,” Tula said with sudden determination. One thing she didn’t need was to indulge in an attraction for a man she had nothing in common with but a baby they were both responsible for. “Absolutely nothing.” “And you expect me to just accept that?” “As my friend, I’m asking you to, yeah.” Anna sighed dramatically. “Fine. I will. For now.” “Thanks.” She’d accept the reprieve, even though she knew that Anna wouldn’t let it go forever. “So what’re you going to do tonight?” “Simon comes here and we talk about Nathan. Set something up so that he can get to know the baby and I can watch them together. I can handle Simon,” she said a moment later and wasn’t sure whether she was trying to convince Anna or herself. “I grew up around men like him, remember?”

“Tula, not every man who wears a suit is like your dad.”

“Not all,” she allowed, “but most.” She was in the position to know. Her entire family had practically been born wearing business suits. They lived stuffy, insular lives built around making and keeping money. Tula was half convinced that they didn’t even know a world existed beyond their own narrow portion of it.

For example, she knew what Simon Bradley would think of her tiny, cluttered, bayside home because she knew exactly what her father would have thought of it—if he’d ever deigned to visit. He would have thought it too old, too small. He would have hated the bright blue walls and yellow trim in the living room. He’d have loathed the mural of the circus that decorated her bathroom wall. Mostly though, he would have seen her living there as a disgrace.

She had the distinct impression that Simon wouldn’t be any different.

“Look, the reality is it doesn’t matter what Nathan’s father thinks of me or my house. Our only connection is the baby.” As she spoke, she told her hormones to listen up. “So I’m not going to put on a show and change my life in any way to try to convince a man I don’t even know that I am who I’m not.”

A long second passed, then Anna laughed gently. “What does it say about me that I completely under stood that?”

“That we’ve been friends too long?”

“Probably,” Anna agreed. “Which is how I know you’re making rosemary chicken tonight.”

Tula smiled. Anna did know her too well. Rosemary chicken was her go-to meal when she was having company. And unless Simon was a vegetarian, every thing would go great. Oh, God—what if he was a vegetarian? No, she thought. Men like him did lunch at steak houses with clients. “You’ve got me there. And once we have dinner, I’ll talk to Simon about setting up a schedule for him to get to know Nathan.”

“You?” Anna laughed. “A schedule?”

“I can be organized,” she argued, though her words didn’t carry a lot of confidence. “I just choose to not be.”

“Uh-huh. How’s the baby?”

Everything in Tula softened. “He’s wonderful.” Her gaze followed the tiny boy as he continued on his path around the kitchen, laughing and making noises as he explored his world. “Honestly, he’s such a good baby. And he’s so smart. This morning I asked him where his nose was and he pointed right to it.”

Well, he had been waving his stuffed bunny in the air and hit himself in the face with it, but close enough.

“Harvard-bound already.”

“I’ll sign him up on the waiting list tomorrow,” Tula agreed with a laugh. “Look, I gotta go. Get the chicken in the oven, give Nathan a bath and … ooh, maybe myself, too.”

“Okay, but call me tomorrow. Let me know how it goes.”

“I will.” She hung up, leaned against the kitchen counter and let her gaze slide over the bright yellow kitchen. It was small but cheerful, with white cabinets, a bright blue counter and copper-bottomed pans hanging from a rack over the stove.

She loved her house. She loved her life.

And she loved that baby.

Simon Bradley was going to have to work very hard to convince her that he was worthy of being Nathan’s father.

The scent of rosemary filled the little house by the bay a few hours later.

Tula danced around the kitchen to the classic rock tunes pouring from the radio on the counter and every few steps, she stopped to steal a kiss from the baby in the high chair. Nathan giggled at her, a deep, full-belly laugh that tickled at the edges of Tula’s heart.

“Funny guy,” she whispered, planting a kiss on top of his head and inhaling the sweet, clean scent of him. “Laughing at my dance moves isn’t usually the way to my heart, you know.”

He gave her another grin and kicked his fat legs in excitement.

Tula sighed and smoothed her hand across the baby’s wisps of dark hair. Two weeks he’d been a part of her life and already she couldn’t imagine her world without him in it. The moment she’d picked him up for the first time, Nathan had carved away a piece of her heart and she knew she’d never get it back.

Now she was supposed to hand him over to a man who would no doubt raise Nathan in the strict, rarified world in which she’d been raised. How could she stand it? How could she sentence this sweet baby to a regimented lifestyle just like the one she’d escaped?

And how could she avoid it?

She couldn’t.

Which meant she had only one option. If she couldn’t stop Simon from eventually having custody of Nathan—then she’d just have to find a way to loosen Simon up. She’d loosen Simon up, break him out of the world of “suits” so that he wouldn’t do to Nathan what her father had tried to do to her.

Looking down into the baby’s smiling eyes, she made a promise. “I’ll make sure he knows how to have fun, Nathan. Don’t you worry. I won’t let him make you wear a toddler business suit to preschool.”

The baby slapped one hand down onto a pile of dry breakfast cereal on the food tray, sending tiny O’s skittering across the kitchen.

“Glad you agree,” she said as she bent down, scraped them up into her hand and tossed them into the sink. Then she washed her hands and came back to the baby. “Your daddy’s coming here soon, Nathan. He’ll probably be crabby and stuffy, so don’t let that bother you. It won’t last for long. We’re going to change him, little man. For his own good. Not to mention yours.”

He grinned at her.

“Attaboy,” she said and bent for another quick kiss just as the doorbell sounded. Her stomach gave a quick spin that had her taking a deep breath to try to steady it. “He’s here. You’re all strapped in, so you’re safe. Just be good for a second and I’ll go let him in.”

She didn’t like leaving Nathan alone in the high chair, even though he was belted in tightly. So Tula hurried across the toy-cluttered floor of her small living room and wondered how it had gotten so messy again. She’d straightened it up earlier. Then she remembered she and the baby playing after she put the chicken in the oven and—too late to worry about it now. She threw open the door and nearly gulped.

Simon was standing there, somehow taller than she remembered. He wasn’t wearing a suit, either, which gave her a jolt of surprise. She got another jolt when she realized just how good he looked when he pried himself out of the sleek lines of his business “uniform.” Casual in a charcoal-gray sweater, black jeans and cross trainers, he actually looked even more gorgeous, which was just disconcerting. He looked so … different. The only thing familiar about him was the scowl.

When she caught herself just staring at him like a big dummy, she said quickly, “Hi. Come on in. Baby’s in the kitchen and I don’t want to leave him alone, so close the door, will you, it’s cold out there.”

Simon opened his mouth to speak, but the damn woman was already gone. She’d left him standing on the porch and raced off before he could so much as say hello. Of course, he’d had the chance to speak, he simply hadn’t. He’d been caught up in looking at her. Just as he had earlier that day in his office.

Those big blue eyes of hers were … mesmerizing somehow. Every time he looked into them, he forgot what he was thinking and lost himself for a moment or two. Not something he wanted to admit, even to himself, but there it was. Frowning, he reminded himself that he’d come to her house to set down some rules. To make sure Tula Barrons understood exactly how this bizarre situation was going to progress. Instead, he was standing on the front porch, thinking about just how good a woman could look in a pair of faded blue jeans.

Swallowing the stab of irritation at himself, he followed after her. Tula wasn’t his main concern here, after all. He was here because of the child. His son? He was having a hard time believing it was possible, but he couldn’t walk away from this until he knew for sure. Because if the baby was his, there was no way he would allow his child to be raised by someone else.

He’d been thinking about little else but this woman and the child she said belonged to him since she’d left his office that morning. With his concentration so unfocused, he’d finally given up on getting any work done and had gone to see his lawyer.

After that illuminating little visit, he’d spent the last couple of hours thinking back to the brief time he’d spent with Sherry Taylor. He still didn’t remember much about her, but he had to admit that there was at least the possibility that her child was his.

Which was why he was here. He stepped inside and his foot came down on something that protested with a loud squeak. He glanced down at the rubber reindeer and shook his head as he closed the door. His gaze swept the interior of the small house and he shook his head. If more than two people were in the damn living room, they wouldn’t be able to breathe at the same time. The house was old and small and … bright, he thought, giving the nearly electric blue walls an astonished glance.

The blue walls boasted dark yellow molding that ran around the circumference of the room at the ceiling. There was a short sofa and one chair drawn up in front of a hearth where a tiny blaze sputtered and spat from behind a wrought-iron screen. Toys were strewn across the floor as if a hurricane had swept through and there was a narrow staircase on the far wall leading to what he assumed was an even tinier second story.

The whole place was a dollhouse. He almost felt like Gulliver. Still frowning, he heard Tula in the kitchen, talking in a singsong voice people invariably tended to use around babies. He told himself to go on in there, but he didn’t move. It was as if his feet were nailed to the wood floor. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the baby or anything, but Simon knew damn well that the moment he saw the child, his world as he knew it would cease to exist.

If this baby were his son, nothing would ever be the same again.

A child’s bubble of laughter erupted in the other room and Simon took a breath and held it. Something inside him tightened and he told himself to move on. To get this first meeting over so that plans could be made, strategies devised.

But he didn’t move. Instead, he noticed the framed drawings and paintings on the walls, most of which were of a lop-eared bunny in different poses. Why the woman would choose to display such childish paintings was beyond him, but Tula Barrons, he was discovering, was different from any other woman he’d ever known.

The child laughed again.

Simon nodded to himself and followed the sound and the amazing scents in the air to the kitchen.

It didn’t take him long.

Three long strides had him leaving the living room and entering a bright yellow room that was about the size of his walk-in closet at home. Again, he felt as out of place as a beer at a wine tasting. This whole house seemed to have been built for tiny people and a man his size was bound to feel as if he had to hunch his shoulders to keep from rapping his head on the ceiling.

He noted that the kitchen was clean but as cluttered as the living room. Canisters lined up on the counter beside a small microwave and an even smaller TV. Cupboard doors were made of glass, displaying ancient china stacked neatly. A basket with clean baby clothes waiting to be folded was standing on the table for two and the smells pouring from the oven had his mouth watering and his stomach rumbling in response.

Then his gaze dropped on Tula Barrons as she straightened up, holding the baby she’d just taken from a high chair in her arms. She settled the chubby baby on her right hip, gave Simon a brilliant smile and said, “Here he is. Your son.”

Simon’s gaze locked on the boy who was staring at him out of a pair of eyes too much like his own to deny. His lawyer had advised him to do nothing until a paternity test had been arranged. But Harry had always been too cautious, which was why he made such a great lawyer. Simon tended to go with his gut on big decisions and that instinct had never let him down yet.

So he’d come here mainly to see the baby for himself before arranging for the paternity test his lawyer wanted.

Because Simon had half convinced himself that there was no way this baby was his.

But one look at the boy changed all that. He was stubborn, Simon admitted silently, but he wasn’t blind. The baby looked enough like him that no paternity test should be required—though he’d get one anyway. He’d been a businessman too long to do anything but follow the rules and do things in a logical, reasonable manner.

“Nathan,” Tula said, glancing from the baby on her hip to Simon, “this is your daddy. Simon, meet your son.”

She started toward him and Simon quickly held up one hand to keep her where she was. Tula stopped dead, gave him a quizzical look and tipped her head to one side to watch him. “What’s wrong?”

What wasn’t? His heart was racing, his stomach was churning. How the hell had this happened? he wondered. How had he made a child and been unaware of the boy’s existence? Why had the baby’s mother kept him a secret? Damn it, he had had the right to know. To be there for his son’s birth. To see him draw his first breath. To watch him as he woke up to the world.

And it had all been stolen from him.

“Just … give me a minute, all right?” Simon stared at the tiny boy, trying to ignore the less-than-pleased expression on Tula Barrons’s face. Didn’t matter what she thought of him, did it? The important thing here was that Simon’s entire world had just taken a sharp right turn.

A father.

He was a father.

Pride and something not unlike sheer panic roared through him at a matching pace. His gaze locked on the boy, he noticed the dark brown hair, the brown eyes—exact same shade as Simon’s own—and, finally, he noticed the baby’s lower lip beginning to pout.

“You’re making him cry.” Tula jiggled the baby while patting him on the back gently.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You look angry and babies are very sensitive to moods around them,” she said and soothed the boy by swaying in place and whispering softly. Keeping her voice quiet and singsongy, she snapped, “Honestly, is that scowl a permanent fixture on your face?”

“I’m not—”

“Would it physically kill you to smile at him?”

Frustrated and just a little pissed because he had to admit that she was at least partially right, Simon assumed what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

She rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

He kept his voice low, but didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “You might want to back off now.”

“I don’t see why I should,” she countered, her voice pleasant despite her words. “Sherry left me as guardian for Nathan and I don’t like how you’re treating him.”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Exactly,” she said with a sharp nod. “You won’t even let him get near you. Honestly, haven’t you ever seen a child before?”

“Of course I have, I’m just—”

“Shocked? Confused? Worried?” she asked, then continued on before he could speak. “Well, imagine how Nathan must feel. His mother’s gone. His home is gone. He’s in a strange place with strangers taking care of him and now there’s a big mean bully glaring at him.”

He stiffened. “Now just a damn min—”

“Don’t swear in front of the baby.”

Simon inhaled sharply and shot her a glare he usually reserved for employees he wanted to terrify into improving their work skills, fully expecting her to have the sense to back off. Naturally, she paid no attention to him.

“If you can’t be nice and at least pretend to smile, you’ll just have to go away,” she said. Then she spoke to the baby. “Don’t you worry, sweetie, Tula won’t let the mean man get you.”

“I’m not a mean—oh, for God’s sake.” Simon had had enough of this. He wasn’t going to be chastised by anybody, least of all the short, curvy woman giving him a disgusted look.

He stalked across the small kitchen, plucked the baby from her grasp and held Nathan up to eye level. The baby’s pout disappeared as if it had never been and the two of them simply stared at each other.

The baby was a solid, warm weight in his hands. Little legs pumped, arms waved and a thin line of drool dripped from his mouth when he gave his father a toothless grin. His chest tight, Simon felt the baby’s heartbeat racing beneath his hands and there was a … connection that he’d never felt before. It was basic. Complete. Staggering.

In that instant—that heart-stopping, mind-numbing second—Simon was lost.

He knew it even as he stood there, beneath Tula Barrons’s less than approving stare, that this was his son and he would do whatever he had to to keep him.

If this woman stood in his way, he’d roll right over her without a moment’s pause. Something in his gaze must have given away his thoughts because the small blonde lifted her chin, met his eyes in a bold stare and told him silently that she wouldn’t give an inch.

Fine.

She’d learn soon enough that when Simon Bradley entered a contest—he never lost.




Three


“You’re holding him like he’s a hand grenade about to explode,” the woman said, ending their silent battle.

Despite that swift, sure connection he felt to the child in his arms, Simon wasn’t certain at all that the baby wouldn’t explode. Or cry. Or expel some gross fluid. “I’m being careful.”

“Okay,” she said and pulled out a chair to sit down.

He glanced at her, then looked back to the baby. Carefully, Simon eased down onto the other chair pulled up to the postage-stamp-sized table. It looked so narrow and fragile, he almost expected it to shatter under his weight, but it held. He felt clumsy and oversize. As if he were the only grown-up at a little girl’s tea party. He had to wonder if the woman had arranged for him to feel out of place. If she was subtly trying to sabotage this first meeting.

Gently, he balanced the baby on his knee and kept one hand on the small boy’s back to hold him in place. Only then did he look up at the woman sitting opposite him.

Her big eyes were fixed on him and a half smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, causing that one dimple to flash at him. She’d gone from looking at him as if he were the devil himself to an expression of amused benevolence that he didn’t like any better.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked tightly.

“Actually,” she admitted, “I am.”

“So happy to entertain you.”

“Oh, you’re really not happy,” she said, her smile quickening briefly again. “But that’s okay. You had me worried, I can tell you.”

“Worried about what?”

“Well, how you were going to be with Nathan,” she told him, leaning against the ladder back of the chair. She crossed her arms over her chest, unconsciously lifting her nicely rounded breasts. “When you first saw him, you looked …”

“Yes?” Simon glanced down when Nathan slapped both chubby fists onto the tabletop.

“… terrified,” she finished.

Well, that was humiliating. And untrue, he assured himself. “I wasn’t scared.”

“Sure you were.” She shrugged and apparently was dialing back her mistrust. “And who could blame you? You should have seen me the first time I picked him up. I was so worried about dropping him I had him in a stranglehold.”

Nothing in Simon’s life had terrified him like that first moment holding a son he didn’t know he had. But he wasn’t about to admit to that. Not to Tula Barrons at any rate.

He shifted around uncomfortably on the narrow chair. How did an adult sit on one of these things?

“Plus,” she added, “you don’t look like you want to bite through a brick or something anymore.”

Simon sighed. “Are you always so brutally honest?”

“Usually,” she said. “Saves a lot of time later, don’t you think? Besides, if you lie, then you have to remember what lie you told to who and that just sounds exhausting.”

Intriguing woman, he thought while his body was noticing other things about her. Like the way her dark green sweater clung to her breasts. Or how tight her faded jeans were. And the fact that she was barefoot, her toenails were a deep, sexy red and she was wearing a silver toe ring that was somehow incredibly sexy.

She was nothing like the kind of woman Simon was used to. The kind Simon preferred, he told himself sternly. Yet, there was something magnetic about her. Something—

“Are you just going to stare at me all night or were you going to speak?”

—Irritating.

“Yes, I’m going to speak,” he said, annoyed to have been caught watching her so intently. “As a matter of fact, I have a lot to say.”

“Good, me too!” She stood up, took the baby from him before he could even begin to protest—not that he would have—and set the small boy back in his high chair. Once she had the safety straps fastened, she shot Simon a quick smile.

“I thought we could talk while we have dinner. I made chicken and I’m a good cook.”

“Another truth?”

“Try it for yourself and see.”

“All right. Thank you.”

“See, we’re getting along great already.” She moved around the kitchen with an economy of motions. Not surprising, Simon thought, since there wasn’t much floor space to maneuver around.

“Tell me about yourself, Simon,” she said and reached over to place some sliced bananas on the baby’s food tray. Instantly, Nathan chortled, grabbed one of the pieces of fruit and squished it in his fist.

“He’s not eating that,” Simon pointed out while she walked over to take the roast chicken out of the oven.

“He likes playing with it.”

Simon took a whiff of the tantalizing, scented steam wafting from the oven and had to force himself to say, “He shouldn’t play with his food though.”

She swiveled her head to look at him. “He’s a baby.”

“Yes, but—”

“Well, all of my cloth napkins are in the laundry and they don’t make tuxedos in size six-to-nine months.”

He frowned at her. She’d deliberately misinterpreted what he was saying.

“Relax, Simon. He’s fine. I promise you he won’t smoosh his bananas when he’s in college.”

She was right, of course, which he didn’t really enjoy admitting. But he wasn’t used to people arguing with him, either. He was more accustomed to people rushing to please him. To anticipate his every need. He was not used to being corrected and he didn’t much like it.

As that thought raced through his head, he winced. God, he sounded like an arrogant prig even in his own mind.

“So, you were saying …”

“Hmm?” he asked. “What?”

“You were telling me about yourself,” she prodded as she got down plates, wineglasses and then delved into a drawer for silverware. She had the table set before he gathered his thoughts again.

“What is it you want to know?”

“Well, for instance, how did you meet Nathan’s mother? I mean, Sherry was my cousin and I’ve got to say, you’re not her usual type.”

“Really?” He turned on the spindly seat and looked at her. “Just what type am I then?”

“Geez, touchy,” she said, her smile flashing briefly. “I only meant that you don’t look like an accountant or a computer genius.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are attractive accountants and computer wizards, but Sherry never found any.” She carried a platter to the counter and began to slice the roast chicken, laying thick wedges of still-steaming meat on the flowered china. “So how did you meet?”

Simon bristled and distracted himself by pulling bits of banana out of the baby’s hair. “Does it matter?”

“No,” she said. “I was just curious.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” He’d made a mistake that hadn’t been repeated and it wasn’t something he felt like sharing. Especially with this woman. No doubt she’d laugh or give him that sad, sympathy-filled smile again and he wasn’t in the mood.

“Okay,” she said, drawing that one word out into three or four syllables. “Then how long were the two of you together?”

Irritation was still fresh enough to make his tone sharper than he’d planned. “Are you writing a book?”

She blinked at him in surprise. “No, but Sherry was my cousin, Nathan’s my nephew and you’re my … well, there’s a relationship in there somewhere. I’m just trying to pin it down.”

And he was overreacting. It had been a long time since Simon had felt off balance. But since the moment Tula had stepped into his office, nothing in his world had steadied. He watched her as she moved to the stove, scooped mashed potatoes into a bowl and then filled a smaller dish with dark green broccoli. She carried everything to the table and asked him to pour the wine.

He did, pleased at the label on the chardonnay. When they each had full glasses, he tipped his toward her. “I’m not trying to make things harder, but this has been a hell—” he caught himself and glanced at the baby “—heck of a surprise. And I don’t much like surprises.”

“I’m getting that,” she said, reaching out to grab the jar of baby food she’d opened and left on the table. As she spooned what looked like horrific mush into Nathan’s open mouth, she asked again, “So how long were you and Sherry together?”

He took a sip of wine. “Not giving up on this, are you?”

“Nope.”

He had to admire her persistence, if nothing else.

“Two weeks,” he admitted. “She was a nice woman but she—we—didn’t work out.”

Sighing, Tula nodded. “Sounds like Sherry. She never did stay with any one guy for long.” Her voice softened in memory. “She was scared. Scared of making a mistake, picking the wrong man, but scared of being alone, too. She was scared—well, of pretty much everything.”

That he remembered very well, too, Simon thought. Images of the woman he’d known in the past were hazy, but recollections of what he’d felt at the time were fairly clear. He remembered feeling trapped by the woman’s clinginess, by her need for more than he could offer. By the damp anxiety always shining in her eyes.

Now, he felt … not guilt, precisely, but maybe regret. He’d cut her out of his life neatly, never looking back while she had gone on to carry his child and give birth. It occurred to him that he’d done the same thing with any number of women in his past. Once their time together was at an end, he presented them with a small piece of jewelry as a token and then he moved on. This was the first time that his routine had come back to bite him in the ass.

“I didn’t know her well,” he said when the silence became too heavy. “And I had no idea she was pregnant.”

“I know that,” Tula told him with a shake of her head. “Not telling you was Sherry’s choice and for what it’s worth, I think she was wrong.”

“On that, we can agree.” He took another sip of the dry white wine.

“Please,” she said, motioning to the food on the table, “eat. I will, too, in between feeding the baby these carrots.”

“Is that what that is?” The baby seemed to like the stuff, but as far as Simon was concerned, the practically neon orange baby food looked hideous. Didn’t smell much better.

She laughed a little at the face he was making. “Yeah, I know. Looks gross, doesn’t it? Once I get into the swing of having him around, though, I’m going to go for more organic stuff. Make my own baby food. Get a nice blender and then he won’t have to eat this stuff anymore.”

“You’ll make your own?”

“Why not? I like to cook and then I can fix him fresh vegetables and meat—pretty much whatever I’m having, only mushy.” She shrugged as if the extra effort she was talking about meant nothing. “Besides, have you ever read a list of ingredients on baby food jars?”

“Not recently,” he said wryly.

“Well, I have. There’s too much sodium for one thing. And some of the words I can’t even pronounce. That can’t be good for tiny babies.”

All right, Simon thought, he admired that as well. She had already adapted to the baby being in her life. Something that he was going to have to work at. But he would do it. He’d never failed yet when he went after something he wanted.

He took a bite of chicken and nearly sighed aloud. So she was not only sexy and good with kids, she could cook, too.

“Good?”

Simon looked at her. “Amazing.”

“Thanks!” She beamed at him, gave Nathan a few more pieces of banana and then helped herself to her own dinner. After a moment or two of companionable quiet, she asked, “So, what are we going to do about our new ‘situation’?”

“I took the will to my lawyer,” Simon said.

“Of course you did.”

He nodded. “You’re temporarily in charge …”

“Which you don’t like,” she added.

Simon ignored her interruption, preferring to get everything out in the open under his own terms. “Until you decide when and if I’m ready to take over care of Nathan.”

“That’s the bottom line, yes.” She angled her head to look at him. “I told you this earlier today.”

“The question,” he continued, again ignoring her input, “is how do we reach a compromise? I need time with my son. You need the time to observe me with him. I live in San Francisco and have to be there for my job. You live here and—where do you work?”

“Here,” she said, taking another bite and chasing it with a sip of wine. “I write books. For children.”

He glanced at the rabbit-shaped salt and pepper shakers and thought about all of the framed bunnies in her living room. “Something to do with rabbits, I’m guessing.”

Tula tensed, suddenly defensive. She’d heard that dismissive tone of his before. As if writing children’s books was so easy anybody could do it. As if she was somehow making a living out of a cute little hobby. “As a matter of fact, yes. I write the Lonely Bunny books.”

“Lonely Bunny?”

“It’s a very successful series for young children.” Well, she amended silently, not very successful. But she was gaining an audience, growing slowly but surely. And she was proud of what she did. She made children happy. How many other people could say that about their work?

“I’m sure.”

“Would you like to see my fan letters? They’re scrawled in crayon, so maybe they won’t mean much to you. But to me they say that I’m reaching kids. That they enjoy my stories and that I make them happy.” She fell back in her chair and snapped her arms across her chest in a clear signal of defense mode. “As far as I’m concerned, that makes my books a success.”

One of his eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t say they weren’t.”

No, she thought, but he had been thinking it. Hadn’t she heard that tone for years from her own father? Jacob Hawthorne had cut his only daughter off without a dime five years ago, when she finally stood up to him and told him she wasn’t going to get an MBA. That she was going to be a writer.

And Simon Bradley was just like her father. He wore suits and lived in a buttoned-down world where whimsy and imagination had no place. Where creativity was scorned and the nonconformist was fired.

She’d escaped that world five years ago and she had no desire to go back. And the thought of having to hand poor little Nathan off to a man who would try to regulate his life just as her father had done to her gave her cold chills. She looked at the happy, smiling baby and wondered how long it would take the suits of the world to suck his little spirit dry. The thought of that was simply appalling.

“Look, we have to work together,” Simon said and she realized that he didn’t sound any happier about it than she was.

“We do.”

“You work at home, right?”

“Yes …”

“Fine, then. You and Nathan can move into my house in San Francisco.”

“Excuse me?” Tula actually felt her jaw drop.

“It’s the only way,” he said simply, decisively. “I have to be in the city for my work. You can work anywhere.”

“I’m so happy you think so.”

He gave her a patronizing smile that made her grit her teeth to keep from saying something she would probably regret.

“Nathan and I need time together. You have to witness us together. The only reasonable solution is for you and him to move to the city.”

“I can’t just pick up and leave—”

“Six months,” he said. He drained the last of his wine and set the empty goblet onto the table. “It won’t take that long, but let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you move into my house for the next six months. Get Nathan settled. See that I’m going to be fine taking care of my own son, if he is my son, and then you can move back here …” He glanced around the tiny kitchen with a slow shake of his head as if he couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly live there. “And we can all get on with our lives.”

Damn it, Tula hadn’t even considered moving. She loved her house. Loved the life she’d made for herself. Plus, she tended to avoid San Francisco like the plague.

Her father lived in the city.

Ran his empire from the very heart of it.

Heck, for all she knew, Simon Bradley and her father were the best of friends. Now there was a horrifying thought.

“Well?”

She looked at him. Looked at Nathan. There really wasn’t a choice. Tula had promised her cousin that she would be Nathan’s guardian and there was no turning back from that obligation now even if she wanted to.

“Look,” he said, leaning across the table to meet her eyes as though he knew that she was trying and failing to find a way out of this. “We don’t have to get along. We don’t even have to like each other. We just have to manage to live together for a few months.”

“Wow,” she murmured with a half laugh, “doesn’t that sound like a good time.”

“It’s not about a good time, Ms. Barrons …”

“If we’re going to be living together, the least you could do is call me Tula.”

“Then you agree, Tula?”

“Do I get a choice?”

“Not really.”

He was right, she told herself. There really wasn’t a choice. She had to do what was best for Nathan. That meant moving to the city and finding a way to break Simon out of his rigid world. She blew out a breath and then extended her right hand across the table. “All right then. It’s a deal.”

“A deal,” he agreed.

He took her hand in his and it was as if she’d suddenly clutched a live electrical wire. Tula almost expected to see sparks jumping up from their joined hands. She knew he felt it, too, because he released her instantly and frowned to himself.

She rubbed her fingertips together, still feeling that sizzle on her skin and told herself the next few months were going to be very interesting.




Four


Two days later, Simon swung the bat, connected with the baseball and felt the zing of contact charge up his arms. The ball sailed out into the netting strung across the back of the batting cage and he smiled in satisfaction.

“A triple at least,” he announced.

“Right. You flied out to center,” Mick Davis called back from the next batting cage.

Simon snorted. He knew a good hit when he saw it. He got the bat high up on his shoulder and waited for the next robotic pitch from the machine.

While he was here, Simon didn’t have to think about work or business deals. The batting cages near his home were an outlet for him. He could take out his frustrations by slamming bats into baseballs and that outlet was coming in handy at the moment. While he was concentrating on fastballs, curveballs and sliders, he couldn’t think about big blue eyes. A luscious mouth.

Not to mention the child who was—might be—his son.

He swung and missed, the ball crashing into the caged metal door behind him.

“I’m up two now,” Mick called out with a laugh.

“Not finished yet,” Simon shouted, enjoying the rush of competition. Mick had been his best friend since college. Now he was also Simon’s right-hand man at the Bradley company. There was no one he trusted more.

Mick slammed a ball into the far netting and Simon grinned, then punched out one of his own. It felt good to be physical. To blank out his mind and simply enjoy the chance to hit a few balls with his friend. Here, no one cared that he was the CEO of a billion-dollar company. Here, he could just relax. Something he didn’t do often. By the time their hour was up, both men were grinning and arguing over which of them had won.

“Give it up.” Simon laughed. “You were out classed.”

“In your dreams.” Mick handed Simon a bottle of water and after taking a long drink, he asked, “So, you want to tell me why you were swinging with such a vengeance today?”

Simon sat down on the closest bench and watched a handful of kids running to the cages. They were about nine, he guessed, with messy hair, ripped jeans and eager smiles. Something stirred inside him. One day, Nathan would be their age. He had a son. He was a father. In a few years, he’d be bringing his boy to these cages.

Shaking his head, he muttered, “You’re not going to believe it.”

“Try me.” Mick toasted him with his own water and urged him to talk.

So Simon did. While late-afternoon sunshine slipped through the clouds and a cold sea wind whistled past, Simon talked. He told Mick about the visit from Tula. About Nathan. About all of it.

“You have a son?”

“Yeah,” Simon said with a fast grin. “Probably. I’m getting a paternity test done.”

“I’m sure you are,” Mick said.

He frowned a little. “It makes sense, but yeah, looking at him, it’s hard to ignore. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it myself. Hell, I don’t even know what to do first.”

“Bring him home?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s the plan. I’ve got crews over at the house right now, fixing up a room for him.”

“And this Tula? What’s she like?”

Simon pulled at his ice-cold water again, relishing the liquid as it slid down his throat to ease the sudden tightness there. How to explain Tula, he thought. Hell, where would he begin? “She’s … different.”

Mick laughed. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Good question,” Simon muttered. His fingers played with the shrink-wrapped label on the water bottle. “She’s fiercely protective of Nathan. And she’s as irritating as she is gorgeous—”

“Interesting.”

Simon shot him a look. “Don’t even go there. I’m not interested.”

“You just said she’s gorgeous.”

“Doesn’t mean a thing,” he insisted, shooting a look at the boys as they lined up to take turns at the cages. “She’s not my type.”

“Good. Your type is boring.”

“What?”

Mick leaned both forearms on the picnic table. “Simon, you date the same woman, over and over.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“No matter how their faces change, the inner woman never does. They’re all cool, quiet, refined.”

Now Simon laughed. “And there’s something wrong with that?”

“A little variety wouldn’t kill you.”

Variety. He didn’t need variety. His life was fine just the way it was. If a quick image of Tula Barrons’s big blue eyes and flashing dimple rose up in his mind, it was nobody’s business but his own.

He’d seen close-up and personal just what happened when a man spent his time looking for variety instead of sensible. Simon’s father had made everyone in the house miserable with his continuing quest for amusement. Simon wasn’t interested in repeating any failing patterns.

“All I’m saying is—”

“Don’t want to hear it,” Simon told him before his friend could get going. “Besides, what the hell do you know about women? You’re married.”

Mick snorted. “Last time I looked, my beautiful wife is a woman.”

“Katie’s different.”

“Different from the snooty ice queens you usually date, you mean.”

“How did we get onto the subject of my love life?”

“Beats the hell outta me,” Mick said with a laugh. “I just wanted to know what was bugging you and now I do. There’s a new woman in your life and you’re a father.”

“Probably,” Simon amended.

Mick reached out and slapped Simon’s shoulder. “Congratulations, man.”

Simon smiled, took another sip of water and let his new reality settle in. He was, most likely, a father. He had a son.

As for Tula Barrons being in his life, that was temporary. Strangely enough, that thought didn’t have quite the appeal it should have.

“I don’t know what to do about him,” Tula said, taking a sip of her latte.

“What can you do?” Anna Hale asked from her position on the floor of the bank.

Tula looked down at the baby in his stroller and smiled as Nathan slapped his toy bunny against the tray. “Hey, do you think it’s okay for the baby to be in here while you’re painting? I mean, the fumes …”

“It’s fine. This is just detail work,” Anna said, soothing her, then she smiled. “Look at you. You’re so mom-like.”

“I know.” Tula grinned at her. “And I really like it. Didn’t think I would, you know? I mean, I always thought I’d like to have kids some day, but I never really had any idea of what it would really be like. It’s exhausting. And wonderful. And …” She stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “I have to move to the city.”

“It’s not forever,” Anna told her, pausing in laying down a soft layer of pale yellow that blended with the bottom coat of light blue to make a sun-washed sky.

“Yeah, I know,” Tula said on a sigh. She walked to Anna, sat down on the floor and sat cross-legged. “But you know how I hate the idea of going back to San Francisco.”

“I do,” Anna said, wiping a stray lock of hair off her cheek, leaving a trace of yellow paint in her wake. “But you won’t necessarily see your father. It’s a big city.”

Tula gave her a halfhearted grin. “Not big enough. Jacob Hawthorne throws a huge shadow.”

“But you’re not in that shadow anymore, remember?” Anna reached out, grabbed her hand, then winced at the yellow paint she transferred to Tula’s skin. “Oops, sorry. Tula, you walked away from him. From that life. You don’t owe him anything and he doesn’t have the power to make you miserable anymore. You’re a famous author now!”

Tula laughed, delighted at the image. She was famous in the preschool crowd. Or at least, her Lonely Bunny was a star. She was simply the writer who told his stories and drew his pictures. But, oh, how she loved going to children’s bookstores to do signings. To read her books to kids clustered around her with wide eyes and innocent smiles.

Anna was right. Tula had escaped her father’s narrow world and his plans for her life. She’d made her own way. She had a home she loved and a career she adored. Glancing at the baby boy happily gabbling to himself in his stroller, she told herself silently that she was madly in love with a drooling, nearly bald, one-foot-tall dreamboat.

What she would do when she had to say goodbye to that baby she just didn’t know. But for the moment, that time was weeks, maybe months, away.

If ever she’d seen a man who wasn’t prepared to be a father, it was Simon Bradley.

Instantly, an image of him popped into her brain and she almost sighed. He really was far too handsome for her peace of mind. But gorgeous or not, he was as stuffy and stern as her own father and she’d had enough of that kind of man. Besides, this wasn’t about sexual attraction or the buzzing awareness, this was about Nathan and what was best for him.

So Tula would put aside her own worries and whatever tingly feelings she had for the baby’s father and focus instead on taking care of the tiny boy.

She could do this. And just to make herself feel better, she mentally put her adventure into the tone of one of her books. Lonely Bunny Goes to the City. She smiled to herself at the thought and realized it wasn’t a bad idea for her next book.

“You’re absolutely right,” Tula said firmly, needing to hear the confident tone in her own voice. “My father can’t dictate to me anymore. And besides, it’s not as if he’s interested in what I’m doing or where I am.”

The truth stung a bit, as it always did. Because no matter what, she wished her father were different. But wishing would never make it so.

“I’m not going to worry about running into my father,” she said. “I mean, what are the actual odds of that happening anyway?”

“Good for you!” Anna said with an approving grin. Then she added, “Now, would you mind handing me the brush shaped like a fan? I need to get the lacy look on the waves.”

“Right.” Tula stood, looked through Anna’s supplies and found the wide, white sable fan-shaped brush. She handed it over, then watched as her best friend expertly laid down white paint atop the cerulean blue ocean, creating froth on water that looked real enough Tula half expected to hear the sound of the waves.

Anna Cameron Hale was the best faux finish artist in the business. She could lay down a mural on a wall and when she was finished, it was practically alive. Just as, when this painting on the bank wall was complete, it would look like a view of the ocean on a sunny day, as seen through a columned window.

“You’re completely amazing, you know that, right?” Tu la sa id.

“Thanks.” Anna didn’t look back, just continued her painting. “You know, once you’re settled into Simon’s place, I could come up and do a mural in the baby’s room.”

“Oooh, great idea.”

“And,” Anna said coyly, turning her head to look at Tula, “it would be good practice for the nursery Sam and I are setting up.”

A second ticked past. Then two. “You’re—”

“I am.”

“How long?”

“About three months.”

“Oh my God, that’s huge!” Tula dropped to her knees and swept Anna into a tight hug, then released her. “You’re gonna have a baby! How’d Sam take it?”

“Like he’s the first man to introduce sperm to egg!” Anna laughed again and the shine in her eyes defined just how happy she really was. “He’s really excited. He called Garret in Switzerland to tell him he’s going to be an uncle.”

“Weird, considering you actually dated Garret for like five minutes.”

“Ew.” Anna grimaced and shook her head. “I don’t like to think about that part,” she said, laughing again. “Besides, three dates with Garret or a lifetime with his brother … no contest.”

Tula had never seen her friend so happy. So content. As if everything in her world were exactly the way it was supposed to be. For one really awful moment, Tula actually felt envious of that happiness. Of the certainty in Anna’s life. Of the love Sam surrounded her with. Then she deliberately put aside her own niggling twist of jealousy and focused on the important thing here. Supporting Anna as she’d always been there for Tula.

“I’m really happy for you, Anna.”

“Thanks, sweetie. I know you are.” She glanced at the baby boy who was watching them both through interested eyes. “And believe me, I’m glad you’re getting so much hands-on experience, Aunt Tula. I don’t have a clue how to take care of a baby.”

“It’s really simple,” Tula said, following her friend’s gaze to smile at the baby that had so quickly become the center of her world. “All you have to do is love them.”

Her heart simply turned over in her chest. Two weeks she’d been a surrogate mom and she could hardly remember a time without Nathan. What on earth had she done with herself before having that little boy to snuggle and care for? How had she gotten through her day without the scent of baby shampoo and the soft warmth of a tiny body to hold?

And how would she ever live without it?

* * *

Simon knew how to get things done.

With Mick’s assistant taking care of most of the details, within a week, Simon’s house had been readied for Tula and Nathan’s arrival.

He had rooms prepared, food delivered and had already lined up several interviews with a popular nanny employment agency. Tula and the baby had been in town only three days and already he had arranged for a paternity test and had pulled a few important strings so that he’d have the results a lot sooner than he normally would have.

Not that he needed legal confirmation. He had known from his first glance at the child that Nathan was his. Had felt it the moment he’d held him. Now he had to deal with the very real fact of parenthood. Though he was definitely going to go slowly in that regard until he had proof.

He’d never planned on being a father. Hell, he didn’t know the first thing about parenting. And his own parent had hardly been a sterling role model.

Simon knew he could do it, though. He always found a way.

He opened his front door and accidentally kicked a toy truck. The bright yellow Dumpster was sent zooming across the parquet floor to crash into the opposite wall. He shook his head, walked to the truck and, after picking it up, headed into the living room.

Normally, he got home at five-thirty, had a quiet drink while reading the paper. The silence of the big house was a blessing after a long day filled with clients, board meetings and ringing telephones. His house had been a sanctuary, he thought wryly. But not anymore. He glanced around the once orderly living room and blew out an exasperated breath. How could one baby have so much … stuff?

“They’ve only been here three days,” he muttered, amazed at what the two of them had done to the dignified old Victorian.

There were diapers, bottles, toys, fresh laundry that had been folded and stacked on the coffee table. There was a walker of some sort in one corner and a discarded bunny with one droopy ear sitting in Simon’s favorite chair. He stepped over a baby blanket spread across a hand-stitched throw rug and set his briefcase down beside the chair.

Picking up the bunny, he ran his fingers over the soft, slightly soggy fur. Nathan was teething, Tula had informed him only that morning. Apparently, the bunny was taking the brunt of the punishment. Shaking his head, he laughed a little, amazed anew at just how quickly a man’s routine could be completely shattered.

“Simon? Is that you?”

He turned toward the sound of her voice and looked at the hall as if he could see through the walls to the kitchen at the back of the house. Something inside him tightened in expectation at the sound of Tula’s voice. His body instantly went on alert, a feeling he was getting used to. In the three days she and the baby had been here, Simon had been in a near-constant state of aching need.

She was really getting to him, and the worst of it was, she wasn’t even trying.

Tula was only here as Nathan’s guardian. To stay until she felt Simon was ready to be his son’s father. There was nothing more between them and there couldn’t be.

So why then, he asked himself, did he spend so damn much time thinking about her? She wasn’t the kind of woman who usually caught his eye. But there was something about her. Something alive. Electric.

She smiled and that dimple teased him. She sang to the baby and her voice caressed him. She was here, in his house when he came home from work, and he didn’t even miss the normal quiet.

He was in serious trouble.

“Simon?”

Now her voice almost sounded worried because he hadn’t answered her. “Yes, it’s me.”

“That’s good. We’re in the kitchen!”

He held on to the lop-eared bunny and walked down the long hallway. The rooms were big, the wood gleaming from polish and care and the walls were painted in a warm palate of blues and greens. He knew every creak of the floor, every sigh of the wind against the windows. He’d grown up in this house and had taken it over when his father died a few years ago.

Of course, Simon had put his own stamp on the place. He’d ripped up carpeting that had hidden the tongue-and-groove flooring. He’d had wallpaper removed and had restored crown moldings and the natural wood in the built-in china cabinets and bookcases.

He’d made it his own, determined to wipe out old memories and build new ones.

Now he was sharing it with the son he still could hardly believe was his.

Stepping into the kitchen, he was surrounded by the scented steam lifting off a pot of chili on the stove. At the table, Tula sat cross-legged on a chair while spooning something green and mushy into Nathan’s mouth.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Hi! What? Oh, green beans. We went shopping today, didn’t we, Nathan?” She gave the boy another spoonful. “We bought a blender and some fresh vegetables and then we came home and cooked them up for dinner, didn’t we?”

Simon could have sworn the infant was listening to everything Tula had to say. Maybe it was her way of practically singing her words to him. Or maybe it was the warmth of her tone and the smile on her face that caught the baby’s attention.

Much as it had done for the boy’s father.

“It’s so cold outside, I made chili for us,” she said, tossing him a quick grin over her shoulder.

The impact of that smile shook him right down to the bone.

Mick had been right, he thought. Tula was nothing like the cool, controlled beauties he was used to dating.

And he had to wonder if she was as warm in bed as she was out of it.

“Smells good,” he managed to say.

“Tastes even better,” she promised. “Why don’t you come over here and finish feeding Nathan? I’ll get dinner for us.”

“Okay.” He approached her and the baby cautiously and wanted to kick himself for it. Simon Bradley had a reputation for storming into a situation and taking charge. He could feed a baby for God’s sake. How difficult could it be?

He took Tula’s chair, picked up the bowl of green bean mush and filled a spoon. Behind him, he could sense Tula’s gaze on him, watching. Well, he’d prove not only to himself, but to her, that he was perfectly capable of feeding a baby.

Spooning the green slop into Nathan’s mouth, he was completely unprepared when the baby spat it back at him. “What?”

Tula’s delighted laughter spilled out around him as Simon wiped green beans from his face. Then she leaned in, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Welcome to fatherhood.”

An instant later, her smile died as he looked at her through dark eyes blazing with heat. Her mouth went dry and a sizzle of something dark and dangerous went off inside her.

They stared at each other for what felt like forever until finally Simon said, “That wasn’t much of a kiss. We’ll have to do better next time.”

Next time?




Five


Tula remembered sitting in her own kitchen thinking that this was not a good idea. Now she was convinced.

Yet here she was, living in a Victorian mansion in the city with a man she wasn’t sure she liked—but she really did want.

Last night at dinner, Simon had looked so darn cute with green beans on his face that she hadn’t been able to stop herself from giving in to the impulse to kiss him. Sure, it was just a quick peck on his cheek. But when he’d turned those dark brown eyes on her and she’d read the barely banked passion there, it had shaken her.

Not like she was some shy, retiring virgin or anything. She wasn’t. She’d had a boyfriend in college and another one just a year or so ago. But Simon was nothing like them. In retrospect, they had been boys and Simon was all man.

“Oh God, stop it,” she told herself. It wouldn’t do any good of course. She’d been indulging in not so idle daydreams centered on Simon Bradley for days now. When she was sleeping, her brain picked up on the subconscious thread and really went to town.

But a woman couldn’t be blamed for what she dreamed of when she slept, right?

“It’s ridiculous,” she said, tugging at her desk to move it into position beneath one of the many mullioned windows. A stray beam of rare January sunlight speared through the clouds and lay across her desktop. She didn’t take the time to admire it though, instead, she went back to getting the rest of her temporary office the way she wanted it.

She didn’t need much, really. Just her laptop, a drawing table where she could work on the illustrations for her books and a comfy chair where she could sit and think.

“Hmm. If you don’t need much stuff, Tula, why is there so much junk in here?” A question for the ages, she thought. She didn’t try to collect things. It just sort of … happened. And being here in the Victorian where everything had a tidy spot to belong to made her feel like a pack rat.

There were boxes and books and empty shelves waiting to be filled. There were loose manuscript pages and pens and paints and, oh, way too many things to try to organize.

“Settling in?”

She jumped about a foot and spun around, holding one hand to her chest as if trying to keep her heart where it belonged. He stood in the open doorway, a half smile on his handsome face as if he knew darn well that he’d scared about ten years off her life.

Giving Simon a pained glare, she snapped, “Wear a bell or something, okay? I about had a heart attack.”

“I do live here,” Simon reminded her.

“Yeah, I know.” As if she could forget. She’d lain awake in her bed half the night, imagining Simon in his bed just down the hall from her. She never should have kissed him. Never should have breached the tense, polite wall they’d erected between them at their first meeting.

Only that morning, they’d had breakfast together. The three of them sitting cozily in a kitchen three times the size of her own. She had watched Simon feeding a squirming baby oatmeal while dodging the occasional splat of rejected offerings and darned if he hadn’t looked … cute doing it.

She groaned inwardly and warned herself again to get a grip. This wasn’t about playing house with Simon.

He strolled into her office with a look of stunned amazement on his face. “How do you work in this confusion?”

She’d just been thinking basically the same thing, but she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. “An organized mind is a boring mind.”

One dark eyebrow lifted and she noticed he did that a lot when they were talking. Sardonic? Or just irritated?

“You paint, too?” he asked, nodding at the drawing table set up beneath one of the tall windows.

“Draw, really. Just sketches,” she said. “I do the illustrations for my books.”

“Impressive,” he said, moving closer for a better look.

Tula steeled herself against what he might say once he’d had a chance to really study her drawings. Her father had never given her a compliment, she thought. But in the end that hadn’t mattered, since she drew her pictures for the children who loved her books. Tula knew she had talent, but she had never fooled herself into believing that she was a great artist.

He thumbed through the sketch papers on the table and she knew what he was seeing. The sketches of Lonely Bunny and the animals who shared his world.

His gaze moving to hers, he said softly, “You’re very good. You get a lot of emotion into these drawings.”

“Thank you.” Surprised but pleased, she smiled at him and felt warmth spill through her when he returned that smile.

“Nathan has a stuffed rabbit. But he needs a new one. The one he has looks a little worse for wear.”

She shook her head sadly, because clearly he didn’t know how much a worn, beloved toy could mean to a child. “You never read The Velveteen Rabbit?” she asked. “Being loved is what makes a toy real. And when you’re real, you’re a little haggard looking.”

“I guess you’re right.” He laughed quietly and nodded as he looked back at her sketches. “How did you come up with this? The Lonely Bunny, I mean.”

Veering away from the personal and back into safe conversation, she thought, oddly disappointed that the brief moment of closeness was already over.

Still, she grinned as she said, “People always ask writers where they get their ideas. I usually say I find my ideas on the bottom shelf of the housewares department in the local market.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Clever. But not really an answer, either.”

“No,” she admitted, wrapping her arms around her middle. “It’s not.”

He turned around to face her and his warm brown eyes went soft and curious. “Will you tell me?”

She met his gaze and felt the conversation drifting back into the intimate again. But she saw something in his eyes that told her he was actually interested. And until that moment, no one but Anna had ever really cared.

Walking toward him, she picked up one of the sketches off the drawing table and studied her own handiwork. The Lonely Bunny looked back at her with his wide, limpid eyes and sadly hopeful expression. Tula smiled down at the bunny who had come along at just the right time in her life.

“I used to draw him when I was a little girl,” she said more to herself than to him. She ran one finger across the pale gray color of his fur and the crooked bend of his ear. “When Mom and I moved to Crystal Bay, there were some wild rabbits living in the park behind our house.”

Beside her, she felt him step closer. Felt him watching her. But she was lost in her own memories now and staring back into her past.

“One of the rabbits was different. He had one droopy ear, and he was always by himself,” she said, smiling to herself at the image of a young Tula trying to tempt a wild rabbit closer by holding out a carrot. “It looked to me like he didn’t have any friends. The other rabbits stayed away from him and I sort of felt that we were two of a kind. I was new in town and didn’t have any friends, so I made it my mission to make that bunny like me. But no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get him to play with me.

“And believe me, I tried. Every day for a month. Then one day I went to the park and the other rabbits were there, but Lonely Bunny wasn’t.” She stroked her fingertip across her sketch of that long-ago bunny. “I looked all over for him, but couldn’t find him.”

She stopped and looked up into eyes filled with understanding and compassion and she felt her own eyes burn with the sting of unexpected tears. The only person she had ever told about that bunny was Anna. She’d always felt just a little silly for caring so much. For missing that rabbit so badly when she couldn’t find him.

“I never saw him again. I kept looking, though. For a week, I scoured that park,” she mused. “Under every bush, behind every rock. I looked everywhere. Finally, a week later, I was so worried about him, I told my mother and asked her to help me look for him.”

“Did she?” His voice was quiet, as if he was trying to keep from shattering whatever spell was spinning out around them.

“No,” she said with a sigh. “She told me he had probably been hit by a car.”

“What?” Simon sounded horrified. “She said what?”

Tula choked out a laugh. “Thanks for the outrage on my behalf, but it was a long time ago. Besides, I didn’t believe her. I told myself that he had found a lady bunny and had moved away with her.”

She set the drawings down onto the table and turned to him, tucking her hands into her jeans pockets. “When I decided to write children’s books, I brought Lonely Bunny back. He’s been good for me.”

Nodding, Simon reached out and tapped his finger against one of her earrings, setting it into swing. “I think you were good for him, too. I bet he’s still telling his grandbunnies stories about the little girl who loved him.”

Her breath caught around a knot of tenderness in the middle of her throat. “You surprise me sometimes, Simon.”

“It’s only fair,” he said. “You surprise me all the damn time.”

Seconds ticked past, each of them looking at the other as if for the first time. Simon was the first to speak and when he did, it was clear that the moment they had shared was over. At least for now.

“Do you have everything you need?”

“Yes.” She took a breath and an emotional step back. “I just need to move my chair into place and—”

“Where do you want it?”

She looked up at him. He was just home from work, so he was wearing a dark blue suit and the only sign of relaxation was the loosening of the knot in his red silk tie.

“You don’t have to—”

He shrugged out of his suit jacket. His tailored, long-sleeved white shirt clung to a truly impressively broad chest. She swallowed hard as she watched him grab hold of the chair and she wondered why simply taking off his suit jacket in front of her seemed such an intimate act. Maybe, she thought, it was because the suit was who he was. And laying it aside, even momentarily, felt like an important step.

As soon as that thought entered her mind, Tula pushed it away.

Nothing intimate going on here at all, she reminded herself. Just a guy, helping her move a chair. And she’d do well to keep that in mind. Anything else would just be asking for trouble.

“Over there,” she said, pointing to the far corner.

“You want to move that box out of the way?”

She did, pushing the heavy box of books with her foot until Simon had a clear path. He muscled the oversize chair across the room, then angled it in a way so that she’d be facing both windows when she sat in it.

“How’s that?”

“Perfect, thanks.”

He looked around the room again. “Where’s the baby?”

“In his room. He took a late nap today.”

“Right.” He wandered around the room now, peeking into boxes, glancing at the haphazard stacks of papers on her desk. “You know, I’ve got some colored file folders in my office you could use.”

She bristled. “I have my own system.”

Simon looked at her and lifted that eyebrow again. “Chaos is a system?”

“It’s only chaos if you can’t find your way around. I can.”

“If you say so.” He moved closer. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Um, no thanks,” Tula whispered, feeling the heat of him reach for her. This was her fault, she told herself as tension in the room began to grow. If she hadn’t given him that impulsive kiss, they’d still be at odds. If she hadn’t opened herself up, causing him to be so darn sweet, they wouldn’t be experiencing this closeness now.

So she spoke up fast, before whatever was happening between them could go any further. “Why don’t you go check on Nathan while I finish up in here? I’ve still got a lot of unpacking to do.”

She stepped past him and dug into a carton of books, deliberately keeping her back to him. Her heart was pounding and her stomach was spinning with a wild blend of nerves and anticipation. Pulling out a few of the books, she set them on the top shelf and let her fingertips linger on the bindings.

But Simon didn’t leave. Instead, he went down on one knee beside her, cupped her chin and turned her face toward him.

“I don’t know what’s going on between us any more than you do. But you can’t avoid me forever, Tula. We’re living together, after all.”

“We’re living in the same house, that’s all,” she corrected breathlessly. “Not together.”

“Semantics,” he mused, a half smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

Oh, she knew what he was thinking because she was thinking the same thing. Well, actually, there was very little thinking going on. This was more feeling. Wanting. Needing.

She shook her head. “Simon, you know it would be a bad idea.”

“What?” he asked innocently. “A kiss?”

“You’re not talking about just a kiss.”

“Rather not talk at all,” he admitted, his gaze dropping to her mouth.

Tula licked her lips and took a breath that caught in her lungs when she saw his eyes flash. “Simon …”

“You started this,” he said, leaning in.

“I know,” she answered and tipped her head to one side as she moved to meet him.

“I’ll finish it.”

“Stop talking,” she told him just before his mouth closed over hers.

Heat exploded between them.

Tula had never known anything like it before. His mouth took hers hungrily, his tongue parting her lips, sweeping inside to claim all of her. He pulled her tightly against him until they were both kneeling on the soft, plush carpet. His hands slid up and down her back, dipping to cup the curve of her behind and pull her more tightly against him.

Tula felt the rock-hard proof of just how much Simon wanted her and that need echoed inside her. Her mind blanked out and she gave herself up to the river of sensations he was causing. She tangled her tongue with his, leaning into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on as if she were afraid of sliding off the edge of the world.

He tore his mouth from hers, buried his face in the curve of her neck and whispered, “I’ve been thinking about doing this, about you, ever since you first walked into my office.”

“Me, too,” she murmured, tipping her head to give him better access. Her body was electrified. Every cell was buzzing, and at the core of her she burned and ached for him.

He dropped his hands to the hem of her sweater and slid his palms beneath the heavy knit material to slide across her skin. She felt the burn of his fingers, the sizzle and pop in her bloodstream as he stoked flames already burning too brightly.

Oh, it had been way too long since anyone had touched her, Tula thought, letting her head fall back on a soft sigh. And she’d never been touched like this before.

“Let me,” he murmured, drawing her sweater up and off, baring breasts hidden beneath a bra of sheer, pink lace.

Cool air caressed her skin in a counterpoint to the heat Simon was creating. One corner of her mind was shrieking at her to stop this while she still could. But the rest of her was telling that small, insistent voice to shut up and go away.

“Lovely,” he said, skimming the backs of his fingers across her nipples.

She shivered when his thumbs moved over the tips of her hardened nipples, the brush of the lace intensifying his touch to an almost excruciating level of excitement. Tula trembled as he unhooked the front clasp of her bra and sucked in a quick breath when he pushed the lacy panel aside and cupped her breasts in his hands.

He bent his head to take first one nipple and then the other into his mouth and Tula swayed in place. Threading her fingers through his thick hair, she held him to her and concentrated solely on the feel of his lips and tongue against her skin.

She wanted him naked, her hands on his body. She wanted to lie back and pull him atop her. She wanted to feel their bodies sliding together, to look up into his eyes as he took her to—

An insistent howl shattered the spell between them.

Simon pulled back from her and whipped his head around to stare at the doorway. “What was that?”

“The baby.” Still trembling, Tula grabbed the edges of her bra and hooked it together. Then she reached for her sweater and had it back on in a couple of seconds. “I’ve got the baby monitor in here so I could hear him while I worked.”

She waved one hand at what looked like a space-age communication device and Simon nodded. “Right. The monitor.”

Scrambling to her feet, Tula backed away from him quickly.

“Don’t do that,” Simon said, standing up and reaching for her. “I can see in your eyes that you’re already pretending that didn’t happen.”

“No, I’m not,” she assured him, though her voice was as shaky as the rest of her. Pushing one hand through the short, choppy layers of her hair, she blew out a breath and admitted, “But I should.”

“Why?” He winced when the baby’s cries continued, but didn’t let go of her.

Tula shook her head and pulled free of his grasp. “Because this is just one more complication, Simon. One neither one of us should want.”

“Yeah,” he said, gaze meeting hers. “But we do.”

“You can’t always have what you want,” she countered, taking a step back, closer to the open doorway. “Now I really have to go to the baby.”

“Okay. But Tula,” he said, stopping her as she started to leave. “You should know that I always get what I want.”

When Tula carried Nathan into her office half an hour later, she found a stack of colored file folders lying on top of her desk. There was a brief note. “Chaos can be controlled. S.”

“As if I didn’t know who put them there,” she told the baby. “He had to put his initial on the note?”

She set the baby down on a blanket surrounded by toys, then took a seat at her desk. Her fingertips tapped against the file folders until she finally shrugged and opened one.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt to try a little filing, right?”

Nathan didn’t have an opinion. He was far too fascinated by the foam truck with bright red headlights he had gripped in his tiny fists.

Tula smiled at him, then set to work straightening up her desk. It went faster than she would have thought and though she hated to admit it, there was something satisfying about filing papers neatly and tucking them away in a cabinet. By the time she was finished, her desktop was cleared off for the first time in … ever.

Her phone rang just as she was getting up to take the baby downstairs for his dinner. “Hello?”

“Tula, hi, this is Tracy.”

Her editor’s voice was, as always, friendly and businesslike. “Hi, what’s up?”

“I just need you to give me the front matter for the next book. Production needs it by tomorrow.”

“Right.” For one awful moment, Tula couldn’t remember where she’d put the letter to her readers that always went in the front of her new books. She liked adding that extra personal touch to the children who read her stories.

The scattered feeling was a familiar one. Despite what she had bragged to Simon about knowing where everything was, she usually experienced a moment of sheer panic when her editor called needing something. Because she knew that she would have to stall her while she located whatever was needed.

“It’s okay, Tula,” Tracy said as if knowing exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t need it this minute and I know it’ll take you some time to find it. If you just email the letter to me first thing in the morning, I’ll hand it in.”

“No, it’s okay,” Tula said suddenly as she realized that she had just spent hours filing things away neatly. “I actually know right where it is.”

“You’re kidding.”

Laughing, she reached out, opened the once-empty file cabinet and pulled out the blue folder. Blue for Bunny Letters, she thought with an inner smile. She even had a system now. Sure, she wasn’t certain how long it would last, but the fun of surprising her editor had been worth the extra work.

“Poor Tracy,” Tula said with sympathy. “You’ve been putting up with my disorganization for too long, haven’t you?”

“You’re organized,” Tracy defended her. “Just in your own way.”

She appreciated the support, but Tula knew very well that Tracy would have preferred just a touch more organizational effort on her writer’s part. “Well, I’m trying something new. I am holding in my hand an actual file folder!”

“Amazing,” Tracy said with a chuckle. “An organized writer. I didn’t know that was possible. Can you fax the letter to me?”

“I can. You’ll have it in a few minutes.”

“Well, I don’t know what inspired the new outlook, but thanks!”

Once she hung up, Tula faxed in the letter, then filed it again and slipped the folder back into the cabinet with a rush of pride. Wouldn’t Simon love to know that he’d been right? As for her, she’d managed to straighten up a mess without losing her identity.

Grinning down at the baby, she asked, “What do you think, Nathan? Can a person have chaos and control?”

She was still wondering about that when she carried the baby downstairs to the kitchen.

A few hours later, Tula said sharply, “You have to make sure he doesn’t slip.”

“Well,” Simon assured her, “I actually knew that much on my own.”

He was bent over the tub, one hand on Nathan’s narrow back while he used his free hand to move a soapy washcloth over the baby’s skin. “How is it you’re supposed to hold him and wash him at the same time?”

Tula grinned and Simon felt a hard punch to his chest. When she really smiled it was enough to make him want to toss her onto the nearest flat surface and bury himself inside her heat.

The kiss they’d shared only a couple of hours before was still burning through him.

He still had the taste of her in his mouth. Had the feel of her soft, sleek skin on his fingers.

Now, as she leaned over beside him to slide a wet washcloth over Nathan’s head, he inhaled and drew her light, floral scent into his lungs. He must have let a groan slip from his throat because she stopped, leaned back and looked up at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” he said tightly, focusing now on the baby who was slapping the water with both hands and chortling over the splashes he made.

“Simon—”

“Forget it, Tula. Let’s just concentrate on surviving bath time, okay?”

She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “Now who’s pretending it didn’t happen?”

He laughed—a short, sharp sound. “Trust me when I say that’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then why—”

Giving her a hard look, he said, “Unless you’re willing to finish what we started, drop it, Tula.”

She snapped her mouth closed and nodded. “Right. Then I’ll just go get Nathan’s jammies ready while you finish. Are you good on your own?”

Good question.

He always had been.

Before.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

“We’ll be fine. Just go.”

She scooted out of the bathroom a moment later and Nathan drew his first easy breath since bath time had started. He looked down into the baby’s eyes and said, “Remember this, Nathan. Women are nothing but trouble.”

The tiny boy laughed and slapped the water hard enough to send a small wave into his father’s face.

“Traitor,” Simon whispered.




Six


A few nights later, Simon had had enough of slipping through his own house like a damn ghost. Ever since the kiss he had shared with Tula, he’d kept his distance, staying away not only from her, but from the baby as well. He wondered where in the hell the paternity test results were and asked himself how he was supposed to keep his mind on anything else when memories of a too brief kiss kept intruding.

Hell, it wasn’t just the kiss. It was Tula herself and that was an irritation he hadn’t expected. She was in his mind all the time. Moving through his thoughts like a shadow, never really leaving, always haunting.

She walked into the room and he felt a hard slam of desire pulse through him. His body was hard and his hands itched to touch her. But she seemed blissfully unaware of what she was doing to him, so damned if he’d let her know.

“Maybe we should talk about how this is going to work,” he said when Tula walked into the living room.

Lamplight shone on her blond hair and glittered in her eyes so that it almost looked as if stars were in their depths, winking at him. She was nothing like the women he was usually drawn to. And she was everything he wanted. God, knowing that she was there, in his house, right down the hall from his own bedroom, was making for some long, sleepless nights.

Oblivious of his thoughts, she smiled at him, crossed the room and dropped into a wingback chair on his right. Curling her feet up beneath her, she said, “Yes, the baby went right to sleep as soon as I laid him down. Thanks for asking.”

He frowned to himself and silently admitted that, no, he hadn’t been thinking about the baby. Hardly his fault when she was so near. He dared any man to be able to keep his mind off Tula Barrons for long. “I assumed he was sleeping since he’s not with you and I can’t hear him crying.”

She studied him for a thoughtful moment. “Don’t you think you should start being a part of the whole putting-Nathan-to-bed routine?”

“When I get the results of the paternity test, I will.”

Until then, he was going to hang back. Taking part in bath time a few nights ago had taught him that he was too damn vulnerable where that baby was concerned. He had actually thought of himself as the boy’s father.

What if he found out Nathan wasn’t his?

No, better to protect himself until he knew for sure.

“Simon, Nathan is your son and pretending he isn’t won’t change that.”

“That’s what we need to talk about,” he said, standing to walk to the wet bar across the room. “Do you want a drink?”

“White wine if you’ve got it.”

“I do.” He took care of the drinks then sat down again opposite her. Outside, night was crouched at the glass. A fire burned in the hearth and the snap and hiss of the flames was the only sound for a few minutes. Naturally, Tula couldn’t keep quiet for long.

“Okay, what did you want to talk about?”

“This,” he said, sweeping one hand out as if to encompass the house and everything in it.

“Well, that narrows it down,” Tula mused, taking a sip of wine. “Look, I get that you’re a little freaked by the whole ‘instant parenthood’ thing, but we can’t change that, right?”

“I didn’t say—”

“And I’ve closed up my house and moved here to help you settle in—”

“Yes, but—”

“You’ll get to know the baby. I’ll help as much as I can, but a lot of this is going to come down on you. He’s your son.”

“We don’t know that for sure yet and I think—”

She ran right over him again and Simon was beginning to think that he’d never get the chance to have any input in this conversation. Normally, when he spoke, people listened. No one interrupted him. No one talked over him. Except Tula. And as annoying as it was to admit, even to himself, he liked that about her. She wasn’t hesitant. Not afraid to stand up for herself or Nathan. And not the least bit concerned about telling him exactly what she thought.

Still, he was forced to grind his teeth and fight for patience as she continued.

She waved her glass of wine and sloshed a bit onto her denim-covered leg. She hardly noticed.

“So basically,” she said, “I’m thinking a man like you would feel better with a clear-cut schedule.”

That got his attention. “A man like me?”

She smiled, damn it and his temperature climbed a bit in response.

“Come on, Simon,” she teased. “We both know that you’ve got a set routine in your life and the baby and I have disrupted it.”

This conversation was not going the way he’d planned. He was supposed to be the one taking charge. Telling Tula how things would go from here. Instead, the tiny woman had taken the reins from his hands without him even noticing. Simon took a sip of the aged scotch and let the liquor burn its way down his throat. It sat like a ball of fire in the pit of his stomach and he welcomed the heat. He looked at Tula, watching him with good humor sparkling in her eyes and not a trace of the sexual pull he’d been battling for days.

Irritating as hell that she could so blithely ignore what had been driving him slowly insane. Fresh annoyance spiked at having her so calmly staring him down, pretending to know him and his life and not even once allowing that there was something between them.

Plus, in a few well-chosen words, Tula had managed to both insult and intrigue him.

“I don’t have a routine,” he grumbled, resenting the hell out of the fact that she had made him sound like a doddering old man concentrating solely on his comfortable rut in life.

She laughed and the sound filled the big room with a warmth it had never known.

“Simon, I’ve only been in this house a handful of days and I already know your routine as well as you do. Up at six, breakfast at seven,” she began, ticking items off on her fingers. “Morning news at seven-thirty, leave for the office at eight. Home by five-thirty …”

He scowled at her, furious that she was reducing his life to a handful of statistics. And even more furious that she was right. How in the hell had that happened? Yes, he preferred order in his life, but there was a distinct difference between a well-laid-out schedule and a monotonous habit.

“A drink and the evening news at six,” she went on, still smiling as if she was really enjoying herself, “dinner at six-thirty, work in your study until eight …”

Dear God, he thought in disgust, had he really become so trapped in his own well-worn patterns he hadn’t even noticed? If he was this transparent to a woman who had known him little more than a week, what must he look like to those who knew him well? Was he truly that predictable? Was he nothing more than an echo of his own habits?

That thought was damned disconcerting.

“Don’t stop now,” he urged before taking another sip of scotch. “You’re on a roll.”

“Well, there my tale ends,” she admitted. “By eight I’m putting the baby to bed and I have no idea what you do with the rest of your night.” She leaned one elbow on the arm of the chair and grinned at him. “Care to enlighten me?”

Oh, he’d like to enlighten her. He’d like to tell her she was wrong about him entirely. Unfortunately, she wasn’t. He’d like to take her upstairs and shake up both of their routines. But he wasn’t going to. Not yet.

“I don’t think so,” he said tightly, still coming to grips with his own slide into predictability. “Besides, I didn’t want to talk about me. We were going to talk about the baby.”

“For us to talk about the baby,” she countered with a satisfied nod, “you would have to actually spend time with him. Which you manage to avoid with amazing regularity.”

“I’m not avoiding him.”

“It’s a big house, Simon, but it’s not that big.”

He stood up, suddenly needing to move. Pace. Something. Sitting in a chair while she watched him with barely concealed disappointment was annoying.

Simon knew he shouldn’t care what she thought of him, but damned if he wanted her thinking he was some sort of coward, hiding from his responsibilities. Or an old man stuck in a routine of his own devising. He walked to the wide bay window with a view of the park directly across the street. Moonlight played on the swing sets and slides, illuminating the playground with a soft light that looked almost otherworldly.

“I haven’t gotten the paternity test results back yet,” he said, never taking his gaze from the window and the night beyond the glass.

“You know he’s yours, Simon. You can feel it.”

He looked down at her as she walked up beside him. “What I feel isn’t important.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Simon,” she said sadly, looking up at him. “In the end, what you feel is the only important thing.”

He didn’t agree. Feelings got in the way of logical thought. And logic was the only way to live your life. He had learned that lesson early and well. Hadn’t he watched his own father, Jarod Bradley, nearly wipe out the family dynasty by being so chaotic, so disordered and flighty that he neglected everything that was important?

Well, Simon had made a pledge to himself long ago that he was going to be nothing like his father. He ran his world on common sense. On competency. He didn’t trust “feelings” to get him through his life. He trusted his mind. His sense of responsibility and order.

Which was how he’d slipped into that rut he was cursing only moments ago. His father hadn’t had a routine for anything. He’d greeted each day not knowing what was going to happen next. Simon preferred knowing exactly what his world was doing—and arranging it to suit himself when possible.

Besides, despite what Tula thought, he wasn’t so much actively avoiding Nathan as he had been avoiding her. Ever since that kiss. Ever since he’d held her breasts cupped in his hands he hadn’t been able to think of anything else but getting his hands on her again. And until he figured out exactly what that would mean, he was going to keep right on avoiding her.

Damn it, things used to be simple. He saw an attractive woman, he talked her into his bed. Now, Tula was all wrapped up in a tight knot with the child who was probably his son and Simon was walking a fine line. If he seduced her and then dropped her, couldn’t she make it more difficult for him to get custody of Nathan? And what if he had sex with her and didn’t want to let her go? What then?

There was no room in his life for a woman as flighty and unorganized as she was. She thrived in chaos. He needed order.

They were a match made in hell.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes,” he muttered, though he was actually trying to not listen to her.

Which was no more successful than trying not to think about her.

Tula wasn’t comfortable in the city.

Ridiculous, of course, since she’d spent so much of her childhood there. Her parents separated when she was only five and her mother, Katherine, had moved them to Crystal Bay. Close enough that Tula could see her father and far enough away that her mother wouldn’t have to.

Crystal Bay would always be home to Tula. Right from the first, she’d felt as though she belonged there. Life was simpler, there were no piano lessons and tutors. Instead, there was the local public school where she’d first met Anna Cameron. That friendship had really helped shape who she was. The connection with Anna and her oh-so-normal family had helped her gain the self-confidence to eventually face down her father and refuse to fall in line with his plans for her life.

Now being in San Francisco only reminded her of those long, lonely weekends with her father. Not that Jacob Hawthorne was evil, he simply hadn’t been interested in a daughter when he’d wanted a son. And the fact that his daughter didn’t care at all about business was another big black mark against her.

Funny, Tula thought, she had long ago gotten past the regrets she had for how her relationship with her father had died away. Apparently though, there was still a tiny spark inside her that wished things had been different.

“It’s okay though,” she said aloud to the baby who wasn’t listening and couldn’t have cared less. “I’m doing fine, aren’t I, Nathan? And you like me, right?”

If he could speak, she was sure Nathan would have agreed with her and that was good enough for now.

She sighed and pushed the stroller along the sidewalk. Nathan was bundled up as if they were exploring the Arctic Circle, but the wind was cold off the bay and the dark clouds hanging over the city threatened rain.

She and the baby had been in that house for days and it was harder and harder to be there without thoughts of Simon filling her mind. She knew it was pointless, of course. She and Simon had nothing in common except that flash of heat that had practically melded them together during that amazing kiss.

But she couldn’t help where her mind went. And lately, her mind kept slipping into wildly inappropriate thoughts of Simon. Which was exactly why she had bundled Nathan up for a walk. She needed to clear her head. Needed to get back to work on the book that was due by the end of the month. It was hard enough eking out the time for illustrations and storyboards while the baby was napping. Forcing herself to work on the Lonely Bunny’s antics while daydreaming about Simon made it nearly impossible.

Whenever Tula was having a hard work day, she would take a walk, just to feel the bite of the fresh air, see people, listen to the world outside her own mind. Ideas didn’t pop into an idle mind. They had to be fostered, engendered. And that usually meant getting out into the world.

Actually, one of her most popular books had been born at the grocery store in Crystal Bay. She remembered watching a pallet of vegetables being delivered and immediately, she’d felt that magic “click” in her brain that told her an idea was forming. Soon, she’d had the story line for Lonely Bunny Visits the Market.

“So see, Nathan, we’re actually working!” She chuckled a little and picked up the pace.

There were so many people scurrying along the sidewalks, Tula felt lost. But then she’d been feeling a little lost since settling into Simon Bradley’s house. She hadn’t written a word in three days and even her illustrations were being ignored. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. She had deadlines to meet and editors to appease.

And Simon was taking up so many of her thoughts, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to think of anything else.

The only bright side was that she knew Simon was feeling just as frustrated as she was. That he wanted her as much as she did him. And she couldn’t help relishing that sweet rush of completely feminine power that had filled her when he’d practically thrown her out of the bathroom during Nathan’s bath time a few days ago. He hadn’t trusted himself around her.

Which was just delicious, she thought. Of course it would be crazy to surrender to whatever it was that was simmering between them. She had Nathan to think about, after all. She couldn’t just give in to what she was feeling and not think about the consequences.

Don’t I sound responsible? she thought with surprise.

Well, she was. Now. Now that she had Nathan in her life, she had to judge every decision she made along the measurement of what was good for him. And sleeping with his father couldn’t be a good idea. Especially knowing that it was up to her to decide when Simon was ready for custody.

She stopped short.

Was that why he had kissed her?

Was he trying to seduce her into giving him Nathan?

“Now, that’s a horrible thought,” she said aloud.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Hmm?” Tula looked at the older woman who had stopped on the sidewalk to look at her. “Oh, sorry. I was actually talking to myself.”

“I see.” The woman’s eyes went wide and she hurried past.

Tula laughed a little, then stepped to the front of the stroller to check on Nathan. “Well, sweetie, I think that nice lady thought I was crazy.”

He kicked his legs, waved his arms and grinned at her. All the approval she needed, Tula thought, and stepped around to push him along the sidewalk again.

There were stores, of course. Small boutiques, coffee bars and even a cozy Italian restaurant with tables grouped together on the sidewalk.

But what caught her eye was the bookstore.

“Let’s go see, Nathan.”

She stepped inside and paused long enough to enjoy the atmosphere. An entire store devoted to books and the people who loved them. Was there anything better? Crossing to the children’s section, Tula smiled at the parents indulging their kids by sitting on the brightly colored rugs to pick out books.

When she saw a little girl reading Lonely Bunny Makes a Friend Tula’s heart swelled with pride.

She wandered over to the shelf where her books were lined up and, taking a pen from her purse, began signing the copies there.

A few minutes later, a voice stopped her mid-scrawl.

“Excuse me.”

Tula looked at a woman in her mid-forties with a name tag that read Barbara and smiled. “Hi.”

The woman looked her up and down, taking in her faded jeans, blue suede boots and windblown hair before asking, “What are you doing?”

Tula dug into her purse and pulled a roll of gold-and-black autographed copy stickers that she always carried with her. “I’m the author and I thought since I was here I would just sign your stock, if that’s all right.”

She had never had trouble before. Usually bookstores liked having signed copies of the books on the shelves to help with sales.

“You’re Tula Barrons?” Barbara asked with a wide grin. “That’s wonderful! My daughter loves your books and I can tell you they sell very well for us here in the store.”

“I’m always glad to hear that,” Tula said and hurried her signature as Nathan started to fuss.

“You live locally?” Barbara asked.

“Temporarily,” Tula told her and felt a slight wince inside at the admission. She didn’t know how long she would be staying in the city, but she was already dreading having to leave both Nathan and Simon.

“Would you be interested in doing a signing here at the store?” the woman asked. “We could set it up for you to do a reading at the same time. I think the kids would love it.”

“Uh,” Tula hedged, not sure if she should agree or not. Normally, she would have, of course. But now that she had Nathan to worry about …

“Please consider it,” Barbara urged, looking around the children’s area at the brightly colored floor rugs, the tiny tables and chairs. “I know most authors hate doing signings, but I can promise you a success! Your books are very popular here and I know the children would get a big kick out of meeting the woman who writes the Lonely Bunny stories.”

Tula followed her gaze and looked at the dozen or so kids sprinkled around the area, each of them lost in the wonders of a book. Yes, her life was a little up in the air at the moment, but a couple hours of her time wasn’t that much of a sacrifice, was it?

“I’d love to,” she finally said.

“That’s great,” Barbara replied. “If you’ll just give me a number where I can reach you, we’ll set something up. How does three weeks sound?”

“It’s fine,” Tula told her. While Barbara went to get a pad and pen to take down her information, Tula told herself that in three weeks, she might be back living in Crystal Bay. Alone. That would mean a drive into the city for the signing, but if she was gone from Simon’s life, she would at least be able to stop in and see Nathan while she was here.

Her heart ached at the thought. That baby had become so much a part of her life and world already, she couldn’t even imagine being nothing more than a casual visitor to him. She put the signed book back on the shelf, walked to the front of the stroller and went down to her knees.

Running her fingers across the baby’s soft cheek, she looked into brown eyes so much like his father’s it was eerie and said, “What will I do without you, Nathan? If I lose you now, you won’t even remember me, will you?”

He laughed and kicked his legs, turning his head this way and that, taking in all the primary colors and the bright lights.

Her already aching heart began to tear into pieces as she realized that Nathan would never know how much she loved him. Or how much it hurt to think of not being a part of his life.

She’d agreed to be the baby’s guardian for her cousin Sherry’s sake. But Tula had had no idea then that doing the right thing was going to one day destroy her.

Simon got home early the following day and no one was there to appreciate it.

Damned if he’d be so boring that Tula could set her watch—if she had the organizational skills to wear one—by him. He was still fuming over her monologue the night before, ticking off his daily routine and making him sound as exciting as a moldy rock.

In response, Simon had been shaking up his routine all day long. He had gone through the flagship of the Bradley department stores, stopping to chat with clerks. He’d personally talked to the managers of the departments, instead of sending Mick to do it. He had even helped out in the stockroom, walking a new employee through the inventory process.

His employees had been surprised at his personal interest in what was happening with the store. But he had also noted that everyone he talked with that day was pleased that he’d taken the extra time to listen to them. To really pay attention to what was happening.

Simon couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t done it years ago. He was so accustomed to running his empire from the sanctity of his office, he’d nearly forgotten about the thousands of employees who depended on him.

Of course, Mick had ribbed him about his sudden aversion to routine.

“This new outlook on life wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain children’s book author, would it?”

Simon glared at him. “Butt out.”

“Ha! It does.” Mick followed him out the door and down the hall to the elevator. “What did she say that got to you?”

He was just aggravated enough by what Tula had had to say the night before that he told Mick everything. He finished by saying, “She ticked off my day hour by hour, on her fingers, damn it.”

Mick laughed as the elevator doors swept closed and Simon stabbed the button for the ground floor of the department store. “Wish I’d seen your face.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“Well come on, Simon,” Mick said, still chuckling. “You’ve got to admit you’ve dug yourself a pretty deep rut over the years.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a tight schedule.”

Mick leaned against the wall. “As long as you allow yourself some room to breathe.”

“You’re on her side?”

Grinning, Mick said, “Absolutely.”

Grumbling under his breath at the memory, Simon stalked up the stairs, haunted by the now unnatural silence. For years, he’d come home to the quiet and had relished it. Now after only a few days of having Tula and the baby in residence … the silence was claustrophobic. Made him feel as if the walls were closing in on him.

“Ridiculous. Just enjoy the quiet while you’ve got it,” he muttered. At the head of the stairs, he headed down the hall toward his room, but paused in front of the nursery. The baby wasn’t there, but the echo of him remained in the smell of powder and some indefinable scent that was pure baby.

He stepped inside and let his gaze slide across the stacked shelves filled with neatly arranged diapers, toys and stuffed animals. He smiled to himself and inspected the closet as well. Inside hung shirts and jackets, clustered by color. Tiny shoes were lined up like toy soldiers on the floor below.

In the dresser, he knew he would find pajamas, shorts, pants, socks and extra bedding. A colorful quilt lay across the end of the crib and a small set of bookshelves boasted alphabetically arranged children’s books.

Tula might thrive in chaos herself, he mused, but here in the baby’s room, peace reigned. Everything was tidy. Everything was calm and safe and … perfect. He’d had a crew in to paint the room a neutral beige with cream-colored trim, but Tula had pronounced it too boring to spark the baby’s inner creativity. It hadn’t taken her long to have pictures of unicorns and rainbows on the walls, or to hang a mobile of primary-colored stars and planets over the crib.

Shaking his head, Simon sat down in the cushioned rocker and idly reached to pull one of the books off the shelves. Lonely Bunny Finds a Garden.

“Lonely Bunny,” he read aloud with a sigh. Now that he’d heard her story, he could imagine Tula as a lonely little girl with wide blue eyes, trying to make friends with a solitary rabbit. He frowned, thinking about how her mother had so callously treated her daughter’s fears.

He was feeling for Tula. Too much.

Opening the book, Simon read the copyright page and stopped. Her name was listed as Tula Barrons Hawthorne.

He frowned as his memory clicked into high gear, shuffling back to when he was dating Nathan’s mother, Sherry. He remembered now. She had been living here in the city then and she’d told him that her uncle was in the same business as Simon.

“Jacob Hawthorne.” Simon inhaled slowly, deeply, and felt old anger churn in the pit of his stomach.

Jacob Hawthorne had been a thorn in his side for years. The man’s chain of discount department stores was forever vying for space that Simon wanted for his own company. Just three years ago, Jacob had cheated Simon out of a piece of prime property in the city that Simon had planned to use for expansion of his flagship store.

That maneuver had cost Simon months in terms of finding another suitable property for expansion.

Not to mention the fact that Jacob had bought up several of the Bradley department stores when Simon’s father was busily running the company into the ground. The old man had taken advantage of a bad situation and made it worse. Hell, he’d nearly succeeded in getting his hands on the Bradley home.

By the time Simon had taken over the family business, it was in such bad shape he’d spent years rebuilding.

Jacob Hawthorne was ruthless. The old pirate ran his company like a feudal lord and didn’t care who he had to steamroll to get his own way.

At the time Simon had briefly dated Sherry, he’d enjoyed the thought of romancing a member of Hawthorne’s family, knowing the old coot would have been furious if he’d known. But Sherry’s own clingy instability had ended the relationship quickly. Now, though, he had a son with the woman—which made his child a relative of Jacob Hawthorne.

There was a bitter pill to choke down. And he figured it would be even harder for the old pirate to swallow it. But there was more, too. If Sherry and Tula were cousins, then Tula was also a relative of Jacob Hawthorne. Interesting. But before his thoughts could go any further, his cell phone rang.

“Bradley.”

“Simon, it’s Dave over at the lab.”

He tensed. This was the call he’d been waiting for for days. The results of the paternity test were in. He would finally know for sure, one way or the other.

“And?” he asked, not wanting to waste a moment on small talk when something momentous was about to happen.

“Congratulations,” his old friend said, a smile in his tone. “You’re a father.”

Everything in Simon went still.

There was a sense of rightness settling over him even as an unexpected set of nerves shook through him. He was a father. Nathan was really his.

“You’re sure?” he asked, moving his gaze around the room, seeing it now with fresh eyes. His son lived here. “No mistakes?”

“Trust me on this. I ran the test twice myself. Just to be sure. The baby’s yours.”





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