Kitabı oku: «Wanted: Father for Her Baby: Keeping Baby Secret / Five Brothers and a Baby / Expecting Brand's Baby», sayfa 2

Chapter Two

Leenie couldn’t sit still. She felt as if a hundred-mile-an-hour freight train was surging through her. Nerves. Adrenaline. Fear beyond anything she’d ever experienced. Everyone kept telling her to go lie down, take a nap or just rest. Police Chief Ryan Bibb had suggested calling her doctor for a sedative. She knew the man meant well, but why couldn’t he—and all the other people who had congregated at her house—understand that she didn’t want her senses dulled, that she couldn’t sleep or rest. Her baby had been kidnapped. Stolen from her by only God knew what sort of person. She’d overheard the local police surmising about the general identity of Andrew’s abductor.

“She’s probably some woman who either lost a baby or has a fixation about having a child,” Chief Bibb had said. “And if that’s the case, she’ll take good care of Andrew.”

Leenie supposed that believing the kidnapper was taking good care of her baby should be some comfort. It wasn’t. Anyone capable of stealing a child had mental problems, whatever their reason.

“Why don’t you let me fix you some tea?” Haley Wilson said, as she put her arm around Leenie’s shoulder.

The plump brunette, who’d taken over as the manager of WJMM eleven months ago when Elsa Leone—now Elsa Devlin since she’d married—had moved to Knoxville, was a bubbly, energetic woman in her mid-forties and the mother of two teenage sons. From the minute Leenie and she met, they had bonded. Instant friendship. Haley had been the first person she’d called, the first person who’d come to mind when the police had asked her about a friend or family member to stay with her. Haley had dropped everything and rushed to Maysville Memorial, where Leenie had been waiting for Debra to come out of surgery. Haley stayed with her and they had prayed for Debra and for Andrew. Thankfully, Debra had come through the surgery to stop her internal bleeding with flying colors.

“Mrs. Schmale will be in intensive care for the next twenty-four hours,” Dr. Brenner had explained. “But I expect a full and speedy recovery.”

Knowing that Debra would be all right gave Leenie a great sense of relief. She loved Debra dearly, as a friend and mother figure. The police had said that Debra’s ability to accurately describe the kidnapper and the car she’d been driving would be of immeasurable help in locating Andrew.

“Leenie.” Haley shook her gently. “Come on in the kitchen with me. You can sit down long enough for me to fix you some tea.”

“I don’t want anything to drink.”

“Come in the kitchen with me anyway,” Haley said. “I’m going to prepare fresh coffee for those FBI people who just arrived and since it’s nearly morning, maybe I should offer to make breakfast, too. Why don’t you help me?”

Leenie stared at Haley, understanding what she’d said, but not comprehending.

Haley hugged her. “You can’t keep pacing the floor and you can’t keep going into Andrew’s room every ten minutes. You need something to do.”

“You’re right. Staring at Andrew’s crib in the nursery won’t make him miraculously appear.” Emotion lodged in Leenie’s throat. Don’t cry, she told herself. Crying isn’t going to help. You have to stay strong and in control.

“They’ll find him and bring him home to you.” Haley hugged her again, then grasped her hand and tugged. “Come on. Let’s make us some tea first, then put on fresh coffee for the others. After that I’ll take breakfast orders. And I expect you to eat. Even if it’s just a few bites.”

Leenie followed her friend into the kitchen, thankful that she had someone with her, someone who understood what it meant to be a mother with a baby boy lost. No, not lost—stolen. Suddenly feeling as if they had become glued to the spot, her feet wouldn’t move. The reality of Andrew’s disappearance struck her once again, but harder this time, and she sensed that he was being taken farther and farther away from her.

“Leenie?”

“Oh, God, what if—what if—” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

Haley grabbed her and pulled her into her arms. “Cry, dammit. Cry your eyes out.”

Leenie fell apart. She sobbed until she was spent. Was it seconds? Minutes? Hours? She didn’t know. And all the while Haley held her and stroked her back and murmured soothing, comforting words that Leenie barely heard. As she gulped down the lingering sobs, she lifted her head and looked into Haley’s kind hazel eyes.

Haley grasped her shoulders and offered her a fragile smile. “Go wash your face and when you get back, I’ll have a cup of tea waiting for you.”

Leenie nodded, but before she could turn around, the kitchen door opened and a tall, dark stranger entered. He wasn’t one of the local police and he wasn’t one of the three FBI agents who had arrived less than an hour ago.

“Dr. Patton?” The golden-eyed man looked right at Leenie.

“Yes.”

When he came forward and held out his right hand, she noticed an onyx and diamond ring on his third finger. “I’m Special Agent Dante Moran. I’ll be heading up this case.”

She shook his hand. Warm. Firm.

“Could we sit and talk, Dr. Patton?” he asked.

“I’ve talked to the police and to the other FBI agents,” she told him. “I don’t know what more there is to say.”

“No one has discussed possible scenarios with you, have they? Told you what we might be dealing with in Andrew’s case?”

She shook her head.

He nodded toward the kitchen table. “Want to sit down?”

“No, I—I can’t sit.”

“All right.” He shrugged. “We aren’t sure what we’re dealing with here. It’s possible that whoever took Andrew simply wanted a baby. If that’s—”

“Then she’ll probably take good care of him,” Leenie said sarcastically.

“Yeah, and I realize that doesn’t make you feel any better. But it’s better than the other possibilities.”

“Which are?”

“He was taken for ransom.”

“I’m not rich.”

“Not rich, but wealthy,” Moran said. “And you are a local celebrity.”

“Hell.”

“If Andrew was taken for a ransom, we’ll be hearing from the kidnapper soon.”

“And if he wasn’t taken for a ransom?”

“He could have been stolen by someone who intends to sell him. There’s a profitable market for stolen babies, especially WASP babies. Blond, blueeyed. And then there’s the other possibility.” He looked Leenie square in the eyes. “The worst case scenario is—”

“Dammit, Mr. Moran, do you have to come right out and say it?” Haley practically screamed at the FBI agent.

“Sorry, ma’am.” He glanced from Leenie to Haley and then focused on Leenie again. “Rest assured that we’re going to do everything in our power to find Andrew and bring him home to you safe and sound.”

“Yes, I—I know you will.”

“What about Andrew’s father?” Moran asked. “I understand you two aren’t married, but don’t you think that, under the circumstances, you should contact him to let him know his son has been kidnapped?”

Leenie didn’t respond; she simply stared into Moran’s yellow-brown eyes. After an endless moment, he shrugged. “Why don’t you get some rest, Dr. Patton? We can talk again later. Special Agent Walker explained to you the procedure if the phone rings and that we’ll screen anyone who comes to the door and—”

“He explained,” Haley said.

Moran nodded, then walked out of the kitchen.

Leenie took a deep breath. What about Andrew’s father? That question repeated itself over and over again inside her head. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already asked herself the same thing several times during the night. She had been wrestling with indecision about whether to tell Frank about Andrew’s existence since the day her baby was born. But now that Andrew had been abducted, it made the decision all the more difficult. What could she do, call Frank and say, “By the way, we have a baby boy and he’s been kidnapped.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Haley said.

“Yeah, but do you know what I should do?”

“Oh, honey, that’s a toughie. What’s your heart telling you to do?”

Leenie groaned. “It’s telling me that I need Frank, that somehow he can help.”

“And what does your brain tell you?”

“That Frank is a Dundee agent, with the resources of the entire agency at his disposal, that he can do things the law can’t do and that the Dundee Agency has strong ties to the FBI and—”

“Your heart and your mind are telling you to contact Frank Latimer,” Haley said.

She sighed. “How do I tell him about Andrew over the phone?”

“Good question. Is there someone else you could call, someone who could get Frank here under some other pretense so that you can tell him face-to-face?”

“I don’t know—” Leenie paused. “Well there is Elsa. Maybe my old boss at WJMM, Elsa Devlin, could arrange it. Her husband used to be a Dundee agent. And she and I are good friends.”

“So call Elsa.”

“If I do, she’ll come back to Maysville to be with me and she’s pregnant and—No, I’m not going to upset Elsa. There was a female Dundee agent named Kate Malone who worked on Elsa’s case with Frank. Maybe I could contact her.” Agitated and uncertain, Leenie paced the floor. “Oh, hell, maybe I’m complicating this much too much. Maybe I should just call Frank and tell him.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“For lightning to strike, I guess. For some sign that calling him is the right thing to do.”

“If you feel you can’t call Frank, call this Kate Malone and ask for her help.”

“If she tells Frank that I have a child, he’ll know or at the very least suspect the baby is his. Maybe it’s better if I don’t involve Frank. I don’t think I can handle telling him. Not now. Not under these circumstances.”

Frank boarded the Dundee jet, Kate Malone at his side. This was a first for him—flying off on an assignment and not knowing where he was going. Kate had come to his apartment this morning and met the lovely flight attendant, Heather Gant, just as Heather was leaving. Although she hadn’t said anything, Kate had lifted a judgmental eyebrow at Frank as the woman passed her in the hall. Ending his months of celibacy was reason for celebration, so he’d been feeling pretty good when Kate showed up.

“Shave and take a shower,” Kate had told him. “We’re off on an assignment as soon as we can get to the airport.”

“No way, I’ve got vacation time coming.”

“It’s been canceled. You’re needed on this job.”

“Can’t another agent handle it? Why me?”

“I’ll fill you in on the plane,” she’d told him. “We have a child kidnapping and the family wants Dundee involved.”

“How does the FBI feel about us interfering?”

“Not thrilled. But our old friend Dante Moran is heading up the case, so he knows we won’t work at cross purposes with his people.”

So, he’d agreed to come along with Kate without putting up too much of a fuss. Although her reasons were apparently personal—and as a general rule none of his fellow agents nosed into other agents’ past lives—everyone at Dundee knew that Kate always took a keen interest in any case involving a kidnapped baby. Shortly before leaving her job as Dundee’s CEO, Ellen Denby had hired Kate, who was a former Atlanta P.D. officer, just as Ellen had been. And rumor was that they had worked together when Kate was a rookie.

Frank munched on a cheese danish, then washed it down with black coffee. If he hadn’t been such a sucker for a sob story—single mother, overwrought with fear, and an abducted two-month-old boy—he’d be on his way to Sawyer’s Hilton Head vacation retreat instead of being midair, flying off on an assignment that was sure to be pure hell on the nerves. Dealing with overwrought mamas wasn’t his speciality. He’d leave coddling the abducted kid’s mommy to Kate.

He swigged on the coffee, then set aside the dark blue mug with the gold Dundee emblem. “Exactly where are we going?”

“South,” Kate replied.

“Could you be more specific?”

“The deep South.”

“Why all the secrecy? It’s just a child abduction case, isn’t it? Nothing hush-hush.”

“Yes.”

An odd sensation hit him in the gut. Kate had rushed him around so much at his apartment, assuring him she’d give him all the info on their plane trip, that he hadn’t actually thought things through. But something didn’t feel right about this whole thing.

“We’re working on the case as partners,” he said. “That means I need to know everything you know.”

“Right.”

“So fill me in.”

“Okay, but I need to tell you things from the beginning. Or at least my beginning.”

He nodded.

“Daisy got in touch with me this morning as soon as she arrived at Dundee. A woman named Haley Wilson had phoned her and asked specifically for me. I returned Ms. Wilson’s call because she had told Daisy that we had a mutual acquaintance whose infant son had been kidnapped.”

“So this is personal for you?”

“In a way, but…”

Kate stared at him with a peculiar look of concern in her eyes, and Frank’s gut tightened painfully. “But what?”

“Ah, hell, Frank, there’s no easy way to say this.”

“So, say it, will you?”

“The mutual acquaintance is Dr. Lurleen Patton.”

Although he’d thought about her, dreamed about her, cursed her for nearly destroying his love life, no one had mentioned her name in eleven months.

“Leenie?”

“Yes, Leenie.”

It took him a full minute to wrap his mind around the idea that Leenie had an infant son. “Leenie has a baby?”

“A little boy.”

“How old?”

“Two months.”

He did the math quickly, but even before adding up eleven months since he’d been with Leenie, he’d known the truth. “The baby’s mine.”

“Yes.”

Then reality sucker punched him. “Leenie’s baby has been kidnapped?”

“Yesterday afternoon. Someone crashed their vehicle into the nanny’s car. The nanny was injured, but she’ll live. The woman who caused the wreck stole the baby from his car seat.”

“It is my baby, right?” How was it possible? he asked himself. Yes, he and Leenie had had sex. Repeatedly. But not once had he forgotten to use a condom.

“The lady who called me, this Haley Wilson, is Leenie’s best friend and she says the baby is definitely yours.”

“Why the hell didn’t she—God, Kate, I’m a father.”

She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, then squeezed. “Ms. Wilson said that Leenie is trying very hard to be strong and brave, but she’s falling apart. She needs you.”

“She needs me now. What about when she first found out she was pregnant? Or when the baby was born?” Frank growled the questions, outrage bringing his blood to a boil.

“And even now, with our child abducted, she’s not the one who called and asked for me. Damn her!”

Leenie showered and changed clothes around noon, and at Haley’s insistence lay down on the bed. She’d been staring up at the ceiling for the past hour. How could she sleep when she had no idea where Andrew was or what had happened to him? Didn’t anyone understand that she was slowly going out of her mind? Although she’d tried to convince herself that it was only a matter of time before the FBI found her baby and brought him home to her, she hadn’t been able to escape the wide-awake nightmares that plagued her. What if Andrew had been killed, maybe even tortured?

Keening mournfully, Leenie wrapped her arms around herself and rolled over in the bed. Oh, God, please take care of Andrew. Don’t let anyone hurt him. Tears gathered in her eyes. She swallowed hard.

A sharp knock on the bedroom door gained her immediate attention. She sat straight up. “Yes?”

“Leenie, there’s someone here to see you,” Haley said through the closed door.

“I don’t want to see anyone. Please tell whoever it is that—”

The door flew open. Frank Latimer stormed into her bedroom. Frank? Frank! What was he doing here? How had he found out about—?

He marched across the room to the bed, reached down, grabbed her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. They stood there staring at each other. Leenie’s heartbeat accelerated at an alarming speed.

“Why the hell didn’t you let me know I had a son?” he demanded.

Leenie trembled from head to toe, but she kept her gaze locked with his. “How did you—who told you about Andrew?”

“I did.” Haley stepped into the bedroom, Kate Malone directly behind her. “Well, actually, I spoke to Ms. Malone and she told him about Andrew and what had happened.”

“Leenie, we’re here to help,” Kate said. “You have all of Dundee’s resources and manpower at your service. We’re going to work with Moran…with the FBI to find your little boy.” Kate came over and grasped Frank’s arm. “And despite his less than pleasant greeting, Frank is here to help you.” She shook his arm. “Aren’t you, Frank?”

He broke eye contact with Leenie long enough to confront Kate. “How about you two let me talk to Leenie alone, without an audience.”

“Is that all right with you?” Haley asked Leenie. She nodded.

Haley glared at Frank. “I’m the one responsible for your knowing about Andrew. Don’t make me regret what I did.” She hurriedly left the room.

After letting go of his arm, Kate hesitated. “The absolute worst thing that can happen when a child is kidnapped is for her—or his—parents to blame each other and be at each other’s throats. What Leenie needs right now, Frank, is your understanding and your support.”

He didn’t reply, but he released his tenacious hold on Leenie’s arm. Kate gave him a warning glare before leaving them alone. For several minutes the silence between them pulsated throughout the bedroom. A bedroom in which they had made mad, passionate love on more than one occasion. She couldn’t help remembering and her body warmed as those luscious memories encompassed her. Frank’s hard body pressing her into the mattress as he plunged into her. The feel of his strong arms holding her. His moist lips on hers, at her breasts. His fingers caressing, probing, tantalizing. For a millisecond she stopped breathing.

“I spoke to Dante Moran…briefly,” Frank said, his voice tight and controlled. “The local police found the vehicle that crashed into your nanny’s car. It was abandoned outside of town. Naturally there was no sign of the baby. Our baby.”

“His name is Andrew,” Leenie said.

He clenched his jaw, then said, “My middle name.”

She nodded. “Andrew Latimer Patton.”

Frank huffed, then frowned and shifted his shoulders. “Damn, Leenie, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Pride maybe. Too proud to ask for your help when I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself and a child without a father. Or maybe I was scared that you’d do the honorable thing and ruin all our lives. I don’t know. We weren’t even a couple, not really. We had a fling. No strings attached. We used protection. You left and never called or—”

“I thought about calling,” he told her.

Had he? she wondered. She wanted to believe him, but it really didn’t matter. He might have thought about it, but he hadn’t called. Not once in nearly a year. “Admit it, Frank, if Haley hadn’t called Kate and you didn’t know about Andrew, you’d never have gotten in touch with me.”

“We can’t know that for sure, can we? Besides, that’s a moot point now anyway.”

“Actually my not telling you about your child is a moot point.” She wanted to touch Frank, to put her arms around him and beg him to hold her. “Until we find Andrew, nothing else matters.”

“You’re right. Finding our son is our only concern. Everything else can be sorted out later, once we bring him home.”

“For what it’s worth…” she paused and looked right at Frank “…I’m glad you’re here.”

Chapter Three

Frank had left Leenie in her bedroom and gone through the house, out the back door and onto the porch. For late November, it was unseasonably warm. Probably somewhere in the high sixties and not a rain cloud in the sky. He’d gotten away from Leenie as fast as he could because he’d sensed that she had wanted him to put his arms around her and hold her. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. And not just because he was angry with her, that a part of him wanted to wring that long, smooth neck of hers for keeping his son a secret from him. He knew that if he touched her, she’d work that crazy magic spell on him and make him want to stay with her, hold on to her, make love to her and never let her go. When he’d left Maysville eleven months ago after his assignment ended, he’d sworn he’d never look back. The way Leenie turned him inside out had scared the hell out of him. He’d decided a long time ago that no woman was ever again going to do a number on him. No way was he going to let Leenie twist him around her little finger.

Yeah, well, Frank old buddy, maybe Leenie knew exactly how you felt. It wasn’t as if he’d made a big secret of not wanting anything beyond a brief affair. He had told her he was not the type of guy for a committed relationship. Is it any wonder that when she found out she was pregnant, she didn’t pick up the phone and call him? She probably had serious doubts he’d be thrilled to hear he was a father-to-be.

Okay, so maybe he had to accept part of the blame. Maybe he shouldn’t take all his anger out on her.

The last time Frank had allowed anything to tear him apart inside had been twelve years ago when he’d walked in on his wife in bed with another man. They’d been married for two years and he’d been fool enough to think they were happy. He had been happy. Apparently Rita hadn’t been. She’d decided she wanted more than Frank could give her and zeroed in on her married boss, a guy twice her age. Even now, after all these years, Frank could still remember how it felt seeing their naked bodies writhing on the bed. His bed, the one he’d slept in every night with Rita. And he could almost feel the power in the repeated punches he’d inflicted on Rodney Klyce. He’d beaten the hell out of the guy, but Klyce hadn’t pressed charges. He’d wanted the whole thing kept quite because of his wife. But before Frank had packed his bags and left town, he’d called Mrs. Klyce. A bitter, vengeful thing to have done, but he’d never regretted it. He’d later heard she’d divorced Klyce and taken him for half his net worth. He’d also heard that Rita married Klyce, then divorced him a few years later and moved on to greener pastures. By now she’d probably gone through half a dozen husbands, and he could truthfully say he didn’t give a damn.

He’d been a fool about Rita, a brown-eyed beauty with flaming red hair. She’d made him forget all about his solemn vow to never marry, to never repeat his parents’ mistake. Their battle royale divorce when he was twelve should have proven to him how easily love can turn to hate and that eventually hate evolved into apathy. But learning that lesson a second time—firsthand—had seared it into both his conscious and subconscious. Love affairs were okay. Love was not. After Rita, he’d shut himself off from anything other than lust and sex. He’d thought that was all it had been with Leenie. Even when he’d realized he couldn’t get her out of his mind, couldn’t forget her, he’d halfway convinced himself that what he really couldn’t forget was the fantastic sex.

You don’t love her, he told himself. You aren’t capable of love.

But the fact that he’d gotten her pregnant and she’d given birth to his child bonded them forever, marriage or no marriage. He had a son. A two-month-old son.

Frank cursed under his breath, then pounded his fist against the doorframe. He’d never given fatherhood a thought. When he’d sworn off love and marriage, naturally he’d assumed there wouldn’t be any kids in his future and that had been fine with him. He was forty damn years old. Too old to become a first-time father.

The more he thought about the situation, the more he came to realize why Leenie hadn’t told him about Andrew. If he’d been Leenie, he wouldn’t have called him with the news. He was lousy father material. He needed to talk to her, apologize for acting like a jerk. The woman had been traumatized enough by her baby’s kidnapping and all he’d done was add to that trauma.

Just as he reached out to open the back door, Kate and Moran came outside onto the porch. He could tell by their expressions that the news wasn’t good.

“What’s happened?” Frank asked.

“Nothing new,” Kate said. “But Dante has some information he’s willing to share with you, not as Andrew’s father, but as a Dundee agent who has certain government clearances and is deemed totally trustworthy.”

“Cut the crap and lay it on the line,” Frank told her.

“It’s good news and bad news,” she said.

“We’re fairly certain we know who kidnapped your son,” Special Agent Moran said.

“What?” Frank glared at Moran.

“Not the name of a person, but an organization,” Kate said. “The good news is that the FBI is reasonably certain the woman who stole Andrew isn’t some nutcase who’ll kill him or keep him for herself.”

“And just what makes the Feds so certain?” He looked to Moran for the answer.

“We unearthed information about an infant abduction ring several years ago,” Moran said. “We’re not sure how long it’s been in operation, but we suspect at least ten years. We’re on the verge of setting up a sting operation that will lead us right to the top, to the people making big money by stealing Caucasian babies and selling them to unsuspecting couples who’ll gladly pay a hundred thousand or more for a cuddly blue-eyed, blond-haired baby.”

“Hell. Are you telling me that you think Andrew was stolen by this baby abduction ring?”

“The odds are pretty high that he’ll soon be sold to the highest bidder.”

“Son of a bitch.” Frank glowered at Kate. “And this is the good news?”

“At least there’s a good chance they’ll take care of him because he’s worth a great deal of money to them.”

In desperation Frank said, “What if we run an ad in the paper offering more than a hundred grand for Andrew’s safe return?”

“These people aren’t going to take any chances on getting caught,” Moran said. “Selling these kids to adoptive parents is easy money because it’s safe. The people who adopt these babies aren’t going to ask too many questions about where their baby came from, now are they?”

“How close are you guys to nabbing them?”

“You know I can’t tell you the details.” Moran felt in his coat pocket, then patted his shirt pocket before letting his hand fall to his side. “I quit smoking nearly a year ago, but I can’t kick the habit of reaching for one now and again.”

“How close?” Frank repeated.

“Close.”

“I want in on the sting.”

“You know that’s not possible.”

“Who are these people and where do we find them?” Frank caught the sidelong glances Kate and Moran exchanged. “There’s a good chance Andrew will be the next baby up on the auction block, so why not send me and Kate in as prospective parents?”

“We’ve got federal agents who can do that. Besides, you’re the kidnapped boy’s father. You’re too close to this to—”

Frank grabbed Moran by his lapels and hauled him close so that they were eye-to-eye.

“If it were your kid, what would you do?”

Moran, cool as a cucumber, looked directly at Frank and said, “I’d want to go in myself and get my child and then I’d want to kill every bastard involved in the abduction ring…kill them with my bare hands.”

Frank loosened his hold on Moran’s suit, then released the lapels and took a deep breath. “And some stupid federal agent would stop you.”

Moran’s lips twitched with a hint of a smile. “You know it.”

“How much can I tell Leenie?” Frank asked.

“Tell her about the abduction ring and our suspicions that Andrew was stolen by these slimeballs, but that’s it. If and when we make a move, you can tell her afterward, hopefully when we bring her son home to her.”

“She’ll be mad as hell at all of us,” Frank said.

“After the way you treated her in there, I’d say she’s already mad as hell at you,” Kate told him. “Maybe you should go back inside and talk to her, even apologize.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Kate smiled. “Could be there’s hope for you yet, Latimer.”

Leenie ran a comb through her hair, then opened her jewelry case and removed a pair of gold and diamond earrings. She’d been wearing these the first time she’d seen Frank. He’d come into WJMM as part of the Dundee team sent to Maysville to protect Elsa Leone against death threats nearly a year ago. He and Kate had been the investigative team and they’d set up shop in Elsa’s office in the WJMM studio complex. The minute she’d met Frank, she’d wanted him. And she’d had him in record time. She had thought he’d be her first one-night stand; instead their encounter had turned out to be the first time she’d ever had sex with someone she’d just met, someone little more than a stranger. But with Frank it had seemed right not to wait. The sex had been incredible. They’d set the sheets on fire and sent off skyrockets. And the more they had sex, the more they’d wanted it. They couldn’t get enough of each other.

Leenie slipped the earrings on, then slid her fingers down the side of her neck, remembering the feel of Frank’s big, rough fingers caressing her.

While she stood staring at herself in the mirror, her eyes glazed over with memories, Haley came in and walked up behind her. “You haven’t eaten enough to keep a bird alive. Why don’t you let me make you a sandwich.”

“Food won’t help,” Leenie said. “I feel as if I eat a bite, I’ll throw it up.”

“How did things go with Frank?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“What did he do?”

“He hates me.” Leenie sighed. “And I can’t blame him. He had every right to know about his son. He doesn’t understand why I didn’t tell him I was pregnant.”

A deep male voice said, “Yes, he does understand.”

Leenie gasped when she saw Frank’s reflection in the mirror. Haley turned around and gave him a withering glare as she moved past him toward the door.