The Boss's Pregnancy Proposal
Raye Morgan
Working for her heart-stoppingly handsome boss shouldn't have been so hard, but could Callie Stevens let her attraction get the best of her when he asked her to have his baby?Of course, love wouldn't enter into the arrangement. Or would it? A busy CEO, Grant wanted a family, but he'd been devastated by love. Sensible Callie was exactly what he was looking for. Yet as they prepared for their little bundle of joy, Grant's control slipped. Maybe Callie was exactly what his heart needed….
The Boss’s Pregnancy Proposal
Raye Morgan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Patience—
for her compassion, perseverance,
and…well, patience!
Thanks so much.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
EMPTY offices were dark and spooky at night.
Callie Stevens took the stairs. She didn’t want to use the elevator. Too noisy, and the last thing she wanted was to draw any attention from the night watchman.
By the time she’d climbed to the fifth floor of ACW Properties, she was beginning to rethink that position. But she had to be careful. After all, she’d just been fired by Harry Carver, the elderly CEO. She wasn’t supposed to be here at all.
Reaching the sixth-floor landing, she stopped to catch her breath and listen for signs of life. Glass sconces lined the hallways giving off a dim light, but nothing was stirring. A sigh of relief and she made her way toward the area where her little cubicle stood among all the rest.
The light from the hallway cast an eerie spell over the room, lengthening shadows and making hiding places where they weren’t meant to be. She stopped for a moment, orienting herself and feeling a sharp pang of regret. She’d liked this job. She was going to miss it—and the money that went with it.
Looking around quickly, she finally saw the object of her quest—her treasured orchid plant. She’d left it behind during the hectic ten minutes they’d given her to clean out her desk before escorting her off the premises. She’d been afraid someone might have thrown it in the trash, but there it was up on the high corner of a metal bookcase.
She glanced around quickly for something to climb on. There was no stepladder, so she pushed a chair over and hopped up, stretching high. Her fingers could barely reach. She’d just made contact with the ceramic pot that held her floral darling when the lights of the room snapped on and a deep male voice sent a shock wave slicing through her.
“Looking for something, Ms. Stevens?”
She screamed.
It wasn’t a very loud scream, more of a yelp, really. But it was enough to cause her to lose her balance. She grabbed at the edge of the shelf, but it was too late. She was falling and so was the ceramic pot with the orchid she’d come back to rescue.
She hit bottom with a thud, but not the sharp, painful smack she’d expected. It took a couple of seconds for her adrenaline to fade and her mind to register that the man who’d startled her had stepped forward and tried to break her fall, and that she’d smashed him to the floor for his trouble—and now they were locked together in an embarrassing tangle of hair and limbs.
This was not good.
“Oh!”
She scrambled to her feet and looked down at him. It was Grant Carver—her ex-supervisor—nephew of the CEO who’d fired her and just about the last person she wanted to see.
He looked a bit dazed. She could probably make a run for it and get away. She drew in a sharp breath, wondering….
But then she saw the ooze of blood at the corner of his mouth and she gasped. The back of her head must have hit him in the face.
“Oh!” she cried again, dropping to her knees beside him. “Are you all right? Oh my God, you’re hurt.”
His deep blue eyes opened and regarded her coolly from beneath thick, dark lashes. “Ya think?” he murmured. Grimacing, he reached up to touch his lip and drew back a bloody hand.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “What can I do?”
“Here’s what you can do,” he said, his voice husky. “You can walk over to that desk.” He gestured toward the supervisor’s desk.
She jumped up and did as he suggested, looking back at him questioningly. “This one?”
“Yes.” He nodded, and winced in a way that made her bite her lip in regret. “Now you can pick up that phone.”
She did so, still watching him for directions.
“And you can dial 9 for building security. Tell them to call the police. We’ve got an intruder who needs arresting.”
“Oh!” She slammed the phone back down.
She should have known. All her compassion drained away. She’d worked with Grant Carver quite a few times in the year and a half she’d been here and she had yet to figure him out. Though he was cool and somewhat sardonic on the surface, she’d often sensed an underlying current in him that disturbed her. The man had secret demons.
Most of her female co-workers tended to swoon as he passed, but she’d never been one to fall for wide shoulders and crystal-blue eyes. She knew from experience that male beauty could hide a shriveled soul.
Still, did it matter? She didn’t really believe he would have her arrested. Tongue-lashed, certainly. But arrested? No.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she said, walking slowly back to stand with hands on her hips over where he’d pulled himself up into a sitting position on the floor.
He was rubbing the back of his dark head as though he’d hit it hard enough to get a lump. He was still dressed in suit pants and a white shirt, though that was open at the neck and his tie and suit coat were missing. She couldn’t ignore the fact that he was a very large, very handsome man. But that hadn’t mattered when she’d worked for him. Why should it matter now?
“You’re not going to have me arrested,” she told him firmly, watching as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his cut lip.
He looked skeptical. “I’m not?”
She shook her head. “No, you’re not.”
“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully, looking up at her. He began counting off the charges on his fingers. “Trespassing. Possibly breaking and entering. Definitely assault and battery. Assault with a deadly…” He frowned. “What is that thing?”
She picked the remnants up off the floor. The purple glazed pot was in pieces, but the inner plastic container looked unharmed. It held a couple of leathery leaves and a long stalk with a full violet blossom wobbling giddily at the end of it.
“It was an orchid pot.”
“Okay. Assault with an orchid pot.”
He considered that for a moment, frowned slightly, then shook his head. “On second thought, maybe we ought to skip the phone call,” he said, rising effortlessly to his feet and towering over her. “I can exact my own brand of punishment.”
That gave her a momentary shiver, but she would rather eat dirt than let him see her squirm. She tried to tell herself that his height was partly exaggerated by the finely tooled cowboy boots he wore, but she knew the truth. He was tall.
“I hardly think that will be necessary,” she said, holding his gaze with her own, no shivers showing.
“And I hardly think you’re in the position to make these decisions,” he shot back.
“Look, the only reason I fell was because you startled me.” A thought occurred to her and she frowned. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
He stared at her. “What am I doing here? It’s my family’s company.”
She shrugged. She wasn’t going to give up any ground if she could help it. “I thought you were off in West Texas somewhere for the week.”
“I’m back.”
So it seemed. Just more of her bad luck. “It’s after hours. This building is supposed to be empty.”
He looked at her as though he’d decided she had a screw loose after all. “Oh, I see. So I’m the one not following rules.”
Ridiculous. She knew that. But what the heck—the best defense was a good offense. She’d heard that many times. And she certainly had no intention of begging for mercy. So what else could she do?
“Exactly,” she said, holding his gaze. “You’re certainly the one who caused all the trouble.”
He stared at her and suddenly, he grinned. And then he laughed.
She stepped back, startled again. Who knew he even had a sense of humor? She felt hesitant, thrown off guard. She was perfectly comfortable defending herself against a strong man, but she wasn’t sure what to do with a man who laughed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled at last, eyes sparkling. “I say we blame it on the orchid. That makes about as much sense.”
She looked down at what she’d gathered in her hands. Watching her, he held back a chuckle. She seemed to be taking him so seriously. And that reminded him of what he’d always liked about her. She wasn’t a flirt.
He’d had his fill of flirts. Women sometimes seemed to respond to him like flowers opened to the sun. There’d been a time when he’d reveled in it. But that time had long since passed. Now it just got in the way.
Not that he was dead to physical appeal. With her thick blond hair and her large dark eyes, Callie Stevens was a looker and he had the same involuntary attraction to her any normal man would have. Still, he was experienced enough to know it didn’t mean a thing. It would never touch him where he lived. Nothing much did anymore. Life was more tolerable that way.
“Orchids are plants,” Callie was saying, looking at him with a crease between her brows that told him she knew he’d been teasing her, but wanted to challenge him anyway.
“Agreed. So what?”
She looked triumphant. “No free will. You can’t assign blame to them. They have no choice in how they’re flung about.”
He had the grace to pretend chagrin. “I’ll have to admit, you’ve got a point there,” he said.
She hesitated only briefly. If he was admitting things, it was definitely time for her to make a grand departure.
“Of course I do,” she said regally. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
She turned to go, but his hand on her arm brought her to a halt before she’d made a convincing attempt at a getaway. She looked up at him, wishing she could read the intentions in those clear blue eyes.
“Hold it,” he was saying. “We’re not finished here.”
For the first time, she really did feel uneasy. She was alone in a darkened building with a man she really didn’t know all that well. She’d been one with six others in the research group under Grant Carver, but they were only one of four groups he supervised. She had worked closely with him on a couple of projects, but there’d been a natural reserve between them and it hadn’t only come from her end of the relationship.
She’d had a strange encounter with him once, months ago, where he’d made a proposal that was so off-the-wall, she sometimes wondered if she’d dreamed it. She’d turned him down and he hadn’t seemed to hold it against her. But it had made her wonder about him. She knew there was tragedy in his life. If she hadn’t known it from the office buzz, she would have recognized it in the depths of his eyes.
But that was all he’d ever revealed. In fact, she’d probably seen more honest emotion from him tonight than she’d seen in over a year of working for him.
For some reason, her attention dropped to his open shirt and stuck there for a beat too long. It wasn’t as though she could actually see anything. The lighting cast dark shadows on his chest. But the fact that the crisp white fabric that was usually closed behind a tie now lay open, exposing something mysterious, was somehow intimate and exciting in a way she hadn’t expected. Her pulse stuttered in surprise and began to race.
But she couldn’t let him know.
“I’m finished,” she responded, looking back up quickly. “I came for my orchid and I’ve got it.”
“There must have been an easier way,” he noted dryly.
“Probably,” she said. “But I never seem to do things the easy way.”
He nodded. “You do things in a pretty good way, from what I’ve seen. As I remember it, you worked on the Ames Ranch project last year, didn’t you?”
Work. Yes, if he kept this on a professional level, she could handle it. If only he weren’t touching her. His fingers had curled around her arm in a casual grip, but when she tried to pull away, he didn’t budge. For all intents and purposes, he had her trapped.
“Yes, sir, I did,” she said stoutly.
“And quite handily, too.” His handsome head tilted as he studied her from narrowed eyes. “You were the only one on the staff who seemed to understand what the hell was going on most of the time.”
You actually noticed? She didn’t really say it, but it was on the tip of her tongue. But she would have followed that up with, Why didn’t you give me any credit for that at the time?
He was gazing at her speculatively. “I think we could do some good work together. I’ve got a new project coming up…”
Her eyes widened. Tossing her thick blond hair back, she stared right into his deep eyes.
“Too late. Your uncle fired me today. Didn’t you know?”
She’d expected him to react with surprise. Maybe even shock. After all, he’d just admitted she was one of the best employees he had. When he realized what had happened surely he would do something to straighten things out. Surely he would tell her he’d reprimand whomever it was that put her on the list for layoffs. Maybe he would invite her to come back and even give her a nice fat raise to make up for…
Her head jerked as she came out of her dream and heard how he actually responded to her announcement of her firing.
“Yes, I know.”
“You know?” she echoed stupidly.
He knew. He’d probably put her on the list on purpose. Hey, fire the blond chick—she’s good but she gets on my nerves. Smart is one thing, smart aleck is another. Get rid of her.
Suddenly she was furious—as angry as she’d been when she’d first heard she was a goner. Pulling away from his grip on her arm, she turned on him fiercely.
“But you think you know everything, don’t you? Did you also know I just lost my second job, the one I use to help get out of a mountain of debt that’s about to eat me alive? Did you also know that I’m about to be evicted from my apartment because I can’t pay the rent? Do you ever think about things like that when you casually toss people overboard? Or are we just like chess pieces in a big, careless game that doesn’t mean a thing to you?”
His handsome face could have been cut from stone. “Are you finished?”
“No! There are others just like me. Everyone in the research department, in fact. We were all living by the skin of our teeth, paycheck to paycheck…because you don’t exactly pay a lot to your lower-level employees, do you? And now every one of us is out on her ear, wondering where the next meal is coming from….”
“Okay, enough,” he demanded, stopping the words in her throat. “Can the outrage, Norma Rae. We don’t encourage peasant rebellions around here.” He’d pulled out another handkerchief and was wiping at the blood on his face and dabbing at the mess it had made on the front of his shirt.
“Imagine the damage you could have done with a pitchfork,” he muttered.
A sharp retort sprang to her lips, but before she could get the words out, she noticed that the bleeding was worse than she’d thought. She had to bite her lip to hold back a small cry. Every instinct in her wanted to leap forward and do something about the wound. Heal him. Maybe even comfort him. After all, it was pretty much her fault, no matter what she said to him.
The funny thing was he’d never looked more attractive to her. His dark hair was mussed, some of it falling down over his forehead. And there was a sort of vulnerability to him because of the cut and the blood and all. He usually looked so invincible. It was a refreshing change in a way.
And then he ruined it all by looking up with his mouth twisted in the usual sardonic style.
“Come along, my little attempted murderess,” he said, turning toward the corridor. “You’re going to have to fix what you’ve broken.”
She followed willingly enough as he led the way to his office. Guilt was making her pliable for the moment.
She hadn’t been in his office very often. She knew women who looked for any excuse to make a visit here, but she wasn’t one of them. As the best-looking unattached male—and the CEO’s nephew—he was considered quite a catch.
She’d never found him all that attractive herself. Too much arrogance there. That take-charge attitude did nothing but put her off. It reminded her too much of her short but miserable marriage. Not that Grant was anything like Ralph, really. At least Grant’s arrogance was based on a certain level of competence. Ralph’s had been mostly bluster.
Still, she’d vowed she would never again let a man rule her life the way her husband had tried to rule hers all those years and she tended to stay clear of men like Grant.
His office was a lot like him—handsome and well-maintained. Plush carpeting muffled sound; leather, wood and black glass provided a rich atmosphere. One framed photograph, set high at the back of the office, immediately drew the eye. The beautiful dark-haired woman holding an even more beautiful dark-eyed toddler had to be the wife and child she knew had died in a horrible car accident a few years ago.
The tragedy of losing a child—she could hardly bear to think of it. They said he’d changed after the accident. That he became a completely different person. She had no way of knowing what he’d been like before, but she found it hard to believe he’d been full of joy and laughter and the milk of human kindness in his earlier incarnation. The man she knew was totally focused on business and success and not much else.
So…just as she was a widow, he was a widower. She’d never put those two identities together like that before. Just the thought made her jump back mentally, as though she’d put her hand on a hot stove. No, she didn’t want to go there.
“So, where is your first-aid kit?” she asked. She put the pieces of her orchid pot on the desk and turned, noting there was a door leading to a private bathroom.
“I’ll take care of the cut,” he said, beginning to shrug out of his shirt. “You take care of the bloodstains on this.”
He held out the shirt to her but she had a hard time noticing. Her attention was caught and held by the incredible sight of his beautiful torso.
Men his age weren’t supposed to look this good. He had to be in his thirties. By then, most males she knew had started to let lust for potato chips and beer overcome the desire to work out at the gym. Somebody had forgotten to clue Grant in to the routine. He was as gorgeous as a Greek statue.
And just as cold, she reminded herself quickly, working hard to keep her breathing steady.
She felt numb as she took the shirt and started toward the sink in the bathroom. Had she stared too long? Had he noticed? Oh please, don’t let him have noticed! She turned the faucet up high and began scrubbing at the shirt with all her might.
“I don’t know,” he was saying, and there he was right behind her again, looking into the mirror over her head and dabbing at the wound. “What do you think? Iodine? Mercurochrome?”
She turned to look at his cut, but he was standing much too close and all she could look at was the golden skin, the stunning muscles. Could she actually feel the heat from his body? He smelled so good, like soap and fresh-cut grass. For just a moment, she was overwhelmed by the need to touch him. It swept over her in a choking wave and she felt herself yearning toward him. Every part of her wanted to feel that beautiful flesh.
It had been far too long since a man had held her in his arms.
“Oh!” she cried, turning back. “Go out,” she ordered, staring down at the white shirt still in the sink and pointing toward the door.
“What’s the matter?”
“You’re like…naked!”
“I’m not naked. I just don’t have a shirt on.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re naked. Either you go out or I will.”
He was about to say something. She could feel him revving up for it. He was either going to blast her for being ridiculous or tease her for being a ninny. She gritted her teeth, getting ready for it.
But to her relief, he resisted the temptation and quietly left the room. She sighed, knowing she’d given the game away. But there had been nothing else she could have done, except maybe to run screaming from the room herself.
It wasn’t really him, she told herself a bit hysterically. It was just…well, she was a woman, after all. And he was the most gorgeous man she’d been this close to in a long, long time. Still, she wished she hadn’t revealed herself that way.
She finished washing his shirt and when she came out into the office, she found him pulling on a T-shirt he’d found somewhere. It hugged his bulges and emphasized his assets, but it was better than his being naked.
“I hung your shirt on a hook in the bathroom to dry,” she told him without meeting his gaze.
He turned to look at her, reminded immediately of what he liked about her. She was efficient and to the point. Her smile didn’t drip with saccharin and she didn’t bat her eyes. He’d been surprised at the way she’d reacted a few minutes before. Usually she was almost as careful and controlled as he was.
And that was why he’d thought she might be interested in a business proposition he’d put to her a few months before. She’d responded as though he’d asked her to sign over her soul to him and he thought she’d overreacted. Still, he hadn’t been able to get the possibility out of his mind ever since.
“Am I allowed this close to you?” he teased.
“As long as you’re dressed,” she said calmly, flashing a sharp look his way. “Naked men make me nervous.”
“Me, too,” he said. “Naked women, on the other hand…”
“Should obviously be kept out of your reach.”
He laughed. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m just a tame family man.” Reality flashed into his mind and his smile faded. He had no family anymore.
“Or at least I used to be,” he murmured softly, staring into space.
Funny. It had been almost two years since Jan had died. There were now times when he could go a few days without the wave of nausea, the sharp pain in his heart and the cramping of his stomach muscles at the thought of her and what he’d lost. And then it would come again, slapping him in the face when he least expected it. Like now.
She was the only woman he’d ever loved or ever could love. And because of that, he almost welcomed the pain. Anything that would bring her closer for a moment. He would never get over it. He didn’t want to get over it. Jan was still his wife, now and forever.
On the other hand, he ached for a child. His little Lisa had been as beloved as a baby could be and he missed her almost as much as he missed Jan. But over the last year or so, the need for another child had been growing in him. He wanted a son. A baby to fill up the hole in his heart. A child to give him a future.
“Are you thinking this way because of Granddad?” his sister, Gena, had asked him just the other day when he’d hinted at his longing. “I know he’s on all the time about wanting you to marry again so you can have a son to carry on the name.”
“‘Grant Carver, the name of Texas heroes’,” he quoted his grandfather in a voice very like his, and they both laughed. “No, this has nothing to do with getting married.”
“Children usually come with mothers attached,” she’d warned him.
She meant a wife, of course. She thought he ought to look for someone to marry.
“I’ll find a way around that,” he’d told his sister artlessly.
“You can’t have a baby without getting married,” she’d insisted.
“Oh, yeah? Watch me.”
But he wasn’t as confident as he pretended. He’d looked into the various options open to him and had found it wasn’t as easy as you might think. You couldn’t just order up a new kid the way he’d bought his new Lamborghini. Not if you wanted the child to actually carry your genes.
And that was what he wanted—deeply, passionately, with all his heart. He just wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to make it happen.
“Do you have any family around you?” he asked Callie curiously. He knew she was a widow, but he didn’t know much else about her circumstances. “Any parents or aunts and uncles?”
She had the look of someone who was thinking of edging toward the door.
“Family?” she repeated. “Uh…no, not really. I’m pretty much alone.”
Leaning against his desk, he dabbed at the blood on his lip again. “Everybody needs some sort of family,” he advised her. “I just spent the last few days at a friend’s family reunion in San Antonio. Watching all those people enjoy each other and care about each other and depend on each other really brought it home to me. We all need other people in our lives.”
And I need a son.
He didn’t say it aloud, but somehow he almost felt she heard his thoughts. Watching her eyes change, he knew she was thinking of the same thing he was—of that rainy fall day about six months before when he’d nipped into his cousin’s medical clinic and found Callie Stevens sitting in the waiting room.
Babies—that was his cousin’s business. Ted ran an infertility clinic that specialized in in vitro fertilization. Tortured by his longing for a child to love, Grant had stopped in to see if he could get some information from his cousin about surrogate mothering—without actually planning to come clean on why he was asking about it.
And there was Callie, flipping nervously through a food magazine. He’d nodded in recognition. She’d turned beet-red and nodded back, then pretended fascination in tofu recipes. And he’d left without the information he’d come for, but with a new curiosity in just what a woman like Callie had been doing in his cousin’s waiting room.
As a widow, could it be that she, like him, longed for a baby but didn’t want the complications of another relationship? The thought was tantalizing and he’d spun a whole scenario around it, getting more and more enthusiastic. His cousin’s office wasn’t the first place he’d gone to find out about surrogates. He’d gone as far as to interview candidates at two other clinics. And he hadn’t been impressed. But if he could interest a woman like Callie Stevens…
He knew instinctively she would never have a baby for mere money. So what could he do to provide an incentive? He’d mulled it over for days and thought he’d come up with a plan that would be mutually advantageous. She obviously wanted a baby. He could provide the support for her if she had a child for him—and then stayed on to basically be the child’s nanny. That way they both could get what they wanted.
It sounded good to him.
The next day he called her into his office and ran it past her. She’d acted like he was setting up a baby smuggling ring and wanted her to provide the baby. She couldn’t get out of his office fast enough. He was actually afraid she might quit her job or file some kind of harassment suit.
She hadn’t done that, but she had acted very wary around him for a while. He hadn’t brought it up again. But the possibilities were provocative, and he’d done his share of wondering—what if?
CHAPTER TWO
“YOU’RE bleeding again,” Callie said, jerking Grant’s attention back to the present situation. “We really need to do something about it. You need a doctor.”
“Oh, no,” he said, dabbing at the wound. “I can do this myself.”
“No, you can’t.” She shook her head in exasperation. “I know you’re a control freak, but you can’t control everything yourself. There’s a time to admit when you need help.”
His blue eyes rose and held her gaze. There was nothing warm there, no teasing, no humor.
“What makes you think you know me, Ms. Callie Stevens?”
“I don’t really know you, Mr. Grant Carver, but I know your type.” She was on a roll. Things seemed to work much better when she took the initiative. He was scary in his way, but he could be tamed. At least, she hoped so.
“My type? Please, enlighten me. What is my type?”
She tried to glare at him but it didn’t come off. He looked strangely vulnerable in the T-shirt with his mouth still bleeding. Like a fighter after a fight. All his hard edges were blurring a bit.
“Go on,” he pressed. “I want to know what you think ‘my type’ is.”
“Okay.” She raised her chin. “Type A for arrogant. Type C for controlling. Type T for tyrant. Should I go on?”
“I get the picture. You don’t like me very much, do you?”
She blinked at him and words stuck in her throat. Like him? What did that have to do with it? She didn’t really know him, just as he’d said. What right did she have to be name-calling? Suddenly she regretted that she’d let herself tumble down this blind alley.
His handkerchief was soaked with blood and he was fishing in his desk for another one. The cut seemed to be getting worse the more he fooled with it.
She frowned. “I think you should sit down while we figure out what to do about your face,” she said.
He looked up at her with a spark of humor in his eyes. “You don’t like my face, either?” he said, managing to make it sound pathetic in a way guaranteed to touch her heartstrings.
She bit her lip to keep from smiling at him.
“Sit down,” she said.
“I don’t need to sit down, I…”
Reaching out, she flattened her hand against his chest and gave him a shove into the large leather desk chair behind him. He let her do it and didn’t resist, sinking down into the leather and watching her curiously, as though he was interested in what she thought she was going to do with him next.
“Now pick up the phone and call a doctor,” she ordered.
He gave her a skeptical look. “Be serious.”
“I’m serious as a heart attack. You need help. I’m not leaving you here to bleed to death in the night. Pick up that phone.”
“At the rate my blood is flowing, it’ll take a week to bleed to death,” he scoffed. But he did glance at the soaked handkerchief. Still, he hesitated. “Listen, my sister’s a general practitioner. She can take care of it—if I decide that’s necessary.”
She motioned toward the telephone. “Call her.”
“What are you talking about? It’s after ten o’clock. I can’t call her.”
“Call her. She won’t mind.”
His dark eyebrows rose. “Do you know her?”
She gave him a tight smile. “I know sisters.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and then something changed in his face.
“All right.”
He picked up his cell and punched in a code, then put it to his ear. “Hi, Gena. It’s Grant. Sorry to call so late, hon. No, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to say ‘hi’ and…”
It must have been because he didn’t see the move coming that she was able to get the phone away from him so easily. It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would do such a thing. But she could tell his conversation with his sister was going nowhere, so she turned, zeroed in on her target and snatched the receiver right out of his unsuspecting hand, then quickly moved out of his reach while she pressed it to her ear.
“Hi, Gena. This is Callie Stevens.”
“What the…?” he growled.
She waved away his rude expletive.
“You don’t know me. I work…er, I used to work for your brother. I just wanted to let you know that he’s just had an accident….”
Grant swore again, but she ignored it.
“No, no, he’s fine. But he is…damaged, so to speak.” She made a face at him. “He’s got a cut lip and it looks like it needs stitches to me. It keeps bleeding, and…Oh, great. Yes, we’re at the office. Thanks.”
She handed him back his telephone and gave him a superior smile. “She’s coming right over.”
“What?”
“She said she’s only minutes away.”
“Wait one dang-burned second here,” he said, his blue eyes frosty. “I’m getting confused. Who got fired today, you or me?”
The superior smile was working, so she kept it up. “You’ll be taken care of. So I figure we’re even now. And I’m leaving.”
His expression hardened. “Not yet. The key, please.” He held out his hand.
She bit her lip and tried to look innocent. “What key?”
“The one you must have used to get into the building tonight.”
Oh, that key.
It was one she’d had for opening the office early a few months before and she’d found it with her things when she’d gone through the boxes of stuff from her desk. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled it out and handed it to him.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”
She turned toward the door. “Write me a letter.”
He rose and followed her. “I’m quite serious. I’ve got something I need to discuss with you. I’ve got some ideas on ways we could use you here at ACW. How would you like your job back?”
There was a certain sense of satisfaction in hearing his words. This was almost an apology, wasn’t it? At any rate, it was an admission that she shouldn’t have been fired.
Yeah. That and a quarter will get you a ride on a pony. Big deal.
She turned back and studied his eyes. “You could do that?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have let my uncle fire you in the first place if I’d known his plans. I’ve been out of the office all week, as you know, and I only found out that he’d scuttled the entire research department when I got back this afternoon.”
She hesitated, considering. “What makes you think I would want to come back to a place that’s treated me so shabbily?”
He looked pained. “Please, no more self-righteous speeches. I thought you desperately needed this job. What happened to all your tales of woe?”
She started to speak, then thought better of it and shook her head. But she turned back, because she’d forgotten her orchid again. It would be completely ridiculous to leave it behind after all the trouble she’d taken to get it.
“You weren’t really lobbying to get your job back, were you?” he said, eyes narrowing. “You were just trying to make me feel bad. Is that it?”
She looked up at him and didn’t answer. What could she say? He was only partly right.
For some reason, this seemed to anger him. His hand gripped her arm, fingers curling around it.
“Just between you and me, Ms. Stevens,” he said coolly, staring down into her eyes in a way that made her heart pound, “I don’t feel bad. I never do.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She prepared to yank her arm away from his grip, but he released her before she had the chance.
“Just be here first thing in the morning,” he said. He glanced at the open calendar on his desk. “Oh, wait. Damn. I’ve got a couple of important meetings in the morning. It’ll have to be after lunch.” He looked up at her. “How about two o’clock? Right here in my office.”
She couldn’t muster any more of the superior smile shtick. Her lips were beginning to ache. So she made do with a superior shrug. “I’ll think about it.”
He saw right through her facade. “I’m sure you will,” he said, his voice tinged with just a touch of sarcasm. “And while you’re at it, think about this.” He gathered her pot shards and the still-perky orchid plant and stuffed them into a drawer in his desk. “You don’t get your orchid unless you show up.”
She sprang toward him, as though to rescue her plant, but he was ready for her this time and she stopped herself at the last second to avoid another close contact with his large, hard body.
“You can’t do that,” she cried in outrage. “That’s my property!”
It was his turn to try the superior smile.
“And you are here after breaking into my property. So I guess we’re even again.”
She felt like pouting. Jaw rigid, she held out her hand. “May I have my orchid, please?” she said.
“You know, I don’t think I’m going to let you take it.”
She glared at him. “That’s despicable.”
A half smile was curving his full lips. “I think I’m going to hang on to it to make sure you come back tomorrow.”
“That’s…that’s like blackmail.”
He considered her charge. “No, more like bribery.”
“Whatever. It’s illegal.”
He smiled. “So sue me.”
“I just might do that,” she said, though they both knew there wasn’t a chance in the world of that happening. “And you know what? If I’d had the chance, I’m sure I would have fired you.”
And with that nonsensical statement of defiance, she turned and stormed off, taking the stairs again because she needed to work out her anger on something physical in order to keep from killing the man.
It was long past midnight. Grant still sat behind his desk, staring moodily at the dark window. His sister, Gena, had come and gone, working her medical magic, and now half of his face felt numb. But that wasn’t what had him brooding. His encounter with Callie was nagging at him like a burr under a saddle. He’d mulled it over and he’d come to a decision.
Callie Stevens was the perfect woman to have his baby.
He remembered when he’d brought it up to her before. Her reaction had been extreme in his opinion. She was so calm and logical about most things. Why wasn’t she logical about this? The entire plan the way he’d presented it to her would be to her benefit—that was just so obvious. And yet he knew if he came at her from that perspective again, she would react just as irrationally as she had before.
There was only one thing for it: he had to figure out how to appeal to her better nature and get her to see things his way. What was he going to do if she didn’t show up tomorrow at two o’clock? What if she decided that she didn’t really want to work for him and her orchid wasn’t worth another run-in?
He couldn’t wait for that. He would have to go to her before she had a chance to develop a real program of opposition. He didn’t know where she lived but there must be a record of that in the files.
That was what he would do. He looked at his couch and grimaced. He would catch a few hours’ sleep, take a shower in the washroom and take her orchid plant to her. That would make a good excuse. He shouldn’t have kept it anyway. That was a foolish thing to do and he regretted it. He would stop off and pick up some doughnuts to take along as a peace offering. Just a friendly visit. That way he could get the lay of the land, see how things were with her where she lived. Maybe get an idea from her situation. Become friends with the woman.
He shrugged. It was worth a try.
“So, is he incredibly sexy?”
Tina Ramos was keeping a straight face, but the mischievous light in her dark eyes gave her away. She sat on the well-worn couch, her legs folded in around her, a cup of steaming coffee in her hands.
Callie stared at the friend who shared her apartment with her. They were sitting in the living room, watching Tina’s thirteen-month-old daughter play with a round plastic toy on the floor in front of them. Callie had just finished telling Tina about what had happened the night before when she’d gone in search of her abandoned plant.
“Sexy? What? Who?” Despite her words, she knew she sounded artificially dismissive. She wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Grant Carver, of course,” Tina said with affected nonchalance. “We already know he’s incredibly handsome.”
Callie was astonished. “Oh, really? And just how do ‘we’ know that? I’ve never said a thing about his looks.”
“And never noticed either, I suppose.”
“Well…”
“Oh, come on, Callie.” Tina was laughing. “You should see the way you look when you talk about him.”
“That’s crazy!” Blood was rushing to her cheeks. She could feel it. It had to be because this line of conversation was so darn annoying. Had to be. “I’ve never thought twice about the man.”
Tina’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, is that it? I guess I mistook the look.”
“I guess you did.” She threw up her hands and wailed, “Tina…!”
“Oh, I’m just teasing.” Tina raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to the meeting?”
“Of course not.”
“Why not?”
Callie hesitated, unwilling to admit aloud that it was exactly because he was sexy and he was handsome that she didn’t relish going. There was something strangely compelling about the man and that made her uncomfortable. She’d built herself a little island and she fended men off with a virtual firehose. But he was the sort of man who might walk right through the blast, damp but undaunted. And mostly, she was afraid that she might let him.
“I have other things to do,” she said, knowing it sounded lame, but that it had the advantage of actually being true. “I have to go out to Shady Meadows Rest Home and see my mother-in-law. I’m hoping I can talk them into keeping her where she is for just one more month while I try to scrape up enough money to transfer her to full nursing care.”
“Scraping together money isn’t going to be easy now that you’ve lost both jobs,” Tina said, her eyes losing their sparkle quickly.
Callie sighed. “I will go out and see him later,” she said, knowing it was childish to go late, just because he wanted her to come at two. But when you came right down to it, she did need the job. She had to go.
Tina hesitated, then reached out and took her friend’s hand. “Callie, I called the agency last night and told them to double my assignments. If I can make a bit more…”
Callie winced. Tina was trained as an elementary teacher, but after a cancer scare, she’d taken up cleaning houses for a living, working for an agency part-time and making just enough to get by on.
“No, Tina. You need to be home with your baby while you can be.”
Tina pressed a finger to her lips. “I’m taking her with me,” she whispered.
Callie groaned. “You’re not allowed to do that and you know it.”
Tina shrugged. “No one’s turned me in yet. Everyone loves having Molly around.”
Callie glanced down at the beautiful child. Of course everyone loved Molly. What was there not to love? With her head of shining chocolate-colored curls and her huge dark eyes, so alive and so interested in everything, she was as fresh and pure as a snowflake.
The little darling had certainly turned Callie’s life around. Tina and Molly had come to live with her just before Christmas and nothing had been the same since. There was joy in her life now. Joy, and a beautiful baby.
It wasn’t her baby, and it was only temporary—like everything else in her life. But that didn’t really matter right now. A life that had been cold and lonely for years had become warm again. She’d been searching for something to live for. She’d even looked into having a baby on her own. The hunger for a child was deep and raw inside her. But no matter which way she turned, she couldn’t seem to manage to find a way to do it that made sense. Now, with her own little rag-tag family, she had something. At least for the moment.
Rising, she started toward the kitchen but the sound of the doorbell startled them all.
“I’ll get it,” Tina said, heading for the door.
Callie frowned, wondering who it could be and smoothing back her hair. She’d thrown on a big purple sweatshirt and an old pair of baggy jeans when she’d rolled out of bed. She thought she remembered brushing her thick hair, but it felt a little wild at the moment. She wasn’t really ready for company, especially not…
Grant Carver.
“I hope I’m not intruding,” he was saying as Tina let him in.
And then there he was, handsome and sexy, just as Tina had surmised—if a bit wounded. His lip was swollen and that side of his face was slightly discolored. Callie winced, looking at him. And then she wondered once again why the injury made him look so much more appealing. Did she feel a natural attraction to damaged men?
Carrying a large Stetson, he was dressed for the office, very sharp and very elegant—while she knew she must look like a refugee from the hill country.
Was he intruding? Oh, yes, very definitely.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Tina said quickly when Callie didn’t answer him right away. She threw him a bright smile that spoke volumes as to her opinion of the way he presented himself. “I’m Tina, the roommate. We’ve been up for hours. Just talking, you know. About…” She stopped and bit her lip, looking guilty as sin.
“About?” he asked, waiting.
“About things,” Tina said with a sigh and a quick look of apology toward Callie. They all knew that he knew he’d been the object of their conversation.
“‘Shoes and ships and sealing wax’?” he quoted helpfully.
“Oh, yes. Those things, too.” She smiled at him. “Cabbages and kings. All that stuff.”
“Wonderful.” He held out one of two bags he carried with him. “I brought doughnuts, just in case.”
“Lovely,” Tina cried, taking it from him. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Black, thanks.”
“I’ll be just a moment.”
“Take your time,” he said, turning slowly to look at the room and wondering what the hell he was doing here.
Well…bringing Callie back her orchid plant. That was the official objective. And to take the first steps toward becoming friends. But now that he was here, he realized he might be walking into a trap of his own making.
And then he looked at Callie and he was sure of it.
Crazy. That was the only word for it. He was crazy. Just being here went against every rule and every plan he’d made for himself.
He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. He told himself it was because she represented such possibilities. Looking at her, he knew it was more than that. And now he knew something else.
The efficient, no-nonsense Callie he was used to at work fascinated and intrigued him. But there was another Callie. This one had sleepy eyes and a thoroughly kissable mouth and hair that glowed like a wild, golden cloud around her pretty face. No makeup. Bare feet. Lovely breasts that were emphasized by the way the cloth of her sweatshirt draped across them.
And suddenly he felt something he hadn’t felt for a long, long time. Deep, hungry, carnal desire.
He looked away quickly. Wow. This was no good. He didn’t want to feel sexually attracted, not like this. He needed distance so as to keep control.
“Hey,” he said, nodding to her and looking stormy on purpose. “I had a hell of a time finding you.”
“Really?” She shrugged nonchalantly. “And here I didn’t even know I was lost.”
“Oh, you were lost all right. At least to me. The employee card I used had your old address.”
She looked incredulous. “So you went to Buckaroo Court, looking for me?”
“Yeah.” He made a face. “Not exactly the garden spot of Dallas, is it?”
She sighed. “Not exactly. Which is why I moved over here as soon as I could.”
He nodded, and she frowned.
“And someone told you my new address?”
“Yes.” One dark eyebrow rose. “A semidelightful gentleman named Butch. He was throwing soapy water on his motorcycle in the driveway but kindly took a break to give me your whereabouts.”
“The so-called manager.” She shuddered. “More like the game warden.” Giving him a wise look, she added, “How much did he stick you for?”
“A cool twenty got me the information. I thought it was a bargain.”
She winced, eyes sparkling. “Yikes. I guess I’m going cheap these days.”
He shrugged. “I got a discount after I roughed him up a little.”
She gasped, then didn’t know whether to take him seriously or not. “You didn’t!”
He gave her a half smile, not ready to satisfy her curiosity. “Enough about Butch. He’s not very interesting anyway. I brought you your orchid.” He held up a brown paper bag and peeled back enough to show her a flower peeking from inside.
“So I see,” she said, looking at it warily, then shifting to look up into his eyes. “What do you want for it?”
He gave her a pained look. “See, that’s exactly why I brought it to you. I decided you were right. It wasn’t fair to hold your orchid as bait to draw you back. I ought to have enough faith in you to assume you’ll do the right thing without having to be coerced.”
“Thank you.” She snatched up her plant, hugged it to her chest, then looked at him gingerly. “But you see, that’s where you make your big mistake. Now that I’ve got my plant…”
“You’ll be so grateful, you’ll probably come early and camp on my doorstep,” he said, but his expression was cynical.
And she suppressed a smile. “Dream on.”
She peeked inside the bag. The orchid looked as though it enjoyed car trips. That was a relief. Her orchid was no longer held hostage.
Setting it down on the tiled window ledge alongside two others, she turned back to Grant. His lower lip looked even more swollen from this side and she could see evidence of stitches, though they were just about invisible. At least he’d let his sister take care of his injury.
“What happened to your important meetings?” she asked.
“I’ll make them. I only stopped by for a moment.”
Tina brought out coffee and doughnuts on a plate, prattling with small talk all the while. Callie and Grant sat cautiously on the couch, eyeing each other like two gunslingers meeting at the corral, each waiting for the other to move toward the doughnuts first.
Watching them, Tina grinned, then scooped up her baby, who was sucking on a red lollipop, and turned back to say goodbye.
“We’re going to the park,” she explained.
“Oh, don’t go!” Callie cried fervently.
But Tina merely gave her a wink. “We’ll be back soon.”
Callie hardly noticed the wink, because she was caught up in watching Grant’s reaction to Molly. He took one look at her and recoiled as though something had stung him. It was quickly apparent that he wanted to be as far away from the baby as he could get.
Tina didn’t seem to notice, and neither did Molly. The little girl gazed at him intently, then her chubby arms shot out as though asking him to take her from her mom.
“Da Da!” she cried, her eyes lighting up.
“No, honey,” Tina said, laughing. “That’s not your da da.”
Turning, she looked back over her shoulder at Callie.
“More’s the pity,” she muttered with a significant look. And then the two of them were out the door.
Grant reached out and took a piece of doughnut in his hand, then popped it into his mouth.
“So you live here with Tina,” he noted, reaching for his coffee next.
“And Molly,” Callie said. “Our little angel.”
He winced and avoided her gaze. At a glance, the little girl had looked just like Lisa. And thinking about Lisa was the one thing that rendered him helpless. He didn’t want to hear about Molly, or anything else that reminded him of his own baby.
“What does Tina do?”
She gave him a suspicious sideways look. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m interested in you and your life.”
She turned to frown at him. “Why?”
He shrugged in exasperation. “Weren’t you the one telling me that you and your fellow workers were real human beings with real lives and not chess pieces? I’m trying to learn to be a better boss. I’m empathizing.”
For a moment, he thought she was going to laugh in his face.
“Right,” she said skeptically. “Okay, Mr. Sensitive, empathize this. Tina is a wonderful person. My best friend. She’s had some bad luck and hard knocks, and right now she’s in and out of remission of her cancer and trying to raise her baby on her own.”
“That’s insane,” he interjected coolly. “A woman with that sort of health danger has no business having a child.”
Her eyes widened and she looked at him as though he were a freak. “Sometimes these things are beyond our control.”
“Nothing’s ever beyond control.”
“Oh brother.” She rose from the couch and picked up her coffee cup. “You’re so wrong. I’ve been on a runaway roller coaster for years and I still haven’t found the brakes on the darn thing.”
“Maybe I can help you with that,” he said softly.
She stared at him and he stared right back. She tried so hard to keep a mask of quiet competence in place, but he was beginning to see through it. She wasn’t as good at hiding as she thought.
She went into the kitchen to refill her cup and he followed her.
She turned, startled. “Did you want more coffee?” she asked.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I’ve got to get going.”
She looked up at him and his gaze went to her mouth, then veered quickly away.
“I’ll be expecting you at two,” he said, picking up his hat.
“Why?” she asked simply.
He turned back and looked at her. “Because I want to talk over some possibilities with you. I told you I wanted to find a way to get you back at work at ACW.”
She frowned, obviously suspicious. “Why do you care whether it’s me or someone else?”
He stopped dead, staring at her. “Callie, why don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you.”
“No, you don’t. You’re suspicious of everything I say and do.”
“That’s not really true.”
“What have I done to make you so wary? Or has someone else hurt you?”
Bingo. He saw it in her eyes. But she wasn’t going to admit it.
“This is ridiculous,” she said, turning away. “I like you better as a boss than a therapist.”
“Then we agree,” he said, turning to follow her.
She passed so close he thought he caught the scent of her hair. She was very real, very flesh and blood. She put up a lot of barricades and hid behind defenses, but there was nothing coy or artificial about her.
He liked her. He liked the way she looked and the way she walked and the way she held her head when she talked to him so seriously. He actually liked that she was wary of him. He wouldn’t have respected her if she’d jumped at the things he said too eagerly. She was pretty and smart and classy.
Yes. He had to have her as the mother of his child.
She was perfect. She was the one.
“Will you come?” he asked, resisting the impulse to grab her and sling her over his shoulder.
She looked at him. “I’ll think about it.”
“Two o’clock sharp.”
“I know. I got that.”
He went to the door. “If you don’t show up…”
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