Marion Lennox - Adopt-a-Dad

“It is not like that,” Shelby snapped. “You guys love each other. She-she trapped him.”

Michael’s brows lowered. “I offered, Shel.”

“But you don’t love her?” she demanded, wheeling on Michael with anger. “Of course you don’t love her! Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. Home, I guess.”

“Your home?”

“No, her home.”

“You don’t plan on living together?”

“Not yet.” He frowned. Not until he could make her see sense. Tomorrow maybe?

“Well, that’s something.” Shelby looked relieved, but Garrett was shaking his head.

“Mike, do you have any idea what sort of legal minefield you’ve put yourself into?”

“I can handle it.”

But Lana’s mind had gone off on another tangent. “You’re married to a woman who’s eight months pregnant and you don’t know for sure where she is?” she demanded, bouncing up from her husband’s hold again to face Michael head-on. Her indignation was palpable. “What if she goes into labor?”

“She has a phone.”

“She knows where you are?”

“I have the cell phone.”

“She’ll call you?”

“I…yes.” He fell silent. Would she? She’d promised.

Maybe she wouldn’t.

She would.

“You’re worrying about her, aren’t you?” Lana said triumphantly. “You care about her.”

“Lana, she’s my secretary. She might have been hired as a temp, but she’s the best assistant I ever had. This way…this way I get to keep her.”

“As your secretary?”

“Yeah. Why else would I want her?”

She stared. “How about as a wife?”

He sighed. “How often do I have to say it, Lana? This is a business arrangement. She needs to stay in the country, and I appreciate her secretarial skills. There’s no way I want to marry anyone else, so what’s the problem?”

“Does she have anyone else?” Lana demanded. “Friends? Family? Or is she completely alone?”

“I guess she has friends.” He didn’t know. Hell, he didn’t know!

“Are you bringing her to the wedding?” Lana had moved into organization mode.

“Wedding?”

“Camille and Jake’s wedding,” Lana said patiently. “It’s here. Tomorrow. Remember? Don’t tell me you didn’t notice the marquee on the front lawn.”

“Yeah, but…” Okay, he’d forgotten. After all, Jake and Camille had had a civil ceremony a few months ago, but Megan had convinced them to hold a formal ceremony so the whole family and their friends could attend. A wedding. Heck, why had he ever accepted the invitation? He hated them. He’d barely gotten over Lana’s wedding. Or his own.

“Bring her, Mike,” Lana said firmly. “Let us all meet her. I know her a bit from popping in to see you at work, but I don’t know her well. She’s always friendly, but just efficient friendly, if you know what I mean. We need to get together.”

“Why? Lana, she’s not my wife.”

“Is that what you’re going to tell the authorities?”

“No, but-”

“And if immigration asks questions, and Garrett and Shelby have never even met her?”

“There’s no real need-”

“She’s alone, Michael. I’m assuming she’s finished work until the baby’s born, so what’s she doing for the next few weeks?”

“I have no idea.”

“In my shop I see heaps of pregnant women,” Lana told him. “They all say the last few weeks of pregnancy seem endless. They’re full of fears and anxieties-and you’re just leaving her by herself.”

“I told you, Lana, she has nothing to do with me. That’s the way she wants it.”

“You’ve married her, Michael,” she snapped. “For better or for worse, she has everything to do with you.”

“Lana…”

“Enough! We’re going home now,” she said, bending to scoop her small son from the floor. “Come on, Greggykins. Let’s take your daddy home to bed. And tomorrow…tomorrow you and me and Daddy are coming back here to see Camille marry her Jake and meet your new aunty Jenny and make your first contact with your new cousin.”

“Cousin?”

“Greg’s my son, Michael, and your new wife’s about to have a baby,” she said serenely, standing on tiptoe to give Michael a sisterly kiss on the cheek. “Like it or not, brother mine, you’ve just expanded our family. So shut up and get on with it.”

THERE WAS nothing else to say.

Lana and Dylan left, Lana giving Michael her unsolicited advice, Dylan following with amused pride.

“Go with the flow,” he told Michael as he passed him on the way out. “You can’t fight City Hall.”

“City Hall meaning Lana?”

“One and the same.” He grinned and headed out the door.

That left Shelby and Garrett. Unlike Lana, Shelby was close to tears.

“I don’t know how you could do it,” she said. “Oh, Michael, I wanted you to marry-but not this way.”

“Shelby, you know I never intended to marry.”

“Yeah, but I’d hoped you’d meet someone who would change your mind.”

“I already have. Her name’s Jenny.”

“I mean someone you love.”

“Like I love you guys? I don’t think so.” He gave her a hug that was meant to be reassuring, but her eyes were still troubled.

“Oh, Michael…”

“Don’t fret about him, Shelby,” Garrett said roughly, putting an arm around his sister and giving her a squeeze-almost as if he was protecting her. “Our Mike’s a big boy now. He’s got himself into this mess.”

“It’s not a mess,” Michael protested, but Garrett shook his head.

“This mess,” he repeated. “He may not see it yet, but it’s a minefield. But don’t worry, Shel. If there’s one thing Mike’s good at, it’s minefields. He’s not security chief of Maitland Maternity for nothing.”

Garrett hesitated, then sighed. This evening had got sidetracked, and he’d called them together for a purpose. “I suppose there’s no chance of you helping us look for our mother now, Mike?”

“No.”

“You being so busy with your new wife and all?”

“Get off my case, Garrett.”

“Yeah, right. But you’ll squeeze in Jake and Camille’s wedding tomorrow?”

“I don’t-”

“You’d better,” Garrett warned. “You’ve married the woman, and now it’s time she meets your family.”

“It’s not as if-”

“Just bring her tomorrow, Mike,” Garrett said heavily. “We’ll judge your new wife for ourselves.”

MICHAEL LEFT, and he should have gone straight home. He was tired, wasn’t he? The last sleep he’d had seemed days ago, in a hotel in El Paso.

With his wife.

The words kept drifting into his mind and staying. His wife.

She wasn’t his wife, he told himself savagely. She was just some woman he’d done a favor for. She had nothing to do with him.

The car nosed itself toward her apartment all by itself.

What was he doing? It was close to midnight. Jenny’d be asleep, and he had no business being there.

He’d just drive by to see.

To see what? He was being a dope.

But he’d just drive by, all the same.

HER LIGHT WAS ON.

He couldn’t see Jenny’s apartment from the street. It had one lousy window looking out over the fire escape at the back, but Michael knew it well enough by now. He’d just sort of head his car down the back alley where he’d parked it before and look up, and- Her light was on.

So what if it was on? So what if she was having a sleepless night?

Maybe she was having cramps again.

It had nothing to do with him, he told himself, a note of desperation entering his logic. Tomorrow he’d convince her to move into his place, but for now she didn’t want him. If her muscles cramped, then she’d just walk around until they eased. It was only for one night.

That was that. He should never have come here. He backed his car onto the street again and turned away from-

No. He didn’t turn away. His car slowed to a crawl. Another car was parked in front of the apartments.

Not just a car. A Mercedes.

This wasn’t the sort of neighborhood where you parked a Mercedes, Michael knew. For one thing, no one in this neighborhood owned such a pricey car. For another, it was careless. On Saturday nights, vandalism was at its worst, and parking expensive cars in this low-income district was asking for trouble. Michael had left his Corvette here two days ago, in broad daylight with Jenny inside, and even then there’d been trouble.

But why was the Mercedes here? And why was Jenny’s light on?

Maybe there was no connection at all. Still… Edgy, he drove slowly past the car and noticed the tiny sticker on the edge of the windshield. It was a stylish S, so small and discreet that thieves weren’t supposed to know what it stood for, but Michael did. He’d been a cop. He was trained to notice such things. The S stood for Sparchan’s Rental Service-suppliers of luxury rental cars for the well-heeled tourist.

So what was a well-heeled tourist doing parked outside this dump of an apartment block at midnight?

When Jenny’s light was on?

He didn’t like it, and suddenly his logic wasn’t driving him. Instinct was. It took him ten seconds to park the car, ignoring the threat of thieves and vandals, and another ten to race up three flights of stairs.

Jenny…

At the top of the stairs he forced himself to pause. He’d been trained too well to rush in without thought. Stop, think and live. That was his legacy from Dan. It was a hard-learned lesson, but one he’d never forget. He paused and slid along the wall, his eyes on Jenny’s door.

It was wide open, and a woman was speaking. Not Jenny. An older woman with an aristocratic English accent. Measured, controlled and icy with contempt.

“You’re coming with me, my dear. Now! If you believe I’ll allow my grandchild to be born here, then you’re even sillier than I think you are.”

Michael frowned. There was real venom behind the words.

“I’m not coming with you, Gloria.” That was Jenny. Her breathing was too fast, and it was all he could do not to rush in. “You can take your thugs and leave. I’m staying right here.”