Callie felt as though she’d been slugged in the stomach. She had to struggle not to show her dismay to Tina. Instead she took a deep-cleansing breath and tried to smile.

“Oh, Callie, if it weren’t for you, she would have been there over a year ago. You’re so good to her. But I’ve got to say, I don’t understand why you’ve taken on such a big responsibility. Why do you feel she’s your burden?”

Callie thought for a moment, wondering how she could explain. “She’s my husband’s mother. She was good to me.”

“Your husband wasn’t.”

“No. But that’s not really her fault.” She shook her head. “I’m the only family she has left, and she’s the only family I’ve ever had.”

Tina sighed, looking at her own little girl as she played on the floor.

“Not many daughters would be as generous as you, not to mention daughters-in-law.” Tina shook her head. “Callie, you’ve got to look out for yourself sometimes.”

“I look after myself just fine. Don’t worry about me. I’m okay.”

She went to the kitchen and began wiping down the counters, more because she needed to be doing something than because they needed it. Her mind was still reeling from Grant Carver’s proposal. She felt as though she’d passed into an alternate universe. What he’d suggested was insane. Impossible. Outrageous.

“Will you marry me?” he’d said, and she almost fell into the fountain.

At first she’d thought he must be joking. Or playing some sort of wicked game. But he’d been so sincere and spoken so earnestly, she quickly realized he meant it. He wanted to marry her-and more. He wanted her to have a baby for him.

She supposed that shouldn’t be so shocking. After all, he’d brought it up before. She’d been trying to forget that offer ever since. He’d thought she could have a baby for him and then be the baby’s nanny. Fat chance! That had been just a little too cold-blooded for her and she’d told him so.

But now he’d upped the ante. He’d brought marriage into it.

And yet, what difference did that make? He was still basically proposing to pay her to have a baby for him. People didn’t do things like that.

Well, they did, but…

He brought up that day he’d seen her in the fertility clinic, and she had to admit she’d been looking into the feasibility of having a baby with artificial insemination-that she wanted a baby just as badly as he did. That she, like him, didn’t want to marry again. And that she hadn’t been able to go through with it.

But that didn’t mean she was ready to marry Grant Carver, no matter how hard he argued that it would be more a business proposition than a real marriage. That would be crazy.

She pulled open the refrigerator and took out an onion and some carrots. Taking them to the cutting board, she began to cut them up into small pieces, chopping hard, and at the same time, she tried to think about something else. Anything else.

But her mind had blotted everything else out. All she could think about was this insane issue.

What right did Grant have to come into her life and turn it upside down? She’d been perfectly happy…Well, maybe not perfectly happy. In fact, maybe a bit stressed. But still. He’d brought up things she didn’t want to think about. Like what did she actually plan to do with her life?

Not get married. That was for sure. After all, it wasn’t as though she expected to meet her prince charming in the next few years. It had been six long years since Ralph had died and she hadn’t met one man whom she would remotely consider marrying.

Okay, maybe just one. But that one was Grant Carver. So why wasn’t she considering him?

Because he doesn’t love you, stupid!

At least he was honest about it.

And yet, a little tiny part of her brain was whispering, “What if…?”

No!

Better a life of lonely misery than marrying a man who didn’t love her.

She stopped for a moment, frowning. Was she really thinking this through? Or just spouting slogans?

Her thoughts were still swirling when a really startling epiphany popped into her head. If she did what Grant wanted, she would be making life better for four other people. And that wasn’t even counting herself.

No! Impossible. There had to be another way.

She rinsed the washcloth she’d used on the counter and started toward the refrigerator, but noticed that Tina had put the mail on the kitchen table. She leafed through the envelopes. Nothing but bills. A gnawing ache had settled in the pit of her stomach.

And then she came to a note at the bottom of the stack. It was from Karen, the apartment building manager.

“Callie, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to have this month’s rent check by Friday or…”

The ache became a sharp pain and she gasped, clutching her midsection. Tears filled her eyes. She’d been close to the edge before, but this time she was hanging on by her fingernails. What was she going to do? Even if she took the job Grant had offered with its new salary, it wouldn’t come close to covering all the expenses she was drowning in.

“Ca-ee.”

Callie looked down. There was Molly, tugging on her skirt. She smiled at the adorable child. Grant had lost a little girl very much like this one. For just a moment, she could catch a hint of how horrible that must be for him.

Molly reached up with her chubby arms and Callie leaned down to lift her. The baby stared at the tears in Callie’s eyes, then reached out and touched one on her cheek with the end of a tiny finger. Her mouth opened in surprise when her finger came back wet.

Callie laughed and let Molly wipe away the rest of her tears, one by one. Hugging her close, she dropped a kiss on the top of her curly head, marveling at how the sweetness of the child helped to wash away a lot of the fear.

She so longed for a baby of her own and holding Molly just brought that ache front and center. A baby was something real and permanent.

Everything in her life had always been so temporary. She’d never known her father. Her mother had been the sort of woman who needed a man in her life, yet couldn’t keep one for more than a few months. After her mother died, she’d lived in foster homes. Nothing real, solid, enduring. Her life was always in flux with nothing to hold on to.

When she’d married Ralph, she’d thought that would be it. She would have something lasting. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that hope was just as big a failure as all the others. Ralph as a suitor was very different from the man she ended up married to. Once again she was on her own.

She knew that was one reason she was so drawn to having a child. A child wasn’t temporary. A child was forever. A child was tenderness and trust and a stake in destiny.

A baby filled your arms with more than soft, clean-smelling flesh. A baby filled your arms with love and happiness and hope for the future. She wanted that. She needed it.

And if she was honest, she would admit that Grant could make all that possible. And at the same time, she could make it possible for him.

She could give that to Grant.

She had the power to do it.

She could give that to herself.

Did she have the nerve to do it?

CHAPTER FOUR

NEGOTIATIONS had begun.

The setting was a trendy café with reflective surfaces and hard edges. The mood was wary and exploratory. The outcome was uncertain.

“So how would this work exactly?” Callie asked, trying very hard to be cool, calm and collected while her stomach was manufacturing butterflies in herds. “I think we should be very clear on all the details from the start, so we both know where we stand.”

Grant nodded. “To start with, what we’re talking about here is a business deal, not a love match,” he said, gazing at her levelly across a tile-covered table.

He’d said that before. She had no doubt he was going to say it again. Many times.

“Yes. I understand that.”

At least, she thought she did. When you came right down to it, she wasn’t sure she knew what a “love match” was. She wasn’t sure she even believed in them. When she’d married Ralph, she’d done it out of gratitude, not passion. She’d known right from the beginning that love had very little to do with it.

She didn’t even think there’d been much love on Ralph’s part. There had been an obsession-but it was an obsession with control. They’d gone very quickly from being good friends to wary adversaries and she wasn’t sure how or why it had happened that way. She only knew she didn’t want that to happen here-if she decided to do this crazy thing.

“In fact,” Grant was saying, his hands curled around a large mug of coffee, “when I first started thinking about it, as you know, marriage wasn’t really a part of the plan.”

“Well, it is now,” she said quickly. “In fact, it’s a deal breaker.”

He nodded. “I know. Don’t worry.” He smiled at her in a reassuring way. “I feel the same way, now that I’ve thought it through.”

“Good.”

She was trying hard to seem composed, but he could sense her unease and he hesitated, wanting to get this right. He’d deliberately chosen a rather noisy, modish restaurant for this meeting. He hadn’t wanted white linen tablecloths and roses, with violins in the background. Techno music and hard surfaces made a better match for their purposes. It would be best to hammer out the future guidelines for their relationship in a cool, neutral atmosphere. No emotions allowed.

Yesterday had been a day from hell. He’d been so clumsy, practically assaulting her with his appeal that she marry him. He’d tried to explain, tried to tell her about his family heritage, and his own overwhelming need for a child. She thought at first that he was joking. Then she thought he was crazy. She’d placed a few well-aimed barbs in his hide and taken off, flinging a demand that he not ever, ever contact her again behind her as she left.