LITMIR.BIZ

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him. But all he had was this stranger’s word, along with memories that were too obscure to trust. Why in the hell would a woman get pregnant and not tell the baby’s father? Why wouldn’t she have come to him if that child really was his?

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

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

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

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

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

      “Sherry didn’t lie.”

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

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

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

      “You did have sex with her?”

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

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

      “That’s very amusing.”

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

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

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

      “No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Damned if he knew what it should be.

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

      It was possible.

      He might really have a son.

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

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

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

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

      “What exactly is it you want from me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Two

      “How’d it go?”

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

      “About as you’d expect.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

      “He’s

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