she’d already discussed Liam enough with her assistant, she abruptly changed the subject and did her best to push the man from her mind.
“Who’s scheduled to work Snow this morning? Abby or Rodrigo?”
“Abby.”
Kitty said, “Tell her four furlongs, no more. And just because she’s wearing blinkers doesn’t mean I want her pushed. I only want to see if they’ll help keep her mind on her business.”
“You going to watch from the stands?”
She glanced at the watch on her wrist. She’d arrived here at the barn this morning shortly before five and it was now nearly eight. By the time she met Liam tonight, she’d be exhausted. But that might be a good thing, she thought dismally. Maybe she’d be so tired she wouldn’t care what sort of storm he threw at her.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” she told Clayton, then hurried down the shed row to the nearest bathroom.
That evening Liam didn’t bother wasting time driving to his summer house to shower and change before he picked up Kitty. In a small office, on his end of the barn, he kept extra clothing and fortunately the bathroom was fitted with a tiny shower, so he made quick use of the facilities before heading down the huge barn to find her.
The day had been an extremely busy one with hardly a moment to draw a good breath. Even so, Kitty had monopolized his thoughts. Asking him to have dinner with her tonight had certainly come out of left field. She’d never made such an overture with him before. True, he’d more or less offered her a shoulder to lean on, but he’d not expected her to take him up on it.
And he could only wonder why she hadn’t reached out to him before now. She obviously wanted to talk with him about something, but what? Her father’s death and the responsibilities he’d left on her shoulders? The horses in her barn? The baby?
The baby. Ah, yes, he’d thought about the coming child all day, too. About who might be the daddy and what she planned to do once it was born. If he was the father, what would she expect or want from him? Money? Marriage? Nothing? And if he wasn’t the father? Well, that notion bothered the hell out of him, too. Making love to the woman that one memorable time didn’t give him the right to feel possessive of her or the baby. But he did. And that made him feel like a fool just asking to be hurt.
When he reached her office, he found the door open and Kitty sitting at a desk with a cell phone to her ear.
He made a perfunctory knock on the door facing, then stepped into the space that she’d already put her personal stamp upon with family photos of relatives and friends, along with several significant win photos of various Desert End horses.
The moment she looked up and spotted him standing just inside the door, she abruptly ended the conversation and lowered the phone from her ear.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt something important,” he said.
A faint smile touched her face and Liam was struck by the shadows of fatigue smudged beneath her eyes, the faint droop to her shoulders. A racehorse trainer put in long, arduous hours of work. It was tiring even for a strong, healthy man like himself. He couldn’t imagine what it must be doing to Kitty in her delicate condition. The mere thought of anything happening to her, or the child, made him inwardly shudder and he suddenly realized how very much he wanted to protect them both.
“An owner,” she explained. “You know how it is. Sometimes they worry over nothing and call five or six times a day. That was the third call today for this particular owner.”
She rose to her feet and he could see that she’d changed into a dove-gray dress that draped modestly over her growing belly. The hem struck her midcalf and brushed against a pair of black dress riding boots. Her blond hair was twisted into a knot at the back of her head and secured with a tortoiseshell clip. In spite of her obvious fatigue, she looked beautiful, even more beautiful than he remembered throughout the long winter months they’d been apart.
“Unfortunately coddling owners is a part of the job,” he replied.
She plucked up a black handbag from the corner of the desk and joined him at the door. “I’m ready if you are.”
“You might need a jacket,” he suggested. “Even though it’s the beginning of April it feels more like February out there. The evening has already turned very cool.”
After eyeing the heavy fabric of his shirt, she walked over to a tiny closet and pulled out a red woolen cape. Liam quickly moved to help her place it around her shoulders. As he smoothed the fabric against her back, he noticed that she smelled like some sort of sweet flower and just being close to her shook his senses.
“I made reservations at a seafood place,” he told her as he pushed her hands out of the way and fastened the silk frog at her throat. His fingers inadvertently touched her chin and the softness of her skin left him wanting to touch more. “I remembered that you like shrimp scampi.”
She looked up at him and suddenly her lips were quivering, her eyes misting over. “The last time we had dinner together Dad was with us. He was always with us, wasn’t he? And now—Oh, Liam, help me,” she whispered brokenly.
Raw emotion struck him in the middle of the chest and all he could do was gather her into his arms and pull her tight against him.
For long moments, he held her quietly, until she finally sniffed and tilted her head back far enough to look up at him.
“I’m so sorry, Liam. I’m—” With a tortured groan, she pulled out of his embrace and turned her back to him. “I’m sorry I’m pulling you into my misery. And I—”
He was fighting the urge to reach for her again when she whirled back to him. This time her features were twisted with agony. “I’m sorry that I have to tell you that you’re going to be a father.”
Chapter Two
Liam stared at her as his thoughts whirled at a mind-numbing speed. “Me? You’re saying I’m the father of your baby?”
Pressing a palm against her forehead, she closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. I hadn’t planned to. I wanted to wait until after we’d had dinner and …” She opened her eyes and slowly, guardedly searched his face. “What are you thinking?”
He swallowed as he tried to gather his thoughts and form some sort of coherent answer. All day long he’d been telling himself that the likelihood of the baby being his was practically nil. He’d tried to convince himself that after their one-night fling, she’d moved on to someone else, some man that had become a permanent fixture in her life. Yet deep in his gut he’d sensed that she was carrying his child. Now that she’d spoken the fact aloud an odd mixture of emotions was rushing through him, filling him with fear and euphoria.
“I’m thinking—”
His words were interrupted by the sound of footsteps directly behind him, and then a knock on the door.
“Hey, Kitty, you gonna need me tomorrow?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Liam saw Rodrigo, one of the exercise riders that Willard had used for the past few years. The young man was grinning as though he didn’t have a care
