was even more important. So important that if Terese Warwick wasn’t a Warwick at all, if she was the most amazing, beautiful, perfect, wonderful woman on the face of the earth, he still wouldn’t do anything about it.
Because right now was not the time for a woman in his life. For any woman. Right now was Johnny’s time.
It was a vow Hunter had made to himself. Johnny was his priority. Johnny was the one and only person he was devoted to.
Maybe not forever, because he knew that eventually his son would be more interested in his own friends and activities and wouldn’t want his old Dad hanging around. But for now, for as long as dad was the center of Johnny’s universe, Hunter wouldn’t take that lightly. He wouldn’t let there be any distractions, any intrusions. Not by anyone.
So Terese Warwick couldn’t have more than a superficial place in their lives and that was all there was to it.
Which was why he had no business looking forward to her coming. No business getting excited.
But whether he had any business doing all that or not, the feeling was there, anyway.
So he guessed he’d just have to keep it under wraps. Keep it from flourishing. And he’d also have to make sure he didn’t let anything come of any of it.
This was going to be Johnny’s time with Terese, and her time with him. Hunter would just stand on the sidelines and oversee it. He’d keep himself as removed from it as he could.
That was his plan.
But damn if he wouldn’t feel a lot better if this excitement would go away and leave him in peace.
It was almost nine-thirty when Terese finally found the wooden arch that proclaimed Hunter Coltrane’s ranch, the Double Bar S, and turned from the main road onto the gravel drive.
The drive was lined on both sides by a white rail fence that bordered grassy fields where several cows grazed lazily and watched her without enthusiasm. It was a sentiment she hoped Hunter Coltrane didn’t share at the prospect of having her there.
She was surprised by how small the house was when it came into view in the distance. Of course, not only was the white two-story farmhouse in the midst of a vast expanse of open ground, there were also an enormous white barn and a silo looming up behind it, and it occurred to her that they might be dwarfing Hunter’s home, too.
It was a well-kept little house, though, with black shutters neatly decorating each window. The first level was larger than the second and there was a big covered front porch with a crossbuck railing around it that gave the place an inviting, homey feel.
Terese pulled to a stop at the end of the drive where there was a patch of manicured lawn and a cobbled sidewalk led the rest of the way to the house.
Stretching along the porch were brick-bordered flower beds. Although it was too late in the year for blooms, the flower beds were festively adorned with teepees of dried corn stalks and artfully displayed pumpkins, brightly colored gourds and squashes. There was also a life-sized stuffed scarecrow dressed in a red bandana shirt and denim overalls lounging on the chair swing that hung from chains at one end of the porch.
All in all, even though the place was nothing fancy, Terese liked it.
A porch light to the right of the screened front door was lit for her, providing a warm golden glow even after she’d turned off her engine and her car lights. She got out from behind the wheel and just stood there for a moment, looking at the house and letting it sink in that her nephew really was just inside.
In those first few days of his life, she’d fallen in love with the baby Eve had given birth to. She’d held him and rocked him and cooed to him. She’d felt him curl up against her; she’d spent hours with him sleeping in her arms.
In the process she’d begun to hope that her sister would change her mind about giving up the baby. That she could convince her sister to keep him and that then she would get to be a part of his life.
But nothing she’d said or done had changed Eve’s mind. Eve had wanted nothing to do with that baby. She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to hold him. She didn’t even want to know he was alive. And she certainly wasn’t going to keep him.
When Terese had finally had to accept that, her thoughts had turned to an alternate course. She’d decided to adopt the baby herself.
Eve had hit the ceiling when Terese had told her. It was the biggest argument they’d ever had, culminating in Eve’s flat refusal to relinquish the infant to Terese. Then, to make it even harder on Terese, Eve had arranged for the baby to be immediately turned over to the parents Eve had chosen. Terese hadn’t had so much as the opportunity to say goodbye to the baby she’d come to love.
It had wrenched Terese’s heart. In fact, she’d gone through a long period of grieving before she’d given up the hope of ever seeing him again.
And then she’d come home to find Hunter Coltrane in her entryway.
Of course the circumstances had been less than ideal. Certainly she didn’t want a health problem to be the cause of bringing her nephew back into her life. But now that it had happened and she was only moments away from getting to see him again, it seemed too good to be true.
Terese opened the rear door and pulled out her leather suitcase, not wanting to waste any more precious time when she could be meeting her nephew.
And seeing his dad again.
But Terese pushed the thought of Hunter out of her mind as soon as it popped into it. Exactly as she’d been doing since she’d seen him at the hospital. Hunter might be drop-dead gorgeous and honest enough to have kept his word, but meeting and getting to know his son was the only thing this visit was about. And she couldn’t let herself forget that.
Terese was determined not to lose sight of just how touchy the whole situation was. She knew she had to keep in mind that she was an outsider in the lives of both father and son. She had to keep in mind that even though she might be a blood relative of Johnny’s, she still had no rights to him, that she was nothing more than a stranger here, allowed to get to know him only out of the kindness and generosity of his father, a father who could very well have dug in his heels and refused to have the line between birth family and adopted family crossed.
No, she had no doubt whatsoever that this was a touchy situation. Touchy and complicated. And it didn’t need to be complicated even more by her drifting into thoughts of Hunter Coltrane as a man.
Terese closed the rear car door with a resounding slam, as if that would help put an end to any thoughts of her nephew’s father.
Then she climbed the four steps to the front porch with her suitcase in hand.
But before she had a chance to knock on the screen, the carved oak door opened and there stood Hunter Coltrane.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Strappingly good-looking.
Taller, broader of shoulder, and even more strappingly good-looking than her memory had made him in all the images that had haunted her since she’d come in on his confrontation with her sister this past week.
It didn’t help matters.
But Terese tamped down the instant, involuntary appreciation
