make herself think, or cry, or even move—although she would have to move, because she couldn’t spend the rest of her life standing here in the courthouse lobby.
But she couldn’t do anything right now except breathe. In short, unsteady gasps. She felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment—which would be a good thing, because tears could be spilled and then forgotten—but right now she was too stunned even to cry. She had never experienced anything too intense for tears before, Lucy realized, anything like this mixture of disbelief and anguish and desperation and—
And, in a way, relief.
Which didn’t make sense, but she needed to hang on to any comfort she could get. Any comfort that would give her the strength to head back to the bus stop for the dismal trip home.
Alone.
No, not alone, she reminded herself as she made her way outside into what felt like blinding sunlight. She still had the baby inside her…a baby who would never hear a word about this day. Who would never know that its father hadn’t wanted a child.
But his belief that she could even consider terminating her pregnancy proved she’d been right in thinking last week, the day before noticing her period was late, that she and Kenny didn’t really belong together after all. Their first three or four weeks had been dizzying; a frenzy of love-at-first-sight exhilaration and passion and fun. But lately, she had begun suspecting that the relationship wouldn’t last.
And that, no matter how much she might have enjoyed the giddy whirlwind of life with a high-flying golfer, because she didn’t really want it to last.
But the baby would never know that, Lucy resolved on a shaky breath as she made her way back to the bus stop bench. Emma or Matthew would hear only the good things about their father, would hear only about the first month when she had loved Kenny.
Because all she could give her child was the comfort of feeling wanted and loved. And no matter what happened, she was going to love this baby.
Her baby.
Hers alone.
Chapter One
November 28
There was a woman in his living room.
And she was tickling a baby.
Before Conner Tarkington could ask how she’d gotten in here and what she was doing on his sofa, the woman shot one startled glance in his direction, grabbed the baby and immediately angled her body to shield the pink-blanketed bundle from view.
“Who are you?” she demanded, rising from the sofa with the baby almost hidden behind her, as if she were facing down an intruder. “How did you get in here?”
Great defense, he had to give her that, Con thought with a mixture of admiration and annoyance. Put the blame on him, act like he was some kind of burglar or something, rather than a bone-weary attorney who’d just flown from Philadelphia to Scottsdale and found a stranger in his family’s house.
“I used my key,” he told her, holding up the platinum key fob his mother had given him last night, after a farewell dinner during which no one even attempted a toast. “Who are you?”
“The house-sitter,” she answered defiantly, although her guarded stance softened a bit at the sight of his carry-on bag. As if she might be willing to consider the possibility that he wasn’t some random invader. “And the Tarkingtons aren’t coming until January. So if you were planning to visit them—”
“I was planning,” Con interrupted, “to bring in my stuff, dump it on the floor and get some sleep.” Nine hours of flying, counting the layover in Chicago, was a small price to pay for escaping the holiday season at home, but it was still nine hours of teeth-gritting torture. He would never admit it to anyone, but flying scared the life out of him, and while the past few weeks of twenty-hour workdays was his own choice, all he’d wanted for the last hour was to collapse into bed.
Alone.
Although, if he were in a mood for company, he couldn’t ask for better than this woman. In spite of her ragged jeans and disheveled tumble of dark curls, she seemed to radiate more sensuality than any woman he’d noticed in a while. But considering the wary suspicion in her eyes, it seemed pretty certain this house-sitter wasn’t a “welcome to Scottsdale” gift.
Not that his law partners would set up that kind of gift, anyway. Not that anyone he knew would—except maybe his brother, and he hadn’t talked to Kenny in months.
“Nobody said the Tarkingtons were expecting a guest,” the woman protested, drawing his attention back to the problem at hand. His family had believed the house was vacant, but she’d obviously appointed herself as some kind of gate-keeper. And when he glanced beyond her to the dining room, where a baby swing rested against the doorway, he realized why.
“Oh, hell,” Con muttered. “You’re living here.”
She didn’t even attempt to deny it, probably because the evidence of a baby in the house was impossible to hide. “Until January,” she confirmed, moving the gurgling baby to her shoulder before repeating her original question. “Who are you?”
He extracted the driver’s license from his calfskin wallet and flashed it at her. If all she wanted was a show of identification, rather than the self-analysis he’d endured when his partners insisted on a shrink, he could answer with no problem. “Conner Tarkington. And you—”
“Conner…” she repeated, and then her face went white. “Tarkington? You’re Kenny’s brother?”
If she knew Kenny, that might explain how she’d gotten in here. Kenny had always attracted the kind of gorgeous women who appreciated fast living and fun times, and this one was beyond gorgeous, with her vivid coloring and soft, full lips. But she wasn’t dressed like the “show ponies” who used to follow Kenny home from golf tournaments. And it was hard to imagine his brother choosing a woman with a baby.
Much less inviting them to stay.
“Yeah,” Con answered, dropping his coat on the chair by the door and watching the color return to her heart-shaped face. “He moved you in here, huh? Told you to make yourself at home?”
She straightened her posture and gave him a cold look. “He told me,” she said, “that his family needed a house-sitter. I’m supposed to leave them the key in January, but…” He saw the moment his look of disbelief must have reached her, because she suddenly faltered and drew a shaky breath. Clutching the baby tighter against her, she whispered, “Oh, no. He was making that up?”
Oh, yeah. Kenny had outdone himself with this one. Instead of sending her off with a charming thanks-for-the-good-time gift, he’d installed her in the Tarkingtons’ vacation home with an imaginary job.
“Look,” Con began, before realizing he didn’t even know this woman’s name, “I’m sorry, uh…”
“Lucy. Lucy Velardi.” Her voice was still very small, but when she shifted the blanket to present the baby—a baby he really didn’t want to look at right now—there was an unmistakable pride in her bearing. “And this is Emma. My daughter.”
Great, so now he had to play bad guy to a woman and a child. It had been
