he drove out of town, he started working on a new plan.
Just over two years later
Meg Lathem sat in her dusty, beat-up Chevy, cursing the blazing Texas sun, the crowded streets of downtown Houston and her tiny bladder.
She should have stopped at that Dairy Queen in Bay City to pee. Yes, she’d still be nervous as hell about seeing Grant Sheppard again after all this time, but at least she’d have a Dilly Bar to soothe the pain.
Instead, all she had was dry mouth and the beginning stages of an ulcer.
She chewed on her lip for a second. Then dug around in her purse for her lip balm. Instead, she found her cherry bomb lipstick, which she wore to finish up extra-long days when she needed a bit of sass and sex appeal to coast until the bakery closed. Today, she needed neither sass nor sex appeal. She needed sensibility and reason.
She shoved the lipstick back in her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder and was climbing from the car just as her phone rang.
If it had been any number other than her friend Janine’s she would have let it roll over to voice mail. However, Janine—who usually helped manage the bakery—was watching Meg’s daughter, Pearl, while Meg took this little jaunt to Houston, so she slid back into the car and shut out the noise of Houston traffic. She answered it with, “Is Pearl okay?”
“Pearl’s fine, honey. She’s happier than the cherry on a hot-fudge sundae.”
The knot of anxiety in her chest loosened a smidge. “Then why are you calling?”
“You done it yet?”
“It’s a two-hour drive from Victoria. No, I haven’t done it yet. I just got here.”
“Liar. You never met a speed limit sign you didn’t love to mock. I bet you made it there thirty minutes ago and have been sitting outside his office making calf eyes at the words Sheppard Bank and Trust scrawled above the door.”
“Am not.” Meg glanced at her watch. She’d only been here for twenty-two minutes. And the words Sheppard Bank and Trust were not above the door. They were slapped on the outside of the building near the forty-second floor in ten-foot-tall letters. And she hadn’t been making calf eyes at them so much as scowling. “I do not feel that way about Grant Sheppard anymore and you know it. That man is a lying, cheating sack of—”
“You don’t have to do this,” Janine said quietly.
“I know.” She brought her hand up to her forehead and rubbed, pressing her thumb near the crest of her eye socket where the tension seemed to be drilling into her skull.
“We can find another way.”
“I know,” she said again. Except there was no other way. Her daughter needed heart surgery. Meg just couldn’t afford to pay the insurance deductible and keep the bakery open. And if the bakery closed, then she’d be out of a job and really wouldn’t be able to meet the deductible. The good people of Victoria had all banded together to do a fund-raiser for Pearl. The whole town had come together. It had been the most heartwarming, amazing day.
But they’d only raised nine thousand dollars. She needed almost fifty thousand for the surgery alone. Everyone she knew, everyone who loved and cared for Pearl, had banded together and dug as deep as they could. And it would only cover a fifth of the cost.
And even if she could somehow scrape together the money for this deductible, there was physical therapy. And more appointments down the road. And more specialists. More, more and more things to spend money on. Money she just didn’t have. But Pearl’s father had the money. Hell, money was his business.
Wasn’t it only fair that he paid?
He was Pearl’s father.
Going to him wasn’t begging. It was only right.
But it would be so much easier if he already knew he had a daughter.
“Honey,” Janine said, finally breaking the long silence. “Stop rubbing that spot above your eye. You know how sensitive your skin is and if you’re going to see Grant Sheppard after all these years, you don’t want to look all splotchy.”
Meg jerked her hand away from her face and quickly flipped down the mirror. Crap. She did look all splotchy.
Then she snapped it closed. No, this was good. Splotchy was just fine. Humbling, even. A nice reminder that their relationship was never going to be sexual again. Never.
“Now, go get ’em, tiger. You can do this!”
Janine hung up then, not waiting for Meg to voice the doubts roiling in her gut.
“Right,” Meg muttered. “Go get ’em.”
She clambered out of the car and started crossing the street. Sheppard Bank and Trust opened up to a plaza with sprawling oaks, a trio of fountains and plenty of outdoor seating. The last of the lunch crowd was still enjoying the nice weather and even though Houston wasn’t a town that got a lot of foot traffic, Meg had to weave around people as she reached the sidewalk.
She was still on the other side of the plaza when the big glass doors of the Sheppard Bank and Trust building opened and Grant Sheppard stepped out into the midafternoon sun. Her steps automatically slowed. A car honked somewhere, prompting her to dash the rest of the way across the street.
Suddenly she had tunnel vision. It was as if she could see only him and no one else. It had been over two years since she’d seen him. He looked good. Just as tall and fit as ever. His sandy hair was a little long. A little disheveled. A little renegade for this conservative town. But his suit was strictly business. It toed the line. His mouth still curled in that half smile. The smile that made a woman want to do naughty things to his lips.
The smile that made women stupid.
She gave her head a little shake and reminded herself—it wasn’t just that it had been more than two years since she’d seen him, it was more than two years since he’d sneaked out of her bed in the middle of the night and disappeared without a trace.
Yeah, there was a difference, and she’d do well to remember it.
She hardened her heart and put a damper on her hormones before she took a step toward him. But as her tunnel vision eased up, she saw the woman standing beside him—a willowy blonde, almost as tall as he was. Even though she was thin, there was a softness to her body that was only emphasized by the protective hand he held at the woman’s back. There was an intimacy to their posture that spoke of affection and familiarity. A warning bell went off in Meg’s head.
She had stopped in her tracks, almost unaware of the other people filtering past her. She knew—even before the other woman turned around—what she was going to see. The woman would be beautiful and sophisticated and classy. Everything Meg was not.
She would also be pregnant.
Meg was so sure that when the woman actually turned so Meg could see her, Meg didn’t comprehend what she was seeing.
Beauty—check.
