“Frankly, Aimee had been giving me the impression that the father was someone else. A guy she’d been involved with off and on for a long time. When she told me about you and showed me the birth certificate, I was shocked.”
Finn’s mind was so jammed with questions, he didn’t know where to begin or what to think. “What else did she tell you about me?”
Shrugging, she said, “Not much. Just that you lived in Nevada and liked horses. Later, after the accident, I found your number in her address book.”
With the baby cuddled safely to his chest, Finn moved across the room to where Mariah was sitting stiffly on the edge of the rocking chair. The two sisters couldn’t have been more different, he thought. Where Mariah was dark and petite, Aimee had been tall, with caramel-brown hair and hazel eyes. Their personalities appeared to be equally opposite, too. Aimee had been full of smiles and laughter, whereas this young woman seemed to be all serious business.
“I don’t know what to think about all that, Ms. Montgomery. But if she said I’m the father, then I surely must be.” He looked down at the precious baby snuggled in the crook of his arm. Three days ago Finn had been a thirty-two-year-old man with nothing on his mind but his job of managing the Silver Horn’s horse division. The possibility of having a child never entered his thoughts. Now here he was holding a baby who could very well be his son. The whole thing seemed surreal. “I met Aimee at the mustang training competition in Reno. After the first round was over I made a point of searching her out. To offer a price for her horse. She refused to sell him.”
“But she didn’t refuse to go to bed with you,” Mariah said pointedly.
Her blunt way of putting it spread a wave of heat over his face. More than a year ago, when he’d said goodbye to Aimee, he’d never imagined that anything so life-altering as a baby had occurred between them. And he certainly hadn’t expected Aimee to lose her life on a ski slope less than seventy miles from the Silver Horn.
“We spent the weekend together in Reno. It wasn’t like either one of us set out to make a baby.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Mr. Calhoun.”
The suggestive remark caused his jaw to drop. “You think I—”
“Not you,” she interrupted. “I’m talking about Aimee. I’ve always believed she deliberately set out to get pregnant. If not by you—then someone else.”
The idea of Aimee using him to get pregnant was incredible. She’d hardly seemed the conniving type. And why would she have done such a thing?
He said, “I’ll admit that two days wasn’t long enough for me to know everything about Aimee. But I find it hard to believe she was luring me into a pregnancy trap, or shotgun wedding, or anything close to it. She didn’t try to attach any strings to me. My mistake was trusting her when she said she was on the pill. But as you can see I’m here and more than ready to take responsibility for Harry.”
Bending her head, she said in a low voice, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that. When my sister met you in Reno—well, her plans might not have included a baby at all. It’s just that she had—”
“Look, if you were going to tell me about Bryce, I already know. She told me how he’d been a longtime boyfriend. But she’d broken things off with him.”
Her head popped up. “Aimee mentioned Bryce to you? That’s surprising. She wasn’t one to share personal things.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to talk about yourself to someone you just met. Especially if your plans are to never see them again,” he added wryly.
Her expression turned curious. “You think she’d never intended to see you again?”
“I didn’t then, obviously. But I do now.”
The baby began to squirm and Finn looked down to see that the infant was chewing on his tiny fist. Drool was dripping off his chin and Finn carefully wiped it away with his forefinger. Just touching the baby’s face and looking into his dark blue eyes filled Finn’s heart with a fierce protectiveness. If Harry was his son, he wouldn’t let anyone or anything keep him from taking the baby home to the Silver Horn. And that included the black-haired beauty who was eyeing him as though he were the devil himself.
* * *
Across the small nursery, Mariah was having all sorts of trouble dragging her gaze away from the rugged Nevada cowboy. A few minutes ago, when she’d opened the door and found herself standing face-to-face with Finn Calhoun, she’d felt as though the ground had shifted beneath her feet.
She’d expected Finn’s appearance to be a bit more than average, otherwise Aimee would’ve never taken a second glance at him. But this guy was leaps and bounds beyond average.
At least two or three inches over six feet, he towered over her. Broad shoulders sat over a long torso that narrowed down to a lean waist and tall, muscular legs. Yet his hard, wiry body was only a part of his striking appearance, she realized. His face was a composite of tough angles and slopes. A jutting chin, hollow cheekbones and rough-hewn lips were softened by a pair of dazzling blue eyes partially hidden by a thick fringe of copper-colored lashes. Slightly darker hair of the same color curled wildly around his ears and against the back of his neck, while a set of white teeth made a startling contrast against his tanned skin.
Oh, he was a looker all right, Mariah decided. But that didn’t necessarily make him daddy material. Especially if he used those looks to go around seducing women. Still, in all honesty, she didn’t know if this man had done the seducing or if Aimee had been the initiator of their romance. And it hardly mattered now. The only question that should be on her mind was whether he’d actually fathered little Harry.
Reining in her wandering thoughts, Mariah said, “Aimee dated Bryce for over three years and wanted to marry him, but he kept putting her off. He was divorced and wasn’t ready to try marriage again. That’s why—well, Aimee once told me she was tempted to get pregnant so that Bryce would feel obligated to marry her. But she said he was always too careful about such things and she wasn’t sure how she could manage it. I told her she was crazy to even consider such a scheme. Being pregnant wouldn’t necessarily force Bryce into marrying her, anyway.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion and Mariah could see that he was stung by the notion that Aimee might have used him, especially to coerce another man into marrying her.
“That’s one of the most conniving, deceitful things I’ve ever heard. If that’s the way Aimee’s mind worked, then she might’ve had other affairs. Harry’s father might be someone you never heard of!”
The anguished look on his face implied he wanted Harry to be his son. The notion surprised Mariah. Most single guys his age would be running backward at the idea of taking on the responsibility of a baby.
Her gaze continued to roam his rugged face and the big hands gently cradling the baby. “Look, I’m just saying she harbored those ideas. I have no proof she was trying to carry them out with you or any man. For my sister’s sake, I’d like to think Harry was innocently conceived.”
“With me?”
An awkward silence followed his question, and with each second that passed, the more Mariah had to fight to keep from jumping from the rocker and rushing out of the nursery. Something about this man and her sister sharing a passionate weekend together was an image she wanted to push from
