Loving You (2 page)

“Smart girl,” Edna said as Tasha yanked the Velcro closure at her neck free and snapped the hair-littered plastic cape up and off of her. “You'll find men are usually more trouble than they're worth.”

From under the dryer, Alice snorted. “This from a woman with four dead husbands.”

One of Edna's steel gray eyebrows swept up. “And all four of them were—”

Whatever she'd been about to say was cut off when the door swung open so quickly, it slammed into the
wall with a crash. Tasha whipped around in time to watch her framed print of Tahiti hit the floor. The boy standing in the open doorway hunched his shoulders as it fell, winced, and said, “Sorry.”

“Like a bull in a china shop,” Edna muttered, but her smile took the sting out of her words.

Jonas Baker, eleven years old and already he was taller than Tasha. Which, she kept reminding him, wasn't that difficult. Since she stood only five-foot-two, most good-sized kids could pass her height at a walk. His dark brown hair fell across his forehead in a sweep that dusted his eyelashes and had the boy continually squinting or swinging his head to one side to clear his vision.

Attempts at a haircut had so far failed.

Thin and gangly, his body seemed to be a collection of sharp angles. And if, like a puppy, he grew into the size of his feet, he'd end up at least seven feet tall. But at the moment, he was just a kid. And the center of Tasha's heart.

“How was school?” she asked as she took Edna's money without bothering to count it. Heck, Edna knew the prices at Castle's Salon better than Tasha did. But then, why wouldn't she? The old woman had been a customer here for forty years. Tasha'd only been here seven.

And before that, there'd been only—

Nope. No point in going down that road. The past didn't matter. Anything beyond her arrival on Mimi Castle's doorstep was ancient history and better forgotten than revisited.

Especially now.

“It was okay,” Jonas said with a shrug that could
mean anything from “school was boring” to “I won the Nobel Prize.”

Though the Nobel Prize was a long shot, there were other things to be considered. Like homework, for instance. Or that math test she'd helped him prepare for.

“How about your test?” Tasha asked, stuffing Edna's money into her jeans pocket and giving it a satisfying pat. “How'd you do?”

“Okay,” he said again, and Tasha wondered if they gave lessons in evasive maneuvers in junior high these days. Or maybe it was just genetic. Become a preteen, forget how to talk. A couple of years ago—heck, even
one
year ago—Jonas would have come into the shop bursting to tell Tasha or Mimi what he'd done in school. He would have told all the ladies some dumb knock-knock jokes and then complained of starvation.

But times change, Tasha told herself.

People die.

Kids grow up.

And secrets were born.

She buried the ache in her heart that always leaped into life when she thought of Mimi Castle, and forced a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. God, she missed Mimi.

Jonas grunted to the women clustered in the shop portion of the Victorian, then ducked through the connecting doorway that would take him into the main house.

Tasha was right behind him.

Just because he was closing up, trying to shut her out of his life, didn't mean Tasha was going to stand by and let it happen.

She hurried through the service porch, with barely a glance at the mound of laundry waiting to be washed.
She didn't spare a glance at the dishes in the sink as she moved through the kitchen. As she quickened her steps, her sandals clicked noisily against the scarred wood floor of the dining room.

Tasha caught him at the base of the stairs. He might be younger, but she was quicker.

“Hey,” she asked, reaching out for him to slow him down, “what's the big rush?”

“No rush,” Jonas said, and slipped out from under the hand she'd laid on his shoulder.

Tasha ignored the tiny pang around her heart as she let her hand fall to her side. There was something going on here. Something that kept him from meeting her eyes.

And a tiny tendril of fear rippled through her. Heck, she knew better than anyone what kinds of things were out there in the world, just waiting for a chance to snatch at a kid. Just the thought that he might have already stumbled into trouble tore at her.

“Jonas,” she said, reaching for him again before he could scoot out of range, “what's going on?”

He flipped his hair back, then looked at her through those wide brown eyes of his. “Nothing, Tasha,” he said with an “I'm so innocent, how could you not believe me?” expression on his face. “Everything's cool.”

“Cool, huh?”

“Totally.”

Tasha smoothed his hair back from his face and he didn't pull away, so she counted that as a plus. “You're not in trouble or anything, are you?”

“No way.” He actually looked insulted.

“Would you tell me if you were?”

He grinned. “No way.”

That smile of his jolted her heart. She hadn't seen
it very often lately and she'd missed it. God, she loved this kid. She smiled back at him. “Okay then. Go on up and do your homework.”

His whole body moped. “Aw, man. Come on, Tasha. How about a half hour of TV and
then
homework?”

“Let me guess,” she said. “The Sports Channel.”

He nodded.

“Fine,” she said to his back as he raced up the stairs, making enough noise for six kids his size. As his bedroom door slammed shut, she shouted, “A half hour. I'll be checking!”

*   *   *

Jonas tossed his backpack onto the floor, dropped onto his mattress, and propped a pillow under his chest as he lay on his stomach, grabbed the remote, and pushed the
ON
button. The TV flickered briefly, and for one short second Jonas was afraid the old set wasn't going to come on this time. Heck, it was older than him; it was bound to go out sooner or later. “Just not today, okay?” he said softly.

As if it had heard him, the picture rolled wildly, jittered like someone was shaking the set, and then suddenly straightened itself out.

He whistled out a relieved breath and punched in the right channel. The camera moved in for a close-up on the reporter's familiar face and Jonas studied the man carefully.

When the reporter smiled into the camera, Jonas smiled back. His stomach jumped like millions of butterflies were bumping into each other down there. He slapped one hand against his belly, trying to tame them, but it didn't work. There was just too much going on.

Too much about to happen.

He'd waited for this for so long, Jonas didn't know whether to be excited or scared. He knew Tasha would be mad when she found out. But sometimes a guy just had to do stuff that girls didn't understand.

Another guy would get it, though.

Jonas looked at the reporter again. “You'll understand, won't you?”

C
HAPTER
2

“A paternity suit, can you believe it?” Jesus, even saying the words out loud gave Nick a cold chill that rattled his spine before settling in his gut. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He knew because his head was pounding as though they'd had to batter their way through his skull.

Paternity?

Him?

Jackson Wyatt, Nick's brother-in-law and, more important at the moment, his attorney, looked up and said, “How about you shut up for a minute and let me read the paperwork?”

“Fine, fine, read.” Nick waved a hand at the other man and stalked around the confines of Jackson's office.

Set in an old brick building at the end of Main Street in Chandler, the only law office in town was huge. Bookshelves lined with leather-bound books crowded most of one wall, floor to ceiling. Jackson's desk sat in front of them, an acre of carved wood, littered with neat stacks of papers and manila envelopes. In the middle of the room, overstuffed oxblood leather couches
sat opposite each other atop a floral area rug. The faded colors in the carpet looked rich against the gleaming wood plank floor.

Nick stopped pacing to stare blankly at a spear of sunlight streaming in through the wide window. Thank God Jackson had been here, working, when Nick called. Otherwise, Nick would have had to go to the house to see Jackson and get his advice. The problem with that was, he'd have had to listen to Carla's advice, too.

Shit.

If his baby sister found out about this, the first thing she'd do—well, after hitting Nick in the head with whatever was handy—would be tell Mama. And once Mama Candellano discovered there was a possible extra grandchild running around … the planet wouldn't be big enough to hide Nick.

Not that he wanted to hide. Hell, like any other upstanding, self-respecting Candellano, when faced with a problem, his first instinct was to plant his feet and fight it out. But when there was no one to punch, he had to go about things a different way. Hence, the lawyer.

Nick started pacing again, unable to stand still while his insides fisted, relaxed, and fisted again. Damn it, how could someone just sue him like this? No warning? No angry letters or demanding phone calls? Nick scraped one hand across his face. Christ. A lawsuit. Naming
him
, for God's sake, as the father of an eleven-year-old boy.

Eleven.

While Nick paced, his brain picked its way through a jumble of thoughts to come up with the ability to subtract. He was thirty-three now. Eleven years ago,
he'd been twenty-two. He groaned tightly. Crap. His rookie year in the NFL. Fresh out of college and feeling … well, to be honest, he'd been feeling any woman who came into range.

And there were plenty of them in that category. Football groupies, hangers-on, party girls—they'd all been way too handy back then. But in his defense, there weren't many men who could have walked through a mine field of willing women without getting caught up in one or two explosions.

It had been part and parcel of the dream. Nick had worked his ass off all through high school and then college. He'd been a number two draft pick, and when he signed his first contract his wildest fantasies came true. More money than he knew what to do with and hot and cold running women.

Jesus. It was a wonder he'd even survived his playing days. Between the late-night parties, the weekend orgies, and the actual playing of football, he'd gone through his twenties in an exhausted stupor. A tired but well-contented man. Still, his indulgences had cost him his girlfriend, Stevie Ryan—well, Stevie Candellano now, since she'd married Nick's twin brother, Paul, just a month ago.

Christ, he was living a soap opera.

And the head writer, Fate, had just thrown him a helluva curve.

This whole thing was a nightmare.

“For God's sake, I can't be somebody's father,” he muttered.

“Jonas Baker disagrees,” Jackson said quietly.

“Who the hell is this kid?” Nick demanded, stopping alongside the front window that looked over Chandler's Main Street.

“Your son?” Jackson offered.

Nick shuddered. “Don't say it.”

“I'm reading it.”

“Well, read to yourself.”

“Ignoring it won't change anything, Nick.”

“I know that. That's why I'm here, talking to you.”

Jackson leaned back in his chair, ruffling the edges of the subpoena with a thumb as he watched his brother-in-law. Maybe it hadn't been such a good idea for Nick to move back closer to Chandler. A few weeks ago, the Candellano family had thought it a brilliant plan. Nick had wanted to get back closer to the people who mattered in his life. To get out of San Jose and the anonymity of living in a city where no one gave a damn about him.

But if he'd stayed in the city, he'd have found a lawyer who didn't have to try to keep this secret from his wife. Lawyer-client confidentiality meant nothing when it came to Carla's family. Somehow, she
would
find out what was going on with her brother. And then she'd kill Jackson for not telling her himself.

Oh, yeah. This was going to be lots of fun.

Straightening up in his chair, he leaned forward, planting both elbows on his desktop as he stared at his brother-in-law. Nick looked like hell. His dark brown hair had been stabbed through by nervous fingers until it stood out from his head. Brown eyes looked worried, and the muscle twitching in Nick's jaw let Jackson know that he was a man on the edge.

“The suit says that the boy's mother, Margie Baker, claimed you fathered her son.” Jackson tapped his fingertips against the paperwork.

Nick frowned, shook his head, and shrugged helplessly. “I don't remember the name.”

“Not surprising,” Jackson allowed. “It was a long time ago.”

A long time ago. But if he'd made a child, shouldn't he at least remember what that child's mother looked like? Had he really been so self-indulgent that names and faces of the women he'd had sex with were nothing more than a blurred stream in his memory? Something a lot like shame stirred inside him, and Nick didn't like it. Hell, he'd been young and stupid and rich. A lethal combination.

Nick turned to stare out the window. Beyond the glass, Chandler was settling in for the evening. No late-night clubbing in Chandler. This was no party town. Just a quiet little suburb, hardly more than a speck on the road to bigger and better places. Tourists loved the place, though, and brought in a fortune in souvenir dollars. The summer crowds faded into the fall foliage people, who gave way to the winter carnival group, who eventually stepped aside for the spring festivals, and then it was summer again and the whole cycle started over. No, there was no excitement in Chandler. He'd learned that as a kid. But there was something else here Nick had never found anywhere else. The comfort of the familiar. And right now, he could use a little of that comfort. The sense of peace that being here, where he belonged, usually brought him.