One Man and a Baby Read online

  She gaped at him, but before she could say anything he said, “You’ll be fine. You won me over.” He laid his hand on his chest for emphasis. “And I wanted the job. When your dad gets home in February, you’re going to knock his socks off. Not just because you know everything that’s going on, but because you’ve won over the people most important to him. The guy who keeps track of his money and the guy who keeps him out of trouble.”

  Ashley smiled. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He turned and began walking out of the den. Ashley scrambled after him, grabbing her jacket off the newel post in the foyer and following him out of the house.

  When they stepped out onto the front porch she said, “We’ll take my SUV.”

  “I don’t mind driving.”

  “I know, but I’m getting accustomed to being the boss.”

  He chuckled and motioned for her to lead the way to her SUV. “You like being in the driver’s seat.”

  “Very much. It’s fun to be in control.”

  He gave her a smoldering look that sent her blood racing, but quickly turned away and rounded the hood of her SUV, entering on the passenger’s side. Ashley took a long breath before she opened her door. It was always going to be like this between them. Their chemistry could turn even the most innocent comment into something sexual. The air between them could go from casual to sizzling with the drop of a wrong word. But that was part of their problem. If they continued to spend so much time in each other’s company, they were absolutely going to end up sleeping together. Then the decision to forget about having any kind of permanent relationship, which had been difficult the night before, would be impossible. Worse, one of them or both of them would end up being hurt.

  At lunch with the accountant and the meeting with her father’s attorney, Rick introduced Ashley as the person being groomed to take over Seven Hills and neither man batted an eye, but both subtly grilled her. In what appeared to be lunch conversation Randy Dupont asked questions designed to ferret out her education. Later that afternoon, Ashley’s father’s attorney asked questions that had more to do with her understanding of things that might potentially get her sued. It was a long afternoon, but a productive afternoon. Though Ashley hadn’t precisely bowled over her dad’s advisors, she absolutely felt she’d passed a few first tests.

  Their positive reactions to her filled her with so much confidence that when she and Rick returned to Seven Hills a little after four, and Rick excused himself to pay a visit to Sweet Potato followed by a visit to Ruthie, Ashley waved goodbye and rushed back to the den to call her father.

  Falling into the padded leather chair behind the big desk, she grabbed the receiver for the phone and dialed his cell phone number from memory. A woman answered, probably a new maid who didn’t know her father hated for anyone to touch his cell, and not wanting to get in the middle of that argument, Ashley only said, “Hi, I’m calling for Mr. Meljac.”

  “I’m sorry he’s not here right now.”

  Imagining her father going anywhere without his phone confused Ashley so much, her brow furrowed. “And he didn’t take his cell?”

  “He’s swimming.”

  “Oh. Okay. I get it. Can I leave a message?”

  “Sure, let me get my mom to take that.”

  “Your mom?”

  “She’s Gene’s fiancée. She’s better with messages than I am.”

  Because Ashley’s brain froze on the word fiancée, she hardly heard the second half of that sentence. It made so little sense to think her dad was engaged that the only logical explanation she could think of was that the maid’s daughter liked to play games.

  “Hello?”

  Ashley took a steadying breath. “Hi. With whom am I speaking, please?”

  “Mr. Meljac’s fiancée. Who is this?”

  Ashley couldn’t immediately reply because her breath caught and her heart stopped. Her dad was engaged? There had to be some kind of mistake.

  “Gene’s not here right now and my daughter told me you needed to leave a message. Do you need to leave a message?”

  “Actually I think I’ll call back.”

  As if realizing she might have been too abrupt, Ashley’s dad’s fiancée softened her tone. “I can take a message.”

  Ashley swallowed. Her dad had done a lot of secret things in his life, but even he wouldn’t keep a fiancée secret from her. This had to be a misunderstanding.

  Forcing herself to calm down, she said, “Tell Mr. Meljac his daughter called. And that he might want to call me back.”

  There was a short pause at the other end of the line, then her father’s fiancée said, “Let me get him from the pool.”

  Rick spent over an hour with Sweet Potato, then raced to Tia’s for his quick visit with Ruthie. When he walked into Tia’s house, he heard Ruthie’s wails coming from the kitchen and he headed back that way.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked as he pushed open the swinging door and walked in.

  Pacing the kitchen floor as she rocked Rick’s little girl, Tia said, “I think she’s teething. Mom’s on her way.”

  “Here. Let me take her,” Rick said reaching for the sobbing baby. Wearing a ruffle-skirted pink dress with a pink ribbon tied in her wisp of black hair, Ruthie looked cute enough to model baby clothes. Rick kissed her forehead as he snuggled her to his shoulder. “What’s up, kitten?”

  She sniffled, rubbing her wet nose in his shirt collar and Tia laughed.

  Rick sighed. “I have no idea why she does that to me, but she’s always wiping her nose on my shirt.”

  “Maybe she likes your scent?”

  That explanation was so darned much nicer than the ones Rick had imagined that he chuckled and glanced down at his baby girl. To his amazement, Ruthie wasn’t crying anymore. Because she’d rubbed her little face in his shirt, her tears were dry. Only her swollen eyes remained.

  Tia smiled affectionately. “Or maybe she just likes you?”

  Rick’s heart melted with love. “Do you realize that this is the first time she’s preferred me over a woman?”

  Tia laughed. “You’re making that up.”

  “Has she ever cried—any morning—when I dropped her off with you?” Not waiting for an answer, Rick said, “No. She hasn’t. She’s never wanted me before. This is a first.”

  “Well, it’s a good first.”

  “And it also means I’m not going back to work. If I’m the only person she wants right now,” he said, feeling his heart swell with love again, and also with the hope that maybe he was going to be a passable dad after all, “then I need to be with her.”

  “Do you want me to call Ashley?”

  “No,” Rick said, reaching into his jeans pocket for his cell phone. “I have her number,” he said pushing the button that connected it for him.

  Tia laughed. “Really? Is there something I should know about going on between the two of you?”

  “Yeah, in the beginning of our acquaintance I was trying to annoy her so much she would realize she didn’t want to be a farm manager. But she took everything I could dish out and more and I decided she deserves the job and I’m training her for real.”

  As Rick heard Ashley’s answering machine come on, Tia said, “Oh, Rick, this job is so perfect for you. I can’t believe you’re giving it up.”

  “It was never mine. Gene hired me temporarily. I had hoped to prove myself while he was away, so he would offer it to me permanently when he retires. But when he comes back in February, he’ll see that Ashley’s ready to take over. I’m sure he’ll make her manager in the summer when he leaves to sail around the world and officially retires.”

  Tia shook her head. “It’s hard to believe a guy who is only in his mid-forties wants to retire.”

  Rick shrugged. “I wouldn’t exactly say he’s retiring. From the conversations I’ve had with him I’ve gathered that he’s tired of farming. He loves the islands now. Sailing especially. I think what he’s doing is slowing down so he can enjoy
the fruits of all his hard work.” When Ashley’s answering machine recording was finished, Rick decided against leaving a message and snapped his cell phone closed.

  Tia nodded, then said, “You aren’t going to leave a message?”

  “No, I want to talk to Ashley personally. I know she’s there so she was probably in the middle of changing or something and couldn’t get to the phone. I’ll wait a minute and call again.”

  But there was no answer the second time Rick called. Or the third. After his fourth attempt, he took a seat at the kitchen table, and entertained both Ruthie and Tia as he let fifteen minutes go by before he tried a fifth time.

  His mother arrived as he was closing his cell phone and she immediately walked over and took Ruthie from his lap.

  “She looks fine.”

  “Trust me, Mom,” Tia said. “She was wailing up a small storm before Rick got here. Something was definitely wrong.”

  Elizabeth tilted her head, studying the baby. “She could be teething, or she might have just missed her daddy.” She smiled at Rick. “You want to take her again?”

  As much as Rick wanted to bask in the joy of finally having parental acceptance from Ruthie, he also had a bad feeling about Ashley not answering her phone. Especially since she was alone in her house. She could fall and hurt herself, and no one would find her until she didn’t show up for work the next morning.

  He rose from his seat at the kitchen table. “Actually it doesn’t seem right that I can’t reach Ashley. I’ve called five times and she won’t pick up.”

  “Maybe she’s not home.”

  “I was supposed to come back to Seven Hills and go over a few more things. I know she’s eager to learn so it doesn’t make sense that she’d leave. I’m surprised she hasn’t tried to call me to find out what’s taking me so long.”

  He took Ruthie from his mother for one last quick kiss, then handed her back and headed for the door. When he turned to say goodbye he was relieved to notice that Ruthie seemed perfectly content with her grandmother.

  Nonetheless, he said, “I won’t stay long. I want to get back to Ruthie. I’ll just be gone enough to make sure everything’s okay and explain that I need to be with Ruthie tonight.”

  Tia waved him on. “Take as long as you want. Ruthie seems fine now. Not only that, but I wasn’t expecting you until after eight, so I was planning to teach Drew to change diapers.”

  Rick laughed and left Tia’s house. He hopped into his truck and drove to the main house at Seven Hills. As he approached, he saw that lights were on in the front foyer and kitchen, the same lights he and Ashley had probably turned on when they’d arrived that afternoon, but the light in the den was off. Which probably meant she was making herself something for supper.

  Hoping she was making enough for two, he jogged up the front porch steps and rang the bell but there was no answer. He knocked, but, again, no answer.

  His instincts kicked into overdrive. He didn’t think Ashley was crushed by their mutual decision the night before not to pursue a relationship. After all, they’d really only known each other a few days. So it wasn’t as if either one of them had broken the other’s heart. Though they did have a powerful attraction and there were so damned many reasons he’d love to be more than just the guy teaching her how to run her farm. She was gorgeous. She was smart. She liked Ruthie. And she just plain made him laugh.

  But he accepted that their circumstances didn’t allow for them to pursue the attraction, and he knew she was smart enough to accept it, too. With her SUV in the driveway, not put away for the night in the garage, the sun nearly set and lights on in her house, Rick couldn’t think of a good reason she wouldn’t answer the phone or the door.

  And the explanation that jumped to mind was that she couldn’t answer the door. She might have hurt herself or been hurt by an intruder. He twisted the knob but the front door was locked. So he walked around back to the kitchen door, which he hadn’t locked when he left that afternoon. He tried it and it was open.

  He entered her kitchen calling, “Ashley!”

  She didn’t answer so he peeked into the laundry room/bathroom area and didn’t see her. He walked through the kitchen and into the long corridor that led to the formal dining room. Still no Ashley.

  In the foyer, he called up the steps, “Ashley! Ash! Are you home?”

  When he received no answer to his call, he turned to the left. A slim light at the back of the hall leading to the den caught Rick’s attention and he headed down that corridor. When he reached the den door, he saw that the desk lamp was on. It had provided just enough light to draw him back into the hall and now illuminated Ashley sitting at the desk in the otherwise dark room.

  He stepped into the room. “Hey. What’s up?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He flipped the switch that turned on the overhead lights and saw the totally blank expression on her face.

  “Ashley?” he said, walking across the yellowish rug to the mahogany desk. “Are you okay?”

  She swallowed. “Did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Of course, you did.” She leaned back on the tall-backed chair and sighed. “That’s why you took this job. You knew it would become permanent sooner rather than later. You might have even been gambling that my dad wouldn’t come home from this trip at all.”

  He took another few steps toward the desk. “What are you talking about?”

  “My dad’s engagement.”

  Totally confused now, Rick said, “What engagement?”

  “My dad’s engaged to some woman who lives with him in his condo on the island.”

  Though he understood how it would hurt Ashley, Rick wasn’t all that surprised by the news that Gene had found another woman.

  “Ash, your dad’s only in his forties. That’s awful young to be without a companion.”

  “Yeah,” she replied casually, rising from the seat behind the desk and rounding the corner to leave. “I guess the job of running the farm really is mine. I’ll see you in the morning. Right now I just want to be alone.”

  He should have let her go. He shouldn’t have felt the pain of betrayal he knew she felt, but he did. He knew what it was like to think you knew somebody, only to have that person do something to prove you didn’t understand him or her at all. He also knew what it was like to be dumped. Left. Forgotten. Though Ashley’s dad hadn’t dumped her, he’d clearly shut her out of his life.

  As Ashley tried to breeze by the desk, Rick caught her arm to stop her. “Hey. Come on. This is me. I know you’re mad. Hell, you were mad when you thought your dad was retiring and hadn’t confided that to you.”

  Her chin came up.

  “But you got beyond that by being tough. You stay tough and you’ll end up okay.”

  “This isn’t like him keeping his retirement a secret. His job and this farm and his money have always been things he kept private. Getting engaged without telling your family is personal.” She shook her head as if frustrated. “No, this goes beyond my dad being engaged. The girl who answered the phone said that her mother was my dad’s fiancé. From the sounds of things, he has an entire family down there.”

  “And you have an entire family here.”

  “I have a farm and employees.”

  “This morning that was good enough.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and Rick’s heart ached for her, but he said nothing.

  “He invited me down for the holidays. He wants me to meet “everybody” and I will go down. But I know how this will turn out. Even if everybody loves me and I love them, I’ll forever be an outsider because the family was formed without me. He did all this without me! And he’s not apologetic. He said he never believed it would get this far this fast and by the time he realized it had it was too late to bring me into the loop.” Furious, she pounded her bunched fists against Rick’s shoulder. “Into the loop. That’s what he said. Like I was a damned business partner!”

  She burst into tears and
Rick pulled her into his arms, purely to comfort her. At first that was all he did. He stroked her hair, and let her cry, while whispering things that sometimes didn’t make any sense. Because if there was one thing he had learned over the years it was that sometimes life didn’t make any sense. Ashley was twenty-six, old enough to be on her own, but she’d lost her mother and brother, then she’d been cheated by a selfish husband, so she appreciated the comfort and safety of family. At the same time, her dad probably felt he was being held back. Gene may have even felt torn in two. Wanting to get on with his life, he’d found a new love, but not wanting to hurt Ashley he hadn’t told her.

  “If you really think this through,” Rick said, holding Ashley against his shoulder, “your dad has waited long enough to move on.”

  She said nothing.

  “And you’re not a little girl anymore.” Rick didn’t know if he was doing the right thing, but what he was saying was the truth. And though painful, sometimes the truth was the only way out of a bad situation. “You’re an adult, who shouldn’t need him.”

  He felt her stiffen.

  “You know it’s true.”

  She took a breath, then relaxed as if what he’d said had stung at first, but she recognized the truth of it and had begun to accept it.

  “Besides, if the tables were turned what would you do?”

  When she said nothing, he pushed her away just slightly so he could see the look on her face. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she wasn’t crying anymore.

  Finally she whispered, “My dad never met Thad until after I married him.”

  “Do you think keeping his engagement quiet was payback?”

  She shook her head. “No. He told me tonight on the phone that the whole romance just happened. Almost as if it fell out of the sky for him.” She smiled sadly. “As obtuse as my dad is sometimes about feelings, I actually believe that.”

  “So you’re not mad?”

  “I was never mad. I was hurt.”

  Rick softened his voice. “I know.”

  “The worst of it is, I don’t want to be. He is young. He does deserve a whole new wonderful life. I just wanted to be part of it, too.”