Jule Mcbride - Secret Baby Spencer

“New York City,” muttered the only resident of Tyler who could accurately answer that question. Seth Spencer watched the car and driver from his office in the bank. “But what for?”

Me.

“Seth,” he growled, “that’s not Jenna.”

But ever since he’d left New York, Seth had been glimpsing Jenna everywhere: in the Alberta Ingalls Memorial Library, in Amanda Baron Trask’s law offices, outside Marge’s Diner. The woman never really was Jenna, of course. Never would be, either. Jenna’s feelings—or lack of them—were clear when Seth calmly left her Soho loft six weeks ago.

No, the woman in the gold Cadillac couldn’t be Jenna.

Seth glanced past Molly Blake’s loan proposal and today’s copy of the Tyler Citizen, both of which were on his desk, then around the bank’s homey, old-fashioned interior, taking in the red-carpeted floors leading to the teller area. Maybe he should at least head into the lobby and check out the car…

Seth, it’s not her!

Fighting the urge to reach behind him and grab the gray wool jacket to his suit, he swallowed hard, denying his emotions. He shifted his oxford-clad feet, then started to take an unlit cigar out of his mouth and tighten the silver Hermés tie around the collar of his white-pressed shirt. But he didn’t move. Even if it is her, which it’s not, let her come to me.

That was more his style. He’d never let a woman, especially Jenna, see him come running. The house he’d foolishly bought near his father’s Victorian on Maple Street flashed through his mind, and he damned Jenna again, now for how unhappy he’d felt living there these past six weeks. One too many times, he’d found himself standing in the foyer, staring down the block, taking in the wraparound porch and gingerbread trim of his father’s house, a place that had lost its womanly touch after Seth’s mother, Violet, ran off with a man named Ray Bennedict when Seth was fourteen.

Too late Seth had realized that the last thing he needed was to own a four-bedroom house on the same block where he’d grown up. “Too much history,” he muttered now. The sparse steel furniture he’d brought from Manhattan barely filled the living room, and when Seth crossed the hardwood floors, his echoing footsteps sounded empty and hollow, evoking exactly what he’d felt when his mother vanished from Tyler.

He blew out an angry sigh. He should have known Jenna wouldn’t stick around, no more than his mother had. Even worse, before his return to Tyler, he hadn’t thought about his mother for years. In New York, he’d always flown high on external stimulus, his blood rushing with the sound of car horns or ticker tape announcing the latest hot deal on Wall Street. But six weeks ago Seth had landed in Tyler again, harboring still-raw feelings he hadn’t noticed for years. Which was why he needed to quit imagining Jenna was in town. Just like his mother, Jenna had proven she didn’t give a damn.

“Get over it,” he muttered, reaching for the phone. He’d been expecting one of his brothers, Quinn or Brady, to call before quitting time to see if he wanted to get supper at Marge’s Diner, but now Seth thought maybe he should take the initiative for once and call them. But no, somewhere along the line, he’d learned to watch and wait, to gauge how much others extended themselves while holding his own cards close to the vest. Whether the lesson had come from his mother’s abandonment or from working in New York’s cutthroat financial industry, Seth wasn’t sure. Either way, he wound up not picking up the phone.

The whole time, his liquid brown eyes stayed riveted on the Cadillac idling in front of Eden’s flower shop. Outwardly, he didn’t move a muscle; inwardly, he was going crazy. From here, the woman did look like Jenna. For a second, he pretended it was, and that she was impressed by the one-story brick Savings & Loan that was now his. Seth Spencer, said the brass nameplate on his office door. President.

Not that Jenna would care. Against his will, Seth visualized her Soho loft, the tasseled pillows, stacked books, and rock-hard, thigh-high queen-size bed that was perfect for lovemaking. The image was razor-sharp since Seth had showered, shaved and slept there with enough regularity over the past year and a half that the place felt like home.

Jenna had been naked in bed when he told her he was leaving a job at Goldman Sachs to return to Tyler as president of the family’s S&L, since his father, Elias, was retiring.

“Wonderful,” was all Jenna had said.

“Wonderful,” he muttered now. She hadn’t voiced concern for the future of their relationship, nor asked if he wanted to keep in touch. In fact, she hadn’t even quit painting her toenails. Even now he could see her: wearing a crimson nightie, sitting on the mussed covers of the bed, tilting a bottle of mint-green polish in one hand and brushing the nail of her baby toe with the other. She hadn’t been the least perturbed that he was leaving. Why couldn’t he just accept it?

He blew out another sigh, this one more murderous than the last. And why was that ugly gold junker still idling? Was it really Jenna? Was she waiting for him to notice her? To come out and strike up a conversation?

“If that’s what you’re thinking, sweetheart, keep dreaming,” Seth whispered around the unlit cigar, unaware his posture was exactly as it had been twenty-three years ago, on Thanksgiving Day, when he’d sat ponderously at his father’s kitchen table after hearing that his mother had disappeared. Later that day, he’d been told she’d run off with Ray Bennedict. Before nightfall, Seth had decided his mother was never coming back, and he’d promised himself he wouldn’t hope for a phone call or a knock at the door. He wouldn’t torture himself with the usual, ridiculous adolescent fantasies…wouldn’t imagine his mother coming to the schoolyard fence, her haunted eyes searching for him and his brothers, Quinn and Brady….

No, once she left, it was best never to expect a woman to return.

Seth leaned forward, anyway, wishing the woman in the Cadillac didn’t look so much like Jenna. He didn’t trust his perceptions, though, no more than he could admit how her lovemaking had affected him. Model-tall and fire-hot, Jenna had burned in his arms like a flaming torch. She possessed wild, short, red-streaked hair and a trendy wardrobe of sequined sweaters, feathered earrings and capes that electrified Seth’s every last male nerve. Where he strictly wore muted browns and grays, Jenna’s wardrobe exploded in magenta and turquoise, violet and crimson. All brightly colored motion, she’d been like a bird, flitting around him while Seth stayed still as a statue.

Somehow they’d fit, though.

“Our bodies sure did,” he growled, gritting his teeth against the sudden, unwanted ache of his groin. Ever since he’d happened into the Soho gallery where she worked, he and Jenna had dated. Not seriously, they’d assured each other, even though they’d wound up in bed on the first date. The next evening, on the second, they’d ordered takeout and made love while devouring Chinese food, and on the third date they’d quit bothering with the food.

But it was only sex, they’d said. Unusual chemical attraction. Nothing more.

They’d even gone months between dates as if to prove their continued emotional sovereignty. But now, as Seth stared at the car idling in the road, he admitted the truth. He still wanted her. He missed her like the devil.

Maybe he should have initiated a talk about their relationship before he left New York, but Jenna knew that wasn’t his style, didn’t she? Sighing, he tried to ignore the panic in his gut. He shouldn’t have minded the feeling. He was used to money deals and playing daily roulette with the stock market, and now that he had his own bank, the stakes were even higher. But when he made banking decisions, rows of neat, orderly figures backed him up. The panic he felt now was different. This panic was female-related, and Seth knew next to nothing about females.