Kara Lennox - Vixen In Disguise

She’d always adored Edward Hardison, or Dr. Ed, as most people called him. With his silver hair and his round, jovial face, he’d always seemed very safe to her, a safe person to take care of her health. But when she’d realized she was pregnant, she’d deliberately made an appointment with Jeff, not his father. The idea of kindly Dr. Ed knowing such a dark secret about her hadn’t seemed right. It would have been like telling her father all over again.

Of course, in the end, Edward had found out. As luck would have it, he was taking calls for Jeff when Anne had lost the baby. He’d been just as kind and sympathetic as Jeff, in no way judgmental.

She murmured a greeting, then something about having an appointment, and got out of there, Jeff’s invitation still burning in her brain.

She felt badly that she hadn’t handled things better. Fending off handsome men wasn’t exactly her forte. In fact, she’d seldom had to fend off men at all, handsome or not. Now, in the span of just a few days, she’d turned down two.

She wasn’t terribly pretty. She’d learned that lesson well in her teenage years. Skinny, freckled redheads weren’t the stuff of any man’s dreams. She’d compensated by being the class brain, the one with the quick wit and the acid tongue. She’d played down her femininity, believing her intelligence would take her a lot further than batting her eyelashes and showing cleavage.

That was before Annie. When she’d adopted her alter ego, she’d tapped into a well of femininity she hadn’t known existed. And though after her weekend with Wade she’d gone back to her conservative clothes and no-nonsense manner, maybe, just maybe, some essence of Annie remained.

Why else would Jeff suddenly take an interest, even a casual one, in her?

The idea that Annie might be peeking through Anne’s hard-fought control both thrilled and frightened her.

She didn’t feel like going home, even though she had a stack of applications to fill out and a list of follow-up phone calls to make. Her father had helped her put together an exhaustive list of every large, prestigious law firm in the country. A few of them had already approached her, but Milton had insisted she leave no stone unturned. He didn’t want her to miss her golden opportunity simply because she hadn’t been thorough enough.

He’d also encouraged her not to jump to any decisions.

Anne had followed his advice to the letter. Right after graduating, she’d gone on several interviews with the firms who had courted her. Despite a few very attractive offers, she’d put them all on ice while she explored other possible options.

Then she’d found out she was pregnant, and all bets were off.

Predictably, her mother had cried and her father had ranted and raved. Anne had simply become paralyzed. The life of an associate in a huge law firm was not compatible with single motherhood. She would end up shortchanging both her employer and her child—and there was never any question about her keeping the child. She’d put all her career plans on hold and focused on preparing for a baby.

She had tried halfheartedly to locate Wade, figuring he had a right to know. But at that time he’d been moving around so much he was impossible to pin down. She’d left a message here and there, but if he’d gotten them, he hadn’t responded.

Then she’d lost the baby, and her whole world had turned inside out—again. She hadn’t thought it possible to love a child so much when she hadn’t even met it. Having the baby ripped from her so cruelly had left her crushed and aching, physically and emotionally.

She’d seen no point in sharing that pain with Wade. She still didn’t.

Now, one month after the miscarriage, she was pouring herself into the job search once again. Milton was smiling again. Her world felt a bit more sane. And she knew that soon she would regain the sense of anticipation she’d always had about carving out her own name in the big bad world of lawyers.

Still, the prospect of job hunting seemed decidedly unattractive on a beautiful, Indian Summer day like today. Instead she drove to Hollywood Lingerie and bought two bra-and-panty sets, a black silk camisole and tap pants, and a slinky, midnight-blue nightgown.

A huge garden center was just down the way from Hollywood Lingerie, which inspired Anne to think about a fall garden. Her mother had been talking about pansies and impatiens, and the store beckoned with flats and flats of those very flowers.

Anne took her time picking out the colors, mentally designing the flower beds in front of the house.

“If I’d known all it took was some flowers to make you smile, I’d have got you a truckload.”

“Wade?” Oh, for heaven’s sake, what was Wade Hardison doing at a garden center? But here he was, big as life, standing in front of her, smiling in that lazy, easy way of his, as if they ran into each other on the street every day.

Even more surprising were Wade’s companions, a little boy about seven and a girl, maybe four or five. She recognized them as Sam and Kristin, Jonathan Hardison’s two kids.

Putting aside her lingering pique over her and Wade’s last meeting, she smiled at both children. “Who do we have here? Don’t tell me that’s Sam and Kristin. They’re too big to be Sam and Kristin.”

The little girl hid her face against Wade’s jean-clad leg.

Anne’s heart fluttered dangerously. Lately she couldn’t look at a child without thinking of the one she lost, but right now she couldn’t afford to be maudlin. She ruthlessly pushed aside the thought of her own baby.

“C’mon, you guys remember me, right?” Anne cajoled. “I was at your house on the Fourth of July. I’m Anne.”

“Kids, say hi to Annie,” Wade prompted.

Anne gave him a sharp look.

“Uh, Anne. Her name’s Anne.”

“I ‘member you, Anne. We’re making a terrarium for our frogs,” Sam said proudly, pulling a jar from their shopping cart, which also held several small green plants and some decorative rocks. He extended the jar for Anne’s inspection. Inside the jar, which contained a little moist dirt, were two of the tiniest frogs she had ever seen, no bigger than the end of her finger.

“Oh, aren’t they cute,” she said, taking the jar and holding it up to the light. “I had a pet frog once.”

“We caught ‘em as tadpoles,” Sam said, “and they took all summer to grow legs. Now they need a better home.”

“Do these frogs have names?” Anne asked.

“Mine’s Alexander the Great,” Sam said. “And mine’s Miss Pooh Bear,” Kristin piped in, apparently having overcome her shyness. “Do you have a boo-boo?” She pointed to the Band-Aid on Anne’s inner arm.

“Just a little one. Thank you for asking, Kristin.”

Wade wasn’t satisfied with her answer. “I haven’t noticed the Bloodmobile around town.”

“Ah, no, I have your brother to blame for this.”

Wade rolled his eyes. “Jeff and his needles. You’re not sick, are you?”

Anne waved away his concern, hoping she did a good job of sounding nonchalant. “No, of course not. Just a routine blood test.”

“What for?”

“Nosy, aren’t we? Jeff is checking to see whether I have two X chromosomes,” she answered without missing a beat. “You know, since I’m so—” she lowered her voice “—defeminized.”

“Oh, come on, Anne, don’t hold that against me. It was a moment of desperation.”

“Of course I’m holding it against you. What else would you expect from an uptight, frowning—”

“Okay, okay, I get the point. I’m sorry. I was way out of line. You don’t look at all defeminized today.”

She felt idiotically pleased by the compliment. She was just wearing a pair of jeans and short-sleeved cashmere sweater, but it had to look better on her than that potato-sack jumper she’d worn to Autumn Daze. She turned away and pretended interest in a potting-soil display.