Metsy Hingle - The Baby Bonus

If she got home. Cole stared at the cell phone, willed the thing to ring. It remained silent instead. Impatient, he flipped the phone open and started to punch in Liz’s number again. Just as quickly he slapped the thing shut. If Liz had heard from Regan, she would have called him—especially after he’d taken his well-meaning friend to task for meddling in his and Regan’s lives. Besides, Liz had said that when Regan had stormed out of the clinic four hours ago, she’d been royally miffed with her aunt and had claimed that she needed to think about what she was going to do.

So where the devil did you go to do your thinking, princess?

A late March wind, heavy with the scent of night jasmine, whistled through moss-draped oak trees that stood along the property that had been in Regan’s family since the turn of the century. The familiar scents of New Orleans brought back a rush of memories. Memories of the tiny, dank apartments where he had lived with his mother as a boy, places that had been sweltering hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. Other memories washed over him like scenes in a kaleidoscope—memories of his mother working, struggling to make ends meet by scrubbing floors in other people’s homes until her hands were worn and wrinkled. Unable to stop the flood of memories, he squeezed his eyes shut as the scenes tumbled behind his closed lids. His mother serving the fancy guests at parties in the beautiful homes. His mother shuffling him off to a corner in a kitchen and telling him to be a good boy while she worked. Him sneaking peeks at the party guests and wanting to join the other kids there. Him wishing he could be like those other kids, wishing that he belonged.

Cole opened his eyes and drew in a cleansing breath. Bracing his back against one of the home’s stately columns, he listened to the tinkling of a wind chime somewhere. The musical sound triggered another memory—a memory of other nights like this one—nights when, as a youth, he’d wandered through the dark, narrow streets of the French Quarter, lured by the soulful music and sultry scents, the ghostly tales of pirates and voodoo, the promises of sex and sin that lurked on every corner. He recalled how quickly one turn down a wrong street could prove not only dangerous, but deadly. Suddenly fear knotted like a fist in Cole’s stomach. How many times had Regan taken off to roam the French Quarter streets when she’d wanted to be alone to mull over a problem or brood about an argument with her father?

What if Regan had gone walking in the French Quarter tonight to think?

Bile rose in Cole’s throat at the thought. She knew the area like the back of her hand, the places to avoid, the areas no woman or man should ever venture alone, Cole told himself.

But what if she had another dizzy spell? Or if, in her distressed state, she wandered down one of those wrong streets?

Cole’s heart slammed against his ribs, and he took off across the veranda at a run. “Damn! Damn! Damn!” He should have insisted on going with her. She and the baby were his responsibilities now. If anything had happened to her or the baby—

Cole shut off the thought, refused to even give credence to the notion that something could have happened to her. Still, he raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time. His feet had barely cleared the last step when the black iron gates fronting the property’s entrance swung open, and Regan’s white BMW came cruising up the long driveway.

Relief flooded through Cole, making his heart kick. Remembering past mistakes, Cole forced himself to stay put, not to rush out to meet her and demand an explanation of where she had been. It took Regan no more than a few minutes to park the car and maneuver the path to the house, but to Cole it seemed an eternity. An eternity in which he jammed his hands into his pockets and dug deeply inside himself for patience while every instinct demanded he snag her close, run his hands over her and assure himself she was unharmed.

“Cole,” she said, her voice strained, her expression wary. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

From the expression on her face, he knew that she hadn’t wanted to see him here. The realization smarted more than Cole had thought possible, but he handled it as he had so many others in his life—by focusing on his goal. And his goal at the moment was the baby. “I didn’t hear from you,” he said, taking care to keep any accusation out of his tone. “When I couldn’t reach you by phone, I came here. Since you weren’t home, I decided to wait.” He saw no point in telling her that he’d been waiting for more than two hours, that he’d called everyone he could think of, searching for her, and that he’d been about to start tearing the city apart to find her.

“Looks like you didn’t have any trouble getting past the security gates.”

“No.”

She arched her brow in that imperious way that had amused him so often years ago. “I was led to believe my security system was top of the line and practically burglarproof. Obviously, that’s not true.”

Cole curved his mouth into a grin. “There’s nothing wrong with your system, princess. It’s actually among the best available. But one of the companies I own designs computer software for home security systems. It just so happens that your security firm uses my company’s software. Since I designed the program, I also know how to override the codes.”

“How convenient for you.”

“Yes. It is, isn’t it?”

A phone rang inside the house. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. That’s probably my Aunt Liz,” Regan said, moving past him to head up the stairs. As she did so, Cole caught a whiff of her perfume. It was the same brand she’d worn when he’d first met her—a special blend that reminded him of honeysuckle. The fragrance immediately hurled him back to another time—to an evening spent making love with Regan and of waking the next morning to the scent of honeysuckle on his sheets. Cole sucked in a breath, fought the swift rush of desire that hit him and the sudden tightness in his chest. Hormones again, he told himself. Nothing more. He certainly wasn’t dumb enough to let himself fall under the woman’s spell a second time. She’d cured him of any romantic notions he’d had about love the first time he’d tangled with her. Baby or no baby, it wasn’t a lesson that he intended to forget.

Cole hesitated in front of the doors of the mansion. He couldn’t help thinking back to the very first time the butler had opened those doors for him. He’d felt like a mongrel with muddy feet. Shaking off the memory, he stepped inside the grand foyer entrance. The place was every bit as cold and imposing as he remembered, Cole thought. He swept his gaze over the high ceilings, the marble floors and silk wall coverings that echoed refinement and wealth handed down through generations. And despite the fact that he was now a millionaire a hundred times over, standing beneath the crystal chandelier amidst the elegance, he still felt like a mongrel who didn’t belong here.

“Yes, Aunt Liz, I’m okay. I’m sorry you were worried. I know he has. He’s here now,” Regan’s voice carried from the opposite end of the foyer, where she stood with her back to him as she spoke into the telephone receiver. “No, I haven’t decided yet. Yes, I’ll call you later and let you know. I love you, too.”

When she hung up the phone and turned around, Cole got a good look at Regan for the first time since he’d left her. Yesterday, all the old resentments that had begun to eat at him disappeared the minute he saw her face. In the moonlight and with the trees shading her face, he hadn’t been able to see her clearly. From her reaction to his presence, he had assumed she was okay. But now…now he could see that she was far from okay. She didn’t have a lick of color in her cheeks. Faint shadows marred the delicate skin beneath her eyes. And despite her regal posture, she looked as though a strong wind would knock her right off her feet. A surge of warmth and tenderness, two emotions he hadn’t associated with Regan for years, pumped through his system. The fact that he felt those emotions for her now grated. “What’s wrong?”