Donna Clayton - Who's The Father Of Jenny's Baby?

She let her gaze follow his, and there at the base of the paved road onto which Luke had turned was a big wooden sign that read Prentice Mountain Ski Resort.

Jenny steeled herself. Gripped the edge of the soft, cushioned seat with the effort of it. She wanted to be strong. Wanted to face all the questions that were waiting for her. Wanted to confront the frightening answers hiding up there on that mountain. But for the life of her, she couldn’t help but feel that Luke had just asked her to buckle herself in for another wildly careening roller-coaster ride.

The asphalt road carried them up the mountain for a couple of miles, the densely broad-leafed trees that lined it casting shadows in the late morning sun. Then the woods seemed to fall away and the ski resort stood before her.

She read the signs that directed skiers to the large parking lot to the left, and then Jenny marveled at the huge building sitting a little further up the mountain.

“Does any of this look familiar?”

Luke’s soft question drew her gaze. She silently shook her head.

“The original lodge, the portion constructed from rough logs,” he said, “was built by my dad and my grandfather. Dad and I added the stone addition about ten years ago.”

“Your father and grandfather,” she said. “Will I meet them? Are they here?”

“No,” he told her. “My grandfather died when I was just a kid. My dad passed on three years ago.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Her attention was drawn to the beautiful lodge. “I’d like to go inside.”

But Luke turned onto a small, narrow lane marked Private Drive.

“Let’s go to the house first,” he said.

She gazed at the resort until it was out of sight, straining her mind for some glimmer of recollection, but failed. Absently, she asked, “So we don’t live in the lodge?”

Luke tossed her a smile, and a tiny lightning bolt of thrill shot straight through the anxiety she was feeling over actually facing her homecoming.

“No, we don’t,” he said. “The business takes a great deal of attention, especially during the height of the ski season. But a person’s got to have a place to get away. Even if it is just a quarter mile up the mountain.” His smile widened. “Like my dad always said, it’s the Prentice way of doing things.”

“I see.”

“I guess I should warn you,” he said. “It’s the Prentice family home. Chad lives there, too.”

She’d be living in a house with both Prentice brothers. She tried to take in the thought without allowing the idea to overwhelm her.

Jenny didn’t say a word. She was too afraid to speak. Afraid that if she opened her mouth she might burst into another fit of pure panic.

“It’s a big house,” he assured her. “You’ll have plenty of privacy.”

She didn’t care if the house was a massive medieval castle, it still wouldn’t be big enough to contain this tangled mess of a situation.

They drove in silence for the few moments it took to reach the house. And Jenny needed every single second to come to terms with the fact that she’d be seeing both of the Prentice men. Every single day.

In the span of what seemed like a short breath or two, the Bronco was parked and Luke was opening the passenger door for her. He clutched her small carryall in one hand and settled the other, in that most familiar manner, on the small of her back.

She hadn’t taken three full steps before those dark and sultry swirls began churning deep in her belly. Yet at the same time, the idea of crossing the threshold of this strange house, with all the questions hiding inside, had her heart pounding a furious beat.

She needed to be free of his touch! She needed to find some excuse not to go up those porch steps! Trepidation jumbled her thoughts beyond recognition.

Jenny stopped dead. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m not ready.”

Thankfully, Luke’s hand swung to his side and she was free. The heated tendrils subsided somewhat, but she still couldn’t seem to get her leaden feet to move one inch closer to the front door.

She knew there was pleading in her eyes as she looked up into his face. She wanted him to understand. She wanted him to realize how afraid she was.

“I know this isn’t easy for you,” he said. “But waiting isn’t going to make it any easier.”

Jenny blinked. She darted a quick glance at the ground, and then back up to his eyes. He was right. Excuses and postponing weren’t going to make her homecoming any easier.

Filling her lungs with a huge, steeling breath, she turned toward the house.

Luke opened the heavy oak door for her and then motioned for her to enter. With her bottom lip tucked firmly between her teeth, she went through the doorway and looked around.

Pennsylvania bluestone covered the floor. Rather than describe the area as a foyer, she would have called it a hallway that ran the length of the front of the house. A gallery, she supposed it was, with tall, narrow windows that let in lots of light. One end of the hall opened onto what looked like a library, a small, cozy room lined with bookshelves. The Queen-Anne-style table and chairs she saw peeking from the room at the opposite end told her that was a formal dining area.

“Well,” Luke said, “this is it. Home Sweet Home.”

She gazed into the living room in front of her. The lush, dove-gray carpet butting up against the bluestone lent a formal feel that Jenny wasn’t sure she liked. She stood there, listening to the quiet.

Luke’s hand on her shoulder gave her a start.

“You okay?”

It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed she’d been holding her breath, waiting. For what? she wondered.

“Fine,” she answered, distracted. The smile she offered him barely curved her lips.

What had she been waiting for? The question continued to niggle.

Had she expected the sight of the house to bring some onrush of memories? An overwhelming flash flood carrying on its swift and turbulent current years and years’ worth of mental pictures from the past?

Jenny realized she actually felt disappointed. Again, she found herself looking all around her, just listening and wondering. Hoping that she would feel some small nuance of familiarity. But she felt no recognition whatsoever. She might as well have been standing in Buckingham Palace, as foreign as this place felt. This house that was supposed to be her home.

“Give it time,” Luke said, smoothing his hand over her shoulder and down her arm to her elbow.

He must have read the disappointment on her face. Must have understood her wild, crazy expectation to miraculously regain her memory.

“This might not feel like home to you now,” he went on, “but you’ll make new memories. You’ll have new experiences. Experiences that will turn this house into your home again.”

You’ll make new memories. You’ll have new experiences. Jenny studied her husband’s face, acutely aware that he hadn’t used the word we.

He smiled then, and every dark and dire message she imagined he was sending faded into oblivion as the heat of his hand on her elbow seemed to wash across her skin to her forearm, and then her wrist, and then further, until it reached the very tips of her fingers.

This was the first time his body had ever contacted hers, flesh to flesh, skin to skin. Well, the first time in her mind, anyway. She’d thought his touch was hot when he’d placed his hand on the small of her back where the fabric of her shirt had been between them, but this...

This was fiery. Blistering.

The heat radiating from him became an element with a life of its own, flowing up over her shoulder like some flammable, intoxicating liquid and cascading sensuously down both her back and her chest.