SUSAN MEIER - The Baby Bequest

“Three things happened yesterday,” he said, steepling his fingers at his chin. “We buried my father and stepmother, my siblings and I inherited almost half of everything in this county, and I became a parent.”

This time Claire raised her eyebrows. Without as much as a word from her, he knew she wanted to contradict him about “who” had become parents. He also knew that when the time was right, she wouldn’t hesitate to correct him.

Evan swallowed—and not because she’d caught that inadvertent slip. The very fact that she had caught him, and wouldn’t be afraid to tell him so, and the way she was absolutely comfortable in the chair across from him once again made it seem more than fitting that she was not only here in this office, but here in his life. And that bothered him. He could understand being attracted to her—any man over the age of twelve would be attracted to her—but the little jolts of rightness had to be a mistake of some sort.

Determined to ignore them, he cleared his throat. “Do you realize you were there for all three things?”

“Yes. I worked very closely with your father.”

“Very closely,” he agreed with a nod, glad she’d given him an opening to get to the topic that kept getting blotted out by chemistry or sexual awareness or some other damned male-female thing Evan didn’t have time to deal with. “So close that I’d wager you know this business inside and out. And you know how to care for kids. Logically, Ms. Wilson, my brothers and I can’t survive without you.”

“Sure you could,” Claire protested casually. “You could hire a nanny or something.”

“Really? Overnight? On this tiny, sparsely populated piece of the mountain? I don’t think so, and neither do you.”

At the abrupt hardening of the expression in his eyes, Claire shifted uneasily on her seat. She didn’t know what the heck he was driving at, but she had more than a sneaking suspicion she wasn’t going to like it.

“If I were Arnie Garrett and I were trying to coerce custody of the triplets, there is only one person in this world who could help me.”

Claire felt her mouth fall open in surprise. “What?” she said before she could stop herself. “I hope you don’t think that I had something to do with Arnie Garrett trying to get you to sign over custody of the triplets!”

“That’s exactly what I think,” Evan said coolly.

“How dare you!” she gasped, angry in a way she didn’t believe she’d ever been angry before. Most of that outrage came from her loyalty to this man’s father and what she knew Norm would want for his children. “Those babies need to be raised by family. I’d never condone them being raised by anyone but you and your brothers. I’d have gone in search of you and insisted you take them before I’d let Arnie Garrett or anybody else have them, if only because I know that’s what your father wanted.”

“That is what my father wanted,” Evan agreed, waving her back down when Claire sprang from her chair as if to storm out of the room. “I apologize for questioning you, but I had to know whose side you were on.”

“Who says there are sides?” she demanded, furious. “You’re the only person I see making trouble. Everybody else seems perfectly happy with this situation.”

“I don’t agree with you. I don’t think Arnie Garrett is happy with this situation. I don’t think he’s done trying for the kids. And I want the kids. If there’s a war, Ms. Wilson, let me assure you I plan to win it.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Claire agreed quietly. “But you keep talking about those kids as if they are exclusively yours and they’re not. You have two brothers and the triplets need to be raised by all three of you, not just one of you.”

“Grant owns a construction company in Savannah. Chas has an interview with a law firm in Philadelphia in a few weeks. But I could and did leave my job, and my life. Just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I’m here to stay. In the end, those kids will be raised by me. Probably exclusively. And nobody’s going to keep me from doing that.”

“You saw me as that much of a threat?” she asked.

Cool, dignified, he caught her gaze. “I didn’t know what to think about you. That’s why I decided to confront you. Now that I see how loyal to my father you are, I sincerely doubt you could help Arnie do something my father wouldn’t have wanted.”

Stupefied, Claire stared at him. He wore a gray suit, a white shirt and a moss-green tie that brought out the verdant color of his eyes. Those eyes held a determined spark, but his perfect mouth tipped upward, just a fraction, as if he was relieved and couldn’t quite hide it. He looked innocent and sweet, and positively gorgeous. Not nervous. Not confused. Absolutely normal.

In a wave of understanding, she realized this conversation answered the question about why he behaved so oddly around her. He thought she was in cahoots with Arnie Garrett. He hadn’t been getting the same peculiar sensations she’d been getting for the past two days.

Not only was her body constantly on red alert, but she continually experienced a strange intuition that they were made for each other. That wasn’t just preposterous, it was premature. She didn’t even know the man, for pete’s sake. True, he was gorgeous, beautifully built and had a smile that could charm the angels, but it took much, much more than that to be “made for each other.”

And now she knew he wasn’t attracted to her. But, in fairness, she didn’t want to be attracted to him either. She couldn’t afford to be attracted to him. He was older. He was her boss. And he was way, way out of her social circle.

“It’s been a really difficult two days for all of us,” she said, though she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t. Something completely wrong was happening to her, and unless or until she was sure she could manage it, she wasn’t going to take any chances. “I have some things I need to do this morning. If you’re going to pick up where your father left off, those contracts—” she pointed at the corner of his father’s desk “—need to be renegotiated. I’d start there, if I were you.”

Evan nodded. Claire let herself out of his office and closed the door, since her desk was right outside and she didn’t want him watching her every move any more than she wanted to be reminded of him.

She didn’t need privacy or time to think about this. Her mother’s involvement with an older, more sophisticated…richer man had cost Claire her father.

Staying away from Evan Brewster should be a nobrainer.

After work, Claire followed Evan to the Brewster mansion. Because she had been quiet all afternoon, Evan suspected she was probably still annoyed with him for suggesting she might have been in league with Arnie Garrett. For Evan that was good news and bad news. On the one hand, her irritation was a sort of proof that she hadn’t thrown in her lot with Arnie and Evan could trust her. On the other, being able to trust her nullified the argument he continually used to pull himself away from noticing she was a woman. If she wasn’t in partnership with Arnie to take the triplets, then there was no reason not to find her attractive. None, except that he had nothing to offer a wife, so he wasn’t in the market.

And he wasn’t. He had even begun to seriously doubt his attraction to her, in spite of the way it seemed to get worse as the day went on. Huddled together in two rooms, cocooned from the rest of the lumber mill, they were in their own private world. He was sure most of what he was feeling was nothing more than a response to being so close all the time.

As he pulled into the driveway, Evan wasn’t concerned about having to spend extra hours with Claire, since nobody would have time to be attracted to anyone while trying to feed, bathe and put to bed three children. If anything, these next few hours would probably nip the attraction in the bud.