BEVERLY BARTON - His Woman, His Child

“Yeah, that’s right. Thanks.” He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat, waiting while she poured the coffee into a bright red ceramic mug.

She poured herself a cup, added sugar and then sat across from Hank. “Thank you for putting away the boxes for me. I wonder if you would do something else for me while you’re here?”

“Anything. Just ask.”

“Lowell’s clothes.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t think I can bear to—”

“I’ll do it. Just tell me what you want done with them.”

“The homeless shelter in Marshallton can use them.”

She sipped the hot coffee.

“I’ll take them over there myself.”

“I don’t know what to do with his uniforms.” She surveyed Hank’s big body. “They’re too small for you.”

“Do you want me to take them with me, too?”

“Yes. Everything. Please. Even his underwear and socks and... Lowell would have wanted them to go to someone who could use them.”

“Lowell was a kindhearted man.”

“I was very lucky to have him for my husband.” I wanted you, she wanted to tell him, not Lowell. But I was too afraid of you to ever pursue you. I knew instinctively that I wasn’t strong enough for a man like you, that you’d devour me whole. I settled for a safer, tamer man. A man who worshiped the ground I walked on. You never would have loved me the way Lowell did. And I couldn’t wait forever for another Prince Charming.

“He told me more than once how lucky he was that you had married him.” Hank laid his hands flat on the table, palms down. And every time he told me how wonderful you were, I wanted you all the more.

“I loved him,” Susan said, her voice soft and low.

“I’m sure you did. And you must know how much he loved you.”

“I tried to be a good wife to him.”

“You were.”

“He wanted to be a perfect husband,” she said. “It almost killed him when the doctors told us that he could never...that he was sterile.”

“He wanted to give you a child. That’s why he came to me.”

Susan lifted her head and looked Hank directly in the eye. “You aren’t going to tell anyone that my baby isn’t Lowell’s, are you?”

“You don’t want anyone to know the child is mine, do you?”

She shook her head. “No. What would people around here think if they knew? As Lowell’s friend, you and I can have a friendly relationship and you can be my child’s favorite Uncle Hank. But if people knew you were my baby’s father, they’d watch us and judge us and—”

“I’m going to tell Caleb,” he said. “No one else.”

“Promise?”

It took a great deal of strength not to reach across the table and grab her small, delicate hands, but Hank resisted the almost overwhelming urge.

“Susan, why are you so afraid of me? Don’t you know that I’d never hurt you?” Every time she looked at him, he saw the fear in her eyes. Was there something more to her fear than not wanting anyone to know the truth about their child? If so, what was it?

“But you could hurt me,” she said, gazing into her lap, letting her long lashes shade her eyes. “If you don’t keep my secret...our secret. Yours and mine and Lowell’s.”

“I want to tell my brother, but I promise no one else will know.”

Susan gulped in a large swallow of air and nodded her head affirmatively. “All right. Tell Caleb. Sheila has been my one confidante, so...”

“This isn’t what I wanted, either.” Hank shoved the untouched mug of coffee away from him, scooted back his chair and stood. “I never planned on being a father. The last thing I need in my life is a child. The plan was for that baby—” he glanced at her stomach “—to be Lowell’s and yours. Not mine.”

“I haven’t asked you to take responsibility for this child,” she told him, her cheeks flushed with emotion. “I don’t expect you to be a father to—”

Hank slammed his fist into the palm of his hand, creating a loud smack. Susan jumped.

“Dammit, don’t you see? Without Lowell around, that kid isn’t going to have a father unless I step in and do the right thing.”

“And just what is the ‘right thing,’ Hank?” She watched him pace the floor in her kitchen, his big, lean body stalking back and forth like an animal trying to escape a captor’s trap. And that had to be the way he saw her and her baby—a threat to his much-loved freedom.

“I don’t know.”

Yes, you do, some inner voice urged.

The right thing to do would be to marry Susan and for the two of them to raise their child in a family unit. But heaven help him, he wasn’t willing to put his head in that particular noose—no matter how desirable he found Susan or how determined he was to not abandon his child.

“The right thing is for me to do what I can to take care of you while you’re pregnant and then to take financial responsibility for my child.”

“I see.” Susan eased back her chair, stood and faced Hank. “You’ve undoubtedly given this a great deal of thought.”

“Look at it from a logical standpoint. You’re a pregnant widow, without parents or brothers and sisters to help you. As Lowell’s best friend, no one is going to think it odd that I’ve elected myself as your guardian or the child’s godfather.”

“Yes, you’re right, of course. And I know I should be grateful that you’re willing to give up a year of your life, to take a leave of absence from the FBI and—”

“I don’t want your gratitude,” he told her. “I want your cooperation.”

He infuriated her with his cool logic. So calm and controlled. So unemotional. She was sure he hadn’t shed one single tear for Lowell. Hank wasn’t the kind of man who cried. Not ever. No matter how much he was suffering.

Tallie had told her once that of her three brothers, Hank was the most bitter and resentful about having been raised poor and parentless. Where Tallie had no memory of their parents and Caleb only vague memories, Hank and Jake did remember. Their father had been a gambler and a drinker and they’d moved from pillar to post and had often been run out of town by the local authorities. When their parents had been killed in an accident, the four Bishop children had come to Crooked Oak to live with their paternal grandfather, a good man but not a warm and loving parent by any stretch of the imagination.

“Hank won’t ever marry and have kids,” Tallie had told her. “He’ll never take the chance that he might not be as perfect at fatherhood as he is at everything else.”

Remembering her friend’s words, Susan sighed. “All right, Hank. I’ll cooperate.” She held out her hand, pretending that she was as unemotional and in control of the situation as he was. “You’ll watch over me until the baby’s born and then you’ll be his or her godfather, doting ‘Uncle Hank.’ But no one, other than Sheila and Caleb, will ever know Lowell isn’t the father of my child.”

The thing Hank wanted most at that very minute was to touch Susan, to take her hand and pull her close. And it was the last thing on earth he should do. He stared at her proffered hand—a gesture to seal the bargain.

She waited, shifting uncomfortably several times before he reached out and took her hand in his. The moment his skin touched hers, she felt an electrical current zing through her body. She closed her eyes momentarily and prayed for the strength to not succumb to the desire she felt for this man. How could she be so wanton? Lowell hadn’t been dead two weeks!

Hank held her hand and gazed into her big blue eyes. He should be damned to hell for what he was thinking—for what he was feeling. If he acted on his desire, he’d scare her to death and offend her so grievously that she’d never forgive him.