Anne McAllister - Fletcher's Baby!

She supposed where Sam Fletcher was concerned most business deals had only one possible outcome—the one he wanted.

But he didn’t want this!

She knew he didn’t want it. She could see it in his face, in his eyes. She heard it in the resignation in his voice.

And why would he? He didn’t love her. He didn’t want their child.

He was doing it because Hattie had forced his hand. He was doing it because he was used to doing the right thing, the necessary thing.

Just as Hattie had known he would.

Just as Josie had feared he would. It was why she wouldn’t tell him about the baby.

“A child has a right to know its father,” Hattie had said in a tone far more gentle than the bracing one she usually used.

“I know that,” Josie had replied. “I just...can’t tell him. Not now.”

“When?”

“Sometime,” Josie said vaguely.

“A father has a right to know his child, too,” Hattie had gone on implacably.

“I’ll tell him,” Josie had promised. But she hadn’t said when. And she’d changed the subject whenever Hattie brought it up.

“You can tell him at Christmas,” Hattie had said eventually.

But Sam hadn’t come. Josie had seen Hattie’s disappointment when he hadn’t come. She’d seen the older woman watching her with worry and concern in her eyes. But Josie had steeled herself against that concern because she knew why Sam hadn’t come.

After that Hattie hadn’t brought it up again.

Josie had dared to think Hattie had given up.

Obviously, once the will had been read, she knew she’d thought wrong. Hattie had made sure Sam would know.

Now Sam did know—and had done the very thing Hattie had hoped—and Josie had dreaded—he might.

It wasn’t the way he’d imagined proposing marriage, standing in a laundry room, willing his prospective, very pregnant bride to look at him, his hands in his pockets, fists clenched.

It certainly wasn’t the way he’d proposed to Izzy. That had happened at a cozy dinner at a candlelit table in a restaurant on the top of Knob Hill. They had been laughing together, touching, and his suggestion that what they had was too good to waste on casual moments had been enough to make Izzy catch her breath, then turn a thousand-watt smile in his direction.

This time he was standing stiffly, touching no one, his head bent beneath the stone basement’s low ceiling. His voice was stiff and awkward. And, far from bestowing any thousand-watt smile, Josie was looking at him as if he’d just electrocuted her.

Surely it wasn’t a surprise. She had to know what they had to do. It was the only responsible thing to do—though heaven knew if he could have thought of something else, he probably would have done it.

Besides, what did she expect? A profession of undying love? Hardly. Especially not after he’d already assured her just hours before that his actions that night had been a mistake.

It was enough that he was willing to do the right thing, he assured himself. He looked at her expectantly and waited for her to do the right thing, too.

She said, “No.”

Sam gaped. He wasn’t jet lagged this time, but he thought his hearing was going just the same. He checked. “No?”

“No. Thank you,” she added after a moment, but he didn’t think she sounded very grateful.

His jaw tightened. “Why the hell not?”

It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to marry her, for heaven’s sake! He was being a good sport, though, and making the offer. The least she could do, damn it all, was accept it!

“When I marry, I’m marrying for love,” she said simply.

He stared at her. He glanced around the tiny laundry room pointedly, then at her now bare ring finger. “Forgive me if I’m wrong,” he drawled, “but I don’t see your own true love clamoring for a wedding date any longer.”

Josie got a tight, pinched look on her face and he immediately felt like a heel. “No,” she admitted quietly, then blinked and looked down at her hands.

Oh, hell. It was like kicking a puppy.

“I didn’t mean...” he muttered at last, his voice gruff. He started to reach for her, to comfort her, then remembered where that had got him last time. He pulled back sharply. “Sorry.”

In fact, he wasn’t sorry at all. This might not be the reason her engagement ought to have been broken, but Kurt Masters didn’t deserve a woman as kind and generous and open and—well, hell—as loving as Josie. But he didn’t suppose she wanted to hear that right now.

“Kurt doesn’t matter,” she said after a moment.

Sam wouldn’t argue about that. “Glad to hear it,” he said brusquely. “Then why are you saying no?”

“I told you.”

“Because you want love.” He fairly spat the word. “And what about the baby? Don’t you want it to have love?”

Her nostrils flared. “Of course I do! What are you talking about?”

“You’re depriving it of a father’s love.”

“You don’t love it,” she said flatly.

“How the hell do you know?”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” He was incensed now, breathing down her neck.

“Because in the ten years I’ve known you I’ve never heard you express any desire for children whatsoever!”

“So maybe I changed my mind.”

Josie rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”

“No, you give me a break. You’re the one who’s had all the time to get used to this. I’ve just had it sprung on me—”

“There was nothing stopping you coming back any time in the last seven months,” Josie pointed out with saccharine politeness.

“I thought I was making both of us happy staying away!”

“You were.”

He heaved a harsh breath. “And now I’m not. But I am being responsible. I am ready to do the right thing and—”

“And you’re so sure you know what the right thing is?”

He opened his mouth. He hesitated.

The hesitation was all it took. Josie folded her arms across her breasts. “You don’t want to marry me, Sam. You don’t want a child. You want to sell the inn and get the hell out of here and you never want to look back. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you came for?”

“I came because Hattie left me holding the bag!”

“Exactly. And I’m telling you, you don’t have to hold it any longer. Hattie wanted you here. Not me. It was a mistake, like you said earlier today.” She started toward the stairs, then turned back and faced him squarely. “It was, as you said earlier, ‘the whiskey talking.’”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did. You were honest. And now you’re lucky. I’m not holding you accountable for what you did under the influence of whiskey.”

“What if I want to be held accountable?”

Their eyes dueled once more.

Then, “Go to hell, Sam,” Josie said, and stalked up the stairs.

Footsteps came after her. “Don’t you walk out on me!”

Josie turned halfway up, color vivid on her cheeks. “Don’t you yell at me,” she said, in a voice quieter than his, but no less forceful. “Not if you want The Shields House to keep a good reputation.”

“The hell with The Shields House!”

Josie shrugged. “Well, suit yourself. It’s your house. Your business.”

“I offered to share it with you.”

“And I said no. Thank you,” she added, the polite afterthought as damnably annoying as her refusal. “Don’t slam the door when you leave.” She turned then, and left him standing there.

Sam glared at her back until she went around the corner. Then he stomped into the kitchen, flung open the door to the entry hall and stalked out. He managed—barely—not to snarl at the guests in the parlor. But that was as far as his good behavior went.