ANYBODY'S DAD Read online

  Chase broke the kiss for no other reason than he needed air. Lots of it. His chest heaved with the effort to drag some in. "God, I'm addicted to these," he rasped like a revelation and stole another kiss, soft and quick, then spun on his heels and strode down her walk.

  Tessa watched him leave, then slipped into her house.

  "You shouldn't be seeing him at all, Tessa."

  "Cool your jets, will you, Dia?" Sam snapped. "Good grief, you sure can kill a girl's sex drive in one punch. I hate to think what you do to a man."

  Tessa looked at Dia, then Sam. "We need to get this girl a date."

  Sam slung her arm around Dia, but spoke to Tessa. "What we need is to get her la—"

  "Samantha Lightfoot!" Tessa cut in, her hands on her hips. "I will never get used to the way you just blurt things out."

  "It's only the truth." She shrugged, then looked at Dia, giving her a quick squeeze. "So tell your big sister, when was the last time you cut loose, like in the old days when I had to drag you from some daring feat or a wild party with too many boys before Dad found you?"

  "Too long," Dia muttered sourly, a streak of longing in her eyes.

  Tessa laughed, handing Dia the pint of soft ice cream and pushing her onto the couch. Sam sank into the chair, clicking the pause off on the tape in time to see Sir Lancelot give Queen Guinevere the kiss that rewrote history. Collectively, they sighed dreamily. Then Tessa realized that one kiss had brought down Camelot.

  Three hours later, Tessa left the bathroom, yawning, and dragging a brush through her hair. She kicked off her slippers, laid the brush aside, then drew the covers down, switching off the light before slipping into bed. She stared into the darkness, her fingers moving over her belly. Her child was sleeping, she thought, then hoped, for she needed rest. With Chase in her life she expended more energy then she had keeping him at arm's length. She'd never felt this confused in her life. He was a caring man, but she didn't want him near, didn't want him popping by whenever he wanted as he had tonight. Even if he was a great kisser and a boost to her ego. Tessa wanted her life back the way it was.

  Like what? Dull, orderly, efficient? Yes.

  Admit it, a voice in her head coaxed. You like him disturbing your peace. No, I don't. God, what a liar.

  She rolled onto her side, stuffed a pillow between her knees and one under her tummy before nearly pounding the stuffing out of a third to get comfortable. She didn't know what to expect from Chase, she thought, sinking her head onto the pillow. And his threat that he wasn't going anywhere and she'd better get used to it tormented her rest. She flinched when the phone rang and glanced at the luminous clock before reaching for the receiver in the dark.

  "Yes?"

  She knew it was him before he spoke. She sensed him through the line as if he were in the room. Unconsciously, she pulled the covers higher over her body.

  "Hi." His voice was a low rasp, whiskey rough, and the single word sang through her like a stroke of his hand.

  Tessa swallowed and tried to sound perturbed. "There is a good reason you're calling me at this hour?"

  "Yeah, there's something real sexy about talking to a woman when you know she's in bed."

  She rolled to her back, staring at the canopy drapes. "You're pitiful, Chase."

  "I know." There wasn't a shred of regret in his voice and she could almost see him smile. "Did you have fun tonight?"

  "Did you?"

  "There you go again, talking around your feelings."

  "Yes, I had fun. I ate too much ice cream and stayed up too late."

  "Is that a hint?"

  "You mean you'd get one that wasn't tied around a boulder dropping on your head?"

  He chuckled softly, the sound even more devastating than his smile.

  "Good night, Tessa." She could hear the rustle of sheets, the phone scraping against his beard, and she wondered if he slept in the nude. Chase would, she decided, and the image did some splendid things to her body.

  A small smile curved her lips and very softly she said, "Good night, Chase."

  The line disconnected and Tessa replaced the receiver. But it was a long time before she managed to fall asleep, an honest smile and deep blue eyes following her into her dreams.

  * * *

  Six

  « ^ »

  "I understand, Dia. No, it's all right. I'll manage. Bye." Tessa hung up the pay phone outside the local community center and sighed, pressing her forehead to the cool metal frame. She tried staying mad at her sister for canceling on such short notice, but Dia's clients were usually at their most desperate when they called her. She considered calling Samantha, then remembered it was the eve of the summer solstice or some other ritual night.

  Well, you expected things like this, she reminded herself. A single mother faced a lot of events alone. She just wished it wasn't her first Lamaze class.

  The other parents filed past her and she took a deep breath and followed, trying to ignore the mothers-to-be comparing complaints, the husbands or lovers with armloads of pillows. She failed. Tessa felt like the odd man out, like when she was ten years old living in a dinky Colorado town, and she was the only girl in her class not invited to Kelly Pembrook's slumber party.

  God, are you emotional tonight, she thought and blamed out-of-whack hormones.

  She strode over to Debbie, the instructor, an energetic woman in her late twenties, who on her first visit to Tessa's shop had convinced her to attend the seminars.

  "Tessa!" The two women hugged. "You won't regret this, I swear."

  "Good lord, Deb, only you would have the nerve to wear a shirt like that."

  Her bright green sweatshirt was emblazoned with a picture of a very pregnant woman desperately trying to cross her legs and the words Breathe! Pant! It's too late for drugs!

  "I know, wonderfully tacky, isn't it?"

  Tessa agreed; the look was softened by the words Lamaze instructor printed across the back.

  "Listen, Deb, my coach bailed on me. Can I still do this first session without one?"

  Debbie frowned, then looked across the open room and pointed. "Then who's he?"

  Tessa didn't have to look. She felt him instantly, as if his eyes had the power of touch. Part of her, a big part of her, said walk straight out the door. But another part of her wanted, needed to know what the talkative man had said to these people. She refused to admit she was actually glad to see him. Or that she needed him.

  "He's been waiting for you. God, he's cute."

  She studied Chase as he walked across the massive room, his sneakers squeaking as he stopped to say something to another couple already settled on a mat. Briefly, she wondered if he owned anything but worn, body-molding blue jeans and tight T-shirts. God, she could see the ridges in his stomach.

  "Think so?" she asked, sounding a little breathless, even to her own ears.

  "Hell, yeah. Your kid's going to be beautiful."

  Tessa swung around to look at her friend. "What?"

  "Sure, can't you see it?" Deb said, unaware of the anger filling Tessa. "With those genes, and those jeans," she emphasized with pure feminine appreciation, "you can't miss."

  Someone called to Debbie just then and she moved away as Chase neared, a backpack slung over one shoulder and pillows stuffed under one arm. Tessa wanted to stuff one in his mouth.

  "You told them you were the father!" she snapped.

  "Hello, Tessa, and how are you?" he muttered dryly, then added, "Sure. Why not? I am."

  "Dammit, Chase." She looked at the floor, rubbing two fingers over the space between her eyes. "Do you realize what you're doing to me when you spread it around?"

  His eyes narrowed, his hand on his hip. "Why don't you just tell me, so I get it straight." She didn't notice the edge to his voice.

  "Well, for starters, I don't know you well enough to pull that story off. Hell, I don't know you at all or I'd have anticipated your showing up here." His gaze darkened dangerously and Tessa harnessed her temper. "I'm not thinking
of my reputation. God knows by now it's questionable, but think of the baby, Chase." She gazed imploringly into his blue eyes. "This child has to live here, go to school here. How's it going to be for her if everyone in the neighborhood knows, God forbid," her voice lowered, "that she was artificially conceived."

  His features were tight. "That was your choice," he reminded her. "And give me some credit, Tessa." He was mad, boiling mad, she realized. "Christ, my brothers don't even know about the damn turkey baster."

  She blinked. "But … I thought—when they were at the house—?"

  "They don't keep in contact enough with me to know my love life, or lack of it," he said, his anger ebbing. "Yes, they know this baby is mine, but not how he was made."

  "She."

  "Huh?"

  "How she was made."

  Her belligerence made him smile. "Make a difference?"

  "Only because you want a boy."

  Chase leaned close enough to whisper, "I wouldn't care, Tessa, as long as both of you are all right." She met his gaze. "I swear."

  She wanted to believe him, he realized, but the uncertain look he saw far too often in her eyes and a cast of doubt she couldn't hide, warned Chase that Tessa wasn't even close to seeing him as anything but a number on a test tube. Regardless of how they aroused each other to near combustion.

  "And I wouldn't do anything to hurt either of you."

  But you are, she wanted to say. You're hurting me because I feel like just a processing unit to you. Do you want to be more? a voice asked. And what are you making him feel when you keep reminding him he's just a donor? She nudged the thought away, unable to deal with it now. She was trying her best to stay angry. But with Chase, it was difficult.

  "I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, Tessa," he said after a moment. "I'll go, if you want."

  Tessa didn't answer, her gaze scanning the crowded room. Moms carefully lowering to the floor, husbands offering a reassuring kiss or two. For one instant, she regretted coming here. But this was the last Lamaze class in the area for several weeks, the only one that fit her schedule, and she wanted to do this.

  Then she realized Chase was leaving. "No!" She caught up and grasped his arm.

  He looked down at her, arching a dark brow.

  He was going to make her ask, the rat. "Please. Stay." She stole a glance around them. They'd drawn attention and he noticed, smiled into her eyes, then brushed her hair from her forehead as if she were the most precious creature in his life and everything was normal. Hah. Far from it.

  "You don't have to stay, but—"

  "Thanks, angel," he cut in and meant it.

  "How am I supposed to explain you to people?" she asked quietly.

  "Not that you have to, but any way you want."

  She cast him a sidelong glance. "You mean that?"

  "Sure." He wanted Tessa to come out and say he was her baby's father, be proud of it. Hell, he was beginning to think he wanted more from Tessa than she could possibly imagine. But if he told her what he was really feeling, she'd run.

  "Come on." He grasped her hand, tugging. "I've got a primo spot all picked out."

  "Primo?" Her lips twitched. "Really."

  He maneuvered her between the couples toward the rear and dumped the pillows on a section of mat. After unrolling a small blanket, he twisted toward her, offering his hand. Tessa stared at it for a moment, and knew this took their odd relationship to another level. What level she wasn't sure as she tucked her fingers in his, feeling the comforting warmth, the calluses of a man who worked hard for his livelihood. She lowered to the mat, using his shoulder for support, then sighed in a heap.

  "God, I feel like such a cow."

  His lips twisted in a soft smile. "You look beautiful to me, angel."

  She rolled her eyes. "Quit with the flattery, Chase," she said in a low voice. She wouldn't believe it, couldn't. Allowing herself to imagine anything beyond his wanting her baby was ludicrous. But when she couldn't take off her shoes without a strain and he leapt to do it, Tessa experienced a strange burst of emotion. It was a simple yet intimate task, but he did it without a second thought and it forced her to take another, deeper look at this man whose genes she'd selected.

  When he found her staring at him, he smiled knowingly and she felt her face warm. He really was too cute.

  "Here, sit in front of me, then the pillows." He positioned the pillows between them. "Good. Now relax back."

  "I don't think that's necessary." She didn't want to be that near, to smell him, feel him wrapped around her and doubt his every motion. She wasn't ready for that.

  "We have to do it this way, Tessa."

  She looked skeptical. "I suppose you know a lot about Lamaze?"

  "Read a book on it last night."

  She blinked. "Why does that not surprise me," she said and resolutely let him draw her back between his bent legs. She was grateful for the several inches of down and feathers separating them, but it really didn't help. Chase radiated his own kind of heat.

  And she was just getting a good dose of it when a neighboring couple spoke to him and she twisted to listen in. It was a simple parenting-type question—removable car seats or cars with them built in—and it amazed her that Chase knew which he preferred and why. The engineer in him saw only design and logic and safety. Yet as he spoke, she felt herself becoming removed from the conversation, captivated by watching his profile, the genuine interest in his expression. He was so quick with a smile and a joke, she thought, tension slipping from her. And as she joined in the conversation, Tessa only half noticed his hand smoothing over her arm, slow and natural.

  "What did you tell them?" she asked a few moments later.

  He bent and whispered in her ear, sending a gallop of gooseflesh down her throat to her breasts. "Only that I want to be with you every step of the way during this. What else is there?"

  Yeah, what else? Yet she liked that he wasn't offering any information. "You know, when I first started to show, it forced me to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions."

  "But you handled it," he said with all confidence.

  "Well, I avoided being accurate." Her gaze wavered and her hand rode over her stomach. "I've found people instantly looked at my tummy, my hand for a wedding band, and when they don't see the gold, they immediately feel it's open season to be nosy." She met his gaze, looking wounded. "Total strangers asking very personal stuff."

  He hated that anyone made her feel uncomfortable about having their baby and he wanted desperately to protect her with at least his name. In this day and age he couldn't believe the gall of some people. But even in the light of that, Chase knew she wouldn't accept his proposal and he didn't want to scare her off. Not when she was getting comfortable with his presence.

  "You ought to ask some personal stuff right back, angel. See how fast they lay off."

  Angel. Why was he calling her that? For the eavesdroppers' benefit or for her? Before she could wonder about it, he nodded toward the front of the room as Debbie introduced herself. He never stopping touching Tessa. If it wasn't his hand resting on her shoulder with a gentle weight, it was his thighs cradling her. Almost absently his fingers stroked her neck or toyed with her braid as they listened, and Tessa wondered how conscious he was of it, since he was engrossed in the seminar. But one thing Tessa realized was how much she missed the touch of a man. And how much she enjoyed this man's touch.

  She got comfortable with him as Debbie showed diagrams, offered other birthing techniques, detailed the procedures after entering the hospital and, most importantly, described the pain medication options, something Chase thought she ought to consider.

  "No," Tessa said, then flashed him a quick grin. "Of course, that doesn't mean I won't be shamelessly screaming for it at the last minute, either."

  He did everything that was asked, took notes, and kept flashing her a funny glad-it's-not-me look when Debbie described birth in more graphic detail. Next time they'd see a film. Tessa was not looking f
orward to it. Chase, on the other hand, couldn't wait.

  He asked her opinion on everything and twice they were hushed for talking too loudly. And Tessa relaxed, really relaxed, for the first time since that day in the lawyer's office three weeks ago.

  "I was going to tell them the father died," she confessed during a break.

  Chase looked up from the stopwatch he was setting. His expression was blank, unreadable.

  She shrugged, a little ashamed. "I couldn't think of a better solution, and you, of course, were not supposed to be involved, especially not like this." She waved at the room of plump moms and eager, nervous dads.

  Chase stared at his hand, watching the numbers click off in seconds. She was afraid of him. And he didn't like it. "I'm here now, Tessa, and I want to share this with you, you know that." She nodded minutely. "The last thing I want is to scare you or hurt you." He caught her hand in his, making slow circles over the back with his thumb, watching his movements. "I'm not going to steal this child and run for the hills, angel. I swear on my life, I won't."

  He met her gaze and saw the soft sheen of tears in her eyes.

  His composure crumbled. "Ahh, Tessa, don't."

  She wouldn't let him get closer or hold her like he made to do. "I was just scared, Chase. That's all."

  Just scared? More like terrified out of her mind. Yet he let the matter drop and as Debbie instructed, he helped her back into position, stuffing pillows for proper support, then tucked himself behind her. They practiced slow, even breathing, something she was good at, he realized, but when it came to pant-blows, which Chase thought were far too much like a puppy in the middle of summer, she had trouble.

  Tessa panted, then blew out a long breath. Sitting beside her, he watched his timer, but watching her was more interesting and he got caught up in matching and coaching her breathing. Tessa panted. Chase panted. And as the imagined contraction increased, she sped up.

  Unfortunately, so did Chase.

  Then she noticed his skin was flushed, his eyes glassy.

  "Chase? Chase, stop," Tessa said, sitting up and reaching for him.