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“I’m sure your superficial charm is as effective with children as it is with women But that isn’t what—”
“Devlin, you are a dog,” the booming masculine voice interrupted her in midsentence. At that moment Cade rounded the bend, carrying an enormous cherry-red BarcaLounger recliner. His dark brows narrowed in an expression of disapproval at the sight of Devlin, lounging against the wall. “You knew if you wasted enough time, I’d drag this monster up here myself.”
Gillian moved quickly to stand against the opposite wall, ceding the right-of-way. Little Ashley made a loud crowing sound of delight, as if the sight of the big red chair pleased her.
Cade cast a startled glance at the child, and the baby smiled at him. Suddenly the chair slipped precariously in his hold. Devlin rushed over to grip the other side before it hit the floor.
Cade didn’t seem to even notice. “Is that your baby?” he asked Gillian, who nodded her head.
“How old is she?” Cade demanded to know.
“Eleven months.” Gillian began to inch away.
She appeared to be unnerved and Devlin couldn’t blame her. He found Cade’s insistent interrogation to be vaguely embarrassing, not to mention peculiar. Then again, maybe it wasn’t peculiar to Cade, Dev conceded. He didn’t know his brother-in-law all that well; maybe the man quizzed everybody in his path as a matter of course.
“Any other information you need to know, Cade?” Dev asked jokingly, trying to ease the tension that seemed to emanate tangibly from Gillian. He didn’t want her to be scared of his brother-in-law! “The kid’s birth weight, her blood type? Maybe her cereal preference?” He smiled at Gillian, inviting her to share in the humor. She did not smile back.
Cade’s frown deepened.
“Gillian, this is my brother-in-law, Cade Austin.” Dev felt obliged to make an introduction as an explanation for all the questions. “Cade, Gillian Bailey.”
“A close friend of yours, I presume,” Cade intoned darkly.
A delicate shade of pink colored Gillian’s cheeks. “I wouldn’t say that we’re friends,” she murmured.
“More like ex-acquaintances who decided to pass on friendship.” Dev was flippant. “She is also my new neighbor. Gillian just told me that yesterday she and the baby moved into the apartment across the hall from mine.” He inclined his head toward Gillian’s door.
She winced. She couldn’t have made her displeasure with the situation more obvious if she’d shouted it aloud for all to hear.
Devlin frowned, irked. Though he was hardly thrilled by the prospect of living in such close proximity to an ex-girlfriend, he knew he could handle it. And if he could, so could she. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d dumped her, turning her into a hurt and angry rejectee. She had been the one to break up with him. And shortly after, she’d married another man.
Not that he had been hurt or angry, not that he’d felt rejected, Dev assured himself. He had been surprised, yes, but he hadn’t really minded. There were plenty of women here in the lively university town of Ann Arbor, more than enough women working within the behemoth medical center to give him easy access to Gillian replacements. He hadn’t had a bit of trouble finding them, either, during the twenty months since their breakup.
Not that he was keeping count, of either the months or the women.
“You’ll be living across the hall from each other?” Cade’s gaze, laserlike in its intensity, traveled from Devlin to Gillian to the baby.
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Devlin stated the obvious. He’d had enough of the conversation. “Let’s get the chair inside.” He began walking toward his front door. Since Cade held the other half of the chair, he either had to drop it or go along.
Gillian watched the two men tote the chair into Devlin’s apartment, then quickly opened her own door and disappeared inside, clutching baby Ashley in her arms.
“We have to move!” She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, her face flushed, her knees suddenly weak and wobbly.
“Bite your tongue!” drawled the tall, blond young man, deeply tanned with sculpted muscles, who was sprawled across the sofa, sipping from a bottle of flavored iced tea. “We just moved you and the baby and all your stuff in here yesterday. Your next move isn’t supposed to occur until the end of the millenium.”
Ashley bucked and wriggled, and Gillian set her down on the floor. The baby stood alone for a moment, then took a few unsteady steps before deciding that good old-fashioned crawling provided the fastest means of locomotion. She took off on all fours at an impressive speed, heading for the small kitchen.
A voluptuous olive-skinned young woman with a thick mane of raven-black hair stood peeling carrots at the sink. She kept one eye on the approaching baby while studying Gillian. “What’s the matter, Gilly? You look shook.”
“Devlin Brennan is moving in across the hall, Carmen,” Gillian managed to choke out the words in a tight little voice. “I can’t stay here.” She appealed to the young man for support, her blue eyes anguished. “Mark, you know I can’t.”
“But, sweetie, you’ve been on the waiting list for this place for nearly two years and you finally got in. The rent is right, the location is right.” Mark’s tone was a mixture of sympathy and practicality. “You can’t just up and leave, not even if Satan himself is living next door.”
“I agree with Mark,” Carmen put in. “You can’t leave the day after moving in, Gilly. Where will you go? All the decent places are taken by now and you know that rents anywhere else are a lot higher than what you’ll pay here.”
“After all, this building is subsidized housing for hospital employees,” Mark reminded her. “And since you are one, you deserve to be here. Much more than Dr. Swoon across the hall,” he added with a disdainful sniff. “That rich yango could live anywhere else. Why doesn’t he?”
“He—he’s not rich” Gillian automatically defended Devlin, without knowing why. “He’s a resident doctor in orthopedics, still in training, and they get paid, but not all that much. Plus, he has loans to pay off from med school”
“My heart bleeds for him!” Mark exclaimed, giving his long blond hair a melodramatic toss. “After he finishes his residency, it will probably take one entire ski season, fixing bones broken on the slopes, for him to pay off his loans. Then he can start accumulating the typical yango props. The glam car, the ritzy golf club memberships, the palatial house. And let’s not forget—”
“I want to forget everything about him, Mark,” Gillian cut in. “Past, present and future.”
Mark sighed. “That won’t be easy with him right next door Uh-oh, Carmen, watch out. Ashley is almost under your feet.”
“Hi, Ashley! Did you come to see Aunt Carmen?” Carmen scooped up Ashley, who’d arrived in the kitchen and was circling her ankles. “What was Devlin Brennan’s reaction when he saw the baby?” she asked, turning curious dark eyes toward Gillian.
“He wondered why every mother seems to name her daughter Ashley these days,” Gillian said flatly.
“Not even a flicker of some kind of primal recognition?” asked Mark, his lips tightening in disapproval. “Honestly! The man has all the sensitivity of a Neanderthal.”
“I forget—is a Neanderthal more or less sensitive than a yango, Mark?” Gillian teased in a blatant attempt to change the subject.
“This is no laughing matter, Gillian,” Mark scolded.
“Then let’s find a matter to laugh about.”
“In Dr. Brennan’s defense, he would have to be psychic to guess that Ashley is his daughter,” said Carmen, sticking to the subject anyway. “After all, Gillian never even told him she was pregnant. Nobody would know who Ashley’s father is, not even us, if she hadn’t let us in on the deep dark secret.”
Gillian sighed. “I wish I’d never mentioned his name to anyone,” she muttered.
“You couldn’t keep it to yourself, Gilly,” Carmen said kindly. “And you did the right thing. As soon as you found out about the baby, you engineered that marriage of convenience to Mark.”
Mark blew Gillian a kiss, and the mood in the room lightened considerably. “Anything to help my favorite foster sister.”
“She’s your favorite foster sister?” Carmen feigned indignation. “What about me?”
“Did I say she was my only favorite?” teased Mark. “You’re both my favorites. Along with Debra and Stacey and Suzy and—”
“Okay, okay, we get it,” Carmen interrupted good-naturedly. “You have lots of favorite foster sisters.”
“I only hope I don’t have to marry them all.” Mark stroked his dimpled chin, looking pensive. “Even when it’s on paper only, a marriage is kind of hard to explain to my friends back in L.A.”
“I can imagine,” Carmen said, with feeling. “Even a cover marriage makes me want to run away screaming.”
“Gillian and I had a very amiable cover marriage and an equally friendly divorce,” said Mark. “But, oh, the teasing I’ve had to take about it! You simply can’t imagine!”
“Well, it’s all over now, and I’m sure you won’t have to endure any other cover marriages, Mark,” Gillian soothed. “At our ripe old age of twenty-six, I’m surely the only one stupid enough to—”
“You weren’t stupid, you were in love,” Carmen cut in. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Gillian.”
“Don’t make excuses for me.” Gillian crossed the room to flop down on the sofa beside Mark, her favorite foster brother who had done her the incredible favor of marrying her in name only to give her child a legitimate birth. As one who’d been born out of wedlock, Gillian had determined years ago that she would never let a child of hers bear that stigma. Mark had understood completely. His mother hadn’t been married to his father, either.
“Well, stupid or in love or whatever, Devlin Brennan was definitely a willing participant, Gillian.” Carmen’s dark eyes flashed and she nuzzled the top of Ashley’s silky head. “And it’s not fair that you’re assuming total financial responsibility for the baby. At the very least, that...that yango should be handing over a check every month to you for—”
“No!” Gillian exclaimed so forcefully that Mark jumped. “I don’t want any charity from him. I’ve had enough of being a charity case, thank you very much. I have no intention of letting my daughter become one.”
“It wouldn’t be charity, but I know where you’re coming from.” Mark reached over to pat her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Gilly. It’s going to be okay.”
How? Gillian wanted to cry. How could it possibly be okay if she had to contend with seeing Devlin Brennan every day, if she had to watch the parade of women through his apartment and his life? She stared fixedly at the olive green carpet until the weave seemed to blur and dance in front of her eyes.
The firmly suppressed memories escaped from the prison in her mind where she’d kept them locked away for the past twenty months. For a few moments she was swept back to the time she’d shared with Dev. Those three months had been the happiest, most exciting, thrilling, romantic time of her life.
But there had been a dark side that always shadowed that idyllic period. All during their too-good-to-be-true romance, she’d felt scared and insecure, not really believing that a man like Devlin Brennan could want a woman like her. Could want her! She’d always known their relationship was temporary, had been braced for the inevitable end. Something too good to be true generally turns out to be exactly that, and of course, her erstwhile romance with Dev had come to an abrupt end.
That she’d ended it herself was merely a technicality. She had read the warning signs and acted first, that’s all. She was well aware that wanting something or someone you can’t have was not only a waste of time and emotion, it was self-destructive.
She and Carmen and Mark and a few others among their many foster sisters and brothers had managed to develop a finely honed sense of their own self-preservation, but she’d seen far too many others who hadn’t. When you didn’t anticipate rejection, it arrived as a devastating surprise, breaking your heart and your spirit. Though rejection remained painful when expected, at least the hideous element of surprise was eliminated. Knowing what was coming gave you a chance to take some control, to avoid the passive victim role. To Gillian, that meant a lot. It meant everything.
So she’d broken up with Dev before he could break up with her, and she hadn’t looked back. Not until now.
Now unleashed and unbidden, a hundred images tumbled through her mind, all images of Devlin Brennan. Dr. Swoon, Mark called him. Cool, good-looking Dev was definitely a man to swoon over. He had thick, dark brown hair and deep blue eyes framed by dark lashes and brows. Gillian pictured him smiling, frowning, looking thoughtful. Looking amorous. His face was more than merely handsome, his slightly irregular nose and full generous mouth made it interesting, as well.
She remembered the sound of his laugh, the way he closed his eyes when he was about to kiss her. How he looked when he stepped out of the shower, water sluicing over his hard, muscular body. At thirty-one, he still had the wiry athletic build of the track star and swimmer he’d been throughout his high school and college years.
Gillian swallowed dryly as the video in her mind continued to play, featuring Dev as the leading man. He was extremely intelligent, but he tended to downplay it. Though he’d never mentioned the facts himself, others had told her that Devlin Brennan had graduated near the top of his medical school class and was now winning rave reviews as a senior orthopedic resident at the medical center. He had a laconic sense of humor and a gift for making friends. His smooth sexuality was a natural draw to women, guaranteeing him anyone he wanted. For a brief time he’d wanted Gillian...
“Mama, mama!” Ashley squealed, and Carmen carried her over to Gillian who took the baby on her lap.
“I think Mama is the only word you know, isn’t that right, cutie pie?” Mark playfully asked Ashley.
“She’s only eleven months old and she makes lots of sounds and knows the meanings of some other words,” Carmen chided, coming to Ashley’s defense. “You can’t expect her to recite the Gettysburg Address.”
“Carmen, honey, I don’t expect anyone to recite the Gettysburg Address,” said Mark.
“‘Fourscore and seven years ago...” Carmen promptly launched into a complete recitation Gillian and Mark applauded when she finished.
Carmen bowed. “I had to memorize it in sixth grade or lose recess privileges. Since recess was the only part of school I liked, I learned it fast.”
“I can sing the entire score of ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘The King and I’ and ‘Camelot,’ just to name a few,” boasted Mark. “Shall I?”
“You wouldn’t dare!” shrieked Carmen.
Gillian laughed, caressing Ashley’s thick dark brown hair, so like Devlin’s in color and texture. She gazed into the baby’s gorgeous blue eyes, which were alert and bright and framed by dark lashes and well-shaped brows. Just like Dev’s.
Ashley was a pretty baby who would grow into a strikingly attractive woman, her good looks her father’s legacy to the daughter he would never know. From the moment she’d realized she was pregnant, just a week after engineering her preemptive breakup with Devlin, Gillian had been convinced secrecy was her only option.
But now—
A knock sounded at the door, abruptly ending their laughter.
“What if it’s him?” whispered Mark.
“We’ll deal with it,” Gillian said firmly.
She started to the door, Ashley in her arms. “We can’t sit in here cowering every time there is a knock at the door.”
Brave words, but her heartbeat was hammering in her ears. When she opened the door to see Dev, his brother-in-law, and a beautiful young brunette standing between them, her pulses speeded into overdrive.
“Hi.” Devlin smiled at her.
Gillian immediately recognized his social smile, the one he bestowed on the public at large. Having once been the recipient of his private, intimate smiles, she could tell the difference and felt oddly cheated by this impersonal one.
“We’re taking a break and going out for a late lunch,” said Dev. “Would you like to join us?”
“You’re all invited,” Cade said heartily, his gaze sweeping the room. “My treat.”
Gillian cast a questioning glance at Devlin.
“My brother-in-law is a real neighborly sort of guy,” Dev drawled. “Even toward my neighbors.”
“I’m Kylie Austin, Devlin’s sister.” The young woman spoke up, smiling at Gillian. “Your baby is adorable.”
“Thank you.” Gillian studied Kylie. Her resemblance to little Ashley was startling. The same coloring, the same delicate features, plus the distinctive dark Brennan hair and blue eyes. It wasn’t hard to imagine Ashley looking like her aunt Kylie when she was all grown up. “It’s nice to meet you,” Gillian said politely. “And thanks for the invitation, but we’ve already eaten ”
“Is there anything you need?” Cade persisted. “From the store for the baby?”
Gillian looked at him, feeling a sickening wave of anxiety chum within her as she observed Cade staring fixedly at Ashley. It was as if he knew! But he couldn’t be aware of her baby’s relationship to Devlin Brennan, she silently argued. Dev himself didn’t know.
“We don’t need anything.” Gillian knew she sounded nervous and tried to cover it by smiling widely. “But thank you for asking. I appreciate neighborliness.” Her face felt as if it might crack, her smile was so wide. “Uh, goodbye.”
She started to close the door. To her relief, Kylie and Cade started to walk toward the elevator But not Devlin.
“Gillian.” He angled his way to stand in the doorjamb.
“What?” She hadn’t meant to snap, but that’s how it came out.
“I feel I should explain.” Devlin smiled wryly. “My brother-in-law is one of those take-charge types who feels compelled to take charge of whoever he happens to be around. When he sees a young woman with a child, he feels he should offer them food or something, I guess.” He shrugged.
“You want to make it clear that this invitation wasn’t your idea? Duly noted.” His insouciance vexed her, though she knew she should be feeling relieved. Whatever Cade Austin’s suspicions, Dev clearly had none. Gillian sucked in her cheeks. “I don’t need anything from you or your brother-in-law.”
She started to close the door, despite Devlin’s solid presence there. Perversely, he didn’t move, not even when the edge of the door was touching him.
“I’m trying to close this door,” Gillian said crossly.
“I noticed.” Dev crossed his arms and relaxed against the frame, as if oblivious to the door pressing against him. “I wonder how determined you are. Will you give up and wait for me to leave? Or are you going to try to slam the door shut with me in it?”
“Gillian is not a violent person,” Mark piped up. “Never fear, she won’t close you in the door.”
