Anybody's Dad

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“She wants me gone. Trust me.”

Carole Anne smiled slightly. “But you like her.”

The corner of Chase’s mouth quirked. “Oh yes.”

“That’s all I needed to hear,” she said succinctly. “We’ll stand back and promise not to interfere. At all.” His mother looked pointedly at his father. “Won’t we, Carl?’ Though there was a softness in her voice, her sharp blue eyes warned his father there would be hell to pay if he so much as spoke to Tessa without Chase’s permission. His father finally nodded and Chase leaned forward, kissed her forehead and whispered, ”I knew I could count on you, Mom. Thanks.”

He left, glad his parents weren’t going to stick their noses into this. Chase wanted his baby in the worst way. But after spending several sleepless nights with Tessa Lightfoot’s image bursting across his mind, Chase wanted more. He wanted to see if he wasn’t fooling himself about this energy they shared, the way she could stir his senses into madness. He wanted to kiss her, really kiss her. But as he thought of her perfectly lush mouth, a mouth made for old-fashioned slow, wet kisses, Chase figured at this point, she’d just bite him.

Four

In her doctor’s office two days later, Tessa looked up from the magazine and frowned. The hint of a voice, a ma/e voice, pricked her attention and she strained to define it. When the receptionist called her name, she rushed past the partition and froze.

Chase. His shoulder propped against the wall, he was obviously receiving a thorough explanation of the birth process, via a wall diagram, from the pretty blond nurse. Tessa didn’t like that he was here, didn’t like that he’d used that oozing Madison charm to worm his way past the front desk of a women’s clinic, and she did not like the way Blondie was looking at him as if he could cure cancer.

Oh, you’re really keeping those emotions under control, aren’t you? She cleared her throat and something inside her leapt—she swore it was indigestion—when he dismissed the young nurse without a glance and came to her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked the instant he was near.

“I saw the appointment on your calendar when I was at the store on Saturday,” he said absently as he sketched her quickly from head to toe. “God, you look beautiful, Tessa.”

She couldn’t help the flutter in her chest, and unconsciously smoothed her vest and slacks. Then she shook her head, dismissing his compliments and focusing her attention on why he was here. To invade her privacy, her life. To take her baby.

I’m not visiting my child, he’d said. I want him. It terrified her to think just how determined Chase Madison could be.

“Mr. Madison,” finally came through tightly clenched teeth.

Chase sighed dispiritedly. She was upset. Well, he didn’t expect her not to be. But after his great sales job the other day, he’d hoped she’d be just a little glad to see him. Tessa was a hard nut to crack; this wall she built around herself, for his benefit he knew, was like coming up against ice. For a time she thawed, then something triggered the quick freeze job and Chase found himself back at the beginning. But he wasn’t giving up.

“You can’t be here.” She glanced around at the personnel and patients listening.

“I’m the father, Tessa. I have the right.”

“No, you don’t. It’s my body.”

“Your body’s nurturing my baby.”

“Yours?” a feminine voice asked.

They turned and Chase found a statuesque older woman wearing green hospital scrubs. Faraday was stenciled across the pocket.

“Tessa?” She frowned between the two. “Who is this?”

Tessa cast Chase a superior glance and said, “Test tube number 3—4—6 dash whatever,” then ignored him and his narrowing look as she looped her arm with Dr. Johanna Faraday’s, drawing her away and whispering quickly. Dr. Faraday spoke calmly, glancing intermittently at Chase.

“Well, at least he doesn’t have the warts and baldness you wanted.”

“What he has is the ability to charm the socks off your staff, my sister and my employees. He shouldn’t even be here.”

“Calm down, Tessa. And you’re right. An oh/gyn clinic isn’t the usual male stomping grounds, but the test proved he is 346-1010, and that gives him the same rights as any other father. Especially since he didn’t sign them away.”

“No, he didn’t.” She had to admit that. He was a victim of a computer foul-up as much as she was. But that didn’t change the fact that Chase was here, trying to wiggle into her appointment like he was...what? The father? Concerned about her? Hah.

Johanna tapped her pen against her lips, then tucked it behind her ear. “You’ve acknowledged him as the father?”

“As the donor.” She couldn’t think of him as anything else. She just couldn’t. Where Chase and his rights were concerned, she had to keep her emotions out of it.

Johanna looked thoughtful, then sighed with that I’ve-come-to-a-decision look. “He doesn’t have the right to accompany you in the exam, but in all honesty I can’t make him leave. Fathers have rights.” Johanna leaned a touch closer. “Is he going to give you trouble, get violent?”

Tessa cast him a quick glance. Chase? Violent? She didn’t know him well enough to make that judgment. But the man smiled more than a kid at Christmas. “I doubt it.”

Tessa felt as if she were losing control of the situation the minute Johanna Faraday motioned to Chase, then indicated her office. She sent Tessa a behave glance before they disappeared inside. Tessa sat, then Johanna addressed the man standing behind the extra chair.

“I must think of the welfare of my patient first, Mr. Madison, and Miss Lightfoot does not want you here.”

Her patient, Chase noticed, wouldn’t look at him. Instead she twisted the silken cord of her purse into a hangman’s noose. “Miss Lightfoot would rather I vanish off the face of the earth,” he said with a half smile and a glance in her direction. “But I’m not.”

“Why did you come here, Mr. Madison?”

He felt Tessa’s gaze on him, but looked at the doctor. “Because my baby is growing inside her and I have the right to know how well.” He glanced at Tessa.

Something flickered in her eyes, so brief Chase almost didn’t catch it. He wished he knew her well enough to decipher it. “She’s supposed to have a sonogram today. I want to know if everything is okay, with Tessa and my child.”

“For a man who offered no more than a few ounces of fluid, you’re asking for a lot.” Tessa glared up at him, hating that he looked so good, hating that he was being so reasonable. He didn’t give a hoot about her, just this baby and his, however small, part in its creation.

The fractured anger and fear in her words struck him hard, with insight and just enough frustration to want to shake her. “Yes, I didn’t have any part in this, and yes, I wasn’t consulted, but there is more than our feelings and rights at stake now. There is the child. Our child,” he gestured between himself and Tessa and out of the corner of his eye saw her shoulders stiffen. “And whether you like it or not,” he said, turning his gaze to Tessa and meeting her stare, “that infant—” he nodded to her tummy “—needs everyone who cares about him, protecting him and his rights.” God, Chase thought, he loved this baby already. He lowered his voice, speaking to Tessa as if they didn’t have an audience. “Think what you want, Tessa, but I didn’t come here to upset you. After what happened in the Golden Dragon, I realized how unbelievably miraculous this all is.”

Tessa felt a lump work in her throat, at the raw emotion playing across his features, lacing his voice with a tender roughness.

“And I only wanted some of the experiences I’ve already missed.” He held her gaze a moment longer, then looked at Dr. Faraday. “Take good care of her,” he said, then left without a word.

Both women stared at the empty doorway, then at each other.

Tessa’s eyes burned and she felt awful. “Oh hell, now what do I do?”

“He could stand beyond the curtain and listen.”

Tessa stared at her lap. This was so personal. And they hadn’t even really kissed, for heaven’s sake. But the look in his eyes, oh God, she felt as if she were cheating him. She was cheating him. Finally Tessa nodded and Johanna left the office to catch him. Outside the door she heard Johanna laying down the rules. She didn’t even look at him. God, she was being a coward, but every minute with the man had her feeling like a general losing ground in a battle. Still, the excitement in his voice hurt. Only the baby, she reminded herself. He wants this only for the baby.

The sonogram was under way when Tessa heard a nurse escort him in through the hall door. She glanced down and saw his shoes beneath the curtain, but even with Johanna talking louder than usual, he didn’t utter a word, didn’t move.

Then Chase heard the rapid, steady heartbeat. His breath caught in his chest, a violent surge of air that left him stunned. Alive. Alive, his brain shouted. His child. Flesh and bone and blood were growing, breathing in there, waiting to be born. Waiting to be loved and protected. And he rejoiced in the warm feeling racing through his body, pushing his pulse to match his child’s.

Then suddenly the heartbeat stopped.

“What happened?” Panic filled his voice.

Johanna’s was calm. “I just moved to a different area, Mr. Madison, wait. Listen? There it is again. Oh look, Tessa, her fingers.”

Abruptly, Chase whipped the curtain back and stared first at Tessa, her belly so round and smooth and covered with some slimy gel, then beyond her to the monitor. And Chase saw a tiny fist unfurl. His eyes burned and he leaned closer, scanning every detail.

“Do you mind?” Tessa said, but he wasn’t listening. He was awed. There was no other word for it. And Tessa thought right there that things could have been worse. He could have been like Ryan, who hoped never to see this sight. But Chase Madison was looking at her now as if she could spin straw into gold.

Dr. Faraday and she exchanged a glance, Johanna’s gaze dropping to the black-and-white printout. She tore it off and offered it to him. Hesitantly, he accepted it, his eyes searching the undefinable shades of gray for the unborn life hidden within. The doctor peered over the sheet and pointed. And Tessa realized that strong, handsome, ex-Marine, construction engineer Chase Madison was very close to tears. The sight left her stunned. He gazed down at her, then he bent and kissed her, quick and hard on the mouth.

Then he left.

And Tessa, though oddly delighted to see a man brought to his knees by the sight of an unborn child, realized just how much he wanted to be her baby’s father. And exactly how much she didn’t matter.

Tigh McBain raced forward and slammed the ball against the court wall, believing he had his racquetball partner in the clinch. But Chase dived out, sneakers squeaking as he skidded to a halt and smashed the tiny ball to the baseline. Tigh knew he’d never get the return in time and tossed the racquet to the floor.

“I give.” Bent over, breathing heavily, he braced his hands on his thighs before he fell flat on his face.

“You?” Chase tugged the tank top from his shorts and swiped the sweat from his face with the hem.

“Yes, me,” came back tightly. “God, where do you get the energy?”

Chase thought about Tessa and smiled to himself. “I don’t sit behind a desk getting fat.”

Tigh straightened immediately, scowling, and Chase noticed he couldn’t resist touching his stomach. Chase laughed.

“Come on, I’ll buy you one of those energy shakes.”

“I’d rather have a beer.”

“That’s your problem,” Chase told him. “Besides, it’s not even 10 a.m.”

“You can really be a sanctimonious pain sometimes, you know,” Tigh said as they left the court. Chase drained a bottle of water without stopping, then slung his gym bag over his shoulder and headed out to the car. Tigh was a little slower, stopping to flirt with a pretty woman whose only job was to hand out towels. She was helping him use one, Chase decided.

“That’s jailbait,” Chase said as Tigh caught up to him.

“Nah, she’s twenty.”

“And you’re thirty.”

Tigh looked at Chase and frowned, his features going slack as if he had just realized how old he was. He glanced back at the girl, smiled, then faced forward as they walked to the car.

“You were in Tessa’s doctor’s office yesterday morning,” Tigh said suddenly as Chase unlocked his car door.

Oblivious to the censure in Tigh’s tone, Chase’s face split into a smile. “It was incredible, Tigh, to actually see my baby moving around inside her. My heart was beating so fast I thought I’d pass out.”

Both men slid into the Jeep and buckled up. “You shouldn’t invade her privacy like that, Chase. She could put a restraining order on you. It’s damn close to stalking.”

Chase scowled as he pulled into traffic. “My intentions are very clear. And she knows it.”

Tigh eyed his client. “Is there something I should know about you and Miss Lightfoot? I don’t want her sister slapping you with a lawsuit that I know nothing about.”

“Dia would, wouldn’t she?”

“Hell, yeah. She’s a criminal lawyer first, pal. Everything to her is a fight to the last drop of blood, guilty or innocent.”

Chase stared at the windshield. “She seemed so reserved.”

“Reserved and a circling shark are often confused. Now, answer the question.”

“I can’t say, because there’s nothing to tell.”

“Bull.”

“Tessa doesn’t want to see this go to court and neither do I. We have our child’s best interests to think about. So far, she tolerates me and I lust after her.”

“You’re kidding.”

It was such a bland delivery that Chase glanced at Tigh as he pulled to a halt. “Crazy, huh?” He shut off the engine and left the car.

Tigh leaned over the gearshift and groaned. “For God’s sake! Why do you pay me for legal advice, then go and do this?” He gestured to Tessa’s Attic.

Chase leaned into the car window. “Because you’re my kid brother’s best friend and I used to protect you from bullies.”

Tigh flushed red at the memory. “That smacks of tremendous confidence in my abilities, Chase. And I advise you to back off from her.”

“Not a chance.” Chase gestured for Tigh to join him but Tigh waved him off, sagging into the car seat. Chase straightened and headed through the door. Someone whistled softly and he looked up to see Dana leaning out over the counter, her gaze running the length of his legs.

“Not bad, Mr. Madison.”

Somehow the compliment was lost with the mister tacked on. “Is she here?”

Dana inclined her head toward the rear of the store just as Chase heard a crash and a soft yelp of pain. He was in the back office in a heartbeat.

A blind was hanging precariously off the window frame as Tessa rubbed the top of her head. He strode to her, catching her by the arms.

“Are you all right?”

Tessa took one look at him in his shorts with brown muscles rippling everywhere and it set her teeth on edge. “Yes, dammit.” She shifted out of his grip, touching her scalp and inspecting her fingers for blood. “I’m fine, the baby’s fine and what are you doing here, again?”

He pulled the stepladder closer to the window and climbed up to reattach the blind. “I just came by to say hi.”

Mentally, Tessa groaned. His taut behind was at eye level. This wasn’t fair. Yet as much as he annoyed her by busting in, unannounced, the totally female side of her said, step back and inspect the hardware. She did. He had great legs and damned if he didn’t look sexy, even sweaty, his hair sopping wet, his tank top marked with dampness. And those skimpy running shorts with side slits, good God, they clung. “Do I look like I have time to chat, or don’t you work for a living anymore?” She managed to pull her gaze to a decent level when he hopped off the stepladder.