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Hart's Baby
Christine Pacheco
A FAMILY TO CALL HIS OWN When Cassie Morrison arrived on Zach Hart's doorstep, claiming her swaddled bundle was a Hart, he knew she was another gold digger out to lasso the Wind Song Ranch fortune - and destroy his family. Yet somehow this sultry spitfire's fierce protectiveness stirred his emotions-and his passions… .Fighting her undeniable and searing attraction to the virile cowboy was the most difficult act of Cassie's life - but she'd do anything to ensure that baby Billy received the love he deserved. She longed to yield to tantalizing temptation and throw caution to the Wyoming wind, but too much was at stake. Namely, her heart…
“You Think This Is About Money?” (#uf8ff7e32-5f09-5a67-a616-70213326a994)Letter to Reader (#uecbdc664-4002-5e47-9735-ccab22d70ea3)Title Page (#u7839a80a-cd74-5aeb-9169-f6ce4768df4e)CHRISTY LOCKHART (#u2bbb8c5b-fbad-5450-bac6-0ebccd494157)Acknowledgments (#u06a9dcae-d639-5c9e-8cf5-f972d2c40352)Chapter One (#uc28aeaa9-2cf4-57f5-b815-8a7fb61808a5)Chapter Two (#ua4ef1e84-e3e6-5966-a877-c4c848f1fa3c)Chapter Three (#u6bd2099c-cd8f-5c87-ac19-599afd52805b)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“You Think This Is About Money?”
“Isn’t that what all women want?” Zach scrawled her name on the blue check.
“Put that away,” Cassie said. “This is about...love and belonging. Have you ever known what it’s like not to belong?”
The darkness of his past descended on Zach. Time thundered with expectancy.
“I’m sorry.... It’s just that you’ve got a family, so much. You can’t possibly know—”
“I can and I do,” he corrected. “I’ve been poor enough not to know what it’s like to have a fire in the hearth. And now we’re comfortable enough that some people will do anything to get a piece of the action.”
Her mouth dropped. “You think I’m the kind of woman who’s only here for a piece of your fortune?” she whispered. “You don’t know anything about me...don’t know what kind of woman I am.”
“So tell me,” he challenged. “What kind of woman are you?”
Dear Reader,
Welcome to a new year with Silhouette Desire! We begin the year in celebration—it’s the 10th Anniversary of MAN OF THE MONTH! And kicking off the festivities is the incomparable Diana Palmer, with January’s irresistible hero, Simon Hart, in Beloved.
Also launching this month is Desire’s series FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE BRIDES. So many of you wrote to us that you loved Silhouette’s series FORTUNE’S CHILDREN—now here’s a whole new branch of the family! Awardwinning author Jennifer Greene inaugurates this series with The Honor Bound Groom.
Popular Anne Marie Winston begins BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES, a new miniseries about three small-town friends who find true love, with The Baby Consultant. Sara Orwig offers us a marriage of convenience in The Cowboy’s Seductive Proposal. Next, experience love on a ranch in Hart’s Baby by Christy Lockhart. And opposites attract in The Scandalous Heiress by Kathryn Taylor.
So, indulge yourself in 1999 with Silhouette Desire—powerful, provocative and passionate love stories that speak to today’s multifaceted woman. Each month we offer you six compelling romances to meet your many moods, with heroines you’ll care about and heroes to die for. Silhouette Desire is everything you desire in a romance novel.
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Hart’s Baby
Christine Pacheco
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHRISTY LOCKHART
was born in England and spent her early childhood traipsing through castles and dreaming of princes. She moved to Colorado when she was eight and fell in love with the rugged mountains and wide-open spaces.
She always wanted to be a writer, and Silhouette made that dream come true. She also married her own prince, Jared, and together they have two children, two cats and two dogs.
Christy loves hearing from her readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 448, Eastlake, CO 80614.
With thanks to my wonderful critique group: Lisa, Merrie, Althea and Debbie. And to Pam, Robin, Debbi, Cathy and Kathy.
A special thanks to my editor, Karen Taylor Richman, who always believed. Karen, you’re the best!
One
Under any other circumstances, Zach Hart would have allowed his gaze to travel down the length of her, noticing her as a woman. As it was, her eyes lassoed his attention.
Green as the summer grass, honest as a first snow, but shaded by a hint of weariness that showed past hurt. For a second Zach wondered what...or who...had put that expression there.
He had an urge to reach out and stroke it away. Just as quickly though, he dismissed the ridiculous thought. The Wind Song Ranch wouldn’t run itself. Zach didn’t have time for women, no matter how tempting.
Standing, she folded her hands in front of her. Was it to keep from showing more of the nerves she’d already betrayed by licking her lower lip?
“Your mother said it was okay for me to wait in here.”
Zach nodded. It wasn’t the woman’s fault he’d arrived home exhausted after spending a long and lonely night on the road. The only things he wanted were a cold beer, a cool shower and crisp sheets. Specifically, he wanted them in that order. Maybe if she managed to get straight to the point, he’d be up the stairs in less than fifteen minutes, asleep in thirty. “I’m Zach Hart.”
“Your mother told me.”
He arched a brow when she didn’t immediately supply her own name. “And you are?”
She offered a tentative smile, one that cracked and fell before fully forming. “Cassandra Morrison.”
Cassandra. Nice name. Soft, feminine, dignified. More than likely Cassandra Morrison was another of his mother’s causes. Widows and orphans were her latest. The car seat with a baby sleeping in it lent credibility to that thought.
Zach had always possessed a weak spot for his mother’s charities—after all, Margaret didn’t want any of her boys to forget where they had come from and how fortunate they were now. The fact that Cassandra was a beautiful woman would only entice him to open his wallet a little wider.
Because it was the polite thing to do, he offered his hand. Cassandra accepted, slipping her much smaller, delicate palm against his hardened, callused one. Smooth, he mused, imagining the slide of her hand against the knots of tension bunched in his shoulders.
Slowly he released her. The road must have been longer and lonelier than he realized. He’d been without a woman for months, but that wasn’t long enough to make him fantasize about a woman who was likely a widow with her own orphan. Carving a living from Wyoming’s reluctant land provided trouble enough. “What can I do for you, Cassandra Morrison?”
She stalled a couple of seconds before saying, “I am...was...Jeanie Morrison’s sister.”
She’d supplied the information breathlessly, a husk of hurt in her words. Her brows drew together when she looked at him with those powerfully green eyes, as if she expected him to recognize the name. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
Cassandra moved back a couple of steps. When she looked at him squarely again, her arms were folded across her chest, a self-protective gesture if ever he’d seen one.
“You’ve never heard my sister’s name?”
He shook his head.
Even though she’d moved back a couple of steps, she still stood near enough for him to catch the scent of wildflowers interwoven with determination.
“I was hoping that you would already have heard, that this wouldn’t be so difficult,” she said.
Zach frowned. “Go on.”
She dropped one arm, curving her hand around the top of the child seat. A protective mother. His gaze flickered to the bundle beneath a blue blanket. Instantly his throat dried.
He knew with sudden clarity that Cassandra Morrison wasn’t here as a representative of any charity.
“Then this must come as a terrible surprise to you...” Her voice trailed off into a clammy, uncomfortable silence.
Surprise was a hand women dealt well, and the remaining cards in the deck were a dance of deception. It had been his unpleasant experience that a lot of women pulled their aces straight from the bottom of the pack.
Zach did nothing to relieve the tension. Instead, he reached behind him and drummed his fingers on the mantel, allowing the pressure to stretch and grow, becoming elastic. He wondered, would it snap?
“I’m sorry to have to be the one to break this to you, but...” She touched the tip of her tongue to her lower lip, a second betrayal of that tension she struggled to suppress.
The one-two combination of her eyes and her voice nearly did him in. A haunting lilt rippled through her words, reminding him of the whisper of the wind, the seduction of a moonlit night.
Yet this woman, a stranger, stood in his family’s living room, hesitation in her tone and defiance in the tilt of her chin. The wind wasn’t whispering and the sun had obliterated the moon along with the romance of night. He wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
He stopped drumming his fingers, forcing the silence to roar.
“My sister...” She took a deep breath. “My sister was involved with a Hart.”
“Excuse me?” The words fell with the iciness of a Wyoming winter. How dare she stand in his home...the home he’d fought for, protected...and fling accusations?
She squared her shoulders as if for battle, her naked lips pressed together.
Hands clenched at his sides, he clipped, “Are you accusing me of fathering this child?”
“Jeanie apparently slept with—”
“Good day, Ms. Morrison. If you have anything further to say, call my attorney.”
“Wait!”
His family had fallen victim to a woman’s deceit twice. He’d be damned if it would happen a third time. Pivoting, he moved past her and reached for the door handle.
“Please, wait. Hear me out.”
He stopped. Her quiet desperation got to him. It shouldn’t, and just as surely, it did.
“Jeanie was dating your brother.”
“My brother?”
“Chad. He is your brother, isn’t he?”
Zach turned and nodded curtly. Of the three brothers, Chad was the youngest, the wildest, the most reckless.
An unnatural pause pulsed in the air.
Cassandra tucked her hair behind her ear, then dropped her hand in front of her. Not flinching as she looked him in the eye, she stated, “Jeanie had Chad’s baby.”
Zach’s immediate and earthy response earned him a wince.
“Are you trying to tell me that child is my nephew?” he demanded, struggling to rein in his temper.
Her expression fell at his reaction, but Zach was beyond caring.
“Our nephew, yes,” she managed to say.
“You’re insinuating my brother fathered a baby and turned his back, walking away?”
“It’s not an insinuation—” she struggled for a breath “—it’s a fact.”
“A fact. I see. And the child’s mother, your sister, where is she, why isn’t she here?”
Cassandra’s eyebrows had drawn together, and the depths of her eyes had turned stormy with anguish, a layer of tears teasing at her eyelashes. He refused to be swayed by the intensity of her emotion; too much was at stake.
When she didn’t respond, he continued, “Why did she send you? Are you perhaps the better liar of the two?” His angry words hummed in the air.
Cassandra sucked in a shallow breath and stared at him intently. “A liar?” she asked, her voice cracking on the second word.
Fortifying himself with the heat of her accusation, Zach answered her. “Yes, Ms. Morrison. I’m calling you a liar.”
Hurt radiated from her eyes, nearly turning his internal winter into spring.
Slowly she shook her head. “I am not a liar.”
“Then perhaps you misunderstood the situation.”
“How could I have misunderstood?”
Seeing the genuine layer of anguish his words had caused, he formed his hands into fists. Leashing his own frustration, he searched for a position somewhere between calm and controlled. “Then maybe your sister lied to you.”
“How dare you?” Cassandra’s lips thinned as he watched the hurt vanish. Her spine stiffened and she became a warrior, a defender. “My sister wasn’t—”
“If your sister is a saint, then you’re implying my brother has no moral values?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she said quietly.
“How much?” he asked, growing weary of her game. He’d do anything it took to protect his family from Cassandra’s false allegations, even if it cost half his bank account.
Eyes wide, she echoed, “How much?”
