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Cassie studied him for a few minutes, assessing his intent with all her senses on alert. Finally, she allowed herself to be guided to her seat. Her fingers closed around the mug of steaming coffee with pleasure. She sipped the rich dark brew slowly, closing her eyes in satisfaction.
“Don’t you just love coffee?” she murmured, inhaling the aroma that steamed off her cup. “I can never get enough.”
“I limit myself to three cups a day,” Jeff told her. “Too much caffeine is unhealthy.”
Cassie ignored him, rolling the hot liquid around on her tongue. “Nothing that tastes this good could be that unhealthy,” she countered, curling herself comfortably into the chair.
She watched him sit stiffly erect in the straight-backed chair. His silent appraisal unnerved her.
She could feel the tension building as electric currents snapped in the air between them. She had felt it before, that nervous awareness whenever he watched her.
Suddenly, she felt extremely conscious of that same, powerful attraction she had felt earlier today. It made her jittery. Cassie had plenty of contact with men in the course of her work, but they were colleagues, older than her, often balding with paunches.
And none had sent her pulse soaring or her heart thudding the way this man did. It was disconcerting. She tried to bury feelings she didn’t understand under a bluster of bravado.
“Coffee’s not a risk. It’s a necessity.” Her gaze fixed on his. The silence in the room yawned between them. Cassie searched her mind for trivial conversation that would break the current of magnetism drawing her into the dark depths of his eyes.
“Are you married?” she blurted out and then chided herself for her stupidity. When would she learn to control her tongue?
Jeff stared at her through narrow-slitted eyes, his mouth tight. “Obviously not, if my aunt is trying to marry the two of us off.” His answer was short and did not welcome further comments.
Cassie ignored that. “I just wondered what you would do with all this room if you did live here,” she pondered, glancing around the beautiful space. “It’s a home meant for a family.”
“What would you do?” His tone was razor sharp but Cassie ignored that, preferring to lose herself in a world of dreams. “Cassie?” His voice had softened and she dragged open her eyes to find his dark gaze resting on her in an assessing manner.
“I’d fill it with children,” she told him simply.
“Ah, you’re planning on getting married, then?” he asked shortly, dark eyes glittering.
Cassie sat up straight at that, untangling her feet from under her.
“Good grief, no.” She laughed. “I meant with foster kids.”
She was pretty sure her face gave away her thoughts. She’d never been much good at pretence and there was no point in trying to hide her plans for this house.
Not that it mattered now.
“There are so many kids who could really benefit from a few months here. Away from the pain and confusion that have left them wondering about their future. This is a place where they could feel safe and carefree.” She grinned up at him. “Sorry. When I get on my soapbox, I tend to start preaching.”
Jeff’s eyes raked over her curiously.
“But don’t you want your own children? I can’t imagine that you would waste all your efforts on someone else’s offspring. Don’t most women want to get married and have children?”
He was watching her again. His eyes were bright with what she privately termed his banker’s look, as if he were assessing her net occupational worth.
“Oh, but these are my children,” she exclaimed. “Every child that comes under my care has a special place in my heart.”
“You can’t possibly love them all,” he snorted derisively. “There’s no way anyone could have enough love for all the needy children of the world. Obviously even their parents can’t provide them with what they need.”
Cassie smiled sadly, her eyes glistening.
“I didn’t say all of them, just the ones I come into contact with.” Her small hands stretched out toward him in explanation. “And if I never have my own children, at least I will have the experience of loving these. But you know-” her green eyes twinkled across the room “-love isn’t something that you run out of. The more you give, the more it grows.”
It was a strange statement, he decided. And it proved that Cassandra Newton had no real grasp on reality. He sat quietly in the flickering firelight, lost in his own thoughts.
“It’s been my experience that there is never enough to go around,” he murmured finally, staring down at his toes. He let the silence stretch starkly between them uncomfortably before speaking again.
“What will you do now?” he asked, curious about her plans now that her access to the house would be denied. “How will you be able to look after all your children when you have to move?”
Jeff watched Cassie closely, noting the white lines of strain that etched themselves around her eyes and the thin line of her mouth as she considered his question.
“I don’t know. The younger ones won’t have as much difficulty finding a place. It’s David and Marie I’m really worried about. And all the other kids like them.”
“Why will it be so hard for them?” Jeff asked curiously. “Are they in trouble with the law or something?”
“That’s usually what everyone thinks.” Cassie smiled sadly. “They’ll take the younger ones because they’re cute and cuddly. But the teenagers always have a more difficult time.” She grinned at him, tongue in cheek.
“After all, how many adolescents do you know that are easy to get along with?” she queried. “Usually they’re already struggling to find out who they are. Fitting in to a strange home is just another problem added to an already staggering load.”
Jefferson thought about his own teenage years. They had been difficult, all right. And he’d had the advantage of knowing that there would be food and the same place for him to sleep every night.
As he sat watching her slender form, slim legs tucked beneath her, Jeff could see the enthusiasm and concern Cassie brought to her job. He considered his own idea once more. Somehow he doubted that the small spitfire in front of him would welcome his idea just yet. He decided to hold off for a while. Perhaps once they got to know each other, Cassie Newton would be more amenable to the plan that was floating half-formed in Jefferson’s busy mind.
Jeff made it his business to go out to Aunt Judith’s a number of times during the next weeks. He made more than two dozen trips over the next three weeks to the stately old home, and not all of them were to do with settling Judith’s estate.
He was drawn to the family atmosphere that prevailed but his curiosity was piqued by the small, green-eyed sprite who played board games sprawled on the floor, drank coffee incessantly and squealed in delight when the children tickled her. Oak Bluff was as comfortable for him now as it had been when Judith was alive. More so. Now he felt an insatiable interest in the inhabitants that he had never experienced with his aunt.
With a little ingenuity and a few well-framed questions, Jeff managed to inveigle himself into the household routine without much fuss. Before long Bennet was relaying bits and pieces of information that were very enlightening when one was trying to understand Cassie Newton. He also learned more about her charges.
Friday afternoon he found Cassie alone in the library. He wandered over to the armchair and stood peering down at her, noticing the tearstains on her pale cheeks. She glared back at him impolitely.
“Do you ever work?” she demanded rudely.
“You forget,” he teased. “I have my own company. I’m the boss.” Jeff smiled. He had her rattled. That should help.
She raised her eyebrows as if to say, so what? Jeff grinned.
“It so happens that I just finished the graphics for a new computer system and I’m taking a break. How’s it going with you?”
She sat cross-legged on the floor. Some tight black material clung to her shapely legs and stretched all the way to her hips where a big bulky sweater covered the rest of her obvious assets. Her hair was mussed and tousled in disarray around her tearstained face.
“It’s not going, not at all,” she muttered, staring at her hands.
“I thought some of the kids had moved.” Jeff flopped into a big leather chair and propped his elbows on his knees.
“They have. Only David, Marie and Tara are left now. Tara has a place to go on the first of the month, but the other two.” Her voice died away as huge tears plopped onto her cheeks. “I just can’t seem to find anywhere for them to live. If nothing comes up, they’ll have to go into temporary care, or worse, the juvenile home. They’ll hate that.”
She slapped her hand against the newspapers spread out on the floor around her. Jeff felt the energy she projected buzzing in the air around him as she jumped to her feet.
“Why did Judith have to make those stupid rules?” she demanded, standing in front of him. “I could have tried to purchase the place outright if she had put it up for sale, but this way, even when I move out, there’s no opportunity to get it.” Her tone was disparaging. “A cat home, for Pete’s sake!”
Jeff grinned. He’d seen this side of her quick temper before and he knew there was at least one way to calm her down. He grasped her slim arm and tugged.
“Come on,” he urged. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Seconds later they were striding through the dense, musky woods. Cassie might be short, but she set a fast pace and Jeff was forced to move quickly to keep up.
She strode along the path muttering to herself, clad in a brilliant red wool anorak that left her long, slim legs exposed in their black tights. Cassie’s raven curls glistened like a seal’s coat in the autumn sunshine as they swirled around her taut face.
“Absolutely ridiculous,” he heard her mutter as she stomped on a rotted tree, splintering it in the crisp air. “People shouldn’t be allowed to waste valuable resources just because she wants her nephew married.”
Jeff picked up the pace, anxious to hear this.
“Can’t he find himself a wife?” she mumbled angrily.
“I haven’t really looked,” he told her and watched, satisfied, as her skin flushed a deep rose. “Are you volunteering?”
“I don’t want to get married,” she told him as she looked down her pointed little nose. “I just want the kids and the house.”
Jeff pursed his lips to stop the chuckle from escaping. “Isn’t that putting the horse before the carriage, so to speak?” he queried, teasing her. “You should probably marry me first before we start discussing children.”
Cassie stopped in her tracks at his heckling tone, which sent him colliding into her from behind. Jeff struggled to regain his balance, but they both went crashing to the ground anyway with Cassie’s firm little body landing squarely in his lap. He sat there winded while she scrambled off him, and wondered at the reaction her tiny presence always created.
Her giggles of sporadic laughter sent his head tipping back to scrutinize her laughing face.
“You look like you’ve landed in something particularly nasty,” she told him, chortling at his discomfort.
“It sure felt like it,” he muttered, dusting the pine needles from the seat of his pants. Her laughing green eyes stared down at him curiously.
“What did you mean?” Her soft voice was hesitant, as if afraid to hear the answer.
Jeff thought for a moment, rehashing their conversation.
“Aren’t you at all interested in volunteering for the position of my wife?” he asked, his voice teasingly serious.
But Cassie didn’t laugh as he had expected. Her haunting green eyes stared at him, assessing his meaning.
“Why would you need to hunt for a wife?” she inquired, walking slowly beside him, her earlier ill humor dissipated like a morning mist now that curiosity had taken over. “I’m sure there are droves of women who would eagerly offer themselves on the marriage block to the infamous Jefferson Haddon the fourth.” Her tone was softly disparaging but her companion seemed not to hear it.
“It’s the third. And there are hardly droves,” he drawled.
“Anyway, that’s not the kind of woman I want for the mother of my son,” he mused, his thoughts turned inward.
Cassie stopped dead in her tracks as she stared at him in shock.
“What did you say?” Cassie squeaked, sure she had misunderstood. “What son?” She wrinkled her brow in thought. Surely there must be something she had missed.
When he didn’t answer, Cassie shook the muscled arm hanging loosely at his side. “Do you have a child, Jeff?”
“Not yet,” he told her, black eyes snapping fiercely. “But I plan to.”
His pronouncement left her speechless, mouth gaping in wonder. Jefferson William Haddon the third was going to get himself a child? How, she asked herself dryly. By mail order and stork delivery? She stared unblinkingly at the grim determination turning up his wide mouth. When she heard his next question, Cassie’s jaw dropped a little further.
“Want to help?” As a come-on it lacked finesse. As a proposal, it left something to be desired. It also left her gasping, as if someone had ploughed their fist into her midsection. She moved weakly down the dusky trail, totally ignoring the illustrious Mr. Haddon, flummoxed by his ridiculous statement.
In fact, the whole conversation was preposterous, she told herself. Totally ridiculous. The inane concept of marrying him and helping him provide an heir to the family fortune was.
The answer to her prayer, a small voice whispered. She tried to brush it away, but the flow of words refused to stop. For years, it reminded Cassie, she had dreamed of raising her own children. Now, at twenty-eight, she had almost lost hope that the right man would ever come along.
Maybe he had finally shown up.
What are you holding out for? Prince Charming? her subconscious chided her. There are all kinds of love. Some of them are learned, like your love for the children. Forget the fairy tale-take reality.
Cassie replayed the lawyer’s voice as it read Judith’s will. Marry him, it said, and she could live in this house, have her foster family, continue with her work and have a large amount of money as well.
Flickering images of her own family’s needs slipped through her mind. Samantha desperately needed cash with the second baby on the way and her husband’s death just last month. Ken was struggling, too, with two stepchildren who needed some professional help.
And Mom and Dad. Cassie pictured the couple’s dilapidated old farmstead. Neither of her parents were in good health and the place had become worn and rundown. One hundred thousand dollars would make an immense difference all around.
But one thought kept surfacing. She would be a kept woman, Cassie reminded herself. She would be marrying Jeff for the money.
And for a child.
Strangely, that thought didn’t bother her as much as Cassie expected it would. Instead, darling little cherub babies floated across her mind, kicking their chubby legs and gurgling in happy voices. The agency never brought her the babies. Her arms ached with the need to hold and cuddle one of those baby-lotion scented bodies.
And there was David. If anyone needed a father, he did. Could Jefferson Haddon possibly be the man God had sent to ease David’s path into adulthood? It seemed impossible; it didn’t jibe with the dream she’d held for so long.
A godly man, proud to be a follower of God, happy to share her work in the church and take his place as the head of their family-Jeff Haddon? A man who would share the same pain she felt when broken, unhappy children were brought to their home; a loving husband who would stand next to her and help in the healing process? Would marriage and children with Jeff give her that Christian family she’d planned for so long?
God, is this really from you?
Cassie heard a voice and turned to find Jeff’s long lean body directly behind her. He was speaking in a low tone that riveted her attention.
“We could both benefit, Cassie. Obviously that’s what Aunt Judith intended.”
She stared at him, transfixed by the dark conviction glinting from his stern face.
“But you’re not in love with me,” she objected, softly. “And I consider that a prerequisite to marriage.”
His gleaming dark head came up at that, his eyes boring into hers.
“No, I’m not,” he agreed dryly. “But then, neither, I think, are you in love with me.” He peered at her as if assessing her ability to understand what he was about to say. Cassie felt an anxious quiver spring up inside. “I’m thirty-five years old. I am fully capable of deciding what it is I want out of life. I want a son.”
Cassie marveled that his voice was so strong and steady. She felt like a quivering mass of jelly herself.
“I’ve been noticing your relationship with these children over the past few weeks,” he told her, his long stride adapting to match her shorter one. “You have the kind of rapport a child needs during its formative years. I think you would make a splendid mother.” His voice added reflectively, “and wife.”
He was serious, Cassie realized. Prince Jefferson actually expected her to agree to marry him and provide the heir to his kingdom.
“Is it so important, this successor for the Haddon family,” she demanded disparagingly, “that you would marry someone you don’t love, someone you barely know, just to continue the family line?”
“No,” he smiled at her sadly, tiny lines radiating around his sardonic mouth. “It’s not important at all, for that reason. But it is important for me to have my own child.” He straightened his shoulders then and grasped her elbow briskly as if getting down to business. “Think about it, Cassie. You would be able to do those things you’re always talking about for kids who need your help.” His voice lowered provocatively. “And you would be able to continue your writing without the kind of interruptions that any other place would afford.”
Cassie whirled to face him, amazed that he knew of her secret life as a children’s author. Then she realized that a man like Jefferson Haddon would have had her thoroughly investigated before considering the possibility of proposing.
The air went out of her suddenly.
“So it would be a business proposition,” she intoned softly, glaring up at him in the silence of the woods. “I get money and the run of the house to continue my work and you get your child. I do have some scruples, you know,” she told him, furious at his extended silence.
“I can’t just coldly and callously go to bed with you because you want a child. Lovemaking is a part of marriage and that’s a serious step that two people take because they want to commit themselves to the future together. If you think that I could treat such a commitment so lightly, then you really don’t know me at all.”
She wasn’t prepared for his strong arms as they wrapped around her. Jeff tugged her against his muscular frame, a tiny smile turning up the edges of his lips. His head tipped down, his mouth meeting hers in a kiss that rocked her to her boot-clad feet.
Cassie felt a longing stretch deep inside. It surprised her with its strength. As she felt his lips touch hers, Cassie curled her arms round Jeff’s strong neck and twined her fingers through his dark, immaculate hair.
She knew that time passed, that one kiss had become many. But each gentle touch of his lips created a need for more.
When he finally drew away from her, Cassie felt bereft. He pressed her head against his chest while they each drew deep calming breaths of crisp fall air.
His voice, when it rumbled against her cheek, was softly mocking as his hand stroked over her windblown hair.
“I don’t think anything that happened between us could be cold or calculated,” he told her, a smile of satisfaction curving his tight mouth.
Jeff tipped her chin up, forcing her turbulent gaze to meet his melting dark chocolate one.
“We both know there’s something smoldering between us,” he rasped. “And I think it’s only a matter of time until it bursts into flame.” He held her gaze steadily. “But I’ll guarantee you this. I’m not going to force or coerce you into anything. Whatever we do, it will be after a mutual decision.”
Cassie felt as if the ground were falling away and she wrapped her fingers around his arm.
How could this be happening to plain, ordinary Cassie Newton? She seldom dated. Goodness, she didn’t even know many men who weren’t involved with the children’s agency or her church.
“If you’d prefer, we can go the route of artificial insemination.” His mouth tipped up wryly. “Although, personally, I don’t think it would be nearly as, er, interesting.”
Cassie felt her cheeks burn with the implication behind his words. How could he say these things? It wasn’t, well, decent somehow.
“The direction of our relationship will depend on you, Cassie.”
She knew her mouth was open; that she was gaping at him like some starstruck teenager. She couldn’t help it. The world had tilted in a crazy angle and she couldn’t get her bearings.
“Come on. If we don’t walk, we’ll freeze.”
He tugged her along beside him then, continuing their walk as if nothing unusual had occurred. Except that he kept her hand enfolded in his.
Cassie let the whirl of emotions pirouette through her mind in fast forward. Marry him? She hardly knew him, although he had somehow become an intricate part of their lives over the past weeks.
And always, Jeff watched her with David. Dark head cocked to one side, he would listen intently as she spoke with the boy. Subject matter wasn’t important. Jeff seemed to focus more on the child’s acceptance of Cassie as the authority on the matter. At least marriage to Jefferson Haddon would ensure a home for David and Marie, she thought ruefully.
Nasty suspicions crowded into her confused brain and Cassie stopped dead in the pathway to cast a curious glance at the tall man beside her.
“What’s really behind this proposal?” she demanded, hands on her hips. “Why do you suddenly need me for your plan?”
He looked sheepish. And not a little embarrassed.
“The truth this time,” she ordered. “All of it”
“I do want a son,” he said firmly.
“And?”
“Well, the fact is that most of my funds are tied up in the family trust. Oh, I make a good living,” he offered quickly as she frowned. “My company is doing very well. But I want to expand and that takes a lot of capital. It’s a private company and I’d like to keep it that way.”
He studied her face as if deciding whether she understood what he was saying.
“You mean you don’t want to offer stock or something to raise money?” Cassie asked him doubtfully.
“Yes, and I don’t want to take on private investors unless I have to. Computers are a risky business right now. The markets are changing so rapidly and new advances occur daily. I’d rather not risk anyone else’s hard-earned money.”
Cassie sank onto the iron bench nearby, thinking about what he’d said.
“Judith once told me that your father has money. Maybe he could.”
“No!”
It was a vehement denial that brought two red circles to his cheeks. He flopped down beside her, hands shoved into his pockets. Cassie couldn’t see his face, he was turned away from her. But she could hear the cold hard tones and the anger under them.
“My father would never agree,” he told her. “He wants me in the family business and would be just as happy to see Bytes Incorporated go down the tubes.” He watched her speculatively for a moment. “If he knew about the son idea, he would have a fit. He’s had my wife picked out for twenty years now. He won’t take it lightly when he finds out I’ve married someone else.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to create more problems. Family is very important.” Cassie stared out in front of her, barely registering the beauty of the fall landscape.