His Texas Christmas Bride

Chapter Three

Just as Nick had maintained that he was within his right to ask Becca to take the paternity test, she was justified in feeling offended and irritated by his request.

However, the all-too-rational part of Becca’s brain knew without a doubt how the results would come back. It would prove that Nick was the father. So, why argue?

Why?

Insult and exasperation kicked up again. Do the words it’s the principle of the matter not mean anything to you?

Her heart had broken a little bit after Nick’s visit. Still tender, it tried to overrule that sickeningly reasonable voice in her brain.

She didn’t have to take the test if she didn’t want to. He wasn’t strong-arming her. She didn’t need to prove herself. But wouldn’t it look as if she had something to hide if she held out? The truth would set her free.

Or would it?

Handing Nick proof positive would not guarantee he’d be any happier about it than he was right now. But that was the chance she’d have to take. She’d meant it when she’d told him she wouldn’t try to force him into anything he didn’t want to do. And she wouldn’t.

In the end, vindication trumped justification. The next day she went to the lab in Dallas that Nick had recommended and let them draw blood for a noninvasive prenatal paternity test. They told her they’d have the results back in two business days.

After the longest two days of her life, Becca braced herself for the news. She wasn’t sure why she was anxious, since the results wouldn’t be a surprise. But last night she’d dreamed that the lab had gotten her results mixed up with another person’s, and she couldn’t seem to make Nick understand that it was a mistake. That the lab had messed up.

All her life Becca, who’d been a straight-A student up through college, had had recurring nightmares of failing tests. They’d only served as incentive to work harder. But this test was out of her control.

As she took the parking garage elevator into the lobby of the Macintyre Enterprises building, she took a deep breath and tried to get in touch with her rational mind, which still seemed to be fast asleep this morning.

Her foolish, emotional, battered heart was not only wide-awake and beating like a cymbal-banging monkey, it had been making her do crazy things like check her email every fifteen minutes since five-thirty this morning. If her rational mind cared to show up, it would convince her that, much like pressing an elevator button repeatedly when waiting for a slow car, refreshing her email browser every fifteen minutes before the workaday world had poured their first cup of coffee was fruitless.

But sometimes exercises in futility were therapeutic.

She stepped off the garage elevator into the lobby and turned toward the bank of elevators that would carry her up to her office on the top floor of the building.

The Macintyre Foundation was housed in a twenty-five-story glass-and-chrome building in the heart of downtown Dallas. The Macintyre Family Foundation shared office space with Macintyre Enterprises, which belonged to Kate’s brother, Rob Macintyre. The foundation mostly served the community of Celebration, Texas, which was located about twenty minutes outside of downtown Dallas. But since Rob Macintyre owned the Dallas-based building, they couldn’t beat the cost of rent.

Every time Becca stepped into the massive glass-enclosed lobby, she looked up. She couldn’t help herself, even after all these years. The ceiling seemed to stretch miles above her head, reaching toward the heavens. All around a gentle green-tinted light filtered in. Even in the soft morning sunshine, it reflected off the chrome furniture, fixtures and giant fountain in the center of the atrium.

Everything about the space was sleek and polished, and this morning it felt particularly cold and fed her anxious nerves, which just proved she needed a hot beverage to warm her up, because there wasn’t anything cold about the Macintyre family. They did a lot of good for the Celebration community.

Becca tightened her cashmere scarf and turned up the collar on her red wool coat to stave off the chill that had worked its way into her bones. She’d worn her favorite gray tweed skirt and ivory cashmere sweater to bolster herself against the emotional day. The ensemble was soft and warm, a comfort outfit, if there was such a thing, even if it was fitting a little snug these days.

She took off her hat, smoothed her hair into place and waved good morning to Violet, the receptionist who tended the lobby concierge desk. Even though Violet was small, young and pretty and very feminine, she was the gatekeeper, and she took her job seriously. No one got past her unless they had an appointment or possessed a preapproved security badge. Nobody wanted to tangle with Violet.

The heels of Becca’s boots tapped a cadence on the marble floors. The sound seemed to carry and echo in the cavernous lobby. Today, all of her senses were heightened. Even so, she tried to walk a little more carefully to muffle the noise.

When Becca finally reached the twenty-fifth floor, the office was quiet. Kate, Rob and his wife, Pepper, who was in charge of the foundation’s community relations department, obviously hadn’t gotten to work yet. Becca was so early even their receptionist, Lisa, wasn’t there.

After Becca turned on the office lights, she made her way to the kitchenette, where she started a pot of coffee for the office and brewed herself a cup of herbal tea.

God, the coffee smelled good. It took every ounce of strength she possessed not to toss the tea—a spicy, fruity blend that Kate had brought in for Becca after she’d learned about the pregnancy and Becca’s subsequent caffeine sacrifice.

Caffeine wasn’t good for the baby. That was the only incentive she needed to fortify her willpower. She grabbed her caffeine-free infusion and headed straight to her office away from temptation. At least the insipid liquid was hot and had begun to take the edge off the chill she’d experienced as she drove into work.

Fall was one of Becca’s favorite seasons. She loved everything about it, from the pumpkins and the autumn leaves as they shrugged off the last vestiges of summer green and donned glorious harvest colors, to the nip in the air and the way the community seemed to come together even more at football games and festivals. Becca had decorated her office to set a festive mood. A garland of leaves and straw artfully woven together festooned her office door, and she had brought in her pumpkin-spice-scented candle. Before she sat down at her desk, she turned on her electric candle warmer.

She had a long to-do list to plow through today, lots to accomplish to make sure Celebration’s fourth annual Central Park tree-lighting ceremony, an event the foundation sponsored the day after Thanksgiving, went off perfectly. The event had become a beloved tradition for the Celebration community, and if Becca had it her way, she’d do her part to make it better and better every year.

But even that had to wait. Because the first thing she did after she booted up her computer was check her email to see if there was any word from the lab.

The tech had given her a password and told her that after she received the email alerting her that her test results were ready, she was to go to a website, enter the password and retrieve her exoneration.

He’d called it results, of course, not exoneration, but that’s how she’d come to think of it.

Of course, since it wasn’t even nine o’clock, the email hadn’t yet arrived. She took a fortifying sip of tea and uttered a silent prayer that they wouldn’t make her wait until the end of the day.

But wait—what if she’d miscalculated? Was today considered day two? Or was that tomorrow? The cymbal monkey kicked in again, and her heart virtually rattled at the thought. She didn’t know if she could bear to wait another twenty-four hours.

She minimized the screen of her inbox and pulled up the file for the tree-lighting ceremony. She had so much to do today that, really, she should have enough to keep her mind occupied. But as she read the bids from the professional tree decorators, her mind invariably drifted to Nick.

How would he act once he had proof positive that he was the baby’s father? Would he choose to be part of his child’s life? Would he believe that despite their night together she didn’t sleep around? Whatever he did, Becca fully intended to play the I-told-you-so card once she had the results in hand.

Nice. That’ll entice him to stay. It’ll make you very pleasant to be around.

She shook away the thought, clicked on her inbox and refreshed her browser again.

Still nothing.

So she picked up a red file folder that contained her notes for the ceremony.

“Good morning.” Becca looked up to see Kate, dressed in a smart black pantsuit, holding a cup of coffee and standing in the doorway of her office.

“Hey,” she said.

“Dare I ask?” Kate grimaced as if she were bracing for Becca to throw something at her. “Any news yet?”

Great. As if she needed any more nervous encouragement, but she knew Kate meant well. Becca didn’t have the heart to sigh and tell her to go away. And to take her coffee with her.

Instead, she mustered her sweetest smile.

“Not yet.”

Kate nodded, then took a sip from her mug. “Good coffee. You really are a saint for having it ready. Since you can’t drink it, you really don’t have to do that.”

Becca closed the red folder. “I don’t mind.” She sipped her tea as if to prove she didn’t need the high-octane fuel, and the fruity, spicy stuff served her much better.

“Come in for a minute.” Becca pointed toward the chair. “Sit, please. Talk to me. Distract me. Stop me from checking my email at the top of every minute.”

Becca happened to see the clock on the bottom right corner of her computer screen turn over to nine o’clock. So, she hit the refresh button once more.

“Okay, I did it again.” Becca held up both hands, palms forward in surrender. “Stop me, please.”

“Okay, Britney Spears. I wish there was some way I could rig your computer so that every time you check your email Britney would sing, ‘Oops!...I Did It Again.’ That would make you think twice, wouldn’t it?”

“And how,” Becca said.

“Of course, I could always come in here and sing to you every few minutes. A couple of rounds of Britney therapy will probably work like touching a hot stove. After you experience it, you just know better.”

Becca laughed. “Darn, I wish I would’ve brought in the karaoke machine. I knew I was forgetting something.”

“I’m happy to sing a cappella. That would probably have the biggest impact.”

“Do you make house calls?” Becca asked. “I could’ve used you last night.”

“Why? It was a little early to start the test result watch last night, wasn’t it?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I wasn’t actually looking, but I was anxious about it. To take my mind off things, I let myself binge-watch classic movies. Turner Classics was having a James Dean film festival.”

Kate narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to one side. “Sorry, hon, I’m not following you. Why is James Dean bad?”

Why? Becca shrugged.

“I know this sounds crazy, but there’s something about Nick that reminded me of James Dean—with a modern spin and maybe with shades of Adam Levine and biceps and tattoos.

“But more rugged, though, less metrosexual,” Becca added.

They paused for a moment of quiet appreciation, slow smiles spreading over their faces.

Actually, Becca had drawn the James Dean-Adam Levine parallel the first time she’d set eyes on Nick Ciotti. Well, actually, that’s what she’d thought the second time she’d seen him. The first time, she hadn’t really seen him. She’d been distraught over Victor’s accident and the way Rosanna was trying to ice her out. She’d needed answers. But then when he’d walked into Bentleys, that’s when she’d seen him.

After noting the James Dean comparison, her next thought had been that he had to be one of the best-looking human beings she’d ever laid eyes on. Bad-boy dangerous and take-your-breath-away gorgeous, with that shock of dark hair that was just a tad too long.

Sigh.

“I can totally see it,” Kate said. “Did you sit and brood over James Dean last night?”

Becca tried to shrug it off. “I did and it’s so stupid. I just need to get Nick out of my head. I keep going back and forth between being furious with him for pushing this paternity test issue and thinking that this guy and I are going to be irrevocably connected because of the baby. And despite it all, I want that. I really want it. But what he must think of me to insist on this test.”

Kate looked at Becca for a long moment, and Becca could see the wheels turning in her friend’s head.

“What?” Becca asked. “Just say what you’re thinking. I’ve already admitted I’m a hot mess.”

“I know it was hard for you to go get the test done. It probably felt as if he was questioning the very core of your character. I know that must’ve felt really crappy. But there are some women who—” Kate paused and winced. “How do I say this? Just don’t hate me for it, okay?”

“Just say it.”

“There are women out there who might try to trap a man like Nick.”

“A man like Nick? What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“He’s a good-looking guy with a nice income and secure job. You know, a doctor.”

“You sound like Jane Austen.” In her best high-pitched British accent, Becca said, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Kate laughed. “Well, not exactly. I was trying to say that there are certain women who think a man in possession of a good job, especially a doctor, would make a good husband. Okay, I guess that did sound a little Austen-ish. Remember Liam’s neighbor Kimela Herring, and how she set her sights on him after his first wife passed away? That woman was shameless. She would’ve done anything—and I mean anything—to get her hooks in him. She’s the reason I ended up bidding ten thousand dollars for him at that bachelor auction that funded the new pediatric wing at Celebration Memorial Hospital. Remember how she drove up the bid?”

Becca sat back in her chair and squinted at her friend while she tried to ignore the annoyance sparking in her solar plexus. “I remember, but I’m not quite sure where you’re going with this trip down memory lane. Because surely you’re not comparing me to Kimela Herring.”

Kate looked genuinely surprised. Becca knew she sounded defensive, especially when Kate burst out laughing.

“Hardly,” Kate said, a broad grin commandeering her face. “But what I am saying is, even though you are far from being a Kimela Herring and I know this is tremendously hard for you, you might want to cut Nick some slack. Women like Kimela throw themselves at men like Nick and Liam, and that might be one of the reasons Nick is so wary.”

Becca wasn’t quite sure what to say. She could always count on Kate to give it to her straight, but she was having a hard time swallowing what Kate was dishing up. Okay, so Nick was a doctor. That didn’t make him better or worse than anyone. Even if certain women had a tendency to fling themselves at men like Nick. It certainly didn’t absolve him of his responsibility.

Kate must’ve read that on her face, because she waved her hand as if she were erasing her words. “That didn’t come out right. I feel like I just set back womankind two hundred years.”

Becca cocked a brow. “Maybe three hundred years.” But she smiled to let Kate know she wasn’t taking it personally. She couldn’t. Because even though Kate’s words rankled her, Becca could step back and see that there was some truth to the matter. Gold diggers were real. They weren’t the stuff of urban legends. She didn’t like it, and she certainly didn’t like the thought of Nick thinking of her that way.

“You’re right,” Becca said. “He doesn’t know me.”

“So please don’t be too hard on him, or on yourself, for that matter, okay?” Kate said.

Becca offered a one-shoulder shrug but nodded. He’d see the truth soon enough. She wasn’t trying to force his hand. Even if they were having a baby, she didn’t want to marry a man she didn’t love or a man who didn’t love her.

For a moment her heart tried to eclipse logic with quiet protestations. How did she know she couldn’t love Nick? She didn’t even know him beyond that one earthmoving night, which proved that there had certainly been plenty of raw material to work with then.

And, oh, how it had worked.

As if the heavens were seconding that motion, a notice that she had a new email popped up on her computer screen.

She clicked over to her inbox.

The results were in.

* * *

After working the 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. shift the night before, which he would repeat tonight, Nick’s days and nights were mixed up, but such was the life of someone employed in emergency medicine.

His schedule was as unpredictable as the cases that presented themselves each night in the ER. Some weeks he worked the graveyard shift, others he pulled the more civilized 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. one. Even though Celebration Memorial usually scheduled attendings four days on and three days off, sometimes the workweeks were longer, and he never knew what he’d be working one week to the next. That was fine because he was married to his job. Emergency medicine was a possessive spouse.

But now he was going to be a father.

He’d picked up Becca’s text after he woke up around two o’clock. He hadn’t even had a chance to grab a cup of coffee. So he was still a little groggy as he read the news. It was force of habit to check his phone the minute he rolled out of bed to make sure he was on top of things at the hospital, to make sure he hadn’t missed an important call or text.

In this case, he had.

Becca had called. Then, when he’d slept right through that, she’d texted. Her message had said, The results are in. She’d included a link to a website and a password.

He’d known what the results would be before he’d typed in the first character. He’d known in his bones that Becca wasn’t the kind of woman who would try to pawn off another guy’s child on someone else. He supposed he’d known the truth since the moment he’d set eyes on her again in the emergency room, but he hadn’t been able to wrap his mind around it.

A father. He was going to be a father. He couldn’t imagine a worse person for such an important job. The kid deserved better than anything he could offer. Of course he would provide for the child, but love? How could he love someone else when he didn’t even like himself sometimes?

The bald reality rolled around inside his gut, cold and heavy like a large ball bearing. To make it stop, he pushed up off the sofa bed and made short order of putting the couch back together, tossing the cushions into place. The chore had become a routine because if he didn’t put away his bed, it dominated the living space in the tiny efficiency apartment that sat above George and Mary Jane Hewitt’s garage. He’d rented the place on a month-to-month basis, figuring he’d find something more permanent once he got settled in his job and got to know the area. Since the place came fully furnished, he’d had the movers unload everything he owned, except his clothes, into a storage shed.

He didn’t spend much time at home, and as the modest apartment came with everything he needed, he really hadn’t missed the stuff that was stashed in those boxes. The Hewitts’ granddaughter was coming to live with them in January. So they wouldn’t offer more than a sixty-day lease. By that time, Nick figured he’d be settled in at the hospital and have a better read on the town. He’d even planned on looking up Becca.

It didn’t make any sense to unpack only to pack it all up again when he moved again after the first of the year. It felt good and light and free to not be weighed down by worldly possessions, even if temporarily.

But he hadn’t counted on the news that Becca was carrying his child.

He was going to be a father.

Maybe if he repeated the words to himself enough it would start to sink in. Yeah. No, that hadn’t happened yet.

As Nick made his way into the tiny kitchenette, he uttered a silent oath that was utterly unfatherly. He braced his arms on the edge of the slip of kitchen counter, where the coffeemaker and toaster lived. He knocked his head against the cabinet in front of him for not being more careful.

But he had been careful. They’d used protection. Short of being celibate, how much more careful could he be?

The only thing that was crystal clear now was, with Nick as its father, this poor kid was screwed. Nick wasn’t cut out to be a dad or a family man. The most devastating part of the equation was that this child hadn’t asked for this, hadn’t selected him. He or she—God, this was a person, a living, breathing human being whom he could screw up—deserved so much more than such a poor excuse for a father.

But like it or not, this child would arrive in about six months. There was no changing that. He squeezed his eyes together and raked both hands through his hair, which was still sleep mussed. Then he grabbed his phone and called Becca.

The phone rang three times, and he thought it might go to voice mail, but she answered.

“Hi, it’s Nick.”

There was a beat of silence, and for a moment he wondered if the call had dropped. He was just pulling the phone away from his ear to look at the screen when he heard her.

“Hi, Nick.” Her voice sounded neutral, almost businesslike. Of course, she was probably at work. And nearly four hours had passed since she’d texted him this morning.

“I just picked up your text.”

“Okay.”

She wasn’t going to make this easy on him, was she? Well, why should she?

Okay, so he had some smoothing over to do to convince her he wasn’t a first-class creep. But he still felt justified asking for proof positive. He hoped Becca would understand that the test results were the first step in moving forward.

“We have a lot to talk about,” he said.

“Do we, Nick?”

Her tone wasn’t hostile, just calm, eerily calm, a matter-of-fact answer to his feeble attempts to meet her halfway.

“I would ask you to have dinner tonight, but I have to work at seven. Would you have time to meet for coffee after you get off work?”

“Meet me in Central Park in downtown Celebration at five o’clock.”

He released a slow, controlled breath, both relieved and surprised that she’d agreed to see him. But she had, and that was the first step. They’d take it from there.