Melanie twisted the dainty gold chain around her neck. Colt studied her nervous fingers, bit the inside of his lip and continued. “Things got real ugly after that And Meagan, our daughter, got caught in the middle.” He tugged a hand through his hair. “We ended up in court. It was a long, drawn-out process, but eventually I got custody of Meagan. Shelly was issued weekend and holiday visitations. The psychiatrist who testified seemed to think it was in our daughter’s best interest to remain with me.”
He pushed his chair back and gripped the tabletop, expelling pain and frustration from the past. “But the court ruling didn’t mean a damn thing because the first weekend Shelly had Meagan, she closed her bank accounts and ran. She kidnapped my little girl. Took her away from me.”
His brown knuckles whitened. The worst was yet to come. “Even though I searched and hired people, we never found them. A whole year went by and then one day the police showed up at my door Shelly and Meagan had been killed in a drive-by shooting in Chicago.” Colt caught his breath, felt the familiar sting beneath his eyes. “The last time I saw my five-year-old daughter was at her funeral.”
Someone had killed an innocent child because they’d mistaken Shelly’s car for one belonging to a rival gang member. His baby girl had met a violent death on a cold, empty street. Oh, they’d caught the lone gunman, but knowing that bastard was rotting in jail hadn’t eased his pain. Colt had vowed to himself over and over that no one would ever take another child from him again. Not the child’s mother nor some sick, violent stranger. He would protect this baby with his life.
Melanie looked up. Her eyes were lined with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Colt’s heart clenched. A part of him hated what he was asking her to do. Deep down, he knew a child should be raised by two loving parents, yet Shelly’s deception had made it impossible for him to welcome another woman back into his life. Had Shelly not kidnapped Meagan, his daughter would still be alive.
He trapped Melanie’s gaze. Finding a surrogate mother was his only recourse.
“If we create a child, are you willing to hand the baby over to me, walk away and not look back?”
Colt waited. Melanie Richards didn’t respond.
Two
“Melanie?”
“Colt?”
“I asked you a question.”
He hadn’t asked her a question. He’d asked her to give away her flesh and blood Their baby. She wanted to run, the very idea suddenly creating panic. How could she do this?
She gazed into his dark eyes, at the pain within. How could she not? Colt Raintree needed a family. A woman who loved him. A child. Melanie reached for his hand. She would tell him what he wanted to hear. Convince him to conceive a child with her.
His callused hand abraded hers. She squeezed it. He would fall in love with her before the baby was born, and later he would understand why she had kept her identity a secret. He would forgive her. After all, compassion had been what their past relationship was based on. How many times had he made her smile when she’d been on the verge of tears? And then there were the boosts of encouragement, the moments when he’d cupped her face and told her, “A smart girl like you can accomplish anything.”
Melanie sighed. Although she had accomplished plenty over the years, she still hadn’t fulfilled her biggest dream. Melanie Richards had yet to win Colt Raintree’s heart. “I want to give you a child, Colt. I know what this means to you.”
He withdrew his hand, then placed it in his lap, his posture stiff. “How can you want to do this for me? You don’t even know me. There has to be more to it than that. Women have all sorts of reasons for becoming surrogates. But you haven’t offered one logical explanation.”
Melanie tilted her chin. She had a logical explanation. Loving him was reason enough to expect to share a child with him. And then there were the hardships in her life, the things she had overcome. The accident had made her stronger, more determined to go after what she wanted. Life was too short to waste.
“I told you I was a foster child. Of course, that impacted my life, made me who and what I am,” she said. “I’ve learned to be comfortable and strong on my own. Yet, a piece of me wants to be part of a family, or at least know I contributed to one. It would give me a sense of peace to give someone a child. To know that I’d completed their family in some way. I could go on with my career, live my life and know it had purpose.”
She saw him weakening. Her words had penetrated his heart, yet they were twisted. The explanation she had given was the very reason she longed to keep Colt’s child and marry him.
“Would you think about the baby? Feel guilty about giving it away?”
She smiled softly. He looked as though he almost felt guilty for asking her to do it. “How could L knowing it’s your child? It would be well loved. And when I’d think about it, I’d envision it in your arms. Happy and smiling.”
She could see him in her mind’s eye, holding their baby, cuddling the tiny life against his broad chest. Only she imagined herself standing beside him, sharing the moment. Melanie’s smile faded. The real possibility of having to give him that child made her ache. What if Colt didn’t fall in love with her? She’d lose him and their baby.
“Do you want to see Meagan’s room?” he asked. “I want you to know her in some way. If you have my baby, it would be her brother or sister.”
She nodded silently and followed Colt down the hall. She’d been inside his house once before but only as far as the living room sofa.
The first time he had spoken to her was when she had fallen from one of his family’s rental horses and sprained her ankle. Abandoned by her horse, Colt had spotted the disloyal beast galloping back to the stable and rode out looking for the horseless rider. He’d found her lying on a grassy slope, lifted her in his muscular arms, gently slung her over his mount, took her to his ranch and packed her ankle with ice. She had sat on the cowhide sofa, nervously chewing her fingernails, her heart melting while he wrapped her swollen ankle.
After that life-altering experience, she’d discovered someone other than Colt had suspected she was smitten. Someone who must have felt compelled to mention it.
Shorty Miller, the ornery old ranch hand who saddled the rental horses hadn’t said beans to her until he’d learned about her mishap. When Melanie had returned to the stables the weekend following her injury, Shorty, a balding, beanpole of a man, sent a gruff compliment her way. “You stick with it, girlie,” he’d said, adjusting her stirrup. “You’ve got a natural seat. Someday you’ll be ridin’ just fine, real prettylike.”
Melanie had smiled proudly from atop the mount Shorty had chosen for her and scanned the grounds for Colt. “The boy ain’t here,” the old man had grumbled, his thick mustache twitching. “Took a group into the hills not more than twenty minutes ago.”
Melanie had blushed from the top of her straw hat to the tips of her boots. “What boy?”
“Don’t play me for a fool. The one you got yer eye on, girlie,” had come the gravelly reply.
Week after week, Shorty had quietly pointed out Colt’s whereabouts. “The boy’s in the barn.” “He just rode out.” “He’s team penning in the arena.”
In the end, it had been Shorty who had informed her of Colt’s impending nuptials. “The boy’s gone and done it this time,” the old man had said. “Got a girl in trouble, that one did. He’ll be marrying her right quick.”
Colt’s husky voice jarred her back to the present. “Melanie, are you all right?”
They