Who had done the asking?
And how far was she willing to go to get it done?
Nick looked her right in the eyes. “Let’s try this again.” He held up his index finger. “Who are you?” Another finger lifted. “Who hired you?” He put up a third finger. “And explain to me why the hell I should just let you walk out of here alive.”
The threat garnered her complete attention. It also seemed to rile her a bit. Nick was almost positive he saw a flash of anger rifle through her jade-colored eyes.
She reached out and pushed down one of his fingers. “I’m Kelly Manning.” She pushed down another one. “I work for no one. Well, not on a regular basis anyway. I’m a freelance photographer in San Antonio.” She wasn’t so gentle when lowering his third finger. “And the reason I plan to walk out of here alive is because I’ve done nothing that warrants you trying to kill me.”
“That’s debatable.”
Kelly Manning. Nick silently repeated her name several times to see if it rang any bells.
It didn’t.
He was about to add another round of questions, but the door opened. It was Cooper Morris, the head of security for the ranch. A hulking man with a shiny shaved head and a body the size of a Sumo wrestler, Cooper took up most of the doorway. As if that wouldn’t be intimidating enough to his visitor, he had his weapon drawn and ready to fire.
“Are you all right, sir?” Cooper asked.
Nick debated how much he should tell him and decided to keep things vague for a while. Later, he’d find out why it’d taken Cooper so long to respond to what could have been a dangerous breach of security.
“Ms. Manning and I were just chatting. Ms. Kelly Manning. It’s possible that she’s missed a dose of medication or something.” That earned him a scowl from her. “Or perhaps the caterer is simply one of her many employers. Do a preliminary background check on her immediately. We’ll be waiting here for your report.”
Cooper glanced at her with his dark suspicious eyes before his attention came back to Nick. “Yes, sir.” As Nick knew he would do, Cooper gave an efficient nod and disappeared, closing the door behind him.
If the threat of a background check bothered her, it didn’t show. She certainly didn’t cower in fear. She got to her feet and caught on to his arm.
“I want to see William,” she insisted. “Please.”
Even with the added please, he didn’t have to debate this particular issue. “Under no circumstance will I let you anywhere near him.”
Her grip tightened on his arm. “But I have to know if he looks like me. I have to know the truth.”
“The truth? And just what might that be? That you have some insane fantasy that he’s your son? Well, he’s not. Understand? He’s not.” He slung off her grip. “His mother was Meredith Beirce, my late friend, and she died the very evening she gave birth to him.”
“Yes, I know. On October eighth, at the Brighton Birthing Center just outside of San Antonio,” she said without hesitation.
Nick didn’t hesitate, either. “Anyone could have learned that from public records.”
“That’s not how I knew,” she insisted. “I met Meredith several times. We used the same obstetrician, and we went into labor on the same day. And, yes, I also know that she died at nine twenty-three p.m. of complications from a respiratory infection.” Nick shrugged. “If you think knowing that information will impress me, you’re dead wrong.”
“It wasn’t meant to impress you.”
Without warning, she caught on to the waist of her skirt and shoved it down to expose her stomach.
Her bare stomach.
And then she lowered it even more. He could see the top of her ruby-colored panties, the ones he’d felt when he searched her.
“See that?” she asked. “It’s a C-section scar. I gave birth to a son the morning of October eighth at the Brighton Birthing Center.”
Nick glanced at the scar in question. He’d never seen a C-section incision but didn’t doubt that was one. “It proves nothing other than you’ve had a child. A child. It doesn’t mean that child was William.”
She groaned and fixed her skirt. He almost thanked her for covering herself. For reasons he didn’t want to explore, his body reacted to hers in the most basic male way it could react. It was purely a lust thing. No doubt about it. But he didn’t even want lust playing into this.
He wanted no connection whatsoever with this woman.
She plowed both hands through the sides of her short choppy blond hair and took several harsh breaths. “If I weren’t on the receiving end of these thug tactics, it might please me to know that you’re going to such great lengths to take care of William. You’re making sure he isn’t kidnapped by someone out to earn a quick buck. But how about you just hear me out before you start tossing around any more accusations?”
He gestured for her to go ahead. But hopefully the scowl on his face would let her know that her explanation meant nothing.
“Thirteen months ago, on October eighth, I had a son, and four days later, I left the birthing center with the child I thought was mine.” Her bottom lip started to tremble, and tears glistened in her eyes. She quickly blinked them back. “This isn’t easy for me. I love my son, Joseph, more than life itself. And he’s all I have.”
He nodded. Nick could understand that. He felt the same way about William.
She returned his nod. “I’m not asking for sympathy, even though heaven knows I might need some before this over. Still, I don’t expect I’ll get it from you.” Rather than look at him, she stared at the mural behind him. “About a week ago, I got a visit from a woman named Collena Drake. She’s been going through files and records from an illegal adoption ring that the San Antonio police uncovered and stopped. Collena found a memo indicating that someone paid for two babies to be swapped at Brighton.”
Nick shrugged. “Why would anyone pay for something like that?”
She paused. Seemingly to steady her breath. But that pause didn’t do much to steady him.
Hell.
Nick didn’t like where she seemed to be going with this, but he reminded himself that she was almost certainly a liar.
“I have no idea why someone would want to switch babies, but I can’t dismiss that it happened. In fact, I have some proof that it did.”
“What proof?” he fired at her, feeling more and more uncomfortable with this whole conversation.
“My late husband and I had the same blood type,” she continued. She moistened her lips. “Joseph doesn’t. And before you ask—no, I didn’t cheat on my husband. In fact, he’s the only man I’ve ever had sex with.”
Nick had conditioned himself not to respond instinctively to anything, but this was testing the limits of his training. “And why would you think any of this would be of the slightest interest to me?”
Kelly Manning looked him straight in the eye. “Because it’s my guess that William and Joseph were the babies who were switched.”
After getting past the initial punch of shock, he gave that some thought, looking for a flaw in her theory, and he found one immediately. “There were probably dozens of babies born on that day.”
“Five boys,” she quickly furnished. “I’ve checked all of them. Either through blood type or ethnicity, I was able to rule them out. Except for William. He’s the last name on my list.”
It was a good attempt to get him to believe her. Very good. But it didn’t