“Adam,” he drawled, hoping it hid his grudging admiration for her unflappable response and her no-nonsense approach.
She reached up and snagged the white hair-holding thingy loose. Spiral curls clung to it as she dragged it downward. She shook her head, her hair tumbling down to brush her straight shoulders. She put her hand behind her neck. “What did you say?”
“Huh?”
“Maybe I should make the coffee after all.” She narrowed one eye on him. “Wouldn’t want to tax you too much, you know, by expecting you to talk and handle a kitchen appliance at the same time. Could get tricky.”
Adam huffed a hard laugh, more amused than he wanted to admit. “Bet you get a lot of tips with that winning attitude of yours.”
“I do all right.” She turned and padded into the kitchen.
“I’ll just bet you do,” he muttered.
“What’d you say?”
“Adam.” He strolled into the glaring light of the kitchen and leaned against the cabinet where she was pulling out two coffee mugs. “I asked you to call me Adam. Mr. Burdett is my father.”
“I know.” She clunked one cup down on the counter.
“Yeah. Of course. Everyone around here knows the Burdetts.” He watched her for some sign that she shared his opinion of his family. Why he wanted to find that commonality with her, he didn’t know. It just seemed, standing here in this small space with her, that it sure would be nice to have a girl like her on his side. “You know which one I am, right?”
She placed the second cup down as though it were as delicate as an eggshell, then stretched her hand out for a jar of instant coffee. She wrenched the lid off the jar, then yanked open a stubborn drawer, making the silverware clatter as she pawed around inside it.
He tried to will her to answer. He wanted to hear firsthand from someone who didn’t share his last name, just what people in Mt. Knott thought of him and what he had done to his family’s business. He wanted to hear it from her.
“I know which one you are.” Her fingers curled around a spoon, and the room grew very quiet. Finally she said so softly that a draft from the nearby window might have blown the words away, “You’re the man whose name is on my baby’s birth certificate.”
She did not look up. She went right on making the coffee. But it didn’t escape Adam’s attention that as she scooped the dark-brown powder into each cup, her hand trembled. With one sentence she shifted from a smart, sassy woman in control to one scared little lady.
That’s just what he had wanted when he had first shown up tonight.
Then why didn’t he feel better about it?
“What am I doing?” The spoon clinked against the inner lip of the cup. She shut her eyes and shook her head. “I should have heated the water first.”
“Never mind.” He straightened away from the cabinet.
“No. I’ll fix this.” She lifted both cups. They rattled against each other, tipping one and sending instant coffee spilling over the counter. “Now look what I’ve done, I—”
“Look, forget it.” He stepped forward, feeling every inch the heel for having reduced her to this. “I don’t need any coffee.”
“No, I said I’d make it and there’s one thing you ought to know about me, Mr. Burdett. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it.” She set both cups down, then began to scoop up the dark dust in her palm. It sifted through her fingers like sand. “I can fix this. I can—”
“Josie.” He took her by the wrist and turned her to face him. That’s when he saw the tears rimming her eyes. They seemed held in place only by the sheer force of her will not to cry. He cupped her fisted hand in his palm. “I didn’t come here for coffee.”
“I know,” she rasped. “You came here to take my son.”
A few minutes ago he’d not only have agreed with her, he’d have thrown in a crude adjective to seal the deal. Now? All he could do was clear his throat and say, softly, “Then maybe we should just talk—”
She jerked her head up. “I’m not anything like my sister, you know.”
He smiled then. “I can see that.”
“You can?”
When she looked confused, Adam noticed, a small crease appeared between her eyebrows.
“How can you possibly see I’m not like Ophelia? We only just met.”
“I can see it—” he rubbed one knuckle along her cheek as gently as he could manage “—because you’re the one who’s here with my son, not her.”
“That’s because…” Her voice failed. She blinked. A single tear dampened her cheek. She pushed out a shuddering breath. “I love him. He’s mine.”
It killed him to hear that, and at the same time it made him proud and elated to know his boy had been loved and wanted by somebody. Adam studied her with a series of brushing glances.
Not just somebody, he realized when his gaze searched hers. The baby’s aunt. His birth mother’s identical twin. Someone with a blood bond and a heart with the capacity to put her needs aside to care for a helpless infant.
And grit. Josie had to have grit, he decided on the spot. How else could a woman choose to bear the burden of single motherhood? How else could she stay in Mt. Knott and watch the jobs and opportunities ebb away, partly because of his own actions, and even begin her own business because she knew she had to provide the sole support for a child?
“You can say that? After Ophelia just dumped him on you?”
“I never said she—”
“But that’s what she did, right?”
The woman lowered her gaze to the floor. “It doesn’t change how I feel about him.”
Adam swallowed, and it felt like forcing a boulder through a straw. Everything he’d determined about this lady flew right out the window when he considered all he’d learned in just a few moments with her. He liked her plenty, in all manner of ways, most he didn’t even understand yet—and he reckoned she was plenty good for his boy, as well.
“Please, Mr. Burdett,” she whispered, her chin angled up and her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Please tell me you haven’t come to take away my baby.”
“Actually, ma’am, I…” Adam sighed.
Who was he kidding? He couldn’t take his son away from the only mother the baby had ever known. He wouldn’t.
“I haven’t come to take him away, Josie.”
She shut her eyes and mouthed the words thank you.
Adam didn’t know if she spoke to him or to heaven—maybe both. He took one step back. So he’d wimped out of doing what he’d come here to do. That didn’t mean he’d called a complete surrender…and he respected this woman enough to make sure she understood that without question.
“But I think you should understand, ma’am.” He stuck his thumb through his belt loop and anchored his boots wide on the gleaming vinyl floor. “I won’t simply sign some papers and walk away, either. He’s my boy and I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I stay involved in his life. Whatever it takes.”
Joy and apprehension battled within Josie, and in the end joy won. He said he wasn’t going to take her baby. Knowing that, she figured she could handle anything else thrown at her by this biker/cowboy with a voice that poured over her nerves like honey over sandpaper.
“Then let’s talk, Mr. Burdett.” She extended her hand toward the