“Are you?”
Isabelle’s gaze shot to Edna’s. “Hey. Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Yours. Absolutely.” Reaching over for a dishcloth, Edna wiped up a few crumbs. “But come on, sweetie. The man’s a father and you never told him. Most men like to know if their sperm scores a goal.”
She snorted a laugh even while she nodded. “True. But he said he didn’t want kids.”
“That’s before he had one.” Edna sighed and leaned on the counter again so she could look directly into Isabelle’s eyes. “Even Marco didn’t want kids till we had our first one.”
“That’s hard to believe.” Frowning, Isabelle remembered how Marco had devoted himself to Edna and their three kids. Even now, he spent most of his free time with their grandchildren. A more family-based man she’d never known.
“Well, it’s true.” Edna shook her head and grinned. “When I told him I was pregnant the first time, the man went pale—and with that Italian olive complexion of his, it wasn’t easy.”
Isabelle laughed a little. True.
“My point is, he completely freaked,” Edna admitted. “I think he was scared, though God knows a man will never admit to that. But once he came around to the idea of being somebody’s daddy, he was all for it, and the man is the best father in the world.”
“He is,” Isabelle murmured.
“So why not cut this Wes guy a break and see what happens?” Edna shrugged. “You two might find a way to work through this.”
“Anything’s possible, I suppose.” But at the moment, Isabelle was having a hard time believing that. She could remember, so clearly, how it had felt to have him looming close to her last night. She’d felt the heat of him reaching for her. And when she’d pushed him away, she’d come very close to grabbing him instead and pulling him closer.
Really irritating that she could be furious with him and still want him so badly.
“Is there more going on here than just worry for Caro?” Edna asked quietly.
Isabelle looked at the other woman. “Too much and not enough all at the same time.”
Edna took a sip of coffee. “I hate when that happens.”
* * *
Room service brought him coffee and toast. Wes ate and drank while he ran through the latest stream of emails clogging up his inbox. Deleting as he went, he kept expecting to see another message from Maverick. Why, he didn’t know. The damage had already been done. But wouldn’t he want to gloat? Wes really hoped so, because just one more email from the mystery man might be enough to help Wes’s IT department nail the bastard.
Until that happy day, Wes focused on what he could do. The TV was on, the local news channel a constant murmur of sound in the room. One part of Wes’s mind paid attention to the reporters, wondering if he’d hear more about this Maverick mess. Meanwhile, he concentrated on answering business emails, then made a call to his VP. When Harry answered, Wes smiled. Good to know his employees were up and working as early as he was.
“Morning, Wes,” Harry said. “Sorry to say, if you’re calling for an update on Maverick, I don’t have one for you yet.”
Scowling, Wes rubbed his forehead and walked to the French doors of his suite. It was too damned cold to throw them open, so he settled for holding back the drapes and staring out at Swan Hollow as the small town woke up. The clouds were low and gray—no surprise, and yet more snow was forecasted for today.
“How is it no one can nail this guy—or woman?” Wes grumbled, not really expecting an answer. “Is Maverick some kind of technical ninja or something?”
Harry laughed shortly. “No. So far, he’s just been lucky. He got in and out of your account so fast, the IT guys couldn’t track him. But Jones in IT tells me he’s rigged it to let him know if anyone tries to breach again.”
“Well, that’s something.” It was a lot, really, just not enough. Wes didn’t function well with helplessness. Because he’d never accepted it before. Always, he’d been able to do something. He’d never been in the position of standing on the sidelines, watching other players make moves he couldn’t.
And he didn’t like it.
“Not enough, I know,” Harry said, as if he knew exactly what Wes was thinking. “But we’re still working it. On the downside, Teddy Bradford won’t take my call, so if you want to try to do CPR on that merger, you’ll have to reach out to him yourself.”
“Yeah, I tried before I left Texas. He blew me off, too.”
“It may just be over, boss.”
“No, I won’t accept that,” Wes said. “We spent nearly two years putting that merger on the table and I’ll be damned before I let some cowardly rumormonger ruin it. There’s a way to save us taking over PlayCo, and I’ll find it.”
“If you say so,” Harry told him, but disbelief was clear in his tone.
Fine, he’d proved people wrong before, and he could do it again. Turning away from the view, Wes voiced a suspicion that had occurred to him only late last night. “You think maybe Teddy’s working this from both angles?”
A pause while Harry thought about it. “What exactly do you mean?”
Wes had been turning this over in his mind for hours now, and though it sounded twisted, he thought it could just be true. “Well, we had a deal and he’s backed out—what if he and Maverick were in on it together?”
“For what reason?” Harry asked, not shooting down the theory right away.
Any number of reasons, really, Wes told himself, but the most likely one had slipped into his mind last night and refused to leave. “Maybe he’s lined up a deal with a different toy company and needed a way to get out of our merger without looking bad.”
There was a long pause as Harry considered the idea. “Anything’s possible,” he said, his voice slow and thoughtful. “I’ll put some feelers out. I’ve got some friends over at Toy America. I’ll talk to them. See what I can find out.”
“Good. Let me know ASAP if you discover anything.” Wes picked up the coffee carafe from the dining table and poured himself another cup. If Bradford was working with Maverick to try to ruin Wes and his company’s reputation, heads were going to roll. “I’m going to be here at least a few more days—”
“Yeah.” Harry sighed. “Okay, I promised myself I wouldn’t ask why you were in Duck Springs, Colorado…”
Unexpectedly, Wes laughed. “Swan Hollow.”
“What’s the difference?” Harry asked. Then before Wes could speak, he said, “Just tell me. Is everything all right?”
Wes’s smile faded slowly. Things were as far from all right as they could get, he thought, but he didn’t bother to say anything. Harry and the rest of the company had probably figured out that Maverick’s email about Wes’s daughter had been nothing but the truth. But that didn’t mean he was ready to discuss it with everyone. Not even his friend Harry.
“Yeah,” he said, gulping coffee. “Everything’s fine. I just have a few…personal issues to work out.”
Understatement of the century. There was so much rushing through his mind, he hadn’t gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep all night. And this morning, Wes felt like his eyeballs had been rolled around in sand. In those long sleepless hours, his brain had raced with images,