The moment she looked up and spotted him standing just inside the door, she abruptly ended the conversation and lowered the phone from her ear.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt something important,” he said.
A faint smile touched her face and Liam was struck by the shadows of fatigue smudged beneath her eyes, the faint droop to her shoulders. A racehorse trainer put in long, arduous hours of work. It was tiring even for a strong, healthy man like himself. He couldn’t imagine what it must be doing to Kitty in her delicate condition. The mere thought of anything happening to her, or the child, made him inwardly shudder and he suddenly realized how very much he wanted to protect them both.
“An owner,” she explained. “You know how it is. Sometimes they worry over nothing and call five or six times a day. That was the third call today for this particular owner.”
She rose to her feet and he could see that she’d changed into a dove-gray dress that draped modestly over her growing belly. The hem struck her midcalf and brushed against a pair of black dress riding boots. Her blond hair was twisted into a knot at the back of her head and secured with a tortoiseshell clip. In spite of her obvious fatigue, she looked beautiful, even more beautiful than he remembered throughout the long winter months they’d been apart.
“Unfortunately coddling owners is a part of the job,” he replied.
She plucked up a black handbag from the corner of the desk and joined him at the door. “I’m ready if you are.”
“You might need a jacket,” he suggested. “Even though it’s the beginning of April it feels more like February out there. The evening has already turned very cool.”
After eyeing the heavy fabric of his shirt, she walked over to a tiny closet and pulled out a red woolen cape. Liam quickly moved to help her place it around her shoulders. As he smoothed the fabric against her back, he noticed that she smelled like some sort of sweet flower and just being close to her shook his senses.
“I made reservations at a seafood place,” he told her as he pushed her hands out of the way and fastened the silk frog at her throat. His fingers inadvertently touched her chin and the softness of her skin left him wanting to touch more. “I remembered that you like shrimp scampi.”
She looked up at him and suddenly her lips were quivering, her eyes misting over. “The last time we had dinner together Dad was with us. He was always with us, wasn’t he? And now—Oh, Liam, help me,” she whispered brokenly.
Raw emotion struck him in the middle of the chest and all he could do was gather her into his arms and pull her tight against him.
For long moments, he held her quietly, until she finally sniffed and tilted her head back far enough to look up at him.
“I’m so sorry, Liam. I’m—” With a tortured groan, she pulled out of his embrace and turned her back to him. “I’m sorry I’m pulling you into my misery. And I—”
He was fighting the urge to reach for her again when she whirled back to him. This time her features were twisted with agony. “I’m sorry that I have to tell you that you’re going to be a father.”
Chapter Two
Liam stared at her as his thoughts whirled at a mind-numbing speed. “Me? You’re saying I’m the father of your baby?”
Pressing a palm against her forehead, she closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. I hadn’t planned to. I wanted to wait until after we’d had dinner and …” She opened her eyes and slowly, guardedly searched his face. “What are you thinking?”
He swallowed as he tried to gather his thoughts and form some sort of coherent answer. All day long he’d been telling himself that the likelihood of the baby being his was practically nil. He’d tried to convince himself that after their one-night fling, she’d moved on to someone else, some man that had become a permanent fixture in her life. Yet deep in his gut he’d sensed that she was carrying his child. Now that she’d spoken the fact aloud an odd mixture of emotions was rushing through him, filling him with fear and euphoria.
“I’m thinking—”
His words were interrupted by the sound of footsteps directly behind him, and then a knock on the door.
“Hey, Kitty, you gonna need me tomorrow?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Liam saw Rodrigo, one of the exercise riders that Willard had used for the past few years. The young man was grinning as though he didn’t have a care in the world. And Liam suddenly wondered how it would feel to live each day without a heavy weight of responsibility on his shoulders. But from the time he’d been a very young man in high school, his father had pinned high expectations on him. Ones that Liam was still striving to meet.
Clearing her throat, Kitty said, “I need three ridden in the morning, Rodrigo. Get with Clay. He should still be here in the barn. If not—” She quickly scribbled a phone number on a scrap of paper and carried it over to the jockey. “Call him and he’ll give you the time schedule and instructions.”
Rodrigo thrust out his hand and gave Kitty’s an enthusiastic pump. “Thank you, Kitty. Thank you very much. See in you in the morning, then. Okay?”
Kitty gave him a genuine smile. “I’ll be here,” she promised.
The jockey quickly trotted off and Kitty slowly turned back to Liam.
“I think we should—” The ring of a cell phone inside her purse interrupted her in midsentence. Casting him a rueful glance, she fished out the instrument. “Sorry, Liam. Let me turn this off.”
He waited while she dealt with the phone then quickly took hold of her upper arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he muttered, “before someone else comes along.”
They left the office and walked outside to a parking area used by barn workers, trainers and their employees. Without exchanging any words, Liam helped her into the bucket seat of his plush truck.
It wasn’t until he’d driven away from the racetrack and turned onto the freeway that he felt composed enough to speak.
“I don’t understand this, Kitty. We were together six months ago! Why didn’t you—”
Her expression imploring, she looked at him. “Let’s not discuss this while we’re traveling down the freeway, Liam. I think the issue deserves more attention than that,” she said.
He suddenly realized his hands had a choke hold on the steering wheel and his breaths were coming short and fast. He had to get a grip and face this situation with sensibility, he thought. Losing his cool now would be pointless, along with making him look like a complete ass. A baby did deserve his complete attention. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll talk over dinner.”
Thankfully, the restaurant Liam had chosen wasn’t that far from the track. In less than fifteen minutes they were inside the small eating place, seated near a window overlooking a courtyard. Darkness had fallen over the city, but foot lamps illuminated a small garden area landscaped with palms and flowering shrubs.
After the waiter left to attend to their orders, Kitty silently stared out the window. As Liam studied the lovely lines of her face, he decided the gray, gloomy weather that had moved in earlier this afternoon matched the sadness in her eyes.
Was that sadness stemming from the loss of her father or the fact that she was unexpectedly having a baby? His baby! Liam didn’t think he’d yet fully comprehended the news she’d just handed him. Yesterday he’d been a widower with nothing more than horses on his mind. Today he was going to be a father!
The idea had put his emotions on a roller-coaster ride. What if something tragic happened to her or their baby? What if