Letting herself in Beth’s side door the way she always did, Nicole checked the kitchen. Empty. That was odd since there was so much to do before the guests arrived at noon. Beth and Patrick were probably getting dressed.
Nicole deposited the food she’d prepared for the party on the counter then put the cold items in the fridge and the warm items in the oven on low heat.
Next on the agenda, the backyard. She stepped onto the stoop, scanned the fenced area and smiled. The weather on this first weekend in September couldn’t be more perfect for a picnic. The sun was out, but the expected afternoon high temperature wouldn’t be too hot or too cool. This close to autumn it was difficult to anticipate what Knoxville’s weather would be when planning weeks or months in advance as she always did.
The additional tables she’d rented had been delivered and set up on the grass. The party supply company had draped the tables with red-and-white checkered cloths and decorated each with a potted blooming red or white geranium as Nicole had instructed. Everything looked bright and cheerful, the perfect place to announce the family would be growing.
A lanky apron- and ball cap–wearing man stood by the massive grill on the edge of the large flagstone patio.
“Good morning,” she called out as she approached him. “I’m Nicole Hightower.”
He nodded and shook her hand. “Bill Smith. Your renta-chef. Great day for a pig pickin’.”
“Yes. Do you have everything you need, Bill?”
“Yes, ma’am. Pig’s ‘bout done. I just put on the chicken. Veggie skewers will go on in a few minutes.”
Her stomach rumbled in anticipation, but she had too much to do to get ready for the others’ arrivals to take time for a snack. “Excellent. Please help yourself to a soda or iced tea, and don’t hesitate to ask me for anything you need.”
“Thank you.”
She lifted a lid on a nearby cooler and found it filled with ice and canned sodas and bottled water as requested. The second cooler revealed more ice and beer—the varieties her brothers preferred and a couple of magnums of champagne. Perfect. She’d definitely use this party company again. Letting someone else do the grunt work was far better than making Patrick and Beth get up at the crack of dawn to attend to the tasks or racing over here to do it herself.
Beth hated planning events. That’s why Nicole always landed the job, and she didn’t mind because making sure things ran smoothly was sort of an obsession with her. Now more than ever. She brushed a hand over her belly.
The family picnic was a Labor Day weekend tradition—one she’d started herself after Beth and Patrick had married. If anything needed to run smoothly, today’s event did. For the most part her family members got along well, but this year they’d have not only the stress of Nicole’s pregnancy news to contend with, but also the pressure of the newest Hightower—a younger half sister none of them had known about until a month ago when she’d shown up on their doorstep and their mother had insisted she be given a job at Hightower Aviation.
Having a living, breathing reminder that her mother was a bit…um, free with her affection had been unsettling to say the least. In the past everyone including their father had pretended not to notice Jacqueline Hightower’s indiscretions, and no one talked about her affairs. It would be hard to ignore the situation with her mother’s love child at the family gathering. And how had her mother hidden a daughter for twenty-five years, anyway?
Nicole headed back to the house. From the kitchen she followed the sound of Beth’s voice toward the living room. Her sister’s tone wasn’t the one she used when talking to Patrick. Some of the nonfamily party guests must have arrived early. Probably the owner of the convertible.
“The child is not yours.” The deep voice stopped Nicole in her tracks in the foyer.
Ryan Patrick was here. Talking to Beth.
“The baby is Nicole’s,” Beth replied.
“Sweetheart,” Patrick interjected in that gentle, patient tone of his that Nicole adored. “You do understand that Mr. Patrick is offering us a lot of money to accommodate him.”
Nicole’s mouth dried and panic caused her heart to gallop. That devious bastard was trying to bribe her sister and brother-in-law into giving up her baby.
If he brainwashed Beth and Patrick, he could cut Nicole out of the child’s life altogether. She wasn’t going to let that happen.
She rushed into the room. “How dare you go behind my back?”
Ryan slowly unfolded from the leather wingback chair. His cobalt eyes locked with hers. “I’m going to the ones who have the power to make a decision—the right decision to allow this child to live with his natural father.”
She couldn’t help noticing the way his charcoal suit, pale blue shirt and crimson tie accentuated his good looks and athletic frame. But pretty is as pretty does, or so one of their many nannies had always said. And what Ryan Patrick was doing was downright ugly.
“I told you, you’re not getting this baby.”
He shoved the lapels of his suit coat aside and planted his hands on his lean hips. “If you’ve consulted your attorney, then you know that you don’t have any say in the matter.”
Unless she went to war with her family. And even then her chances were slim. She glanced at Beth and Patrick and hugged her churning middle. She couldn’t start a family feud. Her mother had wreaked enough havoc on them all over the years.
Patience, politeness and perseverance. Her motto echoed in her head. Every problem had a solution. All she had to do was find it. In the meantime, she’d have to be nice to the jerk if she wanted any chance of wringing a positive outcome from this situation. She hated sucking up to blowhards, but she’d mastered the skill.
“Could I speak with you outside a moment?” she said through a smile stretched so tightly her cheeks hurt.
Ryan gestured toward the door.
Trying to ignore the delicious tang of his cologne, she accompanied him to the center hall then led the way to the back door. He reached past her to open it for her. She marched across the backyard, heading toward the gazebo in the back corner of the lot with Ryan close on her heels. Too close.
Inside the jasmine-draped structure she put as much distance between them as the shelter would permit before facing him. How could she make him see reason?
“Do you have any brothers and sisters, Ryan?” His name felt awkward on her tongue. But she couldn’t keep calling him Mr. Patrick. Each time she said his last name she thought of the man inside the house—the man whose baby she should be carrying.
“No.”
So much for appealing to his family nature. He didn’t have one. “Then you can’t possibly understand how important it is for me to have this child for my sister.”
“That’s irrelevant. It’s not her kid. It’s mine.”
She couldn’t argue with facts. She took a calming breath and tried a different tactic. “She has been yearning for a baby for years, and she’ll love this one as if it were hers. How much experience do you have with children?”
“I’ll learn what I need to know.”
The stubborn blockhead. She had to find a way to convince him that the baby would be better off with Beth and Patrick. But how? The answer was almost too easy. She smiled.
“As you can see from the setup, we’re having a party in a few minutes. It will be mostly family with a few friends and neighbors thrown into the mix. Please join us.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“So