And then what? she asked herself. If she didn’t talk to him, the alternative was worse. Nick Duncan had checked out as a successful, intelligent, family-oriented man. A billionaire, owner of the ND Ranch, part owner of Duncan Energy, a company started by his father and now run by the two youngest Duncan brothers with Nick and his brother Stan on the board. Nick was a good rancher, a good businessman, a man who had had his own terrible loss. She had no choice but to do what she’d come here to do. She squared her shoulders and sat up straight, but before she could speak, he broke the awkward silence.
“Do you live around here?” he asked.
“I live in Dallas. I teach art in a two-year college.”
He didn’t know it, but his question gave her the opening she needed. She took a breath and gave him a faint smile.
“Mr. Duncan, I’m—”
“Nick, please,” he prompted her.
“Yes, well, Nick, I’m sure you’re curious as to why I wanted to see you...and there’s no need to wait. I want your help about something belonging to you.”
He leaned in closer, resting his hands on his knees as he looked at her intently.
“I’ve had a neighbor whose niece, Madeline Prentiss, inherited her house and Madeline and I became friends. Neither of us have any family, so we were drawn together. She had a degree and internship in landscape architecture. She worked for a landscape company and took a night art class I taught because she drew landscape plans for clients. We rode to class together that year and became even closer friends.”
She related the facts, the history that he needed to know, but the whole time she spoke, all she wanted to do was leave. She didn’t want to ask his help or ask him to do anything. She took a deep breath, looking into those curious green-gold eyes that made her heart beat faster, and suddenly she couldn’t go on. They stared at each other.
“I had this all rehearsed,” she said finally as she rose abruptly, “but it isn’t easy. Just give me a minute.”
“Sure. Take your time. Let me get you a glass of water,” he said, getting up and leaving the room. She suspected he did it to give her a moment to get herself composed. She knew what she had to do. When he returned, he held a tray with a pitcher and two glasses of ice and water. He handed her one, and when their fingers brushed, for just an instant, she felt another flash of intense awareness of him as an appealing man. While she sipped the icy water, her gaze locked with his. The look in his eyes made her heartbeat quicken.
“Want to have a seat?” he said, setting the tray on a table. As they sat down again, she noticed his gaze on her as she crossed her legs. She placed her glass on a coaster on a small table beside her chair and adjusted her skirt.
“This is hard for me, Mr. Dunc—er, Nick—but it is definitely overdue. I was telling you about a friend of mine, Madeline Prentiss.”
He nodded. “Is there a reason you’re telling me all this about this particular person?”
“Yes. I’m here because of Madeline. You see, almost two years ago when Madeline was at a party in Austin, she had a romantic night with a man she met there but she never saw him again.”
“I take it Madeline thinks I’m that man?”
“Yes. You were that man. That’s definite, and in the past, she told me about the night you two had.” She leaned in and had no choice but to gather her courage and blurt it out. “And there’s a baby from that encounter.”
* * *
Stunned, Nick felt as if ice water had been poured over him.
“You’re saying that I fathered a baby with this woman? And I’ve never heard a word from her about it? Why did she wait until now and why send you? Where is Madeline now?” He couldn’t stop the questions that spilled from his lips. Though part of him was in shock, the other part was in overdrive, and he wanted—no, needed—answers.
“Madeline didn’t want to inform you of her pregnancy because that night, you spent a long time telling her how much you loved your wife. You told her about losing your little two-month-old son and your wife in a plane crash. You also convinced her that you missed your wife and you weren’t ready to go out with anyone else. She told me you actually cried over your loss. Besides, she knew that you weren’t in love with her and probably never would be.”
“You’re using the past tense.” A chill skittered up his spine.
“That’s right,” Talia acknowledged. But she didn’t elaborate. Instead she said, “Madeline had a talent. She could sing and she had gotten auditions and began to get bookings that paid more than the landscape business.”
He suddenly remembered Madeline, because she had sung at the party the night he met her. Talia was right: she had talent.
“You remember her,” Talia said, startling him that she guessed his thoughts so easily.
“It’s a little blurry, but I do. I don’t go out much, so there aren’t many occasions to even try to recall, but I remember her because she was beautiful and talented. She sang for everyone that night.”
“Madeline was on the way to a successful singing career, until several months ago when she was killed in a car wreck. She was young and she didn’t leave a will. Since her death I’ve been caring for her baby, and now I’m in a fight with the state, which wants to take her precious baby away. I’ve pulled every string I can, but I’m not a relative nor the legal guardian of Madeline’s baby. Madeline left no directive, nothing to indicate that she would want to appoint me guardian of her baby. She had no family, either. You, on the other hand, are her baby’s blood father.”
He barely heard what she went on to say to him. His mind was stuck on one phrase. ...baby’s blood father...
He was the father of a baby.
A baby he didn’t know with a deceased mother he barely remembered.
“Sorry, give me a second. This is a shock.” He reached for his water and took a gulp. What he really needed was something far stronger. “When you said you needed to see me, I didn’t dream it would be about a baby. My baby. A baby that’s an orphan.”
“Not really an orphan,” Talia said, looking intently at him. “She has a living blood relative—her father. You. I’ve checked you out and you have high recommendations as to your character.” She paused a second. Then her gaze seemed to deepen as she continued. “I need your help, Nick.”
“How’s that?” he asked, trying to pay attention and listen to what she was saying, but the shock of learning he had a baby still dominated his attention.
“You can keep the state from taking her.”
“Her? A little girl?” he asked, his shock increasing. “I don’t know one thing about little girls.”
“There was a time you didn’t know anything about running a ranch or about baby boys, either.”
They stared at each other and he could feel an invisible ripple of conflict. He ignored it.
He had a baby girl whom he’d never seen. That was the only thought that dominated his mind. “How old is she?” he asked her.
“Fourteen months.”
“I had a baby boy for two months. He would be two years, nine months old now.” Trying to push aside a familiar dull ache at the thought of Regina and Artie, Nick took a deep breath. “Beyond the two months with Artie, I have no experience being a father. It was different