Somebody's Baby. Annie Jones
it mattered to his mother, but to the others?
The long-legged and fair-haired Burdett boys claimed Adam as their own even though Adam’s broad, muscular build, dark eyes and angular features told differently. The family never spoke of it outright, but Adam sensed the subtle differences. He knew the gnawing ache of never feeling sure that he truly belonged.
To the outside world, at least, Adam was just one of the wolf pack of Burdett boys. A picture flashed in his mind of the four of them standing on the porch of the huge Burdett home in T-shirts they’d had made with their family nicknames emblazoned on them. Those names not only told of each boy as an individual, but said a lot about the real nature of their relationship in the family.
The oldest son, Burke, was born to the title “Top Dawg” and he lived up to the designation. “Lucky Dawg,” Adam’s next younger brother, Jason, got his name after a near miss that could have cost him his life, or at least a limb, at the factory. The youngest of the Burdett boys, Cody, earned the name “Hound Dawg” for his notorious talent for trailing girls. It had hung with the kid even now that he had become the only Burdett son to marry. It even clung to him when he became a minister.
All three grown men now shared Conner’s lean build and eyes, which some called blue green, others green blue. They had straight noses and golden tan complexions.
Adam glanced at his reflection in the Harley’s side mirror. Dark-brown, hooded eyes stared back from a face the color of baked red Georgia clay. He swiped a knuckle at the small bump on the bridge of his nose and sneered.
If his looks didn’t give anyone doubts as to where Adam honestly fit into the Burdett family they would have only to hear his nickname to figure it all out. His mother said they’d tagged him with it young because they could never keep him in one place, that he shared her wanderlust. Her story rang true enough, he supposed, but that didn’t ease the twinge of pain he felt every time the man they all knew was not his father called him by his nickname—“Stray Dawg.”
All the old feelings twisted in Adam’s gut. He refused to let a child of his become another stray, raised by someone who could never fully call the boy his own. No way. Not possible. And he’d do anything within his power to keep it from happening—even go crawling back to the scene of his greatest bravado and worst behavior. Back to Mt. Knott, if not back to his family.
Not that they’d have him back.
Adam had roared out of Mt. Knott a week after his mother’s funeral, with an inheritance in hand, all ties to the family business severed and a hangover that had all but erased the events of his last nights in town.
He hadn’t heard from or seen his family now in a year and a half but they had surely heard of him. His new position with a competitor had all but run the Burdett boys out of business. Now in order to do the right thing by his baby, he’d had to come home to a place where he knew he would not be welcome. But he would do it. He’d do anything for this baby he had not yet seen.
He scuffed his boot heel on the pocked driveway as he straightened away from his treasured Harley. He’d waited long enough. It was time to go and claim his heir.
Josie hadn’t even bothered to lock up the diner. She had just tossed the keys to the young man who did the dishes and asked him to see to it. The message from the young girl who watched Nathan on Thursday evenings, when Josie stayed open until nine, had been muddled by panic. But two words stood out that had caused Josie to tear off her apron and all but run the two blocks from her business to her small rental house.
“Baby’s father.”
A shudder worked its way through her body. The man who had the power to grant her the one thing she wanted most in life—the chance to adopt the baby boy she’d loved as her own since his birth—was in her home.
She drew in the smell of coffee and day-old pie clinging to her pale-blue T-shirt and the fluffy white scrunchie holding back her curly hair. She’d had to wait a week to get up the nerve and the funds to hire a private detective to contact the man on the birth certificate. Not that she couldn’t have tracked him down herself but, well, just looking at the name made her anxious. Adam Burdett!
She hadn’t known him but she certainly knew of him. And in a funny way, what she knew had filled her with what now seemed false confidence.
After all, he was the one who had turned his back on his own family and a whole town. How serious could he be about wanting to play a part in his son’s life when he had done that? He was Mr. One-Night Stand. According to her sister, he hadn’t even called the next day to say…whatever it is a guy says after an encounter like that.
Josie wouldn’t know that kind of thing. She and her sister might be identical twins, but their lifestyles were as different as their personalities. Yin and yang. Their mother, a “free thinker” who couldn’t keep a job, didn’t want a marriage and seemed always in pursuit of the latest trend in spiritual enlightenment, called them that. Light and dark. Day and night.
Josephine and Ophelia.
Josie snorted out a laugh. Even their names said it all. Josephine sounded sturdy, practical. She worked hard and wanted nothing more than to serve the Lord, make a permanent place to call home, to create a family with a man she could trust and depend upon. And to be the kind of woman he could depend upon in return.
“He’s in your bedroom,” the sitter whispered the last word as Josie hit the front door of her house.
Josie gave the girl a reassuring nod and headed down the hallway. If she could afford a house with more than one bedroom, he’d be in the nursery, but since the crib was in her room, she had expected to find him there. She pulled in one long breath, peered into the dim room, illuminated by only a soft glowing light on her dresser. She stole a quick peek at her sleeping baby, then pushed open her door with one hand, ready to do battle. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. But if you value your life, you’ll get your hands out of my drawers.”
He looked as if he was about to swear, but he didn’t, though Josie suspected it was more from shock than good manners or morality. He shut the small drawer he’d been peeking into. He peered at her, instead, then his whole face changed. His eyes narrowed. He smirked a bit. “I didn’t expect to run into you here.”
The deep gravel-throated whisper made her shiver. She froze in the shaft of light pouring in from the hallway. Her stomach clenched.
“I’d say you’re looking good, but then, you know that, don’t you? You always look good.” He did not move into the light, remaining just a silhouette against the mirror above her chest of drawers. “Even after all this time and after…everything you’ve been through. You look as good as the last time I saw you, Ophelia.”
Josie blinked in the darkness, hoping her eyes would adjust to sharpen his image. At the same time, she wanted to clear up a few things for him, as well. “Listen, pal, you’ve made a mistake. I’m not—”
He stepped from the shadows into the muted light.
Josie’s mouth hung open, her every sense in that one instant focused on the man who held her future in his big, calloused hands.
He wasn’t huge, though he seemed larger than life in presence. His shoulders angled up from a trim waist and western-cut jeans that bunched in furrows over his traditional-style cowboy boots. What she saw of his face, his strong jaw, determined mouth and slightly crooked nose made a compelling, if not classically handsome, image.
He moved in on her, like something powerful and wild sizing up his prey. His eyes glittered.
She pressed her lips together, too angry at his supposition and his presumptive presence to trust herself to speak.
He began to slowly circle her so close that his soft shirtsleeve rasped against her bare elbow.
The man was playing games with her—or more to the point, with Ophelia.
Ophelia liked games. They were her stock and trade. The man was no fool to go on the offensive to try to beat Ophelia at her