Branded. Annette Broadrick

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СКАЧАТЬ Everything would have worked out perfectly if Gram hadn’t had her stroke. The timing couldn’t have been worse!”

      Jake stared at her in amazement. Did this woman care about anyone other than herself? There was no sign that her grandmother’s illness was anything more to her than an inconvenience.

      “Let me get this straight. You planned to go off for months and leave Heather with your grandmother?”

      She lifted a shoulder. “She would have been fine with Gram. They got along well together. Besides, I’ve taken trips before. I doubt she even misses me when I’m gone.”

      “You must have considered the situation desperate for you to break your silence to bring her to me.”

      Tiffany ran her hand through her carefully coiffed hair, another indication that this meeting wasn’t going the way she’d planned. He wondered what she’d expected he would do when she showed up? Welcome her and the child with open arms? Be so thrilled to discover he was a father that he’d ignore the fact she’d kept the knowledge from him for all this time?

      If so, she was even shallower than he’d always thought.

      In a quieter voice, she said, “I thought I’d worked everything out just fine. I told Ed that we’d have to take Heather with us.”

      He dropped his head to hide a smile. After a moment he looked at her and said, “I somehow doubt he was thrilled with that particular idea. Most men expect to have their bride all to themselves at that stage of their marriage.”

      “I thought he had accepted the idea, although taking a three-year-old on your honeymoon is certainly not what either of us planned or wanted!”

      “Couldn’t your mother have looked after her?”

      “That’s another problem, entirely. Heather won’t behave for Mother.”

      Another proof that she was probably his. He had to admire Heather’s discrimination. Tiffany’s mother was just an older, even more spoiled, version of her daughter. Too bad he hadn’t recognized the similarity sooner. If he had, none of this would be happening.

      On the other hand, if Mrs. Rogers and her granddaughter—and boy, he would have loved to have seen her face when she found out she was going to be a grandmother!—had gotten along, he would never have known about Heather.

      Funny how life worked sometimes.

      “We left Dallas this morning,” Tiffany continued, intent on her story. “I thought everything had worked out just fine. Ed never said a word to make me believe he hadn’t accepted the situation until we were on the road. That’s when he told me he wasn’t interested in raising someone else’s child. He hadn’t expected to become a full-time parent when he proposed to me. He assured me that he wouldn’t mind if she visited us occasionally, but he didn’t want her around all the time.”

      Tiffany appeared to have run out of steam and just sat there looking at him.

      After a moment, he said in a neutral tone, “And you still plan to marry him.”

      She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Please understand, Jake. I love him, really love him. He’s older, more mature. I’ve known who he was for years but I never expected him to show any interest in me. When he did, it never occurred to me that accepting Heather would be a problem for him. He knew about her, he’d even met her once, and I thought he would adore her as much as I do.” She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and carefully blotted beneath her eyes. “When he told me that, once he realized I wasn’t going to leave her in Dallas, he’d arranged for Heather to stay with a professional sitter in Las Vegas while we were overseas, I was horrified. I really was. He made it clear he didn’t intend for Heather to go with us and I didn’t want her to stay with a stranger. I didn’t know what to do.”

      Jake didn’t know what to say. If she still intended to marry this weasel, he figured they deserved each other.

      She sighed and said, “That’s when I thought about you. I remembered how you were always talking about wanting children. I decided to forgive you for being so mean to me back then. I knew that Heather would be better off with her own flesh and blood for a few months, instead of with some stranger in Vegas.”

      Maybe the child was better off with him, if this was the way she was being treated. He was still having a little trouble absorbing the fact that people could be so callous to their offspring.

      He leaned back in his chair, his gaze steady, and said, “You need to understand something before this conversation goes any further, Tiffany. If you intend to leave that little girl with me after not having the decency to tell me she even existed until tonight, I refuse to allow you to bounce her between us in order to suit your convenience.”

      She frowned at him. “I don’t know what you mean, Jake. She’s your child, after all. If we can make an arrangement where each of us keeps her part of the time she’ll get to know both of us. I realize that I made a mistake keeping her from you. She deserves to know her father.”

      Damned if she didn’t sound pious.

      He folded his arms. “You’re treating her like a toy you grew tired of playing with. So let me make myself perfectly clear. If you leave here tonight without taking her with you, or if you decide to leave her somewhere in Las Vegas once you get there—and believe me, I’ll be keeping tabs on that—I’ll make certain you lose all parental rights to her. You will see her only when I think she’s capable of handling it.”

      She looked at him as if he’d slapped her. “You’d take her away from me?” she asked in horror. She started sobbing. “I should have known better than to let you know about her at all. I should have followed my instincts and kept you out of both our lives! I knew you were going to be hateful about this. I just knew it!”

      He stood. “C’mon, I’ll help you get her back to your car.”

      She jumped up. “No! I can’t take her with us. I just can’t! I want what’s best for her, I really do.” Tears continued to run down her cheeks and her nose glowed where she kept wiping it with her handkerchief. She twisted the beleaguered piece of cloth between her hands. “It’s just so hard, Jake,” she said pathetically, “you know? I don’t know the first thing about taking care of her. She won’t behave, she ignores what I say, and just the other day she found some cosmetics in my purse and smeared them all over her face. I know she knew better, but she did it just to spite me! I’ve been doing the best I can, but I just don’t know how to deal with her!”

      “And you think I do.”

      Still wringing her handkerchief, she said, “Well, at least I’ll know she’s with part of her family. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting along with her because you’ve always been good with children. This is the best thing for Heather. You’ll find someone here on the ranch to keep an eye on her when you can’t watch her.”

      Jake held his wrist up to the light. “At one o’clock in the morning? Somehow I doubt that very much.”

      She seemed to regain control of her emotions, long enough to blow her nose. “I’m sure she’ll be okay for a day or two until you find someone to look after her.” Tiffany looked around the patio vaguely, no doubt wishing she was anywhere but here. “I, uh, hadn’t realized it was so late. Ed and his driver have been so patient, waiting hours for you to come home.” She gave him a half СКАЧАТЬ