Heartbreaker. Laurie Paige

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СКАЧАТЬ things people fought over, Michael reflected in disgust. If people could see the life and death struggles he saw, they’d view things differently.

      No thinking about that, he chided himself. This was his fun time. However, there was one more problem to be discussed that had nothing to do with cardiac surgery in Houston. “Any word on Lena?” he asked.

      The shock of his life had occurred while playing golf back in May. Right here at the posh country club, on the ninth green, in fact, the golfing foursome had found an abandoned baby. The shock had come when all four men had been suspected of being the father. Worse, they’d all admitted it was a possibility. They’d each been involved in a more or less brief liaison the previous year.

      DNA testing had already proved neither Flynt, Spence nor Michael could be the sire. That left the last man of the foursome, Tyler Murdoch, to be tested.

      Since Michael had been filling in for Luke Callaghan, Luke was also a possibility. The note left with the baby had gotten wet, blotting out any name of the father. The only legible part had been, “I’m your baby girl. My name is Lena.”

      Someone, the police had concluded, had been observing them play and had chosen the isolated ninth hole, where bushes screened a maintenance shed. Footprints indicated that someone had hidden there while watching them find the baby.

      Flynt felt he needed to be the one to take care of the baby. The four of them had chipped in and hired a private investigator to find the mother or father or somebody to claim the foundling.

      “I do have some other news,” Flynt said, moving his hand when the waitress brought their food. “You recall we had to have Lena’s DNA tested when we took her in for a thorough checkup so it could be matched to the father’s?”

      Michael nodded.

      “They discovered she has some kind of anemia, thal—”

      Daisy plopped Michael’s plate down with a hard thunk. “Thalassemia,” she said in a low voice.

      Michael caught distress vibes from her. Reaching back to his medical school days, he came up with a stray fact. “It’s a type common to those of Mediterranean descent,” he explained to his friend. “Hereditary factors are definitely indicated.”

      “Yeah, that’s what the doctor told us,” Flynt said. He looked at Daisy curiously. “How did you know about the disease?”

      “I got this friend,” Daisy said in her brash Texas hill country accent. “She has it.”

      “Josie and I have been concerned about the effects on Lena’s growth. Did your friend mention any particular difficulties with that?”

      Flynt had hired Josie as a nanny for Lena, then ended up marrying her. Turned out, they were now expecting a little bundle of joy of their own. Fate was a funny thing, Michael thought with a silent chuckle at his friend’s expense.

      His gaze was drawn to the Wainwright princess while Flynt and Daisy discussed the necessary testing that should be done regularly to watch for recurrences of the anemia in baby Lena.

      Susan was listening to some male friend who had stopped by her table. From what Michael could discern, the man was posturing and showing off, bragging about his hole-in-one win over some friends. She was full of congratulations, smiling as if bestowing the gold cup on the guy. Michael suppressed a jab of irritation.

      What did he care whom she talked to and flirted with?

      He didn’t, he told himself firmly. Ah, but she was easy to look at…

      “Who is that man you keep looking at?” Kate Wainwright asked. “The one sitting with Flynt Carson.”

      Susan jerked as if caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar. “No one.”

      “An interesting nonentity,” her mother murmured. “He looks familiar. I’m sure I’ve seen him before.”

      “I don’t know his name,” Susan admitted, “but he nearly ran me over on the street near the airstrip. I was on my way to the phone to give you a call and let you know I was in. We had words.”

      Susan wished her mother wouldn’t study the man quite so openly. She didn’t want him to think they were interested in him in the least.

      “Words?” her mother inquired.

      “I called him a baboon and told him he shouldn’t be driving, or something like that,” she reluctantly admitted.

      Her mother looked from the man back to Susan, amusement in her eyes as if she laughed at something only she could see. Susan tried not to be irritated.

      “He and his friend are leaving,” Kate reported.

      Susan deliberately turned her chair toward the golf green beyond the patio so she wouldn’t have to look his way. “Mmm,” she said.

      “Oh, he’s coming over.”

      Susan jerked around. Sure enough, the impolite stranger was approaching their table.

      “My, he’s certainly good-looking,” Kate whispered. “Tall. And the bluest eyes. I’ve always liked blue eyes with dark hair. Such a handsome contrast.”

      “Mother!” Susan whispered, reminding the other woman that the man was almost upon them.

      “Hello,” he said, stopping by their table.

      She nonchalantly glanced up at him. “The baboon.”

      He laughed as if she’d said something witty, which made the heat rush to her face for some reason she couldn’t fathom. Nor did he take the hostile hint to leave.

      “I came over to apologize for my lack of manners when we, uh, first met,” he continued. “My only excuse is that I was running late.”

      “Is that your usual mode of operation?” she asked coolly, ignoring the increased beat of a pulse through her temple. She pushed a wisp of hair behind her ear.

      “Susan, introduce me to your friend,” her mother requested, all smiles for the obnoxious man.

      “We haven’t formally met,” he said, and held out his hand. “Michael O’Day.”

      Kate shook his hand. “Won’t you join us?”

      To Susan’s further chagrin, the big ape—he was easily a couple of inches over six feet tall—pulled out a chair and sat down. “Iced tea,” he said to the waiter who hurried over.

      “I’m Kate Wainwright. This is my daughter, Susan.”

      “Flynt mentioned your names,” he said in an affable manner, as if they were all the very best of friends.

      His voice was deep, almost a bass, and it rushed along her nerves like one long, drawn-out note from a cello, quiet yet vibrant, as if nature itself whispered through his rich cadences.

      An unexpected shudder washed over her. A faint but persistent pain pinged in her chest with each heartbeat. She pressed a hand there to still it.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ