Claiming His Love-Child. Sandra Marton

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СКАЧАТЬ get me to Berkeley,” Cullen said. “Yeah, that’s right. Berkeley, California.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      BY THE time the chartered Learjet landed in California, Cullen had come to the conclusion he was crazy.

      He’d flown 3,000 miles in six hours, gone from East coast time to Pacific coast time—something that always left him feeling vaguely disoriented—and now, as he stepped onto the tarmac, he was engulfed by air so hot and humid it made the weather he’d left behind seem like an arctic paradise.

      And for what?

      What in hell was he doing?

      He’d never chased after a woman in his life. Well, not since the seventh grade, when he’d made a fool of himself over Trudy Gershwin, but seventh grade was long gone. He wasn’t a kid. Neither was Marissa Perez. She was history and so was the night they’d spent in bed.

      History? Cullen slung the strap of his carry-on bag over his shoulder as he walked toward the terminal. That night was barely a blip in the fabric of his life. Who gave a damn why she’d slept with him, then vanished and refused to take his calls?

      Trouble was, he’d reached that conclusion somewhere over the pastures and fields of the Midwest, a few hours and fifteen hundred miles too late. He’d come within a breath of telling the pilot to turn the jet around.

      He’d thought about phoning his brothers. One or the other would give him good advice.

      Hey, bro, Sean or Keir would say, you know what your problem is? You’ve got a bad case of ZTS.

      Yes, he’d thought, I do. He’d smiled, even reached for the phone…and then he’d realized that first he’d have to tell the whole story, the weekend in California, making a fool of himself with Marissa, the infuriating months since then.

      Besides, this wasn’t ZTS. He wasn’t thinking with his gonads, he simply wanted answers. Closure. The word of the day.

      So he’d sat back, finished the flight and now, as he stepped into the welcome chill of the terminal, Cullen told himself he was glad he had.

      Closure. Right. That’s what he wanted, what he was entitled to, and, by God, he wasn’t going home without it.

      He found the rental car counter easily enough, managed a “hello” he hoped was civil and slapped the confirmation number of his reservation on the counter.

      “Good afternoon, Mr. O’Connell,” the clerk said, her smile as bright as if she were about to hand him a winning lottery ticket instead of the keys to…

      A four-door sedan? Cullen blinked as he read the paper she slid in front of him.

      “There’s some mistake here, miss. I reserved a convertible.”

      The blinding smile dimmed just a little. “I know. But this is a holiday weekend.”

      “And?”

      “And, it’s all we have left.”

      He knew she meant he was lucky to get anything with an engine and four wheels. She was right, too, and really, what did the type of car he drove matter? He wasn’t here for a good time; he was on a safari to Egoville because, yeah, the simple truth was this was all about ego. His. The Perez babe had dented it, and he was here to set things right.

      Man, acknowledging that nasty truth really put the icing on the cake.

      Cullen glared, muttered something about inefficiency as he signed the papers and scooped up the keys. He started to stalk away but after a couple of steps, he rolled his eyes and turned back toward the counter.

      “Sorry,” he said in a clipped tone. “I’m in a bad mood, but I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

      The clerk’s smile softened. “It’s the weather, sir. Everybody’s edgy. What we need is a good soaking rain.”

      Cullen nodded. What he needed was a good soaking for his head. If he’d done that in the first place, he’d still be back home. Since it was too late for that, he settled for buying an extra-large container of coffee, black, at a stand near the exit door. Maybe part of the problem was that he was still operating on East coast time. Pumping some caffeine through his system might help.

      It didn’t.

      The coffee tasted as if somebody had washed their socks in it. He dumped it in a trash bin after one sip. And the sedan was a color that could only be called bilious-green. Five minutes on the freeway toward Berkeley and Cullen knew it also had all the vitality of a sick sloth.

      Not a good beginning for a trip he probably shouldn’t have made.

      Cullen fell in behind an ancient truck whose sole reason for existence was to make green sedans feel like Ferraris.

      Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

      His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

      And that was the one thing he wouldn’t do with Perez. Beg. No way. He’d confront her, get in her face if that’s what it took, and he wouldn’t let her off the hook until she explained herself, but he wouldn’t let her think he was pleading for answers…

      Even if he was.

      Damn it, he was entitled to answers! A woman didn’t give a man the brush-off after a night like the one they’d spent. All that heat. Her little cries. The way she’d responded to him, the way she’d touched him, as if every caress was a first-time exploration. And the look on her face, the way her eyes had blurred when he took her up over the edge…

      Had it all been a game? Lies, deceit, whatever a woman might call pretending she was feeling something in a man’s arms when she really wasn’t?

      Cullen hit the horn, cursed, swung into the passing lane and chugged along beside the wheezing truck until he finally overtook it.

      Whether she liked it or not, Marissa Perez was going to talk to him.

      He had her address—she’d never given it to him but he’d found it easily by using her phone number to do a reverse search on the Internet. Another exit…yes, there it was.

      Cullen took the ramp and wound through half a dozen streets in a neighborhood he remembered from his own graduate days. It was still the same: a little shabby around the edges but, all in all, safe and pleasant. He’d wondered what kind of area she lived in, whether it was okay or dangerous or what.

      He hadn’t liked imagining her in a rundown house on a dark street. Not that it was any of his concern.

      “What the hell’s with you, O’Connell?” he muttered, digging her address from his pocket. “You thinking of turning into the Good Fairy?”

      Her building was on the corner. Cullen parked, trotted up the steps to a wide stoop and checked the names below the buzzers in the cramped entry. No Perez. He checked again, frowned, then pressed the button marked Building Manager.

      “Yes?”

      A tinny voice came over the speaker. Cullen leaned СКАЧАТЬ