His Seductive Proposal: A Touch of Persuasion / Terms of Engagement / An Outrageous Proposal. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ truth bubbled to the surface. He did live on the other side of the world. He’d logged more hours in the air than he’d spent in the States in the past five years. What would he have done if Olivia had found him and told him the truth?

      His lies to her in England had been the genesis of an impossible Gordian knot. One bad decision led to another until now Kieran had a daughter he didn’t know, Olivia was afraid to trust him and Kieran himself didn’t have a clue what to do about the future.

      When he thought he could breathe again, he returned to the attic. Cammie had lost interest in the Lincoln Logs, and she and Olivia were now playing with a pile of dress-up clothes. Cammie pirouetted, wearing a magenta tutu that had once belonged to Kieran’s cousin Annalise. “Look at me,” she insisted, wobbling as she tried to stand up in toe shoes.

      Kieran stopped short of the two females, not trusting himself at the moment to behave rationally. “Very nice,” he croaked.

      Olivia looked at him with a gaze that telegraphed inquiry and concern. “You okay?” she mouthed, studying him in a way that made him want to hide. He didn’t need or want her sympathy. She was the one who had stripped him of a father’s rights.

      He nodded tersely. “I’ll leave you two up here to play for a while. I have some business calls to make.”

      Olivia watched the tall, lean man leave, her heart hurting for him. In hindsight, she wondered if she and Kieran might have had a chance if he hadn’t lied about who he was, and if she had been able to get past her anger and righteous indignation long enough to notify him that she was having his baby.

      It was all water under the bridge now. The past couldn’t be rewritten.

      She and Cammie were on their own for most of the afternoon, despite Kieran’s insistence that he wanted to get to know his daughter. After lunch and a nap, Olivia took her daughter outside to explore the mountaintop. They found Gareth’s woodworking shop, and Cammie made friends with the basset hound, Fenton.

      On this beautiful early summer day, Wolff Mountain was twenty degrees cooler than down in the valley, and Olivia fell in love with the peace and tranquility found in towering trees, singing birds and gentle breezes.

      She and Cammie ran into Victor Wolff on the way back to the house. He was slightly stoop-shouldered, and his almost bald head glistened with sweat. From what Olivia had gleaned from the private investigator and from a variety of internet sources, Victor had been a decade and a half older than his short-lived bride… which meant he must now be banging on the door of seventy.

      The old man stared at Cammie with an expression that made Olivia’s heart pound with anxiety. He shot a glance at Olivia. “The child has beautiful eyes. Very unusual.”

      Olivia held her ground, battling an atavistic need to tuck her baby under her wing. “Yes, she may grow up to be a beauty like my mother.”

      Cammie had no interest in adult conversation. She started picking flowers and dancing among the swaying fronds of a large weeping willow that cast a broad patch of shade. Victor’s eyes followed her wistfully. “I may die before I get to see any grandchildren. Gareth is the only one of my sons who is married, and he and Gracie have decided to wait a bit to start their family.”

      “Are you ill?” Olivia asked bluntly.

      He shook his head, still tracking the child’s movements. “A bad heart. If I watch what I eat and remember to exercise, my son, the doc, says I probably have a few thousand more miles under the hood.”

      “But you don’t believe him?”

      “None of us knows how many days we have on this earth.”

      “I’m sorry about your wife, Mr. Wolff. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been losing her so young.”

      He shrugged. “We argued that day. Before she left to go shopping. She wanted to let the boys take piano lessons and I thought it was a sissy endeavor. I told her so in no uncertain terms.”

      “And then she died.”

      “Yes.” He aged before her eyes. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, Olivia.”

      “We all do, sir.”

      “Perhaps. But I almost ruined my sons, keeping them locked up like prisoners. My brother, Vincent, was the same. Six children between us, vulnerable little babies. I was terrified, you know. My brother and I both were.”

      “That’s understandable.” She began to feel a reluctant sympathy for the frail patriarch.

      Suddenly his eyes shot fire at her, and the metamorphosis was so unexpected that Olivia actually took a step backward. “Kieran’s a good boy. It’s not his fault that the memories here keep him away.”

      “We all have our own demons to face,” Olivia said. “But children shouldn’t have to suffer for our mistakes.”

      “Are you talking about me or about you?”

      His candor caught her off guard. “I suppose it could be either,” she said slowly. “But know this, Mr. Wolff. I will do anything to protect my daughter.”

      He actually chuckled, a rusty sound that seemed to surprise him as much as it did her. “I like you, Olivia. Too bad I didn’t have a daughter to take after my dear Laura.”

      Olivia couldn’t think of a response to that, so she held her peace, walking beside Kieran’s father as the three of them made their way back to the house.

       Seven

      Kieran saw the three of them approach the house. He was watching from an upstairs window. Part of him resented the fact that his father was sharing time with Olivia and Cammie, something Kieran had intended as the primary focus of the weekend. But anger boiled in his veins, and he was afraid that if he snapped and confronted Olivia in Cammie’s presence, the child would be frightened.

      Still, it was time for a showdown, and since nothing appeared to mitigate the harshness of the rage that gripped him, Olivia had better beware.

      Dinner was an awkward affair with only the four of them. Jacob had been called way unexpectedly, and Gareth and Gracie were still in the honeymoon phase of their marriage, enjoying time together at home alone.

      Cammie behaved beautifully at the overly formal table, conversing easily with Kieran and smiling shyly when Victor Wolff addressed her. Olivia was pale and quiet, perhaps sensing that a storm was brewing. The courses passed slowly. At last, Victor pushed back from the table. “I’ll leave you young people to it. If you’ll excuse an old man, I’m going upstairs to put on my slippers and sit by the fire.”

      Cammie wrinkled her nose as he left. “A fire? That’s silly. It’s summertime.”

      Kieran smiled, loving how bright she was, how aware of her surroundings. “You’re right about that, little one. But my father has his eccentricities, and we all adjust.”

      “X cin…” She gave up trying to replicate the difficult word.

      Olivia leaned over to remove crumbs from СКАЧАТЬ