Unexpected Legacy

It had been tragic, to watch his mother find out she’d been betrayed. When she could do nothing about it.

She’d been broken at the funeral—crying nonstop at first, already having found out from the accounts, and the lawyers, her husband had not been the faithful, loving man she’d always imagined. Garrett had had his own grief on his shoulders, and he’d blamed himself for the pain he saw on her mother’s face. His mother would have never found out about Emerson, or another woman, if her husband hadn’t died so abruptly and she hadn’t been forced to take over the financials of the family. The records of money sent to another woman’s account, regularly, sparked alarm, confusion, until finally, the truth had sunk in.

“He freaking ruined my life. He broke my mother’s heart and mine, too,” Emerson grated, his teeth tightly clamped as he curled his fingers into fists.

Garrett was taken aback by the hard anger in his half brother’s eyes. Would Cassandra Clarks be able to handle being married to this guy for six months? He appeared only half-civilized, and dangerous, to boot.

“Emerson, I’m sorry if the measures he took were not to your liking, but your mother liked them very well,” Garrett said. He was referring to the three million-dollar payments she’d received for her silence—after his father died. Not to mention that he’d already been providing for her to have quite a healthy living while he was still alive. Emerson couldn’t have been more than twelve at the time. Julian had barely been ten. Garrett had been fifteen and Landon eighteen.

If their father hadn’t died, Emerson would be walking the streets without the Gage brothers ever knowing he existed.

Maybe they should have tried to contact him. Maybe Emerson resented that, too. But just seeing the grief on their mother’s face had been enough to make them want to keep him as far away from the family as they could.

Maybe, all hell would break loose when Mother once again realized they were dealing with him. But Landon had said that he’d take care of Mother. Enough time had passed that hopefully she’d look beyond her dead husband’s transgressions at this point. And their mother was shrewd when it came to business, too.

“Will you meet with me and my brothers to discuss our business proposition? We really need your help.”

Impatient, Garrett waited for Emerson’s answer, but his half brother only glared at him as he slowly headed over to resume his place behind his desk.

Emerson was more rugged than all his brothers, and even with his well-groomed appearance in that gray suit, there was an air of isolation around his tall figure that made Garrett somehow relate to him. He knew that Emerson was somewhere between Julian and Garrett in age, so that put him around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. His hair was dark as Garrett’s, his face as square and tan, but personality-wise, he seemed to be a wild card.

“I’ll give you a half hour,” Emerson finally conceded, his expression unreadable as he dropped into his chair and powered on his computer. “But not today. I have too much to do.”

“Fine,” he agreed. “Tomorrow then. Be at the Daily at nine a.m.”

“No can do. I’m afraid I can only do it Friday.”

Friday wasn’t ideal. It was three days from now and only a day before the wedding. But Garrett ground his molars, shut the hell up and took the offer. Something in Emerson’s angry expression when he looked up and gestured at the door to signal the conservation was over told Garrett this offer was the best he’d get from him.

“Don’t be late,” Garrett growled as he left.

* * *

“Kate, I’m calling and calling and no answer, then I come to get the things for the shower and they’re not even baked! What is wrong with you? It’s ten in the morning and we have work to do. This is our last gig before we’re swept away with all this wedding stuff. You didn’t talk to anyone all weekend. What’s the matter? It’s Tuesday. A new day awaits!”

Kate groaned when a chirpy Beth yanked open her bedroom curtains and a shaft of sunlight sliced between Kate’s eyelids. She waved a weak hand in the air and rolled onto her stomach.

“Go away, Beth.”

“No, I’m not going away. You, my sleepy little chef, will stand up, take a shower and—”

“I’m pregnant,” Kate groaned.

“—get to work. What did you just say?”

Kate covered her face with the pillow and screamed into its feathery depths while kicking off the sheets tangled around her ankles. “I’m pregnant. God! I’m such a fool. Fool, fool, fool.”

“You’re pregnant as in...you’re with child?”

Kate sat up and cracked open her puffy eyes. “Three tests, Beth. Three. And they all agree on the fact that I’m preggo. What am I going to do?”

Sighing in misery, she covered her face with her hands, refusing to answer the string of startled, quick-fire questions Beth bombarded her with next. “Well, whose is it? When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me? When did you find out, damn it? Are you sure?”

Oh, Beth. She was like a bright little shooting star today—a bright little shooting star in Kate’s dark gray world.

Was Kate sure? Yes, she was sure. The test stick couldn’t get any pinker! The two lines, almost neon in their brightness, had been clear enough to spin Kate into a whirlwind of despair all through the night.

While miserably pondering what to do, Kate heard Beth shuffle around the room, no doubt in search of the pregnancy tests. Beth was big on evidence and that sort of thing. This came from being married to a douche bag before she’d fallen in love with Landon.

When her friend couldn’t seem to find them, Kate muttered, “They’re in the trash, Beth.”

“Oh.”

Beth disappeared into the bathroom. Kate glumly wondered what Garrett would do when he eventually found out she was carrying his baby. She remembered how handsome he’d looked two Sundays ago at brunch. He had been thoughtful and dark as sin, and staring at her so intently and so intimately, Kate had barely been able to eat anything. She’d felt eaten by him. He’d stood to follow her when she’d gone to pretend to fill her plate at the buffet, and she’d felt his hand at the small of her back. “You all right?” he’d murmured.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been so busy with work, I keep wondering if you’re avoiding me.”

“I’m sorry. We can talk at the rehearsal dinner...that is, if you don’t...if you’re not bringing...”

“I won’t bring anyone if you won’t,” he said, staring at her intently.

“I won’t,” she assured him.

“Then I won’t,” he said back.

And oh, how she wished she had the courage to say she was sorry for what she’d said to him that day in her apartment, but the continued talk she heard from Molly and Beth regarding the Clarks and Gage wedding was driving her insane with jealousy and anger.

It killed her. How could he? How dare he tell her he wanted her in his bed while he was planning his brilliant and very convenient wedding? The desire that had whipped them up like tornadoes had now dropped them hard on land, and the whirlwind and the emotions in the air had been reduced to nothing.

Nothing but a one-night stand, that’s what it had been.

But of course, good ol’ Murphy’s law had come for a visit and made sure Kate got pregnant.

And now they were going to have a child together.

“Yes. You’re pregnant,” Beth agreed when she came back out of the bathroom.

A silence settled bleakly in the room.

You’re pregnant....

Her chest gripped with yearning. Along with the inexplicable fear of dying alone, without a family or anyone to love her, Kate had harbored another kind of fear for years. It was one of those little fears that took root in you and you never really knew why you had them—only that you did.

She’d feared she’d prove infertile when she grew up, and that she’d never be able to have the family she’d always longed for. She’d imagined, on her best days, that if she ever got pregnant, the thrill she’d feel would obliterate anything else.

Now, maybe a little kernel of thrill had taken up residence somewhere, in some quiet, motherly part of her, but it was too hidden to recognize.

Kate had proven fertile, yes. Physically capable of having a family, yes.

But she had conceived this baby with Garrett Gage.

And her considerable pride already smarted like hell since she knew she would have to tell him. Especially after this past month, when they’d both pretended at the family Sunday brunches that they were still just friends.

Kate saw that Beth had her cell phone in her hand and leaped out of bed. “No! What are you doing?”

Beth held the phone out of Kate’s reach, her expression stern as a concerned mother’s. “I’m calling a doctor. Unless you want me to call Garrett, Kate. It’s his, isn’t it? You look pale, Kate. I think—”

“Call anyone and die. Do you hear me?”

The thought of Garrett knowing this so soon, before she had time to build up her emotional walls against him...the thought of him finding out that just the thought of carrying his baby inside her made her queasy and restless...and the thought of him demanding to marry her out of duty and honor and all he held dearer than Kate...

No. God, it was worse than she could imagine.

Her worst nightmare come true.

Beth paused when she noticed the angry flush spreading up Kate’s neck. Lips pursed, she hung up, and started dialing again.

“No! Beth, don’t you dare.”

“I’m calling Molly, okay? We need to figure out how we’re handling this with the family. Don’t even try to stop me this time.”

Kate groaned. “Molly’s getting her paintings shipped to New York, and she’s got enough on her plate with a wedding in five days!”

“Fine, then Julian. Julian will help us with this, Kate, you know he will.”

An image of hunky, easygoing Julian, never judgmental, always one for cool-headed thoughts, flitted through her mind. Julian had always been the perfect coconspirator. Not only did he know how to stay quiet, it was his nature to.

But Kate still shook her head. “Beth, the wedding is in five days. Let’s just...drop this for now. Please. Please don’t tell anyone until I’m ready.”

Beth met her eyes dubiously. “But what are you going to do when you see Garrett at the rehearsal dinner? At the wedding? When are you going to tell him?”

“After the wedding. I can’t do it before. I want Molly to enjoy her day,” she said miserably.

“No, no, no, that’s not a good plan. It might be too late, Kate. He might be engaged by then to another woman!”

Pain wrenched through Kate’s insides. “I don’t expect him to stop his plans for me. Honestly. We could be better parents if we weren’t together than if we are forced to be together.”

“You’re afraid, Kate, and that’s okay. But you’re turning into a coward. Where’s the girl I know? The Kate I know would fight for him. Stop being afraid that he will break your heart. You’re breaking it yourself without even letting him know that he has it.”

Kate couldn’t reply.

But the words replayed in her head like an echo of a truth she wasn’t sure she was prepared to listen to when she had a pregnancy to deal with.

Was Beth right?

Was Kate so afraid of letting him in that she was running away, not from being hurt by him, but from loving him?

Oh, God. And now what was she going to do about Miami?

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