Her Boss's Baby

Jonas inserted an injured tone to his voice. “Just be forewarned I’m not about to get a nose ring to go along with any trendy clothes you pick out to bring me into the new millennium.”

It was the kind of warm funny banter that Tara liked to think might someday be a part of their marriage. As much as Jonas would like to dismiss her as nothing more than an employee, she couldn’t keep waiting for him to notice she’d grown up. She was, after all, far too bright and ambitious to remain at a dead-end job forever. Certain that this was the perfect opportunity for her to prove what a wonderful wife she would make him, Tara had every intention of maximizing their time together.

“Remind me to give you a raise,” Jonas said, padding off in the direction of his bedroom. “You take awfully good care of me.”

“I’d sure like to,” she replied softly to a backside that made her suck in her breath with longing.

Seeing the damp imprints of his feet across the plush carpet, she wondered if marriages really did break up over such inconsequential things as a husband failing to dry his feet or replace the roll of toilet paper or squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom. Tara had read articles about such things, but found the idea preposterous. She sighed deeply. Only time would tell whether close proximity would indeed bring her closer to the man she wanted—or if it would drive them apart.

Tara knew that some women would be offended by Jonas’s expectations of her as an employee. She understood that it was her duty as a modern woman to rage against any request to make coffee or pick up dry cleaning or, say, pack up the office and move it to Dust Blown, Texas. But she just couldn’t muster up much indignation. Love had a way of making the most mundane chores a joy.

Aside from the fact that she enjoyed being near Jonas, Tara knew she was well compensated, financially, for what she did. And with a little luck she had every intention of moving up in his affections.

She also knew that self-reliant Jonas was likely to do everything in his power to keep her at arm’s length. It clearly amused him how she blushed or trembled whenever he came too close. A less-determined woman might have given up on having anything more than a platonic relationship with him. Not Tara Summers. Having supported both herself and her father ever since she was seventeen, she knew what the word persistence really meant. This was her chance to pay Jonas back for having faith in her when nobody else had and to finally make her feelings known. If she couldn’t muster up the courage here, she knew it wouldn’t happen back in San Francisco, where they would no doubt fall back into the same old productive platonic patterns of behavior.

A virgin, Tara felt a certain amount of trepidation—and a good deal of anticipation—at the prospect of spending a prolonged period of time in confined quarters with such a sexy virile man. But at the ripe old age of twenty-two, she was past caring about what damage could be done to her reputation.

In fact, she was pretty sure her virginity was her reputation.

Not that she hadn’t had any chances, romantically speaking. Plenty of men had made plays for her, but an old-fashioned girl at heart, Tara was hoping to share the gift of herself with a man who truly loved her. A man who she loved with the kind of passion immortalized in the tender verses she so esteemed. Certainly Jonas’s was as tragic a story as any the great bard had imagined. Although she knew he didn’t blame her for the predicament in which he found himself, Tara couldn’t help feeling guilty for the part she had played in getting him to come to Texas.

When he returned to the living room a moment later, Jonas was wearing a new pair of khaki pants and a soft white polo shirt. She was in the midst of deciding whether she liked him more as a rough-shaven rebel or a clean-shaven jock when it occurred to her that he really fit into neither category. One minute he was looking right into her soul with those piercing eyes and the very next moment his eyes would soften to reveal the hint of a little boy all alone against the world.

“Are you ready to fill me in on what’s happened?” she asked, taking a soda from the wet bar and offering him one, as well.

“After all I’ve been through, I think I deserve something stronger,” Jonas told her, settling down into a sofa and stretching his long legs across the expanse of velvet striping.

Tara substituted a beer for the pop and handed it to him. Then she draped her jacket on the back of her chair.

Noticing the wonders her feminine curves did for the simple scoop-neck shell and matching skirt she wore, Jonas took a long swig of his drink before beginning. “Well, of course, you know all about how I ended up here in the first place.”

“The invitation,” she supplied, feeling a twinge of culpability for her part in encouraging him to come to the Double Crown Ranch. Loyally tied to her own family, she had been thrilled when Jonas told her about the invitation he’d received several months ago from his long-lost uncle, Ryan Fortune, asking him to attend a reunion party for his sister and brother’s “lost heirs.” Apparently, good-looking smooth-talking Cameron Fortune had numerous affairs during his marriage and managed to father three illegitimate children before he was killed in a car crash—with his young assistant.

Jonas’s initial reaction was to scorn the invitation outright. After all, the only thing his birth father had ever given him was a start in the womb of a woman who deserved a whole lot better than she ever got. The thought of that dear woman having to endure Nicolas Goodfellow’s emotional abuse just to secure her illegitimate child a name and a trim suburban home was more than Jonas’s heart could bear considering even now. Other than the fact that it would have given him a good deal of satisfaction to look Cameron up one day and spit in his face, he wasn’t particularly sorry that his biological father was dead.

Still, Ryan Fortune had sounded so genuinely nice over the phone, trying to right his older brother’s wrongs, that Jonas had been sorely tempted to connect with the family he’d never known he had. Since his mother had passed away four years ago, Jonas knew any action he took couldn’t harm her in any way.

And he had been curious, after all.

For years he’d wondered about the man who had abandoned his mother. The one time he had probed for answers, she had bitterly referred to his conception as the product of her only one-night stand. Embarrassed, her ultra-strict religious parents had refused to have anything more to do with her. Shame still burned in her pale gaunt cheeks as she recalled those dismal days, trying to make it all on her own on minimum-wage shift work. That it turned out that Jonas’s real daddy was a multimillionaire didn’t make him any more palatable to the child he’d deserted.

The fact that a stray dog would have gotten better treatment than Jonas had at the hands of his stepfather made his accomplishments all that much more impressive. That he had been able to make something of himself despite all odds was perhaps the biggest reason for him to succumb to the urge to seek out his roots. Many people would clamor to meet their rich relatives in hopes of ingratiating themselves and asking for money; Jonas preferred to let the Fortunes know he didn’t want a damned thing from them.

Other than the respect he’d been denied from birth.

“I brought along a bottle of wine to the reunion like you suggested,” Jonas continued, methodically explaining the events that led him to jail. “As a gesture of goodwill.”

Tara nodded. She knew he wasn’t attaching any guilt to her well-intended idea.

“From that special French shipment. Yes, I remember,” she said.

“It was well received.” Jonas paused thoughtfully before adding almost as an afterthought. “As was I.”

Knowing how much it would please her, he considered telling her how good it had felt being instantly accepted into the Fortune family. They all seemed to be such lovely people—on the surface. After years of enduring his stepfather’s emphatic declarations that he was most definitely not of his loins, Jonas thought he had finally found home.

That home was a Spanish-style mansion situated in the midst of the untold number of acres constituting the fabulous Double Crown Ranch. But this was not nearly as important to Jonas as the fact that such benevolent successful people seemed so anxious to claim him as their own.

“Was there a problem with the wine?” Tara prodded, obviously unaware of the lump lodged like a fist in Jonas’s throat at the memory.

“You could say that,” he replied, the corners of his mouth turning up wryly at the corners at the understatement. There was no tactful way to break the news to her. “Shortly afterward, my uncle was admitted to the hospital, and that particular bottle of wine tested positive for poison. Hence, in a nutshell, my unfortunate incarceration.”

Tara gasped in disbelief. It had never occurred to her that when she encouraged Jonas to establish ties with the Fortunes, there would be even the slightest chance he would be implicated in any kind of criminal activity. Certainly nothing as heinous as what he had just relayed.

The tortured look in those cerulean eyes almost doubled Tara over in empathy. She rushed to his defense in a sputter of denouncement. “But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that wine! Despite the extravagant price, it’s one of our most popular sellers. In fact, I put in another order to France just two days ago. If there was anything wrong, I’m sure it would have been recalled by the company.”

Surprised by her naiveté in assuming the wine had been tampered with at the factory, Jonas assured her, “Just to be safe, let’s pull all remaining cases from the showroom floor. I’ve insisted that the police test the bottle itself. Seeing how I was eager to make a good first impression, I splurged and bought a big bottle, more than could fit into the antique cut-glass decanter that Ryan poured it into.”

“Even if it tests positive,” Tara declared implacably, “I don’t see how they can possibly tie the crime to you. It isn’t like you were the only guest at the reunion.”

Her outrage was gratifying. In a dark secret part of his heart, Jonas had been bracing himself for the possibility that she might jump to the same conclusion the police had: that he was guilty of attempted murder. Not only was he personally tied to the murder weapon, Sheriff Grayhawk had been quick to point out how easy it would have been for Jonas, as an international importer, to illegally obtain the digitalis without a prescription from an overseas supplier. All things considered, even his high-priced lawyer admitted that the outlook for Jonas wasn’t bright.

It would have killed him to have spied either fear or reproach in his assistant’s big brown eyes. Though he knew he was far from a knight in shining armor, that Tara held him in such openly high regard made Jonas want to be a better man. Maybe he wasn’t worthy of being up on that pedestal where Tara had put him, but he wasn’t ready to relinquish the position just yet.

He was quick to agree with her assessment of the situation. “Of course you’re right. What with Storm Pearce, one of the other two lost heirs, in addition to Uncle Ryan and Aunt Miranda, there had to be enough Fortune cousins and in-laws there to populate at least half of this dusty little town.”

“Surely your uncle realizes that anyone could have—”

“Ryan isn’t in the position to do much clear thinking right now. He’s still in the hospital, deathly ill. As I understand it, he’s not out of the woods yet.”

That particular bombshell lay between them as yet unexploded. If Ryan Fortune were to actually die, Jonas was certain to be charged with his murder. In a state renowned for putting men to death as an example to others, his odds were not good for anything lighter than a life sentence if a jury actually found him guilty by a preponderance of evidence, circumstantial or not.

Things were definitely more serious than Tara had suspected when she had packed up and headed to Texas. She had been under the impression that this was all some sort of gigantic mistake that could easily be cleared up with a little time, logic and detective work.

“But what reason could you possibly have for wanting to kill your uncle?” she demanded to know as if already playing out the courtroom scene in her head.

“Besides the possibility of inheriting millions?” Jonas supplied with a twisted self-deprecating grin. “According to Sheriff Grayhawk, revenge is always a viable incentive. He’s well aware that I’ve never held my real father in much esteem. He seems to think that animosity could carry over to his brother, my uncle Ryan. As much as I hate to admit it, any qualified psychiatrist could have a field day analyzing my motives.”

Tara’s head was swimming. She was glad she wasn’t drinking anything stronger than ginger ale. A person needed all her faculties to piece this hodgepodge together. She eyed Jonas’s drink suspiciously. “You don’t think anyone would tamper with our drinks, do you?”

“I’ve considered the possibility. Though I wouldn’t put it past anyone in Red Rock to try and do me in while I’m holed up here, I think we’re safe as long as we check to make sure the containers are properly sealed.”

The mere suggestion that Jonas might not get out of town alive sent a shiver up Tara’s spine.

“I’d certainly understand if you didn’t feel like sticking around,” Jonas said, reading the goose bumps on her arms.

“Just try to get rid of me,” she quipped with false brightness.

Nothing short of dynamite was going to blast her away from this man’s side in his time of need. If anything happened to Jonas, she didn’t know how she could continue getting up in the mornings. Whether he knew it or not, he was the center of her universe. Rather than dwelling on any pessimistic possibilities, Tara decided to approach this particular predicament as she did every other problem in her life—one methodical step at a time.

Setting her drink down, she signaled that break time was over. She was ready to get back to work.

“As soon as the computer arrives, we’ll get online and catch up on correspondence and paperwork. Then we’ll set about figuring out who the real criminal in your loving family is and decide how best to go about clearing your name.”

The tired smile Jonas gave her was tinged with bitterness. “Goodfellow may be a bastard’s name passed down illegitimately, but after all that’s happened, I have to admit that I prefer it to the one that’s brought me nothing but mis-Fortune since I set foot in Texas.”

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