Read Online That's My Baby! by Vicki Lewis Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

the sort of woman who could be provocative without even trying. “I guess that’s about the size of it, Nathaniel Andrew.”
    “That’s blackmail, Jessica Louise.”
    She smiled a vixen’s smile. “I know.”
    He couldn’t decide which he’d rather do, strangle her or kiss that saucy mouth until she moaned. He did neither. “You’re blackmailing your parents, too, you know. Your dad wants to put a private detective on your trail so bad he can taste it, but your mother won’t let him because she thinks you’ll go away for good if he does.”
    “She’s right.”
    Turning her to face him, he grasped her other shoulder and barely stopped himself from giving her a shake. “Jess, what if this kidnapper gets ahold of you? What if he decides, after getting the ransom money, to just kill you? Have you thought of that?”
    She nodded. “That’s why I needed to talk to you and tell you about Elizabeth,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “So everything would be okay for the baby.”
    The thought of something happening to Jess had the power to paralyze his mind, so he didn’t think about it for long. “Setting aside the issue of how the rest of us would fare in that event, let me emphasize that if you got yourself killed, it would not be okay for the baby.” Panic nibbled at him some more. “I’m a lousy candidate for a parent, and you know it.”
    “I don’t know it, but if you call my parents, we’ll never get a chance to find out. They’ll have Elizabeth behind the gates of Franklin Hall before you can say boo.”
    “Sounds like a plan to me.” Then he wouldn’t have to worry about the baby. He had a business in Colorado, afterall. He could pay support, although the Franklins would probably scoff at the pittance the courts would ask of him.
    “And I’d have to go with her,” Jess said softly.
    Ah, there was the rub. The woman he loved would be safe but unhappy. And he would be…lost. Lost without hope of redemption.
    “You see, it has to be this way if you and I are to have any chance. If Elizabeth is to have any chance.”
    As he gazed into her eyes and saw the glimmer of hope there, his feelings of inadequacy threatened to swamp him. “I would botch the job of being Elizabeth’s father, Jess. We’ve been through all that, and you know how I feel about having kids of my own. I’ll admit that on the flight over I began thinking that maybe someday I could consider adopting an orphan from one of the refugee camps. But see, that would be different. The kid wouldn’t have that many options, and even having me as a parent would be better than nothing.”
    “Oh, Nat.” She moved in close and combed her fingers through his beard so she could cup his face in both hands.
    He loved her touch, and decided at that very moment that he wanted to shave so nothing interfered with the feel of her soft hands on his face.
    “I’ve never met your father,” she said, “but I know you’re nothing like him. You would never beat a child the way you were beaten, or belittle them until they felt worthless, the way your father did.”
    “You don’t know that. It’s the pattern I saw for eighteen years. Some of that behavior has to be lurking in me, waiting for the time when I have a kid, and that automatic conditioning kicks in.”
    Her gaze searched his. “Don’t you at least want to see her?” she asked gently.
    His stomach churned at the thought, but yes, he’d admit to a flicker of curiosity. “Maybe, from a distance.”
    Jess smiled. “How far a distance?”
    “One of those videophones would be about right.”
    She held his gaze. “I think she has your eyes.”
    That rocked him. All along he’d pictured her with woeful brown eyes, like the children he’d left in the camps. “Blue?”
    “They probably are by now. The color was still a little indistinct when I…when I left her at the ranch.” Her breath caught and her eyes began to glow with longing. “Oh, Nat, please. Let’s call the ranch