Secrets of Paternity(2)

Her face paled. She busied herself with closing the pad of paper, as if  the task was huge, aligning the edges of the tablet precisely, one side  then the other, her fingers shaking. He figured he should just tell her  what he did for a living-that she didn't have to be afraid of him.                       
       
           



       

"Jamey! How's that baby runnin'?"

"Could be better. There's been an accident-" He held the phone away as  Bronco shouted a few choice words. From her wince, James figured the  Harley wrecker had heard them, too.

"Some woman driver hit you?" Bronco asked when he ran out of steam.

"As a matter of fact." He was glad the woman in question couldn't hear the sexist statement.

One more curse blasted the airwaves. "What's the damage?"

"Same as before."

"Drivable?"

"Not until it's fixed."

"I'll come take a look in a while," he said with a sigh.

He turned his back on the woman responsible and massaged his forehead. "Got a loaner?" he asked quietly.

"You on a job?"

"Yeah."

"I can scrounge up something. Won't be an Eagle. It'll have some muscle, though."

"Works for me. Thanks. I'll see you later." He snapped the phone shut  and tucked it in his pocket before he turned back to face the woman and  gave her an amount. "That's if there's no structural damage."

She swallowed. "Plus you won't have it as transportation."

"Right."

She looked at his house as if assessing his net worth. She also seemed to have calmed down. "You don't have a car?" she asked.

"That's not the point."

A small fire flared in her eyes. "Look, I'm not denying my  responsibility. I'm sorry you'll be inconvenienced. I'll go to the bank  right now and bring the cash back to you, then I'll stop by again in a  few days to see if there are further costs. Will that be okay?"

"No."

She gave him a long, cool look, which interested him as much as the heated one had.

"You said you were okay with my paying cash."

"I am. But I'm going with you to the bank." James wasn't about to let  her out of his sight yet. He wasn't worried about finding her again,  since he had her license plate number, but, well, frankly, she intrigued  him-from her red lipstick, to her ringless finger that she continued to  use as a touchstone, to her modest skirt and blouse.

"I don't give rides to strangers."

Implied in her tone was the fact he looked like part of a biker gang,  which was his job at the moment-but she wouldn't know that unless he  chose to tell her. Not yet, he decided.

"You're welcome to follow me," she said primly.

He almost laughed. Damn, she was cute with her hackles up. "You won't give me the slip?"

She went rigid. "I keep my word."

He'd already figured that out, which is why he found it mystifying that  she wouldn't give him her name and phone number, at least, if not her  address and insurance information. She was a contradiction. He liked  contradictions.

"I'll get my car out of the garage and follow you," he said, backing away. "Don't leave without me."

"You'd better hurry. They close in twenty minutes."

James deliberately chose his BMW convertible instead of the Taurus he  kept for surveillance work. Okay, so he was grandstanding a little. He  liked the contradiction he was showing her, as well.

Think I'm some kind of gang member, do you? Someone to be afraid to give  your phone number to? Well, here's another side of me. What would you  have done if you'd hit the BMW instead, and I'd been wearing a suit and  tie, and was clean shaven?

Knowing the answer-or figuring he did-he followed her up the street,  uncharacteristically enjoying the fact she was nervous around him, he  who usually made the effort to put people at ease.

A little intrigue. Maybe it was just what he needed while he waited to hear from the child he'd never met.



Somehow Caryn had prevented herself from hyperventilating. Had she  written down his address wrong? She couldn't imagine making that kind of  mistake, but how else could she have been watching the house across the  street? The wrong house.

On top of that confusion, however, James Paladin was a puzzle, she  thought as she pulled into the parking lot of her bank. A contradiction.  A … big problem, frankly. Obviously he was a risk taker, like her late  husband, Paul. And a man used to taking charge and giving orders, also  Paul's MO. Paul had ridden a motorcycle-and he'd died in an accident on  the bike he cherished a year ago.

She was beginning to see why Paul had chosen James to provide the sperm  for Caryn's artificial insemination almost nineteen years ago. She'd  never met him, had only learned of his existence last week, and now they  were about to turn each others' lives upside down. And Kevin's.                       
       
           



       

Was he married? Did he have children? She hadn't noticed a wedding ring  on his finger, but he also seemed the type to shun public displays of,  well, possession, for lack of a better word. He seemed … unpossessable.

She parked the car and turned off the engine, saw him pull in a few  spaces away. She wished she could tell him who she was, what their  connection was. She couldn't. If Kevin decided he didn't want to meet  the man responsible for his existence, it was his choice, as per a  written agreement between Paul and James made all those years ago. Caryn  had found it only last week while cleaning out the paperwork she'd  dumped from Paul's desk into boxes for her move back to San Francisco.  Then she'd discovered a letter James had sent last year with his current  address-the wrong address, apparently-and his phone number, nothing  more.

That note had been mailed a week before Paul's death to a private  mailbox of Paul's that Caryn hadn't known existed. That hurt still  lingered. How many other secrets had he kept that she hadn't uncovered  yet?

As for the potential relationship between James and her son, she couldn't intrude. Kevin alone held that key.

She didn't know whether she wanted James in her life or not. Everything  was finally settling down for her. She'd been prepared to have Kevin's  biological father become part of his life-assumed that he wanted to be  part of Kevin's life-but that was before she met the man, when he'd been  just words on paper, not a flesh-and-blood person. A man in full biker  regalia. A man who made her hormones come out of a long hibernation.

He came up beside her, his sheer size in his boots and leathers making her feel like a background singer to a rock star.

"You don't need to go inside with me," she said.

"I have nothing else to do."

She met his innocent gaze. Up close he was even more attractive, his  eyes a lighter green than she'd first thought, his hair not just dark  brown but thick and shiny. Only the scruffy beard detracted.

"I won't walk up to the teller with you," he added.

He seemed to be enjoying the moment. She didn't know why she thought  that, because he wasn't smiling, but something lurked in his eyes, some  sense of mischief at the absurdity of what they were doing.  Cloak-and-dagger stuff. She smiled. She couldn't help it. Oh, the irony.  The first man she'd been even the slightest bit attracted to since Paul  died, and he happened to be … well, who he was.

"What's so funny?" he asked, as they entered the bank just before closing.

The security guard locked the door behind them then stood at his post, letting each person out as they finished their business.

"Just in the nick of time," she said.

"That's funny?"

She shrugged. Let him wonder.

He lingered a distance away as she withdrew a huge chunk of her savings  and asked the teller for an envelope to put the money in, which she then  passed to James. The guard gave him the once-over, his gaze shifting  from James to Caryn and back, as if trying to match them as a couple-or  perhaps trying to determine if James had coerced her into giving him  money.

She smiled at the guard. He unlocked the door to let them through, bade them a good night. James walked with her to her car.

"I'll need a receipt," she said to him.

He pulled his pad of paper from his pocket, scrawled something on it,  signed it, ripped it off the wire spiral and presented it to her. "How  about taking me to my mechanic's shop in the morning to pick up my  loaner?"

"You have no friends?"

"Of course I have friends."

She studied him. Mischief was back in his eyes. "Take a cab," she said. "Add the fare to my bill."

He grinned. She felt her face heat and tried to draw his attention from  the fact. "I'm gathering that this wasn't the first accident you had  with your bike."

He cocked his head. "It's the second, and very similar."