A Bravo Christmas Reunion Read online

  “Come on,” she said, as if that were any kind of answer. A moment later, she was up and out and headed around the front of the vehicle.

  Against his own better judgment, he got out, too, and followed her up the curving walk to a red front door. She rang the bell.

  As chimes sounded inside, he heard a dog barking and a child yelling, “I got it!”

  The lock turned and the door flew open to reveal a brown-haired little girl in pink tights and ballet shoes. The dog, an ancient-looking black mutt about the size of a German shepherd, pawed the hardwood floor beside the girl and barked in a gravelly tone, “Woof,” and then “woof,” again, each sound produced with great effort.

  “Quiet, Candy,” said the child and the dog dropped to its haunches with a sound that could only be called a relieved sigh. The child beamed at Hayley and then shouted over her shoulder, “It’s Aunt Hayley!”

  Aunt Hayley? Impossible. To be an aunt, you needed a brother or a sister. Hayley had neither.

  A woman appeared behind the child, a woman with softly curling brown hair and blue eyes, a woman who resembled Hayley in an indefinable way—something in the shape of the eyes, in the mouth that wasn’t full, but had a certain teasing tilt at the corners. “Hey,” the woman said, wiping her hands on a towel. “Surprise, surprise.” She cast a questioning glance in Marcus’s direction.

  And Hayley said, “This is Marcus.”

  “Ah,” said the woman, as if some major question had been answered. “Well. Come on in.”

  The kid and the old dog backed out of the way and Hayley and Marcus entered the warm, bright house. The woman led them through an open doorway into a homey-looking living room. Just as at Hayley’s place, a lighted Christmas tree stood in the window, a bright spill of gifts beneath.

  “Can I take your coats?” the woman asked. When Hayley shook her head, she added, “Well, have a seat, then.”

  Marcus hoped someone would tell him soon what the hell he was doing there. He dropped to the nearest wing chair as the kid launched herself into a pirouette. A bad one. She stumbled a little as she came around front again. And then she grinned, a grin as infectious as her mother’s—and Hayley’s.

  “I’m DeDe.” She bowed.

  “Homework,” said the mother.

  “Oh, Mom…”

  The mother folded her arms and waited, her kitchen towel trailing beneath her elbow.

  Finally, the kid gave it up. “Okay, okay. I’m going,” she grumbled. She seemed a cheerful type of kid and couldn’t sustain the sulky act. A second later, with a jaunty wave in Marcus’s direction, she bounced from the room, the old dog limping along behind her.

  Hayley, who’d taken the other wing chair, said, “Marcus, this is my sister, Kelly.”

  It occurred to him about then that the evening was taking on the aspect of some bizarre dream: Hayley having his baby. The kid in the pink tights. The decrepit dog. The sudden appearance of a sister where there wasn’t supposed to be one.

  “A sister,” he said, sounding as dazed as he felt. “You’ve got a sister…”

  Hayley had grown up in foster homes. Her mother, who was frail and often sick, had trouble keeping a job and had always claimed she wasn’t up to taking care of her only daughter. So she’d dumped Hayley into the system.

  “Oh, Marcus.” Hayley made a small, unhappy sound in her throat. “I realize this is a big surprise. It was to me, too. Believe me. My mother always told me I was the only one. It never occurred to me that she was lying, that anyone would lie about something like that….”

  “Ah,” said Marcus, hoping that very soon the surprises were going to stop.

  The sister, Kelly, fingered her towel and smiled hopefully. “We have a brother, too….”

  Hayley piped up again. “I just found them back in June—or rather, we all found each other. When Mom died.”

  His throat did something strange. He coughed into his hand to clear it. “Your mother died….”

  “Yeah. Not long after I moved back here. I met Kelly and our brother, Tanner, in Mom’s hospital room, as a matter of fact.”

  “When she was dying, you mean?”

  “Yes. When she was dying.” Before he could decide what to ask next, Hayley turned to her sister. “Could you get the letter, please?”

  Kelly frowned. “Are you sure? Maybe you ought to—”

  “Just get it.”

  “Of course.” Kelly left the room.

  Marcus sat in silence, staring at the woman who was soon to have his child. He didn’t speak. And neither did she.

  It was probably better that way.

  The sister returned with a white envelope. She handed it to Hayley, who held it up so that he could see his own address printed neatly on the front. “Tell him, Kelly.”

  Kelly sucked in a reluctant breath and turned to Marcus. “I would have mailed it to you, as soon as the baby was born.” She held up two balloon-shaped stickers, one pink, which said, It’s A Girl and the other blue, with It’s A Boy.

  Hayley said weakly, “You know. Depending.”

  Marcus looked at the envelope, at the long-lost sister standing there holding the stickers, at Hayley sitting opposite him, eyes wide, her hand resting protectively on her pregnant stomach.

  I’m going to wake up, he thought. Any second now, I’m going to wake up.

  But he didn’t.

  Chapter Two

  H ayley despised herself.

  She’d blown this situation royally and she knew it. She stared at her baby’s father in the chair across from hers and longed only to turn back time.

  She should have told him. In hindsight, that much was achingly clear. She should have told him back in May, before she broke it off with him, before she quit her job as his assistant and slunk back to Sacramento to nurse her broken heart.

  No matter his total rejection of her when she’d told him she loved him, he’d deserved to know. No matter that when she dared to suggest he might think again about them getting married, he’d given her a flat, unconditional no—and then, when she hinted they ought to break up, since they were clearly going nowhere, he’d agreed that was probably for the best.

  No matter. None of it. She should have told him when she left him that he was going to be a dad. If she’d told him then, she wouldn’t be looking across her sister’s coffee table at him now, seeing the stunned bewilderment in his usually piercing green eyes, and totally hating herself.

  She broke the grim silence that hovered like a gray cloud in her sister’s living room. “Okay. I messed up. I know it.” She glanced down at the envelope. “This is no way to find out you’re a dad. I can’t believe I was going to do this. I…” She dared to glance up at him. Not moving. Was he even breathing? She pleaded, “Oh, Marcus. I wish you could understand. After how it ended with us, I just didn’t know how to break it to you. This was the only way I could make sure I wouldn’t chicken out and never get around to telling you.”

  Marcus stood.

  She gulped. “Um. Are we going?”

  “Oh, yeah. We’re going.”

  Hayley slid the envelope into her purse as he turned and headed for the door. Without a backward glance, he went through the arch to the entrance hallway. She pushed herself upright as she heard the front door open—and then shut, a way-too-final sound.

  Kelly sent her a look. “Oh, boy. He’s mad.”

  “Maybe he’ll just leave without me….” She almost wished that he would.

  “I don’t like this. You sure you’re going to be okay with him?”

  She gave her sister a game smile. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

  Kelly stepped close and caught her hand. “Call me. If you need me…”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “I’m here. You know that.”

  “I do. I’m glad….”

  With a final, reassuring squeeze, Kelly released her.

  Outside, Marcus was waiting behind the wheel with the engine running. He stared straight ahead. Hay
ley got in, stretched the seat belt long to fit over her tummy and hooked it.

  Without once glancing in her direction, he backed from the driveway and off they went.

  The short ride back to her place was awful. She tried not to squirm in her seat as she wondered if he’d ever look at her again—let alone actually speak.

  At her apartment complex, he followed her wordlessly through the iron gate, across the central courtyard and up the steps to her door. She stuck her key in the lock and pushed the door wide.

  He took her arm as she moved to enter. “The letter,” he said.

  “I…what?”

  “Give me my letter.”

  “But there’s nothing in it you don’t know now and I don’t see why—”

  “You don’t want me to read it.” It was an accusation.

  “I didn’t say—”

  “The letter,” he repeated. He was looking at her now. Straight at her. She knew that look from two years of working for him, of falling hopelessly and ever-more-totally in love with him. When Marcus got that look, it meant he wouldn’t stop until he had what he wanted. She might as well give in now. Because in the end, he would get the damn letter.

  “All right,” she said, as if she’d actually made a choice. She took the letter from her purse and handed it over.

  He let go of her arm, but then instantly threatened, “Don’t even imagine you can run away again.”

  She felt the angry heat as it flooded her cheeks. “What are you talking about? I left—you, my job and Seattle. I didn’t run away. And I certainly am not going anywhere now. This is my home. Especially now that I’ve found my family here.”

  “Just don’t. Because I’ll find you. You know I will.”

  She did know. But so what? She had zero intention of running off, so his point was totally moot. “I like it here,” she insisted, hoping it might get through this time. “I’m going nowhere.” She wrapped her arms around herself against the night chill and cast a longing glance toward the warmth and light beyond the threshold. “Are you coming in?”

  “Not now,” he replied, so imperious he set her teeth on edge. He spoke at her more than to her and he stared over her shoulder instead of meeting her eyes. She wondered as she’d wondered a thousand times, why, of all the men in all the world, had she gone and given her heart to Marcus Reid?

  Probably her upbringing—or lack of one. Her mother had put her in the foster care system when she was a baby. And her father, the notorious kidnapper, murderer and serial husband, Blake Bravo? He’d been long gone by the time Hayley was born. Unavailable. That was the word for dear old dad. Unavailable in the most thorough sense of the word.

  Which, she supposed, made it not the least surprising that she’d chosen an emotionally unavailable man to love.

  “All right, then,” she said. “Since you won’t come in, good night.” She started to turn toward the haven of her apartment.

  But then he muttered distractedly, “I need to think. Then we’ll talk.”

  She faced him once more. “That’s fine with me.” Though what, exactly, they would talk about was beyond her. What more was there to say? Not much. Not until after the baby was born, when they could discuss fun topics like custody and child support.

  Oh, God. She dreaded all that. And she’d been avoiding facing what she dreaded.

  Because she understood Marcus well enough to know that he’d never turn his back on his child. Even though he’d always insisted he didn’t want children, now he was actually having one, everything would change. He was going to be responsible for a child. And Marcus Reid took his responsibilities with absolute seriousness.

  He left at last. She went inside and shut the door and ordered her pulse to stop racing, her heart to stop bouncing around under her breastbone.

  Marcus knew her secret now. Getting all worked up over the situation wasn’t going to make him go away.

  Chapter Three

  M arcus,

  I don’t know where to start. So I guess I’ll just put it right out there. If you’re reading this it’s because you’re a father. I’ve just had your baby and this letter has been mailed to you because the baby is born and doing fine. The sticker on the envelope should tell you whether it’s a boy or a girl.

  I’m so sorry. I know you’re furious with me about now. I don’t blame you. I should have told you before I left Seattle, but…well, I just couldn’t make myself do it.

  So you’re learning this way. In a letter.

  Try not to hate me too much.

  Try not to hate me too much….

  Marcus read that sentence over twice. And then a third time.

  After that, he loosened his tie. Then he dropped back across the hotel room bed and stared at the attractively coffered ceiling and thought how she was wrong: he didn’t hate her. True, what he felt for Hayley right then wasn’t pretty. It was fury and frustration and a certain wounded possessiveness all mixed up together.

  But hate? Uh-uh. He wished he did hate her. It would make everything so much simpler.

  He raised the letter and read the rest. She’d listed the address and phone number of the hospital she would be using. And also the information he already had—her own address and number.

  She wrote at the bottom:

  Try to understand. I realize this isn’t what you wanted. I swear I was careful. I guess just not careful enough.

  Hayley

  That was it. All of it. It wasn’t much more information than he’d already had.

  He balled up the letter, raised his arm and tossed the thing into the corner wastebasket. Slam dunk.

  What the hell to do now?

  He was due back in Seattle tomorrow, for a series of meetings, the first of which he had on his schedule for 11:00 a.m. His company was poised for a big move into the Central California market. They were high priority, those meetings.

  But then again, so was the kid he’d just found out he was having.

  And so was Hayley. She needed him now, whether her pride would let her admit that or not.

  Still flat on his back across the bed, he grabbed his PDA off the nightstand and dialed—with his thumb, from memory. She answered on the second ring.

  “’Lo?” Her voice was husky, reminding him of other nights, of the scent and the feel of her, all soft and drowsy, in his bed.

  “You were already asleep.” He didn’t mean it to come out sounding like an accusation, but he supposed that it did.

  “Marcus.” She sighed. “What?”

  “I’m flying out at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. I’ve got meetings in Seattle I can’t get out of.”

  “You’ve always got meetings you can’t get out of. It’s fine. I told you. I don’t expect—”

  “I’ll clear my calendar in the next couple of days. Then I’ll come back.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yeah. I do. We both know I do. I’ll see you. Thursday. Friday at the latest. If you need me before then, call me on my cell. You still have the number?”

  A silence, then, “I have it.”

  “When’s the baby due?”

  “January eighth.”

  “You’re not working, are you?” He heard rustling, pictured her sitting up in bed, all rumpled and droopy-eyed, her hair tangled from sleep. “Hayley?”

  Reluctantly, she answered, “Yes. I’m still working.”

  “You shouldn’t be. And now you’ve finally told me about the baby, you don’t need to be. I’ll make arrangements right away.”

  “Give me money, you mean.” She sounded downright bleak. She’d damn well better not try refusing his money. “I’m managing just fine. I like working and I feel great and I’m going to stay on the job until—”

  “Quit. Tomorrow.”

  “Uh. Excuse me. But this is my life you’re suddenly running. Don’t.”

  “I’m only saying—”

  “Don’t.”

  He had no idea where she worked, or what she did there. His own fault
. He’d just had to play it noble seven months ago, which meant only allowing the detective to get the basic information.

  So that now he was forced to ask, “Where do you work, anyway?”

  “I’m an office manager. For a small catering company. There’s the owner, the chef, the dishwasher and me. We’re in a storefront off of K Street. Around the Corner Catering. We do a pretty brisk business, actually. We’re hooked up with a staffing agency so we offer full service. Not only the food, but the staff, from setup to cleanup.”

  “A caterer. You work for a caterer.”

  “Yeah. Is that a problem for you?”

  “It’s high-stress work and you know it. Chefs are notorious for being temperamental. You’re having a baby. You shouldn’t be in a stressful work environment. You should—”

  “Don’t,” she said for the third time.

  He let it go. Later, when he got back, they could discuss this again. He’d get her to see this his way—the right way. “I’ll be gone two days. Three at the most.”

  “You said that.”

  “No, I said I’d be back Thursday or Friday. On second thought, I should be able to make it sooner. Wednesday, I hope.”

  “All right. Wednesday, then. Is that all?”

  He hated to hang up with all this…tension between them. He should say something tender, he supposed. But nothing tender occurred to him. “We’ll work this out. You can count on me.”

  “I know that.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I…won’t,” she said softly after a moment. Then, almost in a whisper, “Good night, Marcus.” Then a click.

  He put the device back on the night table and laced his hands behind his head. A kid. It still didn’t seem possible. A child had never been part of his plans.

  But plans changed. And sometimes allowances had to be made.

  “His assistant called me at work an hour ago,” Hayley told Kelly when the sisters met for lunch the next day. “Her name is Joyce. She sounds very…efficient.”

  “That’s good, right?” Kelly forked up a bite of Caesar salad.