he didn’t care for it.
When the phone rang, he grabbed it, more to silence the damn noise than because he was in the mood for talking. “What is it?”
“You’re damn cheerful this morning.”
Jackson frowned at his brother’s voice. “Travis. What’s going on?”
“Just checking to make sure we’re still on for dinner this weekend. Julie’s got her mom lined up as a babysitter.”
Despite his foul mood, Jackson smiled. In the last couple of years, he’d become an uncle. Twice over. First his oldest brother Adam and his wife Gina had become the parents of Emma, now a nearly unstoppable force of nature at a year and a half old. Then it was Travis and his wife Julie’s turn. Their daughter Katie was just a few months old and already had taken over their household.
And though Jackson loved his nieces, after a visit with either of his brothers, he walked into his own quiet, peaceful house with a renewed sense of gratitude. Nothing like being around proud parents and babies to make a man appreciate being single.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting up to lean one arm on his desktop. What with his mystery woman, an upcoming flight to Maine and a plane in for a refit, Jackson had almost forgotten about his dinner date with the family. “We’re still on. We’ve got reservations at Serenity. Eight o’clock. Figured we could meet in the bar for drinks around seven. That work for you?”
“It’s fine. Will Marian be joining us?”
Jackson frowned. “Don’t see why she should. She’s not part of the family.”
“She will be.”
“I haven’t proposed to her yet, Travis.”
“But you’re still going to.”
“Yeah.” He’d made the decision more than a month ago. Marian Cornice, only daughter of Victor Cornice, a man who owned many of the country’s largest private airfields.
Joining their families was a business decision, pure and simple. Once he was married to Marian, King Jets would grow even larger. With unlimited access to so many new airports, he’d be able to expand faster than his original business plan had allowed. The Cornice family was wealthy, but compared to the King family fortune, they were upstarts. In the marriage, Marian got the King name and fortune, plus she pleased her father, who admittedly was the spearhead of this match, and Jackson got the airfields. A win-win situation for everyone. Besides, both of his brothers had entered into marriages of convenience and they’d made them work. Why should he be any different?
If an image of his mystery woman floated into his mind, Jackson told himself it was fine because he wasn’t officially engaged yet. Wasn’t as if he were cheating on Marian.
“If you’re seriously going to do this, marry her I mean, it would be a chance for Marian to get used to the family,” Travis pointed out. “But if you’d rather not, fine. I’ll tell Adam about dinner. I’m driving Julie to the ranch so she and Gina and the kids can spend the day together.”
“Man.” Jackson shook his head and laughed a little. “Did you ever picture yourself a father, Travis? Because I’ve got to say, it’s weird for me to think of you and Adam as being dads.”
“It’s weird to be one too,” Travis admitted, but Jackson could hear the smile in his voice, even over the phone. “A good kind of weird, though. You should try it.”
He snorted. “Never gonna happen, big brother.”
“Marian might change your mind.”
“Not likely.” Jackson leaned back into his chair again. “She’s not exactly the maternal type. Fine by me anyway. I can be the world’s greatest uncle, spoil your kids rotten, then send them home.”
“Mistakes happen,” Travis said. “Everybody gets surprised once in awhile.”
Okay, Travis and Julie hadn’t been trying to have a baby, but Jackson wouldn’t make the same mistakes. “When it comes to that sort of thing, I’m Mister Careful. I’m so careful I’m practically covered head to toe in plastic wrap. I’m—” A hideous thought flashed through his mind, jolting him from his chair to his feet.
“You’re mistake-proof, I get it….” Travis prodded, waited for a response and when he didn’t get one said, “Jackson? You okay?”
“Fine,” he muttered, already hanging up when he added, “Gotta go. Bye.”
Careful?
He hadn’t been careful the night before. Hell, he hadn’t even thought of careful until just this minute. Last night, he’d been too caught up in the woman with blue eyes and a luscious mouth. Last night, he’d let himself get lost in the urgency of the moment.
For the first time in years, he hadn’t used a condom.
Jackson muttered a curse, kicked the bottom drawer of his desk and ignored the slam of pain that rocketed from his foot up his leg. Served him right if he’d broken something. How could he have been so stupid? Not only hadn’t he been careful, but he’d been with a stranger. A woman he knew nothing about. A woman who, for all he knew, had deliberately set up the situation to try to get pregnant by one of the wealthy King family.
He shoved one hand through his dark brown hair, then stuffed that hand into the pocket of his black jeans. Every muscle was tensed. His back teeth ground together and he told himself that no matter how difficult this turned out to be, he had to find that woman.
Casey.
Had to find her, discover who the hell she was and what she’d been up to the night before.
Still furious with himself, he stared out the window at the view stretching in front of him. A few of the King Jets were lined up on the tarmac, their deep blue paint shining, their tail fins proudly displaying the stylized gold crown that was the King family logo. Usually, his sense of pride swelled when he looked down on those jets. On the empire he’d taken over at twenty-five and built into one of the most enviable in the world.
Now, as he stared, unseeing, one of those jets roared down the runway, tore into the sky and lifted off to sail into the clouds.
While Jackson stood, earthbound, feeling like he was sinking deeper and deeper into a mire.
He had to find her. Especially now. He couldn’t risk losing this merger with the Cornice family.
And he sure as hell wasn’t ready to become a father.
* * *
A week later, Casey held the phone in a grip so tight her knuckles were white. “You’re sure? There’s no mistake?”
“Honey, I checked and rechecked.” Casey’s best friend Dani Sullivan’s voice came through loud and clear with just a touch of sympathy. “There’s no mistake.”
“I knew it.” Casey sighed, leaned back against the kitchen wall and stared up at the rooster clock hanging on the wall opposite her. The hands went to five o’clock and the rooster crowed. Why had she ever bought such a ridiculous clock? Who needed a rooster crowing every hour on the hour?
And who cared about the stupid rooster?
“Thanks for putting a rush on this, Dani.” Dani worked full-time at a private lab and she’d done the testing herself, just so Casey could not only get the results faster, but be absolutely sure about those results. “I appreciate it.”
“No problem sweetie,” she said. “But what are you going to do now?”
“Only one thing I can do,” Casey said, straightening up and walking across the room to grab her iced tea off the kitchen counter. The old fashioned wall phone’s cord was stretched to its limits and slowly reeled Casey back in. “I’ve got to go see him.”
“Hmm,” Dani said thoughtfully, “considering what happened the