wondered if we were ever going to do anything but talk.”
“I know, I know. You expected sex on the first date and I held out for a whole month. Well, if you were so bored, you shouldn’t have called me back.”
“I didn’t say I was bored, did I? I liked talking with you. You’re the only other person I’ve ever met who knows as much about TV shows as I do. The only other person I’ve ever met who’s seen every single episode of ‘Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp’ and remembers all the plots. Or at least the only one who’ll own up to it.”
“Well, you’re the only other person I’ve ever met who knows all the words to every song in the five volume set of TV theme songs,” countered Gillian. “You actually used to ask to hear it. Most people beg for mercy if I try to play it.”
“I ended up buying my own five volume set,” Dev confessed wryly. “I missed listening to yours when you took it back.”
“I bet your TV theme songs aren’t kept anywhere near your ultracool CD collection with all the right titles. After all, you like to pretend you’re such a blues fan ”
“I am a blues fan!” insisted Devlin.
“Sure you are.” Gillian arched her brows. “And I’m Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp’s secretary.”
“Everybody but you pays homage to the blues, Gillian. The blues are universally cool. You are the first and only person I’ve ever known who says they’re dull and dreary.”
“Which they are. I like to listen to cheerful, peppy music.”
“Cheerful, peppy music is insipid.” Devlin grinned. They’d had this pseudo-argument many times before.
“You’re saying that the ‘Brady Bunch’ theme is insipid?” Gillian feigned shock. “That’s blasphemy!”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Guilty as charged.”
They both laughed. Ashley regarded them curiously and said something that sounded like “Glx.”
Devlin smiled at the baby. “Are you offering an opinion, Ashley? What does ‘glx’ mean?”
Gillian stared from the child to the man, and apprehension shivered through her. What in the world was she doing, laughing it up with Devlin Brennan, her daughter’s father? Who had no idea that he was her daughter’s father!
And she fully intended to keep it that way. She’d known from the moment that the stick in the home pregnancy kit had changed colors that she was going to have and to raise her baby alone. Mark and Carmen and the others might tease her about being an optimist, but Gillian knew that she was actually a realist.
Which was why she’d chosen not to involve anyone else in her pregnancy and Ashley’s existence, except her beloved “fosters” who’d already proven themselves to be loyal and trustworthy. She knew they wouldn’t hurt her, and she was equally certain that Devlin Brennan would. So she hadn’t given him that chance. Nor would she.
Ashley started to bounce in Gillian’s arms, leaning toward Devlin. He interpreted the baby’s movements as a bid to go to him and held out his arms, ready to take her.
Gillian was not about to hand over the baby to the man who’d fathered her. She pulled back, tightening her arms protectively around her child. “Good night, Devlin.”
Her voice, her expression, was cold enough to freeze fire. Devlin stared at her, baffled by her abrupt shift in mood, from laughing to glaring. From accessible to icily remote He placed a hand on Gillian’s shoulder She was rigid with tension.
Their eyes met. “Why?” he asked quietly.
A flash flood of fear surged through her. What had she given away? He couldn’t have figured out the truth about Ashley, could he? “W-what do you mean?”
“Why did you break up with me?” He amazed himself by asking the question he’d vowed never to ask her.
Her panic dissipated. There was nothing to worry about, his question was all about ego. His own sizable one. “Like you care.” Gillian laughed coldly.
“Maybe I’m curious After all, you never gave me much of a reason why.” Even to himself, he sounded frustrated and accusing, but he couldn’t stop now. “Until that night, you never even gave a hint that you were unhappy or—dissatisfied. Right out of the blue, you said ‘things aren’t working out’ and you left me.”
“You really expected a detailed in-depth analysis?” Gillian mocked. “Is that what you do every time you break up with someone, Dev?”
Devlin thought of all the relationships he had ended down through the years. There had never been a detailed in-depth analysis exploring the whys and wherefores of breaking up, not even one. His modus operandi was simply to never call the woman again and to avoid returning her calls. His rejectees eventually got the hint—it was over. It was up to them to figure out why, if they wanted to.
Now he was the one who had been rejected for no discernible reason.
What goes around, comes around, he recalled his late grandmother Brennan warning in hushed ominous tones. It seemed old Grandma had been on to something.
“Point taken,” he murmured. “Just one question before we close this discussion for good. Why are you so angry with me, Gillian?”
Gillian flinched. “How can you even ask me that?” she blurted.
“Because I don’t know. You broke up with me because you wanted to, so why should you be mad at me? Unless you’re bitter toward all men since your divorce?”
Gillian stared at him, wondering what to say. Far from being embittered by her divorce, she tended to forget all about it, just as she tended to forget she had ever been married. Certainly she and Mark had never lived together as man and wife. He’d never even visited her during those months they had been legally wed because round trips to and from Los Angeles were beyond both their budgets. Mark had saved his money to afford plane fare to see Ashley as a newborn No, she could never view Mark as either her husband or her ex-husband. He was her sweet, loyal, foster brother and always would be.
But Devlin had asked a logical, valid question, one that required a response to allay suspicion. Luckily, he’d also supplied her with the answer.
“Yes, I guess I am bitter toward all men since my divorce,” she echoed nervously. “I, uh, hadn’t realized it until now. I wasn’t even aware I was acting that way.”
“Well, trust me, you are. I take it the divorce wasn’t your idea?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I can respect that. I have an aunt and uncle who were divorced years ago and they still take every opportunity to regale anyone who will listen with all the details.”
“I’ll never do that,” Gillian pledged. Never had a promise been so easy to make.
“Do you share joint custody of the baby?” Devlin asked.
“No!” Gillian quickly turned aside, as if to shield her child from him. “Ashley is mine! No more questions,” she added sternly.
“Okay.” He moved away from the door but seemed reluctant to leave. “Now that we’ve ascertained that your hostility isn’t personal, can I offer whatever help you needed from Shelly and Heather?”
Devlin looked from little Ashley to her vigilant, wide-eyed mother. “You did need something, didn’t you? And don’t automatically say no,” he added. “I don’t think you and the baby were paying a social call at this hour, were you?”
Gillian stole a glance at him. She couldn’t fathom why, but it seemed that he wasn’t about to be fobbed off. And since he now believed that her hostility toward him wasn’t personal, she really ought to foster that delusion. Making him suspicious of her could be disastrous. Hesitantly, reluctantly,