we need a donor, and—” She paused for another sip of beer as if her throat was too dry for her to force the words out. “Okay, I’m just gonna put it out there. We don’t want to go with some stranger we picked out of a catalog. We’d like you to be the baby daddy.”
Surprise slapped at him. For a second or two, he could only stare at his best friend. Jackie’s gaze was sure and steady, but there was also a flicker of understanding there, too, as if she knew exactly what he was feeling. Well, hell. He hadn’t really thought about who might be the father of the child his friend wanted so badly—he’d assumed that she and Elena would go to a sperm bank and pick out some genius donor.
But now that she’d asked him, Connor realized it made sense. He and Jackie were practically family. Who the hell else would she ask?
“Elena wants this, too?”
“Completely,” Jackie assured him, and now that everything was out in the open, she was clearly more relaxed. “Con, there’s no pressure on you, okay? Feel free to say no, with no hard feelings between us, I swear. Just...don’t say no right away. Think about it, all right?”
Connor reached out, grabbed her and pulled her in for a tight hug. She sighed, wrapped her arms around his middle and held on. “I know this is big, Con. Seriously big. And I know it’s kind of weird, me asking you for your baby stuff. But—” she tipped her head back and looked at him “—we really want this and we want that...connection to the baby’s father, you know? You mean a lot to us. Not just me.”
He gave her a squeeze. “Yeah, I know. I love you, too.”
“God, we’re mushy all of a sudden.”
“Babies’ll do that to you, I hear,” Con said.
Her eyes went misty. “A baby. Hard to imagine me a mom.”
“No, it’s not,” he assured her. And seeing that dreamy, wistful look on her face would have decided him even if he hadn’t already made the choice. They’d been friends so long, how could he not help her when she needed it? “I’d have a condition, Jack...”
She sucked in a breath and held it. “What?”
“I can’t just father a kid and walk away. I’ll have to be a part of my child’s life.”
Part-time father, he told himself. All of the fun and little of the hassles.
“Absolutely, Con. Agreed.”
“All right then.” Connor swung her in a circle and Jackie shrieked with laughter. When he set her on her feet again, he gave her a fast, hard kiss and said, “Let’s make a baby.”
They’d tried.
But Jackie told him the insemination hadn’t taken. When he’d offered to help them try again, she’d turned him down. Said that she and Elena were moving to Northern California to get a fresh start. Then she’d sort of disappeared from his life. No phone calls. No nothing.
He’d allowed it to happen, too, so he couldn’t throw all the blame on Jackie for that. “I should have checked,” he said again, hating that he hadn’t.
“Yeah, well—” Colt leaned back against the low stone wall separating the patio from a wide swath of manicured lawn “—who would have expected Jackie to lie to you?”
That was the hardest part to swallow, Connor admitted silently. He’d always trusted her. Had never doubted what she told him. And all this time, she’d hidden his children from him.
Con shook his head and squinted into the wind. His heartbeat raced and the ice in his stomach was colder, deeper somehow than it had been only an hour before. And after all the lies, he couldn’t even yell at her. Because she and Elena were dead. He hadn’t been able to cut through most of the legalese in the damn letter from the lawyer, but that much he’d caught. Dina Cortez, the babies’ guardian, named by the late Jackie and Elena Francis, was the one suing him.
How the hell could he mourn his friend when he was so furious with her all he wanted to do was rage at her for what she’d done?
“So who’s Dina Cortez?” Colt folded his arms over his chest.
“Elena’s sister,” Connor told him. “I met her at the wedding. She was Elena’s maid of honor and the only one of her family who showed up.” He frowned. He still couldn’t understand how family didn’t support family, no matter what. “Don’t remember much about her, really.”
“Doesn’t matter, I guess,” Colt mused. “You’ll be getting to know her pretty damn well soon enough.”
“True.” And he’d have plenty to say once he met up with Dina Cortez again.
* * *
“Sure,” Dina said into the phone. “We can cater your anniversary party on the twenty-fourth. No problem. If it’s all right with you, we can meet later this week to discuss the menu.”
Idly tapping her pen against the desktop calendar already filled with doodles, squiggles and notes incomprehensible to anyone but her, Dina listened to her latest client talk with only half an ear.
How could she concentrate when she knew that very soon, she was going to be clashing with one of the Kings of California? Connor King, father of the triplets even now playing on the floor beside her, was a member of a family with more money than God and far more power than she could ever hope to claim.
She’d met him once before, when Dina’s sister, Elena, had married her longtime partner, Jackie Francis. Connor had been Jackie’s best man and he’d caught Dina’s attention from the moment she saw him. Of course, any woman would have been captivated by the man. He was gorgeous and possessed that innate sense of being in charge that was both alluring and irritating to a strong woman.
His easy relationship with Jackie was one of long standing; they’d been best friends since high school. But what was more impressive to Dina at the time was that he had been so focused on being there for his friend. Most single guys used a wedding as an opportunity to pick up women. But Connor hadn’t paid attention to anyone but his friend.
Of course, he might be feeling a little differently toward Jackie at the moment. What Jackie and Elena had done to him was unforgivable.
While her client rambled on in her ear, Dina shifted her gaze to the babies behind a series of child gates. When the kids came to live with her, she had cordoned off a section of her work area in the kitchen. Blankets were piled on the floor, toys were scattered everywhere and three beautiful thirteen-month-old babies giggled and squealed and babbled to each other in a language no one but the three of them could possibly understand.
In a few short months, those babies had become Dina’s whole world and it terrified her to think of what Connor King might do when he found out about them. Would he fight her for custody? Oh, boy, she hoped not. There was no way she could win in a legal battle with a King.
Her client finally wound down and in the sudden silence, Dina said quickly, “Right. I’ll give you a call in a day or two and we’ll set up that meeting. Okay, great. Thank you for calling. Goodbye.”
She hung up and her fingers rested lightly on the back of the receiver. Naturally, as soon as she was off the phone, the babies got quiet. Smiling, she looked at them, two boys and a girl, and felt a hard, swift tug at her heart. She loved her niece and nephews, but being a single mother wasn’t something she had planned for.
But then, Jackie and Elena hadn’t planned to die, had they? Tears stung the backs of her eyes and she blinked them away. She looked at those shining, smiling faces watching her, and Dina felt such sorrow for her sister. She and Elena had been close, joined together against the chaos their mother had created. With their grandmother, the two sisters