to a stranger. And I don’t want to make him cry.”
Mild surprise pushed the suspicion from her face. “Oh. So you’re familiar with babies?”
“I’ve never had one of my own,” he admitted. “But I spent quite a bit of time with my nieces and nephews when they were small.”
That hardly seemed to impress her, but she did move a step closer.
“I see. Well, Harry is a friendly little guy. He likes most everyone.”
The breath suddenly rushed from Finn’s lungs. “Harry? Is that short for Harrison?” he asked, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper.
“That’s right. I always call him Harry, though.”
The yellow and blue furnishings of the nursery faded to a dazed blur, prompting Finn to wipe a hand over his face. He’d never felt so humbled, so shaken in his life.
“Harrison is my first name,” he told her. “But I—I guess you already knew that. You saw it on the birth certificate.”
Her cool gray gaze connected with his and for one brief moment, Finn thought he spotted a flash of compassion in her eyes. Could she possibly understand that his emotions were riding a violent wave? Maybe she understood he wasn’t the sort of man who could casually make a baby, then walk away without a backward glance.
She said, “I’m sorry. When I spoke to you on the telephone, I was so focused on how to give you the news about Aimee that I didn’t think to tell you Harry’s name.”
Hearing that Aimee had died from a tragic accident had been enough to knock Finn sideways. Then before he could recover, she’d hit him with the news of the baby and that supposedly he was the father. After that he’d been too stunned to ask for details. He’d managed to scribble down the child’s location and a phone number, and the rest of the conversation had passed in a blur.
“To be honest I don’t recall much of our conversation. I was pretty shaken up. All I could think about was getting up here,” Finn admitted, then shook his head. “I can’t believe Aimee even remembered my first name. Everyone calls me Finn—that’s my middle name.”
He held his arms out and Mariah carefully handed the boy to him. Once he had the baby’s weight cradled safely in the crook of his arm, the realization that he could be touching his son for the very first time swelled his chest with overwhelming emotions.
Bending his head, Finn placed a kiss on the baby’s forehead, while unabashed tears burned the back of his eyes. Father or not, he couldn’t ignore the deep and sudden connection he felt to the child in his arms.
“This isn’t the way a man is supposed to be introduced to his son,” he murmured thickly. “The child should be newly born from his mother’s womb with his eyes squinched and his skin all red and wrinkled. He should be there to hear him crying and sucking in the first few breaths of his life.”
Lifting his head, he looked to Mariah for answers. “If Harry is truly mine, then I’ve lost so much—memories and moments that I’ll never have. Why didn’t Aimee tell me she was pregnant?”
With a frustrated shake of her head, she turned and walked to the far side of the nursery. As Finn watched her go, his gaze was instinctively drawn to the sway of her curvy hips encased in faded denim and the long black tail of hair swishing against her back. He hadn’t expected Aimee’s sister to look so young or pretty. In fact, during the brief time he’d known Aimee, she hadn’t said much about her sister. Only that she had one and that the both of them lived on the ranch.
As Finn had made the drive up here to Stallion Canyon in Northern California, he’d held the notion he’d be meeting an older woman with a family of her own, who’d kindly taken in her little nephew until the father could be located. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Mariah was an attractive single woman. Not only that, there was a fierce maternal gleam in her eye. One that said she wasn’t about to hand Harry over to him without definitive proof.
“Several weeks passed after Harry was born before Aimee finally told me you were the father. After that, I tried to persuade her to contact you, but she always stalled without giving me a reason. I don’t know why. Unless it was because some other man actually fathered Harry. Maybe she got tangled up with a married man. Or she didn’t want you involved. I’m just as confused as you are about the whole thing.”
It was becoming clear to Finn that Aimee hadn’t revealed much, if anything, to her sister about their weekend romance in Reno. But he didn’t consider that odd. He hadn’t said anything about that weekend to his brothers, either. Not until two days ago when he’d learned about the baby. Before then, his time with Aimee had been a private, personal thing.
“I’ve never been married. I made that clear to Aimee.” He shook his head with confusion. “We met and after having a whirlwind weekend together, I thought she’d taken our time together seriously. Before we parted I gave her my number and she promised to keep in touch. But I never heard from her again.”
Her expression rueful, she said, “We were sisters, but we had our differences. She didn’t talk much to me about her personal life. But after Harry was born—well, we eventually got into a heated argument.”
Her wavering voice had broken in spots and as Finn watched her struggle to hold back tears, it suddenly struck him that this whole ordeal was far more difficult for her than it was for him. Mariah had lost a member of her family. Finn’s connection to Aimee had been little more than a brief, star-crossed encounter.
Finn was wondering if he should offer some comforting words when she suddenly went on, “I warned her that if something happened to her, Harry would need his father. I didn’t— I never thought something actually would happen. I was only trying to push her into contacting you. But then she really died. Now I have to live with those words I said to her. Even though I said them with good intentions.”
Finn was suddenly struck with the urge to go to her and place a reassuring arm around her shoulders. But he held back. They’d met only a few minutes ago. She might not appreciate him getting that close. Especially when the two of them appeared to be the only two adults in the house.
“We all say things we wish we could change or take back,” Finn told her. “But in this case I hardly see where you crossed the line. Harry’s father should’ve been contacted long before his birth. I don’t understand why she was keeping it a secret.”
She made a helpless palms-up gesture. “Frankly, Aimee had been giving me the impression that the father was someone else. A guy she’d been involved with off and on for a long time. When she told me about you and showed me the birth certificate, I was shocked.”
Finn’s mind was so jammed with questions, he didn’t know where to begin or what to think. “What else did she tell you about me?”
Shrugging, she said, “Not much. Just that you lived in Nevada and liked horses. Later, after the accident, I found your number in her address book.”
With the baby cuddled safely to his chest, Finn moved across the room to where Mariah was sitting stiffly on the edge of the rocking chair. The two sisters couldn’t have been more different, he thought. Where Mariah was dark and petite, Aimee had been tall, with caramel-brown hair and hazel eyes. Their personalities appeared to be equally opposite, too. Aimee had been full of smiles and laughter, whereas this young woman seemed to be all serious business.
“I don’t know what to think about all that, Ms. Montgomery. But if she said I’m the father, then I surely must be.” He looked down at the precious baby snuggled in the crook of his arm. Three days ago Finn had been a thirty-two-year-old man with nothing on his mind but his job of managing the Silver Horn’s horse division. The possibility of having a child never entered his thoughts. Now here he was holding a baby who could very well be his son. The whole thing seemed surreal. “I met Aimee at the mustang training competition in Reno. After the first round was over I made a point of searching her out. To offer a price for her horse. She refused to sell him.”
“But