Fletcher's Baby!. Anne McAllister
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going to leave it to you.”
Josie shut the lid and gave the start button a push. “Why should she? I’m not family.”
“You were closer to her than anyone. You were the granddaughter she and Walter never had. She loved you.” He made it almost sound like an accusation.
“I loved her, too,” Josie said fiercely, and turned her head to meet his gaze. “She was the mother—the grandmother—the family I never had. But I didn’t ever expect her to leave me the inn! She did enough for me. She set up a trust fund. Mr. Zupper can tell you about it if you want. One for me and...and one for the baby.”
“You were supposed to have the inn, too,” Sam insisted. “When I was out here last fall—when Izzy... when I...”
“I know when,” Josie said sharply. Did he think she’d forgotten?
Sam sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, you know when. Well, back then she told me I wouldn’t have to worry about the inn when she was gone. And I told her she wasn’t going anywhere.” He paused and Josie heard the ache in his voice. It matched her own ache, but she wasn’t going to comfort him.
“You didn’t know she was going to die,” she said. “None of us did.”
“Hattie did. She said, ‘This old heart of mine could go any day. So I want you to know this.’ And then she told me she meant no disrespect to the family, but she was going to leave it to you.” He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “So when she left it—and you—to me, she was making a point.”
Josie’s head snapped around. “She left me to you?”
“I thought it was a joke.”
A hell of a joke, Josie thought. But, “It is,” she said firmly.
Sam shook his head. “No. She was right.” He shifted from one foot to the other. His hands were jammed into his pockets. He looked at the floor for a long moment. The dryer swirled, the tap dripped. He lifted his gaze and met Josie’s. “We’ll get married.”
As a proposal it left a lot to be desired.
In fact Josie felt as if he’d stabbed her in the heart.
We’ll get married. Just like that. As if it were a foregone conclusion, a business negotiation with only one possible outcome.
She supposed where Sam Fletcher was concerned most business deals had only one possible outcome—the one he wanted.
But he didn’t want this!
She knew he didn’t want it. She could see it in his face, in his eyes. She heard it in the resignation in his voice.
And why would he? He didn’t love her. He didn’t want their child.
He was doing it because Hattie had forced his hand. He was doing it because he was used to doing the right thing, the necessary thing.
Just as Hattie had known he would.
Just as Josie had feared he would. It was why she wouldn’t tell him about the baby.
“A child has a right to know its father,” Hattie had said in a tone far more gentle than the bracing one she usually used.
“I know that,” Josie had replied. “I just...can’t tell him. Not now.”
“When?”
“Sometime,” Josie said vaguely.
“A father has a right to know his child, too,” Hattie had gone on implacably.
“I’ll tell him,” Josie had promised. But she hadn’t said when. And she’d changed the subject whenever Hattie brought it up.
“You can tell him at Christmas,” Hattie had said eventually.
But Sam hadn’t come. Josie had seen Hattie’s disappointment when he hadn’t come. She’d seen the older woman watching her with worry and concern in her eyes. But Josie had steeled herself against that concern because she knew why Sam hadn’t come.
After that Hattie hadn’t brought it up again.
Josie had dared to think Hattie had given up.
Obviously, once the will had been read, she knew she’d thought wrong. Hattie had made sure Sam would know.
Now Sam did know—and had done the very thing Hattie had hoped—and Josie had dreaded—he might.
It wasn’t the way he’d imagined proposing marriage, standing in a laundry room, willing his prospective, very pregnant bride to look at him, his hands in his pockets, fists clenched.
It certainly wasn’t the way he’d proposed to Izzy. That had happened at a cozy dinner at a candlelit table in a restaurant on the top of Knob Hill. They had been laughing together, touching, and his suggestion that what they had was too good to waste on casual moments had been enough to make Izzy catch her breath, then turn a thousand-watt smile in his direction.
This time he was standing stiffly, touching no one, his head bent beneath the stone basement’s low ceiling. His voice was stiff and awkward. And, far from bestowing any thousand-watt smile, Josie was looking at him as if he’d just electrocuted her.
Surely it wasn’t a surprise. She had to know what they had to do. It was the only responsible thing to do—though heaven knew if he could have thought of something else, he probably would have done it.
Besides, what did she expect? A profession of undying love? Hardly. Especially not after he’d already assured her just hours before that his actions that night had been a mistake.
It was enough that he was willing to do the right thing, he assured himself. He looked at her expectantly and waited for her to do the right thing, too.
She said, “No.”
Sam gaped. He wasn’t jet lagged this time, but he thought his hearing was going just the same. He checked. “No?”
“No. Thank you,” she added after a moment, but he didn’t think she sounded very grateful.
His jaw tightened. “Why the hell not?”
It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to marry her, for heaven’s sake! He was being a good sport, though, and making the offer. The least she could do, damn it all, was accept it!
“When I marry, I’m marrying for love,” she said simply.
He stared at her. He glanced around the tiny laundry room pointedly, then at her now bare ring finger. “Forgive me if I’m wrong,” he drawled, “but I don’t see your own true love clamoring for a wedding date any longer.”
Josie got a tight, pinched look on her face and he immediately felt like a heel. “No,” she admitted quietly, then blinked and looked down at her hands.
Oh, hell. It was like kicking a puppy.
“I didn’t mean...” he muttered at last, his voice gruff. He started to reach for her, to comfort her, then remembered where that had got him last time. He pulled back sharply. “Sorry.”
In fact, he wasn’t sorry at all. This might not be the reason her engagement ought to have been broken, but Kurt Masters didn’t deserve a woman as kind and generous and open and—well, hell—as loving as Josie. But he didn’t suppose she wanted to hear that right now.
“Kurt doesn’t matter,” she said after a moment.
Sam wouldn’t argue about that. “Glad to hear it,” he said brusquely. “Then why are you saying no?”
“I told you.”
“Because you want love.” He fairly spat the word. “And what about the baby? Don’t you want it to have love?”
Her nostrils flared. “Of course I do! What are you talking about?”
“You’re