Adopt-A-Dad. Marion Lennox
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like.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You know, if you said it was my business, then I’d fight you every inch of the way,” he said sourly. “But damn it, woman, I have enough moral fiber to think I can’t allow you to sneak over the border with nothing except the clothes you’re wearing. And no friends to meet you.”
She glowered again, trapped. She didn’t want his help. She didn’t want anyone’s help. “I don’t need your morals.”
“Neither do I,” he said dryly. “I don’t need ’em at all. Unfortunately I have ’em, and so does Ellie. She’ll want to know what the heck I’ve done with you, and if I tell her what you intend doing and that I’ve allowed it, she’ll be after me with a horsewhip. So you can say I’m doing this because the Maitlands are head of this place and I work for the Maitlands. Good enough for you?”
She glowered again. “No.”
“It’d better be.” He took her arm. “Because that’s the way it is. Like it or lump it, lady. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWO
HE TOOK HER to her apartment first.
“We have maybe twenty minutes,” he told her. “Ellie will hold them that long. So we move fast.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Just shut up,” he told her kindly. “Like it or not, I’m embroiled in this mess, so I might as well be embroiled all the way.”
Which wasn’t exactly true, he decided as he drove fast through Austin’s afternoon traffic. He wasn’t really embroiled in this mess—yet. At this stage he could put her out of the car and walk away.
But there was no way he could do that, and it wasn’t the thought of Ellie’s anger that was keeping him in here. It was the set look on Jenny’s face, the look of despair combined with that stubborn look of pride. She’d go to the wall alone, he thought as he watched her. She had sheer, raw courage. Whatever mess she was in…
She wasn’t facing it alone, he decided. Not while Michael Lord was around to help her. But why he felt that way, he didn’t have a clue. He didn’t get involved with women. Not ever.
A very pregnant secretary didn’t really count as a woman, he told himself. Did she?
He couldn’t answer that question. Instead, he concentrated on driving fast and outmaneuvering the Suits.
Some questions were just too hard to answer.
THE PLACE she lived in was the pits. Michael stopped in front of a run-down apartment block in the poorest part of town and grimaced, then steered his Corvette around the corner and out of sight. The neighborhood was no better around the corner. It wasn’t the sort of place to leave a Corvette, much less a pregnant woman.
“You’ve been living here all the time you’ve worked for me?” he demanded.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Jenny’s voice was defensive. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s a dump.”
“Can we spare the thoughts on my taste in housing for some other time?” she asked with asperity, worry replaced by indignation. “Anyway, I like it. It’s friendly. You try being a poverty-stricken single mom in a rich neighborhood and see how many friends you make. So if you really are going to help me…”
“Yeah, right.” He sighed. The place he’d put the car was deserted and well out of sight. Jenny would have to stay in the car. He didn’t like leaving her, but there was hardly a choice. He had to move fast, and if there was one thing Jenny’s bulk didn’t let her do, it was that. “Tell me which is your apartment and give me the keys.”
“I’m coming.” She was still crabby.
“No, Jenny, you’re not.” He put his hands on her shoulders and propelled her onto her seat. “I’m going in fast. I’m staying out of sight, which is something I’ve been trained to be good at. I’m getting out of there even faster, and if there’s a knock on the door while I’m in there, then I’ll be out the back window like a rat down the drainpipe. Assuming there’s a back window.”
“There’s a back window, but—”
“No buts. Can you shinny down a drainpipe?”
That brought a grin. She glanced at her pregnant bulge, and her eyes twinkled with sudden laughter. She looked better that way, Michael thought. “Maybe not, but—”
“Then leave the shinnying to me.” He hesitated. “I can’t bring everything. I’ll just grab what I can. I may only have a few minutes.”
“I don’t have much. There’s a bag under the bed. You’ll hardly fill it.”
Funny—why had he known she’d say something like that?
THE LADY WAS RIGHT. There sure wasn’t much. Michael stared around her dreary apartment in stunned silence.
He had two sisters, and Lana and Shelby nested. In fact, when they’d lived together, his sisters had nested all over the house. He was used to masses of clothes, bathrooms cluttered with toiletries, bedrooms with bright fabrics and huge cushions—the sort of place where a girl could come home and relax with style.
There was no way Jenny could come home and relax in any comfort at all, he thought, much less with style. The one-room apartment had a narrow iron bed in one corner, which was made up with essential bedclothes. There was a shabby wardrobe. A card table had one chair beside it, another chair acted as a bedside table, and there was nothing more.
He had no time for investigation, though. A leather suitcase was under her bed. He grabbed it and discovered it was already half packed. With little furniture, she was obviously using it for storage. That made things easy. There were a couple of dresses in the wardrobe—shapeless things like the one she was wearing now. It took him two minutes to collect her meager toiletries from the bathroom. There was nothing else except for a small clock and a picture frame on her bedside chair.
They all went quickly into the case, though he paused a moment to glance at the photo. A young man stared at him, fair and good-looking, laughing at the camera as if he was laughing at life in general. He looked as if he didn’t have a worry in the world.
Was this the son of the fearful mother-in-law who was haunting her? Michael wondered briefly. He didn’t look as if he’d haunt anyone.
There was no time to think of that now. He shoved the lid closed, noticing with a mind trained to notice that the suitcase was good quality leather, with the initial M burned into it. At some time in the past, Jenny hadn’t been as broke as she was at the present.
She shouldn’t be broke now, he thought, frowning. He paid her good money. Nothing made sense, but now wasn’t the time to sort it out. He grabbed the case and crossed to the door.
There were footsteps on the landing. Uh-oh. Ellie hadn’t delayed them as long as he’d hoped.
“She’s not here.” It was a garrulous female voice, and the speaker sounded annoyed. The landlady? “So why do you want her? What’s so urgent?”
“We’re from Immigration.” Silence followed, and Michael imagined them flashing their ID cards. “We need to ask her a few questions.”
“No, you don’t.” Yep, the landlady was definitely annoyed. Authority wouldn’t be all that welcome around here. “You leave her alone, poor kid. She’s done nothing to no one, and she’s the nicest kid.”
“We just need to ask her—”
“She’s not here.” The voice rose belligerently, and Michael blessed the woman. “I see everyone as they go in and out. She went to work this morning and she hasn’t been back since. No one has.”
That