Fortune's Secret Child. Shawna Delacorte
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door of the den and could see Bobby still eating his breakfast. “To add the emotional turmoil of your father’s death to the circumstances is asking too much. The least I can do is allow you a safe and quiet haven in the middle of the chaos for a couple of weeks or so. You certainly can’t take care of your business while living in a motel and trying to take care of your son, too. I’m at the hospital a good deal of the time, so you’d practically have the place to yourself.”
He held up his hand to prevent her from voicing her objections. “Don’t say anything now. Give it some thought while you have breakfast.” He extended an engaging smile that he hoped would mask the uncertainty weaving its way through the fabric of his confidence. “Okay?”
He saw her relent before the words came out of her mouth. “I’ll...I’ll think about it.” She turned her attention to picking up the rest of Bobby’s toys.
Cynthia set the toy box on the coffee table next to the police car, then gazed out the door at Bobby. The little boy had taken his fire truck and was playing with it on the patio. She knew she could not conduct her business with her father’s estate while keeping her son cooped up in a motel room all day. Even if she let him play outside, she certainly couldn’t allow him to play in a parking lot or at the motel swimming pool without constant supervision.
She slowly turned to face Shane. She had reluctantly come to an uneasy decision. She made a valiant attempt to ignore the apprehension layered on top of her anxiety, caused as much by her unwanted attraction to Shane as by her all-important need to protect her secret.
He eyed her curiously. “Well?”
“I...” She stole another quick look at Bobby. Did she dare to stay in Shane’s house and tempt fate? Trepidation shivered through her body. She shoved the words out quickly, before she could change her mind. “Yes. If it won’t be too much of an imposition, we’ll stay until I can get my father’s estate straightened out.”
“Well, that’s settled then.” An odd sensation washed over him. Whether or not he’d planned it, the fact remained that Cynthia McCree was back in his life. What he was not sure about was whether he had made the right decision and where that decision would lead. Intimate memories of their time together flooded through his mind, vividly bringing back desires and yearnings for what had once been.
“Yes, I guess it is. I suppose I should go upstairs and unpack our things.” She stepped to the patio door and called to her son. “Come on, Bobby. Let’s take your toys to your bedroom so they aren’t cluttering up Shane’s den, then you need to get dressed.”
“In a minute, Mommy.” He pushed the fire truck while making engine noises. “My firemen aren’t done putting out the fire yet.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him if you want to go ahead and unpack.”
She paused for a moment, not sure how to respond to Shane’s offer. Even though she had started Bobby on swimming lessons at their neighborhood YMCA in Chicago, she didn’t feel comfortable about leaving him alone by the swimming pool. But of even greater concern was leaving him alone with Shane. The last thing she needed was for Shane to question Bobby about where his father was. An uncomfortable lump knotted in the pit of her stomach and refused to go away. This was more than she had bargained for when she’d made the decision to move back to Pueblo. She had never figured close contact with Shane Fortune into the equation.
She watched her son playing with his truck. Her love for him flowed through her body, sending warmth to every corner of her existence. His innocence was balanced in a precarious position between the business she had to handle and her fear that Shane would discover his true identity. It was up to her to make sure that nothing—or no one—robbed him of his right to a happy childhood. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to still her rattled nerves. She had to be strong. She could not allow this temporary association with Shane to distract her.
Nor could she allow Shane to work his way into her heart again—a task she feared would not be all that diffi-cult for him to achieve.
Cynthia stiffened her resolve. She had to make sure Shane didn’t suspect that anything was amiss. “I’ll only be gone for a few minutes. I’m sure Bobby won’t need any attention other than someone just being here to make sure he doesn’t try to go into the pool without supervision.” She gave one last tentative glance in Bobby’s direction and headed for the stairs.
Shane stood at the patio door watching Bobby play with his truck. Uncertainty welled up inside him—uncertainty about whether he had done the right thing, uncertainty about what the future held. An unidentified yet disturbing emotion pulled at his heartstrings. Bobby looked so much like Cynthia. Her son—a child who might have been theirs. His thoughts again wandered toward Bobby’s father and what had happened to him. He watched Bobby until the emotional tug-of-war taking place inside him became more than he could handle.
He turned his attention toward the Native American artifacts Bobby had scattered on the floor. He began gathering them together. A small hand thrust a mask in front of his face.
“Here. I can help.”
Bobby picked up a drum next and started to hand it to Shane, then paused. He looked at the drum, at Shane, then at the drum again. He hit it. A grin spread across his face and he hit it again. “I can be a Indian and you can be a cowboy.”
An involuntary laugh escaped Shane’s throat. “Maybe we should do that the other way around. Since I’m one-quarter Native American, I think you should be the cowboy, instead of me.”
Bobby put down the drum. His eyes grew wide in amazement as he stared at Shane. “You’re a real Indian?”
“I sure am. My grandmother’s name was Natasha Light-foot, and she was a full-blooded Papago. They’ve since changed the name to Tohono O’odham. There’s a plateau with a sacred cave next to the reservation. Her family used to own the plateau and it’s named for them.”
“Do you know how to ride a horse? And shoot a bow and arrow?” The little boy’s voice contained the same type of reverential awe often reserved for superheroes and sports stars.
“I sure do.” Shane took in the fascination that covered Bobby’s face. An odd sensation invaded his consciousness, a strange sort of tremor that started deep inside him and radiated throughout his body. He ventured a question, not sure exactly where he was going with it or even if he should ask it. “Would you like me to teach you how?” Another thought occurred to him, one that left him slightly unsettled. “If it’s okay with your mother, that is.” A surprising and unusual affinity with this little boy had been creeping up on him from the moment Bobby had turned around and asked him who he was early that morning. Was he starting something that couldn’t be finished?
Bobby exuded excitement. “Yeah, I’d like that!”
“First we have to make sure it’s okay with your mother,” Shane repeated. He turned his attention to the items still on the floor. “But for now, let’s finish putting these things back where they belong.”
Shane placed the various items on the shelves, all but two. Bobby had held on to the drum and one of the Kachina dolls. Both were very old and valuable.
Bobby put the Kachina doll on the floor and turned his attention to the drum. Shane picked up the doll and carefully placed it on the coffee table. It was one of the few items he owned that had at one time actually belonged to his grandmother, a woman he never knew. She had died when his father was only eighteen.
What few possessions his grandmother had owned had finally been distributed among her grandchildren—his cousins, Jason and Tyler Fortune, his brother, Riley, and his sister Isabelle. The one possession that should have been his grandmother’s was the one thing Shane wanted most—Lightfoot Plateau. The plateau and the cave were believed to have mystical powers. The Lightfoot family had been guardians of the plateau for centuries. One way or the other, he planned to have it back in the family.
Shane held up the Kachina doll. “Do you know what this is?”
Bobby took the doll