Rancher's Deadly Reunion. Beth Cornelison
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pregnant. Without even trying. By mistake. Pam swallowed hard. What would Piper McCall do with the baby? Keep it? Put it up for adoption? Abort it? Her gut clenched hard, churning with nausea at the idea of Piper getting rid of the baby. Scott’s niece or nephew.
It wasn’t fair! She swiped at a tear that tickled her cheek. Then stilled.
Scott’s niece or nephew. His blood relation. An idea began to form, like a tickling at the nape of her neck. The tingling spread over her scalp as the idea grew stronger. Her heart thrashed in her chest, resolve solidifying.
She jolted when Scott touched her shoulder. “He’s out.”
“I want the baby,” she said, barely a breath.
“I know. It’s crazy. It’s cruel fate that he—”
She spun to face her husband. “No. I want that baby. Brady’s baby is your family. If she’s planning to give it up or is thinking she’ll get rid of it...”
“Pam?”
She was starting to hyperventilate. Grabbing the front of her husband’s T-shirt, she met his gaze with a pleading look. “We can call George in the morning. He has all kind of connections with adoption agencies around the country. I bet he knows people in Boston. That’s who she’d contact, right?”
“Pam—”
She shook the fistful of his shirt. “Listen! Surely with this kind of head start, George can alert his people, find out what she plans to do with the baby, find out if she plans to give it away and pull whatever strings he has to to get the baby for us.”
Scott didn’t say anything for a moment, his expression sad but thoughtful. “If Brady knew we had his child, he’d—”
She shook her head vehemently. “No. We can’t tell Brady. Piper can’t know it’s us trying to adopt. It’ll be our secret. A closed adoption. If they knew it was their baby, it would be too hard, too complicated.”
Scott wiped the tears she hadn’t even realized she’d shed from her cheeks and kissed her forehead. “I know how much you’re hurting, how much you want a baby. But I don’t see how this would work. We’ll adopt another—”
“It can work. We’ll explain everything to George, and he’ll make it work. He’s the best adoption attorney out there. I know he can do this.”
Scott was shaking his head, and she released him with a shove. “So you won’t even try? We’re talking about your niece or nephew! This was meant to be. I feel it!”
Scott ducked his head, his breathing heavy and quick. When he lifted his chin again and met her gaze, a spark of determination lit his eyes. “All right. I’ll call George in the morning.”
Seven years later
Piper was leaving town. Ken Grainger watched the evidence play out on his computer screen. Thanks to the tracking program he’d installed on her computer on a weekend when the accounting office was abandoned, he could see everything she did on her work computer. Getting access to her personal laptop had been a bit harder, but he’d rather enjoyed the challenge. He was even able to access her laptop camera and watch her in her apartment. Well, as far as the camera angle allowed. But he’d caught a few glimpses of her walking through her living room in her towel last week, and he was still enjoying the fantasies that peek created for him.
He shoveled another spoonful of cereal in his mouth, then wiped dribbles of milk from his chin with his sleeve. He chewed and followed the movement of her cursor as she booked her flight for Denver.
Ken frowned. He knew she was from Colorado, but she typically didn’t go back to her family’s ranch except at Christmas and for a brief visit around Mother’s Day. An October visit was unusual, and this break from her normal pattern didn’t sit well with him. Why was she going now? What was he missing?
He grumbled a curse under his breath. He had to find a way to hack her new cell phone. He was missing so much valuable information by not being party to her texts and phone calls. Putting that kind of hacking in place would take a little more planning. Cunning.
He grinned as she typed in her credit card number to purchase the airline ticket. Challenge accepted. Piper was worth the effort and the expense involved. He would convince her, some way, that they were soul mates, destined to be together, and anyone who interfered with that destiny would pay the price.
Like Ron Sandburg had.
The dirtwad had tried to move in on his turf and had regretted it. He’d overheard Piper tell Elaine in the break room that the way Ron stared at her from his cubicle gave Piper the creeps. So after he’d seen Ron hitting on Piper at the coffee shop in the lobby of the office building, he’d made sure Ron Sandburg left Piper alone. Permanently.
The look of confusion in Ron’s eyes, the instant of fear when Ron had known he was about to die, had been sweet payoff. A well-centered push on Ron’s chest as he’d topped the long flight of stairs in his apartment building...and any threat Ron had posed to his plans with Piper went tumbling down.
Ken grinned to himself, relishing that victory.
Yes, he would come up with a way to add her new phone to his surveillance, he vowed as he hit Print Screen to make a hard copy of her flight schedule. He’d remedy this gap in his surveillance as soon as feasible.
But how? She kept her damn cell on her person all the time while she was at the office. He’d tried before to steal a peek at it, but she carried it in the pocket of the cardigan she wore year-round because the management kept the temperature of the office set to arctic.
Turning to his second screen, he navigated to the airline’s reservation page and booked himself a ticket to Denver on the flight arriving just before Piper’s. He wanted to be in place at the Denver airport to observe her arrival. Who would pick her up? Where would she go after arriving? The family ranch or a hotel?
He sloshed another bite of cereal into his mouth, irritated that he didn’t know the nature of her trip. Had someone died? Was this a business meeting? He dismissed the idea of this trip being work-related with a brisk shake of his head. Surely if this was company travel, he’d have heard about it in staff meetings or seen something come through her work email. If he could—
He cut the thought off, seeing new activity on her laptop. Speaking of email...she was apparently writing one to—he leaned closer to the screen to see what she’d typed—Josh and Zane. Her brothers.
He set his now-soggy dinner aside and rolled his desk chair closer to the monitor where he followed her activity.
Hi guys, I just booked my flight out for Mom and Dad’s anniversary party. Can one of you dolts find it in your hearts to pick me up and save me the cab fare in from Denver? I arrive on the Wednesday before the party at 3:10 p.m. Love you both (despite your many flaws!) Ha ha! P.
An anniversary party, huh? He rubbed his jaw and considered that for a moment. On the surface, a family event seemed innocent enough, but...
Ken ground his back teeth together and stared at the monitor, as if he could read any hidden agenda into her return to her family’s ranch. She had a good job, a good life here in Boston. She had him here in Boston, even if she hadn’t yet realized what they could mean to each other. Maybe he was paranoid, but every time she went back to Colorado, he worried that she might decide she was missing something by not being close to her family. She talked fairly often about her brothers. He knew she and her brothers were triplets. Did she have some triplet bond with her brothers that might trump everything she had here in Boston?
Mentally, he bumped up the urgency to hack her cell phone before she left town in a couple weeks. He couldn’t be sure how closely he’d be able to observe her once she got to Colorado, and he needed that additional