with the wristband of his watch, as if he were running out of time. She knew why. The continuous correspondence from the IRS explained it all.
“So this is good-bye,” he said.
“Yes.” She reached for her purse. “I was just getting ready to call it a day.” Her mind was spinning ahead, creating an excuse to flee the building.
“I thought we might have one last drink together.”
“Sorry.” Not really. “I told Laura I’d stop by. I’m already late.”
“Your sister will understand.” He picked up her favorite paperweight—a crystal porcupine—and tossed it lightly, as if testing its weight. “This is important.” He offered her an infectious smile that had worked its magic on dozens of women with weaker hearts and landed them in his bed. The sorcery hadn’t affected Kate. She wasn’t interested in a man, any man, and especially not one as well worn as Tyrell. And now his grin seemed forced, his usually tanned skin, paler, as if the life were being sucked out of him.
“What?” Her damned curiosity always got the better of her.
“I thought you might like to be a mother again.”
She felt as if the floor had just dropped out from under her feet. “A mother?” she repeated, her voice a whisper. Her head began to pound. She’d never known him to be so outwardly cruel. “If this is some kind of joke—”
“It’s not.”
She could barely breathe, hardly hear above the dull roar in her ears.
“I’m offering you a son. No strings attached. Well, not many.” Easing his hip onto the edge of her desk, he clasped his hands around one knee and stared at her with dark knowing eyes. The tic beneath his eye kept up its steady rhythm.
“I don’t understand,” she replied, trying to calm down.
“It’s a long story and one I’m not privileged to discuss in too many details, but I have a client, an important, socially prominent client, whose daughter just had a baby—a little boy—out of wedlock. He was born this afternoon.”
“You—you want me to adopt him?”
He hesitated, his eyebrows drawing together. “Not just adopt him, Kate. I want you to take him with you to Seattle and pretend that he’s yours. The child’s white, his hair dark and he could certainly pass as yours.”
“What? Wait a minute—”
“Just hear me out, Kate,” he insisted and the roar in her ears became louder. He reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew an envelope. From within, he found a Polaroid snapshot, which he handed to her. The picture was of a newborn infant, still red, eyes out of focus as the camera had flashed. Little fists were coiled and his expression was one of shock at being brought into the harsh lights of the real world.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
“I thought you wanted another child.”
“I do, but…” There was nothing—nothing—she’d love more than a child. But the idea was impossible. A pipe dream. You had your chance, she reminded herself grimly before the tears could come again.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
A small drop of hope slid into her heart.
“I don’t understand.” This conversation was moving too fast. Way too fast. “You want me to adopt him?” She felt as if she had cobwebs in her mind that were slowing down her comprehension, as if she couldn’t quite keep up with the discussion. “What’s the catch?”
“The catch,” he repeated under his breath and bit his lower lip. “Unfortunately, there is one.”
“Always is.” Trepidation chased away that little bit of hope.
“I prefer to think of it as a condition that comes with this kind of instant motherhood.”
Motherhood. The sound of the word brought back images of her own mother and a small farm in Iowa. Spring flowers, the scent of mown hay, and cinnamon lacing the air from Anna Rudisill’s prize-winning apple pies. Her mother’s kind smile or razor-sharp tongue when one of her daughters dared take the name of the Lord in vain whispered through Kate’s mind. Summers had been full of hard work and long days, nights staring up at a wide dark sky sprinkled with millions of stars. The winters had been fierce, frigid, and brutal as well as gorgeous with the thick blanket of snow that crunched under Kate’s boots as she trudged through the drifts to the barn holding on to her mother’s hand. Icicles had hung from the eaves of the barn, and even the moisture collecting on the flat snouts of the cattle had sparkled in the pale winter sunlight.