“I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“What?” She shook her head, looked at him and said, “Don’t you have to wait until we’re back in San Pedro?”
“No, I’m not going to wait. I want this question settled as quickly as possible.” He continued to eat, as though what they were discussing wasn’t affecting him in the slightest. “We dock at Cabo in the morning. You and I will go ashore, find a lab and have them fax the findings to the lab in San Pedro.”
“We will?” She hadn’t planned on spending a lot of time with Nick, after all. She’d only come on board to tell him about the boys and frankly, she’d thought he wouldn’t want anything more to do with her after that. Instead, he’d moved her into his suite and now was proposing that they spend even more time together.
“Until this is taken care of to my satisfaction,” Nick told her softly, “I’m not letting you out of my sight. The two of us are going to be joined at the hip. So you might as well start getting used to it.”
Five
Once the ship had docked and most of the passengers had disembarked for their day of shopping, sailing and exploring the city of Cabo San Lucas, Nick got busy. He’d already had Teresa make a few calls, and the lab at the local hospital was expecting them.
The sun was hot and bright and the scent of the sea greeted them the moment he and Jenna stepped out on deck. Ordinarily Nick would have been enjoying this. He loved this part of cruising. Docking in a port, exploring the city, revisiting favorite sites, discovering new ones.
But today was different. Today he was on a mission, so he wasn’t going to notice the relaxed, party atmosphere of Cabo. Just as he wasn’t going to notice the way Jenna’s pale green sundress clung to her body or the way her legs looked in those high-heeled sandals. He had no interest in the fact that her dark blond hair looked like spilled honey as it flowed down over her shoulders and he really wasn’t noticing her scent or the way it seemed to waft its way to him on the slightest breeze.
Having her stay in his suite had seemed like a good idea yesterday. But the knowledge that she was so close, that she was just down the hall from him, alone in her bed, had taunted him all night long. Now his eyes felt gritty, his temper was too close to the surface and his body was hard and achy.
“So where are we going?” she asked as he laid his hand at the small of her back to guide her down the gangplank to shore. Damn, just the tips of his fingers against her spine was enough to make him want to forget all about this appointment and drag her back to his cabin instead.
Gritting his teeth, he pushed that image out of his mind.
“Teresa called the hospital here,” he muttered. “The lab’s expecting us. They’ll take a DNA sample, run it and fax the results to your lab. We should have an answer in a day or two.”
She actually stumbled and he grabbed her arm in an instinctive move. “That fast?”
“Money talks,” he said with a shrug. He’d learned long ago that with enough money, a man could accomplish anything. Way of the world. And for the first time, he was damned glad he was rich enough to demand fast action. Nick wanted this question of paternity settled. Like now. He couldn’t stop thinking about those babies. Couldn’t seem to stop looking at the picture she’d given him of them.
Couldn’t stop wondering how their very existence was going to affect-change-his life. So he needed to know if he was going to be a father or if he was simply going to be suing Jenna Baker for everything she had for lying to him. Again.
Her heels clicked against the gangway and sounded like a frantic heartbeat. He wondered if she was nervous. Wondered if she really was lying and was now worried about being found out. Had she thought he’d simply accept her word that her sons belonged to him? Surely not.
At the bottom of the gangway, a taxi was waiting. Silently blessing Teresa’s efficiency, Nick opened the door for Jenna, and when she was inside, slid in after her. In short, sharp sentences spoken in nearly fluent Spanish, Nick told the driver where to go.
“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” she said as he settled onto the bench seat beside her.
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” he said.
“I guess so.”
Of course, the same could be said about what he knew of her. He remembered clearly their time together more than a year before. But in those stolen moments, he’d been more intent on burying himself inside her than discovering her thoughts, her hopes, her dreams. He’d told himself then that there would be plenty of time for them to discover each other. He couldn’t have guessed that in one short week he’d find her, want her and then lose her.
Yet, even with the passion simmering between them, Nick could recall brief conversations when she’d talked about her home, her family. He’d thought at the time that she was different from the other women he knew. That she was more sincere. That she was more interested in
Of course, that little fantasy had been exploded pretty quickly.
He dropped into silence again as the cab took off. He didn’t want to talk to her. Didn’t want to think about anything but what he was about to do. With a simple check of his DNA, his life could be altered irrevocably forever. His chest was tight and his mind was racing. Cabo was no more than a colorful blur outside his window as they headed for the lab and a date with destiny.
In a few seconds the cab was swallowed by the bustling port city. At the dock and on the main drive that ran along the ocean, Cabo San Lucas was beautiful. The hotels, the restaurants and bars, everything was new and shone to perfection, the better to tempt the tourists who streamed into the city every year.
But just a few short blocks from the port and Cabo was a big city like any other. The streets were crowded with cars, and pedestrians leaped off the sidewalks and ran across the street with complete abandon, trusting that the drivers would somehow keep from running them down. Narrower, cobblestoned side streets spilled off the bigger avenues and from there came the tantalizing scents of frying onions, spices and grilling meat.
Restaurants and bars crowded together, their chipped stucco facades looking a little tattered as tourists milled up and down the sidewalks, cameras clutched in sunburned fists. As the cab driver steered his car through the maze of traffic, Nick idly glanced out the window and noted the open-air markets gathered together under dark green awnings. Under that umbrella were at least thirty booths where you could buy everything from turquoise jewelry to painted ceramic burros.
Cabo was a tourist town and the locals did everything they could to keep those vacation dollars in the city.
“Strange, isn’t it?” she mused, and Nick turned his head to look at her. She was staring out her window at the city and he half wondered if she was speaking to him or to herself. “All of the opulence on the beach and just a few blocks away…”
“It’s a city, like any other,” he said.
She turned her head to meet his gaze. “It’s just a little disappointing to see the real world beneath the glitz.”
“There’s always a hidden side. To everything. And everyone,” he said, staring into her eyes, wondering what she was feeling. Wondering why he even cared.
“What’s hidden beneath your facade, then?” she asked.
Nick forced a smile. “I’m the exception to the rule,” he told her. “What you see is what you get with me. There are no hidden depths. No mysteries to be solved. No secrets. No lies.”
Her features tightened slightly. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “You’re not as shallow as you pretend to be, Nick. I remember too much to buy into that.”
“Then your memory is wrong. Don’t look for something that isn’t there, Jenna,” he said softly, just in case their driver spoke English. “I’m not a lonely rich boy looking for love.” He leaned in toward her, keeping his gaze locked with hers, and added, “I’m doing this DNA test for my own sake. If those babies are mine, then I need to know. But I’m not the white-picket-fence kind of guy. So don’t go building castles in the air. You’ll get trapped in the rubble when they collapse.”
