"Listen," Quinn lowered his voice, probably not wanting to be heard by construction workers. "Just because you don't want a kid doesn't mean Nic and I couldn't handle another one. Or Colin and Grace. Who knows? I mean, if this story is true, then we have a responsibility."
"It's true."
"Well then, you know what Gram McGrath always said about you."
Cam's chest ached as he looked at Jo. Aw, hell. Maybe he didn't want to "heal the hurt." Because if he didn't sign that paper, it would break her heart. "Yeah, I know what she said."
"She was never wrong, bro." Quinn laughed knowingly. "So who's going to California to check out this Jo character's story? You or me?"
He held her questioning gaze, as she toyed with a strand of wet hair and watched him. She looked curious and cool and as alluring in the morning light as she had been in the darkest hours of the night. If anybody was checking out this Jo character, it was Cam.
"I'm on it, bro," he assured Quinn.
"Just don't be on her until you know what you're dealing with."
Cam couldn't promise that.
By the time Cameron hung up with his brother, Jo knew the plan was falling apart before her very eyes.
"He wants the baby," she stated simply, leaning back in the chair and taking in the posh surroundings of his home office.
He shook his head. "No, that's not what he said."
"He wants you to take the baby."
"No, no, that's not what we decided, either."
What we decided. She loathed the fact that her fate and Callie's fate were in the hands of these controlling, smart, successful men. She was Callie's real aunt, regardless of the bloodlines. But would a judge see it that way? "So what did you two masters of the universe decide?"
He held up a hand as though he could stop the sarcasm that rolled in his direction. "We didn't decide anything."
"It sure sounded like some deciding was going on."
"Didn't your mother teach you it's rude to snoop on other people's conversations?"
She gave him a tight smile. "My mother taught me to fight for what I believe is right. I don't really give a hoot what you two are cooking up. If you won't sign this piece of paper" she produced the folded document from her back pocket, "then I'll fight you in court and I'll win."
"I don't want it to come to that, Jo."
She threw the paper on his desk. "Then sign."
"It's not just me. I have two brothers."
"And at least one of them is going to have his own baby," she said, giving him a knowing look. "I heard. And the other one's about to get married. And you," she made a sweeping gesture toward the rest of his apartment, "live like the bachelor millionaire who obviously doesn't have room in his life for a baby." She leaned forward, trying to contain the heat of her temper. "So let me have what Katie left to me."
He regarded her intently, his dark blue gaze direct as he no doubt considered his lawyerly response. "Technically she didn't leave this child to you."
Bingo, counselor.
"And technically she didn't leave her to you, either." She stood and pointed to the paper on his desk. "Are you or are you not going to sign that?"
His head shook slowly. "Not yet."
It hit her Mice a nine-pound hammer, and she bit back a vicious curse in response. Damn him. Damn damn damn him. When she thought of how close she almost came to giving him her body that morning, her stomach lurched.
Without a word, she turned on her boot heel and headed for the living room. Her work here was done. Mission failed.
She'd find another way.
She scooped up the letters and pictures from the coffee table and stuffed them into her bag. her hands shakier than she'd like. Throwing the strap over her shoulder, she seized the hat and slammed it on her head.
As she reached the door, he grabbed her elbow just tight enough to bring her to a complete halt. "I'm going with you."
She spun around and almost choked in his face. "No, you are not."
"I want to see your home. And shop. I want to meet my niece and see wherewhere my mother lived."
That last one almost got her. She had such a soft spot for Aunt Chris, who had loved her as much as she'd loved her own daughter. Sometimes Chris even loved Jo more, when Katie was particularly stubborn and immature.
But that's not why he wanted to go to California. He wanted to take the baby away from her. All he'd have to do is charm one of those Child Services women, and bam! Callie would be his.
Again, her stomach turned at the thought.
He reached toward her, to touch her face, and she jerked her head back. "Don't. Don't." She shook her head just as an ugly thought took shape.
She could still hear the implication in the "guy talk" with his brother.
No, I didn't Not yet, anyway.
Was sex a stipulation for his signature? God, she hoped not. She wanted to respect him more than that, wanted to believe she'd been attracted to someone better than that. Because she certainly had been attracted. Attracted ? She'd been absolutely ready to rock and roll right into ecstasy less than an hour ago.
She purposely narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice. "Would that paper be signed right now if I had slept with you this morning?"
"No. That wouldn't have changed anything."
Tugging the shoulder bag higher, she turned the knob with her free hand. "But we'll never know, will we?"
He slammed a flat hand on the door before she could open it. "You will not leave with that thought in your head."
"Will you quit trying to boss me around?" she retorted. "You can't keep me here. You can't tell me what to think. And you sure as hell can't come with me. God, you're just like Katie. Selfish and manipulative to the core."
"For someone who's hell-bent on raising her child, you sure manage to get a lot of digs in on dearly departed Katie. Did you love her or hate her?"
Her blood nearly boiled over with resentment. "Spare me the pop psychology." She let his earlier bitterness echo in her tone. "Stick to the law, counselor."
He reached up and slowly took her hat off, turning it over to reveal the inside band. "This was her hat, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"Why do you wear it?"
The resentment melted with the ache of grief. He would never understand how her heart broke when she'd retrieved Katie's hat from the earthquake debris. Or why she'd impulsively grabbed the hat on her way out the door when she'd left for the airport, just to have a piece of the audacious little Katie along for the ride. "I thought it might bring me good luck." She rolled her eyes. "Obviously, I was wrong."
He shook his head and looked hard at the hat. "I don't understand your motives."
She yanked Katie's hat away. "Quit being such a lawyer. My motives are not tough to figure out. There's a little girl in California who has no mother. I love her. I made sure her mother was healthy for nine months. I was in the room when she was bom. I have already sacrificed more for her than I would for my own child. It's no crime to want to raise her. I'm not kidnapping her."
"But you are using every trick you know to garner my signature."
Her gaze slid toward the bedroom. "Not every trick."
"That wouldn't have made any difference," he said quietly. "I still wouldn't have signed it."
"Do you know how easily I could have skipped this trip to New York and no one would ever have been the wiser? Callie doesn't ever have to know the truth. I came here because it was ' the right thing to do .' Period."
"I realize that," he said, finally moving his hand away from the door. "And I respect it."
That gave her some measure of satisfaction. "I have to get home. Callie needs me."
"I'll come down with you to find a cab."
"I can handle it."
He laughed ruefully. "I doubt there's anything you can't handle, Jo Ellen. But it would make me feel like a gentleman."
Spinning around, she stabbed a single finger in his chest. "You want to feel like a gentleman
? Then sign that paper and let me raise that child without a shadow over her life. I swear I only have the best motives for doing so."
"I can't. Not yet."
She sighed, tired of the fight. This time she yanked the heavy apartment door open. "I'll inform the Child Services people about you next week when I meet with them." She had no idea what would happen after that. "I'm sure they'll contact you."
She stepped into the hall, but he reached out and stopped her with that firm grip again. "Don't leave like this. Give me time to figure out what's the best thing to do, to talk to my brothers. We need to sort out the facts and decide what to do."
She knew what they would do. The three of them would come swooping into Sierra Springs on their pro-verbiai white horses to rescue their baby niece and bring her home to their happy, whole families. They'd cloak themselves in righteousness and family values and pat themselves on the back for being so damn noble.
How could she fight that? "I'll see you in court."
"If not before."
She ignored the thinly veiled threat and walked toward the elevator. Thankfully, he didn't follow.
* * *
Chapter Six
When Jo pulled the clear protective goggles over her eyes, Callie treated her to a Tinkerbell chime of laughter.
"You like my funny glasses, don'cha, buttercup?"
Callie reached a dimpled hand from her playpen toward Jo's face, then made a happy noise that one of the mountains of child-development books would probably call prespeak or some ridiculous thing.
Jo knew what it was. Baby sounds. Plain and simple. But the books said to encourage talking, so she adjusted the goggles with an expansive gesture.
"Gog-gles," she said slowly. "They protect my eyes while I'm sanding. Which I'm about to do."
Taking a chunk}' vinyl book from a crowded bookshelf above her desk, Jo handed it to Callie with a smile. '"You read this for a few minutes, honey girl. I'll be just on the other side of the glass wall, working that ding out of the Toyota. You'll be able to see me and I'll be able to see you."
Callie frowned and started to chew on the side of the book.
"Or you can eat it, if that's more fun."
Jo bent over and kissed Callie's head, hoping she could finish the rough out quickly. It was a glorious June day and she simply itched to be outside, to take a long hike through the foothills with Callie tucked in her little papoose, breathing the incredible air and figuring out the answers to their messy lives.
"I promise I'll just finish this quarter panel," she told Callie, not bothering to bore the baby with her scheduling problems. The trip to New York two days earlier had thrown her, with the Toyota customer scheduled to show up early the next morning, forcing Jo to work on a Sunday.
On an impulse she flung open the back door that led to the rear parking lot, giving Callie a sliver-size view of the mountains, and allowing warm, fresh air to waft into the shop's back office.
"Just half an hour, angel," Jo promised.
Jo silently blessed the brilliant idea she and Katie had had to redesign their workspaces so Callie could be watched. The glassed-in office ensured that Callie would remain sealed away from the fumes and dust of the body shop. A similar room had been built in the beauty shop next door, but her new tenant had turned it into storage.
When Jo had come to the shop to examine the damage after the earthquake, the tempered glass wall and door in the back of her work bay area had been her biggest concern. But the shop had sustained very little damage. Tools had fallen, and the product shelves in the salon had crashed, but most of the inventory had been plastic.
Not that she had cared, back in those dark days. She remembered the horror and disbelief that consumed everyone, as they focused on the far side of town, several mil es out, where the epicenter of the quake had rocked so many buildings to their foundations.
Including the new town-house complex where Katie, Chris and Callie had lived for only six months.
Sliding on a pair of cushy knee pads, a face mask and rubber gloves, Jo dismissed the memory with a silly wave to Callie, who had positioned herself to be able to watch Jo closely. Ever since the earthquake, Callie seemed to hate when Jo left the room, and she watched through the glass like a baby hawk about to be abandoned in the nest. Poor little thing.
Jo waved again, then kneeled at the front end of the minitrack, her tools arranged around her as she considered the paintless dent repair job. She could have this thing hammered out in an hour, tops. Then nothing would keep her from that hike with Callie.
Sticking her head under the front end to get a look at the suspension, she chose a medium-weight hammer. With one light tap to test the give, a familiar vibration danced up her arm.
God, it felt good to have a tool in her hand again. Something she could manage, something she could control. Unlike the whole debacle in New York City, where she'd managed nothing and could barely control her very own body.
She closed her eyes, trying to erase the flashing memory of Cameron McGrath's mouth on hers, of his hand touching her breast. Considering all the things to distract her over the past few days and all the problems she had to face in the next few weeks, the recollection of their brief physical interlude should be the last thing on her mind.
But, damn, it was practically the only thing on her mind since she'd gotten on that plane on Friday morning and watched the New York skyline disappear.
And they said men were controlled by hormones. Evidently they weren't the only ones.
She slammed the hammer a little harder and completely inverted the dent. She'd have to forget the hormones, forget the sexual attraction and focus on the problem in front of her.
Her meeting with Child Services was scheduled for Friday, giving her less than a week to come up with a plan, an argument, a rationale, a something that would undoubtedly change nothing .
Once Mary Beth Borrell learned that Callie had living blood relatives, the social worker would start the paperwork and procedures to contact the McGrathsall of themand require them to either relinquish consent to Jo or begin adoption proceedings of their own.
Of course, whichever McGrath brother wanted to adopt the baby would be interviewed and deposed, like she had been. Would her baby go to Florida with Quinn and Nicole? Or to Rhode Island with Colin and his fiancee, Grace? Or to New York?
She clobbered the panel with three hard smacks to make up for the spurt of misery that accompanied the thought of losing Callie. She'd been so sure she could shape the outcome of that trip to New York, and at the same time meet her own need to be honest and moral regarding Callie's "family" ties.
Now she was about to be bound and gagged by those very ties.
As she slid out from under the front panel to see the dent inversion, something caught her peripheral vision, a movement in the back office.
The hammer clattered to the floor as the blood rushed out of her head, leaving her dizzy and stunned. A shocked gasp caught in her throat.
She never, never expected him so soon.
Cameron McGrath stood next to the playpen, leaning over it and saying something that she couldn't hear through the tempered glass. Then he looked up and their gazes met, sending Shockwaves of worry and warmth rolling through her body.
From the playpen, Callie reached up at him like he was her all-time favorite uncle come to shower her with love and presents.
The little traitor.
Without taking off any gear, Jo marched back to the office, whipping the door open with way more force than necessary.
"What are you doing here?" The mask muffled her words and, no doubt, the impact of her demand.
He raked her with one long look, and suddenly she was aware of the boy's T-shirt she wore, the low-slung cargo utility pants, knee pads and clunky work boots. Her hair was pulled up into a sloppy ponytail and she probably had dirt on her face from the undercarriage of the minitruck.
But he just grinned. "This is just how I imagined you looked at work."
Her stomach betrayed her with an unexpected dip. He imagined her? She flipped up the goggles and yanked down the mask, moving a few steps to the middle of the room where Callie's playpen sat.
She burned him with what she hoped was a stern look of warning. "How dare you just walk in here."
He pointed over his shoulder to the open door. "Security's pretty lax, if you ask me. You should be more careful."
Damn him and her foolish self for giving him any ammunition against her mothering skills. "We don't have a high kidnapping rate in Sierra Springs," she responded, countering her admittedly weak argument with a sweeping glare over his whole body.
But her gaze got tripped up on the familiar insignia splayed, as it was, over an impressive chest. Yankees, of course. The man was purely pathetic.
He wore faded jeans, just snug enough on narrow hips to scream for closer inspection, but she forced her focus back up to his face and considered that a small victory.
Why couldn't he at least look like the monster he was about to become? Did he have to waltz into her shop like some all-powerful golden-haired god?
Callie lost her balance and tumbled down on her diapered bottom, eliciting a quick sound of surprise from Cameron. His whole demeanor changed as he crouched down to Callie's level. "You okay, kid?"
She giggled and clapped merrily, obviously pleased with her ability to snag his attention. She was as flirtatious as her motherand just as charming.
What good would it do to fight his arrival? He was here and she had to deal with him.
"Prepare yourself, Cam," Jo said as she dragged the goggles through her hair. "You're about to fall in love."
"Ha!" He gave her a brash grin. "That'd be a first."
There went that dumb stomach dip again.
"Yeah?" She crossed her arms and leaned her hip against the desk. "You haven't met Callie McGrath."
Reaching into the playpen, he took her little hand in a pretend handshake. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Cal-lie. I'm Cameron. You can call me Cam. Everyone who likes me does." She curled a fist around his fingers, and he glanced up at Jo. "I believe I even heard Miss Jo Ellen Tremaine say it just now."