Free Inheriting His Secret Christmas Baby by Heidi Betts Page B

arms drop to her sides. Her gaze flicked to Trevor for a moment before settling back on Erica and Bradley.
    “All right,” she said softly.

    Seven
    As nervous as she’d been about going to lunch with Trevor’s sister, Haylie couldn’t believe how quickly the hours flew by. They’d talked about the weather, childhood memories and almost everything in between.
    With a dreamy look in her eyes that told Haylie the woman was well and truly in love, while they’d picked at their salads Erica had shared the story of her whirlwind romance with her husband-to-be, Christian Hanford. She’d pulled a picture from her wallet of a very handsome, clean-cut, dark-haired man, showing it off in a manner that reminded Haylie of herself with pictures of baby Bradley.
    As the Jarrod family attorney, the duty of telling Erica the truth about her parentage had fallen on Christian’s shoulders after Donald Jarrod’s death. Haylie couldn’t imagine how shocking it must have been to have that sort of information dropped in her lap out of the blue. To spend her entire life thinking one man was her father, only to be blindsided by the news that he wasn’t, and that another man, now deceased, was.
    Unless it felt a bit like having someone walk into your office and announce that you had a child you knew nothing about, she’d thought with a small sting of guilt.
    And though she hadn’t intended to spend any time at all talking about herself, before she’d even realized it, she was confiding in Erica about her rocky relationship with her sister. Their years growing up, when Heather had been the “pretty one,” Haylie had been the “smart one” and it had seemed they were in constant competition—for their parents’ affections, for attention, for friends and boyfriends.
    She told Erica about her sister’s apparent one-night stand with Trevor, and all the months that had followed leading up to Bradley’s birth and Heather’s tragic, unexpected death. And about Haylie’s own almost pathological need to clean up after her sister, to try to do what was right one final time instead of what was easy and most often selfish.
    By the time she’d finished, more than an hour had passed, and she was mortified at how much talking she’d done. How open and unguarded she’d been. She blamed it on the fact that she felt extremely comfortable in Erica’s presence, as though they’d known each other all their lives.
    Or rather, were becoming fast friends.
    But while Haylie truly did like Erica, Haylie knew she couldn’t get too close to the woman. For one thing, she was Trevor’s sister, and Haylie wasn’t even sure she would end up being friends with him, regardless of his biological ties to Bradley.
    For another, Erica was about to become a client, and it was never smart to get too close or grow too comfortable with a client. Especially brides, since they had a tendency to be Pollyanna one minute and Bridezilla the next.
    By the time they’d actually started to discuss potential wedding plans, their entrées were gone and they were sipping cups of strong, French roast coffee while waiting for dessert to arrive.
    Even though she hadn’t been at Jarrod Ridge long enough to try any of its other restaurants, Haylie had to admit that the Sky Lounge had been an excellent choice. And if this was merely a lounge, more of a bar with a limited menu, then the rest of the eateries the resort had to offer must be truly extraordinary. Of course, the fact that she was dining with one of the Jarrods probably had something to do with the level of service and amount of privacy they received.
    After sharing more about their personal lives than either of them were probably used to revealing, and then finally getting down to the more vital topic of wedding plans, she returned to Trevor’s office.
    Erica was beside Haylie, having offered to walk with her so they could continue to chat. First, though, they’d had to retrieve Bradley from the colorful,