Free Secret Baby Santos by Bárbara McCauley Page A

hadn’t mattered.
    Until Maggie.
    With Maggie it mattered.
    He just didn’t understand why. Why she had him pacing his shop when he had so much work to do. Why he thought about her constantly, found himself in a tangle of sheets every morning since he’d seen her at the market. Why he could still taste her, smell her as if she were standing beside him.
    And why, in the fact of absolute rejection, he still wanted her, still couldn’t stop thinking about her.
    There was something about her that eluded him, like a dream he’d forgotten. She seemed...familiar. Not
from when they were teenagers, but something else. Another time. Another place.
    Weird, he thought, dragging a hand through his hair. The whole thing was just plain weird.
    Â 
    One block away from Nick’s shop, Maggie had to pull the car over to the side of the road. Her hands were shaking too badly to drive. Her entire body was shaking, for that matter.
    Why had she let him get so close? She’d known the results would be disastrous if they were alone together. He didn’t even have to touch her to make her bones melt. A simple look from Nick was all it took to turn her into a quivering mass of need.
    Damn!
    She laid her head against the steering wheel, drew in deep breaths to calm herself. She couldn’t be mad at Nick, but she was furious with herself. She had to deal with this, deal with her feelings for him. They’d known each other since they were children. He lived in Wolf River now, and even though she would be going home to New York, she’d still have to see him every time she came back here. With her parents getting older, she’d already decided that her visits were going to be more frequent.
    She couldn’t run every time she saw him. She wouldn’t. She wasn’t that timid young girl she’d been, growing up. She was a woman now, a mother. Independent and confident.
    Slowly she lifted her head, stared into the darkness outside the car with the first sense of calm she’d had since she’d run into Nick at Bud and Joe’s and knocked over a tower of green beans.
    She wouldn’t be afraid; she wouldn’t run. She
couldn’t live that way anymore. She faced every other problem in her life and dealt with it. She would face her feelings for Nick, as well.
    There was no possible way he could ever learn that Drew was his son. As long as she remembered that, she had nothing else to worry about.

Six
    â€œM aggie, you look wonderful! I can’t believe it’s really you!”
    Maggie had barely stepped into the door of the Four Winds restaurant before Julianna Hadley—no, it was Julianna Blackhawk now—had her locked in a hug, though the beautiful blonde’s advanced pregnancy forced Maggie to rock backward on her heels.
    â€œOh, my gosh!” Julianna pulled away, blue eyes wide as she covered her mouth with her hand. “I can’t believe I said that. I didn’t mean, that is, I wasn’t—”
    â€œIt’s all right.” Laughing, Maggie gave Julianna’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I do look different. Amazing what a little makeup and a decent hairdo will do.”
    Taking Maggie’s arm, Julianna led the way to their table, asking how Maggie’s mother was and if her father was doing well after his surgery. Soft strains of Mozart floated through the elegant dining room as the
women walked through, turning several male heads of the business lunch crowd that filled the popular hotel restaurant. The hotel and restaurant was owned by none other than Lucas Blackhawk himself, Maggie had been told by her mother, though now that he was back in the ranching business, the hotel was up for sale.
    Apparently, Maggie thought, she wasn’t the only one with changes in her life. But still she’d been surprised when Julianna had called and asked her to lunch. They might have been in the same grade, shared several classes, but Julianna and