The Paternity Proposition Read online

  Unfortunately, the cumulative effect of all of the above had made the other males Julie had since met seem too dull or flat or uninteresting to progress beyond the dinner stage. Not that she’d had much time for men, dull or otherwise, in recent months. Things could be looking up, though.

  “You’re a tough person to track down,” he commented.

  He’d been searching for her? Well, well. Things were definitely looking up.

  Unless…

  Had he driven out to this corner of the Oklahoma Panhandle in search of another good time? Another quick tumble? The possibility left a chalky taste in her mouth. Guess that’s what she got for letting his handsome face and come-hither smile overcome her common sense.

  Then again, he did drive all the way out here. That could indicate some level of interest beyond the obvious. If so, they would do things differently this time, Julie decided. Take it slower. Share more than a few beers and tall tales before they exchanged bodily fluids. Despite her firm resolve, the possibility sent a shiver of delicious anticipation down her spine.

  “You were gone when I woke up,” he commented, breaking into her thoughts.

  “I had a five a.m. show time at the airport.”

  Also a major case of the guilts. She’d been dating someone else at that time. Not seriously, but regularly enough to add a nagging sense of disloyalty to her dismay at having done something so completely uncharacteristic. She and Todd had gone their separate ways soon afterward. Probably due to the fact that he—along with the two or three other men Julie had dated since—had suffered mightily in comparison to this one.

  Okay. She could admit it. She’d thought about tracking Dalton down once or twice after their brief encounter. Might even have checked the logs at the Nuevo Laredo airport for his home base after she broke it off with Todd. But she’d taken a job hauling mine supplies in Chile immediately prior to buying into Agro-Air. That was a grueling, inter-Andes killer, and since returning to the States she’d had nothing but long days, exhausted nights, and too many Dusty Jones-style headaches to even consider a life outside fungicides and fertilizers. Thank God they were in that narrow window between spring harvest and prep for winter wheat planting. She finally had a few weeks to finish overhauling the Pawnee.

  Reminded of the engine dripping oil outside, she decided to lay things on the line. “I’m flattered you drove all the way out to the Panhandle to find me, Dalton, but you need to know that I’m not the same person I was last time we crossed paths. A lot’s happened in my life since then, and I don’t have the time or the energy for a casual fling. Not that our last one wasn’t fun,” she tacked on when his brows straight-lined.

  “I didn’t come here hoping to pick up where we left off.”

  Ooooh-kay. Glad they cleared that one up.

  “So why did you track me down?”

  As soon as the words were out it belatedly occurred to her that he might want to talk business. Although they hadn’t gotten around to sharing detailed family histories during their previous encounter, she’d deduced from the plane he was piloting and the very expensive watch he’d sported that he was related to the Daltons who owned a major manufacturing operation headquartered in Oklahoma. He’d just confirmed that a few moments ago with Chuck. As far as Julie knew, Dalton International wasn’t into agricultural aviation but they could be considering it. The field looked to become extremely lucrative if recent crop trends continued.

  Unless, of course, you’d bought into a company whose senior partner was addicted to the slots. Suppressing a grimace, Julie waited for Dalton to continue. He did, with no trace of a smile in either his voice or his eyes now.

  “I came to find out if I got you pregnant that night in Nuevo Laredo.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” His expression was positively unfriendly now. “Did you get pregnant, give birth to a baby girl, and deposit her on my mother’s doorstep two weeks ago?”

  Her jaw dropped. She gaped at him, stunned into sputtering incoherence. “You’re… You’re kidding, right?”

  “Wrong.”

  The flat reply snapped her jaw shut. This man had put her through a whiplash of emotions in the past ten minutes. Surprise had topped the list but fury was fast moving into first place. And here she’d thought… Sort of hoped…

  Idiot!

  They’d only been together one night. Never had time to get to know each other beyond that instant, sizzling attraction. But the fact that he would think, even for a moment, that she was the kind of woman who’d abandon her own child put fire in Julie’s heart. Shoving away from the desk, she stalked to the office door and yanked it open.

  “Take my word for it. If I did have a baby, I certainly wouldn’t deposit her on your mother or anyone’s else’s doorstep. Now I suggest you climb back into your bright, shiny Jag and get the hell out of my sight.”

  He didn’t budge.

  “You took a job down in Chile eight months ago. Didn’t come back until late May. The private investigator I hired hasn’t been able to verify your whereabouts during that time.”

  No surprise there! Without resorting to her log, even Julie would have a hard time remembering every remote strip she’d flown into during those hectic months. She didn’t like that Dalton had put a bloodhound sniffing after her, though.

  “Where I went and when I returned is none of your damned business. I don’t know who you think you are, but....”

  “I think I’m the baby’s father,” he shot back. “DNA tests show a seventy percent probability.”

  That sidetracked her for a moment. “I thought those tests were, like, ninety-nine point nine percent accurate.”

  “They are, in ninety-nine point nine percent of the cases,” he replied stiffly. “There’s a slight margin for error when the potential father has an identical twin.”

  “You’re a twin?”

  “Yes.”

  Good grief! There were two like him on the loose?

  Or were they? On the loose, that is? Dalton hadn’t worn a wedding ring when they’d met. Didn’t wear one now, she noted with a swift glance at his left hand. Not that a naked ring finger proved anything.

  “This is your problem,” Julie told him, acid dripping from every syllable, “not mine. Now you need to be on your way. There’s an engine outside that requires my attention.”

  She cracked the door wider and made a shooing motion. Once again, he didn’t move.

  “There’s only one way to determine the baby’s paternity beyond any doubt.”

  “And that is?”

  “Match the father and the mother’s DNA.”

  “I repeat. That’s your problem. Besides,” she added as a new thought pierced her simmering anger. “I can’t be the only female you, uh, connected with last year. Have you searched your entire database?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. You’re the last contact on my list.”

  Well, she’d asked. Now she knew. He’d gone through his entire black book before scraping the bottom of the barrel.

  “Would you like to know what you can do with your list?”

  Dalton’s face flushed a dull red, and an anger that matched her own sparked in his eyes. “Hard as this may be to believe, I don’t make a habit of hitting on every female I meet.”

  And Julie didn’t usually let strange men hit on her. She was damned if she’d admit that, though. If Mr. Rich Guy Dalton wanted to think she was a tramp, let him!

  Rigid with fury, she yanked the door all the way open. “Get out.”

  “All I’m requesting is a hair or saliva sample.”

  “Get out.”

  He moved then, but only to where she stood. Julie tipped her chin and held her own but she had to admit she didn’t remember the sexy stud she’d hooked up with for one wild night being quite this tall. Or this intimidating. He stood so close she could make out the gold tips of his lashes, the faint white scar on one side of his chin, the utter determination in those deadly blue eyes.
r />   Julie was no shrimp. At five-eight, she’d had to shoehorn into more than one cramped cockpit. She’d also learned to extricate herself from tricky situations while flying in and out of some less than desirable locales. Dalton topped her by a good four or five inches, however, and right now he looked as tough as any of the macho hotheads she’d encountered over the years.

  “Look,” he said, making an obvious effort to rein in his temper, “this isn’t just about you or me. We need to know the baby’s parentage for health reasons, if nothing else.”

  Well, hell! She hadn’t considered that. Of course they would want to know if there was a history of serious diseases somewhere in the child’s family tree. Julie almost caved then. Would have, if Dalton hadn’t added a tight-jawed kicker.

  “We’ll pay you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “A thousand in cash for a DNA sample right here, right now.”

  She had to fight for breath. Not only did he think she would abandon her own baby, now he appeared to believe she had to be bribed to prove she was telling the truth. If Julie had a wrench in her hand right now, this jerk would be parting his hair on the other side for a long, long time to come.

  “Get…out!”

  His jaw worked. Those blue eyes iced into her. “This isn’t over between us,” he warned.

  “What are you gonna do?” she sneered. “Get your PI to follow me around and snatch my coffee cup to steal a saliva sample?”

  “That’s one option. There are others.”

  He let his glance make a circuit of the messy office. Slowly. Deliberately. Then he brought that knife-edged gaze back to her.

  “The offer’s on the table for the next twenty-four hours. Think about it.”

  She ached to give him a few things to think about. A swift knee to the gonads came immediately to mind. She settled for slamming the door behind him so hard it bounced back and almost whapped her in the face.

  Two

  “A thousand dollars!”

  Dusty Jones’s creased, roadmap of a face lit up with delight. He’d returned less than a half hour after Alex Dalton’s departure. A small, bow-legged old coot with wiry gray hair that sprang out in every direction beneath a beat-up straw Stetson, he strutted like a banty rooster whenever he wasn’t in the cockpit. He wasn’t strutting now. He was slapping his knee and whooping with glee.

  “Whoooeee! A thousand for a hair or a lick of spit! That’ll almost pay for the chemicals I ordered last week.”

  “You ordered a new load?”

  Momentarily diverted from the subject of Alex Dalton’s outrageous offer, Julie brought the front legs of her chair down with a thud. The violent movement provoked a hiss from Belinda. After scarfing up the tacos Dusty had faithfully delivered, the cat had draped herself across Julie’s lap like a fat, furry blanket. She now proceeded to announce her displeasure at having her post-taco siesta disturbed by digging her claws into Julie’s thigh. The needle-sharp talons pierced right through her coveralls and came close to drawing blood.

  “Ow!” Julie returned the cat’s one-eyed glare and detached her claws before appealing to the second man crammed into the tiny office. “Chuck, will you puh-leez remind our partner we still haven’t paid for the last load of chemicals?”

  The mechanic shifted his plug and dutifully complied. “We ain’t paid for the last load, Dusty.”

  Julie ground her back teeth. If she didn’t love these two geezers so much, she’d let them sink and get back to having a life! Hanging on to her temper with both white-knuckled fists, she glared at her partner.

  “You promised!”

  “I know, I know.” Dusty rubbed a thorny palm across the back of his neck. “But we’re coming up on winter wheat planting season. Can’t make any money if we don’t service our customers. So give this guy Dalton some spit, missy, and get us out of the hole.”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Julie asked, exasperated. “The man thinks I dumped a baby on his doorstep.”

  “Thought you said it was his mother’s doorstep.”

  She flapped an impatient hand. “His, hers, what difference does it make?”

  “Ha! You wouldn’t ask that if you’d ever crossed paths with Delilah Dalton.”

  “And you have?”

  “Yes’m, I have. Must have been thirty, forty years ago. Del and her husband were just starting out in the oil field re-supply business then. He was what we used to call in them days a real rounder. Now Delilah…” He shook his head in mingled admiration and chagrin. “That woman was one fine female. Probably still is. But so uptight you could bounce a dime off her ass and get nine cents change.”

  “Which is all the more reason for me to refuse her son’s demand for a DNA sample,” Julie huffed. “I don’t want anything to do with him or his mother.”

  “But, missy! A thousand dollars?”

  “No.”

  “Just for a little spit?”

  “No.”

  He heaved a long-suffering sigh, as though she was the one who’d plugged last season’s profits into the slots.

  “Awright, already. I hear what you’re sayin’. But…”

  “No, Dusty.”

  He sighed again and retrieved his cat from Julie’s lap. Belinda hung over his arm like a horse blanket as he delivered a last bit of advice. “If the Daltons are as hot to find the baby’s mama as you say they are, I ’spect this isn’t the last you’ll hear from them. Or their lawyers.”

  “Lawyers?”

  Julie swallowed a groan. That’s all she needed. With a forty-five-year-old Pawnee leaking oil like a sieve and a partner who couldn’t stay away from the casinos, she now had to worry about a horde of lawyers swooping in to gnaw at the flesh of Agro-Air.

  “Look, I’ll contact Dalton tomorrow, after I’ve cooled down a little, and confirm that I’m not the mother of his child. But I’m not taking money from the man, Dusty.”

  “I’m just sayin’,” he intoned as he knuckled Belinda’s head. “Better be prepared, missy. Dalton didn’t look to be the kinda man to wait around for answers.”

  Alex’s jaw remained locked for most of the two-hour drive back to Oklahoma City. Julie Marie Bartlett didn’t have a clue who she was tangling with.

  Who she had tangled with. Christ! He’d almost forgotten the dark copper hair that had first snagged his interest when he’d walked into that operations shack in Nuevo Laredo. And those odd-colored eyes. Not to mention the full lips, taut breasts and slender hips that went with them.

  But the truth was, he hadn’t remembered any of those enticing attributes until two weeks ago. That’s when his mother had called and demanded his instant appearance at her Oklahoma City mansion. His, and his twin’s. She’d met them at the door with a bundled infant in her arms. Alex could still feel the remnants of their collective shock when she’d announced someone had left a baby on her doorstep. Then she’d thrust out the note alleging the six-month old infant was Delilah Dalton’s grandchild.

  After they’d recovered enough to speak, both Alex and Blake had questioned the authenticity of the note. With good reason. In the past five years their mother had transitioned from wistful to vocal to downright obnoxious in her attempts to push one of them to the altar. Delilah didn’t care which of her sons married which of the spouse candidates she’d thrown at them. She just wanted them settled and happy. And, oh by the way, producing grandchildren. Lots of grandchildren. As she’d tartly reminded them, she wasn’t getting any younger. Nor were they. Her sons had chalked the baby up to another of their mother’s Machiavellian plots until she announced she’d had a DNA test run.

  Alex kept his eyes on the flat checkerboard of Oklahoma countryside outside his windshield but his mind replayed that surreal scene in his mother’s living room. Either he or his brother had, in fact, fathered a child.

  The shock of her announcement was still thundering in Alex’s ears when he’d cradled the baby in his arms. Blue-eyed, pink-cheeked Molly had pretty much won his heart with her firs
t gummy smile. Then she’d gurgled and blown him a bubble. Alex would have claimed her as his right then and there, but Blake had reminded him of the thirty-point swing in the DNA analysis and Delilah had stressed the need to nail down the mother.

  As a result, Alex and his brother had spent the past two weeks contacting the women they’d connected with early last year. Their lists hadn’t been anywhere near equal. As Dalton International’s Vice President of Operations, Alex got around a lot more than its Vice President for Financial Strategies.

  Given the narrow window of opportunity, however, even Alex’s list hadn’t been all that long. It had included the lawyer he dated off and on for almost six months. The divorcee his mother had foisted on him when she’d realized he and the lawyer weren’t serious. The mega-hot state senator’s daughter Delilah had paired him with at the Oklahoma City Country Club’s annual charity ball. And Julie Bartlett.

  The first three had responded to his query with looks ranging from astonishment to amusement. The last…

  It had to be Bartlett. She’d been out of the country for most of last year, moving from job to job and one remote airstrip to another. The PI Alex had hired to dig into her activities and physical condition during those missing months had hit a couple of blind alleys but should produce results soon.

  Not that Alex needed further confirmation. Julie Bartlett wouldn’t have refused to provide a DNA sample unless she had given birth and subsequently abandoned her baby.

  His brother agreed with his assessment. To a point.

  Alex cornered Blake in his office in the glass-and-steel tower housing the headquarters of Dalton International. The floor-to-ceiling windows showcased a bustling downtown Oklahoma City with its Bricktown Ballpark, busy restaurants, and newly diverted river spur ferrying tourists to the Land Rush sculpture park. Neither of the Dalton brothers had any interest in the colorful barges meandering the tree-lined river, however.

  “The fact that she wouldn’t voluntarily give a DNA sample is pretty telling,” Blake agreed, “but not prima facie evidence that she’s the mother.”