She reached for the handle on her car door. “I need to be there on time to relieve the on-duty crew.”
He shook his head as he placed his hand on the driver’s door to hold it shut. “What you need to do is answer a few questions.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh, I think you do.” He reached out to trace his index finger down her cheek. “It seems that none of the people here in town knew anything about you and O’Banyon being married. In fact, Mr. Jones over at the grocery store was quite surprised to hear the news.”
A cold chill slithered up her spine at Craig’s touch. She must have had blinders on not see that his charm was a weapon, not an endearing quality. How could she have ever found herself attracted to such a reptile?
Batting his hand away, she shook her head. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
“You used to like for me to touch you, Callie,” he said, trying to affect an injured look.
“That’s ancient history.” She tried to remove his hand where he held the car door. “All I want from you now is to be left alone.”
His eyes narrowed and a sneer replaced his wounded expression. “Now is that any way to talk to your baby’s daddy?”
“Just because you can fertilize an egg doesn’t make you father material. That takes someone special.” She jerked the car door from his grasp and started to get in. “Someone who is actually capable of loving a child.”
“Like O’Banyon?”
“Yes. Exactly like Hunter.”
His sarcastic laugh caused her to clench her fists until her knuckles ached. “Why don’t you give up the charade, Callie? We both know you’re no more married than I am. If you come back to Houston now, maybe I’ll forget that you and O’Banyon tried to dupe me into believing the baby belongs to him.” He shrugged. “Who knows? I might even be persuaded to let you have visitation rights.”
Fear so strong it threatened to the buckle her knees ran through her. “As long as I have breath left in my body, you won’t take my child away from me,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice steady.
His knowing smile made her skin crawl. “That remains to be seen, my dear.”
As Callie got into the car, her hands shook so badly that it took a couple of tries before she was able to fit her key into the ignition. Everything she’d feared for the past several months was coming true.
As she backed the car from the parking space and drove the short distance to the Life Medevac hangar outside of town, her body trembled and tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. For reasons she didn’t have time nor the inclination to analyze, all she could think of was getting to Hunter. She knew it made no sense at all considering the short time they’d known each other, but with him she felt more secure than she had in her entire life. And although she hated being vulnerable and dependent in any way, his reassuring presence gave her strength.
Parking her car at the side of the hangar, she hurried into the dispatch room. Thankfully the on-duty crew and Mary Lou were occupied with a game of Texas Hold ’Em poker. She knew she looked more than a little upset and she didn’t particularly want to endure a barrage of questions from Mary Lou.
“Is Hunter in his office?” she asked as she breezed past them.
“He’s been in there all afternoon making phone calls,” Mary Lou answered without looking up from her cards.
When Callie came to Hunter’s office, she didn’t even hesitate as she opened the door and walked into the room. Craig might think he had the upper hand, but she wasn’t going to stand by and let him take her son away without a fight. And if that meant entering into a marriage with a man she barely knew, then that’s exactly what she was going to do.
“If you’re still willing to marry me, my answer is yes.”
Chapter Eight
Hunter was on his feet and rounding the desk in a flash. Callie looked as if she’d seen a ghost, and the tears streaming down her cheeks just about tore him apart.
“What’s happened?”
When he took her into his arms, she burrowed into his embrace. As she told him about meeting up with Culbertson and the man’s arrogant attitude, pure fury burned at Hunter’s gut.
“Do you honestly think we would have a chance of stopping him if we were married?” she asked, trembling against him.
“There’s not a doubt in my mind, darlin’.”
If he could have gotten his hands on Culbertson at that very moment, Hunter would have choked the life out of him for putting her through that. The man was without question the sorriest excuse for a human being he’d ever had the misfortune to meet, and it was going to give him great pleasure to deal the arrogant jerk a good dose of reality.
Hunter had spent the entire afternoon on the phone with Emerald’s personal assistant, Luther Freemont, and the private investigator Emerald Inc. hired for running background checks on potential employees for Emerald’s various companies. After speaking with the man at length, Hunter was confident that if there was anything they could use to combat Culbertson’s attempt to gain custody of Callie’s baby, the P.I. would find it.
And on the outside chance that Culbertson was squeaky-clean—which Hunter knew damned good and well he wasn’t—he and Callie would establish themselves as a married couple with a stable home life that no lawyer, judge or social worker could argue wasn’t perfect for raising a child.
“I don’t want you spending any more time worrying about Culbertson or what he’s going to do,” Hunter said as he soothingly rubbed at the tension along her spine.
She leaned back to look at him, and the anxiety he saw in the depths of her expressive eyes caused his gut to twist into a tight knot. “Th-that’s easier said than done.”
“Do you trust me, Callie?”
“Yes.” There wasn’t so much as a hint of uncertainty in her answer.
“I give you my word that everything is going to work out.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “By the time this is settled, Craig Culbertson will be running back to Houston like a tail-tucked dog.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am.”
He sealed his promise with a kiss, and by the time he raised his head, his body was as hard as a chunk of granite. Taking a deep breath, he rested his forehead against hers. He had no idea how she’d managed to get under his skin so quickly, but there was no denying that he found her to be the most exciting woman he’d had the good fortune to meet in the past five years. And the thought of making love to her every night, then holding her as she slept, was enough to send a laser of heat straight through him.