Grayson (2 page)

He glanced at the woods, then the creek. “I’ll have a look around,” Grayson let her know. “But if you’re worried, you probably shouldn’t be staying out here alone.”

He turned to have that look around.

“Wait,” Eve called out. “Don’t go. I wanted to ask about your family. How are your brothers?”

He had four living brothers. Four sets of news, updates and troubles. Since it would take the better part of an hour to catch her up on everything, Grayson settled for saying, “They’re all fine.”

Grayson turned again, but again Eve stopped him.

“Even Nate?” she questioned. “I heard his wife was killed a few months ago.”

Yeah. That was all part of the troubles. The worst of them. “Nate’s coping.” But Grayson knew that wasn’t true. If Nate didn’t have his baby daughter to care for, his brother wouldn’t make it out of bed each morning. Grayson was still trying to figure out how to take care of that.

“And the ranch?” Eve continued. “I read somewhere that the ranch won a big award for your quarter horses.”

Fed up with the small talk, Grayson decided to put an end to this. Chitchat was an insult at this stage of the game. However, when he looked back at her, he saw that she had her hands clenched around the door frame. Her knuckles were turning white.

Grayson cursed under his breath. “Okay. What’s wrong?” But he didn’t just ask. He went closer so he could see inside the cottage to make sure someone wasn’t standing behind her, holding her at gunpoint. Because Eve wasn’t the white-knuckle type. He had never known anything to scare her.

The place was small so he was able to take in most of it with one sweeping glance. There was no one in the living and eating area, and the loft/bedroom was empty, too.

Grayson looked her straight in the eyes. “Eve, are you all right?”

She hesitated and nibbled some more on her lip. “I really did see someone about a half hour ago, I swear, and he ran away when he spotted me.”

Since that sounded like the beginning of an explanation that might clarify the real reason for her call, Grayson just stood there and waited for the rest of it.

“Could you come in?” Eve finally said. “I need to talk to you.”

Oh, hell. This couldn’t be good. “Talk?” he challenged.

He was about to remind her that it was long over between them, that they had no past issues to discuss, but she kept motioning for him to come in.

“Eve,” he warned.

“Please.” Her voice was all breath and no sound.

Grayson cursed that
please
and the look in her eyes. He knew that look. He’d seen it when she was thirteen and had learned her mother was dying from bone cancer. He’d seen it again sixteen years ago when on her twenty-first birthday she’d stood in the doorway of the ranch and demanded a commitment from him or else.

Because he’d had no choice, Grayson had answered
or else.

And Eve had walked out.

Now, Grayson walked in. She stepped back so he could enter the cottage, and she shut the door behind him. He didn’t take off his Stetson or his jacket because he hoped he wouldn’t be here that long.

It was warm inside, thanks to the electric heater she had going near the fireplace. No fire, though. And it would have been a perfect day for it since the outside temp was barely forty degrees.

With a closer look, Grayson could see the place was in perfect order. Definitely no signs of any kind of struggle or hostage situation. There was no suitcase that he could spot, but Eve’s purse was on the coffee table, and her camera and equipment bag were on the small kitchen counter. Several photographs were spread out around the bag. Since Eve was a newspaper photographer, that wasn’t out of the ordinary, either.

“The pictures,” she mumbled following his gaze. “I was trying to work while I waited for you.”

Trying.
And likely failing from the way they were scattered around. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Yes,” she readily admitted.

Surprised, and more worried than he wanted to be, he turned around to face her. “Trouble with the law?”

“I wish,” Eve mumbled. She groaned softly and threaded her fingers through both sides of her hair. That stretched her dress over her breasts and gave Grayson a reminder he didn’t want or need.

He’d been attracted to Eve for as long as he could remember. But he refused to let that attraction play into whatever the hell this was.

“Trouble at work?” he tried next.

She lifted her shoulder but answered, “No.”

He glanced at the photos on the table again.

“I took those at a charity fundraising rodeo in San Antonio,” she explained.

So, they were work, but judging from the casual way she’d mentioned them, they weren’t the source of the worry in her eyes. “Look, I could play twenty questions and ask about a stalker, an ex or whatever. But let’s save ourselves some time and you just tell me what you have to say.”

She nodded, paused, nodded again. “It’s personal. And it has to do with you. I need to ask you something.”

Grayson braced himself for some kind of rehashing of the past. After all, he was thirty-eight now, and Eve was thirty-seven. Hardly kids. And since neither of them had ever married, maybe this was her trip back down memory lane.

Well, he didn’t want to take this trip with her.

“I’ve been having some medical problems,” she continued. But then paused again.

That latest pause caused Grayson to come up with some pretty bad conclusions. Conclusions he didn’t want to say aloud, but his first thought was cancer or some other terminal disease. Hell.

Had Eve come home to die?

“What’s wrong?” he settled for repeating.

She shook her head, maybe after seeing the alarm in his eyes. “No. Not that kind of medical problem.”

Grayson silently released the breath he’d been holding.

“I’m, uh, going through, well, menopause,” she volunteered.

Of all the things Grayson had expected her to say, that wasn’t one of them. “Aren’t you too young for that?”

“Yes. Premature menopause.” She swallowed hard again. “There’s no way to stop it.”

Well, it wasn’t a cancer death sentence like her mother’s, but Grayson could understand her concern. “So, is that why you’re here, to try to come to terms with it?”

He’d asked the question in earnest, but he checked his watch. Talking with him wouldn’t help Eve come to terms with anything, and he had work to do. That included a look around the place and then he had to convince her to head back to San Antonio. It was obvious she was too spooked and worried to be out in the woods all alone.

“I don’t have much time,” she said before he could speak. “That’s why I came to Silver Creek today. And that’s why I’ll need your answer right away. I know this isn’t fair, but if you say no, I’ll have to try to find someone else…though I’m not sure I can.” She didn’t stop long enough to draw breath, and her words bled together. “Still, I’ll understand if you want to say no, but Grayson, I’m praying you won’t—”

“What are you talking about?” he finally said, speaking right over her.

Now, Eve stopped and caught on to the back of the chair. “Perhaps you should sit down for this.”

The rushed frantic pace was gone, but her eyes told him this particular storm was far from being over.

“I’d rather stand,” he let her know.

“No. Trust me on this. You need to be sitting.”

That took him several steps beyond just being curious, and Grayson sank into the chair across from her. Eve sat as well, facing him. Staring at him. And nibbling on her lip.

“I’m not sure how to say this,” she continued, “so I’m just going to put it out there.”

But she still didn’t do that. Eve opened her mouth, closed it and stared at him.

“Grayson,” she finally said and looked him straight in the eyes. “I need you to get me pregnant.
Today.
”

Chapter Two

Eve had tried to brace herself for Grayson’s reaction.

She’d anticipated that he might just walk out. Or curse. Or even ask her if she’d lost her mind. He might still do those things, but at the moment he just sat there while his jaw practically hit his knees.

Other than his slack-jaw reaction, there was no sign of the storm that she must have stirred up inside him. Not that Eve had expected him to show any major signs of what he was feeling.

Grayson was Grayson.

Calm, reliable, levelheaded, responsible.

Hot.

In those well-worn Wranglers, black Stetson, black shirt and buckskin jacket, he looked like a model for some Western ad in a glossy magazine.

A comparison he would have hated if he had known what she was thinking.

Even though he had that scarred silver badge clipped to his rawhide rodeo belt, Grayson was first and foremost a cowboy and, along with his brothers, owner of one of the most successful ranches in central Texas. That success was due in large part to Grayson.

There was nothing glossy about him.

Eve forced herself away from that mental summary of Grayson’s attributes. His hot cowboy looks and ranching success weren’t relevant here. It had been the calm, reliable, levelheaded and responsible aspects of his personality that had caused her to want him to father her child.

Maybe it was her desperation, but Eve had hoped that Grayson would also be cooperative. That slack jaw gave her some doubts about that though.

“When I was at my doctor’s office this morning, I found out I’m ovulating,” she continued. That seemed way too personal to be sharing with anyone except maybe a spouse or best friend, but she didn’t have time for modesty here.

Time was literally ticking away.

“The fact that I’m ovulating is nothing short of a miracle,” she continued. “The doctor didn’t think it would happen, and it almost certainly won’t happen again.”

Grayson just kept staring.

She wished he would curse or yell, but no, not Grayson. Those silver-gray eyes drilled right into her, challenging her to give him an explanation that he could wrap his logical mind around.

There wouldn’t be anything logical about this. Well, not on his part anyway. To Eve, it was pure logic.

“I desperately want a child, and I’m begging you to help me,” she clarified in case the gist had gotten lost in all her babbling. “I don’t have time to find anyone else. I’ve got twenty-four hours, maybe less.”

Grayson dropped the stare, blew out a long breath and leaned back in the chair. He was probably glad that she had insisted on the being seated part.

He flexed his eyebrows. “How can you possibly ask me to do this?”

“You’re the first person I thought of,” she admitted.

Actually, he was the
only
person. Those Ryland genes were prime stuff, and all the Ryland males were able-bodied, smart as whips and drop-dead gorgeous with their midnight-black hair and crystal-gray eyes. Again, the looks were just icing.

Grayson wasn’t just her first choice for this. He was her
only
choice.

“Don’t say no,” Eve blurted out when she was certain Grayson was about to do exactly that.

Now, he cursed. This time it wasn’t under his breath. “No,” he stated simply, but it had not been simply said. There was a flash of emotion in all those swirls of gray in his eyes. “You already know I don’t want to be a father.”

It was an argument that Eve had anticipated, and she had a counterargument for it. “Yes, because you had to raise your younger brothers after your father walked out and your mother died.” Now,
she
cursed. She should have rehearsed this. Bringing up Grayson’s reckless father was not the way to earn points here even though it’d happened over twenty years ago when Grayson was barely eighteen. A lifetime wouldn’t be long enough to forget or forgive that kind of hurt, and it had shaped Grayson to the very core of who he was now.

Yes, he’d been a father figure to his five younger siblings. Head of the ranch and the family. And he’d sacrificed so much for both that by the time Eve had been looking to settle down and have a family with him, Grayson no longer had anything to give anyone.

Including her.

Still, she wanted him for this massive favor.

“I’m not asking you to be a father.” Eve tried and failed to keep the emotion out of her argument, but her voice broke. “I only need you to get me pregnant, Grayson. Nothing else. In fact, I would insist on nothing else.”

She hated to put him into a corner as she’d done all those years ago. That had been a massive mistake. But she did need an immediate answer.

Grayson shook his head again and eased to the edge of the chair so they were closer. And eye to eye.

“I can’t.” He held up his hand when she started to interrupt him. “I know the difference between fathering a child and being a father. I can’t say yes to either.”

Oh, mercy. He wasn’t even giving it any thought or consideration. He had doled out an automatic refusal. Eve had thought she had prepared herself for this, but she obviously hadn’t. That sent her desperation to a whole new level. Everything inside her started to race and spin as if she were on the verge of a panic attack.

She immediately tried to come up with other ways she could persuade him. First and foremost, she could try to use their past. Their connection. They’d been close once. Once, they’d been in love.

Well, she had been in love with him anyway.

Grayson never quite let himself take that leap of the heart, and he’d certainly never said the words.

She had hoped the close-to-love feelings that he had once had for her would be a trump card she could use here to convince him. Heck, she wasn’t too proud to beg.

But she shook her head.

Begging might work.
Might.
However, this was Grayson, and because in the past she had loved him, Eve owed him more than that. She reined in her feelings and tried to say something that made sense. Something that would make him see that she wasn’t crazy, just desperate.

“I’m sorry,” she somehow managed to say. Her breath suddenly felt too thick to push out of her lungs, and she understood that whole cliché about having a heavy heart. Hers weighed a ton right now. “When the doctor told me I was ovulating and that I probably had a day or two at most, I thought of you. I jumped right in my car and drove straight to Silver Creek.”