Her Secret, His Child

She couldn't breathe, couldn't stop trembling, couldn't stop the tears that ran down her cheeks when she encountered the hot fire of lust in her stepfather's eyes.

"You took my companion from me," John whispered. "A man has needs, natural, powerful needs."

Unable to make a sound, shaking convulsively, Jamie just stared at him in horror. God. No. Not this. Let him beat me to death. Let him stick a gun to my head. But not this.

"Wouldn't look right for me to search out another woman to take to my bed, not so soon after your mother." His caress continued slowly downward, along the length of her neck.

She stood frozen beneath his touch, completely unprepared.

"So you see how lucky it is that I don't have to search. You took her from me." His hand reached her collarbone, his fingers sliding inside the neckline of her sweatshirt.

Jamie flinched. And just that quickly, the caress became brutal, a vicelike grip bruising her collarbone as John pulled her closer.

"The very least you can do after depriving me of my wife is to take her place yourself."

"No!" Her scream tore past the constriction in her throat. She was burning up. Sick. And freezing, too.

"Yes." John bit the word out through clenched teeth as he planted his other hand firmly on her breast.

A part of Jamie just evaporated as her stepfather's

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

big hand kneaded her soft flesh roughly, touching her where she'd never been touched before. Where he should never have been touching.

His eyes gleamed, almost glassy with lust. Still holding her

in a bruising grip, he moved his hand to her other breast. "Oh, yes, I'm going to like this," he murmured.

And almost before she knew it was happening, he'd pushed up the hem of her sweatshirt, ripping her bra in his hurry to get to her naked flesh.

"Nooooo!" Jamie screamed. She yanked away from him, not caring if he broke her neck with his violent grip.

"Get back here, you little bitch!" He grabbed her hair, his fingers tangling in the tightly wrapped curls, wrenching her back to him. "You owe me, and I'm going to have you."

Only if he killed her first.

Filled with a strength she wasn't aware she possessed, with a purpose that hadn't been there seconds before, Jamie suddenly knew exactly what to do. John was too busy groping her again, too caught up in his crazed lust, to be wary. With one perfectly aimed swipe she kneed him squarely between his legs.

And ran for her life.

CHAPTER THREE

Looking back, Jamie wasn't sure just when she'd made the wrong turn, which decision had been the one that catapulted her from a damaged childhood into a hellish life. Though she desperately didn't want it to be so, she couldn't help wondering if maybe she'd always been tainted; maybe there'd never been any question as to what course her life would take.

Lord knows, she'd tried to be moral, to do what was right. She'd tried to make the proper decisions, to search out the best choices available to her. There just hadn't seemed to be much to choose from.

Leaning her head against the kitchen cupboard, she closed her eyes, wishing that sleep would come. The night was already half over. And there she sat, a full nine years after she'd last seen John Archer, still alone, still frightened.

Had it been wrong to run? Slowly shaking her head, Jamie couldn't believe that running wasn't her only choice. She'd run to Las Vegas. Because it was close. And because she knew enough about the city to realize that if there was any place in the United States that she had a chance of not being found, it

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

was in the city that never slept. Where "no questions asked" was an accepted standard.

She'd left her purse on the front table when she'd come in from the funeral that day and had grabbed it again on her way out. She had enough money for a couple of nights' cheap lodging, but other than that, she was broke. She'd tried to get a job immediately. Had spent two days answering every want ad she could find. She was a high-school dropout, though, and the most anyone offered her was a fast-food position that didn't pay enough to cover rent and expenses—let alone any extra to cover the education she'd need to better herself.

Jamie studied the uneven grain in the cupboard across from her. Maybe she should have known when she'd visited the community college, passed the entrance exams without her diploma and applied for scholarship money that she was reaching too high. The guidance counselor she'd seen had tried to tell her, suggesting Jamie go home to John, apologize, ask him to take her back until she finished high school. She was told to save her money and move out when she'd established herself, became "independent."