The Alvares Bride

What then?

Rafe got to his feet, tucked his hands into his pockets and looked at the woman with whom he’d spent the most passionate hour of his life. She was not the exquisitely groomed, expensively dressed beauty he had met that night. Her face was pale and free of makeup. There were shadows under her eyes, shadows that only emphasized her fragility. Her hair was tangled, and the plain white neckline of her hospital gown showed just above the blanket.

It didn’t matter.

She would always be a woman for whom a man would abandon common sense, as he had done. Sex without protection. He’d never done such a stupid thing before, and now he was paying the price…

If she were telling the truth, and the child was his.

Rafe looked at the baby. She was beautiful. She had her mother’s mop of dark hair, her widely spaced eyes, her small, straight nose but then, perhaps babies all looked like this. He had little knowledge of children. His own childhood was a dark blur, and he had been careful not to leave behind small images of himself in any of his liaisons, far more careful than his own father had been…

He dragged air into his lungs, then expelled it, told himself he had to stop thinking such things. For all he knew, the lover who’d been a ghostly presence between them that night had fathered this child.

The door swung open. A nurse he hadn’t seen before flashed him the kind of professional smile he’d seen bestowed on all the new fathers on this floor.

“Hello, Daddy,” she said briskly.

Rafe started to reply, thought better of it, and nodded.

“And Mommy.” The woman paused at Carin’s bedside. “How are we feeling?”

“Fine,” Carin said, but she didn’t sound fine. Her voice was shaky, and it suddenly struck him that the color in her face was too high.

The nurse seemed to think so, too.

“Uh-huh.” She took the baby from Carin’s arms and turned to Rafe. “Would you hold your daughter for a moment, please, sir?”

“No,” Carin said quickly, “I’d rather—”

Rafe’s arms closed around the baby as the nurse’s hand closed around Carin’s wrist.

“Let’s just check your pulse. Good. Now let me just get a reading on your temp…”

“Is she ill?” Rafe asked brusquely.

“No, no, I’m sure your wife is fine.”

“She is not…” He cleared his throat. It was nobody’s business what their relationship was. “Perhaps she’s exerted herself more than she should have.”

“Mmm.” The nurse read the thermometer, shot another brightly artificial smile and drew the blanket to Carin’s chin. “We need to get plenty of rest, if we’re going to leave here in a few days.”

“A few days?” Carin ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip. “Must I stay so long? I’d like to go home as soon as possible.”

“You just make the most of this time, dear. Once you’re home, you’ll be up half the night with your baby.”

Carin smiled. “Only half?” she said, and yawned.

“Of course.” The nurse turned to Rafe and took the baby from his arms. “I’m sure this handsome hubby of yours will be happy to take his turn, won’t you, Dad?”

“Certainly,” Rafe said stiffly, and wondered just how long it would take to do the paternity test and analyze the results.

* * *

No time at all, as it turned out.

“A couple of days,” the doctor told him briskly, as if new fathers asked him such questions all the time. “Less than that, I suspect, if you’re willing to pay extra fees to the lab.”

Rafe was willing. So was the laboratory. All that remained was for Carin to agree. He waited until her family was at dinner. Then he knocked at the door to her room.

“Yes?” she called out in a soft voice.

He opened the door, went briskly towards the bed. “We have to talk,” he began…and the rest of what he’d intended to tell her caught in his throat. The baby was nursing, lying nestled in Carin’s arms. Rafe caught a glimpse of her flushed face, her ivory breast, rounded and full, and swung sharply away.

“I apologize.” His voice sounded rusty. He cleared his throat, spoke to the wall, told himself there was nothing in what he’d seen that should make him feel as if he’d run a hard five miles through the scrub at Rio de Ouro. “I will come back, when you are—I will come back.”

He stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall, trying not to think of anything at all, but it was impossible. Images of things he’d tried so hard to forget formed in his mind. Carin, in his arms that night. Her body, moving beneath his. Her half-stifled cries, her whispers. And now the child—perhaps, their child—at her breast, the breast he had once caressed and kissed…

He dragged his hands through his hair. He wanted a cigarette, so desperately that he could almost feel the taste of tobacco in his mouth, which was insane because he had not smoked in years.

Finally, a nurse bustled past him, went into the room and came out with the baby in her arms. Rafe stepped away from the wall, straightened his shoulders and went back inside.

Carin was sitting up in the bed, the blanket tucked around her. He decided to waste no time in telling her why he’d come.

“I’ve arranged for tests to be done first thing in the morning.”

“Tests?”

“Sim. To prove the child’s paternity.”

Her eyes flashed. “No tests are necessary.”

“They are necessary. Surely, you don’t expect me to simply accept responsibility for your child without proof.”

Why did his words hurt? She didn’t want anything from him, hadn’t expected anything from him.

“You’re right,” she said politely. “I don’t expect you to accept responsibility.”

“If you are afraid of the procedure, it is painless. Just a little blood, that’s all.”

“Dammit! Do you think that’s why I…?” She took a breath, folded her hands tightly in her lap. “I’m not afraid of the test.”

“Good. I will tell the laboratory—”

“But I’m not going to take it. There isn’t any reason to do paternity testing.”

“There is, if you expect me to acknowledge this child as my own.”

“I don’t expect it. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“You sent for me, Carin.”

“I didn’t. Amanda seems to think I—I said your name while I was…Whatever I said, I didn’t ‘send’ for you.”

Deus, she was so calm, so sel

f-contained. She sounded as if she deserved praise for such a thing but if the baby were his, why hadn’t she sent for him? What kind of woman would want to keep a father from his child?

If she could keep her self-control, so could he.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “I am here. And I intend to find out if what you claim about this child is the truth.”

“I haven’t claimed anything.”

“Are you telling me the child is not mine?”

Carin stared at him. It would be so easy to lie…but someday her daughter would want to know the details of her birth, and she’d be entitled to the truth.

“She’s my daughter,” she said quietly. “I carried her in my womb. I gave birth to her.”

“That’s a charming speech. Unfortunately, you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Would you believe me if I did?” She sank back against the pillows. “Just go away,” she said wearily. “I don’t want anything from you.”

He folded his arms, eyed her narrowly. “Not even a check each month, for child support?”

“Have I asked you for a penny?”

“How could you? You were not even going to tell me you were pregnant.” His mouth twisted. “Or did you think I would be more impressed if you presented me with a child instead of a swollen belly?”

Carin flung back the blanket. He reached out a hand to stop her but she slapped it away.

“Don’t touch me!” There was a white cotton robe on the chair. She reached for it, put it on, and got to her feet. “I don’t need your help with anything, senhor. I am perfectly capable of doing things for myself. I can get out of bed. I can walk. I can do anything I damn well want, and what I want now is for you to get the hell out of my sight!”

“You can want what you like. I will do as I must. If this baby proves to be mine, I will do the right thing.”

“If she proves to…?” Carin laughed, folded her arms, and faced him with her chin lifted in defiance. “Why don’t I simplify things for us both, Rafe? You don’t think my daughter is yours? All right. She’s not.”

He had waited for those words, but what meaning did they have if they were tossed at him like stones?

“Your story changes from minute to minute,” he said, folding his arms as she had folded hers. “I haven’t come all this distance to be toyed with, Carin. I am entitled to have the proper tests done.”