Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

“Yes, I want you gone—far away from me and from Quint. It’s what I’ve wanted all along,” she shot back.

“That’s enough!” Her father’s voice cut hard across them. “Answer me one question, Cat. Is he the father of your child or not?”

“I told you—” she began, all cool and arrogant, her eyes still on Logan.

His hand slammed the desk as he rose from his chair. “Don’t give me any of your carefully rehearsed speeches for the judge. I want the truth!”

“Yes, he’s Quint’s father—for all the good it does him,” she addressed the last to Logan.

Chase straightened to his full height, his dark gaze boring into her. “Your mother and I did a good job of spoiling you.” It was one of the rare times he had ever mentioned her mother. The surprise of it drew Cat’s glance, but it was his look of disgust that held it. “But I never guessed you had grown so selfish that you can’t bear to share your son’s love with his own father.”

She paled a little at his harsh censure. “But he’s my son—”

“And if you truly wanted what was best for Quint, you would marry this man and give your son a name and two parents,” he stated, his mouth coming together in a tight, white line.

“An excellent suggestion,” Logan murmured, and the sound of his low voice was like an intimate caress sliding over her skin, stimulating her senses and her much-too-vivid memory of that night. She didn’t want to remember the strength of those hands, the gentleness of them or—most of all—the raw and heady sensations she had felt under their touch.

Cat turned from the memory, and from Logan, worried now that her father actually meant what he said. “My son has a name—the best one of all. He’s a Calder.”

“He’s illegitimate, a bastard. Maybe that isn’t the harsh stigma it once was. But as long as he stays around here, that’s the way he’ll be defined when he becomes a man—the Calder bastard. People may not say it to his face, but I guarantee they’ll say it behind his back.” His words carried an unmistakable ring of truth.

Cat tried to deny them. “You’re wrong.”

“I wish I were.” His shoulders slumped a little with the heavy sigh that claimed him. “One thing I do know—if you marry Logan, the circumstances of Quint’s birth will be forgotten.”

“But—” She looked at Logan. His eyes had gone from stone-gray to smoke, disturbing in their intensity, tripping her pulse. “—I don’t love him.”

“There you go again, Cat,” Logan taunted softly, “thinking of yourself first.”

“You must have felt something for him once,” her father pointed out. “Or you wouldn’t have a child upstairs now.” She opened her mouth to protest that, but he stopped her with an upraised hand. “And don’t give me that nonsense about being drunk. You may have been drinking, but something tells me you weren’t so drunk that you didn’t know what you were doing—or who you were with, although I don’t doubt that you might have tried to convince yourself otherwise, both then and now.”

She went hot under the shrewdness of her father’s gaze. “This entire conversation is ridiculous.”

“I’m not so sure about that anymore.” He eyed both of them thoughtfully. “Your mother and I had a lot less going for us than the two of you.”

“But you loved her,” Cat argued.

He shook his head. “At the time I married her, we hadn’t seen each other in sixteen years. She was a stranger. I couldn’t be sure what my feelings were. I only knew how much she had hated me. Still, it worked out for us. There’s no reason it can’t for you two.” He sat back down. “We’ll keep the ceremony simple, just the minister and Jessy and me for witnesses—”

Cat broke in angrily, “I am not going to marry him.”

He glanced from her to Logan, a questioning arch to one eyebrow. “What are your feelings?”

“I’d marry the devil himself if it meant having my son with me,” Logan answered simply, holding Cat’s gaze in silent challenge.

“Then you’d better go find the devil, because I’m not marrying you,” she flared. “The whole idea is so preposterous I can’t believe you would even consider it, Dad.”

“Unlike you, I’m thinking of Quint,” her father fired right back. “Marriage is, after all, a partnership that requires mutual respect, tolerance, and a shared goal. If there is affection as well, then it’s all the better.”

“If you believe that, then why haven’t you married Sally Brogan?” She spoke curtly because inside she was shaking. “I’ll tell you why—because no one can take my mother’s place in your heart or your life. Can’t you see that I feel the same?”

“Is that the reason, or are you afraid?” Logan’s half-tilted smile mocked even as his eyes burned into hers.

Stung, Cat retorted,

“Certainly not of you.”

“No, not of me,” he agreed. “You’re afraid of a lot of things, but I don’t happen to be one of them.”