Chapter One
Seducing her ex-husband wasn’t going to be easy, Carol Kyle decided, but she was determined. More than determined – resolute! Her mind was set, and no one knew better than Steve Kyle how stubborn she could be when she wanted something.
And Carol wanted a baby.
Naturally she had no intention of letting him in on her plans. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Their marriage had lasted five good years, and six bad months. To Carol’s way of thinking, which she admitted was a bit twisted at the moment, Steve owed her at least one pregnancy.
Turning thirty had convinced Carol that drastic measures were necessary. Her hormones were jumping up and down, screaming for a chance at motherhood. Her biological clock was ticking away, and Carol swore she could hear every beat of that blasted timepiece. Everywhere she turned, it seemed she was confronted with pregnant women, who served to remind her that her time was running out. If she picked up a magazine, there would be an article on some aspect of parenting. Even her favorite characters on television sitcoms were pregnant. When she found herself wandering through the infant section of her favorite department store, Carol realized drastic measures needed to be taken.
Making the initial contact with Steve hadn’t been easy, but she recognized that the first move had to come from her. Getting in touch with her ex-husband after more than a year of complete silence had required two weeks of nerve building. But she’d managed to swallow her considerable pride and do it. Having a woman answer his phone had thrown her for a loop, and Carol had visualized her plans swirling down the drain until she realized the woman was Steve’s sister, Lindy.
Her former sister-in-law had sounded pleased to hear from her, and then Lindy had said something that had sent Carol’s spirits soaring to the ceiling: Lindy had claimed that Steve missed her dreadfully. Lordy, she hoped that was true. If so, it probably meant he wasn’t dating yet. There could be complications if Steve was involved with another woman. On the other hand, there could also be problems if he wasn’t involved.
Carol only needed him for one tempestuous night, and then, if everything went according to schedule, Steve Kyle could fade out of her life once more. If she failed to get pregnant… well, she’d leap that hurdle when she came to it.
Carol had left a message for Steve a week earlier, and he hadn’t returned her call. She wasn’t overly concerned. She knew her ex-husband well; he would mull it over carefully before he’d get back to her. He would want her to stew a while first. She’d carefully figured the time element into her schedule of events.
Her dinner was boiling on the stove, and Carol turned down the burner after checking the sweet potatoes with a cooking fork. Glaring at the orange-colored root, she heaved a huge sigh and squelched her growing dislike for the vegetable. After she became pregnant, she swore she would never eat another sweet potato for as long as she lived. A recent news report stated that the starchy vegetable helped increase the level of estrogen in a woman’s body. Armed with that information, Carol had been eating sweet potatoes every day for the last two weeks. There had to be enough of the hormone floating around in her body by now to produce triplets.
Noting the potatoes were soft, she drained the water and dumped the steaming roots into her blender. A smile crowded the edges of her mouth. Eating sweet potatoes was a small price to pay for a beautiful baby… for Steve’s baby.
"Have you called Carol back yet?" Lindy Callaghan demanded of her brother as she walked into the small kitchen of the two-bedroom apartment she shared with her husband and Steve.
Steve Kyle ignored her until she pulled out the chair and plopped down across the table from him. "No," he admitted flatly. He could see no reason to hurry. He already knew what Carol was going to tell him. He’d known it from the minute they’d walked out of the King County Courthouse, the divorce papers clenched in her hot little hands. She was remarrying. Well, more power to her, but he wasn’t going to sit back and blithely let her rub his nose in the fact.
"Steve," Lindy insisted, her face tight with impatience. "It could be something important."
"You told me it wasn’t."
"Sure, that’s what Carol said, but…oh, I don’t know, I have the feeling that it really must be. It isn’t going to do any harm to call her back."
Methodically Steve turned the page of the evening newspaper and carefully creased the edge before folding it in half and setting it aside. Lindy and Rush, her husband, couldn’t be expected to understand his reluctance to phone his ex-wife. He hadn’t told either of them the details that had led to his and Carol’s divorce. He preferred to keep all thoughts of the disastrous relationship out of his mind. There were plenty of things he could have forgiven, but not what Carol had done – not infidelity.
As a Lieutenant Commander aboard the submarine USS Atlantis, Steve was at sea for as long as six months out of a year. From the first Carol hadn’t seemed to mind sending him off on a three-to-four month cruise. She even used to joke about it, telling him all the projects she planned to complete when he was at sea, and how pleased she was that he would be out of her hair for a while. When he’d returned she’d always seemed happy that he was home, but not exuberant. If anything had gone wrong in his absence – a broken water pipe, car repairs, anything – she’d seen to it herself with barely more than a casual mention.
Steve had been so much in love with her that the little things hadn’t added up until later – much later.
He’d deceived himself by overlooking the obvious. The physical craving they had for each other had diluted his doubts. Making love with Carol had been so hot it was like a nuclear meltdown. Toward the end she’d been eager for him, but not quite as enthusiastic as in the past. He’d been trusting, blind and incredibly stupid when it came to his ex-wife.
Then by accident he’d learned why she’d become so blasé about his comings and goings. When he left their bed, his loveless, faithless wife had a built-in replacement – her employer, Todd Larson.
It was just short of amazing that Steve hadn’t figured it out earlier, and yet when he thought about it, he could almost calculate to the day when she’d started her little affair.
"Steve?"