Murphy's Child
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Judith Duncan
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Chapter 1
Friday, March 29
A March chinook arch bisected the vast Alberta sky, leaving the bright blue westerly half cloudless and clear, a perfect backdrop for the gray, jagged, snowcapped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Overhead and to the east, where the blue arc met the furls of cumulus formations, tinges of sunrise cast the underbellies of the fat white clouds in purples and pinks. And beyond that, the upper stratosphere trailed long, thin orange wisps that were slowly dissipated by the warm currents blowing in from the Pacific. It was as if the two mismatched sections had been welded together, creating an artificial dome overhead.
The early-morning air was crisp and crystal clear, the shrill screams of Skil saws splintering the stillness, the kerthunk, kerthunk of compression guns adding percussion to the discordant sounds of construction. But there was another, sweeter sound. And it was the sound of spring.
Meltwater gathered in the icy ruts of the unpaved road, the pressure wearing thin channels in the packed snow. Along the gutter the rivulets of spring runoff cut a course to the storm sewer, where they splashed and gurgled on to oblivion, the sound punctuated by the drip, drip, drip of melting icicles.
Straddling the gable of the attached garage, Murphy Munroe straightened, relishing all the signals of winter’s end. Yep, no doubt about it, the sound of spring was definitely the sweetest sound of all.
Resting his hand on his hip, Murphy acknowledged the smell of sunshine, damp earth and melting snow, a sense of well-being filling his chest as he surveyed the scene. This new housing development was on the southern outskirts of Calgary, and from his high perch, he could see clear to the foothills and to the mountains peaks beyond. And it was some sight, one that he’d never tired of. There was something about the raw majesty of those mountains, combined with the overwhelming sense of space, that filled him up. This was his place in the bigger scheme of things, and he was rooted here. Just like the big old cottonwoods down by the river.
Rolling his shoulders, Murphy tried to ease a knot of tight muscles as he surveyed the street below. It was one hell of a mess. Mud, piles of dirt-pocked snow, puddles big enough to float a boat and more mud. But he could live with the mud. After the past few months, he’d gladly take the mud. What he did not want to see was another single snowflake or another thermometer that showed minus-thirty-degree weather.
To put it in barroom terms, it had been a royal bitch of a winter. It was as if the past few months had been engineered to test him. Everything that could possibly go wrong, had, and if he could have had his way, he’d have taken the joker who’d come up with Murphy’s Law and stuffed him down a well. He was so damned tired of everything going wrong just when he absolutely needed it to go right. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear somebody had put an old Celtic curse on him.
It wasn’t as if he was some airheaded adolescent screwup. He was thirty-six years old, for Pete’s sake, with a successful construction company and a halfway decent brain in his head. Nor was it as if he was some rotten SOB who deserved a stretch of bad luck. He built good-quality, affordable homes for people, he paid his taxes on time, donated to every charity within a ten-mile radius and he always stopped at crosswalks for dogs, little old ladies and school patrols.
But this year had been enough to test a bloody saint. For every positive thing that had come his way, there had been a string of things that had gone wrong. He was a small operator in the home-construction business, but Calgary had been hit with a housing boom. Everything should have been coming up nothing but roses—he had good, reputable tradespeople contracted, specialized suppliers geared up for business, good interest rates and an even better cash flow.
But here it was, the end of March, and he was four—sneaking up to five—weeks behind schedule. Which was nothing new. In fact, he’d been playing catch-up ever since they’d dug the first basement the previous fall. That was when the weather had gone berserk. First it rained. Then it snowed. Then it rained some more. Then the temperatures plunged to record lows, and from the first lousy raindrop, Murphy’s Law had kicked in. It had been one long nightmare. Problems had cropped up like ragweed. Problems with concrete, with bad rafters, with poorly sealed skylights, with the hardwood for the flooring—even problems with the services the land developer had put in. It was one damned thing after another. And to make matters worse, they had suffered through the most bitterly cold winter in recorded history.
But winter was finally on its way out now, and maybe a bit of luck was on its way in. For the past few days, everything had gone like clockwork. And he could thank some on-the-ball, hardworking subcontractors, who happened to be mostly in-laws.
Well, not exactly honest-to-God in-laws. A sister had married into a huge, multigenerational Italian family, and Murphy had discovered that when you got one Rossino as a relative, you got them all. It was such a crazy tangle, he’d given up years ago trying to sort out who was who. Now he saved himself a whole lot of grief and aggravation by accepting it at face value; anyone on the job site who had a name that ended in a vowel was somehow related to Marco, his brother-in-law. Which, through some weird Latin osmosis, also made that person somehow related to the entire Munroe clan.
Given the ethnic makeup of his own family, Murphy figured it almost made sense. Irish father, Swedish mother, a Ukrainian grandmother, Russian and Native American aunts, a Portuguese uncle. So what were a few unrelated Italians? Hell, he had enough trouble keeping track of his two brothers and three sisters.
But all that was beside the point. What counted now was that everything was going as smooth as silk. Touch wood. A chinook had blown in a week ago, raising the temperature by forty degrees in six hours, and maybe, just maybe, it was heralding an early spring. And so far this week, no hiccups. Not even a little one. Suppliers on time. Everybody getting the job done. Now, if things just kept clicking along like they were—and with some extra overtime by his crews—Munroe Construction could conceivably be back on schedule before the first possession date. Barring another disaster.
Experiencing a familiar burning sensation in his gut at just the thought of something else going wrong, Murphy fished a roll of antacid tablets out of his shirt pocket and popped one in his mouth. Maybe now that everything had leveled off a bit, he’d be able to get rid of the lousy things. He had so many rolls of them scattered around, he probably had enough antacid pills to neutralize the whole bloody world.
Rolling his shoulders again, Murphy let go a sigh and picked up a pair of side cutters, then leaned over and snapped the metal binding around the bundle of cedar shakes. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months, and he couldn’t remember ever being this tired. And there were at least a dozen other things he needed to be doing right now instead of shingling this garage, but his roofing crews were already working on two other houses. If he was willing to take a chance that the spring winds wouldn’t rip off the tar paper, he could leave it until a crew got to it. But he wasn’t much into taking chances these days.
He fit the compressed-air staple gun onto the pressure hoses, then yelled down for someone to switch on the compressor.
There was the sound of the compressor starting up, then a loud crash and the tinkling of glass, followed by some very colorful cursing. Murphy let his arms hang by his sides and tipped his head back and looked at the sky. As long as it wasn’t that custom-made leaded-glass door for the study, he didn’t care.
There was more swearing, only this burst was in Italian and far more vehement than the last, and Murphy dropped his head to his chest and let out a weary sigh. Damn. It wasn’t the custom-made French door; it was the custom-made sealed unit for the plant window.
And it wasn’t even 8:00 a.m. yet. Which meant it was going to be one of those days.
Kicking the red compressor hose out of his way, he shot a staple into the roof to make sure the gun was working, then turned to pick up some of the shakes. And stopped dead in his tracks.
A spotless silver BMW coupe eased through the slush ruts in the nearly impassable street, pulling up behind his mud-spattered pickup, which was parked across the road. Murphy blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. But this was no hallucination. It was, in fact, his worst nightmare. And the source of all his sleepless nights. His stomach released a killer dose of acid, and wearily he rubbed his eyes. This was absolutely the last thing he needed.
Knowing that there was one chance in a million that someone else in Calgary had that exact same color model, someone who might conceivably have a reason to show up at his building site, someone who could drive through acres of mud and slop and still have a car that looked as if it had just rolled through a car wash, Murphy continued to watch. There was a chance it wasn’t her, but he knew he just didn’t have that kind of luck.
Not when it came to Ms. Jordan Kennedy.
Locking his jaws together hard enough to shatter bone, he stared down at the car. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t her.
The driver’s door swung open and a pair of very long legs appeared, then an elegant blond woman emerged, swathed in an equally elegant long white cashmere coat. Murphy swore, resisting the urge to rear back and pitch the staple gun into the next development. Damn it all to hell—Jordan Kennedy was somebody he could do without.
And if he’d been a whole lot smarter, would have done without. He should have seen right from the beginning that she was going to cause him no end of grief. Tall, elegant, aloof, she was one of those cool, contained blondes that made him think of some fabled Nordic ice queen. Completely untouchable. Unreachable. Unattainable. But that hadn’t stopped him. Oh, no. Not him. Right from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, he had wanted her like he wanted his next breath. Which didn’t say much for his stupidity quotient.
He should have known better. But he’d gone after her anyway. Which was a double disaster. Especially when she was his accountant.
He had changed accounting firms the previous year, and when he went in for a preliminary interview with the senior partner of the new firm, the partner had strongly recommended Ms. Jordan Kennedy as the perfect person to handle his business account. So he’d set up an appointment with her, and that had been his downfall. Because Ms. Jordan Kennedy had knocked his socks off the instant she’d turned those big gray eyes on him.
Watching her pick her way carefully across the chewed-up street, Murphy had to give himself some credit. Even back then, she hadn’t completely short-circuited his brain. Right from the beginning, he’d had enough mental capacity left to realize that this woman had more defenses than Fort Knox. And even then he’d known he was going to have to move an inch at a time with her. No overt moves. No flowers. No romantic dinners. She would have spooked on the spot if he’d shown any kind of male-female interest.
So he’d planned a careful, strategic attack, and like some half-witted, hormone-driven adolescent, he’d gone after her with a single-mindedness that would have done his Viking ancestors proud. It had taken him months, but that previous summer, he’d finally got through her defenses. And the memories of her hot and naked beneath him still woke him up in hard, cold sweats. But toward the middle of December, just when he’d thought she might not bolt if he started talking permanence, when he was thinking about giving her a diamond for Christmas, she’d abruptly slammed all the doors.
Just like that. Bam. He’d been dumped out on his ear. He didn’t know why. He wasn’t even really sure if he knew how. The only explanation she’d given him was that it was a mistake—and that she thought it would be a good idea if he moved his account elsewhere.
That memory still had the power to rankle him. He’d never felt as impotent, as broadsided, as bloody furious as he had then. And he still couldn’t think about it without his blood pressure going through the roof. She’d just walked out as if that entire summer and fall had meant nothing at all, and he’d been left standing there like a big dummy who’d just fallen off the turnip truck.
But the one thing he hadn’t done was make it easy for her. He hadn’t moved his account. Be damned if he was going to accommodate her precious comfort zone.
But that was then. This was now.
His expression hardening even more, Murphy watched her pick her way around a mound of dirt, ice and snow, then tiptoe across the mud-spattered planks that bridged the open service ditch, her off-white coat as meticulous and as immaculate as her car: Resigning himself to a face-to-face confrontation, he wondered where in hell he had parked his common sense. Only a first-class lamebrain would have kept her on as his accountant.
Shifting his gaze, he expelled all his breath and fixed his attention on the old Italian sitting on the doorstep across the street, busy straightening nails on a flat rock. Murphy thought he was Marco’s mother’s cousin’s father-in-law, but he wouldn’t want to swear to it. But his name ended in an o, and he’d been straightening nails for nearly four years. Which, he supposed wearily, made him somebody’s grandfather. It seemed to work that way. He wondered what happened to all those straightened nails. And how much he was paying for them.
Blowing out another heavy breath, Murphy hooked the compression gun on a stack of cedar shakes, then crossed from the garage to the roof of the house. He lowered himself through the gaping hole where one of the replacement skylights was to be installed later that morning, then dropped to the floor below. Shaking his head, he figured he might as well bite the bullet and get this little charade over with. The only reason for Ms. Cold and Heartless Kennedy to be there was that there was some problem with the company’s year-end. He had sent his bookkeeper in with the account the previous week, and now he was faced with the consequences. Damn it all to hell anyway. Served him right for trying to pull an end run on her.
Experiencing the familiar rush of bile, Murphy stomped though the newly drywalled master bedroom, his teeth still clenched so hard his jaw ached. This little meeting was going to mean another roll of antacid pills.
His mood grim, Murphy stuffed his work gloves in the pocket of his insulated vest as he strode down the hall, the sound of his steel-toed work boots echoing on the plywood subfloor of the unfinished house. The quicker he got this over with, the happier he’d be.
Absolutely determined not to let her see that she could still push his buttons—or that he hadn’t completely recovered from the stunt she’d pulled in December—Murphy clamped his mouth in a hard line, then rounded the corner to the front foyer.
He should have been prepared. He should have known better. He should have realized he couldn’t get within five feet of her without all kinds of hell breaking loose.
But there she stood, like something out of a dream, framed in the open doorway. Her white coat swathed her in a kind of royal elegance, the emerald-green, purple and blue multicolored silk scarf draped over one shoulder and fixed with a bold gold pin, adding to her regal look. She had her ash-blond hair pulled back in a perfect French fold, not so much as a single hair out of place, and in her ears, a set of perfectly matched pearl studs. Pearl studs that he had given her for her birthday.
His stomach balled up in his belly as an old reaction kicked in. She was untouchable. She was perfection. And she had broken his heart.
Fixing his face in a flat, unreadable expression, Murphy braced his arm on the raw plaster wall, knowing full well that be was practically hidden in the heavy shadows of the hallway. And damned glad of it. He continued to study her for an instant longer, watching as she pressed her hands tightly together, the pulse in her throat going a mile a minute. Even in the dusky entryway, it was dead apparent that she was so nervous she was inches from climbing right out of her skin.
And so unbelievably beautiful.
Murphy clenched his jaw, a long simmering anger surfacing and percolating through his chest. It had been months, and he still felt as raw as he did when she’d called it off. Knowing he didn’t dare go down that road now, not with her standing in the unfinished foyer, he geared up for battle as he hooked his thumb in the front pocket of his jeans. Determined to play this game out to the bitter end, he spoke, his tone flat. “Make a wrong turn, or are you just out slumming?”
She whirled to face him, her coat swinging out, the alarm on her face making her eyes widen. Pressing her hand to her chest, she stared at him, the pulse point in her neck absolutely hectic. A tense silence stretched between them, then Murphy could see her swallow hard and physically collect herself. She moistened her lips, then forced a smile. “I didn’t think it would be quite so—thick with mud out here.”
His hand still on the wall, he continued to stare at her. And he sure in hell did not return the smile. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
Her expression wavered and her eyes changed from gray to slate. She held his gaze for a second, then looked down, straightening the tangled threads on the fringed edge of her long scarf. Her long thick lashes concealed her eyes, but Murphy could sense her unease. She continued to fiddle with the fringe, and Murphy felt his blood pressure start to climb. His sisters hadn’t worn anything white for years because of grubby little hands, and there was Ms. Jordan Kennedy, standing there in front of him, all wrapped up in off-white perfection. And he’d bet his next house sale that she’d managed to walk across the street without getting a single speck of mud on her pricey shoes. God, he wanted to strangle her.
Clamping down on the flicker of old anger unfurling in him, Murphy clenched and unclenched his jaw, determined to get through this without losing it.
His gaze fixed on her, he spoke, a hard edge to his voice that was decidedly unfriendly. “Let’s skip the pleasantries, Jordan. What do you want?”
She looked up, an odd, fleeting expression in her wide gray eyes. She folded her arms and looked down, nudging a little chunk of broken plaster with her toe. Murphy saw her try to swallow, then she met his gaze, her expression somber and uncertain. She hesitated for an instant, making an awkward gesture with her hand. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Fixing her with another unwavering stare, Murphy didn’t answer, considering his options. If this had something to do with his business, he pretty well had to hear her out. Although he seriously considered showing her the door. But there was something about the anxiety in her eyes, something about the frantic pulse in her neck, that told him this had nothing to do with work at all. Great. Exhaling heavily, he straightened and turned toward the kitchen, knowing, sure as hell, he was going to regret this.
He entered the unfinished room, kicking a long orange extension cord out of the way, then stooped and picked up a piece of counter molding off the floor and tossed it onto the work island. Deliberately keeping his back to her, he went to the window overlooking the backyard. One of his crew was cleaning up the work site and tossing litter into the industrial dumpster, and Murphy caught his eye and signaled him to turn off the compressor. Feeling as if he were wound far too tight, he turned and leaned back against the newly installed cupboards, his face muscles as stiff as boards. Folding his arms across his chest, he fixed his gaze on her and waited. Hell could freeze over before he’d ask a second time what she was doing here.
Her expression tense, she reached out and tested the texture of the molding he’d tossed on the island, then he could almost see her square her shoulders as she lifted her head and looked at him.
She had the most unbelievable eyes. And it had been those eyes that had blasted his common sense to smithereens months before. Gray, steady and intense, with lashes so thick and long, he thought at first they were false. The kind of eyes a man could lose himself in.
Disgusted with how easy she could still sidetrack him, Murphy crossed his ankles, keeping his teeth locked together. No way was he going to ask her, no bloody way.
She stared at him, wide-eyed and motionless, as if she were a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, then she abruptly shifted her gaze, again fingering the molding on the island. A strange feeling began to uncoil in Murphy’s gut, and he narrowed his eyes, assessing her. Something was up. Something was definitely up.
Swallowing hard, she crossed her arms and met his gaze again, terrible tension lines etched around her mouth, the pulse in her neck absolutely frantic again. Lifting her chin in a show of sheer grit, she spoke, her voice tight with strain. “I thought I owed you the truth. I’m four months pregnant.”
It was as if he got smacked in the back of the head by a two-by-four, and his knees almost buckled. Pregnant? Pregnant? He stared at her, his brain stuck. It was as if someone had dumped a load of concrete into his cranial cavity, and he just could not get his mind around it. She couldn’t have said “pregnant.”
But the awful, anxious look in her eyes confirmed that that’s exactly what she had said.
Feeling as if he was just coming to after a knockout punch, his heart suddenly thundering in his chest, Murphy continued to stare at her. Pregnant? How could that be? He had always, always been exceptionally careful—every single time he had been so damned careful with her. Feeling suddenly light-headed, Murphy did not move a muscle. He didn’t dare. Careful obviously hadn’t cut it, because he didn’t doubt for a second that she was telling him the truth, or that the baby was unquestionably his. In spite of what she’d done to him, he had to face one indisputable fact. Ms. Jordan Kennedy had a streak of straitlaced ethics that was a mile wide and six miles deep. She might dodge the truth, and she might be evasive, but Jordan Kennedy would never, never lie. She had far too much stiff-necked pride.
Clearly unnerved by his stunned silence, Jordan went over to the window and stood staring out, and it finally registered that she was trembling. Murphy closed his eyes, the scent of her perfume making every nerve in his body respond. Nothing like kicking a man when he was already down.
Finally getting his reaction under control, he shifted his position slightly so he could watch her. Her arms still folded tightly in front of her, she was absolutely motionless, but he could tell from her taut profile, from the angle of her chin, that she was running on sheer nerves, and no matter what, was determined to finish what she’d started.
Forcing himself to lock down a burst of anger, Murphy watched and waited, his own expression hardening. Four months. Four bloody months, and now she’d finally decided to tell him. For the second time that morning, he wanted to strangle her.
Still staring out the window, she finally spoke. “Just so you know, I never once considered terminating the pregnancy.” She paused, tension visible in every line of her body. Then she shot him a quick glance, an odd hint of defiance in her expression, in the lift of her chin. “This was something I’d never anticipated, but I am keeping this baby.”
When Murphy made no response, she abruptly looked away. There was a tense silence, then she drew a deep, uneven breath and continued. “I know I’ve just dropped a bombshell on you,” she said, her tone very quiet. “And I know you’re going to need time to assimilate all this, but I also want you to know that I’m prepared to accept full responsibility.”
The old anger flared, fueling a brand-new anger, and Murphy’s tone was cold. “If that’s the case, why are you here?”
Shifting her weight, she gave him a quick, nervous glance, then looked back out the window, her whole body stiff with tension. He saw her close her eyes and press her hands together, as if calling on some deep inner strength. Her lips seemed stiff when she finally spoke. “This baby is as much yours as it is mine.” Stuffing her hands in her coat pockets, she took another deep breath. “And if you should decide you want to take an active role in its life, I would not oppose that. Our personal fiasco aside, I think you would make an excellent father, and I hope you won’t deny your child your participation because of me.”
Participation? Murphy felt as if he had his very own compressor start up in his chest. And for one instant, he thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head. Participation? A few months ago, she’d treated him as if he’d just crawled out of the swamp, and now she decided he would make an excellent father? She was the one that took the hike, not him. Four bloody months, and she finally decided to tell him.
Four months? The mathematical side of his brain finally kicked into gear, and he abruptly straightened and stared at her. Four months. That meant she very likely suspected she was pregnant when she’d dumped him. Damn her, she’d probably already known.
His anger finally breaking loose, Murphy paced to the end of the room and back, a frenzy of emotions churning through his chest. She’d been sitting on this bit of information for four months.
Forcing himself to stop, to get a grip, he closed his eyes and raked his hand through his hair. He was doing it to himself. He was pushing his own buttons. And as furious as he was with her, his common sense told him that if he didn’t put the brakes on, he was apt to blow sky-high.
He closed his eyes again and made himself unclench his fists. He could do this. He definitely could do this.
Straightening his spine, he turned to face her. She, too, had turned and was watching him, her skin so pale it looked translucent, her wide, worried eyes almost overwhelming her face. Sunlight through the window formed a bright aura around her, and she looked so fragile standing there. Anger surged in him again, and he glared at her. “Since the numbers add up, I take it you knew you were pregnant when you called it quits.”
She held his gaze for an instant, then turned and looked back out the window. There was a tense pause before she answered. “I thought I might be, but I wasn’t absolutely sure.”
Murphy stared at her, his face fixed in a hard expression. She was so damned contained, it made his blood boil. He had to give himself a minute before he dared speak. “So how come now? After four bloody months, what made you decide to come forward now?”
She remained motionless for a space, then finally spoke, a funny tremor in her voice. “There were some problems in the beginning, and my doctor had concerns about a possible miscarriage in the first trimester.” She turned and faced him, her expression unreadable. “I wanted to make sure I was past that hurdle before I told you.”
“You didn’t think I deserved to know as soon as you found out?”
Her chin came up a notch, and she met his gaze dead-on. “No, I didn’t. Not until the doctor felt that the risk had passed.”
He wanted to challenge her on that—on her I-know-better-than-you attitude—but just then, one of Marco’s relatives stuck his head around the door, his dark curly hair poking out from under his hard hat. He gave Jordan an appreciative look, then winked at Murphy and grinned. “Hey, boss, the shipment of new skylights just arrived. Where do you want us to unload ’em?”
Murphy jammed his hands in his back pockets to keep from wiping the smirk off the kid’s face. He wanted to tell him exactly what he could do with the damned skylights, but resisted the urge. Instead, he forced himself to be calm. But it was quite a struggle to keep the annoyance out of his tone. “Put them in the garage at 104, and make sure to close the door when you’re done. We don’t want a rock through this lot.”
Jordan’s reaction to the interruption was akin to being rescued from a crate of crocodiles. Suddenly she was Ms. Congeniality. Fixing a phony banker’s smile on her face, she made a dismissing little gesture with her hand. “This is obviously a bad time for you. So why don’t we leave it for now, and if you want to discuss it further, you can give me a call at the office.” And as if she were a door-to-door cosmetic sales rep caught on a very bad call, she kept smiling as she edged toward the door. The kid, suddenly trying to look like Valentino, straightened up and pushed out his chest.
Riled at her for acting as if she’d just told him her dog was about to have puppies, and even more riled with Marco’s nephew or cousin or whoever he was for his peacock display, Murphy felt as if every vein in his body were about to pop.
It took all the self-control he had, but he somehow managed to stay right where he was, every muscle in his body stretched to the limit. If she thought that she could drop this on him and then walk away, engineering it into a nice, controlled business meeting in her office, she had another think coming.
Playing her game, he gave her a brittle smile back, his gaze riveted on her. His voice taut with ominous warning, he glared at Jordan and set the terms of confrontation. “I definitely want to discuss this further. But it won’t bloody well be in your office.”
