Honor Bound(39)

"I didn't think you'd care."

"Well, make no mistake; I do."

"What … what do you intend to do?" she asked fearfully, despising the tremulous quality of her voice.

"I intend to be his father."

Tony impatiently thumped her breast with his tiny fist. Only that could have distracted her from Lucas's hard stare. "I need to turn him," she said huskily.

Lucas looked down at her chest. Aislinn saw him swallow reflexively before he diverted his eyes.

She switched Tony from one breast to the other. Once he was resettled and nursing again, she said, "I ask nothing from you, Mr. Greywolf. I carried Tony for nine months. I went through the entire pregnancy and delivery without any assistance from you, from anyone. Financially I'm able to provide—"

He came around so suddenly, she fell silent out of fear that he might reach across the room and strike her.

"Do you think a checkbook can supply him with everything he needs?"

"I didn't mean that," she flared. "I love him."

"So do I!" He roared so loudly that Tony's mouth fell still for several seconds before he resumed nursing.

"Be quiet! You scared Tony."

Lucas lowered his volume but not his intensity. "If you think I'm going to abandon my son and let him grow up in your sterile, Anglo world, think again."

She clutched the baby tighter. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that when I return to the reservation tomorrow, he goes with me."

She paled drastically. Even her lips looked chalky. The only color in her face was the deep blue of her eyes, which looked abnormally large as she stared up at the man who was once again her enemy.

"You can't take him."

"I can. I will."

"No!"

"There will be no stopping me."

"I'll have you hunted down like the criminal you are," she threatened.

His lips quirked into a cynical smile. "If I didn't want to be found, I wouldn't be, Miss Andrews. But even if by some remote chance I were, I'd fight you to the Supreme Court if necessary to win my son away from you. I know how. I'm a lawyer, remember? I think he's finished."

His threats had frozen her with fear. By the time she assimilated his last sentence, he was already across the room and crouching down in front of her. Before she could stop him, Lucas removed the blanket from her shoulder.

Tony was lying in her arms, satiated. His plump cheek rested against her breast. His small mouth, pearlized with milk, lay close to her nipple. He was asleep, looking as full and contented as a despot after a three-day bacchanal.

Lucas caressed his sleeping baby's cheek. He touched the soft lips with the tip of his finger. His dark head moved closer. He kissed the top of Tony's head.

Aislinn sat petrified. Too stunned to move. Hardly able to breathe. Lucas slid his hands up over her stomach, wedging them between her and Tony, and lifted the child away from her. He stood and carried the baby to the crib. Tony burped and Lucas released another of those surprising chuckles.

Aislinn forced herself out of the trance that astonishment had imposed. Lucas's nearness had immobilized her. Feeling his breath on her skin had stupefied her. Now she hastily replaced the cups of her bra and buttoned her blouse. She swayed slightly when she stood up. "He's ready to go to sleep now," she said, shouldering Lucas aside as she joined him beside the crib. She turned Tony over onto his tummy.

"He sleeps on his stomach?"

"Yes."

The baby drew his knees up and poked his bottom into the air. He made a few sucking motions with his mouth, then lay still, fast asleep.

"He looks satisfied," Lucas said.

"For now," Aislinn said gently, drawing the light blanket over the baby.

"Well I'm not."

She looked up at Lucas and was startled to see the uncompromising expression on his face. "You wouldn't really try to take him away from me, would you?" she asked, willing herself not to beg.

She didn't think a father could ever win custody over a mother who was loving, caring and affluent, no matter what legal machinations he tried. But in the meantime, Tony would be a subject of litigation. He might even become a ward of the state and be placed in a foster home until the matter could be settled. That might take years. "Think of Tony."

"I am." He took her by the shoulders. "Do you think your society will accept him?" Not giving her time to answer, he said, "Never, Aislinn." His hands were hard on her shoulders. Hard and warm. She recalled other times he had touched her and dearly wished she didn't. "Believe me, I know. In an Anglo's opinion, being part Indian is tantamount to being all Indian. And he has so much white blood, he'll be an outcast in Indian society, too. He won't be accepted in either world."

"I'll see to it that he is."

The corner of his mouth tilted into a smile that was both scoffing and pitying. "You're naive and deluding yourself if you think that. I know what it's like to straddle the cultures, for christsake! I've had to live with the ambiguity every day of my life. I will protect my son from that."

"By doing what? What's your solution? Taking him to some remote part of the reservation where he'll never come into contact with other people?"