Zack Baker

"Are you pregnant?"

Tegan Baldwin's head jerked up as she met the icy fire in Zachary Baker's gaze. She dropped the pink carnation she'd been trimming as the door slammed behind him and his five foot eight inch frame of pure masculine energy consuming her.

Zack stalked across the flower shop's wooden floor, his shoes thundering, matching the slash of lightning etched between his dark-brown brows.

"I asked you a question," he said, slamming a copy of Courier on the counter.

She looked down, seeing Miss Starr's gossip colomn.

Tegan's thoughts somersaulted whenthe her doctor's name jumped out, along with the words, relationship, and Kurt and Jessie Major's recent nuptials. It all but named Tegan as the Huntington Beach's newest expectant mother.

Gulping, Tegan realized she had no choice but to brave out the storm. After escapin ght relationship with Aaron, she had sworn never to be intimidated by a man again.

She held her shoulders back courageously. "Yes," she said. "I'm pregnant."

He leaned closer. Even though she din't want to, she took a reluctant step backward, away from the counter.

"Who's the father?" he asked with whiplash quiet.

Drawing a fortifying breath, she met his flashing blue eyes and softly confessed, "I haven't been with anyone...other than you."

Zack's quick curse made her wince.

"When were you planning to tell me?" he demanded, his words hammered together with rusty nails. "When you were showing? When Miss Starr ran a birth announcement this Christmas and I did the math? When I saw you in town with my child? When someone noticed a resemblance between me and my child? Never? When, Tegan?"

"I..." She discarded a hundred diferent answers, finally settling for the truth. "I wasn't planning to ask for your help. I know I'm capable of raising a child alone. I make enough money to support us both. I figured you didn't need to be burdened by this."

Instead of his fury diminishing, it flared. "You figured I didn't need to be burdened?"

"I'm the one who's pregnant," she supplied breathlessly, trying to make her explanation seem rational. "I'll take responsibility for the baby."

"Oh, you will, will you?" Lightning dug deeper into the groove etched between his brows.

"I didn't think the pregnancy would matter to you."

"You didn't think it would matter that I'm going to be a father?"

He'd whispered, sending a shock wave through her. After licking her lip, she said, "That night-"

"That night we made love? The night you shattered in my arms, calling out my name?" he interrupted ruthlessly. "The night you told me you couldn't get pregnant?"

She wrapped her arms protectively around herself. "I thought I was infertile."

"So how the hell does a woman who's infertile get pregnant?"

"I don't know." She shook her head, hardly able to believe it herself. "I'm as surprised as you are."

"I'll bet." His gaze swept down her body and paused at her midsection.

He'd done that before, she remembered, before he'd tugged down her zipper, gliding his fingers across the agonizingly sesitized skin.

With a slow and gentle touch that melted away apprehension left from her previous relationship, Zack had undressed her. In spite of the reasons she'd had not to trust any man, her body had responded instantly.

Hot color chased up her cheeks. She didn't want to remember the level of vulnerability hed exposed in her-not not, not ever again. "Please, Zack, you've got to listen to me. I tried for years to get pregnant. I even went to the doctor, and he ran some tests."

Zacky said nothing.

After several seconds of silence, she sighed. "You don't believe me."

"Not a word."

"Surely you don't think I tricked you?"

"Why would I think that? Because you disappear after spending one night with me? Because you lied about your ability to conceive, even when I asked you if we should use birth control? Because you kept the fact you're carrying my child a secret? Why on earth would I think you tried to trick me, Tegan?"

"You don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "I thought it would be easier on you this way, since you obviously don't want to be a father."

"What in God's name gave you that idea?"

"The way you kicked your family out of your life."

An ominous tick thumped his temple. "What did you just say?"

Too late, she saw her mistake. Desperately she wished she could take back her thoughtless words.

"I asked you a question."

Having come this far, she had no choice but to push forward, fighting her own flight instinct.

"It's not a secret."

"Then share it."

She should never have trespassed in his past.

"Share it, Tegan," he repeated.

"I heard-" She fidgeted, rubbing her shoulders, hoping to diminish the tension. Instead, it grew and stretched. "I heard that you threw Gena and Isabella out of the house, leaving them homeless, when Gena and you had a little arguement. I thought since you kicked out one child that my having your baby wouldn't matter to you."

In his deep green eyes, she saw the heat of the temper turn to the coldness of rage. His hands bunched into fists, and she took another reluctant step backward. She should have shut up, she told herself, shouldn't have confronted him with the truth. Now it was too late.

The night she slept with him, she'd realized that he was twice the man Aaron was and three times as dangerous. That was why she'd run from Zack in the first place, leaving while he showered.

"You don't know a thing about my marriage to Gena, don't know a thing about my feelings for Isabelle. You don't know a damn thing about any of it."

"But I will tell you one thing, Tegan Baldwin, this is about us-you, me, our baby-and the years that we'll be together."

Her knees threatened to buckle.

The need for self-preservation clawed at her. When she'd escaped Aaron, she'd sworn she'd never let a man dictate to her again.

But this man...this potent and threatening man...overwhelmed her. "I can see you're upset-"

"No. Upset was when you ran out on me the morning after we made love, without giving me the courtesy of an explanation. This-" he pounded a fist on the newspaper colomn. "-is fury."

Swiftly he rounded the counter, pinning her against the wall, hands on either wide of her head, his body only inches from her much, much smaller one.

She gulped, swallowing a lungful of air that sizzled with the electricity of his awesome anger. When he spoke, heat washed over her face.

"I had the right to know you were pregnant before I found out in the newspaper. I have the right to be in on all the decisions that affect my child and his future." His tone turned dangerous. "As of this moment, I claim my rights."

A surge of protectiveness rushed through her. This was her baby they were talking about. Her baby-the child she'd wanted her whole life, the miracle she believed she'd never experience.

"You were wrong, Tegan, about everything. Dead wrong."

"Be reasonable, Zack." Taking a deep breath, she tried to make him see things her way. "You've already got your own life, your music, and there's no reason for you to change anything. I don't need you to. I don't want you to."

"You think I care what you want, Tegan?" Carefully he enunciated, "I care about what's right, nothing else."

Impossibly he stole even more of her space, along with the air she needed to breath. In his eyes, spikes of green blazed, a huge contrast to the desire she'd seen in there depths the night they'd first made love.

"If you wanted to play your games by your rules, you should have slept with a man who wouldn't care he was being used, a man who wouldn't care if you had his child without telling him, a man family didn't matter to. But you didn't. You slept with me."

She shivered, but didn't know if it was from fear or rememberance of their unplanned night of passion. How could she have given in to her own overwhelming need for him? How could she not have seen that his baby would matter to him? How could she have forgotten everything she'd learned about this man?"

"Okay, Zack," she said, threading her fingers through her hair, then dropping her hand. "I didn't use you, but I understand how you feel, and I apologize."

"It's not accepted."

She fought for a calm she didn't feel. "We're both adults. I'm sure we can work something out."

"Damn straight we will."

His denim-covered thighs were pressed against hers, his masculine power threatening to consume her, like it had when she'd at once lost herself and rediscovered her feminine nature. With a sigh of frustration, she asked, "What do you want from me?"

"Marriage."

Never.

Her shoulders sagged, and he curved his hands around them. At his touch, heat flashed through her, coiling in the pit of her stomach. She fought the temptation to give into him again. She'd barely survived an awful marriage, and she couldn't give herself over again to a man who had so much power over her.

"We made a baby, we'll provide him with a family and legitimacy."

"I can't marry you!" She defiantly looked him in the eye, in spite of the terror flashing through her. Wedding vows meant a life sentance, a ring exchanged for your freedom.

Tegan surged against his hands, fighting to get away, but his grip only tightened. "I'm willing to work with you. I'll give you visitation rights. The baby will know it's father."

"Marriage or nothing," he corrected. "Within the next two weeks, before you're showing. Our child has already been the speculation of Miss Starr's colomn. I won't have him or her be the talk of the city, along with his mother." Like Zack himself, like his own mother had been.

To him, this issue was nonnegotiable.

Tegan carried his child. She would be his bride. And his baby would share his name.

They'd be gtogether on the holidays and birthdays, like a real family was. Zack would be there on Christmas morning...Maybe because he had so few memories of his own Christmases, that thought made him pulse with pleasure.

Yeah, he'd be there to see presents being unwrapped, and he'd be there for every event of his son or daughter's life-school events, dental appointments, everything. just the way it should be.

Gena robbed him of parenthood once; he wouldn't allow it to happen again.

Simple as that.

The fact that Tegan was every bit as manipulative as Gena had been was immaterial. No child of his would be a bastard, wear that label and be whispered about. Not in Zack's life.

"We don't know anything about each other," she protested.

"We'll learn."

Reaching up, she grabbed his wrists and tried to push him away. In her eyes he saw panic. A softer part of him wanted to give in, assure her that everything would be okay, that he wasn't the ogre she imagined. He'd battled her apprehension of men, of him, on their night together. And he'd won. But he didn't dare do it again.

She was no different than any other woman.

Two months ago, she'd made her bed and invited him to lie in it. He intended to do just that.

"You don't even like me," she said.

"Doesn't matter."

Her eyes squeezed shut and her breaths came in ragged little bursts. "It matters to me."

"There was a night we got along," he said, remembering her sensual response and the slide of silk as he'd slipped her clothing from her skin. "We liked each other just fine then."

"Don't remind me."

Oh, but he wanted to. He'd been good enough for her that night, if not now.

"You've got to see that this is insane."

"You've got to see that it's not." His grip tightened once again on her shoulders. "What kind of mother would subject her child to being a bastard?"

"A bastard?" se repeated incredulously. "This is a new millennium, Zack."

"Not here."

"You're being old-fashioned."

"You're naive," he countered. "This is a town where a lot of people will talk. Think about it." Zack had spent most of his youth fighting the label of not being wanted, getting into more trouble than he knew what to do with.

Hs mother had been called down to the principal's office as many times as Zack had. By the time he finally finished school, he'd been suspended for more than three dozen times.

"It's more complicated than that...I can't get married again."

"Why not?"

Her eyes clouded. She opened her mouth to answer him, then closed it again. She had secrets, he saw, and he wanted everyone of them uncovered.

"I just can't."

"Not good enough-not good enough for me. Not good enough for the baby we made."

He didn't like the idea of being shackled any better than Tegan did. He'd sworn he'd never let another woman manipulate him again, but he was prepared to make sacrifices for his own flesh and blood. If he had to, he'd see to it that Tegan did the same.

He would his fingers in her hair, then said, "This isn't about you and me anymore."

Her green eyes were wide, expressive, appealing. It had been her eyes that first captivated him, making him want to know her better. They'd laughed when she did, then later, they'd darkened with desire that matched his.

"I've already promised that i won't shut you out. Isn't that good enough?"

"No." He shook his head. "Every kid deserves a father, no matter how you feel about the man you slept with."

She exhaled. "You are impossible."

"Maybe." Despite the accusations Tegan had flung like daggers to his heard, he had loved baby Isabella with his soul, which was still shattered from losing her.

The loss of one child who meant the world to him deepened his resolve not to lose another, especially one that was truly part of him. "But I'm willing to let you set the date."

"You can't make me marry you."

Uncurling one hand, he captured her chin, stoking the tender skin, his thumb grazing the colomn of her throat and resting where her pulse fluttered. "Would it be so bad?" he asked quietly, wondering.

She trembled beneath his touch, just as she had once before, igniting a passion in him that he'd been unprepared for.

At Matt and Val's wedding, he'd asked Tegan to dance, and at first she had refused. He'd turned on his best smile, talked quietly and nonthreateningly, slowly changing her mind. They'd shared a dance, then a second.

Her responses had been seductivly innocent and incredibly honest. Or so they'd seemed.

In reality, she'd been neither, playing him for a bigger fool than Gena had.

He'd had relationships since his marriage was torn into jagged strips, but he hadn't allowed himself to be suckered.

Tegan had thrown a lasso around him and dragged him into her deceitful game, betraying him. He'd vowed never to be a pawn again, and that's exactly what she'd made him.

Her games were over now.

"Tegan, Tegan." He continued his gentle stroking of her throat. "I'd like to haul your pretty little butt down to the courthouse right now. Letting you set the date is being a whole lot more generous than I'm feeling." Abruptly he stopped caressing her. "Want to push me?"

She didn't respond.

"So how about it? What kind of ceremony should we have? A big one or a small, intimate one? And when should we do it? The choice is yours."

Tears shimmered on her long eyelashes, but he didn't relent.

His moral code didn't allow him to back down from what was important. And nothing in his entire life had been more important than this. Quite simply, family was family.

He took care of what was his.

No matter the cost.

"Choice?" she echoed. "What kind of choice is that?"

"The only one you're going to get."

She shook her head firmly. "I'm sorry, Zack. I won't marry you."

He moved his hand, clamping it on her shoulder. "Fine."

She expelled her breath in arelieved rush.

"Then I'll see you in court," he said.

"In court?"

"I'll sue you for full custody."

"No," she whispered desperately, trying to push him away.

He didn't budge.

"Please..." Tears clogged her voice, her body went rigid and her knees threatened to buckle. "You can't be serious."

"Try me."