A Baby by Chance Read online

  “What about Shiloh?”

  Chance tensed. “He’ll be okay until I find him.”

  Madison drank some more milk then swung her knees off the sofa and put her feet flat on the floor. She shoved her hands through her hair. Although she was still shaky, she also knew they had a job to do. “That snow out there is probably melting like crazy. We better try and finish—”

  Chance cut her off with a sharp look. “You stay here and finish your milk,” he said heavily. “I’ll take care of that.”

  While Madison sipped her milk, the sounds of activity outside picked up. Thinking the commercial filming was going to resume, she relaxed against the sofa. As soon as she finished her milk, she decided, she would go out to watch. Before she could do that, Ed came rushing in. To her dismay, he looked even more distressed than he had when Shiloh had jumped the pasture fence and thundered through the crew.

  “How’s the filming going?” Madison asked, putting her empty glass on the coffee table in front of her.

  “It’s not,” Ed told her tersely, his face red. Her normally cool-as-a-cucumber boss looked like he wanted to punch something. “You don’t know, do you?” he demanded furiously. Striding closer, he filled her in. “Chance Cartwright just invoked the property-damage clause in the contract. He’s refusing to let us film anything else.”

  Considering what had happened to Shiloh, Madison could hardly blame him. Still, she knew what it had cost to operate the snow-making machine in the dead of summer. She put up a hand, sure she could work this out given a few minutes to talk to everyone. “He’s upset by what happened, Ed.”

  “But everything’s fine. You’re fine. Your baby is fine,” Ed protested.

  “I know,” Madison said, happy and relieved about that.

  Madison knew from the look on Ed’s face that they were going to have to talk about her unscripted love affair with Chance. Soon. On that topic, she had a heck of a lot of explaining to do. Right now, all Ed cared about was saving the account. The ethics of the situation would come in later.

  “So get him un-upset,” Ed ordered tersely.

  Madison frowned. Although Chance was doing his best to keep his feelings in check around her, she knew how upset he was. “Realistically, I don’t think that’s going to happen today.” Maybe tomorrow, or the next.

  “Madison, this is a multimillion-dollar account and a major automobile manufacturer.”

  Madison had only to look in Ed’s eyes to know that if she couldn’t manage a save, all hopes of her being awarded the vice presidency were down the drain. The thought she might lose everything she’d worked for in the last ten years because she’d been more concerned with her love affair with Chance than the job she was supposed to be doing cut her to the quick. She knew the accident was as much her fault as anyone’s, if not more. If she had been paying attention to what was going on instead of trying to steal a moment alone with Chance, Shiloh never would have gotten mixed up with the other horses. Madison would have seen to it.

  “So you do whatever you have to do to save this account,” Ed continued furiously, oblivious to the depth of Madison’s guilt. “Use your sexual relationship, use the baby, use whatever it takes! But I want him calmed down and back filming those snow scenes for us ASAP!”

  The front door opened and slammed behind them.

  Chance stood there, looking from Madison to her boss and back again.

  “Obviously, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” Ed said quickly, his face turning even redder as he shot a look at Chance.

  “Obviously, you did,” Chance countered, colder than the snow outside. He regarded Madison and her boss with contempt, obviously recalling how Madison had bowed to Ed’s wishes many times before. And why not? Madison thought angrily, resenting the fact Chance was forcing her to defend herself and her actions to him once again. “Making nice” with a client was all part of her job. Doing whatever it took to land or keep an account was the way she’d gotten involved with Chance in the first place! If it hadn’t been for his determined resistance and her equally determined pursuit of him via the flirtatious letters, gifts and phone calls, if she hadn’t bought him at the bachelor weekend and gotten passionately involved with him, none of this would have happened!

  It was her passion for Chance that was the real culprit, Madison thought, guilt and remorse flooding her anew. If she had been doing her job the way she was supposed to, none of this would have happened. Shiloh wouldn’t have been mixed in with the other horses, the filming wouldn’t have been disrupted and people nearly hurt. Chance wouldn’t have been angry. He wouldn’t have tried to execute the quit clause he’d had written in his contract. The fact that this whole ad campaign was suddenly falling apart was her fault.

  She’d made a big mistake.

  Fortunately, for all their sakes, it wasn’t too late to rectify that mistake.

  Madison stood on legs that still felt a little like jelly and crossed to his side. “Chance, I know you’re unhappy about what happened with Shiloh,” she told him in the same gentle tone he had used on her many times when she’d been angry and uncertain. She looked deep into his eyes. “I am, too. But Ed’s right—the snow is expensive and it’s melting as we speak.”

  She took a deep breath and called on all her courage as she saw the anger in his eyes grow with every soothing word she spoke. Determinedly, she pushed on. “They can wrap this up quickly, without any harm to anyone. I know they can.” She would talk to Ursula and Vince herself, make them see they’d have to do this in one or two takes at the very most if they wanted to salvage the ad campaign they’d been slaving over for weeks.

  Chance turned on Madison. A muscle working convulsively in his jaw, he said, “I would think after what just happened that you of all people would want this bunch out of here now.”

  Madison swallowed. Chance was right. Had she lost the baby because of their foolhardiness, she would never have wanted to set eyes on any of them again. But she hadn’t. And life went on. Just as before. Now she had to undo the damage her lack of attention had caused—she had to make things right for everyone.

  Her heart pounding, she shot Chance a beseeching look. “There are months of work involved here. And not just mine,” she told him calmly, forcing herself to meet her business obligations. “I’ve got a responsibility to the client and the company I work for—”

  “What about your responsibility to me, Madison?” Chance interrupted.

  “—to see this through to the end.” Ignoring the scathing contempt in his eyes, she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I don’t want to do a job that is less than my best. And without those final scenes,” she warned, practically begging Chance to see this her way and do what she asked of him one last time, “the commercial is not going to be our best.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I’D LIKE TO speak to Madison alone,” Chance said grimly, astounded she could think he would be able to forget what had just happened. Hadn’t their time together taught her anything? The number-one lesson being that people and relationships were more important than any business deal.

  Ed shot one last imploring look at Madison. “We’ll be waiting for you,” he said meaningfully, then slipped out the door.

  Chance turned to Madison. To his surprise, she looked upset with him for demanding a moment alone with her.

  Madison tilted her chin at Chance defiantly, hurt and confusion glimmering in her pretty green eyes. “I don’t know what you thought you were trying to accomplish just now,” she told him icily, looking more furious and disappointed in him than he had ever seen her, “but if you were trying to undermine my position at the agency and ruin my career by informing everyone publicly yet again that you and I have been sleeping together, then you’ve just done one heck of a job.”

  Chance grimaced. “I don’t mind admitting I’m tired of hiding the fact you’re my woman.” That, he wanted to shout to the world. “But when it comes to ruining your career—” He stared at the fury in her e
yes, then demanded tersely, “Why in blue blazes would I want to do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Madison flung her arms up in a gesture of complete exasperation. “Maybe so you could have me and the baby all to yourself. And for the record—” Madison stomped closer, her temper growing hotter with every second that passed “—if that was your agenda, I think you may have just succeeded.” She planted her hands on her slender hips and glared up at him. It seemed to be taking every ounce of self-control she had for her not to just haul off and slug him.

  Chance knew the feeling. He’d like to shake some sense into her head, too.

  “I don’t deny I’d like to keep you both from harm,” he retorted. The Ranchero commercial wasn’t the real issue, and Madison knew it. The issue was them. She was looking for an excuse—any excuse—to cut and run, and in their current argument, she’d found it.

  “Is that what you think you were doing just now by ordering my boss out of here? Keeping me and the baby from harm?” Her eyes locked on his in anger.

  “As a matter of fact, yes, that’s exactly what I was doing,” Chance snapped, irritated she could be so quick to pretend their relationship was just an unimportant event in their lives and go back to doing business as usual for Connelly and Associates. No career, no matter how high-powered it was, was going to keep her warm at night or hold her when she needed to be held, love her when she needed to be loved. He’d hoped he had shown her that, but apparently not.

  She uttered a weary laugh. “Pulling the plug on the ads serves your needs, Chance, not mine, and not the baby’s.” Madison arched a disapproving brow in his direction. “Not,” she continued with no small trace of irony, “that I should be surprised about that, either. All you ever really cared about was the baby, anyway.”

  “I love you,” Chance said gruffly, wishing he knew a way to get through to her, to make her see that loving each other was worth the risk.

  She shook her head and laughed bitterly. “Yeah, you love me, all right, you just don’t trust me enough to finish the filming without further calamity.” Hurt shimmered in her eyes.

  Chance stared at her. “If that’s the way you really see me—if it all comes down to business for you in the end—then I really have failed,” he said bitterly. That meant he was just as inept and clueless at expressing love as his father had been. It meant he could no more forge a loving relationship with Madison than he’d been able to forge one with his father. And heaven knew he didn’t need to repeat the misery of loving someone and knowing they loved him, deep down, but never being able to really connect....

  “I know you care about me in your own way. Just as I care about you,” Madison said carefully.

  Chance heard the reservation in her low voice and reeled with the hurt of it. He had just told her he loved her for the very first time. He’d said the words out loud, and she had answered him as if she was negotiating her way through a business contract, as if she couldn’t care less, as if his feelings didn’t matter at all in the larger scheme of things, any more than their passion or their baby did. Their love for each other was never the bottom line in anything, nor—according to Madison—would it ever be.

  “But what?” he prodded, wondering what was coming next. The verbal equivalent of a Dear John letter? Would she tell him she had never and could never love him in return and suggest they should be friends?

  Madison swallowed hard and shot him a frightened look. Color swept her cheeks. “We have to be reasonable here,” she said in a low, panicked voice. “Since I met you, my whole life has been turned upside down. And so has yours!”

  As much as Chance was loath to admit it, Madison knew it was true.

  Because of Chance, she thought, her job no longer meant anything near what it had to her. All she really cared about was Chance and the baby. And yet, as the exec in charge of the Ranchero account, she had a responsibility to see things through. As mother to an unborn child, she had a tremendous responsibility to do whatever was necessary to hang on to her job, because now was no time for her to be out of work! Nor did she want to put her and her baby’s fate in the hands of a man who might or might not choose to stay the course with her. Nine months was a long time, the eighteen or so years after that even longer. Thus far they’d known each other less than three months, and during half that time they’d been completely out of touch. Might still be if it weren’t for the baby binding them.

  With effort, Madison pulled herself together. Like it or not, she had to go back to the formula that had made her life work before. She faced Chance. “It’s time I got this life of mine back on track.” Time she provided some real security for herself and their baby. “I’m going to finish up here today, with or without your cooperation, and head on back to Dallas with the rest of the crew to see how much of my career I can actually salvage.”

  “And then what?” Chance snapped, assuming a militant stance and folding his arms.

  Madison drew a stabilizing breath. “If and when I’m able to salvage what’s left of my career, I’ll be in touch and we’ll see what we can work out regarding the baby.”

  “So in other words,” Chance said grimly, “you’re telling me to get lost.”

  “That’s not how I’d put it,” Madison said carefully.

  “But it’s the truth, isn’t it?” Chance said. For him, her actions were a bitter replay of his past. She was doing exactly what his dad had done to him. Thwarting his attempts to be close to her. Pushing him away with both hands. Resisting intimacy on every level. He needed her to be here, physically and emotionally, to work this out. To put the three of them above business, above everything. He needed her to make the love in their life her first and most important priority—even if she was hurting, as both he and his father had been hurting after Chance’s mother’s death.

  “Like it or not, I have to make a living, Chance,” Madison said wearily. She moved to the window and stared at the crew standing idle, the snow melting on the ground, all of them waiting to see if she could pull a rabbit out of a hat and come up with some miracle fix.

  But Chance knew none of that was important. The only thing that really mattered right now was what was going on in this room. “I could easily support us all, Madison,” he told her wearily. There didn’t need to be any cold, lonely nights in his family. It didn’t have to be the way it had when he was growing up, with his father constantly using work as an excuse to keep his distance.

  “But that’s not what I want,” Madison responded emotionally. She splayed both her hands against her chest. “Don’t you understand? I have a career in Dallas. A home there. A life that makes sense to me.”

  “And this doesn’t?” That took him by surprise. For him, their love, the passion between them, the baby they were expecting—they were the only things that made sense!

  But not, he realized sadly, to Madison.

  For the next minute, as an uncomfortable silence strung out between them, Madison lowered her lashes and looked anywhere but at him. “From the moment I met you at the auction,” she murmured at last in a soft voice laced with regret, “I haven’t been myself.”

  Nor had he. He’d been around long enough to know better than to put himself in a situation where his heart might get broken. But with Madison, all reason had gone out the window, replaced by gut-level feelings he’d been in no way prepared to handle.

  Unfortunately, they couldn’t undo what had already been done. He refused to pretend they could. “If you leave the ranch now, under these circumstances,” he warned direly, “I can’t see it as anything other than walking out on me.” He couldn’t love someone again and not feel loved in returned. It was too painful. Worse, Chance had gotten through to Madison for a time, had established some real closeness and intimacy between them. He’d proved Madison was capable of loving him. She just chose not to do so. She was choosing to put her business career ahead of everything and everyone else.

  “And I can’t see your demand I stay as anything but an arbitrary command
, one I can’t possibly meet.” She spread her hands wide, then let them drop ever so slowly to her sides. “So where does that leave us?” she asked sadly.

  With his thumbs under her jaw, he tilted her head. “You tell me.”

  Silence fell between them. As he looked into her eyes, he saw the mounting sadness and knew it was over as well as she did. They just couldn’t bring themselves to say the words out loud.

  * * *

  “WELL, I SOLD IT.” Ursula sailed into Madison’s office in a cloud of Shalimar perfume and dropped into a chair in front of her desk. “Reluctantly, I might add, but I sold it.”

  Madison smiled her gratitude at the thin, statuesque AMV exec. “Thanks.”

  Ursula patted her chignon with the flat of her hand, making sure every glossy black strand was in place. She shook her head at Madison. “Revising the Ranchero ad campaign this way is not going to help your career.”

  Madison sighed. “I know.”

  “Fortunately, the scenery is so beautiful there—the ad campaign so well done—it doesn’t seem to hurt the Ranchero. Our market research shows that once people see the commercials they are still going to want the truck.”

  Thank goodness for focus groups, Madison thought. “I’m glad.”

  Ursula studied Madison. “What does Chance Cartwright think about what you did for him?”

  Madison shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She plucked at the fabric of her loose-fitting linen shift. “He doesn’t know yet.”

  Ursula flipped through her Filofax. Finding the date she wanted, she made a small notation next to it. “When are you going to tell him?”

  Madison shrugged. The answer to that wasn’t simple. “The next time I talk to him, I suppose.”

  “Which will be—”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Ursula’s gaze turned sympathetic. “I was engaged once a long time ago,” she said softly.

  “What happened?”

  Ursula closed her Filofax with a decisive snap. “I kept putting my career first—to the point my relationship almost ceased to exist. Needless to say—” she lifted her shoulders in a small, elegant shrug “—my fiancé saw the light, gave me an ultimatum, which I politely but firmly refused to accept, and ended our engagement.”