“Don’t you think you owe him the chance to prove you wrong?”
“No. He’s too selfish and self-centered to care about anyone or anything but himself.”
Hunter stared straight ahead and she could tell he was thinking over what she’d said. “There must have been some substance to the man or you wouldn’t have become involved with him,” he finally said.
Callie sighed heavily. “In the past several months I’ve spent countless hours wondering why I allowed myself to be fooled by his insincerity.”
She could feel Hunter’s intense gaze as surely as if he’d reached out and touched her. “And?”
“I came to the conclusion that he was the consummate charmer who was more interested in the chase than in a meaningful relationship.”
“I know the type,” Hunter said disgustedly. “Let me guess—he asked you out several times and you turned him down. That’s when he pulled out all the stops and did everything in his power to convince you that he was wild about you.”
“That’s exactly what happened. I became a challenge that he was determined to conquer.” She took a deep breath. “And like a fool, I allowed him to wear down my resistance and charm me into believing that we could have a future together.”
When Hunter took her hand in his to give it a gentle squeeze, a warmth like nothing she’d ever known filled her all the way to her soul. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, darlin’. It’s not the first time a woman has been taken in by a player. And it’s sad to say, but it won’t be the last.”
She knew he was right, but that didn’t make her feel any less foolish for allowing it to happen, especially since she was now facing motherhood alone. “Then you understand my reasoning for keeping my pregnancy a secret?”
“Not entirely.” He released her hand, then, remaining silent for several long seconds, he finally added, “Don’t you think you should at least give him the opportunity to redeem himself? I know if I was in his shoes, I’d definitely be angry if I discovered a woman had denied me the right to know my own son.”
Callie knew for certain she couldn’t take the chance of telling Craig. But she wasn’t ready to outline her reasons to Hunter. “He’d only view the baby as an inconvenience, and my child deserves better than that.”
“Do you ever intend to tell your son who his father is?”
“He’ll be better off not knowing.”
“Every kid has a right to know who they are and where they came from,” he said forcefully. His tone left no doubt that he felt very passionately about the subject. “He’ll grow up wondering if every man he passes on the street is the one responsible for his existence.”
“Why do you feel so strongly about this?”
She watched him take a deep breath, then slowly release it. Just when she thought he was going to tell her it was none of her concern, he spoke. “I grew up not knowing anything about my father, and it wasn’t until just recently that I even learned who he was—after he’d been dead for six months.”
“Oh, Hunter, I’m so sorry.” She began to understand why he felt it was so important that she inform Craig about the baby. “Your mother didn’t tell him about you?”
“He knew.” There was an edge to his voice. “He just chose to ignore the fact that he’d fathered three sons with three different women.” Hunter gave her a meaningful glance. “But the point is, they gave him the opportunity to know about us. He was the one who made the decision to stay out of our lives.”
“But she didn’t tell you,” Callie guessed.
He shook his head. “She had her reasons and she knew that one day I would learn who he was. But that didn’t make it any easier on me when I was growing up or stop me from resenting the fact that I wasn’t given the choice to know anything about the man.”
She could understand why Hunter felt the way he did, but her circumstances were different. If she told Craig about the baby, there was a good chance that he and his parents would try to separate her and her son the way they’d done that poor girl and her baby twelve years ago. And that was a chance Callie wasn’t willing to take.
“I will tell my son about his father when I feel he’s ready,” she said carefully. “But until that time we’ll be just fine on our own.”
Chapter Five
For the next few days Hunter couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation he’d had with Callie on the way back from El Paso. There’d been something in her voice that had alerted him to the fact there was more to her refusal to tell her baby’s father about the pregnancy than she was letting on. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what that something was, but it was serious enough that she felt silence was her only option.
Hunter’s heart stalled. Could the man have been abusive?
Fury stronger than he could have ever imagined coursed through his veins. He wasn’t a violent man by nature, but just the thought that the jerk might have mistreated Callie in any way was enough to make Hunter ready to tear him limb from limb.
Suddenly needing to move before he put his fist through the wall, Hunter grabbed his sunglasses and, taking his ball cap from a hook beside his office door, jammed it onto his head. He felt as if he had enough adrenaline coursing through him to bench-press a 747 fully loaded with passengers and cargo. What he needed was some good, hard physical labor to help him work off his anger. And he knew exactly what he was going to do.
As he drove to the lumber yard, he mentally reviewed all the things in need of repair or replacement at Callie’s place. Besides the steps he’d fixed a few days ago, he’d noticed the place could use a coat of paint and a new deck at the back door to replace a badly deteriorating concrete stoop.
Purchasing everything he needed to make the improvements, Hunter scheduled a delivery for the lumber to build a new deck, then loaded his truck with a new extension ladder, several buckets of paint, brushes and scrapers. Satisfied that he had everything he needed, he headed toward Callie’s house at the edge of town.
He’d thought about talking to her before he started buying supplies and making plans, but if her protest over the simple repair he’d made to the step was any indication, she would have refused his offer. And whether she liked it or not, he wasn’t taking no for an answer. In the case of the back stoop, it was a matter of safety.