Explosive Legacies

Natalie sat on the bed that she had shared for so long with John shaking as in the wake of the slamming door and Brody's ultimatum. With John presumed dead and her refusal to get a paternity test and Jessica's having come back that Ford was the father of her baby, Brody and Jessica would "help" Natalie raise hers.

Only she knew what he really meant by those words. He was too hostile in his stance. In the way he said things. He was up to something and that something was no good. She remembered it vaguely from when she first met him, back when he was on Dorian's payroll and pretending to be Shane's father. If she gave him half the chance he would take her child away from her, and there was no way in hell she was going to let that happen.

She had played the odds over and over in her head. That was why she hadn't had the paternity test done. She and Brody had had protected sex that night, she and John, however, hadn't been that careful at Rodi's or a few other times they had been together after their reunion. After all, he was used to her being on the pill, and she had planned on going back on it, only fate had other plans… So she took the shots for the differing RH factors and made sure she had the information on their differing blood types in the back of her mind, as a forensic tech she wasn't stupid. With that information in reserve she didn't need the test the way her sister did.

But Brody didn't seem to care. Not anymore. Not with Ford being the father of the baby her sister carried. No, he had to lay claim to one of the Buchannan heirs, and apparently hers was just as good as her sister's in his mind. So he would expose their secret to get back at Jessica if he had to. If she didn't tow his line and let him- them- raise her child with theirs.

Well, Natalie would be damned if that happened.

There was no way in hell she would let one, never mind, two deranged former St. Anne's patients that much access to her child. Hell, if she had it her way, she'd be the one raising Bre. She'd done most of the job to begin with and now a nanny was doing it in Jessica's place, because as usual her twin was too fragile to handle the job herself. But she couldn't voice her fears for her niece anymore than she could for herself, which, without John left her little leeway in Landview.

Sighing, Natalie pushed herself off of the bed and towards the closet and opened it. Quietly she took out the family tree her grandfather had left her and then opened the frame as she lowered herself to the floor. On the back of his legacy was his true gift to her. The one the family didn't know he had left behind. It was a list of names. All of them people that she could trust and call on if she were in dire need of help, and if there was ever a time for calling on one of them, now seem to fit it….

Chapter 1

Sofia glared at Tucker as Ashley stormed out of his office. "You really slept with Dianne Jenkins?" the black woman asked with a raised eyebrow as the door slammed behind the blonde and she dropped her own designer purse onto the chair in front of her boss's desk, continuing at his smirk, "and let your so called girlfriend's, our ace in the hole for Jabot I might remind you, daughter, better known as the naked heiress, catch you? Now that's a whole new form of skankatude, even for you," she finished as she crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance.

Tucker McCall only laughed at his former assistant turned right hand power player as he leaned back in his chair: "Darling is that even a word?" he asked as he tried to forget how long he had spent in the shower trying to wash off the filth he had felt Jenkins had left on him, but some things had to be done for the greater good. And he had to admit, he hadn't minded doing her for this greater good.

"In my world it is, at least for this," Sofia huffed as she rounded the chair and threw her purse on the floor and fell into it. "Really, Dianne Jenkins? Do you have any idea how many diseases you're going to have to be tested for after sleeping with that one? If you wanted to get rid of Ashley that badly couldn't you have bedded Sharon Newman, she is the town pity -"

"You paying $1,000 by finishing that statement?" Tucker challenged her with a flash of humor in his eyes, reminding her of their long time bargain- although it had started much smaller for her- to clean up both their language.

Rolling her eyes, she took in his measure as he leaned back in his chair with his fingers steepled beneath his chin: "you're up to something," she accused.

"Possibly."

"No possibly about it, Tucker McCall. You have that gleam in your eye. You set Ashley up for some reason. Jenkins too…" she continued her mind spinning but coming up blank, yet she continued talking as she tried to puzzle out the man's reasons for sleeping with one woman while he was clearly falling for the other, or at least falling as hard as Tucker had ever allowed himself to fall in a long time. "You want Ashley to think this isn't the first time… but why? Business deal… no, too easy… getting back with Jill?" she wondered, then as he rose to start to pace she leaned back in her own seat: "no, not enough of a challenge. At least not right now… you're repaying some sort of debt, aren't you?"

"Anyone ever tell you you're too smart for your own good?" he asked in annoyance.

"Only you."

Stopping he turned and stared at her: "Fine, you would've figured it out anyway. You know my schedule too damned well anyway. And you know I wouldn't have had a dalliance with her either."

"Why don't I like the sound of this?" Sofia asked as she rose to her feet.

"I received a call from Asa Buchanan's granddaughter asking for my help."

Exhaling, Sofia cocked her head to the side: "please tell me we're talking about the sane one, because we sure as hell don't have time to deal with the mess that imitated mommy not so dearest and broke into a bunch of personalities."

Chuckling, Tucker nodded: "It was Natalie, or for the sake of Genoa City Natalia."

"OK, what the HELL are you up to?"

"Both girls are pregnant."

"Gee call their crazy uncle. He can run a headline in his newspaper!"

"Natalie's pretty sure the father was her boyfriend…."

"Pretty sure? Was?"

"Apparently she had a one night stand with her sister's boyfriend before she and her boyfriend reunited. Now that her sister's baby has been proven not to be his and her own is presumed dead again…"

"Sister not so dearest boyfriend wants the baby," Sofia guessed.

Tucker nodded: "In a way. One big happy family. Him, Jessica, and Natalie raising their infants together."

"Only he and the nutcase slowly take over and take her kid. She's a single mom. Working a real job unlike sister unbalanced who's married to stalker dad, it comes out he's the 'real' father, which I assume the odds are extremely against," Sofia weighed in.

"Precisely."

"They get custody, because princess Jessica always gets what she wants. I remember that much from living in that town," she sighed with a roll of her eyes, trying not to remember her own run ins with the blonde from high school. "So what's the plan? If Natalie's boyfriend's only presumed dead… I mean she had a husband come back from it and he's come back too…"

Tucker nodded: "I'm afraid he's not going to, at least not in time to change things or save her from Officer Lovette. Not from what I've learned about the man."

"You think he made sure he's dead?" Sofia deduced.

"If detective McBain is lucky," Tucker sighed. "If not…" he shook his head. "I have people working on it, in the meantime, I made a promise once to Asa Buchanan. I intend to keep it. I also made one to Natalie when I closed a deal with her."

"Her first," Sofia said with a slight smile. "She was beaming that day."

"I told her she could count on me if she needed back up."

"As you glared at her husband, Jared."

"I didn't like the man."

"Not many did," Sofia shrugged. "Then again, it's not nice to speak ill of the dead."

"Fine," Tucker conceded. "I've arranged for her to disappear from Landview and from her life completely. She'll have a new identity when she arrives in town."

"Courtesy of my cousin I assume."

"Of course. Who else would I entrust this to?"

"And once she is in town? Then what? Are you planning on doing what I think you are, Tucker?" she asked, with a touch of accusation in her voice, finally putting all the pieces of his plans for Dianne, Ashley, and Abby into place.

"You always are a couple of steps ahead of me," Tucker smirked. "Dianne was a divergence. I needed to make Ashley think that she wasn't the only one on my mind at certain times. When Natalie comes to town we will be married and I will claim her child as mine."

Sofia shook her head: "and if that boyfriend of hers should miraculously turn up…"

"Then I'll have saved his woman and his child from two people who belong in padded cells and kept a promise to a man I admired, won't I?"

Grabbing her purse, Sofia shook her head: "sometimes I can't help but wonder if you don't belong in that padded cell, but I'll start on the arrangements for this farce of a wedding."

"Thank you."

"Oh, that thank you better come with a big bonus," she told him. "Besides, no one deserves their child taken away from them because someone thinks they can't handle raising them."

"Sophia I told you a long time ago I would've…"

"And what good would that have done?" she asked with a touch of anger. "Hell, he didn't even tell her he was her father. Let her think he was her brother. Larger than life and could save the world. They were good to her, Tucker, on my dime. Not his. She'll have college. A good life. What he took from me. I got to watch from a distance. A family friend. Cousin of a cousin. Hell, didn't you know we're all related some way or another…"