Father and Child Reunion

He stepped back, disquiet etched in his angular features as his hands slipped away. He pushed one through his hair, backing up another step. “I think I’d better go. We’ll talk about this…about Molly,” he amended, “later.”

Eve started toward the door.

Not trusting himself around her any longer, Rio held up his hand. As jarred as he felt, he was surprised it wasn’t shaking. “I can find my way out.”

He didn’t remember what Eve said, or if she said anything at all before he walked through the brightly lit foyer, past the long entry table with its matching vases and out the front door. He wasn’t sure he recalled getting in his Durango and starting it, either—though he’d obviously done both because, within the minute, he was driving into darkness, heading nowhere in particular except away from the Stuart house.

He felt as if he’d just taken a gut punch. Only, at the moment, he wasn’t sure which was more accountable for the sensation. The white heat he’d felt rip through him at the thought of kissing her, the fact that he’d almost done something like kiss her in anger, or the realization that he had a child.

A child.

He was a father.

The night air rushing in his open window smelled of pine and dew. He sucked in a lungful of it, seeking to calm the thoughts careening through his mind. But calm wasn’t going to come easily to him. It never did. Had it been daylight, he’d have headed for his lot and exhausted himself hauling wood or hammering a few pounds of nails. But it wasn’t light, and though he would have preferred physical activity for the escape it offered, he’d have to settle for being still.

He found himself heading for his lot, anyway, seeking solace in the only place he ever found it anymore.

Two Falls Lake was fifteen minutes out of town and a million miles from civilization. There were several lakes in the area, but this one was too small and too inaccessible to be popular. At night, even Rio didn’t attempt the hike down to it, so he left his SUV in the clearing near the skeletal frame of his cabin and made his way to the outcropping of rock overlooking the still, black water.

The moon trailed a wide band of light across the glassy surface of the lake. Walls of enormous firs rose up like solemn black sentinels, dwarfing everything below them. There was nothing to be heard here but the sigh of the wind, the occasional yelp of coyotes and the inner voices a man couldn’t silence.

He shoved his fingers through his hair, too agitated to appreciate the stillness. Any other time, he could have forced himself to concentrate on the night sounds. Not now. All he could think about now was that Eve had been pregnant when she’d left years ago.

The thought that had made him wince earlier came rushing back to him. The fact that the protection they’d used had failed was a moot point. So was his mother’s interference. Indulging his anger with her would only dredge up resentments he never allowed himself to think about, anyway. There was no changing what was done. Yet, what bothered him most was that Eve hadn’t only been pregnant—she’d been seventeen and pregnant. Had he ever given any thought to her age when he’d known her?

He couldn’t have, Rio decided, or he’d have considered just how dangerous sleeping with her could be. To him, she’d just been Eve; the person who’d never questioned his goals, who’d looked up to him. The one person who had finally allowed him to believe in himself. Looking back now, he’d been light-years older than she was—even though he’d only been nineteen at the time. But, then, Stone Richardson, his detective friend, had once told him he’d probably been born old.

Rio drew his hand down his face and blew out a breath. Dear God, he thought, she’d been jailbait. On top of that, her mother had been the mayor, as close to “society” as people came in Grand Springs. His home once had been a trailer on the reservation, and he’d possessed nothing but a determination to escape the specter of his father and a fire in his belly for a dream no one wanted him to pursue. It was a miracle Olivia hadn’t had his sorry hide thrown in jail.

There were spirits to be thanked for that, he was sure. He just wasn’t sure which ones handled that sort of thing. Anyway, he was more concerned with what had happened than with what hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted a child. Not then. Not now. The problem was figuring out what to do about the daughter he’d just discovered he had.

* * *

It was late afternoon the next day before Eve heard from Rio. As it was, she didn’t actually talk to him. She was at the women’s shelter dropping off boxes of clothing when he called, but he’d left a message on her mom’s answering machine. It was the only message on the recording.

“Eve, it’s Rio. I’m tied up for the next few days. If you wouldn’t mind dropping the photocopies of your mom’s address book and calendar off at the newspaper, I’d appreciate it. Stick them in an envelope with my name on it and leave it at the desk inside the main door.” There was a pause, a long one that seemed to indicate there was something else he needed to add. Something about his daughter, perhaps. But “Thanks” was all he finally said.

Eve listened to the message again and glanced at the photocopies and the address book she’d just placed beside the photo of Molly that Olivia kept on the corner of her desk. Eve and Molly had made the copies while they’d been out.

He’d be tied up for a few days, he’d said.

If she were to give him the benefit of the doubt, she had to admit he might need a little time to come to grips with what he’d learned last night. Anyone would. A man didn’t wake up one morning realizing he was the father of a child he’d known nothing about without feeling a little shell-shocked. But his message hadn’t said a word about Molly….

Eve pulled a manila envelope from the desk drawer and wrote Rio’s name on it. It was obvious what his priority was.

Hers was to forget what she’d felt when he touched her.

* * *

By the following Monday, any uneasiness Eve felt about her reaction to Rio was buried under a healthy dose of frustration with her brother. Hal had come up with every excuse short of having to do his nails to avoid checking over the inventory she’d prepared for the attorney. He seemed to be avoiding everything that had anything to do with settling their mother’s affairs, and that was making her tasks as executor far harder than they needed to be.

She was hoping Rio wasn’t going to follow suit when she walked into Clancy’s Grill, the publike restaurant where he’d asked her to meet him, and saw him slide from the booth at the back of the long, uncrowded room. Well-worn jeans hugged his lean hips, and the sleeves of his chambray shirt were rolled to his elbows, revealing strong, sinewy forearms. The wide silver band of his watch caught the light as he planted his hands on his hips, his dark head dipping in a tight, acknowledging nod at her approach.

He looked impatient and rugged and far more sure of himself than she felt at the moment. Seeing him, all she wanted to do was turn around and walk right back out.

“I’d have called sooner,” he prefaced the moment she reached him. “But I just got back in town last night. I was in Denver,” he added, reseating himself across from her when she slid into the high-backed booth, “so I spent the weekend looking up the people in the Denver area who were listed in Olivia’s address book. Those I hadn’t already talked to from the wedding, I mean. By the way, thanks for the photocopies.”

If it was his intention to throw her off balance, he succeeded beautifully. She hadn’t considered that the reason she hadn’t heard from him was because he’d been away. She’d thought his silence meant he was either trying to figure out what he wanted to do about Molly, or that he had already decided and was ignoring them both.

With an ease that was becoming all too familiar, the source of her anxiety immediately switched focus. “Did you learn anything?”

“Nothing that helps.”

Giving her a look that said “that’s the way it goes,” he pulled a menu from between a napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers and held it out to her. As he did, a young girl in a tight Clancy’s T-shirt and even tighter jeans set glasses of water in front of them.

Rio ordered a hamburger. Eve didn’t care what she ate, so she ordered the same. She doubted she’d taste it, anyway. The issues that had been raised the other night sat between them like an invisible time bomb, ticking away as surely as if the timer had been tripped and killing any trace of an appetite. By the time the waitress returned with their iced tea and departed again, Eve was wondering why she’d ordered at all.

“Have you said anything to Molly?” he asked, just when Eve had decided to put herself out of her misery and bring up the issue herself. “About who I am?”

She bit back a sigh. He really hadn’t understood what she’d said the other night. “I don’t know who you are, Rio. I meant that when I said it. There was so much I didn’t know about you six years ago. I know you even less now.” Her lack of knowledge about him was as much her fault as his, she supposed. She’d never asked about his family, his home, what it was that had shaped him. But then, she hadn’t thought of him as being any different from herself. How incredibly naive she’d been. How incredibly innocent. “After all this time, we might as well be strangers. That’s what makes this all so awkward.”

He didn’t seem to share her concern with how disconcerting she found their situation. His relief was almost as tangible as the tension tightening his jaw. “Then you didn’t tell her.”

“I didn’t think that would be fair,” she explained, unconsciously rolling the corner of her napkin under her knife and fork. “To her or to you. And I do want to be fair to you, Rio. But Molly is my first concern. Until you’ve decided how involved you want to be with her, or if you want to be involved with her at all, I think it would be better if nothing was said. I don’t want her hurt.”

Velvet over steel. Rio had heard the expression before, but he’d never realized how impressive the combination was until that moment. Her voice was as gentle as spring rain, but the determination in her impossibly angelic features was unmistakable.