The Daddy Secret

“Why?”

There were plenty of reasons. For one thing, she’d been harboring the pain of their breakup for years and had put it behind her. Why stir things up now?

And if that wasn’t enough, Lucas was upstairs, although he’d been so quiet that he might have fallen asleep.

But mostly she didn’t want to enter any kind of discussion with Rick Martinez while she was dressed in her nightgown, especially since he’d always made her a little uneasy.

He’d also had a way of exciting her, too, and apparently none of that had changed.

Everything else in her life had, though. She’d kicked the dangerous Rick Martinez addiction years ago.

She had a new man in her life now, a stockbroker who cared enough about her to ask his investment firm to transfer him to their Wexler office so they could be together.

Brian Winslow didn’t stir her blood the way Rick once had, but they were mature adults. They were also better suited to each other, with common interests and goals—things that made for an enduring relationship.

Rick’s gaze swept over her again, sending her already thumping heart topsy-turvy. She tried to ignore the power he still held over her, hoping that once he’d said what he came to say that it would all go away. That he’d go away.

But she wasn’t dressed for company, and even if she was, did she want to invite him in and make things more awkward between them than she had to?

She’d never expected Rick to stay in Brighton Valley, especially since she’d known how humiliated he’d been when his uncle had been arrested and convicted for assault after beating his aunt unconscious.

She knew, once he’d turned eighteen, Rick had only stuck around because of her. At least, that’s what he’d told her back then.

“I...uh... It’s not a good time,” she said, using the door as a shield, “but if you’d like to come back tomorrow, that would be okay.”

He didn’t make a move toward leaving, and that same awkward silence stretched before them again.

For a moment, the memories came rolling back, along with the sexual awareness that swarmed around them like lightning bugs in a Mason jar.

What she needed was a diversion.

But the one she got wasn’t the one she wanted.

“Hey, Mom,” Lucas called from the upstairs landing. “Where did you put my Star Wars Lego set? Is it still in one of the boxes? Or did we forget to bring it when we moved?”

His footsteps sounded as he padded downstairs, and her heart belly flopped into the pit of her stomach. Her whole world was going to blow sky high the moment Rick spotted Lucas.

After all, he’d have to be blind not to see what she saw each time she looked at the boy.

Lucas was the spitting image of Rick Martinez.

Chapter Two

The moment Rick heard Mallory’s son call out from the top landing, reality slammed into him like a horse hoof to the chest.

He’d wanted to shove open the door and push past her, but he didn’t need to. The boy had enough curiosity for the two of them. Within several pounding heartbeats, he joined his mother at the door.

There stood Lucas, the kid Rick had met earlier, the boy with blue eyes and a cowlick like Rick’s.

Of course, Rick might be connecting imaginary genetic dots, but how likely was that?

“Hey! Dr. Martinez. Where’s Buddy?”

Rick’s first instinct was to launch into an interrogation of Mallory, but he needed to control his gut reaction. Why take out his anger and frustration on the poor kid?

“I’m afraid I left Buddy at home this evening,” he said.

Mallory, her eyes wary, her cheeks flushed, looked as if she’d just picked up the wrong end of a hot branding iron. She glanced at Rick, then at the boy. Her son. “I didn’t realize you two had met.”

Apparently not. Would she have mentioned anything about even having a son if the boy hadn’t come downstairs?

“We met today,” Lucas said. “While I was at Mrs. Reilly’s house.”

Mallory took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, clearly at a loss and probably trying to buy time in order to gather her thoughts—or maybe to fabricate a lie.

How about that? If there was one thing he could say about Mallory Dickinson, at least the Mallory he’d once known, it was that she was as honest as the day was long.

But it didn’t take a brain surgeon to see the writing on the wall. She’d kept the baby she was supposed to have given up for adoption, and she’d let more than nine years go by without telling him.

Betrayal gnawed at his gut, and anger flared in a swirl of ugly colors. He ought to challenge her right here and now, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it in front of the boy. Apparently, she no longer saw a reason to bar him from entering the house because she stepped away from the door and allowed him in.

“Lucas called you a doctor,” she said, arching a delicate brow.

The fact that she found it surprising that Rick had actually made good ought to set him off further, although that was pretty minor in the scheme of things.

Still, he couldn’t quite mask his annoyance in his response. “I’m a veterinarian. My clinic is just down the street.”

As she mulled that over, Lucas sidled up to Rick wearing a bright-eyed grin. “Did you come to ask my mom about Buddy?”

No, the dog was the last thing he’d come to talk to Mallory about. And while he hadn’t been sure just how the conversation was going to unfold when he arrived, it had just taken a sudden and unexpected turn.

“Why would he come to talk to me about his dog?” Mallory asked her son.

Or rather their son. Who else could the boy be?

Rick’s emotions, which he’d learned to keep in check over the years, spun around like a whirligig, and he was hard pressed to snatch just one on which he could focus.

Lucas, whose smile indicated that he was completely oblivious to the tension building between the adults, approached Mallory. “Because Buddy needs a home. And since we have a yard now, can I have him? Please? I promise to take care of him and walk him and everything. You won’t have to do anything.”

Mallory drew a hand to her chest, just below her throat where her pulse fluttered. “You want a dog? I don’t know about that.”

“Why not?” the boy asked.

She seemed to ponder the question, then said, “We’ll have to talk about it later. However, to answer your question about the Legos, I put them on the shelf in the linen closet just outside your bedroom.”

“Okay. Thanks.” He flashed Rick a smile, then turned and headed toward the stairs.

As Lucas was leaving, Rick’s gaze traveled from the boy to Mallory and back again.