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The Daddy Dilemma

Год написания книги
2018
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Leaving his dad, Nathan walked back into Kyle’s hospital room, stood by the bed and looked down at him. His son’s eyes were closed, but he knew they were the same green as Sara’s. Shouldn’t he at least find out if she was Kyle’s mother?

A DNA test for the three of them was a huge step, one he had to think seriously about before acting on. This wasn’t the kind of decision he was impulsively going to make in the aftermath of a crisis.

Maybe tomorrow morning he’d know what to do.

Saturday afternoon, when there was a knock on Sara’s office door, she looked up, expecting to see another of the firm’s associates who was working on the weekend, as she was. Ever since her visit to Rapid Creek, she’d worked practically nonstop, billing more hours than she had before her accident. She hadn’t known what else to do to keep her mind off Kyle.

Her gaze fell to the picture of Kyle on her desk, the one she’d taken with her camera phone. It was grainy and not very good, but it was something.

“Come in,” she called, since the door didn’t open at once as she’d expected it to.

When it did open, and she saw the man standing there, her world spun a little too fast. She wasn’t dizzy, exactly, but she felt disoriented and definitely off balance. Was she seeing things?

“Can I come in?”

The deep voice was the same. The brown hair falling over his forehead was the same. The jawline Kyle had inherited was the same. Nathan Barclay stood in her office, and she was speechless.

He frowned. “I stopped by your apartment. Since it seemed deserted, I took a chance you might be working.”

Finally she managed to string a few words together. “What are you doing here?”

He came further into the office. Wearing boots, jeans and a red-and-black flannel jacket, he didn’t look as if he belonged in the city. “I could give you the short version or the longer version. Which would you prefer?” His gaze dropped to the photograph of Kyle on her desk. “Where did that come from?”

“My camera phone. I only took the one. I just wanted something…” She trailed off, thinking she shouldn’t have to explain.

Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe we should do this somewhere else. How late will you be working?”

She closed the folder for the lease agreement she’d been studying. “I could be finished now if this is about Kyle.”

He nodded. “It’s about Kyle.”

“Is anything wrong? Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. Now. We need to go someplace we can talk in private. A restaurant wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“We can go to my place. Did you drive down from Rapid Creek?”

“No, I flew in. But I rented a car.”

“Is it in the parking garage?”

“Yes.”

On her visit to Rapid Creek she’d realized Nathan was a man of few words. At least with her. She wondered if he was like that with everyone, or only people he didn’t know well or didn’t want to know well. She got the idea his being here wasn’t entirely voluntary. “I’m parked there, too. You can follow me to my place.”

“That’s fine,” he replied, but she had the feeling that nothing was fine. Just why was he here?

Pushing a few files into her briefcase, she could feel his gaze on her. His appraisal made her self-conscious. When she lifted her jacket from a wooden captain’s chair, she dropped it.

Close by, Nathan picked it up and handed it to her. Their gazes met and she felt impacted by the intensity in his gray eyes. She was suddenly glad he would follow her and they wouldn’t be occupying the same vehicle. She needed time to compose herself and to adjust to him being here, and what that might mean.

Apparently he didn’t want to discuss whatever it was on the phone. She’d expected never to see him again. Never to see Kyle again. But now a little flare of hope almost made her giddy.

Twenty minutes later Sara was letting Nathan into her apartment, trying to remember exactly what state it was in. She hadn’t been there much lately, only to sleep. It was too lonely. Too quiet. But most of all, she was surrounded by too many things her mother had loved. At first after her mom died, keeping her antiques, using them herself, had felt comforting. But after Sara’s accident, and after seeing Kyle, the furniture had caused her heart to ache even more.

Nathan had stopped inside the doorway and was taking it all in, from the claw-foot table and double-globed Quoizel lamp, to the lacy doilies on the arms of the camel-back sofa covered in a pretty pink flowered damask, to the Victorian lace curtains at the windows.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, noticing his expression, which seemed a bit puzzled.

“This isn’t at all what I expected,” he admitted.

“I’m afraid to ask what you did expect.” Her smile was wry and she was hoping he’d relax a little bit with her. On the other hand, it might be better if he didn’t. If he relaxed she might not be able to keep her distance as well. One thing she knew about Nathan Barclay—from the pictures of his deceased wife all over his house, to his wariness about her and any claims she might have concerning Kyle—she needed to keep her distance. She’d had enough heartache in her life not to even consider giving in to a little bit of chemistry that might ripple between them.

“I expected you to live in a modern glass-and-steel condo with contemporary paintings on the walls. I never imagined lace and antiques.”

“The antiques were my mother’s. They weren’t antiques when she bought them at yard sales and thrift shops years ago. But she had a good eye and a talent with fabric that I didn’t inherit.”

“You just got rid of your furniture?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“Believe me, it was nothing I was attached to. Except for that rocker.” She pointed to a wooden rocking chair with lions carved onto the back. “That I found for myself when I was in law school. Mom taught me how to look for bargains at yard sales. It had about ten coats of paint on it. It cleaned up great, don’t you think?”

“You refinished it?”

“Sure. Lye water, steel wool, glue here and there.” She headed for her kitchen, which was small but cheery, with its yellow, polished-cotton valance over the window, and philodendron hanging in one corner. “Would you like something to drink? Tea or coffee?”

“Coffee.”

A long counter separated the living room from the kitchen, with a post at each end rising to the ceiling. After taking off her jacket and hanging it over a dining room chair, she quickly poured water into the tank of the coffeepot. She measured out chocolate-flavored coffee, which was all she had, and switched the pot on.

Sneaking a glance at Nathan, she noticed him unzip his jacket and lay it over the back of the sofa. He wandered about, studying the titles on her bookshelves. A duplicate picture of Kyle sat on the coffee table. She felt…naked having his dad look around her place like this. Intuition told her he was absorbing everything he could about her. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

Producing a copper tray from a cupboard, she set two mugs of coffee on it, a carton of nonfat creamer, and sugar packets she kept for guests. Then she carried it to the coffee table and lowered herself to the sofa cushion, hoping Nathan would sit, too. He was making her jittery just being here.

But if she thought she was jittery before, when he came over and sat beside her, she knew the true meaning of the word. When she’d visited Rapid Creek, she’d attributed her reaction to him to the situation, meeting Kyle for the first time and being stirred up about all of it. Now, however, she realized the man himself disturbed her…made her suddenly feel…hot.

Pouring a liberal amount of creamer into her mug, she picked it up, took a few bolstering sips, then set it on a coaster. “So tell me why you’re here.”

She was half afraid he was going to tell her he was having a restraining order placed upon her, so that she wouldn’t come anywhere near him or Kyle. But maybe that was just the lawyer in her being paranoid.

“I came to ask you to spend Thanksgiving with us in Rapid Creek.”

Nothing he might have said could have surprised her more. “You want me to spend Thanksgiving with you and Kyle?” She had to clarify so she was sure she hadn’t misunderstood.

“This isn’t what I want,” he told her bluntly, “but I think it’s necessary. We need to have DNA testing done to find out if you’re Kyle’s mother.”

“Why is this necessary now, when it wasn’t ten days ago? In fact, you didn’t want me anywhere around. Why the about-face?”

After a few beats of silence, he replied, “Because Kyle had a serious asthma attack. He could have died.”
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