Dad In Demand

and for the gift of their love.

Happy 60th Anniversary!

One (#ulink_ca043cf5-b2d3-5129-965f-1c58cba63e96)

“I’m going to have a baby.”

Sean Fitzpatrick’s size-thirteen foot slipped off the desk, and he grabbed the arms of his chair to keep from sprawling onto the floor. Stunned, he stared at Katie Malloy—the woman who had been his buddy and his best pal for more years than he cared to count. “You’re what?”

“I’m going to have a baby,” she repeated calmly, looking just as innocent now as she had nearly twenty years ago-right before she’d fired that first snowball across the backyard fence and hit him between the shoulders.

She was yanking his chain. Had to be, Sean decided, and reached for his coffee. “Quit joking around, Malloy. I’m not buying it. You might want to try selling that line to Michael and Ryan,” he told her, referring to his brothers and partners in the detective agency. “They’re more gullible than me.”

“But I’m not joking. I am going to have a baby. And I want to hire you to help me find the father.”

Sean choked, sputtering coffee across the stack of files on his desk.

“Are you all right?” Katie asked, already around the desk and pounding his back.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Stuff just went down the wrong way. You can stop beating me to death now,” he muttered, feeling as though the air had been sucked right out of his lungs. He couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. Katie pregnant?

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, and waved her back to her seat. While he mopped up the mess, he glanced at her and recognized that I-am-woman-I-can-do-anything look in her eyes. A sure sign of nerves. Sheesh! Of course she’s nervous, Fitzpatrick. The poor kid’s probably scared to death. Anger shot through him like a bullet, and he decided murder was too good for the guy who’d left her in the lurch.

“So, will you help me?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll find him.” And when he did, he was going to take great pleasure in rearranging the jerk’s face.

“I knew I could count on you,” she said, giving him that million-dollar smile that always made him feel ten-feet tall.

“You’d better believe it.” After all, Katie was practically family, had been almost from the time she and her mother moved to Chicago and bought the house next door to his parents. Katie had been a fixture at the Fitzpatricks’ home from the moment she’d teamed up with his cousin Molly and pitted herself against the Fitzpatrick brothers. Except for a brief teenage crush he’d suspected she’d had on him, he and Katie had shared a friendship every bit as close and enduring as the one she shared with his cousin. Heck, they’d grown even closer since he’d moved into her apartment complex two years ago. He considered her his best friend.

And now Katie was pregnant. He could hardly believe it. The last he’d heard, she wasn’t even dating anyone seriously. Sean frowned. At least, she hadn’t been seeing anyone when he left town a month ago on that insurance fraud investigation. A lot could happen in a month, he reminded himself, as he glanced at her still-flat stomach. Obviously it had.

“You have no idea how relieved I am. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about helping me.”

Sean snapped his gaze back to her face, stung that she’d doubted him. “You thought I wouldn’t help? That I’d turn my back on you when you needed me?”

A haunted look came into her eyes. Old hurts, he guessed, thinking of her father’s desertion, her stepfather leaving after the divorce, the turkeys who’d disappointed her, including the weasel who’d gotten her pregnant and then bailed. “You’re right. I never should have doubted you, Sean. I’m sorry.”

Feeling somewhat placated, his voice gentled as he said, “Just remember that I will always be here for you. All right?”

She nodded, then took a deep breath. “So, what kind of information do you need to get started?”

Sean paused a moment, searched for a way to delicately phrase the question he had to ask her. “I…um, before we get into that. Honey, are you sure about going through with this?”

“I’m positive. I’ve wanted a baby for ages.”

Her decision didn’t surprise him. Knowing Katie and how much she loved kids, he didn’t really think she would consider terminating the pregnancy. But he’d had to make sure she knew there were options. “All right.” Grabbing a pencil, he flipped to a clean sheet on his notepad. “The first thing I need is the name of the baby’s father.”

“Well, I’m not sure yet. I came up with five possibilities initially, but I’ve narrowed it down to three.”

The pencil in Sean’s fist snapped in two. He knew Katie could be reckless, even unpredictable, and he’d long suspected much of her bravado and bluff were her way of masking fear. But one thing Katie wasn’t, was stupid. Five lovers? Katie?

She began digging in the monster-size bag she called a purse and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here, I’ve written their names down for you.”

Dumbfounded, Sean stared at the woman offering him a slip of paper with the names of her lovers. As a man, he truly enjoyed the opposite sex, and had yet to meet a woman who didn’t garner at least a second glance from him. Because they were friends, he’d made a point of not giving Katie a second or even a third look. But he looked at Katie now-not as her friend, but as a man. She wasn’t beautiful, not even pretty or cute. But pretty or not, a man couldn’t help but notice those wide, whisky-colored eyes or think about removing the pins from those wild, notquite-red, not-quite-brown curls she wore piled up on her head. Noting his own flexed fingers, Sean curled them into fists.

Katie rattled off something about lists and candidates, and he shifted his gaze to her mouth—proud and sassy, just like her. He felt a tug, low in his body, and acknowledged that this wasn’t the first time he’d wondered about that mouth.

He skimmed his gaze down her body, noted the way her small breasts filled out the skinny white top, the way her narrow hips flared beneath the floral skirt. She was built on the thin side for his tastes, Sean admitted.

But damn if the woman didn’t have showstopper legs. Those legs alone could be a source of real trouble for a man.

“So, I put together this list of possibilities.”

She crossed those fantasy legs, and black lace winked at him. And Sean nearly swallowed his tongue. Trying to blot out the image of that black lace and the unholy thoughts it incited, he squeezed his eyes shut. Big mistake, he realized, because suddenly he had no trouble at all picturing Katie in bed-wearing nothing but that sin-black lace. Steamy sex and innocence, he decided, envisioning those long, slim legs of hers wrapped around his waist as she took him inside her.

“Sean? Are you okay?”

He slammed the brakes on his dangerous thoughts and snapped open his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said, his voice gruff.

Get a grip, Fitzpatrick. This is Katie, remember? Katie—your buddy, your pal, practically your sister. She’s the same pest who wore braces and pigtails, who annoyed the heck out of you as a kid. She’s the brat who kept beaning you with snowballs until you pinned her down and kissed her because your mother said a guy couldn’t hit a girl.

Only she wasn’t his sister, and he had definitely not been thinking of her as his pal. Somewhere along the way, little Katie Malloy had traded in her braces and pigtails for the face of a temptress and a body designed to make a man sweat.

And he was sweating, Sean admitted, aware that his jeans had grown painfully snug. Annoyed with himself and with her for being the source of his discomfort, he scowled. “So, which one of the guys do you think is the father?”

Katie flicked her tongue across her bottom lip, a nervous habit he’d seen her employ a zillion times. Only this time the innocent gesture had him squirming in his seat. “I haven’t made up my mind yet. That’s why I’m here. I need your help so I can decide which one will make the best father.”

Sean’s jaw dropped. He snapped his mouth shut and gave himself a mental shake. “Back up a minute. Are you, or are you not pregnant?”

Katie blinked. “Well, of course I’m not pregnant. At least not yet. That’s why I’m here. I need your help.”

“What?”

“You thought—Oh!” Suddenly she started laughing.

“This isn’t funny, Malloy,” he told her. He loved women, Katie included, but no way was he going to get himself tied down with one. At least, not yet. Maybe never, he amended.

“Sorry,” she said, not looking the least bit repentant. “It’s just that your face.” Another set of giggles sneaked out.

“Katie,” he warned.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Fitzpatrick, relax. I didn’t mean you literally. I meant that once you’ve checked out my daddy candidates, I’ll be able to make an intelligent decision about which one to ask to father my baby.”

Sean swore. “Of all the dumb, idiotic-” Biting off the rest, he stomped over to her, gripped the arms of her chair instead of her throat. He shoved himself in her face. Through gritted teeth he asked, “And just what am I supposed to do? Act as your clearing house for sperm donors?”