With This Child...

“Can we get pizza?” Kyla asked as he pulled into traffic. “That’s what I asked you when you were ignoring me. Not answering counts the same as if you’d said yes, you know.”

It was Sam’s turn to heave a dramatic sigh. “Like I ever refuse you anything. I think there may be a law against spoiling a kid as badly as you’re spoiled.”

Kyla leaned forward between the seats and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek. “I promise not to turn you in if we can have an extra large double-pepperoni pizza.”

“Oh, that’s great! My kid’s learned how to blackmail! That’ll look so good on your résumé.” He dared a glance at her impish face in the rearview mirror, searching desperately and vainly for Lisa’s features, not Marcie Turner’s.

Lisa had been a short brunette with dark hair and brown eyes. His coloring was dark, also, but blond hair and blue eyes were recessive traits. They could have sprung from some long-forgotten ancestor. Coloring didn’t prove a thing.

When Kyla was a baby, Lisa’s family had said she looked like Lisa, and his family had said she looked like him. He and Lisa had agreed that she looked like a baby, period.

Now she looked like a blond twelve-year-old, period. Not like Lisa, but not like Marcie. Okay, so Marcie Turner had the same silky hair, though the shade was a little darker, as if she didn’t get out in the sun much. So she had the same thin, straight nose, perfect oval face, wide blue eyes. None of that proved a thing. Lots of people had those traits.

Blood type. That was what mattered. With all the medical tests, he knew Kyla’s blood type. O positive, the same as Lisa’s.

His world shifted back into focus. The familiar highway, lined with stores, restaurants and gas stations, suddenly became a thing of beauty. The neon signs were works of art.

Let that woman try to take them to court. If by some fluke she succeeded, he’d explain to Kyla that Marcie Turner was a disturbed person and it would be easiest to submit to the genetic blood testing and get it over with. Prove to her that Kyla was not her daughter. Maybe then she’d go away.

He pulled into the pizza parlor parking lot. “One-super-duper giant pizza with double anchovies coming up!” he announced.

“Daaaad...” Kyla groaned.

She was growing up. A few years ago, she’d have argued with him that she hated anchovies and wanted pepperoni.

He slid out of the van and caught up with the girls as they came from the other side of the vehicle. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans, resisting an urge to hug his kid in public, an action he knew would embarrass her.

When they reached the door, he held it open with one hand, but succumbed to the urge to drape the other arm over Kyla’s shoulders as she went past him. He needed to touch her, reassure himself that she was still there.

She turned to him briefly, flashing him a quick smile.

And in the light from the pizza parlor, he saw Marcie Turner’s face, clearly and undeniably.

For a moment, he stood frozen in place, unable to move, and Kyla walked away from his embrace, from him.

He’d been kidding himself. O positive blood was the most common type. That simply meant she could be Lisa’s daughter, not that she definitely was.

Only genetic testing could prove parentage for certain.

And he’d changed his mind about allowing that He’d fight Marcie Turner to the death to prevent that test.

Chapter Three

Marcie pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in McAlester. Sam had called late last night and asked—ordered—her to meet him this morning to talk.

He’d been gruff, angry—frightened? She would be in his position.

I don’t believe you, he’d said. I want you to know that. I just don’t want any trouble for my daughter.

What he’d said didn’t matter. He did believe her, or he wouldn’t have asked her to meet with him.

During the hour-and-a-half drive down, she’d alternated between soaring ecstasy and black, subterranean despair.

It was going to happen. She was going to make contact with her daughter.

Would her daughter like her? Would Kyla hate her for not being determined enough to claim her as a baby?

Would Sam pass along his antagonism to Kyla, make her hate this woman intruding into their lives?

She slid from her car and spotted Sam across the lot. He must have been waiting for her.

He stepped down from the van and strode toward her, his scuffed cowboy boots making firm, determined contact with the solid concrete of the parking lot. His faded jeans were molded to the well-defined muscles of his thighs, and the sleeves of his denim shirt, rolled up to his elbows, accentuated strong forearms.

An unexpected surge of attraction coursed through Marcie, taking her completely by surprise. Astonished and dismayed by her inappropriate reaction, she shoved the feeling aside.

Sam Woodward was handsome, in a rugged sort of way. He definitely had a tantalizing, masculine appeal. But she couldn’t afford to let anything sidetrack her right now.

And Sam had the potential to do that. He was more than a little unsettling. He presented the picture of a man securely in charge. That was the last thing she needed. She was struggling to regain control of her life, to straighten out all the problems that had occurred because she’d lost it. As things stood, she was going to have to fight Sam for that control. She needed every advantage; she didn’t dare lose the slightest edge.

Sam had his own agenda, and it didn’t even come close to matching hers. If she didn’t have so much at stake, she’d run from the man as fast as she could.

She straightened her shoulders and went to meet him instead.

“Thank you for agreeing to talk,” she said, striving for an amicable beginning.

“You didn’t give me much choice.”

“I wasn’t given any choice when my daughter was taken from me.” As soon as she said the words, Marcie bit her lip, wishing she could recall them. So much for an amicable beginning. She’d intended to take charge of the discussion, to be reasonable, to keep things on an intellectual level, and already she’d slipped, let her emotions invade.

Sam didn’t reply, but she knew his guard had gone up.

She swallowed hard and forced herself to speak the appropriate words. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

He nodded, unresponsive, his eyes focused straight ahead. Together, but miles apart, they entered the motel lobby.

“Food smells good.” She strove for some sort of conversation to break the thick tension surrounding them as they approached the dining room.

“Yes,” he agreed. “They have good food here.”

But when they were seated at a square, white-clothed table in the middle of the crowded room and the waitress came to take their order, Marcie asked only for coffee, and Sam seconded the request

“My stomach’s in knots,” she admitted, turning her glass of water nervously.

One corner of his mouth quirked upward in a way that almost resembled a weak smile. “Mine, too.”

Her gut unclenched a notch. She had to keep in mind that this was just as traumatic for Sam as it was for her.

She cleared her throat and plunged in. “So where’s...Kyla?” She made herself say the name, not refer to her as my daughter, not throw the issue at Sam the way she’d like to.