Unexpected Daughter

Brijette dropped the phone into her pocket, and at last he got to see her look shocked. “I’m sure you misunderstood Dr. Wheeler, Dylan.”

Dylan’s lips curved into a pout. “No, I didn’t. He said me and my mom should stay for supper. He said it right before you got here.”

“Hmm. I really don’t think we should impose on Dr. Wheeler. Come on, let’s go.” She focused her attention on him. “The sheriff will be around to check the area.”

Brijette began to stride across the yard toward the creek.

“But, Mom, he invited us and he’s new here. He needs to have company so he won’t have to eat all by himself.”

“Dylan, I told you once and I’m not going to say it again. And since when did you start whining?”

Dylan didn’t move from where she’d positioned herself next to him. Brijette frowned at her from across the yard. Were those tears he saw in the girl’s eyes? He sighed and shuffled like a prisoner until he was in front of Brijette.

“I did invite Dylan and her mom for supper. It won’t take long to get two more steaks ready, so stay. Seeing as we’re going to be around each other a lot the next few months, we might as well get used to it.”

Brijette glanced past him to where Dylan awaited the verdict on the patio.

“You didn’t know I was her mother when you gave that invitation or you wouldn’t have done it. I don’t want her to think she can start whining and get her way.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t have given the invitation if I’d known who her mother was. But I did give it, because I like Dylan. And I still do, despite who her mother is. She seems to be a good kid. Wonders never cease, do they?”

He spun on his heel. This round went to him. Brijette’s tight jawline and partially opened mouth gave him a slight feeling of satisfaction. He chose to ignore the other feelings seeing her again caused.

Stopping on the stairs to the patio, he looked back. One more thing he had to get straight. “Oh, and Brijette, my name is Cade, not Mr. Wheeler, not Mr. Cade and damn sure not Dr. Wheeler. People who know each other as intimately as you and I don’t usually use that kind of formality.”

THE THREE OF THEM finished their meal much faster than Dylan would probably have liked. When Cade offered them a ride to Mr. Robert’s to get their car, Dylan was thrilled, but Brijette would rather have crawled through the woods on her hands and knees than spend more time with him. He’d acted as though she’d said they were going to wade off into the swamp when Brijette told him they’d go through the woods back to their car. In the end it had been easier to agree than to try and explain her reluctance to Dylan.

Dylan wanted to sit up front by him, but he held open the back door and motioned for her to get in, forcing Brijette to take the passenger seat. Dylan asked him questions from the back seat during the ride. He didn’t seem to mind and Brijette was just thankful that she didn’t need to join in. When they stopped at Robert’s, the house was dark and his truck was gone.

“Do you think Mr. Robert is trying to find who took his horse, Mom?”

“He’s probably at the sheriff’s office. Now, thank Cade for the supper so we can go. It’s late.” She was desperate to extricate herself from this situation.

Dylan already had her seat belt off and she pushed herself between the front seats. “Thanks for the supper, Cade. We’ll have to do it again soon. Maybe you can come eat with us one night.”

Brijette pushed her into the back. “Dylan, good grief.”

Her daughter wasn’t the least perturbed by the reprimand. She was grinning herself silly in the back seat while Brijette was trying to decide if she could take a leave of absence from work. But there’d be no avoiding Cade. She had to work with him, but she didn’t want her daughter to be so awestruck by him. That could only lead to trouble. Brijette reached for the door, but Cade caught her arm. “Wait, Brijette. Dylan, go wait in the car. I need to talk to your mom about a patient and we have to do that in private.”

Dylan nodded and slid from her seat, kicking gravel all the way to their SUV. At least he’d made her mad in the end. She hoped Dylan would stay miffed at Cade for, oh, the next six months.

The lights from the dash glowed on Brijette’s skin and Cade had to tell himself twice to take his hand off her arm. Some things never changed and that shotgun-blast feeling he got from touching Brijette Dupre was one of them. He didn’t want to remember how her skin felt under his fingers, but he did. She faced him and he could feel his body leaning toward her, something about those dark eyes… He forced himself to straighten and put more distance between them. Thankfully, she spoke and that bewitching spell broke.

“Thanks for being so nice to Dylan. I’ll try to make sure she doesn’t worry you at your house.”

“Dylan doesn’t worry me, and I didn’t ask you to stay in this car so you could thank me.” At last he could get his brain on track and onto the most important question he’d ever asked.

“Right. Which patient did you want to discuss?”

“I don’t want to talk about a patient. I wanted to speak to you in private.”

She squirmed in her seat and he imagined she knew what was coming. “I want you to tell me who in the hell is the father of that child.”

CHAPTER FOUR

THE QUESTION she’d dreaded most, and it was coming from the last person she’d ever expected to say those words. Brijette didn’t try to answer right away. Nothing good could come of this. But, if she could keep Cade from learning the truth, then he’d leave and her life would be normal again, maybe. But how normal would it be for Dylan? In just a minute she would deny her child her father. A man who could buy her things, take her places Brijette never could. But would he teach her to love and care for other people, to give back to the community that raised her? Probably not. He hadn’t wanted a child with her years ago and she couldn’t imagine that he or his stiff-and-proper mother would want one now.

“She’s not yours, that’s for sure.”

His features seemed to crinkle in the dim light.

“How old is she?”

His words were softer than she expected. She might have described them as sad if she hadn’t known better.

“She’s almost ten.”

His eyes slammed on her with a force she could feel and she dug her back into the seat.

“So she could be mine. Unless you jumped into bed with someone else as soon as you got rid of me.”

“I think you know where I spent the three months after you left.”

He had the decency to stop glaring at her after that. She opened her mouth to ask him why he was so concerned about a child he’d never wanted in the first place—a child he’d been more than happy to get rid of. But she froze with her lips barely parted. What if he’d never known she was pregnant? Doubt had entered her mind when Cade’s mother told her of his decision, but she’d tossed the suspicions aside. Mrs. Wheeler was his mother and a seventeen-year-old Brijette had no reason to think the woman would lie. He’d probably decided to pretend it never happened. That he’d never had a part in anything so ugly as paying her off to have an abortion—not him, not Cade Wheeler. If he wanted to feign ignorance, she’d be more than happy to go along. It served her purpose to ignore the whole incident.

She’d been presented with money for an abortion, then left to spend three months in a youth correction facility. Brijette wouldn’t allow Cade to show up now and start making waves in hers and Dylan’s lives. From the moment she’d had her daughter she’d been planning for the possibility of Wheeler interference, though she hadn’t expected it. Thank goodness she’d made the effort anyway, because she was about to put those plans into action.

“Dylan was born twelve months after you left here, and I have the birth certificate to prove it. Unless I’m a human oddity, that’s a couple months too late for her to be yours. I’ll show you the birth certificate if you’re that concerned.”

The steering wheel creaked under the pressure of his hands. “Left that place and jumped into bed with the first guy who came along, huh?”

Brijette thought she wouldn’t care what Cade said, how he saw her. She was wrong. It hurt to know he thought she had no morals. But then he’d believed her guilty of a lot things before now. He was staring at the front windshield and she was amazed that looking at him like this could still make her heart skip. Maybe it was just fear affecting her rather than the glint in his eyes or his slightly full lower lip that she recalled kissing indiscriminately. She’d kissed a few men since, but no one like him. Cade had been in a class by himself.

She didn’t respond and he continued. “Where’s her father? Does he visit, send money?”

She eyed the green light on the radio’s digital display and shook her head.

“Are you telling me he doesn’t know he has a child?”

Her breath caught deep in her lungs then came out in a gust. “I’m telling you he wasn’t interested in having a child. He took off and hasn’t had a thing to do with us since.” That statement was the most honest one of the evening. “I need to go now. I can’t leave Dylan sitting in the car by herself.” She fumbled with the door, but he caught her arm before she could get away.

“Bring that birth certificate to work tomorrow. I am that concerned.”

She stumbled from his truck to her vehicle, thoroughly confused. Cade continued to drill her with questions about Dylan’s father and the more he asked, the less she wanted to tell him. Maybe he regretted the decision he made then. If so, she didn’t care about his change of heart. But why didn’t he mention her pregnancy, their child, the abortion he thought he paid for? Her uncertainty multiplied and she rammed the heel of her hand against her forehead to stop her panicked speculation. With any luck his questions ended here. Now she needed to keep Cade and Dylan apart and hope no one else noticed the uncanny resemblance of the two.

THE CAR DOOR slammed, the engine hummed to life and the red taillights of the SUV disappeared. Gone again and good riddance.

Cade put his own vehicle in motion and tried to beat down the feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was not disappointed. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself. But for an instant, just a moment in time, he’d thought the cute little blonde could be his, his own daughter. Then that witch had ruined it, like she’d ruined everything between them. Sharing a child with her would have been pure hell. His child couldn’t be raised by a woman like Brijette, untrustworthy, a liar. A host of even worse descriptive words butted into his brain but he swept them aside. It didn’t matter, the kid didn’t belong to him. Brijette had gone to bed with a lowlife who got her pregnant and took off.