The Daddy Surprise

Since the loss of his wife, Alex Ryan has been living a half-life. But with one phone call, Alex discovers he’s the biological father of a four-year-old girl…and everything changes.

Single mom Paige Kenner preferred to have a family without the man. Now suddenly there’s Alex, who desperately wants to be a father to her little girl. A gorgeous, kind and committed father. Letting a stranger into their lives is far too dangerous—especially if his presence stirs a part of Paige that she longs to forget…

“So…this is awkward.”

“We have a child together but I don’t know anything about you,” Alex said.

Kaylie was the reason for all of this.

Paige wanted a family, so much that on her twenty-fourth birthday she’d decided to take life by the horns and create the family she dreamed of. The sweet, smart, silly girl was everything Paige needed. No men needed to apply and since Kaylie had been born, not even a handful had stuck around through dinner.

And here was one more.

A man so gorgeous the rebellious part of Paige, the part of her she couldn’t get rid of, was glad her daughter wasn’t here.

Because she wanted to flirt. She wanted to flirt and touch and see if the attraction she felt for him was mutual.

Alex offered her a half smile, making his eyes crinkle at the corners and accentuating a little scar at the corner of his full lips. The tension she felt when he brushed past her ratcheted up a notch and she admitted to herself it wasn’t fear at all. It was flat-out excitement. Want. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such an instant attraction to a man.

Dear Reader,

I’ve been trying to think of the right words to tell you about The Daughter He Wanted. I thought about telling you about the small town where I grew up—which was right across the state from Bonne Terre. I thought about telling you the crazy adventures I had as a child—some of which inspired Kaylie’s adventures in this book. I thought about telling you about my own daughter, who is a Kaylie in every sense. At the heart of this book, though, isn’t the small town or a single childhood. At the heart of this book is choice.

We all choose who we will be—the athlete or the wallflower, the rebel or the rule follower, the corporate success or the small-business owner. Alex and Paige made their own choices leading up to Chapter One: Paige to start the family she craved in the only way open to her and Alex to distance himself from family because of the pain in his past. Writing their journey not only to love but to personal fulfillment was amazing, and the fact that I was able to write this book for Mills & Boon Superromance is a joy that has blown me away.

I’ve been reading Superromance books for more than half my life, having stolen my very first one from my mom’s bookshelf when I was about eleven. I hope you have as much fun reading about Alex and Paige and Kaylie as I had in writing their story. I love hearing from readers—you can find me on Twitter (@AuthorKristina) or Facebook (facebook.com/kristinaknightromanceauthor), or shoot me an email the old-fashioned way.

Happy reading!

Kristina Knight

The Daughter He Wanted

Kristina Knight

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Once upon a time, KRISTINA KNIGHT spent her days running from car crash to fire to meetings with local police. No, she wasn’t a troublemaker—she was a journalist. Her career took her all over the United States, and along the way she found her very own Knight in Shining Cowboy Boots. Just like the characters from her favorite books, Kristina is living her own happily-ever-after with her Knight and their Princess.

For Janell and Roxanne, my sister-moms who have the patience and encouragement that inspires me.

For my mom, who read the books and told the stories. And who busts all of us with her amazing ability to recall every life event.

For Shelby, the daughter we chose, who is everything.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

HE DIDN’T HAVE to know.

Alex Ryan sat outside the pretty white house on the quiet street in Bonne Terre, Missouri. It was an older home with a wide front porch and ivy growing up the two posts on either side of the three steps leading to the front door. It had a peaked roof with gingerbread trim. It wasn’t a true Victorian but someone along the way had added a few Victorian touches to the two-story home. He could see the tops of a wicker couch and rocker on the porch. Pots overflowing with red snapdragons and bleeding hearts hung from the ceiling and wound their way over the steps. In a few more days those plants would begin to die off, but for now they were pretty in the October afternoon sunlight.

There was a hopscotch course painted in sunny yellow on the front walk.

It looked like a happy house. A peaceful house. The kind of place he’d have liked to have grown up.

He didn’t have to knock on the pink front door. Didn’t need to introduce himself. He could turn the key, put the gearshift in first, make a right at the corner and be back at his own house within twenty minutes.

He could forget about the phone call that led him here. Go on with his life. A gauzy curtain in the front window flicked but he couldn’t make out more than a shadow inside. There was a late-model Honda parked in the drive, and the woman who lived here would probably like him to start up the truck and leave.

Alex looked down at his knuckles, white from gripping the steering wheel. He’d been fine before that damned phone call. His job as a park ranger at St. Francois State Park and St. Joe State Park was demanding and required all his focus. When he went home to his big, rambling house in Park Hills he was so tired that all he needed was a TV dinner, a sitcom laugh track and his bed. But the phone call came and now all he could think about was the tricycle he hadn’t been able to resist buying four years ago. The trike that was gathering dust in his attic, and was an almost exact replica of the pretty pink model that sat in this front yard now.

The trike he bought had been green, a compromise because Deanna insisted that, when they finally became pregnant, she wanted to be surprised at the birth.

But Deanna had gotten sick, so there hadn’t been a baby at all.

What could he gain from pushing himself into the lives of a strange woman and her daughter?

A four-year-old you didn’t know about until a week ago, he reminded himself. A four-year-old who lives in a pretty house on a quiet street in a town with an almost invisible crime rate.

She and her mother had been doing fine for four years.

You have a daughter. The soothing voice of the lawyer tasked with telling him about the mix-up at the fertility clinic echoed around the truck cab as if she sat beside him on the leather seat.

He had done the love thing. Married his college sweetheart and had a good life, but all that changed when Dee died. What could he give a four-year-old kid? He didn’t know how to act around adults anymore, much less children. It was one of the reasons he turned down every promotion in favor of hiking the park trails alone as a ranger.

Late-afternoon sun peeked from behind a cloud, caught on the chrome handlebar of the pink trike and winked at him.

He had to know.

The front door opened slowly and a slim woman stepped out onto the porch. Watched the truck for a moment as if she needed to think about something. Like whether or not to call the cops because a strange man was loitering on her curb. She started down the steps toward his truck and Alex swallowed hard. Too late. No chance for a clean getaway now. Sweat rolled down his neck, and he switched the air conditioning on. It didn’t work. The air conditioner pumped out enough cold air to make an elephant hypothermic but the nervous sweats continued. The woman shot a glance back into the house.

She was pretty, in a girl-next-door sort of way. Faded denim outlined her slim hips and red flip-flops protected her feet from the warm concrete. The old tee she wore with “Navy” emblazoned on the chest was splattered with paint. She tucked a long strand of honey-colored hair behind her ear as she opened the front gate and let it slide closed behind her.

Then she stepped onto the pavement and tapped on his window.

Alex hit the button to lower the glass and inhaled a slow breath filled with the smell of fall leaves and something tropical. Like mangos and bananas. Her. Sea-green eyes met his gaze. A splash of freckles played over her pert nose. He’d always been a sucker for freckles. Freckles and laughs. Deanna had both, along with white-blonde hair, short legs and an infuriating habit of finishing his sentences. Physically the women couldn’t be more different. Where Dee was short, this woman was tall. Willowy. Alex shifted in his seat.

He would not be attracted to her. Not, not, not.

You’re not here to be attracted to the mother. Definitely not. He had nothing to offer her, but the little girl, maybe he could give her...something.

Still, he was mesmerized by the light tan dots over the woman’s nose and those long, long legs covered in tattered denim.

“I’ve had four neighbors call to let me know a strange man is casing my house. And Mrs. Purcell—” she pointed toward a green-shuttered home with a cracked sidewalk and an old Chevy Impala in the drive “—has probably also called 9-1-1. So, unless you just like being interrogated for sitting in your truck you might want to come in.” She offered him a kind smile but her hands trembled against the door. Her voice had a light twang to it that a lot of Southern Missouri residents had. Not so twangy that single-syllable words became multisyllabic, more of a slow, I’m-not-in-a-hurry twang. “Unless you’ve decided against it?” The words were semihopeful and Alex couldn’t blame the woman for that.

He tapped his booted foot against the floorboard and flipped the key. “I haven’t really decided anything but maybe we could talk?”

She blew out a breath, nodded, and the strand of hair she’d tucked behind her ear slipped forward, hiding her face for a moment. “They told me you’d like to meet. I kind of hoped we could talk over the phone first.”

Alex shrugged and his shoulder pushed against his seat belt. He pulled the key from the ignition and then released the belt. “It’s easier to hang up a phone than not answer a doorbell.” He got out of the truck and shut the door. Paige, the lawyer told him her name was Paige, watched him, arms folded over her chest and an annoyed slant to her full lips. “I didn’t— Not that you wouldn’t answer.” This was going wrong. So wrong. This situation was completely out of his grasp. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

Her voice was quiet, resigned. Like she knew she couldn’t stop what was coming, but wanted to all the same. “I’d rather not have this conversation on the street.” She stepped away from him. “I’m Paige Kenner, by the way. And you’re Alex Ryan.”

“I know.” She raised her eyebrows at him. Alex ran a hand over his face as if that might wipe away the discomfort he felt now that he was face-to-face with Paige. It didn’t. Paige seemed...normal. Nice. She hadn’t run screaming for the cops when a strange man sat outside her home, anyway. And he’d just swung from arrogant to meek and back to arrogant in about two seconds. He held out his hand and waited a long moment before Paige reached out. Her skin was soft against his and he told himself the little shock he felt was from his smooth-soled boots rubbing against the carpet on the floor of his truck and not because he was attracted to her.

“Sorry, yeah, I’m Alex. I’m your daughter’s father.”

* * *

PAIGE WANTED TO do anything except lead Alex Ryan into her home. But there were at least four pairs of eyes on them right now and one of those pairs—Mrs. Purcell—would be right back on the phone with the Bonne Terre police department if Paige ran screaming down the street.

Maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing.

The police would come, and crazy teenage reputation or not, the officers would take her seriously. She was a teacher now, a single mom. Valued member of the community. He might look perfectly adorable in the black tee with the park ranger logo over the chest, faded jeans and boots, but there were only a few reasons a stranger would sit outside a home for hours. None of them good. The cops would take Alex Ryan into custody and delay this meeting. Maybe even make him reconsider stepping into her life.

God, let him reconsider. Her life worked now. She liked who she was, liked being Kaylie’s mom, giving her daughter all the love and attention Paige was denied in her own childhood. When she was a child, her parents either ignored her completely or interfered to the point that Paige couldn’t take it and lashed out. Those actions had sent her down the road of rebellion until she realized the one person she hurt with her antics was herself. It was a shock and had sent her down a new path. A path that led to the stupidest fertility clinic in the tristate area, apparently, but as crazy as it was that they’d used Alex’s semen instead of the donor she’d chosen, she still had Kaylie. The most amazing four-year-old on the planet.

For a moment she wondered about the strange man in the truck outside, and then she caught a glimpse of tawny hair and saw the way his head cocked to the side as he studied her home.

Both characteristics were exactly the same as her daughter’s.

Paige opened the front door and waited for Alex to pass by. His broad shoulder brushed against her and tension bubbled up in her belly. She took a moment to steady her hands against the doorknob at her back and mentally shook herself. There was nothing to be afraid of. Those four pairs of eyes would keep watch over her house until the blue truck sitting on the street had driven away. It was one of the reasons she chose this neighborhood. The house was the perfect size for her and Kaylie, and it was one of those places where neighbors watched out for one another.

Paige’s mom side appreciated the sentiment, even if the Mrs. Purcells of the world sometimes paid a little too much attention to her.

Alex stood in her entryway looking around as if he was lost. Her paint supplies took up most of the space in the living room to the left and Kaylie’s latest infatuation—Lalaloopsy dolls—took up the rest. She led the way through to the open-plan kitchen and family room.

“Would you like some iced tea?” Prim and proper and not at all what she wanted to ask. She wanted to be direct, tell him he had no business here. That he needed to leave. Something held her back.

Alex shook his head and Paige motioned him to sit at the island counter while she refreshed her glass. She wasn’t thirsty but it was something to do with her hands so she fussed with slices of lemon and added more ice before putting the pitcher back into the fridge.

Finally there was nothing left to do so she turned back to the man at the counter, trying to ignore the assessing way he watched her. Despite the casual clothes, Alex Ryan was the mirror image of everything she had left behind in her parents’ home, from the set of his shoulders to the judgment she saw in the thin line of his mouth. Rigid standards and rules she could never live up to. Expectations that had left her heartbroken and wounded. She didn’t need his approval, she reminded herself. It wasn’t like she’d asked him to come into her home and disrupt her life.

It wasn’t as if she’d had his permission to use his semen, either.

The clinic sent a file with his pertinent information, but Paige couldn’t force herself to read it. A small piece of her had hoped that if she ignored the report the man would ignore her. Now she wished she had read it cover to cover instead of putting it in her bottom desk drawer.

Her gaze caught on the picture of Kaylie at her fourth birthday party, cake frosting up to her eyebrows, princess crown askew, charging after the boys with her blue lightsaber.

Kaylie was the reason for all of this. Paige had wanted a family, so much so that on her twenty-fourth birthday she’d decided to take life by the horns and create the family she dreamed of. The sweet, smart, silly girl was everything Paige needed. No men needed to apply and since Kaylie had been born, not even a handful had stuck around through dinner.

And here was one more. A man so afraid of commitment he hadn’t known whether to get out of his car or run screaming into the warm Missouri afternoon.

No, that was unfair. She didn’t know anything about Alex Ryan.

A man so gorgeous the rebellious part of Paige, the part of her she couldn’t get rid of no matter how much she tried to pretend it didn’t exist, was glad her daughter wasn’t here. Wanted to flirt. Wished they’d met at a bar or under any other circumstances so that she could flirt and touch and see if the attraction she felt for him, he felt for her, too.

She glanced at her watch. Just over an hour until her best friend, Alison, would bring Kaylie back from her swim lesson at the rec center. The principal at her school required impromptu meetings now and then; today Alison was able to step in and help Paige. She was grateful. Alison was her biggest supporter and cheerleader. Paige hated missing the lesson, but Alison liked playing auntie for Kaylie from time to time. This introduction needed to get moving and get over with because, until she knew exactly what Alex Ryan’s intentions were, he was not getting anywhere near her daughter.

“So, this is awkward.” She blurted the words out, not sure where else to start. “We have a child together but I don’t know anything about you.”

He offered her a half smile, making his eyes crinkle at the corners and accentuating a little scar at the corner of his full lips. The tension she’d felt when he’d brushed past her ratcheted up a notch and she admitted to herself it wasn’t fear at all. It was flat-out excitement. Want. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such an instant attraction to a man. Attraction was bad. Very, very bad. Attraction meant throwing all her rules about relationships out the window. Attraction led to mistakes and mistakes could hurt Kaylie.

Hurt Paige.

She gulped some tea, hoping it would put out the sizzle of heat that seemed to grow with every second Alex was in her kitchen.

He shrugged, the motion defining his upper arms—as if they needed more definition—and her heart seemed to skip a beat. “I always figured if I were to have a conversation like this it would be because of a drunken night in Cabo, not because a fertility clinic marked my, uh, sample, as ‘anonymous donor’ rather than ‘IVF candidate.’” He gave a chuckle, and the deep sound sent another hot zing across her nerve endings, as if her ears were now an erogenous zone.

She was going to need a lot more than tea. Focus on the tea, she ordered herself. But the way his muscular arms filled out his short sleeves was an even bigger distraction. She focused on a picture of Kaylie on the back wall, her daughter smiling at the camera with Mickey Mouse ears atop her head.

That did it. Seeing her baby’s smiling face did more for Paige’s focus than the past fifteen minutes of ordering herself around had. Kaylie was important—not Paige’s hormones.

“So, you weren’t a donor?” Once more she cursed herself for not reading the clinic file on Alex. The lawyer merely told her that the man whose donation she’d used would like to contact her. Over the next ten minutes, which seemed to take ten hours, Paige had worried he was contacting her to tell her he had cancer or AIDS or some congenital disease that might affect her precious girl.

Learning he only wanted to meet her was almost a relief until the implications hit her. He only wanted to meet her so that he could be part of Kaylie’s life.

“No, my wife and I were IVF candidates. It was after the first embryos were implanted that we learned she had cancer.” Sadness flickered in his eyes. “The embryos didn’t result in pregnancy and we decided everything, even the precautionary donations I made, should be destroyed.”

Thank God, he had a wife. Thank God she hadn’t made a move on him. Wait, a wife. And cancer. She sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the instinct pushing her to reach out to him.

“I didn’t realize you were married.” There, her voice sounded normal.

He smiled, but instead of crinkling his eyes, it left them bleak. “She died. Just over three years ago,” he said. Paige reached across the counter, brushing her hand across his and mentally castigating herself for the little snap of attraction at the contact. He was a widower, for crying out loud, and this was her kitchen, not the Low Bar. They were discussing the possibility of him creating a relationship with her daughter—not with her.

And, damn it, why couldn’t she keep her hands to herself? This man was a stranger who would mess up the pretty, uncomplicated life she’d created. He didn’t need her pity and she certainly didn’t need to feel this overwhelming need to comfort him.

She squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry.” It was no wonder he’d come looking for her. No, for Kaylie. His wife died, then he learned his sperm was used and a child came of it. He was probably trying to recapture some of the joy he’d expected when he and his wife began IVF treatments.

And she still didn’t want him to mess with her kid, but this wasn’t some frat guy who suddenly decided to see if he had any progeny. This was a man willing to go through IVF and who knew what else with his late wife so they could have a child.

That was commitment.

This time the clench in her belly was less attraction and more fear. How could she share her daughter with a virtual stranger? A stranger who was the antithesis of everything she had decided she wanted when she left home.

“It was a long time ago,” he said, his deep brown eyes focused on her, as if he could see through the paint-splattered tee to the heart beating erratically beneath. Paige shifted, suddenly uncomfortable in her favorite tee.

“What is it that you want from me? Us?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I couldn’t not try to find you, not after the clinic called.”

Not what she wanted to hear. Or was it? If he didn’t know what he wanted, maybe this one meeting would be enough. Maybe her world didn’t have to change.

“You work in the parks?”

“Ranger, so most of my days are spent hiking. Making sure the streams aren’t overfished. That kind of thing.”

“That explains the tan, then.” Paige’s eyes widened. “Not that I thought you were lazy or anything. I mean, you’re here in the middle of the afternoon but—” There was no way to recover. Alex laughed.

“Not even my closest friends call my job a ‘job.’ And the best part of it is that I’m not stuck behind a desk and I rarely have to wear a suit.”

“Both definite pluses, I suppose.” Paige laughed with him. Laughing got her through a lot of days, especially those when Kaylie was whiny or needed every second of attention Paige had. “I’m a teacher, so no suits, either. Although I regularly come home with paint or chalk all over me.”

“What grade?”

“Elementary school, art, actually. So I get to hang with the kids for an hour, do fun stuff and then send them back to homeroom.”

“You don’t look old enough to be a teacher.” Was that appreciation in his gaze? He watched her for a moment and Paige forgot to breathe. Then, the look was gone and he was just a guy sitting in her kitchen. A gorgeous guy, but just a guy. He cocked his head to the side and a half smile spread across his face, stretching that tiny scar near his mouth until it almost disappeared. “From what I remember all my teachers, kindergarten on, wore orthopedic shoes, had gray hair and liked to smack at my hands with a ruler.”

Nope, not just a guy. Alex Ryan was dangerous from the tips of his tawny hair to the soles of his booted feet. And all the muscled, tanned areas in between.

“I assure you twenty-nine is old enough to be a teacher. For the record, you don’t look like those grumpy old guys in the Smokey the Bear hats, either.” He scrunched his eyes together, as if searching for something. Some kind of common ground, maybe. She would certainly like to find some.

“I’m thirty-two. Born and raised in Park Hills.” He mentioned a town only a few miles from Bonne Terre. Paige had driven through it many times in her life. “I’m surprised we’ve never run into one another.”

Paige wasn’t. Her parents had sent her to a private school near St. Louis when she was ten, telling her she deserved a better education than she would find in a small town. Then, at sixteen, they’d tired of her antics altogether and sent her to a Swiss boarding school known for discipline and year-round school. During the rare summer or winter breaks when she was allowed to come home, she made sure her parents knew she was there. Dating the wrong guys, ignoring curfews, whatever it took to make them notice her. But that wasn’t the conversation that would get them on more even footing.

“My parents sent me to boarding school. I was rarely here as a teenager.” It wasn’t a lie, just an omission of all the facts that might leave Alex with a bad impression of her. Paige reached for another glass. “Are you sure you don’t want tea? A soda?”

“Water?”

Paige nodded and filled the glass with ice and water, adding a slice of lemon at the last moment. Alex plucked the lemon from the glass and sucked it between his full lips, drawing out the juice. Her belly clenched at the action and Paige swallowed hard.

He sat up a little straighter and dropped the wedge back into his glass. “Sorry. Habit. I like lemons.”

So did Kaylie. She waved the apology away and hoped she hadn’t been looking at him like a missing hiker desperate for water.

“You’re a park ranger. I’m a teacher. How did we wind up here?”

Alex shook his head. “I’ve been asking myself that very question since the lawyer called.” He took her hand in his, held it for a long moment, and the world seemed to stop moving. The ticking of the kitchen clock faded into the distance. The breeze that had been blowing through her windows stopped billowing through the curtains. She forgot to breathe for a long moment. “When the lawyer called I didn’t want to know her. I didn’t want to know that she’s four years old. But now all I can think about is when is her birthday and what cereal does she like for breakfast and can she spell her name yet? Do kids even know how to spell at four?”

One meeting would not be enough, not with those kinds of questions, Paige realized.

The kitchen timer beeped, usually a reminder to put her paints away and start dinner for Kaylie. And just like that Paige’s world started spinning again, this time reminding her to finish this meeting and get Alex out of her house. He had so many questions, and none were what she had expected when the lawyer had called or when she’d looked out her window and seen the unfamiliar truck parked on her curb.

That didn’t mean she had all the answers; not yet, anyway.

“Not all kids can spell at four, but she can.” She withdrew her hand from his grasp because, while he seemed to be the opposite of every commitment-phobic man she’d ever known, that didn’t make him good date material. Getting a handle on this weird attraction she felt had to be her first priority. She tucked her hair behind her ear and busied herself with the empty paper-towel container. “Well, a few words. Bat, cat, that kind of thing. And she can count to thirty without mixing up too many of the numbers.”

Paige blew out a breath and then bit the corner of her lip. She took the picture of Kaylie off the windowsill and held it out. “This is her, last May on her birthday. She is kind and smart and the way she sees the world is...so funny.” Alex took the frame, holding it so tight the tips of his fingers turned white. “I know I’m biased because I’m her mom but she’s just...the best.” Paige bit her lower lip again. The impulse to ask him to stay, to get that first meeting over with was nearly too much to bear. He looked so lost and confused sitting at her counter and gazing at the picture of her—and his—daughter.

But her impulses had gotten her into plenty of trouble in her life and she’d learned to push them away.

Paige was Kaylie’s mom and not this man’s girlfriend or confidante. She would not fix his problems by endangering Kaylie’s stable world.

“What does she know about her father?”

“She’s never really asked so I haven’t told her anything. All the pictures in her baby book are of me and her. I thought I would cross Daddy Bridge when she started to ask questions.”

He traced his index finger along the image of Kaylie chasing the boys and smiled, a softer smile this time. No self-deprecation. No sadness. A sweet smile that she’d felt on her own face when Kaylie said her first word and took her first step.

“She likes Star Wars.”

Paige nodded. “Jar Jar Binks is her favorite. And she thinks Amidala should have been a Jedi rather than a senator or queen. Although she usually calls her a princess.”

“Smart girl. Amidala would have made a great Jedi fighter.” He handed the picture back to Paige. “How did you know I’d come by today?”

“What?” Paige replaced the picture on the sill and turned back to the quiet man at the counter.

“I’m guessing she isn’t here because no four-year-old could be quiet and out of sight this long, right? How did you know today was the day you should get her out of the house?”

“I’m not trying to—”

He held up his hands. “No accusations. I’m not sure today is the day to drop all this on her, either.”

Paige took a moment to breathe before answering. “Good. I didn’t send her away. It’s her swim-lesson afternoon. She swims at the rec center during the winter months and at the public pool during the summer. My best friend, Alison, took her because I had a meeting after school.” She pointed to the partially finished canvas in the family room. “Then I decided to work on a project I’m painting for her. She’ll be home—” Paige swallowed the lump in her throat but still didn’t invite him to meet Kaylie. She couldn’t. “She’ll be home later.”

Alex blew out a breath. “Would it be okay if I met her?”

“Okay,” she said after a moment. “But not today. Not yet.” Paige finished her tea and started to pace. She waved her hands at him like she was spreading oil over a canvas with her hands. “You seem completely normal, have a legitimate job. There’s not a neck tattoo under your collar. But she is still very young. I can’t just tell her you’re her dad over Cheerios—that’s her favorite cereal, by the way—tomorrow morning and send you two on a playdate after lunch.”

She watched him intently for a moment and finally Alex nodded. “So how do we approach this? I could give you references that note my stellar work reputation, the fact that I play in the rec leagues during the summer and that I haven’t had more than a speeding ticket in my adult life.”

“No references. I want a promise from you.”

“I could quote you the oath I took when I joined the rangers.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t be flippant. This isn’t wanting a lobster dinner and then changing your order to steak. She’s a person and she deserves your best. If you aren’t willing to give her that then you can turn around, get in your truck and go back to Park Hills.”

Alex was quiet for a long moment. His eyes were fixed on her but it was as if he wasn’t seeing her so much as... Paige wasn’t sure. Something else.

“I swear to you I’ll do my best not to hurt our daughter. I just need to see her.” There was a sincere edge to his voice that Paige couldn’t ignore. She nodded.

“Okay.” She took a breath. “Could we meet for coffee? I have a meeting at the clinic tomorrow, so Friday? Before you meet Kaylie, you and I need to get to know one another better.”

“Kaylie.” He breathed the word like a prayer and Paige realized he hadn’t known his daughter’s name. “My daughter’s name is Kaylie.” Her heart melted a little at the breathy way he said Kaylie’s name, the mistiness in his eyes.

Paige swallowed. “Kaylie Ann Kenner.”

Alex stood quickly, the high chair squealing across her tiled floor and making them both wince. He whipped a card from his wallet and handed it across the counter. “Coffee would be great. My numbers are there, and my email. Just text me when and where and I’ll be there.”

He hurried from her kitchen and the screen door slammed behind him. Paige watched from the little hallway as the man she never thought she would meet got into his big truck and pulled away from her house.

He was coming back and she had no idea if she should be happy or sad about that.

CHAPTER TWO

AS SOON AS the truck turned the corner from Paige’s house, Alex pulled to the side of the road. Took a couple of deep breaths and tried to make sense of the jittery feeling in his stomach. He’d been fine talking to Paige about the clinic, been fine seeing his daughter’s face for the first time covered in cake icing. Sure, when she brought up Dee his hands got sweaty, but that was normal. No one liked talking about dead spouses, did they?

Everything was fine until Paige said Kaylie’s name.

Then he couldn’t get out of the little white house with the pink door and wicker porch furniture fast enough. He hit his head lightly against the steering wheel. It was just a name. An innocuous name.

A name that changed everything one more time.

The call from the lawyer had him taking a day off work just to make sure the little girl’s life was ordered. He never took off work. Not since the funeral. Work was real and the reality was that his world imploded when Dee got sick. He’d made sense of what was left and built a decent life again. Sure, he avoided places like the Low Bar and no, he didn’t really like the summer and winter rec leagues, but it kept his friends off his back and distracted him from the big, empty house in Park Hills.

Maybe he should have moved. He got as far as donating most of Dee’s things, but moving out of the house she loved had felt...wrong on some level. So he stayed.

Kaylie Ann Kenner. Paige’s voice echoed in his ear. The plan had been to knock on the door, make sure everything was in place and go back to work. Put the little girl in a box in his mind, but leave her and the mother alone. He had needed to know and now he knew.

And the plan was out the window. He couldn’t see her picture and know her name and not know her, too. Alex swallowed.

Kaylie was real. Paige was totally and completely real from her paint-dribbled feet to the freckles over her nose. Why did he have to take her hand? That little jolt of electricity he’d felt in the truck was nothing compared to the full-on sizzle that’d raced through his fingertips at her kitchen counter.

For the first time in three years he wanted real. Tangible. Not the memories that floated around the big house. Not the too-loud laughter that sometimes escaped him when everyone watched to make sure he got the joke, that he was really there with them, in the moment. Paige hadn’t looked at him like that, not once. And not once had he mentally escaped the pretty white kitchen with the hardwood floors and black granite countertops. He couldn’t remember a single time in the past few years when he’d been as present as he’d been from the moment he parked the truck at Paige’s curb.

A low-slung convertible swerved around his truck, honking, and Alex shook himself. He pulled back onto the highway and started for Park Hills, and as usual took a right at the light rather than the left that would take him home. The wrought-iron gates were still open, the tree-lined lane shaded from the afternoon sun. Alex pulled through the gates and drove past the statue of the floating angel, turned at the mausoleum that always looked haunted. Stopped the truck before a gray headstone with Dee’s name and dates.

And didn’t open the door. He sat there for a long time with his hand on the door handle, unable to move. What was he going to say to her? Hey, honey, you know how I didn’t want to do IVF? Well, thanks to your insistence now I have a daughter. He could imagine the back-of-the-head slap Dee would give him with that one.

Don’t be so flip, she’d say and demand all the details. Not that he had that many. He had a meeting scheduled tomorrow with the head of the clinic, but for now he only knew what the lawyer had told him on the phone: his sample was mislabeled and used as donor sperm instead of being destroyed. She’d turned four in the spring, according to the picture on Paige’s windowsill, so Kaylie would have been conceived sometime in the three-month window between when they learned about the cancer and when they learned it was terminal. Before he sent in the paperwork to have his samples destroyed. And he definitely couldn’t tell Dee that for the first time in three years he felt alive and it was because of another woman.

No, he couldn’t tell her that, not any of it. Because he had a daughter, thanks to her, and he had a life, such as it was. All she had was nothing. No babies to hold. No more laughter when he burned the steaks on the grill. No more life to grab on to.

Alex restarted the truck and pulled past her marker, down the shaded lane and back onto the main road. He grabbed dinner at a drive-through window and continued to his big, empty house. The forest-green shutters needed to be repainted, he realized when he pulled into the drive, and this weekend he should probably do a final mowing of the grass. In the kitchen he opened the cupboard door but instead of picking up one of Dee’s fancy plates he dumped his food on a paper plate and grabbed a beer from the fridge.

The canned laugh track from the sitcom annoyed him so he flipped over to a sports channel rerunning a Cardinals game from several years back. He ate his dinner sitting on the sofa Dee had bought, surrounded by the plants she liked and with her picture still on the mantel.

He wished like hell she was sitting on the sofa with him—and kicked the coffee table when he realized the woman he was imagining was Paige.

* * *

“WHAT I REALLY want to know is how this happened at all.” It was just before noon on Thursday, the day after meeting Alex, and Paige was expected back at school in just over an hour. She should have taken the entire day off work rather than just this morning.

While they were in the waiting area, Alex asked why she kept checking her watch. One thing led to another and they waived their confidentiality rights to face the lab supervisor together. They both wanted the same answers: how and why did this happen?

Alex sat in the chair next to her, arms folded over his chest. The supervisor looked uncomfortable. The longer this meeting went on, the nicer it felt to have someone on her side. Not that he was on her side, not really.

Paige glanced at the watch on her wrist. The drive from the fertility clinic to Bonne Terre would take at least forty-five minutes. She did the math. If the paper-pusher across the heavy oak desk didn’t give them some answers in about ten minutes she would have to leave and come back.

Not going to happen. And she wasn’t going to be pushed into another phone conversation with the lawyer, either. During the first phone call, she’d been too numb to ask questions about what happened four years ago. The donor she’d picked was a college graduate, Caucasian, of average height and weight. All of which fit Alex, except Alex wasn’t a donor. He’d been an IVF candidate along with his wife.

Now he was in Paige’s life and she needed to know why. Why, when she had been so careful in her choices, when she had made so many changes in her life, did this have to happen now?

The lab supervisor seemed honestly upset on their behalf, but he was still a company employee.

“My wife and I were assured that samples were checked and double-checked. That there was no need to worry about—”

“Human error,” the man across the desk interrupted and pushed at the lock of hair he was trying to use to cover his bald spot. His blue eyes were faded and the crow’s-feet at their corners seemed to be growing new legs the longer he was in the room. His nameplate read Merle Nelson. “We vet our employees very well. They are all smart, efficient and well paid, but mistakes do happen. We do know it wasn’t a case of an employee intentionally replacing samples.”

“Intentional or not this is a little more than a ‘mistake,’ though, don’t you think?” Paige couldn’t believe the man was talking as if this happened every day.

Mr. Nelson folded his hands over the desk blotter, pressing his thumbs together so hard Paige thought they might snap right off his hands. “Yes, I do. I can assure you this kind of mistake has never happened in our facility before.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Alex said sarcastically.

“What we can tell you is that there will be restitution made to your families and, with DNA testing of the remaining samples, we can tell you with authority if there were any other, uh, mislabelings.”

“Remaining samples?” Paige’s voice was a squeak.

“I might have— Son of a bitch.” Anger laced Alex’s voice and he stood to pace.

“We don’t believe there were. We have run initial tests on the other samples and all indications are they belong to the original donor and not to you.”

Paige felt sick. For the past half hour Nelson had danced around how sperm samples were stored and why vials were labeled with numbers rather than names and how those numbers referred to the names attached. He skipped over the part where Alex’s sample should have been in a different section of the storage facility than the donor sperm. Now there was the possibility that this could have happened to other families. It wasn’t right.

“What is it that we can do for you, Mr. Ryan?” His words snapped Paige out of her thoughts.

“You can tell me there aren’t more children out there with my DNA inside them, for starters.” Alex gripped the back of his chair and his knuckles turned white. Paige wanted to comfort him somehow, but what could she say?

“We sent the samples to a DNA lab for complete analysis. A mouth swab from you and from the child... It won’t tell us why this happened, but you will know definitively how to move forward.” He turned his focus from Alex to Paige. “Ms. Kenner?”

What could they do for her? They could go back in time and give her the sperm she’d chosen, that’s what they could do. Only...

Would Kaylie be the girl she was with different DNA inside her? Paige’s attention and mothering would be the same, but could she truly complain about the DNA that gave Kaylie her silly laugh or the curl in her hair? Or that made her so curious about the world around her? So eager to learn everything about it? She couldn’t.

He didn’t wait for her answer. “I’ve been authorized to offer a settlement to each of you. While our facility is focused on helping men and women create the families of their dreams, we do realize that our error may have caused you some mental anguish—”

Anguish? He thought reading Kaylie Dr. Seuss at night caused anguish? Sure, Paige could do without the nightly arguments over veggie consumption or the ten-minute monologues that helped Kaylie decide which princess movie they’d watch on a Friday night. But those things weren’t exactly anguish-inducing.

“—and we applaud your decision to begin the process of blending your families.” He pushed an envelope across the desk as he named a figure that made Paige’s ears burn.

Her hands fisted in her lap.

Alex’s fingers were nearly white under his fingernails until he reached for the envelope and tore it in half. He tossed the pieces on the desk, turned on his heel and slammed the door.

Paige was in shock. Nelson thought a check for five times her yearly salary would make her forget the sleepless nights she’d had since the lawyer first called? The worry over how she could let a stranger into their lives? The insecurities that this crazy situation brought back to the surface? Paige knew she was a good mother, but was this some kind of sign she really couldn’t pull off single-parenting without messing up her kid?

She swallowed and reached out, pushing the envelope back across the desk with her fingernail. How many times had money been used to keep her in line? There was the cruise for her sixteenth birthday, the extravagant car her parents offered on her high school graduation, an upgraded model when she graduated college. They always said the boarding schools were for her benefit but Paige knew the truth: boarding schools were a way to keep her under control and give them a way to forget about her.

She wasn’t taking another penny. Not from her parents. Certainly not from a fertility clinic.

“I didn’t come here for your money, Mr. Nelson. I came here for answers. The fact that you don’t have the answers I need—” she shook her head “—it’s typical. But I still won’t take your money because when I came here five years ago I had one thought in mind, making a family. My daughter is amazing and this situation leaves a lot to be desired, but it doesn’t change the fact that without your colossal mistake, I wouldn’t have her.” Paige picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. “I hope you continue to reevaluate the humans working in this office so no more of these ‘errors’ occur.”

* * *

FRIDAY MORNING ALEX’S cell phone chirped and he pulled it from his pocket. It was Paige, texting the address of a coffee shop in nearby Farmington. Probably didn’t want rumors to spread in her small town about them. A sigh of relief escaped his chest. He couldn’t blame her. Meeting in Farmington meant he had more time before telling his in-laws about the change from widower to father. He had no idea how they would react to the news but figured it couldn’t be good. Alex added Paige’s number to his contacts list and then replied that he would be there.

He put the phone back in his pocket and blew out a breath. He shouldn’t be attracted to her. It wasn’t like they were dating or even should date. She was the mother of his daughter, a little girl he’d never met. He’d done the love thing and it was great, but there were enough complications between him and Paige without adding attraction to the mix.

The promise he made her, not to hurt Kaylie, felt like a promise about Paige, too. How could he hurt a woman he barely knew? Another of the million unanswerable questions plaguing him lately.

He didn’t want to hurt her or the little girl, and making sure everyone came out on the other side of this without a few bumps or bruises would take all his focus. Only he couldn’t forget about those adorable freckles, the way her upper half filled out the navy tee, the tight behind she showed off so well in jeans and the pretty, paint-splattered toes.

How many women still blushed, much less admitted to blushing when they could just as easily pretend nothing happened? He liked her. Didn’t want to, but there it was.

Paige Kenner tripped all his buttons in the attraction department.

Not that that had anything to do with anything.

Alex turned up Mooner’s Hollow Trail to check in on the hiker’s kiosks. So far it was a quiet afternoon at St. Francois State Park. He swiped a bandanna over the back of his neck. Hot but quiet. October was almost over, but so far Mother Nature seemed to be ignoring the fact that fall was here. He knelt beside Coonville Creek, dipped the bandanna into the water and then squeezed it over his head before replacing his black ball cap and continuing down the trail. Any day now the leaves would begin turning. First brilliant reds and then more subtle oranges and yellows would peek through before the first frost.

His walkie crackled and Tucker Blevins’s deep voice echoed around the quiet trail.

“Any campers in the past day ask about setting up camp off-trail and away from the usual sites?”

Alex hadn’t seen many campers, period, for the past week. The park was open to them from March through November but once school was back in session traffic died down significantly.

“Other than the RV that checked in two nights ago, I haven’t seen anyone.”

Tuck was quiet for a moment. “I’ve got an off-grid camp, maybe a day or two abandoned, just off Pike’s Run. You close enough to get over here so we can look around for any lost hikers?”

Tuck described his location and Alex left the trail to start in that direction. Off-grid hiking wasn’t unusual but it might have occurred because someone had gotten hurt or more experienced hikers wanted to rough it for a night or two. Either way, they needed to check for anyone lost and make sure the campsite was cleared.

Two hours later what was left of the site was packed into a couple of sacks, but there were no campers to be found. No real trail, either. Which led Alex to believe it was kids on a dare. Most experienced hikers would have marked some kind of trail so they could easily get their bearings and return to camp.

Of course, most experienced hikers would also not leave most of their campsite behind.

Alex hefted one of the sacks over his shoulder while Tuck grabbed the other one and they started the cross-country hike back to the park office. They hit the creek within a few minutes and then rejoined Mooner’s Trail. Alex pushed his black ball cap off, wiped his forehead with the bandanna and replaced the cap. Tuck followed in silence and it ate at Alex.

“What?”

“What, what?” Tuck feigned surprise.

“You never hike in silence.” Alex rolled his eyes. “Since we were kids it was what girl let you get to third base, how hot the girl at the honky-tonk was or how women seem to go from fun to clingy in a heartbeat. You haven’t said a word in more than a half hour. I repeat, what?”

Tuck kicked an acorn off the trail as they curved around a creek bend. “I wondered how it went with the baby mama. And then I remembered how mostly I do the talking because you don’t like to talk about anything important anymore and decided to keep my big mouth shut.” He elbowed Alex. “But since you brought it up, how’d the big meeting go?”

“How did you know I went to see her?” He shifted the pack on his back but that didn’t ease the tension in his neck. Tension that had nothing to do with carrying an extra fifteen pounds of gear and everything to do with how Paige looked standing in her kitchen. Then again in the clinic office. A little scared, a lot focused. Sexy and ruffled and damn it, why did he have to keep thinking of her at all?

“Dude, since Deanna died you haven’t talked about much of anything except the weather, baseball and tourist traffic. A month ago you tell me about the fertility clinic screwup and two days ago you call in for a personal day. Same thing yesterday. It’s an easy jump from Alex-Never-Takes-Vacation to Alex-Met-The-Mom.”

“We talk about more than baseball and tourists. And the weather is important.” Alex scowled as the office came into view.

“Wrong. I talk. You mostly listen. I’m not gonna go all girl on you and say I’ve missed our friendship, but when you told me what happened, it was nice to see a little of the old Alex coming through again.”

Alex unlocked the park office and dumped the excess gear on the tiled floor so they could catalogue it and then box it away. “The old Alex?” he asked.

“You remember him, don’t you? Got excited about things, got mad about things.”

“I’m not mad or excited about this mix-up. It’s messing with my life.”

“What life?” Tuck closed the door behind them. “You come to work, you hike alone, you show up for the rec leagues and through it all you’re not really there. And you definitely don’t talk about anything.”

“I haven’t had a lot to say.”

“For three and a half years?” Tuck’s pack joined Alex’s and they began separating and cataloguing the extra ropes, shoestrings and miscellaneous matter that had been left behind. “I know Deanna’s death was hard and I know her parents have put a lot of pressure on you to keep her memory alive. We’re good.” Tuck waved his hand between them. “It was just nice to see a sliver of the Alex I knew precancer. I kinda missed that guy.”

“That guy and this guy are the same guy.” Besides, it wasn’t like he’d intentionally shut people out. It was just easier to get through the gray days after the funeral in his private bubble. And the longer that bubble was around him the harder it was to break through. After the call from the lawyer, the gray seemed to dissipate some. He wasn’t sure he liked life outside the bubble, though, not if it kept his best friend talking about feelings.

Tuck tossed an empty canteen into a box and noted it on the paper. “That guy was alive. You’ve just been going through the motions. So, is she a hot baby mama, or one of those chicks with the sexy tats and piercings but an inability to make good decisions?”

Alex rolled the extra pack up and returned it to his own gear. “Paige is...” He beetled his brows. “Fine.”

Tuck hooted and slapped Alex on the shoulder. “So we’re talking one-hot-mama territory, aren’t we? Is she single?”

He couldn’t hold back the grin. At least Tuck was off the feelings subject and on to the physical. Physical Alex could handle. “You’re an ass. And we didn’t get that far.”

“Do I detect a hint of hands-off in that sentence?” Tuck sat back on his heels, stacked the boxes and then stood.

Alex had no good response to that question. Besides, Tuck always had the ability to see right through him. From the attraction he still felt for the woman two days later he didn’t think the wall he was trying to erect was quite thick enough to withstand the scrutiny. He picked up the boxes and shelved them in the storage area.

“It’s okay, you know, if you like her.” Alex shot Tuck a back-off glance. In true Tuck form, he ignored it. “Dee wouldn’t have wanted you to be—”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me.” Alex cut off his friend. Talking about feelings or how Paige looked in the abstract was one thing. Talking about Dee... Alex couldn’t seem to talk to Dee anymore and he certainly wasn’t going to talk about what she might or might not have wanted. “I’m not attracted to Paige.” And maybe, if he repeated that to himself enough times, it would be true. “She’s pretty but she’s also the mother of the child I don’t even know. We’re barely acquaintances, much less anything more.”

Tuck held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, got it. So when do you meet the kid?”

“Don’t know yet.” And damned if that didn’t irk him, just a little bit. He got it. If a strange woman appeared on his doorstep determined to meet his kid he would react the same way. Even if there was a biological connection. But it still irked. He had a good job, no criminal history, a good family and friends. On paper he was perfect dad material, even if part of him worried he couldn’t make a connection with the little girl. That somehow he would mess up her life.

Tuck didn’t need to hear all that, though.

“We’re having coffee to talk about it this evening.” And just this morning he’d swabbed his cheek and sent the sample to the clinic.

Alex flipped the hours sign on the office door to Closed and marked the time they would be back in the morning. He grabbed his keys from the hook behind the door and started for his truck. He’d let Paige lead the way. For now.

CHAPTER THREE

PAIGE SQUEEZED HER hands—hard—around her phone and then hit the delete key on her last text. The one that read Sorry, something suddenly came up. She couldn’t do that to him.

To her.

The sooner she figured out what kind of man Alex Ryan was, the sooner her life could start forming the new normal it needed. DNA testing would take a few weeks, but if physical looks were anything to go by, she didn’t need that confirmation. Kaylie was practically a miniature Alex. Still, she’d swabbed her daughter’s cheek the night before and dropped off the strip at the clinic this morning. Maybe soon she could go to the grocery store without wondering if Alex would be buying grapes in the produce section or if her neighbors had figured out that there was more to the man sitting outside her house than met the eye.

Alex buzzed back that he would meet her there and before she could retype the blow-off message, Paige tossed her phone into her bag.

It was ridiculous, really, all the weird scenarios that had played out in her head over the past two days. Since inviting him into her home, she’d had a nightmare that he fought her for custody, and then a made-for-TV dream about them falling in love and living happily ever after, complete with more tawny-haired, crooked-smiling kids in her house. Her fifth graders were studying a unit on the human body and Paige caught herself drawing Alex’s image as the model for the male face.

Now she’d have to grade at least two dozen renditions of Alex’s warm eyes and full lips. Paige sighed. This was not how a mature adult would react. A mature adult would hammer out the details of visitation through lawyers. The only lawyers Paige knew were friends of her parents, though, and she wasn’t about to call that kind of drama into her life.

She could do this on her own.

Kaylie wandered in the door, dragging her Lalaloopsy backpack in one hand and her jacket in the other. “Hi, Mama.” She tossed the light pack and jacket on Paige’s desk, folded her arms and leaned against it. “Guess what we did today in circle time?”

Kaylie attended preschool at the small school where Paige taught. She pushed thoughts of Alex and joint custody aside to focus on the little girl.

“What?”

“We learned a new song about the days of the week. And I can teach it to you so you know, too. Ready?” Paige nodded and waited. Kaylie snapped her fingers twice and then began singing to the tune of The Addams Family theme song, “There’s Sunday and there’s Monday...”

Paige watched her daughter, singing and snapping, and felt tears welling up in her eyes. He was going to love her, love her and want more and more time with her. Paige wasn’t sure she knew how to share her daughter. Didn’t know that she wanted to. She hurried around the desk and wrapped Kaylie in a tight hug. The little girl wiggled and pushed away.

“Too tight! And I’m not done yet.” Paige released her, reluctantly, and Kaylie finished the song. “Think you can remember that?”

Paige nodded. “You are a very good teacher, sweetpea,” she said mock-solemnly.

Kaylie looked at her expectantly.

“What?”

“Hug now.” And she held out her arms. Paige wrapped her back up, hugging her tightly while Kaylie burrowed her head against Paige’s neck, like she’d done since she was an infant.

It didn’t matter how cute Alex Ryan was, Paige realized. It didn’t matter that on paper he seemed like a good enough guy to be Kaylie’s father. She couldn’t drop her guard, couldn’t let her attraction get in the way. Attraction as much as rebellion had led her down too many wrong paths in her youth.

There was the twenty-five-year-old who took her to Texas over spring break when she was sixteen, and then an aspiring rocker who hit her. After that a football star who tried to turn her into a beauty queen, and the band instructor at her boarding school. The one thing all four had in common was her parents’ hatred of them.

It was the younger man—one of her father’s students—whom she dated the year after earning her degree that had made Paige take a hard look at what she had been doing with her life. He accused her of using him as an accessory when all her life she’d felt like the accessory her parents used to make their family seem perfect. Until that night she had floated from dead-end boyfriend to dead-end job, not using her degree, not practicing her own art, because at least when she was underachieving it annoyed her parents to the point they would call to tell her how much potential she was wasting.

That was when she took a substitute teaching job at the school, stopped looking for a new guy in every grocery aisle or bar and decided she wouldn’t hedge her future on the chance her parents might approve of her, hell, might pay attention to her, now.

She’d turned her life around, but she couldn’t erase the memories of those mistakes. Paige couldn’t allow Alex to be another in her long line of romantic misadventures, not when Kaylie could be the one hurt this time. She squeezed once more before letting Kaylie go.

“So, kiddo, Alison’s picking you up tonight because Mommy has an appointment.”

“But Auntie Al picked me up—” Kaylie beetled her brows and then snapped her fingers like she had when she was singing “—Wednesday. That’s when she took me swimming.”

“I know, and now it’s Friday. But I have a boring, grown-up appointment and Auntie Al says she has a craving for pizza and maybe a princess movie. Sound like a good trade-off?”

“Two princess movies. Merida and then Belle, because they are the best princesses ’cept for Princess Amidala.”

Paige laughed. “You’ll have to talk that over when she picks you up, sweetpea. But I do agree with you on the Amidala-Merida-Belle thing.” She glanced at the clock and realized Alison would be there in just a few minutes. She pulled Kaylie’s class papers out of her backpack and ooh’d and ahh’d over her coloring and name-writing skills until Alison poked her head around the corner.

“Sweetpea! You ready for Princess and Pizza Night?” Alison came into the classroom, wearing tapered trousers and a tuxedo blouse with her long red hair wrapped up in a bun. She worked at a local winery in the HR department and always looked put together. Paige looked at her own pencil skirt and cap-sleeved shirt. At least she didn’t have chalk on her butt today.

“Merida and then Belle, Auntie Al.” Kaylie threw her arms around Alison’s hips, hugging her. “And if there’s time, maybe we could find Princess Amidala on Netflix?” She turned her hopeful gaze on Alison, batting her eyes.

Alison laughed and tousled the little girl’s hair. “If you agree to a half-pepperoni half-cheese pizza, I could be persuaded to find an Amidala short.”

Paige put Kaylie’s jacket over her shoulders and strapped her backpack onto her back. “Bedtime is still eight o’clock, even though it’s Friday, okay?” Kaylie nodded. Paige stood. “Thanks for watching her on short notice—again. Twice in one week, I owe you a girl’s night.”

“And you know I’ll collect. So what’s going on?”

Kaylie wandered across the room to the whiteboard on the wall and started drawing.

“I...have this thing.” She hadn’t told Alison about Alex’s surprise visit that week.

Alison raised a brow. “Thing as in D-A-T-E?”

Paige shook her head, crossing her arms at the wrists and then shaking them. “No. Not even close. But not in front of her.” She nodded at Kaylie, making smiley faces with the colored pens on the whiteboard across the room. They moved closer to Paige’s desk and out of Kaylie’s hearing range. “Thing as in D-A-D-D-Y.”

Alison gasped and her expression turned serious. “He called.”

“Nope, showed up on my curb and sat there like a stalker for going on two hours. Wednesday, just before you guys got back from swimming. Mrs. Purcell called me and then put 9-1-1 on notice.”

“Mrs. Purcell. Sweet old biddie.” Alison groaned. “Was he horrible and self-righteous about being a sperm donor?”

“No, he was calm and...normal.”

“Normal is good.”

“Normal might be his act. Especially with my track record.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t talk about yourself like you’re still the sixteen-year-old trying to get Mommy and Daddy to pay attention to you. We all act like fools when we’re kids.”

Paige glanced at Kaylie across the room and lowered her voice. “We don’t all get arrested on prom night for TPing the superintendent’s house.”

“We don’t all wind up with possibly the smartest, sweetest four-year-old, either.” Alison hooked her thumb toward Kaylie, who was drawing lopsided birds over the smiley faces. “Remember, you’re the one with the control here, so don’t sweat it. Tell him about midnight feedings and the upcoming drama over losing her baby teeth. He’ll run back to his home and forget all about you. And her.”

Paige could only hope. And maybe dread. Because what did it say about someone that they didn’t want to get to know a sweet kid like Kaylie? And what did her attraction to someone who could leave a child behind say about her? “I’ll probably make it home before the second movie.”

Alison gathered Kaylie’s things before crossing the room to take her hand and start for the door. “Whatever you need. See ya.” And they disappeared down the hall.

There was nothing left to do but drive to the next town and have coffee with Alex Ryan.

Thirty minutes later, sitting in the parking lot with her hands clenched around the steering wheel of her Honda, Paige decided she was being silly and childish about resolving this situation.

She had to go in.

Paige repeated that to herself twice more but her hands still seemed glued to the wheel, and not because Kaylie had “painted” it with Nutella a few weeks ago. No matter how much Paige scrubbed there was still a sticky feel to the wheel.

Alex’s blue truck was parked five spaces down, between a low-slung convertible and a delivery truck. He was probably inside, waiting.

Paige blew out a breath as she summoned her courage. She peeled her fingers from the wheel and then dropped her keys into her bag. Now go tell him what you expect.

She pushed her long hair behind her ears and started toward the coffee shop. She ordered a half-caff skinny mocha and surveyed the room. Alex sat along the back wall, sipping his own drink. He had a black ball cap on the table, which matched the black tee with the Forestry Service logo over his chest. She could see jeans and hiking boots beneath the table. He must have come straight from work, like her. She smoothed her free hand over her hip and joined him at the table.

“Sorry, I’m a little late—”

He held up a hand, cutting her off. “No problem. It can’t be easy, doing it all on your own. Babysitter problems?”

She nodded. Better he think she was waiting on the babysitter than building up her confidence to see him again. Paige sipped her coffee. “It isn’t easy, not even when you have a partner.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do. I don’t think you understand the kind of unit Kaylie and I are. We don’t need you to take on babysitter duties or chip in for her dance classes.”

“Kids take dance classes at four?” His eyes widened at that. “I always believed stuff like that waited until school started.”

“Some actually start at two, but that isn’t the point. She might have gymnastics lessons, and at some point she’ll probably need braces, or she might fall and break her arm. I’m a teacher, which means I get paid about two dollars an hour by the time you figure base pay against actual hours, but—”

“I never even thought about that,” Alex interrupted. He twisted his mouth to the side. “Of course I can help with tuition or anything else. I have a decent health plan—”

“That isn’t what I meant.” Paige put her fingers to her temples. She was doing this wrong, all wrong. She shook her head. “What I meant was that we don’t need your money. Whatever she wants I can give her. And what she needs isn’t another part-time babysitter.”

“But I’m more than willing to help out, however you need.” He reached to his back pocket, and before he could pull out his wallet and offer her money for her mommy services—which would get him a quick smack on his hands—Paige kept talking.

“What I need is to know you’re not going to disappear on her. And what Kaylie needs, or will need at some point, is a real father. Someone to teach her how to ride a two-wheeler and embarrass her when she goes on her first date. Those are things money can’t buy. Attention can.”

Alex tapped the tips of his fingers against the Formica tabletop. Nice fingers, Paige noticed. She clasped her hands in her lap, not wanting him to see the mess she’d made of her thumbnail throughout the day, worrying over how this night would go.

“Awful” had been her best guess earlier and that was certainly how this felt. Not because of him. He was being perfectly nice, even if he’d been about to offer her a payoff like Mr. Nelson at the clinic. She was the one making a mess of it. Inadvertently insinuating he had to pay to see Kaylie. Throwing the chip she’d been feeling for the past few weeks down on the table. The chip labeled I Can Do This On My Own.

Finally, he sat back against the booth seat, spinning the plastic stirrer over the tabletop. “I don’t have any expectations. And I know I can’t replace you as Kaylie’s anything. You’ve been there since the beginning. I’m the stranger who is biologically related but never so much as watched a younger sibling while my parents ran to the grocery store.”

Paige had looked him up on Google during her free period but all she’d found was his wife’s obituary and his picture on the Forestry Service website from when he was named Ranger of the Year two years before.

“You were an only child?”

Alex nodded.

“Me, too.” So they had one thing in common. Well, other than Kaylie. “All my life my parents have jumped between complete indifference to me and total intrusion in my life. Their priority is what they want—for their lives and for mine. I know the pain she’ll feel if you aren’t willing to invest your time and energy into really getting to know her.” She watched him closely for a moment. His eyes were bright, his hands busy with the stirrer. A vein at his temple was pounding. She didn’t want him to implode the life she’d built but she also couldn’t just send him away. He was at the coffee shop because of a mistake, but he was also Kaylie’s biological father. Paige tried to lighten the mood. “So coffee with the baby mama you never knew. Going well?” She sipped her coffee.

It took a moment but Alex laughed, a hearty sound in the quiet coffee shop. Paige looked around but no one paid any attention to them.

“Since I’ve never had coffee with an unknown baby mama before, I can honestly say I had no expectations. Listen, I told you the other day I just want to meet her. I know that sounds cavalier, like I’m going to give her an ice cream and then stroll away forever. I don’t know how any of this is going to work. We barely know each other—” he waved his hand between them “—and we aren’t friends. I was trying to talk myself out of knocking on your door the other day.”

Paige sat back in her seat. She’d never imagined he would admit he had reservations about meeting their daughter. It wasn’t the victory she’d expected, though. Instead of pumping her fist in a “whoop-whoop” she wanted to shrivel farther against the booth. God, it was like she was manic. Yay! He doesn’t want to meet her! one minute and holding back tears because he didn’t see what a gift Kaylie was the next.

“I kind of thought that.”

“What I realized, just before you stepped out on the porch, is that I can’t not be involved. Can’t walk away. Drive away. I need to know her, as much as you’ll allow. I won’t push, I promise you I won’t.” The promise was there, in his brown eyes. In the tension in his shoulders and his thumb flicking against the stirrer.

“If you’re not pushing yourself into our lives, if you don’t know that you want to have a part in my daughter’s life, just what do you want?” It was the question she’d been dying to ask for two days. The question that had brought on both the nightmare and the silly movie-ending dream.

“I’m not sure.”

At least he was honest. “We can’t be a replacement for the family you lost.” The words were defensive so she gentled her voice. One thing she’d learned as a child was that histrionics didn’t make the point. Solid, calm rationality did. “Fertility treatments are rough on couples. You lost your wife before they could really get started, and I’m sorry about that.” She swallowed. “But no matter what you lost, Kaylie isn’t the replacement part that will fix it.”

“I know that, too.” Alex bent the stirrer and then shoved it through the sip-spout of his coffee lid. “Whatever this is, it isn’t guilt-ridden. I got over my wife’s death a long time ago. I could have gone my whole life without knowing any of this, but I know. I can’t turn back the clock, not on any of it. I can’t forget that I have a daughter. All I’m asking for is a chance to get to know her. If not as her dad maybe as a friend?”

A guy who is a friend. It would be less intimate. Safer for Kaylie, certainly. In Kaylie’s insular world friends stayed around forever, but maybe it would be simpler if they started with the friend card. For Paige, too. Friends had beer after ball games, not caviar by candlelight.

Then, because she didn’t want to give him time to come up with an excuse, “Alison, the friend I mentioned the other day, and I have lunch every Sunday. This week it’s at her house. You could come by. Meet everyone. It’s informal. No pressure, and it’s a familiar place for Kaylie.”

Plus, it was less than forty-eight hours away. If this man wanted a relationship with Kaylie, he would cancel whatever plans he had. And if he didn’t...better to understand his priorities now than later.

“Sunday.” Alex crushed the empty coffee cup in his hands. “What time should I be there?”

CHAPTER FOUR

“I CAN’T BELIEVE you invited him,” Alison hissed through her teeth as she picked up the bowl of potato salad and pushed open the back door with her hip.

Paige followed her onto the covered deck of the bungalow with a plate of condiments in one hand and a pitcher of sweet tea in the other. They started the tradition of Sunday dinners, switching between Paige’s home and Alison’s, after college. Sometimes friends stopped in. If Alison happened to be dating someone, he might stop by. Her parents were regulars since Kaylie was born, but they wouldn’t be here today. One hurdle at a time, she decided, and Kaylie meeting Alex for the first time was a big enough hurdle.

“Scratch that, I can’t believe he showed up. From everything you said.”

Alex sat under Alison’s maple tree with his large, muscled friend Tucker. It had seemed like an easy thing to invite him to the barbecue, a good way for him to meet Kaylie with few expectations and zero pressure on the little girl. Now that he was here, though, it was a different thing altogether. Because even though he seemed oblivious to the women on the porch and even though he wasn’t pushing himself at Kaylie, he was there. Making her feel itchy and self-conscious. “I didn’t say anything.”

“And that was my point. When things are going well you talk, when things get hairy you clam up. It’s been your MO since we were kids.” Alison set the food bowls on the table and brushed her hands together. “So when you didn’t give me a breakdown Friday and when you didn’t say anything yesterday other than that you’d invited him, I figured the chances were slim he’d show.”

“I tell you everything.” Having brought out the condiments and tea, Paige knew there was nothing left inside until the chicken was ready, so she sat on Alison’s bench.

Alison rearranged the bowls of food on the table as she was no doubt arranging her next words. “You tell me about things when you’ve already made your decision. And that’s cool. I’m the friend, the supporter. The cheerleader. Not your priest or your mother.”

Huh. Paige had never realized it, but Alison’s words rang true. She did like to have her ducks in a row, so to speak, before telling anyone about her plans. Probably because if she didn’t have logical, intelligent arguments for everything from a new bike to a new hairstyle as a child her parents automatically shot her down.

Had she done that this time?

“I never realized before now that I did that.” Paige popped an ice cube into her mouth and then put her glass back on the table. “And I know. I was going to be strong. I was going to shut him down and insist that Kaylie and I were fine on our own.” She picked her glass back up and rolled it between her hands. “I had this hope in the back of my mind that maybe he only wanted to make sure we wouldn’t file for custodial support. But he isn’t going away. He has a right to know Kaylie.”

“He does. And you have the right to monitor those visits until you’re certain where he’s coming from.”

“Park Hills,” Paige said automatically. “I know, that’s not what you were really asking. He’s from Park Hills, works as a park ranger and lost his wife to cancer just before Kaylie was born. And if this isn’t a supervised visit, I don’t know what is.”

“True enough. And the cute friend?” Alison indicated Alex’s mountain of a friend sitting beside him under the tree. She flipped her head upside down, gathered her long red hair into her palm, grabbed the ball cap from the handrail and then slid her hair through the back opening. She waved a hand in her face. “Lord, it’s hot out here for October. Seriously, what do you know about the friend?”

“You’re terrible. My life is in turmoil and you’re thinking about your next date?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed we’ve got two of the hottest men in St. Francois County in my backyard.” Alison clucked her tongue.

Kaylie squealed from the swing set in the neighbor’s yard, rescuing Paige from answering. Kaylie squealed again and Paige fisted her hands but managed not to run screaming into the other yard to protect her daughter from the swings. Kids played on swings every day, she reminded herself, and only rarely did they get hurt. Alex looked like he might run into the yard, too.

Helicopter parents, we’re two helicopter parents in the making. For the past four years it was only her making sure Kaylie was safe in her crib, graduated from bottles to veggies, and didn’t get an infection from a skinned knee. A small piece of her heart was glad she wasn’t the only person watching over Kaylie now.

“I checked him out. He is who he says he is. He isn’t crazy or an alcoholic and he doesn’t have gambling debts.” She took a fortifying breath. “I know my track record isn’t great, but you have to admit most of the mistakes I dated were solely to get my parents’ attention. But that is beside the point because we aren’t dating. Not now and not ever. He’s Kaylie’s father and will eventually be my coparent. End of story.” Definitely, definitely the end of the story.

“Well, he is quite dishy. And your Google search didn’t return any obvious red flags.” Alison sat back in her chair and folded her arms over her ample chest. She inspected the men in the yard as if they were paintings at an auction. “If you were actually in the market...”

“Which I’m not.” Paige shrugged as if she hadn’t spent most of the past three days remembering how the man looked in jeans and a fitted tee. Or wondering what he might look like in baseball pinstripes.

“For my money, though, Tall, Dark and Handsome Friend wins in the looks department.”

“They aren’t unattractive.” Paige managed to say the words without her voice going into breathless territory but she couldn’t bring herself to look Alison in the eye. The guys in the yard drew her attention again as they sat back in the lawn chairs listening to the Rams game on the radio.

“Pu-lease, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Alex has a smile like a Hollywood star. Or that his body is taut without going over into veiny-muscle territory.” Alison picked up her tea and drank. “And his voice is like sex on a stick.”

Paige sputtered iced tea across the table. “Sex on a stick? What does that even mean?”

Alison waggled her eyebrows. “You know what I mean, and don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

“Did you spike the tea?” Alison shook her head. Paige mopped up the drops on the table, refusing to look her friend in the eye. “I didn’t notice,” she managed in an almost steady voice. “And my point was that he isn’t a loser who donated his sperm and is now looking for some kind of validation. He doesn’t have any dreaded diseases that might have been passed on to Kaylie. He’s a normal guy who has been through a rough few years and had a kid dropped in his lap.”

“Oh, no.” Alison’s voice dropped lower.

“What?” Paige blinked.

“You like him. Like, like him, like him.”

The timer went off in the kitchen, saving Paige from having to answer Alison’s statement but still she muttered, “I don’t like him, like him.”

Alison disappeared into the kitchen to finish barbecue prep and Paige turned back to the yard. Being grateful he wasn’t a serial killer wasn’t the same as liking him. Thinking he might be a good friend for Kaylie wasn’t the same as thinking he’d make a good boyfriend. He seemed to be as nervous as she about dropping all this on Kaylie. Points for him. He had a steady job. More points. He looked good in Levi’s. Extra bonus points.

Not that she’d really been looking.

He had a seemingly normal friend, which added to his points total. And slight overprotective streak aside, if Alison were truly worried about his motives she’d have given him her version of the Spanish Inquisition at the door and never let him set foot inside.

Then there was her private conviction that Alex Ryan was more than a commitment-phobe who would look for any reason to disappear.

Kaylie moved on to the sandbox, drawing her attention, and ran a toy truck over the wooden sides. Just a normal Sunday afternoon. Well, other than the incredibly distracting man sitting under the tree. He hadn’t pushed himself at Kaylie, which was a relief. Her daughter liked everyone she met, but like many toddlers she needed time to warm up to most of them.

Paige watched him for a long moment as he listened to the ball game. Black baseball cap covering his tawny hair, tee stretched across his broad chest, faded blue cargo shorts that were slightly tight in all the right places. His eyes were a deep brown that seemed to turn to gold when the light hit them just right. He crossed his ankle over his knee and held the longneck bottle by his fingertips beside him.

It just wasn’t fair for a man to have the tawny eyes and the tawny hair, not to mention the thick eyelashes and that little scar at the corner of his mouth that seemed to wink when he smiled.

His friend said something and his laugh cracked across the backyard, sending the butterflies in her belly into overdrive. It was a good laugh. A solid, confident laugh.

He turned and his intense gaze settled on her, pushing the butterflies to full-on panic mode. Alex smiled and tipped the bottle toward her before taking a drink. He turned his gaze back to his friend Tucker, but Paige had the unsettling feeling his focus was still on the deck.

On her.

It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Made her sit a little straighter in her chair. Cross her legs.

God. She was not, repeat not, interested in the man as a...

Shoot. Yes, she was.

She needed to cap that feeling the way she capped the tubes of paint in her studio: tightly. Not just for her own sanity, either. Alison wasn’t wrong about Paige’s past romances.

She sighed. Men who either couldn’t or wouldn’t treat her as anything more than an accessory. Something to put on and take off as the mood suited them.

Paige never doubted her decision to have Kaylie as a single parent.

Not until the gorgeous man sitting under her best friend’s tree had shown up on her doorstep. Well, curb.

Please, don’t let him treat Kaylie like an accessory.

Alex pointed and Paige looked in that direction in time to see Kaylie climb up the rungs of the ladder and hurl herself toward the metal trapeze frame hanging from one end of the swing set. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment that seemed to take too long. Kaylie sailed through the short space, tawny hair flying behind her, until her little hands caught the bottom rung and held fast. Her legs swung once more, twice.

Kaylie giggled as the trapeze swung crazily to the side. And then she fell, hard, down to the ground.

Paige was out of her chair like a shot and so was Alex. They started toward Kaylie but she got up, dusted off her rump and turned toward the house.

“Didja see me, Mama? I flew! I really flew!” She high-fived herself. “Good job, Kaylie, good job!” An enormous grin split her face and she turned to the ladder. “I’m’a go again. Watch this time,” she ordered.

Paige stopped short of the swing set, Alex beside her, and watched as Kaylie climbed back up the four-rung ladder. She settled her feet, holding on to the sides of the swing set as she twisted her mouth to the side and looked intently at the barely moving trapeze.

“She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.” Paige whispered the words like a prayer. “Be okay. It’s only three feet off the ground. Be okay.”

Alex joined in, his deep, whispering voice combining with hers in the she’ll-be-okay chant.

Finally, Kaylie pushed off the step and jumped toward the trapeze once more. Her hands slipped and she tumbled to the soft earth beneath the swings.

“Oh, no,” Paige said, stepping forward. But Alex’s hand on her wrist stopped her.

“Wait.”

Who was he to tell her to wait? She couldn’t wait. Her baby just fell three feet to the hard ground.

Kaylie stood up again, dusted off her behind and shoved her hair away from her face. She looked up at the trapeze as if it betrayed her and then stomped away from the swing set toward them. She beetled her brows, mumbling to herself and looking back to the swings.

Paige caught her daughter in her arms. “You okay, baby?”

“It wasn’t supposed to move.”

“What wasn’t supposed to move?” Alex knelt beside them in the grass.

“The hand swinger. It was s’posed to stay still.” She wriggled out of Paige’s too-tight grasp. “I told it I’d come back later but only if it promises to stay still.” Kaylie shot another glance toward the trapeze, swinging lightly in the breeze. “Only if it stays still,” she enunciated each word in her angry, four-year-old voice and continued to Alison’s deck. “I need juice,” she called and pushed open the sliding glass door to the kitchen.

Paige put her hand to her heart. “She’s okay. I thought I might have lost about a year off my life there for a second.”

Alex chuckled beside her. “If you lost one, I think I lost five.” He angled his head toward the deck. “Can I buy you a glass of tea for your nerves?” he joked.

Paige shook her head. “I need more than tea after that.”

“Anything for Supergirl’s mom.”

“Princess Amidala, thank you very much.”

Alex put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. Paige couldn’t resist a lean-in, just for a second. A hint of sandalwood that she recognized as him tickled her nose and she forced herself away before she could turn her head into his chest and take a deep breath. They weren’t friends, not yet. And even if they became friends, that was all this could be. She wouldn’t jeopardize Kaylie’s relationship with her father by starting her own relationship with the man. Alex’s next words made her squeeze her eyes closed to repeat that promise to herself once more. Twice.

“And she’s way more than okay. She’s just about perfect.”

Still, his words echoed in her mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I FORGOT TO call them.” Alison closed the sliding door softly behind her, apology written all over her face. “And it was such a perfect excuse, too.”

“They’re here?” Paige took a step away from Alex, who was suddenly way too close for comfort. The butterflies took up residence in her belly again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

Her parents stepped through the door holding hands with Kaylie, who was chattering about her leap to the trapeze.

Angry with her choice at first, Hank and Dot Kenner were trying to build a solid relationship with Kaylie. They came to the Sunday barbecues, school events and birthday parties. Conversations centered around Kaylie, and most of the time Paige could forget that for the first twenty-four years of her life they were either absent or controlling her every move.

They were trying with Kaylie, Paige reminded herself, and that meant something.

Hank was tall and overdressed for a backyard barbecue, but then when was he not? Even during summer break from the university in St. Louis he wore the same checked shirts, bow ties and tweed sport coats that he wore to teach constitutional law to second-year candidates. Paige’s mother, Dot, wore a geometric print dress with deep reds and oranges as the base colors. She focused her attention on Kaylie as she told the story of her leap from the swings. Afterward, Dot turned an accusing gaze toward Paige, who forced herself to unclench her hands.

“You let this child jump from a swing set to a trapeze?” She said the words as if Kaylie had been BASE jumping from the St. Louis Arch without a parachute.

Paige indicated the small swing set in the next yard. “No broken bones. Kids jump—”

Dot interrupted, gripping Kaylie’s little hand tighter. “She could have—” her gaze dropped to Kaylie “—B-R-O-K-E-N her neck.” She spelled out the offending word.

Kaylie squinted her eyes at her grandmother. “B is for bat. And ball. And bunches of grapes,” she said, pulling her hand from Dot’s grasp. She plucked her juice cup from Dot’s other hand and wandered off, chattering about more B words. “And bear. And bling. And br-r-ring me a cookie,” she said, giggling at herself.

Paige watched as Kaylie climbed onto one of the lawn chairs, crossed her legs at the ankle and sipped her drink. She really was the best kid.

“She didn’t break anything, Mother,” Paige said, keeping her voice calm. Level.

“It was irresponsible.”

“It was childhood,” Paige insisted despite the fact she’d had nearly the same reaction as her mother when Kaylie was midflight. But thinking something was different from wrapping her daughter up in bubble wrap for the next five years or insisting that she never swing or climb on a jungle gym.

“Okay, well, we have barbecue chicken coming from the oven in just a few minutes. I’ll just run inside and grab a few extra place settings. Mr. and Mrs. Kenner, can I get you something to drink?” Alison said, in an attempt to ease the tension between Paige and her parents. Paige sent her a thankful glance. Alison had been caught between them for nearly as long as Paige could remember. Hank and Dot waved off the offer of drinks, but Alison kept going toward the sliding glass door. “You’ll help me, won’t you, Joe?” She looked at Tuck, who was drinking the last of his beer.

“Joe?” she said again. Tuck’s blue eyes widened in surprise when he realized Alison was talking about him. “Could you help me in the kitchen, sweetie?”

“Ah, sure, sweetie.” He straightened his six-foot-plus frame from the deck post.

The two of them disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Paige with her parents and Alex.

There was just no way to explain to Dot and Hank who Alex was without ruining Paige’s plans. Paige’s actions frequently met with disapproval from her parents. When Paige first decided to use a fertility clinic, they’d told her she would make her child abnormal. Their opinion had gradually softened as Kaylie stole their hearts, but Paige still saw flickers of condemnation in their eyes from time to time.

She was not telling her parents exactly who Alex was. Not now. Not when her mother was working her way up to a full-blown migraine after less than five minutes. Alex deserved better than a full-on Dot Meltdown.

Alex cleared his throat behind her and she realized she was standing between him and her parents like some kind of guardian. Maybe she was. Hank and Dot might be doing a good job with grandparenting, but they were anything but picture-perfect parents.

Paige motioned from Alex to her parents and back again. “Hank and Dot Kenner, this is Alex Ryan. He’s a—”

“Friend,” Alex interrupted before Paige had the chance to say anything else. Which was good because her mind blanked when she realized she had no idea how to introduce him. “Uh, Joe and I can’t resist good barbecue.”

Dot grabbed Paige’s upper arm and turned her away from Alex. “You’re on a date with Kaylie ten feet away?” Dot faux-whispered the words, as if Alex might be deaf as well as gorgeous.

“Yes, Mother, and we were thinking about going inside to do the dance with no pants—” she used her mother’s least favorite sex slang despite feeling like a rebellious child for doing so “—and leaving Kaylie listening to the football game—so it’s a good thing you’re here to help out.” Paige pulled her arm from her mother’s grasp. “Of course we’re not on a date. He’s a friend. You know, a person with whom you talk and play on softball leagues with, and have barbecues.”

“You play sports?” Her mother seemed dumbfounded by the idea. True to form, though, Hank was already bored of the conversation. He made his way to a chair at the head of the table and sat, hands folded in his lap, thumbs twiddling.

Paige sighed. “It’s just part of the definition, Mom.”

“Although I do play in a rec softball league during the summer,” Alex added.

“You don’t have to be sarcastic,” Dot said, ignoring Alex completely. She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I just never know with you, Paige.”

Yep, full-blown migraine would be hitting any moment. Paige tried not to feel bad that she had caused her mother pain—again—but couldn’t. She gently took Dot’s hand and led her to a cushioned chair in the deep shade.

“I’ll get you a cold cloth for your head, Mother. I’m sorry.” She motioned Alex to follow her inside. “I’m sorry.” She whispered the words as soon as they were inside.

“For what?”

“I—” Paige wasn’t sure what to say first. Sorry for not knowing what to call him? Sorry for that silly argument with her mother? Sorry she’d invited him here altogether? All of the above seemed like a good bet at this point.

“We all have crazy people in our families,” he said and bumped his shoulder against hers. The tingle returned with a vengeance. “Your craziness is just a little closer than most.”

Paige twisted her mouth to the side. She pulled a washcloth from a drawer and wet it in the sink. Alison and Tuck returned to the room, faces slightly red. “Where have you been?”

“I, um—”

“Alison needed some help in the, ah, basement,” Tuck said helpfully.

“Alison doesn’t have a basement.” Paige wrung out the cloth before focusing on her friend. “You’re the troubleshooter, remember? You keep me from saying stupid things to my parents and in return I buy you wine.”

“She didn’t take Kaylie’s Flying Wallendas act well, did she?”

Paige shook her head and then shot Alison a wicked smile. “On the other hand she thinks you’re dating Joe here, so there’s plenty of fun dinner conversation in store for you. With the added benefit of her calling your mother once they’re home.”

“You didn’t!” Alison’s eyes widened to quarter size.

“Nope, she totally inferred it.”

“You let her.” Alison put her hands on her hips. “And after I cooked your favorite chicken for lunch.”

“I couldn’t let her think I was dating Alex, could I?”

“Uh, ladies, we kind of like being talked about, but not when we’re actually in the room.” Tuck spoke up from the kitchen counter. “And if we’re dating, Alison, you should probably know my name isn’t Joe. It’s Tucker.”

Alison blushed a bright red that clashed completely with her auburn hair. Tuck grinned at her and wrapped a strand around his finger.

“But you can call me Tuck.”

“Back to the issue at hand.” Alex spoke up from the doorway, where his gaze shot from the people on the porch to the little girl in the yard. “What do we tell them about me?”

“Nothing,” Paige finally said after weighing her words. “You’re a friend here for a barbecue. That’s all anyone needs to know.”

* * *

THE PANICKED LOOK on Paige’s face made Alex want to march out onto the deck to order Hank and Dot to stop treating their daughter as if she were five, or an unwanted annoyance. But that wouldn’t solve anything. He’d never gotten to fix the strained relationship he’d had with his parents because they’d died in a car accident when he was in college. Then Deanna had come along with her boisterous family and a home filled with love and encouragement. Knowing her family helped him make peace about his own.

Alex had no idea how to give the same peace to Paige and that made his stomach clench in a weird way.

Why did he want to tell them anything? Part of him wanted to scream from the rooftop that he was Kaylie’s father. Watching her in the backyard had been a treat and after only an hour, she had already wound her way into his cold heart. But part of him wanted to keep his relationship with Kaylie a secret. Let it grow naturally without any preconceived notions or ideas. He had a feeling that if Hank and Dot knew he was Kaylie’s father, Kaylie would also know before the day was out. He didn’t have to have read a million parenting books to know this was not the way to spring a new relationship on a kid. Although he had read one. A long one Dee had picked out before she got sick; the author insisted children needed structure, unconditional love and encouragement. Mostly structure and authority, though. Nowhere did the book say a child’s sperm donor should swoop into her life acting like Daddy Dearest within a thirty-minute time span.

“So we’re just friends, for now, and leave the dating to Joe and Alison over there,” he finally said. “Works for me.”

Alex was tasked with carrying the additional place settings to the table while Tuck was given chicken duty. Paige and Alison filled glasses while Hank and Dot ignored the goings-on entirely. He might not have a romantic relationship with Paige, but he wanted to kick her parents in the shins to make them straighten up.

From what he could see Paige was the perfect daughter. He’d done some checking and learned she volunteered making receiving blankets for a charity hospital in St. Louis. She was a teacher and she was raising an amazing kid! How could her parents not see all the wonderful things about her?

She brushed against him as she took the last of the glasses to the table and a hot zing of pleasure rocketed from the light contact at his shoulder to his groin.

Eventually his body would get the message that his brain already knew: Paige was the mother of his child. She might become his friend. She was not going to be his girlfriend.

The table was quiet as they passed plates of food around.

“My friend at the gallery wants to know when you might have another piece for him,” Dot said, her gaze intent on Paige. “There is a big show for local artists coming up at the end of the month, you know.”

Paige took a bite of her salad and chewed slowly. “I’m focused on school during the year, you know that. My students need all of my attention.”

“Paige, these offers aren’t made lightly, dear, and they won’t be made for long if you keep turning them all down.”

“Is the painting in your living room for school?” Alex interrupted, sensing Dot was about to go on a tangent. “The white daisy?”

She shook her head. “That one is for Kaylie, actually. She wanted something pretty in her room. Didn’t you?”

Kaylie nodded, her wavy hair bouncing around her shoulders. “I wanted something warm so when the snow comes after Christmas my room won’t be so cold.”

“The painting was beautiful. I don’t know a lot about art, but I liked it.” He had. It wasn’t finished and he’d only caught a glimpse but the pretty garden in the painting reminded him of Paige. Her home. Herself. Pretty and interesting.

“Thank you.” She mouthed the words across the table and Alex lifted his shoulder. Paige grinned and finished her salad.

“So you are painting, then?” Dot was like a dog with a bone and Paige rolled her shoulders, as if relieving tension. He could only imagine how her mother’s nagging affected her but ordered himself to focus on the chicken, not the woman. “You have the chance to really make something of yourself, Paige. Teaching painting to uneducated children who don’t understand Impressionism much less the Renaissance isn’t using the talents you were blessed with—”

* * *

“I LIKE MY JOB, MOTHER,” Paige interrupted before her mother could really get going. This was the same argument they’d been having since before Kaylie was born, and unlike when she was a child, Paige didn’t need her parent telling her she was wasting her talents. As much as she liked painting she was no van Gogh. Besides, she liked teaching, and she had told her mother so. For the millionth time. “I like educating the children about art history, and I can see how their work changes with that knowledge throughout the year. Some of them are really good.”

“But, sweetheart—”

“Mommy’s paintings are the best in the school. I seen them in the library.” Kaylie enunciated the last word. She had barbecue sauce all over her face and she turned a megawatt smile to Paige. Dot shot an annoyed look at Kaylie.

Alison scraped her chair back. “Who wants dessert? I know I’d love some chocolate cake.” She looked around the table at the still-half-full plates. “Okay, chocolate cake it is. Kaylie, why don’t you help me cut a few slices?” She held out her hand and Kaylie jumped up from the table.

“Can we cut them in shapes?”

“Sure, kiddo,” Alison said as she slid the glass doors open. “We’ll make cutout cake slices.”

Their voices trailed off as she slid the door closed behind them. She refused to have the rest of this conversation before virtual strangers so Paige turned to the other side of the table.

“Tuck, Alex, could you give us a few minutes?” Paige asked and waited until the men closed the door.

“It’s nice, dear, that you enjoy the school work,” said Dot, a patronizing note in her voice that was the opposite of the slightly uncomfortable expression on her face. She seemed to bite her tongue for a moment.

“I like my job, Mother—”

Dot cut her off. “But the fact remains that your talent is above decorating school libraries or a child’s bedroom. We only want what’s best for you.” She pressed her fingers to her temple again. “So stressful, wanting the best for children who don’t listen. Hank?”

He nodded and stood, not saying a word.

“Think about what I said, dear. Your work could be hanging in a real gallery if you would only apply yourself.”

Paige didn’t trust herself to reply with the calm she’d perfected over the past few years. So she focused her attention on gathering the plates left at the table. A few minutes later, Dot and Hank were gone. The door slid open.

“And I thought my parents were disappointed when I decided to hike for a living,” Tuck said. His flippant words had the desired effect. The ice chilling the backyard thawed and talk turned to football and Alison’s work at a local winery.

Kaylie skipped onto the deck and finished her juice before running back to the swing set, certain the trapeze was ready for her this time. Alison gathered two serving bowls and started for the kitchen; Tuck followed with the platters of chicken, leaving Paige and Alex alone on the porch.

“I really did think your painting was good.”

“Thanks.” Her word was a whisper, and when she caught sympathy in his gaze she knew a hint of pain still shone through her green eyes. “I’m sorry about that. Alison was supposed to call them to cancel but she forgot.” Paige tossed her napkin on her plate. “I should have been the one to call, but somehow they can still make me feel so small.” She folded her arms over her chest.

“I’ve seen worse.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“I changed my major from accounting to natural sciences my sophomore year. My dad was an accountant. His dad. My mother’s brother. My parents thought I was turning into a hippie or something.”

“Really?” Paige finally looked at him. Alex nodded. “I keep telling myself I won’t do that to Kaylie. I want to be her support, her encouragement. Not a stumbling block to her happiness.”

“Then you will be.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“You’re doing a great job, from what I’ve seen, so far.”

Paige felt herself glow at the compliment. “Thank you.”

Alex shrugged. He was quiet for a long moment, watching the little girl across the yard. He could see this becoming a normal part of his life. He’d always wanted family, kids. And, yeah, he thought that was over when Dee died, but maybe...

Kaylie climbed to the top of the ladder and squinted her eyes at the trapeze swinging lightly in the breeze.

Alex held his breath when she flexed her knees, still studying the handrail. Then she reached forward and jumped. Caught the handle, swung forward and back a few times, giggling madly across the yard. When the trapeze slowed, she dropped to the ground and circled back to the ladder.

“Good job, sweetpea,” Paige called across the yard, clapping for the little girl.

Paige was right. The two of them were a unit. They didn’t need him, not the way he suddenly seemed to need them.

“Would you like to go to dinner sometime? Just us?” The words escaped before he could pull them back. Paige turned, green eyes wide. She swallowed and put her hand to her throat.

“Why? What?” Paige asked, her voice unsteady.

Even if he could, Alex didn’t want to take the words back. He wanted more days like this one.

Maybe Paige and Kaylie were his second chance. Different from what he’d imagined, but second chances didn’t come along every day.

Maybe moving fast was worth the risk. So he repeated himself.

“Do you want to go to dinner sometime? Just the two of us?”

CHAPTER SIX

PAIGE REACHED FOR her glass, took a slow sip of tea. Have dinner?

No, that was a bad idea, with a capital B and I for emphasis.

They were supposed to keep this friendly, get to know one another.

Still, her heart had leaped in her chest at his words, and she knew they were so much more than friendly.

Her reaction was similar to the ones she’d had toward her crushes in high school. The flying feeling that accompanied her wild trip to Texas over spring break; the excitement at seeing how her father’s face practically glowed when he learned she was dating one of his students. Every single one of those situations had ended with a loud implosion and weeks of Paige picking herself up and putting herself back together.

Dinner was an exceptionally bad idea.

She finished her glass and, because her hands wanted to fidget, she set the glass away from her and then folded them primly in her lap. Squeezed her fingers until her knuckles turned white as a reminder to remain calm. Poised. Fidgeting was a sign of weakness according to Dot; weakness was not tolerated.

“Are you asking me out on a date?” She wished the words back but it was too late.

Alex slipped his finger around the middle of his glass, making a gap in the condensation on the outside. “Yeah, I am.”

Paige looked through the sliding glass doors, but Alison was nowhere to be seen. For that matter neither was Tuck, and Kaylie was across the yard at the sandbox, having given up on swinging from the trapeze. No one to come to her rescue. No one to interrupt what was going to be a very uncomfortable conversation.

She cleared her throat. “Why?”

“Because you interest me. No one has interested me in...well, a long time.” He squinted as he looked into the bright afternoon sunshine. “I want to get to know you. Dinner seems like a good option.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We barely know each other.”

“That’s how dating usually starts—with two people who don’t really know each other but who want to get to know one another.” He finished his tea. “I think it would be good if I knew Kaylie’s mom a little better.”

Kaylie was the perfect excuse to turn him down, Paige decided. “I don’t date, not really. I especially don’t date men who have a connection to my daughter. She’s just a little girl, she can’t understand the emotions that go into dating—or stopping dating, for that matter.”

“It’s only dinner. A chance for me to get to know Paige, not just Kaylie’s mom. A chance for you to understand Alex rather than the anonymous number on the sperm-donor sheet.”

“We did that already. Coffee last Friday, remember? You know I’m a schoolteacher, I know you’re a park ranger and we’ve already agreed that you’ll start out as Kaylie’s friend before we move to the more serious stuff.” She had to remain firm on this. For Kaylie.

Maybe a little bit for herself. Because look how interested she was in him now and she’d only known him for a few days.

“One coffee date, and we never touched on your actual art. Your plans for the future. Mine, for that matter.” Alex pushed away from the table. “I like what I know of Paige-the-Woman. I’d like to get to know more about her.”

Oh, so dangerous. Getting to know the real Paige. Would that be the Paige who helped to plastic-wrap the police cruiser the night of the big ice storm? Or would that be the Paige who scored exceptionally high on her SATs only to choose art school over an Ivy League education?

Or maybe he’d like to know the Paige who used men as a means of getting her parents’ attention. She’d been living down Fun Paige’s reputation for almost five years, since the night she broke things off with the law student and decided to change the direction of her life.

Most people didn’t mention all the hell she’d raised as a kid. Most of them, even Mrs. Purcell, welcomed her back to the quiet community in the Missouri countryside just before Kaylie was born. She was grateful for the welcome. For their acceptance of her and of Kaylie. She would not jeopardize any of that for a date with Alex Ryan.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want Alex to live down her reputation. But she didn’t want to see his face when he learned the kind of person she used to be. That she apparently still was, because the voice in her head telling her to go out on a date with Alex was Fun Paige. The Paige who acted first and thought about the consequences later. The Paige she’d promised herself she wouldn’t be when she had her own family.

She couldn’t afford to be that woman, not again.

Paige loosened her hands in her lap. It wasn’t even that she thought her reputation would smear Alex’s.

The problem was she didn’t want him to know, period. She liked knowing that when he looked at her he only saw the woman she was now. There was no shadow of the girl she used to be. No past for him to dredge up and use against her. For Alex there was only Paige-the-Mom or Paige-the-Teacher.

She wanted to keep it that way.

It was smarter that way. Smarter for her. Definitely smarter for Kaylie.

This was not the time to act impulsively but to come up with a plan and stick to that exact path.

Having a path and a plan was absolutely smarter.

Why did she keep repeating that to herself?

Paige tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked anywhere but at Alex, who leaned against the deck railing, feet crossed at the ankle, thumbs tucked into his back pockets. T-shirt taut over what had to be the best-looking set of pecs she had yet to see.

Nope, she was definitely not looking at him.

She had a plan: let Alex be Kaylie’s friend, watch him like a hawk—not in that way, in a motherly way—and assign him to the “friends without benefits” category she assigned nearly every man she knew.

“Paige-the-Woman stays up too late, hates washing her car and is probably a little too indulgent with her daughter.” She picked up Kaylie’s plate, still filled with veggies but with barely a smear of barbecue sauce left, and gestured at it for emphasis. “This is about Kaylie, remember? Getting to know her, building a relationship with her.”

“I’m not sure getting to know Kaylie precludes getting to know you. And, if you’re worried about veggie intake, you could always make vegetables a game.”

Paige laughed. “You read a parenting book, didn’t you?”

Alex blushed, which made Paige giggle harder. He was cute when he blushed. And he crinkled his nose when he laughed along with her.

“I might have read one, but it had some good ideas.” He followed her into the kitchen, carrying their empty glasses in his big hands. “You know, count the stalks of broccoli as the kid puts them in her mouth—”

“And wait for her to throw them up when she can’t chew all seven at once?”

“Okay, that might work better on peas. But there’s always the reward system.”

Paige rinsed the plates, holding in the urge to shake her head or dissolve into another laughing fit. Alex didn’t deserve that. He was trying. And parenting books weren’t bad, per se, it was more that living with a toddler in the real world meant being a little more creative. “So you’d have me bribe my daughter with M&M’s or a video game each time she eats her vegetables?”

“Reward, there’s a difference.”

“Tomato, to-mah-to.” She finished rinsing the dishes and stacked them in Alison’s dishwasher. “So, Kaylie eats her vegetables because she gets chocolate or something as a reward. To get her to finish her homework—”

“She has homework in preschool?” Alex asked incredulously.

“In theory.” Paige scrunched her brows together. What was her point again? Right, the reward system. “To get her to put her dirty clothes in the hamper—better reference?”

He nodded and motioned for her to continue.

“—the reward is an extra fifteen minutes of television, and then she expects that same return with everything. But life isn’t like that. We don’t all get the fluffy unicorn at the checkout counter just because we put strawberries and apples in our shopping cart rather than chocolate-chip cookies and potato chips.”

“She’s only four, and it’s only a way to get her to try something new.”

“And then she’s fourteen and then twenty-four, and then she’s still living at home when she’s thirty-four because she’s never learned that there are things you do—like hold down a job and pay rent and buy groceries—even though you don’t like those things.” Paige huffed out a breath. “I’m not saying I have meaningful conversations about the benefits of vegetable consumption every night after dinner, and I have wavered when we’re in the grocery store and she won’t be quiet about a new package of cookies. But you’re the new person. You have to be careful or she’ll figure out the reward system starts and stops with you.”

Alex scowled and then his expression softened. “I didn’t think of it like that. I just read the book and it made sense.”

“The books always make sense until you’re in the middle of a meltdown because your child was good walking through the aisles and wants one of those little plastic dolls at the checkout. And you say no.” Paige shrugged. “Sometimes ‘eat your vegetables’ or ‘no’ or ‘don’t pick your nose’ just have to be enough.”

“And she’ll eat her vegetables when she’s ready?”

Paige nodded. “Or I’ll make her a smoothie later with all her least favorite veggies juiced into it.”

“Sneaky.”

She pointed her thumb at her chest. “Mom. There’s a difference.”

“So about dinner—”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Alex cocked an eyebrow and that smooth smile spread across his face, pulling the scar at his mouth until it disappeared. “If you have dinner with me I’ll wash your car.”

Paige laughed. “I already told you the reward method doesn’t work.” But she was tempted. Oh so tempted, and that was definitely a bad thing. Temptation had a way of wrecking her life.

“You said it doesn’t work on four-year-olds. You’re not four.”

This time Paige blushed. The intimate tone of Alex’s voice and the dark look that came into his eyes when he said the words were too much. Too interested.

Too daring.

He reached his hand toward her face and Paige backed up, her hip hitting the corner of the counter.

“No, I’m not four and—”

A crash from the pantry interrupted Paige’s train of thought. She hurried across the kitchen, pulled open the door and gasped.

Alison and Tuck were wrapped around each other, kissing. Her hands were under his shirt, her ball cap on the floor and his hands forked through her thick, auburn hair. A couple of soup cans fell from the shelf when Tuck backed Alison up another step, joining the collection of canned green beans and packages of dried pasta already on the floor.

Alison opened her eyes and pushed against Tuck’s broad shoulders.

“Um, hi,” she said, putting an inch of space between them. “We were, uh...”

“Checking the expiration dates?” Alex’s voice was filled with laughter at the twin expressions of embarrassment on Alison’s and Tuck’s faces. “Having a little dessert?”

Tuck took Alison’s hand and led her into the kitchen. “Getting to know one another better,” he said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Paige had seen plenty of kisses and she had talked about the dirty details of even more, most of the time with Alison. Something about this kiss was different. Maybe because Alex seemed to want to test the boundaries they’d agreed on just a couple of days before. Seeing Alison wrapped around the handsome ranger tied Paige’s stomach into a knot. Made her clench her hands and take another step away from Alex.

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