Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

I’ll get a hundred if I have to. Because I’m his father, dammit. I’m his father. He has to know that. He has to be able to hold the proof of that in his hand!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Three days later, Kendra called “Come in” to a perfunctory knock on her back door, and braced herself.

She’d seen the strange car pull up beside the pickup Luke had parked in her drive while he worked on the fence. She’d suspected, but she hadn’t known for certain until he got out of the car, that the driver was Daniel.

She hadn’t seen him or talked to him since their confrontation at the newspaper office, and now her heart gave a jolt at the sight of him, wearing old jeans, work boots and a flannel shirt.

“Hello, Daniel,” she made herself say in a coolly neutral tone.

He stopped just inside the door.

“Kendra.”

“Matthew’s asleep.”

“I figured he would be. I have some things to tell you.”

“I’m working, as you can see.” She tipped her head toward the table, where she’d spread Marti’s research for the supplement’s article about old Fort Big Horn. “Nap time is one of my few uninterrupted times–usually uninterrupted,” she amended pointedly.

“This won’t take long. These are for you.”

He pulled a sheaf of papers from the back pocket of his jeans and planted them on the counter near her hand. They were slightly curved, molded by his body.

She started to reach for them, then halted. Molded by his body–and warmed by it as well? She dropped her hand to her side.

When she didn’t take the papers, he picked up the top one.

“I turned in my rental and bought a car. This is a copy of the certificate that a car seat has been properly installed.”

He dropped that to the counter, starting a new pile beside the original one.

“I’ve left the motel and rented a place out on Kaycee Road. I moved in this morning. This is the address and my phone number.”

That paper joined the first one.

He’d bought a car? Rented a place to live?

“But you’re leaving in a few months.”

“Actually, I’m leaving tomorrow morning, but only for a few days. And this–” He shifted another sheet from the original pile to the new one. “–is a number where I can be reached at all times while I’m gone.”

“I mean your leave of absence–to buy a car and move when your leave will be over, and then you’ll go back to your job and your old life and–”

“The rental company wouldn’t let me put the child seat in and I got tired of the motel.” He tapped the third sheet again. “If I’m not there, leave a phone number and I’ll be back to you in less than five minutes.”

“But–”

“This is a college savings account I opened in Matthew’s name, with you and me as guardians.” Another paper joined the pile.

Because she was touched despite herself, her words came out stiff. “I have a college fund for Matthew.”

“Enough to cover four years? Any school he wants?”

“No, of course not. Not yet. He’s only two–”

“Then more won’t hurt. These are copies of my government benefits, with Matthew now named as beneficiary.” He flipped several more sheets from the old pile to the new pile. “And I took out this life insurance policy with him as beneficiary, too.”

“Daniel–” Her throat closed up without warning around the words she’d intended.

“Don’t worry. I’m still not planning on doing anything reckless, but like I told you, anything can happen. If it does, call Robert Delligatti Junior, he’ll get you through any and all red tape you encounter. My parents’ address and phone number is here, too.”

He didn’t say it, but she suspected he meant this as another kind of insurance–insurance that his parents would be involved in Matthew’s life as grandparents. Someday.

With him or without him.

The hollowed out space in her gut at that thought echoed with the knowledge that she didn’t like the implications of that.

“And these–” He slapped the final papers onto the new pile. “–are the forms for amending Matthew’s birth certificate.”

She stiffened her spine and narrowed her eyes, ignoring all her earlier reactions.

“I told you–”

“And I told you,” he interrupted, leaning forward, so his palm pressed down on the papers on the counter. “I’ll give you some time, Kendra. But not much more of it. If I have to, I’ll go to court to get my name on that birth certificate. I won’t sue you over custody. And I won’t push you to explain it to Matthew or tell other people, but my name is going to be on my son’s birth certificate.”

He was gone before she could form a response.

*

“Need some help?”

Luke Chandler looked up from the contraption he seemed to be using to stretch the strands of barbed wire that reached from one wooden fence post to the next.

He didn’t appear as surprised as Daniel felt that, instead of getting in his car and driving away, he’d strode over to volunteer his muscles to the task he’d noticed Luke performing as he’d headed for Kendra’s door.

Then, he’d been prepared for battle–with her and with himself.

Now, the leftover adrenaline and some other hormone that had been rioting against the discipline of his mind, demanding that he grab Kendra and kiss her until they both forgot everything except what they’d found during the hurricane, had him jumpy and on edge.

On second thought, Luke’s expression not only didn’t betray surprise, it didn’t give any reaction away.

Luke Chandler would be hell to face across a poker table with a pot at stake. For some reason that thought cheered Daniel. He wouldn’t mind the challenge.

“You know what you’re doing when it comes to fixing fence?”

“Not a clue.”

“You said you couldn’t ride, either. Noticed you didn’t fall off.”

“Not while you were looking anyhow.”

“I’d’ve known.” Luke said with such off-hand assurance that Daniel believed him. “You know that if Kendra had said she wanted you gone that first day, I would have tossed you out on your butt. And, if she