command that were as much a part of who he was as those blue, blue eyes.
She reached into the cupboard for two mugs and filled them from the carafe.
“Cream? Sugar?” she asked him.
“Just black, thanks.”
She handed him one of the mugs and added a splash of milk to the other.
He waited until she’d taken a seat at the pub-style table in the dining room, then sat down across from her.
“I understand you worked at Wainwright, Witmer & Wynne with Olivia?”
She nodded.
“You were good friends?”
“Since our first year at law school together,” she told him.
“She never mentioned you to me.”
“She never mentioned you to me, either,” she told him. “In fact, she never said anything about Emma’s father.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing at all?”
“The only thing she ever told me, and only when I asked where the baby’s father fit into the picture, was that he wasn’t interested in playing any role in his child’s life.”
He scowled at that. “I might not have been thrilled by the news of her pregnancy, if she’d ever bothered to tell me, but she had to know there was no way in hell I would abandon my child.”
“If Olivia never told you she was pregnant, how did you find out? And how do you know that you are Emma’s father?”
“Well, at this point, I’m not one-hundred-percent certain,” he admitted. “But I have a letter from Olivia that says I am, and I have no reason to disbelieve it.”
“You just said Olivia lied.”
“She lied to you,” he clarified, “if she told you that I didn’t want to know my child. Because the truth is, I didn’t know about the baby. Not until I got home from Afghanistan and found the letter she’d left for me.”
“Olivia died five-and-a-half months ago,” Paige told him, with an ache in her heart that was more for the child who would never know her mother than for the premature end of her friend’s life.
A shadow—grief? regret?—momentarily clouded those stunning blue eyes, but then it passed and he nodded. “I found that out when I went to your law firm to find her. The receptionist told me about the accident.”
“No one knows why she was in New Jersey,” Paige admitted.
He sipped his coffee, then set the mug down again. “I live in Trenton,” he told her. “Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I have an apartment about five minutes from the base, which is where I sleep when I’m in town.”
“She went … to see you?”
He nodded, confirming another fact that seemed to give credence to his claim of paternity. Of course, Paige wasn’t going to take his word for it, nor was she simply going to hand over a child on the basis of his say-so.
“My landlord told me a young woman stopped by looking for me early in the new year. When he told her I was overseas, she left a letter for me.”
“Do you have the letter?”
He took it out of the inside pocket of his jacket and passed it across the table to her.
Apprehension whispered through her as she picked up the envelope. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the flap and pulled out the single page.
Zach,
I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re hearing from me now, after so much time has passed, especially since I was the one who asked you not to contact me, so I’ll get straight to the point. You have a daughter.
Chapter Two
Paige sucked in a breath, startled to see the words clearly written there, supporting this stranger’s claim to the little girl in her care. She wanted to crumple the letter in her fist, to stuff the paper back in the envelope and tell Zach to take it away, to tell him to go away—far away from Emma. But she forced herself to read on.
When she was done, she refolded the letter and tucked it in the envelope again, then slid it across the table to him. She picked up her half-empty coffee cup then set it down without drinking, her stomach churning.
“With all due respect, I have no intention of giving up custody of Emma just because you showed up on my doorstep with a letter that claims you’re her father.”
“A letter written by her mother,” he pointed out.
She couldn’t be one-hundred-percent sure that Olivia had actually written the letter. In an age of computers and e-mail and text messaging, she honestly didn’t recognize the handwriting as her friend’s. However, why would this man be here now if he didn’t believe it was true?
“Even so, Olivia never identified you as the father on Emma’s birth certificate,” she reminded him.
“Did she name anyone else?”
She ignored his question. “I was Olivia’s birthing coach—I went to prenatal classes with her and I was in the delivery room when Emma was born. And through it all, Olivia never once mentioned your name. And, contrary to what is in that letter, she claimed that Emma’s father knew of the pregnancy but wanted no part of his child.”
“That was the lie,” he said again.
And the contents of the letter he carried certainly bore that out. But she wasn’t ready to give up, she wasn’t ready to have her heart torn out of her chest, and she knew that was what would happen if he took Emma away.
“Still, I think the best course of action right now would be to have a paternity test.”
He frowned into his empty mug, then pushed back his chair to refill it. “Fine,” he said. “How soon can we get that done?”
“I can make some calls tomorrow,” she told him. “But probably not until sometime next week.”
His scowl deepened.
“And you’re going to need a lawyer,” she told him.
“Aren’t you a lawyer?”
“Yes, but I’m not going to represent you.”
“Why in hell do I need representation?”
“Because …” She hesitated, not wanting to give him any ideas about seeking custody if that wasn’t a course of action he’d already considered. Maybe he didn’t want Emma with him—maybe he just wanted to meet the little girl he believed was his daughter. So all she said was, “Because you should make sure you understand all of your rights and responsibilities.”
“I’m aware of my rights and responsibilities,” he assured her. “And I intend to be a father to my daughter.”
Which still didn’t tell her whether he was looking for full custody or standard every-other-weekend noncustodial parent access or occasional visits during his periods of leave.
“For how long?” she asked.
He frowned at the question. “What do you mean?”
“When do you have to report back for duty?”
“July seventh.”
Which was actually longer than she’d expected and still not nearly long enough if he was serious about building a relationship with Emma. “So why are you even here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why did you bother to come all this way, feign an interest in being a father to the child you claim is your own, if you’re going to go wheels up again in a few weeks?”