difficult to believe unless you already have a backup site ready to go.” The glitter in his tawny gaze confirmed her guess. “Okay, fine. You know something, Justice? You go right ahead. Keep me here until you and your uncle are ready to run to wherever your new cave is located. Then you can hang from the rafters in the privacy of your latest den of doom and gloom. Frankly, I don’t give a damn.”
“I already told you we’re not in hiding. And mad scientists hide in basements not in rafters.”
Okay, that was definitely a joke. Who knew? Not that it mattered. She brushed the comment aside with a sweep of her hand. “Whatever. That’s not why I’m here. You’re so worried about the hows and whys of my finding you that you’ve totally ignored the main question.”
“Such as the reason you wrote twenty-six letters and requested they be forwarded to me? Not to mention why, after all this time, you’ve gone to so much trouble to track me down? Those main questions?”
He’d received her letters and still never got in touch? Fury ripped through her. “Yes, those main questions,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Don’t keep me in suspense. What could you possibly have to say that we didn’t cover nineteen months and fifteen days ago?”
He wanted it straight? Fine. She’d give it to him straight. “You have a daughter.”
Justice had always considered himself a rational man. Intelligent. Sensible. Calm and collected. His emotions firmly within his control. But with those four simple words he discovered just how mistaken he could be. Only one other time had he experienced this severe a brain disconnect—the hours following his accident. He opened his mouth to say something, only to discover that every last word had emptied from his mind.
“Wha—”
“What’s her name? It’s Noelle.”
“Whe—”
“When was she born? Eleven months and a handful of days ago. Christmas morning, to be exact. If you need further exactitude, which I’m sure you do, they recorded the precise time on her birth certificate. I’ll arrange for you to receive a copy.”
“Ho—”
“How do I know you’re the father? Because you’re the only man I’ve slept with in the past three years. No doubt you’ll want a DNA test and I have no objection. I thought you should know about Noelle, so I’ve spent the past year and a half trying to track you down without success. But then, since you received all my letters, you already know that, don’t you?” She paused for a beat. “Are you listening, Pretorius?”
“Uh—” came his uncle’s disembodied voice.
“I thought so. I can hear the family resemblance. It only took Jett a few short weeks to find you.” She shot Justice a steely look. “I think that means my computer expert outcomputes your computer expert. Now. What were you saying about keeping me here?”
The logjam clogging Justice’s vocal cords cleared. “Son of a bitch!”
Daisy planted her hands on her hips, glorious in her outrage. “I trust you won’t use that sort of language around our daughter. She’s quite verbal for so young an age. She tries to parrot everything you say.”
“I want her.”
Something very much like hurt flashed across Daisy’s expression and her eyes darkened to the deep green of a mountain forest. For some reason it shredded his defenses and arrowed straight to the emotional core of him. How was that possible? How could a single look possess the power to stir a combination of guilt and defensiveness? He’d worked diligently for over a year and half to eradicate any and all reactions to her from his emotional makeup. And yet from the instant she appeared on his doorstep he’d discovered that he hadn’t eradicated anything at all. One glimpse of her elegant face glaring up at the camera and desire came storming back, eclipsing logic and self-determination.
It defied comprehension.
He hastened to amend his earlier statement. “I want both of you.”
He hadn’t helped his cause. Her chin shot up and her eyes flashed with green fire, full of feminine fury, mingled with a gut-wrenching anguish. “I don’t think you deserve me. And I know you don’t deserve Noelle.”
“If that’s what you believe, why are you here?”
He caught her wariness before she wiped every thought and emotion from her face, closing down and shutting him out. She’d never done that before. He suspected she’d never been capable of it until recently. When they’d last been together she’d been open and forthcoming, her opinions and feelings out there for everyone to see. Was he responsible for so dramatic a change? Had their night together caused her to regard the world with such caution? He flinched from the thought, from the idea he was capable of inflicting that level of pain on anyone, though for reasons he couldn’t bring himself to analyze, Daisy in particular.
“You deserved to know about your daughter. Now that you do, I’m finished here.”
She was keeping something from him, he could tell. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?” He could also tell she had zero intention of explaining herself. “Never mind. Considering how guarded I am about my own privacy, I won’t intrude on yours.”
“Thank you.”
“But if I can help, I will.” He had no idea where the words came from. He certainly hadn’t planned to say them, an unfathomable lapse on his part, but they caught her attention.
She studied his face for a long, tense moment. Then her head jerked in a nod. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Whether she realized it or not, Daisy’s announcement offered him the perfect opportunity to achieve the goals he’d set more than two years ago—to create a family. To have someone in his life who mattered. Who cared. Though she didn’t and couldn’t meet his conditions for an engineering apprentice, any more than those for the perfect wife, the potential existed to shape her to fit many of the same parameters. Hell, he’d even be willing to alter his lifestyle somewhat to suit her requirements for a husband. Within reason, of course.
And then there was Noelle. He struggled to draw air into his lungs at the thought of his progeny. A daughter. He had a child! It stunned him how much that simple fact changed the means by which he processed information. He found he craved her, sight unseen. Wanted and needed them both in ways he found inexplicable. No matter what it took, he’d give Daisy whatever she required in order to have his ready-made family part of his life.
He crossed to a sturdy wooden table and pulled out a chair, formulating a swift game plan. “Let’s sit and talk about this. Are you hungry?”
Annoyance flashed. “Let me get this straight. Now that you know about Noelle you’re willing to feed me?”
“No,” he responded mildly. “Since I planned to keep you here until we relocated, I would have gotten around to feeding you. Eventually.”
That provoked a smile. A tiny one, but a smile nonetheless. The impact of it far exceeded what it should have, based on all rational consideration. And yet, just as at the engineering conference, it drew him in, put thoughts and ideas in his head he’d spent every day since their night together working to eradicate. How many potential apprentice/wives had he interviewed since Daisy? How many times had Pretorius tweaked his Pretorius Program in an effort to find the “perfect” woman? How many failures had there been?
And all because none of them were Daisy, he now realized.
Oh, they’d suited his conditions to a T. Every last miserable one of them had engineering credentials. Were brilliant, rational, sensible women in complete control of their emotions. A few were even more attractive