The Daddy Verdict Read online

  Was this what he’d been considering on the drive home? “You aren’t serious!”

  “I’m very serious.”

  She couldn’t imagine loving a child, caring for a child, yet giving that baby up part of the week, month or year. She supposed she’d told Ben about the pregnancy simply to have him as a male presence in the baby’s life if he wanted to be. “There’s no way we can have joint custody when you work the way you do.”

  “I’m not talking about half the time at my place and half at yours. I’m talking about joint custody on all decisions, me having a say in my child’s life, me spending time, as much time as I can with a son or daughter.”

  She turned away from him, wondering if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life telling him about the pregnancy. She’d only wanted to do the right thing.

  He nudged her around. “I want to be included in my baby’s life, and we have to figure out the best way for that to happen. If we make unilateral decisions, both of us will regret it.”

  Would they? She wasn’t so sure.

  Suddenly he looked wary and concerned, his eyes troubled. “You weren’t thinking of running, were you?”

  The truth was, when she thought about some judge deciding their baby’s fate she had thought about leaving Albuquerque. But she was more responsible than that. She had a business and employees. “I have a life here, Ben. I make a good living. I’d be a fool to leave that. Besides, I want what’s best for the baby. Two parents would be better than one. It’s just—When I found out I was pregnant, I envisioned me being a mother. By myself.”

  When he placed a hand on each of her shoulders, she felt the heat of them as she looked directly into his eyes. “You’re not alone, Sierra, not anymore. We’re going to do this together.”

  Did he have any idea of how complicated that could be? Unless he had no feelings at all for her. Maybe that was it. This would be easy for him if he could stay removed. The problem was—she didn’t think she could stay removed from him, even though that would be best, even though his job was a barrier, even though his work could be dangerous in spite of his protestations otherwise. She liked Ben, admired him, melted whenever she thought about him touching her.

  He had said they weren’t involved. Yet the way he was looking at her…His eyes had darkened the night of the engagement party as they’d talked, just before he’d kissed her. They were darkening now in that same way.

  But then he released her and dropped his hands to his sides. His eyes were still darker, but his expression went stone-faced. He was hiding everything he was thinking and feeling. How could he do that so effectively?

  “I have to go,” he said gruffly.

  “I do, too. I want to make the noon service at church.” It was already eleven-thirty.

  “What church?”

  “Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. “You’re going to drive?”

  “Sure am. I have my own car. It’s parked around back. Do you go to church?” she asked.

  “Now and then.”

  “But not often because you have work to do on weekends,” she guessed.

  “Usually.”

  Neither of them seemed to know what to add, neither of them knew when they’d see each other again, until Sierra suddenly remembered. “My doctor’s appointment is on Thursday at eleven o’clock at Dr. Connor’s office. She’s on San Mateo.”

  “Do you still want me to be there?”

  “Only if you want to be.”

  “I might not know until the last minute if I can get away.”

  “That’s fine. If you’re there, you’re there. If you aren’t, you aren’t.” She tried to make it sound as if his commitment to the appointment didn’t matter at all.

  He frowned. “All right. Maybe I’ll see you on Thursday.”

  After he went to the door and opened it, he took a last look at her and then left.

  Sierra felt as if she’d handled everything all wrong, but she didn’t know how she could have handled it differently. She couldn’t make Ben care about her. She didn’t even know if she wanted him to care about her. She realized again that she was more attracted to him than she’d ever been to a man, even Travis.

  And that upset her most of all.

  Chapter Five

  Ben hadn’t come.

  “Go ahead and get dressed,” Dr. Connor said after examining Sierra. “When you’re finished, come over to my office.”

  After the door closed, Sierra stepped down from the table and began dressing. The disappointment that Ben hadn’t met her here was deeper than it should be. He was a busy man. It was the middle of the day. This appointment wasn’t anything crucial.

  Did Ben believe yet that she was carrying his child? He seemed to at times, but then at others…That hard look came into his eyes, a look that said he’d trusted before and had been hurt, a look that said he wouldn’t be taking any chances again.

  She hadn’t heard from him since he’d brought her home from the wedding on Sunday.

  But then why should she?

  A rap on the door broke her train of thought. Sierra had pulled on her red broomstick skirt and buttoned her patterned blouse when the nurse peeked in. “Mr. Barclay is here, but I just showed him to the doctor’s office and said you’d be there in a minute. Is that okay?”

  “Fine,” she managed to say, fastening the concho belt around her waist. Slipping into her shoes, quickly running a brush through her hair, she hurried to the doctor’s office.

  Ben was pacing, his long strides telling her the room wasn’t wide enough for where he wanted to go.

  She stepped inside, but before she could even greet him, he said, “I got tied up with a deposition. Did everything go okay?” He sounded worried and his concern made her relax a bit.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  The doctor suddenly came in and smiled at the two of them. She was a woman in her late fifties with black hair streaked with gray and green eyes that sparkled with intelligence and caring.

  Sierra made the introductions. “Dr. Connor, this is Ben Barclay. He’s the father.”

  Dr. Connor didn’t miss a beat, just shook Ben’s hand and greeted him warmly. Then she went to sit behind her desk. “I know Sierra wanted you here today in case you had any questions.”

  A gentleman clear through, Ben waited until Sierra took a seat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk before he sat in the other. With their arms almost brushing, she felt the intense magnetism that had drawn her to him in the first place. But he didn’t seem to be affected by her or the doctor’s office or anything else. That was Ben, all stoic control.

  A teasing little voice whispered, Not when he makes love.

  Ben drowned out the little voice when he said, “Sierra tells me she’ll be seeing you once a month.”

  “That’s right. Until the last trimester, then we’ll switch to bimonthly and then weekly appointments.”

  “Will you do an ultrasound?”

  “Yes, at about twenty weeks. I know you’re probably looking forward to seeing a picture of your child, but I feel that’s the best time to do it unless there’s a problem.”

  “I did have a question about paternity testing. Is amniocentesis the only way to do that in utero?”

  Ben’s question surprised Sierra and also embarrassed her. The implied message was that he wanted to know if he was the father. The implied message was that he didn’t believe Sierra when she said he was. She felt her cheeks warming and her mouth going dry.

  “There is another test that utilizes the placenta—chorionic villus sampling,” the doctor replied, looking from Ben to Sierra and back to him again. “At Sierra’s age, amnio isn’t necessary. With it, there’s always the risk of miscarriage. And as for the CVS, any tampering with a pregnancy is never one-hundred-percent safe. But if you want either…”

  “I don’t want to do anything to disrupt the pregnancy,” Ben assured the physician. “We can wait until a
fter the baby’s born.”

  “Then a paternity test will be no problem at all,” the doctor concluded.

  While Ben asked a few more questions concerning Sierra’s due date, the possibility that the baby would be early or late, Sierra didn’t pay that much attention. Her embarrassment shifted into anger and she just wanted to leave the doctor’s office and get some air.

  A few minutes later they were standing outside the medical center, the sun beating hard on their shoulders.

  Sierra turned to Ben before he could walk away to his car. “Why did you embarrass me like that in front of Dr. Connor? She’s an old friend of my aunt’s.”

  “Embarrass you? You told me to come if I had questions. I had questions.”

  “I could have inquired about the DNA test much more subtly. You didn’t have to humiliate me in front of her.”

  “How did I humiliate you? I just asked a question.”

  “No. What you implied is that you don’t trust my word about this child being yours.”

  His brows furrowed and he appeared to be perplexed. “Look, Sierra, in what I do every day, only the bottom line matters. I’m not used to beating around the bush. When I have a question, I ask it. After the baby’s born, we’ll take care of the DNA test.”

  Sierra just stared at him. She’d opened up to him. She’d told him about Travis and her childhood, but apparently none of that mattered. He still thought she slept around, had dates every weekend and didn’t know who she did what with or when. And there was only one reason for that.

  “I know your mother left and that created a big issue with your ability to trust. But I don’t think that’s the only reason. What is?”

  When Ben remained silent, she could see how firmly set in place his guard was. He wasn’t going to let it down, not even for her. That was definitely the best reason why falling for him would be a monumental mistake.

  Whether hormones were driving her or her own emotions, she didn’t know, but she felt close to tears and she wasn’t going to let him see her cry. “I guess we really don’t need to see each other again until after the baby’s born,” she suddenly decided. “I’ll call you when I go into labor.”

  Spinning around, she quickly walked toward her car. He didn’t come after her.

  Ben felt nervous, a nervousness he’d never experienced before as he stood at Sierra’s door and rang her bell. He wished he felt as confident as he did in a courtroom. He wasn’t exactly sure what had happened this afternoon at the doctor’s office, but something had. Had he really humiliated Sierra?

  When she’d left him in the parking lot, he’d felt as if she’d slipped through his fingers, like he’d lost her, and that was really crazy because they weren’t even together. They didn’t even know each other. That was the crux of the matter.

  He jabbed her doorbell, knowing it was late for a visit—9:00 p.m. He’d been going over detective reports and that had taken a lot longer than he’d planned.

  When Sierra opened the door, he imagined she’d already peered through the peephole. Her expression was completely bland as if she’d arranged her face to give no hint of what she was feeling. He’d never seen that look on her before. She was wearing a robe, not the silky traveling robe she’d taken to the hacienda, but a substantial bright pink chenille one. Her hand was on her belt making sure it was tied tightly.

  “Can I come in?” he asked when she just stood there.

  “That depends,” she answered, looking him straight in the eye. “Am I going to be glad you’re here, or sorry you came?”

  He almost smiled…almost. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on how the conversation goes. We won’t know unless you let me in.”

  Her expression still didn’t change, though he thought he saw a hint of amusement in her eyes. She backed up and opened the door wider. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He could see she’d been lounging on the sofa. A magazine was open and some kind of box with beads in it was perched on top of it.

  “Are you working?”

  “Just playing with some designs.”

  As he stepped closer to the sofa he spotted a felt board with two semicircular channels lined with several shapes of beads. Soft strains of guitar music played in the room.

  “So why did you come by?” Sierra prompted without asking him to sit.

  “I want to apologize if I embarrassed you this afternoon at the doctor’s. I never meant to do that.”

  After she studied him for a moment, she motioned him to the sofa. “I was just going to get myself some apple juice and cookies. Are you interested?”

  Actually, he’d skipped supper and he was interested in anything edible. “That would be great. Need help?”

  Before she could say no, he followed her into the kitchen. Brows arched, a smile quirking up the corners of her lips, she pointed to the decorative can on the counter. “Sugar cookies are in there. Just bring the can.”

  “They agree with you?”

  “Absolutely. I can eat them anytime, day or night.” She took a half-gallon jug of apple juice from the refrigerator, collected two glasses and poured.

  “Mind if I snatch a banana?” he asked, eyeing the fruit bowl on the counter.

  Now she did smile. “I don’t mind. Did you skip supper? I can make you a sandwich.”

  “I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”

  “No trouble. It will just take a minute.”

  Ten minutes later, he’d finished the sandwich and the banana while she’d gathered her beading supplies and mounded them on the coffee table.

  After a few swigs of apple juice, he suggested, “I owe you dinner sometime.”

  “Quid pro quo for a sandwich?”

  “No. I just want to take you to dinner.” An awkward silence settled between them and he knew he had to break it. “My track record with women isn’t good.”

  “Your fault or theirs?”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “You don’t let anything pass, do you?”

  “I don’t think we’re that different, Ben. You want to know the bottom line and so do I.”

  “Score one for you,” he muttered, wondering why she unsettled him more than any other woman ever had, as well as turned him on. He didn’t see a nightgown peeking out from under that robe and his imagination was going wild from envisioning what was or wasn’t under it.

  “Ben?” she asked.

  He took a sugar cookie from the can, toyed with the edge, took a couple of bites, then set the rest of it on the napkin on the table in front of him.

  Sierra was sitting beside him on the sofa, and they were practically knee to knee. He’d gotten rid of his tie and suitcoat in the car and unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt. But he still felt constricted in some way, uncomfortable, unwilling to shake out an unsuccessful romantic past and show it to Sierra.

  “My work has always gotten in the way.”

  “Always?”

  He knew what she meant. What had happened before the work had come along?

  “In high school I played sports to try to earn scholarships—basketball and track. When I wasn’t at practice, I had a job at a grocery store packing bags. My brothers and I wanted to go to college, and we knew we couldn’t burden Dad with tuition costs. I believed I couldn’t get serious about anybody for a long time because I had to focus on school, sports and my job.”

  “So you went out with girls who weren’t serious?”

  “Yeah, I went out with girls who didn’t want strings any more than I did. The same with college. I had a job and needed to get good grades to get into law school.” He stopped.

  As if she was reading his mind, as if she knew what would come next, she admitted, “Miguel told me about you and Pablo.”

  “Recently?”

  “When we danced at the wedding reception.”

  Ben frowned. “You were discussing me?”

  Although Sierra looked a bit embarrassed, she shrugged. “Miguel wanted to know what was going on—why we’
d come to the wedding together. I asked how long he’d known you and he told me.”

  After a pause, Ben admitted, “That summer changed my life. Before that, I’d thought about going into corporate law, maybe international law. But after that drive-by shooting—I knew I had to do something that mattered more.”

  She leaned forward a little closer now as if she were intensely interested in what he was saying. “What you do couldn’t be any more important.”

  When their eyes held, he felt something so deep inside he couldn’t name it. It wasn’t just desire. It wasn’t just liking. It was some kind of connection that he’d never experienced with a woman before. And the truth was, it shook him even more than facing a criminal who was destined for life imprisonment.

  Clasping his hands, he let them drop between his thighs, staring at them. He knew why he’d never done this kind of thing before. He hated tearing off a piece of his soul and bringing it out into the light. That’s what it felt like he was doing.

  “But you did have a serious relationship?” she guessed.

  Did he really want to do this? The more information Sierra had about him, the more power she held in her hands. He knew that. It went along with not asking a question he couldn’t answer. When someone was on the witness stand, information was always power.

  “Why is this so hard for you?” she asked softly.

  “Because I’m a private person.”

  “Yes, you are, but I think this is more about talking through something you might see as a failure. You don’t like to fail.”

  “Who does?”

  “Every time I’ve failed, I’ve learned.”

  He gave a humorless laugh. “Learned not to do it again, or learned how to do it differently?”

  “Both.” Her gaze was still fastened on his.

  Finally he gave up trying to hold on to his romantic past. “I told you my work always got in the way. When I was thirty, I thought settling down might not be a bad idea. But to do it, I’d have to hook up with someone who understood the work. Lois was a public relations expert. We both worked long hours, but mine were longer than hers. I didn’t realize how much longer until she told me she was tired of waiting for me to come home every night. In fact, she’d already found someone else to keep her company.”