The Daddy Verdict Read online

  When he saw the softening in Sierra’s eyes, he held up his hand. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I got over it.”

  “But you haven’t had another serious relationship since.”

  “That doesn’t mean I didn’t get over Lois,” he said curtly. “It just means that my job was detrimental to our relationship. My work’s my life. I’ve accepted that, and now when I hook up with someone, we meet each other’s needs and it’s temporary. I don’t expect more.”

  “It’s a shame,” Sierra said, “that you’ve never known real love. My parents are deeply in love. They always have been. Anyone can see it when they’re together, even after all this time. And when I fell in love with Travis, I was sure I’d love him forever, that he would love me. He would have if he hadn’t been killed.”

  In spite of everything, Ben believed Sierra still had the stars of idealism in her eyes. But that was the difference between twenty-four and thirty-five, he reminded himself. He wasn’t so sure she wasn’t in love with the idea of being in love rather than the reality. She still had feelings for her dead fiancé, call it love or whatever. He’d been her first and she’d idealized the relationship. How could Ben ever compete with that?

  Why should he care? he wondered. He didn’t want to compete with her fiancé and he certainly didn’t have to. He was here tonight mending fences with Sierra because they were going to parent together. That’s all there was to it.

  Yet, as he watched her nibble on a sugar cookie and he ate his, his pulse rate didn’t slow down and he still couldn’t get one question out of his head. What was she wearing under that robe?

  Sierra took a sip of apple juice and eyed him curiously. “What do you do for fun? You have to do something to relax. You can’t actually work all the time.”

  “Actually, I can,” he said with a wry grin. “But when I get the time, I go down to one of the churches and shoot hoops with the older kids. I’ve made friends with some of them, and once in a while I take them to the arcade at the mall.”

  She considered his words, thought about what he’d said. “You’re trying to keep them on the straight and narrow?”

  “More like give them a role model, encourage them to stay in school, show them they have a future when they think they don’t.”

  She leaned forward and studied him even closer. “You are not the tough guy you pretend to be.”

  Her words threw him. “I don’t pretend,” he protested.

  “You know what I mean, Ben. I get it that you can’t be soft in your job, that you have to go after the truth by whatever means you have.” She poked a finger gently into his chest. “But in here, you’ve got a heart as big, if not bigger, than anyone else’s.”

  He absolutely didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure how she’d come to that conclusion. After all, their interactions hadn’t been romantic, tender and full of sweet nothings. She was looking at him as if they had been.

  The tip of her finger was a soft pressure on his heart. She smelled of roses again. Her bright eyes were wide open, and he couldn’t tell if there was an invitation there or not.

  Sierra Girard turned him on. He was almost too old for her, wasn’t he? He was definitely too jaded. Yet she was carrying his baby, and God help him, he wanted to take her to bed again. If not that, he wanted to kiss her, needed to kiss her, more than he’d ever thought was possible. He leaned toward her, into the pressure of that finger.

  She didn’t back away.

  As he took her face between his hands, his voice was raspy when he said, “I want to kiss you.”

  “I want you to kiss me,” she agreed softly.

  He brought his lips to hers and he thought his heart would jump out of his chest. As their mouths touched, there was no question he was completely aroused. A simple taste wasn’t nearly enough and he knew it…knew it from his head to his toes and every place in between. His mind had always ruled his libido. He’d never let desire run rampant, galloping over his good sense…until the engagement party.

  His good sense eluded him now, too. Their kiss ignited the hunger he’d felt the first night he’d met her. When his tongue breached her lips, his hand slid from her face and went around her. She held on to him, too, and he could tell from the way she kissed him back, his desire wasn’t one-sided. Impatient to feel her body along the length of his, he laid her back on the sofa. Her robe dropped open as his hands slid from her thigh up to her breast. He felt the satin of a short gown. Underneath it, she wore nothing. He palmed her breast, ridged the nipple and she moaned. Were her breasts fuller than he remembered? Would that be happening already?

  Just minutes ago, they’d been discussing her dead fiancé and his unfaithful lover. Had sharing their stories led them to think they were sharing intimacy?

  He didn’t want to let her go. He didn’t want to move his body from hers. He didn’t want to break the kiss and lever himself up and away. But he did…because it was the right thing to do.

  She looked befuddled for a moment and sat up, questions in her eyes.

  Running his hand down over his face, he shook his head. “Obviously, we’re hot together.”

  Wasn’t that the understatement of the year! He went on, “We’ve already made one mistake. We shouldn’t compound it. No matter what you think, Sierra, you don’t know me and I don’t know you. Tell me something. Why did you kiss me back just now?” He needed to know what was going on in her head.

  Her cheeks went red. “I wanted to.” Suddenly she asked, “You don’t think I kissed you to convince you to trust me, do you?”

  The truth was, Sierra Girard made his head spin. She seemed innocent, honorable, idealistic. Was she?

  She just shook her head. “We do have a long way to go, don’t we? Maybe I should provide you with references to put in a good word for me.” Suddenly, she seemed to realize who he was and what he did. “You’ve already done a background check on me, haven’t you?” She sat up straighter, rebelted her robe and drew the knot together.

  “I had to find out if everything you’ve told me is true,” he admitted.

  “Camille and Miguel’s word weren’t enough?”

  “Anybody can be fooled, Sierra. We can think we really know someone, then something happens to show us we don’t.”

  “Anyone in particular?” she asked.

  “Specifically—Lois. I never expected her to be unfaithful.” But not just her. “My brothers, too,” he replied. “We’ve been through a lot together and we think we know one another. My brother Nathan is steadfast, solid, never veers from his course. But last year he put himself into a situation that could have brought him nothing but trouble. He and his wife couldn’t conceive. A woman donated her eggs to them. Colleen died in childbirth, and last year, six years later, the woman who donated her eggs turned up in Nathan’s life and he invited her right into his house! Something I never thought he’d do.”

  “Did it work out?” Sierra seemed to be focused on the end result, not the situation itself.

  Ben gave her a wry grimace. “He ended up marrying Sara.”

  “He felt a connection,” she mused.

  “He wanted to do what was best for his son, so he did the unexpected.”

  Sierra thought it over. “And your other brother?”

  “Sam, who was talking about setting up a veterinary clinic in Haiti one minute, decided to be a sperm donor the next.”

  “And?”

  “And Corrie got pregnant, they married, and they’re due soon. That’s not the point. Both of them did something I never expected them to do, and I’ve known them all my life.”

  “What about you, Ben? Will they be surprised that we’re—” she hesitated “—that we’re pregnant?”

  “Nathan was surprised. I haven’t heard from Sam yet, or Dad.”

  “And I’ll meet Nathan at Thanksgiving?”

  “Yes, you will. Will your aunt be back for the holiday?”

  “She hopes to be.”

  “What does she think about you
r pregnancy?”

  “She…has mixed feelings.”

  Ironically, Ben understood all too well what that meant. “In other words, she’s protective of you and she thinks I’m an SOB for not protecting you.”

  Sierra raised her chin. “That’s not how I look at it. We had equal responsibility.” Her hand went to that knot on her robe again, as if she wanted to make sure it was well and truly fastened.

  His body was still thrumming from their kiss, and he wanted to taste her all over again…to carry her to her bedroom. But a physical relationship would muddle what they needed to figure out most.

  “We’re going to have to discuss child support, whether or not you want to see a lawyer to draw up custody papers.”

  Sierra shook her head. “That’s so…”

  “Practical?” he filled in.

  She wrinkled her nose. “No. So impersonal. Let’s just take this a month at a time. When we get closer to the baby’s birth, we can talk about it again.”

  “I want joint custody, Sierra. I won’t settle for less.”

  She looked worried and troubled and conflicted.

  He was conflicted himself and strove to reassure her. “I know an infant needs to be with his or her mother. But I want to be involved in every decision you make.”

  “You were right to cut off what was happening here,” she decided, with sadness tingeing her words. “Until we figure out how to be parents together, anything physical will complicate our lives even more.”

  Sierra was thinking about what was best for their baby, too. Ben had never been never impulsive or reckless. Yet when he was around Sierra…

  His hunger for her was just something he was going to have to deal with, compartmentalize and lock away. Sexual chemistry would get in the way of the right decisions and he couldn’t let that happen.

  He wouldn’t let that happen.

  Chapter Six

  Ben’s cell phone rang late Monday morning as he exited the courthouse. This was one of those days when his job frustrated him more than satisfied him. Truth be told, there seemed to be more and more of those days.

  He’d just negotiated a plea agreement. Another one. He wanted to see the guy get twice the time he was getting, but with full dockets, crowded prisons, more bad guys than they knew what to do with, there was really no choice.

  When he checked the number on his phone, he cracked his first real smile of the day. It was his brother Sam.

  “What’s up?” Ben asked.

  “You’re an uncle again!” Sam almost shouted. “You’re an uncle and I’m a dad, a full-fledged, honest-to-God dad. She was three weeks and a day early, and at first we were worried. But the doc says she’s fine. She’s five pounds three ounces and the most beautiful baby on earth.”

  Ben had to laugh. “I’m sure she is. Does the most beautiful baby girl on earth have a name yet?”

  “Her name’s Diane, after Corrie’s mom.”

  “How’s Corrie?”

  “She came through it like a trouper. She’s exhausted and sleeping right now. Did I tell you Diane has Corrie’s hair—red and curly? Corrie insists she has my nose and mouth. It’s hard to tell.”

  Sam was talking so fast, Ben could hardly keep up. “How much caffeine have you had?”

  “I don’t know, a few hours’ worth. I just can’t tell you how this feels, Ben. I feel like a giant. I feel like I’m on top of the world. I feel so connected to Corrie. It’s like…it’s like saying our wedding vows all over again. We made this wonderful little being.”

  Ben suddenly had the overwhelming yearning to have what Sam had, to have what Nathan had—a wife, a home, a family all of his own.

  Sam wound down slowly. “Dad came to see her. He just stood at the nursery window, staring. Nathan, Sara and Kyle are coming later after Corrie gets some rest. I think her doc might even send her home tomorrow. Sara and Nathan are lending Val to us for a couple weeks. With Sara opening her own law practice, she really needs her, but she said Corrie needs her more.”

  “You’re used to Val. She’ll be a big help.”

  “Yeah, she’s sort of adopted Corrie along with Sara. The three of them get their hair cut together, go out to lunch, that kind of thing.”

  “Do you have the house the way you want it yet?”

  “Sure do. Except for some of the landscaping. That will have to wait until spring.” Sam paused for a moment.

  “And speaking of spring and babies…” His brother’s silence was an opening for Ben.

  “Are you waiting for me to jump in?”

  This time Sam chuckled. “Nathan told me you’re going to be a dad. What do you want to tell me?”

  “There’s not much to say.”

  “There could be. What’s she like?”

  “Sierra is…different. She’s only twenty-four and that throws me sometimes.”

  “A young twenty-four, or an old twenty-four?”

  “I don’t exactly know how to answer that. In some ways, she seems innocent. In others, she’s very mature—she’s been all over the world and she lost someone she cared about. I don’t think she’s playing me, but I’ve got to make sure. We’ll get a DNA test after the baby’s born.”

  “Until then?”

  “Until then, I’ve decided I’m going along with the idea that I’m the father. No harm in that.”

  Sam was silent.

  “What?”

  “I know our situations are different, but from the moment Corrie started showing, even before that, really, I knew that little life was in there. I talked to the baby and sang to the baby. I got attached early on. It was a dream in the making and I was part of it.”

  “But you and Corrie work together. You were friends. When you finally realized you were in love, it wasn’t that long after she got pregnant. Our situations are very different.”

  “Is custody going to be an issue?”

  “We’re starting to talk about it. Sierra knows I intend to be involved in the child’s life. I’m not pushing, though. She owns a shop on the edge of Old Town so I don’t expect she’ll run off anywhere. But her parents are in Africa and she has a passport. So I’ve got to tread lightly, too.”

  “I know,” Sam empathized. “When I thought Corrie was going to move away—it’s not even something I wanted to think about. You know that when I wanted her to sign a custody agreement all hell broke loose. But it brought me to my senses.”

  “As I said, our situation is very different.”

  “You’ll work it out.”

  Although Sam was younger than Ben and usually came to him for advice, Ben knew his brother had been through this situation. He needed his input. “When you had your lawyer draw up that custody agreement, what was that going to mean to you? It wasn’t as if you were going to stay home from work to take care of a child on alternate weeks or months.”

  “No, I wouldn’t have done that. But I intended to be at Corrie’s at the end of each day to help her put the baby to bed, to find out what happened that day, to solve any problems that cropped up. I wasn’t going to not see the baby for a week and then suddenly say—oh, well, this week is my responsibility. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I do. That’s what I’ve been thinking about. How it’s all going to play out.”

  “A lot depends on this…Sierra and how she feels about you being in the baby’s life.”

  Ben didn’t like being the one out of control, but Sam was certainly right. A lot depended on Sierra.

  “I have to get back up to the room in case Corrie wakes up. I know I won’t see you at Thanksgiving, but do you think you’ll get home for Christmas? I want you to get to know your niece.”

  “I’ll make sure I come visit at Christmas. Congratulations, Sam. I’ll give Corrie a call later to congratulate her, too.”

  After a brief goodbye, Ben ended the call. He closed his phone and stared at it as the breeze whipped across him.

  His brother was one very lucky man.

  Sierra heard her
shop bell ring, but she’d decided to spend the afternoon in her small workroom finishing necklaces she wanted to display before the Christmas rush. Her clerk, Olivia, a responsible mom in her thirties, could handle the shop traffic with one hand tied behind her back.

  “Ready to take a break?” a chipper female voice asked.

  When Sierra looked up from the necklace she was about to crimp, she spotted Camille.

  Before she could rise from her chair, her friend was hugging her, practically squealing in delight. “I’m back! We’re back. Our honeymoon was wonderful but we couldn’t wait to start real life.”

  Sierra laughed. “It’s all real life.”

  Camille leaned away to study her. “How are you?”

  Actually, today Sierra was feeling a little…achy, sort of like the way she felt before she got her period. But with her hormones revving up, she expected the sensation to eventually pass. “I’m fine. You’ve only been gone nine days. Tell me about Aruba.”

  “Blue skies, blue sea, tropical nights, stars, moon, drinks with umbrellas, lots and lots of time in our room. What else is there to say?”

  “Did you get enough of Miguel?” Sierra teased.

  “Never. I need a couple of lifetimes with him.”

  “Is he with you?” Sierra peered through the doorway into the main part of the shop.

  “Oh, no. He went to the bank to make sure the place survived without him. Now, tell me about you and Ben. I want every detail.”

  “He went to my doctor’s appointment with me last week. We spent some time together that evening, but I didn’t see or hear from him over the weekend.”

  Camille lounged against Sierra’s work counter. “Did you tell him you want to see him?”

  “No. In fact, it’s probably better if we don’t see each other—” Sierra felt a twinge in her pelvis different from any she’d experienced that morning. Fear filled her and tightened her throat.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. A pain in my side. I’m feeling a little crampy.”

  “You aren’t spotting, are you?”