His-and-Hers Family. Helen Lacey

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СКАЧАТЬ breath caught again. My daughter wants to meet me. Fiona got goose bumps. This was what she wanted … right? To know the child she’d given up. She had everything to gain from such a meeting. Everything. Then why does the thought of it make me want to run?

      “When?” she asked and pulled herself forward.

      “It’s not that simple,” he said quietly.

      Fiona twisted her hands in her lap. “What do you mean?”

      “I mean that Cecily has been through a lot, and as her legal guardian, I am going to make sure she is protected.”

      “From me?” she whispered and fought the rising annoyance. His responses were vague at best, and it irritated her no end. Fiona pulled her fractured nerves together. “I would never hurt her.”

      “Perhaps not intentionally. But I have to be sure about you. I need to be certain you won’t do anything to jeopardize Cecily’s emotional state.”

      Dumbstruck, Fiona glared at him with a mixture of disbelief and slowly gathering rage. His inference was insulting. But she quickly bit back her infamous redheaded temper. Getting mad with him wouldn’t serve her. He held all the cards. And he knew it. “So what do I have to say to prove that I wouldn’t do anything to upset her?”

      He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “How about you start by telling me why you gave your baby away?”

       Chapter Two

      Wyatt knew he was out of line. She looked as if she wanted to slap his face. But he had to know what kind of person Fiona Walsh was before he’d let her into Cecily’s life, no matter how much his niece wanted to know her.

      It didn’t help that she was so incredibly pretty his mind kept wandering.

      “Isn’t it in the file?” Her eyes darkened as she pointed to the folder between them. “I’m assuming that’s some sort of report about me, about my life? If you’ve done your homework, you’d know that I was fifteen when I had Cecily and not in a position to care for a child.”

      “And your parents?”

      “My mother’s dead,” she supplied. “But I guess you already knew that.”

      “Yes,” he said. “I know your mother was killed in a train-crossing accident with her boyfriend.”

      “And you know the man she claimed was my father died when I was three years old.”

      “Claimed?” he asked.

      She shrugged. “She married Eddie Walsh and I was born six months later. They only lived together for two years. I was told he disappeared and then died in a rodeo accident, although I’m not actually sure that’s true. He could have skipped to avoid paying child support for all I know. What else do you want to know?”

      There was enough bristle in her tone to make it clear she had a temper but was doing her best to keep it under wraps. “You’re being very candid.”

      She raised a brow. “Isn’t that what you want? Answers … and an opportunity to see if I’m respectable and responsible enough to meet Cecily?”

      “I don’t—”

      “And once you figure that out, Mr. Harper,” she said, cutting him off without batting a lash, “you can answer my questions.”

      There’s that temper.

      Wyatt might have liked her to simply back down and agree to everything he said but he didn’t really expect it. And he respected her spirit. “Wyatt.”

      “What?”

      “My name,” he replied. “It’s Wyatt.”

      “Okay … Wyatt … so ask me another question. Ask me as many questions as you like.”

      He went for the most important. “Cecily’s father? There’s no record of him on the birth certificate.”

      “No record.” Visible shutters quickly came up and it waved like a red flag. “That’s right. It’s what I wanted.”

      Wyatt pressed on. “Is there any chance he might make an appearance in her life?”

      “No chance,” she replied hollowly. “He’s dead.”

      Dead? He hadn’t expected that. “Who was he?”

      “No one.”

      He immediately wondered if she knew who Cecily’s biological father was, but didn’t like how the question sounded rolling around in his head. “Does he have a name?”

      “Since he’s dead it really doesn’t make any difference.”

      “Unless his family tries to have some claim on Cecily in the future.”

      “They won’t,” she said stiffly. “No one knows about him. My mother made sure of it.”

      Wyatt’s interest grew. “She didn’t approve?”

      “What mother would approve of her fifteen-year-old daughter being pregnant?”

      He nodded slowly. “You said you weren’t in a position to care for a child? Did you mean because of your age or something else?”

      “I lived with my elderly great-uncle,” she said stiffly. “My mother was dead. I was two years away from finishing high school. I had no income and no way of supporting myself or my baby.”

      It sounded like an impossible situation for a teenage girl. “If it’s any consolation to you, Karen and Jim loved Cecily very much. They’d been trying to have a baby for a long time. Cecily brought them a great deal of happiness.”

      She smiled and the sparks in her eyes faded. “They didn’t have any other children?”

      Wyatt begrudgingly admired how she’d seamlessly moved the questions onto him. “Just Cecily.”

      “And you’re her guardian now?”

      “That’s right,” he replied. “Karen was the daughter from my father’s first marriage and she was twelve years older than me.”

      She nodded fractionally. “So, you and your wife care for her?”

      “I’m not married,” he said but was pretty sure she knew that already from the look on her face.

      Her expression narrowed. “Does Cecily live with you?”

      “She spends most of her time at Waradoon, our family property in the Hunter Valley, which is just over an hour’s drive from Harper Engineering. My parents are retired and my youngest sister still lives at home. Cecily goes to the local high school and is well settled. I have a place in the city but go to Waradoon most weekends. If not, Cecily visits me in the city.”

      “Why СКАЧАТЬ