Her Sister's Child. Lilian Darcy

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СКАЧАТЬ and the strength of a vow. There was desperation in it, too, when he thought of the other even darker fear that had been stalking him for the past few weeks, before he’d ever heard of Meg Jonas.

      There was more than one way to lose a child, he reminded himself, while his heart seemed to lurch sideways in his chest. With Amy’s life itself on the line, he had to play this whole thing right. He needed these people, far more than he would ever have wanted to need the people who were disputing his right to the custody of his own child.

      If he hadn’t needed them, he might have been able to dismiss them as he was convinced they deserved. He could have gotten a lawyer of his own to tell them just what they could do with their cruel and groundless custody claim. But as the situation stood now, and no matter how nasty things got later on, they’d all need to work together for the next few weeks with the common goal of Amy’s well-being.

      The only person who was out of the loop on the issue, as far as he was concerned, was this lawyer. He didn’t care if he was over-reacting. She was a shark, breaking people’s lives apart in return for her fat fee.

      He was already ten minutes late for his meeting with the woman. It wasn’t his choice. He’d been delayed at work and he’d tried hard to make up the time. He’d woven his way smoothly through the side streets and back alleys of Philadelphia on the bike. He’d calculated the likely peak hour traffic snarls in advance and avoided them as much as possible.

      But now he rebelled. Let the lawyer woman wait a little longer! She and her clients were not about to get the idea that they had him on the run. They had no grounds for claiming custody of his daughter. None!

      Unhurriedly, he pulled black leather gloves from his hands then began to unstrap his metallic black helmet. If Meg Jonas was watching him from her window, he’d give her a performance she wouldn’t forget…

      From her window, with a finger hooked around one slat of the blind to shift it two inches out of the way, Meg saw the leather-clad stranger shaking out his thick, dark hair. Although it was tidily cropped at the sides, it was long enough on top to need those lean fingers threading through it, putting the spring back into the waves.

      Meg had heard the dying throb of the bike’s engine a couple of minutes ago. Unnerved by the fact that he was late…unnerved by this whole situation, if she was honest…she’d gone over to the window with the deliberate aim of regaining control by getting an impression of Adam Callahan, assessing him before he had the chance to do the same to her.

      He certainly wasn’t in any hurry. Wasn’t this meeting important to him, for heck’s sake? It was to her, and to her parents. Painfully important…

      He folded the gloves together and wadded them into the helmet, then started to unzip his leather jacket. He left the jacket on, but let it gape loosely to reveal a plain blue shirt that fitted smoothly over his broad chest. When he started on the black leather pants, twisting to reach the side zip and making the leather stretch across his tightly muscled rear end before revealing dark gray trousers beneath, Meg felt an involuntary shiver course the length of her spine.

      Her sister Cherie had wanted this man, she remembered. Had apparently loved him enough to have a child with him. It seemed totally out of character for Cherie, but if Meg had put the dates together right, the two of them must have been involved for over a year before the inevitable split. That would have to be a record. Cherie had never been able to stick to anything for very long. Not a man, not a plan, not an address.

      Which was why Meg and her father had lost touch with Cherie all during those crucial months of her pregnancy. It was why they hadn’t even known about Cherie’s child until Adam Callahan’s letter to Dad in California had arrived out of the blue two weeks ago. But Cherie herself was dead…

      Meg swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. Through no fault of her own, she had never really known her sister. They had gone for months or even years at a time with no contact. And for the past six months it had been too late to change that. Cherie was gone. But now, incredibly, they’d found that Cherie had a baby daughter, living with a ratbag low-life of a father, and this gave all of them a second chance.

      “A chance for Dad and me to do something for Cherie’s daughter that we could never do for Cherie herself…” Meg murmured aloud, and it was almost a prayer. A prayer for it all to work out.

      How would Adam Callahan take the idea? Would it come as a relief to him to give his baby over to a pair of loving grandparents? Or did Meg and her father and her new stepmom, Patty, have a battle brewing? Patty, in particular, had set her heart on this so much.

      For a moment, with his leathers now bundled and locked in a black box attached near the back of the motorcycle, Adam Callahan didn’t look quite so dark and menacing. His helmet was tucked innocently under his arm. His blue shirt and dark pants were conservative and well-fitting. But then he looked up at her window, almost as if he could see into her eyes, and there was such steel-hard anger and determination in his cleanly chiselled face that, for the second time, Meg shivered.

      She’d suspected all along that this man must be dangerous. He’d been a danger to Cherie. He’d apparently involved her in a near-fatal motorcycle accident with his reckless driving, and that wasn’t all.

      What kind of a threat is he going to be to me? she wondered with an intuitive sense of dread.

      “Get a grip, Meg!” she scolded herself aloud. “This is a business meeting, not a confrontation. Not yet, anyway. I’m a lawyer, acting for clients. Just because one of those clients happens to be my father…Oh, but maybe I should have listened to my very first instinct and not let Dad talk me into taking it on. I’m too close, too personally involved.”

      Searching for an emotional anchor, she looked around the office she was so proud of. She’d been in practice for just about seven months, since passing the Pennsylvania bar exam back in early September, but her client load was building steadily and already she’d tackled a couple of cases that were really satisfying. Nothing high-profile, no fat corporate fees or sensational court appearances, just wills and real estate closings and one fairly painless divorce.

      But it was the work she had wanted to do, helping ordinary people with ordinary legal issues. She knew her clients were satisfied and several of them had said so. Word was getting around.

      “But can I satisfy Dad and Patty? Can I satisfy myself? I wasn’t ever planning to handle custody disputes. A case like this is completely different from what I know, and with my personal involvement…”

      She heard footsteps on the stairs and knew it was Adam Callahan. Her receptionist in the outer office, Linda, had gone home half an hour ago. Maybe she shouldn’t have suggested a meeting so late in the day, but she’d wanted to give it time, and she was committed to the confrontation now.

      I’m not going to mess this up with what I feel, Meg vowed silently.

      Smoothing the skirt of her teal-blue suit, she went to open the door.

      Not what I expected.

      That was Adam’s first thought as he and the lawyer woman, Meg Jonas, shook hands and introduced themselves. Her fingers were warm and dry and fine, and her grip was like al dente spaghetti—firm without being brittle, just as a handshake should be. She offered him coffee, and her voice held a tiny thread of huskiness. Accepting automatically, although he didn’t have the slightest desire for coffee—straight scotch might have suited his mood better—Adam found himself wondering if that husky note was always there or if it was just there today, now. He felt like his own voice might come out husky, too.

      Because СКАЧАТЬ