The Paternity Proposition. Merline Lovelace

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      “Match the father and the mother’s DNA.”

      “I repeat. That’s your problem. Besides,” she added as a new thought pierced her simmering anger. “I can’t be the only female you, uh, connected with last year. Have you searched your entire database?”

      “As a matter of fact, I have. You’re the last contact on my list.”

      Well, she’d asked. Now she knew. He’d gone through his entire black book before scraping the bottom of the barrel.

      “Would you like to know what you can do with your list?”

      Dalton’s face flushed a dull red, and an anger that matched her own sparked in his eyes. “Hard as this may be to believe, I don’t make a habit of hitting on every female I meet.”

      And Julie didn’t usually let strange men hit on her. She was damned if she’d admit that, though. If Mr. Rich Guy Dalton wanted to think she was a tramp, let him!

      Rigid with fury, she yanked the door all the way open. “Get out.”

      “All I’m requesting is a hair or saliva sample.”

      “Get out.”

      He moved then, but only to where she stood. Julie tipped her chin and held her own but she had to admit she didn’t remember the sexy stud she’d hooked up with for one wild night being quite this tall. Or this intimidating. He stood so close she could make out the gold tips of his lashes, the faint white scar on one side of his chin, the utter determination in those deadly blue eyes.

      Julie was no shrimp. At five-eight, she’d had to shoehorn into more than one cramped cockpit. She’d also learned to extricate herself from tricky situations while flying in and out of some less than desirable locales. Dalton topped her by a good four or five inches, however, and right now he looked as tough as any of the macho hotheads she’d encountered over the years.

      “Look,” he said, making an obvious effort to rein in his temper, “this isn’t just about you or me. We need to know the baby’s parentage for health reasons, if nothing else.”

      Well, hell! She hadn’t considered that. Of course they would want to know if there was a history of serious diseases somewhere in the child’s family tree. Julie almost caved then. Would have, if Dalton hadn’t added a tight-jawed kicker.

      “We’ll pay you.”

      “Excuse me?”

      “A thousand in cash for a DNA sample right here, right now.”

      She had to fight for breath. Not only did he think she would abandon her own baby, now he appeared to believe she had to be bribed to prove she was telling the truth. If Julie had a wrench in her hand right now, this jerk would be parting his hair on the other side for a long, long time to come.

      “Get … out!”

      His jaw worked. Those blue eyes iced into her. “This isn’t over between us,” he warned.

      “What are you gonna do?” she sneered. “Get your PI to follow me around and snatch my coffee cup to steal a saliva sample?”

      “That’s one option. There are others.”

      He let his glance make a circuit of the messy office. Slowly. Deliberately. Then he brought that knife-edged gaze back to her.

      “The offer’s on the table for the next twenty-four hours. Think about it.”

      She ached to give him a few things to think about. A swift knee to the gonads came immediately to mind. She settled for slamming the door behind him so hard it bounced back and almost whapped her in the face.

      Two

      “A thousand dollars!”

      Dusty Jones’s creased, roadmap of a face lit up with delight. He’d returned less than a half hour after Alex Dalton’s departure. A small, bow-legged old coot with wiry gray hair that sprang out in every direction beneath a beat-up straw Stetson, he strutted like a banty rooster whenever he wasn’t in the cockpit. He wasn’t strutting now. He was slapping his knee and whooping with glee.

      “Whoooeee! A thousand for a hair or a lick of spit! That’ll almost pay for the chemicals I ordered last week.”

      “You ordered a new load?”

      Momentarily diverted from the subject of Alex Dalton’s outrageous offer, Julie brought the front legs of her chair down with a thud. The violent movement provoked a hiss from Belinda. After scarfing up the tacos Dusty had faithfully delivered, the cat had draped herself across Julie’s lap like a fat, furry blanket. She now proceeded to announce her displeasure at having her post-taco siesta disturbed by digging her claws into Julie’s thigh. The needle-sharp talons pierced right through her coveralls and came close to drawing blood.

      “Ow!” Julie returned the cat’s one-eyed glare and detached her claws before appealing to the second man crammed into the tiny office. “Chuck, will you puh-leez remind our partner we still haven’t paid for the last load of chemicals?”

      The mechanic shifted his plug and dutifully complied. “We ain’t paid for the last load, Dusty.”

      Julie ground her back teeth. If she didn’t love these two geezers so much, she’d let them sink and get back to having a life! Hanging on to her temper with both white-knuckled fists, she glared at her partner.

      “You promised!”

      “I know, I know.” Dusty rubbed a thorny palm across the back of his neck. “But we’re coming up on winter wheat planting season. Can’t make any money if we don’t service our customers. So give this guy Dalton some spit, missy, and get us out of the hole.”

      “Didn’t you hear me?” Julie asked, exasperated. “The man thinks I dumped a baby on his doorstep.”

      “Thought you said it was his mother’s doorstep.”

      She flapped an impatient hand. “His, hers, what difference does it make?”

      “Ha! You wouldn’t ask that if you’d ever crossed paths with Delilah Dalton.”

      “And you have?”

      “Yes’m, I have. Must have been thirty, forty years ago. Del and her husband were just starting out in the oil field re-supply business then. He was what we used to call in them days a real rounder. Now Delilah …” He shook his head in mingled admiration and chagrin. “That woman was one fine female. Probably still is. But so uptight you could bounce a dime off her ass and get nine cents change.”

      “Which is all the more reason for me to refuse her son’s demand for a DNA sample,” Julie huffed. “I don’t want anything to do with him or his mother.”

      “But, missy! A thousand dollars?”

      “No.”

      “Just for a little spit?”

      “No.”

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