The Heiress. Cathy Gillen Thacker

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СКАЧАТЬ out. “It would have been sooner if you’d let me know where you were,” he said.

      “What? And take all the fun out of it?” Daisy plucked her glass off the table and took a sip of milk. Expression sobering slightly, she continued, “I was going to contact you soon anyway.”

      Jack had expected as much—when Daisy was ready. She was too confrontational to let what had happened between them that night go by without being addressed. Not that he was taking the blame for everything. She was at fault here, too. Figuring she would want him to give as good as he got, he said back, just as dryly, “To return my car, repay the cash you stole and reimburse me for the $2358.29 in credit card charges you racked up the last two days?”

      Daisy shook her head, took another sip of milk, and still holding his gaze, said, “To tell you I’m pregnant.”

      Her matter-of-fact tone hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Jack tensed, attempting to frame a retort, only nothing came out. Finally, he said, “That’s not funny, Daisy.”

      An emotion he couldn’t quite identify glimmered in her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know.” She waved her hand through the air, some of her customary rebelliousness coming back to her stance. “There’s a certain irony to it, don’t you think? I mean, the bastard of Tom Deveraux having the love child of his most trusted employee slash henchman. If you ask me—” her lips curved with mocking pleasure “—it’s like something straight out of a trashy novel.”

      He was beginning to realize she wasn’t kidding. “Except this is real life, Daisy.”

      Daisy sighed and put down her milk. “Ain’t that the sad truth,” she agreed.

      Jack came closer. Unable to help himself, he looked at her stomach—it seemed as flat as always, but then if the baby was his, and his gut was telling him that it was, she was only four and a half weeks or so along. He swallowed around the unaccustomed tightness in his throat and returned his gaze to her face. “You’re sure about this?”

      Daisy wiped her hands on a napkin and walked down to the other end of the narrow kitchen countertop. She plucked a piece of paper out from beneath a little sample bottle of what appeared to be vitamins and handed it to him. “I went to the Lake Tahoe clinic two days ago.”

      He noted that the receipt said the clinic had billed her for a pregnancy test, new patient exam and consultation.

      In a bored tone, Daisy continued, “You can go check out the test results for yourself if you want. I told them you were the father and you might be coming by.”

      Still struggling to absorb the fact that he was going to be a father—that he was going to have a baby with Daisy—never mind figure out what this was going to mean to him, his life and everyone around them, Jack handed back the receipt. “That’s not necessary,” he said stiffly, guilt—and his own sense of failed responsibility—along with the news of his impending fatherhood, combining to hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. He forced the words through numb lips. “I believe you.” Just as he now believed they were in one hell of a mess, that was likely only going to get worse as time went on.

      Daisy tilted her head as she studied him with narrowed eyes. After a moment, she noted softly, “You haven’t asked if the baby is yours.”

      No. He hadn’t. And why hadn’t he? Jack couldn’t say why he was so sure. He only knew his gut was saying it was his kid. And his street smarts about people, whether they were good, bad or somewhere in between, were never wrong. Daisy might act out wildly, but she would never lie to him about something like this, especially given the way she had grown up, not knowing to whom she had been born. “I’m sure because I know you,” he stated firmly, more sure of that with every second that passed.

      For reasons Jack couldn’t understand, his faith in Daisy’s honor upset rather than reassured her. “And how do you know?” she retorted, the deeply cynical look returning to her face. “Oh!” She snapped her fingers as if something just hit her with amazing insight. “I forgot. You and my biological father have been tracing my movements ever since I decided to try and find my real parents a few months ago.” She trod closer, bristling with a mixture of indignation and contempt. “That’s kind of ironic, too, don’t you think? That I hired the same private investigator my biological father hired to keep me from finding out what the Templeton and Deveraux families would’ve preferred I not ever know?”

      Yeah, it had been a sticky situation, all right. Hardest on the top-notch P.I. who had unexpectedly found himself at the center of the quandary, being asked to represent both sides. But that was neither here nor there now, Jack thought. He shrugged. “It’s not surprising you both hired Harlan. He’s the best private investigator in the city.”

      “I’m surprised he didn’t refuse to help me, given the fact that Tom had signed him first,” Daisy said sulkily.

      “Harlan did go to Tom. Told Tom that you wanted to hire him and why and wanted to know what Tom wanted him to do. Harlan said he could refer you elsewhere or help you himself, but he wouldn’t lie to you or take your money or try and stonewall you—do anything else unethical or underhanded.”

      “Good for Harlan. If it weren’t for him finding out I had been born in a little convent in the Swiss Alps, instead of Norway as I had always been told, I still wouldn’t know the truth.”

      Jack nodded, glad they agreed on this much. “Harlan Decker’s a good guy, all right. Although for the record—” Jack gave Daisy a stern look, letting her know she wasn’t completely off the hook for her actions, either “—Harlan thought I should’ve turned you in for stealing.”

      Daisy shrugged. “What can you expect from a former cop?” she volleyed back. Silence fell between them, less tense this time.

      Jack studied Daisy knowing he already had his own thoughts on the matter, but wondering where she wanted to go from here. “So what now?” he asked her casually.

      Daisy bit her lower lip and regarded Jack uncertainly as her printer finally sputtered to a halt. “You’re really going to take me at my word on this pregnancy?” Clearly, Jack thought, she wasn’t used to being trusted.

      Jack watched as Daisy went over, picked up the stack of finished photos from the tray and began thumbing through them. “I don’t have any reason not to believe you.”

      Daisy went back to her computer and typed in another series of commands. “Nevertheless,” she said as calmly as if they were discussing the terms of a new photo shoot instead of the permanent interlinking of their lives, “I’d feel better if we went over to the clinic and let you see the results, and maybe have you take a paternity test or whatever it is they do these days to establish paternity.”

      Jack pulled up a chair next to her and sat down. “I’d feel better if we just got married and got it over with,” he stated, wondering how long Daisy was going to be able to keep her cool, act as if this hardly mattered, when in reality it was the most earth-shattering revelation of both their lives.

      Daisy continued typing in commands until her printer started going again. She turned to him, as yet another series of tourist pictures began spitting out into the tray, the only indication of her heightening emotions the tensing of her jaw. “And why would we want to do that?” she asked steadily.

      That, Jack thought, was easy. Letting her know with a look that she and their baby would be able to count on him the way she had apparently never been able to count on anyone else in her life, he said, “So the baby you’re carrying will СКАЧАТЬ