Accidental Father. Lauren Nichols

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      Sarah felt her heart break.

      Time to dream? If she ever slept again, her sleep would be filled with nightmares. One indiscretion. One terrible, wonderful mistake three years ago had given her the child she’d always wanted. But it had also given her the greatest fear she’d ever known. He would be living here now, seeing them at the market and church, bumping into them on the street.

      He had a right to know. A man like Jake—who’d been raised by a rootless single mother then shuffled from foster home to foster home when she died—deserved to know he had a daughter. But if she told him, what then?

      Even joint custody would be a horror, and it could happen, given the courts’ near-manic sympathy for fathers’ rights lately. Just last week, a friend of Sarah’s had lost a custody battle that should never have been decided in the father’s favor. If that happened, and Kylie was taken from her…

      Sarah tried to contain her panic. Maybe they should leave—just pack up and move. It wouldn’t be easy to establish her catering business in another town, and her dad would miss them, as they would miss him. But he had friends, didn’t he? He and Judge Quinn were always doing something together.

      Tears welled, and Sarah touched her forehead to her sleeping child’s. No, she couldn’t do that to her father. With her mother’s death still a raw ache after nearly two years, he depended on Sarah for love and support. But Kylie was another matter. Kylie’s laughter and kisses had become his lifeline. She couldn’t take that from him, just as she couldn’t deprive Kylie of the grandfather she adored.

      Blinking back tears, Sarah slid her arm out from under Kylie’s neck, backed out of the bed below the protective side rail, then moved silently into the hall and closed the door to within a crack.

      She would not cry, she told herself. She would not be a weak, blubbering wreck ever again. The last time she’d allowed that to happen, a lonely deputy sheriff on holiday to meet the brothers he’d never known had found her by Cotton Creek, and Kylie had been conceived.

      She would pull herself together and tell herself she was overreacting. She would make the meatballs and sauce for the Tully girl’s nuptials and put some aside for tonight’s supper. She would not let Jake Russell’s threatening presence get to her. And she would not cry.

      All right, she decided as her tears rolled, anyway, she would cry. But she would do it quietly.

      Chapter 2

      Keyed up and irked that he had to wait for oncoming traffic, Jake stopped the department’s white Jeep opposite Sarah’s house and waited for a battered red truck to go by. He was startled when the grizzled old man behind the wheel sent him a cold, hard look as he drove past.

      “You have a nice day, too,” Jake muttered, wondering what he’d done to tick the man off already. Was the driver a fan of Comfort’s ousted ex-sheriff? Or had the official vehicle and Jake’s uniform made him wonder what Sarah had done to earn a visit from a lawman?

      Easy answer, he thought, hitting the gas pedal and making a squealing left turn. She just might have given birth to his daughter.

      Much of her pink Victorian home was hidden from the road by a thick stand of pines. Jake’s heart leapt as he left them behind and moved up the steep, paved driveway. Sarah was just descending the porch steps.

      The instant she saw the car, her spine stiffened, and Jake knew their meeting wasn’t going to go well. But that knowledge didn’t prevent him from admiring her long tanned legs and cutoff denim shorts as she strode to the middle of the yard. A length of wide black plastic fluttered from her right hand, and a roll of silver duct tape circled her wrist, bracelet-style.

      He swore as he realized what she was about to do, then cut the engine, got out and quickly crossed the lawn. By the time he reached her, she’d already draped the plastic over her sign and was fighting the wind to secure it to the post.

      “Why are you doing this?” he demanded.

      “Why am I doing what?”

      Damn, he hated it when people answered that way. He tried to count to ten—and made it to five. “If you’re closing because you don’t want to rent me a room, forget I even asked. I’m not going to make a big deal of your staying open. You have a child to support.”

      “I don’t need the income from the bed-and-breakfast to support Kylie,” she returned, ripping off another piece of tape and slapping it on her sign. “And my closing has nothing to do with you.”

      “After the talk I had with Maggie, that’s a little hard to believe.”

      Sarah stopped moving, and her gaze widened accusingly. But there was hurt in her eyes, too. “You told Maggie about us?”

      Sighing, Jake shook his head, feeling bad that he’d put her on the defensive. But if she thought that giving him attitude would scare him off, she was wrong. “I don’t kiss and tell, Sarah. My conversation with Maggie concerned my finding a room to rent. When I told her you were closing, she was surprised. She said she’d spoken to you recently, and you hadn’t mentioned it.”

      With a cool look, she gathered the plastic together at the base of her sign, then ripped off another length of tape and wrapped it tightly. “I didn’t tell Maggie I’d just had my teeth cleaned, either, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” Sliding the roll of tape back on her arm, she stared at him through wind-tossed bangs. “Why is my closing or not closing so important to you? We’re strangers.”

      “If we were strangers, my showing up here this morning wouldn’t have rattled you the way it did. You’re not doing much better now. Why is that?”

      “Why?” she repeated in an incredulous tone. “How can you even ask that question? Seeing you reminds me of something I did that I’m not very proud of, and I don’t want to be reminded of it. Maybe what happened between us was just another roll in the hay for you—”

      “I told you it wasn’t.”

      “—but I don’t sleep around.” Her white knit top had a scooped neckline, and her pulse hammered at the base of her throat. Inappropriate or not, Jake remembered kissing her there.

      “The truth is,” she continued, “I’ve been thinking about closing for a while now. Your showing up just pushed my plans ahead a few months. I’m finding that I don’t have time to make meals and change sheets for guests anymore. My catering business is doing very well, and—and Kylie’s growing up fast. She deserves more time with me, and I need more time with her.”

      Something in Jake softened. Whether she was his child or not, he was glad Sarah could work out of her home and give Kylie the attention and support she needed. He’d loved his mother, and in her way, he supposed Emily had loved him. But he’d always known he was third in line behind the current boyfriend and the next party. He hadn’t fared much better with the foster parents he’d stayed with after Emily had died. Kylie would never know that loneliness.

      The low hum of an engine drew Jake’s attention, and he turned to see a car come up the driveway, squeeze past his Jeep and continue on to the far side of the house. It stopped in the small parking area assigned to guests.

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