His Long-Lost Family. Brenda Harlen

well wanted answers to those questions.

      And now she was just going to walk out?

      The phone on his desk buzzed. “Donald Winter is here for his two-thirty appointment,” Colleen announced.

      He pushed away from his desk as Kelly reached for the handle of the door. “Wait.”

      “No.” She shook her head, refusing to look at him. “I’m done here.”

      He slapped his hand against the frame. “You can’t drop a bombshell like that and just walk out.”

      “You have a client waiting,” she reminded him.

      But right now, Donald Winter and his legal issues were the least of Jack’s concerns. In fact, standing so close to Kelly, breathing in her hauntingly familiar scent, he could barely remember the client’s name. He tried to focus his thoughts on the here and now, on Kelly’s revelation and his response to it. But memories of that one long-ago weekend teased the back of his mind, and he felt something begin to stir low in his belly.

      He dropped his hand from the door, curled his fingers into his palms so that he didn’t give in to the urge to touch her. Because he’d lied. When she’d asked if he’d ever felt the same zing with anyone else, he’d blatantly and unapologetically lied. It was true that he’d been attracted to other women—probably too many other women—but never had he experienced an attraction as compelling or intense as his desire for Kelly.

      Even now, even when she was making wild accusations that could turn his entire life upside down, he couldn’t ignore the heat thrumming in his veins. And because he was standing so close to her, he could see the pulse point pounding at the base of her jaw, and he knew that she was feeling that zing, too.

      “The client can wait,” he said to her now.

      She finally looked at him, and he was relieved to see that her golden eyes were clear again, with no hint of the tears that had twisted knots in his belly. “There’s no reason to make him wait—we’re done here.”

      “We’re not even close to being done.”

      “I said everything I wanted to say and you’ve made your feelings on the subject more than clear.”

      “Dammit, Kelly, I don’t know what I’m feeling,” he admitted. “But as an attorney, I’m finding it difficult to accept the word of a former lover without any concrete proof when I know there’s no way in hell I would let any client of mine do the same.”

      “We used to be more than lovers, Jack. We used to be friends.”

      “We used to be,” he agreed. “But I haven’t heard a single word from you in thirteen years.”

      “Why would I lie about something that is as easy to disprove as it is to prove?” she challenged.

      It was a good question, and one he probably should have considered. But his mind had been reeling since he’d heard her say “I was pregnant”—and frantically trying to reject the possibility that her child could be his.

      Because kids weren’t anywhere in his plan. Sure, he’d considered the possibility when he was married, but when his marriage had fallen apart, so had the expectation that he would someday have a family. Now Kelly wanted him to believe that he was the father of her twelve-year-old child? His brain simply refused to wrap around the possibility.

      “So you really want to do a DNA test?” he asked her now.

      “No,” she said. “What I really want—and probably what you want, too—is to forget we ever had this conversation. Unfortunately, I know that’s not going to happen.”

      He shook his head. “No, it’s not. And if—”

      Her steely glare had him biting back the words and frantically seeking another direction for his thoughts.

      “If you have some time tonight,” he said quickly, “I could stop by and we could discuss this in more detail.”

      She shook her head. “I’m not talking about any of this around my daughter.”

      “Don’t you mean our daughter?” he challenged.

      “Make up your mind, Jackson. You can’t deny paternity in one breath and use it as a weapon in the next.”

      “I just want the truth.”

      “And you need a DNA test for that? Did you even look at her?”

      “She looks like you,” he said dismissively.

      And though it was undeniably true, there was something about the girl that had—even at a first glance—nagged at him. “If that’s all you saw, maybe that’s all anyone else will see,” she said.

      “So you’re just going to walk away?”

      “I told you, Jacks—I thought you had a right to know. But I have no desire to force you into a role you don’t want to fill.”

      “You can’t blame me for being suspicious,” he said. “It’s my job to ask the tough questions.”

      “And you’ve obviously done well enough at your job to get your name on the door,” she noted. “Or was that a wedding present?”

      His gaze narrowed. “I don’t remember you having a nasty streak.”

      “We spent three days together more than thirteen years ago—there were a lot of things you didn’t know, never mind remember.”

      And then she yanked open the door and walked out.

      Jack met with Donald Winter, but he cancelled the rest of his afternoon appointments after that. Actually, he told Colleen to cancel his appointments on account of a family emergency—a request that had her jaw falling open. Because Jack Garrett never cancelled appointments for any kind of personal reasons, because nothing had ever mattered more to him than his career. But right now, he couldn’t focus on anyone else’s legal problems. He couldn’t think at all with Kelly’s words still ringing in his ears.

      She’s your daughter.

      He still had trouble believing it could be true. And yet, as much as he wanted to continue to deny even the possibility, deep in his heart he knew Kelly wouldn’t lie about something so monumental. Nor would she have made the claim unless she was one-hundred-percent convinced that it was true.

      Which meant—Lord help him!—that he was the father of Kelly’s daughter. He had a daughter. And not a chubbycheeked infant or even a wide-eyed toddler but a twelve-year-old. For God’s sake, the kid was practically a teenager!

      And to Jack’s mind, that was definitely a family emergency.

      When he left the office, he did so without any kind of plan. He only knew that he needed some time and space, so he got into his car and drove. Since the death of his parents, family had been himself and his two brothers. Now that Matt was married to Georgia, that family had grown to include his new sister-in-law and her three children. And considering that Luke was a lot like Matt with respect to his ideals about hearth and home, Jack figured his younger brother would also hook up with one woman and have a family of his own someday.

      But that wasn’t Jack’s future. When his marriage ended, he figured any chance of someday having a family had ended with it. And truthfully, he hadn’t been too disappointed. The whole wife-and-kids thing had never been his life’s ambition. But now it seemed he had a kid, whether he wanted one or not. And right now, he was leaning in the direction of “not.” He wasn’t proud to admit it, and he knew it wasn’t what Kelly wanted to hear, but it was true. He was thirty-seven years old, content with his life. Adding a child to the mix now would turn everything upside down.

      Not that it was his choice to make. The fact of Ava’s paternity wasn’t something that could be debated. A test would either prove that he was her father or—dammit, he knew there wasn’t any “or.” In his gut, he knew that Kelly was telling