Baby By Chance. M.J. Rodgers

you talked?”

      “He walked me to my vehicle.”

      David let a moment pass, silently watched her. She knew he was waiting for her to continue. She didn’t.

      “A woman doesn’t hire a private investigator to find someone who merely spoke with her and walked her to her vehicle,” he said finally. “Tell me everything that happened.”

      She considered his words. Of course he was right. A woman wouldn’t just want to find a man after such a brief interaction. She was going to have to tell him. Although there was something in this man’s quiet self-confidence that made her suspect he already knew what she was going to say.

      “We slept together,” she said.

      His calm expression didn’t change. She was certain now that he’d already known, maybe from the moment she’d mentioned Todd.

      “Todd didn’t offer you his last name.”

      “No.”

      “Did you offer him yours?”

      “No.”

      “Do you think that Todd might be trying to find you?”

      “No.”

      “Does that…distress you?”

      “No.”

      “And you haven’t tried to find Todd in the intervening six weeks since you met?”

      “Last Friday I went back to the community center and asked if they had a list of attendees from the seminar six weeks before. They told me the seminar was open to the public and did not require advanced enrollment, so they had no such list.”

      “Did that answer seem reasonable to you?”

      “Yes. I just walked in myself.”

      He regarded her quietly before asking his next question. “Why do you want me to find Todd for you?”

      “Like I said, I want to know more about him.”

      “Like what?”

      “Anything and everything you can learn.”

      “And why is that?”

      His questions were focused, like he was following a road map with a definite destination in mind. She had no idea what that destination was and that made her even more nervous.

      “I just want to know about him,” she said. “Isn’t it natural to want to know about someone you’ve been intimate with?”

      “Ms. Carter, I’m going to need a more direct answer.”

      She forced herself to meet his eyes. A woman had to make her presence felt in order to be taken seriously. She had learned that maintaining eye contact was an important defense against being summarily dismissed.

      “I don’t understand what you want me to say.”

      “I want you to say the truth—the whole truth. What exactly do you intend to do with the information that I give to you about Todd?”

      “Try to use it to understand what kind of man he is.”

      “You’ll forgive me for saying so, but isn’t that something a woman normally does before she sleeps with a man?”

      She’d been feeling anything but chipper since the beginning of this conversation. But that last comment made her stomach churn.

      “No, Mr. Knight, I won’t forgive you for saying that. I’m not asking for your approval of my actions. I’m asking for your help in finding out about Todd.”

      Where there had been only an open expression on David’s face before, suddenly there was a sharp, focused intensity. “And if you like what I find out about Todd, are you going to tell him you’re pregnant with his child?”

      She swallowed hard. “That’s a pretty wild assumption.”

      “On the contrary,” David said calmly as he leaned back. “It’s the only logical conclusion. You slept with a stranger whose last name you never asked. You haven’t made an attempt to locate him in the intervening six weeks. Now, all of a sudden, you’re willing to hire a private investigator to find out about him. If you’d discovered he’d given you a sexually transmitted disease, you’d want him found so he could be notified. But you only want to find out about him. You’re pregnant. And you believe Todd is the father.”

      She sucked in a shaky breath, fighting desperately to quell a rising sense of panic and burgeoning nausea. This private investigator was good, all right—too damn good.

      “You’d best understand the ground rules,” he said. “I have a license to consider and, just as importantly, a conscience to answer to. I cannot take on a case without complete honesty from a client.”

      “I haven’t lied to you.”

      “Omissions are substantially the same thing. You weren’t planning to tell me about the pregnancy. Do you plan to tell Todd?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “So, it will depend on what I find out about him?”

      “I have a lot of decisions to make. Before I make any about him, I have to have more information.”

      “When did you discover you were pregnant?”

      “Last Friday.”

      “You had no suspicion before that?”

      “I thought I had the flu.”

      “No missed period?”

      “I’ve always been irregular.”

      “Why do you think Todd is the father?”

      “He’s the only one who could be.”

      “Ms. Carter, if there are any other pertinent facts regarding this case that you’re keeping from me, I need to know them now. Am I being clear?”

      “Yes.”

      “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

      “I have nothing to add.”

      “Who else could be the father?”

      “No one.”

      “Who else knows you’re pregnant?”

      “Just the doctor.”

      “You’ve told no one else?”

      “That’s correct.”

      “Is there anyone else who has a right to know?”

      “A right to know?” she repeated, wondering at the oddness of that question. “With the possible exception of Todd—and I haven’t decided one way or another about him—no one has a right to know.”

      David’s silent scrutiny did nothing but add to the queasiness in her stomach.

      “I’m sorry, Ms. Carter. I won’t be able to take your case.”

      “Excuse me?”

      He rose. “You will not be charged for this morning’s consultation.”

      Despite the deceptiveness of his calm expression and tone, there was an undercurrent of disturbance displayed in his blunt movements. Before she could take another breath, he had marched to his office door and swung it open.

      He stood expectantly beside it. “Have a pleasant day.”

      She felt her face go white with shock. She’d just revealed the most intimate details of her life to this stranger and—what was just as hard—had asked for his help. And he was throwing her out.

      Her icy hands gripped the arms of the chair as she rose shakily to her feet. Somehow she got to the door. She didn’t look at him as she slid past. The