Instant Daddy. Carol Voss

      Rain was starting, Jake felt like he weighed a hundred pounds and Jessie’s hip was killing her by the time she struggled up the diner steps. She hoped Will was still inside.

      Jake’s adoption had to hold up in court. Like Maggie said, Clarissa had always been thorough, and she would have made certain the father-not-knowing-about-the-baby loophole was closed. Wouldn’t she?

      She pulled open the door, the bell above it jingling to announce them. The interior’s cool, dry air confirmed her new AC was doing its job. Her cousin Lisa, who was behind the counter, and several customers sitting on Jessie’s new, red vinyl stools greeted them. Jake returned their greetings by opening and closing both little fists in his rendition of a wave.

      With a sigh of relief, Jessie spotted Will, the upper-classman who’d gone to college on a basketball scholarship and returned to Noah’s Crossing with a law degree not long after her accident. She’d still been in physical therapy when he’d asked her out on a pity date, probably engineered by Aunt Lou. At least Aunt Lou tried to organize everybody’s lives, not just Jessie’s.

      But her refusal to date Will didn’t mean they weren’t still friends. It didn’t keep him from stopping in the diner for pie almost every afternoon, either. “Hey, Will. Can I have a word with you in the back room?”

      The corners of Will’s sharp blue eyes wrinkled. “Right now?”

      Jessie noticed the fork in his hand and the half-eaten pie à la mode on the plate in front of him. “Bring your pie with you. You want a cup of coffee on the house?”

      “Can’t pass that up, now, can I?” His puzzled look intact, Will stood to tower over the counter.

      Actually, Will wasn’t any taller than Dr. Sheridan, was he? Jessie pushed the image of the handsome, authoritative doctor from her mind and strode for the curtain that separated the customer area from the prep-and-storage room. She needed to focus.

      Lisa poured Will’s cup of coffee. “You look upset.”

      Jessie met her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said automatically.

      “Well, you don’t look fine.” Lisa handed the steaming coffee to Will.

      “Thanks,” he said.

      Jessie ducked through the curtain and headed for the play corner she’d fenced off near one of the long windows. “Look, Jake. There’s Thomas the engine, right where you left him.”

      “Tomut!” Jake threw himself with glee, totally oblivious to the concept of gravity.

      But Jessie was ready for his lunge and stopped him from falling. She hoped he outgrew his habit before he got much heavier and harder to contain. “Slow down, okay?”

      Jake touched her cheek in the sweet apology that always melted her heart. Then he turned, wriggling for release.

      She bent over the mesh fence to set him down, pain stabbing her hip and making her catch her breath. “There you go.”

      “There you goes,” he mimicked, scurrying to his low train table.

      Will chuckled. “He’s talking more every day.” Setting his empty plate near the sink, he leaned against the counter. “How’d you hurt your leg?”

      Jessie frowned. “My leg is fine.”

      Will took a sip of coffee and wisely decided to change the subject. “You outdid yourself with that raspberry-rhubarb pie. I think it’s my new favorite.” He gave her a little grin.

      She attempted a smile, then gave it up as she hurried to the fireproof safe where she kept her important papers. Grasping her ring of keys from her purse, she knelt and unlocked the box. She clasped the folder marked “Jake,” struggled to her feet and handed it to Will.

      He looked at the identifying tab, then at Jessie. “Jake?”

      “Clarissa hired a lawyer she knew in New York to handle the legal work for the private adoption. I’m sure everything is as it should be, but will you look at it to make sure?”

      “Any reason for your sudden interest?”

      She squinted. “It seems I met Jake’s father today. He made the scholarship presentation at graduation. He says Clarissa didn’t tell him about Jake.” Her words sounded clipped, almost matter-of-fact, but the breathless panic ringing in her ears told the real story.

      Will set his cup beside his pie plate, bent his head and thumbed through the contents of the folder.

      Hanging on to a calm she didn’t feel, Jessie tried to read Will’s face as he studied Jake’s birth certificate and papers documenting the adoption. “We dotted every i and crossed every t, didn’t we?”

      Will looked up. “The documents that are here look perfect.”

      She wanted to heave a sigh of relief, but his serious tone warned her there was more.

      “In Wisconsin, a single mother doesn’t need to identify the father on the baby’s birth certificate, but if Clarissa didn’t tell him she was pregnant, and his DNA proves he’s the father, he has a legitimate claim.”

      Jessie stared in horror. “How much of a claim?”

      “He’d need a court order, but if he has the means to care for Jake, a judge could very well award him at least partial custody.”

      “No,” she heard herself moan, pain wrenching deep inside.

      “I’m really sorry, Jess. Why didn’t Clarissa tell him?”

      “She said he was completely uninterested in being a father. I had no idea she hadn’t told him. She wouldn’t even tell me who the father was.” A thought nudged Jessie’s mind. Had her sister wanted to give Jessie her dream of being a mother so much that she’d convinced herself the father wouldn’t care? If Dr. Sheridan hadn’t come to Noah’s Crossing to present the scholarship, Jake’s father’s would still be a mystery.

      “Look—even if he proves to be Jake’s father, are you sure he wants custody?” Will asked.

      Jessie thought about the look on Dr. Sheridan’s face when he’d reached out to touch Jake. About the intensity in his tone when he’d insisted Clarissa had no right to give Jake away. She swiped at tears clouding her vision. “I don’t know. But he can’t have Jake. You have to help me. I’ll do whatever I need to do.”

      “Are you convinced the guy is Jake’s dad?”

      She’d give anything to be able to say no. Promise anything if God would just make the man go away like none of this was happening. But she knew things didn’t work that way. “Yes. I believe he is Jake’s father.”

      “Then try to find a compromise to keep him from taking you to court.”

      “Compromise?” She shook her head. “I’ll never compromise where Jake is concerned.”

      “Wouldn’t a compromise be better than losing him?”

      She drew a sharp breath.

      “It could happen, Jess.”

      “Doesn’t it matter that Jake’s mother didn’t want the father to know? That she wanted me to raise him?”

      “It’s a factor in your favor. So are the adoption papers. But…I know Jake means the world to you. I don’t advise you to risk it.” Will handed the file folder to her. “Is the guy married?”

      “I don’t think so. He doesn’t wear a ring anyway.”

      “Does he know anything about raising kids?”

      “I don’t know that, either.” She put the folder back in the safe, fumbled to lock it, then dropped her keys in her purse.

      Will rubbed the back of his neck. “The thought of being a single dad would scare me to death. Watching