Daddy By Choice. Paula Detmer Riggs

the child or have him think of me as his father. You will not put my name on his birth certificate or on the form when you enroll him in school.”

      Madelyn’s knees were turning to jelly, and the pulsing in her head took on jagged edges. If she’d been alone, she would have sunk to the mattress and conducted the rest of this slimy discussion from a fetal position. As it was, she hated the thought that Luke might surface at any moment. A quick look over her shoulder reassured her that he was blessedly oblivious.

      Turning back and ducking her head, she curved her hand around the mouthpiece. “Wiley, think about that a minute,” she whispered urgently. “I can understand if you’re angry, even though we both know I never lied to you. Take it out on me if you have to, but for God’s sake don’t punish your own flesh and blood.”

      “I told you I never wanted a child, Madelyn.”

      “But he’s going to grow up in the same town. He’ll hear gossip. Kids can be so terribly cruel, and even if they aren’t, sooner or later he’ll realize you don’t want him.”

      “You should have thought of that before refusing to terminate this pregnancy.”

      Madelyn realized it was futile to argue. Besides, the pain in her head was truly vicious now. Icy fingers gouging chunks from her skull. It was an effort to form coherent sentences.

      “Your terms are acceptable,” she managed to enunciate before removing the phone from her ear. Jagged zigzags of phosphorescent light shot across her field of vision as she attempted to return the phone to the cradle, causing her to miscalculate. The phone fell from her fumbling fingers, hitting the table with a noisy clatter.

      “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she whispered, bracing a shaking hand on the slick tabletop. Her knees were water. Nausea roiled in her belly, and her throat burned. She swallowed against the urgent need to physically purge herself of the ugly feelings inside her. Gagging, she clasped her hand over her mouth.

      “Easy, darlin’, I’ve got you.”

      Before she’d even known he was awake, Luke had scooped her into his arms, carrying her with long swift strides into the bathroom where she was noisily miserably sick.

      Luke pressed two fingers against the carotid artery in Maddy’s neck as she lay on the bed, his gaze on the second hand of his watch. Her pulse had settled nicely since she’d dozed off, and the flow of blood was reassuringly strong. Slowly he withdrew his hand, his gaze focused intently on her face. Though her skin was still pale, her breathing had evened into a normal rhythm.

      Silently he brushed the back of his hand against the satiny curve of her cheek, his brow still knitted. Though still too cool, her skin was no longer clammy.

      “Luke?” she murmured, nuzzling his hand. Curly golden eyelashes fluttered as she struggled to focus.

      “I’m here, Maddy.” He removed the folded washcloth from her forehead, replacing it with one he’d just dipped in ice water and wrung nearly dry.

      Even as she sighed in relief, eyes the color of a Mexican sea and glazed with pain blinked up at him. The helpless vulnerability shimmering in the depths squeezed his heart. “My baby?”

      “Sleepin’ most likely. Those little critters are real tough.”

      Her brow puckered as she stared at him, her eyes huge with fear and pain and her pale mouth trembling. “I’m…so scared of losing him.”

      “Go back to sleep and let me take care of both of you.” He smoothed back her hair with a hand that wasn’t at all steady. “Things will look brighter when you wake up.”

      “I hate this…needing you.”

      “I know.”

      “Part of me still hates you.”

      “I know that, too.”

      “They wouldn’t even let me nurse her, our baby. They said they didn’t want her to bond with someone who wasn’t going to be her mama. I begged and begged…” She blinked. “You would have made them give her to me, wouldn’t you, Luke?”

      A hole opened in his gut. “Yes, I would have made them.”

      “I still hear her crying sometimes. Crying for her mama.” She sighed, her eyelashes drifting closed. “Did I ever tell you?” she mumbled in a voice barely above a sigh.

      “Tell me what, Maddy?” he asked gently.

      For a moment he thought she hadn’t heard him. And then her pale lips curved into a soft smile. “Our baby, she looked just like you.”

      Luke sat on the edge of the mattress for a long time, silently stroking her hair while his heart seeped blood, his mind filled with an image of Maddy cradling a tiny black-haired baby in her arms. He’d thought nothing could make him hurt worse than that day on her porch when she’d told him he would never see the child he’d fathered so carelessly.

      He’d been dead wrong.