The Daughter He Wanted. Kristina Knight

thinking about your next date?”

      “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed we’ve got two of the hottest men in St. Francois County in my backyard.” Alison clucked her tongue.

      Kaylie squealed from the swing set in the neighbor’s yard, rescuing Paige from answering. Kaylie squealed again and Paige fisted her hands but managed not to run screaming into the other yard to protect her daughter from the swings. Kids played on swings every day, she reminded herself, and only rarely did they get hurt. Alex looked like he might run into the yard, too.

      Helicopter parents, we’re two helicopter parents in the making. For the past four years it was only her making sure Kaylie was safe in her crib, graduated from bottles to veggies, and didn’t get an infection from a skinned knee. A small piece of her heart was glad she wasn’t the only person watching over Kaylie now.

      “I checked him out. He is who he says he is. He isn’t crazy or an alcoholic and he doesn’t have gambling debts.” She took a fortifying breath. “I know my track record isn’t great, but you have to admit most of the mistakes I dated were solely to get my parents’ attention. But that is beside the point because we aren’t dating. Not now and not ever. He’s Kaylie’s father and will eventually be my coparent. End of story.” Definitely, definitely the end of the story.

      “Well, he is quite dishy. And your Google search didn’t return any obvious red flags.” Alison sat back in her chair and folded her arms over her ample chest. She inspected the men in the yard as if they were paintings at an auction. “If you were actually in the market...”

      “Which I’m not.” Paige shrugged as if she hadn’t spent most of the past three days remembering how the man looked in jeans and a fitted tee. Or wondering what he might look like in baseball pinstripes.

      “For my money, though, Tall, Dark and Handsome Friend wins in the looks department.”

      “They aren’t unattractive.” Paige managed to say the words without her voice going into breathless territory but she couldn’t bring herself to look Alison in the eye. The guys in the yard drew her attention again as they sat back in the lawn chairs listening to the Rams game on the radio.

      “Pu-lease, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Alex has a smile like a Hollywood star. Or that his body is taut without going over into veiny-muscle territory.” Alison picked up her tea and drank. “And his voice is like sex on a stick.”

      Paige sputtered iced tea across the table. “Sex on a stick? What does that even mean?”

      Alison waggled her eyebrows. “You know what I mean, and don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

      “Did you spike the tea?” Alison shook her head. Paige mopped up the drops on the table, refusing to look her friend in the eye. “I didn’t notice,” she managed in an almost steady voice. “And my point was that he isn’t a loser who donated his sperm and is now looking for some kind of validation. He doesn’t have any dreaded diseases that might have been passed on to Kaylie. He’s a normal guy who has been through a rough few years and had a kid dropped in his lap.”

      “Oh, no.” Alison’s voice dropped lower.

      “What?” Paige blinked.

      “You like him. Like, like him, like him.”

      The timer went off in the kitchen, saving Paige from having to answer Alison’s statement but still she muttered, “I don’t like him, like him.”

      Alison disappeared into the kitchen to finish barbecue prep and Paige turned back to the yard. Being grateful he wasn’t a serial killer wasn’t the same as liking him. Thinking he might be a good friend for Kaylie wasn’t the same as thinking he’d make a good boyfriend. He seemed to be as nervous as she about dropping all this on Kaylie. Points for him. He had a steady job. More points. He looked good in Levi’s. Extra bonus points.

      Not that she’d really been looking.

      He had a seemingly normal friend, which added to his points total. And slight overprotective streak aside, if Alison were truly worried about his motives she’d have given him her version of the Spanish Inquisition at the door and never let him set foot inside.

      Then there was her private conviction that Alex Ryan was more than a commitment-phobe who would look for any reason to disappear.

      Kaylie moved on to the sandbox, drawing her attention, and ran a toy truck over the wooden sides. Just a normal Sunday afternoon. Well, other than the incredibly distracting man sitting under the tree. He hadn’t pushed himself at Kaylie, which was a relief. Her daughter liked everyone she met, but like many toddlers she needed time to warm up to most of them.

      Paige watched him for a long moment as he listened to the ball game. Black baseball cap covering his tawny hair, tee stretched across his broad chest, faded blue cargo shorts that were slightly tight in all the right places. His eyes were a deep brown that seemed to turn to gold when the light hit them just right. He crossed his ankle over his knee and held the longneck bottle by his fingertips beside him.

      It just wasn’t fair for a man to have the tawny eyes and the tawny hair, not to mention the thick eyelashes and that little scar at the corner of his mouth that seemed to wink when he smiled.

      His friend said something and his laugh cracked across the backyard, sending the butterflies in her belly into overdrive. It was a good laugh. A solid, confident laugh.

      He turned and his intense gaze settled on her, pushing the butterflies to full-on panic mode. Alex smiled and tipped the bottle toward her before taking a drink. He turned his gaze back to his friend Tucker, but Paige had the unsettling feeling his focus was still on the deck.

      On her.

      It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Made her sit a little straighter in her chair. Cross her legs.

      God. She was not, repeat not, interested in the man as a...

      Shoot. Yes, she was.

      She needed to cap that feeling the way she capped the tubes of paint in her studio: tightly. Not just for her own sanity, either. Alison wasn’t wrong about Paige’s past romances.

      She sighed. Men who either couldn’t or wouldn’t treat her as anything more than an accessory. Something to put on and take off as the mood suited them.

      Paige never doubted her decision to have Kaylie as a single parent.

      Not until the gorgeous man sitting under her best friend’s tree had shown up on her doorstep. Well, curb.

       Please, don’t let him treat Kaylie like an accessory.

      Alex pointed and Paige looked in that direction in time to see Kaylie climb up the rungs of the ladder and hurl herself toward the metal trapeze frame hanging from one end of the swing set. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment that seemed to take too long. Kaylie sailed through the short space, tawny hair flying behind her, until her little hands caught the bottom rung and held fast. Her legs swung once more, twice.

      Kaylie giggled as the trapeze swung crazily to the side. And then she fell, hard, down to the ground.

      Paige was out of her chair like a shot and so was Alex. They started toward Kaylie but she got up, dusted off her rump and turned toward the house.

      “Didja see me, Mama? I flew! I really flew!” She high-fived herself. “Good job, Kaylie, good job!” An enormous grin split her face and she turned to the ladder. “I’m’a go again. Watch this time,” she ordered.

      Paige stopped short of the swing set, Alex beside her, and watched as Kaylie climbed back up the four-rung ladder. She settled her feet, holding on to the sides of the swing set as she twisted her mouth to the side and looked intently at the barely moving trapeze.

      “She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.” Paige whispered the words like a prayer. “Be okay. It’s only three feet off the ground. Be okay.”

      Alex