His Child Or Hers?. Dawn Stewardson

for a few seconds, deciding there was no point in trying to make her case sound stronger than it actually was. Not when Hank would undoubtedly talk to a lawyer of his own.

      “He basically told me,” she finally said, “that how the hearing went would depend on the legal arguments and the particular judge.”

      She watched Hank shake his head when she finished speaking, trying not to feel sorry for him but finding it impossible.

      There was no trick at all to putting herself in his shoes when they were pretty much identical to her own. They loved the same child, but he couldn’t be with both of them at once. And the problem was no more Hank’s fault than hers.

      “All right,” he finally said. “You’ve had a lot more time to consider this than me. How do you see us resolving it?”

      Nervously she licked her lips. In her dreams, she simply whisked her son back to Guatemala with her. But she knew she couldn’t do that in reality. Aside from anything else, it would be too horribly traumatic for him.

      As far as he was concerned, Hank was his father. While she was…it hurt to even think about. At this point, she was nothing to him.

      “You have come up with some ideas, haven’t you?” Hank said.

      “Not specifically detailed ones. But I thought we could consider some sort of shared custody arrangement.”

      Hank eyed her, his expression unreadable.

      “I realize we’d have to take this slowly. That Robbie would have to get to know me, feel comfortable with me, before we could even consider anything more long term.

      “So, for the moment, I was just hoping you’d let me spend some time with him. I’m staying at the Whispering Winds Motel, only a few miles from here.”

      He nodded that he knew where it was.

      “We could take things step by step, give ourselves the chance to really consider our options—”

      Before she completed the sentence she heard a door open. Seconds later, a whirlwind of a little boy charged into the living room.

      “We had ice cream,” he said, throwing himself at Hank. “’Cuz I was good.”

      Natalie’s heart flooded with emotion. After all this time, her son was right here before her—alive and well and the most beautiful child she’d ever seen.

      She desperately wanted to gather him up in her arms and never let him go. But he was already in Hank’s arms.

      And to his mind that’s where he belongs, an imaginary voice whispered.

      Taking a long, deep breath, she told herself she was not going to cry.

      Yet even though she’d realized that when she found him he’d have no idea who she was, contemplating that in the abstract and coming face-to-face with the reality were two completely different things.

      Watching him hug Hank, without even glancing her way, tore at her far more than she’d ever have imagined.

      “Oh, you’ve got company,” a woman said from the hallway.

      Looking over, Natalie forced a smile as Hank said, “Audrey, this is Natalie Lawson. Audrey Chevalier, my housekeeper.

      “Of course, you’ve already guessed that,” he added quietly to Natalie, nodding toward the report lying on the coffee table between them.

      “Yes,” she murmured, thinking that both Hank and Audrey were far different from what she’d been expecting.

      Learning he was a homicide detective had made her leap to some conclusions she’d already realized weren’t accurate.

      Oh, not all of them were wrong. Being a big-city police officer was far from the safest job in the world. That was an undeniable fact. And to her mind, at least, it hardly made cops ideal father material.

      But she’d been imagining Hank as a man who was much too involved in his work to really have time for a child—especially since he’d only adopted at his ex-wife’s insistence. Yet that wasn’t the impression she was getting now.

      She gazed at him cuddling her son for another moment, a dull ache around her heart, then glanced toward the hallway once more.

      She’d pictured Audrey as a stern woman too old to be caring for an active little boy. In reality, she seemed like a very pleasant, very young fifty-eight-year-old.

      When Natalie focused on Robbie once more, he was watching her, his big brown eyes full of curiosity and a dried smudge of chocolate ice cream on his cheek.

      He looked like Carlos.

      She hadn’t been certain, just from seeing those photographs, but he did. And that sent a fresh rush of emotion through her. Getting him back would be getting back a part of her husband, as well.

      She continued to gaze at the little boy snuggled in Hank’s lap, and realized that anyone who didn’t know better would never suspect the man wasn’t his natural father.

      Hank didn’t actually resemble Carlos very much, but there were similarities. Regular yet rugged features. Hair that was almost ebony and eyes the color of black coffee. The sort of dark good looks that had always appealed to her.

      Not that Hank Ballantyne appealed to her. Lord, no. He was the man standing between her and her son.

      Focusing on Benjamin…Robbie, once more, she softly said, “Hi.”

      The instant she spoke, he hid his face against Hank’s chest.

      “We’re in a playing-shy-with-strangers phase,” he said.

      Strangers. Nodding again, she tried not to let the remark sting. It did, though. Hard.

      “Would you like me to make lemonade or anything?” Audrey asked.

      “No, thanks,” Hank said quickly. “In fact, we’re going out for a while. We’ve got some things to discuss.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      HANK HAD DRIVEN Robbie to the lab in Englewood first thing, and Natalie had said she’d go as well. That meant, come tomorrow, they’d know for sure whether she was his mother.

      However, the chance she wasn’t seemed so tiny that Hank hadn’t waited to consult a lawyer of his own.

      By calling in a favor, he’d gotten a last-minute appointment with Doris Wagner—whom he’d known only by reputation until he’d walked into her office half an hour ago.

      He eyed her as she sat gazing at her computer screen. A small, middle-aged woman, she looked as timid as a sparrow. However, she had a reputation as a veritable tigress in the courtroom, and was acknowledged to be one of the best lawyers around when it came to custody battles.

      Not that he wanted to find himself in the midst of one. But he loved his son more than anything else on earth and there was no way he was letting Natalie Lawson take Robbie out of his life.

      For the thousandth time, he recollected her words. “I realize that my walking in here and trying to take him away from you would not be in his best interest, so it isn’t what I’m trying to do.”

      He mentally shook his head. How could she have said that in one breath and raised the idea of shared custody in the next?

      Shared custody. Did she honestly believe that was even a possibility?

      He suspected she didn’t. Because by the time they’d finished talking, he’d realized that the prospect of coming to any mutually acceptable compromise was virtually unimaginable.

      Maybe, if there wasn’t such a major geographic obstacle, some sort of sharing would be feasible. But saying she didn’t live nearby was the understatement of the year.

      He’d been surprised when she’d told him she was a doctor, and