Desperately Seeking Dad

She looked at the baby, then back at him, and nodded slowly. “It’s worth staying, if I can get this cleared up once and for all.”

Mitch took a piece of notepaper from the desk and scribbled an address on it. “The Willows is a bed-and-breakfast. Kate Cavendish will take good care of you.”

He considered it a minor triumph when she accepted the paper.

“All right.” Maybe she’d anticipated all along that this wouldn’t be settled in a hurry. “If that’s what it takes, Emilie and I will stay over. When can I expect to see you?”

He glanced at his watch, reviewing all he’d need to accomplish. “Say between six and seven?”

She nodded hesitantly, as if wary of agreeing to anything he said. “I’ll see you then.”

He didn’t breathe until she and the baby were gone. Then it felt as if he hadn’t breathed the whole time she’d been there. Well, the news she’d brought would rattle anyone.

Just how much stock could he put in what Anne Morden said? He leaned back in his chair, considering.

It didn’t take much effort to picture her sitting across from him. Cool composure—that was the first thing he’d noticed about her. She’d reminded him of every smart, savvy attorney he’d ever locked horns with, except that she was beautiful. Hair as silky and black as a ripple of satin, skin like creamy porcelain, eyes blue as a mountain lake.

Beautiful. Also way out of his class, with her designer clothes and superior air.

Well, beautiful or not, Ms. Anne Morden had to be checked out. He hoped he could find some ammunition with which to defend himself, before she blew his life apart.

He reached for the phone.

Chapter Two

A nne put a light blanket over Emilie, who slept soundly in the crib Mrs. Cavendish had installed in the bedroom of the suite. Nothing, it seemed, was too much trouble for a friend of Chief Donovan’s. No one else was staying at the bed-and-breakfast now, and Mrs. Cavendish—Kate, she’d insisted Anne call her—had given them a bedroom with an adjoining sitting room on the second floor of the rambling Victorian house.

The rooms were country quaint, furnished with mismatched antiques that looked as if they’d always sat just where they did now. The quilt on the brass bed appeared to be handmade, and dried flowers filled the pottery basin on the oak washstand. A ghost of last summer’s fragrance wafted from them.

She would have enjoyed the place in any other circumstances; it might have been a welcome retreat. But not when her baby’s future was at stake.

She had to get herself under control before her next unsettling meeting with Mitch Donovan. This afternoon—well, this afternoon she could have done better, couldn’t she?

Her stomach still clenched with tension when she pictured Donovan’s frowning face. She still felt the power with which he’d rejected her words.

She shouldn’t have been surprised. A man in his position had a lot to lose. The chief of police in a small town couldn’t afford a scandal.

The sitting room window overlooked the street, which wound its way uphill from the river in a series of jogs. Bedford Creek was dwarfed by the mountain ridges that hemmed it in. What did people in this village think of their police chief? And what would they think of him if they knew he’d had an affair with a young girl, leaving her pregnant?

They might close ranks against the stranger who brought such an accusation. A chill shivered down her spine.

If Mitch Donovan persisted in his denials, what option did she have? Making the whole business public would only hurt all three of them. But if she didn’t get his signature on the document, she’d live in constant fear.

What was she going to do? Panic shot through her. She pressed her hands against the wide windowsill, trying to force the fear down.

Turn to the Lord, child. She could practically hear Helen’s warm, rich voice say the words, and her fear ebbed a little at the thought of her friend.

Helen Wells had introduced her to the Lord, just as simply as if she were introducing one friend to another. Until Anne walked into the Faith House shelter Helen ran, looking for a client who’d missed a hearing, religion had been nothing but form. It had been a ritual her parents had insisted on twice a year—the times when everyone went to the appropriate church, wearing the appropriate clothing.

They’d have found nothing appropriate about Faith House or its director, Helen Wells—the tall, elegant woman’s embracing warmth for everyone who crossed her threshold was outside their experience. But Anne had found a friend there, and a faith she’d never expected to encounter. Helen’s wisdom had sustained her faith through the difficult season of her husband’s death.

Not that she was under any illusion her faith was mature. God’s not finished with you yet, Helen would say, wrapping Anne in the same warm embrace she extended to every lost soul and runaway kid who wandered into her shelter. The good Lord has plenty for you to learn, girl. But you have to listen.

God could help in this situation with Donovan. She had to believe that, somehow.

But maybe believing it would be easier if she had the kind of faith Helen did.

I’m trying, Lord. You know I’m trying.

A police car came slowly down the street and pulled to the curb in front of the bed-and-breakfast. She let the curtain fall behind her, her heart giving an awkward thump. Mitch Donovan was here.

In a moment she heard footsteps in the hall beneath, heard Kate greeting him—fondly, it seemed. Well, of course. Bedford Creek was his home. Anne was the stranger here, and she had to remember that.

By the time he knocked, Anne had donned her calm, professional manner. But after she opened the door, her coolness began to unravel. He still wore the uniform that seemed almost a part of him, and his dark gaze was intent and determined.

“Chief Donovan. Come in.”

He nodded, moving through the doorway as assuredly as if he were walking into his office. The small room suddenly filled with his masculine presence.

It’s the uniform, she told herself, fingers tightening on the brass knob as she closed the door. That official uniform would rattle anyone, especially combined with the sheer rock-solid nature of the man wearing it.

“Getting settled?” His firm mouth actually curved in a smile. “I see Kate gave you her best room.”

Apparently he hoped to get this meeting off to a more pleasant start than the last one. Well, that was what she wanted, too. You need his cooperation, she reminded herself. For Emilie’s sake.

“Any friend of Mitch’s deserves the nicest one—I think that’s what she said.” Anne couldn’t help it if her tone sounded a bit dry.

He walked to the window, glanced out at the street below, then turned back to her. “Kate said you took a walk around town.”

The small talk was probably as much an effort for him as for her. She longed to burst into the crucial questions, but held them back.

Cooperate, remember? That’s how to get what you want.

“I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up some extra diapers for the baby. The pharmacist already knew I’d been to see you.” That had astonished her. “Your dispatcher must work fast.”

The source of the information had to be the dispatcher. Mitch Donovan certainly wouldn’t advertise her presence.

He grimaced. “Wanda loves to spread news. And it is a small town, except during tourist season.”

“Tourist season?”

He gestured out the window, and she moved a little reluctantly to stand next to him.

“Take a look at those mountains. Our only claim to fame.”

The sun slipped behind a thickly forested ridge, painting the sky with red. The village seemed wedged into the narrow valley, as if forced to climb the slope from the river because it couldn’t spread out. The river glinted at the valley floor, reflecting the last of the light.

“It is beautiful.”

“Plenty of people are willing to pay for this view, and the Chamber of Commerce is happy to let them.”

“I guess that explains the number of bed-and-breakfasts. And the shops.” She had noticed the assortment of small stores that lined the main street—candles, pottery, stained glass. “Bedford Creek must have an artistic population.”

“Don’t let any of the old-timers hear you say that.” The tiny lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled as his face relaxed in the first genuine smile she’d seen. “They leave such things to outsiders.”

“Outsiders.” That seemed to echo what she’d been thinking. “You mean people like me?”

He shook his head. “They make a distinction between outsiders and visitors. Outsiders are people like the candle-makers and potters who want to turn the place into an artists’ colony. The old guard understands that, whether they approve or not. But visiting lawyers—visiting lawyers must be here for a reason.”

“So that’s why everyone I passed looked twice.”

He shrugged. “In the off-season, strangers are always news. Especially a woman and baby who come to call on the bachelor police chief.” His mouth twisted a little wryly on the words.

She’d clearly underestimated the power of the grapevine in a small town. But his apparent concern about rumors might work to her advantage.

“No one will know why I’m here from me. I promise.”

She almost put her hand out, as if to shake on it, and then changed her mind. She didn’t want friendship from the man, just cooperation. Just his signature, that was all.

“Thanks.”

He took a step closer…close enough that she could feel his warmth and smell the faint, musky aroma of shaving lotion. Her pulse thumped, startling her, and she took an impulsive step back, trying to deny the warmth that swept over her.

She must be crazy. He was tough, arrogant, controlling—everything she most disliked in a man. Even if she had been remotely interested in a relationship—which she wasn’t—it wouldn’t be with someone like him.

But her breathing had quickened, and his dark eyes were intent on hers, as if seeing something he hadn’t noticed before. She felt heat flood her cheeks.

Business, she reminded herself. She’d better get down to business. It was the only thing they had in common.

“Have you thought about signing the papers?” She knew in an instant she shouldn’t have blurted it out, but her carefully prepared speech had deserted her. In her plans for this meeting, she hadn’t considered that she might be rattled at being alone with him.

Whatever friendliness had been in his eyes vanished. “I’d like to talk about this.” His uncompromising tone told her the situation wasn’t going to turn suddenly easy. “About the woman, Tina.”

“Do you remember her now?” She didn’t mean the words to sound sarcastic, but they probably did. She bit her lip. There was just no good way to discuss this.

“No.” Luckily he seemed to take the question at face value. “Do you know when she was here?”

“Emilie was born in June. Tina said she’d been here the previous summer and stayed through the fall.” He could count the months as easily as she could.

He frowned. “Tourist season. They come right through the autumn colors. That means there are plenty of transient workers in town. People who show up in late spring, get jobs, then leave again the end of October.” He shook his head. “Impossible to remember them all or keep track of them while they’re here.”

She’d left her bag on the pie-crust table. She flipped it open and took out the photograph she’d brought. A wave of sadness flooded her as she looked at the young face.

“This was Tina.” She held it out to him.

He took the photo and stood frowning down at it, straight brows drawn over his eyes. She should be watching for a spark of recognition, she thought, instead of noticing how his uniform shirt fit his broad shoulders, not a wrinkle marring its perfection. The crease in his navy trousers looked sharp enough to cut paper, and his shoes shone as if they’d been polished moments before.

He looked up finally, his gaze finding hers without the antagonism she half expected. “How did you meet her?”

She bit back a sharp response. “Isn’t it more pertinent to ask how you met her?”

His mouth hardened in an already hard face. “All right. I recognize her now that I’ve seen the picture. But I never knew her name. And I certainly didn’t have an affair with her.”

That was progress, of a sort. If she could manage not to sound as if she judged him, maybe he’d move toward being honest with her.

She tried to keep her tone neutral. “How did you know her?”

“She worked at the café that summer.” He frowned, as if remembering. “I eat a lot of meals there, so she waited on me. Chatted, the way waitresses do with regulars. But I didn’t run into her anywhere else.”

His dark gaze met hers, challenging her to argue. “Your turn. How did you get to know her?”

“She answered an ad I’d put on the bulletin board at the corner market. She wanted to rent a room in my house.”

His eyebrows went up at that. “Sorry, Counselor, but you don’t look as if you need to take in boarders.”

“I didn’t do it for the money.” She clipped off the words. Her instincts warned her not to give too much away to this man, but if she wanted his cooperation she’d have to appear willing to answer his questions. “My husband had died a few months earlier, and I’d taken a leave from my job. I’d been rattling around in a place too big for one person. The roomer was just going to be temporary, until I found a buyer for the house.”

“How long ago was that?” It was a cop’s question, snapped at her as if she were a suspect.

“A little over a year.” She tried not to let his manner rattle her. “I knew she was pregnant, of course, but I didn’t know she had a heart condition. I’m not sure even she knew at first. The doctors said she never should have gotten pregnant.”

“What about her family?”

“She said she didn’t have anyone.” Tina had seemed just as lonely as Anne had been. Maybe that was what had drawn them together. “We became friends. And then when she had to be hospitalized—well, I guess I felt responsible for her. She didn’t have anyone else. When Emilie was born, Tina’s condition worsened. I took charge of the baby. Tina never came home from the hospital.”

His strong face was guarded. “Is that when she supposedly told you about me?”

She nodded. “She talked about the time she spent in Bedford Creek, about the man she loved, the man who fathered Emilie.”

He was so perfectly still that he might have been a statue, except for the tiny muscle that pulsed at his temple. “And if I tell you it was a mistake—that she couldn’t have meant me…?”

“Look, I’m not here to prosecute you.” Why couldn’t he see that? “I’m not judging you. I just want your signature on the papers. That’s all.”

“You didn’t answer me.” He took a step closer, and she could feel the intensity under his iron exterior. “What if I tell you it was a mistake?”

It was all slipping away, getting out of her control. “How could it be a mistake? Everything she said fits you, no one else.”

He seized on that. “Fits me? I thought you said she named me.”

She took a deep breath, trying to stay in control of the situation. “While she was ill, she talked a lot about…about the man she fell in love with. About the town. Then, when we knew she wasn’t going to get better, we made plans for Emilie’s adoption.” She looked at him, willing him to understand. “I’ve been taking care of Emilie practically since the day she was born. I love her. Tina knew that. She knew I needed the father’s permission, too, but she never said the name until the end.”

She shivered a little, recalling the scene. Tina, slipping in and out of consciousness, finally saying the name Mitch Donovan. “Why would she lie?”

“I don’t know.” His mouth clamped firmly on the words. “I’m sorry, sorry about all of it. But I’m not the father of her baby.”

She glared at him, wanting to shake the truth out of him. But it was no use. It would be about as effective as shaking a rock.

“You don’t believe me.” He made it a simple statement of fact.

“No.” There seemed little point in saying anything else.

Mitch’s jaw clamped painfully tight. This woman was so sure she was right that it would take a bulldozer to move her. Somehow he had to crack open that closed mind of hers enough for her to admit doubt.

“Isn’t it possible you misunderstood?” He struggled, trying to come up with a theory to explain the unexplainable. “If she was as sick as you say, maybe her mind wandered.”

For the first time some of the certainty faded in her eyes. She stared beyond him, as if focusing on something painful in the past.

“I don’t think so.” Her gaze met his, troubled, as if she were trying to be fair. “We’d been talking about the adoption. Certainly she knew what I was asking her.”

“Look, I don’t have an explanation for this.” He spread his hands wide. “All I can say is what I’ve already told you. I knew the girl slightly, and she was here at the right time. I don’t know how to prove a negative, but I never had an affair with her, and I did not father her child.”

Something hardened inside him as he said the words. He didn’t have casual affairs—not that it was any of Anne Morden’s business. And he certainly wasn’t cut out for fatherhood. If there was anything his relationship with his own father had taught him, it was that the Donovan men didn’t make decent fathers. The whole town knew that.

“If you were to sign the parental rights termination…” she began.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that really what you want, Counselor? You want me to lie?”

Her soft mouth could look uncommonly stubborn. “Would it be a lie?”

“Yes.” That much he knew. And he could only see one way to prove it in the face of Anne’s persistence and the mother’s dying statement. “I suggest we put it to the test. A blood test.”

That must have occurred to her. It was the obvious solution. And her quick nod told him she’d thought of it.

“Fine. Is there a lab in town?”

“Not here.” He didn’t even need to consider that. “We can’t have it done in Bedford Creek.” He hoped he didn’t sound as horrified at the thought as he felt.

“Why not?” The suspicion was back in her eyes.

“You’ve obviously never lived in a small town. If the three of us show up at the clinic for a paternity test, the town will know about it before the needle hits my skin.”

“That bad?” She almost managed a smile.

“Believe me, it’s that bad. Rebecca Forrester, the doctor’s assistant, wouldn’t say a word. But the receptionist talks as much as my dispatcher.”

“The nearest town where they have the facilities—”

“I’d rather go to Philadelphia, if you don’t mind.” She shouldn’t. After all, that was her home turf.

“That’s fine with me, but isn’t it a little out of the way for you?”

“Far enough that I won’t be worried about running into anyone who’ll carry the news back to Bedford Creek.” It was a small world, all right, but surely not that small. “I have a friend who’s on the staff of a city hospital. He can make sure we have it done quickly. And discreetly.” Though what Brett would say to him at this request, he didn’t want to imagine.

“This friend of yours—” she began.

“Brett’s a good physician. He wouldn’t jeopardize his career by tinkering with test results.”

She seemed to look at it from every angle before she nodded. “All right. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, it is.”

He forced his muscles to relax. Tomorrow, if luck was with him, a simple screening would prove he couldn’t possibly be the child’s father. Anne Morden would take her baby and walk back out of his life as quickly as she’d walked in.

He should be feeling relief. He definitely shouldn’t be feeling regret at the thought of never seeing her again.

Chapter Three

A nne made the turn from the Schulkyll Express-way toward center city and glanced across at her passenger. Mitch stared straight ahead, hands flexed on his knees. He wore khaki slacks and a button-down shirt today, his leather jacket thrown into the back seat, but even those clothes had a military aura.

Nothing in his posture indicated any uncertainty about her driving, but she was nevertheless sure that he’d rather be behind the wheel.

Well, that was too bad. Riding to Philadelphia together had been his idea, after all. He’d said his car was in the shop, and if she thought he wanted to drive the police car on an errand like this, she’d better think again. He’d ride down with her and get a rental car for the return.

The trip had been accomplished mostly in silence, except for the occasional chirps from Emilie in her car seat. Mitch probably had no desire to chat, anyway, and her thoughts had twisted all the way down the turnpike.

Was she doing the right thing? A blood test was the obvious solution, of course, and she’d recommended it often enough to clients. She just hadn’t anticipated the need in this situation. She’d assumed a man in Mitch’s position, faced with the results of a casual fling, would be only too happy to sign the papers and put his mistake behind him.

But it hadn’t worked out that way, and his willingness to undergo the blood test lent credence to his denials. She was almost tempted to believe him.

What was she thinking? He had to be Emilie’s father, didn’t he? Tina would certainly know, and Tina had said so.

They passed a sign directing them to the hospital, and her nerves tightened. Maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to let Mitch make the arrangements, but it sounded sensible, the way he had put it. They could be assured speed and secrecy through his connection.

“I hope your friend is ready for us.” She glanced at her watch. Dr. Brett Elliot had given them an afternoon appointment, and they should be right on time.

“He’ll be there.” Mitch’s granite expression cracked in a reminiscent smile. “In high school Brett was always the one with the late assignment and the joke that made the teacher laugh so she didn’t penalize him. But medical school reformed him. You’d hardly guess he was once the class clown.”

Somehow the title didn’t sound very reassuring. She glanced sideways at Mitch, registering again his size and strength. “Let me guess. You must have been the class’s star athlete.”

He shrugged. “Something like that, I guess.”

The hospital parking garage loomed on her right. Anne pulled in, the sandwich she’d had for lunch turning into a lead ball in her stomach. In an hour or two, she might know for sure about Emilie’s father.

Mitch’s friend had said he’d be waiting at the lab desk. Actually, he seemed to be leaning on it. Unruly hair the color of antique gold tumbled into his eyes as he laughed down at the woman behind the desk. So this was the boy who’d charmed everyone—all grown up and still doing it, apparently.

“Mitch!” He crossed the room in a few long strides and pumped Mitch’s hand. “Good to see you, guy. It’s been too long.”

Brett’s face, open and smiling, contrasted with Mitch’s closed, reserved look, but nothing could disguise the affection between them. Mitch clapped him on the shoulder before turning to Anne and introducing her.

Brett gave her the same warm grin he’d been giving the woman at the desk, but she thought she read wariness in his green eyes. Then he turned to Emilie, and all reservation vanished.

“Hey, there, pretty girl. What’s your name?”

“This is Emilie.”

“What a little sweetheart.” He tickled Emilie’s chin, and even the eight-month-old baby responded to him with a shy smile and a tilt of her head.

Brett gestured toward the orange vinyl chairs lining the empty waiting room. “Since we’ve got the place to ourselves, let’s have a chat about what we’re going to do.”

The woman behind the desk muttered an excuse and disappeared into the adjoining room. Anne took a seat, Emilie on her lap, and vague misgivings floated through her mind. These are Mitch’s arrangements, she cautioned herself. This is Mitch’s friend.