Extreme Measures

Except that everything had changed.

“I understand that you’re angry,” Shaun relented, “but—”

“I don’t think you can understand any of this. You didn’t just find out that you had a four-and-a-half year-old daughter.” Colin slammed his empty bottle down on the table. “Why would she keep something like this from me? Did she really think I would turn my back on my own child?”

“Nikki didn’t find out she was pregnant until after you’d told her your marriage was over.”

“I still had a right to know.”

Shaun sighed. “Why do you think I tried so hard to get you to come back here? Why do you think I made those outrageous demands in the settlement negotiations with your lawyer?”

“Because you were acting on your client’s instructions,” Colin guessed.

“Nikki didn’t want anything from you,” Shaun told him. “But I thought—I’d hoped—that you’d come back here and demand to know why she was being unreasonable. Then she would have had to tell you about the baby she was expecting.”

Colin shook his head, only now beginning to understand what he’d previously seen as his brother’s betrayal. “My lawyer told me not to sign that agreement. But the money didn’t matter to me, and I figured it was the least I could do to compensate Nikki for messing up her life.” In fact, he would have paid ten times as much in the hope that the financial settlement might assuage his guilt. It hadn’t.

“She’s never touched a dime of it,” Shaun confided. “It all went into a trust account for Carly.”

This revelation didn’t change the basic facts of the situation; it didn’t absolve his brother of culpability. Shaun had been a party to Nikki’s deception for the past five years—the two people he’d been closest to had betrayed him.

“How could you keep this from me?” he wondered aloud. “How could you not tell me I had a child?”

“It wasn’t my place to tell you. And Nikki was my client—”

“I’m your brother.”

“I couldn’t disclose information provided to me in my capacity as legal—”

“Spare me the speech on attorney-client privilege. You haven’t billed Nikki for every conversation you’ve had over the past five years.”

Shaun sighed. “I know she wanted to tell you.”

Colin raked his hands through his hair again. He’d been back in Fairweather less than forty-eight hours, and already his life bore little resemblance to the one he’d left behind in Texas.

It had been Detective Brock’s suggestion that he get away, and Colin had been grateful to do so. He was tired of always looking over his shoulder, always wondering what might be around the next corner. He’d come back to Fairweather for some downtime, to talk to his ex-wife. His plans had been simple.

Now that he was here, it seemed he’d only exchanged one set of complications for another. Nothing was simple anymore.

“What’s she like?” he asked after a long pause. Then, to clarify—and to try the name out, “Carly.”

His brother smiled. “She has your eyes, and all of the famous McIver charm.”

Colin smiled, pleased to know there was something of himself in his daughter.

“Is she…is she happy?”

“She’s an incredibly happy and well-adjusted child.”

Colin cleared his throat, to ease the sudden tightness. “Maybe she doesn’t need a father,” he said. “Not a father like me, anyway.”

“What does that mean—a father like you?”

He pushed himself up from the chair. “Just that I don’t know anything about being a father. I know nothing—less than nothing, even—about kids.”

“Most fathers are novices the first time around.”

“But…God, I’ve never even thought about having kids.”

“Well, you’d better start thinking about it,” his brother said practically. “Because you’ve got one now.”

“Did you…” Colin hesitated, almost afraid to finish the question. “Did you tell her not to tell me…about the baby?”

“No.” Shaun grinned. “In fact, I advised her to go after you for child support.”

Chapter 3

The worst thing about prison, Duncan Parnell decided, was the bed. If the narrow mattress on the steel frame bolted to the concrete floor could even be called a bed. He rolled slowly onto his back and stretched out, concentrating on his breathing as he tried to force his muscles to relax. Perspiration beaded on his forehead as he gritted his teeth against the stabbing pain.

He wished he had some of his pills, just to take the edge off. Even one pill. One pill would at least reduce the agony to a dull ache.

The guard had given him an aspirin, as if that would make a difference. He closed his eyes as the pain struck again, exhaled slowly. It was a good thing he wasn’t going to be here very long.

And when he got out, he’d make Jonesy pay for ratting him out. He didn’t doubt for a minute that it had been Jonesy who had turned on him.

McIver had picked Jonesy up from Detroit on a mid-season trade. He’d scored seven goals in his first ten games with the Tornadoes, and after Duncan’s accident, he’d been moved up to Duncan’s line to fill the vacant position. It was supposed to have been a temporary move, just until Duncan was back.

But McIver kept Jonesy in the starting line. As the team neared play-offs, Jonesy was getting at least twice the ice time Duncan got.

He’d made the mistake of shooting off his mouth in The Thirsty Duck one night after their play-off run had ended. Not to Jonesy—he and the pretty boy from Michigan weren’t that close. But Jonesy had been there, and Duncan had been furious enough to rant indiscriminately about his intention to make McIver pay.

Jonesy must’ve figured he’d be guaranteed Duncan’s place in the lineup next season if Duncan was behind bars.

And now, because of a few ill-chosen words and the subsequent explosion at McIver’s apartment, Duncan was a guest of the local correctional facility on charges of uttering threats. He knew the cops expected to pin the bombing on him. He also knew that they didn’t have any evidence against him, nor would they find any. Because he hadn’t done it.

If he’d planned to blow McIver away personally, he would have bought a gun and been done with it. He might even have enjoyed it. But no way would he have tried to build a bomb. Hell, he’d known a guy in high school who lost two fingers on one hand because he’d been playing with a firecracker.

Duncan shook his head. It was too much of a risk. His hands were his livelihood, his life. He wasn’t as big as some of the guys, he wasn’t as quick on his feet as others, but give him the puck and he could skate circles around all of them. He’d been admired for his “fast hands” since he’d started playing junior hockey at fourteen years of age. No way in hell would he risk his biggest asset.

You had to be nuts to play around with explosives.

Which is exactly what he’d told the cop who’d arrested him.

As the excruciating pain in his back eased a little, he smiled up at the bare ceiling. No, he wasn’t the type who got his kicks playing with explosives—but he knew someone who was.

And Boomer had been more than happy to take care of Duncan’s problem. He didn’t worry about being ratted out. Boomer had been in the business more than fifteen years, with only two arrests and no convictions. He was a man who took pride in his work and his reputation, and Duncan trusted him to get the job done. Which was another reason he didn’t mind being locked up right now—he’d have an irrefutable alibi when McIver’s body was found.

Nikki was up with the sun Saturday morning after a sleepless night. She knew her conversation with Colin the previous evening had barely scratched the surface of the issue, and the next round of conflict was inevitable. So she was almost relieved to find him at her door before nine o’clock.

“Where’s Carly?” Colin asked.

“She’s spending the day with Arden.”

His cool gaze narrowed on her. “I want to see my daughter.”

“I wanted to be able to discuss the…situation without being overheard.”

Her explanation didn’t seem to placate him.

Nikki didn’t care. She was only worried about how Colin’s sudden appearance would impact Carly’s life. And concerned about the void that would be left after his inevitable disappearance again. Because as much as she wanted Colin to have a relationship with Carly, she knew he wouldn’t stay in Fairweather. He’d never wanted to before; there was no reason to suspect he would now.

“Do you want some coffee?” The offer was made in an attempt to buy time rather than because she had any real desire to pump more caffeine into her system.

“Fine.”

She could tell by the clipped tone that he was still angry. Furious, in fact, and she knew she couldn’t blame him for that.

She led the way into the kitchen, then busied herself pouring coffee into two mugs while she sought the words that would explain her actions. She added a splash of cream to his, cream and sugar to her own. The task gave her another precious moment to compose herself, organize her thoughts.

She turned back to the table and handed him the mug. His fingers brushed against hers and her tenuous composition dissolved, her supposedly organized thoughts fled. She chanced a quick glance at Colin, found his eyes locked on hers, felt the heated awareness that simmered between them.

Despite the enormity of the issues unresolved, the basic attraction was still there. Like the glowing embers of a fire, stoked by that simple, accidental contact of their fingers. It was just another distraction she didn’t need right now, a complication she couldn’t afford.

“I’m still trying to understand what happened, Nicole, why—in all this time—you didn’t tell me we had a child.”

Whatever excuses she’d used to justify the deception initially, the more time that passed, the harder it became to even consider telling him about their child. And the older Carly got, the more unreal the whole situation seemed. Maybe it would have been easier when Carly was a baby, or even a toddler. But how could she track him down to tell him that he was a father—to a four-and-a-half-year-old child?

She’d always fallen back on the excuse that if Colin had cared about her at all, he would have come back. She’d clung to that justification, reveled in it. After all, he’d been the one to walk out on her. But now he was back, and she’d run out of excuses.

“I wanted to tell you,” she admitted.

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because the day I found out that I was pregnant was the day I got served with divorce papers.” The memory of that day—both the overwhelming joy and the devastating pain—was still vivid in her mind.

“This was payback? Your way of punishing me for ending our marriage?”

She sighed wearily. “I didn’t think of it as punishment, but maybe it was. At first, anyway. I was hurt and angry, and I didn’t want to have any contact with you.”

“You couldn’t have got past your hurt and anger for two minutes at any time in five years to tell me I had a child?” he demanded.

“I tried to call you.”

“When?”

“The first time I held our baby in my arms.” Even now, thinking about that moment made her smile. “I wanted you to know about her—our beautiful, perfect little girl.”

“And?” he prompted impatiently.

“The number was no longer in service.”

Her response didn’t even slow down his attack. “Did you call directory assistance? Did you ask my brother? Did you make any effort other than that one phone call?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Why, Nic?”

“I thought I was protecting Carly.”

“How could you possibly use our child to justify your actions?”

Our child.

The words leaped at her, angry, accusing. Reminding Nikki that he had a valid and legitimate claim to the little girl that she’d kept to herself for so many years. It didn’t matter that her actions had been well-intentioned, that she’d given Carly all the love and attention and affection any child could need or want. Carly was his child, too, and she’d hurt all of them by denying it.

“What did you think you were protecting her from?” Colin demanded.

Nikki shifted her gaze, tried to keep her own temper in check. But it was hard not to respond in kind to his anger. “From being rejected by her father.”

He scowled. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your damn obsession with hockey.” She practically shouted the words at him, relieved to finally speak them aloud. To finally admit the feelings she’d kept bottled up inside her for so long.

“Obsession?” Colin echoed.

“It was all you ever talked about, all you thought about. And I didn’t think a child would fit into your plans. A wife certainly hadn’t.”

“Hockey wasn’t an obsession—it was my life.”

“I know,” she admitted, helpless to prevent the bitterness from entering her voice. “And more important to you than anything else.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Of course not. And we weren’t talking about my career, anyway. We were talking about why you kept my daughter from me.”

Nikki sighed. “When I first suspected that I was pregnant, I hoped that having a baby would bring us closer again. Then you decided that being married wasn’t what you wanted, and the last thing I wanted was for you to come back to me just because I was pregnant.

“I loved you too much to use our baby to hold on to you. I didn’t want you to resent me, and our child, for keeping you here when it wasn’t where you wanted to be.”

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “And there was a part of me that was afraid it wouldn’t be enough to hold you, anyway. That you would still choose your career over your family.”

“Did you ever consider a third option—that I might have wanted to be a father to our child?”

Of course she’d considered it. When the doctor had confirmed her pregnancy, she’d fantasized about telling him. In that fantasy, Colin had been ecstatic to learn she was carrying his child. He’d shouted with joy and kissed her breathless. Then he’d taken her away and they’d lived happily ever after in a house full of children.

But the reality was that they’d married without ever talking about children. At the time, she’d been so thrilled to be Colin’s wife she hadn’t worried about anything else. She’d known she wanted to have his child some day, and she’d taken it for granted that he wanted the same thing.

When she’d finally broached the subject a couple of months later, she’d been both shocked and hurt to hear him say he didn’t want a family. But she hadn’t pursued the topic, certain he’d change his mind over time.

Being served with a petition for divorce had effectively annihilated that fantasy. Still, she knew now that she’d been wrong to blame him for destroying a dream he couldn’t have known about. And after a long minute of agonizing silence, she finally whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry that I found out?”

She shook her head, blinked back tears. “Sorry that I didn’t try to tell you sooner. Regardless of what happened between us, you are her father and you had a right to know.”

Colin remained silent.

“I am sorry,” she said, surprised at how good it felt to say those words. “I never meant to hurt you or Carly by keeping my pregnancy a secret. And I’m sorry that’s what happened.”

“So am I.”

“What do you want me to do now?” she asked helplessly. “I’ve apologized. I’ve tried to make you understand why I made the decisions I did. Okay, so maybe I screwed up. Maybe I should have done things differently. But it’s too late to change that now.”

When he finally spoke, his tone was ripe with bitterness and accusation. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for this.”

“We both made mistakes,” she reminded him. “Can’t we just admit that and move on?”

“I don’t know how to get past your lies, your deception.”

Nikki again felt the sting of tears behind her eyes.

“Does Carly know anything about me?”

“She’s only started to ask questions about her dad,” Nikki admitted. “I’ve told her as much as I can without lying to her.”

His eyes narrowed. “What have you told her?”

“That he didn’t live with us because he worked in Texas.”

He seemed to consider her explanation for a long moment.

“It’s not a big deal to her,” Nikki explained. “A lot of her friends live in single-parent families.”

“It’s a big deal to me,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant. I was only trying to explain that she hasn’t missed not having a father.”

“Does that help you sleep at night—believing she doesn’t need a father?”

“I didn’t say she didn’t need a father,” she said wearily. “In a perfect world, every child would have two parents who love her. But this isn’t a perfect world, and I’ve done the best that I can for Carly.”

“Then where do I fit in?”

Nikki hesitated, knowing that her response was only going to infuriate him even more. But she’d thought about that question all night, and she was determined to put her daughter’s interests first. “I don’t want you forcing your way into her life if you don’t plan on staying. It would be worse for Carly to find her father and lose him, than never to have a father at all.”

“Why is that your decision to make?” Colin challenged.

“Because she’s my daughter and I don’t want her to be hurt.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she recognized her mistake. Of course, it was already too late.

“She’s my daughter, too,” he shot back. “And I want to be part of her life. I want her to know who I am.”

“You want her to call you ‘Daddy’?”

“I am her father,” he reminded her.

“You can’t expect to show up, after five years, and—”

“I might have shown up sooner,” he pointed out coldly, “if I’d known about my child.”

“Might being the operative word,” Nikki shot back.

“In any event,” Colin continued, his tone icy, “I don’t think you’re in any position to put conditions on my relationship with Carly.”

“I’m the one who will have to deal with the fallout when you’re not around anymore.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“What happens if your contract is renewed in Texas?”

“I’m not going to debate with you about something that might or might not happen,” he said.

“She’s the one who’ll be hurt when you leave town again.”

“Why are you so quick to assume that I’d abandon her?”

Nikki looked away. She was afraid for Carly, but she was also afraid for herself. Colin affected her as no other man ever had, and she couldn’t bear to see him walk out on her again. And she knew that he would leave. Sooner or later, Colin always left.

“Because you’re always looking for something better. And when a situation becomes a little too difficult, you walk away rather than trying to make it work.”

“Are you still talking about Carly?” he asked. “Or us?”

Nikki flushed. “Obviously our history has colored my perceptions, but you can’t blame me for wanting to protect Carly.”

“I would never hurt her, Nikki.”

I would never hurt you, Nikki. Yes, she’d heard those words before. She’d even believed them at one time. Not anymore.

“If you really want to be her father, you have to start thinking about what’s best for Carly. You need to consider how it will affect her when you walk out of her life as abruptly as you’ve walked into it.”

“Dammit, Nicole. What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do to prove that I’m committed?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But you don’t get to call yourself her father until you’re ready to take the responsibility of being a father.”

“Maybe we should see what a family-court judge says about it.”

The words, once they’d been spoken, surprised Colin as much as they surprised Nikki. He certainly hadn’t come over here this morning with the intention of threatening to take her to court. But he should have expected the unexpected—nothing had gone according to plan since he’d walked back into this town.

And although he was tempted to follow through on the threat, to force Nikki to accept him as part of Carly’s life, he knew he couldn’t. Court documents were a matter of public record, accessible to anyone who cared to look. Filing a legal claim to his daughter would not only announce his location to the world but potentially endanger Carly as well.

Despite Detective Brock’s phone call last night advising of Duncan Parnell’s arrest, Colin remained wary. Unless and until Parnell signed a confession, he couldn’t let himself believe the threat had passed. He couldn’t let his guard down for a minute, which meant he couldn’t sue for custody of his child.

But Nikki didn’t know this, and her face drained of all color in response to his impulsive statement. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he warned.

She blinked back the tears that shimmered in her eyes. “I’m only trying to do what’s best for Carly. Why can’t you see that?”

“How can not knowing her father be best?”

“It has to be better than knowing he didn’t care enough to stick around.”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “Dammit, Nikki. I didn’t know you were pregnant.”

“And I didn’t think you’d care!”

Her outburst, and the depth of her anger, stunned him into silence for a moment.

“How could you think that?” he asked at last. “How could you think I’d walk away from my child?”

“I didn’t know what to think,” Nikki said bluntly. “But I didn’t think the man who’d told me he’d love me forever would serve me with divorce papers ten months after our wedding, either.”

“You know why I ended our marriage,” Colin said.

“No, I don’t. I’ve listened to all the reasons you’ve given to justify your decision, but I still don’t understand how you could walk out when you supposedly loved me. How could I be sure that you wouldn’t walk out on your child, too?”

“Because I wouldn’t,” he said simply.

He might be a lot of things, but irresponsible wasn’t one of them. Having a baby wasn’t something they’d planned, but if he’d known she was carrying his child, he would have done everything in his power to make their marriage work.

“You told me you didn’t want kids.”

He frowned, having only a vague recollection of a conversation in which she’d asked him about children. It had been shortly after their wedding, and he’d been too preoccupied with his new wife and his lost career to think about anything else. He probably had said he didn’t want them, certainly not at the time.

“Maybe I did,” he agreed. “But there’s a huge difference between the theory of a child and the reality of a little girl who is my own flesh and blood.”

Which reminded him of another issue that had nagged at the back of his mind since he’d first set eyes on Carly. He’d been stunned, not just by the fact that Nikki had had a child, but by the realization that he’d fathered the child. Because if there was one thing in his life that Colin had always been circumspect about, it was birth control.

He always used protection. Even after he and Nikki had been married, he’d kept a supply of condoms in the bedside table. He’d never made love to her without one.

Except…

“When is Carly’s birthday?” he asked abruptly.

She showed no hint of surprise at the question. “October sixth.”

He did a quick mental calculation, confirmed from her response what he’d only just begun to suspect: their child had been conceived the very last weekend they’d been together. The weekend he’d come home to bury his father.

Nikki nodded, somehow following his thoughts, confirming his conclusion.

That weekend had been hell for Colin. He’d been overwhelmed with grief and guilt, and he’d willingly lost himself in the comfort she’d offered without thought of the consequences—without thought of anything but how much he needed her. He’d taken advantage of her warmth and her compassion and her love, and then he’d walked out on her.