Bachelor Father

“THERE WAS A MAN looking for you while you were at lunch,” Mrs. Carmichael told Faith when she came back to work after her break.

She frowned. “What did he want?”

“He said he wanted to thank you for being kind to his daughter.”

“Did you tell him I was just doing my job?” she asked, pulling on the blue and green smock all hospital volunteers wore.

“Oh, he didn’t leave his daughter here at the center. She’s a patient on the second floor.” Her supervisor pulled a slip of paper from her pocket. “A little girl named Megan Novak.”

The name didn’t ring a bell. “Are you sure he wanted me? I don’t remember meeting anyone by that name.”

“He asked specifically for the woman who rocks the babies, and even described you as having blond hair and blue eyes,” Mrs. Carmichael answered. “I told him I’d pass on his thanks but if he wanted to do it himself in person he could come back this afternoon.”

Puzzled, Faith shook her head. “He must have me confused with someone else.”

“I know you like to visit the kids in pediatrics. Maybe it’s someone you met while you were there?”

“It could be, but I don’t remember anyone named Megan.”

The older woman shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it. If he comes in, it will all get straightened out.”

Faith didn’t give it another thought but went back to work. She had just finished buttoning her smock when a little boy arrived at the center. He was a two-year-old named Isaac who didn’t want to be separated from his mother. Unfortunately, his father was a patient on the fourth floor and his mother wanted to visit him.

It wasn’t the first time Faith had to calm a kicking and screaming child who thought a temper tantrum would bring his mother back to the nursery. With a patience that had earned her the nickname “the peacemaker” from another of her co-workers, Faith waited until he had vented his frustration before attempting to take him on her lap. Eventually he saw that no amount of ranting was going to bring his mother back. Faith spoke to him in a gentle tone, urging him to sit with her in the rocker. Within minutes she had rocked him to sleep.

“Do I dare talk or will he wake up?” The voice was almost a whisper.

She glanced up and saw a tall man with dark hair and even darker eyes looking at her. He wore a pair of corduroy slacks and a tweed sweater. Although he was at least a foot away from her, she felt as if he had invaded her space. So intimidating was his presence. Her heart-beat increased. For the first time since her accident, someone was looking at her with a familiar glint in his eye.

The fact that it was such an attractive man caused her stomach to do a flip-flop, as well. She glanced at the boy on her lap. “I think this one can sleep through just about anything. Can I help you with something?”

He glanced at her name tag. “You’re Faith, the baby rocker, right?”

“Yes, I am.” When he continued to stare at her without saying a word she asked, “Do I know you?” Her mouth went dry at the possibility and every nerve in her body tensed as she waited for his answer. He hesitated, staring at her the way the toddlers in her care often examined the wooden puzzles on the table—with both fascination and uncertainty.

When he said, “You don’t recognize me?” her heartbeat quickened.

She shook her head. “Should I?” It was obvious from the way he was staring at her that he thought she should. Hope mushroomed inside her that she might finally learn her identity. Ever since her accident she’d been anticipating the day when someone would recognize her. She wondered if this man was that someone.

Then he said, “No, we haven’t met. I’m Adam Novak. Megan’s father.”

The man who’d come looking for her to thank her for being kind to his daughter. Just as quickly as it had surfaced, the hope disappeared. Faith did her best to hide her disappointment, but her voice was subdued when she said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who Megan is.”

“She’s six years old. Blond hair. Blue eyes. A couple of days ago she had surgery,” he explained. “While they were moving her to her room on the second floor, she must have seen you. She said you talked to her and told her you rock babies here in the nursery.”

The memory of the frightened little girl came to her and made Faith’s voice soften with concern. “That was your daughter?”

He nodded. “I don’t know what you said to her, but she’s been talking about you ever since.”

Something in his tone gave her the impression he wasn’t exactly pleased about that, despite his cordial smile. “Sometimes with children all that’s necessary is a smile,” she told him, wishing he’d leave, but he lingered, his hands in his pockets as he stood next to the rocking chair, his gaze intense. “How is she feeling? Is she going to be all right?” Faith asked.

“She’s slowly improving,” he answered. Even though he’d told her he didn’t know her, he continued to stare at her as if she were of particular interest to him.

Faith could feel her face warming under his scrutiny and was grateful when out of the corner of her eye she noticed Isaac’s mother had come back to the day-care center. “I’m glad to hear she’s getting better. You’ll have to excuse me. It looks as if this little guy’s mother has come to pick him up.” She looked past his shoulder and smiled at the woman walking toward them, hoping he would take the hint and leave.

“I understand,” he said with a glance over his shoulder at the approaching woman. “I just wanted to say thank you for what you did for Megan.”

“No thanks are necessary,” she told him.

He smiled then, an incredibly sexy grin that made Faith feel funny in places she didn’t know existed inside her. “Goodbye, Faith, the baby rocker.”

“Bye,” she mumbled, then turned her attention to Isaac’s mother, hoping he would leave without saying another word to her. He did and she felt a pent-up stream of tension ease from her muscles. She hoped it was the last she’d see of him. Being in his presence was like something she’d never experienced before. For a brief moment she’d felt a longing inside her that made her wonder what it would be like if Adam Novak were to take her in his arms and kiss her. She didn’t want to have such feelings. They didn’t seem right. Not now, when she didn’t even know her own name.

Goodbye, Faith, the baby rocker. Long after he was gone she heard his deep voice echoing those words in her head, and each time they sent a tiny shiver of pleasure through her.

CHAPTER THREE

ADAM KNEW WHY Megan wanted to believe Faith was her mother. If he didn’t know better he might have mistaken the child-care worker for Christie, too.

But he did know better. Unlike his daughter, Adam was certain that when people died and went to heaven, they didn’t come back.

Christie had drowned in Lake Superior last September. An eyewitness had seen her small sailboat capsize in a storm, sending its lone occupant into the lake. The Coast Guard had been summoned to the scene but rescue attempts had failed.

Anyone who lived near Lake Superior knew that because of the temperature of the water, there was little hope of surviving such an accident. That hadn’t stopped Christie’s brother, a professional diver, from looking for her. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that he wasn’t going to find her. Tom Anderson, like the other residents of the small town of Silver Bay, knew that very few bodies were ever recovered from the huge body of water. It was too deep and too cold and the great lake had a history of not giving up its dead. Megan’s mother was one of them. Although her body had never surfaced from the icy waters of the lake, the authorities had declared her legally dead.

As Adam stood outside the child-care center looking in at Faith, the baby rocker, he had to remind himself of that fact. Although she wore a hospital smock and plain black slacks, with the right clothes and makeup he thought she could easily pass for Christie. He doubted, however, that a woman who rocked babies during the day in a hospital nursery would strip off her clothes at a nightclub after dark.

He watched as she said goodbye to one child and welcomed another. She led her newest responsibility to a child-size table where she set him on a chair, then knelt beside him, encouraging him to build a tower of wood blocks. For every one square she added to the pile, he tossed another onto the floor and every time she’d bend over to pick up a block, her blond hair would fall like a curtain of silk across her cheek.

Adam felt something stir inside him. Like Christie, she had a look about her few men wouldn’t notice. It was uncanny just how much of a resemblance she had to Megan’s mother. So much of one that when he’d first seen her, his breath had caught in his throat. He knew he’d made her uncomfortable staring at her the way he had, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. He debated whether he should go back inside and explain the reason for his interest in her.

He decided against it. He needed to talk to his daughter, and there was no point in putting off the inevitable. He needed to go back upstairs and tell Megan that the woman she’d seen yesterday was not her mother.

For once in his life he found himself wishing that miracles could happen and the impossible would come true. He could think of nothing more satisfying than being able to tell her that he’d been wrong—that her mother hadn’t drowned. She was alive and well and right here in this hospital. The past six months had been just one big, nasty nightmare. It was the one thing he could tell his daughter that would for certain put a smile on her face.

He knew he was being fanciful to even allow such thoughts. Megan needed him to be a parent even if it meant he had to tell her what she didn’t want to hear.

Adam sighed. It seemed as if every day brought a new challenge to him as a father. Just when he thought he’d crossed the last of the major hurdles, another one always managed to pop up in the middle of the road. Never would he have expected he would be having a conversation with his daughter about her mother’s reincarnation. But then he’d been unprepared for so many of the things that had happened between the two of them, it really shouldn’t have come as that big of a surprise.

Reluctantly he turned away from the window and headed back to Megan’s room.

“HAS IT BEEN BUSY?” Zoe, a college student who worked the evening shift, asked Faith when she arrived at the child-care center.

“It hasn’t been too bad,” Faith told her replacement as she wiped down the wood slats of a crib.

“Who’s the guy in with Mrs. Carmichael?” the young girl wanted to know.

Faith turned around to glance at the office and saw Adam Novak leaning over Mrs. Carmichael’s desk. She wondered why he had come back.

“I think his daughter’s a patient here.” Faith returned her attention to scrubbing the crib, not wanting the other woman to suspect she had any interest in the conversation taking place in the office.

“He’s hot, isn’t he?” Zoe asked.

Faith mumbled, “I wouldn’t know,” which wasn’t exactly the truth. She knew very well that he was attractive. It’s why she’d had a funny feeling in her stomach when he’d stared at her earlier that afternoon.

“He’s probably married,” the other girl surmised. “Most good-looking guys are.”

Faith didn’t comment, not wanting to admit that she had wondered about his marital status, too. Since he’d left the child-care center earlier that day, she’d wondered about quite a few things about him, none of them she wanted to share with her co-worker.

To her relief, Zoe changed the subject. “How come you’re doing Gina’s job? I thought it was her week to wash the cribs.”

“It is, but I had some extra time so I thought I’d do it.”

When a mother arrived with a little girl, Zoe was forced to give them her attention. Faith emptied her bucket and was about to take off her smock and go home for the day when she heard Mrs. Carmichael call her into her office.

“Mr. Novak would like to speak to you for a few minutes,” she said when Faith paused in the doorway. Mrs. Carmichael gestured for her to enter the small room. “You can talk here,” she said before pulling the door shut on her way out.

Adam Novak stood next to the desk, looking every bit as attractive as he had earlier that day. Faith knew that Zoe was dead-on with her description of him when she’d called him hot. Just the way he looked at her could make her skin warm. Her heart began to beat faster and she clasped her hands together so they wouldn’t reveal her nervousness.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” he began, his gaze not as intense as it had been the first time they’d spoken, yet it had the power to send a shiver through her.

“Why are you here?” Once again, the way he looked at her created all sorts of funny sensations inside her. She nervously moistened her lips with her tongue.

“You like children, don’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Of course. I wouldn’t be much help around here if I didn’t,” she answered with a weak smile.

He returned her smile with a grin that sent a tingling through her. “That’s why I came back. Because you like children and I have a pretty good idea that if you knew there was something you could do to help one, you’d do it. Am I right?”

“Yes.” She eyed him warily. “Mr. Novak, if you want me to visit Megan, all you have to do is ask.”

“There are circumstances that might make it a little awkward,” he said, his eyes still holding hers.

“I often visit the pediatrics unit to read to the patients. This is a hospital, Mr. Novak. I see children with all kinds of illnesses. It won’t be uncomfortable for me. If I can cheer Megan by visiting her, I’d be happy to do so.”

“Her physical condition is not the reason I think it could be awkward for you,” he told her.

“Then what is the reason?”

He took a deep breath, ran a hand over his dark head, then propped a hip on the corner of the desk. “I need to tell you a little about Megan. Maybe you want to sit down.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

He shrugged. “Megan lost her mother last fall. She drowned in a boating accident.”

Faith’s chest tightened. “I’m so sorry. It must have been horrible for both of you.”

“Yes, it was. Losing a parent at such a young age is traumatic. It’s very difficult for a six-year-old to comprehend the concept of death. She had so many questions. I thought I’d answered all of them, but…” He trailed off with a shake of his head.

“I’m sure you did the best you could,” Faith said.

Grimacing, he admitted, “I’m afraid my best wasn’t good enough.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because no matter how many times I explain that once a person dies and goes to heaven that person cannot come home again, Megan doesn’t believe me.”

“She thinks her mother’s going to come back?” Faith asked in dismay.

“It’s worse. She believes she’s seen her.”

Emotion rose in her throat. “That is very sad.”

“Sad, but true. After surgery when they were moving her from recovery to her room, she saw a woman she believes is her mother.” He looked her straight in the eye and said, “You.”

“Me?” Faith was so startled that she was surprised she could say anything at all.

“Yes, and I can understand her mistake. You do look like Christie.”

Faith gasped. “That’s why you were staring at me? Because I reminded you of your dead wife?” She hated the frantic tone that had come into her voice, but at the moment she was feeling far from calm.

“Yes, you look very much like Megan’s mother,” he said quietly.

“You said she drowned.”

He nodded soberly. “In Lake Superior.” A shadow passed over his face. “That’s what makes this difficult for Megan to understand. They never recovered her mother’s body and for months after her death she believed it was all a mistake.” He continued to talk about the period of adjustment Megan was going through, but Faith had a hard time concentrating on what he was saying. There was only one thought going through her head. They never found her body.

Faith swallowed with difficulty. It couldn’t be. It was too bizarre to even contemplate. She couldn’t be this Christie person whom everyone thought was dead. Lake Superior was over three hours away. What would she have been doing on the side of the road in southern Minnesota if she lived on the North Shore?

“So that’s why I need you to visit Megan,” he said, unaware of the turmoil going on inside her.

With her skin becoming clammy and her heart pounding in her chest she said, “You want me to tell her I’m not her mother?”

“Yes. It’s the only way she’s going to accept that her mother is gone. She won’t listen to me.”

“But you’re her father.” Her legs grew weak beneath her and she reached for the desk to steady herself. “Surely she trusts you to tell her the truth?”

“It’s been a while since I saw her mother.”

She frowned. “But you do remember what she looked like?”

“Yes. She looked very much like you.”

The room began to spin and Adam’s voice grew fainter in her ears.

“That’s why I stared at you the way I did earlier this morning. For a moment, I thought you were Christie. I…”

Faith didn’t hear the rest of what he said because she was falling into darkness.

As she gradually regained consciousness, she heard a man’s voice calling her name. When she opened her eyes, Adam Novak and Mrs. Carmichael were at her side looking very anxious.

“Do you think we should take her to the E.R.?” the older woman asked Adam.

“No, I think she’s coming around,” he answered.

Faith’s first attempt at speaking resulted in silence. She wanted to tell them she was okay, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the words out.

“I’ll get a glass of water,” Mrs. Carmichael said before disappearing from the room.

As Faith tried to raise herself up, Adam lent her his arm. He felt solid and steady as she used it as a lever.

“Take it slow,” he warned, sliding his other arm around her.

She was tempted to sink back against him. He smelled good—like the forest after a rain—and he was looking at her as if she were a delicate piece of china that might break. A pleasant sensation rippled through her as she caught the look in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” she said, scrambling to her feet and away from his touch.

“You’d better sit for a few minutes,” he said, pushing a chair toward her.

Her legs still wobbly, she did as he suggested. When he hovered over her she said, “You don’t need to worry. I’m not going to do that again.”

“Maybe you should go to the E.R. and have a doctor look at you,” he suggested.

“I live with a doctor. I’ll tell him about it when I get home,” she told him, straightening her smock.

“How are you getting home? I don’t think you should travel alone.”

“I’ll be fine.” She wished he’d quit looking at her with those dark eyes of his.

Mrs. Carmichael returned with a glass of water, which Faith downed in one gulp.

“I don’t think you should go home unescorted.” Mrs. Carmichael echoed what Adam had said. “I’m going to call Dr. Carson to come pick you up.”

Faith didn’t protest, thinking it might be a good idea to talk to the doctor about what she’d just learned. While Mrs. Carmichael was on the phone, she turned to Adam.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I should visit Megan just yet,” she told him.

“No, of course not. You need to go home and take care of yourself. I would like to get this all taken care of before much longer, however. We need to put a stop to this fantasy she has that you’re her mother.”

She shook her head. “That might not be possible.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

Faith took a deep breath and said, “Because there’s a possibility I am her mother.”

ADAM STARED AT FAITH in disbelief. Either she hadn’t heard a word he had said or she truly was ill. He looked at her pale cheeks and her troubled eyes. “I think maybe you should get checked out in the E.R.”

“I told you I’m okay,” she insisted.

“Do you realize what you just said?”

She nodded. “I think I might be this Christie person.”

“No, you most definitely are not,” he stated emphatically. She didn’t look confused and he found his patience dwindling. “Are you playing some kind of game with me?”

“No. I’m just trying to tell you the truth.” There was a vulnerability about her that made it difficult for him to be suspicious of her, yet he didn’t understand what she was hoping to accomplish by saying that she might be Megan’s mother.

He reached for the other chair in the office and sat down in front of her. “Tell me why you would make such a statement.”

“A little over three weeks ago a doctor and his wife were traveling along Highway 52 just south of the cities when they saw me lying on the side of the road. I was unconscious and looked as if I’d been beaten,” she began. “Thanks to the kindness of Dr. Carson and his wife and the excellent medical attention I received, I regained consciousness and most of my injuries are healed. My hair covers the scar on my scalp.” She removed her smock and pushed back the sleeves of her shirt to show him her arms. “These are almost gone now, but you can still see where I was bruised.”

A shudder echoed through him at the sight of the areas of discoloration. It angered him to think that someone had assaulted her and left her to die on a roadside.

“I’m sorry. I hope they caught who did this to you.”

She shook her head and he felt a rush of emotion at the injustice. As she lowered her sleeves, he realized that there was another significant difference between her and Christie. Faith had larger breasts.

When she noticed where his eyes were focused she blushed. That was something Christie wouldn’t have done. As an exotic dancer she’d enjoyed the looks men cast her way.

Not wanting to make Faith uncomfortable, he asked, “Do you have any permanent damage?”

“One part of me didn’t recover,” she said. “For some reason—they think either a blow to my head or some other trauma—I’ve forgotten everything that happened prior to that night.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying you have amnesia?”

“The doctors say it’s retrograde, meaning I can’t remember anything of my past that took place before the accident, but I do remember everything that has happened since then,” she explained. “So what I was doing or where I was living…” She shrugged. “I just don’t know what that was…or where I was…or with whom.”

Adam found himself at a loss for words. He stared at her, thinking that she was putting two and two together and coming up with five. Even if she did have amnesia and even if she did look like Christie, it didn’t mean she was Megan’s mother. Mentally he noted the differences in the two women. The voice. The clothing. The jewelry. The figure.

“Because you can’t remember who you are does not make you Christie Anderson,” he stated firmly, as much for her sake as for his.

“But I could be,” she said with a spark of hope in her eyes.

“No, you’re not Christie. She died, Faith.” He kept his voice firm and deliberate. “Six months ago while sailing her small boat. The St. Louis County coroner signed her death certificate.”

“You said they never found her body,” she reminded him.

“Because they don’t find any bodies in Lake Superior.” His voice rose as his frustration increased. He didn’t want to believe any of what she suggested could be true, nor did he want to remember that only a few hours ago he’d wondered about the very same possibility.

“But you have to admit that theoretically speaking, she could be alive,” Faith persisted.

“I don’t want to speak theoretically.” He was a man who worked with facts and figures. His world was concrete. “It isn’t good enough for my daughter. Theories could break her heart so badly that I’m not sure the damage could ever be repaired. Until we sort this out, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t see Megan.”