Her Secret, His Child: A Little Secret by Tara Quinn (rosie project .txt) 📕

unusual lack of confidence discomfiting. "It wasn't quite eight."

Jamie's smile seemed forced. "Since when has a minute here or there been a big consideration with you?"

He couldn't work up any humor. "I wasn't sure whether or not you were alone."

"Why wouldn't I be alone? I asked you over." She was frowning—and obviously nervous.

Which only increased Kyle's anxiety. If he hadn't been so certain they were meant to be together, he'd have given up on her long ago—and he wouldn't have been here tonight. As it was, her tension made him feel as though he'd been transported to the world of Poe's story, "The Cask of Amontillado." He didn't figure being trapped in a tomb could be any worse.

There was a fire in the fireplace. A couple of wineglasses sat on the coffee table with a chilled bottle of wine in a cooler beside them.

"What's up?" he asked. He was too tense to sit. Too wary to take hope from those wineglasses.

She sat, if you could call it sitting, perched on the very edge of the couch. "Come sit down." She picked up a little pillow, playing with the lacy edge, and laughed nervously.

It occurred to Kyle that this could simply be a

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

poorly executed seduction scene. His blood thrumming through his veins, his eyes met Jamie's—and he saw the fear. This was no seduction scene. Jamie knew full well she had no reason to be afraid on that score.

"Mommy?"

Kyle wasn't sure who reacted first as they heard the voice accompanied by little footsteps pattering down the hall. Jamie's eyes filled with horror at the same time Kyle turned in anticipation.

"I'm not asleep, Mommy," the child called just before she came tumbling into the room.

Rushing for the door, blocking his view of the child, Jamie cried sharply, "Ashley! No! Go!"

Kyle was shocked at her tone. So, it seemed, was Ashley. She stood frozen in the doorway and burst into tears.

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry," Jamie said, instantly contrite. "Mommy didn't mean to yell at you." She bent, pulled Ashley into her arms—and that was when Kyle got his first look at the child he'd been so eager to meet.

Something wasn't right. He stood there in a fog, staring at the little girl. She looked just like her mother, only in miniature. Her wavy auburn hair was Jamie's, though the way hers fell over Jamie's arms, he figured it must hang all the way down to her waist. Her eyes were like her mother's, too. Big and gray. Kyle had to think, had to figure out what was wrong.

"She doesn't look two." That was it.

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

Ashley pulled her thumb from her mouth, all trace of tears gone. "I'm not. I'm four."

Four? But he'd thought… He glanced at the picture on the end table. Considered the conclusion he'd drawn. Jamie had done nothing to dispel his assumption that the picture was recent. Why would she want him to think…

Jamie's back was stiff, her head held at an unnatural angle as though awaiting a blow. She didn't turn around.

"You're four?" Kyle asked, because the child was looking at him, not because he hadn't understood her the first time.

' 'Yes—but I'm a little more than four because my birthday came by a while ago."

If he hadn't been so numb, he'd have smiled at that. He was sure he would have. Now all he could manage was a nod.

"Do you have a birthday month?" she asked him, apparently not at all daunted to have a strange man in her mother's living room. "Mommy says everyone has a birthday month."

"I do," Kyle said. Though at the moment, he couldn't recall what it was.

"Mine's 'vember."

"November?" he asked.

Still crouching, holding the child, Jamie hadn't moved.

Ashley nodded, slid her thumb back in her mouth and stared at him. Apparently she'd said all she was going to say.

But it had been enough. Kyle was sure it had. He

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wasn't completely sure why. Couldn't even begin to contemplate the significance of the last minutes.

''Let's get you back to bed, okay, punkin?" He barely heard the hoarse words through the roaring in his ears.

And did absolutely nothing when Jamie took the child from the room. He just let her go. Though a part of him knew he shouldn't have. That he needed that little girl right there with him. But the other part, the part that was strangling the air from his lungs, the thoughts from his brain, had too much control of him. Holding him senseless. In shock.

He had no idea how long he stood there, how long Jamie hid out in her daughter's room—away from him. But slowly, insidiously, awareness came to him. The room. The fire. The wineglasses.

The truth.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Out of breath, every nerve in his body singed, Kyle sank to the couch. But he couldn't stay there. Driven by the emotions raging through him, he jumped up almost immediately and paced the small room.

He'd never been so angry, so excited, so scared in his life. He'd never hated, or loved, so intensely. And he had no clue how to handle any of it. Adrenaline pushed him, forcing activity, yet he had nothing to do. Couldn't have left that room, that house, if he'd tried.

So agitated he probably wouldn't have noticed an earthquake, he missed Jamie's reappearance. He turned from the fireplace and she was there, perched on the couch again, pillow in hand, picking at the lace edging.

She looked terrible, her eyes dry but red, no trace of makeup. Hair hung in her face with no apparent discipline whatsoever. And she'd pulled an old gray sweater over her blouse.

The seduction, such as it was, was over.

Tenderness welled up inside him, prompting him to take her in his arms, assure her that everything was going to be okay.

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Except that he couldn't. And it wasn't. Tumbling through his mind were a thousand angry words. A blast of accusation, of blame.

And he couldn't say them. Because she was Jamie. His chin trembled with the effort