CHAPTER FOUR

      A FATHER. Kyle had always expected to be one—one day. He’d imagined himself tossing a baseball, taking a son to football games, putting together a train set on Christmas Eve. He’d never been opposed to having a daughter, either, though he’d never given that possibility much thought.

      The whole concept of fatherhood had loomed somewhere in the distant future. A contingency for much later—when his career was firmly established. When he’d sown his wild oats, driven his share of fast cars and grown bored with skiing in the mountains of Colorado and scuba diving off some exotic island in the Bahamas. When he was ready for a life of bottle-feeding and diaper changing.

      That was indubitably not now.

      Ashley stepped closer. “Did Tessa’s sister say that she’d given birth? Is Tessa in some kind of trouble now?”

      “No, nothing that specific. Actually, nothing that offers any real solutions. She hasn’t seen or heard from her sister since a year ago. She’s pretty sure she’s moved out of town. Evidently they had a major argument and parted company.” He dropped to the couch and that’s when he noticed the other person in the room. She was taller than Ashley, her hair long where Ashley’s was short, but she had the same expressive green eyes and dark, shiny hair. And the evidence was jury-proof. She was most definitely pregnant.

      “I’m Lily,” the woman said, walking over to shake his hand. “If this is personal, I’ll be glad to step into the bedroom while you and Ashley talk.”

      He stood and extended his hand. “No, you already know about as much as I do anyway.”

      Ashley sat down on the couch beside him, but not too close. Lily took the chair across from them, lowering herself slowly and holding her back as she did. He tried to picture Tessa in the same condition. Awaiting the birth of a daughter that for some reason she had decided to keep from him. He had trouble with the image. Tessa wasn’t the type who liked to suffer alone. That much he did know about her.

      Ashley turned to face him. “A year ago... Tessa would have had to be pregnant even then, but maybe not far enough along to realize it. When did the two of you break up?”

      “Right after Christmas. We’d been living together. She moved out.”

      “Did you talk to her after that?” Lily asked.

      “She came by to pick up her mail a few times. I asked how she was doing. She asked how I was doing. That was about it.”

      “So why are you suddenly so upset?” Ashley asked. “An hour ago you were vehement that you weren’t the father. Now you seem worried that you are.”

      He crossed an ankle over his knee, an effort to hide just how flustered he really was. “I expected this to be a done deal by now. I’d get Tessa’s number from information, which I tried to do. No listing. Or I’d talk to her sister Margaret and find out for certain that Tessa had not given birth. Now I find out Tessa likely moved out of town months ago and her sister doesn’t know how to contact her.”

      Lily pulled her hair off her neck, then let it settle about her shoulders, all the while keeping her gaze pinned on him. “Then it’s possible that you’re the father?”

      “I’m not denying that it’s possible, it’s just that it’s not likely. We used protection. But even more than that, I can’t see Tessa deciding she’d go through a pregnancy and birth without telling me about it. And even if she had, she’d have no reason to stick the baby in a basket and leave her at my door. She’s the type who’d just come by and say she needed help.”

      “Maybe she’s afraid of how you’d react.”

      He threw up his hands. “Do I look like some deranged brute to you? I’m a sensible man, an attorney for God’s sake. People come to me to get them out of a jam. It’s what I do.”

      “As an attorney, you must know what options are available to you.”

      One thing about Lily, she didn’t back down. “The way I see it, I can try to find Tessa, though I doubt she’s the mother of this baby, or I can sit around and hope the woman who left the baby at my door will come back for her.”

      “You can make certain the baby’s not yours, and if that’s the case, you can notify the authorities,” Lily offered.

      “That would be the easiest thing for me to do, but that seems like the worst thing I can do for the baby.”

      Ashley laid a hand on his arm. The touch surprised him, made him even more aware that the woman he’d tried to get close to for weeks was seeing him at his most vulnerable. Not confident and self-assured, but reeling from a situation he seemed to have little control over.

      Last night he’d felt certain this would all be settled by morning. Now all he felt was the crushing weight of responsibility bearing down on his shoulders. “I’m not ready to give up,” he said, “not yet. But I could sure use a crash course in baby care.”

      Lily nodded. “I can do that, but you can’t put off learning the truth indefinitely.”

      “I know. I’m thinking a few days, a week at most. I have some vacation time coming, and I can do a lot of the prep work for the cases I’m working on now via the computer. If I don’t turn up anything in that time, I’ll go with the DNA testing.”

      “You’ll have to buy baby clothes and supplies. And you’ll need to borrow or rent a crib.”

      “Just give me a list and tell me where to go to find the items. I’ll do the best I can. Right now I’m all the baby has. Well, me and Ashley.”

      Ashley shook her head. “Don’t let that thought land as it flies through your mind. I have a career and an assignment that can’t be put on hold, and I will—”

      “I’ll tell you what,” Lily said, warding off Ashley’s tirade. “Since Ashley’s already taken the day off, I’ll make a list and the two of you can shop for the needed supplies. I’ll baby-sit while you’re doing that and try to make notes of things Kyle needs to know, like making sure the bottles and nipples are sterile and how to bathe the baby.”

      “Beef,” Ashley asserted. “I’m supposed to be concentrating on a way to sell more beef to the citizens of Texas. Not on buying diapers.”

      But the resignation in her voice was obvious. Kyle was certain he’d won this bout, thanks to Lily. He would never have deliberately used the baby to get to Ashley, but he might as well play the cards he’d been dealt. A man with a baby. No woman could resist them.

      Unless the baby was his for life.

      * * *

      LILY WATCHED Ashley and Kyle walk out the door. Kyle Blackstone was not what she’d expected from Ashley’s previous descriptions of him. He did have the great body she’d mentioned, the dark, wavy hair and the easy smile, but he had an aura of genuineness that had caught her off guard.

      Still, the morning’s phone call warning Ashley to beware of him made her nervous.