The Deputy's Unexpected Family. Patricia Johns
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that we split up because of that alone—”
“No, no...” Harper heaved a sigh. “Let’s put Andrea aside. What if you did have a child out there somewhere?”
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. “I don’t tend to live my life by what-ifs. I’m a more pragmatic kind of guy. I’m not interested in the family life, and I take the necessary precautions. Or I did. I’m a Christian now, so I don’t cross those lines anymore, and I don’t play games. I don’t toy with women’s expectations. I put it out there pretty straight.”
“Would you want to know about that child, though?” she pressed.
“Hypothetically, yeah. Sure.” He eyed her curiously.
Zoey traipsed back across the room, a page fluttering in her grasp. It was just some swirls and dashes, but Harper knew the dedication her little girl put into those expressions of her feelings.
“It’s for you,” Zoey said, handing the picture up to Gabe with a proud smile. “It’s a house. And a dog. And a sun. And another dog.”
“Oh, very nice. Yes, I can see that clearly.” Gabe looked at the page for a moment, then folded it and put into his back pocket with the other picture. “Thank you.”
“Zoey, why don’t you draw a picture for me?” Harper asked with a smile. “I love your pictures.”
“Okay.”
Zoey headed off again, leaving Harper and Gabe in relative privacy once more. She knew what she had to do here. The longer she put this off, the harder this conversation would be. But more than that—this was for Zoey. Her daughter would ask questions, and if Harper stood between Zoey and her biological father now, she knew who the bad guy would be—her. Gabe was in Comfort Creek, and deep in Harper’s heart she sensed that there were more reasons to his arrival than just sensitivity training. God worked in weird ways, but it was always effective.
“Look, Andrea and I were over a long time ago,” Gabe said. “I’m sorry that I was a disappointment to her, but that’s all in the past.”
“Yes, of course.” Harper nodded. “I’m not trying to guilt you over the past. You two didn’t work out, and that’s not the end of the world. I’m asking because Andrea never told Zoey’s father about her, and now that I’m her mom, I’m left in a bit of an ethical dilemma.”
Gabe nodded. “So why didn’t she tell him?”
“I think it was a complicated situation,” Harper said delicately. “The relationship obviously didn’t last, and she had...her own worries, I suppose. But she decided not to. And now that the adoption is underway, I don’t want to do wrong by Zoey. I want to make sure that she has everything she needs, emotionally and physically, and I truly believe a little girl needs her daddy. I don’t want to raise her so that my own heart is full, but hers has a hole in the size and shape of her father. When kids grow up with a hole in their hearts, they spend a lifetime trying it fill it, and it seldom works out well.”
“Don’t I know it,” Gabe said softly.
His grandmother...she was still rolling that over in her mind. She’d never once suspected that Imogen Banks was anything less than the solid Christian woman she appeared to be.
“So do I tell him?” Harper asked. “That’s my question. Do I tell the father that he has a child, even if that news wouldn’t be welcome?”
Gabe was silent for a moment. “And you know this guy?”
“A little.”
“I could do a background check on him, if you want. Just to make sure he’s not...creepy, or something.”
Harper laughed softly. “No, I don’t think that’s necessary. He’s a guy from town. So...not exactly a stranger.”
“Oh. Well—” Gabe shrugged “—I’d tell him. At least he’d know, and you could tell Zoey that you did your best.”
Tell him. She knew in her heart that she had to. Zoey’s needs had to come first, and while Andrea had done her best by her daughter, Harper wasn’t going to face God with Andrea, public opinion or her own excuses to back her up. She had to do the right thing.
“Besides,” Gabe said with a slow smile, “you can rest easy that most guys aren’t as messed up as I am.”
“That doesn’t really help.” Harper licked her lips, closed her eyes for a moment in a fleeting prayer for guidance over her words, then blurted out, “Because Zoey’s yours.”
* * *
The smile slipped from Gabe’s lips. What? He stared at Harper for a moment, processing her words. Or trying to. His mind wasn’t reacting fast enough, and he found himself searching her expression for answers, instead of his own head. Her lips were parted as if she wanted to say more, then she pressed them shut. But those big green eyes stayed focused on him, her glasses seeming to magnify that clear gaze.
“No, she’s not,” he said at last. It seemed like a feeble thing to say, but everyone knew that Andrea had hooked up with another guy after she left him.
Harper glanced toward Zoey, and Gabe followed her gaze. The little girl was perched on a stool, her feet kicking in rhythmic thumps against the legs. She seemed totally preoccupied, hunched over a new picture at the counter.
“She is,” Harper replied, her voice low. “If you look at Zoey’s eyes—they’re yours. And her chin—”
“A slight resemblance doesn’t mean anything,” he said with a short laugh. “A cleft in the chin isn’t that rare, Harper.”
“Andrea told me,” Harper went on. “She lied to everyone about who the father was because she didn’t want you to find out. The other guy was a cover story. You’re Zoey’s father, Gabe. I wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t sure.”
Gabe sucked in a stabilizing breath. As a police officer, he was a critical judge of people’s stories. How many times had a perp pleaded his innocence, only to have all the evidence on him? How many men in prison claimed to be innocent? Almost all of them. He knew what a lie sounded like, and he heard the truth in her voice.
“So I’m the guy that Andrea thought was no good for Zoey?” he said after a moment.
Harper’s silence was all the answer he needed, and that confirmation was like a punch to the gut. They’d made a baby... When he’d been promising himself that he’d stop crossing that line with her, that he’d get his head straight and stop fooling around... When he’d been wondering if it wasn’t just better to break up considering that they wanted such different things... While he hadn’t been man enough to just do what he knew he had to do, they’d made a baby.
He’d never guessed.
Andrea had been the one to break it off with him, and he’d known she was right. But when she’d walked away, she’d been pregnant, and that changed the way he saw himself. He was no longer a guy who knew better than to shackle a woman down to the likes of him. He was now the guy that his pregnant girlfriend had run away from.
Gabe had never claimed to be father material—or even husband material, for that matter—but to have a woman actively hide his child from him...
A father. That’s what this kept coming back to. He was a father?
His gaze moved back toward Zoey, who was climbing down from her stool again, a piece of paper clutched in one hand. He was looking at her differently this time, scanning her small, round face for signs of his own. His hand moved up to his own chin, rubbing against that familiar cleft under the sandpaper of stubble, and his mind was spinning in a fog of shock.
“Look!” Zoey said, holding up the paper to Harper. “I drew all of us. That’s Mommy, and Mommy, and me and Grandma and Grandpa...and that’s a cricket.”
Harper’s