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“No. I see no point in raising the child’s hopes unless and until it is established that you are indeed his father. Are you?”
He was dimly aware of Nicole behind him, moving away to the other end of the bar. To give him more privacy?
“I don’t know,” he said.
He sure hadn’t thought about becoming a father seven years ago when he was making it with shy blond Betsy every chance they could both sneak away. Or when her mother figured out what they were up to and her daddy put a stop to it. Or at the end of that summer, when he’d joined up and shipped out, or in any of the intervening years since. But he’d given it plenty of thought in the last twenty-four hours.
“I could be,” he said.
“Then your first step should be a paternity test,” Jane Gilbert said briskly. “There are home kits, of course, but it would be better if you had the test done at a collection center, to establish a proper chain of custody. In case your claim to Daniel were to be questioned in court.”
His only previous court experience had been as a defendant. He wondered what her lawyership, this Gilbert woman, would make of that.
Daniel’s grandparents have expressed interest in adopting Daniel and appear ready to pursue all legal avenues to do so.
Hell.
“What do you need?” he asked. “Blood?”
“No. The technician will take a buccal swab—a sample of skin cells from the inside of your cheek.”
“How much?”
“How large a sample? I’m afraid I—”
“No. How much is this going to set me back?”
The lawyer’s voice chilled like vodka over ice. “The cost can probably be recovered from Elizabeth Wainscott’s estate. However, a test of the child and alleged father can run anywhere from $450 to nearly $800.”
“Why the difference?”
“I haven’t decided yet whether to subject Danny to the normal testing procedure or to collect a special sample.”
It was too much to take in.
He should have suggested he call her back, this afternoon, maybe, when he had more time to think.
And fewer distractions. Even with the length of the bar between them, he could still smell the light, expensive scent of Nicole’s perfume, could still hear the soft click of her computer keyboard, rappity-tap-tap behind him. He so did not want her getting the drift of this conversation. Which was dumb, since it wasn’t like he was going to make it with her anyway.
He pulled his mind back. “What kind of sample?”
“Chewing gum,” Jane Gilbert said simply and unexpectedly. “The lab can extract Danny’s DNA from well-chewed chewing gum. I’m told Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit works best.”
“So then he wouldn’t know what was going on.”
There was a little pause. “In a case such as this, when a child may already be feeling upset or abandoned by one parent’s death—”
Mark didn’t need a lawyer to tell him about children’s feelings of abandonment.
“Do it,” he ordered.
“Excuse me?”
“Get the special thing. I’ll pay for it.”
“It will take a week longer to process,” the lawyer warned.
Mark had already spent—what, six years? seven?—without knowing that he was a father. If he was a father.
“I can wait,” he said.
“Very well.” Did he imagine it, or had the lawyer’s voice warmed ever so slightly? “There’s probably a lab or doctor’s office near you that could take the sample. However, if you choose to have the test done in Chicago, we could meet. To discuss Daniel.”
To see if getting him mixed up in the kid’s life would be in the best interests of the child, she meant.
“Yeah,” he said. Rappity-tap-tap, went Nicole’s fingers behind him. “Yeah, that would be good. When?”
“Next week sometime?”
“Sure.”
“Thursday? Four o’clock?”
“Fine.”
He hung up the receiver, annoyed to note that his hand wasn’t steady. When he turned, Nicole was watching him with narrowed blue eyes.
“You got a problem?” he asked.
Swell, DeLucca. Make it a perfect day. Pick a fight with the boss.
Her slim shoulders squared. “Not necessarily. Do you?”
He could almost like the way she didn’t back down. Almost.
“Not necessarily,” he said, mocking her. “I need next Thursday off.”
“All right. I—did you say Thursday?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry. I have a previous commitment that night.”
Mark shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll switch hours with Joe.”
“And if he’s not available?”
“I’ll work something out.”
“I need someone who can close the register.”
He was unwillingly pleased that she trusted him with her money. But that didn’t give her the right to command his time.
“So, you do it.”
“I told you, I have plans for that evening.”
He might have just dismissed her as a spoiled rich girl. But her voice was stiff with distress. Her shoulders were rigid.
He frowned. “What kind of plans?”
“If you must know, I’m attending a party with my parents.”
Any temptation to feel sorry for her died. “A party is that important to you?”
She sighed. Some of the starch left her shoulders, like the wind abandoning a sail. “No. My parents are important to me. Their good opinion is important to me.”
Betsy had cared about her parents’ opinion, too, Mark remembered.
More than she’d cared about him.
More than she’d cared about…their son?
Pain stabbed an old wound, making him snarl. “Sorry. I’m not going to give up my plans so you can make nice with your parents.”
Nicole glared. “Well, I’m not giving up my evening so you can make time with your married lover!”
Chapter 4
She was wacko.
“What are you talking about?” Mark demanded.
Nicole’s face turned fiery red. He could almost—almost—feel sorry for her.
“I’m not judging you,” she said painfully. “But it’s unwise to form a relationship with someone who isn’t free to commit to you fully.”
Mark lifted an eyebrow. She was so earnest it was funny. “You speaking from experience here?”
Her face got even redder. He wouldn’t have believed it.
“I’m not trying to get personal,” she said. “I’m simply saying it’s a mistake.”
He could go for the direct approach. Sometimes that worked. “He really did a number on you, huh? What was his name?”
“Ted,” she said, surprised into a reply. She looked down at her rings. “He had three children. Boys.”
Her lips pressed closed, as if she’d let something precious escape. Interesting.
“You got a problem with boys?”
She didn’t smile. “No. I liked them. I liked spending time with them. I never minded going over on the weekends so that he could meet with customers or go into the office. Only—” She broke off.
“Let me guess. It wasn’t only customers he was meeting.”
Her blue eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“I hear it all the time, babe. It happens all the time.”
“He wasn’t even divorced,” she said. “Only separated.”
He heard that, too. But it didn’t make sense. She was rich. Blond. A looker. “Why’d you put up with it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He shrugged. Her love life wasn’t his problem. “Okay.”
“And you don’t have any right to sound so superior.”
“Hey,” he said, genuinely startled. “You don’t need to get so defensive.”
But she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “You can’t tell me you’ve never gotten involved with a married woman.”
“No. I can’t tell you that,” Mark said grimly. “But I can tell you that’s one mistake I don’t plan on repeating.”
Nicole sniffed. “Why did you agree to meet with her, then?”
“Meet who?”
“The woman on the phone.”
He almost goggled at her. The lawyer?
He turned to check the liquor levels in the bottles behind the bar. Not that anyone in Eden was likely to order a lunchtime grappa, but it bought him some time to figure out how to deal with her accusation.
“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” he said.
Nicole lowered her voice to a wickedly deep imitation of his. “‘Have you told him about me?’” She shook her head and said in her normal voice, “Big leap.”
He wanted to shake her. He wanted to laugh. She was funny and concerned and totally wrong.
Mark was getting pretty damn tired of being accused of things he hadn’t done.
“You don’t know the situation,” he said.
You don’t know me.
“So tell me.” Her voice was bright and sympathetic. So were her eyes.
