Involuntary Daddy Read online

  She turned to glare at him.

  “Good,” he said. “We’re getting better at this. So now it’s safe for me to tell you I want a home with you?”

  Her heart stopped. Her ears strained with disbelief. Finally, dragging in a gasp of air, she asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I want you and me to get together. I mean, I want you to put your life on hold just a little while longer while I go back to Miami, get my stuff together and sort out my future.”

  “Why? Do you mean you want me to watch Peanut?”

  “I mean, I want you to help me watch Peanut I want you to come with me. I’ll get a new job out of the agency, I’ll get transferred to some place where you can go to school, and we’ll make a home for ourselves. You, me and Peanut.”

  Her chest was so tight now that she could barely breathe. Her throat was aching, and she was afraid, so afraid, to believe what she was hearing.

  “But we fight all the time,” she said, her voice a breathless croak.

  “Not all the time. Just a lot of the time. I don’t know about you, but I don’t mind that at all. We’ll probably squabble a lot until we get used to each other. Until you start trusting me.”

  Her legs were beginning to feel weak, and she sat on the edge of the bed, looking at him through eyes that wanted to fill with hopeful tears. Oh, she didn’t dare believe him! But what he had said about trusting him... She took a leap.

  “I trust you,” she said quietly.

  “Maybe a little. But not completely. However,” he said with an almost embarrassed smile, “I believe that eventually you will trust me completely. What’s not to trust, anyway?”

  A shaky laugh escaped her.

  He came to kneel in front of her, taking both her hands in his. “I understand why you don’t trust me, Angel. But you’ve got to give me a chance to prove that I’m not like that other guy. That’s all I’m asking for. A chance.”

  “But why, Rafe. Why?”

  “Because,” he said simply, “I love you.”

  Her heart slammed, and she had to close her eyes for a moment against an overwhelming wave of feelings, of joy, love, hope and fear. “Really...?” she heard herself whisper.

  “Yes, really,” he said firmly. “Trust me, this is one feeling you can’t misidentify. I love you. And I’d do anything for you, just the way I would for Peanut. I need you. And I need you to need me.”

  “But...I’m sick....” She had to say it. She had to hear him address it before she would dare to believe.

  “So?” he said. “Someday I’ll be sick. Where’s the guarantee that in ten years I won’t have cancer and you’ll be nursing me through it? What guarantee does anyone have? As near as I can tell, you just need to be a little more cautious about your schedule than most people, and you need to take shots. God, if that’s an illness, I’d rather have that one than a lot of others I can think of.”

  “I could...I could die at any moment, Rafe.” She looked at him then, needing to see his face.

  “So could I. So could anyone. When you come right down to it, that’s all any of us has to look forward to. But most of us refuse to let it control our lives.”

  “I can’t have kids.”

  “I already have one of those. I don’t feel any particular need for another one. But if you do, we can sure as hell consider adoption. I hear there are all kinds of kids who can’t find homes, if you’re not too particular about health issues. I’d be willing to bet we could adopt a kid with diabetes, if you want.”

  Something was blossoming inside her, something beautiful and wonderful, and it was bringing more tears to her eyes.

  “The thing is, Angel, we can do just about anything we put our minds to. That includes you. You just have to stop saying you can’t and start saying you can.”

  She nodded slowly, feeling hot tears run down her cheeks.

  “So,” he said, looking at her from dark eyes that were alive with warmth, “the question is, are you crying from horror or happiness?”

  “Happiness,” she said huskily. Then, unable to help herself, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him as tightly as she could, and when she felt his arms close around her, she knew she had come home.

  “I love you, Rafe.”

  He stiffened, then pulled back until he could see her face. “Say that again, Angel. Please.”

  “I love you, Rafe.”

  “Oh, God, I’ve been waiting my entire life to hear that. Say it again, and again....”

  So she said it over and over, each time with more joy, and he echoed her.

  “I love you....”

  It was right, and it was good, and it was all that mattered.

  Epilogue

  “Angel? Are you ready?” Rafe called from the kitchen of their house in Virginia. Morning sun poured through the windows as he stuffed the last cereal bowl in the dishwasher and turned it on. Then he yanked his tie off the back of a chair and donned it.

  After five years, he still wasn’t comfortable in a suit, but what the hell. His street days were long over. Besides, he was enjoying his job as an instructor at Quantico. And looking forward to spending Christmas in Conard County with his brother’s family. He had a lot to be thankful for these days, so he wasn’t about to complain about a tie.

  “We’re ready,” Angela said from the doorway. He turned and smiled as he saw his wife and three children. Peanut, who these days preferred to be called Rafie, was looking spit and polished in slacks and a sport shirt, ready for his first day in first grade. Beside Rafie stood his twelve-year-old sister, Melinda, the child Rafe and Angel had adopted three years ago.

  Melinda had diabetes, and had been orphaned by the death of her birth parents. She was smiling and pretty in a corduroy jumper, her brown hair gleaming as it fell to her waist On the verge of tumbling into womanhood, but still tomboyish and coltish. Melinda, he thought, was a lot healthier than she had been when they’d adopted her, and that had a lot to do with Angel’s knowledge of her disease.

  And finally there was Squirrel, whose real name was Jason, but who insisted everyone call him Squirrel. They’d adopted him as a toddler because his single mother couldn’t care for him. He was mildly autistic, but doing very well in the school for special children where Angela taught. And this morning he was actually holding Angela’s hand, a remarkable achievement.

  “Are we ready?” Rafe asked.

  “Ready!” they all responded, even Squirrel.

  “Then pile in the car, troops. We’re off.”

  On the way out the door, Angela paused to give Rafe a kiss. “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too,” he whispered back. He loved them all. And in loving them, he’d found the home he’d never had.

  Grinning from ear to ear, he locked the door and climbed into the family van.

  It just didn’t get any better than this.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-5908-9

  INVOLUNTARY DADDY

  Copyright © 1999 by Susan Civil-Brown

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S A

  ® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S A, used under license Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries

  Table of Con
tents

  Table of Contents

  “I thought I had some pretty good defenses, but yours beat all.”

  Letter to Reader

  Books by Rachel Lee

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Copyright