With This Child.... Sally Carleen
normal to fixate on a kid to the point where she probably really believed that kid—his kid—was her daughter.
The whole damned thing scared him.
Losing somebody you loved could happen so fast, like a giant sword suddenly flashing down and cutting away part of your soul. Like Lisa. One day she was alive and happy, and then she was gone.
He wasn’t going to lose Kyla, certainly not to some sick woman, not after his daughter had overcome such gigantic odds to be with him in the first place. After the initial fatal diagnosis on the night she was born, subsequent tests had shown Kyla’s heart to be strong and healthy. She was a miracle.
A miracle he’d never questioned.
Before tonight.
He shivered, even as the hot, muggy evening squeezed against him. With a hand that shook slightly, he wiped perspiration from his upper lip.
Of course, miracles weren’t logical, he assured himself. That was why they were called miracles. You didn’t question them; you just accepted them and gave thanks.
The doors of the theater opened, and the Saturday-night crowd of couples and kids burst out.
When he finally spotted Kyla and Rachel, he realized he had lifted himself off the seat in his anxiety to locate them. One hand clutched the steering wheel, the other arm pressed painfully on the open window.
He forced himself to relax. He couldn’t let Kyla or Rachel see him this stressed.
Giggling and talking, the girls dashed over. Kyla yanked open the side door, and they climbed into the back.
And Sam’s heart stopped. An Oklahoma panhandle dust storm seemed to pound through his brain, obscuring reason, turning ordinary objects and people into unrecognizable, nightmare figures.
Kyla had loosened her hair from her usual ponytail, and for just a moment he saw Marcie Turner’s hair, Marcie Turner’s face, superimposed over Kyla’s. For a stark, terrifying moment, he knew why Marcie had looked so familiar. She was an older version of Kyla, right down to the small, almost unnoticeable dimple in her chin.
He faced forward, refusing to look at the frightening phenomenon, focusing instead on Kyla’s familiar voice, her familiar laughter.
“Dad, are you listening to me?”
“What? Of course I am.”
Kyla heaved a dramatic sigh. “No, you’re not. You’re still thinking about that blond babe I crashed into this afternoon, aren’t you?”
She’d called that one right.
“I guess I’m going to have to find him a girlfriend. I mean, it’s like the man’s a monk.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll pick my own girlfriends.” Preferably someone sane. “At the moment, you’re the only woman I have room in my life for.” “Well, okay, but you’re not getting any younger, and I don’t know how much longer I can be responsible for taking care of you.” She and Rachel giggled at that comment.
Smiling to himself, Sam turned the key and started the van. Of course Kyla was his and Lisa’s daughter.
What was the matter with him, letting himself buy into Marcie Turner’s fantasy?
“Can we get pizza?” Kyla asked as he pulled into traffic. “That’s what I asked you when you were ignoring me. Not answering counts the same as if you’d said yes, you know.”
It was Sam’s turn to heave a dramatic sigh. “Like I ever refuse you anything. I think there may be a law against spoiling a kid as badly as you’re spoiled.”
Kyla leaned forward between the seats and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek. “I promise not to turn you in if we can have an extra large double-pepperoni pizza.”
“Oh, that’s great! My kid’s learned how to blackmail! That’ll look so good on your résumé.” He dared a glance at her impish face in the rearview mirror, searching desperately and vainly for Lisa’s features, not Marcie Turner’s.
Lisa had been a short brunette with dark hair and brown eyes. His coloring was dark, also, but blond hair and blue eyes were recessive traits. They could have sprung from some long-forgotten ancestor. Coloring didn’t prove a thing.
When Kyla was a baby, Lisa’s family had said she looked like Lisa, and his family had said she looked like him. He and Lisa had agreed that she looked like a baby, period.
Now she looked like a blond twelve-year-old, period. Not like Lisa, but not like Marcie. Okay, so Marcie Turner had the same silky hair, though the shade was a little darker, as if she didn’t get out in the sun much. So she had the same thin, straight nose, perfect oval face, wide blue eyes. None of that proved a thing. Lots of people had those traits.
Blood type. That was what mattered. With all the medical tests, he knew Kyla’s blood type. O positive, the same as Lisa’s.
His world shifted back into focus. The familiar highway, lined with stores, restaurants and gas stations, suddenly became a thing of beauty. The neon signs were works of art.
Let that woman try to take them to court. If by some fluke she succeeded, he’d explain to Kyla that Marcie Turner was a disturbed person and it would be easiest to submit to the genetic blood testing and get it over with. Prove to her that Kyla was not her daughter. Maybe then she’d go away.
He pulled into the pizza parlor parking lot. “One-super-duper giant pizza with double anchovies coming up!” he announced.
“Daaaad...” Kyla groaned.
She was growing up. A few years ago, she’d have argued with him that she hated anchovies and wanted pepperoni.
He slid out of the van and caught up with the girls as they came from the other side of the vehicle. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his blue jeans, resisting an urge to hug his kid in public, an action he knew would embarrass her.
When they reached the door, he held it open with one hand, but succumbed to the urge to drape the other arm over Kyla’s shoulders as she went past him. He needed to touch her, reassure himself that she was still there.
She turned to him briefly, flashing him a quick smile.
And in the light from the pizza parlor, he saw Marcie Turner’s face, clearly and undeniably.
For a moment, he stood frozen in place, unable to move, and Kyla walked away from his embrace, from him.
He’d been kidding himself. O positive blood was the most common type. That simply meant she could be Lisa’s daughter, not that she definitely was.
Only genetic testing could prove parentage for certain.
And he’d changed his mind about allowing that He’d fight Marcie Turner to the death to prevent that test.
Chapter Three
Marcie pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in McAlester. Sam had called late last night and asked—ordered—her to meet him this morning to talk.
He’d been gruff, angry—frightened? She would be in his position.
I don’t believe you, he’d said. I want you to know that. I just don’t want any trouble for my daughter.
What he’d said didn’t matter. He did believe her, or he wouldn’t have asked her to meet with him.
During the hour-and-a-half drive down, she’d alternated between soaring ecstasy and black, subterranean despair.
It was going to happen. She was going to make contact with her daughter.
Would her daughter like her? Would Kyla hate her for not being determined enough to claim her as a baby?
Would Sam pass along his antagonism to Kyla, make her hate this woman intruding into their lives?