Father and Child Reunion. Christine Flynn

but he’d left a message on her mom’s answering machine. It was the only message on the recording.

      “Eve, it’s Rio. I’m tied up for the next few days. If you wouldn’t mind dropping the photocopies of your mom’s address book and calendar off at the newspaper, I’d appreciate it. Stick them in an envelope with my name on it and leave it at the desk inside the main door.” There was a pause, a long one that seemed to indicate there was something else he needed to add. Something about his daughter, perhaps. But “Thanks” was all he finally said.

      Eve listened to the message again and glanced at the photocopies and the address book she’d just placed beside the photo of Molly that Olivia kept on the corner of her desk. Eve and Molly had made the copies while they’d been out.

      He’d be tied up for a few days, he’d said.

      If she were to give him the benefit of the doubt, she had to admit he might need a little time to come to grips with what he’d learned last night. Anyone would. A man didn’t wake up one morning realizing he was the father of a child he’d known nothing about without feeling a little shell-shocked. But his message hadn’t said a word about Molly….

      Eve pulled a manila envelope from the desk drawer and wrote Rio’s name on it. It was obvious what his priority was.

      Hers was to forget what she’d felt when he touched her.

      * * *

      By the following Monday, any uneasiness Eve felt about her reaction to Rio was buried under a healthy dose of frustration with her brother. Hal had come up with every excuse short of having to do his nails to avoid checking over the inventory she’d prepared for the attorney. He seemed to be avoiding everything that had anything to do with settling their mother’s affairs, and that was making her tasks as executor far harder than they needed to be.

      She was hoping Rio wasn’t going to follow suit when she walked into Clancy’s Grill, the publike restaurant where he’d asked her to meet him, and saw him slide from the booth at the back of the long, uncrowded room. Well-worn jeans hugged his lean hips, and the sleeves of his chambray shirt were rolled to his elbows, revealing strong, sinewy forearms. The wide silver band of his watch caught the light as he planted his hands on his hips, his dark head dipping in a tight, acknowledging nod at her approach.

      He looked impatient and rugged and far more sure of himself than she felt at the moment. Seeing him, all she wanted to do was turn around and walk right back out.

      “I’d have called sooner,” he prefaced the moment she reached him. “But I just got back in town last night. I was in Denver,” he added, reseating himself across from her when she slid into the high-backed booth, “so I spent the weekend looking up the people in the Denver area who were listed in Olivia’s address book. Those I hadn’t already talked to from the wedding, I mean. By the way, thanks for the photocopies.”

      If it was his intention to throw her off balance, he succeeded beautifully. She hadn’t considered that the reason she hadn’t heard from him was because he’d been away. She’d thought his silence meant he was either trying to figure out what he wanted to do about Molly, or that he had already decided and was ignoring them both.

      With an ease that was becoming all too familiar, the source of her anxiety immediately switched focus. “Did you learn anything?”

      “Nothing that helps.”

      Giving her a look that said “that’s the way it goes,” he pulled a menu from between a napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers and held it out to her. As he did, a young girl in a tight Clancy’s T-shirt and even tighter jeans set glasses of water in front of them.

      Rio ordered a hamburger. Eve didn’t care what she ate, so she ordered the same. She doubted she’d taste it, anyway. The issues that had been raised the other night sat between them like an invisible time bomb, ticking away as surely as if the timer had been tripped and killing any trace of an appetite. By the time the waitress returned with their iced tea and departed again, Eve was wondering why she’d ordered at all.

      “Have you said anything to Molly?” he asked, just when Eve had decided to put herself out of her misery and bring up the issue herself. “About who I am?”

      She bit back a sigh. He really hadn’t understood what she’d said the other night. “I don’t know who you are, Rio. I meant that when I said it. There was so much I didn’t know about you six years ago. I know you even less now.” Her lack of knowledge about him was as much her fault as his, she supposed. She’d never asked about his family, his home, what it was that had shaped him. But then, she hadn’t thought of him as being any different from herself. How incredibly naive she’d been. How incredibly innocent. “After all this time, we might as well be strangers. That’s what makes this all so awkward.”

      He didn’t seem to share her concern with how disconcerting she found their situation. His relief was almost as tangible as the tension tightening his jaw. “Then you didn’t tell her.”

      “I didn’t think that would be fair,” she explained, unconsciously rolling the corner of her napkin under her knife and fork. “To her or to you. And I do want to be fair to you, Rio. But Molly is my first concern. Until you’ve decided how involved you want to be with her, or if you want to be involved with her at all, I think it would be better if nothing was said. I don’t want her hurt.”

      Velvet over steel. Rio had heard the expression before, but he’d never realized how impressive the combination was until that moment. Her voice was as gentle as spring rain, but the determination in her impossibly angelic features was unmistakable.