“Wha—”
“What’s her name? It’s Noelle.”
“Whe—”
“When was she born? Eleven months and a handful of days ago. Christmas morning, to be exact. If you need further exactitude, which I’m sure you do, they recorded the precise time on her birth certificate. I’ll arrange for you to receive a copy.”
“Ho—”
“How do I know you’re the father? Because you’re the only man I’ve slept with in the past three years. No doubt you’ll want a DNA test and I have no objection. I thought you should know about Noelle, so I’ve spent the past year and a half trying to track you down without success. But then, since you received all my letters, you already know that, don’t you?” She paused for a beat. “Are you listening, Pretorius?”
“Uh—” came his uncle’s disembodied voice.
“I thought so. I can hear the family resemblance. It only took Jett a few short weeks to find you.” She shot Justice a steely look. “I think that means my computer expert outcomputes your computer expert. Now. What were you saying about keeping me here?”
The logjam clogging Justice’s vocal cords cleared. “Son of a bitch!”
Daisy planted her hands on her hips, glorious in her outrage. “I trust you won’t use that sort of language around our daughter. She’s quite verbal for so young an age. She tries to parrot everything you say.”
“I want her.”
Something very much like hurt flashed across Daisy’s expression and her eyes darkened to the deep green of a mountain forest. For some reason it shredded his defenses and arrowed straight to the emotional core of him. How was that possible? How could a single look possess the power to stir a combination of guilt and defensiveness? He’d worked diligently for over a year and half to eradicate any and all reactions to her from his emotional makeup. And yet from the instant she appeared on his doorstep he’d discovered that he hadn’t eradicated anything at all. One glimpse of her elegant face glaring up at the camera and desire came storming back, eclipsing logic and self-determination.
It defied comprehension.
He hastened to amend his earlier statement. “I want both of you.”
He hadn’t helped his cause. Her chin shot up and her eyes flashed with green fire, full of feminine fury, mingled with a gut-wrenching anguish. “I don’t think you deserve me. And I know you don’t deserve Noelle.”
“If that’s what you believe, why are you here?”
He caught her wariness before she wiped every thought and emotion from her face, closing down and shutting him out. She’d never done that before. He suspected she’d never been capable of it until recently. When they’d last been together she’d been open and forthcoming, her opinions and feelings out there for everyone to see. Was he responsible for so dramatic a change? Had their night together caused her to regard the world with such caution? He flinched from the thought, from the idea he was capable of inflicting that level of pain on anyone, though for reasons he couldn’t bring himself to analyze, Daisy in particular.
“You deserved to know about your daughter. Now that you do, I’m finished here.”
She was keeping something from him, he could tell. “It’s more than that, isn’t it?” He could also tell she had zero intention of explaining herself. “Never mind. Considering how guarded I am about my own privacy, I won’t intrude on yours.”
“Thank you.”
“But if I can help, I will.” He had no idea where the words came from. He certainly hadn’t planned to say them, an unfathomable lapse on his part, but they caught her attention.
She studied his face for a long, tense moment. Then her head jerked in a nod. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Whether she realized it or not, Daisy’s announcement offered him the perfect opportunity to achieve the goals he’d set more than two years ago—to create a family. To have someone in his life who mattered. Who cared. Though she didn’t and couldn’t meet his conditions for an engineering apprentice, any more than those for the perfect wife, the potential existed to shape her to fit many of the same parameters. Hell, he’d even be willing to alter his lifestyle somewhat to suit her requirements for a husband. Within reason, of course.
And then there was Noelle. He struggled to draw air into his lungs at the thought of his progeny. A daughter. He had a child! It stunned him how much that simple fact changed the means by which he processed information. He found he craved her, sight unseen. Wanted and needed them both in ways he found inexplicable. No matter what it took, he’d give Daisy whatever she required in order to have his ready-made family part of his life.
He crossed to a sturdy wooden table and pulled out a chair, formulating a swift game plan. “Let’s sit and talk about this. Are you hungry?”
Annoyance flashed. “Let me get this straight. Now that you know about Noelle you’re willing to feed me?”
“No,” he responded mildly. “Since I planned to keep you here until we relocated, I would have gotten around to feeding you. Eventually.”
That provoked a smile. A tiny one, but a smile nonetheless. The impact of it far exceeded what it should have, based on all rational consideration. And yet, just as at the engineering conference, it drew him in, put thoughts and ideas in his head he’d spent every day since their night together working to eradicate. How many potential apprentice/wives had he interviewed since Daisy? How many times had Pretorius tweaked his Pretorius Program in an effort to find the “perfect” woman? How many failures had there been?
And all because none of them were Daisy, he now realized.
Oh, they’d suited his conditions to a T. Every last miserable one of them had engineering credentials. Were brilliant, rational, sensible women in complete control of their emotions. A few were even more attractive than Daisy, though for some inexplicable reason their beauty left him cold. To be fair, none of them revealed any true meanness that he’d noticed, still he wouldn’t call them kind. Perhaps their very lack of emotional depth prevented them from exhibiting the qualities Daisy possessed in distressing excess.
Regardless, his search had ultimately resulted in only one serious candidate … along with the indelible memory of Daisy. Now he had the ideal opportunity to mold the woman he actually wanted into the perfect wife.
“I thought we were going to talk,” she prompted with another of her irresistible smiles.
“Talking is the easy part.”
Again, the wariness. “And the not-so easy part?” she asked.
“I don’t cook and neither does Pretorius.”
She glanced around. “Maybe that explains the lack of appliances.”
“There’s a fully stocked refrigerator and freezer in the cabinet behind me, as well as a full complement of appliances.” He took a seat beside her. “I also have someone stop in once a day and prepare our meals, so you can cross that concern off your list.”
She blinked. “I didn’t realize I had a list.”
“I’m making one for you.”
Daisy’s eyes narrowed. “And why would you do that? And why should it matter whether or not you can cook, or whether or not you have someone fixing your meals? It has nothing to do with me.”
Now for the hard part. No point in delaying