“Mommy, I had a bad dream.”
He saw Nikki move toward the child, smooth a trembling hand over the little girl’s tousled blond hair.
Mommy.
Whatever he’d expected when he’d returned to Fairweather, he hadn’t expected this.
Nikki had a child.
He shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. But the relationship between the woman and the child was obvious, and triggered a multitude of other questions in his mind. Whose? When? And most heart wrenching of all—how could she have betrayed him in such a way?
Nikki didn’t spare him a glance as she crouched down beside the little girl. “What did you dream about, sweetie?”
“I don’t ’member.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I just woke up an’ I was scared.”
“It’s okay,” Nikki soothed, wrapping her arms around the child. “Mommy’s here.”
It’s been five years. A lot of things have changed in that time.
Her words echoed in his mind. Obviously a lot of things had changed, more than he ever would have expected.
Nikki had told him she’d never married again, and he’d mistakenly assumed that meant she’d never loved anyone else. The existence of this child proved otherwise.
The pain of knowing she’d been with another man, loved another man, was like losing her all over again. It was a betrayal of everything they’d shared, of all that they’d meant to each other.
You were the one who wanted the divorce.
Dammit, he hadn’t wanted the divorce. He hadn’t wanted anything more than he’d wanted to be with Nikki. But his career had made that impossible, and he couldn’t bear to see how much their separation hurt her.
So he’d said goodbye; he’d walked away. And she’d found someone else. As he stared at the blond head nestled against Nikki’s shoulder, the realization simply shattered him.
Somehow sensing his perusal, the little girl turned. The initial shock of hearing her call Nikki “Mommy” was nothing compared to the impact he felt when the child looked at him through eyes that were the mirror image of his own.
Colin grasped the railing behind him for support as a whole new wave of emotions washed over him. The most overwhelming, and the most unexpected, of them all was joy. Pure, unadulterated joy filled his heart as he stood face-to-face with his child.
His child.
There was absolutely no doubt in his mind, not the slightest hint of uncertainty in his soul. This beautiful little girl was his daughter.
She, however, obviously had no clue about his identity, because she turned to her mother and demanded, “Who’s that?”
Nikki looked from the child to him, her teeth sinking into the soft fullness of her bottom lip in what he recognized as one of her nervous gestures.
Colin waited for her response, silently daring her to deny what was now so painfully clear.
“This is—” she cleared her throat “—Uncle Shaun’s brother.”
Uncle Shaun’s brother.
The words were a double-edged sword—slashing through him with the denial of his parental relationship and the startling realization that his brother had been privy to the deception.
The child tipped her head back to study him more carefully. “Are you my uncle, too?”
At another time, Colin might have been impressed by her deductive reasoning. Now, however, he was too stunned to speak.
“Colin, can you, uh, just give me a minute? Please.”
He heard the plea in Nikki’s voice, the desperation.
He wanted an explanation and he wanted it now. After more than five years, he didn’t want to wait another minute. The numbing shock that had settled over him earlier had been supplanted by bubbling hot fury. He wanted to shout, to rage, to demand. He wanted to shake Nikki, as he’d been shaken by this revelation. But he knew that the worst thing he could do right now was confront his ex-wife about her lies in front of their daughter.
He nodded tersely.
“Come on, Carly.” Nikki put an arm around the child’s shoulders, pointedly ignoring her earlier and still unanswered question. “Mommy will tuck you back into bed.”
Colin watched them walk back into the house together, unable to tear his attention away from his little girl.
He’d never given much thought to the possibility of having a family. But faced with the indisputable evidence that he had a child, there was no doubt in his mind that he needed a chance to be her father. A real father—the kind of dad he’d never had.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure he’d get that chance. He was on the run, hiding out from someone who wanted him dead. How could he pursue any kind of relationship under those circumstances? How could he expect to be her father when he might have to leave town without a moment’s notice?
This time he did hear the creak of the screen door, and he turned as Nikki came back out onto the porch. Tension radiated from her slight frame in waves, but she faced him defiantly. “Her name’s Carly. She’s four-and-a-half years old.”
“She’s mine,” Colin said.
It was a statement rather than a question, but Nikki nodded anyway. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked at him, her eyes filled with sadness and regret, but she didn’t respond.
He slammed his fist against the wooden post, and Nikki flinched. “Dammit, Nicole. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes before she averted her gaze.
“I think I deserve some answers.” Colin’s voice practically vibrated with tightly restrained anger. He didn’t care. He figured he was well within his rights to be angry, and the fury was more tolerable than the fear that had followed him across the country and easier to deal with than the inexplicable longing to take her in his arms.
Nikki drew in a deep breath, nodded stiffly again.
“It’s been more than five years, and you never said a word. Not one-single-goddamned word.”
A single tear slipped onto her cheek, trailed slowly downward. “I’m sorry. I never wanted you to find out this way.”
“Or maybe you never wanted me to find out at all.”
She shook her head. “I wanted to tell you—I was going to tell you.”
“You’re five years too late.”
“No.” She managed to glare at him through her tears. “You’re five years too late.”
There was just enough truth in her words to infuriate him. “Don’t try to blame this on me. You should have told me as soon as you found out you were pregnant. Or didn’t you know at the time that it was my baby?”
He wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but her already pasty cheeks paled further.
“There was never any doubt,” she said softly. “But if that’s what you think of me, then maybe it doesn’t matter what I did or should have done.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” he agreed callously.