The Daddy's Promise. Shirley Jump

“Well, that’s a story for another day. My point was that there are an awful lot of things you can learn from the accounts of history. These people all had lives like you do, lives that were turned upside down and inside out by the choices they made or circumstances they didn’t ask for.” Anita leaned past Emily, typed in a few words, clicked the mouse and whizzed through cyberspace. “It might be easier to look at your history lessons as enormous works of fiction. If you see people like Winston Churchill as characters, it becomes fun to find out the ending to his story.”

      Emily leaned back in her chair. “I never thought of it that way.”

      “Here, try this site. There’s a lot of great information about World War II there. I wrote an article on a group of veterans before I left L.A. and did some of my research here.” She slid the computer over to Emily, relating a few other Web addresses for research and then put the girl in control.

      “Cool!” Emily leaned forward, using the computer with one hand and scribbling notes with the other.

      Anita pivoted again in her chair and her skirt hiked up another couple of inches.

      Luke jerked his gaze away and concentrated on the least-sexy thing in the room. A squat cookie jar shaped like a pug, complete with a ceramic chefs’ hat and smirky dog grin. Think cookies, he told himself. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, macadamia nut…

      Before he could get to thumbprints cookies, his gaze was back on Anita’s fabulous legs. His concentration was shot, at least as long as Anita was here. And that was dangerous. Very dangerous.

      She was pregnant, he reminded himself. By another man. Luke had his own problems to worry about. Thinking about Anita in any way other than as a friend he used to know was bad. And even though his curiosity about why she was here and why she was having a baby by herself was damn near eating him up, he didn’t ask, at least not while his daughter was in the room.

      Anita rose and crossed to him. “She’s doing great with the computer.” Anita leaned close, her voice a whisper. “But maybe we should leave her alone so she doesn’t feel like we’re watching over her shoulder.” Anita smiled. “And then she’d stop working, just to spite you.”

      He smiled back. “You know her too well.”

      She shrugged. “Hey, I was twelve once, too.”

      Luke motioned to Anita to follow him across the hall and into the den. When she sat in one of the armchairs, her skirt hiked up again.

      Luke took the chair opposite and tried like hell to keep his gaze on her face.

      “We really shouldn’t tie up your laptop or your time,” he said, in a lame attempt at a coherent conversation. “Emily can use my computer.”

      “It’s no big deal,” Anita said. “Besides, it’s still pouring out. I’ll go to the library when it stops raining.”

      In that case, Luke hoped Mercy was in for a flood.

      “And I know you, Luke. You don’t like anyone messing with your computer.” Anita grinned. “You treat that thing like some people treat their Pomeranians.”

      The laughter that rose in his throat and then escaped him had such a foreign sound that for a brief second, Luke almost didn’t recognize it. “I guess I do. Never get between a man and his computer,” he quipped.

      “I’ll remember that.” Her voice had taken on a deeper tone, as if she was remembering the same moment he was. A late night in his office, both of them tired from working on a project all day, sharing a few cartons of delivered Chinese, laughing, joking, then not joking at all, Anita’s body pressed against his desk, her mouth hungrily tasting his, equipment falling to the floor as Luke tried to get closer, touch more of her, the blinding passion driving him like the engine of a two-ton truck.

      Luke cleared his throat and got to his feet, putting some distance between himself and the jasmine perfume triggering memories in his mind like a starting pistol. He fiddled with the line of framed photos on the mantel.

      “So, what do you think of Mercy so far?”

      She laughed. “It’s not exactly L.A.”

      “Hey, we have a strip mall. And two stoplights. We’re civilized.”