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As the last of sleep fell away and consciousness overtook him, he sat up and realized exactly what the sound was that had awakened him from his slumber.
Kathryn. She lay on her back, arms waving and legs flailing. Her hands opened and closed as if in an attempt to capture the pale light of dawn that seeped through the window.
Although she wasn’t fussing at the moment, she’d been up and down all night. And consequently so had Clint.
At midnight he’d given her a bottle and changed her diaper. At two o’clock he’d sat next to the crib and stroked her cheek until she’d fallen back to sleep. At three he’d rocked her in his arms and sung her every lullaby that had not been sung to him as a child.
Although it was early and Clint felt the weariness of too little sleep, he also felt the profound joy of fatherhood. With each and every moment that passed he was more and more certain that Kathryn was his.
He wasn’t sure why Candy hadn’t told him, didn’t know what kind of game she might be playing, but if it was a ploy to gain support, both emotionally and financially from him, that wasn’t a problem.
Clint intended to be a father in every sense of the word to the little girl. He’d pay support and demand liberal visitation. If he discovered that Candy wasn’t a fit mother, then he’d fight her in court for full custody. But first he had to find out exactly what was going on. And that meant he had to get up out of bed.
He rolled out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans, then walked over to the side of the crib. Kathryn smiled. Like a ray of sunshine, the toothless gesture warmed him through and through. Kathryn. His child. His daughter.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he said, and touched a finger to her cheek. “Are you ready for a diaper change?” She kicked her legs, as if urging him to hurry. “Okay…okay.” He changed her diaper, then picked her up and carried her into the kitchen.
The minute he placed her in the car seat she started to fuss, and he knew it was probably hunger. He moved quickly to make her a bottle, then propped it up with a dish towel so she could drink while he made a necessary pot of coffee.
He wondered if Sherry was up yet. He hadn’t heard any noise from her room as he’d walked past it. He knew she was accustomed to keeping odd hours because of her waitressing job. But she’d gone to bed the night before at a ridiculously early hour.
Clint looked at the clock on the stove. It was just a few minutes before six. He’d give Sherry an hour or so, then he would need to wake her up so he could get ready for work.
A moment later he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, his head filled with thoughts of the woman who slept in his spare room.
Normally there was very little awkwardness between them, but since she’d arrived to help him out with Kathryn, there had been a strange energy between them…one he wasn’t sure he understood.
He only knew one thing. He would never want to do anything to jeopardize the friendship they’d managed to develop when they’d outgrown their case of puppy love. They’d only been twenty-three and it had been a first serious relationship for both of them.
Puppy love. Was that what it had been? What he and Sherry had shared? He’d told himself often in the past five years that that’s what it must have been—an innocent first love that couldn’t sustain itself outside childish fantasy.
However, at the time he’d been in it, it hadn’t felt childish or fanciful at all. Loving Sherry had consumed him. Planning for their future together had filled his life with a happiness and contentment he’d never known before or since. But it was done, a part of the past he rarely took out to examine.
She’d chosen not to be with him, insisted that her love for him had changed, and nothing she’d said or done in the intervening years had indicated anything different. She’d made her choice where he was concerned, and she seemed satisfied with that choice. End of story.
By the time he finished his cup of coffee, Kathryn had taken most of her bottle and had fallen back asleep. He checked the clock once again and realized he needed to get Sherry up.
He poured another cup of coffee, added two scoops of sugar and a liberal splash of milk, just the way Sherry liked it. Carrying the cup, he walked down the hallway to her closed door.
He rapped his knuckles gently against the wood, then waited for a reply. Nothing. No sound of stirring, no sound of anything remotely alive on the other side of the door. He knocked louder.
“Yes…” The sleepy reply drifted out, and Clint took it as encouragement to go in.
The moment he opened the door, he realized his mistake. She sat up and grabbed the sheet to her chest, but not before he saw the dainty spaghetti straps of her burgundy nightgown, not before he’d seen the expanse of creamy skin, the swell of her breasts barely hidden by the silky material.
Heat flooded through him. Unexpectedly. Spontaneously. He felt as if he’d been plunged into a fiery inferno.
“Uh…I brought you coffee,” he said, then cleared his throat in embarrassment. The room seemed smaller than it ever had before, and he felt as if somehow the air had gotten thicker, more difficult to breath.
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