Emma’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. This probably meant the end of any ideas about adopting Harley.
Harley toed the worn mat on the car floor. “I was worried when you were late.”
Emma reached over and squeezed the girl’s hand. She knew that feeling all too well from her own childhood. Her mother would promise to pick Emma up from school, from a friend’s house, then fail to show up. “I’m sorry, honey. I was in a...in a meeting. That’s why I called Frankie.”
“What was the meeting about?”
Oh, God. Emma took a deep breath. “It was a custody discussion. About two people who both wanted their child.”
“Can’t they share her?”
“Sometimes that’s not easy.”
Harley’s shoulders relaxed. “I’m glad you’re going to adopt me.” She glanced at Emma. “I won’t have to call you ‘Mom,’ though, will I?”
“Of course not. You already have a mom. You can just keep calling me Emma.”
A corner of Harley’s mouth turned up just a little. “Mom didn’t like that, you know.”
“What didn’t she like?”
“That you said it was okay to call you Emma. She thought adults should be called by their last names.”
“That’s what you should always do unless the adult asks you to call them something else.” This was the first time Harley had talked about Sonya this way—remembering her. Almost reminiscing. “I wanted you to call me Emma because friends call each other by their first names.”
“But are you sure it’s okay for me to call you Emma after you adopt me? Won’t people think it’s weird?”
Emma’s throat swelled and she bit her lip. “I don’t really care what people think. Do you?”
Stupid question, she realized immediately. Harley was thirteen. Girls that age worried constantly about what everyone thought of them.
“I guess not.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Give it some thought,” Emma said. “Figure out what you’re comfortable with. The adoption will take a while.” Her voice caught on the last word. The bus in front of her blurred, and the red of the traffic light looked as if it was underwater.
She felt Harley swivel in her seat to face her but kept her eyes on the road. Finally Harley said, “Are you okay? Your voice sounds funny.”
Emma cleared her throat. “I was talking a lot today. Maybe I’m a little hoarse.” She needed to change the subject before she broke down and began sobbing. “How’s the homework situation?”
“I finished most of it at FreeZone. I still have to write a book report, though.”
“Did you finish the book?”
“Duh, Emma. Of course I did.” Harley froze. “I’m...I mean, yes, I finished it at FreeZone.”
The traffic light turned green and the car lurched forward as Emma let the clutch out too fast. “Harley, you don’t have to watch what you say to me.” Her face felt stiff and her smile was forced. “That sounded like the old, mouthy Harley. I’ve missed her.”
“Mom always said...” Her voice caught, and Harley stared out the window. “She said my mouth would get me in trouble.”
She reached over and smoothed Harley’s hair. “Not with me.” Her throat closed. After only four weeks, she couldn’t imagine life without the girl.
Would Nathan even know how to handle a conversation like this? Would he understand what was happening? “You can...you can say whatever you want. But then, I get to say anything I want to you.”
Harley frowned. “Like, if I was mean to you, or called you a name, you’d call me one back?”
“I would never do that. Name-calling hurts people’s feelings and makes them feel bad.” She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, wondering how Nathan would answer that question. “I hope you won’t ever do something so mean to anyone. But if you were mean to me, I’d let you know I was disappointed in you. That you’d hurt my feelings.”
“Mom did the same thing,” Harley muttered. “I always wished she’d just yell at me and get it over with. I hated it when she made me feel like a jerk.”
Emma reached for Harley’s hand. “So I guess her method worked, then.”
There was a beat of silence. “Yeah, I guess it did,” Harley said grudgingly. “But she cried sometimes when she thought I wasn’t looking.”
Emma’s eyes swam with tears, and she pulled over to the curb.
“Why are we stopping here?”
“I thought...” She cleared her throat. “I know you were going to cook something tonight, and I love your food. But since we’re running late, I thought maybe we could order some Chinese and pick it up on the way home.”
“Chinese?” Harley glanced at Emma. “Mom didn’t like Chinese. We hardly ever got it.”
“Yeah, I know.” Her voice too wobbly to say more, she handed Harley her phone. “Kung Pao vegetables for me. Whatever you want.”
“Your voice sounds funny again, Emma.”
“Must be getting a cold.”
She struggled to suppress her tears as Harley scrolled through her phone. “You listed the phone number under Chinese? That’s lame.”
“That’s me. The queen of lame.”
As Harley ordered their dinner, she seemed better. More solid. Which was ironic, because Emma’s world had exploded into pieces so tiny, there would be no putting them back together.
* * *
THE NEXT NIGHT, Emma sat at a table in Mama’s Place, her heart thumping erratically, and watched Nathan at a table with a group of people. They were clearly employees, and a younger version of Nathan was serving them all small plates of food. There was a lot of discussion and laughing. From the expressions on the faces of the people she could see, they were enjoying the food.
Emma had called earlier and asked when would be a good time to speak to Nathan privately. The woman who’d answered had sounded surprised, but she’d suggested four-thirty. When Emma arrived, Nathan had been sitting at the round table already, his back to the room. Emma had slipped into a seat in the corner and watched.
As everyone was pushing away from the table, a woman said something to Nathan, nodding in Emma’s direction. Nathan turned around and stilled when he saw her. Then he smiled and walked toward her.
Emma’s heart jumped, just as it had when she’d met him at FreeZone. Her palms got sweaty, and her mouth got dry.
Nerves. That was all. But she noticed how his eyes were twinkling. How his dress shirt made his eyes look so vividly blue. How narrow his hips looked in the dark pants he wore.
How happy he was to see her.
She swallowed again and forced a smile to her face. Would he be just as happy when he heard what she had to say?
She doubted it.
* * *
EMMA SLOAN SAT at a table in the corner, watching him with a tense smile on her face. Her blond hair was tucked behind her ears, showing off her dangly silver earrings. Her hands were clasped together on the table, thumbs circling each other.
She was nervous. Was it because she’d taken the initiative to come and see him, and wasn’t sure how he’d react? His smile widened as he slid into the chair across from her. “Emma. It’s good to see you.” He gestured toward the table behind him, where the staff was cleaning up. “Are you hungry? We all taste the day’s specials before we open. I can get you a plate.”
Turning pale, she said, “Thank you, but no. I’m fine.” She cleared her throat. “It’s good to see you, too, Nathan.”
“I wanted to call. But Frankie told me about your friend, and I didn’t want to intrude. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. I would have... That is, I wanted to...” Her voice drifted away.
He started to reach for her hand, but drew away. “Frankie told me you’re taking care of your friend’s daughter. How is she doing?”
“Her name is Harley. She’s thirteen. This has all been really hard for her.”
He remembered the weeks after his parents had been killed. The shock. The uncontrollable grief. The fear of not knowing what would happen. “I know it has.”
She looked down and nodded. “For me, too.” Then she swallowed and seemed to brace herself. Looked at him directly. “Actually, Harley is the reason I’m here today.”
“Is there something I can do to help?”
She gave a small, strained laugh. “I guess there is.” She gripped the edge of the table and watched him carefully. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, Nathan. The reason I’m here today is that Harley is... She’s your daughter.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHAT?” NATHAN MUST have misunderstood her. “What are you talking about?”
“Harley Michaels is Sonya Michaels’s daughter. You’re her father.”
He reared back as if she’d punched him in the chest. “What the hell?”
“I spoke to the lawyer yesterday. David Sanders.” She slid a business card across the table. “You can call him and confirm it, if you want.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope. “Sonya left a letter for you.”
Nathan heard the frustration in her voice as he stared at the envelope, starkly white against the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. He didn’t touch it. Couldn’t. It was as if he’d fallen asleep and was having a nightmare. If he didn’t pick up the envelope, he’d eventually wake up.
Emma wouldn’t be sitting across from him. She wouldn’t be handing him an envelope with his name in neat handwriting on the front. Handwriting he didn’t recognize. She wouldn’t be saying something crazy about him having a thirteen-year-old daughter.
“I had the same reaction when the lawyer told me,” she said, her voice low and trembling a little. “I couldn’t wrap my brain around it.”
He shoved the envelope across the table too hard, and it slid off the edge into Emma’s lap. “This is insane. I don’t have a daughter. And I’ve never heard of Sonya Michaels.”
Emma put the envelope back in her purse. “Apparently, you knew Sonya well enough to conceive a child with her.”
“Not possible.” No way. He’d never heard the woman’s name before now. He’d certainly never had sex with her.
And even if he had, he always used a condom. Always.
Hell, thirteen years ago, he wasn’t even having sex. He was trying to keep the restaurant going and hold his family together while dealing with the grief of losing his parents. Most nights, he was lucky if he got a few hours of sleep.
“I’m sorry, Emma. But there’s no way this could be true. I wasn’t having...didn’t have a girlfriend back then.”
“Harley will be fourteen in March. So it would have been closer to fifteen years ago.”
His nails digging into the tablecloth, he stilled. March. So she would have been conceived in early summer of the year before. Tension eased in his shoulders. “Exactly why it’s not possible. I know exactly what I was doing then. I wasn’t out having one-night stands or screwing strangers.”
Instead of recoiling at his harsh words, she nodded. “Maybe not, but you had sex at least once. Because Harley is your daughter.”
He’d expected to shock her with his blunt words. Throw her off, make her stop talking nonsense. Apparently, Emma was made of stronger stuff than that. “Is that what her mother told you?”
Her throat rippled as she swallowed again. “It’s what Sonya told the attorney. She didn’t say that maybe you were Harley’s father. She didn’t say it was a possibility. She said you were. Period.”
“And you believe her.”
“Yes. She was one of my closest friends. I’ve known her and Harley ever since they moved to Chicago.” She leaned toward him, and her cloud of blond hair brushed her shoulder. “Sonya was one of the most honest and straightforward people I know.”
“Not always.”
She nodded slowly. “No. She never told me who Harley’s father was. But that was her business, not mine.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She cocked her head to the side. “What?”
“She also never told me. If it was true, why wait until she died? Why not tell me right away? I had a right to know. Besides that, she could have claimed child support. Or was she independently wealthy?”
“No.” Emma’s skin was so pale that the tiny freckles dusted over her cheeks stood out like spatters of brown paint. “Sonya didn’t have much money. She was going to school part-time to become a nurse, but she worked in an office as a manager’s assistant to support herself and Harley.”
Nathan frowned. Something about Emma’s story rang a bell.
He rolled his shoulders. It didn’t mean he’d actually known this Sonya Michaels. This story would apply to a lot of single mothers—working a low-paying job, trying to get an education. “So she could have used child support. But she never asked for it. Why?”
“I have no idea. Sonya was very closemouthed about her past.”
“And you never asked one of your closest friends about the kid’s father?”
“The ‘kid’ has a name,” she said sharply. “Harley. Your daughter’s name is Harley.”
“If I thought she was my kid, I’d remember that,” he said evenly.
“Will you take a paternity test?”
“I’ll need to talk to my attorney about that.”
For the first time, he saw contempt in Emma’s expression. “If you’re so certain you’re not her father, you have nothing to worry about.”
“I’ll rely on my attorney’s advice. Not yours.”
She fumbled in her bag and pulled out a small silver rectangle. She flicked it open and laid a second business card on the table, next to the one from the lawyer she’d mentioned earlier. “If you decide to have a paternity test done, please let me know. I’ll arrange for Harley’s blood test.” She studied him out of cool eyes that were no longer friendly. No longer interested. “If I don’t hear from you in a week, I’ll send you some papers to sign. You’ll need to relinquish your parental rights so Harley can be adopted.”
“Can’t relinquish rights I don’t have,” he said.
“Then I guess you’d better have the paternity test.” She shoved away from the table and slung her bag over her shoulder. “You’re not the man I’d hoped you were, Nathan.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” He wasn’t the man he’d thought he was, either. Everything he’d done over the past year had shown him that. But it didn’t mean he was going to accept responsibility for someone else’s kid.
She nodded. “I’ll be in touch. One way or the other.”
As she headed for the door, he hurried to open it for her. A blast of cold air swept inside and swirled around his legs.
Emma didn’t look back.
As the door whooshed shut behind her, Nathan studied the card she’d left on the table. Emma Sloan was a case manager for DCFS. That was where the contempt in her amber eyes had come from.
She must see men every day who refused to take responsib
ility for their children. Refused to support them.
He wasn’t one of those men. If he thought there was even a remote possibility that he was Harley Michaels’s father, he’d do the right thing. But there wasn’t.
Once again, something nudged at the edge of his brain. He tried to pry it loose, but it slithered away.
No way was he the kid’s father.
The door opened again, and for an instant he thought it might be Emma, coming back to tell him she’d been joking. Then a couple walked in, holding hands. Plastering a smile on his face, he led them to a table.
For the next several hours, a steady stream of customers trickled in, and he was busy enough that he didn’t have time to think about Emma or what she’d said. Finally, around nine o’clock, the crowd thinned. His leg ached, and so did his arm, so he eased onto a stool at the bar and motioned Jesse, the bartender, over. “Let me see the inventory list, Jess.”
As he worked through it, someone slid onto the stool next to him. He glanced over and saw Danny Kopecki. “Hey, Danny. How’s it going?” he asked, setting the inventory aside.
“Good,” the tall, dark-haired detective answered. He motioned to the man on the stool next to him. “You remember my dad, right?”
“Of course.” Nathan reached around Danny to shake the older man’s hand. “How are you, Mr. Kopecki?”
“I’m good, Nathan.” His grip was firm. Friendly. “But stop with the Mr. Kopecki crap. Makes me feel like an old man. My name is Mitch.”
“Okay, sir.” Danny’s father ran his hand over his fringe of white hair and rolled his eyes. “I mean Mitch.”
Jesse walked up and asked, “Guinness?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Danny said.
“Cola for me,” Mitch said.
Nathan turned to face the detective. “Jesse knows what you drink?”
Danny shrugged. “I was here a few times while Patrick was running the place. Guess the kid has a good memory.”
“Thanks again for what you did with Chuck.”
Danny lifted one shoulder. “You’re welcome. Glad I could get a dirtbag like Chuck Notarro off the street.”
Bending the Rules Page 4