“Lexie,” he interrupted her as it occurred to him that he might be talking to Virgil Duffy’s daughter. He never figured Virgil for the type of man to abandon his child. Then again, Virgil could be a real jerk. “How old are you?”
“Six. I had my birthday a few months ago. My friends came over and we had cake. I got the movie Babe from Amy and so we watched it. I cried when Babe was taken from his mommy. That was really really sad, and I got sick. But my mommy said he got to go visit on weekends, so I felt better. I want a pig, but my mommy says I can’t have one. I like that part when Babe bites the sheep,” she said, and then began to laugh.
Six, but he’d last seen Georgeanne seven years ago. Lexie couldn’t be Virgil’s child. Then he realized that he’d forgotten the nine months she would have been pregnant, plus if Lexie had just had her birthday a few months ago, she might very well be Virgil’s child. But she didn’t look anything like Virgil. He looked at her more closely. Her laughter turned to a big smile, and a dimple dented her right cheek. “I’m a sucker for that little pig’s face.” She shook her head and began to giggle again.
In another part of the house, the water shut off, and John’s heart stopped beating in his chest. He swallowed hard. “Holy shit,” he whispered.
Lexie’s laughter stopped on a scandalized breath. “That’s a bad word.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, and looked beneath the makeup. Her long lashes curled up at the very end. As a boy, John had been relentlessly teased about lashes like that. Then he stared into her dark blue eyes. Eyes like his. An unexplainable current ran though him and he felt as if he’d stuck his finger in an electrical outlet. Now he knew why Georgeanne had behaved so strangely last night. She’d had his child. A little girl.
His daughter.
“Holy shit.”
Chapter Seven
Georgeanne unwound the towel from around her head and tossed it on the end of her bed. She reached for her hairbrush sitting on the dresser, but her hand stilled before she grasped the round handle. From the living room, Lexie’s childish giggles mixed with the unmistakable low pitch of a man’s voice. Concern overrode modesty. She grabbed her green summer robe and shoved her arms through the sleeves. Lexie knew better than to let a stranger in the house. They’d had a nice long talk about it the last time Georgeanne had walked into the living room and found three Jehovah’s Witnesses sitting on her couch.
She tied the belt around her waist and hurried down the narrow hall. The scolding she planned to unleash died on her tongue, and she stopped in her tracks. The man sitting on the couch next to her daughter hadn’t come to offer heavenly salvation.
He raised his gaze to hers, and she looked into the dreamy blue eyes of her worst nightmare from hell.
She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t talk past the shock clogging her throat. Within a split second, her world stopped, shifted beneath her feet, then went spinning out of control.
“Mr. Wall came to sign my stuff,” Lexie said.
Time stood still as Georgeanne stared into blue eyes staring back at her. She felt disoriented and unable to fully comprehend that John Kowalsky was actually sitting in her living room looking as big and handsome as he had seven years ago, as he had in all the magazine pictures she’d ever seen of him, as he had last night. He sat in her house, on her couch, next to her daughter. She placed a hand on her bare throat and took a deep breath. Beneath her fingers she felt the rapid beating of her pulse. He looked out of place in her home, like he didn’t belong. Which, of course, he didn’t. “Alexandra Mae,” she finally managed on a rush of air, and shifted her gaze to her daughter. “You know better than to let a stranger in the house.”
Lexie’s eyes widened. Georgeanne’s use of her proper name let her know she was in very deep trouble. “But-but,” she stuttered as she hopped to her feet. “But, Mommy, I know Mr. Wall. He came to my school, but I didn’t get nothin‘.”
Georgeanne didn’t have a clue what her daughter meant. She looked back at John and asked, “What are you doing here?”
He slowly rose, then reached into the back pocket of his faded Levi’s. “You dropped this last night,” he answered as he tossed her checkbook to her.
Before she could catch it, it bounced off her chest and hit the floor. Rather than bend down and pick it up, she left it lying there. “You didn’t have to bring it by.” A small measure of relief soothed her nerves. He’d come to bring her checkbook, not because he’d found out about Lexie.
“You’re right,” was all he said. His masculine presence filled the feminine room, and she suddenly became very aware of her nakedness beneath the cotton robe. She glanced down and was relieved to discover that she was fully covered.
“Well, thank you,” she said as she walked toward the entryway. “Lexie and I were just getting ready to leave, and I’m sure you have important places to go yourself.” She reached for the bras
s knob and opened the door. “Good-bye, John.”
“Not yet.” His eyes narrowed, accentuating the small scar running through his left brow. “Not until we talk.”
“About what?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He shifted his weight to one foot and tilted his head to one side. “Maybe we can have that conversation we should have had seven years ago.”
She eyed him warily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He looked at Lexie, who stood in the middle of the room switching her interest from one adult to the other. “You know exactly who I’m talking about,” he countered.
For several long seconds they stared at each other. Two combatants bracing for confrontation. Georgeanne didn’t relish the thought of being alone with John, but whatever was said between them, she was sure it was best if Lexie didn’t hear. When she spoke, she turned her attention to her daughter. “Run across the street and see if Amy can play.”
“But, Mommy. I can’t play with Amy for a week ‘cause we cut the hair off my Birthday Surprise Barbie, remember?”
“I’ve changed my mind.”