Mara saw Special Agent McKinnon throw a startled glance at Keira, who told him with an understanding grin, “Oh yes, she’s talking now. Her vocabulary consists of about ten words, including Mama, Dada, Gamma—that’s my mother,” she explained to Mara. “Dace—that’s you, Trace,” she told Special Agent McKinnon. “And bat—that’s bath, which is her very favorite thing in the world.”
Special Agent McKinnon walked over and took Alyssa from her father’s arms. “Come to Trace, baby,” he told her, and she went to him willingly, then smiled contentedly and snuggled against his shoulder.
Mara went very still, feeling as if the world was somehow out of kilter. She glanced from one man to the other, their open love for the little girl reflected on the faces of both men. Special Agent McKinnon—no, she thought. I cannot think of him as anyone but Trace. Not here. Not holding Alyssa. Here he is a man. Just a warm, loving man, like Andre. Trace was talking to Alyssa in a soft voice, teasing her and tickling her tummy as she gurgled with laughter again and again.
“He spoils her rotten,” Keira told Mara in an aside, but her voice held amused indulgence. “She turned one a couple of months ago, and you should have seen what he gave her for a birthday present.”
Mara didn’t say anything, but a variety of emotions churned through her. Wistfulness and honest bewilderment ended up on top. “She is a beautiful child,” she told Keira. “But your husband—did he not wish for a son?”
Keira glanced at her sharply, a frown starting to form. But then she seemed to see beneath the surface of the question into Mara’s wounded heart. “No,” she said gently. “In fact, before Alyssa was born Cody refused to let them tell us if we were having a boy or a girl. He said, ‘Not knowing now will make it all the sweeter...later.’”
She smiled at Mara, woman to woman. “And when I gave birth to Alyssa, Cody was right there in the delivery room—she was born into her father’s eager, waiting hands. That’s the only time I’ve ever seen him cry, but they were tears of joy, not disappointment.”
“Oh.” Mara couldn’t think of anything else to say. She needed time alone to consider this. To analyze it in detail the way she would a complex equation. Because if what Keira was saying was the truth, if it was right and natural for fathers to cherish their daughters the way they cherished their sons, then...
* * *
Trace watched Keira and the princess take Alyssa upstairs to change her diaper. Keira had demurred at first, but Mara had insisted. “Please,” she had asked in her pretty, faintly accented voice. And when she’d added, “I have never been around babies, but I would like to learn,” Keira had smiled and accepted the offer of help.
After they left, Cody pulled Trace into the kitchen. “Spill it,” he demanded, almost before the swinging door closed behind them.
Trace hesitated. “Not sure what you mean.”
“C’mon, McKinnon,” Cody said. “Something happened.”
“It’s all in my report.”
“Don’t give me that. I know you. Maybe the State Department bought that report about what happened on Mount Evans, but I don’t. And don’t give me that poker-faced look, either,” Cody added drily. “Keira’s been giving me the high sign practically since the minute you and the princess walked in. So is there a problem? Something I need to know about the princess...and you?”
Trace’s jaw tightened. “Not a thing,” he told his boss, trying to convince himself at the same time. “There’s not a single, solitary thing you need to know.”
Cody’s expression hardened as he became more the boss than the friend. “You’d tell me if there was, right?”
“Right.” Trace almost believed it. Almost.
* * *
That night as Mara lay in her bed she relived her visit with the Walkers and their daughter, Alyssa. And Trace. He was Trace to her now. She would never think of him as Special Agent McKinnon again. Because when he was with his friends, when he held his goddaughter in his arms, he was so much like her brother, Andre, her heart ached.
She tucked a hand beneath her cheek. But it is not as a brother you see him, a little voice inside her head tormented her. He is a man who makes you understand what it is to be a woman.
Mara remembered the way Trace had held Alyssa, remembered the expression on his face as he gazed at the little girl. Remembered also the look on Alyssa’s face as she smiled up at him and cuddled in his arms. She adored her “Dace” as she called him, and he could not have loved the little girl more if he had been her fath—