Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

“You aren’t going to like them.” Her chin came up a fraction of an inch.

Chase probed her cool composure with narrowed eyes. Beneath it lay a crackling tension and a well-contained anxiety. It had him hauling in his temper.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he said. “I know how much you and Repp—”

“Do your math, Dad,” she cut impatiently across his words. “Repp isn’t the father. If he was, I would be showing already.”

His gaze raked the slimness of her waist and belly, a quick calculation confirming her words and hardening his expression. “Then, just who the hell is?”

Cat showed the first trace of unease. “I don’t know.”

“What?” The clipped quiet of his voice had an ominous ring.

“I said, I don’t know.” Cat felt her own anger rising to meet his and fought to quell it as she crossed the room. “He was some guy I met in a bar.”

“In a bar?” Chase thundered and swung away to face the wall and the framed map that hung on it, dragging a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.” He turned back to confront her. “For God’s sake, you’re my daughter.”

“So it would seem.” Fire flashed in her green eyes. “I’ve been told you were about my age when you got my mother pregnant with Ty.”

“Don’t go changing the subject, Cat.” His expression darkened in warning. “We’re talking about a man you picked up in a bar. I presume he had a name.”

“I’m sure he did, but we didn’t exchange names. I don’t know who he is, where he lives, or what he does. And he knows nothing about me.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “There are few places that a Calder isn’t known on sight.”

“I didn’t meet him here.”

An eyebrow went up. “Then where? When?”

“Last August in Fort Worth. I stopped there on my way back from Austin to meet some of the girls from my sorority. A kind of impromptu farewell party.”

“Was he a friend of theirs?”

“No. I told you he was some cowboy I met in a bar,” Cat repeated with growing exasperation.

“He’s a cowboy?”

“Yes—no,” she hastily corrected herself. “He said he had cowboyed before and that he might go back to it someday. But it was obvious that it wasn’t what he did now.”

“Why was it obvious?” Chase came around the desk and leaned against the front of it, folding his arms across his middle.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged in vague confusion. “It was this air of authority he had—confident and self-assured.”

That troubled her. Endless times in the last two months Cat had searched her memory for something about the man to dislike—for any detail, no matter how trivial, that would allow her to despise him instead of herself. She hadn’t succeeded.

“What did he look like?”

She laughed a little bitterly. “Oh, he was the requisite tall, dark, and handsome.”

“Like Repp.” It was said calmly, and with certainty.

Her glance cut to him in surprise. “Yes.” Honesty forced Cat to add, “Except he had gray eyes.”

Chase was pleased with the frankness of her answer and the strength of character it revealed. Although the opportunity had been there, she had made no excuses for her actions. On the contrary, she had subtly assumed full responsibility for them.

“What else did you talk about?”

“We didn’t do that much talking, Dad.” A little edge of self-disgust crept into her voice.