Her Secret, His Child

"Can we have Rhett, too?"

"Of course." Jamie laughed and jumped up from the couch, reaching into a side table for paper and pencil. "We can write some kind of script, setting the scenes that anyone who's read the novels will immediately recognize. You know—Cathy and Heathcliff on the moors, Scarlett and Rhett at Tara, and so on."

He liked the sound of that. Live literature. Yeah. He liked it a lot.

"Tell me the characters you want and I'll see what we can do." She was sitting beside him again. For the first time in his life, Kyle had to force himself to think about the work he loved.

' 'As soon as I find out which of these costumes are available, I'll let you know," Jamie said twenty minutes later. Somehow they'd come up with an entire list. "I'll need you to write a script."

"That I can do." Finally, something about this get-together he could feel confident about.

"Mommy?" The voice was faint, sleepy-sounding, coming from somewhere down the hall.

Jerking upright, Jamie called out, "I'll be there in

TAR A TAYLOR QUINN

a second!" The change in her was immediate, and a little confusing in its intensity.

"I, uh…" She looked from the hallway to Kyle.

"Go ahead. I'll be here when you get back." Not sure what was causing her so much distress, Kyle tried to be comforting.

"Well, I…"

"Mommy!" The voice was stronger, tearful now.

With one last worried glance at Kyle, Jamie ran.

"I'm here, baby…" Kyle heard the soft words, a door close, then nothing more.

But he thought plenty. And by the time she returned, more than fifteen minutes later, he figured he'd drawn some pretty logical conclusions.

"She okay?" he asked, standing as Jamie came slowly back into the room.

"Fine. She just needed a drink." She moved to the fireplace, not a relaxed muscle in her body.

' 'It makes you uncomfortable, my knowing about your daughter, doesn't it?"

"No!" She was lying, and she knew he knew it. "Why should it?"

"Because what we shared that night was pretty incredible… Wait," he said, holding her off as she would have argued with him. "And now, having met each other again, we've discovered that some of what we shared is still there."

"How can you be so sure?" she whispered, her beautiful face marked with something akin to fear.

Kyle spread his arms. "Can you deny it?"

She couldn't. He knew she couldn't. Even if she wouldn't say so.

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

"What does any of this have to do with Ashley?" she asked defensively.

"Only that it's a little awkward, perhaps, to find these feelings again with another man's child between us."

The explanation must have been more on target than he'd guessed, based on the rapid way her brow softened, her eyes cleared.

Kyle moved slowly, until he was standing in front of her. He reached out a hand, drawing it softly down the side of her cheek. "It doesn't matter, Jamie." His finger stopped at her lips, tracing them. "She's a part of you and that makes her special. The rest just doesn't matter."