"Uhmm."
Her face scrunched with the early warning signs of a tantrum. "Does he—" she pointed to Lucas "—have to come with us? I just want my mama."
How could she have forgotten to talk to Lucia about Lucas being her father? They'd been so concerned with escape, staying quiet, and then setting up for the night, Lucia falling asleep. Her daughter had been told plenty of stories about her father, but that he was dead. Would Lucas want to explain together?
She glanced at him washing his hands a few steps farther downstream and found him staring back, waiting.
He'd heard.
Her heart pinched all over again. What a sad father-daughter beginning. He should have been there to count her precious pink toes.
Except they hadn't been pink. They had been a frightening gray color, so unbelievably tiny she'd been terrified her three-pound daughter wouldn't live to breathe on her own without the help of a respirator.
She was so damn sick of hospitals and medicines and guarding every word that came out of her mouth. She wanted to crawl up against Lucas's chest and cry all the tears she hadn't allowed herself then because she'd wanted her baby girl to see only smiles for however long she lived.
But she'd given up whining a long time ago. Buck up. "Lucas, do we have a minute or two to talk with Lucia before we go?"
He nodded, picking his way through the undergrowth along the stream bank to stop beside them, dropping to sit on a small boulder. So as not to tower over his daughter? Sara prayed so as she continued to pray he would be sensitive enough to handle this moment—and their child—with care.
Heaven knew he'd been a taciturn man before, but beyond aloof, he'd grown harder over the years. Surely only because of the survival situation.
Sara looped an arm around her daughter's too-tiny shoulders and placed a hand on Lucas's knee to establish a family sort of link, even if only a symbolic one. "Lucia, chica, this is your padre."
"My papa?" Frowning, she studied Lucas with confused brown eyes, then looked back at her mother. "My papa lives in heaven with God."
"That's what I was told. But it wasn't true."
"Well, where's he been?" Lucia asked, risking only quick looks at Lucas while inching closer to her mother.
"He thought I died years ago. He never even knew about you." Please don't let this turn into an awkward discussion of how babies were made.
Lucia's forehead furrowed deep. "You both think wrong a lot. I thought grown-ups was supposed to know everything. Are you sure you got it right this time?"
The night they'd made this precious child came blazing back to mind in sensual detail, tingling along nerves and bringing the remembered scent of him, them together. She'd known in her heart they'd made a baby, even if she wanted to wait to be certain before she told him.
Whispering her certainty to the priest that day of the embassy attack had persuaded the father to perform the bedside ceremony. "I can assure you, he is your father."
The weight of Lucas's eyes drew her attention to him. Was he remembering those steamy Latin nights— and afternoons—spent together in his flat, at hers, even on a secluded beach, the reticent man totally unrestrained when it came to lovemaking?
And wow, was he ever looking reticent at the moment.
He'd always been one to erect barriers the minute anyone came too close. Lucas must be scared to death. Still the child should come first and if he didn't scrounge up a smile soon...
Ahh.
The man did have the most amazing smile, even more precious for its rarity. Lowering to one knee, he moved closer to Lucia, meeting her at eye level.
Watching the two of them settle into their first acknowledged moment as father and daughter...Sara swallowed down tears and slid her arm from Lucia to let them bond.
He rested a hand on Lucia's little shoulder, his pat a bit awkward, touching coming from such a confident man. "I'm sorry I didn't know about you sooner. I would have come to get you right away."
"What would you have done with me?"
"I would have taken you home with me, back in the United States."
"What if I don't wanna go home with you?" Her bottom lip thrust out. "I like Tio Ramon. You're gwumpy."
His eyebrows slammed together. "Grumpy?"