Her Secret, His Child

Next Christmas, he'd be her Santa.

He forced himself to wait until seven o'clock before he got in the shower. He took extra care shaving, not wanting to appear at all gruff to his sensitive four-year-old. Studying the thick hair that fell over his ears, he worried for a moment that she'd think he was some kind of bum and cursed himself for not paying more attention to scheduling his haircuts.

Next he slid on his glasses, but thought they might make him look too severe. Then he decided he had to wear them when he noticed how they lifted his hair above the tops of his ears. Besides, Santa wore glasses.

His closet was filled with jeans and shirts and corduroy jackets, a single suit, some shoes. Kyle considered the display with a frown. What kind of clothes would impress a four-year-old?

The suit beckoned him. And then not. He didn't want her thinking he was a doctor or lawyer or minister or something. A man in a dark suit might be intimidating to a young child. He reached for the

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

usual, until he realized kids didn't usually want teachers showing up at their homes, either.

In the end, the jeans and jacket won out. But only because he remembered he had a Looney Toons tie he could wear with them. His students had given him the tie for Christmas one year and he'd yet to try it out. Now seemed like an appropriate time. Surely a little girl couldn't reject a guy with Tweetie on his chest.

Jogging out to his T-Bird, he realized that the long night had accomplished something besides ensuring that he was ready on time. He'd probably always hurt for the years he'd lost, but he couldn't stay angry with Jamie. Under the circumstances, he saw that what she'd done had been remarkable. Finding herself used, deserted, paid-off and pregnant, she'd taken what seemed to be a rotten situation and made a wonderful life. He hadn't meant any of it to happen, but it had. That was an unchangeable reality. A re

ality she'd coped with, made the best of.

He also believed that she was going to tell him the truth last night, just like she'd said. And he fully applauded the way she'd protected their daughter until she'd known she could trust him.

That hadn't been a seduction she'd tried to stage the night before. It had been a confession. Ashley had just beaten her to the punch.

Jamie had obviously been up a while, too, waiting for him. She flung open her front door before he'd even put his Thunderbird in park. It suddenly oc-

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

curred to him that he was going to have to get a toddler seat.

Walking up to that door, Kyle felt like a giant, growing by the second. He was going to dwarf this family, this house. Scare his daughter to death. And then Jamie smiled at him, almost as though, in spite of her own tension, she knew exactly how he was feeling. He was in control again. For a second or two, anyway.

"You look beautiful," he told the mother of his child. He liked Jamie just the way the Good Lord had made her. The more natural the better.

She glanced away with an embarrassed shrug. "I'm wearing sweats and I don't have any makeup on."

"I'd noticed." He grinned at her. "Did you go to all this effort in my honor?"

"Ashley would have been suspicious if I'd done anything else. I always look like this in the morning."

Kyle figured that was something to look forward to. Someday. Maybe.

He stepped into the house slowly, immediately tense again, on guard.

"She's in the kitchen." Jamie led the way.

Kyle stopped, no longer sure this was the best plan. Maybe he should have let Jamie break the news to Ashley alone. After all, the child knew her mother.

"You said she's a morning person, right?" he whispered. He'd never been as scared of anything in his life as he was of this four-year-old child.

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

"She's cheerful most of the time," Jamie whis pered back, grabbing his arm. "Now, come on, you're making me a nervous wreck."

Still, he hesitated. "Maybe we shouldn't tell her so soon." He couldn't believe he was saying this. Not after the night he'd just spent, anticipating this moment. He had to meet his daughter, if for no other reason than the fact that he'd need to sleep again… someday.

"So soon?" Jamie was no longer whispering. "You call four years soon?"

She was right. He was making a complete fool of himself. He had to get a grip. His daughter deserved better than a blithering idiot for a father.