For the Girls' Sake - By Janice Kay Johnson Page 0,12

we can decide on the future of our daughters. We need to get to know each other. Please."

She had hoped for approval. He only waited.

The lawyers offered their intervention if it was needed. Adam Landry said nothing. Lynn stared at her hands. After a moment, the two men backed out, shutting the door behind them. The silence in their wake was as absolute as any she’d ever heard. The courage that had gotten her this far deserted her. She couldn’t look up.

Her nerves had reached the screaming point when Adam Landry said at last, "Perhaps I phrased my question incorrectly. Why did you start this? Did you suspect your daughter..." he stumbled, "Shelly, wasn’t yours?"

"No." At last she lifted her head, letting him see her tumult. "No. Never. It was my ex-husband. He...he didn’t want to pay the child support anymore. He claimed I must have had an affair. That she wasn’t his child. But it wasn’t true! I never..." She bit her lip and said more quietly, "I wouldn’t do something like that. So I took Shelly to have a blood test to prove to Brian that she was his. Only..."

"She wasn’t."

"No. Which meant—" she took a deep breath "—that she wasn’t mine, either.” She tried for a smile and failed. "I wasn’t going to tell anybody. Only, then I started worrying about the other little girl. The one who was really my daughter."

The dreams wouldn’t impress him, not this man. He reminded her too much of the lawyers. His gray suit cost more than she spent on food and mortgage in a month or more. His dark hair was clipped short, but by a stylist, not a barber. She could easily picture his big, capable hands gripping the leather-covered wheel of an expensive sedan, or resting on the keyboard of a laptop computer. Not changing diapers, or sifting through the sand for a seashell, or brushing away tears.

Who was raising Jenny Rose Landry? A grandmother? A nanny? Anxiety crimped her chest.

Softly she finished, "I wanted to be sure she was all right. Loved."

"And that’s it. That’s all you want." His tone said he didn’t believe her for a second.

Lynn didn’t blame him for his skepticism. Already, if she was being honest, she’d have to admit that she wouldn’t be satisfied with that modest goal.

"I don’t know." She held his gaze, although she quaked inside. "I’m not sure anymore. I suppose I’d like to meet her. And...perhaps get acquainted. Now that I know she doesn’t have a mother."

"What makes you so sure she needs one?" Landry stood abruptly and shoved his chair back. Looming over her, hands planted on the table, he said tautly, "Is it so impossible to believe I’m an adequate parent?"

Her breath caught. She’d obviously struck a raw nerve. "No. Of course not. I’m a single parent myself, and I think I’m doing a fine job." Naturally she would say that; did she really expect him to believe her? More uncertainly, she continued, "It’s just that..." For all her rehearsing, she didn’t know how to express these inchoate emotions, these wants, these needs, these fears. "She’s my daughter," Lynn finished simply.

A muscle jerked in his cheek. "You suddenly want to be a mother to my daughter."

"Aren’t you curious, too?" How timid she sounded! No, perhaps hopeful was the word. Could it be that he didn’t want Shelly, wouldn’t try to reclaim his birth daughter? That she’d never had to worry at all?

He swung away in a jerky motion and took two steps to the window. Gazing out at—what? the parking lot?—he killed her hopes in a flat, unrevealing voice. "Yes. I’m curious. Why do you think I’m here?"

Lynn whispered, "Is that all? You’re just...curious?"

He faced her, anger blazing in his eyes. "My wife died and never held her baby. Now I find out that neither have I. Does ‘curious’ cover my reaction? Probably not. But we have to start somewhere."

He sounded reasonable and yet scared her to death. She’d hoped for a completely different kind of man. Perhaps a car mechanic, struggling to make ends meet, grease under his fingernails and kindness in his eyes. Or a small-business owner. Someone like her. Ordinary. Not a formidable, wealthy man used to having his way and able to pay to get it. Someone she could never beat, if it came to a fight.

Make sure it doesn’t, she told herself, trying to quiet the renewed panic. You can work something out. Go slowly. He may not be that interested