“They were beautiful — and inappropriate. Why are you sending me flowers?” she asked.
“I thought it might serve as an apology for coming on so strong. I overreacted to a stressful situation and my temper overrode my good sense. I was hoping the flowers might make up for the uncomfortable altercation between us.” She nodded grudgingly, seeming to accept his reasoning but she didn’t invite him in as he’d hoped. “We have a lot to talk about, don’t you think?” he ventured.
“Yes, I suppose that’s one way to look at it.”
“Is there another way?”
“Well, you could just leave us alone and go about your life as you did before and we’ll do the same.”
“C’mon now, what kind of man would I be if I did that?”
“I wouldn’t blame you,” she said, almost in earnest. “I mean, the situation was dropped in your lap seemingly out of nowhere. I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you wanted to walk away. I swear, I won’t ever come after you for child support.”
“I will provide for my child,” he said, not liking where this was going. “No Buchanan would ever go without.”
“Aubrey’s not a Buchanan,” Shannon said stiffly. “She’s a Garrity.”
“Not for long,” he said, waving away her comment. “I need to establish paternity with a routine DNA test and then it’ll be a simple thing for the lawyers to change her name.”
“I don’t want to change her name,” Shannon said, her jaw setting. “She was born a Garrity and she’ll stay a Garrity until the day she marries and decides to hyphenate.”
“What is wrong with you? She’s my child and she’s going to have my name. End of discussion.”
“Is this part of your apology, too? Coming over to my house and trying to push your name onto my child? Because if so, your apology sucks.”
He bracketed his hips, growing angry that Shannon wasn’t falling in line with his plan. He opened his mouth but quickly shut it as he tried to refocus. “Can I come in, please? I really don’t want to have this private conversation in front of the whole world.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Shannon, I am her father and I’m not going anywhere. We can do this the easy way or the hard way and trust me, I’d rather do this in a way that works for us both. We can be on the same side, you know. And if you’d let me, we could be friends.”
“Trust is required for friendship and I don’t trust you.”
“That’s not fair, you don’t know me.”
She looked away and he knew he’d made a point. Score one for me. Shannon stepped away, relenting. “Okay, but only for a minute. I don’t bring men home. I don’t want to confuse Aubrey.”
He smiled, happy with her admission. He didn’t like the idea of strange men being around his daughter. And, now that he was around Shannon again, he remembered all those feelings he’d pushed down when she’d left so abruptly. It was the chase he craved, he told himself when his gaze snagged on her tight, pert behind — nothing more. He’d forgotten what a sweet ass she had but now there was no escaping what he’d sampled that night and as he recalled, he’d been more than willing to go another round or two but she’d called it quits prematurely. But just as he began entertaining memories of that sordid night, Aubrey toddled in carrying a ragdoll and his breath caught in his chest. Shannon scooped up the child and held her tightly, as if he might rip her from her arms and run away with her. “She’s…very pretty,” he said, the awkward compliment not even close to conveying what he felt when he looked at Aubrey. She was quite possibly, the most beautiful child in the world. He could see himself in her features but enough of Shannon to give her a soft feminine side. As if she knew he was talking about her, Aubrey’s cupid bow lips split into a wide smile that revealed a dimple in the very same place as the one on his right cheek and he could only stare for a long moment. “She looks like me and you,” he said when he could speak again.
“Mostly you,” Shannon admitted, smoothing the strawberry blond curls. “Except for the hair color. That’s mine.”
“So…I have to ask…what happened? I know we used protection.”
She sighed and settled into a chair, still holding Aubrey on her lap. “I don’t know. All I can guess is that one of the condoms had a minute tear or hole and since I wasn’t on the pill, one of your industrial sperm managed to hit the mark.”
One in a million odds. “If I’d known earlier…”