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.""Follow-up appointment for tubal ligation is standard procedure, old buddy, or have you been out of the practice of medicine so long you've forgotten?"Tubal ligation? Follow-up? Denise had had a tubal ligation? That was impossible.When?At the back of his mind, Luke remembered Denise's unexpected trip to her mother's house a month earlier.She'd been gone four days.No.Denise would have told him.They would have discussed it.He would have said absolutely not.He wanted children, of course he did.In fact, just the other day he had decided it was time to add a baby to their lives."Luke, are you there?""Yes.I'll tell Denise to phone your office.""As long as she's okay.""She's fine." Luke hung up the phone.Malcolm sent him a concerned look."Everything all right?""I have to go home.""An hour early? Did someone die?""Not yet." Luke picked up his briefcase and walked out the door.END OF EXCERPTTHE SWEETEST THINGEXCERPT - Copyright 2011 Barbara FreethyAll Rights ReservedChapter One"What do you think she left you in her will?""Excuse me?" Alex Carrigan turned to the teenage girl sitting on the white leather couch in the reception area.In baggy jean overalls, she looked painfully thin and painfully young to be holding a cigarette between two fingers.Her brown hair was parted in the middle and hung down past her shoulders.Her red cheeks clashed with the orange tint of her lipstick, and her dark eyes blazed with defiance, anger, and something vaguely familiar."What do you think she left you?" the girl repeated."That's why you're here, isn't it? To find out what Melanie Kane left you?"Alex felt suddenly uneasy.Why was this young girl sitting alone in the San Francisco offices of Monroe and Glass, attorneys-at-law, at three o'clock on a Friday afternoon? Why wasn't she with someone? And more important, why was she looking at him as if she knew a big secret?"Maybe Melanie left you a million dollars," the girl continued, tilting her head to one side as if considering the odds of that possibility."Maybe she won the lottery.Melanie always said she was going to win the lottery." Her lips trembled slightly at the notion."Or she might have left you her pink Porsche.You know, the one she got at the gas station that's as big as a cereal box.Melanie always said someday she'd get one she could drive.Course, nobody believed her.She was always dreaming a dream.""What's your name?" Alex demanded, as the hairs on the back of his neck began to tingle."Don't you know?" The girl stared into his eyes for one long, breathless second."I'm Jessie."Alex's stomach turned over.I'm going to name her Jessica if she's a girl.No, it couldn't be.He racked his brain trying to remember when that baby had been born.It had been summer when Melanie had gone into labor.In fact, Sacramento had been in the middle of a heat wave, the temperatures in the valley rising past one hundred degrees, even in the dark of the night.Their tiny studio apartment over the California Grill had turned into an oven by late afternoon, and they'd taken to sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor in front of a noisy fan.Alex hadn't cared that they were living below the poverty line and about to have a baby.At eighteen, life had seemed like one big adventure."Melanie used to talk about you," Jessie continued."She said you had incredible blue eyes."He blinked against the intensity of her gaze -- her brown eyes, eyes that reminded him of Melanie.But unlike Melanie, who never looked past the surface, Alex had the feeling Jessie could see right through him, into his past, into his heart."What else did Melanie say?" Damn! Why had he asked that?"She said you had long dark brown hair, and once she made you wear it in a ponytail because she thought it was sexy."He cleared his throat and dug his hands into his pockets.He doubted Melanie would have recognized him today.His hair was shorter, just past his ears, and he no longer lived in torn blue jeans and tank tops, but rather business suits, starchy white shirts, and silk ties -- at least when he was working, which was most of the time.His business was his life."She also said you were a great kisser," Jessie continued with a speculative smile.He felt even more uncomfortable."I'm sorry about your mother.Melanie was your mother?""Most of the time, except when a guy came around.Then we were sisters." Jessie tapped her unlit cigarette against her leg."Got a light?""Aren't you a little young to be smoking?""Aren't you a little late to be playing dad?"Her words cut to the quick.He stiffened and immediately shook his head against the accusation in her eyes."I'm -- I'm not your father.I don't know what Melanie told you, but I am definitely not your father.""How do you know?"His mind raced to answer the question.How did he know? Because Melanie had told him the truth the day after Jessie's birth.After he'd invested nine months of his life taking care of Melanie and the baby, after he'd gone to sleep listening to the baby's heartbeat, after he'd fallen in love with the infant he believed was his -- Melanie had told him he was not the father.Melanie had also told him she wanted to raise her child with the baby's real father, Eddie Saunders.He'd been furiously angry, but he'd never doubted Melanie's sincerity.Why would she lie? He'd been willing to take care of her.Hell, he had been taking care of her, working as a clerk at a local shoe store during the day and taking college classes at night.During their nine months together, he'd fallen in love with her and her baby, only to have his love shoved back in his face.It was the last time he'd let himself get that close to anyone [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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