LITMIR.BIZ

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did you have to put me in this position, Lea?” she whispered, as if her sister were there to hear.

      But when it came to the house, in this, too, Karis didn’t have a choice. The best she could do was vow to make the situation as painless as possible for the seven people she’d never even met.

      But still, she was going to have to tell them how things stood. For Amy’s sake. For her own sake. For the sake of other, innocent, trusting people who hadn’t deserved what had been done to them, either.

      It just didn’t change the fact that in all of her fantasies of coming face-to-face with this part of her family, she had never imagined these circumstances.

      “And now you’re all going to hate me.”

      With good reason.

      Amy was an even-tempered, easygoing baby. Karis always wondered if that was her nature or if it was just that she’d learned, with Lea as her mother, being demanding didn’t get her anywhere.

      Regardless of the reason, the baby didn’t wake up fussy in the mornings. She didn’t cry. She wasn’t impatient to have her needs met. She merely sat in her crib and entertained herself.

      Knowing that, Karis had opened the door to the attic bedroom, as soon as she was dressed, to listen for the sounds of her niece stirring. When she heard them, she abandoned her melancholy study of the Pratt family home and left her room, heading down the stairs, being careful to walk softly in case Luke Walker was still asleep.

      She only made it to the third of the steps, however, before she paused in her tracks.

      Luke Walker was already at Amy’s bedroom door.

      He was just standing there, not venturing in, only watching from a distance.

      Karis couldn’t see past him into the room but, from the sounds of Amy’s jabbering, Karis assumed the little girl hadn’t noticed him. And he didn’t notice Karis, standing stalk still.

      It gave her a moment to do some observing of her own.

      He had already showered and dressed. Not in his uniform this morning, though. He had on a pair of time-aged, faded jeans. They fit him so well he had to have bought them years ago and broken them in. So well that her gaze was drawn inescapably to the back pockets that rode his rear in divine symphony with the tight glutes behind them.

      She looked upward when she realized she was again staring at the man’s butt.

      He had on a stark-white long-sleeved, mock-neck T-shirt that left little to the imagination. The shirt encased wide shoulders, muscular torso and hard biceps every bit as appealingly as those jeans covered his lower half.

      The faint scent of his cologne wafted in the air. A clean, airy cologne with citrus undertones, the scent went right to her head and carried her away for a moment before she reminded herself that this wasn’t just any man. Luke Walker wasn’t simply a great-looking, single guy she’d happened to meet and might want to get acquainted with. This man already seemed disgusted with her merely by association. That disgust wasn’t going to be improved when he found out the second reason she’d come to Northbridge. No matter how he looked. Or smelled. She needed not to forget that.

      Even so, she couldn’t help thinking that although she hadn’t considered her sister capable of good taste in men, she had to acknowledge that this particular man proved Lea did have some. Either that, or she’d been uncommonly lucky.

      Karis went down the remainder of the steps, making sure her footfalls announced her presence.

      When Luke Walker heard her coming, those impressive shoulders drew back slightly and he took a step out of the doorway as if he’d been caught.

      “Trying to see if she looks like you?” Karis asked as she joined him.

      “Yes,” he admitted.

      “What do you think?”

      “I think she looks like you—reddish hair, pale skin, button nose, big baby-blue eyes… Maybe she isn’t Amy at all. Maybe she’s yours and you’re trumping up this whole thing to get rid of your own kid.”

      So today wasn’t going to be any better than last night, Karis thought.

      “That’s definitely what I’m doing. You caught me. And here I thought you were a plain cop instead of a detective,” she said sarcastically.

      She went into the nursery then, to her niece, bypassing the man at the door.

      “An Kras!” Amy greeted when she saw her, using her fifteen-month-old version of Aunt Karis.

      “Good morning, sweetie.”

      Bringing her elephant with her, Amy stood and hung on to the crib’s rail with her free hand, giving a bit of a bounce to let Karis know she wanted out.

      Karis didn’t hesitate to oblige, picking her up and settling the baby on her hip.

      “Hi,” Amy said then, spotting Luke Walker.

      Karis saw that he was taken aback by the baby’s acknowledgment of him.

      He didn’t respond immediately, though, and Karis wondered if he was going to ignore Amy. If he did, Karis’s estimation of him would go rapidly downhill and she waited to see what he would do.

      But after a moment he said, “Hi.” And then he saved himself from Karis’s blacklist by actually coming into the room.

      “So…she talks?” he said, not getting too close.

      “Only a few words, but she’s starting to get the hang of it.”

      He pointed to the well-loved elephant. “What’s this?” he asked Amy in a much, much more gentle tone of voice than anything he’d used with Karis.

      “Eddy,” Amy informed him.

      “Eddy?” he repeated. “Is that your elephant’s name—Eddy? Eddy the elephant?”

      “I think it’s just short for elephant and the best she can do with it for now,” Karis supplied.

      “Eddy,” Amy said again, as if they were both wrong but without giving any clue as to how.

      “Shall we change your diaper?” Karis asked the baby.

      Amy didn’t answer. She merely continued staring at Luke Walker, who stared back.

      Karis let them have their moment. She knew Luke Walker was still looking for signs of himself in the small child. While she didn’t know what exactly about him had Amy’s rapt attention, she was at least glad to see that her niece wasn’t shy the way she sometimes was around strangers.

      “I wonder if she recognizes you,” Karis said, thinking out loud.

      “She was five weeks old the last time she saw me. I’m sure she doesn’t remember.”

      “Probably not,” Karis confirmed. “But she’s usually more standoffish with strangers.”

      Luke Walker surprised her then by holding out his arms to Amy. “Will you come and see me?”

      That was where Amy’s friendliness stopped. She reared back, wrapped her free arm around Karis’s neck with a vise grip, and managed to hold the elephant against her with her forearm while getting her two middle fingers to her mouth. She smacked Karis in the face with Eddy in the process.

      “What did I tell you?” Luke Walker said, as if he’d proved something.

      By the time Karis had found her way out from behind the elephant, he’d turned and was headed for the door again.

      “Will you both eat eggs for breakfast, or does she still need baby food or something?” he asked.

      Were they all going to have breakfast together?

      Karis hadn’t thought about meals or him providing her food. She certainly hadn’t thought of him cooking for her. It seemed

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