LITMIR.BIZ

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had jobs, Livie! I’ve always had a job. Is that what this is about? What do you think I’ve been eating with and buying gas with to drive back here all the time?”

      Her eyes said it was the wrong answer. They went to charred black. “Go to hell, Hunter Hawk-Cole.”

      He was reasonably sure he was already there.

      “I called Flagstaff City Hall for your marriage license,” he said now, watching her expression. “About a year later.”

      Liv felt bony, white knuckles grab her heart and squeeze. “Apparently, you never bothered checking for the divorce decree, too.”

      “I figured you had enough grit to make it last. But I was wrong about a lot, wasn’t I, Livie? Did he know the baby wasn’t his?”

      Johnny had known. It was why he had married her. Johnny had been her knight in shining armor. He’d loved her and was decent enough to try to give her what she’d needed most—a father for her child. “That,” she said hoarsely, “has no bearing whatsoever on this conversation.”

      She saw him clench his jaw. “I really have a keen interest in finding out whether or not you passed my daughter off as someone else’s.”

      She’d never done that. “You have a really rock-bottom view of my integrity, don’t you?”

      “Why should my opinion be higher?” He saw her flinch and was glad. But Hunter had always loved the way she could recover.

      “He knew.” Her chin came up. Her eyes narrowed haughtily.

      “Does she?”

      “She has a name.”

      “Victoria Rose. I looked that up, too.” He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but the words were out before he could stop them.

      “When?”

      “Two weeks ago. Just to check. She was born eight months and twenty-nine days after the last time you and I were together.”

      “Bingo.”

      “You’ve still got that attitude, don’t you? The world can kiss your butt and you’ll give them directions to find it. Why that name?”

      He wanted to know everything, he realized, and that surprised him. He had never wanted a child. He knew what adults could do to a kid. His Anglo relatives had dragged him to their churches when he was little. He’d been caught between three cultures—Christian, Hopi and Navajo. But all three of them had one theme in common. The sins of the father…

      He had never intended to visit his own shortcomings upon progeny. He was damaged, baggage-laden, and he had always craved anything that would make him forget that for a while. Speed. Alligators. Spitting in death’s face. But whether he’d looked for her or not, Victoria Rose was here.

      And he wanted to know about her. Every detail.

      “The name,” he said again when Liv didn’t answer. “It’s not in your family, it’s not in mine. Was it his? Guenther’s?”

      Liv hesitated, then she got that glint in her eyes. “Desert Rose was a little avant-garde for the life I envisioned for her.”

      “So it was supposed to be Desert Rose.”

      Again she hesitated. “Yes. But Victoria was more traditional.”

      “Was she ever one of those kids who hated her name?”

      He watched her expression spasm. “You don’t need to know this.”

      “I do.”

      “Damn you, Hunter, just go away again!”

      He could do that, he thought. Maybe. Maybe. Because letting himself love the daughter meant being near the mother. But he needed to put more pieces together. “Tell me, damn it.”

      He watched her gasp for breath, then the words tumbled out. “She always liked the Hawk bit better than Slade. She never took Johnny’s name.”

      Hunter sat back suddenly, though there was no part of the stool to support the reflex. Something punched him, something unseen. “Then she does know.”

      “She hasn’t watched racing. She makes no connection to you.”

      “She will.”

      “Over my dead body.” Liv felt things riot inside her. “Leave her alone. What do you have to gain by any of this?”

      “I need to see her.”

      “Why, Hunter, why?” Liv played her last ace card. “Is what you think you want more important than what she needs?”

      “Yes. Because I’m the adult here. Her father. And I have a right to decide what’s best for her.”

      “You’ve been gone her entire life!”

      “Not my choice.”

      There was that, Liv thought. Oh, bless her, he’d never let go of that. “Please. Trust me.”

      “Never again.”

      It killed something in her soul. “Not as a lover. As a mother.”

      “I don’t know what kind of mother you are.”

      She felt heat stain her cheeks. “A good one.”

      “Prove it. Give us both time to come to terms with this.”

      “You and me?”

      “The hell with you, Livie. You don’t matter anymore. Me and Victoria Rose.”

      He said it tonelessly. Something hot and wet hurt her eyes. She refused to cry.

      “If she knows Guenther wasn’t her real father,” he said, “what does it hurt to introduce me into her life?”

      You’ll go again. He was still the same man who hadn’t wanted her enough all those years ago to just stay put and make a life with the two of them.

      She’d given him the option. He could have grabbed her back from marrying Johnny. He hadn’t done it. The wind he’d chased had been more important to him than catching her as she fell to earth.

      “What are you afraid of, Livie?” His voice was suddenly silken with challenge. “That your little girl will tell you that you made the wrong choice in men?”

      Her heels found the pine floor. Liv felt a little jarred, surprised by the impact when she slid off the stool with such force. She was even more surprised to find her snifter in her hand. There was little more than a mouthful of Remy left. She tossed it at him.

      He came off his stool like lightning. It was one small thing she’d managed to forget about him, how fast he could move when he was angry. Not angry, she thought, feeling something shrink inside her. Furious. This time when his hand caught her chin, his touch hurt. His fingers did not clench. His grip did not tighten. But there was something there that threatened her, a certain heat that terrified her.

      Liv wrenched away.

      “There’s an easy way to do this,” he said, “and a hard way. It’s your choice, Livie.”

      “Go to hell.”

      She took a step away from the bar, then turned toward him, her whole body flowing into the movement. From her expression, he knew that if she had access to another drink, he’d be wearing that, too. When she finally turned away again, Hunter decided to let her go.

      And simmer on it some.

      That hadn’t solved anything.

      Liv’s hands were like claws on the steering wheel as she rocketed her little BMW back up Main Street toward the inn at the edge of town. Even her heart was shaking. He wasn’t going to go.

      She knew him far too well to delude herself into wishful thinking. He just wasn’t going

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