LITMIR.BIZ

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ago. Hold on, my call waiting is beeping.” Ethan looked at his screen and saw the number. His adrenaline, which had been pumping steadily until this point, suddenly nosedived. “It’s the police. I’ll call you back.”

      Switching over to the other line, Ethan didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Carmen, did you find her?”

      “Monica found her in the ladies’ room at the Cowgirl Up,” Officer Carmen Gregson replied, and Ethan’s exhale came out in a whoosh. “Apparently, she circled back and went in the front door, but Monica didn’t have your cell number. I’m heading over there now, but we might want to go somewhere a little less gossipy than the local diner so we can get this worked out.”

      The fear clenching around his gut lessened, yet Ethan’s pulse remained elevated with apprehension. And confusion. Two hours ago, he didn’t even know he had a daughter, didn’t know his world could be so thrown off its axis before it got shaken up and thrown again.

      Ethan eased his truck off the road and scrubbed at the lower half of his face, the face he hadn’t had time to shave this morning. More air released from his lungs before he asked, “What do we need to work out?”

      “Just a heads-up, Renault...” The police officer, his best friend’s wife, was also former military and it put Ethan more at ease to have someone use his last name. “When Monica called it in, she said the girl mentioned something about a caseworker back in Texas. That means, by law, I’m required to notify them or the local child protective services.”

      “Will they take her from me?” Ethan hadn’t exactly been doing cartwheels at the opportunity to be a father, but there was a ball of nausea welling up in his belly at the thought of his child—someone who shared his blood—being raised by a complete stranger.

      “Why don’t you meet me at the café and we can walk the girl over to the station or someplace else where we can talk.”

      “Right,” Ethan said, returning his foot to the accelerator and steering back onto the road. “I’m on my way.”

      Thankfully, his first instinct wasn’t to stop by the bar or the liquor store before he got there—not that either would be open this early. Still, it was a relief that his steady hands now offered his mixed-up mind some focus. Ethan again toyed with the idea of calling his sponsor to tell him about this recent development, but he didn’t quite know what was going on, let alone know how to explain it. The best thing he could do was talk to Trina and the authorities and figure out his next step.

      By the time he found a parking spot on the street between the Cowgirl Up Café and his apartment, Officer Gregson and Monica were already walking his way. His daughter appeared even more fragile between the two adult females, her head down and her face hidden behind a mess of stringy, limp hair.

      He’d heard about dads who fell in love with their newborns right there in the delivery room. Something must be wrong with Ethan then, because he hadn’t experienced an instant bond with the girl when he’d first seen her outside his door this morning. In fact, she’d been a sullen, quiet little thing who would barely look at him—not that he could blame her. But now, desperation pricked at his skin as Trina approached and he needed some sort of sign that she was okay. Or at least, that she would be okay.

      Carmen must’ve taken pity on Ethan’s panicked expression because she told him, “The three of us had a good talk in the ladies’ room and we all agreed that everyone would feel more comfortable talking at your place so we can get a better handle on the situation.”

      Ethan definitely didn’t have a handle on any of this and it had to be obvious. Worse, they’d most likely overwhelmed the poor girl when he and Monica stood there arguing about his inability to raise a child right in front of her, essentially driving her away. While Monica’s earlier accusations still rankled at him, now wasn’t the time to continue that discussion.

      As the trio of females silently trudged up the stairs behind him, Ethan unlocked his front door for more visitors than his apartment had ever held at one time. At least in the few months that he’d lived there.

      “I need to use the bathroom,” Trina mumbled as she walked past him and toward his hallway. His first instinct was to ask the girl why she was always running to the restroom, however, it might be easier to talk with the others if he didn’t have to watch his words. Plus, there wasn’t a window in there so it wasn’t like Trina could escape. Again.

      “Is this everything she has?” Monica folded a denim pair of shorts that had fallen out of the plastic grocery bag Trina had left on the dining room table earlier. “There isn’t much inside here.”

      “Any paperwork?” Carmen asked her, and Ethan had to bite his tongue to keep from asking why Monica was even a part of this. “It would help if we had an official name or something to go by before I call any other agencies.”

      For such a seemingly shy and reserved woman, Monica certainly had no problem barging into his personal life and offering up her opinions. Although, Trina had definitely opened up more when the quiet librarian and part-time waitress had spoken to her. He wondered what else she and his daughter had discussed in that ladies’ room while Ethan had been tearing through town in a full panic.

      “Here,” Monica said, holding up a pink-and-blue document titled Birth Certificate. Despite the lenses of her glasses, he could still see the hint of accusation in the woman’s brown eyes as she focused on Ethan, her forehead lifted in a questioning crease. “Your name is listed under Father.”

      What had Ethan done wrong? He’d always used protection, even back then, never relying on someone else’s methods of birth control. Yet, Monica was frowning at him as though he’d gotten her pregnant. As if her sleeping with him would ever be a possibility now.

      Her rich, dark brown hair was piled up into its usual messy ponytail of curls and he preferred her in the snug, turquoise T-shirt all the waitresses at the café sported rather than in the monotone cardigan sweaters she usually wore at the library. Ethan thought Monica had been warming up to him the past month—she’d even begun to smile at him on the mornings she’d pulled extra shifts at the Cowgirl Up. She had a cute little dimple in the side of one cheek and each time he’d caught a flash of it, Ethan felt as though someone had given him a key to Heaven.

      He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t already given plenty of thought to what it would be like to get her out of her clothes completely, to be able to kiss every bit of her light amber skin and hopefully be the one to make her smile, over and over. Judging by her current glare, though, he doubted that he’d ever see that dimple again, let alone find out what was underneath that T-shirt. Maybe he’d dodged a bullet by not asking her out, after all.

      “Let me see that.” Carmen took the certificate before studying it. “Yep, your name is definitely on it.”

      Ethan walked over to Carmen and scanned the paper over her shoulder. “Trina DeVecchio Renault.” She even had his last name.

      “Date of birth, February 8.” Eleven years ago. He didn’t have to do much calculating to know the timing was right. Confusion made the corners of his lips turn down. “But I never signed anything. And my birth date on it is wrong. Hell, I didn’t even know about the girl until today.”

      “Well, someone signed off on it and that’s all that matters.” Carmen hooked her thumbs in her leather duty belt. “I would still need to run everything through the system to make sure the document is legitimate, but if it is, then the kinship law would apply here.”

      “I have no idea what that means,” Ethan admitted, glancing at Monica to see if she was judging him even more for not knowing anything about family law.

      “Technically,” Carmen continued. “This Chantal DeVecchio, assuming she had legal custody of the girl in the first place, gave you temporary guardianship as another family member when she left her in your care. Therefore, the state will recognize you as Trina’s temporary guardian.”

      “Is there a note or a paper in there that says she was giving her to me?” Ethan asked,

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