LITMIR.BIZ

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paused a fraction of a beat, then entered the building first. His gaze darted around the room, taking in the stark interior. Cold, bleak memories took hold. He’d spent a lot of time in this jailhouse, specifically the cell on the far left.

      Like always, a fire crackled and spit in the black stove on his right. The air beyond the fire’s reach shimmered with cold, all the way into the dank, empty cells.

      “Slow week?”

      “Blessedly slow.” Trey shifted around him.

      Rubbing his palms together, Hunter moved deeper in the room, too, then dropped a cursory glance at the desk cluttered with unruly piles of paper. “Still ignoring your reports?”

      Trey let out a low laugh. “What can I say? Got an image to uphold.”

      Brow arched, Hunter cut his friend a speaking glance. They both knew Trey’s legendary reputation had nothing to do with filing late reports.

      Trey simply studied Hunter in return, with that quiet, reflective air of his. “This your first stop?”

      “No.” Hunter shook his head. “I went to see Mattie Silks last night.”

      Trey stared at him, infuriatingly calm as always.

      Hunter stared back, reminding himself—again—that he had nothing to hide. Even though his past was littered with the wreckage of his mistakes, Hunter was a new man.

      A changed man.

      Still, he waited for Trey’s expression to fill with disappointment, waited for him to say something about the ills of stopping in a brothel his first night in town. But Trey’s gaze never changed. There was no lecture forthcoming, no leaping to conclusions. The complete lack of censure proved he had more faith in Hunter than Hunter had in himself.

      “That couldn’t have been easy,” Trey said at last.

      “You have no idea.” Hunter paused, remembering. No, it hadn’t been easy at all, walking into Mattie’s last night. There’d been painful moments of self-recriminations, a lot of regret, guilt, raw emotions he hadn’t been able to sort through then, or now. “I went to Mattie’s because of this.”

      He dug in his jacket and pulled out the letter the interfering woman had sent him last month—bless her ornery soul.

      Trey accepted the paper without looking down.

      “Go ahead,” Hunter urged. “Read it.”

      Trey lowered his gaze. A moment later, he drew in a sharp breath, looked up, then back down at the letter.

      He continued reading in silence, flipped over the paper and scanned the back. When he was finished, he refolded the letter along the well-worn creases and handed it back to Hunter.

      A thousand words passed between them, reminding Hunter of the last day he’d been in this building, and their final conversation. He’d spilled his guts to this man, admitting his deepest anger at God for forsaking him, at Jane for dying on him. Most of all, he’d raged over the dream that had vanished with the death of his infant son and murder of his wife a few days later.

      After too many years on the wrong side of the law, Jane had been Hunter’s chance for a new, wholesome life that had lasted barely two years.

      Trey was the only person in the world who knew Hunter’s desperate wish for a family of his own, why he’d married Jane in the first place, and why he’d sought revenge for her murder. He wanted the stability he’d denied himself for years, but had been snatched from him so ruthlessly. Now, here he was, on the brink of achieving that dream, after all. Answered prayer, if in a different form than he’d ever dreamed.

      “I take it you had no idea about the child until Mattie contacted you.”

      “None.”

      “You’re sure she’s yours?”

      The question of the hour. “Not completely. But Mattie claims the child resembles me enough to eliminate any doubt.”

      He went on to explain the circumstances of his brief first marriage, leaving nothing out, including Maria abandoning her vows to return to her former life.

      “So the child might not be yours.”

      Hunter hesitated, fighting off a wave of alarm. What if Sarah wasn’t his daughter? What then? “I’ll know more when I see her for myself.”

      His mouth pressed in a thin line, Trey pulled out a chair and indicated Hunter take the seat.

      By the time he did as requested, Trey had already disappeared through a door behind his desk. He reappeared with a steaming mug of coffee. “You look like you could use this.”

      Grateful for the distraction, Hunter took the offered mug and buried his nose in the strong aroma.

      Perching on the edge of his desk, Trey dived back into the conversation. “Where’s the child now?”

      “Charity House.”

      Other than a slight widening of his eyes, Trey didn’t outwardly react to the news. “Then she’s in good hands.”

      “Yes.” The relief was still there, a reminder that Maria hadn’t been completely duplicitous. Enough, though, and now Hunter had to build a relationship with a nine-year-old child who didn’t even know he existed.

      Temper reared, dark and ugly, but he shoved the emotion down. What good would it do to become angry with Maria? What was done was done. Hunter had to focus on the future, not the past. “I’m heading over to the orphanage this afternoon to meet my daughter.”

      The joy was still there, too, riding alongside the relief, reminding Hunter he had a chance to redeem his past, to prove he was more than his mistakes, by becoming a loving, responsible father to his child.

      He’d once lost hope of ever achieving such a blessing. He wouldn’t muck up this opportunity.

      “You’re going to claim her as your own.” A statement, not a question.

      “That’s the plan.”

      As soon as he spoke the words, all the tension in his shoulders disappeared. He’d thought long and hard last night, blinking up at the cracked ceiling of his hotel room. His mind had worked through the multitude of problems—and the possibilities—facing him. Hunter still didn’t have a concrete plan of attack, not yet. But there was no doubt he was going to step up and become the child’s father. In every sense of the word.

      Assuming, of course, she was his.

      His gut roiled. Surely, the child was his.

      “What’s your daughter’s name?”

      “Sarah.” Hunter’s heart thumped as he said her name, surreal and yet not at all. “She turned nine years old a few weeks ago.”

      Trey fell silent, his brow furrowed in concentration, as if he were sorting through the faces of every nine-year-old girl in residence at Charity House. The likelihood of Trey knowing Sarah was high. He had several personal connections to the orphanage. Not only was he related to Marc Dupree, Trey’s wife, Katherine, was the custodian of Charity House School.

      “There’s only one child around that age named Sarah. But, if I remember correctly—” his eyebrows slammed together “—she’s not alone in this world, nor is she without family.”

      “I know. She has an aunt. Annabeth...” Hunter paused, wondering how much Trey knew about Annabeth’s connection to Mattie. Deciding not to risk exposing either woman’s secret, he gave Annabeth’s alias instead of her real name. “...Smith. Her aunt is Annabeth Smith.”

      “You know Annabeth? How?” Icy stillness fell over Trey.

      “She was Maria’s sister.” He didn’t elaborate, didn’t go into the details of how he’d discovered Annabeth’s connection to Mattie Silks. Although he hated lies and had vowed to avoid them at all costs, this

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