Chapter 3 — You Already Have a Daughter

For a second, I thought I'd finally fallen asleep under a vehicle.

Charlotte looked older in the way a woman looked older when she had stopped wasting time on people who disappointed her. She was still beautiful enough to make me forget what I had been holding.

The wrench clattered beside my hip.

"Charlotte."

"So you remember. That's a promising start."

April looked between us.

"I should go."

"Good idea," Charlotte said.

I sat up. "You don't have to frighten the customers."

"Does she own the pickup?"

"No."

"Then I haven't frightened a customer."

April left with considerably less enthusiasm than she'd arrived with.

I got to my feet and reached for a rag.

"You've come a long way to insult me."

"You have no idea how far I've come."

Nora appeared at the doorway. I recognized her immediately. She hadn't looked pleased to see me the first time either.

"Four years," she said. "You make yourself remarkably hard to find."

"I change jobs."

"You change states."

Charlotte lifted a hand, stopping her.

"Summer, sweetheart. You can come in now."

A little girl stepped around Nora's legs.

She wore a pink dress, silver shoes, and a serious expression that lasted until she saw me. Then she broke into a run.

"Daddy!"

I had faced a gun across a table without blinking.

A child shouting that one word almost put me on the floor.

She wrapped both arms around my leg and looked up. Her eyes were mine. Not vaguely similar. Mine, looking out of a face framed by pale curls.

I glanced at Charlotte.

She didn't rescue me.

"Hello," I said, because apparently my vocabulary had been reduced to one useful word.

"I'm Summer."

"I heard."

"Mommy said you fix trucks."

"Sometimes."

"Ours makes a noise. Nora says it's expensive."

Behind her, Nora rubbed her forehead.

"It needs a service," she said.

Summer held up a tiny toy rabbit. "This is Beans. He doesn't like cars."

"Understandable. Cars can be difficult."

"Do you like me?"

The question came without warning.

I crouched, carefully, so she didn't lose her grip.

"We just met. But you seem pretty good."

She considered that.

"I'm nearly four."

My chest tightened.

Charlotte crouched beside her.

"Summer, why don't you show Nora the truck outside? Connor and I need to talk for a minute."

"Then Daddy can come?"

Charlotte looked at me.

I nodded before I understood I was doing it.

"Then I'll come."

Nora took her hand. Summer waved all the way to the door.

I watched until she was outside.

"You had a baby."

Charlotte's expression sharpened.

"Yes, Connor. That generally happens before you have a three-year-old."

"Mine?"

"I didn't spend four years looking for you because I missed your coffee."

I leaned against the workbench.

The world hadn't changed shape. The tools were still hanging crookedly on the wall. The fan still rattled overhead. Somewhere outside, Summer was explaining that Beans couldn't climb steps.

And I had missed her entire life.

"I didn't know."

"I believe that. It doesn't make this easier."

She opened her bag and took out a folder.

"There's an appointment tomorrow. You and Summer can both give samples. Independent lab. If you want another test afterward, we'll arrange one."

"You came prepared."

"I tried coming unprepared. The first time, the address was an empty apartment. The second time, you had left a freight depot two days earlier. The third time, somebody told me you didn't exist."

"Who told you that?"

"Does it matter?"

It mattered to me. Owen had screened my trail. I had trusted him to keep enemies away. Charlotte had been treated like one.

I took the folder.

"You could have sent a message."

"To the one on your receipt. It stopped working. Your office told me you wanted no further contact."

My hand tightened around the folder.

"My office told you that?"

"A man named Owen Shaw. I kept the email. We can discuss it when you stop pretending this is my failure to communicate."

Owen. I looked toward Summer, trying to put four years of reports beside the child outside. They could not both be true.

Charlotte folded her arms.

"A mechanic finally remembered the truck. Then your name appeared on a temporary work record here. I waited until Nora confirmed you were still in Savannah before telling Summer."

"What did you tell her?"

"That her father worked far away. That I was trying to find him."

"Why bring her today?"

Her jaw tightened.

"Because I found you. Because she asks about you. Because there was no way I was driving home and telling her I had seen her father but she wasn't allowed to meet him."

I stared at the appointment printed on the paper.

Tomorrow. Ten in the morning. A perfectly ordinary arrangement that would alter everything I had spent years keeping manageable.

"Charlotte, my life isn't—"

"I heard your speech about marriage and houseplants. I'm not asking you to marry me."

"I'm not sure I'm the kind of man who should raise a child."

"Then learn."

She said it without cruelty. That made it worse.

"I can cover whatever she needs."

"She has shoes. She has a home. She has people who love her. What she doesn't have is you."

The fan clicked overhead.

Charlotte lowered her voice.

"If you aren't willing, say it to me now. Don't let her get attached and then disappear."

I looked toward the door.

Summer had crouched beside a weed growing through the concrete. Nora was waiting while she examined it.

I didn't have a good answer. I had plenty of reasons. None sounded acceptable with that little girl outside.

"I'll do the test," I said.

Charlotte let out a breath.

"And today?"

"What happens today?"

"Lunch. You meet her properly. You listen when she talks."

"That sounds like an interview."

"It is. She has extremely high standards."

For the first time, the corner of her mouth moved.

I washed my hands twice, changed into a clean T-shirt, and went outside.

Summer held up the weed.

"It's a flower."

"It is."

"For you."

I took it as carefully as I had ever taken anything.

Charlotte stood beside the car, watching.

"Get in," she said. "Before you start inventing somewhere you need to be."

"You always talk to your drivers like this?"

"Only the ones who get me pregnant and vanish."

I opened the rear door for Summer. She climbed in, then asked whether I knew how her buckle worked.

I didn't. Charlotte reached past me and showed me, her shoulder brushing my chest.

"You can learn that too," she said quietly.

My phone vibrated.

Miles.

"Tell me you're not at the garage," he said.

I turned toward the road. A dark SUV stopped across the entrance. A second vehicle rolled behind Charlotte's car.

"Why?"

"Kane's people followed a contact to Savannah. Your description went out this morning."

A man climbed out of the SUV. His right hand stayed beneath his jacket.

Charlotte saw him and reached for the car door.

"Get inside," I told her.

The man raised his empty hand.

"Mr. Reed. Our employer would like a conversation."

Summer tapped the glass, smiling at me. The man's eyes moved to her.

"That's an interesting development," he said.

Miles was still speaking in my ear. I stopped listening when the stranger pulled his gun.

He pointed it toward the rear window.

"The child comes with us. You can follow."

Charlotte stepped toward him. I caught her wrist and moved her behind me.

"No," I said.

The man smiled.

"She's not your concern."

I looked at my daughter's face through the glass.

"She's my daughter."

His smile faded. I saw the moment he understood he had chosen the wrong window.