sidled that way, not taking their eyes from him. Rather like a cautious doe and fawn unsure whether the other visitor to the water hole was a predator or not. Ruefully amused, he stayed where he was until they’d sat side by side. Then he chose a seat on the far side of the coffee table. No point in panicking them.
His gaze wanted to linger on Lucia Malone’s pretty face. Her first name, brown eyes and black hair suggested that she had Hispanic blood.
He dragged his attention to the teenager. She was the one who’d made the appointment.
“What can I do for you, Sierra?” he asked.
She gulped, then cast a panicky look at her foster mother. When she looked back at him, he thought idly that her eyes were as blue as his. They were several shades lighter than her hair dye.
In a rush she said, “I’m not really here to do an article for my school newspaper.” When he didn’t say anything immediately, she hurried on. “That’s what I said when I called. Because I thought then they’d let me in to see you.”
Feeling considerably more cautious now, he studied her. “All right. Why did you want to talk to me?”
She gnawed on her lower lip. After a moment Ms. Malone reached out and squeezed one of her hands. Jon’s gaze dropped to those clasped hands, one small and competent and warm skinned, the other very white and longer fingered. And yet, from the way those two hands clung, he could feel a connection beyond the physical. Reassurance. Love.
He met the girl’s eyes again and waited.
“The thing is,” she said, so fast the words tumbled over each other, “I think you’re my father.”
He stared. Either she was delusional or his recurring nightmare had just become real. He couldn’t seem to think. To figure how old she was. Whether she could be… But, goddamn it, how would she have found him?
The silence stretched, became painful.
“I know you may not want anything to do with me,” she said hurriedly, “and that’s okay. Really. I just, well, wanted to meet you. And see.”
He cleared his throat. “To say you’ve taken me by surprise is an understatement. Forgive me, but…do I know your mother?”
She shook her head. “No. Mom is— She died.” The girl—Sierra—sucked in a huge breath. “Mom went to a sperm bank.”
God help him.
Voice hoarse, he said, “How old are you?”
“I’m sixteen. I turned sixteen in July.” She paused. “I’ll be a junior this year.”
Sixteen. Jon had quit breathing. Sixteen years ago he was a senior in college. Oh, damn.
He could feel the foster mother watching him. He didn’t let himself look at her.
“What makes you think I’m your father?” he said finally.
“I compared DNA in a whole bunch of databases. I came up with a partial match. To a Linda Brenner. Then I did some research and found out she had one son, who was the right age.”
“Me,” he said slowly.
Her head bobbed.
His mother had become obsessed with tracing her family heritage, lord knows why. He did vaguely recall she’d sent off a DNA sample at one point. Jon had argued against it; once something like that was out there, you lost a piece of your privacy. She’d laughed and said, “What do I have to hide? The only people I’m likely to hear from are relatives. Imagine finding cousins I didn’t know I had.”
Imagine, he thought grimly, finding a granddaughter you didn’t know you had.
He cursed. Lucia Malone gave him a reproving look.
“You did this on a whim,” he said to the girl.
Her teeth closed on her lower lip again. Her eyes slid from his, then came shyly back. “It was after Mom died that I thought…” She gave a little shrug. Her shoulders stayed slightly hunched after that, as if she were braced for a blow.
When she didn’t say any more, he did look at Ms. Malone. “She doesn’t have any other family?”
“An uncle in New Mexico.” Her voice was repressive. “He wasn’t able to take Sierra.”
Jon couldn’t remember the last time he’d been staggered like this. He didn’t know what to think. There was supposed to be no way he could ever be traced. DNA testing had been around, but in its relative infancy. The idea of partial matches, of people casually sending off spit so they could track down unknown relatives, had been unimaginable.
No longer.
He made himself study the girl and immediately thought, hell. Her eyes were the same color as his, an unusually crystalline, pale blue. Her hair…well, who knew? No, that wasn’t true. Her eyebrows were light brown. Which meant she was likely a blonde. He’d been blond as a kid, but by his twenties his hair had darkened to a medium brown that bleached easily in the sun. This summer, between work and politicking he hadn’t gotten outside enough for that to happen.
He was tall—six foot three. His sister was five-ten. Fine boned like this girl, too. The nose and Cupid-doll mouth weren’t his, but the shape of her face…yeah, she could have gotten that from him.
Desperately he wondered what the voters would think of this. Was there any way to keep Rinnert from finding out about Sierra? He had a horrifying vision of what his opponent could make of the stunning appearance of an unknown daughter.
“Do you have any proof at all,” he said, his voice harder than he intended, “or did you pick me out of the phone book?”
Lucia Malone let go of her foster daughter’s hand—he hadn’t noticed until now that she’d continued to hold it in silent reassurance—to pluck a file folder from her capacious bag. She glared at him as she handed it over.
He opened it and took a quick glance, barely keeping himself from swearing aloud again. He’d seen enough DNA typing on the job to know he was screwed.
He closed the folder. “I’ll need to study this.”
Ms. Malone’s eyes narrowed. “You did donate sperm, didn’t you? Or you’d have kicked us out by now.”
His jaw muscles flexed. “I don’t have to answer that question.”
They stared at each other, her expression angry and contemptuous. At last she stood.
“Sierra, I think it’s time we go.” Her voice was astonishingly gentle, considering the way she was vibrating with outrage. “We’ve put Captain Brenner on the spot. I think it’s fair to give him time to think.”
“Oh.” The girl scrambled to her feet. Her cheeks were flaming red. “Yeah. Sure.” She didn’t want to meet his eyes anymore. “My phone number’s in there if you want…. But if you don’t, that’s okay. I really didn’t mean…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t mean…”
Oh,
