She’d said she had side jobs. Was she babysitting or running a day care? The wall above the couch caught his eye.
A collage of photos. Those weren’t there the last time he visited. There had been a huge painting of a meadow. He remembered because he’d loved it. It was only missing a tornado right down the middle.
He switched on the lamp by the couch and gaped.
Blood whooshed in his ears, leaving him dizzy. Photo after photo of a baby girl. Newborn pictures. One in a little tin washtub chewing on a rubber duck. But it wasn’t the clever poses that nearly brought him to his knees. It was the black-as-night hair. The blue eyes that stared back at him. The dimple in her right cheek. Locke touched his right cheek, felt the dimple there.
His sight landed on a newborn picture with footprints and handprints beside it and a birthdate.
No. Didn’t take a professor to do the math.
This child was nine months old.
Nine months of pregnancy.
Eighteen months ago, Greer had left him.
Why? Why would she do this? He lifted the most recent photo from the wall. Even without a DNA test, it was crystal clear that this child belonged to Locke.
He was a father.
He had a daughter.
His eyes burned and moisture blurred the photo in front of him. He blinked and focus came back. He trailed his index finger over the baby’s face. She was... She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Mischief in her eyes already. She had Greer’s thick lips and straight little nose.
His lungs squeezed. Emotions swept through him like a roller coaster. Pride. Joy. Fear. Confusion. Despair. Loss.
Anger.
He camped on anger. How could Greer do this? Keep him from his child. From being a dad. Was she never going to tell him? What if he’d never shown up in her hometown? What if he’d come by tonight and she hadn’t been attacked? Would Greer have even let him inside?
“I was hoping to tell you before you saw all this,” she whispered.
He pivoted and held up the photo.
Greer slid her gaze from the photo to Locke’s face and her lip trembled, but she didn’t speak. Didn’t try to explain or toss a weak excuse his way.
“Where is she?” Fear flooded him. “Is she here?” Was she in the house when a killer broke in? His heart galloped, and he stormed down the hall, taking a hard left and flipping on the light in the room Greer had once used.
A perfect pink-and-pastel nursery came into view. He smelled the baby powder and sweet scent, and his knees buckled. But his daughter was nowhere to be found.
Greer stood at the door. “She’s with my friend Tori,” she whispered. “She babysits her some when I’m working and she doesn’t have a shift at the hospital. Sometimes another friend, Cindy, watches her.”
Locke didn’t know what to say first. He was flooded. Overwhelmed.
“How could you, Greer? How could you hide this from me? Do this to me?” With every question, his voice rose and his pulse rocketed.
“Locke, you said you didn’t want children.”
He collapsed into the rocking chair, dropping his head into his hands. He had said that and he’d meant it at the time, but he didn’t have a flesh-and-blood child to see or touch or talk to. Now he did and that changed things.
He was furious for the betrayal. Terrified of what this now meant. How was he supposed to be a dad—not just a dad but a good one? Yeah, he’d told Greer that he didn’t want kids. Yeah, his excuse was his on-the-go lifestyle not being conducive to children. But that wasn’t the deep-down-inside reason. That reason was too embarrassing to reveal. Especially to the woman he’d wanted to pledge his life to. It was too raw, making him too vulnerable. It would have shown her who he really was and she would have left him. She’d left him, anyway, in the end, but not for the truth. Not for the real reason he didn’t want to be a father.
The truth was, Locke couldn’t handle disappointing and failing one more person. Most definitely not his own flesh and blood. He’d been a screw-up his whole life. It was easier to let Greer believe the superficial excuse.
“You said you didn’t want them, either, but here you are. A mama. You didn’t put her up for adoption. You changed gears and didn’t allow me to change them. That’s not fair.”
Greer sighed. “No, it’s not. And that has crossed my mind several times in the past few months. I even picked up the phone to call you...but I didn’t. And I can’t change it now. I don’t know where we go from here.”
Locke wasn’t sure, either. His biggest fear had come true in two seconds flat. Underneath that fear, though, was a powerful need to see his baby. It pulled at him like gravity. He may not have wanted a kid, but he had one now. And he wanted her.
“I want to see her.”
“It’s the middle of the night. She’s asleep.”
Locke worked his jaw, studied the room. “I want to see her first thing this morning, Greer.”
Greer exhaled a shaky breath, but she nodded. “I understand if you want to leave now.”
She understood nothing. “No, I can’t leave. As much as I want to.” He needed to clear his head. Think things out. There was so much to process and his mind was going billions of miles a minute. “Because some crazy is out there trying to kill you. So, I’ll be staying.” He paused beside her. “Make no mistake, though. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you.” She’d hidden a human being from him and if he hadn’t come to town, he still wouldn’t know! That was unfair no matter what he’d said about having or not having kids. It didn’t matter how terrified he was knowing he was a father. This was his baby. His. Baby. “But you’re the mother of my child. So, I won’t let anything happen to you. For my child’s sake.”
At the door, Greer sniffed. A sliver of him wanted to go and comfort her. But he was aching inside and needed to be alone.
“I’m taking the couch.” He marched down the hall and into the living room.
He fell onto the sofa, face in a throw pillow. Greer’s bedroom door quietly clicked closed and everything he felt, everything he’d missed out on, every slice of her betrayal, broke through and washed out his eyes on to the sagging couch.
* * *
When the alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., Greer rolled over and turned it off. She hadn’t slept a wink. After Deputy Crisp fingerprinted the window, she’d spent most of the night sobbing and begging God to help her figure this out. She’d never seen Locke so angry, though he had every right to be. Every right to hate her, to be disgusted. But he’d never understand her reasons. Locke wouldn’t believe he’d ever resent them and walk out one day. Her own dad probably hadn’t even thought that at first. One day it would happen. Locke never looked much to the future. He lived in the now. That was his way. She’d done what she thought was best. Right or wrong. She couldn’t take it back.
Now
