The Maverick's Return Read online

  It was obvious that Jamie was determined to play Cupid for him. Too bad that right now, Cupid’s arrows seemed to all be blunt-tipped.

  * * *

  What had she almost done? Annie thought, pulling her feet up under her on the sofa. If she hadn’t pulled back when she had, she would have wound up making love with Danny—just like that.

  Even after all this time, she would have made love with Danny in a heartbeat.

  Hadn’t she learned anything?

  Even now, after he had gone, her heart was still pounding wildly.

  She was afraid.

  Very afraid. Because all it had taken was one kiss from Danny and she was ready to melt right there on the spot.

  Anne blew out a breath, pulling herself together.

  No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t allow herself to lead with her heart. Not again. She absolutely refused to be that vulnerable a second time. Once had been more than enough.

  Once had resulted in Janie coming into the world.

  Janie.

  Oh Lord, she still had to tell Dan about Janie. That he was Janie’s father.

  How was she going to do that without hurting Hank? And for all she knew, Danny might be angry with her for not telling him as soon as he had come back into her life. Never mind that she had tried as hard as she could to find him. Never mind that he was the one who had run out on her, not the other way around.

  And there was Janie to think of. If she made this revelation, Annie’s whole world could just come crashing down on her once she found out that her father wasn’t Hank, but Dan.

  So much to consider, she thought. And none of it clear.

  Chapter Twelve

  Keeping his distance from her was absolutely killing him.

  He had promised himself after that last encounter between them that he would wait for Annie to make the next move no matter how long it took her.

  Of course, if he was being honest with himself, Dan only expected that to take a day. Maybe two. But one day had come and gone, as had the second, and then the third, and still no resolution, no visit.

  No Annie.

  Maybe he’d been too optimistic about all this. Maybe she wasn’t going to make that “next move.” Maybe Annie was actually grateful for this respite and intended to stretch it out as long as she could.

  Possibly indefinitely.

  Or maybe she was determined to wait him out until he finally decided to throw in the towel and went back to Colorado.

  The more Dan thought about it, the more likely that last scenario seemed. He became afraid that it was over between them, really over.

  Several times when he was at the tail end of his day, Dan had picked up the phone, thinking to call Annie and ask if he could come see her. He’d managed to talk himself out of it each time.

  But the desire to see her was never far away. And it was getting progressively stronger.

  After a week passed and still no call from Annie, Dan told himself that he had to face the inevitable: it was really over. He’d been a fool for thinking that they actually stood a chance of getting back together. And that, he knew, was on him, no one else.

  He was still trying to decide whether it might be better for everyone all around if he just went back to Colorado early. The debate raged in his head one early morning as he prepared to meet Jamie out on the range. It felt like work on the ranch never seemed to be completed.

  Leaving the house, he almost barreled right into Annie. Almost knocking her over, he quickly caught her in his arms, keeping her from hitting the ground. He was aware of his body fairly sizzling from the sudden, unexpected contact.

  Let go of her! he silently ordered.

  Still, it took him a moment to come around and release Annie. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming over.”

  He thought he heard her laugh softly. “That makes two of us,” she confessed.

  He wasn’t sure he understood her meaning. All he knew was that, sudden or not, it was wonderful to hold her, even for a moment. Wonderful to see her.

  Dan realized that there was silence between them. “I’m sorry, it’s a little early in the morning for riddles.” He stepped back, as if to check her over. “Are you all right? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “You mean now? No.” That had been a slip and she shouldn’t have said that to him, she thought, upbraiding herself. “No,” she repeated, adding, “you kept me from hitting the ground.”

  She was obviously here for a reason, he thought. Most likely to tell him something. Something he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like hearing, based on the serious look on her face.

  His survival instinct warned him that this wasn’t going to be good. She was going to make it official, he thought. She was going to tell him not to come around anymore.

  Damn, he should have left the house earlier.

  Taking a breath, Annie plunged in, beginning slowly. “Danny—”

  The least he could do was bail her out, he told himself. He wasn’t going to let her suffer through this.

  “Annie, you don’t have to let me down easy,” he told her. He saw her eyes widen. Probably because he’d guessed her reason for being here, he thought. “I know I was a fool for thinking I could just waltz back into town and pick up where we left off twelve years ago. I was a fool for thinking we still had a chance.”

  “I’m sorry, did I miss the part where you waltzed?” she asked.

  He felt too tense, too sad, to laugh although he sensed she was doing her best to try to lighten the moment. But that really wasn’t possible from his viewpoint.

  “It’s just an expression,” he murmured.

  “I know.” Growing serious, Annie tried again. “We need to talk.”

  “And there’s another expression,” he noted sadly. “Probably one of the most dreaded expressions in the English language,” he estimated. “But in this case, we don’t really ‘need to talk.’ Don’t worry, I won’t be bothering you again.”

  Annie stared at him. Where was Danny getting this from?

  “That’s not what I came to say—and you’re not bothering me,” she added. “How could you be when I have been hoping for the last twelve years that you’d come back? What bothered me was that you left, not that you came back.”

  He was really confused now. “The other night, when I kissed you, you didn’t act as if you were glad that I came back,” he pointed out. “You acted as if you were afraid of me.”

  Annie shook her head. He was getting it all wrong. “No, I was afraid of being vulnerable.”

  Dan took that as an accusation. “I wouldn’t have taken advantage of you,” he told her. “You know me better than that.”

  “That’s not what I mean by vulnerable.”

  Obviously he was tripping himself up. “Maybe I should just shut up and let you talk,” he told her. “That way you can say what you’ve come to say.”

  Now that she had his full attention, fear undulated through her. Annie pressed her lips together, trying to gather her thoughts as well as her courage. It was one thing to tell herself she was going to tell Danny the truth—it was another thing entirely to actually find the words to do it.

  Because once she said the words, she couldn’t unsay them.

  But Danny deserved to know. He had unburdened himself the other night and told her what had made him leave town and had kept him away for so long. The least she could do was tell him her secret. It was only fair.

  “Can I help you get started?” he offered when he saw how much difficulty she was having beginning to impart whatever it was that she had come to say.

  To his surprise, Annie laughed at his offer. It was a nervous laugh, but it was a laugh all the same.

  “I think that’s h
ow the whole thing began,” she told Danny, recalling that moonlit night when they had made love.

  “No offense, Annie, but you’re still not making any sense. What whole thing?” he wanted to know.

  She took a deep breath. “Do you remember that last night we spent together?” she asked him.

  Dan nodded. “The night before the accident.” The night before his world turned to ashes.

  “In more ways than one,” Annie interjected, murmuring the words to herself.

  Dan stared at her, utterly confused. “I don’t understand. What are you telling me?”

  “That night you made love to me?” she said, starting again. “Well, the evening had a slight by-product.”

  His eyebrows narrowed as he looked at her intently. All sorts of half-formed thoughts began running through his head.

  “What kind of slight by-product?” he asked in a deadly quiet voice.

  There was no way to say it but to say it, Anne told herself. She took a deep breath and let the words out. “You met her the first day you came over.”

  “Janie?” he asked in a disbelieving voice that was scarcely above a stunned whisper.

  “Janie,” Annie confirmed.

  Danny stared at her, shell-shocked as he tried to understand the full import of what she was saying. “She’s...?”

  “Yours,” Anne spelled out for good measure. “That night on the hilltop, my first time with you—with anyone,” Anne stressed more for herself than for him, “we created a baby.”

  It felt as if his mind was stuck in first gear, unable to process, unable to go forward. “Janie’s my daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  His mouth had dropped open and it took effort to close it. He asked Anne the first question that flashed across his mind.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that I was a father?”

  She almost laughed at that, but it really wasn’t funny. He had no idea what she’d gone through when she’d realized that she was pregnant.

  “I tried, Danny. Heaven knows, I tried. I asked everyone in town if they’d heard from you, including Bella and Jamie. But nobody had. It was as if you had fallen off the face of the earth right after the funeral.”

  “And Hank?” he asked Annie suddenly. “Does Hank know?”

  “That Janie’s yours? Yes, Hank knows,” Anne told him, a sad smile curving the corners of her mouth. “But he married me anyway. He thought he could make me happy.” But it hadn’t worked out that way, she thought. Because she’d only ever loved one man. The man who stood before her.

  Dan got up and began to pace around the room, too agitated to be able to remain seated.

  Danny looked at her in disbelief. “My Lord, I’m a father,” he said, dragging his hand through his hair as if that could help imbed the idea in his brain, make it take root. “I should have seen it. When I looked at her, I should have seen that she was mine.”

  She realized that he was blaming himself for the oversight. “People say she looks like me,” Annie told him. “You said so yourself. And don’t forget, in your defense, you thought she was Hank’s.”

  “And you didn’t tell me any differently,” he accused, cycling through disbelief, disappointment and anger. Trying to work his way through all those emotions to a safer, happier place because, after all, discovering that he had a child was supposed to be a happy event.

  She knew that Danny didn’t mean that the way it sounded. “That’s not exactly a conversation opener, Danny. ‘Hi, where have you been the last twelve years? And oh yes, by the way, you’re a father.’”

  He shook his head, his sanity coming back to him as his agitation began to ebb.

  “You’re right. Sorry. You’re right,” he repeated, doing his best to get a grip on himself. Brightening, he sounded almost eager as he asked, “What’s she like?”

  “You met her,” she reminded him.

  “Just for a second,” he protested. Opinions couldn’t be formed in a second. Neither could impressions. “Is she smart in school? Is she a handful? Does she have friends? Is she close to Hank?”

  “One question at a time.” Annie laughed, relieved to see that he was ultimately taking the news well. “Yes, yes, yes and—” She paused for a moment before saying, “Yes.”

  She knew Danny didn’t want to hear the last answer, but she couldn’t lie to him. Not after all this time. He deserved to hear the truth about everything concerning his daughter, even truths that weren’t welcomed.

  “I want to see her,” Danny told her, excitement gathering in his voice.

  He wanted to look at Janie as his daughter, not just Annie’s.

  “It’s a school day. She’s in class right now,” Annie told him.

  He wasn’t thinking clearly. “Right. Okay, when she comes home,” he amended. “I want to see her when she comes home.”

  She loved that he was happy about the news. But she hadn’t told him everything and he had to hear it before they went any further. “I understand, but there’s a problem, Danny.”

  He looked at Annie, his euphoria abruptly on hold. “I don’t understand,” he confessed. “What kind of a problem?”

  This just wasn’t getting any easier, Anne thought. She felt as if she was trying to slog her way through a five-foot-high snowdrift and she kept losing her footing.

  “Janie doesn’t know that you’re her father,” she said, watching his face carefully for any telltale signs of anger. “She thinks Hank is.”

  Dan had to admit it wasn’t welcomed news, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected, either. After all, when he’d met the girl, she hadn’t given him any indication that she thought he was her father.

  Nodding, he said, “I’ve got a lot of years to make up for.”

  “Yes, I know, but—”

  He knew what Annie was going to say and he reassured her. “You’re right, you’re right. I’ve got to think about what’s right for Janie. I want to tell her, but I don’t want to turn her whole world upside down. She might even hate me for doing that and that’s not what I want. I want to build a relationship with her. I want her to get to like me.” He stopped abruptly and looked at Annie as it hit him again. “Wow, a daughter. I have a daughter.” He became as eager as a kid at Christmas. “Do you have pictures of her? I mean when she was a baby and then a toddler?”

  Annie smiled. She found his attitude rather sweet. “Yes, I have pictures.”

  “I want to see them,” he told her. “Every one of them.”

  She laughed. This was, ultimately, what she had dreamed about, that he would welcome the news.

  “That can be arranged. I have them in several albums. Would you like to see them now? I took the day off from work, thinking that maybe, if I told you about Janie and you didn’t tell me to go to hell once you heard, that you might need to talk.”

  He looked at her, stunned by what she’d said in such an off-handed manner. “Why on earth would I tell you to go to hell?” he asked, totally puzzled.

  Trying to be realistic, she’d played this scenario a hundred different ways in her head over the years. “Well, not everyone greets the idea of finding out they’re a father in a positive light.”

  He knew that, but that wasn’t him. The idea of having a family with Annie had once been a cherished dream of his. “I just really wish that there’d been a way for you to have let me know you were pregnant.”

  “So do I, Danny,” she said, meaning that from the bottom of her heart. “So do I.”

  And then, rethinking the first time he saw Janie, he shook his head again. “I still don’t see how I didn’t see it the moment I saw Janie.”

  “Janie’s small for her age. You probably thought she was younger than she is. Besides, there’d be no reason for you to suspect she’s yours.”

  “When’s Janie’s birth
day?” he wanted to know. When Annie told him, he grinned broadly. “She and I share the same month.”

  “Yes, I know.” And then added, “And the same mouth.”

  That caught him off guard. He looked at Annie quizzically. “We do?”

  “Uh-huh.” She remembered looking at that small mouth for hours when Janie was a baby, wondering if she would grow up to look like Danny. “Look at it the next time you see her. Just don’t stare,” she cautioned.

  “I won’t stare,” he promised. “But I do intend to see a great deal of her. I was serious about building a relationship with her.”

  Anne could feel her nervousness resurfacing. “Remember, we can’t tell her you’re her father until I think she’s ready to hear that.”

  “Don’t worry,” he promised. “I won’t tell her anything. I just want to get to know her and to get her to like me. That’s just putting down groundwork, nothing more,” he told her. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

  Annie nodded. “Yes, that’s okay. I really appreciate you being patient about this.”

  He smiled. “I waited years to find out I was a father. I can wait a little longer to actually act like one.”

  Annie grew serious again. “I do have to warn you about something,” she told him.

  Dan told himself not to anticipate the worst. “What is it?”

  “If she doesn’t seem to respond to you, it’s not you,” she told him. “Janie’s been a little down lately. Her best friend moved to France with her mother and her new dad recently and she can’t seem to find a place for herself.”

  Dan appreciated the heads up. “Duly noted,” he said. “My one immediate goal is to befriend her and to find a way to make sure she likes me. After that, we’ll go from there. Deal?”

  Anne smiled at him, more relieved than she could possibly say. “Deal.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  When she heard the knock on the door the first time, Janie just looked toward it with mild disinterest, expecting her mother to answer it even though she was in the kitchen, making dinner. As for her, she was busy watching one of her favorite programs, a show about a group of preteen girls who had superpowers.