Committed Passion Read Online Free

see all those beautiful flower beds.” She offered a hand to Micah to help him to his feet. “Come on, Dr. Horndog.”
    He scrambled up, then leaned in to give me a quick one-armed hug and pat on the back. “Hey, man. Congrats. You landed a winner.”
    “I did. Thanks for coming down,” I muttered distractedly.
    “You getting married? I wouldn’t miss it for anything.” Micah chuckled as Travis took hold of his hand and dragged him off. My little buddy would normally be all over me the moment I stepped in the door, but the bright shiny penny of Micah had stolen him away.
    I waited until the door shut behind them before going over to Rianna. “What is it?”
    She opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head as if words were beyond her. Then she called up a message and handed me her phone so I could read it.
    Sorry I ben out of touch. Gran said your living in Lexington now. I want to meet and see my boy. I’m his dad. I have rights. Im not how I used to be I swear. Call me ASAP.
    I read it once, twice, three times, growing angrier every time.I’d had enough of abandoning fathers showing up out of the blue. The annoyance I felt about my own dad transferred and intensified at the thought of Travis’s birth father charging into our lives and making demands. I was Travis’s father. Nobody else. This goddamn loser deserved no rights at all.
     I handed back the phone. “What are you gonna do?”
    Rianna shrugged. “I don’t know. Mostly I want to delete it and pretend I never got the message. I don’t know if Clay would follow through and track us down. But on the other hand, I’d hate for him to pop up later and cause trouble. Besides…” Her smooth forehead furrowed, and her light eyes darkened to storm gray. “Maybe Clay’s right. He is Travis’s bio-dad. Maybe he has the right to at least see him.”
    I swallowed down a hot lump of fury. “What if he’s not content to check in? He might demand visitation or custody rights. Opening the door to this guy might be like inviting a robber into the house.”
    I could foresee an entire legion of problems Rianna’s ex-boyfriend might cause us. He might want some sort of payoff now that Rianna was financially secure. He’d suck us like a leech. Or else he’d truly had some sort of AA epiphany and would try to reinsert himself into his son’s life. Either way, I didn’t want him there. I wanted him to fall off the face of the planet.
    Rianna groaned. “Am I being selfish? What about Travis’s right to know? It might not matter to him now, but someday… I know I’d like to have any scrap of information about who my bio-dad was.”
    Though I hadn’t adopted him yet, in my heart, Travis was already my son. Rianna didn’t realize how her words stung. Two days before our wedding and she was thinking of meeting her ex and letting him take fatherhood from me. I felt like I was holding on to the edge of a cliff and the earth was slipping from beneath my clutching fingers.
    “Whatever’s best for Travis,” I managed to say. “But we should probably contact a lawyer to make sure we handle it right.”
    Rianna moved close to me and snaked her arms around my neck, looking up into my face with those eyes which had been the hook that caught me the moment I saw her.
    “I’m so sorry about this and how it must make you feel. I’m furious it happened practically on the eve of our wedding. But it doesn’t change anything. Let’s try not to dwell on it or let it ruin our big day.”
    I smiled, nodded, kissed her, and thought it was practically impossible that this unexpected shadow couldn’t darken the rose-colored glasses I’d been wearing.
    Chapter Three
    Leah
    Walking into a new place or situation is a lot harder without sight to help me adjust to the environment. Arriving at Jonah’s house in Lexington felt like being dropped on a strange planet. I had to listen carefully and respond to nonvisual cues to get my bearings. Thank God for J.D.’s hand