Nathan's Child Read Online Free Page B

shut his eyes now, Nathan could still remember the tremble of her body against his, could taste her cool flesh as his lips had touched it.
    Right here. Right in this room.
    Nathan jerked back to the present, cursing the desire that flooded his veins, hating the need that seeing her again this afternoon had aroused!
    He grabbed his gear and stamped out of the bedroom. He could sleep in any room. He didn’t have to stay in there where the memories would haunt him every second.
    But the room next to his had been Dominic’s. And Carin had stayed in Rhys’s. He stood there, clutching his duffel, torn, frustrated, angry—
    And heard a knock on the kitchen door.
    He clattered down the stairs, expecting Maurice, who was going to help him build a dark room. “Hey, there,” he said, glad for the distraction, as he jerked open the door.
    But it wasn’t Maurice.
    It was a girl.
    â€œHello,” she said politely. “I’m Lacey. You must be my father.”

CHAPTER TWO
    E VER SINCE D OMINIC had revealed her existence, Nathan had envisioned the day he would meet his daughter, had tried to imagine what he would say to her. And always—every time—their meeting had been at a time and place of his choosing.
    He’d wanted it to be perfect, knowing full well that, having missed her first twelve years, it never would be.
    Still, he’d made an effort.
    He’d cleared the decks, finished his assignments, met his commitments. Whenever his agent, Gaby, rang him with new projects, new ideas, new shows, new demands, he turned them down. He wanted nothing on his schedule now but Lacey—and her mother.
    He was prepared. Or so he’d thought.
    He didn’t feel prepared now.
    He felt stunned, faced with this girl who wore a pair of white shorts and a fluorescent lime-green T-shirt with the Statue of Liberty and the words New York Babe on it. She had a backpack on her back and sandals on her feet and looked like a hundred preteen girls.
    But more than that, she looked like him.
    Nathan tried to think of something profound to say or at least something sensible. Nothing came to mind. He had spent much of his adult life in precarious positions—hanging off cliffs, kayaking down white-water rapids, hanging out with polar bears, and tracking penguins in Tierra del Fuego—but none had seemed more precarious than this one.
    Now he realized that Lacey was waiting—staring at him,shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, her hand still stuck out in midair.
    Awkwardly Nathan shook it and dredged up a faint grin. “I guess I must be,” he said. Must be your father.
    He felt short of breath. Dazed. Positively blown away. His voice sounded rusty even to his own ears. He stood there, holding her hand—his daughter’s hand!—learning the feel of it. Her fingers were warm and slender, delicate almost. But there were calluses on her palm. He felt them against his own rough fingers.
    From fishing? he wondered. He didn’t have a clue. He knew nothing about her. Nothing at all.
    She was still looking at him expectantly, and he realized the next move was up to him. “Won’t you…come in?”
    He felt absurd, inviting his twelve-year-old daughter into his home as if she was a stranger. Fortunately, Lacey didn’t seem to see the absurdity of it. She just marched past him into the room, then looked around with interest.
    Nathan wondered if she’d ever been in the house before.
    He’d always loved it, had thought it was the best place on earth. He had been five when they’d first come to Pelican Cay, and when they’d flown in that first day, he’d thought their little seaplane was landing in paradise. It turned out he wasn’t far wrong. Pelican Cay in those days had sand and surf and sun and no telephones to take his father away on business for a week or more at a time.
    He and his brothers had spent their happiest hours here. They