For the Girls' Sake by Janice Kay Johnson Read Free Book Online

moment, then opened them and let out a ragged breath. "Please."
    Lynn bit her lip, then slowly sat again. "What is there to say?"
    "I don’t know, but these are our kids. Do we want the courts mandating their futures?"
    "No." Lynn sagged. "I didn’t bring a lawyer today. I hoped..."
    "I hoped, too." After a long silence he sighed. "Where do you suggest we go from here?"
    "I’d like to meet her. Jenny Rose. And I expect you’d like to meet Shelly." When he nodded, Lynn said fiercely, "You can’t have her, you know. She’s my daughter. I love her. I’m her world."
    Adam Landry’s hard mouth twisted. "It would seem we have something in common. I’d fight to the death for Rose. Nobody is taking her. So you can put that right out of your mind."
    Had she imagined raising both girls? "Then what?" she asked in a low voice.
    He shook his head. "Visitation. We can take it slow."
    "Have you told Rose about me?" Lynn asked curiously. "About what happened?"
    "No. You?"
    "No." She made a face. "It’s a hard thing to explain to a three-year-old."
    "On Rose’s nightstand is a picture of her mommy, who she knows is in heaven. How will I introduce you?" Bafflement and anger filled his dark eyes, so like Shelly’s.
    "All we can do is our best." How prissy she sounded, Lynn thought in distaste.
    He didn’t react to her sugar pill, continuing as if she’d said nothing, "It’s going to scare her to death if I suddenly announce she isn’t my daughter at all. And, oh yeah, here’s your real mommy."
    Lynn had imagined the same conversation a million times. To a child this age, parents were the only security. They were the anchor that made exploring the world possible.
    "Maybe we should meet first," she suggested. "Would it be less scary once they know us?"
    "Maybe." He made a rough sound in his throat. "Yeah. All right. We’ll all just be buddies at first."
    She let his irony pass, giving a small nod. When he said nothing more, Lynn clutched her purse in her lap. "Shall I bring Shelly to Portland one day?"
    “Why don’t I come there instead? Rosebud would enjoy a day at the beach. It might seem more natural."
    Rosebud. She liked that. She liked, too, what the gentle nickname suggested about this man. Perhaps he wasn’t as tough as he seemed.
    "Fine. Saturday?"
    They agreed. He wrote down her address and phone number, then gave her a business card with his. It all felt so...mundane, a mere appointment, not the clock set ticking for an earthshaking event.
    He escorted her out of the conference room and, with his hand on her elbow, hustled her past the cluster of lawyers and administrators lying in wait.
    Over his shoulder, he told them brusquely, "We’ll be in touch once we figure this out."
    Lynn imagined the consternation brewing at their abrupt departure. Together.
    She and Adam Landry rode down silently in the elevator, Lynn painfully conscious of his physical presence. She caught him glancing at her once or twice, but each time he looked quickly away, frowning at the lighted numbers over the door. Of course, he couldn’t help being so imposing at his height, with broad shoulders and the build of a natural athlete. Nor could he help that face, with Slavic cheekbones and bullish jaw and high forehead that together made him handsome enough to displace George Clooney in a woman’s fantasies.
    She was glad that Shelly looked like her mother and not her father. It would have been too bizarre for words to see her daughter in this stranger’s face. As though they must have been together and she just didn’t remember it, or else how could she have breast-fed his child, raised her, loved her?
    Heat suddenly blossomed on her cheeks. Had he had the same thought, she wondered, about her? As though he must know her on a level deeper than he understood? No wonder he didn’t want to look at her!
    When the elevator doors opened, he gripped her arm again as if she wouldn’t know where to go without his guidance. Habit, she gathered, when