From Duty to Daddy by Sue MacKay Read Free Book Online Page A

be able to get over Charlie?
    ‘So if you hadn’t gone all American and driven on the wrong side of the road, I’d never have known you were here?’ Anger laced her tone and those eyes fired up. ‘You’d have gone away without a word?’ she hissed, leaning closer.
    ‘I thought I was doing the right thing by you.’ Now he was on the back foot. What had just happened?
    Her forefinger jabbed his chest. ‘Do you have any idea how hard I’ve tried to find you?’ Jab. ‘Agreement or not?’ Jab. ‘I have spent...’ jab ‘...untold hours on the computer, searching for you.’ Jab. ‘And you were driving away.’ Then her anger disappeared as quickly as it had risen. Her chest rose and fell fast. ‘Sorry. It’s just that I wanted to find you and now you’re here and I don’t know how to tell you something important.’
    Warning bells started blaring in his skull. Nothing Charlie said made any sense and yet he was on high alert. Incoming attack. Stepping back further, he leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his ankles, to all appearances totally at ease. But inside his head he was pulling up every scenario imaginable. Because something big was about to go down. Something very big.
    Then Charlie glanced from him to the little girl. A sob broke across her lips.
    And shocked realisation slammed into him. The green eyes should’ve warned him.
    ‘Aimee’s mine.’

CHAPTER FOUR
    A LL THE AIR in Charlie’s lungs whooshed out. Her arms instantly wrapped around her waist. And she stared, like her eyes were glued to Marshall’s stunned face, watching and searching. His gaze, firmly fixed on Aimee, showed nothing of his thoughts. Not a hint.
    Her heart crashed repeatedly against her ribs as fear and hope warred in her brain. Would he walk? Would he stay? At least stop long enough to hear the rest? Would he shout at her? Call her all sorts of names for not telling him, even when she’d tried so hard to get in touch? Or blame her for getting pregnant in the first place? The skin on her arms lifted in chilly bumps. Why had she not prepared for this moment? Yeah, right. Like how?
    ‘Mum, mum.’
    Charlie reluctantly dragged her eyes from Marshall and checked out her daughter. Their daughter. Oh, hell. Her stomach clenched. She clamped her hand over her mouth as nausea rose. This was so—so big. So difficult. Swallow. Swallow.
    ‘Charlie? It’s true, isn’t it? I’m a father.’ Those beautiful green eyes shifted their focus to her. Questions fired out at her.
    Another swallow and she answered his first one. ‘Yes.’ The word whispered across her bottom lip. She swallowed, tried again. ‘Yes, Aimee is your daughter. She...’ Then the words locked into a lump at the back of her throat, refusing to budge.
    ‘Holy Toledo.’
    That was a good response. Wasn’t it? It didn’t sound bad. At least he was acting calm. So far. She managed, ‘She was born a little over eight months after I got back from Honolulu.’
    ‘You didn’t have any way of contacting me.’ A ton of regret darkened those words but no blame. Then, ‘So this is why you’ve been trying to find me.’
    ‘Yes.’ He didn’t need to know the rest yet. ‘It’s a lot to take in.’
    ‘Where do I start?’ He sounded completely bewildered. His bemused gaze flicked back and forth between Aimee and her.
    At least he wanted to start. But wait until the shock completely wore off. It might be a different story then. Charlie turned to Aimee, who had her cup upside down, pointing in the general direction of her open mouth. Aimee. The love of her life. The reason she was in this situation. Warmth sneaked into Charlie. She never got tired of watching her daughter.
    ‘Up, up.’ Aimee’s face began screwing up for an outburst.
    Moving quickly, Charlie reached for a damp cloth to wipe some of the mess off Aimee’s face before lifting her to hold her tightly. She wanted to hand Aimee to Marshall but for the life of her she couldn’t. She