Pamela Bauer - Bachelor Father

Goodbye, Faith, the baby rocker. Long after he was gone she heard his deep voice echoing those words in her head, and each time they sent a tiny shiver of pleasure through her.

ADAM KNEW WHY Megan wanted to believe Faith was her mother. If he didn’t know better he might have mistaken the child-care worker for Christie, too.

But he did know better. Unlike his daughter, Adam was certain that when people died and went to heaven, they didn’t come back.

Christie had drowned in Lake Superior last September. An eyewitness had seen her small sailboat capsize in a storm, sending its lone occupant into the lake. The Coast Guard had been summoned to the scene but rescue attempts had failed.

Anyone who lived near Lake Superior knew that because of the temperature of the water, there was little hope of surviving such an accident. That hadn’t stopped Christie’s brother, a professional diver, from looking for her. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that he wasn’t going to find her. Tom Anderson, like the other residents of the small town of Silver Bay, knew that very few bodies were ever recovered from the huge body of water. It was too deep and too cold and the great lake had a history of not giving up its dead. Megan’s mother was one of them. Although her body had never surfaced from the icy waters of the lake, the authorities had declared her legally dead.

As Adam stood outside the child-care center looking in at Faith, the baby rocker, he had to remind himself of that fact. Although she wore a hospital smock and plain black slacks, with the right clothes and makeup he thought she could easily pass for Christie. He doubted, however, that a woman who rocked babies during the day in a hospital nursery would strip off her clothes at a nightclub after dark.

He watched as she said goodbye to one child and welcomed another. She led her newest responsibility to a child-size table where she set him on a chair, then knelt beside him, encouraging him to build a tower of wood blocks. For every one square she added to the pile, he tossed another onto the floor and every time she’d bend over to pick up a block, her blond hair would fall like a curtain of silk across her cheek.

Adam felt something stir inside him. Like Christie, she had a look about her few men wouldn’t notice. It was uncanny just how much of a resemblance she had to Megan’s mother. So much of one that when he’d first seen her, his breath had caught in his throat. He knew he’d made her uncomfortable staring at her the way he had, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. He debated whether he should go back inside and explain the reason for his interest in her.

He decided against it. He needed to talk to his daughter, and there was no point in putting off the inevitable. He needed to go back upstairs and tell Megan that the woman she’d seen yesterday was not her mother.

For once in his life he found himself wishing that miracles could happen and the impossible would come true. He could think of nothing more satisfying than being able to tell her that he’d been wrong—that her mother hadn’t drowned. She was alive and well and right here in this hospital. The past six months had been just one big, nasty nightmare. It was the one thing he could tell his daughter that would for certain put a smile on her face.

He knew he was being fanciful to even allow such thoughts. Megan needed him to be a parent even if it meant he had to tell her what she didn’t want to hear.

Adam sighed. It seemed as if every day brought a new challenge to him as a father. Just when he thought he’d crossed the last of the major hurdles, another one always managed to pop up in the middle of the road. Never would he have expected he would be having a conversation with his daughter about her mother’s reincarnation. But then he’d been unprepared for so many of the things that had happened between the two of them, it really shouldn’t have come as that big of a surprise.

Reluctantly he turned away from the window and headed back to Megan’s room.

“HAS IT BEEN BUSY?” Zoe, a college student who worked the evening shift, asked Faith when she arrived at the child-care center.

“It hasn’t been too bad,” Faith told her replacement as she wiped down the wood slats of a crib.

“Who’s the guy in with Mrs. Carmichael?” the young girl wanted to know.

Faith turned around to glance at the office and saw Adam Novak leaning over Mrs. Carmichael’s desk. She wondered why he had come back.

“I think his daughter’s a patient here.” Faith returned her attention to scrubbing the crib, not wanting the other woman to suspect she had any interest in the conversation taking place in the office.

“He’s hot, isn’t he?” Zoe asked.

Faith mumbled, “I wouldn’t know,” which wasn’t exactly the truth. She knew very well that he was attractive. It’s why she’d had a funny feeling in her stomach when he’d stared at her earlier that afternoon.

“He’s probably married,” the other girl surmised. “Most good-looking guys are.”

Faith didn’t comment, not wanting to admit that she had wondered about his marital status, too. Since he’d left the child-care center earlier that day, she’d wondered about quite a few things about him, none of them she wanted to share with her co-worker.

To her relief, Zoe changed the subject. “How come you’re doing Gina’s job? I thought it was her week to wash the cribs.”

“It is, but I had some extra time so I thought I’d do it.”

When a mother arrived with a little girl, Zoe was forced to give them her attention. Faith emptied her bucket and was about to take off her smock and go home for the day when she heard Mrs. Carmichael call her into her office.

“Mr. Novak would like to speak to you for a few minutes,” she said when Faith paused in the doorway. Mrs. Carmichael gestured for her to enter the small room. “You can talk here,” she said before pulling the door shut on her way out.

Adam Novak stood next to the desk, looking every bit as attractive as he had earlier that day. Faith knew that Zoe was dead-on with her description of him when she’d called him hot. Just the way he looked at her could make her skin warm. Her heart began to beat faster and she clasped her hands together so they wouldn’t reveal her nervousness.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” he began, his gaze not as intense as it had been the first time they’d spoken, yet it had the power to send a shiver through her.

“Why are you here?” Once again, the way he looked at her created all sorts of funny sensations inside her. She nervously moistened her lips with her tongue.

“You like children, don’t you.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Of course. I wouldn’t be much help around here if I didn’t,” she answered with a weak smile.

He returned her smile with a grin that sent a tingling through her. “That’s why I came back. Because you like children and I have a pretty good idea that if you knew there was something you could do to help one, you’d do it. Am I right?”

“Yes.” She eyed him warily. “Mr. Novak, if you want me to visit Megan, all you have to do is ask.”

“There are circumstances that might make it a little awkward,” he said, his eyes still holding hers.

“I often visit the pediatrics unit to read to the patients. This is a hospital, Mr. Novak. I see children with all kinds of illnesses. It won’t be uncomfortable for me. If I can cheer Megan by visiting her, I’d be happy to do so.”

“Her physical condition is not the reason I think it could be awkward for you,” he told her.

“Then what is the reason?”

He took a deep breath, ran a hand over his dark head, then propped a hip on the corner of the desk. “I need to tell you a little about Megan. Maybe you want to sit down.”