Almost a Family Read Free

long legs around to slide from the booth seat. "I'm going to find the ladies' room."
    Bailey tried to not watch the way her body moved as she walked away from him, but he couldn't help it. He wouldn't have believed it possible to still miss her so much after so many years.
    * * *
    Virginia shut the ladies' room door behind her and exhaled all of the air out of her lungs. After a few shaky steps toward the tiny vanity, she gratefully sank into a lone chair, then leaned forward to bury her head in her arms.
    This morning she would have sworn she could handle anything life handed her, but she had been completely unprepared for the day's news. At thirty, she was about to become an instant mother to an eight-year-old she didn't even know. Topped with the knowledge she would have to forge a new relationship with Bailey Kallihan, she felt as if she had been plunged into a dark lake and left flailing for the surface.
    Virginia raised her head and peered at herself in the mirror. In the wee hours of sleepless nights, she'd harbored fantasies of being in a stunning gown and on the arm of a gorgeous man when and if she ever laid eyes on Bailey again—not looking like a resurrected corpse in a business suit. With shaking hands she withdrew a silver lipstick case and determinedly drew color back onto her mouth.
    It had taken her years to get over him. And when his rambling letter of apology had arrived at her parents' house two years before, old wounds had ruptured. Obviously written during a roaring drunk, he'd expressed regret over blaming her for their son's disappearance, and for calling her a careless mother. But instead of feeling absolved, Virginia had been overwhelmed with sadness that they were both still wrestling with lingering guilt and anger from their son's abduction and their aborted marriage.
    He hadn't changed a bit. Still shaggy-haired and outlandishly handsome, still hanging out in the same bars, still driving the same old hot rod. She'd seen his black Camaro in the parking lot of the saloon. Virginia laughed a bitter laugh. And from the looks of the young woman he'd given cab fare to, commitment still ranked low on his list.
    For the space of a few weeks after the birth, hope had bloomed in her chest that Bailey would be content to settle down and raise a family. Indeed, he had blazed a new trail of devoted husband and father. But when some madwoman had stolen their baby from his carrier, she'd also stolen Bailey's innocence, his optimism, and his future. Virginia had found herself married to a shell of the man she'd fallen in love with.
    She'd gone looking for him tonight, desperately hoping for... what? A strong, accomplished man on whom she could rely to help raise this child. Someone who would be a good role model, someone who shared her values. But Bailey Kallihan was not father-of-the-year material. He was a willful boy in a man's body.
    A body that still had the infuriating power to affect hers.
    She dragged herself up and splashed cold water on her face. Slowly she dried her hands and fussed with her bangs, delaying her return as long as possible. Finally, she left to retrace her steps to the booth.
    The soup had arrived in her absence and Bailey sat deep in thought, apparently waiting for her before taking a bite. Her pulse leapt absurdly at the sight of his dark profile. He'd pulled the largest portion of his black hair into a thick ponytail. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days, and the dark stubble crept all the way down to his Adam's apple. A black long-sleeved shirt tucked into faded jeans gave him the look of a displaced cowboy, seemingly capable of playing good guy or bad.
    Virginia would give a week's salary to know what he'd been thinking. Years ago, her unplanned pregnancy had interrupted Bailey's plans to launch his own landscape architectural firm. What plans had her unexpected news interrupted this time?
    Her appearance startled him out of his reverie. "Where do you live?" he asked as she sat