Wicked Circle

CHAPTER SIXTY

As Johnny drove into the driveway, Toni rushed onto her stoop, cheeks flushed with anger. “I think we’re over that twenty minutes I promised her,” Johnny murmured to Evan. “Don’t forget our promise.”

“I won’t tell her about the cop, Dad.”

After a high five, they got out of the car.

Arms crossed, Toni said, “You’re late!”

“We . . . got a little carried away.”

“Gram!” Grinning from ear to ear, Evan ran from the car and clasped her in a big hug. “He’s my dad!”

“You told him.”

Johnny nodded. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

Toni assessed Evan’s giant smile. “Yes,” she said. She hugged Evan back. “Yes.”

Kurt Miller parked his Crown Victoria in the garage. Once he’d stuffed the files into his briefcase, he left the car. Inside, he heard the treadmill motor running in the basement. “Honey?” he called.

“Down here!” she called, slightly breathless.

Kurt descended sluggishly. His mind had been rolling for the last half hour as he’d driven around, thinking. Brenda already knew for certain she couldn’t have kids. A uterine problem. In vitro was out. Neither felt surrogacy was an option, so his fertility had never been tested. They had accepted they could not have children. But now he knew: He could father a child. How would it make her feel? She’d already dealt, years before, with feeling “flawed.” Would this bring that pain back?

At the bottom of the steps, he stood and regarded her.

“What?” she asked and let loose a self-conscious giggle.

He said nothing.

“Kurt? Is it the case?” She powered down the treadmill and walked toward him. “Is everything okay?”

He wrapped her in his arms.

She laid her head on his chest. “Kurt. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

She didn’t argue, she just let him hold her.

This is who she is. Patient. Loving. I’ve been so selfish for so long, thinking I could never make a real fatherlike connection to some kid I didn’t know. It seemed an insurmountable mountain, but he’d seen two strangers conquer that slope in the back of his car today in a few minutes, under less than perfect circumstances. Sure, John was Evan’s biological father, but as any law enforcement officer saw daily, fathering a child didn’t make a man a parent.

He sucked down a breath. With his mouth lightly touching the top of her head, he whispered, “I want us to make an appointment with that adoption agency you found.”