The Marshal's Ready-Made Family (24 page)

Merrilee jerked her head up. Soft lines arched in somber grief around her eyes and mouth, her pained stare meeting his, begging, pleading. “I don’t think Claire’s ready to meet you just now.”

Evasiveness again. Irritation pricked John. “And why is that, Merrilee?”

“Mama?”

They turned in unison. The young girl was tall for her age, the perfect height to fit under his arm and rest her head on his chest. Strands of reddish-gold hair curled around her delicate face while the rest of her thick mane had been pulled back into a neat ponytail. Her eyes matched his former wife’s, that blue-green storm of color the memory of which even now managed to keep him awake long into the night. Then her lips lifted into a tentative grin that resembled the one staring back at him in the mirror every morning, and John’s heart tumbled over in his chest.

Claire. His baby girl.

Her eyes widened on him. He wanted to reach out to her, but the thought that he was a father—correction, this child’s father—warred with his usual confidence. Give him a building to erect or a landing strip to dig out and he’d know just how to respond. Those things he’d been taught to do. But how could he be a good father when the only lessons he’d learned from his own father were brute force and abandonment?

Thump!

John’s gaze shifted lower to the crutch pulled taut against her side as she dragged her right foot forward. His insides did a sickening flip, and for only the third time in his whole thirty years, he felt the burn of salty tears behind his eyes. He slammed them shut before he made a ninny out of himself, his prayers already lifting to Heaven.

Please, Lord, give me the wisdom to be the daddy my baby girl needs!

Copyright © 2014 by Patty Smith Hall

ISBN-13: 9781460326152

THE MARSHAL’S READY-MADE FAMILY

Copyright © 2014 by Sherri Shackelford

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