Page 53 of Lush Curves

“Hi. I’m Annie.” She swallowed. “How old are you?”

“Almost three.”

“Almost…” Her throat closed up now, closed up good and tight, and she choked out the next word. “…three?”

“Annie… hey, Annie…”

Sam’s soft voice was almost her undoing, and she blinked hard, raised her eyes to his again. That was when she saw movement behind him, and she stared as a woman appeared around the corner from the living room. Annie was surprised at her complete lack of surprise; she almost felt the urge to nod.

It’sher. Of course it is. Jesus Lord.

“Annie,” Sam said. “This is Kathleen. Cindy’s Mom.” He hesitated. “My – my ex.”

“Right.” Annie was proud of her calm, because she sure ashellwanted to rip that dark waterfall of hair out of the woman’s head, smack that perfect little smile off her smug fucking face. “We’ve met. Twice, wasn’t it, Kathleen? Last night, at my daughter’s Hen Party, and then again just a few hours ago, at my place of work?”

“What?” Sam spun to stare at Kathleen. “You – you followed Annie around Denver?”

“She sure did,” Annie said cheerfully with a wink at Cindy to set her at ease. No sense upsetting a little girl just because her mother was a creepy bitch. “Guess you wanted to check out your ex’s current girlfriend, right?”

“Right!” Cindy giggled. “We wanted to see who Daddy is friends with now!”

Daddy.

Well, that’s that. Game set, match. Over. It’s over.

Hurting badly now, hurting too much to pretend or hold back the tears, Annie turned blindly, groping for the door handle. She barely felt the hand on her arm, and she shook it off almost violently. Then she was outside, the chill in the air both blissfully refreshing and terrifyingly clarifying, striding to her car.

Daddy. Daddy. Daddy.

“Annie… please, princess…”

“Don’t call me that,” she hissed as she turned back to see Sam right behind her. He’d shut the front door of the house, so she felt OK about raising her voice a bit, sure that Cindy wouldn’t hear anything. “Justdon’t, Sam, don’t call me anything. Why didn’t you ever tell me about her? About them?”

“Because until an hour ago, I didn’t know! I didn’t have a fuckingcluethat Cindy even existed!”

“Really?” she shot back. “You mean to tell me that you – a fuckingdoctor– totally failed to notice that your live-in ex grew a entire human in her body for nine months? And that she then looked a lot skinnier? Oh, and she had a tiny person attached to her boobs 24/7? I think you need to go back to med school, Sam, because you seem to have missed some important shit about anatomy!”

“Annie… look…”

“No.” She practically ripped the door off the car. “Fuck off.”

“Annie.” He held her door with his entire arm, not letting her jerk it open enough to slide in. “We broke up because she was cheating on me, OK? I ended it and she moved out and I never saw her again until today. She sure ashellnever told me that she was pregnant, and frankly, I have no idea if Cindy is evenmine.”

Thatstopped Annie dead in her tracks. “What?”

“She could be the kid of the guy that Kathleen was cheating on me with, right? I mean, he was with Kathleen all through the pregnancy, and raised Cindy as his for almost three years. It’s more than possible that he’s the father.”

“Oh, yeah? And where ishe, anyway?” Annie snapped. “Has he noticed that his wife and kid haven’t come home for the past couple of days?”

“They never married, apparently. And he died. Cancer. About two months ago.”

“And so, what? Kathleen has moved on to Daddy Option Slash Meal Ticket Number Two?”

“Annie.” Sam was pleading. “Please, honey, just come back inside. We can go to the bedroom, just the two of us, and we can talk, OK? I’ll tell you everything that I know, everything that happened, and after Cindy goes to bed, then we can talk to Kathleen too, alright? See what she wants, what she’s doing here now, why she never said anything before today, what proof she has that Cindy’s even mine.”

A wave of tiredness just crashed over her, and the next words came out of her mouth before she had the strength to come up for air and stop them:

“That sweet, beautiful little girl has your eyes, Sam.”

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