“It’s her,” he said.
“Do you want me to track her down?” Oscar asked.
Bastian thought for a moment and shook his head.
“No,” he said.
If Oscar approached Rachel, he might spook her and she might flee again. He figured his best chance of meeting his child was to get on a plane and go to her himself.
“I’m going to fly out to Dallas and talk to her myself,” Bastian told Oscar. “When and where was this photo taken?”
“The picture was taken earlier on today. It’s in a small park not far from where Rachel lives. She works in a doctor’s office just up the road from home and unless it’s raining, she walks to and from work, cutting through that park. I’ll send you the address of the park once we end the call,” Oscar said.
“Oscar, how long have you been watching Rachel?” Bastian asked.
Oscar seemed to have a lot of intel on Rachel and Bastian was afraid she would work out that he was following her. He was also kind of pissed off that Oscar had sat on the information for a long time.
“I haven’t been watching her,” Oscar said. “One of my sources brought her to my attention yesterday. He gave me the intel on her route to and from work and I went to the park this morning to snap that picture. Don’t worry. I made damned sure she didn’t see me. I would have called sooner, but I only got back home an hour or so ago and I knew we had this call scheduled anyway.”
“Okay. Thanks, Oscar,” Bastian said.
He ended the call and instantly got online to book a flight. He booked a late morning flight for the next day that arrived Dallas around lunchtime, which would be perfect. He would have time to get checked into a hotel and then go to the park and wait for Rachel to walk through it on her way home. If it was raining, he would wait until a morning or evening when it wasn’t raining and go back again. As much as waiting would kill him, he had waited two years for this moment. Another few days were doable, especially now that he had hope again.
He waited for Oscar to send him the address of the park and then he went online and looked it up on Google maps and booked a hotel close by. He knew the time between now and seeing Rachel again was going to feel like the longest day of his life. God, please don’t be raining tomorrow, he thought to himself.
* * *
Bastian knew he was early as he sat down on a bench in the center of the park, a spot he was sure Rachel would have to pass as she was moving from one gate to the next, but he figured it was better to feel like he was doing something and come to the park now than spend any more time pacing across his hotel room. He had begun to be afraid he would wear out a path in the room’s carpet, he had paced so much.
The park was fairly busy, mostly occupied by parents or nannies of small children. Everywhere he looked, someone was pushing a stroller or clutching the hand of a chubby toddler. It made Bastian wonder where his child was. Did Rachel have a nanny or was the child at daycare somewhere?
A woman with a stroller sat down on the end of the bench Bastian occupied. The stroller faced away from him and the young woman fussed with a blanket inside of it for a moment. Bastian looked at her. She looked young, but not too young for the baby to be hers. She smiled when she saw him looking at her and brushed her red hair back from her eyes.
“Nice day to just sit and enjoy the sun, huh?” she said.
“It sure is,” Bastian smiled.
He turned away, not wanting to get drawn into a conversation and risk missing Rachel. He found himself watching a boisterous group of young boys running around chasing a ball while a harried-looking woman looked on.
“One of them yours?” the woman on the bench asked him, nodding to the small group.
“No,” Bastian said.
He wasn’t going to say more, but the woman frowned at him and he suddenly realized that it might seem a little strange for a childless man to be sitting in a park occupied by so many children, watching a group play like this. He smiled at the woman.
“I’m meeting the wife here from work and then we’re going to pick our son up. The little blond kid over there reminds me of him,” he lied.
The woman smiled and seemed to relax a little bit and Bastian knew he had made the right call.
“How old is yours?” he asked, nodding toward the stroller.
“Oh, she’s just over a year, but she’s not mine. I’m her nanny,” the woman said. The baby inside the stroller began to fuss and the woman flashed him another smile. “Duty calls.”
She leaned down into the stroller and spoke to the baby for a while, but the fussy sounds soon became cries. The woman unclipped the safety harness and lifted the baby out. Bastian glanced across and saw that she was a beautiful baby girl. And that she had his piercing green eyes. He shook his head. It couldn’t be. But somehow, he just knew she was his baby.
His bear stirred inside of him, giving a protective growl, and Bastian knew for sure then that this baby was his daughter. His bear wouldn’t respond like that to anyone who wasn’t either his mate or his own flesh and blood. The baby stopped fussing when the redhead sat her on her lap.
Bastian pulled his gaze away from the baby, but he kept
