Gone was his appetite, and back was the knot in his gut.
Maisey walked by with the pot of coffee swinging between her fingers. "Something wrong with the cakes?"
He shook his head. "No, I wasn't as hungry as I thought." His appetite had been stolen by the words, Probability of paternity - 0%.
As Maddie gobbled up her oatmeal, he considered Doc's words. Don't let a piece of paper define life for you. You get to choose, or at least your heart does.
Layla wanted him to have Maddie, and until some man came knocking at his door to tell him Maddie was his, then she belonged to Alex. He had a birth certificate to prove it. Mercy was right, anyone could be a father, but it took a special man to be a daddy, and he wanted to be that man for Maddie.
"Hey, kiddo, are you ready to spend the day with Mercy?" He took a twenty from his wallet, set it on the table, and then tucked the envelope back into his pocket. What no one but he knew couldn't hurt anyone else, right?
Chapter Fifteen
Mercy hadn't seen Alex or Maddie for the past two days. He took Sunday and Monday off, and they headed to Denver to enjoy the zoo and museums.
Alex invited her to go with them, but she declined. A hotel room wasn't in her budget, and the alternative to sleeping with Alex, while tempting, wasn't right if Maddie was in the house, and they hadn't defined Alex and her relationship.
At this point, she was a babysitter that kissed him and let him feel her up a little. She didn't want to turn into the cliché nanny that slept with her boss to get a better life.
Her phone rang, and she answered it when Alex's name came up.
"Good morning."
"Back at ya."
His voice did things to her body. The deep timbre vibrated through her cells to sit in her core and throb.
"Are you on your way?" She shuffled through her unpaid bills and decided which one would get love this week.
"Yes, but I wanted to ask if you would join us for dinner. You're always cooking for us, but I thought I'd cook for you."
If her heart wasn't in this game already, it was now. "You want to cook for me?"
"I do. We want to spend more time with you because Mads missed you, and I did too."
They missed her. "I don't know," she teased. "I mean it's Aspen Cove and the center of all that's entertaining in the world. I thought about standing in my garden and waiting for a weed to sprout."
"Ooh." He whistled. "I don't know if I can beat that. All I can offer is a barbecued burger and me."
"Are you the appetizer or the dessert?" She loved the bantering between them. It was night and day from their first meeting when he accused her of leaving underwear, which she did, and she chastised him for treating Maddie like an inconvenience, which he had.
"I can be both."
"Hmm, when did you say Maddie had a sleepover?"
"Are you saying that you'd stay the night if I arranged one?"
She giggled. "All I'm saying is I like appetizers and dessert."
"See you in a few minutes." The phone was muffled when he told Maddie to get her bear, but when he uncovered it, he said. "I'll give you a sneak peek of what's to come when I get there."
As soon as they hung up, she raced to the bathroom to slick on some gloss and pink her cheeks. Looking into the mirror, she noticed a drop of coffee on her shirt, and there was no way she'd look like a slob when he came, so she rushed to her room to pick something else to wear.
It was supposed to be nearly eighty degrees today. That was hot for the mountains, but it was summer. When a search through her closet turned up nothing, she rummaged through her drawers. Since her legs were one of her finer features and Alex hadn't seen much of her, she chose shorts. Not the cargo ones that came to her knees, but the daisy dukes that barely covered her butt cheeks. She called them her gardening shorts since they didn't leave a funky tan line halfway down her thigh.
Dressed and back in the kitchen, she whipped up lunch for Alex. He often complained about having nothing but Dalton's take and bake pizza, and since she grilled chicken yesterday, she imagined a grilled chicken sandwich on a roll might be a nice change for him.
She had it all bagged when she heard them at the door. She hurriedly wrote, Have a nice day, and put a smiley face on a Post-it note and tucked it inside before she bustled to the door and swung it open.
Maddie rushed in and flung herself into Mercy's arms. "I missed you."
Mercy kissed the top of her head and squeezed her. "I missed you too." She also missed the heat in Alex's eyes, the same fiery passion she saw now when she glanced at him. "How was the zoo?"
"It was great, but there was this one lonely ape who would have loved to see a beautiful blonde with long legs visit."
"Is that so?" She turned Maddie around, so she faced the kitchen. "I made sugar cookies shaped like animals. Go pick one out while I talk to your dad." Maddie dashed to the kitchen, leaving them alone. Thankfully, kids were easy to distract.
Alex moved close enough for their chests to touch. "What did you want to talk to me about?"
"I thought you might like to tell me how much you missed me."
"Is there anything she can get into trouble with in there?" He nodded toward the kitchen.
"A stomachache if she eats too many cookies, but there's nothing on the stove, and the knives are put away. Why?"
He gripped her hips and lifted her. "Rather than tell
