“You have your moments,” he said.

“I know.” She smiled. “I can be brilliant on demand. It’s a gift.”

“Okay. Be brilliant now and tell me what to say to Lindsey.”

“How about telling her that you’re her father and that you love her very much?”

Before he could answer, Tracy came out of a room at the far end of the hall. She wore a long hospital gown.

“Hi,” she said as she approached. “Right on time. Are you ready to get all covered up? Lindsey’s doing great. Even better than we’d all hoped. It looks like she’ll be able to come home fairly soon. Not that she can go back to school. No crowds for her for a while, but still. We’re happy and so very grateful.”

She was nervous. Cal could see it in her eyes and hear it in her fast-paced words.

“Tracy,” he began.

She shook her head. “It’s fine. Really. This is for the best. Lindsey wants to meet the man who saved her life and you want to meet your daughter. I didn’t tell her. I…” She swallowed. “I didn’t know how,” she admitted. “Which is probably a good thing. You’ve been waiting to tell her for a long time. You’ve more than earned this, Cal. Really. Tom and I are so grateful.”

“Thank you,” he said.

He felt Penny take his hand. He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed. At least he’d been smart enough to bring her along. He had a feeling he was going to need a friend through all this.

Speaking of which…“Tracy, this is Penny Jackson.”

Penny leaned forward and shook hands. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’m so pleased your daughter is doing well. You’ve been through such a difficult time and deserve to hear good news.”

“Thank you.” Tracy stared at Penny’s stomach. “Your first?”

Penny hesitated only a second, then nodded. “I’m due in September and getting bigger by the second.”

Tracy’s smile faded. “We wanted children, but I wasn’t able to carry a baby past the twelfth week. There’s a complex medical term for it. So we decided to adopt. Cal gave us Lindsey and she’s been a blessing to us every day.”

“I’m glad,” he told her.

Penny’s hold on his hand tightened.

“All right, let’s go,” Tracy said. “Lindsey’s doing great. At first she was really sick, but that faded quickly. Now she’s just waiting until she’s able to go home. Oh, you know she lost her hair in chemo, right?”

Cal hadn’t. It made sense, but he hated the thought of her beautiful blond hair falling out.

“She’s hoping she’ll get some curl when it grows back in,” Tracy continued. “Did her biological mother have curly hair?”

“What? No. Alison’s hair was straight.” And pale blond. Lindsey’s had been golden-blond and long. How much time would it take her to grow it back?

“Welcome to the germ-free zone,” Tracy said as they walked through the doorway. “Nothing can go into Lindsey’s room without being disinfected.”

“I didn’t bring her anything,” Cal said. He’d wanted to but his reading had warned him that she wouldn’t be able to accept anything like flowers or plants. He hadn’t known what else to bring.

“Good.” She showed him where the gowns and masks were, along with booties and caps for his hair. Penny settled into a chair with a magazine.

“Good luck,” she told him.

Five minutes later he was in Lindsey’s room. Tracy introduced him. Lindsey smiled and kept her gaze firmly fixed on him.

He looked back. His daughter was tall and slender, with large blue eyes and a smile that could light up Seattle. She wore a scarf on her head that reminded him of Penny’s head coverings in the kitchen.

He could see bits of Alison in her-the shape of her eyes, the way she tilted her head.

“I don’t know what to say,” Lindsey told him with a shy smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I was glad to help.”

“Did it hurt when they took your bone marrow?”

“I was asleep. I had a couple of bruises afterwards, but they’re no big deal. You’re the one going through the worst of it.”

Lindsey wrinkled her nose. “I was really sick for a while. Chemo is totally gross. But it’s over and now I’m feeling better.”

She sat up in her bed, on top of the covers. Brightly colored sweats covered her legs and she had on a blue long-sleeved fuzzy shirt that buttoned in front. There were IV lines coming from her chest and her arm.

“We should all sit,” Tracy said as she busied herself pulling up a couple of chairs.

Cal took the one closest to his daughter. She was so beautiful, he thought. He’d seen her before, of course, but always from a distance. Now he was close enough to see the color in her cheeks and the little mole she had on the side of her neck.

“I understand you’re a senior in high school,” he said.

“Yeah.” She sighed. “I’m probably going to miss graduation. Even though I’ll be better by then, it’s a big crowd and I have to avoid them for the next six months. I’m going to UW. Um, the University of Washington.”

He grinned. “I know. I went there.”

“Really? What did you study?”

“Business.”

“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose again. “I’m going pre-law. I want to learn about a lot of different things. Then I’m going to law school to study environmental law. You know, save the planet.”

She was young enough to believe that was possible, he thought in wonder. And he was entranced enough to think she could.

“I won’t be starting until January, though. The whole crowd thing. But my mom talked to the admissions people and there are some classes I can take online, which is totally great. So I’ll have the same number of units as everyone else when I finally get there.”

“You’ll have to let me know how it all goes,” he said.

“Really? You’d be interested?”

Tracy smiled at her daughter. “Honey, he just saved your life. I think he has a little something invested in your future.”

“Right. I never thought of it that way. Okay. Sure. I can let you know. Do you do e-mail?”

He nodded.

“Me, too. I love it. And instant messaging. I would just die without that and my cell phone to keep in touch with all my friends.” She flashed a smile at Tracy. “Mom’s been great about letting me do that. Of course we got unlimited local calling and my friends all have it, too.” Her voice trailed off. “You probably don’t care about that.”

Actually, he did. He wanted to hear about every aspect of her life. He couldn’t believe he was here, so close to her. He wanted to hug her and tell her who he was. He wanted to show her New York and Europe and watch her grow into a beautiful woman. Mostly, he wanted to turn back the clock and watch her from the time she’d been born.

The combination of pleasure at her company and pain for all he’d missed immobilized him. He ached in a way he’d never hurt before. She was incredible and no matter what he said or did, he couldn’t get those years back.

Lindsey frowned. “You look kinda familiar. It’s hard to tell with the mask, but I saw you when you came into the dressing room and I thought…” She looked from him to her mom, then back. “Do I know you?”

He’d been waiting for this moment for seventeen years. Here it was-the perfect invitation. The chance to tell her who he was.

Penny held her breath. Despite being in the waiting room, she could hear their conversation and she could feel Cal’s longing to be with his daughter. Love radiated out from him like heat from a stove. He’d done the right thing over and over and this was his reward. Yet she couldn’t help wanting to stop him.

The girl was an innocent in all this. She’d never wanted to know her birth parents. Why tell her now? It would change her forever, and possibly not in a good way. But Penny knew that Cal had earned this moment and right or wrong, he would take it.

“You’ve seen me,” Cal said, his voice thick with emotion.

Penny’s eyes filled with tears. She glanced at Tracy and saw the woman trembling with emotion. No doubt she was terrified she would lose some part of her daughter. That a piece of her heart would be given to Cal.

“I’m one of the owners of The Daily Grind. My partners and I used to do the commercials on television.”

Penny blinked back tears as her heart froze in her chest. Was that it? She braced herself for more and was stunned when after a second Lindsey said, “Oh, yeah. That’s it. I knew you looked like somebody I knew.”

Then she mentioned how sad she was to miss the prom, but that her boyfriend had promised her they would go dancing as soon as she could handle the crowds. Cal asked if she had any pets and the conversation continued.

Tracy looked as stunned as she, Penny, felt. What had just happened? Why had Cal passed over the perfect opportunity to tell Lindsey who he was?

Fifteen minutes later the visit ended. Cal promised to answer Lindsey’s e-mail and she promised to keep in touch. She turned on the TV before they left the room.

When the door to Lindsey’s room was closed, Tracy turned to him. “Why didn’t you tell her?” she asked in a low voice.

Cal pulled off his protective gown. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t say the words. She’s a great kid, Tracy, and that’s because of you and Tom. But she’s still young and I didn’t want to screw with her world.”

Tracy threw herself at him. “Thank you,” she said as tears poured down her cheeks. “Thank you. I know you could have told her. You had every right. You’ve given her to us twice now and taken nothing for yourself. I don’t know how to repay that kind of sacrifice.”

Penny found herself fighting tears of her own. When Cal looked at her and raised his eyebrows, she shrugged. “Hormones,” she said with a sniff.

He patted Tracy’s back until she straightened. “I should get back to her,” she said.

“Thanks for letting me meet her,” he told Tracy.

“You’re a great man, Cal. Truly.” She wiped her face, then entered her daughter’s room.

Cal was quiet the whole way to the car. Once they were on the road, he looked at her. “I know it’s only three in the afternoon, but I need a drink. Want to keep me company?”

“Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere quiet. How about my place?”

“Okay.”

He didn’t speak again until they arrived at his house. Penny followed him inside, then watched as he poured himself a Scotch. After he’d taken a long drink, she walked over and touched his arm.

“You did a good thing,” she murmured.

He looked at her. “It hurt like hell. All I wanted was for her to be mine. I couldn’t stop thinking about everything I’d missed by giving her up. All those years. But look at the life she has with Tracy and Tom. I couldn’t have done that. I’d be hard-pressed to do that now, let alone at seventeen.”

“What changed your mind?”

He took another drink. “I realized that loving my daughter meant wanting what was best for her. For her, not for me. As much as I might want a place in her life, that’s not what she wants. She’s looking forward to college and growing up to change the world. She has great parents. She doesn’t need me barging in and changing everything.”

He put down the drink. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder than giving her up, even, because now I know what I’ve lost and back then I could only guess.”

She felt his pain as if it were her own. “I can’t fix this, but for what it’s worth, I’m incredibly proud of you. You did good.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded, then moved in front of him and raised herself on tiptoe so she could kiss his mouth. “Lindsey’s a very lucky young lady. She has a hell of a father in you.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. As his mouth claimed hers, she felt his longing for both sex and relief from the pain. He wanted to find solace in her.

She gave in because she couldn’t imagine walking away. Not when she wanted him, too. But even as he ran his hands up and down her back and touched her bottom lip with his tongue, she knew she was making a big mistake.

Nothing had changed. If anything, Cal’s actions today had only reinforced what she knew to be true. He loved Lindsey enough to make the big and painful sacrifices. He was, at his core, a good man.

But that had never been the issue between them. The problems had been about his inability to love more than just his daughter. He hadn’t opened his heart to Penny or their child.

Had that changed or was she beating her head against an unmoving emotional wall?

“Earth to Penny,” he murmured, kissing the side of her neck. “You’re a thousand miles away. Do you want me to stop?”

Heat poured through her body. Every nerve ending begged for his touch. She wrapped her arms around him and surrendered to his sensual caress.

“Of course not,” she whispered.

“Good.”

He returned his mouth to hers. She parted for him. As he swept inside, she told herself it was a hell of a time to realize she was still in love with him.