Born to Be Wild by Patti Berg Page A

started a new life years before and didn’t want him to be a part of it. It was just as well, because he had no interest in her, either. All he’d wanted from Loretta Wilde was information about his brother and sister, but she’d blocked them from her mind as easily as she’d shut out Max.
    “Are you okay?” Jamie asked, her small, soapy fingers lightly touching his hand.
    Nodding, Max slid off the barstool and headed for the sink. He bent down, eye level with his lit tle girl, and touched her face. “Have I ever told you how glad I am to have you and Ryan?”
    “A time or two.” She bit her lower lip again, and he couldn’t miss the worried frown in her eyes. “Will you still want us when you find your sister?”
    Max laughed. “I’ll always want you.”
    “But you haven’t adopted us.”
    He stood, lifting Jamie and setting her on the edge of the counter. He put his hands in the warm, soapy dishwasher, taking over the chore she hated. “You have a father,” he reminded her.
    “He’s in jail. I don’t even remember him.”
    “Well, he remembers you, and he doesn’t want to give you up.”
    “Ryan thinks you should talk to our dad. He thinks you could talk him into giving us up.”
    “What do you think?”
    “That you’re the only dad I’ve ever really known.”
    He dried off his hands and rested a hip on the counter next to her. “Does being adopted mean that much to you?”
    Jamie nodded, and slipped her small hand into his much bigger one.
    “For what it’s worth, it means a lot to me, too.” Ryan had come into the kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator. “Sometimes I think you don’t want to adopt us.”
    “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I hadn’t given it much thought.”
    “Why?” Jamie asked. “Didn’t you want Philippe to adopt you?”
    He tried to remember if he’d ever had any feelings one way or another about being adopted. Philippe Bernard had been a far better father than Max’s real dad had been, and that was enough for Max.
    “We never discussed it,” Max said. “He was always there for me and I knew he loved me— even though he never said it in so many words. That seemed enough at the time.” He smiled at Ryan and Jamie. “You know that I love you, don’t you?”
    Jamie nodded, but Ryan shrugged and stared at the floor. Displays of emotion weren’t that easy for him, not at fourteen. “Yeah... I suppose.”
    Max had been fifteen when Philippe took him in. He’d been a tough kid who hadn’t needed or wanted anyone. He saw a lot of himself in Ryan. Jamie, however, was quiet, sensitive, and still a little girl—his little girl.
    Two years ago when he’d brought Ryan home, he’d just turned twelve. He was angry at Max, angry at the world, and did little more than sit in a corner and glare. Max had managed to get nine-year-old Jamie a couple of months later, and the very first night she’d crawled into his lap. She’d looked at him with her sweet, baby-blue eyes—eyes filled with tears—and said she hoped he wouldn’t get rid of her or Ryan too soon, because she was tired of moving from one foster home to another, tired of being separated from her brother, tired of learning new rules everywhere she went.
    Max knew that feeling all too well.
    That memory, and his need to comfort her, made him wrap his arm around Jamie and hold her close. Two years ago when Max had asked about the possibility of adoption, he was told that Ryan and Jamie’s dad refused to give them up, that he swore he’d get out of prison eventually and take care of his kids.
    But their dad had never contacted them. He hadn’t made any attempt to cooperate with the system and was denied parole the last time around. Max had come to the conclusion the guy would be in jail for the rest of his life.
    But what if he did get out? What if he took Jamie and Ryan away? What if he violated parole again? And what if he got drunk and this time the kids were in the car with