Daddy by Surprise by Debra Salonen Page B

the charge. “I’m not. I’m…remembering.”
    “Well, don’t,” she snapped. “What happened didn’t happen. Not really. That wasn’t me.”
    “You were hot.”
    “Shut up.”
    “ We were hot.”
    “I don’t want to talk about it. What happened was a mistake. I’ve made plenty in my life. All involving the wrong men. I don’t even know you well enough to say just how wrong you are, but…never mind. I need to go now. Can you drive? Or should I call my friend to pick me up?”
    He looked down. The swollen mass on his chest looked almost normal. A slight puffiness still outlined the black tattoo that encircled his bicep, but the itching had subsided. He shifted around so she could see his back. “I feel okay. How’s my neck look? Maybe great sex is a better cure than antihistamines.”
    Her low growl filled the room, as if from one of her namesake’s larger relatives. Puma. Cougar. Angry lioness. “Then get dressed, because we’re leaving.”
    She marched toward the door, chin high, but he could tell she was blinking back tears. “I’ll wait outside. And I need to use your phone again,” she said, snatching the cell from the table where she’d set it the night before.
    “But I’m starving,” he said, getting up. The bulk of his clothes were right where he’d left them, neatly draped over the chair in the corner. He pulled on his pants. Strange how his clothing had felt different when he’d been Mad Jack. “Can we at least eat breakfast, first, then I take you home?”
    She fumbled with the safety lock.
    “I’ll meet you at the bike,” she said, opening the door. She glanced at her watch. “Tag’s dad is going to have my head if he tries to drop off Tag early and I’m not there.”
    She was out the door before he could ask her why the guy thought he had the right to drop off their kid outside the set times. Jack finished dressing and used the bathroom. He would have liked a shower, but that was going to have to wait. Besides, he wasn’t in any hurry for his tattoos to wear off. They were a reminder of the best night of his life. If not for them, he probably never would have been in the same room with Kat, let alone the same bed.
     
    K AT FOUND a shady spot within eyeshot of the motorcycle that reminded her all too vividly of the coal-black horse that Mad Jack had ridden in her dream. She groaned softly and fought back tears. Not only was she a loose woman of questionable morals, she was losing her mind. She needed help. And there was only one person she dared call. Libby.
    After a deep breath to steady her hand, she flipped open the phone and punched in the number, remembering too late that there was a time difference between the Hills and the West Coast.
    “Hello?”
    “Lib? Did I wake you?”
    “Kat? No, I’m up. Jenna and I have started taking early-morning walks along the beach. She spent the night with Shane, though, so I’m alone. Coop insists I carry my phone when I go out. I figured this was him checking up on me. He worries like an old woman.”
    Kat smiled for the first time in what seemed like several centuries. “He loves you, Lib. It’s good to worry when you love someone.”
    “I know. I tease him about it, but actually he’s so sweet I can hardly believe this life of mine is real.”
    Kat was envious. It was natural to kindle a little flame of hope when you witnessed love of this kind in someone else’s life. For a while there, Kat had even dared hope that that kind of love would happen to her. But, no. Instead, she’d spent the night with a client and wound up making love to a figment of her dream—only for real, too.
    “Is something wrong, Kat?”
    Kat wasn’t sure where to begin…or if she should mention the dream part. Would everyone think she was crazy? Maybe she was. “I gave a guy a couple of tattoos and he wound up having an allergic reaction.”
    “To henna? Is he suing you?”
    “No. Not exactly. He provided the ink…That’s not why I’m