Texas…Now and Forever by Merline Lovelace

play-act anymore. You dumped the kid because no one knew where I was and you got desperate. You could have waited until I came back to Mission Creek to establish paternity. The DNA resultswould have made that a breeze. But you hit on a better scheme, didn’t you? Instead of child support spread out over a number of years, you decided on a nice, fat ransom paid all up front. You won’t get it,” he warned in a voice so cold it could have cut glass. “You won’t get a cent from me that way.”
    â€œOh, God!” Stunned, she tried to wrap her mind around his accusations. “You think I arranged to have my own child kidnapped so I could extort money from you?”
    His lip curled. “Prove me wrong, Daisy. Tell me you didn’t come to the Saddlebag tonight to deliver a ransom demand.”
    â€œLuke, listen to me. You’ve got this all backward.”
    â€œHow much?” he snarled. “Tell me, dammit! What’s the asking price for a baby these days?”
    â€œAll right! They want two million!”
    â€œTwo million, huh?”
    Luke would have paid ten. An hour ago he would have cashed in every stock and bond he owned to buy the safe return of his child.
    He didn’t understand this urgent need to hold this daughter he’d never seen. He wanted a family, sure. Someday. He’d spent most of his childhood in boarding schools under the loose guardianship of his uncle, but Stew had shown far more interestin the leggy showgirls he wined and dined in Vegas than in his nephew.
    The military had become Luke’s substitute family. First at V.M.I., then in the marines. Although he’d shed his uniform after being charged with contributing to Haley Mercado’s death, the tight bonds forged during his years in the service had provided all the kith and kin he’d needed. Until he’d learned he had a daughter.
    Tyler Murdoch had delivered the news. Deep in a steamy jungle, right after the explosion that had sent shards of shrapnel slicing into Luke’s face.
    The knowledge that he’d fathered a child had sustained Luke throughout the painful operations that followed. He’d come home to Mission Creek blind but determined to do right by his daughter. Determined, too, to find the woman who’d abandoned her. He’d pictured her frightened. Desperate. Unable to care for her baby and driven to the extreme of leaving her on a golf course. He could have forgiven her that.
    What Luke couldn’t forgive was that the baby had been kidnapped just days before his return to Mission Creek. The timing was too close to write off as mere coincidence. More to the point, the evidence he’d so painstakingly gathered over the past months implicated this waitress in Lena’s disappearance.
    Disgust bit into him, so deep and bitter he could taste it. He still didn’t know who she really was or where she’d sprung from, but he was sure of one thing. When they recovered Lena—which they would—there was no way in hell Luke would leave his daughter with this sorry excuse for a mother.
    Bringing his face down to within inches of hers, he stripped matters to their core. “Let’s get one thing absolutely straight between us, lady. You’re not getting one cent from me, let alone two million. But you are going to take me to wherever you’ve stashed our baby. We’ll sort matters out from there.”
    Haley snapped. After all she’d been through, after all the stress and false identities and lies she’d been forced to live, Luke Callaghan had the nerve, the unmitigated, unfettered, unqualified gall, to accuse her of using her own baby in a scheme to extort money from him! With a surge of fury, she shoved at his chest and opened enough space between them to spit out her rage.
    â€œListen and listen good, cowboy! You’re dead wrong on every count but one. The man who snatched our child has demanded a ransom, but I