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he couldn’t make a connection with the little girl. That somehow he would mess up her life.
    Tuck didn’t need to hear all that, though.
    “We’re having coffee to talk about it this evening.” And just this morning he’d swabbed his cheek and sent the sample to the clinic.
    Alex flipped the hours sign on the office door to Closed and marked the time they would be back in the morning. He grabbed his keys from the hook behind the door and started for his truck. He’d let Paige lead the way. For now.

CHAPTER THREE
    P AIGE SQUEEZED HER hands—hard—around her phone and then hit the delete key on her last text. The one that read Sorry, something suddenly came up. She couldn’t do that to him.
    To her.
    The sooner she figured out what kind of man Alex Ryan was, the sooner her life could start forming the new normal it needed. DNA testing would take a few weeks, but if physical looks were anything to go by, she didn’t need that confirmation. Kaylie was practically a miniature Alex. Still, she’d swabbed her daughter’s cheek the night before and dropped off the strip at the clinic this morning. Maybe soon she could go to the grocery store without wondering if Alex would be buying grapes in the produce section or if her neighbors had figured out that there was more to the man sitting outside her house than met the eye.
    Alex buzzed back that he would meet her there and before she could retype the blow-off message, Paige tossed her phone into her bag.
    It was ridiculous, really, all the weird scenarios that had played out in her head over the past two days. Since inviting him into her home, she’d had a nightmare that he fought her for custody, and then a made-for-TV dream about them falling in love and living happily ever after, complete with more tawny-haired, crooked-smiling kids in her house. Her fifth graders were studying a unit on the human body and Paige caught herself drawing Alex’s image as the model for the male face.
    Now she’d have to grade at least two dozen renditions of Alex’s warm eyes and full lips. Paige sighed. This was not how a mature adult would react. A mature adult would hammer out the details of visitation through lawyers. The only lawyers Paige knew were friends of her parents, though, and she wasn’t about to call that kind of drama into her life.
    She could do this on her own.
    Kaylie wandered in the door, dragging her Lalaloopsy backpack in one hand and her jacket in the other. “Hi, Mama.” She tossed the light pack and jacket on Paige’s desk, folded her arms and leaned against it. “Guess what we did today in circle time?”
    Kaylie attended preschool at the small school where Paige taught. She pushed thoughts of Alex and joint custody aside to focus on the little girl.
    “What?”
    “We learned a new song about the days of the week. And I can teach it to you so you know, too. Ready?” Paige nodded and waited. Kaylie snapped her fingers twice and then began singing to the tune of The Addams Family theme song, “There’s Sunday and there’s Monday...”
    Paige watched her daughter, singing and snapping, and felt tears welling up in her eyes. He was going to love her, love her and want more and more time with her. Paige wasn’t sure she knew how to share her daughter. Didn’t know that she wanted to. She hurried around the desk and wrapped Kaylie in a tight hug. The little girl wiggled and pushed away.
    “Too tight! And I’m not done yet.” Paige released her, reluctantly, and Kaylie finished the song. “Think you can remember that?”
    Paige nodded. “You are a very good teacher, sweetpea,” she said mock-solemnly.
    Kaylie looked at her expectantly.
    “What?”
    “Hug now.” And she held out her arms. Paige wrapped her back up, hugging her tightly while Kaylie burrowed her head against Paige’s neck, like she’d done since she was an infant.
    It didn’t matter how cute Alex Ryan was, Paige realized. It didn’t matter that on paper he seemed like a good