Heiress for Hire (Cuttersville #2)(2)
Author: Erin McCarthy

He shook his head, even as his body reacted just to the thought of her tall, thin, sun-kissed body. "You’re a damn fool, Tucker," he muttered.

A woman like that wouldn’t look twice at a lug like him—and if she did, she’d toddle herself right back out of town on her toothpick heels after she’d tired of him. Wasn’t a future with a woman like that.

Rubbing his hands down the front of his jeans, Danny stopped in his drive and watched the pickup crawl to a stop in a cloud of dust. He could see a man and what looked like a little boy in the passenger seat. He was starting to think maybe they were lost.

"Can I help you folks?" he asked, as the man stepped out of a truck that looked like it had just slid off the assembly line, shiny and dent-free under the layer of farm dust that had just coated it. The tires were three sizes too small for the height of the truck, which must have jarred the guy’s teeth coming up Danny’s dirt driveway.

The man himself was tall and lanky, wearing low-slung nylon cargo pants and a basketball jersey, his thick, gold chain necklace flashing in the sun. Danny wasn’t overly impressed with his done-up car or his abundant jewelry. There was something about a man who primped like a girl that sat wrong with Danny. But he would be friendly, a nice guy, until given a reason not to be.

"You Danny Tucker?"

"Yeah." Danny’s shoulders went up at the man’s belligerent tone. "Do I know you?"

The guy snorted. "No. But you knew Nina Schwartz, didn’t you?" He turned and called over his shoulder, "Get out of the truck!"

Nina Schwartz? Danny didn’t know a Nina. It was a small town, and he didn’t leave Cuttersville too often.

Slowly, the passenger door creaked open and two small gym shoes hit the dirt. A solemn set of eyes, set in a thin face half covered by a baseball hat, peered around the door at him. It was a kid. Just a little kid, no more than eight or nine years old.

"I don’t know any Nina Schwartz."

"Maybe she never told you her name, but you knew her alright. About nine years ago, I imagine. When was you born, Piper? I can’t remember exactly."

"April 23," the child said with a soft, frightened voice.

Big brown eyes locked with his before skittering away and Danny had a suddenly horrible feeling that this man was trying to tell him something he didn’t think he wanted to hear.

"So what was you doing in July nine summers ago, Danny Tucker? You meet a girl from Xenia and get it on?"

Nine years ago. That had been the summer between his junior and senior year in high school. The summer he and his longtime sweetheart, Shelby, had broken up over a misunderstanding about sex. He had wanted it; she hadn’t. So when he’d been footloose, fancy-free, and more than a bit heartbroken, he’d gone to the county fair.

And met a girl named Nina from Xenia, who had been a friendly sort. Friendly enough that she had suggested they go for a drive, which had resulted in them both naked and him losing his virginity.

Oh, shit.

"I can see from the look on your face that your memory’s coming back." The guy reached into his pocket. "She put you on the birth certificate."

Danny cleared his throat and tried not to panic. He glanced at the kid, who was making circles in the dirt with his toe. This could not be his child. It just couldn’t be, because this kid was half grown and, and…

He took the piece of paper. The words blurred together, but he managed to make out the vitals. Mother: Nina Schwartz, age 16.

Christ almighty, she had told him she was eighteen. He’d knocked up a kid, nothing more than a kid.

Of course, that kid had shown him a whole range of sexual tricks he’d never even dreamed of, but that was beside the damn point.

Father: Daniel Tucker, age 17.

A sticky note was attached to the front of the birth certificate. Danny Tucker, 1893 Mill Road, Cuttersville. There was a heart drawn around his name.

Oh, boy.

"Why didn’t she ever tell me if she thought I was the father?"

"She told her boyfriend it was his, and they got married. But

Nina wasn’t all that bright, and she put your name on the birth certificate. He found it a couple of years later and walked out."

"Who are you then?"

"I’m Nina’s third husband, Mark Johnson. She’s dead now. Nina got a bit too attached to her happy pills and took one too many. We had some good times, and I was torn up when she died, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to keep her brat."

Danny watched in shock as Mark reached into the truck and pulled out a battered suitcase, then a box heaped with dingy stuffed animals and a faded yellow blanket. He carelessly dumped them on the driveway.

"Here’s all her stuff."

"Her stuff?" Danny looked dumbly at the box, the birth certificate still clutched in his hand.

"Yeah. Piper’s shit. Your daughter. I can’t keep her any more. The kid always did creep me out with her big eyes and her imaginary friends."

Mark Johnson climbed into his truck and gave him a wave.

Then he pulled out and started down the drive with more speed than was strictly wise on a dirt road. He’d tear up his shocks doing that.

Danny looked at the kid he’d thought was a boy. The kid who was supposedly his kid.

And decided it wasn’t wise to wish for things. Sometimes they arrived when you least expected it, in different packaging than you’d planned.

He’d just gotten his family in the form of one very skinny, silent, eight-year-old girl.

Whose mother had overdosed and whose stepfather was a selfish ass**le.

Oh, boy.

Chapter 2

Danny took a deep breath and looked down at the kid. Piper. His kid. Daughter. Damn.

"Hey," he said, crouching down into a squat so he could get a better look at her. "So your name’s Piper, huh? Is that a nickname?"

She shook her head, the bill of her Cincinnati Reds baseball cap covering her face. The hat looked filthy, old, the bill cracked in the middle and an oily line of dirt circling the rim. Her shoulders were dusty, her white tank top thin from too many washings and faded into a dingy gray. The denim shorts that hugged her tiny waist were too small for her, which was amazing considering a dandelion fluff probably weighed more than she did. He was guessing those shorts were meant for a toddler, not an eight-year-old girl, and the sight of it made his heart clench and his gut churn.

No one had been taking care of this child in a long time. "So, okay, Piper’s your real name. Got a middle name? A last name?"

A long, slim finger stretched out and pointed to the birth certificate. Right. Her name must be on it. He studied it. "Piper Danielle Schwartz. Now that’s a fine name. Got style. Says you’re coming into a room."