Free Running Scared by Lisa Jackson

you believed that, you would have told me a long time ago—”
    “Okay, I’m telling you because I’m scared. I don’t want this kid in my life, all right? I don’t want to explain to the boy or to my friends or my family that my bastard cousin and I had an affair.”
    “It wasn’t an af—”
    “Doesn’t matter. We conceived a child, Daegan. Not only is that kid a bastard, like you, my dear, but the product of some kind of incest as well.”
    He closed his eyes for a second—to get his bearings. Incest. Worse than being born illegitimate and never recognized by your family! No matter what happened, the kid was going to end up scarred for life.
    “I can’t afford that skeleton to come strolling out of my closet right now.”
    “Why’s that?”
    She stared down at her left hand and Daegan noticed her ring and the large diamond that winked in the smoky bar. So the rock was more than just another expensive bauble. “I’m engaged.”
    “Not the first time.”
    “No, but this time I want it to last, and Kyle, he’s a decent man—a good man who has certain values. It bothers him that I’m divorced, but he handled it and I…well, I even owned up to having a baby out of wedlock. That nearly ended our relationship, but Kyle finally accepted that he couldn’t change the past. However, if Dad gets his way and the boy shows up and it comes out that you’re the father…”
    “I get the picture.” His stomach sour, he took a long pull on his beer and wished this were all just a dream—a nightmare.
    “It doesn’t help that I lied.”
    “Never does.”
    Glancing at her watch, she hurried on, “You’ve done a lot of things in your life, I know.”
    “You’ve kept up on me?”
    “As best I could,” she said and he realized suddenly the full potential of this woman, how strong she really was. A victim no longer, one in charge of her own fate. “Now you’re a rancher out here in the middle of nowhere, but before that you were a rodeo rider, and before that a tracker who took city slickers on trail rides and hunted game in the wilderness.” She pointed a well-manicured nail at his face. “From what I hear, there was even a time when you were a private investigator and you tracked down people. That’s what I want you to do, Daegan,” she said, staring at him. “I want you to find our son before Daddy does.”
    “No way! Are you crazy?”
    “You have to—we have to!”
    “Why? What if we do find him? What then?”
    “Hell, I don’t know. But I can’t have the kid coming back and screwing up my life, not now.” She reached across the table in desperation, her fingers twisting into the sleeves of his rawhide jacket. “You hate the family. I know it. You hate your father and mine, so why not thwart them—get even for once? Besides, the kid is yours as much as he is mine.”
    “The problem is he belongs to his adoptive parents.”
    “Unless the adoption was botched.”
    “What good would that do?”
    “None. It only helps my father’s case. Oh, God, this is such a mess.” She let go of him and fell back against the tufted naugahyde seat. “But whoever has my baby, and I think I know who that is, was in on the illegal adoption. I know I never signed any paperwork. The woman who ended up with him knows it, too.”
    “The woman? Not a couple?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    Daegan glared at her. He’d never really trusted Bibi. After all, her name was Sullivan.
    “I’ll pay you,” she said. “If you can find a way to keep Daddy from locating the boy, I’ll see that it’s worth your time.”
    “I can’t promise that.”
    “I know, oh, how well I know.” She rolled her eyes and sighed loudly. “You know, Daegan, your latent sense of morality is a real pain in the ass.”
    He frowned and weighed her offer over in his mind. If he’d really fathered a kid, then he damned well wanted to know about it, to find the boy, to let him know—what? That his natural mother and father had gotten