Free Lucky Penny by Catherine Anderson

a painful collision of heads by jerking back in the nick of time. Her noggin barely missed his nose. He grinned down at her.
    “Well, now,” he said. “I’ve always heard tell that finders are keepers, but nobody ever said what to do when there are
two
finders.”
    Without picking up the coin, the child straightened and blushed. “I’m sorry, mister. I didn’t know you’d seen it, too.”
    “Well, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat, “I wouldn’t dream of depriving a lady of anything she wanted that much, so please—”
    David forgot what else he meant to say.
Sweet Jesus.
The child standing before him was the spitting image of his mother, with the same golden curls, big blue eyes, delicate turned-up nose, and pointy little chin. Her mouth was even shaped like Dory’s, and she had the same deep dimple in her left cheek. David had the queer impression for an instant that everything stopped. His innards felt like they had a few years back when a dun-colored steer had kicked him in the gut during the annual town rodeo. Cold prickles scuttled all over him.
    “Daphne?” His lips formed the name soundlessly. A puzzled look came over the child’s face, and David forced his tongue into action. “Daphne?” he said again, wondering why he made the word sound like a question. There
was
noquestion. This child had the Paxton stamp all over her. “Daphne,” he said again on the crest of a sigh, feeling as if all the air in his body rushed out through his mouth.
    Her eyes went wide. Her perfect little mouth popped into an O of astonishment as she peered up at his face. “Papa?” she said incredulously.
    Oh, Lord.
Papa.
David wasn’t a man to get weepy over every little thing, but his eyes stung as he looked down at the little girl.
His.
No question about it. His knees went shaky. He felt a mite dizzy. Myriad emotions pummeled him. His throat ached, his chest hurt, and the urge to snatch her up into his arms and never let go was so strong that his fingertips throbbed.
    But, no. If he touched her, he might frighten her. He looked down into those clear blue eyes, now fixed on his face. Waves of sickening shame swelled inside him, crowding his heart until it felt as if it might burst through his rib cage.
Dear Lord, what have I done?
This was without question his daughter, and he’d failed miserably to do right by her. David half expected lightning to flash from the sky and strike him dead, for surely siring a child and abandoning her was high on God’s list of reprehensible acts. He had no memory whatsoever of having been intimate with this child’s mother, but the family resemblance was too marked to refute.
    Snippets of Daphne’s letters to him swirled in his mind—her plea for money to have just one new dress, her reference to sometimes eating food from trash barrels, and her repeated pleas for him to come visit her. She’d been without a father all her life, she’d suffered for it, and it was no one’s fault but his. In that moment, he made a solemn vow to himself that she would never want for anything again.
    David tried to speak, but his voice failed him. Just as well. He hadn’t a clue what he was going to say. He just stared at her, taking in every detail. She was all-over beautiful in her pretty pink dress, patterned with rosebuds of a darker hue and trimmed with ribbon and lace. Her tiny feet were encased in brand-new patent leather slippers. A silk bow, tied pertly at the top of her blond head, fluttered in the breeze.
    Just then, her corn-silk curls shifted to expose the side of her neck. Below her ear was a tiny strawberry splotch, the Paxton birthmark, passed down from his mother’s side of the family for generations. If he’d had any lingering doubts, seeing that mark erased them. Practically every child in his family was born with that mark. David’s skin had darkened over time from exposure to the sun, but his mark was still visible. There was no mistake. His blood flowed in this child’s