Free The Daughter He Wanted by Kristina Knight Page A

worth the risk. So he repeated himself.
    “Do you want to go to dinner sometime? Just the two of us?”

CHAPTER SIX
    P AIGE REACHED FOR her glass, took a slow sip of tea. Have dinner?
    No, that was a bad idea, with a capital B and I for emphasis.
    They were supposed to keep this friendly, get to know one another.
    Still, her heart had leaped in her chest at his words, and she knew they were so much more than friendly.
    Her reaction was similar to the ones she’d had toward her crushes in high school. The flying feeling that accompanied her wild trip to Texas over spring break; the excitement at seeing how her father’s face practically glowed when he learned she was dating one of his students. Every single one of those situations had ended with a loud implosion and weeks of Paige picking herself up and putting herself back together.
    Dinner was an exceptionally bad idea.
    She finished her glass and, because her hands wanted to fidget, she set the glass away from her and then folded them primly in her lap. Squeezed her fingers until her knuckles turned white as a reminder to remain calm. Poised. Fidgeting was a sign of weakness according to Dot; weakness was not tolerated.
    “Are you asking me out on a date?” She wished the words back but it was too late.
    Alex slipped his finger around the middle of his glass, making a gap in the condensation on the outside. “Yeah, I am.”
    Paige looked through the sliding glass doors, but Alison was nowhere to be seen. For that matter neither was Tuck, and Kaylie was across the yard at the sandbox, having given up on swinging from the trapeze. No one to come to her rescue. No one to interrupt what was going to be a very uncomfortable conversation.
    She cleared her throat. “Why?”
    “Because you interest me. No one has interested me in...well, a long time.” He squinted as he looked into the bright afternoon sunshine. “I want to get to know you. Dinner seems like a good option.”
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We barely know each other.”
    “That’s how dating usually starts—with two people who don’t really know each other but who want to get to know one another.” He finished his tea. “I think it would be good if I knew Kaylie’s mom a little better.”
    Kaylie was the perfect excuse to turn him down, Paige decided. “I don’t date, not really. I especially don’t date men who have a connection to my daughter. She’s just a little girl, she can’t understand the emotions that go into dating—or stopping dating, for that matter.”
    “It’s only dinner. A chance for me to get to know Paige, not just Kaylie’s mom. A chance for you to understand Alex rather than the anonymous number on the sperm-donor sheet.”
    “We did that already. Coffee last Friday, remember? You know I’m a schoolteacher, I know you’re a park ranger and we’ve already agreed that you’ll start out as Kaylie’s friend before we move to the more serious stuff.” She had to remain firm on this. For Kaylie.
    Maybe a little bit for herself. Because look how interested she was in him now and she’d only known him for a few days.
    “One coffee date, and we never touched on your actual art. Your plans for the future. Mine, for that matter.” Alex pushed away from the table. “I like what I know of Paige-the-Woman. I’d like to get to know more about her.”
    Oh, so dangerous. Getting to know the real Paige. Would that be the Paige who helped to plastic-wrap the police cruiser the night of the big ice storm? Or would that be the Paige who scored exceptionally high on her SATs only to choose art school over an Ivy League education?
    Or maybe he’d like to know the Paige who used men as a means of getting her parents’ attention. She’d been living down Fun Paige’s reputation for almost five years, since the night she broke things off with the law student and decided to change the direction of her life.
    Most people didn’t mention all the hell she’d raised as a