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“You love them. You’re a turnpike kind of guy. Be honest, Mat. What’s going on with you and those kids?”
“I’m not kidnapping them, if that’s what you want to know.”
She’d been fairly certain of that. Lucy complained about bumpy roads and warm Coke—she’d hardly keep quiet about being kidnapped. “So what are you doing with them?”
He took a sip, looked off into the distance, shrugged. “A long time ago, I was married to their mother. Sandy put my name on both girls’ birth certificates, even though neither one of them is mine.”
“So you are the girls’ father.”
“Aren’t you listening? It’s only on paper. I didn’t even know Butt existed until a few days ago.”
“Please stop calling her that.”
“Anybody who screams like she does deserves a crummy name.”
“She may scream, but she looks like a cherub.”
He was clearly unimpressed.
In the distance, an owl hooted. “I still don’t understand. You obviously don’t want them, so why do you have them? It shouldn’t be hard to prove you’re not their father.”
“You try getting Lucy to a lab for a blood test.” He slid one hand into the pocket of his jeans. “You’re right, though. It won’t be hard, and as soon as we get to Grandma’s house, I’ll take care of it.”
“You still haven’t explained why you dodged the turnpike.”
“Sandy’s mother isn’t due back in the country till the end of the week, and child services was getting ready to take them. The baby’d probably be all right, but can you imagine Lucy in a foster home, even if it was only for a little while? She’d end up in a juvenile detention center before she ever made it to Iowa.”
“I know she’s awful, but there’s something about her I like. And I’m sure she could have survived.”
“Maybe, but . . . I don’t know . . . it seemed safer to get them to their grandmother.”
As he told her about Joanne Pressman, the letter she’d sent, the red tape involved in turning the girls over, Nealy realized there was a lot more to Mat Jorik than that crusty macho exterior. “So you decided to sidestep the local authorities.”
“Not from any affection for the little brats,” he said dryly. “But despite what Sandy did to me, I have some good memories of her, and I figured I owed her a favor. At the same time, I didn’t think the local authorities would be too happy about having me take them out of state before this was cleared up.”
“So you did kidnap the girls.”
“Let’s just say I didn’t have the patience to wait around until somebody got the legalities figured out. Originally I’d planned to fly, but Lucy took strong exception to that.”
“Underneath the crusty exterior, you’re a real softie.”
“You just keep right on thinking that.”
She had to admit that he didn’t look much like a softie. He looked more like a man who’d been seriously inconvenienced. Still, since his need to keep to the back roads coincided with her desire to see small towns, she wasn’t going to protest.
His eyes skimmed over her, lingering for a moment on her mouth, then moving to her eyes. “Now it’s your turn to answer a few questions.”
She felt slightly breathless. “Me? I’m an open book.” God was currently off duty because lightning didn’t strike her.
“Then why are you using a phony Southern accent?”
“How do you know it’s phony?”
“Because half the time you forget.”
“Oh. That’s because I lived in California.”
“Give it up, Nell. You’re obviously well educated, and I didn’t see anybody else at that god-awful restaurant eating their drumstick with a knife and fork.”
