Page 49 of Secret Baby Next Door
I shook my head. “No, it has to be direct. No dancing around the matter.”
She snickered. “I should’ve known that you’d say something like that. When are you seeing her next, by the way?”
“Tonight. It’s the reason why I can’t stay for dinner.”
“Tonight?” she grabbed my arm. “Then you have to ask. Val, seriously, you can’t put it off any longer. Look her dead in the eye and ask if the girl is yours. If she is your daughter, you won’t want to waste a single day without knowing the truth.” She glanced out the window, watching the girls. “And imagine them having a new cousin! You know that there’s nothing but love here waiting for her if it’s true, and she deserves it.”
The more she talked, the more sense my sister made. “Mom and Dad would freak,” she said. “And hey, with you having a kid, they might actually want to stay in that enormous house of yours.”
I chuckled. “There’s really no way to get around this, is there? I have to find out.”
“Yep. And do it tonight.”
I took a slow breath, shaking my head in disbelief at how damn surreal this all was.
“Promise me that you won’t blab to the family. If she’s not mine, I don’t want anybody getting their hopes up.”
“Don’t you worry about that, Val. I will keep it to myself for the evening.”
There was nothing else to discuss. I turned toward the window, watching Summer and Margaret play with Mom and Dad, Shane watching proudly from a distance as he worked the grill.
It was true that I didn’t know for sure how the evening was going to end up. However, I had a damn good feeling that my life was about to change forever.
Chapter 16
PIPER
Iwatched Maddie carefully as she stirred the pasta.
“Good job, nice and slow. You want to make sure the noodles don’t stick together.”
Maddie kept her dark eyes on the pot in front of her. They’d finished boiling, so I’d felt comfortable letting her do the last little bit of the job. Maddie was super bright but had a bit of a tendency to get distracted. So, whenever I could, I gave her tasks that required her total focus.
“They’re good now,” she said, giving a confident nod.
“Let’s check. Do you remember the trick for how we know if a noodle’s done?”
“Yep!” She reached for the pasta.
“Careful! The water’s not boiling, but still very hot.”
Maddie stopped and reached for a nearby fork instead. I watched her carefully as she fished out a single strand of pasta, and gently blowing on it. When she was confident the pasta was cool, she placed it into the palm of her hand.
“Now…throw!”
A big grin on her face, she whipped the pasta at the wall. It stuck, making a squiggly shape.
“It’s done!” she said in a triumphant tone. “All done!”
“Yep! Now, remember the other important part of testing the pasta?”
“Umm…oh yeah! We have to take it off the wall,” she said with a giggle.
She hopped off her stool, then carried it over to the counter. With a little doing, she was back on it and reaching for the noodle, peeling it off the wall.
Maddie prepared to put the noodle into her mouth.
“Kiddo, no.” I laughed as she stood in front of me with the noodle held right before her opened mouth.
