eaten?” she asked.
“No,” he said, setting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands in front of his face.
“Want to?”
“No,” he said again with growing impatience. “Somehow I get the feeling I won’t have much of an appetite in a few minutes.” His eyes locked with hers, deep, searching, and when she couldn’t deny the observation, he picked up the salt shaker and seemed to study it. “If you don’t mind, I like directness. Why don’t you get to the point?”
Laney shifted in her chair and folded her shaking hands in her lap. “There’s no need for hostility, Mr. Grayson. We have a lot in common, whether we like it or not.”
“We have nothing in common,” he threw back. “Absolutely nothing.”
“You adopted my daughter,” Laney said.
“She’s my daughter,” he volleyed. “Has been since she was three days old. You don’t have a daughter.”
The beginnings of anger heated her neck. “I’m her mother,” Laney said. “That may be difficult for you to grasp—.”
“You gave up the right to be her mother when you let us adopt her,” he interrupted savagely. “You should have thought about your maternal status seven years ago. It’s too late now.”
Laney looked down at her coffee, struggling to keep her voice low. “I wasn’t given the luxury of thinking about it.”
Wes didn’t know what that meant, so he ignored it. “You gave her up, and we became her parents.” He sighed at the pain in her eyes, and bending his head forward, he pinched the bridge of his nose. She was the enemy, he told himself, and Amy was their battleground. But it wasn’t any easier for Laney than it was for him. He allowed himself a second to consider her feelings, her despair, her loss. “Look,” he said in a softer voice. “I understand about regrets. And I’m not trying to be insensitive. From where I stand you did a good thing by giving her up if you weren’t emotionally or financially capable of raising her.”
“I was capable,” Laney whispered. “I was then, and I am now.”
The vein in Wes’s temple began to throb visibly, and compassion for her position fled. “Don’t threaten me, Laney. You can wipe that idea right out of your head because you’re not getting her back.” He realized he was drawing the attention of other diners and lowered his voice again. “You told me yesterday that you wouldn’t make any claim on her. ‘Take my word for it,’ you said.”
Laney took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I know. And I meant it yesterday. But that was before you told me your wife died.” She opened her eyes again and saw the deep pain illuminating his own eyes. “I know it still hurts,” she conceded. “And I’m not trying to be insensitive, either. But it makes a difference in all this. A child needs her mother.”
“Her mother is dead,” Wes growled.
“No, she isn’t. She still has a mother. She doesn’t have to be deprived anymore.”
“You’re crazy,” he whispered. “You’re a complete stranger to her, and you think you can waltz into her life and pick up where her mother left off? No one can replace Patrice to her, but she’s adjusting. I can give her what she needs.”
“No, you can’t,” Laney asserted. “I don’t believe that a man can be both mother and father to a little girl. A man is not able to give her all the emotional support she needs.”
“What do you know about parenthood?” His harsh whisper whipped across her like a physical blow.
“Nothing. But I know about childhood. My mother died when I was nine, and my father had to raise me. I suppose he did the best he could, but it was sadly lacking. I don’t want my child being raised that way.”
“All right,” Wes said, tossing his napkin aside. “So spit it out. What’s the bottom line here?”
Her face reddened, and she struggled to hold back her tears. “I just want to meet her. I want to be involved in her life, to visit her when I want, to be there for her