The Paternity Proposition

“Ow!” Julie returned the cat’s one-eyed glare and detached her claws before appealing to the second man crammed into the tiny office. “Chuck, will you puh-leez remind our partner we still haven’t paid for the last load of chemicals?”

The mechanic shifted his plug and dutifully complied. “We ain’t paid for the last load, Dusty.”

Julie ground her back teeth. If she didn’t love these two geezers so much, she’d let them sink and get back to having a life! Hanging on to her temper with both white-knuckled fists, she glared at her partner.

“You promised!”

“I know, I know.” Dusty rubbed a thorny palm across the back of his neck. “But we’re coming up on winter wheat planting season. Can’t make any money if we don’t service our customers. So give this guy Dalton some spit, missy, and get us out of the hole.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Julie asked, exasperated. “The man thinks I dumped a baby on his doorstep.”

“Thought you said it was his mother’s doorstep.”

She flapped an impatient hand. “His, hers, what difference does it make?”

“Ha! You wouldn’t ask that if you’d ever crossed paths with Delilah Dalton.”

“And you have?”

“Yes’m, I have. Must have been thirty, forty years ago. Del and her husband were just starting out in the oil field re-supply business then. He was what we used to call in them days a real rounder. Now Delilah …” He shook his head in mingled admiration and chagrin. “That woman was one fine female. Probably still is. But so uptight you could bounce a dime off her ass and get nine cents change.”

“Which is all the more reason for me to refuse her son’s demand for a DNA sample,” Julie huffed. “I don’t want anything to do with him or his mother.”

“But, missy! A thousand dollars?”

“No.”

“Just for a little spit?”

“No.”

He heaved a long-suffering sigh, as though she was the one who’d plugged last season’s profits into the slots.

“Awright, already. I hear what you’re sayin’. But …”

“No, Dusty.”

He sighed again and retrieved his cat from Julie’s lap. Belinda hung over his arm like a horse blanket as he delivered a last bit of advice. “If the Daltons are as hot to find the baby’s mama as you say they are, I ‘spect this isn’t the last you’ll hear from them. Or their lawyers.”

“Lawyers?”

Julie swallowed a groan. That’s all she needed. With a forty-five-year-old Pawnee leaking oil like a sieve and a partner who couldn’t stay away from the casinos, she now had to worry about a horde of lawyers swooping in to gnaw at the flesh of Agro-Air.

“Look, I’ll contact Dalton tomorrow, after I’ve cooled down a little, and confirm that I’m not the mother of his child. But I’m not taking money from the man, Dusty.”

“I’m just sayin’,” he intoned as he knuckled Belinda’s head. “Better be prepared, missy. Dalton didn’t look to be the kinda man to wait around for answers.”

Alex’s jaw remained locked for most of the two-hour drive back to Oklahoma City. Julie Marie Bartlett didn’t have a clue who she was tangling with.

Who she had tangled with. Christ! He’d almost forgotten the dark copper hair that had first snagged his interest when he’d walked into that operations shack in Nuevo Laredo. And those odd-colored eyes. Not to mention the full lips, taut breasts and slender hips that went with them.

But the truth was, he hadn’t remembered any of those enticing attributes until two weeks ago. That’s when his mother had called and demanded his instant appearance at her Oklahoma City mansion. His, and his twin’s. She’d met them at the door with a bundled infant in her arms. Alex could still feel the remnants of their collective shock when she’d announced someone had left a baby on her doorstep. Then she’d thrust out the note alleging the six-month old infant was Delilah Dalton’s grandchild.

After they’d recovered enough to speak, both Alex and Blake had questioned the authenticity of the note. With good reason. In the past five years their mother had transitioned from wistful to vocal to downright obnoxious in her attempts to push one of them to the altar. Delilah didn’t care which of her sons married which of the spouse candidates she’d thrown at them. She just wanted them settled and happy. And, oh by the way, producing grandchildren. Lots of grandchildren. As she’d tartly reminded them, she wasn’t getting any younger. Nor were they. Her sons had chalked the baby up to another of their mother’s Machiavellian plots until she announced she’d had a DNA test run.

Alex kept his eyes on the flat checkerboard of Oklahoma countryside outside his windshield but his mind replayed that surreal scene in his mother’s living room. Either he or his brother had, in fact, fathered a child.

The shock of her announcement was still thundering in Alex’s ears when he’d cradled the baby in his arms. Blue-eyed, pink-cheeked Molly had pretty much won his heart with her first gummy smile. Then she’d gurgled and blown him a bubble. Alex would have claimed her as his right then and there, but Blake had reminded him of the thirty-point swing in the DNA analysis and Delilah had stressed the need to nail down the mother.

As a result, Alex and his brother had spent the past two weeks contacting the women they’d connected with early last year. Their lists hadn’t been anywhere near equal. As Dalton International’s Vice President of Operations, Alex got around a lot more than its Vice President for Financial Strategies.

Given the narrow window of opportunity, however, even Alex’s list hadn’t been all that long. It had included the lawyer he dated off and on for almost six months. The divorcee his mother had foisted on him when she’d realized he and the lawyer weren’t serious. The mega-hot state senator’s daughter Delilah had paired him with at the Oklahoma City Country Club’s annual charity ball. And Julie Bartlett.

The first three had responded to his query with looks ranging from astonishment to amusement. The last …

It had to be Bartlett. She’d been out of the country for most of last year, moving from job to job and one remote airstrip to another. The PI Alex had hired to dig into her activities and physical condition during those missing months had hit a couple of blind alleys but should produce results soon.

Not that Alex needed further confirmation. Julie Bartlett wouldn’t have refused to provide a DNA sample unless she had given birth and subsequently abandoned her baby.

His brother agreed with his assessment. To a point.

Alex cornered Blake in his office in the glass-and-steel tower housing the headquarters of Dalton International. The floor-to-ceiling windows showcased a bustling downtown Oklahoma City with its Bricktown Ballpark, busy restaurants, and newly diverted river spur ferrying tourists to the Land Rush sculpture park. Neither of the Dalton brothers had any interest in the colorful barges meandering the tree-lined river, however.

“The fact that she wouldn’t voluntarily give a DNA sample is pretty telling,” Blake agreed, “but not prima facie evidence that she’s the mother.”

“So where does that leave us?” Alex worked off his frustration by pacing the office. “Can we take her to court and force her to provide a sample?”

“Not without more justification. We would need hospital records, statements from witnesses that she was pregnant, some hard facts to support the petition for a court order.”

Alex had expected the answer. Blake was precise and deliberate by nature, and the framed law degree hanging on the wall behind his desk had only exacerbated his tendency to examine any and all sides of an issue before jumping on it.

He’d been that way even as a kid. Alex would hurtle himself head first at every challenge, whether it was a new toy or a kite caught in a tree or a schoolyard bully. His twin would hold back and assess the situation, although Blake would always wade in whenever necessary—usually after Alex’s nose had been bloodied or he’d shimmied up a tree and couldn’t get down. The present situation, he thought grimly, had too many parallels for comfort.

“I should have just invited her to lunch,” he said in disgust. “I could have picked up her fork or glass or napkin and strolled off with it.”

“You could have,” Blake agreed mildly. “None of which would have helped us in court. For a paternity suit, or in this case, a maternity suit, the sample has to be taken under controlled conditions.”

“But at least we would know.”

“Maybe. I’ve done some digging into DNA testing. There was a case in Virginia a few years ago. The principals battled it out in court for two years despite the fact that the DNA test showed an almost hundred percent probability the defendant was, in fact, the father.”

“Yeah, we know about those probabilities.”

“The judge finally ruled against the claimant when it came out that the DNA lab employed a total of five people processing more than a hundred thousand paternity tests a year, with one supervisor certifying the results every four minutes. The margin for error was too wide for absolute certainty.”

Alex stopped his restless pacing and faced his brother. An outsider probably couldn’t have told them apart. They were both six-two, blue-eyed, and built on exactly the same lines. But the differences were there and readily apparent to anyone who knew them well. Blake’s hair was a darker gold and parted on the left. Alex sported a scar on his chin from a close encounter with a fence post as a kid.

They had that unique twin ability to almost read each other’s thoughts, though, and Alex didn’t particularly care for the vibe he was receiving at the moment.