Thinking she had a prospective new tenant, Tiffany smoothed her hair and headed for the foyer. Christina was standing on the bottom step and holding on to a corner of her tattered blanket. She was staring unabashedly out one of the narrow windows flanking the door. A tall, thin man with blue eyes and a nervous smile peered through. All Tiffany’s muscles tightened as she recognized the bold features of John Cawthorne, the lying, cheating jerk who had the audacity to call himself her father. He literally held his hat in his hands, his big-jointed fingers worrying the brim of a dusty Stetson.

“I don’t believe this,” she muttered under her breath.

“Believe what?” her daughter asked guilelessly.

“Oh, nothing. Come here, honey,” she said to Christina.

“Who’s he?” The little girl stared straight at the stranger who had spawned her mother.

Tiffany’s throat tightened. “My . . . Your . . . Uh, Mr. Cawthorne.” Lifting Christina and balancing her on one hip, she braced herself, then opened the door.

“I thought we should talk,” he said without so much as a “Hello.” His eyes brightened when his gaze landed on Christina and for a fleeting instant Tiffany wondered if he could care for his granddaughter at all. Was blood really thicker than water? If so, why had it taken him over thirty years to figure it out?

“Now?”

“Before the wedding.”

Her voice nearly failed her. “Well, then, I guess it better be now, because we’re running out of time, aren’t we?” Telling herself she was every kind of idiot on the planet, she added, “There’s really not a whole lot to discuss, but come on in.”

You’re asking for trouble, she silently thought as she led him into the kitchen and tried to come up with an excuse to get rid of him. So what if he was the man who had sired her? Where had he been when she’d needed a father, when her mother had needed a husband, or at the very least, a lover she could depend upon?

Tiffany let Christina slide to the floor while John, damn him, eyed the refrigerator with its artwork, grades and personal notes to the family.

“I’ve got waffles in the oven,” she said to her daughter and wished Cawthorne would disappear. She had nothing to say to him. Nothing.

“Not hungry,” Christina said, winding a ringlet of her dark hair and eyeing the stranger suspiciously.

John turned and smiled, his eyes actually warming as he met his granddaughter’s curious gaze for the first time. “So you’re little Christina.” Tiffany’s heartstrings tugged ludicrously. This was not the way a family was supposed to be. Despite her own upbringing, she foolishly believed in the traditional family—of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Holidays spent together. Vacations. Memories.

Fool.

“Christina, say hello to Mr. Cawthorne,” she said.

“She can call me—”