“So the plastic surgeon scheduled my first reconstructive surgery for next week,” Maddie said, and Hawk looked over at her. “He said we need to get them all done as soon as possible because the scar tissue builds more every day.”

“That makes sense,” Hawk replied. But it didn’t worry him less. Going under the knife to save her life was one thing. This was cosmetic and she’d been through enough pain in the last eight months. Couldn’t they give her a break?

“I can’t wait to see, Sarah,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she turned in her seat to look at him. “I’ll bet she’s grown a foot.”

Her excitement sparked his own, and made him smile. She’d been talking almost non-stop since they left the hospital. Mostly about their daughter.

“You saw her two days ago,” Hawk said, turning his smile her way.

Maddie sighed and turned back in her seat to cross her arms over her chest. “I know, but I haven’t had the chance to have her with me all the time since she was born. Other women have been her mother most of the time. It’s my turn.”

Now that Maddie’s problems were improving and she was starting to accept the loss of her leg, he wanted time to get to know his baby too.

“God, I’m so glad to be out of that hospital. It was worth falling on my face trying to get used to the peg leg to get them to cut me loose.”

Yep, Maddie was well on her way to becoming herself again. That sense of humor was coming back for sure.

“Peg leg?!?” he repeated with a laugh. “You have the most hi-tech prosthesis available, sweet thang, and a blade for running. If that doctor heard you call his masterpiece that, he’d probably repossess it.”

“He’d have to catch me first and I’ll give him a good race with his bionic leg,” she said with a chuckle. “If he catches me, I’ll just take it off and beat him over the head with it.”

Hawk burst out laughing and she smiled over at him. God, he felt good right now. Too good. The other shoe, the one she no longer needed, had to drop soon. He had no idea why he felt that way, but he did. Maybe he did know.

Maddie might be recovering, but she seemed to be pushing herself too hard in the process. The things she had to be holding inside were what worried him. PTSD was not a pretty condition, and considering what she’d been through, if anyone should have it, it was her. He was going to suggest they set up an appointment with a therapist, too. He opened his mouth to begin that discussion, but she started talking first.

“Are you sure we’re okay to go to this compound? I don’t know these people who seem too good to be true. They pay for you to come looking for me in the jungle, they send people with you to help, take care of Sarah while I’m in the hospital and now they’re offering me and the baby a place to stay?”

“They’re not too good to be true. They are just good people. The only family I have now and we care about each other,” Hawk replied, understanding why she’d think that, because he had a hard time believing it too at first, when he’d landed there after his mother died.

She looked over at him with sympathy in her eyes. “You don’t have anyone except them? No mother or father? Siblings?” she asked.

It frustrated him that she didn’t remember going to his mother’s funeral with him, or helping him through that nightmare. Having to recount everything that happened in their past was frustrating. But it was worth it, as long as it helped her remember.

“No, it’s just me now,” he replied. “My mother had breast cancer and that’s why I left the military. I went home to Georgia to help her and six months later she died. You helped me through that. I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise.”

He lived for the times she came to visit, their talks on the phone when it all became too much. Maddie had been his only connection to normal life outside the hospital and then hospice, his escape hatch from that nightmarish reality.

“She wasn’t married? What about your father?” she asked, and he glanced at her.

“When Mom got sick, he took off. Never heard from the asshole again,” Hawk growled, his insides twisting. It was a good thing he hadn’t seen him since, or he’d have killed the drunken coward. That he sent flowers to the funeral infuriated Hawk.

“Is that why you’re taking care of me?” she asked, sounding a little insecure. “Because I helped you and you feel obligated? Or because you loved me too, and you want to prove you’re not like him?

Anger surged through Hawk and he swerved on the road. “Why in the fuck would you think that, Maddie? Are you saying I’m no better than him? That I’m pretending to care? I can assure you that is far from the case.”

She shrugged and looked out the window. “You have to be pissed at me if I turned you down like that, so that’s why I’ve been trying to figure out your motivation for helping me.”

“Not everyone has ulterior motives for helping you, Madeline Carter. I’m one of those people. I would help a bum on the street if he needed a buck. Because that is how my mother raised me and how I plan to raise our daughter.”

Her eyes flew back to his. “You plan to raise our daughter? With me?” she repeated, her eyebrows raised. “Is that what this is about?”

“Wow, you think a helluva lot of me, don’t you?” Hawk asked, pushing the words past the knot in his throat. “Of course I plan on raising our daughter. With or without you.” He swallowed hard because that did not come out right. “I mean whether we work things out or not, I plan on being in her life, so get used to it.”

“You are just too damned good to be true, aren’t you, flyboy?” she said and he felt her eyes on the side of his face. “Even though I don’t remember her conception, which is unfortunate…” He saw the flash of her grin out of the corner of his eye and tensed. “She is a very lucky girl to have you for a father, and I’m lucky to have you as a friend. I’m sorry for upsetting you, Rhett, but I had to know.”

I’m lucky to have you as a friend. Those words echoed inside his head and burst the bubble of hope inside him. Maddie might forever be nothing more than his friend again. Things may not work out for them. Committing himself to a lifetime of being her baby’s father both financially and emotionally, without knowing for sure he was her father, was masochistic.

No more so than being in Sarah’s life forever and watching her mother be with other men. Maddie might get married and that man would become Sarah’s everyday father. Hawk would let himself fall in love with that kid and then be left on the outside looking in. If she was his, he could handle that, or would force himself to. If she was someone else’s that man needed to step up.

Since she’d opened the can of worms, he was going to fish with them.

“Since we’re on the subject of Sarah’s conception, do you remember having a boyfriend after me?” he asked.

Maddie gasped, as her head whipped toward him. “Are you calling me a whore? Trying to say that Sarah isn’t yours? Because if you are, I’ll save you the trouble and tell you don’t bother trying to be her father. We don’t need you.”

Hawk bit the inside of his cheek, tried to get a handle on his anger, then blew it out on a breath. “No, I’m not saying that at all. You weren’t that kind of woman. But we did break up and there was a three-month period between then and the time you deployed. You went to Kentucky for training, so maybe you met someone there.”

“I don’t remember anything, I’m sorry,” she replied, her voice trembling.

“Not even if you knew you were pregnant when you went to El Salvador?” Hawk asked, glancing at her.

“Again, no—I don’t remember anything. I thought I’d been raped while I was out of it, because I had no idea how long I’d been there before you guys rescued me. Now, I know I went there pregnant, but don’t know if I knew that when I did.” She swiped her hand over her forehead. “God, I’m so confused.”

“Those are the things I need to know, Maddie. Before I get too attached to either of you, I would like to have a DNA test done.”

There, he’d said it. But Hawk didn’t feel relief. What he felt was gut-wrenching fear that he’d just given away the greatest gift he’d ever been offered.