Loving Evelyn (Part 1)

2 - A Child Surprise

The doors opened and out stepped one high heeled foot after the other. A woman dressed in black slacks and blazer over a white blouse emerged from the expensive car. From what he could see of her, she had long blonde hair twisted up and rolled into a tight bun atop her head that pulled at the muscles in her face, making her look like an uptight librarian.

She stood there for a moment and after coming to the conclusion he wasn't going to go to her, she made her way to him on unsteady feet. The heels she wore made her treck difficult but Samuel gave her some credit when she didn't fall on her ass. As she stumbled closer, be made out a pair of striking green eyes behind the thick rimmed glasses perched on a delicate nose. Her checks were rosy from the Texas heat and he could tell from the pale skin of her hands that she wasn't use to it.

The stranger was beautiful. He could admit that, but the uptight woman was definitely not his type.

When she made it to him without falling, she took a steadying breath before meeting his eyes.

"Hello. Are you Samuel Taylor?"

"I'm not selling any part of my land."

The woman balked at his harsh and rough tone, confused for a few seconds at his words. "I'm not here to buy land. I'm-"

He cut her off. "What did my boys do now?" If she weren't there for his land, she had to be there because of his kids.

She bristled at his interruption and glared at him behind her glasses. "I'm not here about your sons either. It's about your daughter."

He snorted. "You've got the wrong man then. I don't have a daughter."

Grabbing the gloves from his back pocket, he slipped them on and turned back around to continue working on the fence. The cattle had done a number on the fence posts and knocked the entire length of the fence down the other day. While the herd was out past the closed second gate, he took the time to mend it before opening it back up to give them more space.

"You are Samuel Taylor, born in 1982 and arrested for simple battery in the state of New York six years ago, correct?"

That got his attention. He turned to face the woman once more. "That's me, but I'm telling you, I don't have a daughter. Who the hell are you and how do you know about that?"

She frowned at him again, but answered the question. "My apologies. I'm Samantha Gowen. I work for the Child Protective Services of the state of New York. A little girl has recently come into our care and when we ran her DNA through the NYPD database in attempt to locate next of kin,  your name came up."

The woman, Samantha, pulled out a white envelope from the leather bag at her side and held it out. He slipped his gloves back off and took it. When he opened it, he was faced with a graph of some kind and a bunch of things he did not understand.

"What is this?"

"At the top is a graph matching up the alleals of her DNA to yours. As you can see, many of them align. 76.3% to be exact. It means you are a familial match."

His mind was racing. This still had to be some kind of mistake. How could he have had a daughter out there somewhere and not know about it? Then again, he supposed it was possible. Almost two years had passed before he'd slept with another woman. Over the years there's been a few, none of which were anything serious nor did he spend more than one night with any of them. But he'd sworn he was careful every time.

"What's her name?"

"Evelyn Walker."

He tested the name. "Evelyn. I don't recognize the last name. Is that her mother's?"