Adopt-a-Dad

by Marion Lennox

  “Or both,” Michael agreed gravely. “Could you manage that, Shel? And maybe hot chocolate all around?”

  “With marshmallows on top,” Jenny added from behind him, working up courage. She bit her lip. It wasn’t the time, in front of this birthday group, to admit she was meeting Michael’s sister for the first time. “Hello, Shelby.”

  “Jenny,” Shelby said, dazed, her eyes wandering to the amazing stripes. “You’re…”

  “Jenny and I met Mrs. Eldbridge, her granddaughter and their friends on the riverbank while we were jogging,” Michael said quickly.

  “You were jogging?” Shelby could barely make her voice work as she tore her eyes from Jenny to stare at her brother.

  “We were jogging.” His eyes dared her to say more. “Jenny invited everyone home for breakfast, but I thought there’d be more choices here. What do you think?”

  There was silence while Shelby almost visibly gathered her wits.

  “I do a very nice birthday breakfast,” she said at last. “I’m only here for a couple of hours before I need to leave for the wedding, otherwise I’d have missed this.”

  “Very fortunate,” Michael said dryly, and his eyes met hers. Steel meeting steel. “Shelby…”

  “Hot chocolates coming up,” she said faintly. “With marshmallows.” And then under her breath she added a rider. “Just as soon as I’ve phoned Lana and Garrett and told them to come over and take a look at this miracle.”

  IT WAS A RIOT of a birthday party. Once she got over her shock, Shelby did them proud. After they drank their hot chocolate, she ushered everyone into the kitchen to flip their own pancakes. Once they’d eaten, they were each allowed two choices on the jukebox, and Jenny had them all dancing, much to the bemusement of Shelby’s other customers. After half an hour’s dancing she even had a few staid adults jiving their legs off.

  A couple of interns from the hospital wandered in. They were given free coffee and directed to a seven-year-old partner. Michael, who was dancing with the birthday girl at Jenny’s direction, felt his mind spin at what his wife had accomplished.

  Then there was the birthday cake. Rising nobly to the occasion, Shelby produced a snake of doughnuts in the shape of a huge S for Susan, with seven candles she’d found. Partied out, each little girl was finally ushered into a cab clutching a bag full of warm doughnuts for home.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” Susan’s grandmother whispered as they filled the second cab with her charges. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Susan and I…well, we don’t have very much, but she wanted a birthday party so badly. This morning everything was going wrong.” She took Michael’s hands between hers and squeezed. “Your wife, she’s just the loveliest girl, and she deserves…well, you look after her, do you hear?” She gave his hands a last squeeze, cast a teary smile at Jenny and disappeared into the morning with her swarm of little girls.

  Michael turned away to find Jenny watching him.

  And Shelby.

  And Lana and Dylan and Garrett and Greg. They were all out on the sidewalk, and every single one of them had big goofy grins on their faces.

  “What the heck?”

  “I thought they needed to come down and see,” Shelby said innocently. “Garrett was neck deep in wedding chaos, but even he had to come. I knew they’d never believe me if they didn’t see it for themselves.”

  “How long-”

  “We’ve been here half an hour,” Garrett said, grinning. “We’ve been in the back spying on you. You’re a great dancer!” He turned to Jenny. “So, I guess you’re Michael’s Jenny.”

  “I…” She flushed. “I’m not…”

  “You’re not?”

  “I’m just Jenny,” she said simply.

  “Nope.” Garrett shook his head. “You’re not Just Jenny.” His eyes were warm, and there was laughter lurking somewhere behind them. “If you can get my brother to put on a birthday party for a bunch of kids he doesn’t know-”

  “That’s enough, Garrett,” Michael said roughly. “There was hardly a choice. Jenny was right. The kids were getting restless down by the river.”

  “Yeah, and you’d have noticed without Jenny.”

  “Anyone would.” Jenny took a deep breath, searching for courage. “You must be-”

  “Garrett. Michael’s big brother.”

  “Of course.” She gave him a shy smile. “You still look like your picture. Same red hair. Same big-brother look.”

  “What’s a big-brother look?” he demanded, and Jenny’s smile widened.

  “I guess sort of proud and worried, both at the same time.”

  Garrett let his breath out. Whoa. “I think I just stopped worrying,” he told her, and reached forward to give her a hug of welcome, bulging stripes and all. “I think I stopped worrying right this minute. Welcome to the family, Jenny Lord.”

  “Jenny Lord?” She cast a doubtful look at Michael. “Oh, yeah. I guess I am.”

  “I guess you are,” Garrett told her. “And I’m wondering whether my little brother knows just what he’s let himself in for.”

  BY THE END of the afternoon, he was beginning to find out.

  They went to the wedding. Camille and Jake had decided they wanted a low-key affair-“just those we love in a place we love”-and there wasn’t a chance of Michael getting out of it.

  “Jake’ll personally come and get you if you don’t show up, little brother,” Garrett told him. “And so will Camille. You’re part of their family, and Jenny’s your wife.”

  Michael had cringed inside. He did not want to go. He had helped Jake defend Camille from her ex-husband, Vince, but the events of those few short months ago were still nightmare fresh. The shoot-out at Garrett’s cabin. The dreadful moment when he’d thought Garrett was dead. He should have prevented it, he thought savagely. He should have realized how desperate Camille’s ex-husband would be.

  He hadn’t-and Garrett had been shot. The love that Camille and Jake shared had blossomed from that near tragedy, and the family had moved on, but for Michael it had been one more reason for self-imposed isolation.

  And now, sitting beside Jenny, who looked lovely in the white dress Lana had borrowed for her, he felt so constrained he wanted to bolt for freedom.

  The wedding ceremony started. Camille, exquisite in her beautifully embroidered gown of soft raw silk, gazed into Jake’s face with love and total trust, and she gave him the answers he so longed for with sureness and with pride.

  “I, Camille, take you, Jake, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health…”

  Michael looked away. He glanced at Jenny and found her expression as strained as he felt. She’d done this twice before, he thought. She’d married-and now Peter was dead. She’d made those vows again. To him. What had these new vows meant for her?

  Had Peter looked at her the way Jake was looking at Camille?

  Something stirred inside him that could almost have been envy. He glanced at Jenny’s hands, which she clasped and unclasped in her lap. His ring encircled her finger, but she wore Peter’s rings on her right hand.

  He had an almost irresistible urge to still those restless fingers with his own, but such an action would signal a commitment, he thought fiercely, and that’s exactly what he didn’t want.

  Commitment meant pain. She would walk away, as his birth mother had, as Barbara had.

  So he kept his hand to himself. But afterward, as the Maitland and Lord families and their friends milled in the afternoon sunshine, reveling in the happiness of the bride and groom and checking out Jenny with stunned amazement, he finally took her hand.

  Not to comfort. To escape.

  “Let’s get away,” he told her. “I’ve had enough of this.”

  Wordlessly she agreed-she’d said nothing for most of the afternoon-and they left as soon as decently possible.

  Once in the car, with Jenny sitting white-faced and silent beside him, all he felt was an overwhelming claustrophobia.

  Why? he demanded of hi
mself as he drove. The afternoon couldn’t have gone better. Jenny had been welcomed and embraced into the family. Garrett had even hinted she might help in the search for their birth mother. Michael had nixed that one pretty fast.

  Then Shelby and Lana had started grilling Jenny mercilessly about her past. What they learned they must have liked, because by the time they left, his sisters were starting to talk about turning Michael’s spare room into a nursery and who was the best baby-sitter around.

  To her credit, Jenny had mostly listened. She hadn’t agreed to Garrett’s request for help but had deferred to Michael, and she’d seemed content to have Shelby and Lana make plans around her.

  However, quiet or not, she hadn’t refuted anything. She hadn’t come right out and said, “We’re not turning Michael’s spare room into a nursery because that’s where I sleep. Michael and I don’t sleep together! We’re not a proper husband and wife.”

  It would have been hard to say it in the face of their enthusiasm, he acknowledged, but maybe she could have tried. It was important.

  And what would she have done if she’d been faced with the Maitland clan’s attention? The two of them made their escape while most of the Maitlands were still with the photographer, so Jenny had been spared Megan’s welcome, Ellie’s shock and Abby’s concern.

  That was to come. Now that they’d heard the news, their curiosity would be aroused.

  Even Garrett seemed to assume things had changed, Michael thought as he drove his wife toward town. Sunday nights Michael usually spent at the ranch, and he and Garrett played pool on their dad’s old pool table. After the wedding celebrations that’s ordinarily what would have happened. But Garrett hadn’t even raised the possibility. He’d helped Jenny into the Corvette and waved a hand in farewell, as if he wouldn’t be seeing his brother for a while.

  “See you around, Mike.” Then he’d looked sideways at Jenny. “I’m sorry you need to go, but I understand you must be tired, Jenny. You take care of the lady, now, Mike. She’s quite something.”

  She was, Michael thought bitterly, glancing sideways at Jenny.

  But she wasn’t really his wife!

  “I’m sorry, Michael.” She sounded tired, and when he checked her out again, he saw that her face had sagged. “It wasn’t meant…”

  “What wasn’t meant?”

  “Everything,” she whispered. “I mean, when I saw those little girls this morning, I felt so sorry for their grandma that I just offered without thinking. You’d think I’d have learned not to be so darned impetuous by now. And then, when it ended up with me having to go to the wedding with you and all your family being so welcoming… You’ve hated it, and I don’t blame you.”

  “I didn’t hate it.”

  “You did. I can see that you did.” She sighed. “You mightn’t know it, but you get a sort of look-the same one you get when some sales rep comes in with a security system that bores you to snores, yet you still have to listen. That’s what you looked like today.”

  “What, all of today?” He was shocked. Surely not.

  “No,” she said. “Not all. Most of the time you tried not to. You were truly wonderful with the children this morning. It was mostly this afternoon, and maybe…maybe it’s only because I know you well.” Her voice faded to a whisper. “Anyway, I’m sorry. And I’m sorry you’re stuck with driving me home. Don’t you and Garrett normally spend time together on Sunday night?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You’ve told me,” she said. “Lots of times. When I’ve asked you about your weekends.”

  Had he? Michael frowned. He couldn’t remember telling her about his weekends.

  But maybe he had. In the past few months, Jenny had become part of the furniture around his office. He could very well have talked to her, he decided. He’d never had to watch his tongue when she was around. He’d learned fast that anything he told her went no further, and he’d relaxed in her presence.

  But he wasn’t relaxed now. He was edgy. Chafed by the ties he’d never expected.

  But she was untying them. “There’s no need to stay home tonight on my account,” she told him. “Just drop me off and go on back out to the ranch. Say I need to sleep. It’s a family celebration. You should be there.”

  “Garrett won’t expect me.”

  Jenny took a deep breath. “Then maybe Garrett should. He knows this is just a formality.”

  “Our marriage?”

  “Yes. Our marriage.”

  “I hope he does,” Michael said, and he couldn’t keep the note of bitterness from his voice. “It’s obvious my sisters don’t.”

  She hesitated, thinking. “I wasn’t sure what you’d told them,” she said after a pause. “I didn’t like to…”

  “To dispel the romance?”

  “Michael, I wouldn’t presume…” She hesitated and cast a nervous look at him. “I don’t want this, you know.”

  “Don’t want this marriage?” The strain of the afternoon was still with him. “You’re not making that very clear.”

  There was another silence, longer this time. She fingered the rings on her right hand-the rings she’d moved the day she wed Michael.

  “I don’t… Michael, Peter’s only been dead for seven months. There’s no way…” She took a ragged breath. “If you think I’m…”

  Damn, now he had to feel guilty as well as trapped. “I don’t think anything,” he said wearily. “I don’t think a darned thing. It’s what my sisters think.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I’m finally domesticated. Trapped.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it the minute he let the words leave his mouth, but it was too late to retract them. They hung in the silence between them like a threat.

  “Then that’s just stupid.” Her voice rose a notch, anger filtering through it. Her anger matched his. “I didn’t trap you into marriage, Michael Lord. That would have been unfair. You offered. You came into this with your eyes wide open. I was amazingly, incredulously grateful for your offer, but if I’d thought for a moment that you believed I’d engineered this…”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “That’s what it sounds like,” she said.

  “Then I’m sorry.” But he couldn’t get rid of the edge of anger in his voice, no matter how unfair he knew he was being.

  More constrained silence. Michael glanced at her. Damn, she did look tired.

  “Jenny…”

  “Michael, let’s just leave this,” she said wearily. “I feel so guilty anyway that I can’t bear it. At least not tonight.”

  “There’s no need for you to feel guilty,” he told her, his own guilt still there. “You’re right. I offered. What my family does to me is no fault of yours.”

  “Any family would do just what they’re doing. They’re right. And I should never have agreed to marry you. I need to-we need to do something.” She sighed. “But for now, heaven knows what the answer is. I seem to be getting deeper and deeper into a quagmire. Just drop me off at your house and go out to celebrate with your family. Please, Michael?”

  “I don’t want-”

  “If you weren’t married, would you ever stay home for dinner on a Sunday night?”

  “No, but-”

  “Then there’s your answer,” she said flatly. “You’re not married, not really. So do what you always have done.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  H E WENT OUT, but he didn’t return to the wedding. He’d be grilled within an inch of his life if he did. The look in Ellie’s eyes as she’d headed for the family portrait session warned him he was in for it. But the interrogation could wait.

  Besides, he was convinced his brother and sisters would give him a hard time if they thought he’d left Jenny alone. Garrett and Lana had seemed far too fond of Jenny, and even Shelby seemed to be coming around.

  So…

  So he drove to his friend Harvey’s, drank a few beers, watched a ball game on TV and tried to keep his hand ou
t of sight so Harvey wouldn’t notice the ring.

  Not that Harvey would. He wasn’t into wedding rings.

  Nine o’clock. The ball game ended. There was time to watch another, but just as Harvey flicked the remote, the phone rang. Harvey gave an apologetic grin and took the phone into the kitchen. He came back a couple of minutes later, a sheepish expression on his face.

  “Sorry, but I need to kick you out, Mike,” he said. “Something’s come up.”

  “Like…” Michael stared at his friend’s face, confounded. He’d never seen Harvey look like this before. “Like a woman?”

  “Rose,” Harvey said, a dreamy expression drifting into his eyes. “I took her out last week. It was the first time she’s agreed to date me, though I’ve been asking her forever. It was worth the wait. She’s really something. She needed to go to Vegas to see her parents for the weekend, but I said if she got back in time, maybe we could go out together tonight-grab a burger or something.” He paused, and the sheepish grin intensified. “So she called. Guess this means she’s interested, huh?”

  “I guess it does,” Michael said slowly. He rose. “Well, I’ll be off then.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t mind. Hey, this morning when you didn’t show, that had to be a woman, right?”

  Michael hesitated.

  “I knew it,” Harvey said, interpreting his silence as confirmation. He clapped Michael on the shoulder and beamed. “Must be something in the water and we’re all catching it. See you next week, buddy-that is, if you’re not busy. Or if I’m not busy. But hey, I hope we are.”

  OKAY, fate was telling him it was time to go home, Michael thought, and maybe it was. Nine was late enough. Jenny would most likely be in bed by now. He’d hit the cot himself, then get up early tomorrow and be at work before she woke. They’d start their independent lives together as of this moment.

  Was Harvey right? Was there something in the water? He didn’t think so. He sure didn’t feel like a dose of domesticity.

  He felt…trapped.

  He drove his Corvette into the garage, his mind filled with dark thoughts. He entered his darkened house the same way and looked around as if he was expecting a wife in curlers, with rolling pin upraised. Which was crazy. No one was up. The lights were all off, and Jenny’s bedroom door was shut.