"You can at least control who you care about."
Instead of relief, that she'd understood, he felt more like she'd just stabbed him with a dull knife.
"That'd been the plan, yeah."
She toyed with a chunk of tomato on her plate, then looked up at him. "Would you rather I hadn't brought Blair out to you?"
"You got any idea how many times I've asked myself the same question?"
"And?"
A sigh gusted from his lips. "I don't know. I honest to God do not know. And if that makes me a bad man, I'm sorry. But I'm not gonna pretend to be thrilled about this."
"I see." Her gaze was level. Stronger than any woman's he'd ever seen, save maybe for his mother's. "Well. I don't suppose I have to tell Blair."
Another plunge with that damn dull knife. "What are you talking about?"
"Just what I said. If you really can't handle this, we'll go back to D.C. at the end of the month and that'll be that. Because there is no way I'm letting Blair get hurt again if I can help it. She never said much about it, but I know it tore her up, knowing her mother didn't really want her. Knowing her father can't, or won't, love her, either, would devastate her—"
"I never said I didn't want to love her!" Hank slammed his hands onto the table and rocketed from the chair. "But I don't know if I can. Not after what I've been through. There's a difference."
"Oh, yeah? Explain that to a thirteen-year-old child." She pushed herself up from the table and tromped over to the door, yanking it open. "I think you need to leave now."
"We haven't settled anything—"
"I think we have. Or at least, you have." She shoved her hair away from her face; it fell right back. "Unless you can wrap your head around the idea of fatherhood as a privilege and not an obligation, we can just forget the whole damn thing. Having a child is about more than responsibility. It's about risk and joy and amazement and a hundred other things you'll never know because you're too damn scared to put your butt on the line."
"With good reason, dammit! I can't make myself feel something I don't!"
"I understand that, Hank. And I understand your pain. You know I do." Now he saw tears in her eyes. "But not all of us have the option of choosing whether or not we go on. When Phil died, I wasn't real interested in living, either. And God knows, I have no desire to put myself through that particular pain ever again, either. But as much as I wanted to retreat from life, I couldn't shut down completely, because I had a child who needed me. A child who deserved to suck every scrap of happiness out of life she could. So. Take your dog and go back to whatever it was you were doing before we got here. It's not as if Blair knows what she's missing, is it?"
Hank grabbed the puppy and strode out the door, doing an about-face when he hit the porch.
"You know something—I liked you a lot better when you were nervous."
"Yeah, well, I didn't," she said, practically shoving the door shut in his face.
* * *
Hank slapped down the next shingle and drove home the roofing nail in two blows.
Wham! Wham!
In a frantic flurry, about a million birds took off out of the surrounding trees. Way the hell over in the next county, somebody's dogs barked.
"Last damn time I'm gonna be honest—" wham! "—with anybody—" wham! "—about anything!"
He swiped his forearm across the sweat streaming down his face and sat back on his haunches, squinting out over this, the last roof to be reshingled. If everything went the way he'd hoped, there might actually be one week in August when all the cottages were rented out at the same time. And if he hadn't made such an ass of himself with Jenna a few hours back, he might even feel pretty good about that.
You know, people might talk about women killing to protect their young, but Jenna was the first woman he'd ever met he figured would actually do it. It must be something, to love that intensely, that completely.
Well, hell, he had, once upon a time. Not all that long ago, either. But the question was…could he love like that again? Or had he buried his feelings so deep, there'd be nothing left but a few moldering, useless scraps?
He hammered the next shingle into place—bam! bam! bam!—cigarette dangling from his lips, the midafternoon sun biting into his bare back. He leaned back, yanking the cigarette from his lips and making a face. Maybe he needed to change brands or something, this one tasted like crap—
"Hey, Hank! Didn't think I'd ever find you!"
He looked down to see Maddie Logan standing with her arms folded across her middle. Oh, hell. Not that he didn't think the world of his new sister-in-law, but the last thing he needed right now was company. Still, it wasn't like he could just blow her off. Especially as she'd no doubt go back and tattle to Ryan, and Hank really did not want to deal with that.
"Hey, Maddie—what can I do ya for?"
From underneath feathery, honey-colored bangs, silver eyes twinkled. "I brought you supper." Maddie had one of those croaky voices that made her sound like she always had a cold. And a down-home Arkansas accent that made Hank's sound positively uppercrust by comparison. "Beef stew. I made too much."
Okay, so maybe he could deal with beef stew. Now here was a woman who understood how to cook for a man. Hank stuck his hammer in his tool belt and scrambled over the roof and down the squawking aluminum ladder.
"Where's the kids?"
When Ryan had married Maddie, a widow, he also got her kids, a boy about six and two girls, four and one still under a year. Which probably accounted for why his sister-in-law seemed a lot older than twenty-five. Mentally, anyway. Skinny and little as she was, especially in that tank top and baggy, cutoff overalls and her hair caught up in one of those comb things, she looked about twelve.
"At home," she said with one of her wide, irrepressible grins. "Ryan's with 'em. It's his day off, so I stole an hour of it to run some errands. Oh…who's this?" she said with a squeal when she caught sight of the pup. "Hey, sweetie!" she called, squatting down to call the dog to her. Not surprisingly, he went. If Hank was thinking of him as a watchdog, forget it. "Oh, Lord," Maddie said, "when the kids get a load of him, they'll be pestering me to death for sure for one of their own."
"You want this one?"
"Oh, right." She picked up the dog, scratching between his ears while he did his best to exfoliate her chin. "Cal already told me about how you rescued him and all. Besides, did you get a good look at these feet? Don't think I want a dog that's gonna be bigger'n me."
Hank folded up the ladder, swung it up onto his shoulder and started back toward the office. "Big dogs are great with kids."
"Like you would know," Maddie said, falling in step beside him, still hanging on to the dog.
"We always had big dogs around when we were growing up. Mama used to say they were the best baby-sitters in the world. We couldn't get away with a damn thing that one of them wouldn't bark its head off and bring Mama or Daddy running to see what was up."
"Huh. Maybe I should think harder about getting one then. Lord knows I could use an extra set of eyes…oh, hey," she said when the office came into view, "isn't that Sam Frazier's gal?"
Hank tented his hand over his eyes. Sure enough, Libby and Blair were trooping down the road toward them, laughing so hard about something they could barely stay upright. Hank had seen Blair plenty of times since he'd found out she was his, most often when she didn't know he was looking. For some reason, though, maybe because of that set-to with Jenna, this was the first time her being his really hit home.
He realized Maddie was looking at him funny.
"What?" he said. "Oh. Yeah. That's Libby."
"Who's that she's with?"
"Blair Stanton," he said over the stab to his gut. "She's here for the month, staying with her aunt in one of the cottages."
He kept walking, looking straight ahead, holding his breath. Within two seconds he'd know whether or not Cal had kept his big trap shut. But when those two seconds had lengthened into ten, then thirty, and Maddie
had gone on to bend his ear about other subjects, Hank figured there was one less baby brother to string up tonight.
When the girls got up to them, Libby gave Maddie a big hug, followed by a giggling introduction to Blair. Hank stood by in silence, the ladder digging into his shoulder, the discomfort that provoked nothing compared with the discomfort of this whole mess. At some point Blair looked up at him, those cool blue eyes judgmental as hell. And not, Hank decided, much liking what they saw.
She looked away, back at Libby who was telling Maddie that she and Blair were gonna pitch a tent and sleep out in one of the fields that night, as long as Blair's aunt said it was okay. Then they were off, giggling again as they trooped down the path toward Blair's cabin. And suddenly, nothing seemed more important to him than hearing his daughter laugh for him like that, someday.
"Hank…you okay?"
He yanked himself away from his wayward thoughts and looked at Maddie, nodding. "Too much sun," he said, then managed a grin. "So where's this stew?"
"In the car," she said, but he could tell she was only playing along, puzzling over what to make of his weirdness.
Since he was, too, he could understand.
Later, long after both Maddie and her stew were gone, after another guest had checked in and the sun had just about finished setting, Hank Logan and Mutt took a walk around the lake, during which he came to the long overdue conclusion that trying to control life was like building a house out of leaves. Sooner or later, the wind would come up and blow 'em all to hell.
Maybe he couldn't help how he felt. Maybe this whole thing scared the bejeezus out of him. Didn't mean he had any intention of abandoning his daughter, no matter what Ms. Bug-up-her-butt said.
Would it make his life easier, letting them go back without telling Blair the truth? Hell, yes. Would he be able to live with himself if that happened? No damn way. Now that he knew, it wasn't like they could rewind to three days ago and pretend he didn't. But he was going to do this his way. On his terms. And Jenna couldn't stop him.
But he sure wouldn't put it past her to try.
* * *
Slathered in enough bug goop to fend off the entire insect population of the Brazilian rainforest, Jenna had planted herself on one of the wicker rockers on the porch, rocking so hard her feet kept leaving the floor. Unfortunately, between the bug goop, the rocking and the hundred and one thoughts jitterbugging inside her head, all she was doing was making herself dizzy.
She'd never played poker in her life. Had never called anyone's bluff before. But damned if she was going to let Hank play the game unless he was willing to risk everything. As much as she wanted Blair to have someone else besides Jenna in her life, as wrong as it had been for Sandy to keep the truth from Hank, and even as much as Jenna intuited that Hank was indeed a basically good man who would do the right thing by his daughter, half-assed wasn't gonna cut it.
So when it came right down to it, she supposed she really wasn't bluffing. If Hank couldn't see his way past his fears—and Jenna really did understand his resistance—she would take Blair back home without telling her the truth.
But it would kill her.
So her only hope was that it would kill Hank more.
And while she was mulling over all this, she saw two figures approaching her in the dusk, a tall, lanky human male one, a lit cigarette like a lone headlight at hip level, and a short, four-legged fuzzy one who was thrilled to bits just to be alive.
She stopped rocking as Hank approached, the blood whoosh-whoosh-whooshing in her ears competing with the frantic chirps of about a million crickets and the occasional peeping from the frogs nestled in the rushes at the edge of the lake. He tossed down the cigarette butt, grinding it out before hooking one foot on the bottom porch step. The first firefly of the evening twinkled a few feet away; a startled look crossed the pup's face before he jumped up, snapping where the light had been a second before. Safely sequestered behind the window screen, Meringue mewed softly, although scolding the dog or because she wanted to chase fireflies, too, Jenna couldn't say.
A warm breeze ruffled her hair; Hank made a face. "If that's some sort of high-falutin' perfume you're wearing, it's not doing a thing for me."
"I'm not wearing it for you. I'm wearing it for the bugs." She folded her arms across her jackhammering stomach, only to immediately unfold them, clamping her hands on the rocker's arms. "But then, I suppose only wusses wear bug spray in your book."
"Don't know. They've never bothered me."
"Wusses or bugs?"
His mouth curved up at the corners. "Either."
Anticipation twanged between them for a second until Jenna finally blurted out, "So why are you here?"
His expression sobered. Stuffing one hand in his jeans pocket, he grabbed the porch support post with the other. "To say you're not going back to D.C. without telling Blair about me."
Jenna willed her heart to keep beating. "You've changed your mind?"
"About what I said earlier? No."
"Then—"
"Then, nothing," he said in a low, don't-even-think-about-messing-with-me voice. "You've got no right keeping the truth from her, or keeping her from me. What I feel has no bearing on the issue. If I'm not sure how I'm gonna deal with this, that's my business. Maybe I don't know a damn thing about teenaged girls, Jenna. And I sure don't know a damn thing about my daughter. And I get the feeling she doesn't like me very much. But I can promise you, I won't hurt her if I can at all avoid it, and I won't abandon her or flit in and out of her life the way her mother did."
He leaned forward, the fading light insufficient to mask the burning intensity of his eyes. "I want to know what grade she gets on every test, who her friends are, what her favorite ice cream flavor is and what her dreams are and what she's afraid of. Even if she hates my guts, even if this whole prospect scares the living hell out of me, I will be there for her and she will know she's important to me. And you can't stop me."
Bored with the fireflies, Mutt dragged himself up the steps and over to Jenna, whining to be picked up. Amazed she could even move, she did, grateful to have the dog to focus on so she didn't have to look at Hank. Not that she could have seen him clearly anyway for the tears blurring her vision.
Ever since Blair was a baby, Jenna had wondered where her niece had come by the fierce determination that had provoked both wonder and exasperation in Jenna in equal measure. This was the child who'd insisted on walking into kindergarten by herself the first day, even though she'd thrown up three times that morning. This was the child who'd stood up to a school bully every day for two weeks before Jenna ever found out there was a problem. This was the child who, at ten, made sure Jenna got dinner every night, even if it was only a cheese sandwich and tomato soup, all those long, exhausting months when taking care of her dying husband had consumed Jenna's every waking thought.
Now, listening to Hank, Jenna knew.
She set the dog down, then got up and walked over to the screen door.
"Jenna?"
She turned back, hugging herself. "I'd bring the pictures out here, but it's getting too dark to see. Unless you have to get back…?"
"I left a note," he said. "In case anybody needs to find me."
Then he followed her inside.
Chapter 6
"And these are only some of the pictures?" he asked.
As she had since he'd started looking at the photos, Jenna sat with one foot tucked up under her next to him on the sofa, close enough that Hank could smell that godawful bug spray but not close enough to accidentally touch her. Now, along with the intermittent breeze from the overhead fan, her soft laughter washed over him. "Phil and I took so many rolls of film, the clerk at the drugstore would have the developed pictures pulled before we even hit the counter."
An obsession Hank was beginning to understand. How do you pick which moments to capture and which to let go? He stared at each photo, like there weren't a hundred others—pictures of his daughter in wading pools and
on tricycles and in frilly Easter clothes and cramming birthday cake into her mouth and asleep in her crib with her butt up in the air, her cheeks all pink, her mouth open. There were pictures of her smiling and laughing and frowning and looking cross-eyed at the camera, pictures of her at every stage of her life, taken by a pair of people clearly besotted with this kid who'd been unexpectedly plopped into their lives, too. Melancholy pulsed through him, that all he'd ever have of these missing years were photos. So he studied each one long and hard, as if he could will the images into memories.
Then Jenna handed him what was obviously a family shot, the first one in which Blair wasn't the sole subject. At Christmas, he guessed from the decorations. Blair was maybe two or three, he couldn't quite tell, straddling the lap of a tall, classily dressed, distinguished-looking woman with careful blond hair and dark-blue eyes, sitting on a sofa that reeked of good taste. A younger, long-haired Jenna in a dark-green turtleneck and beige pants sat on one side of the woman; in torn jeans, her hair cut short as a man's, Sandy slouched against the back of the sofa on the other, her arms crossed over a sloppy black sweatshirt. Behind the women stood two men, both good-looking, one with white hair and a military bearing, the other with longish dirty-blond hair and a warm smile. His hand rested protectively, possessively, on Jenna's shoulder.
Jenna pointed to each figure in turn. "Mother, Dad and Phil. And Sandy. Why she decided to spend that Christmas with us, I have no idea. She never did again. Phil and I legally adopted Blair shortly after that."
Hank forced his gaze away from Jenna's husband's face to look at Sandy. "Your sister didn't fight you?"
"Actually, I think she was relieved." Then she said, "In her own way, I do think Sandy loved Blair. She was just too messed up to take care of her."
Hank nodded, processing the information if not exactly accepting it. "You have any other pictures of her? Of Sandy, I mean?"
Fathers and Other Strangers Page 9
