"Nope. That's it."
He waited in vain for a stirring of affection, something, for the woman who'd given birth to his kid. But other than a prick of guilt at not feeling anything, he could barely muster even a basic recognition. Sandy Hollins was only some woman he'd briefly known, who'd shared his bed a few times. That was it. Even so, anger nipped at the heels of the sadness and regret—and the guilt—not only that she hadn't bothered to inform him of his daughter's existence, but that she couldn't be bothered with raising her own child, Jenna's defense of her notwithstanding.
"What're you thinking?" Jenna asked softly.
Hank's gaze slid from Jenna's hand, knotted on her bare knee barely six inches from his, up to the compassion in her eyes. He hauled in a huge breath to dull what felt almost like pain, then let it out in a silent whistle. Much as he would have liked to throttle Blair's mother for her selfishness, there was no bad blood between him and Blair's aunt. During the past hour, she hadn't rushed him once, giving him all the time he needed to absorb, letting him ask the questions rather than overwhelming him with a thousand facts he'd only forget.
"Just wondering why Sandy bothered to leave my name in that diary," he said, setting the picture atop all the others spread out on the coffee table. "If she was so hell-bent on keeping it a secret, I mean."
Jenna got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a couple of Cokes, diet for her, regular for him. She handed him his, then settled cross-legged in the armchair across from the sofa. The cat jumped up in her lap. "Like I said," she said, stroking the long fur, "Sandy definitely moved in mysterious ways."
Again, he noted Jenna's deep-set eyes and wide mouth, the way the glow from the single lamp by the sofa highlighted her prominent cheekbones and straight nose. Her father's features were broader, more square, while her mother and Sandy had turned-up noses and small, pouty mouths. "You don't look like anybody in your family."
"That's because I was adopted as a baby—Meringue! No!"
The pile of photos flew in all directions as the cat sprang from Jenna's lap and across the coffee table after Mutt's snuffling black nose on the other side. The dog took off, the cat in hot pursuit, as Hank and Jenna dropped to their hands and knees to gather up the scattered pictures. From the bedroom came the mingled sounds of hissing and yapping. Jenna smacked a handful of pictures on the table, swiping her hair out of her face.
"Just remember, if there's blood and fur all over the place, you brought the dog."
Hank crawled over to where several photos had landed beside the sofa. "What about Sandy?"
"What about her?" he heard from a few feet away. He looked over to see a backside covered in white denim sticking out from the other side of the chair.
"Was she adopted, too?"
"Oh. No." Jenna's head popped up, her face flushed. More photos cascaded onto the others on the table. "Although the pregnancy was a huge surprise."
"Why?"
She planted one palm heavily on the edge of the table and pushed herself to her feet, grunting a little when she sank back into the chair. After a long swallow of her soda, she said, "Okay, background time. Mother hailed from old Washington money, Dad graduated from Annapolis at some preposterously young age, made admiral at some even more preposterously young age and was firmly entrenched at the Pentagon, when, after fifteen years of marriage and no kids, they finally decided to adopt." She lifted her hands. "Ta-da. But by that point, Dad was nearly fifty, Mother was thirty-eight, and they were both pretty set in their ways." A slight smile curved her lips. "Which accounts for why I often felt more like a pampered pet than a child."
Once again seated on the sofa across from her, Hank frowned; Jenna laughed softly. "That's not necessarily a bad thing. They might not have been the most effusive parents in the world, but I always felt loved, even if from a distance. They did the best they could. And they lucked out with me."
"In what way?"
"I was a born brown-noser. I liked getting good grades and keeping my room neat. I don't remember ever throwing a tantrum, I only drew on paper given to me for that purpose, and I actually liked Brussels sprouts."
"Where did they get you from? Mars?"
She smiled. "I know. I was the kind of kid who could put on a white dress at 8:00 a.m. and still be clean enough to show off at a 4:00 p.m. tea party."
"No Grubby?"
"No Grubby. Not then, anyway. Flo, our housekeeper, used to say I'd been born old." Jenna took another swallow of her soda, then leaned back in the chair, grinning. "Wasn't until college that I turned into the wild woman you see before you…." Her brow creased, she glanced toward the bedroom door, then back at Hank. "It's gotten awfully quiet in there. Think we should go check?"
"No. What was this about being a wild woman?"
Confusion shunted across her features for a second, then she laughed. "Oh. That." She flapped her hand. "My attempt at a joke. Sorry. Anyway, I was eight when Mother got pregnant with Sandy. At forty-six, after twenty-three years of marriage. It was a difficult, dangerous pregnancy. And Sandy was a difficult baby. A difficult baby who grew into a headstrong, rebellious child."
Hank took a swallow of his own drink, trying to adjust to Jenna's mood shift. "Nothing like you, in other words."
There was a sadness to her smile that did something to his insides. "Sandy never figured out how to play the game, how to work around my parents' rigidity. Sure, I got good grades and wasn't a slob, but I wasn't perfect. I simply didn't feel the burning desire to get my parents' goat the way Sandy did. By the time I was a teenager, they had their hands so full with Sandy, I was pretty much ignored. They were there for me if I needed them," she added at his frown. "I just didn't. And frankly, I liked being the 'good' kid. Which, with Sandy as a sister, was not exactly a challenge."
"And nobody tried to get her straightened out?"
That got a hollow laugh. "Are you kidding? From the time she was ten, Sandy was in and out of therapy and treatment programs more times than I could count. Nothing seemed to make much difference, even though my parents wanted to believe they saw progress. But the thing about self-destructive behavior is that the person has to want to get better. If they even acknowledge there's a problem to begin with." Jenna seemed to sink into herself for several seconds, then said, "Frankly, the only thing that surprised me about Sandy's death is that she'd hadn't done herself in a lot sooner."
Her words spoke of resignation, maybe even acceptance. But Hank still heard the slight tremor of failure in her voice. "I imagine you and your folks did everything you could."
A shrug was her only reply.
"What happened to your parents?"
"Dad died when Sandy was fifteen," Jenna said. "Mother lost it at that point. She couldn't take care of herself, let alone a wild teenager. Since I was already married by then, Sandy lived with Phil and me until she turned eighteen and took off, not even telling anyone where she was going." She unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yawn. "Next thing we know, she turns up pregnant." With a half smile, she added, "Since Blair was the only grandchild my mother was going to get, she doted on her for the three years she lived after Blair's birth."
It took a second. "The only grandchild?"
"I can't have children."
Misunderstanding, he said, "But you're young enough, yet, right?"
"I'm forty-one. Which, yes, would be young enough, if I still had the proper equipment."
"Oh." Damn. "I'm sorry—"
"No, it's okay. After twenty years, I'm more than reconciled to it by now. But…"
"What?" he prompted before she drifted off to her private place again.
Her smile got no further than her mouth. "As clueless and irresponsible as my sister was, she couldn't have given Phil and me a more precious gift than a child to raise. And now that he's gone…well. I've just been very grateful for Blair, that's all."
At that, the ramifications of Jenna's decision to find him knocked the breath clean out of him. If she couldn't have kids of h
er own…
Ah, hell. This was even more complicated than he'd thought, which was going some. He thought back on that family photo. Besides Jenna and Blair, everybody else in that picture was gone. Blair was the only family she had, and yet she was willing to risk sacrificing the most important thing in the world to her for what was right. What kind of woman loved that much?
With Jenna's next yawn, Hank realized she'd been sinking farther and farther into the chair for the past half hour. And that he needed time to sort through all this.
"Well. It's getting pretty late." He got up, the muscles in his lower back rudely reminding him he wasn't in his twenties anymore. "I'd best be going, let you get to bed."
The word buzzed between them like a large, slightly confused insect for a second or two until Jenna's voice, husky with exhaustion, broke the spell. "I'm sorry," she said with the barest hint of a smile as she unfolded herself from the chair. "I suddenly feel like somebody pulled the plug." Her hair swept her shoulders as she bent over to gather up the photos off the coffee table, then slipped them back into the large brown envelope she'd taken them out of originally. "You may as well take these," she said, handing them over. "So you can look at them whenever."
"You want them back?"
"I think you need them more than I do."
The envelope pinned between his arm and his side, Hank stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded his thanks. Then he said, "Are we ready to tell her?" and she said, "Are you ready?" and he said, "Hell, no," and she reminded him that they didn't have forever, which seemed to him like she'd just contradicted herself, but seeing as she was about to keel over, he decided not to point out that fact.
"Not forever," he said, coming to a decision that was only partially based on his concern for Blair and partially, selfishly, based on the fact that he found himself wanting be alone with Jenna again, even though he knew how dumb and pointless that was because, well, because he wasn't going down that road again. "Just another day or so," he said, his gaze fixed on her blue eyes, all soft and sleepy. "Until I get some more questions answered." Ignoring the tingling in his hand which was sorely tempting him to brush away a strand of hair that had gotten hooked in her eyelashes, he added, "Until I figure out what to ask."
She blinked, then pulled the stray hair out of her eyelashes herself. "Fair enough. Another day or two. So we'll be ready."
Overhead, the fan hummed.
"Okay. Well," he said, turning around to call the dog. "Where are you, boy? C'mon, time to go!" He walked to the center of the room, peeking under tables and things, then into the kitchen. No dog.
Then, from over by the bedroom door, he heard Jenna laugh. "You have got to see this," she said, leaning on the door frame.
He walked over, standing close enough to her to swap electrons, close enough to remind him why the idea of spending more time alone with her was bad, bad, bad. Except then saw what she was laughing at.
"Oh, for the love of Mike…how the hell'd you get up there?"
The cat and dog were smack dab in the center of her bed, curled up so tightly together so you could hardly tell which was which. The cat's eyes were shut tight, but Mutt's were open—even though he didn't look the least bit interested in lifting his head anytime soon—looking right at Hank, his tail thumping slowly against the hobnail bedspread.
"I guess he got up that way," Jenna said, pointing to a stack of cases and what-all on the floor, propped up against the foot of her bed.
"A stairway to paradise?" Hank said, and it sounded like Jenna cleared her throat or something. Mutt lifted his head and yipped, then flipped over, regarding them upside down.
"Looks like somebody isn't ready to leave," Jenna said.
The fan hummed some more. The dog thumped his tail five, six times against the mattress.
"Looks like," Hank said, realizing again just how close they were, that her hair was almost grazing his chin, that if he didn't break this trance or whatever the hell it was he was in right now he was going to make an idiot of himself. So he walked into the room and scooped the dog up into his arms, even as Jenna's woman-scent—the bug spray having faded some time ago—swirled through his senses, taunting him like a siren. The cat, her eyes still closed, half-assedly scolded him for taking her companion.
They walked out through the living room in silence, although Mutt whimpered a little, now and then. Jenna opened the front door, Hank went through, setting the dog down. Only then he turned back, not knowing why or what he wanted to say, or do, but he sure as hell knew he wanted to say or do something.
Like stay.
Or at the very least, kiss her. Kissing her would be good.
Or bad, depending on how you looked at it.
"What?" Jenna said, her expression a mixture of expectancy and puzzlement, her expressive mouth pulled up in one of those half smiles of hers. He thought she might be swaying slightly.
"I read one of your books."
Her brows lifted. "Oh?"
"Yeah. It was okay."
"I see," she said, her eyes sparkling. "Not too girly?"
He grinned. "Nope. Funnier than I expected, too. And, uh, sexier."
At her look of amusement, Hank suddenly realized his cheeks were stinging. So, backing away, he raised the envelope and said, "Thanks."
"No problem."
"See you tomorrow, then."
"I'm sure," she said with a smile, after which he realized he really had to go. Now. This minute.
Except he'd no sooner forced his sorry butt across the porch than she called him back.
He turned, in agony. She'd had no idea what it had taken for him to get that far.
"I just wanted to say…" She did that hair-pushing-back thing she did, then folded her arms again. "For ten years, Blair did have a father. A damn good one. Trying to take Phil's place won't be easy. But after tonight, something tells me you have a pretty good shot at it."
Hank watched her for several seconds, letting her words settle into his brain and weeding out the potential double meaning behind them before he said, "Thanks. But I'm not aiming to take anybody's place, Jenna. I intend to make my own."
Then he left, and this time, he kept on going.
* * *
Jenna found the photo, its edge sticking up from where it had become wedged between the sofa cushions, when she went to turn off the lamp by the sofa. She plucked it from its hiding place and let out a little cry, simply because, between her ka-flooey hormones and her battered emotions, she was a basket case.
Gripping the snapshot—the only one she'd brought with Phil in it—she dropped onto the sofa, too wiped out to stop the tears. It felt good to cry, she decided. Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance, teasing. But with no scent of ozone, the storm was either too far away or too disorganized to be a threat.
Jenna collapsed against the cushions, snuffling like a five-year-old as she swiped at the tears streaming down her cheeks. She wept for her parents' sorrow at never understanding their second daughter, for Sandy for never being able to climb out of the pit she'd dug for herself, for Phil's life being cut so cruelly short, for herself for still missing him at times like this.
They'd met as freshmen at William and Mary and almost immediately became an item. He'd been her first, and only, real love. Her first, and only, lover. And, perhaps most important, her best bud. They'd had nearly twenty years together. A long time, by today's standards. And it had passed in a flash.
They'd shared passion and laughter and the calm bouyancy of friendship. They'd shared Blair. Even more than her parents, Phil had championed her writing career, every scary step of the way. Sold his beloved Camaro to buy her a computer. Encouraged her to go to her first writers' conference. Personally took her submissions to the post office so she couldn't chicken out and not send them, then brought her chocolate when the rejections started coming in. In return, she taught high-school English for ten years—for some reason, her shyness was never an issue when she taught—so Phil could paint. And when, c
oincidentally, she sold her first book the same week a big D.C. gallery agreed to showcase his work, it was hard to tell who was happier for whom. Now Phil's image smiled back at her, as the living Phil had smiled at her a hundred thousand times, and she swore she could still hear him say, "Go for it, babe."
Go for…what?
Fear strangled her heart, even as something else tried to pry it open. "You can't be serious," she whispered to the photo, squeezing shut her eyes as if doing so would keep what little rational thought she had left from deserting her completely. Then—thank God—logic stomped in and smacked both the fear and the something else clear into next week.
She was hungry. She needed carbs. And salt. Oh, Lord, yes, salt.
Jenna got up and went into the kitchen, yanking the bag of potato chips out of the cupboard, then taking a careful handful out of the bag, placing the chips on a small plate. Just a few, that's all she wanted.
Oh, the hell with it. She opened the bag back up, shook the chips back into it, then carried the whole damn thing into the living room, where she sat back on the sofa, the open bag nestled between her crossed legs, and crammed a fistful of chips into her mouth. Then another. And another. Meringue wandered out of the bedroom and over to where Jenna sat, blinking up at her expectantly. She gave the cat a piece of chip, which she munched down.
Yes, she'd known Hank Logan was thinking about kissing her. Small wonder, since she'd been toying with frighteningly similar thoughts. Yes, her initial physical attraction/reaction to the man was mellowing into admiration. Maybe even into something more than that. Heaven help her, she was actually beginning to genuinely like him. None of that changed the fact that, were it not for his being Blair's father, she would have no reason to be here, let alone be talking to him. Okay, so maybe she was lonelier than she'd thought. And maybe she was…
And maybe she was…
She shut her eyes and made herself say the word, even if silently: horny. A word she'd always, before this, found slightly distasteful. However, being a writer, Jenna was a stickler for choosing exactly the right word for the right situation. And that was the only one that fit the bill, just at the moment. It was as if someone had supersized her now very much resurrected libido. And no, she didn't need fries with that.
Fathers and Other Strangers Page 10
