by Jo Leigh
At least Parker knew he wasn’t good father material. That was another reason he didn’t get serious with anyone. Wouldn’t go there. He’d had a lousy teacher, and the last thing he wanted to do was mess up an innocent kid.
“Parker?” She leaned back. “What’s wrong? Why do you look so...angry.”
“Not at you. Sorry. In fact, just the opposite. I admire you, Ginny, your strength and determination to live your own life. And how you’ve dedicated so much of yourself to raising your child. I always thought you were wise beyond your years, but the way you’ve handled everything that’s happened is pretty extraordinary.”
“Oh, no,” she said, laughing. “I’m in no way extraordinary. Trust me on that. We barely know each other. I’m just showing you the good parts.”
Oh, how he’d grown to love those bursts of pink on her cheeks. He’d have liked nothing better than to give her reasons to blush every hour on the hour.
“Talking about good parts,” he said. “I had a tough time staying in that guest bed last night.”
“Seriously? I don’t have many guests, but everyone always says it’s comfortable.”
“That wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t easy walking away after that kiss.”
Her lips parted, her hand going to her hip. “So, you lied. Didn’t you say you had a great night’s sleep?”
“Ah, you caught me.”
“Yeah. I didn’t like it either.” She blinked and looked away. “Although it was for the best...right?”
Inside, he was vehemently expressing his disagreement. And from the way she bit her lower lip, he gathered his true thoughts had bled through. It didn’t matter, though, what he thought. He wouldn’t cause Ginny any more pain, and that was all this could lead to.
He realized he was still holding on to her and released her arms, then moved back a few steps.
“I’ll let you finish making the coffee after all. I need to shower and get ready. I really want to make it to the brunch. I do miss those crazy women. So go ahead and raid the fridge. The milk and eggs are on the counter,” she said, glancing in that direction. “I’m sure you’ll find the bacon. The oatmeal is in the pantry, so whatever you want...”
“Thanks. Want me to bring you some coffee when it’s finished?”
“Um...” She let out a slow breath. “We probably better not.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding and fighting a grin. Clearly she was just as affected as he was. Nothing had changed though. It was still hands-off. No point in getting grumpy about it either.
After she went upstairs, he got the coffee started, then stole a mug of it while it was still brewing. Sipping the hot brew, he wandered into the living room to look out at the ocean. Fate certainly hadn’t been kind to either of them. It did hurt to know that Meg had come back so soon after they’d been forced from their home. Missing her by two days had cost all of them fifteen years. It wasn’t fair. But he’d given up on fair a long time ago.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been staring out at the water when he heard a noise at the front door. It wasn’t a knock. The knob jiggled, and then the door opened.
It was Tilda.
Who wasn’t supposed to be home until tomorrow afternoon.
All her camping gear was piled in front of the door, but she seemed to have forgotten about it in favor of staring wide-eyed at him. In his jeans, his too-snug T-shirt and his bare feet. He knew exactly the conclusion she’d jumped to. He just wasn’t going to acknowledge it. “Your mom’s getting ready for her reunion brunch. You need some help with your gear?”
She didn’t say anything. Nor did she close her mouth. Her gaze moved from his face to his jeans to his feet, then went back up again.
He put his mug down on a coaster and went to the door, lifting up her sleeping bag and backpack. “Your mom is letting me stay in the guest room. But if any of this gear needs to be stored in there, no problem.”
Tilda nodded, but her eyes had narrowed. Was it that she didn’t believe the part about the guest room or... No, it was definitely about the guest room.
Halfway to the stairs he stopped. He needed her to either invite him up or tell him to put her things down. “Was it the storm that made you cut your trip short? It seems the wind has picked up.”
“The water was getting choppy, but we left because my friend’s little brother had some kind of allergic reaction to the medication they’d given him the day before. So it was Urgent Care Part Two, which sucked.”
Finally she entered the foyer, put her tote bag on the hardwood floor and kicked her shoes off, which sent sand flying. “Oh, no. Don’t tell my mom, okay? I’m not supposed to...”
He didn’t hear the rest as she’d already scurried to the kitchen. But not before he saw her feet. Her bare feet.
Tilda had webbed toes.
Everything slowed, especially his thoughts. He knew a lot about webbed toes. It wasn’t a rare condition, except in certain cases. His grandmother had explained all about it, made him look it up. She’d told him she could have had surgery to separate the toes, make them look normal, but she’d been too afraid to go “under the knife.”
Her father had had webbed toes of the same type, along with his father’s second cousin. The fingers weren’t involved, which was the rare part. Just the second and third toes of the left foot.
Exactly what Tilda had.
Parker’s mom had warned him he’d probably have at least one child with the hereditary condition.
Dammit. Ginny had sworn Tilda wasn’t his. But the odds of her having that phenotype were off the charts. How could Ginny have lied to his face?
“It’s called syndactyly,” Tilda said, broom in hand. “I could have had an operation, but I think my left foot is cool. When I was a kid I used to pretend I was a mermaid. Anyway, that’s why I got into biology. I think I’m going to end up focusing on genetics. Did you know there are some types of webbed toes that science can’t quite explain?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” he said, although he had known for a long time. But Tilda was obviously enjoying teaching him about her condition. She’d clearly taken ownership of the trait and had made it her thing. Although he already knew she had a lot more going for her than webbed toes.
He wanted her to keep talking. To tell him everything she knew. It would help him hide his growing anger, his disappointment over Ginny. She’d flat-out lied and he’d believed her, hook, line and sinker. What an idiot. He should have known better. Guess he was an easy mark.
The only thing he knew for sure was that he’d been right to move as far away from civilization as he could get without having to give up his citizenship.
He had his own world, out in the wilderness. He and his dogs and the wild creatures. At least if you got your heart torn out by one of them, it was honest.
“What do your friends think?” he asked.
“They’re okay. Everyone but the idiots. I get more shade for my science kink than my webbed toes. Although last year one of the football players, not even a good one, went as my left foot for Halloween.”
“What a jerk.” Parker had almost let something worse slip out.
“I had to hand it to him, he did a pretty good job. Except for the crap about syndactyly meaning that I’m a witch or something. Moron.”
Parker smiled at that. “Have you ever seen anyone else that has it?”
“Only in pictures, but I’m sort of friends with this guy in New Zealand who has Haas type IV. That’s when all the fingers are completely fused together. They call that cup hands, which is very rare. He’s had a lot of operations, and now he can do a lot. He’s nice. Smart too.”
“Isn’t your type rare too? Because it’s not in your hands?”
She looked surprised. “Yeah, it is. You know about this stuff?”
“Not a lot, not nearly as much as you do.” He backtrac
ked as quickly as he could, not wanting her to freak out. It wasn’t time to tell her about her grandmother and all the others in her family who had the same condition. Not yet, at least.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AFTER STEPPING OUT of the shower, Ginny wrapped her head in a towel, her mind running circles around her good sense. She knew she shouldn’t want to kiss Parker again, to feel his strong arms around her, but last night she’d had difficulty keeping herself locked in her room. Well, she hadn’t gone so far as to lock the door. But really, how could he be so difficult to resist? Maybe it had been the way he looked at her. Or that smile that stirred the butterflies in her tummy into a frenzy. Ridiculous. She knew better but he—
Voices. Coming from downstairs. Quickly slipping on her robe, she moved to the hall. That was Tilda. Tilda, who wasn’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.
She moved closer to the edge of the hall, nearer the stairs. They shouldn’t be able to see her, but she could make out what her daughter was saying. “...a pretty good job. Except for the crap about syndactyly meaning that I’m a witch or something. Moron.”
Every molecule in Ginny’s body froze. A second later it felt as if she’d been given electroshock treatments. She wanted to race down the stairs, stop this fiasco in its tracks. How on earth had the subject come up? It wasn’t as if Tilda went around bragging about it.
“...you ever seen anyone else that has it?” Parker asked.
While Tilda went on to describe a young man from New Zealand she’d met on her Facebook group, Ginny prayed as hard as she could that Parker would leave. Vanish. Or that Tilda would cut him off and come upstairs. Anything but continue to talk about her revealing condition. An issue that had never occurred to Ginny. If it had, she wouldn’t have risked inviting Parker to stay in the first place, regardless of Tilda being away.
“Isn’t your type rare too?” he asked.
Ginny could barely breathe. Her prayers had fallen on deaf ears, and it was too much to hope that Parker wouldn’t think she’d lied to him. The irony was, she truly hadn’t. But that wouldn’t be the way he’d see it.
“You know about this stuff?” Tilda’s voice was higher. Louder.
“Not a lot, not nearly as much as you do.”
Ginny’s thoughts careened. Why was Tilda even home? Had something bad happened? How long had this conversation been going on?
Giving up all hope of getting out of this unscathed, she hurried down the stairs. They were both still in the foyer, Parker holding her sleeping bag and backpack. Tilda with a broom, her feet bare.
Ginny remembered the conversation she’d had with Meg about her family’s particular variant of the condition. Of course, Parker knew everything about it.
She took another step, only stopping when Tilda said, “Don’t worry, Mom. Everything’s fine. I just got some sand on the floor.”
Not daring to look at Parker, Ginny checked out her daughter from head to toe. “I don’t care about the floor. What happened?”
Tilda started telling her about having to cut the weekend short, but as long as Ginny knew her daughter was fine, she didn’t particularly care. Or hear the words. It was as if she’d stumbled into the center of a tornado swirling with everything she’d ever known about Meg, everything that she’d said to or heard from Parker, and at the eye of the storm was a fear greater than anything she’d experienced before. The thought of losing Tilda was paralyzing. Ginny needed her wits about her, to be calm and collected. Tilda was not Parker’s daughter. That was her most formidable fortress. It was the truth.
When she realized Tilda had stopped talking, she finally met Parker’s eyes. The scorn and feelings of betrayal there were obvious. But not to Tilda, Ginny felt sure. At least she had that to be grateful for. Still, the man Ginny had kissed last night was definitely gone.
“Uh, I’m just gonna take my stuff up to my room,” Tilda said, her gaze moving from Ginny to Parker and back again.
“I’ll help you.” Parker shifted her sleeping bag in his arms.
“That’s okay. I’ve got it.” She pushed the broom and the dustpan into Ginny’s hands, then shouldered her backpack before she took the rolled-up sleeping bag. “I’ve got some calls to make,” she said, heading for the stairs. “Hope there’s still some hot water left.”
Ginny didn’t smile or even watch Tilda as she made her escape. The tension was far too thick in the room. Parker took a step closer to her and used his voice like a whip. “You lied to me.”
“Tilda is not your daughter.”
“Right. As if I’m going to believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think. She’s not yours. I can understand why you might believe that, but you don’t have the only family in the world with a history of webbed toes. Meg told me about your grandmother and the rest of your family a long time ago.”
“So it’s just a coincidence? That she’s fourteen. Which would mean you got pregnant right around the time we were together. And it’s completely random that she’s got that variant of webbing?”
“As it happens, it runs on my mother’s side of the family. Meg and I spoke about how weird that was. I mean, what are the odds?” she said, lying through her teeth. The instant it was out of her mouth, she regretted it though. She’d never been a liar before, and now it was the first thing that came to mind.
Parker shook his head, looked at her, shook it again. “Funny, Tilda never mentioned that. Seems like a pretty big thing to omit.”
Naturally she would’ve said something about it to Tilda before now. God help her, she was only digging herself in deeper.
“I really underestimated how good a liar you are. Makes me wonder what else you’ve spoon-fed me. Have you been in touch with Meg all this time? Have you been encouraging her to stay away? I know you had to be pissed when you were left in the lurch with a kid on the way, but I’ve explained everything.”
Even though he was hitting her so far below the belt she almost crumbled, she kept thinking about Tilda as guilt threatened to overrun her sanity. “Everything? Really?”
That he looked away startled her. He made a show of checking the staircase, giving her a precious moment to collect herself. And to wonder what he was hiding. She’d been reaching, going on the offensive because she didn’t know what else to do. But she had no doubt he’d come at her again. What she had to remember was that, ultimately, she was doing all of this for Tilda. As she’d done from the very beginning.
Meg had asked her to find a good home for Tilda. Ginny had done exactly that. Given up school, a career, a whole different life to make sure that child was cared for. So now was not the time to fold. Making a point to look as if his words had had no effect at all, she said, “It doesn’t matter how many times you ask, or what terrible things you have to say about me. It won’t change the fact that Tilda is not your daughter. So, you’re free to make up whatever scenarios you like, but you’ll need to do them somewhere else. The deal was, you’d leave before Tilda got home. I know it’s cutting things short, but...” She just shrugged, but his attention had turned to the window.
The water was choppy, the waves crashing against the rocks. She thought of the upcoming storm and prayed it was about to hit with enough force that he’d fly out of the area while he had the chance.
Parker smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes, which was worse than everything he’d said. “You’re right. I should leave. This isn’t getting us anywhere...but a paternity test will.” He lingered for a moment, probably hoping she’d collapse into a sobbing heap.
She just smiled back, using every ounce of strength she could muster. Despite being barely able to breathe, she looked at the clock over the mantle, then glanced toward the hall that led to the guest room.
He didn’t take the hint. Just continued to stare at her.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m going
to be late for the brunch.”
“Go ahead and get ready. Tilda already knows I’m here. You don’t have to babysit me while I pack up my things.”
There was no way she’d leave him alone with Tilda, not for a minute. Even if it meant missing the brunch, which she didn’t want to do. Although it wasn’t as if she had any hope of having a good time with her friends. But maybe she could talk to Cricket again. Explain enough for her to recommend an attorney. Ginny couldn’t let her father get wind of this. It was tricky though. She couldn’t afford to let anyone know the truth. Especially not Tilda. Not if it came from someone else.
The thought of her daughter finding out from Parker made her feel sick to her stomach. Would it be better to let Tilda think Parker was her father? Everyone, including Tilda, already thought Ginny was her biological mother. Parker’s assumptions were a lot easier to explain. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with him. No one needed to know she’d never tried. At the worst, she might have to share custody with him. Which was better than having Tilda cut out of her life forever. But could Ginny live with that? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t planned on telling Tilda. Someday. When she was older. When the time was right.
“You’re not dressed.”
Parker’s voice made her jump. She hadn’t even realized she still had a towel around her hair and wore nothing but a robe.
“And you’re not looking too good,” he continued. “Maybe you ought to sit down. Have a glass of water.”
Ginny refused to react again. He was trying to provoke her into admitting guilt. And being incredibly smug about it.
“I’m fine. The only thing I need is for you to leave.”
Behind her, the window that had been letting in warm breezes all morning suddenly rattled with a strong gust of wind that swept through the living room. She inhaled sharply when it occurred to her that maybe this was exactly what she’d been praying for. She didn’t even have to say a thing about the storm.
Her hope was dashed far too quickly by the expression on Parker’s face. From the smirk, it was obvious he’d read her like a comic book. It was also obvious that he had no intention of leaving this situation alone.
