Doug shrugged nonchalantly and answered the question. “My crowd was too fast for Alicia. Mostly we passed in the hall and helped each other with algebra.”
Alicia held the plate of baked goods in front of Jon’s nose. “Muffin?”
Silver sparks danced in her blue eyes. She was so damn beautiful, and right now she was perturbed with him. “No, thanks. Coffee’s fine. You know I prefer sweets with dinner or before bed.”
Her eyes widened and she plopped the dish not so gently on the table.
Doug watched the interaction between them with interest. “I understand Licia’s going to visit California with you.”
“Alicia is going to stay at my house in Malibu. I’m hoping she and Emily will like California enough to stay.”
Doug swung around to Alicia. “You might be leaving?”
“Nothing is settled,” Alicia said with a straightening of her shoulders. She patted Doug’s hand. “Any move won’t be sudden. I’ll give you plenty of notice…if it happens.”
He turned his hand up under hers. “I’d miss you.”
“I’d miss you, too. I’d have to call a real plumber to unclog my drain.”
Doug laughed.
Jon cleared his throat, thoroughly uncomfortable with their easy touching.
Doug picked up his napkin and wiped his mouth. “I’d better get back.”
Alicia closed the box of goodies. “Butch will be glad to see these.”
“No, you keep them for Emily. She loves the cranberry and orange.”
“I’ll keep one of those for her, but you take the rest along. We don’t need them.”
Jon wanted to tell Doug he knew Emily liked cranberry-orange muffins. He wanted to tell this man who knew Alicia too well that he was Emily’s father.
After Doug left, Alicia turned toward Jon and he knew she was going to blast him. “I know what you’re going to say, so you don’t have to say it,” he concluded before she could fire the first shot.
She simply lifted her pretty dark blond brows.
“I was a bit proprietary.”
She frowned.
“I was arrogant and proprietary.”
“Would you like to tell me why?” she asked in the quiet manner he was becoming accustomed to.
“No, I wouldn’t.” As she opened her mouth to respond, he said in a low voice, “But I will. I was jealous.”
She looked astonished. “Of Doug? Why? He and I hardly ever see each other.”
“You talk on the phone often.”
Her nose wrinkled in dismissal. “That’s business.”
Jon couldn’t shake off the possessiveness that had attacked him as soon as he’d noticed Doug in her kitchen. “You don’t treat him as if it’s business. You smile at him, you depend on him, you touch him as if…”
“As if I’ve known him all my life,” she filled in as she stacked one plate on top of another.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say,” he blurted out.
She waited.
“I want you to be that free around me.” He couldn’t believe the note of longing in his voice. He always initiated kissing or touching with Alicia. If only she felt free enough to touch him, to kiss him, he’d know she wasn’t afraid of him any longer, that she was beginning to trust him.
Approaching him slowly, Alicia stood close to his chair. He saw the last remnants of anger leave her expression as well as a flash of apprehension in her eyes. Sensing her desire to reach out to him was as real as the scent of her delicate perfume, he waited…and hoped.
Her hand came toward him, and he could see it was trembling. Wanting to take it, he knew he shouldn’t. He had to let her do this. Her fingers felt like the quick but fluttering graze of a butterfly’s wings. On their second pass down his cheek, they were more like the brush of satin. His body stirred, tensed, readied him for more.
She leaned toward him and stroked his jaw, then she took a deep breath and dropped her hand to her side.
He opened his arms to her and said, “Come here.” Pulling her gently onto his lap, he held her close. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
She shook her head as she leaned against his chest. “Doug’s an old friend, Jon. You’re…different. When I touch you, there’s more than friendship. There’s heat and fire and excitement and it scares me.”
Her honesty touched him, excited him, brought a blaze of fire to his loins. “Why does it scare you?” he asked, his voice coming out in a husky murmur.
She played with a button on his shirt. “Because I’ve never felt it before. Because it muddles my thinking and seems to turn the world upside down.”
“I’m glad the feeling’s mutual.” He gently tipped her chin up and took her lips with a need that left them both breathless.
Keeping her secure in his hold, he said, “I’m going to miss you.”
She pushed away and sat up as well as she could within his arms. “You’re going back to California?”
“Not yet. I have to go to Minneapolis. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“But Emily’s graduation ceremony is Wednesday evening.”
“I know. I’m going to have to miss it. I’ll talk to her about it later.”
Alicia went rigid on his lap and pulled away from his arms. Standing, she went to the window above the sink and stared into the backyard. The yellow gingham curtains fluttered against the windowsill.
He could imagine what she was thinking. But she had to understand his position. “Alicia, this trip can’t be helped. I have a newspaper whose employees are on the verge of a walkout. I probably should have flown out before now, but I was hoping the situation would resolve itself.”
She didn’t turn around. “Emily only graduates from kindergarten once.”
“For heaven’s sake, it’s an hour-long ceremony.” He pushed away his coffee mug. “She’ll forget about it a few minutes after it’s over.”
Alicia swung around and faced him. “Will she? Will she forget you weren’t there?”
“I don’t need a guilt trip,” he said, standing and pushing in his chair.
“That’s what parenthood’s all about, Jon. Making the right choices at the right times. Often guilt goes along with it.”
“Don’t make this into something that proves whether or not I’m a good father. I’ve been here almost daily for the last seven weeks…”
“I know you have.” She didn’t say it sarcastically or with an angry inflection.
He felt as if more than the table’s width separated them. “But you don’t think that’s enough.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “You have to decide what’s enough. You’ve missed five years of Emily’s life. Her first smile, her first tooth, her first step. Do you want to miss her first academic achievement, too?”
“It’s a kindergarten graduation, Alicia, not the Nobel prize.”
Alicia placed her hands on the chair. “How do you decide what’s important, Jon? What might not be important to you, could be important to her. What if this were her high school graduation?”
He didn’t like where this was headed or the defensiveness he felt with Alicia’s probing questions. “I’d still have to go.”
Her brow creased with her frown. “And you think Emily wouldn’t remember that?”
“Emily is going to have to face the realities of life just like everyone else.”
“Is that the reality where her father puts her second behind his business concerns?”
Jon shoved his hands into his pockets, old memories niggling at him—memories of his father missing his sports events, his own high school graduation. Instead of focusing on that, he focused on the problem. “I’m dealing with a possible strike. It affects almost a hundred workers, let alone setting a precedent with my other papers. I can’t take care of this long distance.”
She lifted her hand in a resigned gesture. “So…fine. Go. We’ll see you when you get back.”
He took a step toward her. “Alicia…”
&nb
sp; “What do you want me to say, Jon?”
That was easy. “I want you to say you understand.”
Her voice softened, but her disappointment was evident. “I understand that you don’t yet realize how comprehensive being a father is, or how much Emily needs you.”
He felt he was losing ground fast. If Alicia had shown anger, he could have fought it. But her protective feelings for their daughter weren’t something he could fault her for. “It’s different being a father than a mother. What I accomplish in business now will be Emily’s someday. I need to safeguard it.”
Alicia shook her head. “That’s the propaganda men have been using as an excuse for years. Believe it if you want to, but don’t try to feed it to me. You go, Jon. You take care of business.”
Her words rankled. Probably because they contained an element of truth. He didn’t want to look at any of it too carefully. “I’ll be back this evening to say goodbye to Emily.”
“Fine.”
But it wasn’t fine. He didn’t like the way he felt torn in two. It was part of parenthood he’d never anticipated.
Alicia received the phone call from her lawyer the next day. Jon was Emily’s father. The lab had taken the testing to 99.9 percent accuracy level. And Alicia had no doubt about that last probability of uncertainty. She looked at Emily and she saw Jon. She looked at Jon and saw Emily. Their head movements, a certain expression, their eyes…
Her acceptance had happened slowly over the past seven weeks. So had falling in love. She was in love with Jonathan Wescott, her daughter’s father, and didn’t know what to do about it. She was so afraid loving Jon meant losing herself.
He’d explained to Emily he wouldn’t be able to come to her graduation. She’d taken in everything he’d said. She’d nodded, her eyes big and wide as he asked if she understood. But it wasn’t until Alicia was alone with her daughter at bedtime that tears came to Emily’s eyes and she’d confided to her mother she wanted Jon to be there.
Alicia had held her daughter and stroked her hair, just letting her be sad, not trying to explain or excuse. She was disappointed with Jon for leaving, but she knew he had to learn how to father, to come to terms with the difference a child would make in his life. Jon was a loving, compassionate man who was terrific with Emily. But he wasn’t used to living for and caring for someone else.
Alicia wondered if Jon’s lawyer had called him with the news or was waiting until he returned.
Later in the evening, when she picked up the phone and heard Jon’s voice on the other end, she suddenly hesitated to ask. If he didn’t know, she was seized by the desire to keep Emily hers for just a little while longer.
“Hi, Alicia. How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you still angry?”
She hesitated. “I was more disappointed than angry.”
“I see.”
She broke the silence. “Do you want to speak to Emily?”
“Yes, that’s why I called. I want her to know I haven’t forgotten about her.”
“Hold on a minute.” Alicia called for Emily.
Jon rubbed the back of his neck. He hadn’t cared if anyone was disappointed in him since his father was living.
“Mr. Wescott! Are you in Minnie-aplis?” Emily asked.
“I sure am, honey. Are you ready for tomorrow night?”
“Mommy bought me a new dress. I wish you could see it.”
“I’ll see it when I get back.”
“No, I mean when I wear my hat and go on the stage.”
It might not have been clear to him before, but it was apparent to him now that his daughter didn’t understand why he couldn’t be at her graduation. So much for explaining logically to a five-year-old. “Your mom said she’ll take pictures. So I will see you, just not tomorrow night.”
Her voice was very disappointed. “Okay.”
Jon tried to fix her unhappiness the only way he knew how. “I can bring you something from Minneapolis. A new doll, a new game.”
“Nah. I just wish you could come back. D’you want Mommy now?”
Jon assured Emily he did. But the rest of his conversation with Alicia wasn’t much more than goodbye. He stared at the phone long after he hung it up in the editor in chief’s office. He had ninety employees at this newspaper who had finally agreed to talk instead of strike. But they had so much to negotiate. It wasn’t just the raise, but health care benefits, too. And he couldn’t be in two places at one time. Just what the hell was he supposed to do?
Emily waved from the stage. Alicia and Ria waved back and grinned at each other.
Ria commented, “She’s really enjoying the limelight. You can tell some of those kids don’t want to be up there.”
“I had to brush her hair three times before she was satisfied. Do you think that’s a sign she cares too much about how she looks?”
“It’s a sign she’s a female. No man would care how his hair looked under a hat.”
Alicia laughed until she looked toward the aisle and saw a tall man in a dark suit striding toward her row. Jon excused himself to the two people sitting at the end and slid past three empty seats to sit next to Alicia.
“You can close your mouth now.” He leaned past Alicia and said, “Hi, Ria.”
“Better late than never,” her twin quipped with a grin.
“That’s what I thought but I don’t know if your sister will agree.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Alicia murmured, trying to keep her heart from leaping from her chest.
He covered her hand with his. “Miss me?”
Instead of answering, knowing she’d missed him too much, she asked, “How did you get away? Is everything settled?”
“No. But I brought in reinforcements. My right-hand man from L.A. flew in this morning. If he runs into trouble, I might have to fly out again tomorrow. But for tonight, I’m here. You were right. I have to learn to judge when Emily needs to come before business. After talking to Emily on the phone, I realized she needed my presence not my presents. That’s what you’ve been trying to tell me all along.”
Her heart swelled with love for him. She no longer wanted to keep the blood-test results to herself. “Jon, my lawyer called me. You’re Emily’s father.”
“I know. I had a message from my lawyer.”
Alicia had to be honest with him. “I knew last night when I talked to you, but…”
“You wanted to hold onto Emily a little longer.”
He understood her so well, too well sometimes. Lifting her hand, he brought her fingers to his lips and kissed her knuckles. The erotic sensation of his lips nuzzling her fingers shortened her breath and raised the temperature in the auditorium at least ten degrees.
Suddenly Emily saw him in the audience. She smiled and waved so vigorously her mortarboard almost fell from her head.
Jon waved back, then leaned close to Alicia, his breath warming her cheek. “Are we going to celebrate with hot fudge sundaes?”
Alicia’s stomach quivered, her heart tripped, and she couldn’t find her voice for a moment. Finally she managed, “Maybe even a banana split.”
He chuckled, then leaned away. She knew her heart was gone and it would be almost impossible to snatch it back.
After the graduation ceremony, Ria took photographs and joined them for ice cream at the family restaurant they frequented for broasted chicken. She finished her last spoonful of ice cream and patted her stomach. “That’s my treat for the week. Back to turkey burgers and sprouts tomorrow.”
“Before or after you skydive?” Alicia asked.
“Skydiving?” Jon asked. “I’ve tried hang gliding but never skydiving.”
Ria took her wallet from her purse. “I took it up to combat stress. It takes me above problems that seem too large to handle.”
Skydiving wasn’t something Alicia would ever want to try, but Ria had always been a lot more adventurous. So Alicia swallowed her own fears when Ria talked about the sensation of falling t
o earth, and tried to understand her twin’s excitement.
Ria stood and Jon insisted on paying her part of the bill. Finally giving in, she patted him on the shoulder. “I’m glad you made it back.” She kissed Emily, hugged Alicia and left the three of them alone.
Only one other table was still occupied by customers. The waitress had gone to the counter at the back of the restaurant. Jon looked at Alicia and said quietly, “What do you think about telling her now?”
Alicia knew immediately what he was talking about. “This is a special night. I think it’s a good idea.”
Emily was concentrating on scooping up the last bit of chocolate fudge floating on her melted ice cream.
Jon crossed his arms on the table in front of him. “Emily?”
Alicia thought he looked a bit nervous. That was unusual for him. The idea of Jon being vulnerable endeared him to her even more. She took her napkin and wiped her daughter’s mouth. “Mr. Wescott has something he’d like to tell you.”
The five-year-old gave Jon all her attention.
“Do you remember when we had the doctor take our blood?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Well, the people at the lab did some special tests on it, and your blood and my blood match.” His voice lowered and became slightly husky. “That means I’m your dad.”
Emily looked to her mother.
“Honey, you know you’re very special, that the man you don’t remember very well and I adopted you just after you were born. Jon is your real dad.”
Emily looked confused for a few moments and Alicia waited for the questions she knew would come. “You mean I have a dad now like my friends?”
“You definitely have a dad now,” Jon assured her.
“Are you gonna live with us?”
Jon stared at Alicia for a long moment. “No. And soon I have to go back to where I live. Would you like to come visit?”
“With Mommy?”
“Yes. We can take a plane through the clouds. How does that sound?” he asked.
“Up in the sky?”
“Yep.”
She thought about it. “As long as Mommy comes it’s okay. Can Aunt Ria come, too?”
Alicia stroked Emily’s hair, knowing her daughter was trying to sort it all out. “No. Just us and…your dad.” It seemed unusual to actually call Jon that.
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