At intermission he got bottles of imported spring water for them to drink, while Skylar called home again.
“The girls are eating ice cream and told us to take our time,” she said as she slipped the phone back in her purse. “It should be all right to stay for the rest of the play.”
“Great. I got sparkling water, but they have wine if you’re interested.”
“Not for me. Go ahead if you’d like some yourself, I’ll be the designated driver. It might be fun seeing what your Mercedes has under the hood.” She smiled wickedly, and he saw a hint of the old outrageous Skylar.
“Hey, I know what you really think of my car. Stuffy, right? But I have to be a responsible citizen now.”
His comment notwithstanding, it was sobering to think that in a few short years he’d gone from a bright red Mustang to a black Mercedes sedan. A Mercedes commanded respect, but the model he favored was a long way from a sports car.
“I wouldn’t dream of criticizing your taste in cars. Remember, I drive a twelve-year-old truck.” Yet even as Skylar laughed, a flash of another, darker emotion filled her eyes.
They went back into the play, and the second half was as entertaining as the first, though he could tell Skylar was getting edgy toward the end, unconsciously fingering her cell phone. He shifted uncomfortably, as well—perhaps her feelings were contagious, or maybe he was simply becoming more aware of what it took to be responsible for another person.
“Do you think something is wrong?” he whispered, tapping her restless hand. Aaron had never encountered a woman with genuine motherly instinct, but there was always a first time.
Skylar looked down at the phone she held, smiled ruefully and put it away. “No. Occupational hazard of being a parent.”
The final act ended, and they clapped enthusiastically with the rest of the audience. Though it didn’t take long to get outside, Skylar was on the phone before the theater doors closed behind them.
He supposed her caution was inevitable after losing her husband. Melanie had mentioned it was from an accident. In a car? That could be why his sister was concerned about his safe driving—her shy urge to be careful had been very sweet.
Skylar seemed embarrassed when she put her cell back in her purse. “No problem, other than exasperation,” she said to his raised eyebrow inquiry.
Aaron didn’t laugh. There were many times he’d wished his own parents had checked up on him more often. At least he would have known they cared...or even remembered he existed. He was still uncertain about Melanie spending so much time at the Nibble Nook, but he couldn’t deny that Skylar was a good mother.
The wind was sharper, and over Skylar’s protests, he put his coat back around her shoulders on the walk to the Mercedes. They were both quiet as they left the city, and Aaron focused on the road, deep in thought. A few weeks ago it would have been inconceivable that they’d spend a pleasant evening together, but he’d enjoyed himself.
When they got close to Cooperton, Aaron glanced at Skylar.
“Melanie asked if she could spend the night. I told her I’d think about it.”
“Karin asked, too. They’ll probably be asleep in front of the television when we get there.”
“Provided you don’t call again and wake them up.”
Skylar made a face at him.
“Look, let’s not disturb them,” Aaron decided. “I’ll see you in and pick Melanie up in the morning.”
“No. We’ll drop her off on the way to church,” Skylar offered, almost seeming alarmed.
“If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all.”
Once again there seemed to be an undertone to the conversation that Aaron didn’t understand. Or was he just being paranoid?
* * *
KARIN GOT A note from Melanie in geometry class on Tuesday morning. It had to be important—it was the very first time Mellie had ever passed her a note. She was too afraid of getting in trouble.
They met by Mellie’s locker at break.
“What’s up?”
Melanie looked around to be sure no one was close by. “I went for a walk yesterday afternoon and saw Nick Jakowski,” she whispered. “Did you know he lives two blocks over from Aaron’s house? Just two blocks.”
“No.” Karin gulped. Nick liked Melanie, she was sure of it. And if he lived that close, Mellie probably wouldn’t want to move across town.
“Nick was washing his dad’s car and saw me. He asked if you’d thought any more about being on the soccer team next year. Isn’t that great?”
“Yeah, but he likes you,” Karin said, determined to be honest.
“Not that much. He goes to the school dances with Tiffany.”
Karin frowned. “I don’t know. Nick dances with her, but somebody said she comes with her dad. Coach Baldwin is always one of the chaperones.”
“Whatever. I just wanted to tell you he asked about you. Nick loves soccer. I told him more about seeing the World Cup and he wants to go someday.”
Karin lifted her chin. “Uh, do you want to stay with Aaron, then? Since Nick lives so close?”
Mellie looked shocked. “No.”
“Even if he asks you out?”
“Of course not. I told you, it’s awful moving around all the time and Aaron is just supposed to keep me until June.”
“Okay.” Karin felt better. “Do your folks know about the letter from Mr. Newman yet?”
Mellie shrugged. “Aaron didn’t say when he was going to tell my mother and father.”
It was funny. She never said mom or dad.
“Do you think they’ll be mad?”
“I don’t know. My mother might be happy about it—she almost had to send me to boarding school this year because nobody would take me until Aaron said yes.”
“Yuck.”
“Tell me about it.”
* * *
AARON DIDN’T GET a call from his father until Wednesday morning after getting to the office. Spence usually called during regular business hours—he had little respect for someone who worked.
“What’s up, son? Your email didn’t say much. Just that you wanted to talk about Melanie.”
“Yeah, three days ago.”
“You didn’t say it was urgent.”
True enough. His email to his father had played things down, saying to call when he had time. The one to Eliza had a similar low-key tone. Aaron’s preference would have been a conference call between the three of them, but for all his charm, Spence didn’t have cordial relationships with his ex-wives—they took a dim view of his casual attitude toward marital fidelity, even when they weren’t paragons of virtue in that area themselves.
“Melanie has become friends with a girl from school,” he said. “A Karin Gibson. And she’s decided she wants to move in with Karin’s family. I refused when she asked, and she was upset about it, so she contacted a lawyer. The attorney’s letter mentioned her wanting to file for a parent–child divorce.”
Spence let out a hearty laugh. “She’s starting young, that girl.”
“What?”
“Getting divorced.”
Aaron drew a sharp breath. “Melanie is not going through the revolving divorce-court door—you can’t possibly want that for her. Why aren’t you more upset? Your daughter wants to sever her relationship with you as her parent.”
“All kids go through a rebellious stage. And I don’t see any reason she shouldn’t move in with Skylar. She’s done a fine job with our Karin.”
Skylar?
Our Karin?
Aaron knew he hadn’t mentioned Skylar’s first name, and every nerve in his body tensed. “What in hell do you know about Skylar? And Karin...our Karin? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, boy. Yo
u haven’t done the math? Little Karin Grace Gibson was born nine months after you and her mommy were having fun in your Mustang.”
Nine months...the timing was right. And it was as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “That isn’t possible. I used a condom, and Skylar had a reputation.”
Spence began laughing so hard he was practically choking. “She wasn’t the only one, boy. I had a couple of folks on my payroll sending word about you back then—a teacher and a local cop. I heard your nickname was Randy Andy. You’re a real chip off the old block.”
Randy Andy...? Aaron abruptly sat down in his office chair. His buddies had kidded around, calling him that, but he hadn’t thought anyone else knew. And how could dear old Dad have paid people to spy on him when he couldn’t be bothered to show up for graduation?
“So you assumed Karin was my daughter, simply because Skylar and I dated a few times,” he said after Spence had stopped laughing again.
“I thought it was interesting that she dropped out of school a couple of months after you did a horizontal dance together. Why? If she’d stayed until June, she could have graduated. Then she promptly hightailed it to the next town over and turned up pregnant. So I got someone to check the hospital records where Karin Grace was born and the blood types matched.”
“Hospital records are private.”
“Not when you pay enough to have someone make copies.”
Hell. Aaron didn’t want to know if violating medical privacy was a crime—the legality wasn’t likely to bother Spence, anyway. “Blood types aren’t proof.”
“Nope, but you were off to college and too young to be a father. Just in case, I offered Skylar money to help out. I may have my faults, but I would never let my grandchild go without.”
Aaron didn’t know who he was angrier with—Spence for playing God and not telling him about Karin, or Skylar.
Of course, she might have known Karin wasn’t his, so why say anything? Just take the check and run. For that matter, if she’d believed Karin was his daughter, she would have come to him for support. That meant Karin couldn’t be his child.
“How much did Skylar take you for?” he demanded.
“Nothing. She ripped the check in half and told me to take a hike...in much stronger language, of course. That little gal is a real firecracker.” The admiration in Spence’s voice was hard to swallow.
“You liked her?”
“Hell, yes. There was a big number on that check and she wouldn’t touch a penny.”
“So you turned your back on a child you thought was your granddaughter.”
“I did no such thing. Every few months I’ve sent someone to get a report on Karin and Skylar to make sure they were doing all right, and would have stepped in if needed. A shame about that husband of hers—he seemed like a decent fellow.”
Aaron’s gut was churning. The fact he might be a father himself was the biggest shock, but Spence’s role in it was also hard to credit. “Did you really believe I wouldn’t care that Karin could be my daughter?”
“If you’d cared, you would have figured it out when you met her,” Spence said. And for the first time that Aaron could ever remember, his dad sounded dead serious.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SKYLAR COULDN’T BELIEVE IT.
She’d worked in the garden the afternoon before and somewhere, somehow, her wedding ring had gone missing. Worse, she hadn’t noticed until the next morning—thoughts of Aaron had kept her mind occupied. She hadn’t said anything to Karin to keep from upsetting her, instead waiting until after she’d left on the school bus. But as soon as she was alone, Skylar arranged for an extra employee to cover at the Nibble Nook and raced outside.
Jimmie had gotten her the ring when she was still pregnant, planning to propose after the baby was born. The thought that it could have gone out in the trash, picked up that morning by the disposal company, was too awful to think about. It had to be in the yard.
Skylar tried to calm down and hunt through the soil she’d dug up in the vegetable garden. An hour later she was in the front of the house, still searching, when she glanced over at the hydrangea bush and saw a glint of gold on the ground beneath a branch.
Breathing a grateful prayer, she snatched the band, remembering how she’d shaken her gardening gloves out; her ring must have come off then. It was loose on her finger—she’d lost some weight since Aaron’s reappearance in her life.
It was so annoying.
Why hadn’t she slapped his face when he’d kissed her? No matter what, she couldn’t afford to get involved with him, even in a small way. She had to think of Karin. And she’d felt guilty ever since, remembering her husband. How could she have responded to Aaron when she still missed Jimmie?
Skylar rocked back on her heels and looked around at the yard. However annoying, Aaron had been making her think about things lately. She loved gardening, but maybe it was particularly important to her because of the way she remembered her childhood home...a front yard filled with weeds and rusted-out cars. The brief time she’d dated Aaron she had refused to let him pick her up there, ashamed she lived in such a horrid place.
But the truth was, she’d never had anything to be ashamed about—children weren’t responsible for their parents. She’d survived a violent childhood with a deeply troubled mother and father. Maybe her rebellion in high school had simply been part of that survival—emotionally, at least, though it had taken pregnancy to make her wake up and turn her life around.
“Skylar, we have to talk.”
She jumped.
Aaron was standing in front of her as if he’d materialized out of her thoughts, and he looked angry. Not that there was anything new about that. Being pissed was his usual condition, and she wondered if Melanie’s lawyer had sent him another letter.
“What?”
“I talked to my father this morning. He claims Karin could be my child.”
Skylar felt the blood leave her face. “I’ll show you her birth certificate—Karin is Jimmie Gibson’s daughter.”
“Biologically?”
“After fourteen years it isn’t any of your business.”
“Damn it. I deserve a straight answer.”
“You don’t deserve anything.”
She got up and marched into the house with Aaron at her heels. Her worst nightmare had come true, but she wasn’t going to let him get the best of her. She spun around and poked him in the chest with her forefinger.
“If you don’t get out, Aaron, this time I will have you arrested for trespassing.”
“You have to talk to me. Let’s sit down and work this out.” It was strange. Although he was plainly upset, he was obviously trying to sound calm and rational.
“We have nothing to work out.”
“Look, I know condoms can fail. Let’s just clear the question up by having genetic tests done.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Be reasonable. With a test we can sort out whether it was me, or someone else you were seeing at the time.”
Skylar wanted to kill him. After all these years, he still believed she’d slept around.
“I wasn’t seeing anyone else,” she hissed. “But I don’t care if you believe me. Why should I agree to tests? I don’t need you or your messed-up family, and I refuse to tell Karin right now. If you have a shred of decency, you’d realize how devastating that would be for her. She’s still having a terrible time dealing with Jimmie’s death.”
“I don’t want to hurt her—I just want to have a part in her life if she’s actually my kid. I’m sure there’s a way we could do the tests without Karin knowing why.”
“I can’t take the risk. If my word isn’t enough, you can just walk away.”
* * *
WALK AWAY FROM his own child?
Aaron
was appalled.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” he asked, holding his temper with an effort.
“Because you wouldn’t have believed me. I never slept around, but you believed the lies told by your toadying, weaselly friends without question...lies that I had sex with any guy that came along. Then you spread your own tales, making me sound like the worst tramp who ever lived, which is ironic since you’re one they called Randy Andy.”
Hell. It was the second time in less than two hours that Aaron had heard the nickname he’d hoped was long forgotten.
“Even so, why not tell me you were pregnant?”
Skylar raised her chin. “Maybe I should have, but I didn’t want anything to do with you after the way you acted...as if I was a piece of roadside trash. Do you know how miserable you made my life? Every boy in school thought they could get lucky with me after your stories. Besides, since your father knew about Karin, why would I believe that you didn’t? I doubt any court would believe it, either.”
Aaron ground his teeth.
“Skylar, I didn’t—”
“Don’t you dare claim you treated me well. You didn’t want to be seen with me and you know it.”
Her accusation hit uncomfortably close to the mark. She was right about the shabby way he’d treated her. And it hadn’t been that long since he’d acknowledged he couldn’t have introduced Skylar to his grandparents.
As for his mother and father...?
Celina wouldn’t have noticed, and Spence obviously thought well of Skylar. Of course, since he had never had an ex-wife who didn’t demand a fortune in divorce court, he’d appreciate any woman who refused to take a penny. His father also had an eye for beauty and feminine curves, and must have appreciated Skylar from that point of view.
“Why not take the check my father gave you?” he asked.
“Because I didn’t want anything to do with your family then, any more than I do now.”
Winning Over Skylar Page 16
