Winning Over Skylar

by Julianna Morris

  Sarah set her untouched glass on a tray. “I fear we indulged her. We just couldn’t say no to whatever she wanted. So you see, it’s our fault she became such an unhappy, restless woman.”

  A light began to dawn in Aaron. “So when she sent me here...”

  “We promised ourselves that we wouldn’t make the same mistakes.” His grandmother twisted a handkerchief between her fingers, looking at him unhappily, yet it was the loneliness in her eyes that bothered Aaron the most. “We went too far, but we wanted you to have a better life than your mother, and felt the only way was teaching you to be different from either of your parents.”

  “If you want to be hard on someone for what we did, be hard on me,” George said, his chin jutted forward. “I was the one who insisted we take a strong, disciplinary line.”

  “I don’t want to be hard on either one of you,” Aaron told him, and he meant it. He’d grown up lonely, but his grandparents were just as lonely—they didn’t seem to have friends, and their only daughter never visited.

  A dizzying vision went through his head of how he might look in thirty years if he kept on the way he was going—stuffy and friendless, too busy running Cooper Industries or some other damned company to have had anything more.

  Sarah smoothed her crumpled handkerchief on the palm of her hand. “Thank you, Aaron. That’s very generous.”

  George nodded. “At least we got out of debt with the company intact and could sign it over to you free and clear.”

  “Debt?” Aaron asked, confused all over again.

  “From your mother. Before she remarried she ran up huge debts. We assumed them, of course, though we first had to repay the...” His grandfather stopped and pressed his lips together.

  “Tell him, George.”

  “Sarah, he doesn’t need to hear all this.”

  “Yeah, I think I should,” Aaron countered, his curiosity mounting.

  George’s face was haggard as he spoke. “Your mother also tapped into your trust fund. It wasn’t exactly...legal. She was going to be arrested, but we made an agreement with the district attorney to repay everything and insisted she send you to us. Your father had no choice but to go along with the plan—while he enjoys the spotlight, it wasn’t the kind of attention he wanted.”

  Hearing that his mother had raided his trust fund wasn’t the shock the Coopers obviously expected it to be; she was so egocentric, she probably hadn’t thought of it as stealing from her son, just using available funds. It was a far cry from Skylar, who worked hard and saved money for Karin’s education that she could have rightfully used for herself.

  “So the debts are why you didn’t retire,” Aaron said. “You should have told me. I would have helped.”

  “It wasn’t your responsibility. And besides, we wanted you to have time away from Cooperton before coming back.”

  Aaron wished his grandparents had confided in him earlier—while their revelations didn’t change anything from his childhood, it was nice to know they weren’t quite as cold as they’d seemed. And it wasn’t any wonder that the factory hadn’t been updated if they’d been restoring his trust fund and paying off his mother’s old debts.

  Mrs. Ryland stepped in and announced lunch, to Aaron’s great relief. The meal was delicious as usual, and he deliberately shifted the conversation to lighter topics.

  He still had questions, but at the moment, he didn’t think he could handle any more answers.

  * * *

  THAT’S WEIRD, KARIN thought when Aaron came by the Nibble Nook again a few days later.

  He waved at her and Melanie, but didn’t come over, instead waiting until her mom came out with a bucket to start washing the picnic tables.

  “Aaron, what are you doing here?” she asked.

  His answer was low, and they couldn’t hear it, even though they were trying to listen without being obvious.

  Her mom laughed before stepping back and looking Aaron up and down. The other times he’d come to the Nibble Nook he’d been wearing a stuffy suit, but today was different. He had jeans on for one thing, and even if he was wearing a jacket and tie, it was cute in an older, good-looking-guy sort of way.

  “What’s up with him?” she asked Mellie. “He’s...like, wanting to do all this stuff together. I mean, it’s fun and all, but weird.”

  “In the beginning, I thought he was just trying to make me forget about moving out. Of course, I’m pretty sure he also thinks your mom is sexy,” Mellie said matter-of-factly.

  Karin froze.

  Her mom wasn’t sexy—she was a mom. Sure, Dad had wolf-whistled at her a lot, but dads were supposed to do that.

  She gulped and looked down at her history assignment. Well, her mom was pretty. And last week when Mellie was sleeping over, she had gotten up for a glass of milk. She’d gone into the living room and heard Aaron and her mom on the front porch. It was almost as if they’d been smooching out there.

  Or maybe they’d just been talking.

  That was probably it.

  Her mom was on the city council and supposed to be approving Aaron’s plans for his dumb factory, so he was trying to convince her to say “yes” by being nice to them both.

  Except...it seemed like he was being truly nice, not just for show. Karin remembered how carefully Aaron had listened to the stories about her dad and had made her feel better about the truck getting washed. And he hadn’t even acted like she was silly for being upset.

  A minute later Aaron walked over to their table and grinned at them. “I’m taking us out tonight for a surprise. Is that okay with you?”

  Melanie bobbed her head. “It’s okay with me.”

  “Uh, me, too,” Karin added.

  “Great.” He went over and took the bucket of water from her mom. “I’ll scrub this time,” he said.

  Karin chewed on her lip as they started cleaning the Nibble Nook tables together. It was supposed to be her dad there, making her mother laugh. And now Aaron was taking them out for a surprise on a school night...? He hadn’t liked Mellie coming to the Nibble Nook, and now he was around all the time.

  Mellie nudged her.

  “At least they aren’t yelling,” she whispered.

  No. And her mom hadn’t smiled this much since the accident. When Karin closed her eyes at night she could still see her mother’s face at the funeral, pale and frozen, as if she wasn’t alive anymore, either.

  She squared her shoulders.

  Mom just enjoyed having someone around she could argue with, and Aaron was just helping so people would like him better. It was nothing more than that.

  * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER, Skylar felt bad for Aaron as he watched Karin and Melanie leave to talk with schoolmates on the other side of the ice-cream parlor. Honestly, he really was trying with Karin, and the child wasn’t cooperating in the least.

  “So, was dinner and sundaes at Duffy’s the surprise?” Skylar asked lightly.

  “What... Oh, no, it isn’t.” Aaron shook his head. “It’s still coming. I had no idea the food was so good here—I just thought they’d enjoy the ice cream.”

  Despite her best efforts, he hadn’t told her what he had planned. He’d just said to wear jeans and had taken them to Duffy’s for dinner and dessert.

  Skylar couldn’t resist glancing at the high ceiling, remembering Jeremy Newman’s law offices were located in the second floor of the building. She’d photocopied the pieces of the check from S. S. Hollister and brought them to him, despite Aaron’s assurance he would respect her wishes about Karin. After all, it was better to be safe than sorry.

  So why did she feel bad for not trusting him? Aaron had never done anything to earn her faith, and she didn’t know what to think about his determined efforts with Karin. She’d expected him to quickly lose interest in his supposed fat
herhood, but if anything he seemed more determined than ever.

  The ice cream in her bowl was melting and Skylar pushed it away—after one of Duffy’s deluxe club sandwiches with homemade coleslaw, she had no appetite left.

  Aaron checked his watch. “If you’re done, why don’t we go on? I know it’s a school night and we shouldn’t be out late.”

  “Sure.”

  They collected the girls on the way to the door, and Aaron drove out of town toward Trident.

  “Aaron, where are we—”

  “It’s still a surprise,” he said.

  But when they pulled into a parking lot on the outskirts of Trident, Skylar winced, wishing he’d consulted her first.

  It was a bowling alley.

  And bowling had been Jimmie and Karin’s special thing to do together.

  * * *

  AARON’S FRUSTRATION GREW as the evening wore on. Karin was unusually quiet and seemed to be on the verge of tears most of the time. He’d tried to come up with an activity that would keep them all together, without the girls running off to do their own thing. Bowling had seemed perfect, but it was turning into a disaster.

  Finally he sat next to Karin. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said in a muffled voice, hunched over and staring at her shoes.

  Melanie finished with her second throw, so Karin got up and sent her ball down the middle of the lane. Every pin went flying and he raised an eyebrow. She was very, very good.

  When she returned, she sat down on the other side of their area, obviously avoiding him.

  He gave Skylar a helpless glance, and she shrugged. Worst of all, she looked sorry for him. It was a hell of a thing when your ex-girlfriend, who might be the mother of your only child, felt pity for you.

  “Your turn, Aaron,” Melanie reminded him.

  Discouraged, he got up. But after sending his own ball sailing into the gutter, he turned around and saw Skylar was alone.

  “Where are they?” he asked, resigned. Dealing with disgruntled employees was nothing compared to getting acquainted with a teenager.

  “To the restroom, probably with a detour through the arcade.”

  “Damn. Where did I screw up?”

  “It isn’t you.”

  He dropped onto the bench next to her. “Yeah, right.”

  “Karin and her dad used to go bowling together, that’s all.”

  Aaron’s shoulders slumped.

  Jimmie Gibson, again. He respected what he’d learned about the other man, but it was hard to compete with a ghost.

  “They’d probably have ended up in the arcade, anyway,” Skylar murmured after a minute. “I told you, kids their age hang out together, preferably without their parents around. It was hard when Karin started pulling away from us, but we had to let go.”

  That was reassuring to hear, and there were worse things than getting paired up with Skylar and hearing stories about Karin’s childhood. It was ironic. How many times had he hidden his impatience as people talked endlessly about their kids? He hadn’t been able to believe parents could drone on and on about the “cute” things their darling had said or done, when they weren’t cute or interesting in the least.

  Yet now he wanted to know everything about Karin, the littlest shred of insight into her life. He’d missed it all, her first steps, the loss of her baby teeth, the first report card with a wry comment from her teacher about her boundless curiosity...everything.

  When Skylar forgot to be wary and was herself, she was a natural storyteller—rueful, often humorous, sometimes frustrated, and always filled with love for her child.

  The stories would be enough, but watching her was a reward by itself. How could this be the girl that his teenage friends had once sniggered over, saying her thighs were as loose as her mother’s...that any guy with a pulse could screw her? And why would they have dared him to make it with Skylar if she was that easy?

  The answer?

  She hadn’t been “easy.”

  They’d lied, and he hadn’t seen the obvious inconsistency because he was so hot to have her. It didn’t change the fact that Skylar hadn’t told him she was pregnant, any more than it meant Karin was his biological child. But it was hard to ignore the very real likelihood that he’d been a father for fourteen years and hadn’t known it.

  * * *

  “KARIN, YOU DON’T need to take eleven T-shirts,” Skylar said late on Sunday afternoon as she sorted through the clothes and other items piled on the bed next to her daughter’s duffel bag. They were packing for her school field trip, and as usual, it was like preparing for a polar expedition.

  “Moooommm, I can’t wear the same T-shirt at night as I wear during the day.”

  “You’re only going to be gone for two nights and three days, and you do plan to wear something to the bus on the first morning, don’t you?”

  Karin rolled her eyes, refusing to dignify the question with a response.

  “You don’t have enough room for everything,” Skylar pointed out. The stack of clothes and other “necessities” Karin had chosen were far more than would go into the duffel bag.

  “I’ll bring two bags.”

  “No, the instructions from your teacher said one duffel or suitcase up to this size, and no bigger. The only other thing you can bring is a small backpack. And by the way, it also says you are not allowed to bring a personal DVD player, a video game or enough snack food to feed a small country.”

  Karin plopped onto the bed and pouted.

  “Start weeding things out,” Skylar ordered as her cell phone rang. She hurried into the kitchen and grabbed it from the countertop without looking at the caller ID. “Yes?”

  “You sound harassed.”

  It was Grace, and Skylar leaned against the wall with a sigh. “Karin is packing for her field trip to San Francisco. She wants to take enough clothes to last a year. You know, just in case the bus breaks down and they get to stay an extra day.”

  Her mother-in-law chuckled. “With Jimmie it was the opposite. He didn’t want to take anything.”

  “He never changed. His idea of packing was stuffing two shirts and a pair of jeans into a paper sack. Underwear optional.”

  “Joe, too. Equipment on the other hand...”

  “Ouch. Don’t remind me.”

  Her father-in-law was the gadget master. If there was a new and improved piece of camping equipment or fishing gear out there, he had to have it. And everything went with them on vacation, no matter how long they planned to be gone.

  “I was just calling to see how things were going with Aaron Hollister.”

  Skylar straightened and stepped outside, carefully closing the door behind her. She should have known the discussion would turn private—Grace only called the cell phone when she wanted to be sure that Karin couldn’t accidentally pick up the extension.

  “It’s better than I expected,” she said, “though his idea to go bowling was a disaster. He didn’t tell me ahead of time—it was supposed to be a surprise—and I actually felt sorry for him the way it bombed. Because of it, he backed off doing anything this weekend so he can regroup.” She walked to the far end of the backyard, keeping a watch on the house.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Aaron is trying. I don’t think he’s convinced about Karin one way or the other, but he’s making an effort.”

  “I’d sooner he didn’t believe Karin is his daughter, though I’d still be furious with him for thinking you’d lie.”

  Skylar smiled, warmed by Grace’s staunch support. She got food for the fish in the pond and tossed it in the water. “With everything that’s been going on, we haven’t seen you since the school carnival. How about coming to dinner on Sunday? We can talk about what we’re doing for Thanksgiving.”

 
“We’d love to. What can I bring?”

  “Joe. He’d hate being left behind.”

  “Victoria Skylar Gibson, you know what I mean.”

  Skylar grinned. “Dessert would be fine. And I should never have told you my first name.”

  “You can tell me anything, you know that, don’t you?” Helen’s voice had gone serious.

  “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t explain about Aaron Hollister before, I just... With my background, I used to be ashamed of the way I’d grown up.”

  “Not any longer, I hope. Just to make it perfectly clear, Joe and I couldn’t be prouder of you. And nothing could change that. Got it?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “Good. Now go make sure my granddaughter doesn’t pack her entire bedroom for a three-day visit to San Francisco.”

  Skylar swallowed hard to keep from crying as she turned off the phone and slipped it into her pocket. She might have stopped beating herself up for her background and the mistakes she’d made as a girl, but it didn’t change the facts—things could have turned out quite differently if she hadn’t gone to work for the Gibsons. A pregnant eighteen-year-old high-school dropout didn’t have many options, but they’d taken her into their hearts from the beginning.

  * * *

  IT WAS MUCH later in the evening when Skylar heard a familiar tap on the front door. She checked to be sure it was Aaron, and opened the door. His face was an odd mixture of exasperation and victory.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Come out for a minute so we can talk.”

  Wary, she undid the dead bolt on the security screen and found herself instantly pulled into the shadows of the wisteria, where a very thorough kiss was planted on her lips. She wasn’t entirely displeased, though kissing Aaron ought to be off-limits.

  “Uh...what was that for?”

  “I deserved a reward after getting Melanie packed for that field trip.”

  Understanding dawned. “Ah...I see.”

  “It was like running a marathon. First it was the suitcase. The other kids were bringing duffel bags, so we went to two stores to find one the right size and color. And then she couldn’t find her favorite T-shirt, so I took her into Sacramento to find a place that was still open. Sunday evening is not a good time to go clothes shopping, even in the city,” he said gloomily.