by Judith Yates
Her father walked up and took Stephanie by the hand. “Come on, honey. I’ve been hankering for a good game of checkers.”
As her father led Stephanie back to the house, Holly turned back to Jordan. Straightening from his kneeling position, he let an unguarded glance fall her way. Hope rekindled briefly when she realized some warmth had returned to his deep sea-blue eyes. But then, without so much as a goodbye, Jordan climbed into his pickup and drove away.
Holly watched, absolutely shattered that he’d leave her standing alone like this. She had truly believed that the love she and Jordan had was untouchable. Sacred.
What a fool she was.
“Come inside, dear,” Gracie said, putting an arm around her shoulder.
“He said he loved me, Gracie. I thought he’d understand,” she murmured, feeling dazed. “I thought I could trust him, no matter what.”
Settling her on the den sofa, Gracie spread a crocheted afghan over her. “I’m going to make you some soup.”
“Will you check on Steph? She doesn’t know my father very well.”
“I’ll take care of her, dear. Don’t worry.”
“Did you see her face out there?” she asked, her eyes filling up again. “How could I have let this happen to her?”
“No, it’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s.”
“You know all about it?”
Gracie nodded. “Your father told me. Now you have to calm down. This will get all straightened out, you’ll see.”
After Gracie left, Holly sat in the darkened room, worrying about Stephanie, aching for Jordan. Although she was upset with him, she knew he was suffering, too.
Her father knocked once on the door and then entered, carrying a bowl of steaming soup on a tray. “Gracie says you’re to eat this.”
Food was the last thing she wanted. “How’s Stephanie?”
“A lot better after she beat me at checkers three times. Gracie just put her down for a nap.” He put the tray on the coffee table. “She’s a pretty resilient kid. I’m a lot more worried about you than I am about her.”
She sank back into the couch. “I’ve made such a mess of everything.”
“That’s all spilled milk now. The question is, what are you going to do about it?”
“You saw what happened out there. It’s over.”
“It will be if you let it go without a fight.”
“Oh, Dad,” she groaned. “You have no idea what’s been going on.”
He sat on the edge of the sofa. “That’s because I haven’t been the father I should be. I didn’t think you needed me around. After what I saw today, I may have been wrong.”
“Dad, I do need you, and so does Stephanie. Now more than ever.”
“Okay. Then answer my question, what are you going to do about this?”
“Do you have any suggestions?”
“Not a one, honey.” He patted her blanket-covered foot. “But I think your mother and I did too much of that after your wedding. We told you what to do, how to feel, what to say. And we worried too much about what people would think. Maybe we did more harm than good.”
She reached for his hand. “You only did what you thought best.”
“Now you have to figure that out for yourself. But I’ll stick around if that’s all right with you. Your old dad’s still a good hand holder.” He gave her fingers a squeeze.
“Dad? Stick around for a long time, okay?”
Jordan took a look at the rented folding tables and chairs piled neatly on the front veranda and cursed them under his breath. The last thing he wanted to be reminded of was that damn party. Feeling the full force of the fury that had been twisting in his gut all afternoon, Jordan knocked down the metal tables with one hard, violent kick. They went clattering across the plank floor, the sound bouncing off the pond in a reproachful echo.
Too bad it didn’t make him feel any better.
He felt wild inside. There was no other way to describe it. It was as if all his emotions had been swooped up by the tornado spinning around his heart. If he could only block Holly from his thoughts, he’d calm down then. And if he could get Stephanie’s disappointed face out of his mind, he’d stop feeling miserable.
When the back doorbell rang, he was tempted not to answer. There was no one in this forsaken town he cared to see right now. But the visitor was insistent. He walked from the front of the house to the back, telling himself it wasn’t Holly, it couldn’t be Holly, that it had better not be Holly. But in truth, Holly was the last person he expected show up at his door.
“What is it?” he growled as he swung open the door. But then he stiffened, suddenly at a loss for words as he faced the next-to-last person he expected to show up at his door.
“Gracie.”
“Mr. Mason, I have to talk to you.”
She sounded on the verge of tears, and her red eyes suggested she’d already done some crying.
“Look, I have nothing else to say about what happened this afternoon.” He couldn’t believe she had actually come here.
As her eyes began to tear, she walked past him and into his kitchen. “You don’t know how terrible it is back at the house. Stephanie’s upset, and Holly’s beside herself. She’s worried about Steph and she thinks she’s ruined your life.”
“I’m going to make it up to Stephanie. She’s my niece—or did you know that?”
“Not until today. Holly’s never said a word about it to anybody.”
“Seems to be her pattern.”
“Please don’t talk like that. She’s the sweetest, kindest girl in the world, and you know that.” She dug around in her handbag for a tissue. “Haven’t you ever made mistakes? Do you expect to pay for them for your entire life?”
He sat down across from her. “What do you want me to do?”
“Go back. There’s nothing so terrible it can’t be worked out.”
“I don’t know, Gracie. This is pretty bad.”
“I’ve seen the three of you together. Stephanie adores you, and she needs a man around, you know?” She choked back a sob. “And Holly used to work so hard, rarely taking any time for herself. But then you came along and that all changed. You made her so happy.”
He was amazed she was saying these things to him. Gracie, of all people. Still, they weren’t easy to hear. Not the way he was feeling.
“And she made you happy, too. I see the way you stare at her when you think no one’s looking.” She began to cry in earnest now. “You’re a decent man—Holly wouldn’t care for you if you weren’t. So, please, don’t walk out on them. They’re the dearest people in the world to me.”
He got her a glass of water and waited for her to collect herself. “I’m not walking out on Stephanie. But under the circumstances, I couldn’t go ahead with tomorrow’s party. It would have been a farce,” he said, trying to explain. “I know I disappointed Stephanie, but I told you, I’m going to make it up to her—in every way I can.”
Gracie shook her head sadly. “You can’t make up for the family she almost had. Not if you turn your back on her mother.”
Jordan sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. The jukebox was twanging away in the darkened lounge adjacent to Kelsey’s Kountry Haven dance hall. In deference to the upcoming holiday, tiny little flags lined the long wooden bar and the handful of tables in the room. The place seemed to be doing a bang-up business. The room was full of men just like him—sad, sorry stiffs drinking alone.
He would have been all right if Gracie hadn’t shown up at his door. Up to that point, righteous indignation had been working in his favor. He’d been too angry to feel the real pain. But the old lady’s tears and pleas had sapped the fury right out of him. Now that his anger had simmered down, a sense of loss took hold. Now—just like the crooners of the woeful country ballads on the jukebox—he felt wronged by love.
As he gestured to the bartender to bring him another, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. “Make that two,” Gabe Sawyer called, pulling a stool up beside him.
>
“Somehow, I don’t think this is a coincidence,” Jordan observed. “This can’t be your usual hangout.”
“I remembered you’d stayed at the motel across the road for a while. So I took a stab at it.” The bartender put the beers down in front of them. “Where have you been?”
“Just driving around.”
“Holly’s been looking all over town for you.” Gabe took a long first swallow of beer. “She got so frantic she called the posse out after you. Nancy, Phil, Susan, me.”
“Great. That’s all I need.”
“Hey, consider yourself lucky I found you. It could have been Miss Karin.”
They nursed their beers in silence through at least three increasingly mournful jukebox songs. Finally, after draining his glass empty, Gabe turned to him. “I understand why you’re so upset. When we’re crazy about a woman, it’s hard to accept she isn’t perfect—that she, like the rest of us, can make mistakes that hurt.”
Jordan plunked his glass down on the vinyl-covered counter. “She played me for a chump, Gabe.”
“I don’t believe that, and I don’t think you do, either. Look, she’s sitting out in front of your house right now. Go home. Talk to her.” Gabe stood up to pull out his wallet. “If Holly were waiting home for me, I sure the hell wouldn’t be hanging around this dive.”
“Maybe you’d just rather have me out of the way, pal.”
Gabe chuckled and threw some bills onto the bar. “Fat lot of good that would do me. She’s so in love with you she can’t see straight.”
Jordan followed Gabe out of the bar. As he drove home, he tried to get a handle on his feelings. Maybe he was being too hard on her. Maybe they could find some common ground... Maybe...
She was sitting on the veranda steps, just as Gabe said she’d be. Her silky fair hair shimmered in the moonlight, and her eyes were wide and deep as she watched him approach. Now he realized why he hadn’t wanted to see her. While the sight of her made his heart melt and his arms itch to hold her, it also riled up his uncontrollable resentment and an increasingly bitter sense of betrayal. When he saw her like this, anger at the mockery she’d made of the most intimate, sacred hours of his life shook him to his soul.
“Are you all right?” she asked, obviously relieved to see him.
He sat down beside her, but not close enough to touch her. “Gabe said you wanted to talk.”
“That’s why you came back?” Her voice lilted with hope.
When he didn’t answer, she sighed and asked him to put aside his conflicted feelings about Scott. “Don’t mix them up with what’s happening between you and me.”
“Easier said than done, Holly.”
“Everything I felt about Scott pales in comparison with how I feel about you,” she murmured softly. “When I think about my wedding day now, it’s not about Scott leaving me. It’s all about you. You were the one to take on the responsibility. You were the one who came to me.”
“That was so long ago.” Yet he had never forgotten it.
“I love you for being there for me back then. And I love you for teaching me how to trust again.” She touched his arm with her warm, soft hand. “You’ve got to believe in me now. What we shared was real, Jordan. My love is real.”
“I wanted so much to believe that. I can’t now.” He slid his arm from her grasp.
“But why?”
“There were a couple of times when I really wondered if Stephanie was Scott’s child. I questioned whether you were being straight with me about it:”
He glanced up at the sky and noticed the stars weren’t shining so bright tonight. It had to be a sign of something.
“Then as you and I got closer, it was unthinkable that you’d be dishonest with me about anything.” He stood up and moved off the steps. Her familiar scent was tugging at his memory.
“So I put the doubts out of my mind. And when you said you loved me, when we made love, I honestly believed nothing could come between us. Not Scott. Not the past.”
She looked up at him with a clouded gaze. “What can I say to set it right? Tell me, please. I’ll do anything.”
“Holly, what I’m feeling inside can’t be wiped away with apologies—although I wish to God it could. And the sad, cold reality of what’s happened can’t be absolved with acts of penance.”
Holly came to his side. “Are you saying you can’t ever forgive me?”
The pain in her eyes tore at his heart, and he had to fight the desire to take her in his arms. “Time always takes care of that, doesn’t it? I’m angry, yes—but I don’t hate you.”
“But you don’t trust me.” Resignation flooded her voice.
He couldn’t think of what to say that wouldn’t hurt her, so he said nothing.
Holly turned away from his silence. “Well, Jordan, you’re a man who appreciates irony. Isn’t this one perfect? When I finally come to trust you, your trust in me is shattered.”
“Trust is the whole ball game, Holly. Without it we’ve got nothing to hold on to.”
The truth of this stirred his resentment anew. He and Holly could have had it all. It ripped him up inside to think how close they’d come to it. If only she had told him the truth...
Jordan pulled himself out of the pointless trap of if-onlys . It was finished between him and Holly. It was time to move ahead.
“Holly, you should know that I’m leaving for Florida tomorrow.”
“So soon?” Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You’re going to tell him about Stephanie.”
“It’s about time someone did,” he snapped, his anger flaring.
“Are you coming back to Golden?”
“Count on it. I’m not going to let you keep Stephanie away from her family anymore.”
“Our trip to Palm Beach was just the thing your father needed,” Rachel declared as she drove him home from the airport. “The color’s back in his cheeks, his appetite’s good, he’s strong enough to take some exercise. His doctor said he’s turned the corner.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to hear that.”
Rachel smiled as she pulled onto the expressway. “When I told him you were coming, he started planning things to do. I really think he’s getting to be his old self again.”
“And his doctor said it was okay to tell him about Stephanie?”
“I told him everything you told me on the phone. He thinks it might even help.” Rachel glanced at him from across the front seat. “Actually, I’m kind of excited about Stephanie, too. I can’t wait to meet her.”
Thinking about Stephanie made him smile. “The kid is something else. You’re going to love her.”
Lawrence was halfway out the door before Rachel had even parked the car. It had only been a couple of months since Jordan had last seen his father, but it felt like a lifetime ago. A startling sense of relief washed over him as Lawrence approached. Jordan realized he’d been missing him.
“Jordan.” Lawrence greeted him with his usual casual embrace. This time, however, when his father’s long arms curved around him, something compelled Jordan to hold on. The grueling emotions of the past few days welled up inside him and he pulled his father closer.
Finally, he felt Lawrence’s big hand ruffling his hair, just the way he used to. “I’m glad you’re here, Son.”
On the second day of his visit, Rachel went out shopping so he could talk to his father alone. Sitting together on the handsome leather sofa in the study, Jordan told Lawrence everything about Holly, Stephanie and Golden—everything except his personal relationship with Holly. In this version, he made it sound strictly platonic.
After the initial shock and emotion, his father accepted the news better than Jordan had hoped. Although he reminisced about Scott a little, Lawrence was more taken with the notion that he had a living, breathing granddaughter. “Stephanie.” He said the name aloud for at least the fifteenth time. “And you say she looks just like Holly.”
“I’ve got pictures.” Handing them to Lawrence one by o
ne, Jordan was surprised by his father’s lack of animosity toward Holly. He had expressed disappointment in her, but none of the indignation Jordan felt. In fact, Lawrence sounded almost sympathetic when he spoke of her.
“These could be pictures of Holly at that age. She’s really precious,” his father noted. “Holly’s blossomed into a real beauty.”
Jordan stiffened. “You’ve always had a soft spot for her, haven’t you?”
Lawrence gave him a curious look. “It’s true. And I’ll always regret what Scott did to her. It was terrible how it split our families apart.”
“She could have rectified that.” He handed his father the last snapshot.
“Well, well, don’t you look handsome!” he exclaimed, ignoring Jordan’s remark. “And from the way Stephanie and Holly are looking at you, it appears they thought so, too.”
Jordan peered at the photo in his father’s hands. It was a shot Gracie had taken of them in their finery on the night of the dinner dance. He had forgotten Holly had given him a copy.
“From some of these pictures, it looks like you and Holly were—”
“Looks can be deceiving, Dad.”
Lawrence glanced up sharply. “I detect a definite hardness toward her in your voice. Something’s going on between the two of you, isn’t it?”
“Nothing’s going on. Certainly nothing for you to worry about.”
“Jordan, when are you going to stop shutting me out? We’ve been through so much, and here you’ve just found my granddaughter—and yet you continue to keep me at arm’s length when it comes to what’s important to you,” he declared with an adamance that stunned Jordan. “I’m not blind. This woman means something to you.”
Shaken by Lawrence’s outburst, Jordan reluctantly admitted having had a relationship with Holly. “But it was a mistake, Dad. I never should have gotten involved with her.”
His father shook his head. “There’s got to be more to it. From what I can see, you’re hurting more than you’re willing to admit. Tell me.”
Jordan stared down at the aging hand resting on his arm, and something inside him gave way. He told his father the entire painful tale.
