“It’s an important document – a legal document – that Matthew will have his whole life.” Defiantly, she added, “I’d have to consult a lawyer before I fill out any forms.”
He went still. “I thought we weren’t going to do that, Kendra. Bring in lawyers and such. You said you wouldn’t come between me and Matthew, wouldn’t keep me from seeing him. And you said I should trust you on that.”
“I won’t keep you from seeing him, but this is so permanent.”
The planes of his face shifted to something cold and expressionless. But not entirely unreadable.
“You thought I came here on a lark? That I’d see Matthew a few times, then disappear? Is that what you hope, Kendra? Because if so, you better get over it. I’m here to stay in our son’s life. Permanent? You’re damned right it’s permanent. That’s exactly how it’s going to be.”
He strode to the door and jerked it open, but his voice was deadly calm.
“You want to get a lawyer? Fine. I’ll get one, too. Hell, I’ll get a hundred if I have to. Because I’m his father, dammit. I’m his father. He has to know that. He has to be able to hold the proof of that in his hand!”
Chapter Eight
Three days later, Kendra called “Come in” to a perfunctory knock on her back door, and braced herself.
She’d seen the strange car pull up beside the pickup Luke had parked in her drive while he worked on the fence. She’d suspected, but she hadn’t known for certain until he got out of the car, that the driver was Daniel.
She hadn’t seen him or talked to him since their confrontation at the newspaper office, and now her heart gave a jolt at the sight of him, wearing old jeans, work boots and a flannel shirt.
“Hello, Daniel,” she made herself say in a coolly neutral tone.
He stopped just inside the door.
“Kendra.”
“Matthew’s asleep.”
“I figured he would be. I have some things to tell you.”
“I’m working, as you can see.” She tipped her head toward the table, where she’d spread Marti’s research for the supplement’s article about old Fort Big Horn. “Nap time is one of my few uninterrupted times – usually uninterrupted,” she amended pointedly.
“This won’t take long. These are for you.”
He pulled a sheaf of papers from the back pocket of his jeans and planted them on the counter near her hand. They were slightly curved, molded by his body.
She started to reach for them, then halted. Molded by his body – and warmed by it as well? She dropped her hand to her side.
When she didn’t take the papers, he picked up the top one.
“I turned in my rental and bought a car. This is a copy of the certificate that a car seat has been properly installed.”
He dropped that to the counter, starting a new pile beside the original one.
“I’ve left the motel and rented a place out on Kaycee Road. I moved in this morning. This is the address and my phone number.”
That paper joined the first one.
He’d bought a car? Rented a place to live?
“But you’re leaving in a few months.”
“Actually, I’m leaving tomorrow morning, but only for a few days. And this –” He shifted another sheet from the original pile to the new one. “– is a number where I can be reached at all times while I’m gone.”
“I mean your leave of absence – to buy a car and move when your leave will be over, and then you’ll go back to your job and your old life and –”
“The rental company wouldn’t let me put the child seat in and I got tired of the motel.” He tapped the third sheet again. “If I’m not there, leave a phone number and I’ll be back to you in less than five minutes.”
“But –”
“This is a college savings account I opened in Matthew’s name, with you and me as guardians.” Another paper joined the pile.
Because she was touched despite herself, her words came out stiff. “I have a college fund for Matthew.”
“Enough to cover four years? Any school he wants?”
“No, of course not. Not yet. He’s only two –”
“Then more won’t hurt. These are copies of my government benefits, with Matthew now named as beneficiary.” He flipped several more sheets from the old pile to the new pile. “And I took out this life insurance policy with him as beneficiary, too.”
“Daniel –” Her throat closed up without warning around the words she’d intended.
“Don’t worry. I’m still not planning on doing anything reckless, but like I told you, anything can happen. If it does, call Robert Delligatti Junior, he’ll get you through any and all red tape you encounter. My parents’ address and phone number is here, too.”
He didn’t say it, but she suspected he meant this as another kind of insurance – insurance that his parents would be involved in Matthew’s life as grandparents. Someday.
With him or without him.
The hollowed out space in her gut at that thought echoed with the knowledge that she didn’t like the implications of that.
“And these –” He slapped the final papers onto the new pile. “– are the forms for amending Matthew’s birth certificate.”
She stiffened her spine and narrowed her eyes, ignoring all her earlier reactions.
“I told you –”
“And I told you,” he interrupted, leaning forward, so his palm pressed down on the papers on the counter. “I’ll give you some time, Kendra. But not much more of it. If I have to, I’ll go to court to get my name on that birth certificate. I won’t sue you over custody. And I won’t push you to explain it to Matthew or tell other people, but my name is going to be on my son’s birth certificate.”
He was gone before she could form a response.
* * *
“Need some help?”
Luke Chandler looked up from the contraption he seemed to be using to stretch the strands of barbed wire that reached from one wooden fence post to the next.
He didn’t appear as surprised as Daniel felt that, instead of getting in his car and driving away, he’d strode over to volunteer his muscles to the task he’d noticed Luke performing as he’d headed for Kendra’s door.
Then, he’d been prepared for battle – with her and with himself.
Now, the leftover adrenaline and some other hormone that had been rioting against the discipline of his mind, demanding that he grab Kendra and kiss her until they both forgot everything except what they’d found during the hurricane, had him jumpy and on edge.
On second thought, Luke’s expression not only didn’t betray surprise, it didn’t give any reaction away.
Luke Chandler would be hell to face across a poker table with a pot at stake. For some reason that thought cheered Daniel. He wouldn’t mind the challenge.
“You know what you’re doing when it comes to fixing fence?”
“Not a clue.”
“You said you couldn’t ride, either. Noticed you didn’t fall off.”
“Not while you were looking anyhow.”
“I’d’ve known.” Luke said with such off-hand assurance that Daniel believed him. “You know that if Kendra had said she wanted you gone that first day, I would have tossed you out on your butt. And, if she changes her mind and says the word now or any time in the future, I’ll still toss you out on your butt.”
Daniel understood the other man was laying his cards on the table, and he appreciated that.
“You can try,” he allowed equably. A small part of him almost wished the ranch foreman would try. It would give this pent-up energy somewhere to vent.
“Fair enough. There’s another pair of gloves in that bag.”
“Okay.” As he walked back to Luke, pulling on the heavy gloves, Daniel surprised himself for the second time in these past five minutes, by offering, “I could take you up flying sometime, Luke.”
“I might take you up on that.” A slow smile spread across the other man’s
face. “I’d like to see what it is you do know how to do. Grab hold here while I use the stretcher.”
Daniel grabbed hold, and for nearly three hours he tugged, held and yanked as ordered. Sweat soaked his shirt, then his chest, back and arms when he took off the shirt. Even his dark skin felt the bite of the sun, especially across his shoulders.
It felt good, damned good to work his muscles, to sweat, to be physically tired.
But as a remedy to stop thinking about Matthew and Kendra, this little foray into fence-fixing was a total failure.
* * *
The first time she spotted Daniel out her back window, Kendra nearly spilled her fresh glass of water all over the keyboard of her laptop computer.
She’d gotten up and poured out the old water and replaced it in the hope that new water might somehow translate to a new train of thought. Every stop on the old train of thought had been Daniel Benton Delligatti.
And now there he stood some thirty yards beyond her window.
Actually, if he’d simply stood it might not have been so bad. But he bent and twisted and squatted and stretched. When he took his shirt off, she’d considered for half a minute going out there and demanding that he leave.
Just as quickly, she’d realized what a mistake it would be to let him know how the sight of him affected her.
So, she stayed inside, stubbornly remaining at the table, telling herself she had the self-discipline to get her work done no matter who was outside the window.
When Matthew got up from his nap, she closed the lid of the laptop feeling like he’d brought her a reprieve from the governor. She’d written a grand total of four and a half sentences in two hours.
At least she succeeded in keeping Matthew occupied so he didn’t spot Luke and Daniel outside. There would have been no peace.
Maybe she’d actually get some peace with Daniel going away for a while. If she was lucky he’d stay away.
Even as the thought came, she had to acknowledge that contemplating the possibility of Daniel never returning to Far Hills didn’t make her feel the least bit lucky.
* * *
Kendra kept so busy over the next six days that she couldn’t be expected to even notice Daniel’s absence, much less come close to missing him.
She worked, did three shifts at the co-op, and took care of Emily two afternoons. She also fed Ben and Meg dinner and oversaw their homework endeavors, leaving Ellyn free to have dinner in town with Fran before going to parent-teacher night at the grade school.
Yes, indeed, she was so busy Daniel Delligatti never would have crossed her mind if other people didn’t keep bringing him up.
Matthew’s queries were direct and delivered each time he arrived at the co-op: “Dan’l?”
“No, Matthew, Daniel’s gone away and he’s not back yet.”
People at the co-op were nearly as direct in asking when Daniel would be back. Not satisfied when she told them she had no idea, they went on to extol his good nature with the kids. Fran, too, followed that routine, then referred to Daniel caring for Matthew the night of the country club dinner as if it were a done deal.
Kendra ignored it.
Marti wasn’t as easy to ignore when she came to pick up Emily four days before the country club dinner.
“About Daniel taking care of Matthew –”
“It isn’t going to happen.”
“When are you going to tell Daniel it isn’t going to happen?”
“I can’t very well tell him now, can I, since he’s not around. Who knows if he’ll even come back.”
“You don’t think he’ll come back?”
“No – yes. I don’t know.”
Marti watched while Kendra took great care in folding Matthew’s undershirt.
“No, I don’t suppose you do know, do you? As you’ve said, he’s a stranger. You don’t really know him.”
Kendra said nothing.
“Or don’t you feel that way anymore?” Marti asked bluntly.
She prepared the words to deny that she’d changed her mind, the words that would reaffirm what an absolute stranger he remained. What came out was, “I know pieces.”
“Pieces?”
I’m all those men. They’re part of me.
“Yes, pieces. Some pieces he’s let me see, and other … fragments have come out.”
“You make him sound like a jigsaw puzzle,” Marti protested with a half smile, as she watched Kendra’s hands repeating the familiar, routine motions of folding Matthew’s next undershirt.
Kendra shrugged. “If so, I’m a long way from putting that puzzle together. And I doubt I ever will, because he’s not the kind to hand over all the pieces.”
Marti’s gaze traveled up to her face. Kendra found herself unable to read her aunt’s expression.
“Ah, but you were always good at putting together puzzles, Kendra, even without the picture to go by. Even when Dale Sinclair had hidden away some of the pieces.”
That conversation rattled around in Kendra’s head at odd moments, driving into town or washing dishes or staring at the computer screen waiting for the right lead on a story to strike her or rocking Matthew when he woke with a bad dream one night.
But a brief exchange with Luke as she arrived home Monday evening with Emily and Matthew from the co-op really got under her skin.
He pulled his pickup in next to where she’d just parked her car, and without any fanfare helped take the kids out, then carried two-thirds of the groceries into the house for her.
“Thanks, Luke.”
“Welcome. Expecting Daniel for dinner?”
Caught off guard, her voice skidded up. “No.” She cleared her throat. “What on earth made you think that?”
He nodded toward two steaks showing at the top of one of the bags he’d carried in.
“I eat steak,” she declared.
“Two at a time?”
“I often cook things two at a time and eat the second portion as leftovers,” she said with great dignity.
“Uh-huh.”
She started to protest that she was telling the absolute truth, when she caught the glint in his eyes and firmly shut her mouth.
“So, do you think he’s coming back, or did you scare him off for good?”
Her resolve to ignore his prodding evaporated in a spurt of irritation. “Scared him off? I –”
“Yeah, you might be right,” he interrupted with a solemn nod, as if her protest had been an answer. “You might have scared him off for good with your too-strong-and-too-smart-to-be-needing-anybody-anyway-anytime-anywhere act. It wasn’t a bad act when we were kids, but you’ve got it down pat now,” he said in spurious admiration.
“Luke Chandler, you –”
“ ‘Course, I’m one who’s hoping he comes back.”
That surprised her enough to silence her sputtering.
“Yep,” he said with a nod as he headed toward the door. “The man won’t ever be much on horseback, but he’s got potential for mending fence, as you saw for yourself last week.”
* * *
Ellyn tapped the tip of her pen against one item on the yellow legal pad on the table between them.
“If you could break that out into a sidebar,” she said, “I could package it with the line drawing of Fort Big Horn before the Indians burned it down.”
“I could do that, but then – Oh, darn.” Kendra gave Ellyn an exasperated shake of her head as she jumped up to get the phone. “How many times is this thing going to ring today? You’d think with Matthew at co-op – Hello?”
“Kendra? It’s Luke.”
“Hi, Luke. What can I do for you?” She let enough chill into her voice to remind him she was not amused by his comments the day before yesterday.
“Fran asked me to call. She thinks you better get down here, to the church.”
Fear immediately overrode any other emotion. “Is it Matthew? Is he – ?”
“He’s fine. It’s nothing like that. It’s, uh, well, I drove Marti in t
o pick up Emily because I had a stop in town, too, and... It’s Daniel.”
“Daniel?” Nothing in Luke’s tone indicated he was kidding. Still... “He’s back East.”
“No, he’s here, at the co-op. Got back this afternoon from what I hear. But... Well, I think you better get down here.”
“Luke, if you’re –”
“Kendra. I’m telling you straight.” His voice left no doubt. “You better get down here.”
“Luke, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” she demanded, even while she stretched the phone cord to reach her jacket on the hook by the back door. She tended to slip her car keys into pockets – yes, there they were. Ellyn stood, looking worried. Kendra gave a small shake of her head to convey she didn’t know what was going on. “Is he hurt? Is it –”
“No, I told you, nothing like that. The kids are mostly gone, and he’s just playing the piano, but...”
“But what?”
He paused so long that her lungs began to hurt with her held breath and half-thought worries.
“It’s Chopin.”
Air rushed out of her in surprise, and she gulped more in. “Chopin? I don’t understand.”
“You will when you get here.” He sounded grim.
“I’m on my way.”
Ellyn announced she was coming with. “And,” she added, taking the keys from Kendra’s hand, “I’m driving.”
On the way into town she insisted Kendra fill in the gaps of the conversation she’d half heard. Repeating it did nothing to ease Kendra’s mind or to give order to her jumbled thoughts.
Luke waited in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, outside the basement meeting room used for the babysitting co-op. Piano music seeped out of the closed door.
“What happened, Luke?”
“I don’t know how it started. I’d dropped Marti off, and swung ‘round to the supply store for a mortar drill bit. When I came back, Fran and a couple of parents were here in the hallway and the kids were sitting on the floor inside, quiet as mice, everybody listening to that music.” He tipped his head toward the door. “Fran asked me to call you, and she went in and started scooting kids out to their folks.”
“She didn’t think –” Kendra couldn’t even voice the possibility that Daniel would hurt the children.
Heart Stealers Page 36
