A Father's Promise

by Helen R. Myers

  “You should never have kissed her while in a temper, John.”

  “How did you feel the first time you touched Kay?” he countered sharply, his memories an agony like salt in a raw wound.” How’d it feel to hold her in your arms?”

  “Oh, hell. Don’t remind me. I gotta go home to an empty house tonight. She’s bringing the kids to her mother’s for the weekend.”

  “Exactly. It’s like the world’s been chiseled down to just the two of you, and somebody’s plugged you into the mother of all electric sockets. I couldn’t have not kissed her if I’d wanted to. And once I did…” He closed his eyes against the feeling of gritty sand building there. “We don’t get to choose who we become attracted to, Bud. She’s in my blood. Her scent, the memory of how she feels, her taste…I’ve tried to get her out. Hell, I know a person who’s been abused the way she was is the last person a guy with my own rough background should get involved with. But I can’t get her out of my system. I just keep hanging around her, hoping that one day I’ll get things right, and that one day she’ll find the courage to give me, us, a chance.”

  “Love’s a pain in the butt,” Bud offered gloomily.

  John had never let himself use the word, and vowed not to until he could say it to Dana. “Let’s change the subject, okay?” He cleared his throat. “The reason I came over here is because of J.J. He needs a godfather. You want the job?”

  Bud’s solid chest shook in silent laughter. “You definitely are one of a kind when it comes to extending an invitation.”

  “Yeah, well, it took Dana to remind me of my obligation to J.J.’s, er, spiritual development and all,” he began again. “You know, in case…Uh, just in case.”

  For an interminable period afterward, he suffered his friend’s silent scrutiny. Then Bud crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I’d be honored to be your boy’s godfather. When do you need me, and where?”

  John exhaled in relief. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

  “You haven’t picked a date yet?”

  “No date, no church, no priest.” And that was the least of his headaches.

  Bud tugged at his left earlobe. “Sounds as if a good idea’s hit a snag or two.”

  “Tell me about it.” As J.J. smacked his lips and rubbed his tiny clenched fists against his eyes, John gently began bouncing him up and down on his leg. “C’mon, kiddo, give your old man a break. Don’t start bellowing. Lunch isn’t for another couple of hours. I don’t remember eating so much when I was his age,” he added to his friend. “Where does he put the stuff?”

  “Diapers.”

  The laugh that came with the droll comment had John meeting his friend’s amused gaze. For a moment, he experienced a touch of suspiciousness that he was being laughed at again; then he saw the sympathy in Bud’s eyes and slumped lower in the chair. “I’m being a jerk.”

  “We’re all jerks once in a while. If Kay could see you now, she’d want to cook you a casserole. You know, she’s one of those old-fashioned types who thinks everything gets healed by a filled stomach.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. The only thing to have entered his belly lately had been acid and coffee.

  “Talk to me, John. What else is troubling you? There’s more about Dana, isn’t there?”

  He realized he was staring myopically at the paperweight on his friend’s desk with its toy badge encased in liquid plastic. It was a Father’s Day gift made by his eight-year-old son. Would he and J.J. have as close a relationship as Bud had with Tim, or would he blow that, too?

  “Yeah, there’s more.” He sighed and gave himself a mental shake. “Well, now she’s left me, and I’m stuck with this christening plan and no idea how to go about arranging it. Shoot, you know the last time I was in a church was for her mother’s funeral service and I couldn’t stay for the whole thing.” He hadn’t been able to stand watching Dana in so much pain. She’d looked so alone, despite all the people around her, that he’d had to fight the need to hold her. But she wouldn’t have wanted that.

  “What do you mean, left you?” Bud demanded, breaking into his rambling thoughts. “Who’s helping out with J.J.?”

  “Nobody.”

  Bud whistled softly. “No wonder you’re in a mood. But it’s not like Dana to start something and not finish it—or to quit on J.J. I know Kay was just remarking about seeing them at the market the other day. Says it’s obvious she’s nuts about the boy.”

  “Guess so. It’s his father she’s not too wild about.”

  Bud grimaced. “C’mon, John. This is me you’re talking to. Didn’t I confess it was my jockstrap fat Wendy Dinkerman stole and raised on the school flagpole just because I refused to go to her birthday party?”

  The memory of that high school incident had John chuckling briefly, but it ended in another sigh. “Nothing happened that made any sense, all right?” An awkward silence lingered. It gave him time to remind himself that he’d come to Bud because of their old friendship, and that friendship, not unlike a marriage, demanded patience and trust. “Nothing’s working out the way I’d planned,” he said at last. “I knew it would take time to make up for the mistakes I’ve made with her, even if she ever does come to terms with her past. But I was trying to correct things. I thought we’d made considerable progress since Thanksgiving.”

  “She doesn’t think so?”

  “I’ve given up trying to figure out what she thinks.”

  “Women are a mystery all their own, John.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  It was difficult. Despite his friendship with the cop, he’d never found it easy to open himself to close inspection by others. It hadn’t been been his father’s way, and as a result it wasn’t his. What was it about his ancestry, men in general, regardless of age or relationship that kept them from expressing feelings and emotions? “A Paladin keeps his own counsel,” had been his father’s lesson. But his old man had been anything but infallible. And John couldn’t allow himself to forget that a problem left unexamined was one doomed to remain unresolved.

  He used the corner of the baby blanket to dab a bit of saliva from J.J.’s lower lip. “I kissed her,” he said quietly.

  “I can guess that much.”

  At his warning look Bud quickly hid behind his coffee mug. But John knew his reaction was valid. “Actually, I kissed her more than once. And…well, she went cold on me.”

  “Did you try talking to her about it?”

  He shrugged.

  “You didn’t ask her if she would share whatever she was feeling with you?” Bud demanded incredulously. “Don’t you ever talk to each other?”

  “Yes, we talk.”

  “But obviously not about the things you should.”

  There was nothing worse than someone else getting a bull’s-eye to the heart of a problem you’d been brooding over for ages. “We talk,” John insisted, although less convincingly this time. They discussed any number of things starting with J.J., then shopping, the weather, the ranch. “But—”

  “Never about sex.”

  He would rather have taken a blow to the chin than have to go through this. John sat up straighter and scowled down at J.J.’s feet working overtime to kick off his baby blanket. “All right, Dr. Know-It-All. So what do I do?”

  “Who’d you choose as J.J.’s godmother?”

  John shut his eyes against another stab of pain. “You know the answer to that.”

  “Then do whatever you have to do to get her to speak to you again. And when you go to her,” Bud added, leaning forward, his expression sympathetic, “this time remember that there are no embarrassing subjects between a man and a woman who care about each other.”

  John thought about Bud’s advice as he headed back toward the ranch. The lecture hadn’t been the most enjoyable experience of his life, but he knew his friend had made some valid points. Maybe Bud had believed many of his and Dana’s troubles were a result of the emotional scars she carried, but it was time to acknowledge tha
t he could have done a better job, too. Simply making himself visible in her life hadn’t been the answer; now that he thought about it, she’d probably seen his persistent presence as suffocating. Intimidating.

  The question that remained was, did he feel there was room for a second chance—or more accurately, a third? Determined to find out, he slowed down to make the turn onto Dana’s road.

  She answered his knock readily enough, although she appeared stiff and her expression cool. That told him she’d first looked through the peephole before opening the door.

  “Surprise,” he said grimly.

  He waited for her to make some response to that. Instead she simply stared at him.

  “Can I talk to you for minute?”

  He half expected her to shut the door in his face, but she surprised him by stepping back. Today she wore her favorite outfit—quickly becoming his—of a tunic and leggings, this time in a soft ivory that made her complexion more translucent, and made her look young and vulnerable. It made him feel like more of a heel than ever.

  It didn’t help that the moment J.J. spotted her, he began reaching for her and sputtering gurgly, gasping baby greetings. When they didn’t immediately get him transferred into her arms, he screwed his apple-pie face into a gargoyle’s grimace and lustily bellowed.

  Dana shut the door and hurried over to them. “Give him to me.” She cooed softly as she lifted the baby into her arms. “Has he been sick?”

  “No. I figure…well, I did mess up his formula or juice or something yesterday, and I think he had a bit of a tummyache. But I thought he was better. Maybe he’s just cranky.”

  “Not without reason, and what do you mean ‘or something’? Don’t you know if you made a mistake or not?”

  “Dana…”

  “Did you sterilize his bottles the way I showed you?”

  “Yes, I sterilized his bottles.”

  “Then he should be fine.”

  It would have been easier going up against a mother grizzly defending one of her cubs. Because he understood that kind of ferocious love, he couldn’t take offense. But he didn’t have to like it. “He’s okay. Look at him,” he replied, nodding to a contented J.J., who clenched a tiny handful of tunic by her right breast and gazed up at her adoringly.

  As she gently extricated the material from that tiny fist, John noted the heightened color in her face. When she noticed he was watching, she quickly turned her back to him and finished freeing herself. “Maybe he’s just feeling neglected,” she said, facing him again.

  John nearly laughed out loud. “Oh, sure he is. Keeping me awake and walking him for the last two nights certainly doesn’t count as company.”

  “Poor darling,” she murmured to his boy and kissed his smooth pink forehead. “You must be exhausted.”

  So that’s the way it was going to be, John thought, his spirits sinking. It gave him no pleasure to see that she didn’t look as though she’d had much more sleep herself. He watched his son grab hold of her top again and begin to drift off to sleep sucking contentedly on his pacifier.

  “If you’re finished making me feel like the lowest insect,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, “may I say something?”

  “I haven’t—Go ahead,” she replied, avoiding his gaze. “But I’ll warn you up front, it’s not going to work. I’m not going back to the Long J. I should have let you hire one of those women who came for interviews.”

  “But you didn’t. You did everything but sabotage those meetings, and we both know why. You’re nuts about my kid.”

  “Don’t brag, Paladin. It’s beneath even you.”

  He had to fight back a grin, even if she’d gone back to calling him the nefarious “Paladin.” “You want to know something else?”

  “No.”

  “You’re nuts about me, too.”

  The results were stunning. He’d never seen her look more shocked.

  “Stop it. We gave it a try and it didn’t work.”

  “We hit a little snag. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “A snag? You and I work overtime at trying to hurt each other, Paladin.”

  “So let’s talk about why we do that.”

  “Let’s not.”

  “I think you turned cold on me the other night because you had a flashback.”

  “I’d rather forget that evening, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not me. I can’t. Something special, something important happens between us when we touch, Irish. I know it. I believe in it. But…I do apologize for not realizing what you began experiencing. Only I can’t take back what I feel or want for us. What I can do is make you a promise.”

  “Another one?”

  “You’re a tough customer, lady,” he muttered under his breath. “Yeah, another promise. The last one. From now on, hands off…unless you say otherwise. I blow things this time, I bow out of your life forever.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Can I have that in writing?”

  “If you’ll agree to two things. The first is to be my son’s godmother. Do that and I’ll sign the document in blood.”

  “Now there’s an appealing thought. Do I get to choose the vein?”

  He smiled then because he knew her better than she thought, and understood she hid a lot of her nerves, just as she did her lack of confidence, with her dry humor. “I believe in taking risks, but I’m not reckless. Agree so far?”

  “It depends. What’s the rest?”

  “That you talk to me.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”

  “No, I mean talk.”

  “About what?” she asked, her expression growing more suspicious.

  “Everything. Anything.”

  She smoothed the silky hair sticking out from beneath J.J.’s knit cap. “Look, I know I’ve made remarks in the past about you not really understanding me, but that doesn’t mean you have to do this big metamorphosis to get me to help you. I, um, I realize it wasn’t fair of me to leave you strapped with J.J. the way I did, and I’d be willing to stay with him until you can contact one of those women you interviewed. Maybe there’s one who hasn’t already found another position by now.”

  John pushed his hat back on his head before resting his hands on his hips. “I don’t want one of them. I want you. And I’m not pretending that I can turn into something I’m not, either. But I know you better than you think, Irish. I know that you’re friendly with a bunch of people in this town, but there’s no one…no one you’re really close to. Your father made certain you never learned how to have a relationship with anyone outside of him and your mother.”

  “She needed me,” Dana replied stiffly. “I didn’t mind.”

  “My father needed me, too, but that didn’t mean he denied me a couple hours a week to play football and horse around with Bud. He was as single-minded as they come. The Long J meant the world to him, but he knew a boy had only a few years to be a kid. You believe that yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t have used that line about J.J. collecting frogs and pollywogs when I was interviewing. What happened to the child in you, Irish? What happened to the fears she never got to express…the dreams?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Then I’ll tell you what I think,” he continued, aware of his fear of letting her stop him before he got out everything he needed to say. “I think that child’s locked away inside you behind such a thick wall that even you can’t hear her crying.”

  “Damn you, Paladin,” she whispered, her eyes flooding. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to hear her.”

  “Why not, honey? Your father’s gone. He can’t hurt you anymore. Your mother’s gone. She doesn’t need you anymore. You’re free. It’s okay to explore you now.” He took a deep breath. “And I know it’s your call, but I want in on that experience. I want to see and learn what affects you. I want to be there for you when things get tough, maybe bringing up bad memories to help you work them out so that they don’t mushroom out of proportion.
I realize I’ve added to your troubles more than I’ve helped relieve them, and I can’t guarantee that I’m always going to get things right the first time. But give me a second chance, even a third if I need it, and…who knows?”

  She blinked furiously as she shook her head. “We’ve tried this before. It doesn’t work.”

  “We haven’t tried this before. I bullied myself into your life and said, ‘I’m here. I’m staying. You’re mine.’ That’s something else entirely. Hell, that was practically a replay of your father’s tactics. This is about giving you a choice, giving you a voice.” He attempted a wry smile, hoping with all his heart that it didn’t have too many cracks. “Haven’t you ever had the fantasy—even once—to work with a piece of raw clay, Dana? Well, I’m that hunk of clay,” he said, spreading his arms as she stared at him. “What would you like to make with me?”

  One tear escaped from the corner of her right eye. As if she was ashamed, or experiencing some deep inner pain, a strangled moan broke from Dana’s lips. Then she let her head drop back to gaze at the ceiling. “Heaven save me from the Irishman who discovers the poetic side of his soul.”

  Poetic? Him? John didn’t know about that. All he knew was that his knees were shaking more than the time he’d stood up to his father for the first time and waited for the blow to the chin that would send him flying across the barn. If Dana rejected him now, he didn’t know how he was going to get out of there without making a complete fool of himself. The one thing he did know was that he couldn’t stand to wait much longer.

  “Is that a yes or a no?” he asked, deciding he had to force the issue sometime.

  Chapter Eight

  “N o, John, that’s not a patch of ice up ahead. The temperature’s only just getting near the freezing mark, and probably won’t get below it before tonight. Now will you sit back and relax?” Bud directed calmly without taking his eyes off the road.

  “I was just checking. You know what they say. Two pairs of eyes are better than one. Watch this BMW coming up behind you. Jerk…if he gets much closer, you can tow him like a trailer.”