by Jo McNally
“I’m not so sure I did do the right thing. Emma has been asking about her father.” And Shelby had been giving her vague answers. Stuff like him joining the army, or he couldn’t be with her weren’t cutting it. She was nine years old and starting to want details, facts. Now he was here. It was complications on steroids. “I can’t imagine a scenario where he doesn’t see her and figure out that she’s his daughter.”
“His mother didn’t suspect,” Pam pointed out.
“After Luke and I broke up she ignored me. It was like this house didn’t exist. Then he left for the army and renters moved in. She was only there in between to get it ready for the next ones. I don’t think she ever saw Emma. If she did, it’s possible she just didn’t want to know about her.”
“Maybe. But don’t borrow trouble. There’s no reason to believe he won’t ignore us, too.”
“Seriously, Mom?” Shelby glanced at Pam and in her peripheral vision she thought a shadow moved on the wall in the hallway. “Emma?”
Quickly she went to the doorway and looked out but there was no sign of the little girl. She walked back to the window. “When you bury your head in the sand you leave your ass exposed. I need to tell Luke, get ahead of this. Tell the truth and get out from under this secret I’ve carried for so long.”
Just then she saw her strong-willed little secret march across the driveway and head to the house next door. She knocked and Luke answered.
“Oh, God...” Shelby knew it was time to panic now.
* * *
Luke McCoy looked down at the little girl standing on the porch. She had dark hair and eyes that were spitting with attitude. As if someone had recently ticked her off. She was probably selling something for a school fundraiser and getting turned down. But the cop in him took issue with the fact that her parents were letting her go door-to-door all by herself.
“Hi,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“Are you my father?”
That was not what he expected. “Am I what now?”
“My father. I heard mommy and Grammy say the man next door is my father. So, are you?”
Luke was a detective with the Huntington Hills Police Department. He was usually the one doing the interrogating. To say her question took him by surprise was an understatement and he was momentarily at a loss for words.
“I’m waiting.” There was annoyance in her dark eyes and stubbornness written all over her face.
A face that seemed familiar somehow. “Who’s your mother? Where do you live? What’s your name? How old are you?”
“Emma Richards. I live next door.” She pointed. “My mom is Shelby Richards. And I’m nine.”
Luke felt as if this little bit of a kid had just gut punched him. A quick mental calculation made the timing work and he studied her more closely. The obstinate line of her jaw. An angry tilt of her head. That glint in her eyes warning of the rebellion raging inside. He was shocked, angry and a whole bunch of other feelings, but, oddly enough, surprise wasn’t one of them. The kid looked like him. She had the same indentation in her chin, her eyes and the shape of her brows were the image of his.
“Emma...”
Shelby raced up the walkway and pulled the little girl protectively against her side. For the second time in as many minutes Luke had that two-by-four to the gut feeling. Talk about a blast from the past. He saw Shelby’s mother standing back, but the dragon lady was watching and itching to interfere. The woman had hated him ten years ago and judging by the look on her face nothing had changed.
“What are you doing here?” Shelby asked the kid.
Emma looked up. “I heard you and Grammy talking about him.”
“That’s eavesdropping.” Shelby’s tone was matter-of-fact rather than disapproving. “We’ve talked about this.”
“I know. I’m sorry. But I couldn’t help it and you can give me a time-out from TV.” She moved away and there was a pleading look in her eyes. “Just tell me. Is he my father?”
“I’d like to know the answer to that, too.” Luke met her gaze.
To her credit Shelby answered in that same even tone. “Yes.”
Luke and Emma stared at each other. It felt all kinds of wrong for a father and daughter to find out about each other at the same time. When she was nine. She looked as defensive as he felt. And there was a very long, very awkward silence before Shelby broke it.
She went down on one knee and took the little girl’s hands into her own. “Look, peanut, I need you to go home with Grammy while I talk to Luke.”
“That’s his name?” She glanced up at him.
He nodded. “I’m Luke McCoy.”
“I don’t want to go home.” Emma’s small face was full of determination and defiance.
“I understand that. And this is a lot to take in. But I’m asking you for a few minutes. Then you and I will talk.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.” Shelby made the sign over the left side of her chest. “Now go home with Grammy, please.”
“Okay.” Emma’s expression was full of confusion and resentment but she left without another word.
Luke didn’t know what to say. Shouldn’t a father know how to talk to his child? Shouldn’t it be instinctive? And the feelings. The love. Wasn’t that automatic? But not so much. The kid was a complete stranger to him. And that was Shelby’s fault.
Luke felt the anger rise. “How dare you—”
She gave him a look then held up a finger to shut him up as Emma held her grandmother’s hand and headed for the house next door. The little girl glanced over her shoulder at him before disappearing inside.
“Okay,” Shelby said. “Now you can say whatever you have to.”
She met his gaze directly but uneasiness swirled in her light brown eyes with green and gold flecks. He’d forgotten how one or the other color dominated when she was happy, angry or sad. She’d been a girl the last time he saw her but was all woman now, slender and curvy at the same time. Her straight brown hair was streaked with highlights and fell past her shoulders. She was more beautiful than he remembered. In the past he’d loved the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled at him, but she wasn’t smiling now.
“I don’t need your permission to speak,” he said.
“Under these circumstances you do. When my daughter is present—”
“Our daughter,” he snapped. “How could you have kept this from me? I had a right to know.”
“I was young and scared.”
At least she didn’t tell him he was wrong. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
“So many reasons.” She wasn’t the least bit defensive, which was surprising. She was taking responsibility for what she’d done. “You broke up with me and my mom had forbidden me to see you—”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Let me finish.” She looked down at her feet, then met his gaze. “That last time I saw you, when you wanted to meet, I actually planned to defy my mother and tell you I was pregnant.”
“She didn’t want you to tell me the truth?”
“More than that. She gave me an ultimatum—if I said anything, I’d have to find somewhere else to live.”
“She would never have thrown you out.” He wasn’t sure how he knew or why he was actually defending the woman who never hid her dislike of him.
“I was in no position to risk calling her bluff. Not with a baby to think about. But, believe it or not, I planned to go against her and tell you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. Before I could you said you’d enlisted in the army because you were lost, struggling. You and your mother didn’t get along and your life had no purpose. So you signed a recruitment contract.”
“If I’d known about the baby, I might have been able to change things.”
“My body, my life,” she said. �
��I was pregnant and my body was going to change. I accepted those consequences. But you were making plans for your life and I didn’t want to be the reason those plans didn’t work out.”
“So you’re a saint and I’m a sinner?” Luke saw her flinch at his jab but it wasn’t as satisfying as he’d expected.
“I probably deserve that but lashing out at me isn’t going to change anything.” Then her mouth pulled tight and regret hovered in her eyes for a moment. “Whether you like it or not, we share a daughter. What are you going to do about it?”
“I have an obligation to her.”
“She’s a blessing in every way, not a duty.” There was steel in her voice. Mother lion in full-on protection mode.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“Do I?” One delicate eyebrow lifted. “I haven’t seen you in years. How would I know what your priorities are? I haven’t seen much of your mother either.”
“Because she rented out the house. Now she wants to sell and I’m here to fix it up and handle the details for her. She moved to an adult community in Phoenix.”
“So your relationship hasn’t improved in all this time. You couldn’t be under the same roof during that process?”
Although they never talked about the past, he and his mom were actually getting along better. Maybe because he wasn’t an angry, aimless jerk. “She was in a hurry to move on with the next part of her life and I offered to help.”
Shelby nodded. “That’s your issue and none of my business, really. But Emma is my priority. And judging by your self-righteous indignation, you want to be in her life.”
“Of course.” The answer was automatic.
“Do you want me to smooth the process of getting to know her? Be a go-between to make it easier?”
“No.” That was automatic and adamant. He didn’t want anything from her. “I can handle it.”
“Okay then. The only thing I ask is that you let me talk to her first. Explain things in a way she’ll understand.”
“You mean make me look like the jerk who abandoned you and her?”
“I’ll tell her the truth and make sure she understands that you didn’t know about her. But she’s nine, Luke. I have to pick the words carefully.” She sighed. “Do you want to be there when I do? Keep me honest?”
She’d betrayed him in the most elemental way possible so the word honest coming out of her beautiful mouth was hard to take. And the fact that he could still think she was beautiful felt wrong, but couldn’t be helped. Did he want to be there when she talked to Emma?
“I—You better.” He had no idea what to say because he didn’t know anything about her. That was on Shelby. “After you tell her, I want time with her.”
“Okay.” They exchanged phone numbers and she promised to call and set up a meeting between them right away. “I’ll be in touch, Luke.”
He wouldn’t hold his breath on that but at least he knew where to find her. And that was all he knew about this Shelby Richards. She’d been a gifted student years ago but he had no clue what she did for a living. Speaking of living, she was still at her mom’s which led him to believe she wasn’t married. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a man in her life. His primitive negative reaction to that was a complete surprise. His long-ago rebellion rose up and resisted that thought.
But this day had been weird. He found out he was a father and his kid was nine years old. It made an odd kind of sense that his reaction to his long-ago love was weird, too. No way could he care for a woman who had lied to him in the most basic way by not telling him she was going to have his child.
Nope. Their only connection in the future would be handing off that child because now that he finally knew about Emma, he had nine years to make up for.
* * *
As she walked next door, Shelby could feel Luke’s stare burning a hole in her back. Seeing him again was surreal. The passion in him that mesmerized her before was still there. Unfortunately it was fueled by his hostility toward her now, because of what she’d done. One could hardly blame him. She wanted badly to believe she’d done what was right but just a little while ago she’d questioned her actions while she and her mother peeked out the window at him.
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
The first step in untangling this mess was to tell Emma the truth and put it into some context that a nine-year-old could wrap her head around. This might be the first time ever that she’d wished to be gifted with words instead of math. How was she going to explain all this to a child who didn’t know about the birds and bees yet? She was hoping to postpone that conversation for as long as possible to preserve her innocence. Emma was a little girl, too young to understand wanting someone more than your next breath. So painfully in love that you had to give yourself to him and damn the consequences.
“Stick to the facts,” Shelby mumbled to herself. She opened the front door and walked inside.
Her mother was waiting for her. “Well?”
“What?”
“Luke. What did he say?”
That man bubbled and churned like a volcano about to erupt and it had been irresistible to a seventeen-year-old girl. A few minutes ago she’d seen emotions stirring, making his eyes dark as coals, but he’d kept himself in check. Clearly he was shocked, angry and sarcastic but his responses and questions were completely reasonable. All things considered.
“The guy I remember wouldn’t have been so restrained.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Her mother’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“He wants to get to know Emma. And he has every right.” Shelby added that because she expected pushback.
“But is that good for her?” Pam folded her arms over her chest. “We don’t know anything about him.”
“Mom—”
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me. He was willful and wild. He had more than one brush with the law. Do you want your child with a man like that? Does he have a job? Will he be a bad influence on her? She’s just a baby.”
“I wish she was. This would be so much easier.”
Shelby loved her mother and was grateful for everything she’d done. But there were times she wanted her to be wrong. This time she wasn’t. “Let’s put aside the question of what’s good for her until it becomes relevant. She’s been asking questions about her father and now she knows the truth. Plus there’s Luke to consider. He’s her father and keeping her from him is not just wrong. It could create problems.”
“Such as?”
“He could sue for legal rights. What if he tries to take her away from me because I kept her from him?”
Pam’s face went white. “He wouldn’t.”
“I’m not willing to push the issue and find out.” Shelby’s head was starting to pound. “Let’s take this one step at a time. The first thing I have to do is explain this situation to Emma as best I can.”
“Maybe you should talk to the school counselor first.”
At the high school where Shelby taught math there was a counselor who helped kids academically, socially and emotionally. She was a good friend and it was an excellent suggestion. Unfortunately Shelby didn’t think Emma would tolerate a delay while her mom discussed this with a mental health care professional. She would have to wing it.
“This has waited long enough and I don’t think she’ll be put off. She’s willful and stubborn like Luke. She’s also angry and confused.” The expression on her girl’s face was just like his. Now that she thought about it, he must have seen the resemblance because he never asked if Emma was his child. “I’ll tell her now.”
“Just answer her questions,” Pam said. “She’s going to have a lot.”
That was good advice. Her mother knew Emma almost as well as she did. “You’re right. I’ll give her the broad strokes and let her ask whatever she wants. She c
an only grasp so much right now. As she gets older things will occur to her and she’ll probably want to know more until Luke being around is the new normal.”
“If he sticks around.” Pam shrugged. “He left once. There’s no reason to believe he won’t do it again.”
Shelby couldn’t deny that and now that Emma knew about him she would be affected if he left. She made a mental note to find out what his intentions were.
“Where is Emma?”
“She went straight to her room,” her mother answered.
Shelby took a deep breath. “Wish me luck.”
Slowly she walked upstairs, testing out what to say, how to open this explosive dialogue. Everything she came up with was so lame it made her want to slap herself. In the second room on the left, Emma was sitting on the carpet by her bed. She was holding the ragged stuffed bear she always grabbed when she was upset. The sheer number of stuffed animals in her room was impressive but she had two go-tos. A koala Grammy bought her on a trip to San Diego that she slept with. And this one with a missing eye and a rip in his foot was for emotional support. It looked sad and anxious, just like Emma did now.
Shelby glanced around the room with its pale pink walls and white-painted doors and baseboards. Lace curtains crisscrossed the window. A white wooden chest that held dolls and their clothes along with games sat underneath. The twin bed was neatly made with a princess-themed spread and matching throw pillows.
She loved this child more than anything and had mostly forgotten the time when she was pregnant and afraid because when Emma was born it was love at first sight. It seemed impossible for that feeling to get bigger, yet it had. And just like that she knew how to open this conversation that needed to happen.
“I love you, baby girl.” She sat down on the rug in front of her child. “Before you were born I loved you, but when they put you in my arms—when I saw that sweet round face and those tiny hands and feet, the love was so big—”
“Bigger than the ocean?” Emma loved hearing about the day she was born.
“Way bigger. To the moon and back,” she answered.
