After she left, he turned back to SueEllen and Danny, whose smiles dimmed in the face of Hank's scowl. So he rearranged his features into something less frightening—he hoped—and suggested they go back to the office so he could show them the apartment and discuss salary, if they wanted. By the time they got there, Hank had almost convinced himself it was just as well Jenna had left when she had, because God knows what he would have said, anyway.
* * *
"I told you he wasn't so bad, once you got to know him." Libby flopped down on her stomach beside Blair on her bed, dragging her ponytail in front of her to inspect it for split ends. They had the door to her room closed, even though that made it hotter, but at least her brothers wouldn't bother them that way. And with the CD player turned up, they couldn't hear them, either. "When Daddy broke his leg last fall and then a storm blew the roof off the henhouse, Hank came right over and fixed it for us. And after Mama died? Hank was the first one to ask if we needed anything…this look like a split end to you?"
Blair duly inspected the strand of hair thrust in front of her and said yeah, maybe, so Libby chewed it off.
"Anyway," Libby went on, picking the hair off her tongue, "it's just for a couple weeks, right? Shoot, I'll kill for a summer job. But no place around here will let you work until you're at least fifteen. Oh, I almost forgot!" She sprang up to sit cross-legged on the bed, her eyes bright. "April Gundersen's gonna have an overnight campout for her thirteenth birthday in a couple weeks and I already asked her if I could bring you and she said sure. So you wanna come? There's gonna be maybe six or seven other girls there, and they're all cool, trust me."
Blair grinned. "I'll have to ask Jenna, but okay, sure." She missed her friends back home. They'd e-mailed each other a few times, but it wasn't the same as hanging out. And Blair had met a couple of Libby's friends already and she was right, they were pretty cool. But they didn't think they were cool, which was why they were.
They talked about other stuff for a while, but eventually the subject came back around to Hank, mainly because Blair couldn't shake loose the feeling there was something behind his hiring her.
"Like what?" Libby asked, stuffing a homemade nacho in her mouth and pushing Joe, one of the Fraziers' dogs, away when he tried to jump up to see what she was eating.
"I dunno. But when we were together today? I'd sometimes catch him looking at me funny. Like he was trying to figure me out or something."
"Huh." Frowning, Libby resumed chowing down the nachos. Then she said, "Maybe he likes your aunt? So he's trying to, you know, get on your good side or something?"
"That's nuts," Blair said, even as her stomach pitched at hearing somebody else voice her own fears. "They hardly know each other."
"So? You never heard of love at first sight?"
Yes, she had. From Jenna, who'd told her probably a hundred times she'd fallen in love with Uncle Phil within five minutes of meeting him. "That's not what's going on here. I'm sure of it," she added at Libby's skeptical expression. Heat tingled in her cheeks. "Because I already asked Jenna and she said no."
Libby's eyes got wide. "Why'd you ask her?"
"'Cause I saw them together, a few days ago. And Jenna had her hand on his arm."
Libby squinted, like she was thinking about this, as another chip vanished into her mouth. "Would it be so awful? If your aunt got married again?"
"I don't know. I mean, I never really thought about it." Not until they came here, anyway. "Especially as Jenna doesn't date or anything, so I figured she wasn't interested. But I sure can't see her with Hank." She and Libby called all grown-ups by their first names when they were alone. It made them feel more grown-up themselves, for some reason.
"How come?"
"Because…" She squirmed underneath Libby's scrutiny. "Because he's so not right for her."
"Why? Because he's not all citified and stuff?"
Realizing how Libby was reading her objections, Blair let out an exasperated, "Of course not. Geez. It's just…" She sat up herself, hugging her knees to her chest so she could rest her chin on top of them. She hated feeling confused like this, of being scared so much of the time but not knowing why. "Haven't you ever had a bad feeling about something, but you couldn't figure out exactly what it was?"
Libby sank back against her pillows, licking cheese off her fingers. "Yeah. The day Mama died. I just knew something was wrong, even before Mr. Adams came to get me out of class."
"So you know what I'm talking about."
"Kinda. But my bad feeling was because something had happened. Your bad feeling is because you think something bad might happen."
"So?"
"So it's not the same thing. And anyway, if your aunt said there was nothing going on between her and Hank, what's the big deal?"
Blair frowned. "But wouldn't it feel weird if your dad found somebody else?"
"Maybe. At first. But nothing's gonna bring Mama back, for one thing. And for another, I am so sick of being the only full-time female around here. I mean, Mrs. Stilton's okay, but it's not like I can talk to her about stuff. Besides—" she reached over to get her Dr Pepper off the nightstand "—grown-ups need sex. Goin' without it too long makes 'em grouchy."
Blair blushed so hard her roots felt hot, even as she couldn't help laughing. "Says who?"
"Says everybody. Couldn't you tell when your aunt and uncle had been doing it? I don't know about your house, but there was always lots of grinnin' and whistlin' around here the morning after."
Not something Blair wanted to think about right now. "But what if your father's new wife didn't like kids very much?" she said. "Or she wanted all your dad's attention?"
Libby's brows drew together. "You been out in the sun too long or what? Why on earth would Daddy marry somebody who didn't like kids? And besides, we're not talking about my daddy, we're talking about your aunt and Hank. And since you already said you liked him—"
"I said he was okay. I didn't say I liked him."
"Whatever. You know, this is a dumb conversation. Especially if nothing's goin' on to begin with. Seems to me there's enough to worry about in life without goin' looking for stuff." She wiggled her fingers. "Hand me the chips, huh?"
Blair had to admit, Libby had a point. Several of them, in fact. What was she so upset about? If she were honest, she'd have to admit Hank was more than okay. She did like him. Even if he did smoke. It was just…
She stuffed a nacho into her mouth, handing a chip to the dog.
Sometimes, she almost wished she were a kid again.
* * *
Jenna had run all the way back to the cottage, and now, nearly ten minutes later, she still stood in the middle of the living room, her hand clamped over her mouth, her heart doing a tommy-gun number in her chest. Oh, yeah, she'd let go of that rock, allrighty, only to bash her brains out on the next one jutting up out of the current.
So, what exactly had prompted her to give Hank the come-hither look? Curiosity? Self-pity? Idiocy? All of the above? And now what? Somehow she had a strong feeling that "Oops! My mistake!" wasn't going to cut it.
Oh dear God, the man could kiss. And no, she wasn't in a tizzy just because he tasted like chocolate milk shake. Although she might be in a tizzy because that was the first time a man had kissed her—as in, the kind of kiss that could easily have been a prelude to other things—in quite a while.
Her knees gave way and she dropped onto the sofa.
And a great sadness rolled over her, prompting her to begin what she knew was going to be the arduous task of once again shoring up her resolve not to get involved. Because now she had no doubt, not even a smidgen, that it would be all too easy to do exactly that with Hank Logan. Which came as a shock, not only because this was Hank Logan she was talking about, but because she'd never even considered the possibility of having strong feelings for another man, or that her hormones and her emotions could join forces against her resolve with such devastating results. In other words, up until a few days ago, her fall
ing in love again had been a non-problem.
Some control freak she turned out to be.
And running away had been juvenile and petty, hadn't it? Okay, so maybe she wasn't exactly a sexual sophisticate, and maybe that had been her first kiss in a dog's age, but it was still just a kiss. A kiss that made her cross-eyed, yes, but still…just a kiss. So get over it, Jenna. So she needed to do just that and get back with the program, here, which was to figure out how she and Hank were going to tell Blair he was her father. Soon. Like today. Then Hank and Blair could go about doing their father-daughter bonding thing and she could stay out of it.
And she would stay out of it, boy. Because her hormones and emotions could argue with her until the cows came home, but she wasn't falling in love again. Not with Hank, not with anybody.
There, she thought, getting to her feet. Much better.
Now all she had to do was go face Hank, apologize for acting like a blonde, and all would be well.
* * *
Hank was standing behind the office counter, entering the week's receipts into his computer accounting program and trying to enjoy his new recording of Mahler's Sixth, when Jenna sailed in, a woman clearly hell-bent on setting things to rights.
Figured. Maybe he'd resolved one aspect of his life—Danny was set to move in at the beginning of the week, soon as Hank vacated the apartment, SueEllen to join him soon as they were married next month—but this part of Hank's existence was getting more complicated by the second.
"You can save your breath," he said, exiting the program, then folding his arms across his chest. "I know what you're going to say."
Jenna blinked. "You…do?"
"Uh-huh. Something about the kiss being a mistake, right?"
Color flooded her cheeks. "Well…maybe not that word, exactly—"
"But close enough."
Her breath left her lungs in a rush. "You were right. It has been rough, steering Blair through all this. I had a weak moment."
"Yeah. Me, too."
He could tell she hadn't expected that. "You, too?"
"Yep. Beautiful woman throws herself into my arms—"
"I didn't throw myself!"
"—and it's been a long time for me, too. And contrary to popular belief, I'm only human." A lot more than he'd thought, apparently.
"Oh." Was that disappointment flickering across her face? "So…we don't have to worry about it happening again?"
His laugh startled both of them. Maybe she could brush off that kiss as inconsequential, but all he had to do was think about it and he got this ache so deep down inside him, his toenails hurt. "Oh, I'd say we have to worry plenty." He braced his hands against the edge of the counter. "Wouldn't you?"
The apprehension in her eyes sliced straight to his soul. Or where his soul might be if he still had one. "We can't get involved, Hank. And even if we could—" she swallowed "—I don't want to."
"Neither do I, sugar," he said, because that's what he'd programmed himself to say, to believe, from the moment the grim-faced ER doc had come out of surgery the night Michelle died and told him they'd done everything they could. Never mind that Jenna's words dented his ego a bit. "But one has nothing to do with the other, does it?"
"For me it does."
"Because you're a woman, you mean? No sex without emotional ties?"
If his bluntness rattled her, she didn't let it show. "Is that so wrong?"
"No. But I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me there's nothing happening between us."
"Okay, so there's an attraction—"
"And that's all I'm talking about, honey. Chemistry."
"Doesn't mean we have to act on it. Or should." Tiny lines bracketed her mouth, flattened and nearly colorless from her effort at keeping things under control. But ambivalence mingled with the lush heat in her eyes, giving her words the lie. "I've never gone the casual-sex route, Hank. Phil and I met when we were eighteen, for pity's sake."
It took a second. "You telling me he was your only lover?"
After a moment, she nodded.
Great. Her only lover. And by all accounts a paragon, too. Even discounting the million other reasons why this would never work, that alone would be enough to earn Hank a big, fat REJECT stamped across his forehead.
So why was he getting ticked? He'd managed just fine without a woman in his bed for two years. He sure as hell didn't need this one, even if all systems indicated he should think about ending the dry spell with somebody. Soon.
Problem was, he didn't want somebody else.
And it had been a long time since he'd allowed himself the luxury of wanting anything.
"So what are you saying? Only one to a customer?"
"No. I don't know. I'd never considered it before…" She clamped shut her mouth; Hank grinned.
"Before this?"
"That didn't come out right. I'm not considering it now…and I can't believe I'm having this conversation," she said, more to herself than to him. Then she lifted her chin. "You know as well as I do that our having sex wouldn't make a drop of sense."
"Could be fun, though."
Right on cue, she blushed. "That's beside the point."
He felt his expression harden. "And God forbid you do something just because it might make you feel good. Just because you want it."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" She swiped her hair away from her face, then held it there, her eyes riveted to his. "This isn't the same as…as buying a pair of shoes, or, or ordering pizza because you suddenly don't feel like cooking dinner!"
By this time, he'd circled the counter to stand directly in front of her, crowding her, in fact, close enough to make her back away if she wanted to. But she didn't. Oh, no, she didn't move an inch.
Not even when he lifted a hand to cup the side of her face. She was trembling slightly and her eyes widened, but not only did she stay put, he thought maybe she even leaned a little into his hand.
Her lips parted slightly, making him crazy.
"I didn't think I could ever want a woman like this again," he whispered, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "And God knows why it's you. Because you're right—making love to you wouldn't make a lick of sense. But then—" he lowered his hand, stuffing it into his back pocket "—life doesn't exactly make a whole lotta sense anyway, does it? So maybe living for the moment isn't such a bad idea."
"My sister lived for the moment," she said stiffly. "And believe me, I never envied her."
Well, hell—even a dumb old ex-cop like him recognized the sound of a door slamming in his face.
"I gotta go mow the grass," he said, heading for the door.
"Dammit, Hank!" Jenna yelled, following him. "Why are you taking this personally?"
He reeled around so fast she nearly crashed into him. "Maybe because I don't see any other man in the near vicinity?"
"And maybe this isn't about you, it's about me! And here's a newsflash for you—pressuring a woman into having sex went out with poodle skirts and gas guzzlers!"
"What?! I've never pressured a woman into having sex in my life!"
"Then what the hell do you call what you were doing now?"
"Tryin' to get you to explore your options!" He took a step closer, looming over her. She had to tilt her head back to see him, but damned if she didn't hold her ground. "Trying to make you realize maybe it's okay to do something for yourself once in a blue moon without worrying the pros and cons to death! That nobody's gonna judge you for taking a break from being the 'good one' every now and then. That's all I was trying to do. But since you've said 'forget it' in no uncertain terms, I won't bring up the subject again. You stay on your side of the fence, I'll stay on mine." He turned away, starting for the tool shed. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do—"
"It's not that easy," she said behind him. He pivoted back to see tears crested on her lower lashes. "I can't just go with the flow like that. I'm not made that way, and it's not fair of you to expect me to be someone I'm not. And frankly—" he watched h
er throat convulse "—you're not acting like the man I'd begun to think you were."
On a harsh sigh, Hank let out a choice swear word, then walked over to an old bench under one of the ash trees and dropped onto it, yanking his cigarettes and lighter out of his T-shirt pocket. He tapped one out, lit up, then leaned forward with his hands loosely clasped between his spread knees, taking his sweet time before finally getting up the nerve to look at her.
"I don't know what kind of man you think I am—hell, I don't know myself what kind of man I am, other than a screwed-up one with an overdeveloped taste for shoe leather—but you're right." He took a pull off the cigarette, pushed the smoke right back out. "About all of it. Well, most of it, anyway. I do think you're too hard on yourself. But I had no right to think a toss in the hay with me was the answer to your problems. And I apologize."
Several seconds passed. Then a few more. Then, finally, she came over and sat beside him on the bench, clutching the edge on either side of her knees. "So…you promise to behave from now on?"
He smirked. "Yeah. I swear."
Out of the corner of his eye, because they weren't facing each other, he saw her shoulders sag with relief. The stab to his heart that followed only drove home his increasing suspicion that this was about more than sex. Too bad, he thought, taking another drag, because the only-about-sex realm was safe. Predictable. Not the stuff of heartache and nightmares.
"Good," she said, "because we need to talk about Blair without all this—" she waved her hand around "—chemistry stuff clogging up the works."
Well, that said it all, didn't it? Yeah, she was attracted, the attraction of a lonely widow who hadn't had any in quite some time, who was so used to not having any that continuing not to have any wasn't a big deal.
So what's your point, Logan? You just said yourself you weren't looking for anything serious, either. Right?
Hank tossed the cigarette into the dirt and ground it out, wishing he had a piece of gum or something to get rid of the vile taste in his mouth. "Okay. What about Blair?"
"I think it's time we told her the truth."
Fathers and Other Strangers Page 14