"Don't worry about it. I'll just send her on down and keep the rugrats out of your hair."
Less than a minute later, he heard Blair's reluctant descent, the stair treads' screaking in sympathy, it seemed. Feet…legs…arms pretzeled over her midsection…shoulders…and, at last, a prize-winning glower. When she finally reached the bottom of the stairs, Hank said, "Seems to me I've seen that very expression in my mirror on more than one occasion."
No response.
"Come on. Let's go outside where we can talk."
"What makes you think I've got anything to say?"
"What makes you think I don't?"
He counted it as a small victory that she actually followed him, even though, as she would put it, it was under duress. They walked out a ways from the house, toward a fenced-in pasture where a half dozen cows lay under the shade of a cottonwood, disinterestedly chewing their cud and periodically shivering off flies. Sam's farm was strictly small potatoes, not unlike the one Hank and his brothers had grown up on. In Sam's case, though, family tradition fueled his determination to keep the mainly subsistence operation running, although he supplemented his income by teaching at a local community college. Hank couldn't imagine how hard it must have been for Sam, keeping everything going after his wife's death, but he couldn't fault the man for trying to maintain some sort of consistency in his children's lives…and that single glimpse of the kind of self-sacrifice parenting required hit him smack between the eyes.
When they reached the post-and-rail fence edging the pasture, Hank leaned on it, deliberately not looking at his daughter, who may or may not have been shooting daggers at him.
"You tell Libby about me?"
"No," she said after a second.
Hank glanced over to see Blair leaning against the fence as well, but a good five or six feet away. "How come?"
She frowned at him, squinting against the early-afternoon sun. "Are you serious?"
"Just figured you'd probably want to talk it over with somebody, is all. Libby seems like a logical choice."
"Well, I didn't." A pause while she refocused on the cows. "Where's Jenna?"
"Back at the cottage."
"Why didn't she come?"
"You want to talk to her?"
"I didn't say that. Just wondered how come you're here and she's not."
Hank managed to keep a lid on his temper by the skin of his teeth. Now wasn't the time to get on her case about her snotty attitude. "As it happens, she wanted to, but I thought it might be better if I ran interference first. She's pretty upset about what you said to her."
"She's upset? Excuse me? Nobody lied to her, did they?"
Then again, maybe now was as good a time as any. "Nobody except your mother, who left Jenna with the burden of havin' to clean up somebody else's mess. So maybe you should get off your high horse and start thinkin' about this from your aunt's perspective. After more than twelve years, suddenly this piece of information lands in her lap that's gonna change several people's lives. And she's got nobody to turn to for advice."
He patted his shirt for his cigarettes, realized he'd run out and forgotten to buy more last time he went shopping. "So what's she supposed to do?"
"Tell me the truth." Betrayal flashed in her eyes. "But I guess grown-ups don't have to follow the same rules as kids, huh?"
"No, they don't," he said, watching her eyes go wide. "Not when the stakes are as high as these were. And don't give me attitude, like nobody else has ever gone through this but you. How do you think I felt when I found out about you? That your mother didn't think I deserved to know I had a daughter? Thirteen years I'll never have, that no number of pictures can replace. Then to top it off, your aunt didn't tell me right away, either. So, trust me—I know exactly how mad you are. Until I realized she was only trying to protect you."
"Protect me? From what?"
"From what she didn't know. You're the most important thing in the world to her, Blair, in case you missed it. And she had no idea why your mother chose to keep my identity a secret. For all your aunt knew, I could've had a record a mile long, or been a substance abuser, or liked to beat up women. She wouldn't have been doing her job if she hadn't checked me out. And that takes time."
"But it was okay for you to know about me, for me to work for you—" She turned away, her mouth working overtime. "She had no right—"
"She had every right," he said quietly. "Whether you think so or not. And before this day is out, I want you to think real hard about apologizing to her, because she's worrying herself sick about this."
Her forehead still crumpled, Blair picked at a splinter in the wood for some time before saying, "Just tell me one thing."
"What?"
Cold and defiant, her gaze met his. "Did you love my mother?"
Hank silently swore. "We hadn't really known each other all that long, Blair." Cringing at the hurt in her eyes, he plowed ahead. "The problem with honesty, is that sometimes you hear things you might not want to. I was only twenty-five, honey. I—"
"Yeah, that's what I thought," she said, slamming her hands into the top rail before spinning around and stomping away.
* * *
It was nearly dark when Jenna heard Sam Frazier's truck pull up in front of the cottage. Making herself stay put on the sofa, where she'd been re-reading the same paragraph in the new Grisham novel for the past hour, Jenna tried to arrange her features into as non-censuring expression as possible. Hank had called her after his conversation with Blair, ostensibly to comfort her. Only, for all his macho posturing, the weariness in his voice told her all too clearly his and Blair's first official father-daughter chat encounter had bombed, big-time.
And the jolt to her heart had told her he was no less a man because of it.
The screen door slammed shut behind Blair. Meringue abandoned Jenna and, with a series of accusatory mews, trotted over to her girl, writhing around her ankles until Blair picked her up.
"You mad at me?" she asked, surprising Jenna.
"No. Worried about you, maybe. But not angry."
"You should be." She let the cat drop onto the floor. "I acted like a brat."
Jenna tossed the book onto the coffee table and opened her arms. A second later, Blair was in them, too many bony knees and elbows to get situated right away. But they finally managed, Jenna kissing her baby's hair, smelling of something pan-fried, over and over.
"I wish things could just go back to the way they were," Blair said against Jenna's chest. "Before…all of this."
"Yeah. I know. But they can't."
Her niece sat up, worry settled deep in her eyes. "We're still going back home, though, right? I mean, you don't expect me to stay here? With him?"
Her brow creased, Jenna smoothed back Blair's hair from her face. Were her own exhaustion and stress shadowing Blair's words with subtexts? Or was there really something more going on here that she wasn't getting? "Of course not. Neither of us would ever force you to stay where you didn't want to. We haven't even talked about visitation, actually. But whatever we decide, you'll be part of the process."
Her expression darkened. "I don't want anything to do with him, Jenna. Ever."
The subtexts began to shuffle out of the shadows. "Blair, I know you're still upset—"
"You can't expect me to just suddenly accept some stranger as my father! To…to act like everything's cool when it isn't!"
"Nobody expects anything, sweetie. Not right away, certainly. But you know, the man you thought was 'okay' yesterday, before you knew who he was, is the same man today—"
"You don't understand."
"No, I don't. So help me out here, okay?"
Blair scrambled up from the sofa, only to spin around and drop into the chair opposite, a mutinous glare contorting her face. When she didn't say anything, Jenna said, "You know, Hank's just as scared as you are."
"Yeah, I just bet."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"He sure wasn't acting like he was scared
. I mean, God—what gives him the right to tell me what to do, how to think, when he doesn't even know me? It's not fair!"
"Life rarely is," Jenna said, thinking how her words nearly echoed Hank's from the day before. "But you have to give this a chance—"
"Why? Nobody asked me if I wanted this. Just because he and my mother had sex doesn't give him the right to order me around, or…or to stick his nose in my life!"
"I'm sorry you feel that way, Blair. But he is your dad—"
"He is not my dad. And there's no way I'm calling him that!"
Jenna's hands flew up. "All right, all right—you don't have to call him dad. You don't have to call him anything. But we can't undo what's done. You can't pretend he doesn't exist, because like it or not, Hank Logan is now part of your life. Part of our lives," she added, wishing she could ignore the sizzle of awareness those words provoked. "And sooner or later, you're going to have to deal with that fact."
With something that sounded like a growl, Blair popped up again, tramped a few feet away, then wheeled on her, tears trickling down her cheeks. "Why didn't you leave things the way they were? Why did you have to tell him?"
At that moment, Jenna would have cut out her own heart to save Blair from her confusion and pain. But her niece also needed to see she wasn't the only one with something at stake here.
"Because I couldn't in good conscience keep that kind of secret from another human being! Because he deserved to know you!" Jenna rose from the sofa, willing her voice to remain steady. "And because, believe it or not, you deserve to know him! What's not fair is blaming Hank for something that's not his fault. I can't make you love your father. I can't even make you like him. But Hank Logan is a good man, whether you want to acknowledge that at the moment or not. So you will get to know him, if it's the last thing I accomplish on this earth. Starting with dinner tomorrow night."
"Oh, no—"
"Oh, yes. And don't even think about running off to Libby's, because you will be here if I have to tie you to the chair."
Stunned into silence, Blair gawked at Jenna openmouthed for the space of several heartbeats until—once again—she tore to her room, slamming the door shut behind her.
Chapter 11
"Where is she?"
"In her room," Jenna said, stepping aside to let Hank in. "Sulking."
Even if his gut hadn't been all balled up to begin with, one look at Jenna's pinched face would've done it for sure. A shame, too, because the smell of tomato sauce and garlic was almost tempting Hank into thinking he was hungry.
And the sight of Jenna in that long, gauzy skirt and sleeveless, midriff-skimming top, her hair loosely piled on top of her head with all those wispy little strands floating around her face, stirred another kind of temptation altogether.
He set down the old albums and things on the living-room side of the counter, then rolled up his shirt sleeves. He'd thought maybe he should aim for a step above his normal T-shirt-and-jeans look, but even with the fans going and all the windows open, it was still hot in the cottage. How could it be so humid and still not rain?
"So," Jenna said with a bright, dumb-looking smile, pouring dressing over a large salad, "how's business?"
"Picking up," he said, then frowned. "She give you grief today?"
"No, actually. Since she hasn't said three words to me since last night."
"Damn, Jenna. Maybe this isn't such a hot idea."
"You got a better one?" She dragged a pan of something with lots of bubbling cheese on it out of the oven.
"No," he admitted. "What's that?"
"Eggplant parmesan. You'll love it."
"Did I say anything?"
"You didn't have to. Look," she said in a low voice, "I know this isn't ideal, but it's the best I could come up with. And I don't mean the eggplant. So you and I are going to act perfectly normal and have a perfectly lovely dinner. She has to join us or no Libby's, but then I mitigated the ultimatum somewhat by saying whether she participates or not in the conversation is entirely up to her."
In spite of the tension ripping his insides to shreds, Hank felt a grin tug at his mouth. "Who the hell uses the word mitigate in ordinary conversation?"
"A borderline hysterical control freak who's petrified her child will never speak to her again?" Without thinking, he reached out to her; she smoothly sidestepped his touch, nodding toward the albums. "What's all this?"
Now, the thing was, Hank was not by nature much of a toucher—outside of sexual situations, anyway—a fact that used to exasperate his overly tactile mother no end. Michelle had been an exception. And now Jenna, around whom keeping his hands to himself had become damn near impossible.
And her Mother-May-I? arbitrariness about it was beginning to get up his nose. Even though he told himself he understood.
"Some of the family photos Cal brought over," he said, his words more clipped than he'd intended. "I thought Blair might like to see them. Maybe."
Jenna nodded; his guess was she didn't trust her voice just then.
"I told Ryan, by the way." She looked up, her brows slightly dipped. "My other brother. Cal already knew." His mouth twitched. "And something tells me Ryan and his wife Maddie already knew, too. Anyway, they're all hot to meet her and welcome her into the family. Maddie, especially. So she's invited all of us over to her and Ryan's place for the Fourth for a cook-out."
"Oh, Lord, Hank—that's only a couple days away!"
He shrugged. "Maybe throwing her into the deep end's the only way to get us all through this, y'know? And I'd like for her to at least get some sense of her family here before y'all go back to D.C."
Although he'd thought he'd come to terms with their leaving, hearing the words out loud made his stomach flip. And not just because Blair would be going back east. In a way, though, it was just as well, wasn't it? Because, no matter how much he told himself he wasn't interested in letting a woman get under his skin again, the longer Jenna stayed, the more likely that's exactly what was going to happen. He couldn't even put a finger on why, not yet. So it was better for everybody that she left before he figured it out.
"Would you like something to drink?" she asked, blasting his thoughts to kingdom come, and he said, "Sure," only to nearly fall over when a can of beer landed in front of him. Until he realized it was that non-alcoholic stuff. He held it up, brows raised. She angled her head.
"It tastes the same, right? So you can at least pretend it's the real thing."
"Honey, I hate to tell you this, but nobody drinks beer for the taste."
He watched as she wrapped a loaf of bread in foil, then stuck it in the oven. "How much do you drink? Exactly?"
In the midst of popping the top—it would have been rude to hand it back to her—he looked up. "What did you say?"
"I'm sorry, I know it's none of my business, it's just that I saw you buy that six-pack, and—"
"Ah." He took a swig, set the can down on the counter and watched the condensation meander down the sides for a moment. "God knows I've got my flaws, but boozing it up isn't one of 'em." He looked at her. "In fact, I've still got four cans left from that six-pack. Relieved?"
"Yes, frankly." A smile flickered across her lips before she glanced toward Blair's door, then back at Hank. "Show time," she said, wiping her hands down her skirt, and Hank wanted to hug her so bad, he thought he'd pop.
* * *
"And this one's of your grandmother when she was about your age."
Jenna watched her niece for a reaction as Hank leaned over the coffee table to hand Blair the same photo that had gotten the ball rolling barely a week ago. "So now we know where the red hair came from. She had a real thing for classical music, you know? Taught piano most of her life."
Blair's expression remained impassive, as it had through all the other pictures Hank showed her. Jenna's heart bled; if it hadn't been for Hank's surreptitious, reassuring smiles throughout the evening, she wasn't sure how she'd have made it through.
"You would have been the
ir first grandchild," he said, and Jenna saw just the tiniest hitch in Blair's movements as she wordlessly set that picture on top of the others. She'd deliberately sat apart from them, forcing Jenna and Hank to sit next to each other on the sofa, close enough for their pheremones to do a do-si-do. This was awful, but Jenna was having a devil of a time concentrating on the photographs and not on the fascinating infrastructure of veins and tendons in Hank's hands. A breeze had begun to stir with the advent of dusk, cooling the air, if not tension of a hundred kinds sizzling in the small room. Underneath the high-pitched sexual awareness she was apparently powerless to ignore, let alone shake, hummed an ever-present concern for Blair, a combination certain to drive her bonkers if one or the other didn't give soon.
Blair was right: life definitely wasn't fair.
"And that's me," Hank was saying, "with your uncles Cal and Ryan, when we were all kids. You met Cal, remember? The day we found Mutt?"
At the sound of his name, the dog, stretched out on the floor a few feet away, groaned. Which was more than Blair did.
"Anyway," Hank went on, "Ryan and Maddie are having a cook-out on the Fourth, and I thought that might be a good time for everybody to get acquainted."
That got the first real reaction of the evening. Blair's eyes darted to Hank. "You told them?"
Jenna could sense Hank's weighing his words. "You're their niece, honey. They'd skin me alive if I kept that from them." He paused again, then added, "They're real excited about meeting you. Like I said, you're the first kid in this generation. And family ties are real important around here—"
"May I be excused now, Jenna?" Blair interrupted, getting to her feet. "I'm not feeling well."
Realizing she'd pushed as far as she dared for one go-round, Jenna nodded. "Do you need anything?" she said to Blair's retreating back, but all she got was a short, "No" in reply. After her door snicked closed—that it didn't slam Jenna took as a sign of progress—Hank sank back onto the sofa, his breath rushing from his lungs. A second later, rock music seeped from underneath the door, accompanied shortly thereafter by an off-beat, off-key voice.
"Kiri Te Kanawa has nothing to worry about," Jenna said, leaning forward to straighten out the loose photos, and Hank let out a shaky laugh. Then she felt his weight shift slightly behind her, flinching slightly when his palm landed between her shoulder blades. How quickly she'd become accustomed to the feel of his hand. Next she'd find herself yearning for it, and that would never do.
Fathers and Other Strangers Page 16