“And now you have a child to add to the mix.”
“Yeah.” And Jack suspected it was going to be like trying to mix oil and water.
“She’s a great kid,” Matt noted.
It was, he knew, the same sentiment Lukas had frequently expressed, and it frustrated him that both of his brothers could speak with such authority about the child with whom he’d barely exchanged half a dozen words. “I wouldn’t know.”
“So get to know her,” his brother suggested, unfazed by the irritation in Jack’s voice.
“Do you really think it’s going to be that easy?”
“I don’t think it’s going to be easy at all,” Matt acknowledged. “But nothing worthwhile usually is.”
He was probably right. The bigger problem was that Jack didn’t have the first clue about how to relate to a twelve-year-old girl. Thankfully, he still had some time to figure things out. “Cam said the DNA results would take about ten days.”
Matt frowned. “Do you really need some lab report to confirm what you already know?”
“But I don’t know,” Jack told him.
“Stop being a lawyer for five minutes and tell me what you feel in your gut.”
Jack scowled. “What’s wrong with wanting proof?”
Matt sat back and studied his brother across the table. “You’re not in denial because you don’t want it to be true,” he realized. “You’re hesitant to take the next step because you do want it to be true and you’re afraid that it might not be.”
“Maybe you should have been the lawyer, because that’s the kind of convoluted reasoning I usually hear in the courthouse.”
His brother ignored the snide comment. “It was more than a fling, wasn’t it?” he asked instead.
“What?”
“You and Kelly,” Matt clarified. “You never got over her, did you?”
“We spent one weekend together more than a dozen years ago—there wasn’t much to get over,” Jack assured him.
“And yet...” his brother mused thoughtfully.
“And yet nothing.”
“So why haven’t you ever fallen in love?”
“That’s an odd question from the brother who was the best man at my wedding,” Jack noted.
“Did you love Sara?” Matt asked him now. “Or were you trying to forget about Kelly when you got back together with her?”
It occurred to Jack that maybe he should have called Lukas, because the impact of his younger brother’s fist was less uncomfortable than his older brother’s speculation. Unwilling to answer Matt’s question, he picked up the remote and turned on the ball game. And breathed a sigh of relief when his brother didn’t press him for a response.
He wasn’t prepared to admit that he’d reconciled with Sara not because he wanted to forget about Kelly but because he knew he had to. Because Lukas had called him, seeking advice after Kelly had confessed to her best friend that she’d fallen in love and was thinking about leaving school. And he was tired of being the bad guy for doing the right thing.
Except that, now that he knew about Ava, he wasn’t sure it had been the right thing, after all.
* * *
Kelly didn’t like feeling off-balance, but she hadn’t felt steady or sure about anything since she’d stepped off the airplane and seen Jackson at the airport. And he, predictably, enjoyed flustering her. From the mind-numbing kiss in her kitchen to his arrogant assertion that he would have her in his bed again, he continually used the sexual tension between them to undermine her control. But she was determined to take it back.
She decided that the best way to do that was to make the next move—to act instead of react—and to keep the focus of the conversation on Ava. So when she stopped in the village after a meeting at Richmond Pharmaceuticals Tuesday afternoon, she took out her cell phone and dialed the number of Jackson’s office.
This time, he took her call.
“I’m just down the street from your office and thought I’d see if you had time for coffee.”
“If you’re at the Bean There Café, I can make time,” he told her.
And he did, arriving at the café just as Kelly was carrying their beverages to a table. She sat down with her decadent caramel macchiato and passed him the oversize mug of dark roast. “I wanted to invite you to come over for dinner Friday night.”
His lips curved as he lifted the mug, just enough to make her heart pound a little bit faster and throw her off-balance again.
“Are you asking me on a date?”
She huffed out a breath. “No, I’m asking if you want to share a meal with me and Ava.”
He sipped his coffee. “You’re no longer concerned that I’ll be looking for any tiny bit of evidence that she’s not mine?”
“I’m not concerned that you’ll find any,” she said evenly. “So are you interested?”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, lingered. “Oh, I think you know I’m interested.”
Less than two minutes in his company, and she’d already lost control of the conversation—and her hormones. She wrapped her hands around the mug and tried to get a grip on her wayward thoughts. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Turn everything into innuendo.”
“It’s a gift,” he said mildly.
She shook her head. “I thought you hated me.”
“I don’t have to like you to want you.”
She lifted a brow. “Do you usually have sex with women you don’t like?”
“No—liking is usually a minimal requirement,” he told her. “But nothing between us has ever been usual.”
She couldn’t deny that was true. “Getting back to my question—are you interested in coming for dinner? Or do you have other plans?”
“What are you making?”
“Really? That’s going to be the deciding factor for you?”
“No, I was just wondering,” he said. “I’m definitely interested in dinner and I don’t have other plans. But won’t Ava think it’s strange that I’m coming for dinner? Or do you frequently cook for male guests?”
“Are you asking about my social life?”
“One more thing I’m curious about.”
“Well, I can assure you that mine isn’t nearly as busy or varied as yours.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” he warned.
“Dinner?” she prompted, refusing to be sidetracked again.
“What time?”
“Six thirty.”
He nodded and picked up his mug. “That works for me.”
Kelly sipped her macchiato.
“Have you told Ava anything about me?” Jackson asked.
“Do you mean specifically about you—or generally about her father?”
“About her father,” he clarified.
“Not really,” she admitted. “I’ve never lied to her, but I haven’t volunteered much information, either. She went through a phase where she asked a lot of questions, but I managed to deflect most of them, and I think she got used to it just being the two of us.”
“That’s going to change,” he said.
It wasn’t a threat or a warning, just a simple statement of fact, and she nodded. She wanted it to change. She wanted Ava to know her father, as she’d never known her own. But somehow it had been easier to want those things for her daughter when they were living three thousand miles away and there was little chance of actually getting them. Now that she was sitting across the table from Ava’s father, she couldn’t help but worry that she’d started on a journey that might not end where she wanted.
“I want to tell her that I’m her father,” he said, when she remained silent.
And once again, he’d thrown her for a loop. His statement d
idn’t just surprise her, it left her completely baffled by the change in his attitude.
“I thought you were still in denial about that.”
He shook his head. “I’ve missed more than twelve years of her life already, and I don’t want to wait another week for the test results to tell Ava.”
“Suddenly you believe that I’m telling the truth? That I didn’t give birth to someone else’s baby for the sole purpose of hitting you up for child support a dozen years later?”
He winced. “I hope it didn’t sound that ridiculous when I suggested it.”
“Not just ridiculous but insulting.”
“Would it help if I said I was sorry?”
She looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Are you?”
“Yes.” His response was immediate and sincere. “You caught me off-guard and it was a totally knee-jerk response.”
“Well, the ‘jerk’ part sounds about right,” she said.
“I am sorry,” he said. “And I do want to know...my daughter.”
The pause before “my daughter” was almost imperceptible, but she suspected that his hesitation this time wasn’t because he didn’t believe that she was “his” child but because he didn’t know how to be her father.
Jackson Garrett—a man who could charm the most contrary female with little effort, who could face off against the most ornery judge without blinking an eye—was worried about impressing a twelve-year-old girl. And this brief glimpse of uncertainty from a man who was usually so overwhelmingly confident touched something deep in Kelly’s heart.
“Let’s start with dinner,” she suggested.
* * *
Kelly treated her daughter to a movie Thursday night, hoping that while they watched the previews for coming attractions and munched on popcorn, she might have a chance to casually mention that Jackson would be coming over for dinner the following night. But the opportunity never seemed to arise—or maybe she was just reluctant to say anything that might affect the easy camaraderie they’d recently established.
On their way back home afterward, Kelly found herself driving by Lukas’s house. He still lived on Terrace Avenue, in the redbrick back-split where he and his brothers had grown up. While Matt and Jack had each chosen to move out as soon they could afford to, Lukas had never seen any reason to move out of a home that so perfectly met all of his needs. Especially when one of those needs was adequate space for various creatures with fur, feathers or fins that he might be caring for at any given time. When Kelly saw the lights were on, she impulsively pulled into the driveway.
After the confrontation between Lukas and Jackson, she’d thought it was best to give him some time. And she’d been certain that, after a few days, Lukas would contact her. Except that six days had passed and she hadn’t heard a single word. He had neither initiated any contact nor returned any of her calls. She knew he was probably still angry and upset, and that he had reason to be, but she wasn’t going to let him continue to ignore her.
Ava didn’t object to the detour. She’d always adored her uncle Lukas. And though she didn’t know Matthew very well, she’d been spending a lot of time with Georgia and the kids, so she felt comfortable around their home and with the family. But there had been an uncharacteristic coolness when she’d met Jackson, and that worried Kelly. She didn’t know if Ava sensed that Jackson wasn’t at ease around her, or if she simply didn’t like him. The latter would certainly make the father-daughter revelation even more awkward. Thankfully, that wasn’t something Kelly needed to worry about just yet.
A cacophony of excited yips immediately sounded in response to the peal of the bell, and Ava’s face lit up in anticipation of meeting the relation of Quinn and Shane’s puppies. When Lukas opened the door, he had the wriggling animal tucked in the crook of his arm and icy reserve in his eyes. But the ice melted as soon as he saw Ava standing beside her mother.
He stepped back so that they could enter, and Ava immediately reached for the puppy. Einstein was thrilled by her attention and showed his enthusiasm by licking her whole face. Daphne, on the other hand, was a spoiled feline who had never been particularly fond of visitors invading her domain, and she stalked off to the upper floor to sulk when her master invited Kelly and Ava into the house.
“Did you want me to put on a pot of coffee—or are you in a hurry to get home?”
The tone of his question suggested to Kelly that he would prefer if she declined the less-than-gracious offer. But she had no intention of going anywhere until they’d reopened the lines of communication. “I’d love a cup of coffee.”
Lukas’s scowl deepened as he filled the reservoir with water and measured out the grounds. Thankfully, Ava seemed oblivious to his dark mood, and she babbled happily about the movie they’d just seen while she wrestled on the floor with the puppy.
When Lukas was finally pouring the coffee, Einstein headed toward the back door.
“Can I take him outside?” Ava asked Lukas.
“Sure,” he agreed.
The door banged shut behind her, but then there was silence—and a whole lot of tension.
Kelly stirred a spoonful of sugar into her cup. “Did you get your paperwork done on the weekend?”
“Paperwork is never done,” he told her.
“Then it wasn’t just an excuse to avoid seeing me?”
“Believe it or not, not everything is about you. I had a busy life here while you were in Seattle, and it’s still just as busy.”
“And that’s why I haven’t heard from you in almost a week—because you’ve been busy?”
“Yeah.”
She frowned at the terse response. “Have you talked to Jackson?”
“I think I said everything I needed to say to him.”
Kelly sighed. “If you want to be mad at someone, you should be mad at me, not your brother.”
“Don’t worry,” Lukas assured her. “I’m plenty mad at you, too.”
“And you have every right to be,” she admitted. “I should have told you.”
He just stood with his arms folded across his chest and said nothing.
“I was going to tell you,” she said, aware that she sounded more than a little defensive.
“When?” he demanded. “When my niece was graduating from college?”
She winced. “I hated keeping the truth from you.”
“But you did it, anyway—for thirteen years.”
“What was I supposed to do?” she challenged. “By the time I knew I was pregnant, Jack was engaged to Sara.”
“He still had a right to know that you were going to have his child.”
“And he would have been thrilled with me for ruining his wedding plans—and his career—wouldn’t he?”
He lifted his brows at her sarcasm. “No, he probably wouldn’t have been thrilled. But he would have done the right thing.”
“What was the right thing?”
“Marrying you and being a father to his child.”
She shook her head. “And you couldn’t guess why I didn’t tell you?”
“He would have stepped up.”
“Maybe. And then he would have hated me.”
“You don’t know that,” he told her.
“He was in love with Sara.”
“He probably thought he was, when he asked her to marry him,” Lukas admitted. “But when she broke off the engagement, he told me that he was more relieved than anything, because he’d realized that the whole thing was a mistake.”
“And yet he was happy enough to put the ring back on her finger when she changed her mind again.”
He frowned at that. “I don’t know what was going through his mind at the time, but I do know that he would have done things differently if he’d known that you were pregnant.”
“I didn’t want him to feel trapped by circumstances neither of us could have foreseen.”
“You didn’t give him a chance to feel anything.”
She blinked back the tears that threatened. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Because I was pregnant and alone and so terrified I didn’t think about his feelings. Or yours.”
Now Lukas sighed. “I never understood why you refused to tell me. Now that part, at least, makes sense.”
“Are you going to stay mad at me forever?” she asked softly.
He considered the question for a minute. “Probably not forever,” he said. “And I wasn’t only mad—I felt like an idiot.”
“Why?”
“Because I never even suspected the truth. I never picked up on any vibes between you and Jack, and I never saw how much Ava looks like him.”
“Jack doesn’t see it, either,” she said. “Or maybe he doesn’t want to see it.”
“Matt said he figured it out the first time he saw her, so it probably won’t take other people too long to see the resemblance,” he warned.
She knew he was right. “I’m going to tell her.”
“When?”
“Soon,” she assured him. “It’s just that Ava’s wanted a father for so long, I can’t help but be a little concerned that, when she finally gets to meet him, she’s going to expect too much.”
“And you don’t think Jack can live up to her expectations,” he guessed.
“I don’t know that he wants to.” She sipped her coffee. “Maybe coming back to Pinehurst was a mistake.”
“Do you really think so?”
“No,” she admitted. “It was time to leave Seattle—and there wasn’t anywhere else I wanted to go. Besides—” she nudged his shoulder “—I missed my best friend.”
He shook his head. “You’re making it really hard for me to stay mad at you.”
“You have every right to be mad at me,” she admitted.
“Even if I could understand why you didn’t say anything in the beginning,” he allowed, “I can’t understand why you kept the truth of her paternity a secret for so long.”
His Long-Lost Family Page 9