His Long-Lost Family

by Brenda Harlen

  Tryouts for the soccer team started the following week, each day for an hour after school with the first cuts being made on Wednesday. Jack was there every day to help Adam run drills and evaluate the players, as he’d been doing in each of the past few years. But this was the first year he had a vested interest in any of the students who were trying out for the team.

  When practice was finished and Ava picked up her backpack, he went over to her. “Adam said there’s no tryout tomorrow night because of something going on at the school.”

  “Yeah, it’s a Meet the Teacher thing for parents.”

  “What’s a ‘Meet the Teacher thing’?”

  “It’s where parents go to the school...and meet the teacher.”

  “Should I go?”

  “Do you want to go?”

  Apparently they were both playing their cards close to the vest. He decided to lay his hand on the table. “Yes, I would like to go to your school to meet your teacher.”

  She blinked at the unequivocal response. “Really?”

  “Unless you don’t want me to go.”

  “No, I want you to go,” she said. “If you want to go.”

  “What time?” he asked.

  “Six o’clock.”

  “I’ll come by around five-thirty so we can walk over together.”

  “Sure.”

  As she wandered off with Laurel, he went back to the bleachers, where Adam was making notes on each of the players.

  “We’ve got impressive new talent this year,” he said to Jack. “That Cooper kid, in particular, has some good moves.”

  He nodded his agreement, proud that his own assessment had been accurate, even more proud because Ava was his. And more than a little annoyed that she was “that Cooper kid” rather than “that Garrett kid.”

  “About her...”

  Adam’s gaze didn’t shift away from his papers. “Don’t worry—I know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “That she’s yours.”

  The teacher did look at him now, and grinned at the surprise Jack didn’t doubt was evident on his face.

  “There was whispered speculation in the teacher’s lounge,” Adam confided. “But no confirmation. I was skeptical myself, until I saw her. Then I saw her with a soccer ball, and any lingering doubts vanished.”

  “It’s not public knowledge,” Jack told him.

  His friend laughed. “You only think it’s not.”

  He scowled at that.

  “I do have one question, though,” Adam said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You and Kelly Cooper—old news?”

  His scowl deepened. “Aren’t you dating Melanie Quinlan?”

  “Not exclusively.”

  “And isn’t there a rule against dating the parent of a student?”

  “She’s not my student.”

  Adam’s immediate response proved that he’d already given some thought to the ethical implications. A realization that didn’t sit well with Jack.

  “You’re her coach.”

  “Only for a few weeks.”

  Jack didn’t bother to respond, because he was confident that before the championship tournament was over, no one would be wondering if he and Kelly were old news.

  * * *

  Kelly’s worries about Ava’s transition to Parkdale Elementary School had apparently been for naught. Her daughter had settled into the routine of seventh grade with little difficulty. At home, they’d also settled into a routine. After school/work, Ava would do her homework—if she had any—while Kelly got dinner ready. Following the meal, they did dishes together and packed lunches for the next day.

  “What did you do at school today?” Kelly asked as she chopped up raw vegetables for their snack.

  “We had a pop quiz in math.”

  “How was it?”

  Ava shrugged. “I think I did okay. Then we had a substitute in music who didn’t know anything about music, so we watched a movie.”

  “Glad to know my educational tax dollars aren’t being wasted.”

  “And there’s a barbecue at the school on Thursday for Meet the Teacher.” She pulled the flyer out of her agenda and set it on the counter.

  Kelly glanced up from the cutting board and noted the date. “This Thursday? As in tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.” Ava grabbed a stalk of celery, bit into it.

  “I’m sorry,” Kelly told her. “I have an interdepartmental meeting at six o’clock tomorrow night.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to miss any more of my school stuff because of work. Isn’t that why we moved here?”

  “One of the reasons,” she acknowledged. And maybe she could miss a meeting, but she didn’t want to miss this one because it was the first since she’d started in her new position at Richmond Pharmaceuticals.

  Ava shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “S’okay,” Ava said around another bite of celery. “My dad said he would go.”

  Kelly had noticed that Ava always referred to Jackson as “my dad” when she was talking to her, but she never actually used the title in his presence. She didn’t know if that was because Ava was insightful enough to realize that Jackson was still a little intimidated by the word, or if she simply wanted to emphasize the relationship Kelly had denied for so long.

  “When did you see Jackson?” she asked her daughter.

  “He was at my soccer tryout after school.”

  “You were supposed to go to Laurel’s house after school.”

  “I went to Laurel’s house after tryouts,” Ava said patiently. “And then her mom brought me home after we’d finished our science project.”

  “Is Laurel trying out for the team, too?”

  “Yeah. We both made the first cut. Next tryout’s Friday at lunch. Coach Webber said he’ll make the final cuts then.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “Not really. My dad said he’d come by later so that we could work on some stuff.” Her eyes lit up in response to the ring of the doorbell. “In fact, that’s probably him now.”

  “Apparently I should have been a lawyer instead of an accountant,” Kelly grumbled to herself as her daughter raced to the door.

  * * *

  Shortly after father and daughter had headed off to the park and Kelly had finished packing lunches, Lukas stopped by to take his “favorite girls” for ice cream.

  “Ava’s not here,” Kelly told him. “She went to the park with Jacks to work on her corner kicks.”

  He shrugged philosophically. “How about you? Are you in the mood for a double scoop of mint chocolate chip?”

  “Isn’t ice cream appropriate for any mood?”

  “Absolutely,” he agreed.

  They chatted easily on the way to Walton’s. Kelly told him about her new job at Richmond Pharmaceuticals and Lukas filled her in on Einstein’s most recent antics. Once they had their ice cream in hand—a double scoop of mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone for Kelly and a caramel pecan brownie sundae for Lukas—they sat side by side on one of the picnic tables outside.

  They talked some more about everything and anything, but it wasn’t until their ice cream was nearly done that Lukas finally mentioned his brother’s name.

  “It seems like Jack’s been spending a lot of time with Ava these days.”

  “He has,” she agreed, and tried not to sound too unhappy about it.

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? The reason you came back to Pinehurst?”

  “I thought so.” But she hadn’t thought Jackson would make such an effort. She’d thought he might spend a couple hours a week with his daughter, but in the past two weeks, he’d been there almost e
very single day. And on the days that he didn’t see her, he at least made a point of calling. “But it seems as if he’s seen more of Ava recently than I have.”

  “It’s not a competition, Kelly.”

  “I know,” she said. “Or I know it shouldn’t be.”

  “But you’re used to being the center of her world, and now you’re not,” Lukas guessed.

  “Now I’m not even in the same orbit. Lately all she talks about is ‘my dad.’”

  “Having a father is a new and exciting experience. Don’t worry, the novelty will wear off.”

  She smiled, because she knew that was what he wanted, but the truth was that she didn’t want the novelty to wear off. She sincerely hoped that Ava would develop a good relationship with her father—she just didn’t want to lose her in the process.

  “I’ve got competition now, too,” Lukas reminded her. “When it was just an honorary title, I was her only ‘uncle.’ Now I have to compete with my own brother to be her favorite.”

  “I never thought about that,” she mused. “That would be a tough competition.”

  “But Ava’s known me longer, so I figure that gives me a slight edge.”

  “On the other hand, Matt has a wife, three kids, and two puppies, and Ava’s always wanted to be part of a big family.”

  “I’ve got a puppy,” he reminded her. “And a cat.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, that definitely narrows the gap.”

  “And I’ve got two tickets to the Black Keys concert Saturday night.”

  “I don’t think Ava’s a fan.”

  “I wasn’t going to take Ava.”

  Her spirits immediately lifted. “You’re going to take me?”

  “Do you want to go?”

  “I absolutely want to go,” she assured him. Then reality hit, and her excitement dimmed. “But—”

  “Ask Jack to hang out with Ava,” Lukas suggested, anticipating her concern.

  “It’s a Saturday night.”

  “That is what it says on the tickets,” he confirmed.

  “He probably already has plans.”

  “I know you don’t want to believe that he’s changed, but he has,” Lukas told her. “Jack’s wild ways with women are very definitely a thing of the past.”

  Kelly did want to believe it, but she was afraid to. Because if she did believe it, she might fall for him all over again, and she wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Okay,” she relented. “I’ll ask him.” Then she bumped his shoulder with her own. “Thanks.”

  “For the ticket?”

  “Well, that,” she agreed. “And for being here.”

  “Always.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t nearly as unusual as Kelly thought for Jack not to have plans on a Saturday night. And if he did go out, more often than not it was with one or both of his brothers. But since Matt had married Georgia, it was next to impossible to get him out, and since the incident with Luke at Kelly’s house, Jack had been maintaining a cautious distance from his younger brother.

  So when Kelly asked him if he could hang out with Ava on Saturday night, he had no reason to refuse the request. In fact, he was happy to have extra time with his daughter. But he was curious about where Kelly was going. The possibility that she might have a date—

  Well, he just didn’t want to consider that possibility. So he was relieved to learn that she was going to a concert with Luke. Or so he thought until she said goodbye and walked out of the house in high heels, snug-fitting jeans, and a sexy little top, and he realized it wasn’t relief that he was feeling.

  Based on a few offhand comments that she’d made, he didn’t think she’d done much dating. No doubt because she’d been so focused on raising their daughter. But Ava was almost a teenager now, and it wouldn’t be too long after that when she herself would start dating—or at least wanting to date. Since Jack had no intention of letting that happen until she was at least twenty-one, that wasn’t anything more than a distant concern. The idea of Kelly dating, on the other hand, was a more distinct possibility. And one that he didn’t like at all.

  Ava popped a DVD into the player while he put a bag of popcorn in the microwave.

  “I was wondering about something,” she said, when the kernels had stopped popping.

  “What’s that?” He opened the bag and dumped it into a large plastic bowl.

  “Am I supposed to call you Jack? Or Dad?”

  He’d noticed that she didn’t tend to use any form of direct address when she spoke to him and he suspected that she hadn’t yet figured out how he fit into her life. Which wasn’t really surprising, since he was still struggling to figure that out himself. And while there was a part of him that wanted to be Ava’s “Dad,” another part feared that he wasn’t worthy of the name. Aside from contributing half of her DNA, what had he done to deserve the title?

  “There isn’t any supposed to,” he said. “It’s up to you.”

  She frowned, clearly dissatisfied with his response. “It feels weird to call you Jack.”

  “And it probably feels just as weird to think about calling me Dad.”

  “Except that you are my dad.”

  He could see her dilemma, because his was similar. She was his daughter, but he had yet to refer to her as such in conversation with anyone other than Kelly.

  “But we’re both new to this father-and-daughter thing,” he pointed out. “It would probably be easier if I’d been there when you cut your teeth or started to walk or learned to talk. Then we might have naturally progressed from ‘da-da’ to ‘daddy’ to ‘dad’—but even most babies take a year to get to ‘da-da.’”

  “Are you saying that you want me to wait a year to call you Dad?”

  “No, I want you to wait until you’re ready, whether that’s a month or a year or even longer.”

  She popped the top of her soda and took a sip while she considered, then nodded. “Okay.”

  With that matter decided, at least for the moment, they settled down in the living room to watch the movie. As the action played out on the screen, Jack found himself thinking about everything he’d missed over the past twelve years. And when he started counting all those milestones that had passed without him even being aware that he had a child, he couldn’t help but feel angry with Kelly.

  But being here with Ava now, just hanging out with his daughter on a Saturday night, was a milestone he’d never thought he would experience. And as she yawned and let her head drop onto his shoulder, he realized that he wouldn’t trade this night for anything in the world.

  When the movie was over, he picked up the empty popcorn bowl and soda cans while she ejected the disc.

  “I have one more question,” she told him.

  He braced himself. “What’s that?”

  “Can I have a puppy?”

  He laughed. “That’s a question you have to ask your mother.”

  * * *

  Kelly had a fabulous time at the concert, so much so that she actually stopped worrying about Ava and Jackson for a few hours. And she was happy to spend the time with Lukas. She wasn’t sure he’d completely forgiven her for keeping the identity of her daughter’s father a secret for so long, but she was confident that their friendship was back on track.

  As a result, when she got home Saturday night, Kelly felt as if there wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. The feeling lasted only until she sat down at the kitchen table with a mug of peppermint tea and Jackson said, “I’ve been thinking about what Ava said—about wanting to live with me.”

  Kelly tried to ignore the knots that tightened in her belly as she picked up her mug. “Even if you had a spare room, I wouldn’t let her move in with you.”

  “I know,” he admitted. “And I was actually thinking that it
makes more sense for me to move in here.”

  She was shaking her head before he finished speaking.

  “Why not?” he demanded.

  “There are so many reasons why not, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “I’m Ava’s father.”

  “A status that is independent of your home address.”

  He scowled. “You could at least pretend to consider it. Or do you hate me so much that you can’t stand being in close proximity?”

  Kelly wished she could say yes. Unfortunately, her feelings for Jackson had never been that simple. “I don’t hate you at all—I just don’t want to live with you.”

  “I want to get to know my daughter. How is that going to happen when I only see her for a few hours a couple of times a week?”

  “It will happen,” she assured him. “But you’ve got to give it time.”

  “We’ve already waited more than twelve years.”

  Whether or not the statement was intended to make Kelly feel guilty, it certainly had that effect. It also made her wonder if what he was asking was really so unreasonable.

  She was pleased that Jackson wanted more time with Ava, and she knew that their daughter would be thrilled to have more time with her father. But if that time together was under her roof, Kelly couldn’t help but worry how that would impact her. It might be selfish, but it was undeniable. There was no way to pretend that she was unaffected by Jackson’s presence, and if they were actually living together, as if they were a real family, she feared that she would fall for him all over again.

  “I get that you want more time together,” she finally said. “But you don’t have to move in here....” Her words trailed off when she saw her daughter standing in the doorway.

  Ava’s sleepy gaze sharpened as it shifted from Kelly to Jackson. “You’re going to move in here?”

  “No!” Kelly said quickly, firmly. And then, in a more level tone, “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I was. Then I woke up and heard voices, so I came down.”

  “And interrupted a private conversation,” she admonished.

  “About Jack moving in here.”

  “No one’s moving anywhere.”

  Ava’s hopeful smile faded. “Why not?”