He followed her into the kitchen and put the bags on the counter. “Where are they?”
“Birthday party.” She glanced at the clock. “I have almost two hours before they come home to bounce off the walls because they’re pumped up on cake and ice cream.”
“I won’t stay that long,” he promised.
“Do you want me to put on some coffee?”
“No, thanks.” He was surprised, and pleased, when Pippa held out her arms to him. “Can I?”
“Are you kidding?” Georgia willingly shifted the baby to him.
“Aren’t you a pretty girl?” he said, lifting Pippa over his head and earning a beaming smile.
“And aren’t you the charmer?”
Jack just grinned. “She looks more and more like her mama every day.”
“Do you think so?”
“Absolutely. Matt’s going to have to beat off the boys with a stick by the time she starts kindergarten.”
“Or duel with them in the stacks of the library.”
Jack winced. “Heard about that, did you?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I heard about that.”
“It’s not easy, trying to be a parent to a twelve-year-old that I didn’t even know existed until a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” she agreed.
Pippa let her head fall onto his shoulder, rubbed her cheek against his shirt. He felt the tug of so many emotions inside his chest: warmth, pleasure, regret. “I missed this part with Ava.”
“You missed a lot of parts,” Georgia agreed. “Dirty diapers, midnight feedings, projectile vomiting.”
“I never thought I wanted to experience any of those things, but now that I know I’ve missed them, I can’t help but feel ripped off.”
“I can understand that.”
“I know Kelly and I both made mistakes,” he admitted. “I don’t know if we can get past them.”
“Do you want to get past them?” she asked gently.
“I do.”
“Then I’d say that nothing that happened before matters as much as what you do going forward from now.”
He nodded.
“Have you and Lukas resolved things between you?” she asked cautiously.
“Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that he’s decided to forgive me for knocking up his best friend because he’s convinced himself that I’ve been in love with Kelly for thirteen years.”
“Is he right?”
“Yeah, but no way am I going to admit that to him.”
* * *
After spending a long and mostly sleepless night alone in her bed, Kelly awoke feeling edgy and uneasy. The edgy was Jackson’s fault. All it had taken was one kiss to get her all stirred up and aching for him. The uneasy was in direct connection to him, too, because she suspected that she might have judged him unfairly.
She thought she knew who he was. True, her opinion had been broadly based on his sketchy reputation layered over her own residual hurt and anger, but she’d had no reason to question that opinion. Not until last night. Now, suddenly, she was starting to question everything she’d ever believed about him.
Since no one knew him better than his brothers, Kelly found herself at Lukas’s door. And found Lukas occupied with a pair of unbelievably tiny kittens.
“Someone left them in a shoebox outside the clinic early yesterday morning.” He carefully transferred one of the babies to her.
“How old are they?”
“Probably not much more than four weeks, if that.”
“Are they going to survive?”
“If I have anything to say about it.”
Which was, of course, no less than she expected. Lukas was a dedicated veterinarian who went above and beyond and who, even after more than a decade at his practice, still took it to heart whenever he couldn’t save an animal.
“Have you named them?”
“This one’s Boots,” he said, pointing to the white feet that made the kitten look as if it were wearing boots. “And that one’s Puss.”
“Puss and Boots,” she realized, and smiled.
“So what’s got you in a mood?” he asked.
“I’m not in a mood,” she denied.
“That furrow between your brows says otherwise.”
She sighed. “I’m confused,” she admitted, gently stroking the soft fur of the kitten that was tucked in the crook of her arm. “I’m generally a pretty good judge of character and I hate when people turn out to be different than I expected.”
“Different—how?”
She huffed out a breath. “He wasn’t supposed to have depth.”
“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?” Lukas asked.
“Jackson.” She said his name as if it was a curse.
Lukas feigned shock. “He has depth?”
She glared at him. “Apparently.”
Her friend chuckled. “What did he do?”
“I don’t know exactly,” she admitted. “I just know that it was a pro bono case in small claims court for Mrs. Cammalleri.”
“He took on the contractor who did her roof,” he explained. “Shortly after she paid for the repair, Mrs. C went to Syracuse to stay with her daughter, who had just had a baby. While she was away, we had a huge storm and, for three days, water leaked through the roof—around the chimney where the guy forgot to install new flashing—and into her kitchen, severely damaging her upper cabinets.”
“The roofer was obviously negligent.”
“Obviously,” Luke agreed. “But the insurance company wanted to replace the cabinets with a similar—but much more economical—style from the local DIY store, and Mrs. C wanted them professionally stripped, sanded and refinished, which would be much more labor intensive and, therefore, more costly.”
“I would think most people would be happy with a new kitchen,” Kelly remarked.
“Most people would. But Mrs. C’s husband, now deceased, was a cabinetmaker, and he had made them. The insurance company tried to argue that forty-year-old cabinets weren’t worth restoring, but it was the sentimental value that mattered to Mrs. C. So Jack took the case to court for her and got the cabinets restored.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“Mrs. C has three cats. While she was going through all of this, one of them—Milo—had a bad upper respiratory infection, so she was making frequent visits to the office.” He frowned. “That had to have been four years ago at least.”
“Well, she hasn’t forgotten. She kissed both of Jackson’s cheeks and gave him fudge.”
Lukas smiled. “She makes really good fudge.”
Kelly wasn’t thinking about Mrs. Cammalleri’s fudge but about Jackson, and she frowned. “And then, when I finally manage to pry the tiniest details out of him, he acts like it’s no big deal.”
“Because it wasn’t to him,” he explained. “It’s just what he does.”
“I thought he just sat behind his glossy desk overbilling heartbroken clients and splitting up matrimonial assets.”
“He does that, too,” Luke agreed.
“But he cultivates that image,” she grumbled. “As if he wants people to think he’s a morally corrupt and heartless shark who finds pleasure, or at least a paycheck, in the pain of others.”
“You can’t tell me that any of this really surprises you,” Luke said. “If you didn’t see past the facade, you would never have fallen for him so completely.”
“I was young and inexperienced,” she reminded him.
“Maybe you were, when you first fell in love with him,” he acknowledged. “But you’re not quite as young or inexperienced now, and you’re still in love with him.”
/> She wanted to deny it, but they’d both know she was lying. She blew out a breath. “I thought I was at least smarter now. Apparently I’m not that, either.”
“So why don’t the two of you stop pretending that you’re tolerating one another and admit how you feel? Then you could get married and give your daughter the family she’s always wanted?”
“For a man who’s never taken the matrimonial plunge himself, you’re awfully quick to recommend it.”
“Because I can see that you guys are meant to be together.”
“Except that Jackson has never aspired to be any woman’s Mr. Right—he was always focused on being ‘Mr. Right Now’—and I have no intention of getting involved with another man who can’t stick.”
“You thought he was shallow, and you were wrong about that,” Lukas pointed out to her. “Maybe you should consider that you might be wrong about this, too.”
Chapter Thirteen
Kelly was up to her elbows making Swedish meatballs on Sunday morning when Ava told her that she needed supplies for an art project that was due on Monday, so Jack volunteered to take her to the craft store at the mall. It was supposed to be a quick trip to pick up a few things, but since it was almost lunchtime, Ava suggested that they grab a bite to eat. The food court was never his first choice for a meal, but he was still feeling a little bit guilty about the way he’d handled the library incident so he relented. After he’d finished his pad Thai and she’d polished off her tacos, Ava went to the bathroom to wash up.
He glanced at his watch, noting that she’d been gone for twelve minutes. During that time, several other women had gone in and out, but there was still no sign of Ava.
He hadn’t moved from their table, and he didn’t think she would have been able to leave without him seeing her go past. But he had taken out his phone to check his email, and he’d taken a few minutes to respond to some of those messages. It was possible that she’d snuck past him while his attention was diverted. But why would she?
Because she was still upset with him for what happened at the library. It was the obvious explanation, but he didn’t think it was the right one. Ava wasn’t the subtle type—if she was upset with him, she would let him know it. She wouldn’t hit back at him by sneaking away and making him worry.
Of course another possibility was that her request for art supplies was just an excuse to get to the mall so that she could meet up with someone else. Maybe even the boy from the library. Or maybe someone she’d met online. He felt a trickle of sweat snake down his back. She was smart and pretty savvy, but she was only twelve. And there were a lot of weirdos and sexual predators in the world.
He glanced at his watch again.
Fourteen minutes now.
He couldn’t panic—he needed to keep a clear head and figure out a plan of action. His first instinct was to call Kelly, but he didn’t dare. If he was panicking, he could only imagine how she would respond to the news that he’d lost their child.
Except that he had no reason to believe that she was lost. It was entirely possible that she had gone into the washroom as she’d said and simply hadn’t come out yet.
He pushed open the door, but kept his body outside. “Ava?”
The only response was a soft, almost inaudible “Go away.”
The wave of relief that washed over him was so powerful it nearly knocked him off of his feet. While he still had no idea what might have happened to turn a simple hand-washing exercise into some preteen melodrama, at least he knew she hadn’t been abducted.
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” he said, pleased that his voice sounded calm and rational. “So hurry up and—”
“I can’t.”
He frowned. “Ava—”
“Can you—”
Her voice broke, and he realized—somewhat belatedly—that she was crying. Damn. He’d been prepared for a trip to the mall, not an emotional breakdown in a public bathroom.
“Can you call my mom?”
Sure, he could call Kelly, and there was a part of him that wanted to. But if he did, it would be like announcing that he was a failure as a father because he couldn’t handle whatever had happened to upset his daughter. And Jack didn’t like to fail.
There was a cleaning cart outside, complete with sign “Washroom Temporarily Closed.” He stuck the sign in front of the door and went in.
“Go away,” she said again.
“Ava, please just tell me what’s going on.”
“You don’t want to know,” she said miserably.
“I need to know,” he said. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”
She sniffled again. “I got...my...period.”
* * *
Jack sank down onto the sofa in the living room. “Well, that was an experience I never want to repeat again.”
Kelly’s lips curved, just a little at the corners, as she handed him a beer. “I figured you needed something a little stronger than coffee after the day that you had.”
“You figured right.” He tipped the bottle to his lips and drank deeply. Despite his determination to handle Ava’s crisis on his own, the four words that she’d spoken through the closed bathroom door had him immediately reaching for his cell phone to call in reinforcements. Kelly had been there in less than fifteen minutes, and he had willingly—in fact, eagerly—let her take over. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s okay. I gave her a heating pad to help ease the cramps and put on one of her favorite movies.” She sat down on the other end of the sofa, as far away from Jack as possible. “I guess I’m just surprised that you’re still here. I half-expected that you would have dropped her at the door and gone running for the hills.”
“There aren’t many hills in Pinehurst.”
She smiled. “You know what I mean.”
“And you should know that I don’t bail, Kelly. Maybe I wasn’t prepared for what happened today, but nothing is going to make me walk away from Ava.” Or you. But of course he kept that part to himself because he knew she wasn’t ready to believe it.
“I think maybe I underestimated you.”
“Maybe?”
“Probably,” she allowed. “That wasn’t a situation any dad would find easy to deal with, and you handled it well.”
He shifted closer and reached for her hand, linked their fingers together. She glanced at him warily, but she didn’t pull away. “I know I disappointed you. I’m not going to disappoint our daughter.”
“I know you won’t. You’re a good dad, Jackson.”
Her simple and sincere statement warmed his heart as no effusive words of praise had ever done.
“It’s easy when you’ve got a good kid to work with,” he noted. “So I guess I should thank you for that.”
“Does that mean you’ve forgiven me for keeping Ava’s existence a secret for so long?”
“It means I’m more grateful than angry now, because I’ve realized that although I missed the first twelve years of her life, I have a chance to know her now.” He squeezed her hand gently. “But if you’re feeling guilty, there is one thing you could do to help assuage your guilt.”
“We both made mistakes,” she reminded him. “Why am I the only one who’s feeling guilty?”
“I’m a lawyer—my moral compass isn’t as strict as yours.”
“There was a time when I might have believed that,” she told him. “I don’t anymore.”
“Then maybe you won’t object to what I’m going to ask.”
“You want to change her name,” she guessed.
“Not the Ava part,” he assured her.
She smiled, but he could tell it was forced.
“You’re opposed to the idea?”
“No, I’m not. Everyone knows she’s a Garrett, a
nyway, so it makes sense to make it official.”
“You don’t sound thrilled.”
“I just think it will be strange, for me, when her name’s different than mine.”
“Yours could be changed, too,” he suggested, “if you married me.”
Okay, so it wasn’t the most romantic proposal—it wasn’t even a proposal, really—but she didn’t even blink.
“I’ve been Kelly Cooper for too long to start answering to something different now.”
“You could have given the idea some consideration before dismissing it out of hand,” he grumbled.
“I got married once for the wrong reasons, Jacks. I’m not going to do it again.”
“What if it wasn’t for the wrong reasons?”
She still didn’t blink, but she did seem to consider his question before responding this time. “Is that a hypothetical question?”
“For the moment.” Because as sure as he was about his feelings for Kelly, he was too unsure of hers to put his heart on the line just yet.
“Then I would say that, hypothetically, I’m not opposed to the idea of marriage.”
For now, that was good enough for Jack.
* * *
Sleepovers at a friend’s house were one of the very best rites of childhood, so when Laurel invited Ava to spend Friday night at her house, Kelly didn’t even consider refusing the request. She knew they would probably eat junk food, talk about boys, paint their toenails, eat more junk food and stay up too late, and that Ava would be overtired and cranky on Saturday, but Kelly didn’t mind.
She knew Laurel and Laurel’s parents and she had absolutely no reason at all to be apprehensive about the fact that her daughter was sleeping over at a friend’s house. And she wasn’t. Nor did she mind being alone in the house. It was the possibility that she might be alone in the house with Jackson that had her worried.
But when she got home from dropping Ava off at her friend’s house, there was a message on the machine from Jackson, telling her that he wasn’t going to be home until late because he was going to help Lukas fix his fence. Apparently his “genius dog” had somehow found a way—or at least a place—to get under it. Listening to his voice on the machine, Kelly told herself that she was relieved and not disappointed. She was glad the brothers were mending fences—figuratively as well as literally.
His Long-Lost Family Page 18