by Valerie Parv
Zoe slipped an arm around the child’s waist and drew her closer. “You were very good, sweetheart. Now say hello to…” Mr. Langford? Your father? Her mind blanked on the possibilities.
He smiled and offered the child his hand. There was a faint tremor in his voice as he said, “I’m James, and I’m very glad to see you, Genevieve.”
For one heart-stopping moment Zoe thought Genie was going to recognize James. So did he, she saw from the tension that flared in his expression. But the moment passed with no further reaction from Genie. The child turned back to Zoe. “We’re still going on the Ferris wheel, aren’t we?”
“We’ll go together,” James decided, standing up. He brushed the child’s dark hair with his fingers and Zoe caught her breath when she glimpsed the look of wonder in his eyes. She thought she saw him swallow hard before the shutters came down again on his expression.
The child led the way to the line for the fair’s main attraction. As Zoe hurried to keep up, she said softly, “I’m sorry she showed no signs of recognizing you. You were hoping she would, weren’t you?”
His closed expression betrayed nothing, but she hadn’t forgotten his transparent look of a moment ago. It was getting harder and harder to connect him with the portrait Ruth had painted of him. Which was the real James Langford? she asked herself again. “I’m prepared to give it time,” he conceded.
In spite of her inner turmoil, Zoe couldn’t suppress a surge of compassion for him. Used to having the business world at his command, he couldn’t command the outcome this time. His face in that unguarded moment, and her own experience of motherhood told her how much he must want to.
“Eighteen months is a long time when you’re not yet five,” she murmured.
He paused in front of the ticket booth and gave her a wry look. “It’s a long time at any age.”
The three of them were seated in one of the small, gently swaying compartments of the Ferris wheel by the time Zoe got her confused feelings under control, on the surface at least. Given his avowed intention to take Genie from her, how could she feel anything but hostility toward him?
Yet seated across from the two of them, watching the wind whip the dark strands of hair across his forehead, she felt an unwilling empathy with him. After her experience with Andrew, the last thing she wanted was to feel this way toward any man. Next she’d be admitting to herself how attractive James was, when she should know by now that attractiveness didn’t always go hand in hand with a pleasant demeanor. Andrew had been attractive enough and charming as long as he was the one in control.
But James wasn’t like Andrew, she’d stake almost anything on it. His gentleness toward Genie spoke volumes. Even his readiness to delay his reunion with her to give Zoe time to adjust was in his favor. Could she have sacrificed as much?
Determinedly she slammed a door in her mind on the list of his virtues. They wouldn’t stop him from taking Genie away. The thought brought a sob to Zoe’s throat, which she held back by sheer force of will.
Fully laden at last, the wheel began to turn steadily, carrying them high above the streetscape. Genie’s face reflected her fascination at the bird’s-eye view she was getting of her world. Zoe’s stomach clenched at the sight of Genie’s tiny hand creeping into James’s. The child was unaware of taking his hand. She had done it automatically.
Did some part of Genie remember her connection with the big man at her side? She was usually shy with strangers, but with James she seemed to have few reservations. At the sight of the two of them together, Zoe felt the color slide from her cheeks. Was she glimpsing the future?
James noticed her sudden pallor. “Do heights bother you?”
Unable to restrain herself, she glanced at their linked hands. “The height isn’t my problem.”
A shadow crossed his features. “Somehow I thought not.”
Thankfully the ride wasn’t as interminable as it felt and they were soon back on the ground, making another circuit of the stalls at Genie’s insistence. “James hasn’t seen them all yet,” she defended when Zoe mentioned that James might not share Genie’s fascination with the fairground attractions.
“But I do. I’m enjoying every minute of this,” he insisted.
He certainly looked as if he was, or else he was a superb actor, Zoe thought. Watching him pay close attention to Genie’s explanation of how the shooting gallery worked, Zoe resisted the urge to be impressed. He might look like one of the dozens of fathers around them, out to give their children a good time, but nothing was further from the truth as far as she was concerned.
Nevertheless she found it hard not to warm to his enthusiasm as he paid for a rifle and round of blank ammunition to try his luck at the shooting gallery. He had handled a real rifle, she concluded, watching the efficient way he held and sighted the toy weapon. His tanned forearm cradled the gun with casual expertise. His left hand curled around the barrel while his right stroked the trigger. Resting the stock against his cheek he squeezed off the first shots.
As the gun went off, something else exploded inside Zoe at the same moment. Each report vibrated through her as if aimed directly at her. The final one impacted around her heart and she drew a strangled breath. What was going on here?
“James, you did it, you won!”
Genie’s cry of joy brought Zoe back to reality. She forced a smile as the vendor handed Genie a furry pink dog, which she hugged tightly, her eyes shining. At the sight of the big man and the tiny child half-hidden behind the toy dog, Zoe’s heart turned over. Every move he made seemed destined to threaten her immunity to him. It was all she could do to sound matter-of-fact as she said, “What do you say to James?”
“Thank you,” came the response muffled by toy-dog fur.
“Thank you for showing me what to do,” he said, earning another adoring look from the child. His smile could have lit up the street fair all by itself. Despite her resolution not to respond, Zoe found his high spirits disturbingly infectious. And all because he had pleased a little girl.
Ruth must have been out of her mind, Zoe thought, then just as quickly checked the thought. Charming he might be, but he was also a man with an agenda in which Zoe was the main casualty.
“What’s next?” he asked, his sweeping gaze encompassing the busy street.
“The action,” Genie declared. “Mummy’s going to be in it.”
One dark eyebrow slanted upward and he fixed her with an amused look. “The action?”
Zoe felt her color heighten. “She means the auction. Local businesses have donated goods and services to be auctioned to raise funds for new playground equipment for the park. You wouldn’t find it very interesting.”
His curiosity was obviously piqued. “If you’re going to be in it, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Right, Genevieve?”
The child giggled. “Why do you keep calling me Genevieve when my name’s Genie?”
Instantly James’s face clouded and Zoe felt a pang of sympathy for him as she read the distress in his gaze. They’d all been having such a good time, and James had clearly been so taken with Genie that he’d allowed himself to forget how far he still had to go in building a relationship with his daughter. He forced a smile. “Genie is short for Genevieve, which is your full name. I think it’s prettier than Genie, don’t you?”
The child shrugged. “It’s all right, I ’spose. Are you going to buy Mummy?”
The look he gave Zoe was blatantly assessing. “Are you for sale?”
“Of course not,” Zoe denied furiously. Especially not to him. “You wouldn’t want what I’m selling.”
His interest notched upward visibly. “Don’t be too sure.”
Before she could respond, an announcement called them to the start of the auction and she had little choice but to tag along with James as he allowed himself to be towed toward the stage by an eager Genie. Zoe couldn’t help noticing the admiring looks James garnered from the other women in the crowd, and even the occasional glance of envy from men
who mistook the three of them for a family.
A large crowd had gathered to bid for the services on offer, especially as the money was for a good cause. Advertising space in the local newspaper raised a healthy sum as did supplies of meat and groceries. Dinner with the mayor was also popular as he was an agreeably good-looking bachelor.
Zoe braced herself for what she knew was coming. “Next we have a service, which should be popular. Ten hours of baby-sitting donated by our favorite local property gal, Zoe Holden. She’s known as the best storyteller in the district, so who’ll open the bidding at fifty dollars?”
Three bids in quick succession took the total to two hundred dollars before James raised his hand. “One thousand dollars.”
There was a collective gasp and Zoe tugged at his arm. “You can’t be serious.”
“Never more so.” He glanced at Genie. “It’s a service I could well use.”
Nothing like this had entered her mind when she donated her time to help the fund-raising effort. The thought of James having first claim on ten hours of her time sent a burst of heat flaring through her veins. In ten hours, they could—“No, I’ll withdraw my donation,” she said, hearing the alarm in her voice.
“Too late.”
Not surprisingly James’s bid attracted no opposition and the hammer fell with a resounding thud. “Sold to the gentleman with Zoe for one thousand dollars. Very generous of you, sir. We won’t even ask what you intend to do with her for ten hours.”
Laughter rippled through the crowd and Zoe felt herself color. They obviously thought James had bid for her out of chivalry. They couldn’t be more wrong.
She endured a good deal more friendly teasing as James wrote out the check and handed it to the organizers. “Why did you do it?” she demanded when he returned to her side.
“It’s for a good cause,” he said mildly. “As I see it, I owe you more than I can possibly repay, and this is a small step toward balancing the books.”
She recoiled instinctively. “You don’t owe me anything.” Nor did she care for the notion of James holding lease to her time.
He was unperturbed. “Then consider it simply a donation to the fund-raising effort.” He regarded her keenly for a moment. “What would your price be, I wonder?”
“Only a cynic expects everyone to have a price,” she tossed her answer back at him, uncomfortably aware that her price—if she had one—was the child now leaning sleepily against her legs. Did James sense that Genie was her price? How would he use the information? Andrew would have used it to get his own way, but James wasn’t Andrew. What he would do she wasn’t sure.
Genie yawned hugely, ending the discussion. “Time I got you home, sleepyhead,” Zoe said, ruffling the fine dark hair, which felt like silk between her fingers.
James nodded agreement. “I’ll drive you home. My car’s not far away.”
“We walked here. We can walk back,” Zoe insisted.
He looked down at the child. “Genevieve’s almost out on her feet. We’ll take my car.”
He led them to his car, which was parked beyond the closed-off section of the street. In the back was a brand-new child’s booster seat. He had come well prepared, Zoe thought, fighting a sense of desolation as she watched him strap the child in. Pain sharpened her tongue. “Are you always this efficient?”
He slanted her a dry look. “If I was, my daughter wouldn’t be in this position now.”
So he blamed himself, at least in part, for Ruth’s defection. Zoe stowed the discovery away for later examination as she slid into the front passenger seat. She wanted to ask what he planned to do next, but was too afraid of the possible answer. There was no doubt he had enjoyed spending this time with Genie. Zoe hadn’t missed the way his absorbed expression had lighted on her every few minutes.
She sighed. Why couldn’t Genie have chosen today to throw a world-class temper tantrum? “She isn’t always as angelic as this,” she observed.
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “As I shall probably find out for myself in time. Even if she’d been a little terror, it wouldn’t make any difference. It doesn’t to you.
“I see I’ve surprised you,” he said, interpreting her silence with disturbing accuracy. “I may as well keep doing it by taking you and Genevieve out to dinner tonight.”
Here at least she was on familiar ground. “You obviously don’t know much about little girls. They spend the first half of the evening demanding food at once and the second half announcing that they’re finished and can we please go home now.”
A sheen of amusement filmed his eyes before he returned his attention to the road. The difference the smile made to his appearance made her catch her breath. For an instant he had looked not only human but so vulnerable that she could practically feel tiny cracks appearing in her resolve to keep him at a distance. Under different circumstances…
She reined in the errant thought. These circumstances were bad enough. She was unlikely to know him under any others. “So you see, a restaurant meal is a complete waste of time and money,” she concluded.
“I might enjoy wasting both on my daughter,” he said, stopping her in her tracks. “However,” he went on, forestalling any more objections, “I defer to your experience in this at any rate. We can eat at home—yours or mine.”
“Genie’s too tired to go out again today,” she demurred. She couldn’t decide which was the more alarming prospect—going to his home or having him come to hers. “Frankly I’m tired too. Can’t we do this another time?”
“Say, in another eighteen months? It isn’t going to happen, Zoe, so we’ll agree on dinner at your place. Don’t worry about the catering. I’ll take care of everything.”
The quiet determination in his tone left no room for further discussion. She glanced at the child asleep in the back seat. “Then what will you do?”
“I’ll let you know my plans at dinner tonight.”
The mother in her rose like a tigress and she whipped sideways in her seat. “You can’t mean to just take her away from me. She’s only four and a half years old. She needs me.” As much as I need her, she added but did not give it voice.
She might as well have appealed to solid granite for all the effect her words had on him. There was little mercy in the look he spared her, even for the tears that caught at the backs of her eyes, held in check by sheer willpower. She was not going to break down in front of him. Later would be time enough for tears, not now.
“Now you’re getting a taste of what I’ve gone through for the last eighteen months,” he stated.
“I’ve already had more than a taste,” she said around a throat so tight it made speaking almost impossible. “Can you imagine how it felt to watch Genie grow every day, loving her more with every breath I took, yet knowing I couldn’t adopt her? I was left to wonder with every knock on the door whether her family had been found and I would have to lose her.”
He hesitated for a heartbeat and hope welled within her so fast she felt as if it was a tidal wave crashing over her. Then he killed the hope. “The knock on the door has come, Zoe. This evening you’ll have to decide how you’re going to deal with it.”
“If you were as heartless as this with Ruth, it’s no wonder she ran away,” Zoe said into the ragged silence that followed.
He gusted a long sigh. “You can’t hurt me with words, so it’s pointless even to try. I’ll be here at six this evening. Be ready.”
He parked the car outside her house, then came around to open the door and lifted Genie out of the back seat. The child drowsed with her head against his shoulder. He smoothed the tousled hair, the lines of his face softening as he gazed at Genie. “Until tonight then.”
She took Genie from him, sensing his reluctance even as the child settled into her arms. “Yes, tonight.”
The word resonated between them—part promise, part threat. Despite everything, she wished she had the courage to take Genie and disappear. Yet she knew she would be here when he
called tonight.
Chapter Four
The evening ahead was also on James’s mind as he threaded the turbo-charged car through impossible gaps in the afternoon traffic, taking a perverse pleasure in the progress he made.
The exercise reminded him of the motto on a boyhood money box: Tall Oaks From Little Acorns Grow. One car-length at a time eventually put you in front of the pack, just as eighteen months of searching yielded a daughter he could hardly wait to see again.
Lord, but she was beautiful. He grinned foolishly at himself in the rearview mirror as he pictured her tiny, perfectly formed fingers curled around his own. She’d been so pleased when he won the stuffed toy for her that he wished he could go back and do it again just to see the look on her face.
Was an adult capable of such unconditional love? A pain dragged at his heart as he thought about the last eighteen months. She had been a baby when he saw her last. Now she was a little girl. How could Ruth have robbed him of the miracle of watching her grow?
From Ruth his thoughts leapt to Zoe. Being around her disturbed him more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. It would have been simpler if she had been in league with Ruth somehow, so he could have aimed his pent-up anger and frustration at her. Now he knew she was as innocent in all of this as he was.
Unbidden, her image flashed into his mind. As soon as she opened her door to him he’d felt something powerful flash between them and he could swear she had felt it, too. Not that he intended to do anything about it. After his experience with Ruth he didn’t need any more complications, especially of the female kind. The only woman he needed in his life right now was not yet five years old.
Yet his brain persisted in constructing a vision of Zoe in a snappy green dress that fit like crazy. Yet she wasn’t beautiful in the usual sense. It was more a combination of features adding up to a thoroughly arresting effect. Like the way her hair fluffed out around her face in undisciplined curls, in a kind of halo. How would it feel to run his fingers through it? He’d bet anything it would be as soft as silk and smelling faintly of flowers.