by Anna Adams
Forget James Kendall. Olivia was the one with the say-so around here, and she’d done everything possible to bring Evan and him together. With a glance at her father, he took her hand.
“Thank you.” He needed to say it before Evan came or her father got off the phone. “You could have made this hard for me.” Another thought sent an ugly chill down his spine. “You might have decided not to tell me at all.”
Her half smile meant more to him than he wanted to admit. Unlike her father, she wasn’t a games-woman. She listened when he spoke to her, and she didn’t seem to be planning her next move. With a start, he realized he wanted to trust her.
“I wouldn’t hide Evan from you.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Though I’m starting to think I should have taken him to Bardill’s Ridge to meet you instead of dragging you here.”
“I don’t blame your father.” That much was true. “I don’t understand why he’d try to keep me away from Evan, but I believe he’s trying to provide his own idea of protection.”
“I hoped we’d all try to help you feel comfortable.” She shrugged, looking younger, less assured. “Dad doesn’t understand how I can risk letting Evan love someone else.”
“I’ve grasped his territorial leanings, but I thought he was upsetting you. Don’t worry about what he says to me.”
“He’ll get used to you. I won’t give him any other choice.” Olivia turned toward her father with a hint of his own arrogance in her posture.
“I’m not sure I could be as—unselfish as you in similar circumstances.”
“Yes, you could. Have you ever wanted to cut Helene out of Lily’s life?” She freed her hand. “No matter how difficult your relationship has been?”
“I haven’t.” He grinned. “Not seriously, anyway.” He’d fought for every moment with Lily. He couldn’t imagine having real time with his son without having to struggle for it. He was used to thinking twice about every word that came out of Helene’s mouth, looking for her real demands in the undercurrents. The trick to getting along with Olivia would be learning to assume she had no ulterior motives.
“We’re going to be fine.” They just might be. Olivia looked up. “We are a kind of family unit from now on,” he said. “And Evan’s going to be fine. I promise.”
A pulse quivered in the hollow where Olivia’s collarbones met. Watching it, mesmerized, he clenched his hands to keep from touching her again.
“We can’t turn back,” she said.
“I don’t want to.” He hardly knew what he was saying. “I’m not the most diplomatic guy, and trust isn’t my strong suit, but I’m grateful for the chance you’re giving me with my son—that you were able to forgive me.”
He got it all wrong of course. Being inept was his talent. He’d been the same with Helene, never grasping what she’d needed from him. When he couldn’t be the hero she wanted, she’d held back love that might have saved their ailing marriage. Starving even now from that famine, it was too easy to be attracted to a woman who loved unselfishly.
James Kendall circled his desk, trailing his fingertips over the burnished top. “Evan’s coming down.” His suspicious voice injected reality into the charged atmosphere. Olivia stepped away. The movement made her father suspicious. “What do you think of the house, Zach? Not what you’re used to?”
“It’s great.” He couldn’t care less about a stack of bricks and expensive wood. He glanced toward the door, anticipating Evan’s approach.
Olivia pushed her hands into her jacket pockets, facing her father. “Don’t start again. Before Evan gets down here, let me make this clear. You have to stop trying to intimidate Zach.”
“You don’t want him to understand his son’s life?”
“He’s lived in a two-bedroom condo since the day we left the hospital.”
“Your condo overlooks Lake Michigan. What can you offer him, Zach?”
A grandfather decked and laid out on his own marble floor. “Whatever Evan needs from me, I’ll give him.”
“You’ll be there?” Kendall smiled, actually pleased with Zach’s lack of specifics. “In Tennessee, while Evan’s living here. You don’t see the problem?”
“I don’t want to cut you out of Evan’s life, sir, but you’re his grandfather. Olivia and I are his parents. You seem to be spoiling for a fight, and I can oblige, but Evan will be happier if we give him a united family.”
In the ringing silence, small shoes slapped the hall floor and a boy appeared in the massive doorway. Wearing grown-up attire, khakis and a polo shirt, he looked tiny.
He had eyes for no one except Olivia.
“Mom!”
He flew across the room, launching himself at Olivia with so much force she staggered backward, laughing. Her smile, over Evan’s pale blond flyaway hair seemed to change the room’s light.
She looked at him for a moment, but then she closed her eyes. Happiness softened her face as she clung to their son. Though she’d spent only two days away from Evan, they both acted as if she’d been parted from him for a month or more. Sharing him would not be easy for her, and Zach vowed to cause her as little pain as possible.
Evan locked his legs around her waist. Spellbound, Zach felt self-conscious. The exuberant boy hadn’t yet noticed him, and he had to ask himself if he was doing the right thing.
This was his child—not a baby. Evan had said his first word a long time ago, written his name the first time, had his first nightmare and needed comfort. He was full of five years of life Zach had missed, and Zach didn’t want to screw him up.
“I drove a go-cart, Mom. And I ate three hot dogs. And Grampa says I can have a puppy.”
“You’re bribing him with dogs, Dad?” Laughter in her voice made Zach smile, too.
“A man does what he must.” Even James softened around his grandson.
Evan slid down his mom’s body. “Can I have the puppy?” When he touched the floor, he caught her hand and swung hard, but almost fell when he finally saw Zach.
“Hello, sir,” he said.
Zach blinked. He’d never heard a five-year-old child call anyone sir. His closest cousins had no children, but a more distant cousin’s daughter called most strangers by the generic “you.” Lily managed the occasional “mister,” but she usually needed prompting.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m—” Words deserted him. He didn’t want to scare Evan. He and Olivia hadn’t even talked about what Evan would call him. The last thing he wanted was for this polite little boy to call him dad because he technically fit the bill.
“I’m Zach Calvert.”
“Mr. Calvert.” The boy stuck out a hand and shook Zach’s in a surprising grip. “Do you work for my mom? She can show you a picture of my puppy when I get him.”
Zach glanced over Evan’s head at Olivia. She curved her hands around their son’s shoulders and then straightened to look at her own father.
“We could use a few minutes.”
Indecision pinched James Kendall’s nose. Zach knew a moment’s empathy. Kendall had filled both his own and part of Zach’s role for the past five years. It couldn’t be easy to accept a stranger, especially when he’d thought Zach had deserted his daughter.
“I’ll be down the hall,” James Kendall said. “If you need me, Olivia…”
“Thanks, Dad.” She left Evan and walked her father to the door, her hand on his shoulder, reassuring. Despite their tendency to bicker, they were close, this small family that couldn’t be more different from Zach’s own.
James flashed one last warning glance as he shut the doors. Olivia took her time coming back. Evan planted his feet a shoulder’s width apart and locked his hands behind his back as uneasy as if he’d picked up some of the room’s tension.
“Am I in trouble, Mom?” He peered at Zach, his expression wary. “Do you work at my school?”
Olivia laughed. “You’re not in trouble, but since you’re feeling guilty, I should probably give school a call.”
“Are you mad at me?
” Evan asked. “You sound weird.”
“It’s because I want you to like this man. He’s important to you but we don’t seem to know how to tell you who he is.”
“You’re right,” Zach said. “We’re making it worse, and it’s not bad news, Evan.” He wouldn’t want to spring similar news on Lily, but they had to get it over with. He knelt beside his son so they could meet eye to eye. “At least I hope you’ll be glad. Do you know any children whose moms and dads have maybe split up?”
“You mean like getting avorced?”
“Divorced.” Olivia joined them, also on her knees. “But your daddy and I didn’t get divorced.”
Right. Zach floundered. How did you come back from the supposed dead so that a five-year-old could take it in without being scarred for life? “I’m looking for a frame of reference.”
“Just get to the point.”
Evan made a slight strangling sound, responding to his parents’ voices. Tears gathering in his eyes did the trick.
“Your mother and I knew each other a long time ago before you were born. We were together back then.” So far, so good. “But I had to go on a trip, and when your mom found out you were coming she couldn’t find me. I had an accident, and I didn’t remember her—because I forgot things after I got hurt.”
“You forgot my mom?” Evan’s eyes—as green as Zach’s own—went round with shock. Zach couldn’t help grinning. Olivia didn’t seem forgettable to him either.
“Worse than that, I didn’t know she was going to have you, so when you were born, I didn’t know I should come and be your dad.” He stopped to let it all sink in. He waited anxiously for Evan’s response, which seemed to come after a slight delay.
The little boy’s face wrinkled as if he might cry. “My dad?” Evan backed up. His hands slid to his sides, and he paled. “You’re my—”
Olivia caught him, looping her arm around his waist. “Would that be so bad, Evan?”
He swallowed, his throat working. His pulse beat in the nest of his collarbones, just like Olivia’s. “I always wanted a dad.”
Zach smiled as the little boy deliberated. Evan leaned into Olivia’s knee, but looked up at him. “Where do you live now? Do you have an apartment like ours?”
“I live in Tennessee.”
Evan looked up at Olivia. “Do you think we’ll like Tennessee, Mom?”
She gasped. At the same time, the double doors at the back of the room popped open, and James Kendall all but fell on his face.
It was almost funny, a media czar listening at the keyhole, except Zach figured he might stand a better chance with his son if he got to know Evan away from his grandfather.
SHARING AN UNEATEN LUNCH with her dad, Olivia couldn’t get her mind off Evan and Zach at their private repast in the nursery upstairs. She’d offered to join them, but Evan wanted to show his dad his “stuff.”
“Can you believe he calls him dad already?” she said.
Her own father grabbed her slight dismay as if it were a lifeline. “I thought you’d be pleased. You can always ask Evan to wait until he knows Zach a little better.”
“No. I am glad.” She picked up her fork and stared at her plate, never less hungry in her life. “But I thought he’d need me to help ease him over the beginning.”
“Feeling abandoned again?”
“By my son, Dad, not by Zach.” She carefully replaced the fork. “Feeling abandoned isn’t healthy.”
“It’s human. What can Zach give him that we can’t provide more of? Why didn’t you stop to think before you dragged this man back into our lives?”
“I could think the whole thing through a hundred times and still come back to the same answer. Zach and Evan have a right to know each other, to love each other if they can.”
“Zach is new to Evan—like that puppy he wants.” Her dad harrumphed into his coffee cup. “My one comfort is the image of Zach with his knees around his ears at that nursery table.”
Despite a reluctance to encourage her father, Olivia smiled. They’d both done time at that table. Evan considered the nursery his private domain, and he’d put together “entertainments” for them that included pitched battles between hundred-year-old iron soldiers, ABC lessons he taught on the chipped blackboard that had once been Olivia’s, and a cool train set her father had bought for Evan because he’d always wanted one for himself.
“Zach’s probably having as much fun as we do up there.”
“So hoping he stabs himself with a utensil would be too extreme.”
Olivia pushed back her chair. “You have to get a grip. Don’t force Evan to choose between you.”
“I’ve been with him since the day he was born. Do you actually want him to choose?”
“Please, I can’t take another helping of your patriarch speech. And think about this, Dad. I moved to the condo in the first place because you kept trying to run Evan’s and my lives. I was scared, even with Mrs. Nedland, and I could have used your help with Evan. I missed you and I missed my home. I’m determined to give Zach a fair chance with our son even if you don’t think he deserves one, and you don’t want to force him to do the same thing I did—move Evan away from you when he has him.”
“He’ll take him to Tennessee. We’ll never see them together. And, by the way, have you forgotten he left you?”
She ignored the heart-twisting idea of her son spending so much time in Tennessee when she lived here. “Zach had no choice.”
“So he says. I think he could have explained enough to keep you from worrying before he went.”
“I would have worried when he didn’t come back no matter what he said.” She couldn’t tell if her dad still believed Zach was lying about his amnesia, or if he needed an extra dose of anger to shore up his position. Sometimes her father was the small child in their family. “So stop trying to change my mind about him. Zach is Evan’s father. Evan obviously needs him. I’m nearly as frightened as you of what I might be giving up, but you’re not making this easier.”
“Nor am I required to until I believe Zach means you and Evan no harm. I’ve never ducked a responsibility.”
“I almost wish you would.” She shook her head, exasperated and a little disappointed in him. “You always want to arrange life to your specifications. In your mind you and Evan and I are fine. Why fix what isn’t broken?”
“Right.” He was brazen.
“And Zach should pay because he didn’t spill his guts before he was injured, but that’s wrong. I’m asking you to be my dad. Don’t make problems for Zach because when you do, you put me in the middle.”
He frowned. “I’d never hurt you.”
“You wouldn’t mean to.”
“I’m being the careful one because you’re making reckless decisions. What do you really know about Zach Calvert?”
“We beat this dead horse before I went to Tennessee, Dad. I know everything I could find out about him.”
“And his relationship with his ex-wife?”
He had no right to anything Zach had told her about his private life, so she glossed over her own concerns. “Helene tries to keep him away from Lily because she feels Lily could have a better life with her step-family’s money.”
“I think she shows a little sense.”
“You wouldn’t if you weren’t afraid of Zach breaking up that empire you always brag about. Evan and I aren’t your possessions or your subjects. We’re people, and he’s a little boy who finally has a father.” She paused for a deep breath. What she wanted to say next refused to come easy. They weren’t the most affectionate father and daughter. They often circled each other with heads sore from their battles. “Just the way I need you,” she said.
“But I—” He stopped, planting his hands on the table as he stood, his face tight with emotion. He came around the table and knelt beside her, his knees popping.
Touched—he’d never looked so distraught or so loving—she pretended not to notice.
Without the least hint of eas
e, her father put his arms around her and nudged her to lean close. She relaxed against him. Funny how even such reluctant reassurance still worked wonders.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I’d protect you with my life.”
“I feel the same about Evan.” It was a warning. For her son’s sake, she’d wreak havoc if her father couldn’t stop flinging challenges at Zach.
“I’d better let you in on something, Olivia.”
“Huh?”
“I scheduled a press conference.”
She stiffened, disbelieving—angry and hurt in equal parts. His unusual affection had taken her in. “You’ve got to be kidding. Dad—you planned to tell them about Zach?”
He leaned back. Incredibly, he seemed surprised. “Most of the invitees are from our own stations. Do you want the world to make assumptions about Zach’s relationship to you and Evan, or do you want us to tell them what they need to know?”
She sputtered, unable to speak, much less come up with an answer. “You’re talking spin about Evan. How can you forget he’s your grandson?”
“Why do I have to explain? Have you forgotten your prom pictures on the cover of our magazines and our major competitors?”
“I haven’t forgotten you tipped off the photographers.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “I knew your entry into college might become news, especially when you refused to go to Princeton as our family has done for generations. I wanted the other news outlets to accept a story we wanted, not chase you down on your first day of classes.”
“And how’d you feel about the way it worked out?”
“If you hadn’t dated a dope-smoking hophead, we would have had our prom story, and everyone else would have been sick of you by the time you started college.”
“I’m not going to argue about one date with a guy I hardly knew. No one else wanted to take me to the prom because they knew you might turn up with a camera crew.” She pressed her hands to her ears. “You always distract me with a ridiculous argument, Dad, but Tommy Pitt’s single foray into pot illustrates my point. You can’t control what anyone prints about us. Cancel the press conference. People will forget about me. I can’t believe anyone will care.”