With grim determination, Gwyn held onto her fraying temper. She was sick to death of the squabbling, sick of trying to work when her creativity seemed to have taken a leave of absence without telling her, sick of sick kids, sick of pretending that Gareth Connor had no effect on her…
She cast about in her mind for an alternative to locking herself in the bathroom. It was like swimming uphill through mud. Ever since Gareth’s call last night, she hadn’t been able to pull two consecutive thoughts together – probably because she’d been so preoccupied with the unnerving desire to call him back and recant everything she’d said. It had taken every ounce of willpower she possessed not to do just that.
Her nerves weren’t going to take much more.
Inspiration finally struck.
“I have an idea,” she said, slipping the game board back into its box. “Why don’t we get out of the house for a while? It’s a beautiful morning. We can go for a drive up to Mackenzie King Estate, maybe take a walk down to the lake…”
Peevish tears turned to excitement. After five days of confinement for Maggie and almost four for Nicholas, the idea of an outing held instant appeal. The twins still looked horrific with their faces scabbed over, but neither had sprouted any new spots overnight, so they were safely out of the contagious period.
As for Katie, well, after being cooped up most of the weekend with sick siblings, she’d be happy just to have a change of scenery.
Half an hour later, Gwyn turned her face to the unseasonably warm sunshine as the kids combed the paths, amassing pine cones, pebbles, and fallen twigs for crafts. The day was perfect for a walk – one of those rare golden afternoons to be treasured this late in the fall. The kind of day that might make it possible, even if only for a little while, to forget the empty ache that had settled permanently in the center of her breast.
Maybe.
Nicholas ran up with a fistful of tiny pinecones. Gwyn dutifully pocketed them and he scampered off again with a whoop. Oh, yes. It was good for all of them to be out of the house.
They walked for well over an hour. First down to the lakeshore, then through the maple forest to the tea house, closed now for the season that had once been the summer home of Canada’s tenth prime minister. They met several other families along the path, most of whom gave them a wide berth because of the twins’ still-visible spots. Gwyn was just as glad they did, because seeing women arm-in-arm with their husbands wasn’t making it any easier to put aside her romantic difficulties.
Sunshine or no sunshine, putting Gareth out of her mind for more than three consecutive seconds at a stretch was proving impossible.
For the first time since Jack’s departure, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t convince herself she was happier without a man in her life. Neither could she convince herself that it wasn’t Gareth she wanted to fill the suddenly yawning hole.
She kicked at a pinecone lying on the path and watched Nicholas dive to recover the abused item from the fallen leaves at the side of the path. Having Sandy’s words from Friday come back to haunt her at every turn didn’t help.
Are you sure it wouldn’t work?
Of course she was sure it wouldn’t work. She’d never expected it to. Not when the first breathless flutters had stirred in her when he’d invited her for coffee, not when the invitation had expanded to include dinner…
Nicholas galloped up to display his find. Gwyn summoned the expected smile, stored the pinecone for him, and watched him run off again. She sighed.
She didn’t know where Sandy’s sudden romantic streak sprang from, but she herself knew the difference between fantasy and reality. And as she’d told Gareth, she knew better than to believe in fairy tales.
Which left her scowling over why, then, she kept wanting to let this particular Prince Charming back into her life.
***
Gareth arrived at the restaurant at twenty minutes past twelve. Catherine was already seated, menu in manicured hands and a barely touched wine spritzer on the table before her. She looked up at his arrival, her sea green eyes regarding him with unveiled hostility.
Gareth braced himself.
“You’re late.”
“I got lost.” He pulled out his chair, signaled a waiter, and sat down across from his ex-wife.
“I thought you said you knew where it was.”
“I did.” Gareth tightened his jaw. “It was dark when I drove out the last time.”
And he may have had to overcome a small psychological barrier to being here again without Gwyn.
“Hm. Well, you’re here now, I suppose.” Catherine set aside her menu and raised an arched eyebrow. “Are you planning to order lunch?”
He shook his head. He doubted his stomach could tolerate food just now. “I’m not hungry.”
The waiter arrived at their table side. Catherine ordered a small garden salad with a plain, broiled chicken breast and no dressing, testament to the somewhat gaunt look she’d always favored and still maintained.
Gareth ordered coffee.
“When is she calling?” he asked, the moment the waiter took the menus and moved beyond hearing.
Catherine swept back a long strand of ash blond hair and plucked at a bit of fluff on her dark green suit jacket. “Sometime after one. I thought we should talk first.”
No, she thought she should read him the riot act first. He took a swallow of ice water and waited, damned if he’d make it easy for her.
After a moment, she cleared her throat. “I’d like to know what you plan to tell my daughter.”
“Our daughter.”
Her eyes sparked. “Our daughter.”
“That depends on what she asks.”
“Lance and Amy and I are a family, Gareth,” Catherine said, her voice hard. “We’ve been a family for as long as she can remember. She loves him.”
“I’m sure she does.”
“As a father.”
Funny how painful breathing had suddenly become.
“I won’t let anything destroy what they have,” his ex added tightly.
Gareth sighed. If she wasn’t so damned annoying, he might actually feel sorry for her. It had to be difficult, clinging to this image of perfection.
“I’ve waited sixteen years, Catherine,” he pointed out. “If I’d wanted to hurt Lance – or your precious family – I could have done so a long time ago.”
“So you won’t tell her, then?”
“Tell her what?”
Catherine looked away. For the first time in Gareth’s memory, an air of vulnerability surrounded her.
“That I prevented you from being part of her life.”
Gareth leaned back in his chair, toying with the knife beside his water glass. He considered his response.
“I’m not a vindictive person,” he said at last. “I would never volunteer that kind of information.” He heard a tiny explosion of air from the other side of the table and lifted his gaze to Catherine’s. “If she asks, however, I won’t lie to her.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“An honest one. I have enough to answer for when I explain why I agreed to let her go in the first place. I’m damned if I’ll take responsibility for your mistakes too.”
His ex-wife’s chin lifted. “I never considered it a mistake to keep you away. She barely knew you as it was, and when Lance came into my life, it seemed only natural that he should take over being her father. Her real father.”
“And I’m sure he was wonderful to her.” The words weren’t as difficult to say as they might have been. He’d met Catherine’s husband twice before they had moved back to Canada. Both times he’d been struck by the man’s quiet self-assurance and genuine warmth. He’d never doubted that Lance Carlson would be anything but wonderful to Amy.
But he still wouldn’t lie to his daughter.
“You agreed with me at the time,” Catherine reminded him, warming to her argument. “You agreed that Lance would provide stability in her life; that
it was the most important thing. My God, Gareth, you’d only seen her a dozen times since she was born.”
“That was your choice,” he grated, “not mine. You’re the one who ran back to mummy and daddy, taking Amy to the other side of the country with you.”
“And you could have followed. My father offered you a job.”
“I had a job.”
“You were playing in some second-class production in a seedy theater. What kind of job was that when we had a new baby?”
“One that led to where I am today,” he growled. “Like it or not, Catherine, I’m not the loser you keep trying to make me out to be.”
“I wasn’t cut out to be an actor’s wife, Gareth.”
“And I wasn’t cut out to work for your father.”
Catherine huffed. “Fine. We both know we weren’t suited. That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“You signed the adoption papers. You agreed to give up your claim to Amy.”
“I also changed my mind less than a week after I signed those bloody papers and you threatened to drag me – and our daughter - through every court in the land,” he snarled in response. “Every photo I’ve ever had of her has been taken by a damned stranger - a private investigator I had to hire so I’d know what she looked like. You returned every birthday gift I ever sent her, every Christmas card - and now you’re asking me to make your life easier?”
“I’m asking you to make your daughter’s life easier.”
“That’s what I thought I’d been doing for the last sixteen years,” he said. Before he’d met Gwyn and her kids. Before he’d seen his lack of participation in his own daughter’s life in an entirely different light. “Turns out I may have been wrong.”
The cell phone at Catherine’s elbow rang. She made no move to answer it. On its third trill, he looked at it pointedly. “Like it or not, I’m talking to her today.”
Without a word, she handed the phone across to him. He unfolded it, put it to his ear, and closed his eyes. No stage fright, not even in his earliest career, had ever tied his gut in knots quite like this.
“Hello?” he said gruffly.
“Is she driving you nuts yet?” a cheerful female voice asked, with a trace of huskiness reminiscent of her mother.
He smiled. “You must be Amy.”
“And you would be my long-lost father.”
He had to clear his throat to get the word out. “Yes.”
“I’m glad to finally meet you, figuratively speaking. Are you enjoying your lunch with Mom?”
Gareth swallowed a snort. “Of course.”
“Liar.” Laughter tinkled at the other end of the line, reaching out to warm him from –
He frowned. He didn’t even know where Amy was. He said so.
“Didn’t Mom tell you?”
He refrained from saying that ‘Mom’ hadn’t told him much of anything. “No, we hadn’t talked about it.”
“I’m in Wales.”
“Wales?” he echoed.
“Mmhm. But Mom doesn’t know why. Would you like to know?” A mischievous delight threaded through Amy’s voice.
Gareth found himself grinning in response. And he found himself liking this daughter he had yet to meet…
“All right.”
“Can you keep a straight face?” she asked, and then answered her own question, “Of course you can. You’re an actor. Brace yourself, then – I came here to meet you.”
Gareth’s gaze flew to meet Catherine’s as he fought to hang on to the most difficult straight face he’d ever been asked to maintain. “I see,” he said.
Chapter 25
At one-thirty, Gwyn packed three happily exhausted kids back into the car for the ride home. With a raucous round of There’s a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea taking place in the back seat, she drove the winding back road through the Gatineau Hills towards Chelsea and the promised hot-chocolate stop. Sunshine or no, the November air still had enough nip in it to chill fingers and toes.
Not until she drove down the last hill into the little Outaouais town did she realized their route took them right past L’orée du Ruisseau, where she and Gareth had dined. Her foot lifted from the gas pedal, slowing the car. It might be slightly masochistic, but a part of her needed to see again the restaurant where the line between fantasy and reality had blurred for the first time. To relive those magical –
“Look, Mommy!” Katie exclaimed, her voice high-pitched with excitement, “It’s Gareth!”
Gwyn’s heart leapt into her throat even as her stomach lurched to her toes. Dear God, Katie was right. It was Gareth. Standing in the restaurant parking lot, long hair loose in the breeze…
And his hands resting on the shoulders of a woman with her face turned up to his.
Magic vanished into thin air, bringing reality sharply back into focus.
Before she could draw enough air to voice an objection, Katie had rolled down her window and all three kids were yelling at the top of their lungs, “Gareth! Gareth! Over here, Gareth!”
Gwyn’s swift prayer that he wouldn’t hear them went unanswered.
He looked toward the road, his dark brows meeting over his nose, and, for a split second – one that felt just as she imagined eternity must - their gazes locked. Then, her face hot and her children still yelling out from the back seat, Gwyn turned her attention back to the road and pushed down on the accelerator, leaving him – and a shattered part of herself – behind.
***
Gareth stared after Gwyn’s disappearing car, shock sitting cold and hollow in his gut. Damnation.
“Someone you know?” Catherine enquired, stepping back from the brief, polite kiss she’d bestowed on his cheek and straightening the line of buttons on her coat.
“What?” Gareth frowned at Catherine, still reeling from the impossible odds that Gwyn would drive by just now - and from the almost physical impact of her stunned gaze. Just when he’d thought life couldn’t possibly get any more complicated.
“I said, someone you know?”
“Yes. A friend.”
Friend. What an inadequate word. Shaking off shock, his mind began functioning again. He had to get to Gwyn’s – had to explain…what? Bloody hell, what a mess.
“I have to go,” he muttered in Catherine’s direction. He had no idea what he’d tell Gwyn, but trusted he’d come up with something on the way. Anything to take away the bottomless hurt he’d glimpsed in -
“You’re joking.”
Catherine’s drawl stopped him in his tracks as he turned toward his car. Keys in hand, he looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow. “About what?”
“You’ve come all this way to meet your daughter, and you’re going to chase off after a skirt? She must really be something if you’re willing to put her ahead of Amy.”
“What she is,” he growled, “is none of your business. And you know bloody well I’m not putting anyone before Amy. How could I? You’ve managed to make sure that there is no Amy for another week, remember?”
Catherine lifted her chin, her already cold eyes becoming frosty. “And I’m not above making that absence as permanent as possible if you’re having difficulty keeping your priorities – and your promises - straight.”
But Catherine’s words were more hollow than she could ever know.
“I know more than Mom thinks,” his daughter had said across the thousands of miles, “and I have questions I want you to answer, not her.”
With one hand on the open car door and the other resting on the roof, Gareth shook his head at his ex-wife. “Give it up, Catherine. We both know you can’t stop this from happening anymore. Amy is eighteen now, old enough to make her own decisions. Like it or not, one of those decisions is to meet me.”
Bitter fear twisted deep in Catherine’s eyes. Her mouth tightened. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Hardly – ”
“You won’t win, you know. No matter how hard you try, you’ll n
ever win.” She lifted her chin, her voice fierce. “You may have fathered her, but she’s my daughter, Gareth. Mine. And I won’t let you take her away from me.”
Without responding – how the hell did one respond to an accusation like that? – Gareth slid behind the steering wheel and started the engine. So. She’d finally admitted her darkest fear. He grimaced and shifted into gear, then pulled past his ex-wife’s stiff form. Poor Catherine. She had no idea what was in store.
“I’m arriving on Monday, not Tuesday,” Amy had told him. “I’d like you to meet me at the airport if you can. But please don’t say anything to Mom. I love her, and I know she means well, but – well, we can’t really talk if she’s there.”
A week from tomorrow. Gareth checked for oncoming traffic, then pulled out onto the road. Seven days to think about what he would say to his daughter, and wonder what she would say to him…
And to figure out what the hell to do about Gwyn, because given his reaction to her just now, it seemed that Sean’s theory might be flawed after all. What he felt for Gwyn had nothing to do with her children, or nostalgia, or anything other than –
Well. He had a week to figure that out, too.
Chapter 26
Gwyn saw him the instant she pulled onto her street.
He sat on the top step of her porch, elbows balanced on knees and sunglasses shielding his eyes from her. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of just driving past, but the kids were tired and hungry – and besides, judging by the grim set of Gareth’s jaw, there would be little point to the maneuver. Whether she returned an hour or a day from now, instinct told her he’d still be waiting.
She pulled into the driveway and slipped the gear shift into park, then turned in her seat to unbuckle Maggie and Nicholas with unsteady fingers. The kids flew ahead of her, across the lawn and up the stairs, clamoring for Gareth’s attention and showing him the treasures from their walk. Gwyn followed at a pace made slower by dragging feet - and by a serious lack of oxygen.
She climbed the stairs to the porch. Gareth stood by her front door, Maggie in one arm and Nicholas swinging from the other while Katie chattered non-stop at his side about their adventure. He still wore his sunglasses.
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