“Speaking of eating, Dad and I are going out tonight to dinner at the inn near the highway.”
Alexa lifted the lid to reveal a half-eaten triple-layer chocolate cake and brought it to the table. On her return trip to get the plates and forks, she said, “I hear the food is delicious.”
“You want to come with us?” Jana plopped down in her chair and scooped some rich frosting onto her fingertip then licked it off.
Without looking at Ian, Alexa retrieved the knife and other items and started back to the table. “No, I have a term paper I need to finish tonight, and besides, this is a special date between father and daughter.”
“But you’re part of the fam—” The rest of the child’s words faded as she looked down at her lap. “You should come. Don’t ya think, Dad?” Jana lifted pleading eyes to her father.
“Alexa is welcome to come, but if it’s her decision not to, we need to honor it.”
“Dad? Alexa? This is my birthday.” Jana shifted her attention between Alexa and her father.
Alexa opened her mouth to change her answer, but the doorbell rang. Ian rose and hurried across the kitchen to answer it.
Jana leaned toward Alexa. “Please come.”
“You don’t want to go by yourself with your father?”
“I have dinner by myself with him all the time.” Jana averted her gaze as though she was hiding something.
“Jana, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” the young girl answered way too fast and high-pitched.
“Hon, you’ve got a package from your mother.” Ian strode toward the table and set the gift in front of his daughter.
The child’s eyes grew big as she tore into the present. Inside was a beautiful denim dress with sparkles and sequins. Jana opened the card from her mother and read, “‘I had fun shopping for you. Kisses and hugs, Mom.’”
No “I love you.” Alexa shifted her attention to Ian, whose expression darkened, his eyebrows slashing down. But the second his daughter peered toward him, his angry look dissolved into a neutral one.
Slowly the corners of his mouth lifted. “You see, pumpkin? She didn’t forget your birthday. You should wear that dress tonight.”
Jana flew out of her chair and into her father’s arms. “I love you, Daddy. Talk Alexa into coming to eat with us.”
Ian swung his beseeching gaze toward Alexa. “Please. We’ll only be gone a few hours, and you can leave early today so you can work on your paper.”
Alexa laughed. “You two are quite a team. Okay. But you have to get me home by nine. No later.” She refused to think too much on the hours she would have to stay up in order to go with Ian and Jana, but she wouldn’t change her mind this time. “If you’re going to dress up, Jana, then I have to also.”
“I liked what you wore to church yesterday.”
“What?” Ian sat at the table.
“It’s a secret.” Alexa winked at Jana. “It’ll be a surprise tonight.”
“Yeah, Dad. If you came to church with us, you’d know.”
“I just might have to. I don’t like surprises.”
* * *
That evening after having a nice dinner at the inn, Ian pulled into Alexa’s driveway. He glanced back in his rearview mirror and noticed that Jana had curled up on the seat and fallen asleep.
“I’m not surprised she’s finally slowed down long enough to fall asleep. Ever since her birthday party Friday night, she has been going strong. Staying up late, getting up early. Girlfriends calling all the time. Jana talking to them for hours.” He opened the car door, and light flooded the interior. “I’m going to have to consider getting my daughter a cell phone.”
“Girls do like to chat.”
Ian slid his gaze over Alexa, wearing an ankle-length dress with large yellow flowers with touches of green and white. It suited her and looked good on her, soft and feminine. Two months ago, he would have been surprised by the fact her brightly colored attire appealed to him, but not anymore.
“Tell me about it. I could hardly get a word in edgewise tonight at the restaurant,” he finally said, realizing he’d been staring at her and she knew it.
Her head tilted at an angle, she looked at him up through her eyelashes. “Sorry about that. Thanks for a lovely evening.”
“You’re welcome.” A link sprang up between them that caught Ian in a snare.
He was falling for Alexa, and he shouldn’t. What if she won the scholarship and had to leave for three years after she graduated in December? Although it wasn’t the same as what Tracy had done, he didn’t want someone important in Jana’s life to be yanked away again. She was too fragile. It was best if he backed off now—before Jana became too used to Alexa being a part of their lives. Before he became too used to it, as well.
“I’ll walk you to your door.” His words sounded forced to his ears, but he couldn’t shake the thought of what he was going to do when Alexa was no longer in his life, not just Jana’s. He climbed out and rounded the front of his vehicle.
Before he had a chance to open the car door for her, she did and had even started for her house. “It’s not like this is a date or anything. You don’t have to walk me to my porch.”
It had felt like a date, even with Jana accompanying them. “No, but I want to.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders so naturally the action surprised him for a second, but when he thought about it, it felt right.
Standing in front of her door, she faced him. “I hope you’ll go with Jana and me to church this Sunday. I think it’s only a matter of time before she starts going to the youth group for her age.”
“Great. Anytime she attends functions outside of home and especially without me shows she’s healing.” Now if only he could. Today when he’d watched his daughter pull into herself because she hadn’t heard from Tracy, his anger festered anew in the pit of his stomach. How could Jana’s mother do that to her? And the fact that a gift had arrived later still hadn’t appeased that anger.
“I certainly think she’s making progress. She goes with me to the store, the ranch and church, all without you now.”
“I’m going to have to tag along to the ranch again. I enjoyed our ride. It brings back some fond memories as a child growing up in Texas. My best friend lived on a ranch, and I rode all the time with him.” He moved close, at first planning to open the screen door for Alexa, but instead found himself taking her hands in his and lifted them up between their bodies.
He stared into her warm chocolate-brown eyes and wanted to pull her into his arms. A smile slowly brightened her gaze and a soft sigh escaped her slightly parted lips. Lips he had to kiss.
Leaning toward her, unable to resist her, he grazed his mouth over hers, then released her hands to encircle his arms around her and tug her flat against him. He deepened the kiss until she drove all thoughts of Tracy from his mind. His attention totally focused on the woman in his embrace, her scent of vanilla swirling around him and tempting him to forget any need to keep Alexa at a distance—from touching his heart.
When he parted, he laid his forehead against hers and framed her face in his hands. “I was so wrong about you.”
“How so?” Breathlessness accompanied each word.
“I thought you were all wrong for Jana.” And for me.
“But not now?”
Drawing back, he ran his thumbs across her cheeks. “No.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me.” She covered his hands on her face. “I know that day at the restaurant it wasn’t easy for you to come and ask me to work for you after turning me down for Attila the Hun.”
“Don’t remind me of that. Jana was right. I like things to run smoothly, but that woman was worse than a drill sergeant.”
“I still have several hours’ worth of work to do, so I’d better go in.” She rummaged for her house key as Ian opened the screen door. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she grinned. “Good night.”
The urge to pull her into his embrace held him frozen
to the spot even after she had gone inside. He opened and closed his hands at his sides. The feel of her lips seared into his memory. Her scent still taunted him. That smell would always remind him of Alexa from now on.
With a shake of his head, he strode toward his car, needing to get control of his feelings before he ended up loving a woman who wasn’t going to stay around. It wasn’t just Jana he wanted to protect but himself, too. He couldn’t go through what Tracy had done to him again. Wasn’t that why he told himself he wouldn’t fall in love with another woman?
As he slid behind the steering wheel, he heard Jana in the backseat. He angled toward her. “How long have you been up?” Did you see me kiss Alexa?
“Not long.” She moved to the front seat where Alexa had been moments before. “I had a great time tonight. Did ya?”
“Well, yes. The meal was good.”
“And Alexa looked beautiful. I like her hair down like she wore it. Don’t you?”
What was his daughter doing? “Yeah, down is nice.” Easier for him to run his hands through it. Whoa, there, Ferguson. Not a good thought for a man who vowed not to fall for another woman.
By the time he arrived home, Jana had grilled him about the evening until he wanted to scream. Halfway through the interrogation he knew what his daughter was up to. She was trying to get him and Alexa together. He hoped she hadn’t seen the kiss, or she would double her efforts and he’d have a hard time evading her tactics. He just didn’t know where she got her persistence.
When he came into his house, he tossed his keys in the basket on the desk in the kitchen and checked the messages on his phone. Two were from clients, and he’d return them tomorrow morning, but the voice of the last one shuddered through him.
“This is Tracy. I wanted to wish Jana a happy birthday. Please have her call me.” She proceeded to rattle off her number.
Her whispery voice, so cheerful, as though nothing had happened in the past year and a half, gutted him. He sank onto the chair nearby.
Jana rushed into the kitchen. “Dad, I thought I heard Mom.” She scanned the room.
He inhaled a deep breath then another, but nothing relieved the tight band around his chest. “She left a message for you.” After punching the button to replay it, he collapsed back against the chair and listened again to the woman who’d betrayed him. All their dealings concerning the divorce had gone through their lawyers. This was the first time he’d heard her since she’d walked away from their marriage and it left him empty, as though he’d been hollowed out. Helplessness swamped him.
“Can I call her?”
Jana’s eager question brought him back to the present. He nodded, the past leaving a trail of numbness.
His daughter snatched up the phone and started to punch in the numbers. “I didn’t get all of them.”
He had. Numbers always stuck in his mind. This one he wished hadn’t. His hand quivered as he finished placing the call for Jana.
“Mom!” Jana paused, her expression radiating her excitement. “Yeah, I love the dress you bought me. Thanks! When are you coming home?” Another long pause. “Okay, I hope you will.”
As Ian listened to his daughter talk with her mother, bitterness coated his tongue with a metallic taste. Then he realized he’d bit down so hard, he’d cut the inside of his mouth. Just when he was starting to pull his life together, Tracy had to interfere. She didn’t have the right to waltz back into their lives.
He’d loved her once. What had he done wrong? Why hadn’t his love been enough to hold her here? All his doubts surfaced and filled the hollowness. How in the world did he even briefly think a relationship might work with Alexa?
Chapter Eleven
“I’d say this has been a perfect day. The weather is beautiful.” Alexa peered up at the cloudless sky in the middle of the Oklahoma City Zoo. “Where to next?”
Jana studied the map in her hand. “We’ve got to see the kangaroos, and I can’t miss the pygmy hippo. Hippos are so cute.”
Ian leaned in and whispered into Alexa’s ear, “Sort of like Sugar. So ugly they are cute.”
“See, I knew Sugar would grow on you.” His light musky scent vied with the smells of the various animals and the vegetation.
“I wish I could have brought Sugar.” Jana started off in the direction of the kangaroos, turning around and walking backward. “And we need to see the elephants, rhinos, oh, and the gorillas.” She whirled around and increased her pace.
“In other words, everything.” Ian took off after his daughter.
“It’ll be interesting Monday to see what she decides to write about this trip.” Hurrying to keep up with the pair, Alexa thought back to the interview she’d had concerning the scholarship earlier that morning. It had gone well, but she wouldn’t count on getting the money. It was in the Lord’s hands now.
At the kangaroo enclosure Jana watched for a few minutes, compressing her lips in a thoughtful expression. “I’d like to go to Australia one day. Do ya think we could, Dad?”
Ian’s eyes widened. “You really want to travel?”
“I want to see the world. There’s so much to see.”
Ian’s mouth hung open. “You do? Since when?”
“Since Alexa and I have been studying the different countries.” Jana peered around her father to Alexa. “I want to study Australia next. They have such cute animals.”
“Then Australia will be after we finish up Kenya.”
“The pygmy hippo exhibition is over there.” After pointing to the right, Jana headed toward the area.
Ian shook his head. “Is that my daughter? Up until three months ago she didn’t like to leave the house without me.”
“She didn’t say she wanted to go by herself. I think she wants to see it with you. But I am glad she’s interested in what’s going on in the world. Her interest started with the animals. First the ones in Brazil, then Africa.”
Following his daughter, Ian glanced at Alexa next to him on the path. “I know she talks about what she’s learning, but I didn’t realize it was to the point she wanted to see some of the places.”
“She’s here in Oklahoma City. And remember when we were hanging the posters in the classroom and she talked about seeing some of those places?”
“Are you giving her ideas because that’s what you want, to see the world?”
Alexa stopped short of Jana near the pygmy hippo enclosure. “I’m not giving her any ideas. I’m opening up her mind to what’s out there. She has to make her own decisions about what she learns and retains.”
Since his daughter’s birthday dinner and the kiss on her porch, he’d withdrawn from her again, burying himself in the office and only coming out for lunch and an occasional pass-through to get something he needed. At first, she’d thought it was because April fifteenth was less than a month away and he had a lot of work, but now she wasn’t so sure it wasn’t something else, too. She suspected it was because Tracy had called Jana the evening of her birthday. Jana had told her the next day, but Ian hadn’t said a word about the call. The silence underscored all the reasons they would never work out and that she needed to go ahead with her own plans.
He dropped his head and kneaded his nape. “I know you aren’t. I don’t know why I said that.”
“You don’t?” Tell me about Tracy and the call.
“I suppose all your talk about the scholarship and what it means. You teaching in some underdeveloped country, helping others. How much you’ve always wanted to travel and see what’s out there. And now my daughter is talking like that.”
“And you like the familiarity of Tallgrass?”
“I know what to expect.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Well, usually.”
Ah, it gives him a sense of control. Didn’t the phone call from Tracy show him he didn’t really have control? He could control what he did but not what others did. “I wish we could control everything, but we can’t whether we live in Tallgrass or the Amazon. Life is a risk. You can’t plan it. It
has a way of throwing you a curve when you least expect it.”
“Hey, you guys. Are you ready to move on?” Jana came up to them and tugged on her father’s hand. “There’s so much to see, and we still have the museum to go through.”
* * *
Two weeks after the excursion to the zoo, Alexa reentered the den after showing the man who gave Jana guitar lessons to the door. The tension in the house was palpable. When Ian had let her in this morning, with dark circles under his eyes and mussed hair, as though he hadn’t bothered with combing it when he woke up, she’d known something wasn’t right. No matter what she did, he held himself apart from her the whole morning and into the afternoon. At lunch for the first time, he’d eaten at his desk in his office.
“Mom called me again last night.” Jana put her guitar back into its case after finishing her lesson.
Now she understood what was going on with Ian. “She did? What did she have to say?”
“She’s coming to Tallgrass next week. Her and her husband are passing through on their way to Chicago. She’s gonna stay a few days and see me.”
Alexa studied Jana’s expression, usually so open, but at the moment neutral. A dark glint in the child’s eyes, however, told Alexa conflicting emotions were battling for dominance in the young girl who had struggled with her mother’s abandonment. “How do you feel about that?”
“When I heard from her on my birthday, I was excited at first. I didn’t want to do anything to make her not call again. But now I don’t know. Why didn’t she call me before?”
“Have you asked her?” Alexa had learned the hard way with her own father that keeping her emotions inside didn’t make the situation better in the long run.
“No, I’m afraid to. I want to see her. I need to see her. But when I told Dad last night, I could tell he was very upset. I’m sure you can tell that, too. You need to help him.”
“Me?” The word squeaked out in surprise.
“Yeah, he likes you. You make him laugh. And I saw him kiss you on my birthday.”
A Gift of Love (New Beginnings Book 5) Page 15