“I was a different person then, and willing to settle.” She nodded toward the folder. “But now I know that I want the husband, the child, the career, the family. Maybe it’s not possible, but I’m not going to settle for less.”
Karl tapped his fingers on the folder, and for the first time in their relationship he was speechless. Not silent—he was often silent—but completely lacking in speech. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it. Completely stunned and gaping like a fish. What had she said that she hadn’t said a million times before, in each of their previous arguments? If their conversations about her moving back in were a broken record, the player was broken now, too.
Vivian stood and gathered the coffee cups and cookies. “Your sisters will be here soon. Keep the folder. You can let me know what you think about the idea later. When you’re no longer confusing it with how you feel about me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A STRANGE CAR with New Jersey plates was parked in Karl’s mother’s driveway when he got to Archer Heights after leaving work early on Friday.
“Vivian,” he called into the house as he walked to the kitchen. She didn’t answer, but the sound of an argument in the living room was easy enough for him to follow.
“I don’t have any money to give you, Dad.” Vivian sounded plaintive, and Karl didn’t know who she was trying to convince—herself or her father.
He stood in the doorway between the living room and kitchen, eavesdropping but not hiding his presence.
“Come on, girl. Just because I’ve been gone, doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping tabs on you. You landed on your feet, just like I said you would.” Karl waited for the man to acknowledge that he had been the one to pull the rug out from under his daughter, but he never did.
“I’m working as a cashier in a Polish buffet and living on the largesse of the owner. How is that landing on my feet? I used to have my own apartment, a savings account and a job I worked to get—rather than one given to me out of pity.” Interesting how she was hiding the changed nature of her job and relationship with his mother. How hard was it to say no to this man?
“You’re married to an influential man and that belly of yours is unavoidable. The baby’s got to be worth some gas money.” Yap’s tone gave no indication he considered his words to be offensive. The man must have no shame.
Karl could tell Vivian was crying silently by the way her head was bowed, her hair cascading around her shoulders, but her voice only cracked twice when she responded, “You told me I was just like my mother when you said I would land on my feet, but you keep thinking I’m like you. My pregnancy isn’t a scheme. It’s a child.”
Yap scoffed. “Come on, Vivy, next you’re going to tell me you married for love.”
Was it stupid of him to hope her answer was yes? Even when he knew it wasn’t and that admitting to such a powerful emotion in front of Yap would give his scheming mind something to grasp on to. Once this man got his fingers into something, Karl didn’t think he’d ever let go.
“I got married because we were both drunk and it was Las Vegas. I stayed married because you got me fired and I needed health insurance. For the baby.”
“Has all the makings of a great scheme.” Now Yap sounded excited. This was the man who’d raised Vivian? How had she come out of it with any scrap of honesty? As far as Karl understood, if she hadn’t balked at cheating, she wouldn’t have gotten caught, and neither would she have gotten fired.
“Do you think I wanted to be here?” Did she use the past tense on purpose, and did that now mean she did want to be here? God, love turned people into doubting fools as surely as it gave them rose-colored glasses. “Dependent on Karl or his family for everything? Your last scheme got me fired and I didn’t even do anything. You stole my life savings—”
“I’ll get them back!” Vivian’s father said the words with such forcefulness that Karl was certain the man believed them. Karl didn’t know if he was relieved Yap was fooling himself and thus thought he was being honest, or disgusted that the man was so misguided about his own intentions. “I’m not the kind of father who would take his baby’s money forever. I’ve always looked out for you.”
“You raised me the only way you knew.” Vivian looked up at her father, the silent tears streaming down her face, too intent on her conversation to notice Karl standing in the doorway. Her father was going to keep pushing her, wringing her for every penny until he broke her in half. “But you’re promising to return my money in one breath and asking me for more in another. I can’t do it anymore, Dad.”
“Remember that time in Winnemucca when...”
“Stop.” She was holding her hands out in front of her, both a physical sign to stop and a plea. “Reminding me of good times worked the last time, when you were the only family tie I had. But I have a baby’s future to think about and—no matter how much I love you—the love and responsibility I have for my child comes first. Even if I had money to give you, I would keep it for the baby.”
“I’ll go ask your husband for it.” And Karl would tell the man to get lost without even blinking. Except...
“Please, Dad. If you love me at all, just drive away and don’t come back. Ever.”
Vivian’s love for her father and the struggle it caused her was written in every tear on her face. Karl could see her physically wrestling with herself as she said those words. He knew enough people that he could make her father go away and never come back, but that would be the easy solution. And it probably wouldn’t be the right solution.
“You’re asking me to never see you again and never know my grandchild.” As much as Vivian’s father was here to ask for money, Karl could hear the sadness in his voice at these words. The man loved his daughter and had raised her the only way he had known how, as damning as those ways were.
“I’m not like you,” she pleaded. “I don’t think moving in the middle of the night is exciting. I could have a permanent home here. I’m asking you not to destroy that for me.”
There was silence, and Karl could almost hear the thinking coming out of the salt-and-pepper-haired man sitting on the couch. Finally his father-in-law said, “How much...”
Karl coughed to make his presence known before the man could ruin his relationship with his daughter forever by putting a price on their relationship. “I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars, cash, to never ask your daughter for money again.”
Father and daughter turned to face him, looks of surprise on both their faces, though Yap’s was touched with unabashed greed. Karl would have turned the man out of his house without blinking, but he had to blink twice at seeing how similar father and daughter looked, from their golden skin tones to their pointed chins and rounded cheeks. Was the father disappointed to have the apple seemingly fall so close to the tree yet be of a completely different nature?
“Conditions?” the man asked.
“Dad! You can’t take his money.” She whirled her head from her father to Karl. “Karl, you can’t offer it to him. I told him no.” Her voice was sure for the first time since he’d walked in on the conversation.
“As long as he knows you have access to my money—or any money—he’ll keep asking.” Karl was surprised at how calm he was.
“I’ll tell him no again. I’ve told him no before.” She stood and crossed the room to face him.
Karl put his hands on her shoulders in reassurance. “And he’s returned to ask again. And he’ll keep returning until you’re so sick of it that you put off seeing him and our child will never get to know his or her grandparent.” Karl didn’t like Yap, would prefer to keep Yap on the other side of the country, but the man was his wife’s father, and Karl understood the value of family. And he was beginning to understand how Vivian could love a family member she didn’t approve of and maybe didn’t even like.
“Then you’l
l start ignoring his phone calls,” he continued. “Maybe he’ll show up at our door again, maybe he won’t. But your dad’s greedy schemes will kill your relationship and it matters because we have a child to think of. A child who deserves to know his or her family.”
“I get the money and you won’t try to stop me from seeing my daughter or my grandchild.” The greed in Yap’s eyes was no longer hidden, but the man was looking at his daughter with love. Karl wondered if the man was self-aware enough to ever struggle with his greed and his love for his daughter, or if whatever emotion was strongest at the time was the one that came out.
“I won’t try to stop you,” Karl said over Vivian’s shoulder and her objections. “But if I hear you’ve asked Vivian for money—or any of our children when they’re older—I will send the hounds of hell after you. Your schemes haven’t caught up with you yet, but I will make sure they do if you don’t agree to these terms. If you need money, you will ask me and I will decide if you can have it, not Vivian.”
“Can I talk with you in the kitchen?” his wife snapped, looking pissed at what he thought was a very fair offer.
Karl looked from his mother’s television and stereo system to his father-in-law, who shrugged. “I admit to being a cheat and a liar, but I’m not a thief. Well,” he amended, “I borrowed money from Vivy. I’m going to return it, though.” At least one person in the world believed Vivian would get her money back.
Still, Yap’s bald honesty about his faults raised Karl’s brows. Vivian had said her father was well aware of his shortcomings, just not how they affected other people, so he trusted all his mother’s stuff would be in the same place they left it.
* * *
VIVIAN WAS WAITING for Karl in the kitchen, her arms folded under her chest and resting over the bump of her pregnant belly. “Why would you make an offer like that? Do you think I can’t handle my own father?” She stopped herself from wagging a finger at him and becoming an actual barefoot, pregnant, nagging fishwife.
“You’re misinterpreting my offer,” he responded, with all the calm in the world. “I think you are capable of telling him no until the cows come home. And every time you tell him no, he’ll remind you of some good time you had growing up until he’s poisoned all those memories for you. Let me help you preserve those memories.”
Her hands fell to her sides as she thought about what he was offering her. She had wanted everything the world could give her, not thinking the world would or could let her keep her father and Karl and her child in her life together. Karl was offering more than she had thought possible. “And you would trust him with our child?”
“No. I barely trust him not to steal the crucifix off my mom’s wall, but I trust you with our child. You say your father won’t hurt our children?”
Vivian didn’t miss that it was the second time Karl had referred to children, plural. “No. Other than the lying and the cheating and the constant moving, he was a good dad.” She realized it was a bit like saying that, other than the burning, hell was like a warm beach. “He was the best dad he knew how to be and he protected me from harm—always.”
She had to believe that her father never would’ve gotten her mixed up with Frank and the cheating scheme if he’d thought she might get hurt. And he did believe he’d pay her back the money he’d taken. She didn’t believe it, but he did. Plus, she would be there to provide a buffer for her children, a role no one had been able to fill for her.
“Then I’ll let you judge how often he can see our children. If he won’t harm them, they deserve to know both sides of their family.”
“He won’t harm them.” She knew that as surely as she knew the sight of her own face in the mirror. “I love your mother, but my dad will be the most fun grandparent our child—children—could ever know.”
Karl put his hands on her shoulders again. This time Vivian didn’t think he was doing it to reassure her, but to reassure himself. “I’m going to make him sign a contract, and I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d hold him to it.”
Vivian grabbed his wrists. Karl closed his eyes for a moment, and she waited until he opened them again before responding, “He believes you.” She squeezed his wrists, both in reassurance and emphasis. Her father had made it this far in life without landing in jail by recognizing the people who could put him there—and staying far, far away from them.
“Good. I’ll give him the money as he leaves town. I don’t want my father-in-law in Chicago with that kind of cash.” Karl’s face hardened, a sign he was struggling with conflicting emotions. She’d been around him long enough to recognize the signs. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
“Why did you make the offer?”
“I want you to come home with me.”
“And that is worth fifty thousand dollars?”
“I was willing to give you more so you could buy Healthy Food.” His hazel eyes warmed, even if his face was still a solid block of stone. “I just agreed to give money to a man I’m pretty certain is a felon. And I agreed to keep giving him money while letting him have contact with my child. It should be obvious why I did that.”
“Tell me anyway.” She took a deep breath to get her heart beating again, but the stubborn organ remained still in hope and fear.
Karl pulled his hands off her shoulders and placed them on her cheeks. For the first time she could remember since she had known him, his hands were warm. “I love you, Vivian.”
Vivian opened her mouth to ask about his judgment of her near felony, then stopped. Loving her and her past were so intimately tied together for him that he couldn’t say those words and still care that she’d nearly broken the law. To press him would be cruel and along the lines of crowing over a victory she didn’t feel.
“It’s my responsibility to keep our little family together, but that responsibility isn’t a burden. It’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure that I’ll look forward to every day for the rest of my life.” When he bent his head to kiss her, her heart started beating again, the blood it released warming her from head to toe.
Their kiss was short, but had the intimacy of two people who had finally tossed away all pretenses and were ready to open their hearts to each other. When Karl pulled away, Vivian reached up to put her hands on his cheeks. It was her turn to reassure him.
“It’s my responsibility, too. There are two of us in this marriage.” They were partners. No matter how unequally she’d come into it, their relationship would only work if they each carried an equal burden.
Karl smiled. “I love how you’ll never let one of us take all the responsibility or credit for what’s good or bad in our relationship. And I love your dedication to family, even if your family is sometimes your father. It’s also me, my mother, my sisters and our child and you won’t let us go, like I won’t let you go.”
“I love you, too.”
Karl opened his arms and Vivian stepped into them. His embrace was warm and strong around her. He supported her, but neither held her up nor held her back. With her head resting against the cool cotton of his shirt and the smell of starch filling her nose, she wished every woman could be so lucky.
“Let’s take your father out for dinner at Healthy Food. We can stuff him so full of pork, potatoes and cabbage that he won’t be able to do anything other than sleep. Tomorrow we can follow him until he gets to the Iowa border, give him a grocery sack full of cash and you can get on with the rest of your life.”
“With you. The rest of my life with you.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
EPILOGUE
HEALTHY FOOD’S NEON Open sign was off, which didn’t stop anyone from coming inside. Karl had given up making sure the people entering the restaurant were actually guests of the baby shower. With all the blue, pink and yellow streamers, the baby elephant decorations and the massive diaper-shaped cake on the count
er blocking the register, most people who walked through the doorway sorted themselves. If the person walked in and didn’t belong, they looked embarrassed and left. If they walked in and heard their name hollered in greeting by someone they knew, they stayed.
Karl was pretty sure the two college kids flirting with Phil’s young and pretty cousin had walked in, run to the store for a baby shower present and returned without knowing another soul at the party. But the festivities had turned into a mix of block party, baby shower and wedding reception so Karl hadn’t tried to kick them out. Plus, Phil’s cousin looked as if she was enjoying the attention.
“You should go keep Vivian company,” his mom said from behind him.
He didn’t turn around to face her. “I’m enjoying watching her.”
“You picked a good one,” his mother said with a pat on his back. “I’m glad you didn’t listen to me and my objections.”
“My objections were the more troubling ones. I’m glad I didn’t listen to those, either.”
His mom chuckled, then hurried off to get something from the kitchen. More food, probably. The partygoers had healthy appetites and Karl hoped all that food didn’t make them sick when the dancing started.
He turned his attention back to his wife, who was far too pregnant to do much more than waddle around from guest to guest. There was no way she was going to be able to dance after the polka band got set up—but she was enjoying herself. Her eyes were bright with joy and her face was gleaming with sweat because the air conditioning wasn’t powerful enough for the crowds of people, but Karl still thought she looked perfect. Especially the small, contented smile she got on her face any time her eyes caught sight of the out-of-town guests.
Most baby shower/wedding receptions probably didn’t happen when the woman was eight months pregnant, but it had been the only time Vivian’s aunt Kitty, her two cousins and her friends from Vegas had all been able to attend. Karl hadn’t intended to schedule the party around a time when her father could come, but apparently fate had wanted to make sure he remembered his promise to Vivian not to exclude her father from their lives.
Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore Page 54