Gideon interrupted. “Chris, why are you working so hard?”
“Because I’m a professional. I have commitments.”
“But you don’t have to work this hard.”
“I have bills to pay,” she snapped. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have a teenage daughter to support.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Gideon said quietly. “I want to help you do that.”
“You’ve done enough!”
A heavy silence stretched between them before he said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“What, Chris?”
She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “Nothing. Listen, I’m tired and short-tempered. You’d probably be best to avoid me for a little while.”
He didn’t like the sound of that at all. “A little while?”
“A few days.”
“No way. We have a date for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Look, maybe that’s not such a good idea.”
“I think it is.” He paused. “You’re angry. What have I done? Damn it, Chris, if you don’t tell me, I won’t know and I can’t do a goddamned thing about remedying it. Come on. Talk to me.”
“Not tonight,” she said firmly. “I’ll be back in the office sometime after three tomorrow. Call me then and we’ll decide what to do about dinner.”
* * *
Gideon didn’t call. True to form, he was there, waiting in her office when she returned. She stopped at the door when she saw him, feeling an overwhelming rush of sensation. He could arouse that, whether she was annoyed with him or not, and it wasn’t only physical. Her heart swelled at the sight of him, which was probably why she hadn’t wanted to see him. Looking at him, feeling the warm embrace of his eyes and the love that was so clearly behind it, she was more confused than ever about the anger she felt.
“Hi, doll,” he said with a gentle smile. He went to her and kissed her cheek, then leaned back. “Uh-oh. I’m still in the doghouse?”
She slipped past him to her desk, where she deposited her briefcase and the folders she carried.
“Chris.” He drew her name out in a way that said he knew something was wrong and wanted to know what it was before he lost his patience.
Knowing that she wouldn’t have a chance of keeping still with him right there—and realizing she didn’t want to—she sat down at her desk, linked her hands tightly in her lap, and said, “Jill wants to contact her father.”
Gideon hadn’t been expecting that, but he wasn’t surprised. “Ahh. And that upsets you.”
To put it mildly. “Of course, it upsets me! She wants to go off and find a man who, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t want her around.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she’s fifteen, and he’s never once made the slightest attempt to see her—” she held up both hands “—and that’s okay by me, because she doesn’t need him in her life, but she’s suddenly decided that she wants to know who he is. She’s going to be hurt. I know it.” Her fingers knotted again. “That’s what I don’t want!”
Knowing Chris the way he did, knowing what she wanted in life for Jill, Gideon could understand why she was upset, though he didn’t completely agree. “She doesn’t have to be hurt. He may be cordial. He may even welcome her.”
Chris felt deep, dark fears rush to the surface. “And if that happens, she may want to see him again and again, and that’ll mess her up completely.”
“Her, or you?”
“What?”
“Are you afraid for her,” Gideon repeated patiently, “or for you?”
Chris was furious that he was so calm when she felt as if the bottom of her world were falling away. “For me?” Emotional stress brought her out of her chair. “You think I’m being selfish?”
“No, that’s not—”
“How dare you suggest that!” she fumed. “I’ve spent the better half of my life doing and thinking and feeling for that child. I’ve sacrificed a whole lot, and I’d do the same thing again in a minute.” Trembling, she steadied her fingertips on the chrome rim of her desk. “Selfish? Who in the hell are you to tell me I’m selfish? You’ve never sacrificed for a child. You’ve never sacrificed for anyone!”
Gideon was on the verge of coming to his own defense, when Chris raced on. She needed to air what she was feeling, he realized. He also realized that he wanted to know it all. He’d been a nervous wreck wondering what was wrong with her. So, much as it hurt him, he leaned back against the wall, arms folded on his chest, and listened.
“You’ve lived life for your own pleasure and enjoyment,” she charged. “You wanted something, you took it, and that included me. But that wasn’t enough, was it? It wasn’t enough that we started dating, even though I didn’t want to, or that we kept on dating, even though I didn’t want to, or that we started sleeping together. That wasn’t enough for you. You wanted marriage, and you wanted it fast. When I said I was worried about Jill, you said, ‘No sweat, she loves me,’ and maybe she does. But it’s thinking about you and wondering about us and whether we’re getting married that’s now making her think about Brant!”
Gideon remained quiet, waiting. When she didn’t say anything, simply glared at him—albeit with tears in her eyes now, and that tore through him—he said, “Are you done?”
“If it hadn’t been for you, pushing your way into our lives, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to think of him!”
Again Gideon was quiet, though it was harder to remain so with each word she said. In the old days, he wouldn’t have put up with a woman throwing unjust claims at him. He’d either have thrown them right back or walked out the door. So maybe he was sacrificing for Chris now. If so, he was more than happy to do it.
“Can I speak?” he asked, but again his quiet words spurred her on.
“Everything was so good! We had our lives together, she was well adjusted and happy, not going for alcohol or drugs the way some of the kids at her school are, I was beginning to earn some real money. Then you came along—” she caught her breath, a single trickle of tears escaping from each eye “—then you came along and upset it all!”
It was the trickle of tears that did it. Unable to stand still any longer, he left the wall and went to her. “Honey, I think you’re confusing the issues,” he said softly, but when he reached for her, she batted his hands away.
“I’m not! I’ve done nothing but go over and over every single aspect of this for the past two days.”
“You’ve lost perspective.”
“I have not!”
“Maybe if you’d shared it sooner, you would have seen—”
“Seen what?” she cut in shakily. “That you’re the answer to my problems? That all I have to do is marry you and let you take me away from here, so Jill can find herself with her father?”
“Of course not!” Gideon argued. “Jill is part of our lives. It’s you, me and her. It has been right from the start.”
“But it’s not her,” Chris cried, and her chin began to wobble. “She’s going off to Arizona to see Brant.” Her breathing grew choppy. “Things won’t ever be the same again!”
Gideon had had enough. He pulled her into his arms, then held her tighter when she struggled. Within seconds, she went limp against him, and within seconds of that, clutching his sweater, she began to cry softly.
“Oh, baby,” he said, crushed by the sound of her sobs. He stroked her blond hair, rubbed her slender back, held her as close as he could until her weeping began to abate. Then he sat against the edge of the desk and propped her between his thighs. Her head was still down, her cheek against his chest. Quietly he began to speak.
“You’re right, Chris. Things won’t ever be the same again. We’ve found each other, Jill’s growing up, Crosslyn Rise has been gutted. That’s growth. It’s progress. And you’re afraid, because for the first time in a long time things are changing in your life, and that makes you nervous. It would make me nervous, too, I sup
pose, but that’s just a guess, because you’re right, I haven’t been in your shoes. I haven’t had a child. I haven’t raised that child and poured every bit of myself into it. So I don’t know what it’s really like when suddenly something appears to threaten that relationship.”
“I’m so scared,” Chris whimpered.
He tightened his arms around her. “I know, baby, I know, but there are a couple of things you’re not taking into consideration. First off, just because Jill wants to see Brant, that doesn’t mean she’ll have an ongoing relationship with him.”
“She will. I know she will.”
“How do you know?” he challenged. When she didn’t answer, he gentled his voice again. “You don’t know, because you don’t know who Brant is now, and because you’re underestimating Jill. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“She wants to see him!”
“She needs to see him. It’s part of growing up. It’s part of forming her identity. She’s been wondering about him for a long time, now she needs to finally see who he is, so that she can put the wondering aside and go on living.”
The thoughts sounded strangely familiar. In a slow, suspicious voice, Chris asked, “Did you discuss this with her?” The idea that Jill would go to Gideon before she went to her own mother was cutting.
But Gideon was quick to deny it. “Are you kidding? She wouldn’t open to me that way. At least, not yet.”
“But she said nearly the same thing you just did.”
“That’s because it’s what she’s feeling.”
Chris looked up. “How would you know what she’s feeling?”
He brushed at tear tracks with the pads of his thumbs. “Because I felt those same things myself when I was a kid. I was younger than she is. I didn’t understand it the way she probably does, but after the fact I could see it. My mother came to visit me when I was little, but it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t put her in any kind of context. I reached a point of wanting—no, needing—to go to her, to see where she lived and who she lived with.” He arched a dark brow. “You think my dad was pleased? He was furious! Couldn’t understand why I’d spend all that money to fly all the way across the country to see a woman who hadn’t cared enough to hang around. He yelled and yelled and carried on for a good long time until it finally hit me that he was jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” Chris claimed, but more quietly. Her mind had been so muddled since Jill had mentioned Brant that she hadn’t realized—hadn’t remembered—that Gideon had been in a situation not unlike the one Jill was in. “I’m just scared.”
“Well, my dad was, too. He was scared that I’d take a look at her life and reject him the way she had. He was scared that I’d pick up and move out to California to live with her, and that he’d be left all alone. He didn’t even have family, the way you do.”
Needing the cushion, she returned her head to his chest. “That doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I know,” he crooned against her hair, “I know. The loss of a child like that would be traumatic in any case. But the fact was that he didn’t lose me. I saw where my mother lived, and sure, she had plenty of money and could have given me a hell of a lot if I’d gone out there to live with her, but the fact is that I wouldn’t have traded my father’s love for a penny of her money in a million years.”
It was a minute before his words penetrated fully and sank deep into her soul. Moaning, she slipped her arms around his waist. He was so dear.
But he wasn’t done talking. “Don’t you think Jill knows what a good thing she has in you? Don’t you think she knows how much she loves you?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t know how much I love her. She doesn’t know that I’d be destroyed if she ever decided to live with Brant. He was so horrible doing what he did to me—and to her. One part of me is absolutely infuriated that she even wants to see him.”
His breath was warm against her forehead. “But you can’t tell her that—or show her, because that’s not the way you are—so you took your anger out on me. And that’s okay, Chris. I’d rather you took it out on me than on her. But you owed me an explanation, at least. It’s not fair to refuse to talk to me, like you’ve done for two nights on the phone. If you want to scream and yell at me, fine. That’s what I’m here for. Screaming and yelling is sometimes the only way to get anger out of your system. Or fear. Or worry.” His voice grew more fierce. “Just don’t shut me out, damn it. Don’t shut me out.”
Slipping her arms higher on his back, Chris buried her face against his neck. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I guess you were the only scapegoat around. I’ve just been so miserable since she brought it up. I keep thinking of all the possibilities—”
“Not all of them. Only the worst ones.”
He was probably right, she knew. “I keep thinking that she’ll find him and like him and want to stay, or that she’ll hate him but he’ll like her and want a part of her, even, God forbid, sue for visitation rights. I keep worrying that her going after Brant will open a whole can of worms. She’s such a terrific kid. I don’t want her messed up.”
“She won’t be messed up.”
Chris raised her eyes to his. “Look at all the kids whose parents are divorced.”
“What about them?”
“They’re messed up.”
“Not all of them. But your situation isn’t the same.”
“If there’s suddenly a tug-of-war between Brant and me, it’s the same.”
“There won’t be any tug-of-war. Jill won’t want to live with him. She’s happy here, with you and all the friends she’s grown up with, You said that yourself when I suggested we build a house somewhere other than Belmont, and it made sense. She isn’t about to want to pick up and relocate all of a sudden.”
“What if Brant wants it?”
“He won’t want it. Not at this late date.”
“But what if he does?”
“You’ll tell him no.”
“What if he fights?”
“You mean, goes to court? He won’t do that.” He snorted. “Talk about cans of worms. If he goes to court, you can sue him for back child support. Think he’ll pay up?”
“What if he does? What if he does, and then wants visitation rights?”
“He won’t have much of a chance of getting them. He knew he had a child fifteen years ago. He chose to ignore her. He didn’t give money, and he didn’t give time. No court is going to feel terribly sympathetic toward him. Besides, Jill isn’t a baby. She’s old enough to express her feelings and to have them taken into account.”
“In court. Oh, God. I don’t want her dragged through anything like that.”
“She won’t be.” He took her face in his hands and put conviction into his words. “The chances of anything like that happening are so remote that it’s absurd to even be thinking of it now.”
“It’s not absurd to me. I’m her mother. I care.”
“So do I, Chris,” he stated fiercely, “but it won’t do her any good if you’re a basket case worrying about worst-case scenarios. Chances are she’ll meet the man, and that’ll be it.”
For the first time, hearing his words and the confidence behind them, Chris let herself believe it might be true. “I’d give anything for that.”
He kissed her nose. “She’s a good, sensible young woman, her mother’s daughter all the way. My guess is that if she ever knew how upset you’ve been, she’d cancel her plans.”
“If she did that, she’d always wonder.”
“Uh-huh.”
Though she could have done without his agreement, she felt herself beginning to relax. The breath she took was only slightly shaky, a vague reminder of her recent crying jag. “You don’t think I’ll lose her?”
“No way could you lose her. She’ll probably go see Brant and then come back and be her good old self.” He frowned. “You say the guy’s in Arizona?”
“He was in Phoenix last time I heard. I told Jill we’d make some calls this w
eekend.”
“Then you’ll help her.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t put her through this alone. I wouldn’t trust him alone with her.”
“And you’ll go out there with her?”
Chris nodded.
“It’ll be the first time you’ve seen him since—”
She nodded again.
“Think you’ll feel anything?”
Even if she hadn’t sensed his unsureness, she would have said the same thing. “I’ll feel exactly what I felt when he told me he didn’t know if the baby was his and walked away—anger, frustration and fear.” She touched Gideon’s lean cheek and said softly. “But you have nothing to worry about. He won’t interest me in the least.”
“Maybe I could come with you.”
“That might put more pressure on Jill.”
“Then maybe I can help you find him. I have a friend who lives out there—” He stopped when she shook her head. “Why not? It might speed things up.”
“It might tell her you’re trying to get rid of her.”
Gideon couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you kidding? She knows better than that!” But Chris was wearing a strange expression. “But maybe you don’t.” He swore against the anguish that shot through him. “When will you accept the fact that I want her with us?”
“Some men wouldn’t.”
“I’m not some men,” he barked.
“You’ve been a bachelor for a long time. It’s one thing to live with a woman, another to suddenly inherit her teenage daughter.”
He was hurt. “Have I ever complained? Have I ever suggested, even in the slightest way, that I didn’t want her around?”
“I remember a few very frustrating times—”
“Yeah, I remember them, too, and I’d have felt that frustration whether it was Jill we had to behave for or a child that you and I had ourselves, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want her. Or them. I want kids, Chris. We’re using birth control because we’re not married yet, and because we want you to have a choice this time, but I do want kids. I want them for us, and I want them for Jill. She’d love some brothers and sisters. She told me so.”
The Dream Unfolds Page 17